Prologue VII—Unnatural Blessings
Winter, 1933 Somewhere in Chicago
When the man’s eyes opened, he was lying in a bed.
The unnatural scents in the air around him immediately soured his mood.
At first, he was drifting somewhere between waking and sleeping, but as he woke himself up over the course of a few minutes, he gradually realized he was in a hospital or some similar facility.
“Oh… Good. You’re awake.”
As he shifted and got a spasm of pain for it, a child’s voice reached his ears.
He quietly turned his head to the side and saw a boy. The kid seemed to be nearing the end of elementary school, or maybe he’d just started junior high.
His expression was just a little relieved, but something about his face made him seem a rather gloomy type.
At the sight of the boy, the man slowly remembered what exactly had happened to him, and who the child sitting beside him was.
Quietly, quietly, as he bore up under the ferocious pain in his back…
A figure was dragging himself along in a struggle to escape death, leaving behind a thin trail of blood.
The less-than-respectable individual had eyes that were a deeper red than the fresh blood from his wounds. Specifically, the scleras were crimson, with jet-black pupils in the center of pure white irises.
His weak smile revealed unbroken rows of sharp fangs, top and bottom.
Canines occupied even the spaces that would ordinarily have held incisors and molars, and when the man smiled, they called to mind a dolphin’s mouth.
Even more distinctive was his style of dress, like an old-fashioned European aristocrat from head to toe. In combination with his strange eyes and mouth, his clothes made him seem like a vampire or some other sinister phantom.
Christopher Shaldred.
That was the man’s name.
He was a member of Lamia, Huey Laforet’s private military force, and he’d experienced his first defeat in a full forty years during a job in New York a few days earlier.
Adapting techniques pioneered by Szilard, Huey Laforet had created homunculi on his own.
They weren’t like the perfectly immortal Ennis, nor were they like “incomplete immortals,” who did age. They had only been made unaging.
Aside from the fact that they would never grow old and die, they lived their lives under the exact same conditions as ordinary humans. However, they were unnatural beings, certainly exceptions to the normal rules of the world.
The experience they’d accumulated had made death less likely, and they’d made free use of those skills as Huey’s private soldiers. If they could continue to keep themselves from being killed or meeting with sudden accidents, they would be even closer to “immortal” as a result.
And thus, he’d steadily grown more and more unnatural, and yet he’d been defeated, far too easily, as if it had been decided by natural law.
The fact hit him like a slap in the face, and it drove an unmistakable wedge into his heart.
The other man’s name had been Felix Walken. It was apparently a false name, but Christopher didn’t care.
Even though he was an unnatural being, his opponent had been far more superhuman than he was.
Witnessing someone so ridiculously extraordinary and terrible had unsettled him considerably. In an effort to pull himself together, he’d come to this Chicago lakeshore to amuse himself amid his beloved Nature and soothe his fatigue, but…
By the time he’d felt the blow run through him, it was too late.
A junkie with a grudge against him had jammed a sharp knife into his back.
He’d killed his attacker easily and gone on his way. That part was simple enough—but of course, since he wasn’t immortal, the blood he shed didn’t return to him.
As he felt his body heat leeching away with astonishing ease, he was forced to recognize the differences between himself, immortals, and humans.
The light was gradually fading from Christopher’s red eyes.
“What’s the difference? Even I lived in the usual way—and when I’m dying, I don’t want to die… Somebody tell me… What is it? What’s the difference?”
While he kept thinking about what he lacked, trying to distract himself from his fear of death—
—he saw a lone figure standing beside him.
Christopher looked the figure up and down, then smiled gently and spoke to it.
“Hi. Will you be my friend?”
At the abrupt question from a terribly creepy, badly injured man, the small figure stayed silent for a few seconds, but…
Finally, he responded quietly, in a faint whisper.
“Friends? …With me?”
The boy was bewildered, but the suspicious man didn’t seem to frighten him. Moving slowly, he held out his right hand.
He seemed to be wearing the ghost of a smile.
“My name is Ricardo. Ricardo Russo. It’s good to meet you.”
Having remembered everything as he lay in bed, Christopher closed his eyes for a little while and thought.
The boy was watching him from the side, apparently worried. What should Christopher’s first words to him be?
Only a little time actually passed, but so many doubts and questions were throbbing through his mind in rhythm with the pain in his back. Even as they did, fatigue and a drowsiness that was probably a side effect of the drugs were taking their toll, and the urge to go back to sleep coursed through him.
However, as a result, he gave the simplest possible response when his eyes opened.
“Mm-hmm… I’m Christopher. Christopher Shaldred… Nice to meet you, too.”
On hearing the red-eyed monster’s remark, Ricardo nodded silently, and his expression of relief shifted into a faint smile.
Christopher returned the smile with his unsettling dolphin teeth, and then his mind plummeted back into sleep.
Several days later.
When his mind was completely lucid, and the pain in his back had gradually begun to subside, Christopher reviewed the situation he’d found himself in.
He saved me.
He’d never imagined someone would throw him a rope under those circumstances. Why, when he’d seen the boy there at the end, had he blurted out a thing like that?
Being honest and screaming “Help me” might have increased his chances of being saved, and yet…
Either way, he had indeed been saved, and now here he was.
From what the doctor told him, this hospital had connections to the Russo Family, and the boy was the grandson of Placido Russo, the family’s don.
After learning the kid had gotten help from the syndicate men to bring the dying Christopher to the hospital, Christopher asked the doctor one question.
“Listen, nearby, was there a…?”
“If you mean the corpse of that junkie scum, the syndicate men got rid of it.”
Apparently aware of what he wanted to know, the doctor gave the answer Christopher had anticipated before the question was out of his mouth.
“You now have a vast debt with the Russo Family, and they’ve got you over a barrel… Or you would be, but the situation with the junkie was a bit complicated, you see. Mr. Placido says he’ll forget about it.”
Oh, come to think of it, that guy was a stoolie who’d infiltrated the Russo Family, wasn’t he?
Recalling the man, already no more than a vague memory, Christopher thought for a little while. This time, he asked his question all the way to the end.
“Why did that Ricardo kid help me?”
“No idea. He doesn’t normally call on the syndicate, so he must have really wanted to help you… ‘Please save him,’ he said. ‘He’s my friend.’”
The doctor’s attitude was gruff, and that was all he said before he shrugged and left the hospital room.
Save me? Why?
His doubts were only growing deeper. However, deciding there was no point in thinking about this and that, Christopher concentrated on resting up.
Either way, he assumed he probably wouldn’t be here long.
The twins should find me and get in contact soon. Once that happens, I’ll just repay my favor to the boy, and that’ll be that.
This is all kind of fishy, but I’m glad somebody was so quick to call me a friend, I think.
After the doctor had gone, Ricardo stopped by the hospital room.
“Oh, Chris. You look like you’re doing a lot better.”
The relief was completely gone from the boy’s face, and he looked a bit sullen and unfriendly.
I guess I’d take him over Sickle, though.
Remembering his colleague, Christopher looked up at the boy from where he lay on the bed.
It didn’t seem as though anything was irritating him in particular. This was probably his default expression.
Without letting it bother him, Christopher struck up a conversation.
Ricardo was already calling him “Chris” and talking to him as if they were old friends, but as one with a similar habit, Christopher didn’t give it much thought. It might not even have struck him as strange.
“Oh. Right. Uh, you know. Thanks.”
“For what?”
As he asked the question, Ricardo’s expression didn’t change. Ordinarily, the response would have seemed odd, but Christopher immediately understood what the boy was trying to say, and he grinned.
“Both. For saving me, and for being friends with a guy like me.”
It wasn’t clear what the boy thought of the answer. He didn’t reply. Apparently, he wasn’t a terribly sociable type.
Christopher had been planning to observe Ricardo’s personality for a while, but the kid didn’t try to start any sort of conversation, and the odd silence formed a wall between them.
In the end, Christopher was the one who folded first and asked something he’d been wondering about.
“Say.”
“Hmm… What?”
“Why did you help me? I’m not exactly trustworthy… I’m an inhuman, monstrous weirdo. And not only that, you agreed to be my friend right off the bat, even though we’d just met. As your friend, I should warn you not to trust a guy who says he wants to be friends out of the blue. It’ll ruin your life.”
There was no telling why he was enjoying it so much, but Christopher kept matter-of-factly sabotaging his own position.
The boy listened to the question and the advice quietly, and when he was done listening, he answered in brief.
“That’s why.”
It was a very short answer.
“?”
“That’s why I saved you. I got the feeling that someone like you—you’d probably smash up every last bit of the world I hate. Me included.”
He sounded indifferent.
Incredibly detached.
If he’d spoken tearfully, a listener could probably have grasped the circumstances, more or less. Even if he’d simply lowered his eyes, the words would likely have inspired the listener to imagine their own background for the boy, envisioning some deep reason behind them— But there was no emotion in the boy’s answer. It was as if he was coolly reading from a prepared script.
However… Strangely, despite the total lack of emotion, the words didn’t strike Christopher as false.
“I’m just trying to use you. That’s why I made friends with you… Do you think less of me now?”
“No, I’m not averse to keeping things simple. Both symbiotic and parasitic relationships are fine examples of natural phenomena. There’s no guarantee that friendship couldn’t spring up between a sea slug and the tiny fish that live in its innards.”
Smiling wryly, Christopher shook his head in mild chagrin.
“Listen, though. Just because you make friends with a circus clown, that doesn’t mean he’ll take you to Neverland, you know? …Well, hmm, I wonder. I seem to recall hearing that nothing is impossible for clowns. The Poet said something a long time ago. Packed within the nose of a clown is Pandora’s empty box, or something like that… What do you suppose he meant?”
Ignoring Christopher’s muttering to himself, Ricardo dryly went on.
“I didn’t save you because you looked funny, Chris.”
The boy checked to make sure there was no one else around. Then he continued, still sounding indifferent:
“A little while ago…you killed lots of our family’s men, didn’t you? I was watching.”
“…”
One doubt had been cleared up, but a new one had taken its place.
“…You were watching?”
“It was you, and a strange Asian man. I watched you from a distance. I was scared then, so I hid the whole time.”
“Did you tell your grandpa about that?”
“No. If I had, you probably wouldn’t be alive now,” Ricardo told him casually, and it didn’t sound like a demand for gratitude.
However, given what he was saying, gratitude was clearly called for.
“As to what I’m thinking…I’ll tell you about that later on, once we’ve gotten closer.”
Ricardo’s expression was still cold. Slowly, Christopher put out his right hand—and clamped it around the boy’s thin neck.
His bright red eyes blazed, and as he whispered, his mouth warped cruelly around his rows of fangs.
“You don’t think I might already be able to stand? That I might kill you in some horrific way in the name of ‘Destroying the evidence!’ and make my escape?”
However, even though the boy appeared to be in a little pain, his eyes were still calm as he rasped:
“…If you do…then that’s fine. I wouldn’t mind being killed by a friend.”
On hearing that, Christopher immediately let go of his throat, whistling in appreciation.
“Interesting. You’re fascinating. A completely different brand of weird from the Poet and Sickle. You might hit it off with Rail and Frank. If we get the chance, I’ll introduce you.”
“Thanks. Although I don’t know much about those people…”
“Hey, the more friends you have, the better. I’ll introduce you to my friend in New York later on, too. His name’s Firo. He acts cranky, but he’s a nice guy deep down, so you’ll get along better with him than with Chi or Leeza.”
“You’re terrible. I told you I use my friends, and you’re going to introduce me to yours?”
Ricardo’s expression had softened very slightly, and Christopher grinned broadly as he answered.
“Friends are meant to be used! Sometimes you use each other for free, and other times you pay; that’s what it’s all about. Even just feeling better because you talked to someone is a splendid example of the give-and-take.”
“…You know, you’re pretty energetic for somebody who’s injured.”
“It hurts quite a bit, though.”
As he made small talk with Ricardo, who’d smiled just a little, Christopher began to think that he wouldn’t mind staying with this boy for a while. Not because the kid had him in a vulnerable position, though. He’d simply thought, This is interesting.
Well, once Huey contacts me through the twins, I guess I can just give him some random excuse and slip out.
With that casual thought, Christopher was discharged from the hospital and taken into the Russo Family as Ricardo’s bodyguard. The Russo Family members were openly suspicious at first, but as they watched Ricardo interact with him without any trouble at all, they gradually stopped worrying.
It wasn’t that they’d accepted him. They just acted like he wasn’t really there.
They didn’t get many incidents that would have let Christopher display his abilities as a bodyguard, and time just passed, without giving him a chance to prove his skills.
And so a year went by…
There hadn’t been a single message from Huey.
He hadn’t heard any new information from Ricardo, either, and they continued to be nothing more than ordinary friends of widely different ages.
Today, once again, time ticked on.
Calmly. Indifferently.
And little by little, something ominous began stealing into the air.
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