c003

"Detective Seokga," Chief Shim Him-chan says. Confusion, disbelief, and amusement flicker across his wrinkled countenance as he looks up from his desk and pushes up his thick glasses."You…You look…"

Seokga seethes as he stalks into the haetae precinct, his knuckles white around his cane's hilt. "Do not," he warns, "speak of it." The dark markings all over his cherished black suit are infuriatingly noticeable, as is his ire. It is an effort not to stalk back to that damned café and show that girl the true power of his wrath. She is nothing, she is nobody—a mere café worker, most likely a simple dokkaebi or an inept gumiho.

And yet that inept gumiho had dared to throw coffee in his face.

Enough had trickled into his mouth for him to know that there certainly had not been one cream, one sugar like he demanded. And that, that on top of everything else, is the final insult.

"Apologies," Chief Shim says hastily and quickly bows his head. The swathe of gray hairs there may very well be from years of handling the trickster's dour disposition.

"Apologies received," Seokga mutters, leaning on his cane as he observes the precinct's morning goings-on. The building itself is rather drab—a concrete rectangle squashed between a massage parlor and a flower shop that Seokga predicts will be out of business within the month. The linoleum floors are scuffed and worn, covered in an eternally grimy sheen. Predictably, the overhead lights are no better—harsh and glaring, they emit a high-pitched buzzing noise akin to a fly. One would have thought that the gods would have supplied their beloved guardian creatures with a building that wasn't decrepit, but alas. This concrete rectangle is where Seokga is doomed to work for at least a half century more, until the building inevitably ends up crumbling into dust. And then it will be on to a new city, a new precinct, until Seokga has sent a total of twenty thousand Unrulies to King Yeomra in Jeoseung.

Seokga does not like to dwell on the fact that he has only sent ten thousand and fifty-two Unrulies to the underworld, and that consequently, his sentence on Iseung is long from being done and over with.

Officers are bent over their creaking wooden desks, flipping through manila folders and files, thumping impatiently on the sides of their slow desktop monitors. Around the corner, Seokga can hear muffled sobbing—witnesses, no doubt, brought in for questioning—and around the other corner, in the holding cell, he can hear wet hisses and vicious threats.

"What do you have for me today?" Seokga asks the chief, frowning as he adjusts his damp suit. If there's anything that he despises more than his brother Hwanin, emperor of the gods, it's not looking his best. And thanks to that gumiho, he is far from looking like his usual dashing self.

"Ah." Chief Shim rummages around in one of the many overstuffed drawers in his desk. "A mul gwisin is suspected to have been drowning people in the Han River. Two victims this morning were pulled from the water. The witness"—here, he waves to the corner around which is the sobbing—"has been drawn in for questioning."

"The water ghost will fare better, no doubt, in the Seocheongang," Seokga replies, naming the rushing red river within the underworld realm of Jeoseung. He takes the file that Chief Shim hands him and glances through the contents. Kim Min-a, age twenty. Death by drowning. Kim Jong-hyun, age twenty-two. Death by drowning. "Anything else?"

Chief Shim sighs, eyeing Seokga with what he recognizes as concern. "You work too hard, Detective. You know that, don't you?"

Seokga smirks, the portrait of nonchalance even as a part of him hisses that of course I work too hard—that's my eternal punishment. "Worry not, Chief. Ridding the city of Unrulies is my greatest passion."

It is not.

Chief Shim doesn't look convinced. "Have you given any thought to acquiring an assistant?" As Seokga sighs through his nose in annoyance, the old man hastens to further explain his urgings. "Somebody to get you coffee, to clean up the messes that the Unrulies leave behind, somebody to do the paperwork for you…"

"I told you," Seokga says coolly. "I do not like people. I work alone."

"Yes, yes." A sad smile tugs at Chief Shim's lips. "You have. But with an assistant, Seokga, your sentence could go so much faster. You would not slave over the paperwork that comes with the disposal of Unrulies, you know. Instead, there'd be more time for you to devote to your penance."

Seokga finds that he does not quite enjoy the fatherly look of weary concern that tumbles around in the chief's eyes. To him, it is ridiculous. Seokga may look like a twenty-something-year-old boy in desperate need of a father figure, but in reality, Seokga is a deity. The god of mischief. The god who snuck twenty thousand Unruly monsters from the Dark World into the godly realm of Okhwang, instigated a coup against Emperor Hwanin as the monsters tore into the palace, ruled on his throne for approximately five minutes, and then was promptly dethroned in a fashion that was both humiliating and highly offensive as his cowardly monsters fled back to this realm, where he's now tasked with tracking and disposing of the spineless things. Seokga closes his eyes and pushes the memory away. When he opens them again, Chief Shim is still speaking.

"I can put out an advertisement this afternoon—"

"Don't," Seokga snaps, finally losing his grip on his temper's already frayed and short leash. He makes it a point to speak in the informal, reminding Shim that Seokga is, in fact, much older than him. Shim always uses jondaemal around Seokga, but that warm look in his eyes has disgusted Seokga enough that he considers explicitly reminding Shim that Seokga was alive before his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-halmoni was even conceived. "An assistant would only get in my way. And, truth be told"—Seokga smirks, but it's not an amused smirk; it's a smirk that tells Shim to run while he still can—"they would probably be killed right away. The bulgasari last night dented my sword."

Chief Shim's eyes widen in concern. It is rare that an Unruly lands such a blow, and the chief haetae knows it. "Really?"

"Yes. I took it to Jeong Jae-jin this morning to get it fixed." Seokga hands the files back to him. "No assistant," he reminds the chief coldly before making his way toward where the witnesses have been gathered. "I'll take care of the mul gwisin," he adds over his shoulder. "Send anything else that comes in my way—Unruly dokkaebi, imoogi, more bulgasari, all of it. I want a minimum of ten—no, fifteen—before the day comes to a close."

Already well on his way, Seokga does not see Chief Shim watch him go with a sad shake of his head that would surely cause him disgust. Does not hear Shim's racing thoughts—that Seokga makes it so hard on himself, that he deserves to return to his home amongst the other gods, that he deserves…a companion. A friend. Somebody to pass the hours with, to soften his hardened heart. An assistant that could bring out the best in the grumpy fallen god, could turn his hard green eyes warm and sparkling. Seokga does not hear any of this, and perhaps it is a good thing—for if he did, Seokga would most definitely not be pleased.

Nor does he see the same chief boot up his computer and type, with wrinkled fingers: Help Wanted: Detective Seokga, Haetae Precinct, New Sinsi.

"There, there," Seokga says half-heartedly, gingerly providing a tissue to the sobbing woman and snatching his hand away before it can touch hers. "There, there."

Consoling weeping mortals has never quite been his forte.

He watches in disgust as the human buries her face in the tissue, snuffling back snot. Humans. So weakhearted, so despicably pathetic.

The sniveling creature believes that she is in New Sinsi's official police precinct thanks to the glamour laid over the concrete building by a shaman and specific only to humans. Once she leaves, her memories from both her time in the precinct and her encounters with the supernatural will be erased, leaving her confused and weary.

Seokga shakes his head. So easily fooled.

Once, this city had been exclusive. He'd quite enjoyed the days of member-only access into New Sinsi, enjoyed that only creatures and the occasional shaman were allowed into the metropolis located just below Seoul and above Suwon. It had been the closest thing to Okhwang on the mortal realm, until humans (much in the way that they always do) infiltrated the streets like fat, scuttling cockroaches.

It's what they'd done to the original Sinsi, after all—the city of gods and spirits founded by Hwanung on Mount Taebak. And they've done it again to New Sinsi, ensuring that creatures and gods must hide in their own homes from the invading roaches.

Roaches that Seokga would rather like to step on and hear crunch.

He inhales thinly through his nose and attempts to gather his waning patience.

"Tell me what you saw," Seokga demands after a few moments, drumming his fingers impatiently on the silver imoogi's head. "Please," he adds as a reluctant afterthought. Humans seem to like that word. They respond to it like flies to honey.

But this human's wailing only grows louder.

Fine, then. A different tactic shall do the trick.

Seokga once had power rivaled only by Hwanin himself. He'd had the ability to worm his way into human minds, to detect their every lie, their every sin. He'd been able to sift through their shameful longings, their cruel deceits, their every trickery. It had all been so very entertaining, especially when he seized control of those minds and made the connected bodies dance like puppets on his strings.

And his illusions. Oh, his illusions. How he misses duplicating Hwanin's clothing, weaving their likenesses from nothing, and letting the emperor don the fake attire. The look on his face when Seokga waved his hand and the illusion faded, leaving the god-king naked in front of his court, is a memory that Seokga cherishes dearly.

Shape-shifting had been one of his favorite tricks out of many—particularly using it to take the form of another and wreak chaos in various realms. Pretending to be the much-beloved goddess of the moon in the heavenly kingdom of Okhwang. Flitting as a dark butterfly through the dreary crevice of the dead that is Jeoseung to see the many lost souls collected there. In the form of a water dragon, Seokga even visited the underwater realm of Yongwangguk—although shifting into an imoogi was extremely uncomfortable as it involved sprouting scales.

And then, of course, there had been that other realm he'd oft visited disguised as any one of the beasts inhabiting that dark plane…such as the jangsan beom, tiger spirits who mimic human voices to lure mortals into their salivating maws. Ah, yes. Gamangnara. The Dark World. Realm of monsters.

A familiar, bitter feeling twists Seokga's stomach. Best not to dwell on what happened there any more than he must.

Yet every day that Seokga spends on Iseung is a teeth-grinding reminder of that lost realm.

Iseung.Seokga is filled with a disgust that somehow manages to be both resigned and furious all at once. The inane mortal world has always been his least favorite. Especially ever since Hwanin took over its rule in place of their sleeping mother.

For Mago, goddess of the earth, has been asleep for quite a while.

Her nap first started when Hwanin and Seokga imprisoned their tyrant father, Mireuk, in Jeoseung. "I'm tired of all these testosterone-fueled battles," Mago had grouched. And Seokga sees now that she really had been tired, because Mago has been slumbering for thousands of years. In her place, Hwanin wears the crown, placing down decrees for creatures to follow with the help of his son Hwanung, god of laws.

What would Mago say now if she were to see how much power her youngest son has lost?

Seokga sighs. Teleportation had been wonderful, too, giving him the impressive ability to commit a heinous crime and promptly flee far, far away—all while cackling maniacally to himself under his breath.

But ever since his fall, he's retained only a pale imitation of his former abilities. A few party tricks, and nothing more.

Seokga closes his eyes in concentration and lets the remnants of his power drift toward the human. He must calm her down long enough to coax a testimony from her, and judging by her hysterics, there is only one way to do that.

One entirely annoying pitfall of his capabilities has always been that he's unable to compel the truly good.

Those who have been wicked, however, play right into his hands…for a certain amount of time. The more sinful they have been, the longer Seokga can retain his hold over them. It's a relief, then, that so many mortals indulge in the forbidden. He will be shocked if this woman is not amongst them.

Seokga narrows his eyes as his flickering emerald tendrils, invisible to all but immortal creatures, crackle around the mortal. Tell her to calm down, he demands of those flickering emerald threads. And to shut up.

A thin sheen of sweat coats his skin as his power listens and wraps around the sobbing woman, restraining her shaking movements.

Calm. Down.

He grits his teeth, struggling to maintain his hold on her. If she has been wicked, it is not enough to make this easy—especially with the limits imposed on him by Hwanin. Although he has been able to keep this power in some capacity, it is utterly exhausting him. If Seokga does not pass out immediately after this heinous ordeal, he will be entirely shocked.

Finally, the woman's sobs cease, although there is still the stray hiccup here and there. "There we go," Seokga purrs, his brows pulling together tightly as he eyes the human with disdain and relief. Oh, how he wishes he still had the power to riffle through sinful minds. He'd like to know what this woman is hiding. "Now"—he reaches for a paper pad and a pencil—"why don't you tell me what you saw, and where, specifically, you saw it?"

"I…" the woman murmurs, barely audible over the noises of the precinct.

"Louder," Seokga snaps. He does not have the time to strain his ears. The mul gwisin is still out there, and is undoubtedly scanning the city for more prey. With something that could possibly pass for remorse if you squinted, Seokga wonders why his army had included so many water ghosts. Dealing with them often included various levels of sogginess for which he has no fondness.

Although Unruly creatures existed on Iseung long before the monstrous members of his army fled, many of the ones he hunts down are his former subjects—the Unrulies who once preferred residing in the Dark World, the creatures who composed his battalions. In their haste to retreat, the senseless things fell onto this damned plane of existence and are miserably trapped.

With him.

Forever.

A fitting punishment for all parties involved.

At his tone, the human stiffens. His powers might be restraining her from returning to hysterical sobs, but they lack the ability to bend her to his will entirely. Seokga scowls as the woman sends him a sharp, almost matronly, look.

Now that she has stopped wailing, Seokga makes careful note of her appearance. She is perhaps thirty, or thirty-five, wearing a mud-stained white turtleneck and thick black spectacles that are splattered with tears, dirt, dust, and other grime. Tear tracks run through her face's layer of BB cream in zigzag patterns, and her black mascara has been smudged in circles around her eyes. He finds, amusedly, that she reminds him of a panda.

An emotionally perturbed panda who has witnessed two drownings.

"What are you smirking at, Detective?" she demands hoarsely, adjusting her sweater's sleeves so that her hands are visible. There is a small silver wedding band on her fourth finger. It would appear elegant, had her hands not been stained with dirt and her nails not bitten down to the cuticle.

Seokga lifts a lazy brow, even as he feels his energy draining significantly. He won't be able to hold her for much longer. "Nothing," he lies smoothly, and taps the notepad with a pen. "What's your name?"

The woman blinks, but eventually draws herself upward. The emerald bands around her flicker at the sudden movement, and Seokga grinds his teeth together as he forces them to remain wrapped around the woman, restraining her tidal wave of emotions. "My name is Lee Choon-hee."

Seokga doesn't bother to write this down. All names but his own are trivial, especially human ones. "The Han River. You're the witness to two drownings. I'd like to know where, when, and how these drownings occurred. Do be specific," he adds, leaning forward. "Don't leave any details out. Especially the grisly ones."

"The grisly ones," Choon-hee repeats, her face paling slightly. The emerald bands have begun to slip.

"Yes," Seokga grinds out, sweat trickling down his forehead and his vision beginning to swim. "Especially the grisly ones." He will not pass out before this mortal. He must hold tightly to the little dignity he has left.

"This morning, around eight…" Choon-hee swallows. "I…I was sitting on a bench in the city park, just near the edge of the river. There was a couple close to the water. They were having a picnic. They were eating hotteok, I think. They were drinking sikhye. My boyfriend…I was waiting for him."

Seokga flicks his gaze to the wedding ring on Choon-hee's finger and swallows a dark chuckle. So that's why he is able to control her. How spectacularly naughty.

Following his gaze, Choon-hee reddens. "I-I m-mean—"

Lazily, Seokga waves a hand in dismissal. "I am Seokga, not Yeomra." And that is a small comfort to him. The god of judgment and the dead is like cardboard personified. "I won't send you to the seven hells for mere infidelity. Continue."

She looks confused, clearly having no idea what Seokga is referencing. It's a pity, Seokga thinks, that these insufferable mortals do not remember their gods. He scowls as Choon-hee takes a deep breath. "I didn't see the first one when she was taken. I just heard a scream. A scream, and a splash. When I looked up, the water was rippling, and the man…her boyfriend…He was frozen. And then he started screaming."

"Yes, they usually do," Seokga snaps, adjusting his tie uncomfortably as sweat continues to roll down his neck. He squeezes his eyes shut, and then reopens them. The room spins. "What happened next?"

"He went into the river, screaming his girlfriend's name. Min-a. I thought that she had fallen in, and I was going to call for help…I had just started to scream when it came out of the water."

"It," Seokga repeats softly. It is most definitely a mul gwisin, the spirit of a drowned victim who now leads others to their own watery graves. But he has to make sure, for he is unwilling to spend any precious time chasing a false lead. "What was it?"

"It was almost a woman," Choon-hee whispers, "but not quite. Her skin, it was…bloated and blue. And when she stretched out her hand, her fingers were webbed, almost like a f-frog." The woman has begun to shake, the bonds around her struggling to remain secure. Seokga scowls, for her eyes have regained that glassy, faraway look, and her lower lip trembles violently. "And her eyes…Oh, God, her eyes…They were black, completely black. She took him, grabbed the man by his waist and…"

"Oh, gods," Seokga wants to correct her, but he holds his tongue. Most mortals of Iseung have forgotten him. It is impossible for him to wage a battle against the singular God, the one who has replaced him in human minds.

Now, the Korean pantheon is worshipped only by the creature community, who publish inane articles in Godly Gossip about their workout routines or raunchy speculation about their romantic liaisons, and hire sly photographers (who are usually dokkaebi) to snap pictures of Iseung's resident fallen god. These pictures typically go hand in hand with wild hearsay about his dating life. Somebody at the gossip rag seems to really enjoy pairing Seokga with whatever unfortunate individual happens to be nearby. In the past, it has been rumored that he was in a tumultuous relationship with an elderly dog-walker. He hadn't heard the end of it around the precinct for days.

Godly Gossip's photographers rarely meet pleasant fates. And although he despises his photo being taken, his ire is only exacerbated by the fact that oh-so-perfect Hwanin seems to grace almost every other magazine cover. He truly doesn't understand Iseung's fascination with Hwanin. Perhaps it's due to his shiny silver hair.

Apparently, men and women love shiny silver hair.

Even if it's bleached and dyed and fried.

And this woman is still babbling. Seokga returns his attention to Choon-hee. "…and she…she grabbed him and she…"

"And she drowned him," Seokga says instead and sets down the notepad. This information is not news to him, merely confirmation that the Han River indeed harbors a mul gwisin. He struggles to keep his eyes open as fatigue settles deep within his bones. The cost of using his power is high, but fortunately, it is nothing that a slightly sweet, but mostly bitter, cup of chilled coffee (and possibly a few hours spent unconscious) won't fix.

"Yes,"Choon-hee wails. "She dragged him into the river and pulled him under…Oh, God…Oh, God!" The emerald power containing her frays, and Seokga sags in exhaustion as he loses his hold over her. Released from the bonds, Lee Choon-hee erupts once again into her waterfall of tears and senseless blubbering.

Humans.

Seokga does not bother to say goodbye as he rises unsteadily from the desk, a firm grip on his cane. He does not have the time, nor the patience, to continue talking to the mortal.

No, he has a mul gwisin to kill.

But first, a nap.