Legendary Detective at the World's End (Volume 1) (2 page)

   “Holy! God!” Jake said as he threw back his head in horror while his eyes widened in shock and panic. “Hey!” he said turning to Kirin standing by the door, feeling out its surface. “W-W-We need help!” Jake said stumbling around his words as he looked on at the struggling woman beneath him. “We need to help her!” he shouted as he felt the gasp of life chortling out of this woman’s mouth.

     He turned to look back at Kirin again. “Rin! We got to do something!”

   “It’s no use, she’s lost too much blood, we’d be better off saving ourselves now instead of looking after her.” Kirin said walking away from the door and approaching the caged windows, pulling on their sturdy bars.

   “How can you say that?”

   “Quite easily. How can you try?” Kirin said looking over at the woman struggling to breath. He raised an eyebrow at the curious medallion she used to press against her neck. “But if you really want to try,” Kirin continued. “Apply pressure on her neck, help her slow down the bleeding.”

   “Pressure? Pressure… Yeah, pressure.” Jake said nervously as he knelt down. Pulling out a white cloth from his pocket, he then slid his hands over her blood stained neck, pushing off the medal medallion from her hand as he pressed with all his might against the small stream of blood gushing out of her as she squirmed underneath him.

     Kirin, still inspecting the corners of the room, noticed the still burning fireplace at the end of the room. Rushing over to it, he picked up an iron rod to the side of the fireplace. He quickly looked over it before sticking its tip into the fire.

   “Jake,” Kirin said as he watched the rods tip slowly turn from dirt brown to burning orange. “I need you to find the wound and wipe it clean by the time I get there.”

   “What? Wait… Rin, you’re not thinking of…”

   “You want to play hero, right?” Kirin smiled as he pulled the heated rod out of the fireplace and walked over to the writhing woman on the floor. “Well, sometimes it gets ugly. When I strike, hold her down.”

     Jake looked at the burning rod with worry and confusion for a moment before wiping down the wound with his cloth, briefly revealing a small slit piercing the center of the woman’s neck. With that small window of clarity, Kirin quickly placed the burning hot tip of the rod onto the wound, burning it closed as the woman howled a blood curdling scream that spilt out the liquids flowing through her lungs, making her cough up blood while her voice still bounced off the ceiling and echoed outside the caged windows of the room.

     The woman squirmed in pain, fiercely trying her best to wiggle her way out of the strong grip of Jake before suddenly fainting from the new wave of pain. As her body went limp while Jake held her down, he looked on with hopeless despair at her sudden lifeless posture.

   “Hey!” Jake shouted looking over to Kirin as he tried to cradle the girls head in his arms. “I thought you were trying to save her, not burn her to death.”

   “And that’s what we did. She still has a pulse—she just fainted from the pain…” Kirin chuckled with the still burning rod in hand. “Ask any mother, it takes a good amount of pain to give life in this world, and we just did that. Be happy Jake, you’re now a proud father to a Courtesan woman…” He laughed as he turned around, approaching the worried Jake. As he did, the door to the room swung open, revealing two young female servants looking in from the outside as Jake and Kirin stood over what seemed to be the lifeless body of their mistress.

   “Ahhhhh!” the girls screamed as the door swung back and slammed shut, cutting off their terrified voices.

   “That could not have looked good.” Kirin smiled as he tossed the rod back beside the fire. He then turned and looked at Jake.

   “Hey, I’m going to have to ask you to save more lives.” he said to the clueless Jake as he laid the head of the woman onto a pillow.

   “W-What do you mean?” he said with an uneasy look on his face.

   “I mean our lives.” Kirin said pointing at Jake before pointing to himself as he nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, you and me. We’re going to die here under five minutes time, the amount of time it takes those two girls to report to the house Madame, and for the Madame to gather her guards, and for those guards to break down the barricaded doors to kill us.”

   “W-wait, we… We didn’t do this. We should just—”

   “Tell them that?” Kirin chuckled. “You just don’t get it; we’ve been set up by that old man. He led us to a murder scene as the time of death of his victim was ongoing and real, a true artisan of his trade. Also, he has us caught red handed with the murder weapon on us.”

   “Murder weapon? We don’t have a weapon?”

   “What do you think is inside the box, cake?” Kirin laughed as he jumped over to the front door pulling its handle. “And with us in a Courtesan’s lodge, there’s no place more fitted like a prison than the pleasure quarters in the Red Sector. With caged windows and doors locked from the outside, we’re trapped in here.”

     Jake half nodded his head as he opened the box revealing a bloodied knife lying against its wooden interior. “Dammit old man! I thought we were friends.” Jake said in shock.

   “Are you some kind of idiot?” Kirin said puzzled by his emotions as he walked towards a dresser drawer by the door. He began pushing it from its side. “Hey,” Kirin called out to Jake. “If friends can be made in a day, the same could be said for enemies. Now come over here and help me push this in front of the door like a good friend would.”

      Jake cracked a smile at his timely words, eventually shaking away the shock. He then got up and walked over to Kirin. Standing by the side of the dresser, he cuffed his hands around its corner and pulled it down from its upright stance with the strength of his arms, trumping the light push of the small-bodied Kirin. Tumbling down, the dresser smashed onto the other side of the wall, covering the door almost completely.

   “Nice job.” Kirin patted him on the back.

   “Now we’re really trapped here…” Jake said looking around at the caged windows and the lack of a secondary exit.

   “Not exactly… There’s always an escape, you just have to think outside the ‘box’ so to speak.” Kirin said with an excited smile on his face.

     Jake looked at him awkwardly. “Why are you smiling?”

   “Because we have a riddle before us—a murder attempt at a Red-light Sector brothel, the killer unknown, a mysterious old man throwing us into the fray, and…” Kirin said pulling out a cloth before kneeling down and picking up a medallion lying on the bed beside the sleeping woman. “A rat medallion of one of the Northern tribes.”

   “Northern tribes?” Jake asked. “Don’t they live independently of Teigan? They would never go to the Red Sector in the city.”

   “Especially since they hate the Ministers of Teigan for their most curious sport of poaching beast from the Grey forest.” Kirin said looking over the worn-out medallion with a curious eye.

  “Still,” Jake said wondering. “Why would they be here in a Courtesan House then?”

  “We don’t know, but we have four minutes to investigate before that dresser is broken down and we’re the accused.”

     Bam! The sound of a slamming fist against the door rung loud across the room, catching the attention of Jake and Kirin.

   “What are you doing in there?!”The deep voice of a man filled with anxiety shouted through the lily-white door. “What have you done to Keiko?! Open up!” the man screamed out with a sense of urgency pulsating through every word he uttered.

     Jake turned to Kirin. “M-Maybe we should let them in? They could probably help the girl.”

   “No!” Kirin said with a piercing gaze as he continued to look over the scene of the crime with a keen eye. “That’s most likely the house security, they’re supposed to act on the orders of the Madame of the house, but judging by the tone of the man’s voice, he seems to care desperately for the woman held up in here.” Kirin said pulling out a magnifying glass as he picked up a splinter of wood from the ground and analyzed its texture.

     Jake shook his head in disagreement. “That’s why we should let him in, he might be able to save the girl, then she could tell him we had nothing to do with it.”

   “Is that what you really want to do? Trust your life to the over emotional man wishing to help his dying love who is surrounded by mysterious men holding bloodied knives? Please! He would kill us first before listening to reason. No.” Kirin shook his head decisively. “We have to find something of significance clearly saying that anyone other than us is the killer.”

     Bam! Bam! Bam! The door rang out as the sounds of heavy objects colliding against its surface began to increase in rate and sound.

   “Three minutes.” Kirin said standing up and looking towards the ceiling, ignoring the raucous sound building up in the room.

   “Hey!” Jake said with an increasingly more panicked look on his face. “What are we going to do?”

     Kirin remained silent as he began looking around the room with a suspicious eye.

   “This is not looking good Rin.” Jake continued, noticing the door busting at its hinges, pushing back the dresser as muddled voices crowded around the door amidst the shouts of various men picking up from the ground level outside of the building. Jake looked out the window to see a show of elephants parading through the streets to the rowdy cheers of a crowd. “This is not cool, Rin, we need to get out of here now, or no one will hear us scream.” As he spoke again, the door budged, giving way as it slammed against the back of the dresser.

   “You brats!” a new voice shouted out in anger. “You have no idea what you’ve done?! Do you know who you messed with? If you harmed one hair on that girl, I’ll have the Merck Union string you by the neck.”

   “Damn…” Jake said upon hearing the Union mentioned. Jake rushed over to the door in terror and pressed all his weight against the dresser. “I didn’t know this was a Merchant Union related house. Hey!” he shouted over to the motionless Kirin who stood in pause as his eyes alone searched the room. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing but do it fast or we’re dead for real.”

     Kirin smiled. “Changing your tune, huh?”

   “Yeah, well, anything having to do with messing with the Merck Union CO-OP money is the sort of danger I want no part of. Those guys are not known for just killing, but torture, the kind that people in the High-End Sectors pay to see. I want no parts of those parties.”

   “Dangerous people then, are they?” Kirin smiled in delight.

   “Where have you been? Of course they are. They run every legitimate and illegitimate business in the city, and then some.” Jake said in frustration as he pressed against the dresser. “This is not fun, you know? We’re going to die here if we don’t do something.”

     With every bang on the door, the echoes of voices from beyond the door increased in number and volume. Kirin chuckled, noticing the increased attention this little predicament of theirs was causing. As he laughed aloud, he noticed the unmatched shapes of the matted walls that made up the room.

   “Looks like we have another accomplice.” Kirin said as he headed over to the misshapen wall.

     Jake looked over, still wearing a stressed expression on his face. “What are you on about?”

   “This.” Kirin said lifting the heavy bottom of his boots and kicking it through the wall, causing a high pitch squeal to yelp out of the hollow innards of the soft texture padding of the wall.

   “Show yourself, Mr. Accomplice!” Kirin shouted over the growing noise around them. “Get out now or we’ll escape without you!”

     At those threatening, yet opportunistic words, a hefty half-naked man busted through the remaining half of the wall holding his clothes under his arms while wearing a stressed look on his face.

   “Please, please.” He pleaded sheepishly. “You got to take me with you. I had nothing to do with this.”

   “W-What the…” Jake said looking at the hefty man unconvinced. “You did this, didn’t you?!” he shouted from across the room whilst holding the door against the pressures of the house guard.

   “No!!!” the hefty man said in a high pitch voice. “I’m telling you the truth—I had nothing to do with this.”

   “Then tell me what you did have to do with her?” Kirin said looking over to her body. “I mean, you were hiding in the wall for a reason, right?”

   “T-That’s…”

     Kirin smirked at the hefty man’s hesitation—he then rushed over to the door with a gleeful look in his eyes. “Hey Mr. Big Bad Wolf!” he shouted. “We have the culprit here, along with a still living victim, but we won’t open the door until we have the Madame herself here to provide assurances that we will not be harmed when you take him down. If that’s not clear to you, we can hold out until the victim gives in.”

   “Are you crazy, Rin?!” Jake gritted his teeth in anger at Kirin. “Now we sound like criminals…”

   “We are.” He smiled turning back around as the banging continued.

   “Please.” the hefty man chased down Kirin to the door. “I’m telling you, I had nothing to do with this.”

   “Then convince me.” Kirin said giving him a piercing gaze as sharp as his tongue. “Otherwise, sacrificing you is our best bet.”

     The hefty man sweated from the tip of his forehead down to his underbelly as he strained his face at his words. “I-I was, I was just trying…”