“I’ll tell you the good news,” Scarlet said, opening the door to his car. “DEED’s higher-ups have finally taken notice of the new killings; they sent in an analyst to figure out where that image came from.”
“Image?” I asked. I faintly remembered something from the last time I was here, but I wasn’t paying much attention.
“Everyone who jumped to their death earlier today was exposed to an image, an internet meme that somehow took control of their minds,” Scarlet explained. “We were at the MooreTech building because we thought they might be related to the spread of the image, but we were ambushed by another demon.”
“Wait, has there been a demon at every single killing site?” I asked. The only one I don’t know for sure was the third killing, but it’s possible that there was one somewhere in the area.
“Actually, there is something interesting you ought to know,” Scarlet and I by this point had stepped out of the car and were approaching the entrance to the underground building. “Upon further analysis, my theory about the killings and your place in them doesn’t add up.”
“What does that mean? What about ‘my place in them’?”
“I thought that you were like your sister, a vessel, but that turned out to be Brooklyn. There was something else that didn’t add up the entire time: the method of killing,” Scarlet said. “The old pentagram killings were all squarely murders or massacres, killings of external intent, but the new killings were all suicides, with the exception of the third killing. At first, we thought it was the car accident that happened quickly after we left, but I don’t think that’s the case.”
“So you think it’s Brooklyn’s parents?”
“Huh?”
“Brooklyn’s parents were dead at home, I found them there. It looked like suicide, but knowing what we do now that seems unlikely.”
“No, I have another theory. It isn’t just us humans who have died at the site of each pentagram killing,” Scarlet said. “The twin demons at the library, the ones we’ve named ‘Cerberus’, were banished by Noe. Noe took out another demon, Typhon, at the harbor. At the site of the 4th killing, Claire and I had a brief encounter with another demon that we were able to dispatch, Minotaur.”
“Yeah, but what about the third-“
That’s when everything clicked.
“You mean…” I said. “Noe was the sacrifice of the third killing. That’s why Ronin killed her, isn’t it?”
“It was a gamble,” Scarlet said. “Ronin could have easily lost that fight; they didn’t know that Noe had given away all of her eyes. If that was the case, Ronin wouldn’t have been so cautious with her. I think they had a contingency, that contingency is, most likely, me.”
“What?”
“Noe was able to identify it, she said that there was a demon inside of my body. I’ve… been aware of that,” Scarlet explained. “It was the first demon we named, Chimera, or rather, the first set of demons we named. They were bound to your sister, Claire, some time before the original pentagram killings, and used by the culprit to enact the original pentagram killings. Even Fr. Joseph, who we believe to be the foremost scholar on demons across the entire world, didn’t know exactly how many there were. I knew that my body, after it was modified by my demonic pact, was capable of much more than that of a normal human, so I made a gamble of my own. I sealed away all of the demons of Chimera inside of my body using the forbidden exorcism technique, somehow. Technically, I have a one-way pact with a nearly limitless number of demons, but utilizing it is rather difficult, if not impossible.”
I remember Noe saying something like that during her fight with Scarlet. It’s still surprising information though, outlandish even. At this point, I’ve given up on rationalizing everything I’ve seen, I’ll have time to think about it later, hopefully.
“So you’re saying that Brooklyn could have used the demons trapped inside of you as the sacrifice if Noe had won the fight with Ronin?”
“Exactly, that’s probably her plan for the final killing, since she knows you’re capable of using the blue eye to find out where and when it’ll take place.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
That makes sense, a lot of sense. The vision of the future I saw was of Scarlet dying, so it’s safe to say that I saw the moment when the final killing would occur. We just had to prevent that.
“You can’t be at the station then, you have to stay behind,” I said. “There’s no way we can just let Brooklyn kill you like that.”
“I’ve been thinking about that actually, I think I have a plan.”
“No, we can’t take that risk.”
“Brooklyn will end up finding me regardless of where I end up, it’ll be safer for me to be with you than back here at headquarters.”
Unfortunately, he was right.
“Either way, what makes you so sure that the killing of demons is the true purpose of the new pentagram killings?” I asked. It was a worthwhile question, even if the evidence did add up.
“I don’t think the killings are just for show this time,” Scarlet explained. “Two years ago, they were meant to scare us. The culprit gave Ronin the red eye so that he could help us, we know that now. In the end, everything was set up to make it look like we had solved everything and killed the culprit, that wasn’t the case in reality. I shot the man responsible, but it was only after he ordered me to do it. It was a setup from the beginning. This time, they still want humanity to dread the coming end, but it seems like they intend to deliver. No flamboyant declarations, no pentagrams left at the scene of the crime this time. It’s just murder.”
[ cut ]
As Scarlet and I approached the headquarters facility, a man walked out from the front door. He was unfamiliar to me, he had brown hair and glasses, he looked still quite young, but he was certainly older than Scarlet and I, so probably in his late 20s. The man had a laptop in his hands and was looking for someone. That someone turned out to be Scarlet.
“Ma’am!” The man said. He was clearly referring to Scarlet, but as I already know, Scarlet is a guy. “I figured it out, I’ve cracked the code!”
“Oh, okay,” Scarlet replied. “What is it in particular that you found?”
“This image, I think I know where it’s from,” The man continued. “I found some archived links and hosting sites for the original file, it couldn’t be posted directly to SMS because of file size, so it was always posted as a link. The domain of the link I found belongs to MooreTech, it was registered to them starting last week.”
“Okay… So what you’re saying is that MooreTech is responsible for spreading the image?” Scarlet said. “How did you find this out without looking at the image?”
“Oh I looked at it.”
“You what?!” Scarlet shouted. “I told you not to do that. How did you not die?!”
“Mr. Ainsley allegedly saw me trying to hang myself and erased my memories of the image,” The man said.
“So what happened next?”
“I went and looked at the image again so that I could find out where it was from.”
This guy was insane. Certifiably insane.
“You… you need to have more regard for your life, don’t you have a kid back home?” Scarlet said.
“Yeah, I do. Who told you about Lucy?”
“I read your dossier when you got assigned here,” Scarlet said. “Can you find out anything else about the situation? Like who specifically set this whole thing up?”
“Albert Moore has been missing since earlier this week. If it’s anyone, I’d suspect him.”
“You think Mr. Moore himself is responsible?”
“I don’t doubt it. His practices have been shady for years now.”
“Well, in that case, I want you to track him down, ideally without jeopardizing your life this time.”
[ cut ]
[ 05:58:04 ]
“At t-minus one hour, Ashton and I will board the el rail one stop ahead of time, that way we can ambush Brooklyn when she arrives. Eden, you’re evacuation duty to make sure everyone gets off the train alive. Where’s Blaise?” Scarlet said. He and the rest of DEED were standing around the table in the meeting room. I was there too, but only to listen in and understand the plan.
“Blaise is currently preparing. I’ll inform him of the plan,” Eden replied.
“Either way, Blaise is running surveillance. It’s up to him to make sure nobody tries to intrude. There’s likely a third party in all of this, so he’ll be just as vital to this operation as anyone else,” Scarlet explained.
“I don’t think he’ll be happy about it, but that should be fine,” Eden said.
“Ashton, I’m sorry to do this to you, but taking out Brooklyn will be up to you. You’re the only one who has a shot at a fair fight,” Scarlet said. I already knew that. He and I went over the plan earlier, every last piece of it.
“I understand.”
“That’s it. Get some rest, you’re going to need it,” Scarlet said. “Eden, I’ll go with you to talk to Blaise.”
[ cut ]
[ 01:02:33 ]
Scarlet and Ashton board the el train. All passengers are evacuated.
[ 00:32:43 ]
The target arrives at the departure station. Eden is already there.
[ 00:30:23 ]
Eden, contrary to the plan, begins a confrontation with the target. The final battle begins.
[ chapter end ]