“Well, I was there and I saw what you did. I saw it with my own two eyes. So you can wipe off that grin; I know where you've been. It's all been a pack of lies.” Phil Collins—In the Air Tonight

  Killers seem to be a dime a dozen here, and the dead seem like pennies. I can’t say I care about the dead. I never grasped why people had a vendetta against whores. Figuring out what this truth is lit a fire under me.

  Akuma and I decided to team up and figure out this game.

  “The first thing we need to figure out is who sent this letter and who this person truly was,” I said.

  Akuma found a set of keys and passed them to me. The keys had a strong perfume and a heart-shaped design on them. There was an engraving on the key, Leni. The corpse didn’t have that dead smell that comes from rotting, but there was enough blood at the scene to make it look like a Sam Raimi film—enough blood to flood New Orleans. The body is still warm. Was it a fresh kill? And I swore the body took a glance at me.

  Interesting.

  “The keys look like they were made for getting into a room at a brothel.”

  “Why do you know that?”

  “Why don’t you know that?”

  “I’m… It doesn’t matter. I’m betting the ‘hell” was the brothel. But where is it?”

  “It's only a few minutes' walk from here.”

  "There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun, and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy. Dear God, I know I was one." House of the Rising Sun—The Animals

  That song ran throughout my mind on the walk over. The eerie silence drove the mystery to a gruesome brink. There was a madman stalking us through the night. A classic psycho killer.

  The brothel was like any other, with girls of every type and fake and real orgasms ringing throughout. Sex has always reminded me how animalistic humanity is. I never had an interest in sex. Just two people smashing into each other like a hammer and a nail. Each to their own, so they say. Everyone needs to make money somehow.

  There was a nice oak desk with a lady somewhere in her late 20s to early 30s behind it. Akuma went over to the lady, and I stood back. The bourbon kept me grounded. Shave off the insanity for a bit longer. I saw a notepad hanging out of Akuma's pocket. The only thing I could read was the words “Border Defense,” odd, but it didn’t matter.

  “Hello, Miss, is there a Leni who works in this establishment?”

  “Leni Sato has been missing for the last few days.”

  “Do you remember any odd character who was with her?”

  “When you’re in this line of work, everyone is weird. Why are you so interested?”

  “Because she’s dead.” I piped in.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Funny. I am more comforted by the dead than the living.

  “That’s impossible,” the girl said.

  ”I know you’re shocked, but…” Akuma responded.

  “No—it’s impossible. I just saw her.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Stay right there; I need to check something.”

  I ran out the door and returned to the alleyway where it all started. I had overlooked a suspect.

  The body was gone.

  “Goddamn it!”

  The bastard was just playing with us like puppets on strings. How the hell could I not check for a pulse? I kept bashing my fist against the brick wall where blood wrote out a lie. And decided to write something new with my blood.

  "When you dance with the Devil, you will see hell."

  I wrapped my knuckle up. When I was wrapping them up, I saw a smaller statement that read.

  “Set a thief to catch a thief.”

  Underneath the phrase was “By corpse.” That’s when I knew the “killer” was the body. The body was still breathing? How fucking stupid can I be?

  I saw another letter where the body once stood. I picked it up and returned to the whorehouse.

  “The son of a bitch was the body.”

  “What?”

  “The person who wrote to us was the damned corpse.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Where the hell is Leni Sato!”

  The lady at the desk told us she lives a few blocks down, in room 237.

  “Come on, we’ve got to fucking go.”

  We bolted out and into the street, chasing empty hope.

  The building complex where she was living had three floors. I looked up and saw two beady eyes looking at me through a window. I felt like I had seen those eyes once before. Was it at the bar?

  The girl’s room was open.

  The door was broken.

  There were signs of struggle throughout the room.

  Damn. Once again, saving a girl has slipped through my hands.

  The two of us decided to open the letter.

  “Cunning Devil was wily outwitted.

  But the game is not yet done.

  No bullet will stop this drama.

  Only a glass

  And a dream

  There you find the final clue.”

  “A glass, I’m guessing he’s talking about a bar.”

  “But there are about a dozen different bars in this town.”

  “I doubt this would be just some random bar. I was sleeping in the bar where we met. What was it called?”

  “It was called The Last Dime.”

  I feel like a damn rat trapped in a maze.

  The two of us walked into my place of worship.

  There was a single light coming from the bar and a man standing behind the desk.

  We knocked on the door, and the man waved us in.

  “Drink 18 pints in one sitting, and only one of you can drink them. Do this, and you’ll get the last nugget of truth you need.”

  “18 pints, no liver can stand that.”

  “Akuma, I’m going to find this girl—even if it kills me.” I wasn’t ready for another younger girl to die because of me.

  The first pint was the easiest.

  Two through six hit me with the feel of twisted justice and started to damn me.

  From seven to twelve, I was starting to drift between dream and reality.

  I could see the golden hair of the girl on that bridge. The wind is hitting me, and the bitter cold surrounds me.

  Thirteen through fifteen, the end was near.

  Sixteen, I was drinking as if I'd find all the answers at the bottom of these glasses, but it always seemed to disappear right in front of me.

  Seventeen, the bitter memory of time came a-calling. I was back on that bridge; all of it was replaying at once.

  Bitter End.

  Regretful night.

  A drunken bastard.

  All composing Hallelujah.

  The last drop hit my mouth, and I was finished…

  I was surrounded by the abyss.

  It was darker than black.

  I couldn’t move or make a sound.

  That’s when I remembered the sleeping man in the back of the bar. This man had followed us the whole goddamn time, but how? How does he know anything and do all of this? The only way he could have set this all up is that he knew who I was and where I was going.

  Has death finally taken my head, brought me to the country that no one returns from?

  I looked into the abyss, but nothing looked back…