(WLTK) Book 2 - Arc 1 Epilogue

The office might have been anywhere. Four walls painted in a shade of beige so generic it seemed designed to discourage memory, a cheap wall clock whose steady tick set the rhythm of the room, a steel-and-composite desk that had all the personality of a filing cabinet. Even the air smelled neutral — a mix of paper, dust, and recycled ventilation.

The only anomaly sat against the back wall: a bank of humming servers, their soft lights blinking in patterns too quick for the casual eye. The machine on the desk — a sleek, ultramodern terminal with a screen polished to a mirror sheen — remained untouched, gathering dust under the faint glow of the fluorescent light.

The plain-looking man sitting at the desk didn’t even look at it. He did not look at the hum of data or the muted displays. His attention belonged to the papers in front of him, the quiet scratch of pen on page filling the silence. He flipped, signed, set aside. Flipped, signed, set aside. A rhythm, relentless and unbroken.

The silence broke with a knock.

The man paused, pen hovering over the page. He tilted his head, listening for half a beat, then set the pen down and spoke without looking up. “Come in.”

The door creaked open. Jonny stepped inside, his swagger muted by the dim light and the stale hush. He wore the same cocky half-smile, but it faltered as the man at the desk finally lifted his eyes.

“Shut the door,” the man said. The command landed like a weight.

Jonny obeyed without comment, easing the door closed until the latch clicked. The office swallowed the faint noise of the hallway, leaving only the hum of machines and the sharp beat of the clock.

“Sit.” A curt nod toward the scuffed chair opposite the desk.

Jonny slid into it, trying for easy confidence, but the metal legs squealed across the floor and killed the effect.

Gresham laced his fingers, elbows resting on the desk’s edge. His gaze fixed on Jonny with a weight sharper than words. The ticking clock swelled in Jonny’s ears. Seconds stretched long enough that Jonny’s easy grin faltered. He shifted, fingers drumming his knee, then stopped when the sound felt too loud. His eyes darted to the blank walls, the blinds, the humming servers. He swallowed.

Just as he opened his mouth to fill the silence, the man across from him spoke.

“What do you have for me?”

Jonny straightened as if yanked upright by strings. “Ah! Yes, Capo Gresham.” His hand dove into his jacket, producing first a weathered scrap of parchment inked in curling calligrams, and then a neat stack of photographs, edges worn from their quick journey through too many pockets. He set both on the desk with careful precision, as if the ritual of the offering mattered.

Gresham did not reach for them immediately. His gaze flicked from talisman to photos, then back to Jonny, as if weighing the measure of the man against the weight of what he brought. Only after that silent calculation did his hand unfold, slow and deliberate, to draw the talisman closer.

The parchment caught the light oddly, the etched lines seeming to ripple as he turned it. His thumb brushed across the surface, and for the barest instant, the ink shimmered, like oil on water.

“Interesting,” Gresham murmured. He set it down with equal care, then shifted to the photos. He flipped them one by one, the faint rasp of paper loud against the hum of the servers. His expression did not change, but the rhythm of his turning slowed. His eyes lingered.

Jonny leaned forward, tapping the corner of the photographs with a practiced flick, as though unveiling a prized hand of cards. “Here’s what the shop’s stocking. Can’t say why anyone would open a pet shop in the Crossroads, but from the look of it, it’s all high-end. Real high-end.” He fanned the photos wider across the desk, tapping one with his fingertip, then another. “Had the boys dig around. Some of these brands don’t even sell outside of Central.”

Gresham’s expression didn’t so much as ripple. His gloved fingers turned the stack with patient precision, the dry rasp of paper loud in the stale air. He lingered on nothing, eyes skimming with the same even weight, before he finally spoke. “How did you get these?”

Jonny’s grin slid back, fast and sharp. He puffed up in his chair, shoulders rolling back, chest swelling like a rooster ready to crow. “Old trick. Make some noise, kick a shelf, rattle a few cages. Let the shopkeeper’s eyes stick to the fool causing a scene. Meanwhile, one of your boys slips in and does the real work. Snap, snap, done. Pulled the same stunt more times than I can count.”

The corner of Gresham’s mouth twitched — whether it was amusement or disdain, Jonny couldn’t say. His eyes stayed on the photos, unmoving, until they settled on one that captured a row of glass tanks. Minerals and powders glimmered inside, each labeled in tidy script. The faintest hum escaped him as he slid it to the side.

“Curious.” The word came out even, almost mild, but the weight behind it pressed down hard enough to make Jonny shift in his chair.

“Yeah,” Jonny muttered, scratching at his jaw as if the itch had just crawled up on him. “Doesn’t add up, right? This ain’t Central. Folks out here ain’t paying for polished steel feeders or magic collars.”

Gresham gathered the photographs into a sharp-edged stack, aligning them with deliberate precision before laying them aside. His gaze lowered to the parchment talisman. He lifted it again, rolling it between two fingers, following the curling ink lines as though reading something hidden in their shape.

“And this?” His voice came quietly, but it carried a weight that left no room for dismissal. Smoke soft, iron sure.

Jonny shrugged, forcing a chuckle. “Some kinda gimmick. ‘Beast Talisman,’ or so the tag said. Bridge claimed it’s their specialty. Sounds like bull to me. Marketing trick, most likely.”

The look Gresham gave him was sharp enough to cut. “Bridge?”

Jonny hesitated, then scratched his nose. “The shopkeeper claimed he was Sarah Bridge’s brother.”

That earned a reaction —a narrowing of Gresham’s eyes, slow and dangerous. “Sarah Bridge… hmmm.”

Jonny nodded quickly. “Yeah. But c’mon, no way it’s really him. What would a Central boy like that be doing out here? If you ask me, it’s some fool trying to dress the place up with a name people’ll recognize.”

Gresham turned the talisman over once more, the ink lines catching the light like wet oil. Without warning, he pressed it flat against the back of his hand.

Jonny shrugged, forcing a thin chuckle. “Some kind of gimmick. ‘Beast Talisman,’ least that’s what the tag called it. Bridge claimed it was their specialty. Sounds like smoke to me. Some kinda Central scam. It’s gotta be.”

The look Gresham leveled at him cut sharper than a blade. “Bridge?”

Jonny froze for half a beat before covering the pause with a scratch at his nose. “Ya… the shopkeeper claimed he was Sarah Bridge’s brother.”

That earned him a reaction. Gresham’s eyes narrowed, the motion slow and dangerous, as though the name carried barbs. “Sarah Bridge… hmmm.”

Jonny bobbed his head quickly. “Yeah. But come on, no way it’s really him. What would a Central boy like that be doing out here? If you ask me, it’s just some fool trying to dress the place up with a name folks’ll recognize.”

Gresham sifted through the stack of pictures until he came across a particular one. A polished plaque hanging over the front counter. His eyes narrowed, and he frowned.

The man turned back to the talisman in his other hand, spinning it in his fingers, the curling ink glistening under the light like slick oil. Then, without warning, he pressed it flat against the back of his hand.

Jonny jolted half out of his seat. “Whoa—!”

The parchment dissolved into liquid lines, seeping into Gresham’s skin like spilled ink. They swirled beneath the surface, writhing in deliberate patterns until they coalesced into a tattoo: a grasping tentacle etched across the back of his hand.

A low chuckle escaped Gresham’s throat.

He flexed his fingers. The tattoo pulsed once, then his flesh warped. Fingers split and stretched, transforming into slick, writhing tentacles that twitched and curled with a mind of their own.

Jonny gaped, words catching in his throat. His grin was gone, replaced by the sharp swallow of fear.

“I see,” Gresham murmured, rotating his altered hand, studying it from different angles as if he were appraising a fine blade.

Then he lifted his other hand. Color drained from it in an instant, the flesh collapsing inward until it sagged like molten wax. In the span of a breath, the shapeless grey mass reformed, snapping into an exact replica of the tentacled hand. The twin sets of appendages writhed in eerie unison.

Gresham’s grin spread wide and jagged, with far too many teeth.

“Very interesting.”