Volume 3 - CH 4.3

The street in front of Jeantan was more crowded in the evening. The sound of footsteps filled the sidewalks.

Kazuya looked around. He couldn’t quite find the person he was looking for. Suddenly he remembered something. He went to the drainage and peered into the shadows.

“You there!”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s just the dumb Chinese,” came a bored reply.

Kazuya felt relieved. “I could use a little help.”

“Will you give me paper?”

Inspector Blois’ face popped into his mind, and he nodded. “Yes. Lots of paper.”

“So what do you need?” The street urchin stepped out of the shadows. A dirty face with glistening blue eyes looked up at Kazuya. It was hard to tell the original color of his soot-stained hair.

“You told me that every month there are a couple of customers who enter Jeantan and never come out. I need you to explain that in detail.”

“Why?”

“I think something horrible is happening in Jeantan. A girl I met asked for help. She said something about demonic rituals and people getting killed.”

“Demonic?” The kid snorted.

Kazuya nodded. “That’s what she says. Anyway, just come with me to the station—”

“The station?!” The kid turned around and scurried back into the ditch.

Kazuya grabbed his arm, but he was getting pulled into the ditch as well, so he put his arm around the kid’s neck. “Please! People’s lives are at stake. This might be a major crime!”

“I don’t want to go to the cops!”

“It’ll be fine!”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because…” His voice weakened. “I’ve been to the cops before. Some girls didn’t come out, so I told them about it. But they beat me up with their batons. They said I was making things up. It hurt so much.”

He began sobbing. Kazuya regarded his face. The little boy stared back at him with tears in his blue eyes. Two lines of tears spilled down his dirty face, revealing fair skin underneath. He wiped the tears away with the back of his dirty hand.

“A girl who escaped asked me for help once. But there was nothing I could do. A guy chasing her caught her. I went to the police, but they wouldn’t open the front door. They just wiped the dirty spot made by my fists. They didn’t listen to me. I never saw the girl again. She was about the same age as me.” He was crying now. “No one listens to me.”

“I will. I’ll listen to you. And the cops will listen as well. I know a police inspector. I promised him I would take you with me. Right now, they’re gathering lots of photos. I’ll be right by your side making sure they don’t hurt you.”

Like an actual child, the street urchin clung to his neck. As Kazuya patted his grimy head, the kid cried louder and louder.

People glanced at them as they hurried past.

“What’s your name?” Kazuya asked.

“What’s yours?”

“It’s Kujou. Kazuya Kujou.”

“I’m Luigi,” the kid said.

They started walking down the pavement, hand in hand. The sun was slowly setting. It felt cooler now.

Luigi was afraid of carriages, saying he had never ridden in one before, so Kazuya decided to walk to the police station. They hurried along, weaving past crowds of people.

Kazuya stopped in front of a building on the street near the Charles de Gilet station. It was a foreign-styled yellow building shaped like a pyramid. The wide-open entrance and the ticket window marked it as a theater. Large posters of glamorous and obscene shows hung outside.

Luigi looked at Kazuya curiously. “Do you like this sort of thing?” he asked.

“Uh, no, not really…”

Kazuya pointed to a poster for a show titled “Phantasmagoria,” which humorously depicted dancing skeletons, a beautiful levitating woman, and a headless man holding his own head in his hands. It bore the words: Amputation! Mechanical Turk! Teleportation! and next to a red-haired man in a black tailcoat, it said: The Greatest Magician of the Century, Brian Roscoe, Finally Performing in this Theater!

Wait… Brian Roscoe?!

The name sounded familiar. Was it a coincidence? Or was it the same person?

Victorique’s image popped into Kazuya’s mind again. He thought about her past, her birth, how she grew up locked in a tower.

Brian Roscoe.

Kazuya remembered the photo of Cordelia Gallo that Victorique cherished. Cordelia, her mother who looked exactly like her, but with glossy, mature makeup. She came from a nameless village deep in the mountains where the descendants of an Eastern European tribe called the Gray Wolves lived. She was banished from the village for a crime she did not commit and eventually became a dancer in the city, but it was said that mysterious incidents occurred frequently around her. Later, Marquis de Blois, who wished to introduce the blood of the Gray Wolf into his bloodline, made her give birth to Victorique de Blois, but she was banished from the Marquis’ family when the Marquis learned of her alleged crime. Her daughter Victorique, whom she left behind, grew up locked in a tower. She was now a student at St. Marguerite Academy, but an agreement between the Marquis and the academy prevented her from leaving the campus. So even if she could manage to stuck out, being ignorant of the outside world, she would be lost without Kazuya.

Her mother, Cordelia, was said to have played some kind of role in the Great War that followed, but Kazuya did not know anything about it. But he knew that just before the Great War, a mysterious young man named Brian Roscoe visited the nameless village where Cordelia was born and raised, found something that Cordelia hid under the floor of her house, and took it.

However, he knew not exactly who Brian Roscoe was, or what he took from that house.

“What’s wrong with this poster?”

Luigi’s voice brought Kazuya back to his senses.

I’m sure it’s just someone sharing the same name. Yup, that’s it. Besides, now’s not the time for this.

“Sorry for the hold-up. Let’s go.” Kazuya pulled on Luigi’s hand.

A large carriage pulled up in front of the theater. A group of young men rushed out of the building and bowed gracefully in unison.

A man with fiery red hair jumped down from the carriage.

He had cat-like green eyes and hair the color of flames. He had handsome chiseled features reminiscent of ancient sculptures, but also a fierce nature, apparent at first glance.

Kazuya realized that he was the Brian Roscoe depicted on the poster. Landing on the pavement, Brian extended one hand and pointed to the carriage. Four men entered the carriage and came out, carrying something unusual.

It was a square box with a puppet attached. The puppet, as big as a child of Luigi’s age, had two thin arms outstretched to a chessboard placed on top of the box. It was a bearded man with a Turkish turban.

“A Mechanical Turk!” Luigi exclaimed. “I’ve never seen one before!”

“A what?”

“It’s amazing. The box is empty, which the guests confirm, and it’s not even big enough for an adult to fit inside. But the puppet moves on its own and plays a chess match with the audience. And it’s so good that no one can beat it. The Mechanical Turk is extremely smart. It’s a very popular show right now. See that guy right there? That’s Brian Roscoe. It’s one of his best tricks.”

“Really, now? Does he have any other tricks?”

“There’s teleportation… But there’s something off with that guy. There were a few times when it didn’t seem like a trick, like he was really in two places at the same time. He would enter Jeantan, not come out, and then go back in a few minutes later. He would appear in one side of the road and the other at about the same time. He pretends to be a magician, but I think he’s the real deal. Let’s go, Kazuya Kujou. I’m curious about the Mechanical Turk, but that guy gives me the creeps.”

“Uh, okay…”

As Kazuya walked past the carriage, Brian moved his chin a little and stared at Kazuya.

Cat-like eyes. Fiery hair. The wary look on his face sent a chill down Kazuya’s spine. He couldn’t look away.

Brian Roscoe grinned and directed his attention back to the men carrying the Mechanical Turk.

“Be gentle to her, boys.”

The men stared at the bearded puppet’s funny face and laughed.

“She caught a cold this morning.”

The men laughed again.

Kazuya and Luigi walked away from the theater.

“Achoo!”

The men exchanged glances. They all shook their heads as though to say it wasn’t them. Then their gazes slowly went to the Mechanical Turk.

The box was light and very small, not big enough to hold a person inside.

Brian Roscoe smirked at the men, who looked uncomfortably silent. His flame-red hair danced ominously in the wind.

“I told you. She caught a cold. Carry her as gently as you can.”

With frightened faces, the men carried the Mechanical Turk slowly. As they disappeared into the theater, Brian wiped out his smirk, and with dark eyes looked at Kazuya and Luigi as they receded further away.

The pair was soon swallowed by the crowd.