Chaisi took a silver comb from his suit pocket and slowly combed a stray lock of hair back.
The comb was small, its inlaid emeralds reflecting a deep, translucent light. The light sank into his black hair, fracturing between the strands.
The finer things in this world, since they exist, are meant to be used. Chaisi wasn't the type to lock a comb away in a jewelry case just because it was a valuable antique.
"I stripped him bare with my own hands."
Chaisi leaned back in his chair and said, "I don't mind finding a new use for a cautery gun, but Dr. Nate was afraid I'd be too heavy-handed and give him a ruptured intestine, so he did the examination for me. I watched the entire time. I can confirm the bodyguard had nothing on him."
Across from him, Kai Luonan grunted.
He was over sixty, his hair faded to an iron gray, like the dense fog of an overcast morning. Wrinkles had etched a hard, impassive face, and his murky blue eyes always seemed to be studying others from a distance, as if from deep within that same fog.
In his presence, Chaisi sometimes felt like a young child again.
"And the bodyguard's home?"
"I just got back from his place this morning. There isn't a single tile left intact." Chaisi thought for a few seconds, then continued, "I searched his car as well. Nothing. I also checked his dashcam and the security footage. He drove straight home after leaving the manor and didn't go out again before I got to him. Aside from a pizza delivery guy, he didn't meet with anyone. If he hid the Illusion at the manor—"
"There's nothing left at the manor," Kai Luonan said in a low voice. "The new Hunter already did a sweep."
Chaisi nodded, his thick, dark brows furrowing.
"So of the four Illusions that vanished from Westley Manor, the bodyguard didn't get a single one?" Kai Luonan asked.
Chaisi looked at the ceiling and thought for a moment.
"No," he murmured. "He got one… He got at least one."
"How do you know?"
Chaisi sat up straighter, annoyed. His pale, large hands were clasped so tightly that veins bulged on their backs. There was still a faint dark red stain under his nails, something he hadn't yet had a chance to clean.
"I searched every possible hiding spot. No Illusion anywhere. That guy has no backbone. I'd barely broken his left arm when he started begging me to search his house and his car. He even gave me his sister's out-of-town address without me having to ask."
He pulled out a few bills, folded them over, and used the sharp corner to slowly clean under his nails.
"My search was meticulous. I'm confident I didn't miss a thing. But as I watched him on the boat, I started to get this feeling… I can't explain it, but I just know." Chaisi stared at the dark red stain on the corner of the bill. "He got an Illusion."
'Ivan was terrified, in agony, and desperate to escape the little boat, to escape me. But there was something… something indescribable, like a backbone, that was propping up the sobbing, twitching, howling man, allowing him to grit his teeth and hold on to his secret.'
'People who've seen the other world seem to develop a certain detachment from this one. At first, even physical pain feels muffled, as if through a layer of cotton.'
'It was a feeling I'd experienced before, in Hunters who had just returned from the Nest.'
'Ivan wasn't a Hunter. He had only formed a connection to another reality through an Illusion, and that's why he faintly carried a similar air about him.'
'But he shouldn't have been able to hold out for long.'
At this thought, Chaisi's hands twisted together in a surge of irritation.
'No matter how valuable an Illusion is, it's not worth more than life and limb. Even a rare Illusion that could grant supreme wealth and status wasn't worth being turned into a living torso for.'
Late last night, Ivan had been sitting naked in a pool of his own blood, trembling violently in the cold sea wind. One of his arms, broken in several places, was dislocated from its bloody, torn socket, making it hang a good deal longer than his right.
Looking at him, Chaisi knew he wouldn't have to get serious. The man was already near his breaking point.
By any standard, Ivan was not a tough man.
A few more minutes and he would have made him talk. But just then, a light in the distance suddenly pierced the darkness over the black sea. The roar of a large speedboat's engine sliced through the waves, pushing the distant light into Chaisi's view.
Dr. Nate's head snapped up. He whispered, "Is that the Coa—the Coast Guard?"
As far as Chaisi knew, the Coast Guard didn't usually patrol this area at this hour. Still, out of an abundance of caution, he dropped the blood-stained dumbbell plate he was holding. It hit the deck with a THUD, making the boat rock slightly.
"Get down," he ordered the bodyguard. Then he said, "Doctor, hand me the tarp from under the seat."
He threw the boat cover—normally used to protect the vessel—over Ivan's head, concealing the man's pale body and the dark red bloodstains all at once.
Chaisi took a long stride over the trembling, rustling tarp. He grabbed a can of beer from the wet bar, tossed it to Dr. Nate, and said, "Drink."
The crisp snap of the pull-tab was drowned out by the roar of the approaching engine. Chaisi could now make out that the vessel was a large speedboat, its design very similar to a standard Coast Guard craft. It looked like it would slice past them in a matter of minutes.
'Great. My tax dollars at work, getting in my way.'
Chaisi grumbled as he sat down, picking up a fishing rod that was on the boat but not bothering to cast the line.
Tonight, a vast expanse of thick clouds obscured the moon and stars. Visibility on the water was terrible; looking out more than a few meters was like staring into a dark, empty void.