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THUD!
A dull thud reminiscent of hitting a mattress resounded through the dark space.
Kicked by a heavy boot, the man crashed into the stained, concrete wall and slid onto the ground. The only reason he didn’t lose consciousness was because his training taught him to curl his body—and because the man beating him held back.
“Ghhhh…!” Coughing up blood, the man glared at the shadow towering in the dark.
He had put up a good fight, but the difference in power was evident. Guns and weapons made unusable during their skirmish littered the filthy floor. All the skillful techniques that he unleashed one after another were slapped aside by his opponent.
Murky darkness hovered over their makeshift battleground. This was an abandoned underground warehouse located in an especially dangerous section of Out Circle.
The shadow moved and the man cowered. He assumed he wouldn’t be killed as long as he didn’t speak first. But he highly doubted he’d make it out with all five limbs. Fear started to eat away at him. The inside of his mouth was dry and sticky.
“Feel like talkin’ yet? I know ya were hanging ’round Manuela’s place. Worked my ass off to get that bit of info. Ya fancy gentlemen can disguise yerselves all ya want—don’t make a difference. Don’t underestimate our ability to sniff ya out. Ya’ll have an easier time the sooner ya squeal,” Zelaide advised, purposefully slipping into slang and a more laidback tone.
The man wouldn’t even look him in the eye. Zelaide crouched and grabbed the man by the collar of his fancy suit. The collar had a label from a popular sports team. The man was a famous amateur boxer—and a member of Infernum.
“Who asked ya to do it? Who didja report back to? …Say it.” Zelaide switched from requesting in a friendly tone to demanding with ice in his voice. A murderous light gleamed in the Beast Blood’s eyes.
“Dunno. I’m just a sportsman. Don’t lump me in with you beasts,” the man egged him on, despite the situation he was in.
“Beast? I can’t deny that one. I’m as beastly as they come. But what does that make ya? Why does some classy sportsman have somethin’ like this built into his shoe?”
Zelaide picked up the shoe that had slid off the man’s foot and slammed the toe box into the wall next to his face. A small but sharp blade popped out of the heel. It was a spring loaded shoe knife. The blade was tiny but shimmered with some sort of liquid, probably poison. Taking a back kick or heel drop from it would be fatal.
The man seemed to be an inexperienced Inferni. He trembled, his eyes darting away from Zelaide’s face.
Zelaide whistled. “Some fine workmanship right here. Not many shoemakers can make somethin’ of this quality. I can hunt ’em down and get my intel from there. So how’d ya like me to test out this pretty blade on your flesh? There’s a sayin’ from the old world that scars make the man. It’ll look cool. See?”
Zelaide held the man up by his throat as he spoke. His legs trembled in vain as his toes merely swept through the air without touching the ground. The Beast Blood sneered wickedly and pressed the small blade, shoe still attached, to the man’s face.
This wasn’t Manuela’s killer, but he was involved in her death. Carefully digging into every shred of reliable information he could find for days netted him this tidbit. Did the killer use him because they knew someone who didn’t frequent these parts would have a harder time blending in? Zelaide had finally hunted him down after he quit the boxing club and disappeared.
“I wouldn’t squirm if I were ya. The blade’ll cut into ya. Hmm… I smell lyunone on ya,” Zelaide said, sniffing the air. “Somebody once sent me a box of the stuff.”
Lyunone was a deadly poison that targeted the nervous system. Zelaide had yelled at Euphemia around the time they first met because she stupidly tried to pick up the box filled with it. That happened just two and a half months ago. It felt like a lifetime to Zelaide.
“Ya’ve been after me all along… Ya even had to drag her into it…” Zelaide growled, his voice gruffer than a shovel dragged through gravel. “Say it!”
The Beast Blood’s fury suddenly burst forward. Because of the lack of light, his eyes glowed as if they were burning balls of silver light. Even the man who spent his whole life despising Beast Bloods found those eyes bewitching.
“Tell me or feel this blade sink into your neck!”
Pure anger emitted from the Beast Blood’s body. It was an invisible pressure given off by something inhuman. The amateur boxer felt like he was exposed to an open fire. His face, which had been a hard mask, distorted with terror.
“Eek…” his voice cracked like a creaky fence. He no longer counted as prey worth fighting. “D-Don’t! I-I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you, so don’t eat me!” he cried.
“…Who killed Manuela?”
“Shank did… I was just the guide and the lookout!”
“Shank? Who’s that? Where is he?”
“Nobody knows. Came as soon as I let them know you dropped by her place,” the boxer squealed.
“How soon was that?” Zelaide asked.
“Thirty…no, forty minutes, give or take… I contacted Shank as soon as I saw you at her door.”
Forty minutes.
That was an odd amount of time. It was plenty of time to get there from City Hall, and if they floored it, they could get to her place from the laboratory with time to spare.
“Did ya talk to Shank?” Zelaide asked.
“No. I got a text on my IHT telling me to leave first. Must’ve been close by the time I contacted them. Shank always gives orders by IHT text. The pay is amazing, but…if you fail or betray…you’re dead.”
“Hmm… Do ya know a man named Danny?” Zelaide changed the topic. “He was killed two months ago.”
“D-Don’t know him. He’s not…affiliated with my group.”
“Heh…that’s not good ’nough. My hand might slip if ya don’t share more, y’know?” Zelaide threatened, pressing the sharp blade against his cheek so that it dented the skin without piercing it.
“S-Stop! Please don’t! I’ll die!” Sweat trickling from his face wet Zelaide’s hand on his throat.
“Shank is a man! His voice doesn’t sound young. Not like an old man either. He’s thin, has a small head, and is…always wearing thick specs… Seemed to be in a poorly lit empty room that was shaped like a box. That’s about all I could tell from the video chat… O-Oh and…” The boxer paused as he tried to remember what he noticed about Shank. “…I think his specs had a different thickness on the right side.”
“Huh?”
His specs have a different thickness on one side? That’s random. Zelaide cocked his head. What does it mean?
Zelaide punched the man in the stomach and squeezed his neck. He instantly lost consciousness. He chucked him on the floor and left the filthy warehouse without looking back.
Zelaide hadn’t gone back home since escorting Euphemia to City Hall more than two weeks ago.
Hundreds of messages bombarded his screen when he pulled out his IHT. Most of them were from Palmina, but Euphemia sent him a message a day. Her messages were always short.
“Don’t be reckless. I’m okay. Please contact me when you can.”
Enduring the ache in his heart, the Beast Blood melted into the crowds Downtown.