The Deadshot Possession Prince
The next morning.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"...Just a few scratches."
I was at the police station. For once, the stifling air that all government buildings share felt impossibly reassuring.
"That's a relief. To think you walked out of that whole catastrophe without a single serious wound."
The officer muttered in a soulless voice, clacking away at his keyboard.
"According to another witness, just before the accident you were seen grabbing hold of someone and trying to hold him back."
The scene from that moment rose in my mind. The man who had brushed off my hand and boarded the bus anyway.
"What happened to that man?"
When I asked, the officer gave a shrug.
"He was hurt pretty badly. He'll live, but he'll be laid up in a hospital bed for a while."
"...I see."
I let out a silent breath of relief. The officer narrowed his eyes and glared at me. Apparently not the ideal reaction for a witness under investigation.
I rubbed my eyes without thinking. I hadn't slept a wink the night before.
That being... no — it had been the throbbing ache in the back of my hand, born of my connection with 'Mother'.
"So what happened last night? Why did you try to stop that man?"
...And how, exactly, am I supposed to explain this one.
"I'm a mudang — a shaman. I see strange things from time to time. Something felt off then, too, so I grabbed the man's shoulder and..."
Being a mudang really is a convenient profession to hide behind at moments like this.
"A mudang?"
The officer narrowed his eyes at me, his gaze carefully sweeping over my face and clothes.
"You're actually a mudang?"
Being a mudang doesn't mean walking around in ritual garb doing strange things all day. You don't wear your uniform after clocking out either, do you? The people who live in their ceremonial robes are the ones who don't understand the power steeped into them — the act of changing into the garb is itself the process of receiving divine and spiritual power.
I almost said as much, then swallowed it. This was a police station, damn it all.
"In any case — you saw something strange?"
"Yes. The atmosphere, I suppose you'd call it. Something I can't explain scientifically..."
I had realized by now that no amount of effort would make it sound logical or scientific. I sighed and drew a business card from my wallet.
New Year Readings · Love Fortunes
The officer looked back and forth between the card and me, then set it down on the desk.
"Then read something about me. Anything will do."
It had nothing whatsoever to do with the investigation, but the officer put on a stern face, as if this were somehow part of the interrogation.
"Well, it's not as if you'll actually see anything."
He snickered. No, even if you sneer like that, nothing is going to appear on the spot.
Sssaaaah.
Then, from the spot on the back of my hand, a pitch-black shadow came seeping out.
The shadow slowly coiled around the officer before beginning to pour into every opening of his face.
I flinched and shuddered at the scenery suddenly flooding into me, and 'knowledge' pertaining to that officer began unspooling through my head, all at once.
"...Hey. Excuse me? Honestly. Hey. If you've got nothing, just say so."
The officer snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. I returned to reality and looked at him.
"Your wife gave birth a few months ago, didn't she?"
The officer's expression twisted into open shock. Even a faint tremor of fear had entered his eyes.
"That child isn't yours."
And at last, the color drained from the officer's face.
"...What?"
"You already suspected she was cheating, didn't you? Look into it when you get the chance. Tell them you're on night duty, then quietly go home and see for yourself."
"You... you little punk!!"
The officer shot up from his seat and seized me by the collar, and the patrol officers and detectives nearby jumped in alarm to pry us apart.
"Come on, Officer Shin. What's worth flying off the handle like this? What is it now?"
"Throw that fraud of a mudang out right now. Witness, my ass."
Officer Shin jabbed a finger at me, fuming, and I gave a shrug.
Not my opinion. I only said what that woman taught me.
Before long, Officer Shin had been pulled from my interrogation, and in his place sat a hulking detective with a fearsome, scarred face. This was no ordinary traffic accident, after all — it seemed an inquiry into possible criminal charges would run alongside the rest.
"I'm Detective Park Dongsoo. Let me apologize for what happened earlier — on his behalf. That kid's temper boils over every now and then."
"It's quite all right. Some clients fly into a rage like that from time to time."
He chuckled as he spoke, but somehow the smiling made his face even more menacing. I turned into a docile lamb and bowed my head.
"So. You say you're a mudang?"
"Yes."
"Hm."
The detective picked up my card where it lay abandoned on the desk, turned it over front and back, then casually slipped it into his breast pocket.
"Anyway, walk me through what happened. The more detail, the better."
I pressed a hand to my forehead and replayed the incident. How much of this would he actually believe? I had sensed something ominous from the driver — and then the man had wrenched the wheel and charged straight onto the sidewalk.
When I summarized it up to that point, the detective gave a quiet nod.
"You didn't hear a loud engine, or anything along those lines?"
"No. Nothing like that."
"...Understood for now. If anything comes up, we'll be in touch."
And with that, the statement was over — and, ever so graciously, the police loaded me into a car and drove me home. I suspect they were worried I might file a complaint over that officer's little tantrum. Poor civil servants.
Vrrrooom.
The police car sped down the road in broad daylight.
Who had helped me back then — and what on earth had those things been?
'Be careful. Someone may well be watching over you.'
My birth mother's words surfaced unbidden. She was gone now, so I couldn't ask her what she'd meant — but if she was right...
"See the accident scene over there? Whew. Gives me the chills even looking at it again."
Detective Park Dongsoo's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
With the power in the area still not restored, only the strobing blue and red of the police lights lit up the scene.
The place the bus had plowed into was beyond what devastated could describe. The bus stop had vanished without a trace; shards of debris were embedded even in the buildings behind it. The sidewalk glistened with something — blood, or perhaps the bus's fuel.
Traffic was being diverted, and the emergency crews dispatched to the scene were clearing away the wreckage. I shuddered, recalling that horrific shadowy shape.
"Were a lot of people hurt this time?"
"It was a big accident. One person's in critical condition — tonight's the night that decides whether they pull through."
From the scene beyond the window drifted the wail of sirens and the growl of heavy machinery moving back and forth.
"...Have accidents been happening often lately?"
When I asked offhandedly, Detective Park Dongsoo, still driving, let out a long sigh.
"Ugh, don't get me started. It's gotten so bad they pulled a violent crimes detective like me off my own caseload to help out. I suppose it's the cold weather settling in... So? Do those mudang eyes of yours see anything?"
Detective Park Dongsoo asked, half joking, half serious.
"No. I've just been seeing a lot of news like that lately, that's all."
I shook my head and kept watching out the window. The writhing stray spirits from that night were nowhere to be seen now.
That night.
"...Fuck."
At the low curse, Detective Park Dongsoo turned his head. Beside him, Officer Shin sat with his face buried in his palms.
"Still at it, Officer Shin?"
"Still at it? You should've heard what that bastard said to me, boss."
That bastard. Detective Park Dongsoo had a pretty good idea who he meant. He snorted and clamped a second cigarette between his lips.
"He had a decent air about him, though? Didn't look like a man telling lies."
"Here we go again — gut feeling this, instinct that. You're really going with that?"
Detective Park Dongsoo shrugged. Officer Shin was already lighting his third cigarette.
"Kid, have you ever once seen my gut be wrong?"
"You've been wrong plenty of times."
"But I was right when it counted."
Officer Shin let out a long sigh at Park Dongsoo's complete lack of sympathy.
"So what exactly did that mudang say?"
"...Haah."
Park Dongsoo stared blankly at Officer Shin's face as the man kept stalling. Had the mudang cursed his parents out or something, cocky with his backing?
"L-look, forget I said any of this. Please."
"Then tell me the damn story already. Or do I have to grill it out of you?"
At Park Dongsoo's brusque tone, Officer Shin exhaled another mouthful of smoke and finally opened his mouth.
"...I just got back from paternity leave a while ago. You know that."
"Right. Your face back then was a sight to see. I couldn't stop laughing. Your boy's nice and chubby — cute little thing. Why? Did that mudang badmouth your family or something?"
Ash dropped from Officer Shin's fingertips with a soft tap.
"He says the child isn't mine. Said my wife's been sleeping with another man. Told me that if I had suspicions, I should sneak home some night I'm supposedly on duty..."
Park Dongsoo nearly burst out laughing — then caught himself at the utter seriousness on Officer Shin's face.
So that was why the kid had seemed so strangely drained lately. Had he suspected it from the start?
Park Dongsoo ground out his cigarette and slapped Officer Shin square on the back.
"Oof!"
"Go home now. Once you've seen it with your own two eyes, even the gnawing doubt will be gone. It's an hour, give or take — I'll cover for you. Tell them I sent you on an errand."
"B-Boss!"
"And have an excuse ready for when you get shot down. Say you left an important document behind, something like that. Or man up and apologize for real."
Officer Shin nodded, his face alight with gratitude, then bolted off into the dark.
Park Dongsoo watched his retreating back, shook his head, and the two men went their separate ways.
It should have been nothing at all. But that piercing glint in the mudang's eyes — as if he could see straight through everything about a person — lodged in his mind and stayed there.
His home was exactly fifteen minutes away.
At this hour, his wife would be getting ready for bed. Officer Shin opened the apartment building's entrance and clutched his hammering heart.
It won't be true. It's just the ramblings of a fraud shaman. As he pressed the elevator button, Officer Shin clenched and unclenched his fist, over and over.
Something about the corridor felt off — different from usual. Officer Shin hurried toward his front door.
And before rashly opening it, he cautiously pressed his ear against it.
"...Ahh..."
What reached his ears was the mingled crying of a man and a woman, flesh tangled against flesh. With violently trembling hands, Officer Shin punched in the passcode on the door lock.
That goddamn mudang had been right.
And Officer Shin stepped into his home to confirm the hellish truth.