Interlude
Some time ago, in the shadows of the city, an incident had occurred.
People living in the ordinary way had only seen and heard a few parts of it.
One was that a supposedly deserted warehouse had burned to the ground, in what appeared to be a case of arson. Another was reports of machine-gun fire in the no-man’s-land between Little Italy and Chinatown. Yet another was the trail of scattered bundles of bills leading from that neighborhood to the train station.
People were too busy with their own lives to link these incidents together.
Prohibition had already taken over the city, and a variety of incidents linked to its underbelly were still playing out. In Chicago, a major mafioso had been arrested, while a new mafia syndicate was extending its reach across the whole of America. The color of these incidents was so deep that it had begun to bleed through to the ordinary lives of the masses as well.
That being the case, a fire and gunshots didn’t startle people all that much.
However—these incidents were connected beneath the surface, beneath most people’s awareness, and they had ended up affecting the future in a variety of ways.
Two syndicates were at the heart of the incident.
One robber couple had disturbed it.
And one old alchemist had dragged it to this part of the city.
The alchemist’s name was Szilard Quates.
In a desperate bid to slake his own desires, the old man had dug his fingernails in—
—and those torn-off remains were still eating away at the city.
For example, a maggot spawned in the gouges he’d left.
Ice Pick Thompson.
Was it “he,” “she,” or maybe “they”?
Almost nothing related to Szilard had emerged from the shadows.
Even so, the people of New York accepted Ice Pick Thompson as an incident that belonged to their world, the world out in the light. After all, there was no knowing when one would become the next victim, and all the papers covered the incident in sensational ways.
But day after day went by, and neither the police nor the papers managed to close in on the killer’s true identity.
The people didn’t know.
This series of bizarre murders was connected to the fire and bill-scattering incidents that had occurred two years before.
And this summer…
…a boy who wanted to die braced himself to confront an immortal monster…
…and a reporter who feared death braced himself to face Ice Pick Thompson.
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