c013

"Here you go," Hani croons the next morning, setting a cup of very sweet iced coffee from a nearby Coffee Star on Seokga's desk."Bon appétit, mon ami."

Seokga glares up at her, looking away from his computer screen. "You're back," he mutters, looking exceptionally not pleased.

"You could at least try to act a little nicer," she huffs in irritation.

"Why would I do that?" With a sneer, Seokga rises to his feet. "I'll be gone for the rest of the day. I'm giving you it off. You're welcome."

"What? No." Hani scowls and folds her arms. He's not going anywhere without her. "Wherever you're going, I'm coming with you. Do you have a lead on the Scarlet Fox? On the eoduksini?"

Seokga says nothing, pushing past her and striding to the precinct's exit. Hani is hot on his heels as she spits, "You could at least admit that you need my help. You only have fifteen more days to catch them both, you know—"

Seokga slams to a halt right before the door and whirls around. "My bargain," he snaps. "How in Jeoseung do you know about my bargain with Hwanin?"

Caught, Hani fumbles for an excuse. "Chief Shim told me."

The god's eyes narrow. "Chief Shim told you?" he repeats slowly, and Hani blinks. Did Seokga not tell Chief Shim about his bargain? Has she miscalculated?

There's no time to try to figure it out. Hani needs to stick by her lie as resolutely as possible.

"That's what I said," she replies as smoothly as she is able to manage. "He said he got a message from Hwanin detailing your plan regarding the eoduksini and the Scarlet Fox. Oh, and the little tidbit about Iseung potentially becoming a Dark World. See, I'm your assistant," she adds, straightening indignantly, "so I have a right to know these things. And even though you will never admit it," she says firmly, stepping forward so there is only a foot of space in between them, "you need my help." To emphasize the word need, Hani pokes Seokga in the chest. The god scowls in outrage, but Hani pushes onward. "You only have fifteen days to catch two notorious creatures. That's only a day over two weeks. And if you insist on working alone, you'll never be reinstated as a god. So wherever it is that you're going, I am going with you."

Seokga's jaw works as he eyes her in a way that makes her suspect he is deeply considering the ramifications of murdering her on the spot. "Well," he snaps, "that's the last time I tell Shim anything about my personal life. It seems like he's a gossip."

"I don't think that the possibility of a demon devouring the mortal world counts as an element of your personal life," Hani points out. "Besides, Chunbun is fast approaching. You need my help." She crosses her arms. "So," she says when he is broodingly silent, "where are we going?"

"I'm going," he grinds out slowly, "to speak to Chang Hyun-tae. The jeoseung saja. Another body was uncovered a few minutes ago. I need to examine it and speak with the soul. I need evidence."

"I'm coming with you." Seokga opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. "Don't even try to stop me. Was it another gumiho?"

"No. A haetae." Scowling, Seokga exits the precinct, pushing open the grimy glass door, Hani close on his heels. "He died the night before, like the gumiho, but his body wasn't found until now. He was in an alleyway."

The early morning air does little to dissuade Hani's rising nausea. "And he's the only other victim?"

"That we know of," Seokga says grimly, striding to his car. "Backseat," he demands out of the corner of his mouth as Hani makes her way to the passenger seat. She ignores him.

"And does the body have the veins? Like Euna's?"

"I'm assuming so." Seokga sends her a withering look as he starts the engine. "Hyun-tae is already at the location with the soul. It'll be like last time. A questioning before the investigation."

"What will the haetae be able to tell you that Euna couldn't? If the eoduksini really did kill him, isn't it likely that he only remembers what Euna remembers? His soul is probably disoriented, too."

"Euna remembered the rest eventually." Seokga is driving fast, weaving in and out of traffic with lightning speed, a stream of outraged honking blaring in his wake. "And it can't hurt to try."

"Hmm." Hani settles back in her seat, frowning. It's true that Euna did remember the rest—but had been moved to screams. "And what do you plan to do about the Scarlet Fox?"

"I've been waiting for her next move, but none's come." Seokga runs a red with a notable lack of concern. "We're going to instead gather a list of all gumiho registered to live in New Sinsi. Specifically, the gumiho that have residences near the place of attack or are registered as workers in the area. I also want CCTV footage pulled from nearby shops and streets to look for entrances and exits around the time of the murder."

Damned CCTV.Although she knows Bomnal Street, where the murder occurred, has no camera, there is likely one in the Yum Mart—the supermarket that Hani and Somi exited before parting ways. Hani is confident that she should leave her and Somi's names on the list, as leaving them out might actually increase suspicion, but the video footage is another matter entirely. It'll show Hani walking over to Bomnal Street. It needs to be dealt with. "That sounds tedious," Hani mutters.

"Which is why you'll be doing it, fox." Seokga smirks. "I also want the names of all the gumiho within the city past a certain age compiled in a separate list. The Scarlet Fox is rumored to have been in her human form for more than five hundred years. So I want the names of all gumiho over the age of one thousand five hundred by tomorrow morning. See that it gets done."

Hani sneers. "Fine." She'll be able to leave her and Somi's names off that list, at least. "And then what?"

"And then I find the Scarlet Fox and kill her."

"That's hardly a plan."

Seokga slants her a withering glare.

She winks.

"By the way, Hani, how old are you, again?" Seokga's smile is a wolf's smile, all cold predation. But Hani isn't fazed.

"One thousand four hundred fifty-two," she replies evenly. "But I do dearly wish that I was the Scarlet Fox. If only to torment you."

"I wish you were the Scarlet Fox, as well," Seokga retorts with a razor-sharp smirk, "if only to kill you."

Hani props her feet up on the dash. "Oh, come on—"

Seokga makes an abrupt turn into the parking lot of a café and slams the brakes. Hani yelps as she bangs her head against her knees. Forehead smarting, she glowers up at Seokga, but he's already exiting the car. Muttering an abundance of curses under her breath, Hani follows.

The hearse from the day prior is parked a few spaces away. Hyun-tae leans against the car, looking weary as he sips at a cup of coffee with the label reading creature café. He straightens as Seokga and Hani approach. "Good morning," he says promptly. "I've collected the soul. You're able to have four minutes with him exactly before I must take him to Jeoseung. The body can be found over there." He points to the crack of an alleyway in between the café and the neighboring bookstore. Hani can just make out trash cans, and a crumpled heap on the cement…a heap far too large, and too bulky, to be human. Hyun-tae follows her gaze. "He was in his beast form when he died," he explains. "I'm the one who found the body. You'll need to move it quickly, before the humans spot it."

Seokga looks grim. "Hani," he says, "go inspect the body and make sure that no humans approach it. I'll speak to the soul inside the hearse."

Hani frowns. "I want to talk—"

Seokga turns his icy gaze onto her. "I said go."

Fine. Sending him a vulgar gesture, Hani stomps off to the alleyway, ignoring Seokga's insulted hiss behind her. Her eyes widen as she steps into the shadowed alleyway, her gaze falling upon the prone body of the guardian creature. The enormous, horned beast is limp upon the cracked cement, the brilliant golden eyes forever shut. Bulging black veins wind along the haetae's entire body, snaking through the golden scales and wrapping around the once-strong limbs. Hani swallows hard as she traces the haetae's mouth with her gaze—the muzzle is pulled back, revealing sharp white canines the size of her hand, and a tongue that is limp as it hangs out of the haetae's maw. Silently, Hani kneels on the cold, hard ground next to the dead creature. It is not right that he died like this—an inhumane death in both nature and form.

It is not right at all.

There is no question that the haetae suffered. No question that the eoduksini drained the life out of him, leaving only its darkness behind. No question that the haetae was dragged through nightmare after nightmare while lying in this alleyway, dying.

Tears prick at Hani's eyes and she reaches out a hand to stroke the beast's cold, golden scales. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "May you find peace."

Footsteps behind her alert her to Seokga's presence, and she hears the rumble of the hearse as Hyun-tae takes the haetae's soul. But she doesn't move, even as Seokga stands behind her, silent and watchful.

Like Euna, this haetae died alone.

Alone and scared.

"I spoke to him," Seokga says stiltedly after a long moment, leaning on his cane. "The haetae."

"What did he say?" Hani asks, her eyes tracing the slight pinch between the haetae's brow, the way one giant paw stretches out as if in protest, or seeking some nonexistent savior.

"The same as the last one. Nightmares leading up to his death. Feeling cold. Tired. But…" Seokga hesitates, as if wrestling with himself about whether or not he would like to share the next piece of information with Hani. With much difficulty, she tears her gaze away from the haetae and shoots him a demanding glare.

"What did he say?"

Seokga's mouth tightens. "He'd been cleaning up the café, and went into this alleyway to throw out the trash. From what I was able to glean before he began screaming, he was exhausted and laid down on the ground. The rest is identical to Euna's story." Seokga wrinkles his nose in clear disdain. "But what's different, this time, is that there was a witness."

A witness.Hani jumps to her feet. "Really?" Even to her own ears, her voice is desperate, hopeful, and skeptical all at once. "Who is it?"

Seokga inclines his head. "The haetae wasn't working the night shift alone," he says as he gestures to the brick wall on their right, the wall of the café. "There was a girl working with him as well. Specifically, a human girl by the name of Choi Ji-ah. The haetae claims that the girl was supposed to follow him out with the recycling, but she never came—at least not to his knowledge. My guess is that whatever attacked the haetae made it into the alleyway before Ji-ah. When Ji-ah finally emerged, she saw the eoduksini in the act of feeding and fled. I've contacted Chief Shim. He has officers scouring the city for her. It's possible—no, probable—that she is our witness."

"And they can find her?"

"She may have left the city entirely. I don't know." Seokga shakes his head. "But as far as I know, she's still alive. Alive, and with answers."

"Unless the eoduksini is looking for her, too," Hani says slowly, something awful occurring to her, seeping across her mind with a terrible sort of coldness. "How easily can an eoduksini change forms on Iseung?"

"Not easily. It must have been difficult to obtain a human form in the first place." Seokga frowns. "What are you suspecting?"

"If the eoduksini knows that Ji-ah is a witness, then it could be tracking her, as well. To silence her, because she alone knows what it looks like." Hani chews on her bottom lip, panic and concern quickening her heart. "We need to be the ones to find her first."

The fallen god's jade eyes are hard. "We'll find her." He gestures to the haetae's body. "We need to bring him to Dok-hyun. To confirm how he died."

"I think it's pretty obvious how he died."

Seokga sneers. "Yes, well, if you would like to avoid another mound of paperwork, fox, we need to have an autopsy done." He pulls out his cellphone, an expensive Nokia 121 that he probably didn't have to steal, and punches in a few numbers. The phone starts to ring. "I'll have a group of haetae collect the corpse while we head back to the precinct. When we get there, run up the names of all gumiho over the age of one thousand five hundred. You can meet me in the precinct morgue in around an hour. Or not," he adds pointedly. "Feel free to leave the investigation entirely."

Hani sticks out her tongue. "No," she says as cheerfully as she can manage with the haetae's corpse lying only a few feet away, "I think I'll stay."

He rolls his eyes. "Get the names to me within an hour," he snaps before the other end of the line crackles.

"Within an hour?" Hani watches in disbelief as Seokga presses the phone to his ear, his eyes lingering on the corpse. "It will take me longer than that to pull all of that information—"

"Then tomorrow morning, at the latest. I need a stretcher and transport," he says grimly into the phone. "And get here before Godly Gossip."

Lee Ah-in. Age one thousand, six hundred and one.

Hani stares at Ah-in's name, printed on the white piece of paper, and raises a brow. "Who knows?" she muses. "You could be the Scarlet Fox." Sighing, she taps the precinct's printer impatiently as it takes its sweet, sweet time spitting out the names, addresses, and contact information for New Sinsi's gumiho. It's taken her nearly an hour of clicking through the city's residential database, muttering foul curses as the internet does its very best to slug through her requests. Eventually, though, she'd been able to find a collection of gumiho who all fit Seokga's criteria—forty in total. As the tenth and final piece of paper prints out, Hani snatches it from the printer's mouth, grabs a nearby stapler, and stomps over to the precinct's computer lab.

The haetae in charge of pulling the CCTV footage looks up from his desk as she arrives. "Here," he says, standing up from the computer as Hani enters, then holding out a cardboard box of VHS tapes. There must be around ten. "All tapes from around the area and time of attack. It took me a while to get all of them—had to drive around town to collect these bad boys, so I didn't get a chance to look through any. But I understand that Detective Seokga assigned the task to you." He gives her a cheeky smile that suggests he doesn't envy her. "The VCR in the conference room can play these, or you can choose a computer here if you want me to digitalize them for you. Might take some time, but I can get it done for Detective Seokga. Names of each establishment, and what street they're located on, are taped on the sides of each VHS. You can throw out what you don't need and keep what you do. Got it?"

"Thanks," Hani says, taking the box and making a mental note to throw the VHS from Yum Mart into a blender. She dumps the tapes into her tote bag and sighs.

She'll take the footage home, play the tapes on her own TV. It's too risky to do it here. Hani rubs her eyes wearily and sets off to the precinct's morgue, clutching the list of gumiho names in her hand.

The haetae's autopsy will be happening now.

When word of the eoduksini's latest victim had reached the ears of New Sinsi's haetae precinct, officers quickly fell into a state of quiet mourning. So the precinct is unnaturally silent as Hani makes her way to the morgue, passing a few somber guardian creatures with small nods of respect.

Lee Dok-hyun has already finished examining the body. He tugs off his mask and jumps slightly as Hani enters, before shaking his head to Seokga. The god stands at his side with an inscrutable expression. "It was the eoduksini," he confirms. "You can write that in the official report. Yang Chan-yeol, twenty-three, killed by eoduksini."

"Shit," Hani mutters, attempting to force some levity into her voice. "That thing is really getting around. I'm going to start carrying a metal bat with me everywhere I go. I'll give it a big old whack if it tries anything." She avoids looking at the haetae's corpse as she joins Dok-hyun's side.

Seokga's eyes flutter up toward the ceiling and he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, You are insufferable. Hani opens her mouth to shoot back a biting reply, but Dok-hyun gets there first.

"Actually," the forensic pathologist says hesitantly, "the eoduksini doesn't necessarily need to be physically close to its victims to torture them with nightmares. He just needs to be on the same realm."

"That's great," groans Hani, but pauses when she catches sight of Seokga's face. He's frowning more than usual, and the fact that Hani now knows how to distinguish one of his frowns from another speaks to how much she's succeeded in annoying him lately.

"How do you know that?" Seokga asks. "You only just learned what an eoduksini is."

Dok-hyun shrugs, glancing away. "I read up on it," he replies. "After the last autopsy, I was frightened. The New Sinsi Library has a stack of eoduksini literature. I figured it would be helpful. I could send Chief Shim a list of the best references I found if you think that would be…"

"Perhaps," Seokga drawls, voice frigid. "Perhaps."

Hani doesn't know what to make of the sudden tension, and stares intently at Seokga, hoping that if she looks hard enough, a peephole into his strange god-brain will appear. Seokga bristles, as if the feeling of her eyes on him is offensive.

She smiles sweetly, continuing to stare at his forehead.

"What are you doing?" he snaps. "Stop that."

A moment later, Dok-hyun clears his throat and turns away from the corpse.

"We'll have a family member come in to identify the body," he says. "It'll shift into their custody at a different morgue." He peels off his surgical gloves and then pushes up his glasses. "I really hope, Detective, that you're one step closer to finding the one who is doing this. I don't want to see another body in this"—he swallows, looking slightly green—"manner."

"We have a witness," Seokga replies. "This will be over and done with soon."

"A—witness?" Dok-hyun blinks, fingering the golden embroidery on his black lab coat. "Really?"

Seokga nods in confirmation before his attention shifts to Hani and the stack of papers in her hands. "Those are the names?"

She nods, holding them out to him. "Yes."

Something that might be grudging respect—or, alternatively, a minor case of gas (as it looks so uncomfortable and out of place on his icy visage)—crosses the god's face.

Hani smiles and inclines her head smugly. "I didn't need until tomorrow," she informs him, quite proud of herself. "Just longer than an hour."

"Names?" Dok-hyun asks, looking slightly confused. "Of witnesses?"

"No. Possible Scarlet Fox suspects." Curious expression gone, Seokga snatches the files and tilts his lips upward in a hard smile. "Well. It seems like you're good for something, after all."

She smiles sweetly. Oh, he has no idea.

"The witness, though," Dok-hyun presses. "What…What have they said?"

Seokga, frown deepening, riffles through the papers as he starts toward the door. "We need to find her first. But I expect she'll be able to point us in the direction of our little demon friend. Fox," he snaps, glancing over his shoulder, "stop loitering around. There's work to be done."

With an apologetic smile to Dok-hyun, Hani stalks off in the direction Seokga has vanished, considering how screwed she would be if one day she finally punched his teeth in.