Dapper Man & Silas Mercer

The courtyard stank of sodden stone, fading rain, and the bitter, metallic tang of blood. Police sirens wailed in the distance, a dying heartbeat against the cathedral’s blackened walls, throwing long shadows over the cracked pavement. Yellow tape trembled in the wind, snapping against the sides of idle cruisers. Officers huddled in small groups, their faces grim under the stuttering streetlamps. The cold soaked through everything—into bone, into marrow, into soul.

Detective Silas Mercer ducked under the tape, boots cutting through shallow puddles, the leather of his coat heavy with rain and old sins. The corpse lay sprawled in the center of the courtyard. A nun. No older than twenty-five. Her habit was torn and soaked through with blood, clinging to her broken form like a shroud. A long, unnatural gash marred her throat—and the violence didn’t end there. Her body was desecrated and her face twisted into a grotesque mask of bliss and horror, mouth parted in a silent moan. It clawed something deep and rotten inside Silas, a memory he didn’t dare name. Under his coat, the skin on his wrist seared—the Dapper Man’s mark, a broken compass etched in living ink, thrumming like a second heartbeat.

Another lamb to the slaughter...

Athos’s voice unfurled inside Silas's mind like black smoke, that smooth, lilting Welsh accent wrapping around each word like a noose.

Silas muttered under his breath, "Is he still here?"

His gaze swept the courtyard—the trembling priest, the weeping sister, the officers moving too stiffly, too slow. None of them. He was hunting something that wore a human mask but had long since shed any soul.

No... but someone else is. A pause, thick with amusement. There. Beyond the cloister.

Silas's gaze snapped to where Athos indicated—a slash of darkness beneath the crumbling archway, where the floodlights didn't quite reach. A silhouette lingered there—too still, too deliberate.

Then, movement. A retreat.

Silas's instincts snarled to life.

"Cut them off," he breathed, already moving to chase after them.

Athos laughed—a low, decadent sound that oozed through Silas’s veins like poison.

As you wish, detective.

Reality hiccuped. The world tilted, colors leeching away for a breathless instant. Then came the ghostly echo of Clair de Lune, weaving through the mist like a siren's song.

The Dapper Man materialized from the gloom.

Athos stood with effortless grace, black suit pristine, golden pocket watch gleaming faintly in the murk. His blood-red tie and his white gloves immaculate as he adjusted his monocle. The air around him crackled subtly, like a storm building just beneath the surface of reality.

He wore a smile that might have once been mistaken for kindness—before it curdled into something colder.

"Off to somewhere?" Athos purred, voice honeyed malice wrapped in silk.