"She's already paid," the florist said without looking up. "Booked three months of irises. Delivery every Monday. Paid in full."

  "She asked if we had Nightweeper Lilies. I told her those are contraband from the Southern Territories, can't get them in the city. She just smiled and said, 'Irises, then. The blue ones.'"

  "Nightweeper Lilies."

  This was the last florist Hendrick had asked. Finally, some information about the Lady. Anger had long since returned to the station. Hendrick needed to get back and report this to the Inspector.

  Thomas Miller had his feet propped on his desk, flipping through a Times.

  "Ah, our great detective returns," Miller's voice came from behind the newspaper. "How was the Lady Vinter's funeral? Find any heartfelt confessions tucked amongst the wreaths?"

  Anger didn't reply, shrugging off his overcoat.

  "Seriously, Anger," Miller put the paper down. "What exactly are you digging for?"

  "The truth."

  "The truth?" Miller scoffed. "The truth is people die in Londinium every day. Is it just because this one had a title that her death is so bloody special to you?" He leaned forward.

  "Or do you feel something's off again?"

  Anger remained silent, offering no answer.

  "Fine. Who are we to question the expert in those kinds of cases," Miller said, picking up his paper again. "Where's the boy, Hendrick? Haven't seen him all afternoon. Running more errands for you?"

  "Following some peripheral leads." Anger closed the file on Lady Elizabeth Vinter and carried it to the records room. When he returned, Miller was gone.

  As Anger was about to leave the station, Kerr at the front desk called out, "Heading out again, Hastings?"

  "Hmm."

  "Inspector Miller just left,"Kerr said, looking down. "If you're headed towards Whitechapel, sir, he asked me to remind you to take a lantern. Two gas lamps are out on the route, not fixed yet."

  "Most considerate of him."

  Anger went to the East End alone. He wasn't on the Whitechapel case—Martha Tabram's death was peculiar, but it was out of his division. Anger knew overreaching was just poor form.

  He was here because Hendrick had found some solid details. Crate number E.I.C.7743. Stored at the East Docks, Warehouse E7. The intake date was three days before Lady Vinter's death. The outbound log was empty, meaning the crate should still be there.

  The Lady's case needed digging. Those visions he'd seen... they had to have a source.

  "Jim."

  Anger found Limping Jim not far from a rubbish bin. "I need information."

  Jim rubbed his fingers together. "Information costs. The usual."

  Anger pulled a oneshilling note from his wallet.

  Jim glanced at it, his hand twitching but not moving.

  "East Docks. Warehouse E7. East India Company. Tell me everything."

  "E7," Jim repeated the word. "All I know is that warehouse got sealed up a couple days ago."

  "Is there a way in?"

  "You want into E7?" Jim saw through him. "Listen to an old man. Don't."

  Anger calmly pulled out another five shillings.

  "Wait here." Jim pushed off forcefully with his stick and left. Anger waited for over an hour, until the sky grew dim.

  "Listen, and only once," Jim said upon returning, his voice low. "Dock patrols, every two hours. E sector's got two guards. One usually loafs by the main door. The other makes a slow round of the perimeter. Both are fond of a smoke and a shirk. Your timing is your own problem."

  Anger took notes, sketching the warehouse outline and marking points.

  "Vent. Here. West side, second floor. Grating's held by screws halfeaten by rust. A good shove might do it." Jim looked up.

  "That's it. And my advice, for what it's worth? East India Company business is best left to itself."

  "Advice noted." Anger placed the six shillings on a nearby slab and left.

  Jim grinned, swiftly hobbling over to snatch them up.

  ******

  The interior of Warehouse E7 was far more expansive than it appeared from outside.

  The ground floor was a labyrinth of cargo.

  wooden crates and bundled goods stacked from the floor to the sevenmeterhigh ceiling, forming a convoluted maze with only a few narrow passages wide enough for a man to sidle through. The floor was littered with wood shavings and hemp rope, emitting a soft, rustling sound with every step.

  The eastern section was piled high with barrels and rolled canvas, naturally forming a relatively concealed nook.

  Anger descended from a secondfloor ventilation duct.

  The upper level consisted of a metal walkway running along the warehouse walls, connected to the ground floor by several iron staircases. This walkway was cluttered with even more debris and crates.

  From his current position, reaching the nearest iron staircase meant crossing about fifteen yards of open central space. In the middle of this area stood only an old worktable and a few discarded machines.

  Chains and hooks for lifting cargo hung motionless from above, suspended about three meters above the floor.

  As a detective, Anger’s first instinct was to quickly memorize the entire layout—anticipating any possible trouble and planning an immediate retreat route.

  In the deepest corner sat a wooden crate, bound by a chain.

  He intended to take a closer look, but his eyes seemed to disobey him.

  His vision began to shift: the onceordinary chain now revealed intricate, fine patterns on its surface.

  What in blazes?

  He had never witnessed anything like this. Inside the crate, countless fungal hyphae strained to escape, only to be restrained by those very chains.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  After a moment for his eyes to adjust, his vision finally stabilized. Anger proceeded to remove the chain and pry open the crate.

  The moment he did, a pungent odor burst forth from within as if it were a tangible force.

  The stench nearly knocked him off his feet—or, as he might have dryly noted, almost inspired a rather undignified backward somersault. His view was filled with a corpse.

  A middleaged man was curled up at the bottom of the crate, contorted into a posture no human anatomy should allow.

  His spine was bent backward, his head nearly touching his back, and his limbs were twisted in opposite directions—as if every bone had been broken and forcibly folded to fit him into that cramped space.

  The corpse was surrounded by heaps of leaves, but the most horrifying detail was a brand mark on the chest: an anchor entwined with thorns.

  Faced with this, Anger’s priority was to quickly sketch a simplified impression of the pattern with his pencil.

  As for the fungal hyphae, they sprouted directly from the flesh around the edges of the brand, swaying slowly in the air like seaweed.

  The corpse’s hand was clenched tightly around something. Anger pried it open to find a peculiar insect carapace.

  The body ought to have reeked unbearably, but the leaves seemed to possess preservative qualities—instead of the expected stench of decay, there was only a bitter odor.

  This smell… where have I encountered it before? He grabbed a few leaves, among which was a piece of bark. A quick sniff confirmed his suspicion.

  Well, it seems Watson will have his hands full again. He dropped the leaves and bark into an evidence bag he carried.

  Then, quite inconveniently, his journal began to emit a warning. He opened it—this time, the message did not appear on a blank page, but on the inside front cover:

  This had never happened before.

  Just as he prepared to investigate further and crossreference the information.

  ******

  Sounds came from outside the warehouse. “Open up, quick!”

  Patrolmen rushed over as soon as they heard reports of movement inside the warehouse.

  After a moment of chaos, a leader stepped in, followed by two men holding sawedoff shotguns.

  “Boss, the crates have been tampered with,” a young voice reported.

  The leader hurried to the spot Anger had just left, crouched, and inspected the ground.

  “Clear the goods, handle the person. Spread out and search—he can’t have gone far.”

  The two shotgunwielding enforcers fanned out, one to the left, one to the right, their barrels trained on the gaps between cargo stacks.

  They clearly knew the warehouse layout well, their movements cutting off all obvious escape routes.

  The leader stayed put, hand resting on the pistol at his hip.

  Anger’s mind raced. The vent was on the west side, second floor, but he was now deep in the eastern section.

  The only path was to move to the central area, climb the iron staircase, cross the secondfloor walkway, and circle back to the vent.

  The young enforcer’s voice came from the east: “Fresh traces over here by the cargo stacks.”

  Anger held his breath and began to shuffle backward. His heel accidentally pressed down on a broken piece of wood.

  'Crack.'

  “Over there!” the enforcer shouted immediately, swinging his shotgun toward Anger’s hiding spot.

  Without hesitation, Anger crouched lower and burrowed deeper into the cargo stacks, hoping to find more cover.

  “Target’s deep in the eastern section,” the leader’s voice echoed through the warehouse. “Pete, block the west exit. Joe, with me—we’ll flank from both sides into Zone C. If he doesn’t make it to the second floor, he’s done for.”

  Anger moved through the shadows of Zone C’s shelving, Webley revolver in hand. But he knew firing in such tight quarters against shotguns would be suicide. The spread would shred him, and his six rounds might not even hit vital spots.

  Footsteps closed in from both sides—the steady tread of Scarface on the left, the quicker, nervous steps of young Joe on the right.

  They were tightening the net, pushing Anger toward the rear wall of the warehouse.

  Anger’s back pressed against the brick.

  He shifted slowly into the abandoned machinery zone, cluttered with rusted and scrapped steamengine parts.

  More despair awaited: ahead was a dead end, terminated by a small, rustedshut door—no way through.

  To the left and right, beyond the shelving aisles, the silhouettes of the enemy were now faintly visible.

  Luckily, he had already scouted all possible escape routes earlier.

  His plan was simple: use the chain hook above the workbench.

  So the moment he saw movement in the distance, Anger kicked a wrench on the ground hard with his left foot, sending it flying toward the opposite shelving.

  "Clang-----!"

  A loud crash of metal.

  Joe reacted swiftly, instantly swinging his shotgun toward where the wrench had gone.

  Anger burst from the shadows, sprinting diagonally forwardleft, using the shelving as cover to slip into Joe’s blind spot. By the time Joe heard the footsteps and whipped around, Anger was already right in front of him.

  Anger drove his right elbow hard into Joe’s throat, just below the Adam’s apple. Joe’s breath cut off, eyes bulging.

  Then a sharp knee strike upward slammed into Joe’s gun arm. The shotgun fell loose, and Anger’s right hand snatched the barrel midair.

  Finally, he wrenched the shotgun free and smashed the stock into Joe’s temple.

  Joe’s body went limp.

  “Joe!” The leader rushed urgently from the right aisle.

  As a detective, Anger had real combat skills—no mere pretence.

  He grabbed the shotgun and sprinted toward the central zone.

  The moment Anger passed the workbench area, the leader emerged from the right aisle and fired.

  Boom!

  Buckshot shattered the wooden crates behind Anger, pellets scattering. Anger didn’t look back, just charged ahead, heading straight for the chain hook hanging above the workbench.

  If he could grab the chain, maybe he could swing to the top of a cargo stack, then from there reach the secondfloor walkway.

  The leader clearly saw his intention.

  “He’s going for the chain to swing up! Trap him under the vent—if he can’t get up, shoot him!”

  Another enforcer, Pete, called from the second floor: “Understood!”

  Anger glimpsed Pete positioned on the westside walkway upstairs, barrel aimed at the open space below.

  If he tried to climb the iron stairs, he’d be an easy target. If he stayed put, he’d be caught in a crossfire.

  Anger glanced left and right, then accelerated into a sprint, leaping from the edge of the workbench, right hand reaching for the chain hook in the air.

  Boom! The leader’s second shot.

  This time, the buckshot grazed the sole of Anger’s boot, blasting into the wall—but his hand had already caught the chain. His body swung through the air.

  Unfortunately, he’d misjudged his own weight and the chain’s length. The swing’s arc lacked force, failing to reach the nearest cargo stack top. It only carried him about four meters off the ground before he began to fall.

  Anger let go, landing on a cargo stack below, directly on wooden crates. He staggered a few steps before steadying himself. Looking up, his heart sank: this stack was still at least two meters vertically below the secondfloor walkway, with nothing to grip in between.

  He was trapped on top of the cargo stack, exposed to enemy fire from both levels.

  “Take him alive!” the leader’s voice came from below. “He can’t get up. Pete, keep him pinned!”

  Pete shifted on the walkway above, gun still locked on Anger. “Boss, what if he jumps down?”

  “Better if he breaks his legs.”

  Anger lay prone on top of the cargo stack, mind racing.

  The stack was about three meters from the back wall, where a small window boarded up with rotten planks stood. He’d noticed it earlier, thinking it was just another wall. Now it seemed his only way out.

  But jumping across required precise landing, and breaking through would take time. If he wasn’t fast enough, Pete upstairs could shoot him dead.

  Before Anger could react further, he glanced sideways to see the leader had fetched a wooden ladder and was propping it against the side of the cargo stack, starting to climb.

  Anger took a deep breath, ready for one final gamble: sprint fullforce at the wall, smash through the planks with his body, and leap out the window.

  Just as his muscles tensed, a push—real and tangible—came against his back, between the shoulder blades. Someone had pressed a palm firmly into his back and shoved him forward.

  Caught off guard, Anger stumbled forward. But he didn’t lunge toward the window, because at the same moment the push came, he saw what was outside: not ground, but a water channel about five meters below.

  Jumping straight out would mean plunging into that murky water—survival uncertain.

  To the left of the window, fixed to the wall, was a thick, rusted drainpipe leading straight down to the water.

  The push altered his momentum. Anger threw himself toward the left side of the window frame, both hands gripping the drainpipe tightly.

  Boom!

  A gunshot rang out behind him—Pete firing from the second floor. The window planks shattered, pellets spraying where Anger had just been standing.

  Anger didn’t look back. Holding the pipe, he swung out sideways in a halfarc, narrowly avoiding the window’s line of fire, then slid rapidly down the pipe.

  "Splash!"

  He plunged into the water, the stench of industrial waste thick in the air. When he surfaced and looked up, the leader’s figure was already leaning out the small warehouse window, scanning downward with his gun.

  Fortunately, Anger’s landing spot was in the window’s blind spot. He held his breath, staying low.

  Soon, he began moving along the water’s edge in the shadows, searching for a place to climb out.

  He finally scrambled ashore at a stone step, soaked to the bone, palms bleeding.

  In the shadows at the end of the secondfloor walkway, behind old canvas and crates, a pale humanoid silhouette stood quietly. Its head was lowered, porcelainwhite face calmly observing everything that had just unfolded.

  It watched for a moment more, then its eyelids slowly closed, and the figure gradually faded back into the shadows.

  Downstairs, the leader pulled back from the window. “Search the channel. I want him alive or dead.”

  Pete ran down the stairs. “Boss, Joe’s still alive—just knocked out cold. Who the hell was that guy?”

  “Whoever he was, he saw things he shouldn’t have.” The leader kicked aside shattered wood at his feet. "Move the crates. This place is compromised. And find out how he knew about it."