Chapter Fourteen: In the Face of Despair

Mulan’s feelings for her brother Leo were almost instinctual, and their recent harmonious interactions had only deepened this bond. So when the news reached her, worry and anxiety surged within her before she could control it.

Though there was no rain, the coming storm had already brought the chill of winter to Valentine’s night. The temperature seemed to have dropped by more than ten degrees since daybreak, at least as far as the body could tell.

No carriage awaited them outside; the three pressed on through the wind on foot, struggling against the elements. Along the way, the officer accompanying them explained what he knew to Mulan and Buck.

Recently, the police station had been assigned to investigate several missing persons cases, with Leo as one of the detectives in charge. He had been unusually busy of late. That evening, they had acted on a lead, but things went disastrously wrong. Several officers were injured, and Leo himself suffered a severe knife wound.

After more than half an hour battling the bitter weather, they reached Valentine Hospital. In truth, it was more an infirmary than a true hospital—simply larger, with more staff, but not fundamentally different.

Two officers from the station stood guard there. Of the families brought in due to the seriousness of the injuries, two households were present; one had already entered the ward. Mulan and her companions went straight in.

The five wounded officers lay in one large room, the beds lined up in a row. The air was thick with the smell of blood. Some men groaned softly, while others spoke with their families. Leo lay alone on the innermost cot.

In this era, there was virtually no effective anesthesia—a fact Mulan had experienced herself. Serious wounds or surgeries were often endured with nothing more than a bit of alcohol, and poor hygiene made fatal outcomes far more likely.

Leo was pale but conscious. Seeing Mulan and old Buck approach, he forced a smile.

“I told them not to notify you...”

“How are you, Master Leo?” “You fool, you nearly scared us to death!”

Old Buck rushed to the bedside. Mulan glanced at Leo, then at the officer who’d accompanied them, feeling some relief—Leo didn’t appear to be in mortal danger, though the bloodstains on his sheets and clothes were alarming.

A doctor was brought in and explained Leo’s injuries. He’d sustained a knife wound across his chest—frightening to look at, but not fatal. The wound had already been stitched, though he had lost a lot of blood.

Now understanding Leo’s condition, Mulan asked, half in amazement and with deliberate exaggeration, “I heard it was just one man?”

Leo, who often teased his younger brother and boasted of his exploits, now felt somewhat embarrassed in front of Mulan. Even in pain, he tried to maintain his pride.

“Hah... that maggot, skulking in some filthy corner, doing unspeakable things. If I ever see him again, I’ll make sure his head bursts open!”

“Yes, yes, you’re very fierce,” Mulan replied with a conspicuously perfunctory tone, her gaze lingering on Leo’s wound. This seemed to embarrass her brother, who clenched his fists at the memory of what he’d seen before nightfall.

“When I’m healed, I’ll execute that beast myself—I swear it!”

As Leo spoke through gritted teeth, Mulan looked around at the other beds. The other officers wore expressions that mingled anger with an aftertaste of fear.

“Leo, what exactly happened?”

“If I told you, it’d only frighten you, so I’d better—” He stopped mid-sentence, remembering that his brother was a former officer, a veteran who had survived the horrors of war and carried its scars—Mulan was no longer a child.

“He’s a madman. No, a demon...”

They’d been investigating the disappearance cases. Following a lead, they found themselves in the basement of a house, confronted with several bodies—children, all missing for some time, their hearts and entrails removed, their limbs severed. The number of victims was higher than the police had known. The murderer was in the act of attacking another child when they arrived.

The officers’ feelings were a storm of shock, nausea, terror, and rage. They moved to arrest the man at once, but he was unnaturally nimble and deadly with a blade. If Leo and another officer hadn’t fired their guns, someone would certainly have died.

Of a dozen Valentine officers, five now lay in hospital beds. The murderer had escaped, and no one knew whether he’d even been shot.

Leo tried to sound tough, vowing to blow the criminal’s head off, but the memory of that monstrous agility and the grisly scene in the basement sent chills down his spine.

Mulan grieved for the lost children and could imagine the confusion among the officers. Even if their aim was poor in the chaos, for a single man to escape unscathed from a dozen armed policemen was almost beyond belief.

Yet Mulan was preoccupied with another question, which slipped out before she could stop herself. “What was he doing in the basement?”

“What?”

“That killer—what was he doing down there?”

“Who knows what that sick maniac was up to? He’s a pervert!”

“Maybe insane.” “He must have always been a lunatic!”

The officers’ answers weren’t what Mulan was looking for. Her thoughts turned to the events aboard the Princess Nisheriel and to what Evan had said. That loathsome criminal was quite possibly a cultist.

“Damn, I left in such a hurry I forgot to put out the stove!” Old Buck, usually so meticulous, realized only now that he’d made a rookie mistake in his haste.

The stove in the kitchen was used for both tea and warmth. Though relatively safe, an unattended fire still posed a risk of disaster, even in the twenty-first century.

“Don’t worry, Grandpa Buck—I’ll run back and extinguish it. You stay here with Leo.”

After a few words of reassurance, Mulan nodded to Leo and left. In such cold and wind, she couldn’t let old Buck make the trip.

It would be unwise not to put out the stove. The Jonester family’s meager belongings were all in that house. Disaster was unlikely, but why take the risk?

Mulan’s steps were swift and steady. Though less frantic than before, she moved more quickly without needing to look after old Buck.

The wind howled through Valentine, a city both noisy and eerily silent. Some gas lamps were out of order. Mulan gripped the collar of her coat with one hand and kept the other in her pocket. Passing through a dimly-lit stretch, something caught in the corner of her eye.

A battlefield-honed sense of danger kicked in.

Her body reacted before her mind could—she dove forward, feeling the faint whistle of something slicing the air behind her, and rolled to her feet.

Before she could turn, a flash of steel appeared—a blade reflecting the distant glow of a streetlamp.

Every hair on her body stood on end. At the last possible instant, she threw herself backward, bracing her hands on the cobbles and kicking upward—only to strike empty air as the knife lunged like a viper.

Swish, swish, swish...

The blade moved with terrifying speed, or perhaps it was the attacker who moved so fast. His form was barely visible in the darkness, yet his attacks were already deadly. In mere breaths, he’d nearly cornered Mulan, a veteran of many battles.

There was no time to draw her revolver, let alone aim and fire.

That realization flashed through her mind as the blade came at her again.

I need something—I must defend myself, or I’ll die!

The threat of death focused her mind to a razor’s edge. In that moment of despair, as the blade became unavoidable, her right hand closed around something.

A bright flash of silver—she drew it and swung.

Clang!

Sparks flew as silver met steel. The cane sword, which should have been lying on the table at home, was suddenly in her grip.