The boy was sitting on the plastic chair in the reception area with his knees pulled up to his chest, making himself as small as possible. He couldn't have been more than fifteen, though the shadows under his eyes belonged to someone three times his age. His clothes were a patchwork of donated garments, a wool coat too large for his frame, a scarf wrapped around his neck despite the heating, and boots held together with silver duct tape. When Ella pushed through the swinging doors, he flinched like a startled animal and looked toward the exit, calculating the distance.
"Don't run," Ella said, keeping her voice low and even. "I'm not a police officer. I'm a doctor."
The boy studied her face, searching for the lie. His eyes were a pale, watery blue, the kind that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. His hands were shaking, though whether from cold or fear, Ella couldn't tell.
"You're Dr. Black," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes. And you are?"
The boy hesitated, glancing at Niall, who was pretending to sort files behind the reception desk but clearly hanging on every word. Ella gestured toward the corridor. "Let's talk somewhere private. Niall, could you find some tea? And perhaps something to eat?"
Niall nodded and disappeared toward the break room. Ella led the boy into a small consultation room, furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a faded print of sailing ships on the wall. She closed the door and pulled the blinds, giving them privacy from the corridor. The boy remained standing, his back pressed against the wall.
"What's your name?" Ella asked.
"Finn."
"Finn what?"
He shrugged. "Just Finn. That's all that matters."
Ella sat down, making herself less imposing. "You told my assistant you saw something last night. In Farrow Alley."
Finn's jaw tightened. He looked down at his hands, which were now clenched into fists on his knees. "There was a man. He was running. They were chasing him."
"They?"
"Three of them. Maybe four. It was dark, and the fog was thick. I was sleeping in the old doorway behind the textile mill, the one with the broken awning. I heard footsteps first. Fast, splashing through puddles. Then the man came around the corner, breathing hard. He looked back over his shoulder, and that's when he tripped."
"Tripped?"
Finn nodded. "There was something in the alley. A board with nails. I saw it earlier, when I was looking for a dry place to sleep. He didn't see it until it was too late. He went down hard, hit his head on the cobblestones. I thought he was dead right then."
Ella leaned forward slightly. "What happened next?"
Finn swallowed. His voice dropped to a whisper. "The others caught up. They weren't police. They weren't... normal. They wore these long coats, dark green, and boots that sounded like hammers on the stones. And one of them, the one in front, he had something in his hand."
"Was it a weapon?"
"An arrow. Or something like it. Long, with feathers on one end. He didn't shoot it. He was holding it like a spear, and when the man on the ground tried to get up, he..." Finn's voice broke. He pressed his palm against his own chest, just below the ribs. "He stabbed him. Right here. The man made a sound I never heard before. Then he just stopped moving."
Ella felt the confirmation settle into her bones, cold and solid. The bronze fragment. The triangular wound. Everything fit.
"Did you see their faces?"
Finn shook his head. "They wore masks. Like hunting masks. Leather, with eyeholes. But I saw the leader's hands. He wasn't wearing gloves. His fingers were white, like a statue, and he had a ring on his right hand. A big one, with something carved into it."
"A crest? A symbol?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see it clearly. But it caught the light when he pulled the arrow out. That's when I knew I had to leave. I tried to move, but my foot kicked a bottle. It made a noise. One of them turned toward me, and I just ran. I didn't stop until I reached the bridge. I hid under the arches until dawn. Then I came here."
Ella absorbed this in silence. A hunting party. Masks. A man killed with an arrow in a city alley. It sounded like something from a gothic novel, but the boy's terror was real, and the body on her table was real.
"Why did you come to the morgue?" she asked. "Why not the police?"
Finn let out a hollow laugh. "The police? You think they'd believe a street kid? Inspector Vance would have me in a cell before I finished the sentence. Besides, I heard them talking. The hunters. They said something about the police. One of them said, 'Vance will handle it. He always does.'"
Ella's blood chilled. She thought of Vance standing in the morgue, signing the intake form, his voice dripping with impatience. Some bodies are better left at the bottom of the river. She had assumed he was simply lazy, a bureaucrat who valued statistics over justice. But what if it was something worse?
"Finn, I need you to be completely honest with me," she said. "Did you recognize any of them? The voices? The way they moved?"
Finn shook his head. Then he paused. "Not them. But I recognized the crest. I've seen it before. On a building. The Vane Foundation headquarters, on Market Street. They have a plaque over the door with the same symbol. A stag's head with a crown between its antlers."
Sir Edmund Vane. The philanthropist. The man hosting the Saint Lydia Gala in two days. The man whose face smiled from every billboard in Ashton, whose foundation fed the homeless and sheltered the displaced. The man who was about to be honored by the mayor as Citizen of the Decade.
Ella stood up slowly, her mind racing. If there was a connection, it was tenuous at best. A symbol on a building could mean anything. But combined with an antique hunting weapon, a police inspector willing to falsify a death certificate, and a team of masked pursuers, it painted a picture that was beginning to take a terrifying shape.
"I need you to stay here," she said. "There's a cot in the staff lounge. You'll be safe tonight."
"I can't stay," Finn said, rising to his feet. "If they know I saw them, they'll find me. They have ways. They have people everywhere."
"Then where will you go?"
"The shelters are full. The streets aren't safe. But I know places. Hiding spots. I've been doing this a long time."
Ella crossed to her desk and pulled open a drawer. She took out a small prepaid mobile phone, one she kept for emergencies, and pressed it into Finn's hand. "Take this. My number is programmed in. If anything happens, if you see anything else, call me. Day or night."
Finn stared at the phone as if she had offered him a bar of gold. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because someone killed a man last night, and everyone else seems determined to pretend it didn't happen." She met his eyes. "And because you're the only one who's told me the truth. The dead deserve justice, Finn. The living deserve to be safe. Both of those things are my job."
The boy looked at her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. Then he nodded and slipped the phone into his coat pocket. "There's something else," he said. "When I was running, I passed the old canal gate. There was a van parked there. Black, no windows. On the side, it had a logo. The same stag's head. The same crown. I'd never seen it before, but I've heard rumors. There's a place they take people. Not the shelters. Somewhere else."
"A place?"
"Out past the Thornfield Estate. People say if you get in that van, you don't come back. I thought it was just talk. Scare stories for kids. But last night, before the chase, I saw the van pull away from Market Street. It was heading north."
Ella filed the information away. Thornfield Estate. The name stirred something in her memory, a newspaper article from years ago. The Vane family estate, a sprawling property on the northern edge of Ashton, surrounded by forest and high stone walls. She had heard it was closed to the public, a private retreat for the family and their guests. No one knew what went on behind those walls.
"Finn, I want you to promise me something," she said. "Stay away from that estate. Don't go near the Vane Foundation. Don't try to investigate on your own."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good. Because whoever did this, they've already killed once. They won't hesitate to do it again."
Finn pulled his scarf tighter and moved toward the door. "Neither will I," he said quietly. "If it comes to that." Then he was gone, slipping into the darkened corridor like a shadow, leaving Ella alone with a dead man's secrets and a growing certainty that the horror had only just begun.
She returned to the morgue and stood over the body, now covered once more, a temporary shroud. The bronze fragment still sat in its glass jar, catching the light. She thought of Sir Edmund Vane, his charitable foundation, his gala, his perfect smile. She thought of Inspector Vance, closing cases before they opened. She thought of a black van with a stag's crest, heading north into the forest.
And she knew, with the cold clarity that only the dead could teach, that the next body would not be long in coming. The hunter had tasted blood. And the hunt was his addiction.
As if in answer to her thoughts, the phone on her desk rang again. This time, she answered.
"Dr. Black? This is Sergeant Patel from the river patrol. We've got another one. Pulled from the Ash near Old Mill Bridge. Looks like a drowning, but there are marks on the body. Strange marks. I thought you'd want to see it before Vance gets here."
Ella gripped the receiver until her knuckles whitened. "Don't let anyone touch him," she said. "I'm on my way."
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