The Scissors That Call Ghosts

By now there was not a trace of suspicion toward Kang Hyeong-seok left anywhere in Lee Ha-yoon's manner.

"Please, speak comfortably."

Hyeong-seok had offered it in an easy tone, and Ha-yoon waved him off with both hands, shaking her head.

"No way! You went through all that trouble on my account — I couldn't possibly."

The determination to treat them to a meal, no matter what it took, was written all over her.

Kang Hyeong-seok gave a wry smile and turned his gaze to Shin Jeong-ah.

"What are you in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the mood for, Section Chief?"

"Me? Whatever you like, Section Chief Kang."

"Then would gukbap be all right?"

"There's a really good sushi place around here!"

Ha-yoon even pointed down the street, as if to prove it truly was close by, but Hyeong-seok declined.

"I'm fine, thank you. Gukbap is more than enough."

It was the tact and consideration of a seasoned office worker. Anyone willing to open a practice in a spot where ghosts came calling — the poor woman's finances were pitiable without even peeking at her wallet.

"Ah."

Catching on that she was being spared, Ha-yoon smiled sheepishly and slipped her wallet back into her pocket.

"Then next time, we're going somewhere really nice. My treat."

"Yes."

And so the three of them ate sundae gukbap at a diner nearby — the franchise kind with a grandmother painted on the sign. Hyeong-seok fished out slices of sundae studded with chewy glass noodles, then stirred rice into the broth and ate it down with kkakdugi radish, and felt wonderfully full.

Ziiiing.

Ha-yoon, who had covered the bill, kept shooting Kang Hyeong-seok apologetic looks even as she tucked away the receipt.

"Next time we're really eating something good. Got it?"

"Understood."

"So what are you going to do now, Section Chief Kang?"

Shin Jeong-ah asked, her tone laced with none-too-subtle anticipation. For an instant, Lee Ha-yoon's eyes held the very same glimmer — but Hyeong-seok, mindful of the scissors against his chest, opened his mouth.

"I need to go take care of this first."

"Ah."

"It has to be properly put to rest. And the soul still clinging to it deserves its comfort, too."

"Wow."

Ha-yoon stared at him with the look of someone who had just confirmed it for herself: so he really is a professional.

A thought flickered through Hyeong-seok's head — that after today, Ha-yoon might well become a regular at the shrine office alongside Jeong-ah.

It would be fine. Jeong-ah had already been through the wringer with the shaman Heo Ju; she wouldn't lead Ha-yoon down any strange path.

"Then I'll head in from here."

"Section Chief Kang, here."

Shin Jeong-ah fanned several ten-thousand-won notes out of her wallet and held them toward him.

"It's for your cab. Take it — I told you earlier, remember?"

It was money they'd already agreed on beforehand, and refusing would have felt like splitting hairs, so Hyeong-seok pocketed it for now. Strangely, though, he was the one receiving the cash — yet it was Jeong-ah whose eyes brimmed with gratitude.

"Really, thank you for today. Truly."

Hyeong-seok answered with a smile, bid the two women farewell, and set off along the main road. On the back of his neck, he could feel their gazes fixed on him. Before he had received his god, it was a gaze he could not have imagined even in his dreams.

Swish.

By then he had put plenty of distance between himself and the gukbap restaurant. Hyeong-seok glanced back once, then slipped into a quiet side alley and drew the scissors from inside his jacket.

The energy radiating from it was faint. But something was unmistakably soaked into the steel. And there was the stain on the ceiling that the dead spirit had shown him — a feeling welled up in him that, even if not today, someday he would come face to face with it.

'I need to find out what this is....'

He deliberated for a long while, then picked up his phone. There was one person who was just right for consulting about a thing like this.

Rrrring. Rrrring. Rrrring.

The tone rang for a good long while before the call connected.

There was something a little crooked about the way his words fit together. Perhaps that was simply how men of means always were. Thinking as much, Hyeong-seok passed his location along to Shin Yo-sep.

Clink.

A crystal tumbler of whisky was set down in front of Kang Hyeong-seok. Shin Yo-sep was dressed in comfortable linen, and the venue was his private villa.

"Drink."

Shin Yo-sep said it as he sipped from his own matching glass and settled into the seat across from him.

"Young Master, I shall be waiting out front."

"Thank you for the drive, Mr. Kim."

"Take your time talking."

The middle-aged man who had brought Hyeong-seok all the way here bowed deeply, closed the door behind him, and left.

"In all my life I've only ever seen this sort of thing in dramas."

"And you sound like a drama yourself."

Clink.

Setting down his glass, Yo-sep exhaled through his nose and spoke, his face gone grave.

"So what did you see?"

"This."

Hyeong-seok drew the scissors wrapped in A4 paper from inside his jacket and passed it over. Shin Yo-sep accepted it, shot Hyeong-seok a single glance, and then, with deliberate care, peeled back the paper.

"Do you know what it is?"

"I think I know why you brought it to me."

Shin Yo-sep's brow creased, as if he were turning a great many things over in his mind. Across from him, Hyeong-seok said nothing and sipped at the whisky in his glass.

The men sitting here were not Shin Yo-sep of Shinjin Construction and Kang Hyeong-seok of Daejeong Mulsan. They were an exorcist priest and a shaman. With the scissors that beckon ghosts laid out between them, they carried the conversation forward in solemn tones.

"Where did this thing come from?"

"A lawyer's office. A friend of my supervisor's — it was found in the ceiling."

"What does it look like to you?"

"There's han steeped into it — a festering grudge ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— but it hasn't crossed into being a possessed object. What's your take?"

"Hoo-!"

Shin Yo-sep exhaled until his cheeks swelled, then lifted his glass and took a long pull.

"I have a hunch. I can't claim certainty."

Hyeong-seok urged him on with his eyes alone. Yo-sep took another swallow of the whisky, then gripped both ends of the scissors.

Shreeek!

The rusted blades parted, and the scissors spread open into an X. Hyeong-seok's brow knit — and watching his eyes, Shin Yo-sep rotated the scissors ninety degrees to the right. Then, without a word, he waited for the reaction.

Swish.

As if offering one last hint, Yo-sep covered one of the two handles. Thanks to that, the answer came to Hyeong-seok easily.

The shape was what mattered. A plus sign that, with one arm hidden, suddenly read as long. It was unmistakably the form of a Christian holy object.

"...Are you sure?"

"I told you I can't be certain."

Shin Yo-sep rapped a fingernail against the scissors and crossed his legs.

"If my hunch is right, it's an object from the heretical side of things. But there are so many sects out there that pinning down which one is difficult."

Hyeong-seok nodded, his lips pressed into a hard line.

Korea harbored more cults — the kind the world called heresies — than most people realized. That held true even setting aside the handful that made the news now and then. Cults lurking in the shadows, quietly swelling their ranks. The kind that shattered families, exploited human beings, and drained their savings dry.

"They say you shamans see things. Feel things. You get nothing?"

At Shin Yo-sep's words, Hyeong-seok drew a deep breath and let a long sigh out through his nose.

"The spirit did show me something."

"What?"

Before Shin Yo-sep's sharpened interest, he went on.

"A figure seated in full lotus position. And the spirit's neck had been severed."

Shin Yo-sep's face darkened.

"An old cult, then. Tsk."

Hyeong-seok answered with silence.

Religion was like a living thing — when it spread to another land, it adapted to its host. Look no further than the dawn prayer services of Korean Christianity. There were plenty of academic papers arguing that the old practice of offering rites at village guardian ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shrines and wells had fused seamlessly into it.

If the orthodox denominations bent that far, what of the heterodox? Cults tended to actively absorb the forms of indigenous religion to maximize their conversion rates. And the older the cult, the stronger the tendency.

"Could it be connected to what you've been hunting?"

"I wouldn't say no. I don't think it goes as far as demon worship — but the possibility is there."

Shin Yo-sep seemed fixed on the beheaded spirit. The way his hand kept drifting to his own throat made it look that way.

"Cults cast off orthodoxy and repeat unholy acts, over and over. And naturally, that's when demons come sniffing."

"They're still religious people. Can that really happen?"

Yo-sep voiced his displeasure by cocking a single eyebrow.

"Demons aren't anything so special. They burrow into the weak places of the human heart and drive it to ruin. In the end, they're no different from the cults themselves."

Maybe so, Hyeong-seok thought. He pressed his lips together, considered for a moment, then pushed the scissors across toward Shin Yo-sep.

"You take this one."

Yo-sep gathered up the scissors without a word — but did not put it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠away inside his jacket. That was how dreadful the thing was to him.

"Look into it. If you need my help, say the word."

Shin Yo-sep moved his gaze from Hyeong-seok to his glass and nodded.

"Thanks. When it comes to leads, the more the better."

Without warning, a weight of anguish bled through his voice.

Shin Yo-sep hunted demons for a reason of his own. Hyeong-seok could roughly guess what it was. He had been there when they exorcised the demon possessing the boy at the orphanage — he had heard the stream of curses it spewed with his own ears. Whatever drove Yo-sep, it was something he could only pursue with everything he had, and something he could never bring himself to tell another soul.

Clink.

Setting down his glass, Shin Yo-sep rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and breathed out a sigh thick with the smell of whisky.

"One favor to ask."

It was then that Hyeong-seok's eyes narrowed. Yo-sep laced his fingers together, rested his joined hands on his knees, and looked at him with grave eyes.

Hyeong-seok nodded, heavy-faced, in understanding — and strength gathered in Yo-sep's interlaced fingers.

"I don't know when the chance will come. If I let it slip, I could be staring down a span of time with no end, waiting for another."

"...I know."

"You get ready too."

See to it that I'm the one who takes him.

Shin Yo-sep's eyes and his sunken voice were saying exactly that. When Hyeong-seok nodded with his eyes closed, a faint smile touched the corners of Yo-sep's mouth.

"Anyway — it's been too long. Good to see your face. What do you say, care for a meal?"

"I ate not long ago, so that's a bit of a stretch."

Shin Yo-sep let out a short bark of laughter.

"Fancy palate you've got. What did you eat?"

"Sundae gukbap."

"Cheapskate."

Yo-sep snickered, then saw him off with reluctance written plain across his face.

"Get home safe, then."

"Right. Call me later."

Shin Yo-sep waved and disappeared inside, and Hyeong-seok headed home in the chauffeur-driven car.

Vrooooom.

The interior of the car was quiet. And in that stillness, Kang Hyeong-seok drew the broken Sinjangkal from inside his jacket. Then, his face heavy with thought, he ran his fingers along the severed edge.