It was the year 1503, in the heart of Rome. Disease festered in the narrow streets, and fear clung to every stone. The poor and the desperate crowded into crumbling buildings, praying for relief that never came.
Malfattoβs apothecary sat on a crooked alleyway near the marketplace β a small, grim place known only to those who had nowhere else to turn. Inside, the shop was dim and heavy with the stench of old herbs and decay. Shelves sagged under the weight of dirty glass bottles filled with tinctures and foul-smelling remedies. Dried plants hung from the rafters, their brown leaves shedding dust onto the cracked floor. Instruments of crude medicine β scissors, scalpels, clamps β were scattered across a blood-stained counter. A single candle burned low, casting thin shadows against the walls.
Malfatto moved with the same mechanical precision he always did, folding strips of linen into clean, narrow bandages. His hands worked, but his mind wandered β not to healing, but to the hunt.
There was a woman, he had seen her days ago β vibrant, loud, a carrier of corruption. Her laugh had echoed too freely through the marketplace. Her touch had lingered too long on strangers' sleeves. She would be the next.
He tightened the fold with an almost imperceptible twitch of pleasure.
The door creaked open behind him.
His hands froze mid-motion, the linen slipping between his gloved fingers. Without turning, he listened: the hesitant shuffle of feet, the wheeze of uncertain breath. A supplicant. A patient. Or perhaps something more interesting.
He spoke without looking up, voice hollow through the beaked mask.
"What afflicts you, child of Rome?"
Inside, a small smile curled unseen beneath the mask. Whether they sought a cure or salvation, the answer would always be the same. Only death could cleanse them.