The thing in the alley was not human.
It might have been, once. The general shape was there—two arms, two legs, a head positioned roughly where a head should be. But the proportions were all wrong, stretched and distorted like a reflection in warped glass. Its limbs were too long. Its joints bent in directions that made Kael's eyes hurt to follow. And its face...
It had no face. Where features should have been, there was only smooth, glistening darkness—a void that seemed to drink the light from the debt-lamps overhead.
The child—the girl—turned to look at what was following her, and the sound she made was not a scream. It was worse than a scream. It was the complete absence of sound, a silence so profound that Kael felt it in his teeth.
The warmth in his chest exploded into something almost painful. MOVE. MOVE NOW.
He moved.
Kael had never been trained for combat. House Mourning dealt in death, not killing—a distinction that suddenly seemed absurdly academic as he sprinted toward the child. He had no weapon. He had no plan. He had only the overwhelming certainty that if he did not get between that girl and that thing, something terrible would happen.
Something worse than death.
He reached the girl in three heartbeats and swept her behind him in the same motion, putting his body between her and the advancing creature. The thing stopped. Its faceless head tilted, as though examining him with senses Kael couldn't fathom.
"You are not relevant," it said.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a whisper that seemed to originate inside Kael's own skull. It carried no malice. No emotion at all. Simply a statement of fact, like a scholar noting an error in someone's arithmetic.
"The child is relevant. The child must be processed. Step aside."
The cold in Kael's chest spiked so hard he nearly gasped. Do not let it touch her. Whatever happens, do not let it touch her.
"No," he said.
The word surprised him. He hadn't planned to speak. But there it was, hanging in the air between them—a single syllable of defiance against something that clearly did not belong in the waking world.
The creature tilted its head the other way. "Your refusal is noted. It is irrelevant."
It began to move forward.
Kael's mind raced. He had nothing—no weapons, no powers, no way to fight this thing. The child behind him was sobbing now, her small hands clutching the back of his coat with desperate strength. He could feel her shaking.
Think. Think. What do I have?
He had debt.
The realization came with sudden clarity. Everyone in Verantum had debt—it was the foundation of all magic, all power, the very basis of how reality functioned in the broken world. Kael had never taken a significant debt himself, had never needed to. House Mourning provided for its Witnesses. But there were ways...
"I offer a trade," he said, his voice steadier than he felt. "Information for safe passage. This child and myself, in exchange for something you want to know."
The creature stopped. Its void-face oriented on him with renewed interest.
"You attempt to negotiate. This is unexpected."
"A dying man's last regret," Kael continued, improvising desperately. "His deepest secret, the thing he took to his grave. I can give that to you. I carry forty-four of them."
It was a violation of everything House Mourning stood for. The regrets were sacred trusts, never to be shared. If the House ever found out what he was offering—
But the creature was pausing. Considering.
"Secrets have value," it acknowledged. "But you mistake my purpose. I do not collect. I process. The child carries a debt of undefined scope. This debt must be resolved."
Kael's blood went cold. A debt of undefined scope—the most dangerous kind, a blank check written to some unknown creditor who could demand anything at any time. Who would bind a child with such an obligation?
What is this girl?
"Then I'll take it," he heard himself say. "Transfer the debt to me. I'll carry it in her place."
Behind him, the child made a small sound of protest. The creature went very still.
"You would accept an undefined debt for a stranger," it said slowly. "A debt whose scope could encompass your entire existence. Your sanity. Your soul."
The warmth in Kael's chest pulsed. Yes. Yes. Save her.
The cold answered immediately. This is dangerous. This will change everything. There is no going back.
But both sensations agreed on one thing: the girl mattered. Whatever she was, whatever debt she carried, letting this creature "process" her was not an option.
"Yes," Kael said. "I'll take the debt."
The creature regarded him for a long moment—or what felt like a long moment. Time seemed to stretch and compress in its presence, making it impossible to judge how much had actually passed.
"Interesting," it said finally. "But unacceptable. The debt is bound to her blood. It cannot be transferred. Only discharged—through payment, or through termination of the debtor."
Termination. It was going to kill her. Not because it wanted to, not out of malice or hunger. Simply because that was what it had been sent to do. Whatever debt she carried, someone had decided that her death was the only acceptable resolution.
Kael's mind churned. Transfer wasn't possible. Payment wasn't possible—he didn't even know what the debt was for. That left...
"What if I guarantee it?" The words came from somewhere outside his conscious thought, driven by the twin pressures of warmth and cold that were now almost unbearable. "Not take the debt, but guarantee it. Bind myself as collateral for her obligation."
The creature paused again.
"Explain."
"If she defaults—if she fails to pay whatever she owes—then you can collect from me instead. My life for hers. My... everything for hers. But you leave her alone until that happens. You give her the chance to fulfill the debt on her own terms."
This was madness. Kael knew it was madness. He was binding himself as collateral for a child he'd never met, for a debt of completely unknown scope. If she failed—and how could a child possibly succeed at whatever impossible task awaited her?—he would pay the price with everything he had.
But the warmth said yes and the cold said yes and the girl was shaking against his back and he could feel the weight of her fear like another death-regret settling into his mind.
"Acceptable," the creature said.
It happened without warning. Pain—brief, intense, concentrated in his chest where the contradictory sensations had been building. Kael gasped as something shifted inside him, as though his soul had been grabbed by invisible hands and rearranged. The cold and warmth intensified to unbearable levels and then suddenly, mercifully, began to fade back to their earlier background presence.
The creature had stopped advancing. It stood perfectly still, its void-face fixed on Kael with what might have been contemplation.
"The contract is sealed," it said. "You are now bound as guarantee for Debt #4,791,823,447. The debtor has until the culmination of her potential to fulfill her obligation. Should she fail, your existence becomes forfeit."
"The culmination of her potential?" Kael asked weakly. "What does that mean? What is she supposed to do?"
"That information is not included in the contract terms." The creature began to turn away. "The specifics of the debt are between the debtor and the creditor. You are merely the guarantee."
"Wait—who is the creditor? At least tell me that much."
The creature paused at the edge of the alley's darkness.
"The creditor," it said, "is listed as Absent."
And then it was gone. Not walked away—simply gone, as though it had never existed at all. The night returned to normal. The debt-lamps resumed their steady glow. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
Kael stood in the middle of the street, trembling.
The child's grip on his coat slowly loosened. He turned to look at her, really look at her for the first time. She was small, thin, clearly malnourished. Her eyes were wide with shock and terror and something else—something older than her years.
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
She stared up at him. The blood on her hands was already drying, turning rust-colored in the lamp-light.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know who I am. I don't remember."
She began to cry again—deep, shuddering sobs that shook her entire body. Kael reached out hesitantly, uncertain how to comfort a child, and she collapsed against him like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
As he held her, feeling her small form tremble with exhaustion and fear, Kael tried to process what had just happened. He had bound himself as collateral for a debt owed to something called "Absent." He had contracted with a faceless creature that didn't belong in the mortal world. He had saved a girl who didn't even know her own name.
The warmth in his chest pulsed gently. Good. You did well.
The cold responded. But at what cost?
Kael didn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out.
But as he lifted the exhausted child into his arms and began the long walk back to House Mourning's compound, he knew one thing for certain: whatever had started tonight, there was no going back.
His life had just become collateral for a mystery.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, beneath the weight of forty-four regrets and this new, strange presence that had awoken inside him, he felt the faintest echo of something he hadn't experienced in years.
Hope.
He crushed it immediately.
In Verantum, hope was just another way to make the disappointment hurt worse.