Ch.250Request Log #020 – Murder Machine (7)

Isaac kept his promise well. At least for a while. I don’t know how long he’ll keep it. He might even visit the house that Carmen left behind after saying she was going independent.

Carmen’s parents didn’t contact me. They seemed to have hired someone else, but they probably won’t find her.

Carmen, being clever, arranged for her letter to arrive at home two days after she left. Yet in the letter, she wrote that she would leave tomorrow.

If I didn’t know Carmen’s situation, I would have been looking for someone who had booked a train ticket for tomorrow. In an age where everyone deceives each other, knowledge is everything. A common saying.

Even after the promised week passed, I watched Carmen’s house for a few more days, but no one came. It’s getting close to December. Even gangsters wouldn’t check their guns while shivering in the cold.

Three weeks and four days until Christmas. If I have no one to spend it with, I’ll probably call a woman from Iris. Christmas isn’t a day to spend working. Visiting Sarah will only be brief.

Today I needed to think about another woman. Despite The Morrígan not being a particularly patient woman, I made her wait for nearly ten days. Still, she wouldn’t be angry. I head to Little Eire.

Little Eire was gleaming today too. The casino Ildana is shining today as well. While New York’s streets are generally bright at night, they don’t shine like daylight as Little Eire does. It seemed like a dedication to someone.

Still, my destination is somewhere darker. I head to Bar Mare where The Morrígan resides. It’s the darkest place in Little Eire, which is otherwise decorated with light and sparkle. I show my invitation.

The doorkeeper opened his mouth as if displeased, but his displeasure didn’t last long. He knew better than to complain too much to The Morrígan’s guest.

“You’re early. She’s waiting, so go straight to the back room. You know where it is, right?”

“I don’t forget places I’ve been to.”

It was a snide remark, but also honest. I had never forgotten the second floor of Two Face. While I had less attachment to Bar Mare than that place, not forgetting is a detective’s virtue.

No, perhaps Bar Mare has now become one of the places I’m most attached to. The room on the second floor of Two Face is gone now. None of my belongings remained in the back room either. The places I remembered no longer exist.

It wasn’t demolished, but it was completely torn down, not leaving one stone upon another. The rest of my past hadn’t yet received a demolition permit. I hadn’t looked in the mailbox.

The door to Mare opens, and I enter into the space filled with the musty wood smell characteristic of old wooden items. Mare didn’t have many customers. Many customers at Bar Mare would mean big trouble.

There was a fairy with goat hooves. She glared at me. Since Carmen had vanished after I took the job, it was obvious who she would suspect. And that suspicion wasn’t wrong.

However, I hadn’t used any of the information I received from her, so she couldn’t say I had used her help to cause her harm. As long as I had an excuse, The Morrígan’s affection remained The Morrígan’s affection.

What good is it to be loved by the goddess of war and death? At the very least, there was nothing bad about receiving affection from a woman with such a face. Her aura was cold, but her body was as warm as the blood of fallen warriors.

I headed up the stairs behind the bar to The Morrígan’s office. I knocked twice on the door. The first knock landed, but for the second, my hand swept through empty air. The door opened before I could finish knocking twice.

Inside was The Morrígan, unchanged. She wasn’t in formal attire today either. She wore a thin dress. It seemed closer to a slip than a dress. Without a word, she embraced my neck.

It’s also amusing that The Morrígan hadn’t noticed what the head of the Half-God Faction had. She gladly enjoyed the smell of death emanating from me. A smell I couldn’t detect myself.

After burying her face in my neck for quite some time, The Morrígan pulled me into her office. While I wasn’t one to be easily dragged by others, this time I couldn’t resist.

Again, the sensation of seeing illusions. My vision flickered. My first step was on a wooden floor, but the second step felt like stepping into a pool of blood. The Morrígan’s hair was dragging on the floor too.

By the third step, I returned to the wooden floor. Ravens filling the office were watching us. There were no ravens. When I waved my hand to disperse the illusion, the original office appeared.

Since she was an unworshipped goddess, it was merely a hallucination. Only after the fake scenery that was revealed by my touch disappeared did The Morrígan seem to regain some of her senses.

Whether “regaining her senses” is the right phrase, I don’t know. This might be her normal state. Perhaps forcibly gathering Irish mixed-bloods to build Little Eire was the unnatural act.

Evidence of this was that she lived in the darkest place in Little Eire. But that’s not my immediate concern. The Morrígan’s voice felt almost sweet.

“To bring the death of a god before me. Hmm?”

So I’m treated as a god-killer here too. Sol Invictus died horribly. I cut off his head before he could leave any last words, so I sneered confidently again.

“Just a murderer died. Is there any reason to call someone a god when they’ve lost all their followers and even their divinity?”

Perhaps calling him a god would be a greater insult. Dr. Albert shouted. What difference is there between a god who exists to be served and a slave? So I corrected myself once more.

“I suppose I could call him a god. After meeting him, I came to respect you a bit more. The sight of someone submitting like a dog just to be served was quite ugly.”

The Morrígan covered her mouth with her hand and laughed. Another illusion. Despite both her arms propping herself around me, somehow another hand emerged from somewhere to cover her mouth as she laughed. I reached out to disrupt the illusion.

“If that’s an ugly sight, why not call my behavior ugly too—sniffing like a dog at the death of that one emanating from you. Ah, was that what you meant?”

“That’s not what I meant, but… well, you are quite beast-like at times like this. You said you urgently needed to call me to Mare, but was this all? For this kind of summons, I should be charging you.”

At those words, The Morrígan finally rose from atop me on the sofa and grinned. She was still a woman whose eyes revealed the scenery of the Argonne Forest when you looked into them. A woman who evoked memories I couldn’t cut away.

“If you had coveted a god’s treasures more than an Irish gang leader’s safe, I could have given you those dusty things… but you prefer money. Money, women, and alcohol—things suited to this era, things I’ve released into this city to raise my children. I should give you those. Shouldn’t I?”

“I’d appreciate it if you could also calm down that fairy sitting on the first floor of Mare as a bonus. Gods have something like an obsession with granting wishes, don’t they? That old murderer was like that.”

The Morrígan briefly acted as if she was being humble, then grinned. She seemed to enjoy our conversation. Conversations with The Morrígan were relatively enjoyable, except for the fact that she was one of the unworshipped gods.

“Ah, really. Exposing my weaknesses so easily. Yes, I’ll speak well to Bavan… Come here. You know what I need.”

She handed me a drink. It was similar in color to Dragon Slayer but much darker. It was a color reminiscent of fresh blood, though it did smell of alcohol.

It wasn’t real blood anyway. My pupils didn’t tremble like olives floating in the drink. The fact that I was somewhat conscious of this also means I was a bit worried.

If she was trying to insult me with just this or expose my weaknesses after I exposed hers, then this time I’d have to say it was The Morrígan’s failure. I drank it in one go.

The drink had a mysterious taste. Not the taste of blood. It wasn’t spicy all the way to the root of my tongue like Dragon Slayer. Instead, it was quite sweet. Rather than trying to identify the contents, I put the empty glass down on the table beside me.

The Morrígan, who had also downed a drink, lowered herself toward me but then looked curiously at my right hand. Her tongue, slightly cooled as the alcohol evaporated, traced my palm.

Whether tracing from the bottom of my palm all the way to between my thumb and index finger should be considered foreplay, I wasn’t sure. The Morrígan grinned. Apparently, it wasn’t foreplay.

“It hasn’t been that long since that one died, has it? Or else he must have bled a lot when he died. I can taste blood on your palm. The taste of a god’s blood—colorless, odorless, and even transparent.”

Transparent divine blood did splash when I killed Sol Invictus, but was it still there? It was a problem I couldn’t properly answer, so I asked The Morrígan.

“Was the smell of death actually the smell of that god’s blood? If so, I think I understand why everyone figured it out so easily…”

With her finger on my lips, she shook her head while grinning. As if now wasn’t the time for conversation, she smiled seductively, uncharacteristically, and lowered her body.

The Morrígan’s skin was still as warm as blood bursting before my eyes. Unlike blood, it didn’t cool quickly. If I thought of it as blood, the warmth would last unnaturally long, but it was skin.

I didn’t distinguish whether time was too short or passing too quickly. The Morrígan’s favor, for something so full of illusions, is quite intuitive. During that time, even the illusions don’t seem so unpleasant.

Two hours later, just like last time, I was able to borrow the bathroom in The Morrígan’s private quarters attached to Bar Mare. Her bath salts had her unique scent. Not a commercial product. It looked exactly like bone powder, but the fragrance was pleasant.

The Morrígan didn’t splash around. She was well-behaved, as if worried the water touching her body might turn to blood. She grinned as if just now remembering something.

“No, the smell of death isn’t the smell of god’s blood, Michael. It’s something completely different. Just… something detected by an inexplicable sixth sense. Does that answer your question?”

Having heard this after being tossed between illusion and reality, I pondered what it meant for a moment, then sighed as I finally recalled the question I had asked long ago.

“It would have been nice if you’d reminded me what question I asked first. That’s a sufficient answer. I should thank you for licking away that smell, since I don’t want to smell like the blood that bastard shed.”

After two hours of activity, one should stay together at least as long as the time spent on the activity. If it’s not going to be a one-time meeting, it’s better to do that much. If it’s just a one-time thing, it’s better to part ways right after washing up.

I looked at my palm where The Morrígan said blood stains remained, but of course I couldn’t see anything. After spending an appropriate amount of time together, I got up and put my clothes back on.

I put on my shirt myself, but when it came to tying my tie, The Morrígan’s hands approached. Her touch was quite gentle, but it also overlapped with the image of tying a noose for suicide. A goddess of death is a goddess of death.

The light may have faded, but it hasn’t disappeared. Even a dying bulb shines in the darkness. I put on my coat and pulled down the newsboy cap I always wear when doing detective work.

Though I had shared body heat with The Morrígan, we weren’t close enough to share kisses. The Morrígan knew that much. She seemed to show great interest in me while trying not to be interested in me.

Even if I left Bar Mare smelling of that unworshipped goddess’s bath salts, the doorkeepers wouldn’t treat me with the deference due to a superior. There would have been instructions from The Morrígan to treat me normally.

She wasn’t a detective, but she kept her distance like I did. I don’t know why, but the reason lies beyond the distance she kept. Distance should be respected. Only now was the burden-free relationship over.

The Morrígan shook a pill bottle containing three pills again today, but I shook my head. If I had wanted to escape life through death, I would have quietly sunk with Sarah whom I met during my life flashing before my eyes.

“No thanks. It seems addictive. Though I receive payment in various ways, I refuse to take it in the form of drug envelopes… that applies this time too.”

I can’t live to die. Do I plan to commit suicide when I get closer to the death I use as my driving force? I had to live. It was also my choice to choose a life I wanted to die in rather than a death I might willingly settle into.

When I refused the pills, The Morrígan grinned and offered me a glass of milk. Since what I wanted to refuse was only the pills that would put me in a comatose state, not her kindness, I accepted and drank the milk.

She sneered. It was as if she already knew everything. There seemed to be a hint of regret in her manner.

“Shouldn’t you at least change your expression when you lie? It’s not a bad thing, so I won’t scold you. Rather, I can hardly scold you when I should be praising you for doing something good.”

If I stayed for dinner, I’d end up staying until tomorrow morning. I left Bar Mare as I was. The doorkeepers saw me and turned their gaze away.

They probably already knew the meaning of The Morrígan’s favor. It wasn’t the first time. At least they weren’t as prickly as when I came in, so that was enough.

The afternoon, which had been as colorful as Little Eire’s lights, turns into a drab night like the dark street where my apartment is located. I’m quite hungry. It’s because I exerted quite a bit of energy, even though I didn’t work.

I took out a can of clam chowder from the cupboard, then firmly gripped Sol Invictus’s gladius with my right hand and cut off the top of the can. Even when forcibly cutting open a can, the blade remained intact.

I should add to the list of things the current murderer gained from killing the old murderer: The Morrígan’s favor and a can opener good enough that I’ll never need to buy one again.

In the past, I would have just gulped down the cold soup straight from the can, but now I at least heated it up. Next time, it would be better to buy some bread too. When one thing is resolved, you start wanting two.

After cleaning the still razor-sharp gladius with water, I put it back in the knife block. Even if I just put it away without cleaning it, the knife wouldn’t get dirty, but the knife block would.

Carmen’s calling me a killing machine ended without me needing to kill even one person. The stake driven into her family’s hearts was her responsibility, not mine.