Chapter 207: Demon Family

Chapter 207: Demon Family

West Borough, 6 Edward Street.

Ikanser Bernard pressed down his black top hat. Pointing past the fountain pool toward the door of the house, he said to Klein, Isengard, and Kaslana, “We worked backward through every channel where the information and records could have leaked, combined that with the side profile we sketched out, and with—well—with additional help from the magic mirror. We have preliminarily locked onto a suspect.”

When he mentioned the magic mirror, you clearly paused. I wonder what price you paid to get the answer you wanted… Klein detected the issue in Ikanser’s tone and, for some reason, felt a little sympathy for him.

“So it’s the owner of this house?” Kaslana asked in a tone close to certainty.

Isengard Stanton looked around, as if thinking, and said, “You chose to inform us directly and bring us here because you found other supporting evidence?”

“Yes. The owner’s portrait can prove certain things. Heh, he never takes photographs,” Ikanser answered candidly. “In addition, nearby residents have seen a large black dog in the area many times.”

“That basically proves the target is that Apostle of Desire.” At this point, Isengard suddenly laughed. “My apologies. We were too impatient and didn’t give you a chance to introduce the suspect.”

Ikanser walked around the fountain pool and headed toward the front door. Speaking rather quickly, he said, “The owner of this house is named Patrick Jason. He is the principal shareholder of a small bank. According to his neighbors, he is a cheerful, warm, optimistic middle-aged man. He has never married, but he should have mistresses—several of them.

“For someone of his class, the number of servants he employs is seriously insufficient. Every time he holds a dinner or a ball, he needs to hire a group of temporary attendants from the Metropolitan Help for Family Servants Association. His explanation is that he has problems sleeping, and too many servants would disturb the quiet he needs.”

“One can see that he has many secrets to hide, so he doesn’t dare employ too many servants,” Isengard said in a half-joking tone.

Klein, who did not employ even a single servant, felt faintly guilty and said, “Perhaps it’s merely because his financial situation isn’t as good as people imagine.”

“Yes. That is a factor we cannot rule out,” Isengard said, stepping up the stairs and arriving before the main entrance.

Ikanser glanced at Klein as if something had dawned on him.

“So the reason you don’t employ servants and only let the landlady’s maid perform temporary cleaning twice a week is to cover up the secret that you are a Beyonder?”

Among all my secrets, that’s the smallest one… Klein deliberately gave a wry smile.

“Yes.”

As they spoke, Ikanser pushed open the front door. An indescribable stench drifted out from within.

“The smell of rot…” Isengard immediately made the judgment.

Ikanser called over a Machinery Hivemind team member.

“Carlson, what have you found?”

The Beyonder named Carlson wore a pair of glasses with very thick lenses. His face showed complicated emotions.

“We found many corpses here.

“In the cement of the basement, inside the thick walls, and in the overgrown parts of the garden, one corpse after another was hidden. The earliest might date back more than ten years, and the latest were those servants who were still alive only a few days ago.

“Some are only skeletons now, while some have only just begun to rot. Deacon, this place is like a human slaughterhouse!”

As he spoke, Machinery Hivemind members and carefully chosen police officers behind him carried out one corpse after another.

Some of those corpses had been completely dismembered, with tongues, fingers, stomachs, eyes, and other parts strewn together in disorder. Some were nothing but piles of bones.

“It seems many missing-person cases in Backlund will be solved because of this,” Isengard said with a sigh, pinching his nose.

Klein saw a length of intestine almost dragging on the ground. He exhaled, turned his head away, and began examining the house’s overall condition.

Carlson of the Machinery Hivemind murmured two more sentences.

“Jason paid his servants very high wages and gave them many days off. The servants of the nearby residents were all extremely envious… Jason’s cook even promised his child that he would go home once this week and take him to the circus…”

“What a demon…” Kaslana said, visibly moved.

After looking around, Klein restrained his emotions and asked solemnly, “Why are the furnishings in this house so plain?

“As a banker, even if the bank he owns isn’t large, Jason should have expensive porcelain, fine oil paintings, luxurious wall clocks, and various items made from high-quality silk. Why can’t any of those be seen here? Mm, the wood used for his furniture is still quite good.”

Carlson looked at Deacon Ikanser and only spoke after receiving an approving nod.

“It is very obvious that Jason planned this revenge long in advance. He gradually sold off valuable but less conspicuous items inside the rooms, and even agreed to Bavart Bank’s acquisition of his own business.

“After killing his servants, he accelerated the process of converting assets into cash, selling oil paintings and the like. It seems he was very clear that he would definitely be found and did not entertain any fantasies of luck.

“Before acting, all he had left here was the house, the furniture, and an identity. Large amounts of cash, precious metals, and jewelry have been transferred somewhere unknown.”

After listening to Carlson’s description, several adjectives abruptly surfaced in Klein’s mind:

Calm, rational, and mad!

“A true Demon.” Isengard offered an evaluation, then immediately deduced, “His mind is very clear, and his actions are very calm, yet he also has an intense tendency toward madness and a spirit of risk-taking. This matches the traits displayed in his previous two actions.”

“So we need to guard against him taking risks?” Klein keenly caught the main point in Detective Stanton’s words.

“Yes.” Isengard nodded gravely.

Next, the detectives and Machinery Hivemind members searched the house. They found quite a bit of evidence proving Patrick Jason’s guilt, and they also saw the portrait hanging in the sitting room.

The painting depicted a middle-aged man with high cheekbones, blue-gray eyes, ordinary facial features, and neatly combed-back hair. He had no distinguishing characteristics.

Just then, Ikanser entered and said to Klein and the others, “We found some items in a secret room. We have confirmed that Patrick Jason once attempted to summon a more powerful Demon, though for unknown reasons he failed. Those items also confirm his identity. He is a member of the Demon family Beria. His true name should be Jason Beria.”

The Beria family? Klein nodded without surprise.

“In the ancient Fourth Epoch, human forces that worshiped Demons formed a loose alliance known as the Blood Sanctify Sect,” Isengard introduced to the two wild Beyonders, Klein and Kaslana. “The organization was deeply divided internally. The three great Demon families—Nois, Andrerad, and Beria—stood like the legs of a tripod. Their ancestors had all received gifts from the Abyss. They worship an evil god called the Dark Side of the Universe, believing Him to be the ruler of the Abyss and the destroyer who will inevitably corrode and corrupt the entire real world, the entire vast universe.”

Ikanser shook his head and added, “If a deeply divided organization does not ultimately split apart, integration and unification become an inevitable trend. Various circumstances and rumors indicate that, beginning at least a thousand years ago, the Beria and Andrerad families gradually weakened. In recent decades, they have even become vassals of the Nois family. Mm, the mark of the Beria family is a combination of a pentagram and an abstract symbol of goat horns.”

No matter what, Beria is still an ancient family with deep foundations. No wonder Jason could raise an additional demon dog. Sigh. That is one reason. The other reason is that he runs a bank, even if it is not a large one… In the Second Epoch, the ancient god corresponding to the Dark Side of the Universe was the Devil Monarch Farbauti. Is there some link between the two? Klein felt both emotional and curious.

After repeated searches, the three detectives and the Machinery Hivemind members could only confirm that Patrick Jason was the Apostle of Desire, but they could not locate where he currently was.

Using the excuse of finding someone to help, Klein took a handkerchief Jason had used in the demon-summoning ritual, planning to divine the other party’s whereabouts above the gray fog when he had the chance. Jason had handled the things he frequently touched very well.

Not long after, Ikanser found them and said with a grave expression, “The Nighthawks are bringing that Sealed Artifact over. We should leave first.”

“All right,” Isengard and Kaslana answered at the same time.

As for Klein, he had long since raised both hands and feet in approval in his heart.

After leaving Jason’s rather spacious villa-style house, Klein looked back once, his expression gradually turning serious.

With a trace of puzzlement, he said, “I think something is wrong.”

“What is it?” Kaslana immediately asked.

Klein considered his words. “Selling his bank, selling his businesses, selling many valuable items in advance—this means Jason had already prepared to abandon his current identity and life. If this was merely revenge for the demon dog, the motive cannot support such behavior.”

“Perhaps he had extremely deep feelings for that demon dog. Sherlock, you probably don’t think so, but I really have seen people treat pets as family members,” Kaslana said, disagreeing.

Beside her, Isengard said solemnly, “No. Sherlock is right.

“Kaslana, do you know the ancient name of Sequence 8 of the Demon pathway?”

Kaslana showed a pensive expression. She seemed to have heard it before, but could not immediately recall it.

At that moment, Klein answered for her in a low voice.

“Coldblooded.”

Coldblooded… Kaslana chewed over the name and instantly understood why the two great detectives, Moriarty and Stanton, had said what they did.

Seeing her reaction, Klein pointed in another direction.

“We’ll split up and take action through our own channels.”

After receiving affirmative responses from Isengard and Kaslana, he hurried away. But he did not immediately rush to the South Borough of the Bridge to find Emlyn White.

He first had to go to the Hissak Police Station and retrieve the 50-pound bail.

He had already been proven entirely innocent, and both Isengard Stanton and the official Beyonders had provided the corresponding testimony.