Chapter 50: Nightfall and Tragedy
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
In the afternoon, the Association’s hunters arrived to join them. The ones who came were almost all hunters. There was only one exorcist… The only exorcist was Smith.
Smith’s face hadn’t changed — still the mature woman’s appearance from before — but now her hair was dyed red (or she had transformed herself) and straightened.
Seeing Smith made John unbearably awkward. Smith had once told him to “take good care of Coraci”, but now Coraci looked utterly drained.
The hunters and the exorcist prepared to head to the old manor. Smith looped her arm around John’s neck and whispered, “What’s wrong with your partner? He looks so down. He rarely acts like this on the job.”
“He’s just tired. What we faced earlier was difficult to deal with,” John said.
“No, that’s not it. I know him. Something must have happened to upset him.”
Smith’s tone left John feeling powerless. This shapeshifter had once been Coraci’s ex-husband…or maybe it should be ex-wife… In any case, he knew Coraci very well.
John had no choice but to roughly explain: the specters Coraci had always considered old friends had probably committed some very dark deeds, and Coraci likely didn’t know how to process it all.
The shapeshifter patted John on the back. “Then you need to support him. Really. It’s best if you show him a steadfast, ‘no matter what, I will stand firmly by his side’ attitude.”
“Of course I will. But why say it like that?”
“Because you’re his partner, and you’re not human.”
“Can you explain your logic?”
Smith glanced at Coraci’s back; Coraci was standing with Liz, explaining in detail to the hunters what they might encounter.
“He’s very afraid of being misunderstood,” the shapeshifter said. “He’s willing to help dark creatures and stop evil ones from harming others, but he worries people will misinterpret the Association’s goals. We protect some things, we subdue some things, yet there will always be dark creatures who say ‘You’re doing all this from a human’s perspective. You just want to enslave us.’”
“How could they think that?” John asked, surprised. “For instance…I’m a bloodkin. If one of my kind went around killing humans, how is that different from a human serial killer? Hunting isn’t an excuse — we can hunt without killing humans. Also, that female gilomorph who ate her neighbor’s car and got locked up. She ate a dark creature’s property, not a human’s. The key is what you do, not who you are.”
Smith smiled. “It’s good you think that way. You don’t know it, but thousands of dark creatures hate hunters and exorcists. When they need help, they call the Association. When their secret crimes are exposed, they condemn us, saying we have no right to interfere, and may even immediately turn against us.”
John thought of Sidov and Mitchel.
“So you see,” Smith continued, “you’re Coraci’s partner, and you’re not human. If Coraci is shaken by all this, you can comfort him.”
“Can’t you do that too…” John mumbled, instantly regretting the remark.
Smith didn’t mind and only smiled wider. A chill ran down John’s spine; he keenly sensed his thoughts had been read… No wonder he and Coraci divorced. One who could see through disguises, one who could read thoughts at will… how did they coexist?
The thought made John’s regret deepen further. He suspected Smith had read that, too.
“You can rest easy. I’m in a relationship again, with another shapeshifter,” Smith said, smiling slyly as he strided toward another vehicle.
They arrived at the Atwood manor again. As Carolyn had said, the specters couldn’t manipulate objects; even if their carefully buried secret was unearthed, they were powerless. After all, they couldn’t even dispose of the trash littered in their house.
The hunters completely unearthed the remains in the basement. It was a female skeleton, whose death roughly coincided with the Atwood family’s demise. Her hands and feet had been cut off; her chest was carved open. A dagger, once used as a ritual tool, was lodged in her bones, nailing her in place.
At first, Coraci had secretly hoped for another explanation, but it now seemed to match the hallmarks of sacrificial witchcraft.
The semi-corporeal evil spirit seemed to only appear at night, so the hunters stayed in the manor waiting, silent. The specters also huddled in corners, barely moving.
Mr. Atwood leaned against a wall, speaking in broken murmurs. “Please…don’t tell my daughter. She and Wu Jiu don’t know…”
Coraci flipped through the book in his hands mechanically, unable to focus on a single page.
The old specter and his wife stood together. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry… My mother and my wife didn’t know either. They only realized it after death.”
“You shouldn’t apologize to me,” Coraci said, turning to the doorway where his colleagues were still discussing the skeleton. “Tell me who it is.”
“She’s a prostitute,” Atwood said, covering his face with his ashen, withered hands. There was no need to hide anything; the truth couldn’t be changed. “You know…my father died early in an accident, and my mother was gravely ill, while we were still alive… On top of that, the family business was failing. Misfortune was like a collapsing wall falling toward me. I desperately needed a way to fix everything… Then I learned of a ritual, the sacrificial method…as you see.”
“So you killed her?”
“No. Initially, I didn’t believe it, nor did I dare do it!” The old specter flickered, Mrs. Holly beside him sobbing. “At first, I only met her. She called herself Dessine… I was very young then — I have never betrayed my wife — this was before my marriage.”
He turned to his wife. His ghostly face was dried and blurred; otherwise, the expression would have been complex.
“Later, I tried to rid myself of Dessine, but she kept clinging to me… One day, she found my home. I don’t know what happened, but I…killed her…”
The Association members chuckled softly, clearly skeptical that it had been accidental.
“After calming down, I thought of this sacrificial method… Since I had already done something irreversible, why not give it a try? I followed the ritual and buried Dessine at the very bottom of the manor… Unexpectedly, right afterward, my mother’s illness improved, and the business prospered. I got married, achieved modest success, had a daughter and son… But the good times didn’t last. I knew, surely, God had judged me. We couldn’t enjoy these days for too long. Punishment soon fell.”
“Was it God’s judgment? Or someone else?” Coraci asked coldly.
The old specter trembled slightly. “You’re right… It wasn’t God. It was someone taking revenge on me…”
Dessine had been a prostitute, yet she had a lover who had sworn eternal devotion to her. Regardless of her true feelings, that man had been utterly obsessed with her.
After Dessine disappeared, her lover dedicated himself to finding the real culprit. He spent many years, using every means at his disposal, gradually tracing the events back to the Atwood family. Yet he never found any usable evidence.
The young man came from a family more powerful than the Atwoods. They were not only wealthy but also far from law-abiding honest people. Years later, his family business became entangled with the Atwoods’.
His father despised the Atwoods, and the young man found it increasingly impossible to suppress the long-buried rage in his heart. Under the pretext of a family dispute, and with his father’s tacit approval, he finally did what he had always wanted.
He led a group of thugs in a night raid on the Atwood manor, killing everyone inside. Even the infant and Wu Jiu, the household steward, were not spared. Before killing Atwood himself, he spoke through gritted teeth, revealing his motive. He offered no mercy, no quick deaths — the slaughter was cruel, driven by an all-consuming desire for revenge.
He did not find Dessine’s body; he had no real intention of looking. He wanted vengeance for his love, and in the end, he became a monster himself.
What followed had already been described by Atwood.
Wu Jiu found the surviving Hai Jiu and helped her track down the thugs and the mastermind behind it all. Hai Jiu knew nothing of the full story; she only knew her family had been brutally destroyed. She was willing to sacrifice herself to kill every one of them.
Malice begot malice, each act feeding the next, growing ever larger. When Hai Jiu walked to the gallows with a smile, she had no idea how dark a path she had tread. Until death, until she transformed into another kind of being, she never knew that the origin of her tragic fate lay beneath her own home.
Coraci closed the book. As he stood, his body, still not fully recovered, wavered slightly. John reached out a hand to steady him, and Coraci returned a faint smile.
“It’s almost dusk… You’ve again gone the whole day without resting,” Coraci murmured to John.
“I fed. Just now in the car I had another blood pack. One day without rest isn’t much for a bloodkin.”
“Then stay inside. There’s still sunlight outside,” Coraci said, gently brushing away John’s hand. “I’ll be outside for a while; my chest feels tight.”
John wanted to follow, but Coraci insisted he stay. So he remained in the shadowed interior, watching Coraci’s back from a distance.
Atwood and his wife huddled in a corner, shoulders slumped, harping on quietly, “We didn’t mean to harm you…really. I told you from the start that there was danger, that people died. When it happened, we truly couldn’t feel anything… all of it is true. I did not lie in that regard…”
“You just wanted to rely on exorcists and hunters to take care of ‘it’,” Liz said, standing against the wall, smirking coldly. She wasn’t asking; she was stating a fact.
“Mr. Coraci is my friend,” the old specter said, looking out at the setting sun. “I…I was afraid he’d find out, just like I feared my daughter would…”
Yet he needed help. He was no master of magic and didn’t know what would happen next. He wanted someone to eliminate the horrors in the mansion but did not want anyone to discover his past crimes.
For nearly two centuries, he had portrayed a witty, gentlemanly, occasionally eccentric, and kind-hearted specter. Now, he was afraid — not of evil spirits, but of having his past seen.
The hunters stayed in the house, snacking for dinner, checking every room. Coraci watched the sunset alone for a long time before returning inside.
He reassured the old specter not to worry — they would only deal with the semi-corporeal evil spirits, since those were the ones threatening the living.
“We are not the judges of the past,” Coraci said coldly, a tone rarely heard by the Association members. “You’ve already died once. We have no reason to let a specter die again.”
Atwood continued to repeat his greatest fear, “Please…don’t tell my daughter. I beg you.”
“I understand. If she knew, she would feel so much anger…and shame.”
From behind, Smith jabbed John sharply in the waist and whispered, “Go comfort Coraci! Right now his mind is full of sorrow and disappointment. I can’t bear to read it any longer!”
Then can’t you just not read it? John glanced helplessly at the shapeshifter beside him, then at Coraci.
Of course he wanted to talk to Coraci. If he could, he would hand everything over to the hunters and just retreat — far away, together with Coraci. They could discuss ghost lore, share strange tales from the bloodkin world…anything. He simply wasn’t used to seeing Coraci’s face so dark and heavy.
“But how am I supposed to comfort him?” John murmured under his breath. “There are so many people in the hall… Would going over and hugging him be too…”
“It’s not like you two have never hugged before! Even in a little dark room. Why not here?”
“How do you even know that?” John struggled to keep his voice down. Smith was probably referring to the Bunker incident, when smoke had affected John and left him on edge.
“Because you’ve been dwelling on that memory.” Smith jabbed him with an elbow again. “The movies got it right, huh? Vampires are all sissies? One hug, and you’re replaying it in your head forever?”
John really, really wished he knew a spell to block mind reading.
He leaned on the corner of an old low cabinet, held his forehead, and forced himself to recite song lyrics he could remember, trying to drive out every thought that Smith could mock.
Now, Coraci had started talking to the hunters about what they had encountered. The atmosphere was no longer appropriate for a sudden comforting…and John felt a small sense of relief.
The shapeshifter could read minds, and John couldn’t — but he sensed that Coraci’s gloom wasn’t entirely because of the Atwoods. There was something else, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
He still felt that something about the situation was off. Even though the truth was almost visible, there were still blind spots left undiscovered. If he felt that way, surely Coraci sensed it too.
Hours passed.
The tourist couple and the dead hunters had all died in the early hours of the morning. Yesterday’s attack by the black worms had also happened in the dead of night. This time was no different. Around three in the morning, the entire house sank into a darkness heavier than night itself.
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