Baccano! - Volume 11 - Chapter 2.5

Interlude II The Mask Maker

When the number of victims had climbed to ten, rumors about the mysterious Mask Maker began to turn up among the townspeople.

The city police had initially refrained from releasing the dubious witness reports due to fears of “stirring up confusion.”

However, as a result of the string of crimes and pressure from the aristocrats (after the first female victim, Esperanza in particular had ordered them to pour all their resources into apprehending the culprit), the military police and even the aristocrats’ private troops were poised to step in. Little by little, the city police started releasing information.

The mysterious figure wore a mask similar to the ones covering the faces of the victims, and the phantom acquired the name “the Mask Maker.”

According to the newssheets and the police, the victims didn’t seem to have anything in common. Only that the mask was set on every corpse, in the same way.

The white masks were reminiscent of the ones worn at the Carnival of Venice—beautiful, almost like flowers, against the red that pooled around them. This beauty made the whole thing even eerier, and word of the Mask Maker spread among the townspeople.

If word had reached a distant country, it would have sounded like gossip, folklore, an urban legend. To the people who were actually involved, it held a terror similar to the plague.

The witnesses were all different, but their testimonies matched, and the police pursued the Mask Maker as the singular culprit.

They said it held a gleaming silver stiletto, with blood dripping from the tip.

They said it realized it was being watched, and for just a moment, it turned to face the watcher. Then it ran away, laughing.

They said the laughter and the build seemed to belong to a young man, but its exact age was unknown.

They said it leaped lightly and nimbly, climbing up walls in the blink of an eye.

They said it simply vanished into the night, like a ghost or a demon.

Once the public rumors and the tale of the Mask Maker from the newssheets were in circulation, the police were afraid someone might start inventing stories, as a prank. And at first, quite a few of these stories did turn up.

However, gradually—it grew easy to tell which were true and which were not.

They said…before long, the Mask Maker would come for the lives of those who had seen it.

There was one fact, known only to people with connections to the police and citizens with keen ears.

Of the twenty-seven victims, a full twenty-one of them had seen the Mask Maker.

And of the credible witnesses, only a handful were still safe and sound.

However, little by little, that rumor joined the whispers among the public.

“You mustn’t see the Mask Maker.”

“If you do, you have to forget everything.”

Even so, the number of witnesses continued to increase, and dwindle, at the same speed.

There was always, without exception, just one witness at a time—

—almost as if the Mask Maker was designating its next prey.