The car started, and they had barely traveled a few hundred meters when Kallen heard a faint sound behind him. Then an arm slipped around his neck, followed by the sound of alcohol-laced breathing beside his ear.
"Ma'am, I'm driving."
The next moment,
Kallen felt his earlobe drawn into something warm and slick. The sensation was rather intoxicating.
"Ma'am, I'm driving."
Kallen had to remind her again, slowing the car at the same time.
"I'm so stupid~"
Mrs. Hughes spoke softly into Kallen's ear.
"Ma'am, how are you stupid?"
"I'm an ugly, unfortunate, stupid woman."
"Ma'am, don't say that about yourself."
"Weren't you the one who called me stupid?" Mrs. Hughes asked. "On the phone."
"When did I..."
Alarm suddenly jolted through Kallen.
"And this afternoon, in the living room, weren't you and that policeman discussing me too? From your expression and tone, I could tell you were utterly contemptuous of me."
"Mrs. Hughes, please don't joke like that." As Kallen spoke, he quietly checked behind him through the rearview mirror.
"You were contemptuous of my artistic ability. No, you were contemptuous of me as a person. Kallen, I'm so hurt. So hurt that this is how you see me.
"Do you know? The moment I first saw you, I wanted you in my bed. I would give you true pleasure and make you... a real man."
Kallen slowly slid his left hand down the steering wheel, preparing to press the accelerator with his right foot.
A sudden stop should throw her off balance behind me. Then I can use the opening to get out.
But... damn it!
Why do I have such good habits? The police in Rojia City don't even check whether you're wearing a seat belt, let alone deduct points for it. Why did I buckle up out of habit?
"Boo-hoo..."
Mrs. Hughes began to cry.
"Kallen, you've really broken my heart. You won't even wear the watch I gave you."
"Believe me, Mrs. Hughes, starting tomorrow, that watch will stay by my side forever. Nothing will part us."
"You can't trust a man's words." Mrs. Hughes slowly raised her other hand from behind him. "But I have another way to make you keep the promise you just made."
Kallen watched her movement through the rearview mirror.
Hit the accelerator, then slam on the brakes. Unbuckle the seat belt with my right hand and open the door with my left. Use the momentum to break free of her arm, then fall out of the car, even if I have to roll.
She's probably holding a knife. At worst, she'll give me a few cuts. A little injury, a little blood. Nothing serious.
Kallen rapidly planned it all in his head;
until he saw what Mrs. Hughes had raised in her other hand.
It was
a revolver.
Fuck.
It's a gun!
The next moment,
the cool muzzle pressed against his temple.
Kallen knew that however fast he moved, he would never be faster than a bullet.
He had no choice but to abandon his plans for the time being. A few knife wounds probably would not kill him, but a bullet...
"Ma'am, I think an artist should use a knife. A gun has no soul."
"I'm not very strong. I can't use a knife. Only with a gun could I make Cole and Old Darcy behave themselves."
"I'm different from them. I've met Cole. He was a big man. Old Darcy might have been old, but he'd spent years working the cremation furnaces. He was in good shape too.
"I'm different.
"I'm sure that if you used a knife, ma'am,
"no,
"even if we fought bare-handed right now, I probably wouldn't be a match for you."
"Hehehe, you're so funny. See? Even now, you're still treating me like an idiot."
"No, ma'am. You're not the stupid one. I am."
Those were Kallen's sincere feelings right now.
Not long ago, he had analyzed the criminal's psychology in front of the chief and even mocked the killer for being stupid;
then he had driven off with that very killer in his car.
But sometimes, how could he put it? When someone was truly stupid enough to defy all your predictions, they ended up going from one extreme to the other.
At that moment,
Chief Duke, who had just received the news at the police station, was also in shock.
One was her lover, the other her longtime employee.
She had only recently begun keeping the former, while the latter had died inside her Crematorium Society.
It was fair to say that simply laying the two victims' identity files side by side made the connection immediately clear.
But because Cole came from another city, investigating his identity and connections within this city had taken some time. That had given Mrs. Hughes room to continue moving about freely.
Stupid hardly began to describe this killer. She was practically a mindless lunatic who did not even know to conceal her involvement in her murders.
"Ma'am, could we discuss something? I'll drive you home now, and you can have a good night's sleep. We'll pretend none of this ever happened. The weather will be lovely tomorrow, with bright sunshine and fresh air.
"Rest assured, I'm very good at keeping secrets."
"You'd better watch what you say now, Kallen. Because every word that comes out of your mouth reaches my ears as the same thing, repeated over and over:
"I'm stupid, I'm stupid, I'm stupid!"
"All right."
"I need somewhere quiet now, somewhere we won't be disturbed. I want to spend a lovely night with you."
"It would be my honor, ma'am. Where would you like to go?"
"I can barely wait anymore. I'm getting impatient, especially after all the wine I've had tonight. I feel so excited."
"So do I, ma'am."
"Turn up ahead. Go to No. 128. Didn't that family just move out? It'll be nice and quiet."
No. 128?
Kallen suddenly felt rather... conflicted.
That was a place he always specifically asked taxi drivers to avoid whenever he came or went.
Yet when he heard Mrs. Hughes choose that house, he also breathed a silent sigh of relief.
That house had left him with a deep-seated fear,
but the problem was,
his current situation could not possibly get any worse.
Encountering a ghost was terrifying,
but in the face of death,
ghosts
became a little easier to accept.
First, nothing was more terrifying than death. Second, once you died, you would become one of them.
Kallen slowly pressed the accelerator. The car took the turn smoothly at a steady speed, continued a little farther, and stopped in front of No. 128.
Mrs. Hughes opened the door first and got out, then kept her gun trained on Kallen.
"You get out too."
"Yes, ma'am."
Kallen got out of the car.
"Open the trunk."
Kallen went around to the back and opened the trunk. A hiking pack lay inside.
"Pick it up."
Kallen lifted the pack. It was a little heavy, and from what he had felt earlier, there seemed to be quite a few tools inside.
"Are these your paintbrushes?" Kallen asked.
"Yes. The paintbrushes of the mediocrity you spoke of."
"If I'd known the artist was you, ma'am, I would have been worshipping at your feet long ago."
"Go inside."
"Yes, ma'am."
Kallen pushed open the yard gate and walked in with the pack. Mrs. Hughes followed close behind.
Kallen wondered whether he could knock Mrs. Hughes down if he swung the hiking pack backward at her.
He immediately abandoned that idea, because he doubted he could even swing the pack.
Besides, Kallen noticed that Mrs. Hughes held the gun very steadily.
"Do you know when Mary and I first met?" Mrs. Hughes asked.
By ordinary logic, someone who ran a Funeral Society and someone who ran a Crematorium Society would surely have met through business dealings.
But Aunt Mary had not actually been a Funeral Makeup Artist for very long, and Hughes Crematorium had originally been managed by Mr. Hughes. Mrs. Hughes had only taken over after he passed away.
"The first time I met Mary was one afternoon. I'd just won a shooting championship, and before I went onstage to receive my award, Mary came to do my makeup."
"Ma'am, you can rest assured. I'm a coward. I'll do exactly as you tell me."
"Good. Now open the door."
"I don't have a key."
Kallen put his hand on the door handle.
Click.
The door opened.
It wasn't even locked!
What Kallen did not know was that a young man named Jeff had stood here a few days earlier and expressed much the same sentiment about this door.
"They've moved all their valuables out. Why lock the door?" Mrs. Hughes laughed. "Even if it were locked, I have tools in my bag to pry it open.
"Now go inside."
Carrying the pack, Kallen entered the house.
"Keep going."
"All right."
Click!
Mrs. Hughes switched on the light.
"Ma'am, turning on the lights might attract the neighbors' attention," Kallen kindly reminded her.
"This is a society where people don't care about one another. I don't believe any neighbor would notice whether a house whose residents just moved out should have its lights on at this hour. Much less would anyone be bored enough to call the police specifically over it.
"Of course, even if they did call, by the time those policemen arrived, everything would already be over."
"I quite agree with your opinion of the police, ma'am. They don't even respond as fast as our family's hearse."
"Upstairs."
"Yes, ma'am."
"The master bedroom."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Now put the bag down, then lie on the bed."
Kallen walked over to the bed and sat down.
Keeping the gun in one hand, Mrs. Hughes slowly crouched and opened the pack, apparently rummaging through the tools inside.
"Ma'am, if Aunt Mary hadn't insisted on dragging me along for barbecue, tonight you would have..."
"Yes. Mary was supposed to be the subject of my work tonight. She's my dear friend, and I know her very well. Once she became part of my work, I would be able to immerse myself in it completely.
"Just like Cole, who knew my sensitive spots, and Old Darcy, who worked for me for so long.
"You should understand. The most important thing in art is resonance."
"Yes, ma'am. I couldn't agree more."
A mocking smile appeared at the corner of Mrs. Hughes's mouth.
"Shouldn't skill matter too?"
"Believe me, ma'am, that was an outsider to art blaspheming against its sanctity. I've repented for it in my heart countless times."
Mrs. Hughes took a knife from the pack. It looked much like the knives butchers used at the market. It would probably be handy for chopping ribs.
"You can lie down now. Or you can choose to resist now. Because this is your last chance.
"Mink Street isn't one of those neighborhoods full of vagrants. It's always been very safe. So a gunshot is sure to alert plenty of people. But rest assured, I can guarantee that by the time the shots ring out, you'll already have several holes in you."
"What a difficult choice," Kallen sighed.
"Indeed."
"Ma'am, your first work was a religious painting from the Berry Church, and your second was a religious painting from the Abyss Church. I'm very curious what you're planning for your third... no, don't answer yet. Let me try to guess...
"I'm guessing the Order God Church?"
Mrs. Hughes looked somewhat surprised.
"Did I guess right?" Kallen pretended to be delighted.
"Yes, you guessed right."
"Let me keep guessing... The painting you want to pay homage to is the one of the God of Order punishing his daughter Ankara, Light of Order. Am I right?"
"Kallen, I have to admit one thing. You really do understand me."
"Yes, ma'am, I think we have so much in common in our tastes, and so much we could share with each other, so..."
"That's exactly why I chose you, Kallen!"
"..." Kallen was speechless.
"Actually, you're not a replacement for Mary. You were my first choice for this piece all along. If you'd come back any later this afternoon, I would have had to settle for Mary."
"Ma'am, I think you need to plan things out before you start creating. Ankara's body was torn apart."
"Yes, so I've already made preparations. I'll chop you up-well, after you're dead. That way, you won't feel any pain."
"But how do you intend to depict the Ferocious Beast's enormous maw swallowing her? I don't want you to repeat your regrets with Old Darcy. You know, you never actually managed to finish that piece."
"This time, I have a very good solution."
At that moment,
Kallen suddenly noticed a black patch on Mrs. Hughes's face. It was slowly spreading, covering one of her eyes.
And when she spoke her next sentence,
Mrs. Hughes's voice abruptly took on a masculine timbre, becoming deep and harsh:
"My artistic approach this time will be to chop you into tiny little pieces, then eat you, bit by bit."
Kallen knew that voice very well;
Over the phone: "You've interrupted my artistic work."
It was the voice from back then!
So what was wrong with Mrs. Hughes?
She certainly couldn't be a man dressed as a woman, like Piaget. She was a woman, and Kallen could be sure of that, because while he was driving that evening, Mrs. Hughes had hiked her skirt all the way up as she lay on the back seat, revealing the thin, skimpy lace she wore beneath it.
Although Kallen hadn't deliberately looked,
Those few glances had been enough to make it perfectly clear.
So Mrs. Hughes was definitely not a man!
Yet now, as she walked toward him step by step, she seemed... as though something had possessed her, filling her with obsession and madness.
Kallen's gaze swept his surroundings. He desperately wanted to catch sight of the Red High Heel, but unfortunately, he couldn't find her.
That flash of red he had once avoided at all costs was now something he longed desperately to see. He would even kneel down and kiss her upper.
"Kallen, I acknowledge your intelligence, and I acknowledge that your appreciation of art surpasses mine. That's why I've decided to do it this way. First, I'll complete my work. Second, once I've eaten you, you will become one with me, and I will inherit everything you have."
"I have one final request. An artistic request. I hope you'll grant it."
"Speak."
Kallen pointed at the old-fashioned Peanut-Tube Radio,
"Ma'am, I think chopping me up to the gentle evening music playing on the radio would make for a beautifully poetic scene, don't you?"
Mrs. Hughes hesitated. She was genuinely considering his suggestion. Then:
"I think you're right."
Then,
She reached out and pressed the radio's power switch.
Just then,
A little static came from the radio first,
Then,
A rich male voice emerged from the radio:
"Good evening, dear listeners. Welcome to Rojia Story Hour..."
Before you continue