Chapter 22.5: Charm and Coercion

  Felix headed over to his address, which he obtained from the database. His wife, Aimi Kusakabe, was at home with their toddler. He introduced himself as Shiro’s friend who had been invited over for tea. “I’m afraid he’s not home yet. He told me he was working overtime,” she said, letting him into the house. “But he didn’t tell me that he was expecting guests…”

  “You know how forgetful he is,” Felix said casually. “I’ve told him many times that he should cherish his friends and family more than his fur friends at the zoo.”

  “Ah, I tell him that sometimes as well.” Aimi shook her head. “I hope you don’t mind waiting for him.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t,” Felix said. “Besides, it has been years since I last saw him, and I would like to see him again before I leave Japan.”

  “Where do you work?” Aimi asked.

  “Oh… Here, there, everywhere.” Felix gesticulated vaguely, hoping to come across as a travelling businessman. He could see that Aimi was warming up to him quickly. He smirked, upping the charm factor. “I make many business trips, so it’s hard to say. My favourite place to visit is Sydney.”

  “I would like to visit Sydney one day,” Ami sighed wistfully.

  Charming the wife and daughter was an easy task. Not once did Felix feel that he had overstayed his welcome. He even volunteered to babysit as Aimi went out for some last-minute grocery shopping. “Don’t worry, I have a daughter as well! Adopted,” he said as he showed her a picture of Leonhart when she was eight to build an even greater rapport. “She’s in elementary school!”

  Not long after Aimi left, Shiro pulled up into the driveway in his minivan. When he saw Felix sitting in the living room rocking his snoozing daughter, his face turned a ghastly white. The bespectacled man became a blur as he immediately charged for his daughter, abandoning the guise that he was an average man without a second thought.

  “I would be careful about showing your true colours,” Felix warned as he dodged Shiro with ease while holding his daughter close to his chest. “Lucky for you, your wife has gone out to get bean sprouts, which she said you liked. Yucky.”

  “What are you doing here?!” Shiro whispered loudly in a voice so strained that it started cracking. “Why didn’t Aimi call me?”

  “I told her not to call you and interrupt you while you were working,” Felix scoffed. “I’m so thoughtful, right?”

  Felix passed the kid to Shiro. “Yua had a bit of chocolate, by the way,” he said.

  Shiro hastily put Yua in her cot and dragged Felix into the kitchen, locking the door shut behind them. “Again,” Shiro whispered, “what are you doing here?”

  “Why are we whispering?” Felix whispered back.

  Shiro put his head in his hands and spoke in a hushed voice. “Look, I didn't tell Aimi about my side job. Did you-”

  “Don’t worry, I just said we are friends,” Felix replied.

  “You know how long it took me to man up and tell her that I’m working overtime when in fact I took time off to take the stupid test?” Shiro muttered. “Two weeks! And you come here out of nowhere!”

  “Ha,” Felix chuckled, “I almost called out your bullshit in front of Aimi, but I had to remind myself that she isn’t one of us.”

  “Please just tell me why you are here!” begged Shiro.

  “I wanted to ask if you have seen or heard anything about Dante. I’m looking for him,” Felix said.

  “No, no, I haven’t seen him since he left.” Shiro’s eyes darted away from Felix’s gaze. The corner of his mouth twitched. He kept pushing up his glasses even though they were not sliding down.

  Jackpot, Felix thought, cocking his head slightly.

  “Really?” Felix pressed, taking a step toward Shiro. “Absolutely nothing?”

  Shiro shook his head vigorously. Felix could see small beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he rubbed his hands nervously. The tips of his ears started to redden. This guy is such a shitty liar, he thought.

  “You know the jail term for lying to an Elder?” Felix took another step towards Shiro, squaring his shoulders. He easily towered over the swordsman, blanketing him with his shadow.

  “T-that’s a lie,” Shiro said, taking a step back. “This isn’t a f-formal interrogation.”

  “Hm… I suppose so,” Felix said in mock resignation. “But on my way in, I saw a very grand bonsai. It’s yours, correct?”

  Shiro nodded meekly. “I can always cultivate a-another one,” he stammered as though he had already predicted what was coming.

  This guy! Felix clenched his jaw. Shiro was determined to keep his mouth shut. Felix had considered his action figures, which were proudly displayed in the living room, but based on his response, they would be of no use.

  Time to use my secret weapon.

  Felix cornered the swordsman and slammed his palms on the wall behind Shiro. Leaning in so that his face was mere inches away from Shiro’s, he whispered into his ear, “What would your wife think if she saw us like that?”

  Shiro’s face turned beet-red as he tried to turn away. “I can just make up something really sinful,” Felix cooed. “About the little noises you make-”

  Shiro’s lips trembled. Then, he burst out laughing. Felix’s smile faded. “P-Please stop, that won’t work on me,” Shiro stammered, his face turning a lighter shade of red this time.

  Felix took a deep breath and eased up on Shiro. “Okay, I’ll just tell Mrs Kusakabe that you weren’t at work,” he declared.

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  Shiro’s face fell. “You can’t!”

  “You do remember that with a little bit of anyone's Essence, they can see phantoms for a short while. She’ll believe me.”

  Felix strolled towards the door, but Shiro blocked his path with open arms. His face was as red as the tomatoes sitting on the kitchen countertop. “He’s going to kill me if I tell anyone, especially you!” he exclaimed.

  “Spill it.”

  “No!”

  Felix shoved Shiro aside, but the wiry man clung to his arm. Though Shiro lacked muscle, his grip was like iron. Felix drove an elbow into his ribs, but Shiro only tightened his grip, dragging him back. The struggle turned frantic – hands grappling, feet squeaking against the floor. With a burst of fury, Felix wrenched free and slammed Shiro down, pinning him against the floor hard. Shiro wheezed beneath him, choking for air, as Felix pressed his elbow deep into the space between his shoulder blades.

  “Tell me everything you know,” Felix rasped next to Shiro's ear. “Do not force my hand any further.”

  “We did meet up a few times, but just for a drink or two!” admitted Shiro at long last. “It was m-mostly me doing the talking. I-I felt bad for him s-so I-I…”

  Felix felt as though Shiro had stabbed him in the heart with a white-hot knife. He lost sight of his goals momentarily and unconsciously put more weight into his elbow. This drew a sharp cry from Shiro.

  “Did he say anything? Did he tell you where he was staying?” Felix asked slowly. A bitter taste flooded his mouth. It took everything in him not to throw up.

  “We didn’t talk much!”

  “That means he talked!” Felix hissed. “So speak now. I don't have that much time to waste.”

  Felix pressed harder into his back. “I’m trying to remember!” Shiro cried out. “We haven’t met in two years!”

  “Two years?”

  “Yeah!” Shiro exclaimed. “I swear!”

  For some reason, Felix felt relieved. He finally helped Shiro to his feet, satisfied with his honesty.

  “Why are you looking for him in the first place?” Shiro asked as he brushed himself off.

  “I became a teacher at the Sanctum recently. There’s this student who needs a better teacher. He’s the only one I can think of,” Felix answered.

  Shiro let out a small gasp, which caught Felix’s attention. “You shouldn’t go to him for that!” he exclaimed.

  “Why?!” Felix demanded.

  “B-because…”

  “Is this related to…”

  “It’s two different matters,” Shiro answered. “And it’s a rather long story.”

  Shiro left the kitchen for a while and returned with a set of keys, which he handed to Felix. “I don’t know his exact address, but he dropped this here.”

  Attached to the bunch of keys was a metallic keychain that one could purchase from a gift shop in the country that they were touring. A city’s iconic skyline was carved on it. Felix immediately recognised where it was from.

  “But you must not ask him to come back to be a teacher!” Shiro said, interrupting Felix’s careening train of thought.

  “Why not?” Felix snapped. He knew that persuading him to return to the society that spurned him was difficult. However, the fact that Shiro was so fixated on the fact that he was calling Dante back as a teacher puzzled him.

  “He didn’t tell me. It’s just my guess,” Shiro said.

  As Shiro slowly told him everything, Felix felt the fever creep up slowly from behind his eyes, burning more than it ever did.

  ***

  The first place Felix rushed to after leaving Shiro’s place was the Anathaeum. “Aida!” he called out.

  Aida Azlin was one of Dr. Farid’s assistants. She was in charge of categorising all sorts of records, even the most idiosyncratic ones. However, she was nowhere to be seen.

  “Aida!”

  Just then, Felix heard a small voice. “A little help here…”

  It came from a mountain of books and files. Felix dug through the pile and pulled Aida from within.

  “V-Venerated Elder Lee! It’s you! Sorry for the mess,” she apologised, hastily adjusting her hijab. “What can I do for you?”

  “Could you help me retrieve Singapore’s records? Just the Cursed Essence levels. Everything from 2008 to today.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m afraid that I cannot find the records in this mess,” she gestured to the pile of books behind her. “The shelf it was in collapsed along with a few others, and the database is under maintenance.”

  Felix groaned. Why is my timing so bad?!

  “But I can write it out for you!” she said, her eyes twinkling.

  “Really?!”

  “I remember everything I read,” she beamed.

  “How long will it take?” Felix asked eagerly.

  “Give me about thirty minutes.”

  “Thirty?! That short? But isn’t–”

  “There’s not much to begin with.”

  Indeed, Aida managed to produce a duplicate copy of the requested records. Felix flipped through it, but the numbers swam in front of his eyes, “Uh… Could you help me decipher what this says?”

  “Cursed Energy levels are surprisingly low. There was a very sharp fall between early 2010 and late 2010,” Aida pointed out, her fingers tracing the shape of the graph. “There have been very few sorcerers deployed there for emergency purposes since then. But there has been a spike in the past weeks.”

  Cities were infamous for being the breeding grounds for phantoms, often stemming from the stress and struggles of the average citizen. The fact that little to no sorcerers had been dispatched to that country in a long while should have stood out to him earlier.

  “I can’t believe it,” Felix muttered under his breath.

  “Huh?”

  “You said there was a spike. Are there any active cases?”

  “There are quite a few, actually, but no sorcerers want to take on such trivial cases just yet. There’s a Rank 6 assignment that is active but -”

  “Gimme the case.”

  “Eh?”

  “Just hand it over to me.”

  “Okay, I’ll inform the relevant people.”

  “Thanks! I’ll ask Dr. Farid to give you a raise!” Felix said as he sped out of the door to his room.

  The cupboard doors nearly flew off their hinges as Felix threw them open violently. He snatched a random bag and stuffed it with a spare change of clothes, not caring enough to pack them neatly.

  I found him, Felix thought as he wiped his eyes with his forearm. I found him.

  Holding the backpack at an arm’s length away, Felix tried to replace the backpack with his vision of Dante. The ends of his lips turned upwards, but they trembled and drooped down immediately. Felix tried opening his mouth, but no words came out.

  Felix slung the backpack over his shoulder. A wave of exhaustion suddenly overcame him, and he pressed a hand against his chest. He looked towards the skies but decided to make his way to the Beacon instead. The Ancils stationed there regarded his presence with muted surprise but granted him passage without question.

  “Where would you like to go, Venerated Elder Lee?”

  Felix turned his eyes towards the bright overhead light. “Singapore.”