Blood and Salt
"Lee Ha-yoon. Attorney at law."
Lee Ha-yoon held out her business card to the young police officer.
It was a police station in the dead hours before dawn. A body had been found. Kang Hyeong-seok and Kim Jae-sik, the ones who had discovered it, had to write out their statements, and Lee Ha-yoon — Shin Jeong-ah's friend and an attorney — had come along to see them through the process.
"Oh — yes, yes, of course."
The officer accepted the card with a dubious look, then glanced back at Kang Hyeong-seok seated on the steel chair, his face plainly wondering what manner of person this man was supposed to be.
"If you need to get in touch with anyone, just reach out to me. Now then, we'll be taking these gentlemen home."
Situations like this were hardly everyday affairs — from a run-of-the-mill office worker stumbling onto a corpse, all the way to summoning a lawyer to the interview room. Thanks to her, the police no longer had grounds to hold Kang Hyeong-seok or Kim Jae-sik another minute.
"You're free to go."
The officer said it with lingering doubt in his face, and Lee Ha-yoon, Kang Hyeong-seok, and Kim Jae-sik filed out of the station. Even as they left, the man kept throwing Kang Hyeong-seok glances that plainly demanded to know what he actually did for a living.
"Thank you for coming all this way at such an hour."
"Not at all. You've helped me out before, after all."
Outside the station, Kang Hyeong-seok smiled sheepishly, while Lee Ha-yoon heaved a deep sigh and shook her head.
"Honestly, things would have gone just fine without me."
"You think so?"
"Yes. It's that kind of case, after all..."
Glancing at Kim Jae-sik, who was still wandering somewhere far away, Lee Ha-yoon chose her words with care.
To any eye, Professor Jang Jun's death was the work of a beast. His entrails had been torn out and gouged open by something sharp — fangs, not a blade, by all appearances. Above all, the alibis had been firmly secured, and that counted for a great deal.
"Just in case, hold on to your attendance records and your call logs. And I'll back up the dashcam footage myself."
"Thank you for going to so much trouble."
"Oh, it's not that."
Lee Ha-yoon scratched at her hair, looking for all the world like someone with something she couldn't quite bring herself to say.
Seeing her like this, one person sprang instantly and unmistakably to Kang Hyeong-seok's mind — Shin Jeong-ah.
"Excuse me a moment. I'm going to grab a smoke over there."
"Oh — sure, go ahead."
Having gotten Kim Jae-sik's leave, Kang Hyeong-seok followed Lee Ha-yoon to the smoking area tucked into a corner of the station grounds. A man with a file binder clamped under one arm happened to be standing nearby, but Lee Ha-yoon started in as though it were nothing.
"So, about Jeong-ah. What exactly went on between you two?"
"Sorry — what?"
"I mean, the girl's gone half off her rocker."
Lee Ha-yoon twirled a finger against her temple.
"Maybe you wouldn't know this, but very little rattles that girl. Something must have happened, because lately she's been acting downright strange."
"...Is she doing that badly?"
"The other day I practically had to drag her out for gukbap — soup over rice, that is — and would you believe it, she couldn't even touch the pork version she's always loved."
Ah, of course it had to be that.
Kang Hyeong-seok squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.
"Do you happen to know anything?"
"It, ah... looks like it might last a while."
"What on earth happened between you two?"
"That would take a long time to explain. Please keep her away from pork for the time being. And especially — above all, especially — anything with intestines in it."
"I can't make heads or tails of this. Haah."
Lee Ha-yoon frowned as if she couldn't even begin to guess.
How could she?
That Shin Jeong-ah had been possessed by a Dokkaebi and wolfed down raw pig entrails — that was precisely why the whole affair had been kept secret, and yet somehow she seemed to have gotten her memories back.
"How is she at the office?"
"She's avoiding me, that much is certain."
"Aigoo, that girl. What on earth is her problem."
Kang Hyeong-seok pressed his lips shut and shook his head.
"You needn't worry about it. Anyway — thank you, truly, for everything today. Are you heading back soon?"
"No. I have to go straight back up."
"It's so late, though."
"There's something that can't wait."
A lawyer, was Lee Ha-yoon. One who had only just opened her own practice, at that — she would have more than a few things demanding her attention.
"I honestly don't know how to repay you."
"Oh, stop it! It's fine. Well then, I'm off."
Lee Ha-yoon stole a glance at Kim Jae-sik, standing there alone, and clicked her tongue softly.
"Keep an eye on that one for me. His face does not look good."
"...I will. I should."
"Right, then."
With a small bow to Kang Hyeong-seok, Lee Ha-yoon hurried off toward the exit at a brisk little trot. Watching her go, Kang Hyeong-seok let out a sigh and turned around — toward Kim Jae-sik, who still hadn't pulled free of the shock of losing his friend.
Click. The instant the keycard slid home, light bloomed through the motel room.
It was a motel nearby. Kang Hyeong-seok came inside with Kim Jae-sik and set his bag down before speaking.
"Are you holding up all right?"
"Mm. Yeah."
Watching Kim Jae-sik, who was still only half in this world, Kang Hyeong-seok ran his tongue over the bitter dryness in his mouth.
"You don't look well, Professor."
"..."
"You have to keep your strength up."
That was when it happened.
Kim Jae-sik's lips clamped tightly shut, and the corners of them began to tremble.
"Professor Jang Jun was the one who asked me to come see him."
"...Professor."
"When I told him you'd be coming too, he was so pleased about it. So pleased."
"..."
"I don't understand. Why? Why all of a sudden? Damn it all."
Kim Jae-sik rubbed his chapped lips with his fingers and frowned. He looked lost in thought — and at the same time like a man damming up emotions that were trying to burst out of him.
It was wrenching to watch.
Kang Hyeong-seok rubbed his own lips the way Kim Jae-sik had, then spoke in a low voice.
"They'll catch whoever did it."
"From what you saw — did it look like a person's work?"
The question flew at him like a dagger, and Kang Hyeong-seok's tongue failed him. But soon he opened his heavy mouth and gave voice to what he was thinking.
"It is strange. I'll grant you that."
"Isn't it?"
Contrary to his earlier stupor, there was force behind Kim Jae-sik's eyes now. The damp sheen brimming in them made that focus look sharper still.
"The police are calling it the work of a wild boar, but I can't make myself believe that. What boar slips in past the neighbors and shuts the door behind itself on its way out?"
Indeed, that was how the scene had looked. No one could mistake it for a deed of human hands. The wounds had been made by something sharp, yet not a blade — fangs, more like — and parts of the body were simply gone. At first blush it resembled a grotesque, deranged murder, but the shape of it was beyond anything a human being could have carried out.
"The details will come out with the autopsy."
"Phewww."
Kim Jae-sik rubbed his face as though trying to scrape his composure back together, but the thought had already dug itself deep into his skull, and it wasn't leaving in any hurry.
"That's right. You're right, Hyeong-seok."
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded heavily and shifted his gaze to the curtained window.
Professor Jang Jun's room had windows too. But security bars had been fitted over them, making an intruder's entry impossible. Which made it, quite literally, a case strange enough to spook a ghost.
A ghost.
Kang Hyeong-seok gnawed at his lower lip.
Even now, the faint reek of the otherworld he had caught at Professor Jang Jun's house seemed to linger at the tip of his nose.
"When you were last in contact with Professor Jang, was there anything out of the ordinary? Anything at all?"
Kim Jae-sik's gaze, busy sorting through his luggage, shifted over to him, and Kang Hyeong-seok threw back a look that said the question had just occurred to him out of nowhere.
"Sorry — it simply came to mind."
"Well... nothing in particular. Nothing strange."
No — that wasn't true.
It had been Professor Jang Jun who told Kim Jae-sik about the shattered elephant statue. In all likelihood, the old man had gone digging into something, hoping to have all manner of things to share with Kim Jae-sik, whom he was seeing for the first time in ages. Could that be what had brought about his doom?
No. That could be nothing but conjecture. And with the investigation now underway, he couldn't set foot inside Professor Jang Jun's house anyway.
Kang Hyeong-seok shut his eyes tight, then shook his head with a thin sigh.
"You should rest too, Professor. Are you heading back up tomorrow?"
"The funeral has to be held. That much I owe him."
Kim Jae-sik sat down on the edge of the bed with a hollowed-out face and draped his arms across his knees.
"The man has no family to speak of. Seeing him off on his final road — that much falls to me."
"...I understand."
"What about you? Don't you have to be at the office?"
"I'll explain the circumstances and take a day of leave. It'll be fine."
"If you need my help, say the word."
Kim Jae-sik was an old friend of the CEO; securing a bit of accommodation like that was well within his reach.
"Yes. Thank you."
Kang Hyeong-seok answered with a faint smile, and Kim Jae-sik, as though following his lead, lifted the corners of his mouth in return. But it was a smile so obviously forced that it hurt to look at.
"Come, come. It's late."
"Get some sleep first."
"And you?"
Kim Jae-sik had been about to lie down when his gaze darted to Kang Hyeong-seok.
"There's some urgent work I need to handle at a café. I'll be back once it's done."
"Hoo... I'm sorry, Hyeong-seok. It's because of me that—"
"Please, don't say that."
Somehow, Kang Hyeong-seok had ended up staying at Kim Jae-sik's side all the way into these hours. The trip to the police station had eaten up every last moment he might have spent on work.
Kim Jae-sik understood that as well, and so he couldn't bring himself to hold him back.
"If things get busy, I may not make it back tonight. Even so — please make sure you eat something in the morning."
"All right. And you call me if anything comes up. Anything at all."
"I will. Then rest easy, Professor."
Kim Jae-sik sent a look brimming with apology after Kang Hyeong-seok as he gathered his bag. Then he lay down, and Kang Hyeong-seok passed the time going over work on his phone.
Kim Jae-sik didn't take long to fall asleep.
Tap. He dimmed the lights — and found he couldn't leave just yet, not the motel room where nothing stirred but the sound of breathing.
His face was heavy with thought, and the fist he had clenched was damp with sweat.
He had tried to look composed. He hadn't wanted to unsettle Kim Jae-sik, hadn't wanted to provoke him further, hadn't wanted to pour gunpowder onto a fire already roiling with nameless dread.
If what harmed Professor Jang Jun was not human...
Then he could not dare claim that everything was over.
Running his tongue across a mouth gone dry as desert sand, Kang Hyeong-seok drew the Sinjangkal from his bag. Then he pressed his thumb to the Divine General Blade — a blade that honed its edge for him and no one else — and opened a small cut.
Kang Hyeong-seok smeared his blood along the window frame.
Blood had been an instrument of the occult since time immemorial. It carried the image of curses laid upon one's enemies, and for good reason: an earnest wish melts into it with ease.
May Professor Kim Jae-sik be safe.
With the heart of one inscribing a talisman and pouring a wish into every stroke, Kang Hyeong-seok painted the window and door frames with blood, then scattered salt over them in a dense, unbroken line.
So long as they stayed shut, no one would be the wiser. The window frames especially, being aluminum sashes, hardly showed the white salt at all.
Having laid the most basic of wards with painstaking thoroughness, he slipped the Sinjangkal back into his bag. Then he looked back once at Kim Jae-sik, sunk deep in sleep, and turned away with a face as heavy as the darkness settled into the room.
The door clicked and clacked shut behind him as he stepped out into the bright corridor. Walking down the hallway, he rubbed his dry lips.
What he had to do was clear now.
Destroy the thing that had done that to Professor Jang Jun.
And carry out the mission his Momjusin had laid upon him.
Kang Hyeong-seok had yet to save himself.