Orb Weaver: Plague Chapter 16

I kept my bugs out, swarms moving in and out of my sphere as we drove. Nobody followed us. Kanshi sat in the rear seat next to me, a single driver in front, with a small pistol in a shoulder holster. More disciplined than your average ABB member, but then I expected that Lung would not want to risk his newest cape to a bad driver.

Kanshi, paper manipulator… She tended to not show off her abilities, and even my research had not fully explored her capabilities. Not the least due to the fact the Kanshi tended to be theatrical when she had to use her powers, and quiet otherwise. Something that I had some familiarity with, even if it was irritating being on the other side.

My dealings with Coil, the E88 and other groups had forced me to put the ABB on the back-burner, and they had not remained still.

“All shall have the peace of the market,” I murmured.

“You heard?”

“There were rumors, and questions about why an ABB cape would permit E88 members to enter ABB territory.”

“Money is money, be it from the E88 or the ABB, and the merchants must eat, yes? So long as they do not cause trouble, I see no reason to trouble them.”

The truth was a bit more complex. Anyone entering ABB territory as a group or in Empire colors would face issues, but just shopping… I wonder…

“It must be surprising to the Empire, that they are not immediately set upon…”

“The Dragon is not timid in his wrath, but is wise in his governance.”

And yet, this policy happened when you appeared.

“As you say. It does seem to put the lie to the Empire’s claims about the…” I chuckled. “Hordes they defend the Bay from.”

“A truthful man cannot be caught in a lie, and a liar has only his own words to blame,” Kanshi said. There was…

She is speaking to an audience. Not simply me, but the driver.

“That must pose a great problem for the Empire, given how many lies they speak.”

The chuckle from the front was the only sign the driver had heard us.

But then we were turning into a small apartment complex. We were deep in ABB territory, their marks on the street. The driver got out and opened the door for me, as another man did the same for Kanshi.

“Where is my vengeance!” someone was shouting.

“First we will find who to have vengeance against,” Kanshi said as she walked into the small apartment.

I paused at the doorway.

The victim was plain, a woman, her throat slit, hands held over the slash marks on her belly, intestines oozing out.

A swastika had been carved on her forehead.

There was anger in the air from the various men surrounding me, and I marked them.

Gangs had their own unwritten rules, and as much as they were honored in the breach, this kind of crime, deep in ABB territory…

“Is she involved with the ABB?” I asked. “In any way that might have seen her come to the attention of the empire?”

“Why is this Gweilo he—“

“Silence!” Kanshi’s voice had changed, as the men in the room stiffened. “The Investigator is here at my invitation and Lung’s approval! Treat her as a guest!”

Gweilo… That wasn’t a common Japanese term for whites, but then, the Asian culture in the Bay had been intermixing for years. But the insult remained clear and the men grew more tense.

Kanshi is as young as me, I expect, from her voice and size. Despite her power, some of these men might have a hard time taking her seriously and this could only…

But I knew why I was here. She wanted me to find an excuse to not go to war with the Empire. And this kind of insult, the murder of an unaffiliated Asian, not an ABB member, as well as her disfigurement, would mean war. There was no way around it. Even with Lung’s personal power, he couldn’t hold his people’s loyalty if he didn’t respond to this.

And yet… Kanshi was also right. The Empire was on the backfoot. They had no idea what Director Piggot might do in response to their attempt to provoke Madison, in addition to everything else. A demonstration made sense—shooting up an ABB front, attacking ABB soldiers…

This didn’t.

“You.” I said to the man who had spoken. He looked angry. “Did you find the body?”

“My woman!” he snarled. “I came home from the garage, found her, at 8:50 then had to wait fo—“

“8:50? Exactly? When did you get off work?”

“8:30.”

I tilted my head. Now isn’t that interesting? I had volume after volume of books on investigative procedures I’d read, and one thing… Witnesses could be unreliable, especially if they were stressed say, by seeing a dead body. And very few people kept exact track of the time…

“Are you certain?” I glanced around the room. No clocks. He would have had to take his phone out…

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, of course not. I just wished to have the timeline clear.” I looked at the door, the one with five locks on it. “The door was open?”

“I-yes.”

Someone she wasn’t threatened by. Someone she trusted to open the door to, after dark, in the Bay.

I turned and looked through the room. Specks of blood had struck the walls and furniture. Blood spatter analysis had been used for over a hundred years, and I’d studied it.

The arterial spurt patterns were clear, remembering the images in the forensic manuals I had read. But…

Her forehead is mostly clear of blood and yet the swastika was cut deeply. After she died. Not surprising.

I was mostly a dabbler in this, and I couldn’t tell whether the stomach or throat wound had come first. Just that they had come very close together. There was little blood behind her, so she hadn’t had a chance to turn and run.

She most definitely had trusted whoever had come into the room.

Now I had very strong suspicions.

“You found her,” I said.

“Yes!”

“And you came in the door, and saw her, on the ground.”

“You must be a very bad detective,” he said with a smirk. “Will you next tell me she is dead?”

“No.” I looked down onto the carpet between her corpse and the door. “But it is interesting is it not? Someone comes in, someone she trusts, implicitly. They kill her, and the blood sprays out as you see, but… Not between her and the door because her killer’s body shielded the floor and door from the blood and was itself spattered.” And your face and hands are clean. Very clean for someone who works at an auto shop.

Now I had sent my bugs out, to confirm what I had a feeling had occurred and moments later…

Yes. The hamper and the drain.

“Your name?”

“Liang.”

“Tell me, Liang, do you usually wash up after finding your love dead on the floor, and put on very clean clothes?”

“What—what are you talking about?” he said, but his tone confirmed it.

“The TV shows do understate just how much blood a throat wound can produce.”

“She lies! Kanshi, she—“

“Check the hamper in the bathroom.” I said.

In a way I felt proud, though sickened by the death. I had used my bugs to confirm my deduction, but I’d been right.

Liang was edging towards the door, but two other ABB members were suddenly between him and it, and Kanshi had also turned, strips of paper lightly waving, brightly colored cobras their attention on him. Another went out to the bathroom, and returned with a bloody T-shirt.

“There are shoes there as well.”

“Ah, I wonder what your coworkers would say if we showed this shirt around.” I put one hand on a baton, because now was when the stupid criminal, his plan failing would decide—

He lunged for the door and, before he got a foot closer to it, was spun around and nearly mummified in paper strips.

I shook my head. “So, jealousy?”

“She was spreading for Chou! I heard! I saw!”

“And you came here to confront her, only she denied it, I expect.” That wasn’t a great feat of deduction—if I was confronted by an angry boyfriend waving a knife, I wouldn’t confirm the source of his anger. Not that I had to worry about boyfriends, angry or otherwise.

“Yes! She did and I—“

“You got angry.” As only a man who sees a woman as property can. Under the building, insects coiled and writhed. “And then the deed was done, and you had a dead body, but what to do now?”

He said nothing.

“But none would blame you if the Empire had killed her.” Kanshi tilted her head. “So you carved the symbol onto her body before it had cooled and called me. Instead of a simple murder, an act of war.”

“Why didn’t you believe me?”

I said nothing.

“You displayed her,” Kanshi said. “What man would allow others to look upon the desecrated body of his love so casually? It made me suspicious. But now, you may choose. The Investigator said that justice must be done by the courts, not Lung. I will hold to the agreement, but I assume that she will accept if you wish to ask for Lung’s judgement for your—“

“N0—no!” he said, terror in his eyes. “I will be arrested…”

“Then you are not part of the ABB. We will not harm you, nor will we protect you,” Kanshi said her voice calm. “And when you leave prison, if you do, I suggest another city than the Bay.”

“I… yes.”

“And my retainer?” I asked.

“You have done the ABB a great favor and so I shall return it. There are two women, sisters, who work at the Golden Garden. When they arrived, the younger intended to go to college, the older to become a seamstress, and yet their debt to Lung demanded they find other work. They shall be freed from their entire debt, and the ABB will see to their placement in school for the younger and a reputable shop for the older. Here in the Bay or elsewhere.” She paused and tilted her head, smiling in a way that told me she’d had some training in how to emote in her costume—or that her control over the paper let her do it subconsciously. “You need not fear that we will take credit. Your name shall be the source of their good fortune.” She handed me a small paper card. “If you wish to verify this, this is their address and names.”

“Thank you, Kanshi.”

“Now we must leave and I suggest you make the call. I would not wish to ruin the night with unpleasantness if the BBPD were to seek others to arrest.”

“Of course.”

“Farewell, Investigator. I hope to see you again.”

Moments later, I was alone, making a phone call to 911, a bound man at my feet. I would be very late—this kind of murder would likely see me interviewed.

She died while we were playing golf. I shook my head. Senseless, but at least I’d saved the city some trouble.

And of course…

Was this a simple one-off thing, or a subtle attempt at recruitment, tying me to the good fortune of two women as a way to tie me to the ABB in the public eye? Kanshi had acted to assist non-Asian minorities. Was the ABB moving away from a simple ethnically focused gang?

On the one hand, good. On the other hand, that makes them more powerful, more secure, especially if I destroy the Empire.

The ABB might not be as bad as the Empire, but Kanshi had shown no reluctance to barter the lives and dreams of two women for my assistance, and a person’s life was not something to be casually traded.

I sighed as the first police car came around the corner.

Maybe this was the reason so many parahumans stuck to fighting each other. It was much simpler.