A shadow loomed overhead, accompanied by the familiar 'clack, creek thud' of the General's footsteps as he returned.
The two morgue workers above Garrett paused to watch as the General approached another man further down the line. Carefully, Garrett crept closer, keeping low and snug against the support beams for better cover as he watched the General inspect the corpse through the gaps in the grated floor.
He must not have found what he was looking for because he soon turned to the morgue worker beside him; "What did this body have on it?" He asked in his typical rough drawl.
The morgue worker blinked owlishly before he managed to stammer out a soft-spoken; "Uh, nothing." The General pinned him in place with a cold look, the worker withered under the gaze.
He couldn't have been older than seventeen.
"I was just about to grab another body before you came and took over." The worker explained nervously. The General laughed at that, a dry, sarcastic sound as he turned away from the young boy, reaching out to the nearby table, plucking a butchers knife, already stained red.
"You know…" The General began with a huff; "I don't ask for much.." Before he reached out, hand snapping around the boy's wrist like a snake, nearly dragging the poor kid to his side as he pressed the hilt of the knife into the boy's palm, guiding it to his whims like a living marionette.
"Respect." The General grunted as he raised both the child's hand and the knife up, bringing it down upon the corpse before them, Garrett did not need to see the violence to know that the blade dug deep into the body's stomach.
The boy retched.
The General continued.
"A stiff drink… Gold."
The boy was outright sobbing as his hand was forced inside of the body, pressed into the jagged hold cleaved by the knife, pressed into meat and passed bone and through organs until the General finally pulled him free.
And there, sitting in the child's palm was a bloodied ring.
"And for my men to do what they're fucking told." The General sneered as he plucked the ring from the boy's palm, pocketing it.
Garrett closed his eyes as the Thief-Taker General drew his crossbow and shot the boy dead.
The General left after that, with nothing more than a curt order.
"Put his body in the furnace. And check it for coin!" He laughed to himself; "No point in wasting a bolt!" With that, the General sauntered off, ring in hand, whistling a far-too merry tune, leaving only two morgue workers remaining.
Garrett peered through the grates, watching the General disappear up the stairs before he turned, slipping through the shadowed space below and out from beneath the crematorium gallery.
Trailing directly after the General would be no easy feat, wherever that mountain of a man went, his watchmen trained, paranoid and afraid of the monster they served. But Garrett was a thief, the direct path was seldom his first choice. Besides, if the General's break room was locked tight, his actual office was its own fortress.
Or, so the General thought.
Honestly, for a man claiming himself to be The Thief-Taker General, he was piss-poor at defending his valuables from thieves. Case in point, the office door was locked down tighter than a nun's chastity belt, meanwhile tucked under the desk sat an open vent shaft.
Garrett would have been suspicious had the General not been one to drink his own lies. Thieves were little more than animals, the General claimed, simple-minded creatures who could do no better than scrounge for scraps and take from their betters.
Perhaps that was why Garrett was the General's favorite… Or most hated thief. Because Garrett was everything the General proclaimed impossible for a thief to be.
Case in point. The safe before him.
A mountain of machinery, moving parts, gears and switches. Intimidating in its construction. Baffling to the common man, incomprehensible to the incapable minds of thieves.
And all Garrett saw before him was a mechanical, and honestly quite simplistic bricklock, the same sort that the Haven used.
Garrett would gleefully tell Basso about the lock upon his return, and the two would cackle, or, Basso would cackle about it until dawn.
Garrett watched as the mechanized bricklock came together, and once completed, the front panel slid down and out of sight, leaving room for the actual safe portion to rise. Had there been yet another combination guarding the treasures within, Garrett would have admitted that perhaps the Baron had finally made something practical for once, but alas, the safe rose, and exposed the ring Garrett had been hunting.
And just as Garrett plucked the ring from its resting place, from his fingers, a familiar cold, cold ripple crawled up along his arm, past his shoulder, up his neck, into his eye.
Hues of silver and blue bled into his vision, the ring pinched between thumb and index ignited a bright pale burning and beside him, a face, pale, dead, eyes black, infinite, lips pulled back into a smile, teeth, far too many teeth.
"The Primal sang to him." The dead child whispered; "He could not understand its words, nor could he dance to its tune. But he could hear the psalms of the tides all the same."
The Leviathan circled Garrett, appearing at his other side, hand already reaching to the ring, which he gently coaxed Garrett to curl his fingers around.
"He went mad with hunger, to listen, to understand. The Baron thought of his madness as wit and bid him to partake in that silly little ritual." The Leviathan closed his dead hand around Garrett's around the ring. "When the man-fools began their chanting, Cornelius sang the loudest. It cost him greatly."
Garrett finally turned to look at the Leviathan at his side, still ethereal, otherworldly, wrong in too many ways to describe.
"Why are you telling me this…" Garrett whispered, his throat felt thick, as though he were choking on seawater.
"Because, thief mine." The young god crooned as he gave Garrett's hand a gentle squeeze; "This is the beginning of your hunt."
With that, whatever figment of the dead child dispersed as the door to the office rattled open. There was a shocked pause as thief and thief-taker caught sight of one another.
The General was the first to move, snarling a dark "You!" as he raised his crossbow, Garrett, despite his mind floundering for reasons and answers, as quick to seize the chair at the nearby desk, using the piece of furniture as a makeshift shield, the bolt sunk deep into the leather and wood, the General spitting vitriol as Garrett tossed the chair to the wayside.
The General made to reach for his blade but Garrett beat him to it, grabbing the larger man's arm, throwing his weight into the action, Garrett slammed the General's forearm against the corner of the doorframe, earning himself a pained grunt from the larger man.
To follow up, Garrett struck out with a kick, his heel finding home against the apparatus surrounding the General's right foot. This time, the man screamed as something popped free, forcing him to tumble to the ground in a heap. Giving Garrett just enough time to slam the office door in the General's face and wedge the back of the chair beneath the door handle.
It wouldn't take long for the General to break through, but it would be long enough for Garrett to make his escape.