The coins from the clock tower job felt like a lie in his pocket. They were enough for groceries, for a few more taxi rides, but they were a raindrop in the desert of his financial anxiety.
The reminder of the next Aethelstan Club fee, the cost of simply maintaining his foothold in that world, was a constant, low-grade hum of dread beneath the more immediate terror of homicides and thinning realities.
Captain Hanson's demand for a "clean" solution to the mill murder echoed in his head.
Foster spent the day doing exactly that—the mundane police work. He interviewed Leo's coworkers, looking for the disgruntled employee, the personal grudge.
He found minor tensions, the usual workplace friction, but nothing that pointed to a brutal bludgeoning followed by… whatever those scratches were.
Ben Frank provided the official cause of death report:
Blunt force trauma to the cranium, consistent with the recovered wrench.
Defensive wounds: Atypical lacerations, origin undetermined.
It was the kind of plain, unsatisfying conclusion that could, with enough bureaucratic power, be filed away.
"It's the 'undetermined' part that bothers me."
Ben said, catching Foster alone by the evidence lockers. He wasn't eating for once, his hands shoved deep in his lab coat pockets.
"The pattern doesn't match any tool I have on record. It's organic, but not animal. And the cold spot… the scene photos show frost on the wrench. Indoors."
He gave Foster a sidelong look.
"You can write your 'clean' report, Ambrose. But you and I both know the air in that room smelled wrong. And it's the same wrong as the Davidson alley."
Foster didn't confirm or deny it. He just nodded, the shared understanding passing between them like a secret handshake.
Later, Neil Humphrey cornered him at the coffee urn.
"The power drain at the mill," Neil began, his voice low and excited.
"It wasn't a surge or a failure. It was a perfect, instantaneous draw. The local substation's logs show the same digital residue as the Davidson alley footage. A perfect, impossible absence of power."
He pushed his glasses up.
"Whoever, or whatever, is doing this is using a method so advanced it's literally off the charts. It's not a tool, Ambrose. It's a principle."
A principle. The word resonated with The Anchor's clinical analysis and the journal's talk of "resonance."
Foster was surrounded by the city's best analytical minds, all pointing to the same impossible conclusion, while his captain demanded he arrest a jealous coworker.
The frustration crystallized into action. He couldn't survive on Havelock's sporadic repairs. He needed a patron, a steady source of funds that wouldn't raise questions.
The political world, with its deep, often murky pockets, was the most logical, if distasteful, target.
During his lunch break, he went to the public records office. Using his badge for access, he pulled the financial disclosure forms for several city council members.
He looked for patterns—who had allocated funds for "security consultants" or "urban infrastructure analysis."
He found a likely candidate: Councilman Berney. He quickly confirmed. The man was a rising star, a reformer who talked about "bridging the city's old and new divides." His financial records showed regular payments to a small, private security firm.
This was it. A path.
He would need to approach it carefully, to leverage his police experience into a consultation, perhaps by offering an "independent analysis" of public safety in the councilman's district—a district that, he noted, included the Ironweave Mill.
—
That evening, he sat at the kitchen table with Ortego, the councilman's file hidden beneath a stack of case notes. Ortego was chattering about a school trip to the natural history museum.
"They have this huge fossil of a Grifter's Tooth!" he said, his eyes wide.
Foster froze, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. "A what?"
"A Grifter's Tooth! It's what they used to call the Saber-toothed Dire Weasel. They found its skeleton in the old city foundations. It's massive! The plaque says they died out centuries ago when the city got too loud and bright for them."
Foster stared at his brother, the piece of bread forgotten. A fossil. A scientific name.
The city had neatly categorized the very thing whose shadow was killing people in the present and put it behind glass. It was the ultimate act of denial, of painting a patina of normalcy over a terrifying truth.
He looked at the political file, then back at Ortego's innocent, excited face.
He was trying to play a game of power and money in a city that built museums to cleverly explain its monsters.
The sheer, staggering scale of the lie he was living in threatened to overwhelm him.
He was broke, he was hunting the supernatural, and the only thing keeping him sane was the thought of the next Oxford Club meeting, where he could speak a fraction of the truth to the one group of people who might, just might, be able to see the monster outside the glass.