At the station Jack led Sen Getsusa past the front desk, greeted the officers, and strode into the office.
Inside, a middle-aged man in uniform sat behind a desk.
Right in the center of the face, a long hooked nose stood out starkly, messy yellow-brown short hair like wild grass, sunken eye sockets.
Eyes as sharp as some bird of prey, deep-blue pupils fixed on the two of them.
'Jack? I don't think your sister should see this,' the sheriff said.
Clearly, Jack had already spoken with him about it.
Jack had long since stopped being surprised by Sen Getsusa turning into his sister; what could he even argue?
That Sen Getsusa was actually his fiancée?
He still wanted to make it to New York alive.
Jack gave an exaggerated shrug. 'I think she can handle it. We agreed, Schiller.'
The sheriff was hunched over his report, a blue inkwell sitting on the desk.
As he wrote, he kept trying to persuade Sen Getsusa: 'Miss, I really advise you not to go in. That's your brother's companion, not yours.
I don't consider it gentlemanly to let an underage lady witness such gore.'
'If anyone treated my sister like that, I'd tear his head off and make the hounds eat it with a mouthful of crap.'
Sen Getsusa covered her mouth and laughed, glancing at the dejected Jack. 'Don't let him scam an extra meal. He stays plump and fair only by pulling stunts like this.'
'Miss Forest, mind your manners.'
Jack cut in, annoyed. Sheriff Schiller set down his fountain-pen and looked at them.
'Have you decided?'
He pushed back his chair, took a key from the wall hook, and led the way out.
'Come with me, miss. There's lunch my deputy bought by the door.'
Sen Getsusa politely declined. 'I've eaten, thank you.'
'I wasn't talking about lunch.'
Schiller strode ahead without looking back, a teasing note in his voice. 'I meant the paper bag it came in. When you throw up later, I don't want the morgue floor dirtied.'
'That place is about the only clean spot left in this World.'
The three turned a corner, went down the stairs, and entered the basement.
The moment they stepped in, an obvious chill wrapped around the'siblings'.
Sen Getsusa was fine; the chaos monsters and bizarre life-forms she'd seen were far worse than any corpse.
And she'd dismembered every last one of them… (≧▽≦)ゞ
Jack wasn't so steady.
Under Schiller's half-smiling gaze his calves trembled uncontrollably, shivering.
And when the sheriff pushed open the real morgue door, the Boy was ready to play an instrument.
The retreat drum.
'I think…'
Two pairs of eyes answered him with an I-knew-it look.
'All right, all right, Miss Forest, give me the bag. I don't want to puke on myself—this is my only set of clothes…'
Jack muttered as he stepped into the mortuary.
Cold.
Icy.
In the deathly silent room stood rows of tin boxes, each little compartment hung with a tag.
Schiller led them to a corner compartment, muttering, and pulled it open—
'Miss Mary, we meet again.'
Her eyes were closed, her once-lovely face gone.
A single slash ran from between her brows, left and right in an inverted V down to her jaw.
A huge vertical gash split the girl's abdomen. After studying it, Sen Getsusa sensed something off.
'Ahem. Her… her…'
Schiller gave Sen Getsusa an approving glance. 'Exactly—her internal organs are missing, including her uterus.
At the scene, her intestines were arranged on her head in a strange pattern, the walls covered with symbols we couldn't read.'
'Only this was in English.'
cyttorak.
Sen Getsusa read it aloud: 'Cy—cyttorak?'
What the hell?
Schiller gave a bitter smile; he and his men had zero leads on the killer.
To this day, motive and even the murderer's gender remain hidden in the mist.
'This is already the fifth case.
We've poured in massive manpower, even borrowed officers from neighboring districts, and still nothing.
Including those detectives—buying them coffee alone has eaten up my bonus for the year.'
'It's fine, Sheriff. Even without the coffee, you wouldn't have seen that bonus.'
'Such clean cuts—someone with medical training?'
Sen Getsusa circled the corpse.
This era was too backward; unlike her own time, there weren't countless ways to pick up skills outside one's profession.
Schiller shook his head. 'Doctors were our first thought, but after checking everyone in the area—'
"None?"
Schiller nodded.
"None.
There's no Doctor here; the nearest one lives six streets away, and he's already sixty.
I don't picture a shriveled sixty-year-old shuffling here in the dead of night, killing a young girl with his liver-spotted hands, then hobbling home on a cane.
He's been staying with his granddaughter; rock-solid witnesses swear he never left the house.
He couldn't have checked into a local inn or hidden in any sewer.
Never stepped outside.
Then we're looking for a butcher—or something similar.
Sen Getsusa chatted about the case with the sheriff while Jack stood between them, staring at Mary's face.
Days ago he'd fumed, blaming his ex-girlfriend; Getsusa had scored a point for him, but the Boy knew it wasn't truly his victory.
Now she lay on a cold slab, her body a map of knife wounds, each gash curled like an infant's lip.
A sigh he couldn't voice.
"Let's go."
When they finished, Schiller walked Getsusa and Jack out, offering the Boy a few kind words; the sheriff had headaches enough.
A killer stalking his streets—until the man was caught, every night would be sleepless.
Outside, Getsusa took the long way home, buying a bulging bag of sweets and fresh-baked bread.
"You planning to eat all that? Take care of your teeth, Miss Forest."
She smiled. "Rushed over just to warn me not to go out at night?"
Jack nodded, anxious. "That maniac targets pretty young girls—you..."
"Thanks for the compliment." Getsusa lifted a brow. "Don't want to avenge Mary? Catch him? I could—"
"No! Absolutely not!" The Boy lurched in front of her, voice shaking. "Are you crazy? That's a murderer!"
"Sounds fun."
Jack pressed his temples, waving her off.
"Enough, Miss Forest.
I'm grieving for Mary, but I won't send a girl to die!
Honestly, I've started thinking of you as a little sister—drop this, curb your curiosity!"
Getsusa toyed with her earring; a tiny voice whispered there.
"He's unworthy to be His Majesty's brother!"
Arrietty sat on her shoulder, legs swinging.
The Little Sprite had hidden in her dark hair and heard everything.
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