A telegram arrived at Ulrich's door just after dawn, delivered by a Ministry courier who looked like he'd run the entire distance from the Sanctuary. Looking at the current time, he'd be running for another while.

  Portsmouth haunting. Mother and child. Victor requests assistance. Address attached. - Ottis Owen.

  Ulrich read it twice, his mind still processing the weight of last night's conversation with Ma'am Felanor. He packed his divination tools and caught the first carriage to Portsmouth. The location of this case was located in the slum, a place he once grew familiar with.

  The city's slum district occupied the harbor's eastern edge, where buildings leaned against each other like drunks sharing mugs. Narrow streets wound between tenements that had seen better decades, their facades stained with salt spray and industrial smoke. The air smelled of fish, coal fires, and human desperation concentrated into architectural form.

  Victor waited at the designated address, a four-story building that might charitably be called housing. He looked even more exhausted than usual, dark circles under his pale gray eyes suggesting he'd slept poorly, if at all.

  "You made good time," Victor said by way of greeting.

  "Your telegram suggested urgency."

  "It always does with these cases." Victor gestured for Ulrich to follow him inside. "Mother's name is Kayla. A factory worker who lost her left arm in an accident three years back. Still works sixteen-hour shifts to support her son. Jeremiah's ten years old, and according to neighbors, was a good kid until about a week ago."

  They climbed stairs that creaked ominously underfoot, past doors that muffled the sounds of too many people living in too little space. The building's superintendent had given Victor access, though from the man's expression, he'd been grateful to pass responsibility to someone else.

  "What happened a week ago?" Ulrich asked.

  "Jeremiah performed a ritual." Victor's tone carried the familiar weight of someone describing preventable tragedy. "There have been rumors circulating through Portsmouth's slums about luck enhancement ceremonies. Simple instructions, minimal materials, promises of fortune and better circumstances. Which desperate person wouldn't be enticed?"

  "Let me make a bold

  "Quite genuine. And quite dangerous for someone with no mysticism knowledge." Victor stopped at a door on the third floor and knocked. "Kayla is a devout who worships the Night Mother faithfully. Taught her son about grace and providence. But Jeremiah grew resentful over the years, watching his mother work herself to exhaustion while prayers brought no relief or revelations."

  The door opened to reveal a woman in her early thirties who looked a decade older. Kayla was thin in the way that suggested chronic malnutrition rather than natural build, her remaining hand rough with calluses. Her brown hair was pulled back severely, and her eyes held the particular exhaustion of someone who'd stopped hoping for rest.

  "Inspector Victor," she said, her voice hoarse. "And you've brought help."

  "This is my colleague, Constantine. He has experience with these matters." Victor gestured for Ulrich to enter. "May we examine your son?"

  Kayla stepped aside, revealing a small apartment that was spotlessly clean despite its poverty. A single room served as living space, kitchen, and bedroom, divided by carefully maintained curtains. In the far corner, a small boy sat on a threadbare mattress, rocking back and forth while whispering to his right.

  Except, there was nothing there.

  Ulrich's enhanced senses immediately identified the supernatural presence clinging to the child like a second shadow. The spirit was visible to his Shadow Vision, a twisted humanoid form that bent close to Jeremiah's ear, whispering in frequencies that normal humans couldn't consciously perceive but would feel as invasive thoughts.

  "He's been like this for three days," Kayla said quietly. "Won't eat or sleep properly. He keeps talking to someone I can't see, asking them to stop, to leave him alone. But they won't stop."

  Victor knelt beside Jeremiah, studying the boy with professionalism. Ulrich joined him, narrowing his eyes to examined the attached spirit.

  The spirit was a Lingering type; he recognized the classification from Ministry texts. Not malevolent by nature but obsessive, clinging to the living world through unfulfilled desires or unfinished business. They latched onto those who invited them in, whispering promises and demands in equal measure.

  "Jeremiah," Victor said gently. "Can you hear me?"

  The boy's head snapped toward them, his eyes unfocused and wild. "They say I need to bring them things. Need to steal from the market. Need to hurt the neighbors who complained about mother. They say it's fair trade for the luck they promised!"

  "Did they give you luck?" Ulrich asked.

  Jeremiah's laugh was high and broken. "Mother found a coin on the street. One coin. It's good luck!"

  Victor stood and moved away from the boy, gesturing for Ulrich to follow. They conferred in low voices near the window while Kayla watched with desperate attention.

  "Lingering Spirit," Victor confirmed. "The ritual Jeremiah performed was designed to attract spirits that promise fortune and prosperity. The promises are true, but fulfilled in a twisted manner."

  "Can we banish it?"

  "That's the question." Victor glanced back at Jeremiah. "The spirit's been feeding on the boy's spirit body for days. It's likely taken pieces of his spiritual body and integrated them into its own form. Banishing it directly will leave some gaps."

  Before Ulrich could respond, the spirit's awareness shifted toward them.

  It had noticed their examination and recognized them as threats to its existence. The entity's form condensed, pulling tight around Jeremiah like armor, and when it spoke, the voice emerged from the boy's mouth but carried resonance no human throat could produce.

  "."

  Then it attacked, launching itself at Victor, its elongated limbs extending with eerie speed. The vengeful spirit at Augustus Manor had caught them by surprise, but both Watchmen were prepared this time.

  Victor's hand moved in a practiced gesture, and wind manifested from nothing. A Galebreather's innate trait, air itself responding to his will. The gust struck the spirit mid-lunge, disrupting its form and sending it tumbling backward.

  Ulrich didn't wait for it to recover. Shadow Thread erupted from his fingertips, multiple strands weaving through the air with inhuman precision. They struck the spirit's faint shadow, wrapping and binding until the entity was completely immobile.

  The entire confrontation lasted perhaps two seconds, three if they were generous.

  Victor raised an eyebrow. "You've gotten better at that."

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Practice helps." Ulrich maintained the binding, spirituality flowing steadily to keep the threads solid. "Do you want to perform a Spirit Reading?"

  The question hung between them for a long moment. Victor's expression shifted through several emotions, settling on firm refusal.

  "No," he said flatly. "After the Leviathan possession, I'm not eager to invite anything else into my consciousness. And given Belham's current state..." He shook his head. "The risk isn't worth the potential intelligence. We don't even know if this spirit has information relevant to the larger conspiracies."

  Ulrich nodded, relieved. He'd asked out of professional courtesy, but the thought of Victor suffering another possession made his skin crawl. "Then we banish it."

  "There's a complication." Victor moved closer to the bound spirit, studying it with great focus. "Look at the spiritual thread."

  Ulrich focused his Shadow Vision, examining where the spirit connected to Jeremiah's spiritual body. Victor was right, the entity had integrated pieces of the boy's essence into its own form, creating a parasitic relationship that went beyond simple haunting.

  "If we banish it now," Victor said quietly, "Jeremiah will suffer personality distortions. Nothing permanent, but he'll have gaps in his emotional responses and difficulty maintaining focus. It could take weeks or months to recover naturally."

  "What are the alternatives?"

  "We could attempt to pacify the spirit. Convince it to voluntarily return what it's taken before we banish it. Or we could use a Rune of Light, force a purification that separates the integrated pieces." Victor's expression was grim. "But I'm not a Lightmancer, and I don't have those runes available. The nearest specialist is in Belham, some underground circle we've contacted before, and I can't guarantee those people haven't moved out yet."

  They turned to Kayla, who had been watching the entire exchange with wide eyes. She'd witnessed two men manifest supernatural abilities, seen her son's invisible tormentor rendered temporarily visible through their actions. Her worldview had expanded violently in the span of minutes.

  "Ma'am," Ulrich chose his words carefully. "Your son will recover. But if we banish the spirit now, he may experience some mental difficulties in the short term. Mood changes, trouble concentrating, maybe even moderate personality disorder. It should resolve with time, but we can't guarantee exactly how long."

  Kayla's remaining hand clenched into a fist. "And if you don't banish it?"

  "It will continue to feed on him," Victor said. "The attachment will deepen, and the damage will become permanent. Eventually, Jeremiah's personality may be erased entirely."

  "Then banish it." Her voice carried no hesitation. "Please. Whatever consequences, I'll handle them. Just make it stop hurting son."

  She reached out and grabbed Ulrich's hand, her grip desperate and rough with calluses.

  The sudden physical contact startled him; his natural reaction flooded him with information about her state. He didn't realize it, but he'd been passively looking at everything around him with the eyes of a seer, and that left a bitter taste in his mouth. Since when had he become a machine, analyzing people like they were parts of another whole?

  And beneath her touch, there was a love so fierce it had sustained her years of suffering.

  "Please," Kayla repeated, and her eyes held the particular helplessness of someone who had run out of options. And it reminded Ulrich of himself in the past.

  Victor's expression softened. He straightened and spoke with formal clarity. "Madam Kayla, I should properly introduce ourselves. We are Watchmen of the Ministry, a secret branch operating under the Churches of the Night Mother. We handle supernatural threats that ordinary authorities cannot address."

  Her eyes widened, and something shifted in her bearing. The reverence of a devout believer recognizing a greater, more divine authority.

  "We serve the Mother's will," Victor added. "And part of that service is protecting the faithful from supernatural threats. Your son was manipulated by forces he couldn't understand. We will resolve this."

  Kayla released Ulrich's hand and stepped back, her head bowing slightly in deference.

  Victor turned to Ulrich. "Ready?"

  "Ready."

  They moved in coordinated silence, the kind of synchronization that came from having worked together before. Ulrich maintained the Shadow Thread binding while Victor began gathering wind around his hands, the air taking on visible distortion as he concentrated his spirituality.

  "On three," Victor said. "We strike simultaneously. Your shadow attack, my dispersing spell. It should be enough to shatter the spirit's core beyond recovery."

  Ulrich nodded, manifesting a Dark Arrow in spear form. He positioned the weapon to strike the spirit's shadow core directly.

  "One. Two. Three!"

  The attacks landed as one.

  Ulrich's spear drove through the spirit's shadow with enhanced force, targeting the central mass where its consciousness resided. Victor's wind struck from multiple angles simultaneously, tearing at the entity's form with a vicious gale, shredding it into pieces and scattering them into the wind.

  The spirit shrieked, a sound that existed more in the mind than in physical space. Its form exploded outward, fragmenting into white wisps that dissipated like smoke facing strong wind. The pieces of Jeremiah's spiritual body that had been integrated fell away, returning to the boy in damaged but somewhat intact.

  Jeremiah collapsed immediately, unconscious but breathing steadily.

  The room fell silent except for Kayla's sharp intake of breath. She rushed to her son, cradling him with her remaining arm while tears streamed down her face.

  "Thank you," she said, the words emerging almost inaudible. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

  Victor shook his head. "Don't thank us yet. Jeremiah will need ongoing spiritual care. Take him to the nearest Parish under the Night Mother, once a week for the next month at minimum. The clergy there can monitor his recovery, help mend the damaged pieces of his spiritual body."

  "I will," Kayla promised. "Every week, I swear it on the Goddess."

  Ulrich studied Jeremiah's unconscious form, his Seer intuition mapping the gaps in the boy's spiritual structure. The damage was significant but not catastrophic. With proper care and time, he would recover fully.

  An idea occurred to him, one that served both investigative purposes and genuine concern for the case's resolution.

  "Kayla," Ulrich said carefully, "did Jeremiah have anything with him when he was searching for information about the ritual? Clothing, perhaps, or a personal item he carried?"

  She thought for a moment, then nodded. "His old shirt. The blue one with the tear at the collar. He wore it constantly during those weeks, said it was a lucky charm." Her expression twisted

  "May I take it? As evidence for our investigation."

  Kayla didn't question the request. She retrieved the tattered shirt from a small trunk and handed it to Ulrich without hesitation. "If it helps stop this from happening to other children."

  Ulrich accepted the garment, feeling the residual spiritual connection from the fabric. Perhaps sufficient for dream scrying to trace backward through connections.

  He folded the shirt carefully and tucked it into his coat.

  Victor was already moving toward the door, the professionalism returning to his bearing. But he paused at the threshold, looking back at Kayla and her unconscious son.

  "The Mother watches over faithful followers," he said quietly, perhaps to himself. "And ears penetrate all realms. Everything happened as willed it."

  Then they left, descending the creaking stairs back to Portsmouth's gray streets.

  Neither spoke until they'd put several blocks between themselves and the tenement. Finally, Victor broke the silence.

  "Another desperate child manipulated into performing a ritual." His voice carried unusual bitterness. "How many more cases like this are we going to encounter before someone addresses the root causes?"

  Ulrich thought of Ma'am Felanor's words. The Twilight Order and Covenant wished to use the evil heart of man as fuel. Poverty, desperation, resentment, all of it was fertilizer for the cults that promised easy solutions to the people suffering under a flawed system. Wouldn't a thirsty man drink poison if he were desperate enough?

  "As many as it takes to fuel whatever they're building toward," Ulrich said.

  Victor's pale gray eyes studied him. "You sound like you know something important."

  "I have some theories." Ulrich adjusted his coat, feeling the weight of Jeremiah's shirt in his pocket. "But I think the cases we're seeing are symptoms of larger conspiracies. Something like a farm."

  "That's a grim worldview."

  "It's an accurate one." He repeated what he had said to Selena.

  They walked in silence for several more blocks, both processing the weight of what they'd witnessed. A mother working herself to death. A child driven to occult rituals by watching his family suffer.

  The ride back to Belham departed at dusk, and they boarded without speaking. Ulrich sat, watching Portsmouth's lights fade into fog, and tried not to think about how many other families were experiencing similar suffering.

  How many other children were being recruited by cults promising salvation?

  The carriage cut through thick fog, and Belham's lights emerged ahead like an esca flickering in the darkness.

  Ulrich clutched onto the tattered shirt, yearning to perform a dream scrying once they made it back to the Sanctuary. After all, this was god's given right to him, authorized by Captain Ottis. And he would investigate the truth, even if it meant only he knew the truth.