Chapter 4: Seeker

Introductions Are Important

Valentine Fontaine had never been a violent man.

Not really.

Sure, he had participated in violence—dabbled, one might say—but only ever in the way one participates in bad poetry readings: reluctantly, with great suffering, and usually at the behest of people who deserved far worse than what they got.

This, however—this was different.

This was personal.

The blood-soaked bastard on the ground barely had the decency to groan as Valentine drove his boot into his head. Again. And again. And again—until the sound of wet crunching bone filled the alleyway and his face was less a face and more a tragic attempt at abstract art.

Valentine exhaled sharply, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and then, because he was feeling particularly charitable, reached down and ripped a handful of the man's hair straight from his scalp.

A gurgled shriek. A wet thunk as he hit the ground again.

"Gods," Valentine muttered, shaking loose the torn strands from his fingers. "That was disgusting."

Behind him, someone gasped.

Ah. Right. He had company.

He turned, lazily wiping his boot against the dead man's coat, and offered a dazzling smile—one that would have been charming had it not been soaked in violence.

"Valentine Fontaine," he introduced himself, smoothing down the front of his waistcoat as if he had not just spent the last two minutes introducing his foot to someone's skull. "Pleasure to meet you."

The woman before him did not look particularly pleased to meet him.

Her hands trembled. Her breath was caught somewhere between a gasp and a scream, frozen by whatever horror she had just witnessed.

Valentine sighed. "Oh, come now. Don't look at me like that." He gestured lazily to the corpse at his feet. "This isn't even my worst work."

She didn't move. Didn't speak.

Her wide, unblinking eyes flickered from the body to the blood on his hands to the strands of hair still caught between his fingers.

Valentine sighed again.

"Alright, fine," he relented. "Let's try again."

He stepped forward, extending a bloodstained hand, and smiled with all the warmth of a man who had never regretted a decision in his life.

"My name is Valentine Fontaine. And I believe I'm here to save a boy named Light."

***

Valentine Fontaine had a very loose definition of friendship.

For instance, his friend Charlie was not so much a friend as he was a begrudging acquaintance who tolerated Valentine's existence in exchange for a steady supply of stolen cigarettes and the occasional favor.

But he was reliable. And in Blackmire, reliable was worth more than love.

Charlie did not open the door immediately.

Which, in fairness, was a reasonable response to hearing someone pound on it at nearly midnight, shouting, "CHARLIE, OLD FRIEND, FAVOR TIME!"

It took exactly five more knocks, two curses, and one particularly violent threat against the structural integrity of the door before it finally swung open.

Charlie stood there, shirtless, half-awake, and looking exactly as thrilled as one might expect when greeted by Valentine Fontaine at any hour of the day.

Valentine, ever the picture of grace, smiled.

"Good evening, Charles."

Charlie squinted at him, then at the blood-soaked woman standing behind him, then back at Valentine.

"No," he said flatly.

Valentine blinked. "No?"

Charlie began to shut the door.

Valentine wedged his boot in before it could close. "Oh, come on, don't be like that."

Charlie sighed the sigh of a man who had made many poor life choices, and somehow, all of them had led to this moment.

"I don't suppose," he said, rubbing a hand over his face, "that you just need a cup of sugar?"

Valentine grinned. "I do need something, actually!"

"Of course you do."

"A shirt."

Charlie lowered his hand. Stared at him.

"A shirt," he repeated.

"Yep."

"At midnight."

"Yep."

"For a woman covered in blood."

"Listen, I can explain—"

Charlie held up a hand. "Can you?"

Valentine opened his mouth.

Paused.

Then: "Not really."

Charlie exhaled, muttering something under his breath that was either a prayer or a very creative curse. Then, without another word, he turned, rummaged through a pile of clothes on the floor, and threw a crumpled shirt at Valentine's head.

"There," he grumbled. "Now go away before I start charging you for my generosity."

Valentine caught the shirt, clutched it to his chest dramatically. "Oh, Charlie, you do care."

"I don't care."

"You love me."

"I loathe you."

"You'd miss me if I died."

Charlie crossed his arms. "I would throw a party."

"With cake?"

"The biggest cake."

Valentine gasped. "Betrayal!"

Charlie pinched the bridge of his nose. "Get out of my sight, Fontaine, or I swear to all the gods above, I will strangle you with that damn shirt."

Valentine grinned, winking as he stepped back into the street. "Love you too, Charlie."

And with that, he was gone—whistling as he strolled off into the night, the woman still silent beside him, the too-large shirt clutched in his hand.

Charlie, meanwhile, stared at the now-empty doorway for a long, exhausted moment.

Then, very quietly, he shut the door and went back to bed.

Now, as they walked through the rain-slicked streets toward The Crooked Spoon, the woman—wrapped in Charlie's too-large, slightly moth-eaten shirt—had yet to say a word.

Understandable, really.

Still, silence wasn't exactly his strong suit.

"So," he said, stepping over a particularly suspicious puddle. "How's your night going?"

No response.

He sighed. "You know, I was having a very lovely breakfast before all this."

Still nothing.

"Well," he continued, undeterred, "as lovely as breakfast can be in this city. You ever been to The Crooked Spoon? Absolute shithole. I love it."

The woman made a noise—not quite a word, but not quite nothing, either.

Progress.

Encouraged, he grinned. "Wait until you see their drink selection. They've got exactly two options: 'mystery ale' and 'mystery ale with extra suffering.' I once watched a man drink it and start reciting poetry. In Latin."

She didn't laugh. Didn't even look at him.

The streets of Blackmire stretched ahead of them, slick with rain and regret. Gas lamps flickered half-heartedly, their light too weak to chase away the shadows curling in the alleyways.

Valentine walked with easy, practiced confidence—like a man who had never once been afraid of the dark. Or, more likely, like a man too stupid to be afraid of it.

The woman beside him, on the other hand, moved like she had been swallowed by it.

Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, her gaze fixed on the uneven cobblestones, shoulders hunched as if bracing for another blow.

She hadn't spoken since Charlie's doorstep.

She hadn't spoken since the alley.

Since Valentine introduced himself by turning a man's skull into a tragic interpretation of modern art.

But then, finally—soft, hoarse, barely there—

"He wouldn't stop laughing."

Valentine glanced at her. "Who?"

She swallowed. Her nails dug into her arms. "The man you—" She hesitated. Corrected herself. "The one you killed."

Valentine hummed. "Ah. Him."

"He kept laughing," she whispered. "Even after he—" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Gods, he just—"

She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead, inhaling sharply through her nose.

Valentine let the silence stretch, let her gather herself. He had seen people break before—knew better than to push when the cracks were still fresh.

And then—

"It was supposed to be a job," she finally said, voice steadier now, though no less hollow. "Simple. In. Out. No blood. No—" She exhaled sharply. "No whatever the hell that was."

He nodded. "I take it things didn't go according to plan."

She let out something that was not quite a laugh. "That would be an understatement."

Valentine side-eyed her, adjusting his grip on the bundled-up shirt in his arms. "Who were you working for?"

Silence.

He raised an eyebrow. "Come on, if I was gonna turn you in, I wouldn't have wasted a perfectly good pair of boots on that guy's skull."

A beat. Then—

"Markov," she admitted quietly. "Markov sent me."

Valentine let out a low whistle. "Well. There's your first mistake."

She huffed, something sharp flashing in her eyes. "You know him?"

He grinned. "He has been in hiding for a while. Under the radar after he messed up a delivery."

Valentine could feel the temperature cooling down, her shoulders trembling. He guessed this wasn't the first time she worked for him. But the first time she heard this. He thought.

The woman looked like someone debating life and death, maybe pineapple on pizza is the thing she wants right now. 

She shook her head, looking away. "Wh...What did you do to him?"

Valentine tilted his head. "Hm? What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath and stopped walking. 

"He had lost his mind the second you stepped in the alley." She said, with conviction. 

There was a stretched silence that followed. Valentine, the criminal, gentleman and a fool, who always had something to fill the gaps, was silent. 

"What's your name?" he asked. 

She hesitated before answering," Anne."

He stepped towards her. His smile widened.

"I am what you call, a Seeker."