Chapter 2: Cleaning Up

Crown Commandery, HL Northern Second Branch.

Jim Malone sat in his office enjoying a cigar, but uninvited guests always seemed to choose moments like this to turn up.

The phone on his desk rang. Resigned, Malone pressed the talk button.

“Sir, Mr. Nice is here. He says he needs to see you immediately.”

“Send him in.” Malone hung up.

A few minutes later, Paper Hero pushed straight through the door without bothering to knock or say hello. He walked up to Malone's desk and said, “I need you to unseal a classified file.”

Malone blew a smoke ring. “Hmm, why am I not surprised? What else do you want? Photos of the governor's mistress?”

“Listen, Jim, I think I've found him,” Paper Hero told Malone, his expression solemn. “The killer from Bloody Midnight at St. Mark's ten years ago.”

Malone took the cigar out of his mouth, his expression noncommittal. “You know I work nights all year round just to avoid you?”

Paper Hero continued to ignore his teasing. “I'm not joking.”

“All right, I get it.” Malone stood up. “Tell me what you've got so far.”

Paper Hero said, “There was a murder at the Copper Parrot this afternoon. Watch the surveillance footage and you'll understand.”

“All right, give me a moment.” Malone turned and pressed a button on his desk phone...

HL was extremely efficient and had unrestricted access to all archived surveillance footage within its jurisdiction. Moments later, the two men watched the crime unfold again on the enormous screen on Malone's office wall. Afterward, Malone ordered an investigation team to retrieve and analyze all the establishment's surveillance footage from the past week to see whether they could turn up anything new.

Paper Hero was visibly excited and carried on talking. “Same height and build, brutal methods, that way of acting as though killing is nothing at all. It all fits the fragmentary clues we got ten years ago perfectly. It has to be him! If the DNA matches, then...”

“Then what?” Malone dampened his enthusiasm. “The DNA we got ten years ago didn't match anyone in any database in the world. Even if this DNA matches, all we'll know is that the murderous monster from ten years ago is back. We still won't know anything else.”

“Whether someone like this has a legal identity was never important. What matters is that we now have a fairly detailed physical description. We can start with entry and exit records and conduct an exhaustive...” Before Paper Hero could finish, Malone interrupted. “This case doesn't require your involvement. Leave it to us at HL.”

“What did you say?!”

“If you insist on investigating, you can.” Malone pointed at the door behind Paper Hero. “Go out, turn left, walk to the end, and find my secretary. Then all you have to do is sign one insignificant little contract.”

“Jim, you know I'm not joining HL,” Paper Hero said.

“Then you should also know how many people endure enormous pain every year to become cyborgs just for a chance to run errands at HL. Never mind the pounds of paperwork they have to fill out. I took care of everything for you years ago, and you still won't put your name on it.”

Paper Hero said, “We've been over this plenty of times. I like being a cop. It gives me more freedom, and...”

Malone didn't let him finish. “Since you want freedom, you don't get any of HL's investigative resources or authority. When I give you information as a friend, it's because I have enough authority to shield you from certain consequences. But we're talking about a wanted criminal at danger level four. Only those who bear the burden of ‘those four characters’ have the right to pursue him.”

“And if I insist?” Paper Hero demanded.

Malone lit a fresh cigar. “Then go investigate. Just stay out of HL's way. That's as much leeway as my authority allows me to give you.”

“Thanks, then,” Paper Hero replied coolly. He was already through the door before the words were out.

Less than a minute after he left, Malone picked up the receiver on his desk and dialed the encrypted number for HL's European headquarters. “This is Colonel Malone of the Northern Second Branch. Put me through to the general... Yes, I know it's the middle of the night, so you'd better hurry up and wake him.”

……

Meanwhile, twenty meters beneath the Phoenix Opera House.

“Very nicely done, this underwater mirror city. Heh heh heh...” Blood Owl said with a vicious grin. “Hard to imagine how much time, manpower, and money it took to build this network of tunnels beneath all of Venice, as intricate as an ant colony. Never mind all the scheming that went into its design.”

A man lay before him, his left leg gone below the knee. His voice shook with terror and despair. “Who the hell are you?! The Second Branch has no one like you!”

Blood Owl smiled. “So Steel Commandment only sent a bunch of trash to guard this place? I strolled all the way here without meeting a single Strong-rank fighter. What, are you saying there's no one in Venice's HL stronger than me either? That does leave me feeling a little lonely... This city really has gone downhill.”

The man seemed to understand. Blood Owl hadn't been sent by the Empire's higher-ups either. He screamed almost hysterically, “Why are you doing this?!”

“Huh? Doing what?” Blood Owl looked puzzled. He glanced back at the trail of blood and severed limbs stretching into the distance behind him. “You mean the cleaning? What's there to get so worked up and howl about? I just need somewhere to stay where no one will disturb me, and to do a little scientific research on the side. You understand. When you move into a new home, you ought to tidy up first, so you don't have to look at snakes and bugs and rats and ants crawling out all the time.”

“You... you...” The man didn't know what to say. He understood now that the maniac before him would leave no survivors, so he reached inside his clothes. “Today, you slaughtered two senior clerics, thirty-six clerics, and ninety adherents of Steel Commandment, every last one... The higher-ups will never stand by after losses on this scale...” Clutching a pocket watch, he made the sign of the cross over his forehead and chest, then shouted, “May my will serve my Lord, and my body receive divine punishment!”

Before his words were out, the pocket watch burst into white light.

Blood Owl knew what that meant. In an instant, he was beside the man. He tore the man's hand clean off at the wrist and crushed his skull underfoot in the same motion.

The pocket watch's light gradually faded and vanished...

“I do hope they get here soon.” Blood Owl gazed at the mangled corpse on the ground with bloodthirsty anticipation. “I prefer experimenting on living subjects.”