Something x To x Behold
I knew from the first time I killed, that it would be the thing I do best for the rest of my life. It felt so right. It felt so…
Wrong.
And I loved it, despite how much it hurt. At least my father had a smile as he bled out.
Lights flickered through the halls of Kirkbride Aslyum’s hallways as inmates howled and screamed, begging for a variety of wants and needs. Profanity and depraved requests alike filled the air as the criminally insane roared to their soul’s content.
The two men stationed outside of the interview room stood silent, the door sealed shut. Nothing short of a small nuclear blast could penetrate the walls of the interview room, which had been designed with help from the Hunter Association; most of the staff at the asylum were blissfully unaware of Nen, but the Warden was not one of them. She, like her predecessor, knew what Nen users could do if they put their mind to it – and thus the walls were built to last anything short of a disaster on a scale that would attract the attention of Hunters, likely the only folks who could help in such a situation.
“Jericho,” she said, sitting across from the man with a brain like a supercomputer, who could outpace even the smartest lawyers and criminal justice experts, who had at any time a half dozen escape plans he chose to not follow through with because he found being imprisoned more interesting. “We are willing to reduce your sentence if you cooperate.”
“Reduce my sentence?” He shook his head, chuckling. Or rather he shook it as much as he could given the restraints, the cone over his head to prevent him from biting, the straight-jacket he was never allowed out of. Jericho’s brows furrowed as he looked at Talia Ledger, who swallowed. “You can’t just say that. How much? A few hundred life sentences? I’ll still be in here til the day I die that way, and you know that isn’t a good deal.”
“It’s the best we can do. The best I’m willing to do.”
“Even if it’s the difference between saving your daughter and letting her die?”
Talia’s eyes widened, watching as Jericho grinned. The criminal mastermind watched her eyes twitch and her lips tremble, looking for words and motives at once. Talia believed that he might know something about the Angel of Death, and that gave him advantage. For all she knew, he knew the next victim – she had reason to, thanks to that anonymous phone call, though he could hardly give away too much.
Of course, Talia knew that Jericho was aware of what she knew. She had dealt with him before. But…
“What do you know about my daughter?”
“Oh, not much about her, Talia. But what I do know…” He laughed a bit, his body shaking. “The Angel of Death hasn’t settled on his next project. And he may or may not be inclined to help make a statement about the criminal justice system again, after hearing a few words from his good friend Jericho.” He was bluffing, of course – but it was a threat he had to make clear. Truth was, he did have contacts that could kill Talia’s daughter for him if he so choose. But Talia didn’t know that. Her eyes widened as he simply waited for a response.
“If a hair on her head is harmed, Jericho, you will never, ever see the sunlight again.”
“Then you better make me a better deal.” Jericho smiled. “I’ll help you find him and I’ll set him up for you, if that’s what you want, but I want to be able to walk free again. I don’t particularly want to break out if I don’t have to, but you love to give me no choice, don’t you?”
Talia ground her teeth, her nails tapping on the table between them. Jericho so badly wanted to move his arms, to make grand gestures to show that he was not afraid, but he couldn’t in the straight jacket. No matter. He would be getting his way soon.
“Tell him not to kill her. Make sure he leaves my daughter out of it.”
“Of course. After I get what I want.”
“No,” Talia said, her voice sharp as a knife. “I – Jericho, you bastard, how did you even find out about my daughter?”
He had heard about her from another inmate he had overhear discussions that Talia and the guards had when they thought no one was listened, but he wasn’t about to spill any secrets. “I know most things, Talia. It’s how I stayed out of jail for so long, until I got bored of escaping arrest. I thought an asylum would be good for my mental health.”
Talia stared, looking for signs of weakness in Jericho, signs of a bluff. But there were none.
“Fine,” she said. “Give me your terms.”
Jericho grinned. Things would be turning out well for him sooner than expected.
- - -
The streets of Yorknew were dark and filled with terror.
A fog had come over the city on this night, the ocean breeze carrying a fine chill that left the damp city feeling numb. In the faint silvery glow of the mist, the man clad In white pants and suit seemed to be little more than a pair of floating red gloves, a dark black coat flowing behind him, a helmet with red around the T-shaped pane of glass that hid his face while allowing him to see through, and a shield of black steel wrapped around two red plastic half-circles surrounding a shallow cone of red steel at the center. With every step he moved the white of his suit and pants blended into the fog, vanishing, as if he were an invisible man wearing some strange, not-quite-right medieval-themed get-up. For as strange as it looked to any who glanced his way, the man moved with utmost confidence, as if he was dressed in a perfectly normal manner.
For him, though, he was.
He walked through the fog, eyes scanning the alleyways of downtown Yorknew, in a neighborhood known as Butcher’s Lane by the locals, though officially it was called Cherry Cove – a small inlet, where the Upper Bay came into the residential neighbohoods of Yorknew, and the Sodhun River ran along it. The riverbanks here were terraced to prevent mass run-off during the harsh rain storms that hit from time to time, but some folks had started living down on the river, fishing in its polluted waters for food. Even if it was illegal to do so.
But that was not why the man was here.
He was here because he had no idea where else to go, and was making his rounds through the city. Butcher’s Lane, a rather poor area, had significant activity from the gang known as Lenny and the Jets. The gang that he and Jaune had determined to be more than just a gang.
[Having arrived at Kirkbridge Asylum, with the proper paperwork to talk to the... “patients” who were associated with Lenny and the Jets, Jaune and Keanu found themselves in a rather depressing waiting room. Grey walls with grey posters of smiling faces, ones that clearly had been yellow in their original rendition, surrounded them, while a receptionist took calls that she rerouted to doctors, wardens, and administrative staff. A poster about suicide prevention near a telephone for making phone calls while waiting kept drawing Keanu’s eye, though Jaune seemed intently focused on the receptionist. Who seemed to not notice, even though the fellow detective had simply been staring at her for nearly half an hour.
Keanu had given up trying to hold conversation with Jaune as soon as he realized the man had nothing to say while they waited. Having read the only interesting articles in a year old edition of a gardening magazine, which was to say having looked at a few pictures of vegetables and fruit that other people had grown in interesting ways. Interesting, in the sense that if Keanu had cared about gardening they would have held his interest, that is.
Eventually they had been called in, and brought to a visitation room, where a man with long, mangy hair, a beard splaying at the ends, and a look of desperation on his face sat in a straight jacket. The man’s mouth moved rapidly, shaping out “Lenny,” over and over again, though he said nothing as his eyes darted between the two detectives.
Keanu and Jaune both knew what to do. As soon as they had sat down they had activated Gyo, hoping to see aura – the questions were for show with the asylum staff, though the man’s lack of response still bothered Keanu.
Until he saw the Nen that surrounded the man – surrounded was the true word, it was not simply coming out of the man like normal, it was swirling around him, as if in a maelstrom of chaos. Tendrils rose up from his limbs and to his head, and he could see black threads running from his head to organs and through blood vessels. A thread seemed to come out from the man, before suddenly fraying – as if cut thread.
Never had Keanu seen something like that, nor had Jaune. Nen, even Manipulation Nen, didn’t trace back to the user – yet this seemed as if there was a remnant of the Hatsu that had been used, as if it were still active. The frayed aura at the top of the man flailed wildly, but soon a pattern was recognized; it went in between pointing towards Keanu and Jaune, and a third point, and never elsewhere.
They left with the knowledge that Nen was in play, but what exactly they were unsure. Presumably it was Manipulation; that made the most sense, given the traits of the Lennies, and that Conjuration on that level would be absurdly difficult to pull off. But still, none of that answered questions they had not been able to reason out already. Who was pulling the strings? Who was running them? And were they related to the Angel of Death in the first place, or not?]
It wasn’t Lenny and the Jets that had drawn the man here, even if they had a lot of activity along Butcher’s Lane. In fact, the man was not planning to stay here longer than he had to; he was going to be making his way towards downtown, where he had discerned some potentially useful information was. But somehow he had ended up here.
The sound of crunching glass entered his ears from behind and to the left. He whipped around, a momentary panic crossing his mind as he realized someone was approaching and he had not noticed until they stepped on the glass. In a moment the Ghost of Crane Town faced the alleyway from which the sound had come, his eyes scanning the darkness – and then he saw a flicker of movement, just barely.
“Come out before I have to act!” he shouted, his voice carrying with weight, the way he had to speak when dealing with criminals. He didn’t know for sure that this man was one, but if he was sneaking about in alleyways in Butcher’s Lane…
He listened for the sound of movement, using Gyo to heighten his hearing by focusing it in his ears; his ears, sacrificing his usual concentration of aura in his shield using Shu. The usefulness of Master Shield was limited significantly when he couldn’t tell where he needed his shield; no amount of Shu would make his shield able to defend him from an attack that he didn’t block with the rubber and steel shield, after all.
The sound of hard plastic on concrete at a faster than walking pace reached his ears, but it did not come from where he had expected. The Ghost of Crane Town swore as he turned around, instantly switching from Gyo to Shu, focusing his aura to begin the use of Master Shield; he had no idea what to expect from the man he now saw running down the street towards him, though the presence of a rather dangerous looking baseball bat with nails, screws, and even what seemed to be a large bread knife blade sticking out from it told him it would be nothing good. That he wore only a red scarf just confirmed the Ghost’s suspicions, and without a moment of hesitation he swung his shield forward.
The man’s eyes widened a second later as the shield slammed into his gut, a groan of pain all the man got out as the aura-strengthened shield drove him back a few feet. The red-scarf wearing man’s bare feet scrapped against the ground, and at last the Ghost realized the man was nude except for the scarf that ran down his chest, his stomach, covering his crotch just so conveniently.
He paused a moment, taken aback by the brazen indecency, while the man’s baseball bat clanged to the ground. He began to sag, hands falling to the Ghost’s shield…
So what if he’s naked, he’s not going to just leave you alone because it makes you uncomfortable, Keanu!
The thought shook the Ghost out of it, and with a snap of his head he threw his hand out, focusing on the shield once more before the Shu wore off and it became nothing more than a regular shield. His Boomerang Hatsu kicked into gear as he brought the shield flying back towards him, only to realize that the man was flying towards him with it. Scarf fluttering in the breeze…
No amount of talking himself into not being shaken by the man’s nudity could stop the Ghost from doing what he did next. He panicked, ceasing his use of Boomerang but not his use of Master Shield’s use of Shu; the shield and the man continued flying with their current trajectory as the Ghost stepped to the side, letting both careen into the wall of the alleyway, the man toppling headfirst into an array of metal garbage bins in a clattering. The shield clanged to the ground, and he activated Boomerang once more, returning it to his hands before starting to back away.
The Ghost wasn’t above fighting someone who was a criminal, nor was he necessarily afraid of being beat. But he did feel a sense of dread and apprehension about the man all the same; not only was he one of the Lennies from the look of it, he was apparently insane!
He spotted the bat and grabbed it, deciding he could take that away from him at the very least. He plaed the handle into his arm pit, careful not to cut himself, and pulled his cell phone out. A quick dial to the police to alert them of an unconscious, naked man in the alleyway later and he was racing off to leave Butcher’s Lane, throwing the baseball bat into the river where it would be hard pressed to hurt anyone ever again.
He continued walking through the city for a while yet, his shield on his back and trying to avoid crowded areas. But as he approached his destination, the streets became more crowded, and soon he took to the rooftops, bounding between them and blending into the fogs and lights, unseen by the common folk of the city. Someone looking for Nen users might have felt his passing by, but he didn’t need to hide himself from anyone who had the ability to do so.
It was a good thing he had reached out to a contact of his earlier in the day, to get confirmation as to where he needed to go. Despite the V6’s efforts there were always ways to get information on where someone was if one knew the right people, had the right resources, or simply had the determination to spend any expense to find the person they were looking for. The Ghost knew he was risking his job in doing this, but he couldn’t let the lead go cold – if he was to find out what was going on, he needed to talk to a man who had survived the Angel.
A Ghost and an Angel get into a fight. Who wins?
The Ghost cracked a grin. Jaune would not like to find out he had gone out to do this alone, but it had to be done.
When he found the house he had been told to go to, he shifted his aura once again. He was getting tired of maintaining the Shu around his shield, but he didn’t have much more time to do so. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, was all he needed. He could spare that.
He landed on the roof, silent as a mouse, fingers pressing into shingles as he pressed a knee down, squaring himself as he closed his eyes. There had been no guards around the house’s perimeter, but that did not mean there were none inside. He extended his aura with En, feeling for a sense of how many people were in the house; his En did not have quite enough radius to reach the ground, but anyone on an upper floor he would be able to detect, giving him time to figure out an entry through the upper story windows.
One… no, two… three. Three people; two seemed to be in the periphery of his En, and given the time, he supposed that they were sleeping. A third, moving about, was just below him. Which left a few rooms open, based on the number of windows the house had.
None of the inhabitants seemed to be Nen users, and so he proceeded. With caution all the same. If Dr. Galileo had been involved in the experiment on Sark, he was at the very least aware of Nen. Which meant he knew those who could use it, or could himself. That he did an experiment on it suggested he was a Nen user most likely, unless he had one to stand by and watch him perform experiments, acting as eyes and ears. Which was unlikely.
Of course, there’s the off-chance he has no idea what he did with Sark. Though I doubt that.
He moved like the wind, falling from the roof and catching himself at the first window, En still active, telling him of anyone nearby. Thankfully it was a small house, which made things a deal easier. He let himself drop again, to hang by the windowsill, and reached up to open the window. It slid up after some jostling, and he soon was inside.
Someone on the first floor had Nen. He knew it in an instant, feeling their aura react to his En, and at once he moved through the empty office to the open door, moving silently through the hallway on his way downstairs. Fortunately for him none of the stairs squeaked, and apparently no alarms had gone off when he opened the window.
Though, if they had been silent alarms, he needed to move quick. He had minutes to get what he needed taken care of.
And the Nen user was getting closer. In fact, he’d be coming right into the area in front of the stairs as the Ghost reached the bottom. He readied himself, Shu expanding onto his shield as he prepared for a fight if he had to. But as the man came into view, he found himself calming down. It was Michio Galileo, and he had a rather disheveled look about him. His button-up shirt was un-tucked, and stained yellow from mustard on the chest; his hair was a mess, with no clear grooming done to it, and his eyes had bags under them.
He let out a bit of a gasp and stepped back, eyes widening, even with the bags under them; he lifted his hands, his Nen beginning to localize in his forearms, a rough use of Gyo; the man wouldn’t go ahead and use Ko defensively, would he? It wouldn’t make sense to do so, but it was clear he had never been given combat training in Nen.
I guess his knowledge is limited almost entirely to the science of it, then? A smile crossed the Ghost’s face, though it was not visible through his helmet. “I’m not here to hurt you. There’s no need to call your bodyguards down, Mr. Galileo. I’m investigating the man who tried to kill you.” It was not a lie, but it was… not entirely the truth.
“You-you’re that vigilante, from Crane Town,” Michio said, his voice drawling with an accent that betrayed him as being from the Kukan’yu Kingdom originally; the slight drawl here, the way he shortened certain vowels… It was not unheard of for scientists from the Kukan’yu Kingdom to come to Yorknew. Given that they were the last to make an expedition to the Dark Continent before Kakin’s, the United States of Saherta made an effort to allow an exchange of information between researchers. All of the V6 had similar agreements, though there were not many scientists from countries other than Kukan’yu or Kakin in Saherta.
“I am, yes,” he said with a nod and a slight smile. “And I’m also going to get the man who tried to kill you. Assuming you help me,” he said, lowering his hands, letting his own aura lower in intensity. No need to scare the man more than he already was, given that dealing with bodyguards was far from something he wanted to do. That he could take them on was hardly reason to want to do so; drawing minimal attention was necessary for his goals. “I want justice, that’s it. I’d be lying if I didn’t want to know what your connection to Harvy Sark is, but...” he sighed. “Now isn’t the time. There are more pressing matters.”
The doctor seemed to flinch at the name Harvy Sark, which confirmed that there was something of questionable legality going on. What exactly, well, that could wait. The Ghost had told the truth when he said he was more concerned about the man who had attempted murdering Dr. Galileo.
“What do you want to know that I haven’t told the police already?”
“Did the man have Nen?”
Michio Galileo blinked, staring at the Ghost, before nodding slowly. So he had left that knowledge out of the police report. That made sense, though. His own Nen was likely something he wanted to keep secret, and when crimes related to Nen were used, it was usually kept under wraps anyway. The secrecy around it was not something anyone would break by going to the police and describing impossible actions done with a supernatural power source, after all. Not only would they never believe such a claim, they might simply drop a case predicated on something like that. Which was why Crime Hunters were needed, as far as the Ghost was concerned. Not only were some criminals too much for the regular police to hunt down due to being empowered by having Nen, many got away with crimes because it was nigh-impossible for a non-Nen user to trace their activities.
“What can you tell me about his Nen?”
“It was… it was unlike anything I’ve seen,” Michio said, before swallowing and staring off behind the Ghost, up the stairs. He shook his head, looking down, and the Ghost peered back to see if there was anyone there. No. The man was staring off into space. “Well, that’s not true. I’ve seen something like it. Once. But that was...”
“The more I know, the better I can find him. For all we know, he’ll come for you again.”
Michio nodded, and stepped back a bit, turning back the way he had come. The Ghost moved behind him, momentarily wondering if the man were going to attempt to run for it. But just as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the scientist waved for him to follow. “Come, sit down in the living room. I’ll tell you what I know, but… there are things I can’t go into detail about.”
“I understand, Mr. Galileo. I wouldn’t expect you to give me information you aren’t at liberty to divulge, unless it were necessary, after all.” Not that he would not try to get said information if he needed to, but he was on a very specific mission. Whatever work the man was involved on was not involved in the Angel of Death, he was sure; the killings had started long before Michio Galileo was pulled into it. If the man’s research was related closely, he would have been targeted earlier most likely. Unless the Angel of Death was killing others to hide his trail, but that hardly seemed like what he was doing.
Michio led him to a plain-decorated living room, sparse with its furnishings and simple in décor. It was a nice enough room, with two arm chairs and a rather large sofa, as well as a television currently muted and set to a twenty-four hour news station, the subtitles on as the anchor talked about events in Kakin following the attempted assassination of the country’s king by a group of rebels fighting to instate a more democratic and open society in the nation. The Ghost grabbed the remote from the coffee table and flicked it off, not wanting any distraction, and darkness enveloped them as the television’s light no longer illuminated it.
Only the moonlight coming through the windows, as well as any street lights, let him see Michio Galileo’s face as the man sucked in on his lips for a few moments.
“His aura seemed… wrong. Like it did not match the body he was in properly. I don’t know how to describe it other than that. I know what you’re thinking, that sounds like he was being controlled by a Manipulation Hatsu, but I know it wasn’t one. Or if it was, it was unlike any I’d ever seen.”
“What do you mean it didn’t match his body?” The Ghost leaned forward, onto his elbows. “Nen comes from the body. It can’t not match.” He regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth. When it came to Nen, there were few things that could be dismissed as impossible. While it seemed safe to say that in most circumstances it was impossible for Nen to not match the body the aura came from, that that would be like saying someone’s bone marrow was making the wrong blood type, that did not mean it was impossible in truth. A Specialist might be able to make something similar to that. If Hatsu could be stolen by certain Specialist abilities, perhaps entire auras could be? Not that he had ever heard of something like that.
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t right. His aura looked wrong. Like it didn’t belong.” The man paused, swallowing. “You… you met Harvy Sark, then?”
“Yes.”
“You know, his arm… it’s the only other thing I’ve seen like it. If you’ve seen that, you have an idea of what I mean already. His aura just didn’t seem quite right, it was like it was foreign. Like it was stolen. It wasn’t the aura his body naturally produces.”
The Ghost nodded, a hand moving to the mask he wore as he thought. That told him more than he had known before; quite a bit more, in fact. A few options had presented themselves, and he needed to run them through his head a few times before he talked with Jaune about it. The off-chance that this was a type of Manipulation Hatsu he had never heard of was a real possibility, but not a pleasant one. If it was he had no idea how to counter it, which meant that both Jaune and himself were vulnerable to it. Another possibility was that the man was using a Specialist Hatsu that let him steal aura, but there was another option. One that the
This could be a red herring. The man failed his attempt with Galileo, which makes it reasonable to think it wasn’t the Angel. But all the other signs suggest it was. So what his Nen does is the next question. I’m willing to trust the good doctor when he says that it wasn’t Manipulation, but there is the off-chance it was. Could even be like whatever Hatsu is being used on the Lennies, which would be concerning. I don’t know how Jaune and myself are going to deal with it if that is the case. If the Angel uses his Hatsu on one of us and sets us against each other…
No, there isn’t time to worry about that. Even if it’s not Manipulation, we still don’t know what it is. He could be stealing Hatsu or even Nen itself, and that wouldn’t give us much of an advantage anyway. Who’s to say he wouldn’t be able to get his conditions for that ability to be met without us realizing it? Without knowing what his Hatsu is, and it seems he didn’t display it in a way that the doctor recognized anything in particular, we can’t confront him until we absolutely must.
If he’s a Manipulator, he can make Jaune, myself, or anyone around us an enemy without us realizing it potentially. If he’s a Specialist, we run the bigger risk of walking into some condition that might leave us unable to use our Nen effectively; sure, Jaune’s is mostly utility-based, but I can’t confirm the extent of what the Angel can do. But there’s a third option...
An Angel and a Ghost fight. But, really, is there any difference between an Angel and a Ghost in the first place?
- - -
Peyto inhaled the thick smell of pot as he closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of a woman snuggling into his right shoulder, her red curls spilling across the bed. He lowered the blunt he held in his left hand to his mouth and took a draw, before blowing into the air, his eyes opening to watch as smoke swirled into curls just like those on Sherry next to him in her private room at his favorite strip club. No, Cherry Blossom Gentleman’s Club; it wasn’t a strip club, that was demeaning to say, or at least that was what Sherry and Stormy always said.
He didn’t get the hang-up, what was so demeaning about it when he just finished having sex with them? Stripper was a step up from what they really were, after all, and fuck, it wasn’t like he meant it in a mean way. But bitches be crazy, like Delano always said; but no matter how crazy they got, Delano would always add, they were always right. He figured that was fair enough. Long as he got his dick wet from time to time, he’d call the place a fucking palace to femininity if they wanted. If getting a man to call something whatever you wanted him to call it wasn’t being right, then what was?
Her fingers rolled over his scrawny chest as he lay there, watching her. He had blown quite a lot of money in the past few nights, and while it was worth it, he had things he needed to be done with. He had spent the past few days bumming around, hoping to hear any mention of the Angel of Death, but he hadn’t heard a bit about him. Course, he hadn’t been looking hard, but it was almost a week on the two weeks Rammel and Izwiz had given him by now. If he didn’t get a trail soon…
“Your face is lookin’ better than it did when you started seeing me steady, Peyto,” Sherry whispered, a bit of a smile on her face. “I hear that orgasm helps the immune system, it must be true.”
“Ain’t my immune system, I wasn’t sick,” Peyto spat, turning his head towards her. She gave him a harsh glare, the kind that told him he was in trouble.
The kind of trouble paid girls weren’t supposed to give you, but fuck, women were women, right? He stopped dating so he didn’t get in those looks, and now he was paying for them. “But I guess they help with other shit, too, don’t they? Healing and whatnot.”
He didn’t know the body much better than she, but he knew bruises weren’t sicknesses. Still, he wasn’t going to complain about having some fun.
“Well, I wouldn’t be so snippy if you want me to nurse you back to health,” she said with a smirk, raising an eyebrow as she began to sit up. She leaned down to kiss his forehead as he breathed in the weed smoke, a calm beginning to come over him. “See? Kisses make everything heal. Now, I gotta get going, I have other clients – ones who, frankly, pay better, but I don’t enjoy them near as much as you, Peyto. You going to come back tonight?”
Why the woman enjoyed him was beyond him, but he wouldn’t complain. Maybe it was that he didn’t treat her like human trash, but, well, any girl who had her lips…
Well, that was to say…
He smiled.
“Of course, Sherry. Though I don’t know if I can do every night for much longer, much as I love seeing you steady like this.”
“Well, don’t put yourself on the streets on account of me, alright?”
She stood up and began dressing, while Peyto just closed his eyes and took another long draw on his blunt. “I should probably get going too. I gotta find this Angel of Death fella, or I won’t have much more than a week left on this Earth.”
She turned her head and stared. “You’re looking for him, Peyto? That ain’t smart. Finding him’s a good way to get killed too, you know.”
“I know, but, well, it’s also the only chance I got to not piss some fellas off.” He gave a smile as he sat up. He set his blunt in an ash tray and began to step into his boxers, the two dressing themselves on opposite sides of the bed, backs turned. “Besides, maybe he’ll respect me for figuring out who he is. I mean, the police haven’t yet, so that’d be impressive right?”
“Be careful, okay?” she asked, though he knew it to be instructional, not inquisitive. “Stormy hasn’t been in for the last few days, and I don’t know if it’s because of the Angel, but… well, you never know these days.”
Peyto nodded. It was true, you never did know.
- - -
Atara stared at the painting of the woman she had seen with Adachi the day they met, with her thick red curls spilling down her shoulders, over her bosom, a gentle smile on her face. Who was she? When Atara had first seen them she had assumed the woman to be an escort that Adachi had hired for sex, not someone who he truly intended to paint. Her opinion of the man had been mixed from the start, though, and this woman only confused it further.
The simple title, the woman’s name, “Stormy,” did little to help matters. Who was she to him? It was a double question; who was Atara to Adachi Muerto, and who was Stormy to Adachi Muerto? She had learned that his idea of adding her piece depicting “Heartlost Lovers” to his collection had meant he had hung it in his bedroom, a fact that both exhilarated and disheartened her. He had put it in such an intimate location for himself to look at it daily in, but at the same time… no one would see it there.
Then again, no one would see the portrait labeled “Stormy,” other than her, and she was not supposed to have seen it she felt. It was in the same room as his depictions of various crime scenes committed by the Angel of Death, as well as the pieces that looked like first drafts for future scenes. She had been over here a few days since their initial contact over the collaboration he had sought, and now…
I can’t believe I ever thought he might be investigating the Angel through me, she thought to herself, shaking her head slightly with a smile. He’s just an aficionado for the macabre and a bit eccentric, that’s all. A like-minded artist, and those are oh-so rare... She laughed to herself a bit, turning from the portrait, looking towards the various depictions, each with small changes from the actual crime scenes, of the Angel of Death’s work. And, at the center of it all, a large easel on which her own draft of an ode to the Angel of Death’s masterpieces lay. She hoped it to be her magnum opus, when it was complete.
Adachi Muerto had been so encouraging of her. He had shown her how human flesh split on different types of blades and serrations, and how the body decayed over the few hours before police would arrive at a scene like the Angel of Death’s. While her own pieces about the Angel of Death were fixated on the feelings and emotions, Adachi Muerto had an expertise about him for the act of murder and the techniques the Angel used on a different level than her own understanding. At times it felt like he must have a background in forensics, but even if he did, his heart was set on the artistic merit itself. He showed little interest in who the Angel might be; it was the art that mattered.
The creaking footsteps of Adachi coming from downstairs reached her ears, and she turned her head to see him entering his art studio. She gave him a quick smile and nod, and he returned both. Something about the man struck her as utterly fascinating, beyond her initial state of feeling overwhelmingly flattered by his interest in working with her. That had faded, replaced with a sense that the man was hiding something.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, his eyes sliding from her to her sketched draft. With his encouragement to follow her own ideas, she had begun working on another version of her fantasies involving the death and dismemberment of her downstairs neighbors, though things had changed. Now, instead of oth of them in one room, the piece depicted the man in the bed, his chest opened so that his heart was visible, while the woman lay in the bathroom, knife in her disembodied hand on the counter while she was sat up against the shower curtain as if she were watching the man.
She glanced between the rough sketching that she had done to guide herself once she began painting and the man who had invited her here, who had humored her artistic tendencies so graciously. “About what, Adachi?”
“You said that you had a hard time with your piece originally because it wasn’t a real incident,” he said, walking forward slowly, towards the easel, but also towards her. His eyes went between her and the easel, before resting on her. “What if it was real, though?”
She blinked. Is… is he asking me why we don’t become copycats? Start following in the Angel’s footsteps?
“The Angel uses corpses for his art. Why shouldn’t you do the same? Why shouldn’t I do the same?” He paused, turning his head, and she felt a moment of… she was not sure what. Excitement was not quite right, nor was anxiety or panic. It was a sense of all three, but in combining them something new. The idea of making art like the Angel was both a wonderful thought and a terrifying thought.
“I… I don’t know. I might be caught, I mean, I don’t know how to avoid being caught nearly as well as they do...” She swallowed. That was part of it, sure. But taking a life… can I? Do I have the right to? Clearly, the Angel of Death does, he’s proven he does. But… but do I? “Have you ever… you know… done a killing to pay homage to the Angel?”
Adachi shook his head, though a faint smile crossed his face. “I haven’t. But, well, there’s a reason I wanted to collaborate with you, Atara. You have vision. You have clarity.” He put a hand out and placed it on her shoulder, and a chill ran down her spine. A look of… inspiration was in his eyes, as if he was envisioning something grand, something… greater than she had come here expecting to make. A bit of a grin crossed her face. She had hoped her work would have given him inspiration. He had asked her to draft out some of her ideas before they started collaborating, and he had done some of his own sketches and drafts, usually depicting people torn apart in various creative ways to convey a message of greed, corruption, and so forth.
“I think you could make something truly fascinating to behold,” he said, looking at her straight on.
“I...” She paused, tongue pressing against the roof of her mouth as she thought to herself. “I think that you have a point,” she said, a bit of a smile. “But the Angel, they… they’re a step above me, I wouldn’t take it upon myself to have the right to make art the way they do. Besides, I don’t know if I could, you know… have a mastery of the medium as well as they do.”
He turned from her, his hand pulling back from her and sliding into his pocket. He remained silent as he looked at the draft of her piece, eyes scanning the room, reading into every line, taking it in. Atara’s stomach turned a bit, and she watched in silence as he nodded slowly.
“I want you to come with me. I’m going to show you something.”
Due to chapter length, I posted the final scene in a comment! Apologies for taking so long with finishing this chapter, I hope you all enjoy it!
Submitted November 16, 2018 at 10:19PM by notasci https://ift.tt/2qP7BoX
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