Chapter 25: The Weaver’s Hideout and Blood on the Floorboards

‘Should we break target to pursue the crown?’

The anonymous man who had just executed a deeply covert encounter with a notorious serial killer was, by any logical metric, exceptionally dangerous. Yet, attempt to track his silhouette through the open clearing would inevitably compromise their position to Peter, who was actively scanning the perimeter. Forced to select between a ghost in the shadows and a confirmed butcher currently holding an abducted law enforcement official hostage, the strategic choice was absolute. Simon reluctantly severed his focus from the crowned figure. He had no time to mourn the lost lead; Peter was already in motion.

The jester hat turned sharply from side to side before the killer smoothly slipped through a weathered rear gate connecting the municipal grounds to the commercial district.

‘We move,’ Clint signaled with a sharp, synchronized tilt of his head.

Peter rapidly flagged down a passing carriage, hauling his massive frame inside. Wasting no time, Simon and Clint bolted toward their own pre-positioned vehicle.

“Follow that carriage immediately!”

Simon barked the command to their coachman. It was a highly specific cliché he had spent his entire life secretly yearning to utter aloud. Though rationally aware that indulging in romanticized excitement was profoundly inappropriate given the horrific stakes of the evening, a small, uninhibited part of his spirit felt an electric surge of energy. For a fleeting microsecond, he felt like a true detective in a thrilling serial.

A short while later, the target vehicle ground to a halt along a commercial thoroughfare slicing through the heart of the municipal sector. Because the location was shockingly close to City Hall and situated squarely within a high-traffic business district, the proximity left both men profoundly stunned. It defied all standard criminal psychology. Typically, an individual operating a gruesome operational base would seek shelter within a desolate, hyper-isolated rural perimeter. The local authorities had concentrated their entire structural dragnet around the outskirts of town based on that exact assumption. The realization hit them like a physical blow: the police force had been entirely, utterly outmaneuvered by Peter Matterson yet again.

Peter advanced briskly toward a sprawling, heavily dilapidated industrial structure. A weather-beaten wooden sign adorned with the faded illustration of a ram hung precariously over the entrance, indicating the facility had once operated as a commercial textile mill prior to its prolonged abandonment. With practiced, terrifying efficiency, Peter extracted a specialized tool, cleanly bypassed the heavy iron padlock securing the structural gate, slipped inside, and smoothly locked the barrier behind him.

Confirming the apex predator had fully vanished into the belly of the facility, the two men quietly stepped down from their carriage. The rusted iron surface of the gate featured a series of highly solemn municipal warnings forbidding unauthorized entry under penalty of law. Yet, even without the structural deterrents, the suffocating aura of decay radiating from the property was more than enough to ensure no sane citizen would ever willingly cross the threshold.

“This is almost certainly his primary operational safehouse,” Simon whispered.

“Undoubtedly. Shall we cross the perimeter?”

“Yes.”

Before advancing, Simon approached their coachman, quietly ordering him to race directly to the nearest municipal precinct and deploy a detachment of armed officers to their exact coordinates. Clint had initially agreed to accompany Simon to track the fugitive’s route, but he remained vehemently opposed to executing a direct confrontation or attempting a physical apprehension without tactical support. Simon held no illusions regarding his physical limitations. No matter how deeply he distrusted the functional competence of the local police, he was acutely aware that his slender noble physique and total lack of combative training rendered him utterly useless against a heavily built, remorseless butcher in a physical brawl.

Watching the carriage dissolve into the night, the two men pivoted back toward the entrance.

“Allow me,” Clint murmured.

With a series of blindingly fast, hyper-precise micro-movements of his fingers, the detective cleanly compromised the structural pins of the heavy padlock within seconds. To Simon’s untrained eyes, the effortless display of mechanical mastery looked practically indistinguishable from high-tier sorcery.

Stepping cautiously into the structure, they were instantly met by a narrow, claustrophobic corridor. Decades of industrial refuse and shattered machinery lay strewn across the floorboards, and a thick, chemical stench of volatile stripping agents utilized in wool processing saturated the atmosphere to a sickening degree. The oppressive, acrid vapor was so profoundly concentrated it could easily mask the heavy, metallic odor of fresh human blood from anyone passing by outside.

Navigating past the choke point of the corridor, the primary industrial workshop unfolded before them on the ground floor. Positioned squarely within the center of the vast, ink-black space where the silver moonlight failed to penetrate, Peter Matterson’s distinct silhouette materialized. A solitary, low-burning gas lantern offered a fragile pocket of illumination, though its weak radius left the sweeping corners of the massive room completely anchored in deep shadow. It was, however, more than sufficient to illuminate the monster’s features. Peter violently tore the stylized jester hat from his head, casting it aside before grasping a container and aggressively guzzling the liquid within—whether it was water or strong spirits was impossible to tell. Entirely convinced his operational sanctuary remained absolutely ironclad, his posture was completely devoid of defensive vigilance.

“We have verified the target location. We withdraw immediately,” Clint murmured, preparing to rotate their bodies toward the exit.

Before they could execute the retreat, Peter hoisted the low-burning gas lantern and walked toward a distant, heavily shadowed corner of the factory floor. Resting limply against the structural foundations of the wall was the form of a human being. It was the missing rookie officer.

‘Oh god… is he already dead?’

Simon’s breath caught violently in his throat. Peter delivered a sharp, mocking kick to the young officer’s ribs; the limp, seemingly lifeless torso executed a sudden, violent convulsion of pure agony. Though immensely relieved to confirm the rookie was still drawing breath, Simon could see from their vantage point that his physical condition was catastrophically poor. Even across the distance, the young man’s entire frame was vibrating with an intense, uncontrollable tremor of absolute terror.

‘What is he preparing to do to him?’

Peter violently seized a fistful of the rookie’s hair, callously dragging his battered body across the rough concrete floorboards. He dragged his victim straight toward a designated tool wall where a menacing array of industrial bone saws, specialized cleavers, and heavy iron chisels hung from heavy pegs. A horrific sequence of mental images instantly flashed through Simon’s mind, and the oppressive stench of wool chemicals suddenly seemed to warp into the unmistakable, iron flavor of freshly spilled blood.

‘I refuse to stand by and watch another human being get butchered!’

In the timeline existing prior to his regression, this young officer had never been murdered. If his direct interference in the timeline resulted in the gruesome execution of an innocent man who should have lived a full life, the crushing burden of guilt would be utterly unendurable. The rookie officer began to thrash against his restraints with a desperate, chaotic energy. Within those frantic physical movements, Simon could read the absolute, raw horror of impending death with perfect clarity. It was an agonizing psychological state that Simon understood more intimately than anyone else on earth.

The exact millisecond Peter’s fingers wrapped securely around the wooden handle of a heavy industrial bone saw, Simon’s cognitive defenses fractured entirely. Before his intellect could formulate a rational deterrent, his body acted on pure, unadulterated instinct.

Breaking cover, Simon charged across the open factory floor with terrifying velocity, lowering his center of gravity to throw his entire physical weight directly into the killer’s flank.

CRASH!!!

Fueled by absolute kinetic momentum, the sudden impact generated a devastating physical force. Caught completely unawares, Peter Matterson’s massive frame was violently upended, sending him crashing sideways into a heavy row of iron crates. Oof. Simon hit the floorboards with a punishing impact, rolling violently across the concrete. A sharp spike of adrenaline pierced his mind, bringing with it the immediate, terrifying realization that he had just executed an act of sheer, unmitigated madness.

Forcing his trembling muscles to comply, he frantically crawled toward the gasping rookie officer. Drawing a small pocket knife he had prudently concealed within his coat prior to leaving the estate, he rapidly began sawing through the thick cords binding the young man’s wrists. He managed to sever the wrist bonds and was desperately moving his blade toward the ankle restraints when a chilling voice echoed through the rafters.

“Well, well… what manner of pathetic little rat has managed to crawl its way into my sanctuary?”

Peter was already rising to his feet. Gripped firmly within his right hand was a massive, terrifyingly broad butchering cleaver. The heavy, razor-sharp edge looked brutally engineered to sever bone and muscle with a single downward stroke, its wicked silhouette instantly evoking horrific mental images of dismembered livestock.

Run. You must run immediately. If that blade touches you, you die. His primal survival instincts screamed at him with deafening volume. Agh. Simon violently spun his body around. Because he was already trapped in a kneeling posture on the floor, he was forced to frantically scramble on his hands and knees in a desperate bid to put distance between himself and the approaching monster.

With a lightning-fast strike, Peter’s thick hand clamped like an iron vise around Simon’s ankle. Before he could kick free, he was violently, ruthlessly dragged backward across the concrete.

“Aaagh!”

Peter thrust the burning gas lantern directly into Simon’s face, the intense, scorching thermal heat radiating from the glass envelope painfully brushing against his cheek. The killer tilted his head down to peer intently into Simon’s wide, terrified eyes, his pupils dilated to a manic, deeply psychotic degree. The polished, meticulously cultivated aristocratic persona of ‘Ashley Lewin’ had completely dissolved, leaving behind nothing but a raw, unhinged predator.

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the miserable little piece of trash who fed my identity to the authorities.”

The killer’s face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated homicidal rage, his gaze piercing through Simon like a physical blade. Simon instinctively attempted to tear his eyes away, but the pitch-black shadows enveloping the vast warehouse offered absolutely no visual anchor. His lungs locked completely, his chest constricting as a wave of paralyzing, visceral terror sent violent tremors through every fiber of his being.

“Actually, this is marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. Do you have even the faintest conception of the sheer volume of severe verbal abuse I was forced to endure from him solely because of your meddling?”

Peter hoisted Simon by his collar, shaking his slender frame as effortlessly as if he were a discarded sheet of parchment. Simon’s head spun violently, a wave of intense nausea threatening to overwhelm his stomach. From him? Verbal abuse? What on earth is he talking about?

“He explicitly commanded me that you were strictly off-limits, that your person was absolutely not to be touched… but given that my entire operation has been compromised, I suppose a permanent silencing is thoroughly in order, wouldn’t you agree? Hmm?”

Muttering the incoherent, cryptic thoughts aloud, Peter violently drove his heavy knee directly into Simon’s sternum, pinning his torso flat against the floorboards with crushing force. The exact microsecond the killer hoisted the massive cleaver high into the air to execute a terminal downward stroke, a brilliant flash of cold steel cleaved through the darkness.

In a silent, phantom-like advance, Clint materialized behind the killer’s flank, the tip of a discarded stiletto blade he had retrieved from the floorboards pressed firmly against the sensitive flesh of Peter’s throat. Confronted by the sudden, lethal threat to his life, Peter’s movements instantly locked in a state of sharp panic.

“Back away from him. Exceptionally slowly,” Clint commanded, his voice carrying a freezing, lethal cadence.

As Clint subtly adjusted the angle of his blade, Peter was forced to carefully shift his weight, gradually withdrawing his body away from Simon’s pinned torso. Simon let out a massive, trembling sigh of pure relief—but the sanctuary lasted only for a fraction of a second.

CLANG!

The entire exchange unfolded within the blink of an eye. Sensing a microsecond of divided focus, Peter violently hurled his heavy cleaver directly at Simon’s exposed chest. Reacting with near-superhuman kinetic reflexes, Clint executed a sweeping parry, his stiletto striking the flying cleaver mid-air to deflect it violently away from Simon’s body. Anticipating the exact defensive maneuver, Peter utilized that precise window to deliver a devastating, sweeping kick directly into Clint’s shin, reclaiming his heavy blade as he rapidly leapt backward to establish a safe operational distance.

“Tch,” Clint hissed, clicking his tongue in irritation as he reset his stance.

“So the pathetic little rat brought a highly capable watchdog along for the ride,” Peter sneered, aggressively spinning the heavy cleaver through the air as he prepared to lung forward. Assessing the dynamic threats in the room, his criminal intellect deduced that neutralizing the lethally trained detective was an absolute prerequisite before he could leisurely finish off the fragile noble.

A brutal, blindingly fast exchange of close-quarters combat instantly ignited within the deep shadows of the warehouse floor. Peter unleashed a relentless, overwhelming torrent of heavy slashes, consistently seeking to close the operational gap to negate Clint’s agility. The killer’s movements were terrifyingly rapid, his strikes meticulously engineered to target absolute vital points with horrifying anatomical precision.

Clint met the onslaught with flawless martial proficiency, his blade intercepting the heavy cleaver with terrifying speed. CLANG! CLANG! The sharp, deafening ring of steel colliding against steel echoed violently through the cavernous rafters. Yet, despite the detective’s clearly superior technical swordsmanship, he found it structurally impossible to cleanly neutralize the monster. Unlike Clint, Peter possessed absolute, flawless familiarity with the structural layout and hidden hazards of the abandoned factory floor. The environment itself was functioning as a silent adversary, stacking the tactical odds overwhelmingly against the detective.

Watching the deadly dance unfold from his position on the floor, Simon fiercely bit his lower lip until the metallic taste of blood registered on his tongue. If he hadn’t compromised their strategy out of a reckless impulse to play the hero, Clint would never have been forced into this lethal predicament. Yet, he rationally knew he could never have sustained his own sanity if he had simply stood by and watched a man get systematically butchered.

‘If this prolonged engagement continues, Clint is going to suffer a catastrophic injury. I have to intervene. I must do something.’

Even while his entire nervous system was vibrating with primal terror, his intellect desperately clawed for a solution.

‘But what can I possibly achieve?’

Attempting to clumsily thrust his physical body back into the direct line of combat would do absolutely nothing but create a lethal distraction for Clint to manage. Right at that exact microsecond, his eyes anchored onto the heavy gas lantern resting precariously along the edge of the central walkway.

‘That’s it.’

Dragging his trembling, unresponsive legs across the concrete, he literally crawled through the dust until his fingers securely wrapped around the handle of the operational gas lantern. He turned a fierce, unyielding gaze toward the shifting silhouettes of the combatants.

“Clint! Drop clear!”

The exact millisecond the warning tore from his throat, Simon channeled every single ounce of physical strength residing within his fragile frame to violently hurl the heavy gas lantern directly at Peter’s coordinates. Sensing the trajectory instantly, Clint executed a rapid, fluid rotation to disengage, leaping cleanly away from the killer’s flank. Peter caught the incoming projectile out of the corner of his eye and desperately sought to pivot his massive frame out of the direct impact zone. Simon had never realistically expected to achieve a direct physical strike against a target that agile; his tactical objective had solely been to force a temporary microsecond of pure, unadulterated cognitive distraction.

BOOM!

The heavy gas lantern shattered violently directly against the concrete at Peter’s feet, a bright, concussive burst of volatile fuel and sharp glass erupting upward. As a wall of sudden flame licked at his trousers, Peter instinctively stumbled backward, frantically stomping his feet to extinguish the embers.

It was the solitary operational window Clint required. Exploiting the fractured defense with terrifying speed, the detective lunged forward, channeling the entirety of his mass into a devastating, piston-like punch delivered squarely into Peter’s exposed solar plexus.

THUD!

The sheer kinetic force of the strike launched Peter’s massive torso backward, his spine slamming heavily against the floorboards. His limbs executed a few shallow, erratic twitches before his entire body went completely, utterly limp. He was entirely unconscious.

Taking absolutely no chances with a predator of this caliber, Clint maintaining his crushing posture, planting a heavy boot firmly onto the center of the killer’s chest while keeping the razor-sharp edge of his blade anchored securely against the hollow of the man’s throat.

“Mr. Grayan. Are you unharmed?”

“Y-Yes… yes! I am perfectly intact!”

“Excellent. Kindly survey the immediate vicinity for a length of industrial rope… or any material capable of securing a high-risk asset.”

“Material to bind him… wait a single moment! I believe I noted something appropriate just a second ago…!”

Hurrying toward the nearby tool wall draped in industrial saws, Simon frantically retrieved a thick coil of heavy utility rope and rushed back to press it into Clint’s hands. With a series of highly practiced, incredibly secure knots, the detective systematically bound Peter’s wrists and ankles until the killer was entirely immobilized.

As Clint finalized the restraints, Simon casually allowed his gaze to drift across their immediate surroundings. With his vision now fully acclimated to the deep darkness of the factory floor, and with the flickering remnants of the shattered lantern casting dancing, elongated shadows across the room, the hidden contents of the workshop finally materialized within his field of view. His eyes locked directly onto an object resting on a raised platform just a few feet away.

“Oh god—!”

It was the severed head of a horse. Positioned immediately adjacent to the equine remains, arranged with meticulous, stomach-churning precision across a series of polished silver serving platters, lay the carefully harvested heads of a large rat and a mature rooster. The sheer, unadulterated horror of the macabre display struck Simon with such a violent visceral force that he felt himself teetering on the absolute precipice of sobbing aloud.

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