The flickering gas lamp cast a rhythmic, dying pulse over the round table as Mephisto fanned out the silver-encrusted Tarot cards. One by one, the patrons leaned in, their faces tight with a mixture of skepticism and a desperate need for hope. As the cards turned, the "Professor" in Faust began to weave together the fragments of the night's disaster.
Through the readings and the hushed whispers of the survivors, the true scale of the havoc came into focus.
As he did divinations more and more details were shared by the people inside.
The overwhelming "scent of blood" Faust had encountered upon entering wasn't the mass execution of humans he had feared; much of it was the spilled contents of an alchemist's stall, mixed with the thick, dark ichor of a Tarasque that had been slain in the initial chaos. He learned of a nameless hunter who had managed to blind one of the beasts before being forced into the shadows, and that most of the market's residents were still alive, barricaded inside the stone-walled buildings of the lower ward.
"We just have to wait," Renard muttered, his eyes fixed on the "Three of Pentacles" Mephisto had placed on the table. "The wards will hold. The reinforcements will come."
But Faust's intuition suddenly lurched in a violent, discordant rhythm—a warning that had nothing to do with the cards.
Without a thought, driven by a primal premonition, Mephisto threw his muscular frame backward. A set of long, obsidian-black claws erupted from the darkness behind him, swiping through the space where his throat had been a millisecond before. The silver Tarot cards flew into the air, shimmering like falling stars in the dim light.
From the absolute ink of the corner, a voice resounded—not a roar, but a cultured, terrifyingly soft vibration that seemed to bypass the ears and speak directly to the soul.
"Brother... I feel a familiar scent."
A figure stepped into the weak circle of the gaslight. It was an enigmatic, towering presence with the head of a goat, its curved horns grazing the low wooden beams of the ceiling. Its eyes were not reptilian like the Tarasque, but deep, bottomless pits of intelligence and ancient malice.
"Are you a human..? Or are you merely wearing the skin of one?" the figure mused, its gaze locked on the nearly naked Mephisto.
"It can't be..." the spice merchant, Maria, whimpered, her voice trembling so violently the table shook. "Baphomet?"
As soon as the name was uttered, the laws of physics seemed to dissolve.
The wooden floor beneath Faust's bare feet didn't just break; it liquefied. He felt as though he were no longer standing in a Parisian bar, but drowning in a vast, weightless sea of shadows.
The "Ars Goetia" in his pocket felt like a lead weight, pulling him deeper into the abyss. The faces of Renard, Barnaby, and the terrified merchants smeared into grey streaks as the darkness rose to meet him.
Faust tried to reach for his revolver, but his limbs felt like they were made of cooling wax.
The last thing he saw before the world went black was the goat-headed figure's knowing, flecked gaze—a mirror of his own eyes.