Hedda tracked the scent to the kitchen—a space she'd combed with forensic rigor hours prior. Blade racks gleamed where cleavers hung like surgical instruments; drainage pipes snaked beneath tiles like arterial networks. The room hummed with latent violence.
Fran stood poised over a cast-iron skillet, her focus surgical as she tended to a marbled ribeye. Even seared, the meat's striations glistened—crimson myofibers interlaced with alabaster fat in fractal perfection.
"Bless the White Cup's engineers," Fran murmured, adjusting the gas burner's blue flame. "Their combustion theology spares us charcoal drudgery." With scalpel-precise cuts, she portioned the steak into geometric cubes.
The surgeon lifted a still-sizzling morsel between forceps. "A taste, Sister Hedda?" Her teeth closed on the morsel with carnivorous satisfaction. "Prime specimen—dry-aged twenty-eight days, stress hormones fully metabolized."
Fran remained undeterred by Hedda's refusal. Balancing the plate one-handed, she advanced like a sommelier presenting rare vintage, her hospitality polished to clinical perfection.
With surgical tweezers, the surgeon lifted a rosemary-crusted beef cube. "A4 marbling index," she noted, positioning the morsel precisely 12.7cm from Hedda's lips—intimate yet antiseptic.
The Huntress's gloved fingers twitched. Psychological experiment? Culinary trap? Her tactical manuals lacked protocols for this flavor of ambush.
"Very well." Hedda accepted the fork, the stainless steel chilled against her palm. The meat dissolved on her tongue—umami waves cascading through trigeminal pathways, dopamine receptors flooding with forbidden euphoria.
Her eyelids fluttered involuntarily. Fran's scalpel-calloused fingers drummed the plate's edge in triumph.
"Endorphin synthesis via gustatory vectors," she murmured. "Far more... elegant than hypodermic administration."
Fran's smile sharpened by 0.3 millimeters, the corners achieving textbook Duchenne sincerity. "Merely a hobby." Her fingers adjusted the steak knife's angle to 45 degrees—optimal visual presentation.
The surgeon's brass chronometer clicked open. "Mrs. Solani's REM cycle concludes in..." Her scalpel-tip traced the minute hand. "...fourteen seconds. Starvation-induced hypoglycemia warrants immediate caloric intervention."
Hedda's gloved fingers tightened. The temporal calculus unfolded in her mind—thirty minutes partitioned with surgical precision: twenty-six for forensic sweep, three for culinary theatrics, the final minute for pharmacological awakening.
All this orchestration... for a meal? Her tongue probed lingering umami compounds, synapses firing warnings she couldn't articulate.
Fran arranged cutlery along magnetic north vectors. "Nutrient absorption accelerates during post-hypnotic suggestibility." Her eyes glittered with unspoken bon appétit.
...Such capriciousness aligned perfectly with Dr. Fran's character—clinical whimsy defying mortal logic.
——
Solani stirred like a patient rousing from twilight anesthesia. The widow's obsidian eye sockets now bloomed healing umber, facial muscles slackened into post-therapeutic repose. Cortisol storms in her neural pathways had quieted to drizzles.
"Did I... drift off?" Her gloved fingers brushed reformed tear ducts. "Your medication works miracles, Miss Fran. Forgive my earlier doubts—truly, the Covenant breeds exceptional physicians."
Fran's cheek dimpled in mock modesty. "Standard neurotransmitter modulation." Her scalpel fingers produced a blister pack labeled NeuroCalm-30.
"Could I... procure extended treatment?" Solani's voice quickened. "Three-month regimen? Private consultations?" The widow leaned forward, desperation masquerading as decorum. "Perhaps retain your services exclusively..."
The surgeon's white coat rustled. "Alas, my oath binds me to the Covenant's collective wellbeing." Her smile sharpened. "Though bulk purchases enjoy... preferential pricing."
"Rest assured, you only need to undergo routine check-ups each quarter; it will never take up much of your time. As for the compensation... let's start with the industry's highest standard."
Since her family began to disappear, Solani had never felt so at ease.
As a believer in the "White Cup," she inherently trusted the emerging tech industry and held an inexplicable reverence for doctors and researchers.
Fran's exceptional medical skills had indeed astonished Solani in a remarkably short time, which sparked her desire to hire Fran as her private physician.
"Oh, how flattering, madam. Thank you for your generosity..."
Fran clasped her hands, her gaze openly expressing admiration for Solani.
"After this case is concluded, I will consider your proposal. At that time, you may send someone to the Seekers' Guild to find me."
Hedda raised an eyebrow, having expected Fran to accept Solani's invitation outright.
After all, the offer was at the highest tier, and given Solani's family background and asset level, the actual salary could be even higher.
Fran's directive hung in the air like surgical smoke—Find me at the Covenant. A lie as elegant as her sutures, for the Hunters' archives held no record of her membership.
"Protein replenishment is paramount, Mrs. Solani." The surgeon presented her dish with gloved ceremony—prime rib cubes arranged like anatomical models. "Post-hypnotic metabolism requires urgent caloric intake."
The widow's gloved fingers hovered. "You... prepared this during my treatment?" Her voice quivered between suspicion and awe.
"Time management is vital in medicine and gastronomy." Fran's scalpel flashed as she portioned another slice.
Solani's first bite triggered a physiological surrender—mandible unclenching, esophageal muscles relaxing. Twenty-three days of starvation dissolved beneath umami alchemy.
Hedda observed the widow's pupils dilating. Fran's culinary witchcraft operated on dual planes—nourishing flesh while binding trust through gustatory sorcery.
"Your culinary mastery rivals Norington's Michelin-starred chefs." Solani's compliment carried the weight of truffle-infused banknotes—a connoisseur's verdict forged in Le Ciel Bleu's dining rooms.
Fran's surgical glove brushed the compliment aside. "Meat science requires... anatomical intimacy." Her amber gaze tracked the widow's jaw muscles contracting around the Wagyu cube.
"Like recognizes like, Mrs. Solani." The scalpel in Fran's pocket glinted. "Your own butchery exhibits remarkable precision—three bipeds and one quadruped, wasn't it? Must've strained the garbage disposal."
The steak knife clattered against porcelain. Solani's pupils dilated—fight-or-flight responses misfiring beneath Fran's diagnostic stare.
Hedda's twin revolvers cleared their holsters before Fran's final syllable dissolved—.45 caliber shadows trained at the widow's peripheral vision.
"Evidence located?" The Huntress' inquiry carried ballistic tension.
Fran's scalpel tapped her chin. "The Chancery hounds sniffed empty alleys, yes?" Her surgical glove gestured toward the Persian rug. "Hence your hands-on approach."
"Confirmed."
The surgeon's laugh tinkled like shattered ampoules. "The quarry's here, Sister. Human and canine... dispersed in creative storage solutions."
"Feyce? You've found my Feyce?!" Solani's manicured fingers clawed Fran's lab coat, sanity unraveling at the seams.
Hedda's thumb caressed twin hammers. Fran's diagnosis required translation: dispersed meant dismembered, creative storage implied walls or floorboards.
"Must I spell it out?" Fran exhaled, her breath scented with antiseptic roses. "You orchestrated every disappearance, Mrs. Solani. This pantomime of innocence grows tiresome."
Her scalpel tapped the widow's sternum. "No xenovoric possession. No neural overwriting. Just exquisite malice, blooming wild behind those tear ducts."
Solani's porcelain complexion flushed crimson. "How dare you—"
"Even fools grasp implications," Fran interrupted, examining her gloves. "Your performance lacks... nutritional substance."
"This is slander!" The widow's spine straightened into aristocratic fury, her silhouette swelling with ancestral hauteur. "The White Cup shall hear of your baseless accusations! My missing child—"
"Precisely." The surgeon's smile chilled. "True nobility doesn't beg. It consumes."
Hedda's revolvers hummed in harmonic resonance. The Persian rug's twin ruby patterns glinted like fresh bloodstains.
"By all means, fetch your White Cup's Fallacy Purifiers." Fran's scalpel traced the carpet's ghastly grain. "Let them admire this Fleshforge Rite—though I daresay my juvenilia surpasses its craftsmanship."
The surgeon's gaze slid over Solani like autopsy lights. "Flesh-to-fiber transmutation... quaint parlor tricks from my intern years."
Solani's carotid pulsed violent morse against pearl choker. Hedda's revolvers snapped upward—twin muzzles aligning with the widow's orbital sockets.
"Shall we dissect your decor?" Fran's boot tapped the rug's dendritic pattern. "Spinal column warp threads... rib weft... cardiac medallion here." Her scalpel glinted. "Crude attempt at dimensional origami, really."
Hedda's trigger fingers tensed. The Persian weave now screamed its provenance—Logan's thoracic lattice flattened into wool, arterial branches petrified as acanthus leaves.
Fran lightly tapped her lips with her index finger, seemingly deep in thought about the question.
Having said that, she picked up the white porcelain cup she had just used for her tea, her index finger hooked around the handle, gently swaying it.
"How classical to use a skull as a cup. Why are you nobles so obsessed with using someone else's head for your drinks?"
Heida pressed her lips together, faintly feeling a physiological discomfort.
At the same time, a hint of inexplicable resentment crept into her gaze as she looked at Fran. How could she not remind herself? No, in fact, she had also drunk tea from that cup...
She truly didn't care.
"Did you kill everyone?"
Heida questioned Solani, while contemplating whether she should shoot to incapacitate her first.
"Kill? What nonsense are you talking about? What a blessing it is to return to my lord's embrace... How could you mortals, who worship false gods, possibly understand?"
Solani replied hastily to Heida, then slowly began to back away, anxiously biting her fingers.
"Impossible!" Solani's manicured nails raked furrows through her cheeks, aristocratic veneer crumbling into topographic maps of hysteria. "A few disappearances... Covenant amateurs shouldn't detect perfected rites!"
Fran's iris contracted in a millisecond wink—Hedda's tactical cortex registered the signal before conscious thought. Her nod was battlefield-crisp.
"Cease resistance," the Huntress barked, revolvers steady. "The Confessional Chambers await your—urk—"
The surgeon's collapse unfolded with operatic precision—trembling fingers clutching temples, knees buckling against wainscoting. Her lab coat pooled like spilt milk across the Persian rug's screaming patterns.
Clarity struck Hedda mid-breath.
Sinking to one knee, she clutched her throat in counterfeit agony. Through slitted eyes, she watched the widow's pupils dilate with predatory hope—the desperate gambit of a cornered beast glimpsing escape.
She feigned weariness with a sense of helplessness, and after putting on a brave front for a while, she finally collapsed onto the ground.
"Ha…" Seeing both of them fall unconscious, Solani's distorted face broke into a radiant smile.
"What does it matter if you've seen through the 'Blood and Flesh Shaping Ritual'? From the moment you stepped into this room, your fate was already sealed. You too shall become the flesh and blood of my Lord, just like my beloved family… Ah, I can hardly wait to offer my sacrifice to Him…"
It was black tea.
The two cups of Atilan black tea contained a significant amount of a mysterious substance that induces sleep. Even a funeral attendant with a basic resistance to toxins would fall into a deep slumber for at least a whole day.
To be on the safe side, in case they refused to drink the tea, or if one drank while the other did not, the expensive incense she had lit was also infused with this substance.
Excitement and fervor flushed Solani's face, her body trembled with excitement, and her eyes sparkled with pure happiness.
To become the flesh and blood of the transcendent great being "Crimson Cup," how glorious and sacred that would be! This was her ultimate goal, one she had longed for.
Yet she couldn't squander her blood-offering prematurely. Until destiny's hour tolled, this decaying vessel must proselytize the gospel to dullard masses—each oblivious soul another stitch in the divine tapestry.
Velvet buttons surrendered beneath trembling fingers, revealing flesh mapped with scar constellations. The ritual bone-saw emerged glistening from her sternal shrine, followed by parchment inscribed in dermal calligraphy.
"Post-ritual relocation becomes imperative," she murmured, caressing the Covenant Hunters' sacrificial diagrams. "Obsessives draw near... yet what glorious providence—their zealous flesh shall season the Chalice's vintage."
Her flesh writhed in dusk's embrace, features contorting until an alien visage solidified. "Failure... yet this too is His divine trial," she whispered, moth-wing voice dissolving with her silhouette into night's shroud.
——
Vivian's lockpick danced—click. The black mask swallowed her frustration as she surveyed the fallen: Hedda's limbs splayed like broken clockwork, Fran's breath feigning death-rattle precision.
"Should've let the mortuary zealots handle this," she muttered, gloved fingers kneading temples. "Solani escaped again. Alwyn's lecture will echo till winter solstice."
Surveillance cables hummed in her skull—every dust mote cataloged, every incense residue mapped. But the Crimson Chalice's apostle? Let the grave-tenders duel fanatics. Her strength lay in shadows and steel whispers, not sacramental combat.
The truth coiled cold in her gut: had she confronted the heretic directly, the Archives would be collecting her fingernails for evidence tubes tomorrow.
Her eyes widened involuntarily.
Dr. Fran rose briskly from feigned unconsciousness, dusting her lab coat with theatrical precision before fixing Vivian with a knowing glance. "Administration would never permit Sister Hedda another perilous solo mission so soon," she observed, lips curling in vindication. "Surveillance was inevitable—convenient leverage to spook Solani at the critical moment."
Before the echoes faded, Hedda stood with monastic serenity, no trace of soporifics in her bearing. "Why release her?" she inquired, tilting her head like a blade being polished. "Crimson Chalice adepts reshape flesh like clay. Once she blends into crowds..."
Fran's lashes swept downward in a conspiratorial flutter. "My medicine leaves... distinct markers," she purred, fingertips brushing an unseen vial. "The question isn't tracking, but what predators our bait might lure. Shall we observe the feeding frenzy?"