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Sebastien read over all the information Caedis had given him along with the papers he found on the desk in the bedroom.

          Caedis' man, Henry, was in Alder Estate to investigate some strange animal sightings the locals reported. Henry had documented and followed several of the animals, and in the pictures he'd managed to get of them, they looked like walking corpses. And as for the strange things he'd been seeing inside the house.... Well, his reports were enough to unsettle anyone, but the pictures had Sebastien feeling a little hesitant.

          "What the hell is going on out here?" he asked himself, examining the pictures of the walking corpses and the strange blurs in the photos Henry had taken around the house. Some of the blurs looked human-shaped, but some looked more animal-like.

          Henry hadn't gotten to the bottom of anything, though. There were leads, however—leads that Sebastien could follow and perhaps use to get answers. Caedis just told him that the estate's groundskeeper started feeling sick after coming out of the basement, so that was where Sebastien would start. He was a demon after all, so he didn't have to worry about catching anything.

          With a quiet sigh, he put the papers in his hands down and glanced at the file with Henry's information on it. It said that Henry was a two-hundred-year-old demon; if whatever might be lingering here was able to take him down—if he was even dead—then Sebastien needed to take caution. He wasn't going to be careless.

          He got up and left the room. As he made his way through the house, the floor creaked at his every step, and the walls rattled as though there were rats crawling around inside them. It reminded him a little of Aldergrove Academy, and for a moment, he let himself wonder...what if this place was home to a hungry, ancient spirit, too? He'd learned from experience that spirits liked taking hold of large, old buildings like this.

          No. If this house was possessed, he'd be able to feel it. After all, he was a creature meant to serve and feed ancient entities.

          But he didn't want to think about any of that. Aldergrove Academy was behind him.

          Sebastien headed downstairs and found the door to the cellar in the service corridor. He didn't head straight down, though. First, he used his ethos to see if there were any auras down there...but there was nothing. The room at the bottom of the stairs felt as empty as his heart.

          So, he made his way down into the darkness.

          But that was when the smell returned. That repulsive, suffocating stench of rotting meat—a smell that could only belong to a corpse that had been left to decompose.

          This time, though...it was moving.

          The smell twisted around inside Sebastien's nostrils, ensnaring his heightened senses. He stopped dead in his tracks, focusing on it.

          It was right in front of him.

          And then it was to his left.

          Above him.

          Behind him.

          To his right.

          And then below him.

          It stayed below him.

          Sebastien looked down, peering through the gap between the step he was standing on and the one beneath him. His eyes let him see through the dark almost as if it were day, but everything was shades of grey. And there...hiding between a stack of crates and the mossy brick wall...was something that didn't belong. Something that his instincts were telling him was a threat. Something...alive?

          He let his claws extend from his fingers and prepared to fight, making his way down to the bottom of the stairs. Then, as his heart started beating a little harder, he made his way around the stairs and towards the crates. And as he edged nearer, his body tensed up—

          Sebastien pounced in front of the crates, ready to face what was waiting for him...but there was nothing there. Nothing but an empty space between them and the wall.

          Something scurried along the floor behind him.

          He swung around with a started grunt and scanned the darkness, but he couldn't see anything that might make the sounds he was hearing.

          And that smell. It was moving around the room like some sort of spectre he couldn't see, slithering like a snake.

          It was above him.

          Sebastien looked up—

          He had no time to see what fell on him. It shrieked like a dying animal, pushing him down onto his back, and when he hit the floor, he flailed his arms in a panic and smacked it away.

          The creature hit the crates, and with a horrific screech and the sound of shattering wood, it raced past Sebastien and disappeared again.

          Sebastien hurried to his feet and frantically searched the darkness. The smell raced around him, as did the sound of scampering feet, and he felt it was safe to assume that the smell was coming from the creature that had attacked him. But what was it?

          "Come on!" Sebastien dared it, baring his fangs.

          It scurried around him—there!

          Sebastien sprung towards the shelf it was racing past, but it moved so quickly that it was gone in the blink of an eye.

          He swung around—

          It was climbing up a wall! He growled and rushed towards it, but with a hiss, the creature scurried up onto the ceiling and headed towards the stairs.

          "You aren't going anywhere," Sebastien growled, heading for the stairs himself. He had no idea what it was; he'd caught a glimpse before it raced onto the ceiling—it was shaped like a small dog with a large bushy tail, but its fur was matted and covered in something dark, and he could have sworn he saw exposed bone all over its body.

          He reached the stairs just as the creature came off the ceiling and ran across the wall. It was going for the door.

          Sebastien ran up the stairs as quickly as he could in pursuit of the creature, but when he burst out of the basement, he didn't give his eyes a moment to adjust to the sunlight, and a blinding flash of white light struck his sight.

          "Fuck!" he growled, rubbing his eyes as he stumbled out of the basement and collided with whatever piece of furniture was sitting against the wall.

          He couldn't lose it!

          With a shake of his head and as his vision started adjusting, he spotted the creature running along the marble floor. And in the light of day, he could see exactly what it was.

          A racoon? No...its body was rotten—its flesh and bones were exposed, yet it was running as though it were alive.

          Sebastien raced after it, chasing it through the stretching hall ensnared by flower-sprouting vines. But when they reached the sunroom, he watched the creature intentionally avoid the blue flowers as it desperately fled.

          There was some missing glass in the wall dead ahead—it was going to get away!

          With a strained grunt, Sebastien forced himself to move faster. He held out a clawed hand, getting closer and closer and closer—

          The creature stumbled on a vine and fell. Its mangled body rolled across the floor, and when it hit one of the flowers, the animal shrieked and cried as its mangled body convulsed and sizzled.

          Sebastien stopped and watched the creature perish before his eyes. Putrid blue smoke came from its rotten body as it burned, crying out in agony with its distorted, monstrous voice.

          And then it fell silent.

          Its body stopped sizzling and smoking...and the revolting stink faded to something more tolerable.

          Sebastien had no idea what he was seeing, though...or what he had just witnessed. This thing looked like a racoon, but its fur was matted and soaked in rotten blood. Part of its skull was exposed, and through its visible ribs were its decaying organs. Its lifeless, horrifying eyes were crimson, and from its jagged-tooth-filled mouth oozed a black liquid.

          Why did this thing die from simply touching a flower? It was wolfsbane, something that only affected wolf walkers—it didn't even affect wolf walkers in the way it just did that racoon.

          His racing heart started calming, and his instincts let him know that he was no longer in danger, so he retracted his claws and slowly crouched in front of the racoon.

          There wasn't much else to see. But now that he was a little closer, this thing looked similar to the creatures he'd seen in Henry's photographs. Of course, this racoon was much smaller, but it was still just as disgusting.

          "What the hell are you?" he muttered to himself...and his impulsive thoughts urged him to stretch out a finger and poke it.

          But he kept himself from acting on those thoughts. This thing came out of the basement, and for all he knew, it could be this racoon which made the groundskeeper sick—this racoon could be the source of the sickness spreading through Alderon. He wasn't going to risk catching an illness which was making people cough to the point they were throwing up. No thanks.

          He stood up and scratched the side of his face. At least he now knew where that awful smell was coming from. Could the racoon have been down in the wine cellar? Maybe that was why it smelled like a rotting corpse down there, too.

          Caedis would probably want to know about this.

          No.... Sebastien didn't want to get snapped at again or reeled into doing something else for him. He had to be sure that this racoon was involved. But how? He wasn't a scientist; he couldn't cut it open and test its blood and see if it was infected with whatever was making the humans in Alderon sick.

          It made sense though, right? People start reporting seeing strange animals, Henry snaps pictures of rotting creatures around the estate, and Sebastien finds one of them in the place where the first human got sick.

          The only way he could be absolutely certain...would be to get a human to touch it. He was supposed to be finding out what was responsible, though, not making more people sick.

          What would Clementine do in this situation?

          Sebastien felt a sharp pain in his chest. But he couldn't let his grief cloud his mind right now. Clementine was smart—he always seemed to have answers or a smart plan.

          Clementine would probably hit the books. He'd dig through Aldergrove Academy's esteemed library for answers, and books proved fairly useful back then. But where would he find a library out here that might have books on diseases and such?

          He stared down at the creature. This wasn't just some standard disease though, was it? That racoon's body was mangled before it stumbled and touched that flower—and the stench. Sebastien had never seen or heard anything like it, and since he hadn't sensed an aura down in that basement, he felt he wasn't being too absurd thinking that this creature was might be undead.

          But once again, he had to be sure.

          Sebastien looked to his left and right and then back down at the racoon. He needed to put it somewhere safe in case something got in through the holes in the glass and took it away. Sure, it was rotten and disgusting, so no animal would come near it, but he didn't want to risk leaving it here and coming back to it being gone.

          There was a large painted vase over by the window.

          He headed over to the case and grabbed it, as well as a hand trowel. Then, he placed the vase on its side next to the racoon and used the trowel to push its body inside.

          "Ugh," he uttered with a grimace as the rotting stench grew stronger with each movement of its body.

          Once it was inside the vase, he carried it out of the sunroom and into the house's entrance hall. Where could he put it?

          Sebastien looked around, and when he spotted an empty glass display cabinet, he headed over, pulled the door open, and put the vase inside.

          There. It'd be safe there until he got back.

          He headed outside and towards his car. But as he approached it, he saw that several wolfsbane-sprouting vines had slithered under the car and around the front right tire.

          Sebastien sighed irritably and pulled the vines from the tire. As they snapped, they released shimmering blue spores, which floated to the ground and soaked into the dirt. They'd probably grow into flowers in less than half a day.

          He got into the car and started it. But he didn't immediately drive off. For a moment, he sat there and stared at the house. He didn't know what it was, but there was something about it. Something that felt familiar. It wasn't a strong enough feeling to convince him the place was like Aldergrove Academy, but it was enough to make him feel as though he was going to be dealing with more than undead racoons.

          And if Henry was in there, Sebastien felt that Caedis was right. He was probably dead. He either got sick and died, or something else was responsible.

          Sebastien would find the answers, though. But first, he needed to get into town and search for a library.

          He sighed quietly and set off, driving around the courtyard and towards the gates. Hopefully, he'd be able to find a book that could help him identify what that rotting racoon was, and whether or not it was responsible for the sickness.

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