“…! Dammit!”
Victor hadn’t been expecting this.
When Firo had asked him to come take custody of a bear, he’d wondered what was up. Seeing how big the thing actually was had shaken him for a moment, but after learning that it belonged to the Runoratas, Victor had decided to use their pet as a bargaining chip.
Unfortunately, while they were getting ready to transport the animal to a Division of Investigation facility, in walked Ladd Russo, menace to society.
He’d assumed even this guy wasn’t foolish enough to take a swing at a bear. Victor had been goading him into attacking in the hopes of creating cause for an arrest, but for some reason, the bear had made a move before Ladd did.
Hey, what gives? Why’d it get up all of a sudden?
It had been behaving itself earlier. What had changed? Victor sharpened all his senses, searching for the difference…
…but there was no need to concentrate too hard. He picked up on it right away.
“…?”
Ladd, Isaac, and Miria also seemed to have noticed it. They were looking around, mystified.
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“What’s that noise…? Where’s it coming from?”
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It was an eerie groaning sound, seemingly man-made.
MeanwhileThe Martillos’ underground casino
“…Interesting.”
The underground casino was closed and quiet, the scars of Ladd’s rampage still fresh.
Inside, Firo was dismantling slot machines.
He’d also taken apart a brand-new slot machine of the same model, one they hadn’t installed yet. All the parts were spread over the floor.
During the mind-numbing work of carefully examining each individual part, Firo had come to a conclusion.
All these slot machines had rolled triple sevens on command. It was incomprehensible. If that had happened during normal business hours and customers had seen it, they would have suspected the house had done it deliberately and begun avoiding the place.
On the other hand, if he’d done that to them in the middle of the casino party, they would have gotten hate from the neighboring syndicates, too. Since they were an independent organization with their own territory, Firo and the rest of the Martillo Family had been braced for hostility from all quarters, but it would be extremely irritating if that hostility was forced on them by Melvi Dormentaire.
He’d hoped to find a way to break out of the situation as quickly as possible, but that was unlikely to happen now.
“What’s the matter, Firo? What did you see? Did drowning in this sea of gears and screws and extremely man-made things finally enlighten you as to the value of Nature?”
Christopher Shaldred, who’d come to the casino to guard it, was peeking in at him with a sparkle in his red eyes. His employer, Ricardo, had come with him, and she—although Firo still assumed she was a “he”—also seemed interested in what Firo was doing. The kid was beside Christopher, watching him work.
“Well, it wasn’t anything supernatural. Just stage magic… Nah, that would be rude to stage magicians.” Firo shrugged, then smiled wryly. “Bottom line: Melvi Dormentaire’s just a swindler.”
“Oh, you mean the guy you’re settling the score with tomorrow? The one who was with that redhead when I got here…?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“And? And? What trick did this Melvi character use?” Christopher looked deeply interested.
Firo started to answer. “It wasn’t even anything that clever, just brute force stuff. He— Hmm?” He broke off. “Do you…hear something?”
“…Yes…? It’s probably outside.”
A unique sound, like a cross between a moan and a bell, filtered into the basement casino.
Outside, it was probably pretty loud.
Firo cocked his head, wondering if it was some sort of siren. Christopher stared for a moment. “Huh? Wait… I’ve heard this before.” Rifling through his memories, he promptly found the answer he was looking for. “Oh! It’s Salomé!”
“Salomé?”
“One of Huey Laforet’s men.
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“The oddball who made would-be homunculi like me and Adele.”
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Central Park—at this point in time, Manhattan’s biggest spot for rest and recreation—was already approaching a hundred years old.
On a plot of land well over a square mile in area, a variety of plants lived and thrived, turning the park into a green oasis among the skyscrapers.
Since the beginning of the Depression, many people who’d lost their jobs and their homes had bunked down here, and public order deteriorated until the government got serious and took steps. At this point in history, that slow process of recovery was just beginning.
However, at the moment, a certain area had been cleared of vagrants and regular visitors alike.
An odd group had gathered there, and a peculiar moaning roar was echoing from its center.
As that strange noise blared, a man was loudly declaiming words that were even stranger.
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“Oh… Is this quake in mine ears the wrath of the gods, or the conceit of man? Wherefore doth the machinations of the modern age eviscerate the formless sky, encouraging their very existence? A seed stirs in my chest, sends a tremble to my brain, says it’s not yet enough, not enough. They grow towards a birth-cry that would consume my very soul… The seam has rent; mend it and foster a new desire in this body, which nurses a new life! My mouth shall give birth to a child called Want! And she shall scream out her first breath! Come, O undeveloped world! Stillness, may you shake and dance with silence! Negate the thrum of the world, stop the time of all creation! Ti—gwagobha!”
✦ ✦ ✦
The man who’d concluded his speech with an odd shriek had thick whiskers on his cheeks and a hat that he wore pulled down low. His friends simply called him the Poet, and he’d screamed because Sickle—a beautiful woman with long blond hair and a dignified gaze—had slammed a roundhouse kick into him.
“You could have covered all that with ‘It’s noisy.’ How can you stand to make that much of a racket?” Sickle said.
Climbing unsteadily to his feet, the Poet went on, as long-winded as ever. “The victors ever falsify the era, while the defeated always chronicle history. My body has been restored by benedictions, marking invisible scars on my history with love and resentment. Destruction breeds more destruction, until at last it will blot out the sky. The scars of the brokenhearted defeated engrave history into the heavens. Erelong, it will become a roaring, swirling torrent and sweep away the era of the victors! O victors who sing the praises of the era, fear and tremble! Lashed by fraudulent rain, suffer and writhe at the applause of the losers! Thi…mrggh…”
“Is that supposed to mean ‘I’m against violence, and you’ll pay for this’? I told you to knock it off multiple times before I kicked you, and you ignored me. That’s why this happened.”
Beside Sickle and the Poet, who were having one of their usual exchanges, the sound went on and on.
Salomé was wearing an odd speaker-like device, which was the source of the sound.