Twenty eight days. So it could be a man. Twenty nine days, what's every twenty nine days? Back to square one already. That zither tip might help though, and just asking for information about a ghost with an oddly noticeable crossed item could get us closer.

"Maybe the crossed item is a zither? Actually, pretty much any instrument would work. The original music may have been on the zither but that doesn't mean that's how it's being played now. There was that one guy in high school that shoved his metal cover of Beethoven's fifth down everyone's throat, it could be something like that," I said aloud to the now empty room. That girl had been more helpful than she realized, and I was frankly just lucky that there was a ghost old enough to know about these special crossed items that was still understandable.

I was tired, but I promised Jack I would be up all night, working on this, studying. I looked out the window, down on the empty landscape below. I started humming that song. "Fighting Fate That Parts" she called it. I could feel the story, but only faintly. Like it was being played with a different motive. I could feel it start with longing, then get angrier and angrier as he fights harder and harder only to get pulled farther and farther from his goal. I could feel that story, it was still there, just. . . underneath another story. Something more. . . spiteful, jealous, and violent. It seemed less like he was fighting out of desperation but instead like he was fighting for revenge now. Like something that was rightfully his was taken from him and now he had to get it back.

I looked upwards, back to the sliver of silver light that was the moon. It provided little light but it did still stand out from the stars which were barely visible in the deep blue of the night sky as the tiniest of pinpricks in the fabric of everything. "The sky is pretty tonight. Jack would be able to say more. . . Fuck! Twenty nine days! The fucking lunar cycle!" I realized with a start, accidentally slamming my head into the window. "It had nothing to do with women! Fuck, it's so obvious!"

I picked up Jack's laptop which sat still logged in and paced as far as the cord would allow me. "Kaylyn died on a night of a new moon. We have until the next one to find the next target," I muttered to myself. It made so much more sense for something that blurs the line between life and death to be beholden to the whims of the moon. That was twenty seven days away. Well, closer to twenty six at this point, but that still only left twenty five days to figure it out before we had to get to this person and protect them. . . somehow.

"How do I find the next target? Do I just stalk every mildly pretty woman between the ages of sixteen to twenty five? Do I just walk around and hope I see a dangerous and murderous ghost holding an obviously magical item?" I asked aloud as I tossed the laptop lightly on the couch before finishing my drink and crushing the can between my hands. "Actually seems as logical as anything. I go around looking while Jack tries to find a pattern. New information is good information as long as it's right."

I paced back and forth, my mind coming to a complete halt. I forced my feet to move, hoping that my mind would follow suit regardless of this wall my thoughts had slammed into. A fountain of information swirled around but it never made any sort of progress. The information didn't collide with anything to make something new, no revelations would reveal themselves, even in the face of this maelstrom of thought.

At one point I looked up at the sky to look at the moon only to find that the sun was starting to rise, turning the horizon a whole spectrum of colors before it faded into darkness in the sky. "Fuck, I just paced for hours without anything new," I said. I had let the repetitive motion of steps force my brain out of focus. I had zoned out for so long that my legs had gone sore, almost enough to make it hard to walk. I sat down, looking at the time. almost six. Jack would probably be up in a few hours.

I rubbed my eyes, then I closed Jack's laptop which had sat open all night and had grown considerably warm. I stretched my legs the best I could, though I had never payed much attention in P.E. classes in school. "I guess I could think of what to do once I actually find this guy," I muttered aloud. I did this more and more as I got tired, and after a very stressful information heist and walking around all day and almost all night, I was exhausted.

"I guess all I can do is try and talk them down? Maybe if I yell loud enough it'll disrupt the music thing and the other ghosts can like, detain him or something?" I muttered questioningly. "Maybe it is this devil guy or whatever. It would make sense as to why that specific music plays when there's a killing." I looked up at the fan that slowly twirled through the air, not fast enough to really do anything. My eyes narrowed into slits.

"Maybe if I destroy enough ropes one will cross over and the ghosts can tie him up for me? The chances are one in infinity, I don't have enough money to even attempt it," I groaned out. The problem of what to do with a problematic ghost hadn't really come to mind yet, it was mostly just how to find him.

Suddenly the door burst open to reveal Jack, his eyes much less red but his hair far more ragged. "Hey," he said calmly in complete contrast with the violence that he had shown in opening the door combined with his disheveled appearance.

"Uh, hi. Can you bring me an energy drink on your way over here?" I asked hesitantly.

Jack nodded and moved slowly to the fridge and pulled out two tall black cans before walking over to me with shuffling footsteps, papers being slowly shoved out of his way with every slide of his feet. I took the can as Jack popped the can in his hand with one hand, his college lifestyle showing though a bit.

"Find anything?" he asked after taking a deep pull from the can. Jack may have been an artist, but he wasn't one to meander around a topic early in the morning.

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"I did, but it's not what we were hoping for. I think I know who did this, which isn't much help because apparently I wasn't the only one looking for him-"

"That's great!" Jack exclaimed before I could finish the sentence. "We know who he is, all we've got to do is find her!"

"Yeah, as I was saying," I explained slowly. "A little girl came in asking if we knew anything about the guy that wrote that song because she had been looking for him for centuries. Apparently they were lovers? I don't know, it doesn't matter. His name was like, Marks Da Devilman Brancheroo or something like that. He died and his music was lost to time. I think this is they guy that ended up with patterns. I also think he's using some sort of special crossed instrument. Apparently there are things that cross sometimes that can give ghosts powers, but the little girl didn't know anything else, just that she's heard of their existence. Also, the women theory was trashed. Periods are every twenty eight days. I am completely confident that the powers from this special crossed item only work during a new moon." I was slightly out of breath after explaining all of that, but that was everything I had thought of that night.

"Okay, it's too early, none of that made sense," Jack muttered loudly enough to be heard before he lightly sat down on the couch with his can held out in front of him like he was giving a toast before he took another pull. I popped the tab on mine and took a sip before I set it on the floor near my feet and explained more slowly.

"Every full moon Mr. Devilman Brancheroo kills someone. He plays his most angry song from his life to do it and he uses a special object that ended up in the spirit world. You with me so far?" I asked. Jack nodded slowly in response so I kept going. "We don't know what the special object is, but we're pretty sure it's an instrument that will be pretty easy to spot. Apparently, there's this girl that's been looking for him for hundreds of years and hasn't found him, so, you know." I took an exasperated sip of my drink.

"That cork board has been worthless," Jack noted as he stared at the board that we hadn't really done anything with sense we got it.

"Hah, yeah," I said as if I were drunk. I basically was drunk on exhaustion, but it wasn't the fun kind of drunk, it was the "I just threw up in my shoes and swallowed a plastic bag" kind of drunk. Don't ask how I found myself in that scenario, neither of us want that experienced again, even second hand.

I didn't know how Jack did it, just staying up all night and all day and not showing a sign of problems until the third day. "I wish you had these powers. You're so much better at everything than I am," I said quietly with my head back and eyes to the ceiling. Apparently I was not quiet enough.

"Conrad, we've been over this. You're twice the man I am, end of story," Jack said with finality.

"Whatever," I said, hoping it would end the conversation. It wouldn't do anything anyways.

"Don't you fucking 'whatever' me you mopey dickwad. Grow the fuck up so we can catch this guy. You found more in one night than I had in three days," Jack said, taking my by the hair and forcing me to look at him.

"Ow! What the hell man?" I yelled as tears came unbidden to my eyes. He had really yanked hard.

"Shut up and think," Jack commanded like a military general that knew he wouldn't win but would die trying.

"Did you ever consider what we do if we do catch him? We can't do anything to ghosts except for have a conversation, and it looks like this is a once sided situation. He has all the power! He can kill us but we can't so much as lay a finger on him. I think. I don't know how this works!" I said. Jack let go of my hair.

"No, I hadn't considered that. Can you like, force a rope to cross and have some ghosts tie him up or something?" Jack asked. It's funny how the world works, two people on completely different wavelengths having the exact same thought.

"No, the chances are essentially zero that we get a rope to cross. Plus, we don't know how strong the push is for ghosts. Hell, for all we know it forces the living to sleep too, so we may not be able to do anything," I explained.

"You know what? It doesn't matter. We find this guy. We follow him until we can do something to stop him. We'll find a way, eventually," Jack said, confidence returning to his voice. It was clearly fake, but we both needed it to be real, so we let ourselves believe it was so.

I nodded, falling into silent contemplation again. After a long moment I broke the awkward silence, saying "Do we just keep looking for witnesses? It might be a dead end, but we have to check, right?"

"Yeah," was all Jack said in response, so I stood up, chugging what was left of my energy drink and throwing the can on the floor next to the one I had crushed earlier.

"Clean this place up while I'm gone? We can't do anything like this," I asked, looking over my shoulder.

Jack nodded and moved to get up, so I felt and made sure my keys were in my pocket along with all my regular items, now including a few paperclips among their number, and walked out the door and to the elevator. It was back on the song that started soft before two aggressive notes made themselves known only for it to go soft again. Soon the doors opened back up and it was out to my car again, each dent clearly visible in the early morning light.

I got into the car, the volume was at zero so I could think without music trying to force it's way into my thoughts. The car flared to life, along with the red icon in the shape of a gas pump. "In this economy? Bastard," I muttered when I saw it. So I'd have to get gas before I went to the apartment. No big deal.

I drove down a little ways, an old gas station that looked like it might have already closed down and had a sign so dirty you couldn't read it made itself known. I pulled up to one of the pumps, which looked fairly new compared to the rest of the place, and they even accepted card without having to go in to the shop which was nice. I liked going to places like this because where the living found a drab building surrounded by death the dead saw a building with interesting character, no living people around to annoy them, and plenty of ghosts to talk to. Ghosts were a very social group.

This place didn't have a single ghost though, which was odd. I then caught the hem a translucent white dress around the corner of the building just out of sight. It was probably that one lady I saw yesterday morning. If this was where she holed up than no wonder the other ghosts didn't want to hang out here, she was probably a cold bitch. The types that died at their weddings almost always were.

I finished filling up my tank and drove to my apartment, just trying to think of the questions I would ask the ghosts on my route today. By my estimations we would have two more days of this before we'd searched every street and questioned every ghost in half a mile of the building. When I pulled in officer Bailey was standing in the spot I usually parked. I drove right through him and he dropped smoothly into the passenger seat like he'd done this before. I couldn't fathom why, but it looked cool.

"What have you got for me today officer?" I asked.