The rain fell in thin, endless needles, soaking the cobblestones of Gotham by dawn.
It carried with it the smell of soot and decay, the perfume of a city that never washed itself clean.
Jonathan Wayne pulled his collar high as he and Crane crossed Old Mercy Bridge, their boots splashing through puddles that reflected the iron sky.
The river below churned black, its current dragging refuse downstream broken crates, animal carcasses, and sometimes, Crane had once whispered, bodies.
"We're being sent to East End," Crane muttered, chewing the edge of his mustache like he always did when uneasy. "Reports of… disturbances near St. Bartholomew's."
Jonathan frowned.
"What kind of disturbances?"
Crane spat into the water. "The kind that keep men awake and priests trembling."
St. Bartholomew's was no ordinary parish. Built from crumbling stone older than the city's steel, it squatted at the edge of East End like a monument to forgotten gods.
Gargoyles leered from its tower, and its bells had not rung in years.
The parishioners called it cursed ground, though the poor still lit candles in its shadow, as if hoping some shred of holy power lingered.
As they approached, Jonathan noted the crowd: ragged laborers, pale-faced women clutching children, all whispering in fearful tones.
Sheriff Horace Doolin stood at the church doors, his broad chest puffed, his voice booming to hold back the mob.
He glanced over as Jonathan and Crane approached, and his lip curled.
"Well, if it isn't the Waynes' finest. Thought you'd come sniffing."
Jonathan ignored the barb. "What happened here?"
Doolin grinned, teeth yellowed. "Ask the priest. He's the one claiming demons in his pews."
Inside the church, the air was damp and heavy with incense gone stale.
Father Mordecai Vale stood at the altar, his pale hands gripping a ledger as though it were scripture itself. His eyes were fever-bright, and when he saw Jonathan, he smiled thinly.
"You came," he said, voice low. "Good. You should see the signs for yourself."
Jonathan glanced at the pews. Scrawled across the wood in soot and ash were marks the double circle, the slash. Some burned into the grain, others carved with knives.
They lined every bench, every column, as though the church had been claimed overnight.
Crane muttered under his breath. "Hell's teeth…"
Vale stepped closer, lowering his voice. "The Harbinger walked here last night. A messenger of The Owe. It marked the house of God with its claim."
Jonathan's jaw tightened. "What did it look like?"
Vale's eyes flickered. "Like nothing that should exist. Cloaked, faceless, moving without step.
It left the silence behind it… and I knew then, the city's debt is not yet paid."
Jonathan didn't trust Vale, but the priest's terror seemed too real to dismiss. He walked the length of the aisle, running his fingers over the fresh carvings.
The marks were deliberate.
A ritual, not vandalism.
When he reached the pulpit, something caught his eye.
A scrap of cloth snagged on the wood black as coal, yet faintly glimmering as though threads of metal ran through it.
He pocketed it quickly before Vale could see.
Behind him, Crane murmured, "Wayne, I don't like this. Feels staged."
Jonathan nodded faintly. "Maybe or maybe it's a warning."
As they turned to leave, Vale called after him. "Do you know why it is you, Jonathan Wayne? Do you know why your name was carved into the flesh of the dead?"
Jonathan stopped, his blood cold.
Vale smiled, a serpent's smile. "Because your family's blood is in their foundation. The Owe does not forget its architects. You are not investigator, Wayne. You are inheritance."
The words lodged deep, festering as Jonathan and Crane left the church. Outside, the mob had grown louder.
Some looked at Jonathan with suspicion now, whispering his name. Already the rumor had spread the stranger from Bristol tied to the curse.
As the men pushed back through the crowd, Jonathan caught sight of a figure at the edge of the square.
A tall shape cloaked in black, hood drawn low. Its presence was still, unnatural.
For a moment, the world fell quiet. The mob's cries dulled to a hum.
The rain seemed to pause midair. Jonathan locked eyes or thought he did with the shadow under the hood. His breath hitched.
Then, without a step, the figure seemed to melt back into the fog, gone as if it had never been.
Crane grabbed his arm. "You saw that?"
Jonathan's voice was rough. "I saw."
That night, Jonathan sat at the inn's desk, the scrap of black cloth spread before him under the lamplight.
He touched it and felt a chill, as though the fabric itself carried
memory.
Isadora came to him quietly. "What is it?"
He shook his head.
"A sign ,a harbinger."
She frowned. "A messenger of death?"
Jonathan met her eyes. "No. A messenger of beginning. This is not the end of Gotham's curse.
It's only the start."
Outside, the bells of St. Bartholomew's rang for the first time in years though no one had pulled the rope.
The sound carried across Gotham like an omen.
The Harbinger had come.