Chapter 54: The Tenth Innocent, Distorted

  “How sayest thou?” Meursault raised his drink in a wavering salute, whiskey sloshing over the rim and onto his knuckles. He did not wipe it away. His Adam's apple bobbed as he took a long pull from his glass.

  Behind him, a glass shelf gave way with a sharp crack. Bottles tumbled in sequence—a cascade of shattering crystal and spreading amber liquid. Again, he simply shrugged it off, setting the glass down on the bar counter. The surface beneath was a web of cracks, several holes exposing the hollow darkness underneath.

  The bar was not the only thing that had suffered the brunt of Meursault’s fury. Splintered remains of furniture littered the mansion. Chair legs jutted from overturned tables, cushions were torn and bleeding stuffing, a grandfather clock face-down in the hall, its gears still ticking uselessly.

  Narcissus, you useless— Siren caught herself, and let the thought go. She neither returned the greeting nor commented as she picked her way through the rubble, approaching Meursault with measured steps.

  It was not Narcissus's fault that Meursault tired of him so quickly. No cage could have held rage like this. The only thread keeping Meurault from unravelling utterly and completely was the Perpetuation.

  “I have news,” Siren said, betraying none of the euphoria still humming beneath her skin from watching Charybdis burn under the gaze of the Flame Purist.

  “So I’ve heard,” replied Meursault.

  “I have failed you.” Siren lowered her eyes, let her shoulders curve inward just enough to suggest remorse.

  But they both knew it was theatre.

  “Failure and success are little accessories in a lifetime. People tend to cling to the shinier, prettier trinkets to boast about.” Meursault waved his hands dismissively. “We observed the Aberrants plying their crafts. How amusing.”

  “He holds promise,” Siren said. “The youngling.”

  Meursault stroked his coarse stubble. A smile spread across his face. “I’m sure that he was chosen for a reason,” he said as he leaned over the counter. “As someone mentioned, there is indeed a touch of anxiety in that move…”

  “What should we do next?”

  Meursault retrieved his gold-tipped cane, brushing away the clinging wood chips. The cane touched down with a soft tap. His gloved thumb traced the small ruby embedded in its handle as he considered Siren's question. “We visit Narcissus downstairs.”

  Narcissus kept his laboratory in the basement, tucked beneath the mansion's main floors. The grilled lift doors shuttered shut with a metallic clang as they descended into the dark, the shaft intermittently lit by flickering yellow bulbs. The laboratory below was bathed in the same harsh, sickly light, forcing Siren to blink twice before her eyes adjusted to the glare.

  Narcissus was nowhere in sight. The room stretched wide, its perimeter and ceiling lined with ornate mirrors that fractured the space into endless reflections, making it feel as though the lab extended infinitely in all directions. Rows of tall glass vats filled the space, each tinted black, standing like silent sentinels.

  Meursault stepped forward, his boots echoing against the cold floor, and stopped before one of the vats. He placed his hand against the glass. The black tint dissolved at his touch, revealing a woman – no older than thirty – suspended upright in the liquid within. Thick, black-carved tubes pierced into her body at grotesque angles. He bent down and read the name scrawled haphazardly on the small metal plate at the base: Specimen #153: Ingrid.

  It was one of Narcissus’s newer playthings.

  “Welcome to the Golden Bough!” A high-pitched whine came from their right. Narcissus cackled as he zipped past them while riding a gas-powered wheelchair. He did a lap around the lab before screeching to a halt before he hit them. “Where every being, dead or living, gets a second lease of life!”

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  Narcissus lowered his voice dramatically and pushed his blacked-out glasses up his nose. “But everyone will wind up being eaten by the beast beneath the floorboards anyway. I just don’t say it because it scares them.”

  “Impressive.” Siren's gaze moved from the floor beneath her feet to Narcissus himself—centuries of keeping such a creature tamed, and here he stood, pristine and unruffled, as though Meursault had not ripped him apart mere hours ago.

  Narcissus huffed and crossed his arms. “Heard that your plan was a bust! If anyone questions whether you and Proteus are siblings, you can just show them the streams of failures both of you have had! You nearly exposed us by imprinting onto that puppet of yours.”

  “What have you ever done to contribute?” Siren asked.

  “All these!” Narcissus gestured to his collection. He kicked out his legs and groaned dramatically. “When can I have fun with them?”

  “Today is the day,” Meursault said.

  Narcissus flew out of his seat, his glasses nearly slipping off his face. “Really?” He gasped, immediately darting away and returning with several items: a honeycomb, a fresh lotus pod, and a preserved dragonfly. “I saw you taking a fancy to Ingrid, M’lord. She’s a menace, isn’t she? Did someone ever tell her that she has a terrible fashion sense?”

  “Where’s the other one? I heard two, not just one,” Siren asked.

  “His body couldn’t take it, so he’s in the nursery.” Narcissus pointed toward the plant nursery adjacent to the main lab while popping lotus seeds from the pod into his mouth. “Too bad, I was just starting to have so much fun with his new transplanted uterus when he had a seizure and died.”

  He held the three objects up to the golden light, taking particular interest in the dragonfly's iridescent eyes. Then he pressed a small gold button next to Ingrid's name panel. A chute popped open with a soft click.

  “Humans have very interesting fears,” Narcissus snickered as he dumped the items into the chute. “Very interesting indeed…”

  “What are you doing to her?” Meursault asked.

  Narcissus beckoned them to follow, leading them into a small room crowded with computers. He gestured to a leather-backed chair. “Only the best chair for you, M’lord.”

  Meursault took his seat, propping his hands on his cane.

  “With these quaint devices, I don’t have to walk around that much.” Narcissus pressed a few buttons gingerly. A cluster of windows bloomed on the screen: lines of data, biometric readouts, and among them, the jagged green rhythm of a heartbeat, pulsing steadily across a dark monitor.

  A soft, metronomic beeping filled the room.

  Ingrid was still alive.

  Meursault’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  The rhythm held steady for several moments. Then her heart rate spiked—climbing, climbing—before it crashed. The green line jerked violently, then slowed. Fluttered.

  Flatlined.

  The beeping became a single, unbroken tone.

  Meursault kept his hands wrapped tightly around the head of the cane. Its tip clacked against the floor as his hands trembled.

  “It’s time for death to make their debut!” Narcissus brought his hands together, clapping only his fingers in a quick, staccato rhythm, gleeful as a child. “Shall I head out to supervise my creations after unleashing them?”

  “Remain here, Narcissus.” Meursault adjusted his grip on the cane. “I shall go in your stead first.”

  “I can keep an eye on Ao Yang,” Siren offered.

  "That'd be welcome." Meursault rose to his feet. Cursed Essence bled from him in violent streaks, warping the space around his body into fragmented slices. For a moment, he looked less like a man and more like a ruined painting.

  Meursault turned his back on them—and the distorted figure dissolved into nothing, leaving only empty air.

  ***

  The harsh incandescent light gave way to warm sunlight. Meursault blinked against the brightness.

  The first thing he spotted was a sign: Yokohama Landmark Tower. He paused to admire the building—a structure etched deeply in Siren's memories—before taking his first steps toward it.

  However, his moment was broken when a teenager bumped hard into his side. “Hey! Watch where you’re going, old man!” he snapped before storming off with his hands shoved in his pockets, all swagger and indignation.

  Meursault turned, only slightly, and silently brushed the dust from his shoulder, as if the boy had never existed at all.

  Moments later, a loud honk blared. Meursault did not turn. He already knew: the truck had veered off the road, the boy caught beneath its wheels, his skull split open on the asphalt. Screams erupted around him, but he kept walking.

  “So, this is Yokohama,” Meursault remarked to no one in particular. “I’d better watch my step.”