The ceiling fan turned slow and heavy in the old detective office, its blades creaked like a tired pendulum.
Smoke hung low in the air from the candles Albert had lit to hide the smell of gunpowder.
The case files lay scattered on the desk, papers crumpled, photos of the Jester pinned to the board behind him with red string stretching like veins.
Piere Lal sat opposite, legs crossed, idly flicking a card between his fingers. He looked less like a suspect and more like an amused spectator. "So," he said with a mysterious smirk, "you failed again?"
Albert leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. "Failed? That is an understatement. He slipped through three cordons and two squads last night. Harriet nearly lost his hat chasing that maniac."
Piere chuckled, the sound dry. "The hat? Tragic. A true national loss."
"Not funny." Albert's tone was sharp, but exhaustion dulled its edge. He looked at the wall again. The blurred photograph of a man in a black suit and pastel paint grin.
"That clown's not just killing for thrill. He's picking his victims. The Shaw is family next, if I'm reading the patterns right."
Piere flicked his card up, caught it again. "You are certain?"
Albert nodded. "Every points lead there. Shaw's uncle murdered three nights ago, his driver's corpse turned up in the canal. Same chalk paint."
The room went silent for a moment. The fan clicked again.
Then Piere said quietly, "If the Jester's really after Shaw's family, then we are not hunting a man anymore, Newton. We're hunting a message."
Albert glanced up at him, eyes sharp. "What message?"
Piere smiled faintly, tapping his card on the table. "That laughter is only funny when everyone's afraid to join in."
Albert didn't laugh. He just exhaled, long and tired,
"Then we better start taking him seriously."
Tom sat slouched on the couch, a cigarette burning slowly between his fingers, though he hadn't taken a drag in minutes. He didn't need to. The air already felt heavier than smoke.
Piere stood by the window. He looked into the rain-soaked streets below.
He was quiet, until at last he said, "You have forgotten again, haven't you, Albert?"
Tom looked up. His brow furrowed, unsure. "Forgotten what?"
Piere turned, eyes tired but burning like dim embers. "Who I really am."
There was a pause. A long, deliberate silence. Tom waited for him to laugh, to toss another joke, to call him gullible again.
But Piere didn't. His voice came softer, deeper.
"I am not one of those ordinary beings, Tom. I am one of the Servants."
Tom blinked, the word slicing through the fog in his mind like cold steel. "Servants.…" he repeated, uncertain whether it was a confession or a curse.
"Yes, my dear whoreson, mr. Chick brain." Piere began pacing slowly, his boots recalled softly against the wooden floor.
"The Servants — seventeen in total. Rooted directly beneath Artorias'es. We are the extension of his will, fragments of his consciousness woven into mortal shells.
But only seventeen can stay awake at any given era. The rest remain in slumber, sealed under the pulse of creation itself."
Tom felt a chill crawl up his arms. "And you are saying you are one of them?"
Piere smiled faintly, not in pride, but in something that looked like sorrow. "I am the Bird of Reincarnation. Among the seventeen, six are Archidon, directly blessed by Original Artorias himself. The others, those below Uptie 5, are what you might call.… I mean the once attempting to be Uptie 4.2, they exist in the state of 'being a Servant,' an Uptie 4 level 2 stage. Eternal, half-asleep, neither corruption nor divine. Moses Tur, the emperor of Ramsis.… is one of them."
Tom's heart pounded. "So that is why you could—"
"—bend life, yes." Piere finished for him, turning again toward the rain. "The power you saw back there wasn't trickery. It was a grain of my authority — Life, chained under Artorias's law. Because to act without Artorias's direct awakening is to rewrite his silence."
Tom stared at him in disbelief. "Why tell me this now?"
Piere looked over his shoulder, a faint smirk cutting across his face. "Because, Albert Newton, you are walking toward something larger than this city, larger than this war of gods and fools. You have already brushed the edge of what they call the First Cycle. You deserve to remember, even if you will forget again soon."
Tom stood up, his chair scraping back. "What do you mean, forget again?"
Piere sighed poorly, almost kindly. "Because you are bound to it, too. You just don't know which god signed your name."
....
The streets were full of people, wet stones glimmering under the faint amber of street lamps.
Tom walked beside Piere, hands tucked into his coat pockets, boots clicking softly on the uneven cobbles.
Piere was uncharacteristically quiet, his painter-like hat tilted low, hiding most of his expression slightly.
The usual smugness was gone, replaced by a strange unreadable calm. Tom glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
"So," Tom said finally, "you're just.… walking with me now? No cards, riddles, no exploding streets?"
Piere chuckled faintly. "Not today."
They kept walking. Somewhere in the distance, a tram's bell rang.
"Why me?" Tom asked, "You could work with anyone, yet you — a Servant, a so called divine thing follow a man like me around. What's your angle?"
Piere didn't answer right away. He looked up toward the sun full and heavy, veiled by thin clouds and then said softly, "Let's call it an assignment."
"Assignment?"
"Yes." Piere's smile barely showed. "Someone or something sent me to you. That is all you need to know."
Tom frowned. "Who?"
"I could tell you." Piere said, tone turning almost playful again, "but it would ruin the story and you wouldn't understand it anyway."
Tom exhaled, frustration flickering behind his eyes. "You're impossible."
"That's why I am still alive."
They walked further until the street split into two. Piere stopped. His eyes glimmered faintly, bird-like, golden in the lamp light.
"Keep this alliance quiet," he murmured. "Even your shadow must not know."
And before Tom could reply, Piere turned down the fog-covered path and vanished like a breath leaving the world.
Tom murmured in low voice twitching one eyebrow, " Son of a tatterprig.... "