Speaking to the Dead
Without an international framework for online investigative cooperation, every lead took time they did not have—and in that time Jack O'Lantern kept herding people toward death. Even if they dug, all they would turn up was a PC bang's IP address. Sitting around waiting on log files was not an option.
"Hmm. Is that so? Then even if you keep wandering PC bangs like this, there's no way you'd find him, is there?"
"Yeah, well—that doesn't mean we get to sit on our hands and suck our thumbs."
Detective Jo said it while studying Se-gun carefully. Se-gun felt the suspicion in that look and smirked.
"Ahh. I don't care about any of that."
"Don't care? The whole world's in an uproar and you're the one guy who doesn't care? This is why crime never ends. We ought to declare another war on crime and really—"
"Does he look like the kind of guy you'd catch just by throwing more bodies at him?"
Se-gun cut him off, and Detective Jo shut his mouth. Fair enough—this wasn't someone you nicked by flooding the streets with personnel. All they could do was wait for him to leave a trail. Watching Jo sink into gloom, Se-gun moved the mouse and opened a chat window.
"But this Jack O'Lantern character… is what he's done even going to count as a crime?"
He asked it quietly. Of course the Republic of Korea prized the system over people; anyone who sowed chaos would be punished by any means available. But would that punishment actually settle the blood of the bereaved? More than that, the information Silvester had given him suggested the culprit was likely a minor—and minors sat outside full legal accountability.
"Punishment, huh. Honestly? It'll be hard. A year in lockup for a guy who mass-killed people and sat around snickering about it—tough to even get that. But what else can we do? If we just let him keep causing disasters, what the hell kind of police are we?"
Detective Jo spoke with real conviction. As a detective—and as a human being—he could never forgive someone like that. The conviction landed squarely on Se-gun as well.
"Understood."
Se-gun said it and stood. From the look of things, the police had almost nothing. If they did, detectives wouldn't be pulling the idiot move of coming to PC bangs to try and catch the guy. They could barely work a computer, and they still showed up… Watching them, Se-gun figured Jack O'Lantern would catch the police long before the police ever caught him. And of course they wouldn't be able to kill him either.
"Well then. I'm going."
"Huh? You're leaving?"
"Grab that girl over there and park her in my seat instead."
Se-gun said it and shook free of Detective Jo's hand. As he walked out, Jo clicked his tongue.
"Damn, what a hardass."
"Hey, senior?"
"Yeah?"
"That kid who just left—who is he?"
Detective Park watched Se-gun's back, his expression darkening a little.
"Ah, some biker we looked into before. Why?"
"He's just a biker?"
"Well. He's a weird one every which way. Dropped out of high school, said he was going to be a motorcycle racer or something. Why? What about him?"
"Hmm."
Detective Park carefully replayed Han Se-gun's face and manner. The air around the young man wasn't something a smile and a boyish face could hide. It was a thick darkness so dense it turned your stomach just to look at it. Jo didn't seem sensitive to that kind of thing—but Park was certain Han Se-gun was no ordinary motorcycle punk.
"Drop it. Guys like that are a dime a dozen."
"Ah. Yes, sir."
They turned their eyes back to the monitors.
Han Se-gun tossed his helmet aside and strode into Arjuna. Showing up twice in one day was unusual, but neither the owner nor Silvester seemed to mind.
"What is it?"
Silvester had been sitting by the window, watching the rain pour down; when Se-gun came in he turned his head. Se-gun went straight to him.
"I want the rest of the information."
At those words Silvester's eyes narrowed. Obviously the information Se-gun wanted was about Jack O'Lantern.
"So you've decided to do it."
"Of course. Isn't that why you told me?"
For a Se-gun drowning in depression, he needed something—anything—to give his life a reason to keep moving. A vampire hunter was not supposed to be some apostle of justice, but that didn't mean he intended to leave a case as entertaining as Jack O'Lantern alone.
"Found something to replace the Sangdong faction, and now you're all fired up. Unfortunately, I don't have any detailed information."
"Then where did you get what you have?"
"Someone passed it along. But if you really want to find him… shall we go together?"
"What?"
Silvester stood.
"I was getting bored myself."
"Haa. You're sticking your nose into this kind of thing too?"
Se-gun had never seen Silvester insert himself into a purely human case—only vampire incidents.
"The one who stirred the wind takes responsibility. Ah, don't worry. I'll hand the pumpkin head over to you."
He drew a car key from his coat and spun it between his fingers.
"Follow me."
"Ah—yes."
Se-gun trailed after the unexpectedly eager Silvester and glanced back into the shop. Behind Arjuna's counter, Kim Seong-hui smiled sweetly.
"My, my. A boys' night drive? I might get jealous."
"…It's not like that."
Se-gun protested, then bolted outside at the sound of the Corvette's engine. Silvester was already in the car, waiting. In the pouring rain the blue headlights looked almost mystical. Looking closer, Se-gun could see full-tune modifications everywhere—Silvester seemed genuinely fond of this machine.
In truth, while Silvester couldn't match Phantom, he was wealthy enough that a Chevrolet Corvette Coupe like this counted as a cheap ride. Phantom drove a Viper GTS and called it frugal living, but Phantom also kept a limousine the length of a minibus, and back at his stronghold in the States he had a custom machine he'd designed from the chassis up himself.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Let's go."
Se-gun climbed in and sat. The chassis sat low, so he naturally stretched his legs forward and leaned back—and the sense of speed in that posture was nearly a match for a bike. Chasing down a road after a fight with Gyeong-gwa in a car like this… Se-gun roughly guessed Silvester's driving was nothing ordinary either.
"So what's the plan?"
"For starters, I thought we'd try a little necromancy."
Silvester murmured it and drew something from his coat—a strangely ornamented rosary and a Bible.
"It's been a while. Not sure if it'll work."
"Huh? What's that? And what do you mean, necromancy?"
"Asking the dead victims directly would be fastest, wouldn't it?"
Silvester drove to the far side of the park—the place where a student had thrown himself to his death—and parked. Taking a car for such a short distance felt awkward, but from Silvester's expression Se-gun understood they wouldn't be stopping at just this one site.
"Let's visit every victim before the night is over."
"Huh? That's the entire country."
"Correction. Seoul's."
Silvester sank to the ground and pressed his hand to the place where the body had fallen. Se-gun watched him, baffled.
"So… ghosts actually exist?"
"Did you used to believe vampires existed?"
Silvester answered with a question, as was his way. Fair enough—if vampires existed, there was no law saying ghosts couldn't. But admitting ghosts existed was still strange in its own right. Vampires at least had bodies; you could cut them down with a Japanese sword or put bullets in them, and you could even suck their blood to heal wounds. Ghosts? You couldn't do any of that. They had no substance.
Of course, there was no reason to fear a ghost without substance. That was Se-gun's stance after fighting vampires with his life on the line. If a ghost had once been human, it was a deficient human that had lost the vessel called a body. What did a complete human have to fear from a deficient one, and by what means could a deficient human harm a complete one?
It was a soul-philosophy that bordered on bullying, but Se-gun had no intention of changing it. He already leaned hard toward a resentment of suicide; if he didn't believe the living were more dignified than the dead, one more reason for living would fall away. There was no need to go out of his way to shrink the meaning of his own life.
"Then the afterlife, and things like—"
"Don't look to me for that answer. I may be an excommunicated priest, but I am still a priest. The afterlife I believe in… well. Let's say it matches the Catholic one."
Silvester wound the rosary around his arm and carefully surveyed the surroundings. Se-gun watched and asked,
"But isn't necromancy supposed to work by just calling, and they come?"
"You're rather interested in the occult, aren't you? Enough to spout the general theory of necromancy."
"The place I go every day is an occult café. What do you expect?"
Se-gun watched Silvester work in the rain. The man stood, raked back his hair, and climbed back into the car. Water still dripping from him, he caught the mercury-lamp light that ringed the park and glowed a pale, cold blue.
"I use necromancy, but whether a spirit truly exists as the soul humans imagine—or whether it's only a record of lingering thoughts left in a place—I don't know. What I do know is this: if you don't read the residual will left at the place where the spirit's original owner died, most necromancy fails."
He started the car and tipped his head back. Against black clothes, the priest's pale skin suggested a beautiful corpse; the black sports car he rode felt like a coffin on the move.
"So spirits actually exist?"
"Phenomena believed to prove the existence of spirits are faint, but they do exist… Let's leave it at that. Speaking further is difficult, given my position."
"You're a fallen priest anyway—what position?"
Se-gun grumbled when Silvester dodged. Silvester only smirked and gave no other reaction.
"And when you find Jack O'Lantern—what will you do?"
"Kill him. Throw him off a building or something."
Se-gun answered as if the question itself were absurdly obvious. Silvester's eyebrows lifted for a moment, but his face stayed wax-white and rigid as he drove.
"Kill him? For what reason?"
"If a vampire hunter isn't an apostle of justice, then not being one means he should throw himself into his hobbies, doesn't it?"
"I think that's a rather thin reason to kill a person."
Silvester offered the opinion, but Se-gun shook his head.
"He said it himself, didn't he? Death has to be beautiful."
"Something along those lines."