The God at His Back

Wee-ooo! Wee-ooo! Wee-ooo! Wee-ooo!

The ambulance came tearing through the darkness, its red lights ripping the night apart.

"Uh, honey—things have gotten a bit out of hand over here. No, no. Why would Hyeong-seok be in danger? My brother-in-law's fine, too."

They were in front of the site office container. Kang Doo-seok kept a hand pressed to his side as he spoke with his wife, while his brother-in-law gripped his phone in both hands, calling the company.

The other two who had received jars of the liquor couldn't be reached either. Something must have happened to them as well.

Rattle! Watching Mr. Kim wheeled away on a stretcher, Hyeong-seok let out a soundless sigh. His thoughts were a hopeless tangle.

Time and again, Hyeong-seok had managed to cut things off before they could worsen. The worst harm anyone had suffered was Lee Jin-pyeong—and even he had been spared before true danger could sink deeper. Never before had victims come in numbers like this.

"Is this your will?"

Hyeong-seok murmured it as Mr. Kim was loaded into the ambulance.

"Did you send me here? Or... did you wish for me to come?"

He was asking his Momjusin.

"Answer me. It's more than time you did."

You have kept your silence all this while. Surely now you can give me an answer.

Clack! The paramedic slammed the doors and climbed in after. Then, siren wailing just as it had on arrival, the ambulance pulled away into the distance.

Kang Doo-seok and his brother-in-law had both drifted well off to the side, leaving Hyeong-seok standing alone. It was quiet. And that quiet was what stung.

Then—

"Hyeong-seok."

His uncle came over, off the phone now, his face far more hollowed than it had been back at the house.

"Yes."

"Haaah... is he going to be all right?"

The uncle looked like a man desperately hoping for one particular answer.

"...In what way?"

"You saw it yourself. I called the office and had them send people over, and from the sound of it, every last one of them is in the same shape as Mr. Kim."

Letting out a trembling sigh, his uncle scratched at his hair, restless. Then he rubbed his face, fished a cigarette from his pocket, and set it between his lips without lighting it.

"I don't know the first thing about shamanism—never had any interest in it. But when you were chanting whatever that was, the man looked like he was settling down. Does that stuff actually work? The way you saw it—is he really going to be okay?"

Hyeong-seok shifted his gaze to his uncle without a word. The frustration and confusion on that face belonged to a stranger. Did I ever wear that look too?

His lips parted, wavered; he breathed out a thin sigh and shook his head.

"He's fine for the moment. But something has to be done."

What Hyeong-seok had done was like dousing a fire that had already caught. Yet embers still smoldered beneath the fallen leaves, and one day they could rise into a roaring blaze. Two more people carried those embers. There might be others he hadn't uncovered yet—and perhaps more still to come before long.

Click! The lighter cracked through the awkward silence as his uncle lit the cigarette and turned toward Hyeong-seok.

"...Um."

He was on the verge of something when—

"Son. Got a minute?"

Kang Doo-seok had come up to him. Hyeong-seok asked his uncle's pardon with a look alone and walked over.

"Yes."

"Think you could help us out a little?"

Hyeong-seok looked at his father, eyes full of question. Only then did Kang Doo-seok go on.

"You saw that man—Kim, I think his name was. Your uncle came within a hair of ending up just like him. I'd like you to lend your strength here."

There was confusion in Kang Doo-seok's eyes. He had learned his son carried a god mere hours ago. And now he was asking that son for a shaman's help. "You're the only one I can ask something like this of."

Hyeong-seok pressed his lips tight. Then he glanced back at his uncle, who stood gazing up at the empty night sky as his cigarette burned itself down, and turned once more to meet his father's eyes.

He was not the only one at a loss, it seemed. And, ironically, the longer he watched Kang Doo-seok and his uncle, the more strangely certain he grew that he already knew the answer.

His Momjusin was always like this. Never telling him outright—only guiding him, obliquely, toward the road he had to walk. The right road.

I understand.

What your will is. What I must do.

Firm. Curling into a fist the very hand that bore the ordination marks—marks commanding him to do what was right—he nodded and opened his mouth.

"It's not as if this is a stranger's problem."

Only moments ago, his own flesh and blood had very nearly met with disaster. Turning his back on that would not be right.

"Thank you. Thank you, son."

Kang Doo-seok came to him looking a little lighter of his burden and clapped him on the back. After that brief embrace, Hyeong-seok turned to his uncle.

"Uncle—this follows on from what we were saying before."

His uncle's head came up sharply, and their eyes met. Hyeong-seok looked toward the spot where the ambulance had vanished and continued.

"I'm afraid I'll need help from some shamans I know. Just give me the hospital locations, and I can press it down for them the way I did before."

"Uh—huh?"

"There's no time. Ideally they'd all be in the same hospital room. If that's not possible, then so be it."

The words were foreign enough that his uncle needed a moment to catch up.

"O-okay. And what do you need me to do?"

"Just handle the costs."

For an instant his uncle's eyes rolled as he cast about for how, then he nodded hard.

"That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much I can manage somehow."

"To be sure of it, I have to find the man who handed out the liquor first."

"...There's something more to it, isn't there."

Biting down on his lower lip, Hyeong-seok shook ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his head, then spoke.

"We'll have to see about that one."

The man who had given out the liquor knew shamanism. A long shot, granted—but suppose he wasn't out to hurt anyone. Suppose what he truly wanted was the construction site itself? Then the worst scenario imaginable was lives lost inside that building. Accidents mid-construction, fire, collapse, a gas explosion—the calamities a building with misfortune wedged into its bones could breed were endless.

A man capable of crafting a Mugo curse. If he's hidden it with real intent, it won't be easy to find.

If he had already sealed it away under a thick coat of cement, even the sacred shaman bells would struggle to ferret it out. Which was why finding the man himself was the fastest road to a solution.

Hyeong-seok spoke quietly to his uncle, who was already dialing someone.

"That man. Was he referred in? Or did he apply with a résumé?"

His uncle's fingers stopped over the phone. He raised his head and met Hyeong-seok's eyes.

Vrrrmmm.

The uncle's voice poured from the car speakers over the Bluetooth connection.

"Yes."

"Understood."

Hyeong-seok, who had been staring straight down the road, cast a brief glance at the car's display and let it go.

"Hoo."

For now, he had to focus on driving. The liquor-giver had come in on a referral, and that referrer was his first stop. He could only pray the man knew where the giver had gone.

Vrrrmmm.

Reaching the residential streets, Hyeong-seok slowed and turned into a nearby public parking lot. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠parked, took one more swallow of coffee before getting out, and picked up the shaman bells. Then he stepped down and set off, eyes on the map glowing on his phone. The night wind had a real bite to it.

Please. Tell me you know where he is.

He had sat through sales meetings with construction firms before, so he knew a little of how that world lived and breathed. Construction laborers were a different breed from salaried workers—enough so that plenty of them dwelled not in homes but in motels and boarding houses. If this man didn't know either, hunting down the one who had handed out the liquor would be anything but easy.

Step. Hyeong-seok stopped before a lonely house on a lane so dim even the streetlight barely reached it, and let a long breath out through his nose. The map on his phone told him he had arrived.

Ding-dong. The old doorbell rang with a rattling creak, and he tipped his head back to study the house. A courtyard wall; two stories. An aging building, with some nameless tree settled in the yard.

Click. A light came on in the window screened behind the tree. As Hyeong-seok's breath dispersed into the dark, a faint silhouette showed inside, coming down.

"Who is it?"

A middle-aged man's voice came through the closed front door.

"I'm sorry for the late hour. You know Park Ji-hoon, I take it?"

At the name of his uncle, a short silence followed. Then the door opened, and a short, solidly built man leaned out, suspicion written across his face.

"What about the safety manager?"

Grab. Afraid the door might swing shut in his face, Hyeong-seok clamped his hand around it. Startled, the man pushed to close it anyway—but Hyeong-seok was stronger. Amid the creak of aged hinges, he held the man's gaze and spoke.

"About the man who handed out the liquor. I hear he came in on your referral, sir."

There it was. For an instant, bewilderment flashed across the man's face. This was exactly why Hyeong-seok had insisted on coming in person rather than calling. The subtlest shift of expression, a flicker in the eyes, the aura a person carried—no phone call could ever convey those. Years of facing people as a sales rep had trained him to catch, and read, every last micro-reaction.

"He's cut off all contact. Do you have any idea where he went?"

"No—what the—damn it! You come to my house in the dead of night and pull this crap!"

It was deep night on a deserted lane. For the man's voice to rise anyway meant he was rattled exactly that badly.

"Park Ji-hoon is my maternal uncle. And every single person who drank that man's liquor has been carried off to the hospital."

"Wh-what?"

The eyes wobbled harder. This was the reaction of a man genuinely blindsided.

"And the safety manager? H-he took the liquor too, didn't he?"

"Fortunately he never drank it, so he's safe. But the man who gave it out—do you know where he is right now?"

The man sealed his lips and dropped his head. But his eyes slid upward, stealing reads of Hyeong-seok's face.

Clunk!Knew it. His hand, braced for exactly this, stopped the door cold. In a voice lower than before, Hyeong-seok said,

"You do know, don't you. What is he to you?"

"N-no. I—I don't know. I told you, I don't."

"You know perfectly well."

"Goddamn it, who the hell are you? Who even are you, to be asking me this?"

And then something snagged Hyeong-seok's eye. Through the gap in the door: an old talisman stuck to the stairs. The sun had bleached its colors, and the darkness made it hard to see clearly—but he could still tell what kind of talisman it was, and his eyebrows twitched.

That was the sort of talisman hung before a shrine house.

"Goddamn it, I asked who the hell you are!"

Hyeong-seok turned his gaze back to the shrieking man. Then, keeping his grip locked so the door could not close, he stepped one pace nearer.

How did I miss it—that this man was no ordinary person?

Not every shaman keeps a shrine house. Some have had their god ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠desert them; some received a god but lack the power to serve it; some were taken not by a true deity but a hollow one; some were made shamans by fate itself yet only ever wanted to live like everyone else. This man was exactly that kind.

"Why is it you don't know me?"

The energy coming off him was unmistakably that of one who had received a god. But it was far too faint.

"Wh-what are you talking about..."

Step. As Hyeong-seok came closer still, the man's hand fell away from the door entirely and he backed off.

"You can tell who I am. Can't you."

The man's eyes were shaking.

Holding his gaze dead level, Hyeong-seok drew the shaman bells from his pocket.

Warararang! The ringing bells breathed out their numinous power. And the man's eyes slid off Hyeong-seok—toward the space behind him. As if he were beholding another figure standing at Hyeong-seok's back.

"Haah—haak! Haaaahk!"

The man crumpled, then scrambled backward on trembling arms and legs, groveling across the ground to get away. And Hyeong-seok followed him over the threshold, gazed down at him—and pulled the door shut.

CLANG! The door shut firm.