Chapter 46: Portrait

Chapter Forty-Six
Portrait

“Urgh! Urgh!”

Klein crouched there, vomiting uncontrollably. Because he had not eaten breakfast, he quickly emptied what little his stomach held.

At that moment, a square tin-colored flask, shaped somewhat like a cigarette case, appeared before his eyes.

From the unstoppered mouth of the flask came a mixed scent resembling tobacco, disinfectant, and mint leaves. It rushed into Klein’s nose with such force that he nearly choked, and his whole body suddenly grew alert.

The intense stench of rot still coiled all around, yet Klein no longer felt nauseated. His vomiting quickly stopped.

His gaze followed the tin-colored flask upward. He saw a pale hand that barely seemed alive, the sleeve of a black windbreaker, and the cold, gloomy “Corpse Collector,” Frye.

“Thank you.”

Klein finally recovered, braced one hand against his knee, and stood again.

Frye nodded without expression.

“You get used to it.”

He stoppered the small tin flask, placed it back in his pocket, then turned and walked toward the highly decomposed corpse of the old woman. Without gloves, he directly began the examination. Dunn Smith and Leonard Mitchell, meanwhile, paced around the room, occasionally touching the tabletop and the newspapers.

Old Neil stood outside the door pinching his nose, complaining in a muffled voice, “This is too disgusting. I am applying for a subsidy this month!”

Dunn turned his head. While touching the ash on the wall beside the fireplace with his black-gloved right hand, he looked toward Klein.

“Does this place feel familiar?”

Klein held his breath and outlined the image of his silver-white pocket watch in his mind, allowing body and mind to fall into quiet.

Already in spirit vision, he immediately sensed something different. Before his eyes, an image suddenly flashed out from the deepest part of his memory:

Fireplace. Rocking chair. Table. Newspapers. Rusty nails on the door. A silver-inlaid tin can…

The scene was dim and gloomy, like a documentary from Earth—only blurrier, more unreal.

It quickly overlapped with everything Klein now saw. That sense of déjà vu, of having seemingly come here before, became distinct. Illusory, drifting cries once more pierced through an invisible barrier and reached him.

“Hornacis… Flegrea… Hornacis… Flegrea… Hornacis… Flegrea…”

“A little familiar,” Klein answered honestly, his head beginning to stab with pain. He quickly tapped the space between his brows twice.

Hornacis… the Hornacis mountain range that appeared in the original owner’s diary?

That had been interpreted from the Antigonus family notebook…

The whisper just now was very similar to one from before, and it also involved the word Hornacis… Is—is this temptation?

Klein shivered inwardly. He did not dare think deeper, afraid he might step onto the path toward losing control.

Dunn nodded faintly. He walked to the cabinet and suddenly reached out, pulling open its wooden door.

Inside, the bread had grown mold. Beside it lay seven or eight stiff gray mice, their fur hardened in death.

“Leonard, go downstairs and find the patrolling police. Get clear information on this place,” Dunn ordered.

“All right.”

Leonard turned and left the room.

Dunn then opened the two bedroom doors and carefully searched through both rooms.

When he confirmed that no clues had been found, nor the Antigonus family notebook, the Corpse Collector Frye straightened his legs and waist. Wiping his hands with a white handkerchief he carried, he said, “Dead for more than five days. No external wounds. No obvious influence from extraordinary power. The exact cause requires further examination.”

“Did either of you discover anything?” Dunn turned his head and looked toward Old Neil and Klein.

The two of them, both long since out of spirit vision, shook their heads at the same time.

“Other than a corpse, everything here is normal. No—at first, there was an invisible force sealing the room. You know, we often do something similar when performing ritual magic,” Old Neil said after thinking for several seconds.

Dunn was about to speak when he suddenly looked outside the door. A few seconds later, Klein and Old Neil also sensed something and turned toward the bend in the stairs.

Several seconds after that, faint footsteps gradually grew louder. Leonard came upstairs with a police officer.

The officer smelled the foul stench and his expression shifted slightly. Cooperating with his “colleagues” from the Special Operations Department, he knocked on the doors of the second-floor residents and roughly clarified the situation on the third floor.

A moment later, the officer, wearing silver double-V shoulder insignia, looked at the corpse on the rocking chair and said, “Katy Stephana Bieber. Between fifty-five and sixty years old. Widow. She and her son, Ray Bieber, have rented this place together for more than ten years.

“Her husband was a jeweler while alive. Her son is about thirty, unmarried, and inherited his father’s business. He earns around one pound fifteen soli a week. According to the neighbors, they have not seen either of them for more than a week.”

At that description, Klein already knew where the next focal point lay:

Ray Bieber, who had disappeared—or, more accurately, whose whereabouts were unknown.

The ancient notebook was very likely on him.

“Is there a photograph of Ray Bieber?” Dunn asked the officer. He was playing the role of a senior inspector.

Strictly speaking, it was not truly false. In the police department’s files, he was indeed a senior inspector, and his salary and subsidies were calculated accordingly—though those did not include the church’s share.

The officer shook his head with obvious nervousness.

“I do not know… We would have to go back to the station and search. Normally, we cannot possibly keep photographs of every fellow.”

“I understand. Continue questioning the first-floor residents. Ask in detail,” Dunn ordered.

Watching the officer leave, he shut the door and turned to Old Neil.

“The rest is up to you. Otherwise, I would have to put the residents here to sleep and seek Ray Bieber’s appearance from their dreams. Mm, I do not trust portraits drawn from oral descriptions very much.”

Old Neil nodded. From a hidden pocket at the waist of his classical black robe, he took out several thumb-sized bottles and sprinkled their liquids around the room in a particular order.

Immediately afterward, he pinched out a handful of powder and scattered it in a circle around himself.

A strange, sharp smell steamed and spread, unaffected by the foul odor in the room. Klein suddenly felt an invisible force appear around Old Neil, separating the old man from the surroundings, from Klein, and from the others—much like the state of this room earlier.

Old Neil half-closed his eyes. His lips moved as he began chanting a deep, indistinct incantation. Klein was caught unprepared and only faintly heard “I beseech the Goddess’s power,” “I await the favor of night”…

Whoosh!

A sudden gust of wind drilled through the window and swept up the powder.

Klein’s heart abruptly trembled. Goose bumps rose all over his skin, and he felt some indescribable, unwatchable, supremely terrifying “scent” spread rapidly through the room.

His mind became confused, yet tense and unable to relax, like the state one might enter after working through an extremely difficult mathematics problem.

Suddenly, Old Neil opened his eyes. His pupils were utterly black.

He took a fountain pen from his pocket and, using the scrap paper on the table, began drawing rapidly. His movements were so fast his whole body seemed to tremble.

Klein focused his gaze and saw a face with deep eye sockets and a high nose bridge quickly appear.

After the short naturally curled hair was completed, Old Neil wrote a line of words below the portrait:

“Black hair, dark-blue eyes, a full-porcelain false tooth on the left side of the mouth.”

Clack!

The fountain pen fell from Old Neil’s hand onto the paper. His body twitched several times.

“This is the appearance of Ray Bieber that remained in the room,” Old Neil whispered, his eye color quickly returning to normal.

Afterward, he returned to his earlier position and slowly turned in a complete circle. The invisible separating force immediately dissipated, transforming into a light breeze.

“Praise the Goddess.”

Old Neil tapped his chest four times, forming the shape of the crimson moon.

Klein’s mind relaxed. Observing more carefully, he discovered that Ray Bieber’s features were not especially distinctive, and his temperament seemed rather mild. Only the lines from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth drooped conspicuously.

“I will try using dowsing to see whether I can find him.”

He picked up the portrait, found male clothing in the bedroom, and spread everything across the floor.

Dunn, Leonard, and Old Neil did not stop him. They watched as he planted the silver-inlaid black cane over the clothing and portrait. The Corpse Collector Frye remained silent as always.

Brown turned to black. Klein’s gaze deepened as he finished silently reciting the statement and released his hand.

The black cane stood quietly, as though it had been thrust into the floor.

“Ray Bieber’s location,” Klein silently recited once more.

Amid the sound of wind, the cane toppled. Yet while falling, it continuously changed direction, and finally became a small rotation around its point of contact.

Without help from any visible external force, the silver-inlaid black cane stood upright again.

Klein tried several times. Each result was the same. He could only shake his head toward Dunn and Old Neil.

Some eerie force was interfering with his divination.

Dunn removed his black glove and said to Leonard and Klein, “Take Ray Bieber’s portrait and ask the residents here, making final confirmation. Then issue a warrant for him on the charge of murdering his mother.”

“All right.”

Klein gripped his cane and bent down to pick up the portrait.

After the neighbors had all confirmed that the man in the drawing was indeed Ray Bieber, Dunn told Leonard and the police officer to go to the police station and complete the formalities. He himself headed with Frye to several bars in Tingen, using underground channels to search for people.

Klein and Old Neil returned to Blackthorn Security Company by public carriage. It was still not yet eight o’clock, and Rozanne had not arrived.

After closing the door, Klein turned his head toward Old Neil and asked, half in confusion and half seeking instruction, “Why would I—why would I deliver the Antigonus family notebook to Ray Bieber’s home?”

It was in a completely different direction from Welch’s residence to Iron Cross Street.

Old Neil walked to the sofa and chuckled.

“Is that not extremely obvious? Whether you triggered the power within the notebook or, out of curiosity, performed some ritual it described, you attracted an eerie existence—or a power—that you should not have attracted. The purpose of that power, that existence, was to send the notebook to Ray Bieber and sever all traces so no one would discover it.

“Thus, aside from you, the person chosen to perform that task, Welch and Naya both killed themselves on the spot. As for you—frankly speaking, I still do not understand why you survived.”

“I do not know either…”

Klein sat down with him and deliberately answered with a bitter smile.

“I had thought of the same guess you made regarding what happened. I simply do not understand why the notebook had to be given to Ray Bieber.”

Old Neil spread his hands.

“Perhaps his birth numerology met the requirements. Perhaps he is the last surviving descendant of the Antigonus family. In short, there are far too many possibilities… As for why that notebook was sold in our Tingen, the reason should be something similar.”

“I think descendant is the more likely possibility.”

Klein suddenly understood, then sighed.

“It is a pity I did not notice immediately. Now both Ray Bieber and the notebook have disappeared.”

Old Neil smiled.

“That is something Dunn needs to worry about. For you, it is a good thing.”

“Why do you say that?”

Klein frowned in puzzlement.