Scene 1. The Empty Pipe
Lee Kang dropped into the manhole.
Soundless. Toe-first. The water rose to his waist. Cold. Black water. His soles met the drain floor. Slippery clay. His knees wavered once.
"Doctor Jang."
Lee Kang called.
Toward the darkness on both sides of the drain. His voice struck the brick walls and came back. Doctor Jang, Jang, Jang. The echo faded into the dark.
No answer.
His hand groped through the water. The spot where Doctor Jang had been sitting. The opposite wall. The spot where he had cradled the bag. Only water. Cold water. His hand braced against the wall and moved sideways. One step. Two. The water split heavily between his knees.
Something was floating.
On the water. Something small floated and swayed on the black surface. Lee Kang's hand caught it.
A pipe shard.
The broken half. What had been between Doctor Jang's lips. What Doctor Jang had set on the water and let drift away yesterday. Pushed by the drain's current, it had circled once and floated back here.
His fingers gripped the pipe.
Hard. Dry wood. The broken cross-section at its end was rough. His thumb traced that surface.
Something quickened inside his chest.
His breathing. Lee Kang's breath was growing ragged. The interval between inhales shortened. As it shortened, it could not deepen. Before his lungs could take in all the air, the next breath pushed in. His chest moved up and down, fast.
His eyes swung left and right in the dark.
Both sides of the drain. Doctor Jang was not visible in either direction. No bag either. Not the bag he had dropped the ether bottle onto. The only trace of Doctor Jang was this one pipe shard.
He left.
The thought flashed once through his head. Doctor Jang left. Abandoned him and left. The one who would make the medicine.
His hand gripped the pipe shard harder. The broken end stabbed the stitched wound in his palm. No pain. In place of pain, something else rose. His vision began to tremble from the edges. The dark grew darker.
No.
Something else in his head pushed that thought away.
He didn't leave. He couldn't have. Someone—
Lee Kang's breath stopped.
From the darkness at the opposite end of the drain, light came.
Scene 2. Lights
Flashlights.
White light. Cutting through the dark of the narrow drain, drawing closer. Not one. Two. Three. The beams wavered, casting jumbled shadows on the brick walls. On the water, light shattered and reflected onto the ceiling.
The sound of boots treading water.
Splash. Splash. Multiple pairs. Japanese shouts rang through the drain. Commands. Short and sharp. Between them, another sound. The breathing of a military dog. The sound of claws treading water as it approached.
A search party.
Lee Kang's eyes saw the lights.
What had been scattered in his head gathered to a single point. Doctor Jang had vanished. A search party had come. The two facts collided inside his brain and, within a beat, fused into one conclusion.
They did it.
His breathing returned.
The ragged breath subsided all at once. Not that the panic vanished. The panic had turned into something else. His trembling vision gathered to a single point. Inside that point was the flashlight beam.
They took him.
A sound climbed from Lee Kang's mouth.
Grrr.
The pipe shard fell from his hand. Fell onto the water and drifted away again. Lee Kang did not see it.
His feet kicked the water.
A charge. Splitting the waist-high water. The water was heavy. It coiled around his legs. His legs drove through that weight. Spray rose on either side. Yeonhwa swayed on his back. The glass bottles in his chest struck each other.
A flashlight beam caught Lee Kang.
The light met his face. A blood-soaked face. The dark red at the corner of his mouth. Burning amber eyes. Beyond the light, a search party member's scream burst out. Japanese. The word monster must have been mixed in it.
A gunshot cracked.
Inside the narrow drain. The gunshot struck the brick walls and amplified. His ears tore. Ringing lodged in Lee Kang's left ear. New ringing layered over the ear that had been deaf since Chapter 38.
A bullet struck the water.
Beside Lee Kang. A column of water rose. His body lowered. Only his head above the water. So that Yeonhwa on his back would not touch the water. That alone he calculated. So that Yeonhwa's back stayed above the surface.
He burrowed toward the light.
Scene 3. Slaughter
He reached the first search party member.
Lee Kang's hand rose from the water and struck the man's flashlight. The flashlight flew and fell into the water. The light wavered underwater, then went out. Darkness. His hand caught the man's throat. Drove it underwater.
The man's head submerged.
Lee Kang's hand pressed that head into the clay floor. The water churned. The man's hands clawed at Lee Kang's arm. His feet kicked the water. Spray rose. Lee Kang's hand did not loosen.
The military dog leapt in from the side.
It bit Lee Kang's forearm. The place the Ookami had bitten. The place stitched with rough thread. The dog's teeth tore the stitches. Thread snapped and the wound split open again. Lee Kang's other hand caught the dog's lower jaw. He gripped upper and lower jaw at once and pried them apart. Pried wider. To an angle they must not open.
Pop.
The dog went limp. Dropped into the water.
The movement of the man pinned underwater stopped.
Lee Kang stood. The second search party member swung a bayonet. There was no room to swing inside the narrow drain. The bayonet scraped the brick wall. Sparks flew. Lee Kang's hand caught the man's bayonet arm. Twisted it. The sound of a shoulder dislocating. The man screamed. The scream struck the wall and echoed.
His hand caught the man's head.
Drove it into the brick wall. The plaster cracked. Once more. The man's head was crushed between the wall and Lee Kang's hand.
The third fired from behind.
The bullet pierced Lee Kang's shoulder. Through and through. Not a graze but a bore-through. From the back of the shoulder to the front. Something hot tore through the shoulder, ripping flesh. His body wavered once.
A sound came from his mouth.
Not a scream. A growl. Not the sound of rage. The sound of hunger.
Lee Kang turned. To the third. Splitting the water. Blood surged from his shoulder and dissolved into the water. The black water grew blacker.
The third backed away. Inside the narrow drain. The water was heavy and he could not retreat fast. Lee Kang's hand caught the third's collar. Lifted. His feet left the water.
"Where did you take him."
Lee Kang said.
The third thrashed. Shouted something in Japanese. Lee Kang did not understand it. Did not try to understand it.
"Where did you take him."
His hand tightened. The third's throat narrowed inside his grip. The third's face reddened, then went violet.
The third could not answer. Because there was nothing to answer with. Because they had never taken Doctor Jang. But inside Lee Kang's head, that silence meant something else. It meant: won't tell. It meant: hiding it.
Force entered his hand.
The sound of a neck breaking.
Pop.
That sound climbed up through Lee Kang's palm. Inside his head, the sound translated into something else. A clue. A fragment telling him where Doctor Jang was. As though breaking one more fragment would yield the next.
His hand released the third.
It dropped into the water. Splash. Surfaced, then sank. Drifted away.
The drain went quiet.
Only the sound of water remained. Trickle. Water leaking somewhere. Lee Kang's ragged breathing. The soundless spread of blood from his shoulder dispersing across the water.
Lee Kang looked around at both sides of the darkness.
Every flashlight was out. Fallen into the water or broken. Darkness filled the drain again. Only Lee Kang's eyes glowed in the dark.
Doctor Jang was not there.
Only the corpses of the search party. Floating on the water, drifting slowly away. Nothing told him where Doctor Jang had gone.
Lee Kang's breathing began to grow ragged again.
Scene 4. Isolation
Lee Kang stood in the middle of bloody water.
The water was red. Blood dissolved into the black water, the color shifted even in the dark. Corpses floated on that water. Uniforms. The military dog. Drifting slowly along the drain's current.
His hand pressed his chest.
The things in his chest. The ether bottle. Three opium tinctures. The catalyst. The medicine packet. The glass met his chest, hard. The packet was wet. Sewer water was seeping into the paper. The dry paper was dampening, going soft.
His fingers wrapped the packet.
So no more water could seep in. He covered the paper with his palm. Drew it toward his chest. Between Yeonhwa's body and his own chest. Deeper.
"I got it all, though."
Lee Kang said.
In the dark. In the sound of water. Among the corpses.
His voice was small. Not the voice that had been growling like a beast moments ago. The voice of someone lost. The voice of someone who did not know where to go.
"I got it all, though."
Once more.
His eyes looked at both sides of the drain. Doctor Jang was in neither direction. There was no one to make the medicine. Though all the materials were over his chest. Though five panes of glass and one bundle of medicine were all over his chest. There was no one to turn them into medicine.
On his back, Yeonhwa's weight pressed.
Cold. A chill running down his back. Her chin caught on his shoulder. Her breath grazed the back of his neck. Faintly. Fainter and fainter.
Lee Kang's foot moved one step.
No direction. Because he did not know where to go. He took one step, then stopped. One step the other way. Stopped.
The drain's silence surrounded him.
The spot where Doctor Jang had sat. The spot where he had turned the pipe between his fingers. That silence closed around Lee Kang's throat. The fact that no sound came. The fact that there was no clicking pipe. That absence filled the narrow drain.
Lee Kang shifted Yeonhwa from his back to the front.
He held her in his arms. Both arms. The medicine bottles and the packet were caught between Yeonhwa's body and his chest. His chin met the crown of her head. Cold. There was no lilac smell from her hair. Only the smell of the sewer's rancid water.
His nose searched for the lilac.
It could not find it.
His eyes wavered in the dark.
Unfocused.
On the bloody water. Among the corpses. With all the gathered materials held in his arms. Having lost the one who would make the medicine. A blood-soaked monster stood holding a girl who was nothing but bone.
The water trickled.
A corpse bumped against Lee Kang's leg, then drifted away.
Lee Kang did not move.