Contractbound

Graham locked the door behind him and went out to the street quickly. It hadn"t been five minutes since Naomi Bakker left his office, so she shouldn"t have gone far. When he got there, however, he couldn"t see her figure anywhere. He went behind a tree and tore out a piece of paper from his notebook. He wrote a statement on it.

"Naomi Bakker is going home."

He lit the paper with his lighter and watched the flame consumed the paper. It burned the whole paper quickly, which meant Naomi was going home. He waved his hand to stop a motor carriage and got in. He told the driver her address: Hoogstraat South no. 22. He also told the driver to drive fast.

It took him less than seven minutes to reach his destination. Once he arrived at Hoogstraat South, he got out of the carriage and paid the driver. It was Sat.u.r.day and the street was not as busy as usual. Most people were staying at home with their families. There were only a few motor carriages on the road and some bicycles.

"Her husband and children should be home I think, Val," he said. He hid behind a tree again not to attract attention and tore out another piece of paper.

"At this point, I"ll be out of paper before I can finish my chocolate in the fridge."

He wrote the statement on the paper, trying to be as specific as he could.

"Naomi Bakker, Bram Bakker, and their children are all home."

He lit the paper on fire and it burned entirely, indicating a positive answer. He then swept the ashes with his hand and threw them into a rubbish bin.

"They are all home, Val. I"ll go in and check on them."

He walked up to the door and rang the bell. It didn"t take long before the sound of footsteps could be heard getting closer. The door was pulled open a little and a man"s head stuck out from the gap; it was a handsome man with a mustache, Bram Bakker.

"Yes? Is there anything I can help you with?" he said with a smile. His smile looked creepy.

"Is your wife home? I"m her colleague. Ruben Arnaud sent me here." he lied.

"Ah, Mr. Arnaud! But I"m sorry. She"s currently away." he said, still smiling. There was no happiness in his smile.

"Hmm... What to do..." Graham knew that Mr. Bakker was lying. He concentrated for a while to activate his eye power while pretending to think. After some time, his eyes turned red under his contact lenses.

He looked at Mr. Bakker in the eye and said convincingly, "You"ll let me enter your house because I need to see your wife. Mr. Arnaud specifically asked me to see her. You don"t want to disappoint him, do you?"

Mr. Bakker looked confused for a while and then opened the door a little. When Graham was about to enter through the gap, he smelled a strong stench of blood.

Bang!

Suddenly, Mr. Bakker came out from behind the door and hit him in the head with a vase. Graham fell to the ground in pain. His head was bleeding. There was a sound of a door being locked from inside.

Some pa.s.sersby stopped and watched what was going on. Graham then yelled, "Call the Police! Somebody has been murdered in this house!"

Graham got up and wiped the blood from his head.

"Val, there must be a back door. We need to get there somehow," he said as he ran back to the street. He thought for a while before running to a neighbor"s house. He rang the bell and someone came to the door. It was an old man.

"Can I help you?"

Graham looked at him in the eye and said with a serious tone, "Someone has been murdered in the house next door. You"ll let me enter your house and use the back door because I need to catch the killer."

The man hesitated for a while before finally opening the door. He looked confused. He didn"t say anything as Graham entered his house and searched for the back door near the kitchen. It took less than one minute from the time he entered until he exited through the back door.

The back door led to a small service road for garbage trucks. From the back door, he went to Mr. Bakker"s house and he saw the back door was open. He looked around immediately but couldn"t see the figure of Mr. Bakker anywhere. He had a hunch as to where he might have gone, but he would divine it later to make sure. For now, he wanted to check up the condition of Naomi Bakker and her children.

As he got closer to the back entrance, the smell of blood became stronger, and there was a faint stench mixed in.

"The smell of decay!" he said.

He covered his nose with his forearm and entered the house. It was dark and very suffocating inside. He had to control his breathing to prevent himself from vomiting. All the windows were covered by the heavy curtains and the lights were off. He went to the living room and was shocked by what he saw.

"Val, this is madness!"

On the floor, the lifeless body of Naomi Bakker was lying on her back, with her arms and legs spread forming a star. Her stomach was cut open and her guts taken out. Her eye sockets were empty, only blood pouring out of them was there. On each side of her head were two decapitated heads of her children with eyes wide open. Their expressions were that of terrible horror.

A pentagram was drawn using blood around her, with complicated symbols made using her chopped up intestines. On the sofa nearby, the headless bodies of her children were sitting straight, with their hands on their laps, as if forced to spectate the whole thing.

Graham went out of the house because the stench was too suffocating.

"Val, it"s the Police"s job to do murder scene investigation. We need to catch the husband. He"s too dangerous to be let roam free." he said with urgency.

He went some distance away from the Bakkers" house and tore a piece of paper from his notebook. He wrote something on it.

"Bram Bakker went to Mevrouw Cornelia"s house."

He triggered his lighter and tried to burn the paper. But when the paper touched the fire, it burst into flames instantly.

"What just happened?" he said in confusion.

He tried it again. He tore out a piece of paper and lit it on fire. But the moment the paper touched the fire, it burst into flame again. He got no answer from his divination. He cleaned up the ashes not to leave any evidence.

"Val, I think someone is interfering with my divination. Our target might be more dangerous than we thought," he said while throwing the ashes into a rubbish bin.

Graham gave up with divination and went to a secluded alley. After making sure that it was safe, he took out a sleeping pill from his pocket and swallowed it.

"Val, you take over," he said. After some minutes had pa.s.sed, Graham finally felt sleepy and fell asleep.

Shortly after Graham fell asleep, Valentine woke up and stood up. He cleaned the dust off his coat.

"G, we need something more convenient to switch."

Valentine ran to the main street and hailed a motor carriage. As a carriage was pulling over, he heard the sound of police siren approaching in the distance. He asked the driver to take him quickly to Tuinstraat North, where Mevrouw Cornelia"s house was. He got off the motor carriage and paid the driver seven pennings.

Valentine went to a secluded alley and took out a facemask, the lockpick, and his knife from the pockets. He wore the mask and hid his knife under his sock. He then hid the coat and the trilby somewhere in the alley.

"G, wake up." he tried to wake up Graham"s consciousness.

He walked out of the alley and went to the back of Mevrouw Cornelia"s house. He didn"t wait until night time because then they might have long been gone. The road where the back door was was relatively quiet, but there were still people. He hid behind a bush and waited until the people were gone.

When it was safe for him to do so, Valentine climbed to the second floor of the house using the help of a wall and the balcony railing. He then picked the lock of the door on the small balcony and entered the house quietly. He heightened his alert.

The inside of the house was dark and reeked of blood. He could hear someone in the kitchen downstairs making something. He deduced it was the house owner. There was only one source of the sound, however. He couldn"t locate his target. He walked down the stairs carefully, without making much noise. The woman downstairs seemed to be cooking while humming to a tune. The closer he got to the kitchen, the stronger the stench of blood that penetrated his nose.

The staircase was facing the kitchen, so a part of it could be seen. From where he was standing, he could see a man lying down motionlessly on the kitchen table. It was Mr. Bakker!

His right arm and right leg were missing, and blood flowed from the cut parts. The cuts looked rough, like it had been done with a dull butcher knife. Valentine walked closer quietly. He could see that Mr. Bakker"s eyes were still open and tears ran down his face, but he didn"t move at all. He was being chopped up alive!

Once he got to the entrance of the kitchen, he could clearly see a woman boiling an arm and a leg in a large pot while humming. It was the beautiful woman that Graham had seen before: Mevrouw Cornelia. Valentine sneaked behind her and stabbed her with his knife.

He missed!

Mevrouw Cornelia had dodged to the side in time.

Valentine grabbed the hot pot and threw it at her. She quickly moved aside but some boiling water still splashed on her left arm. The mutilated limbs fell down on the floor.

"How impolite!" she said while licking her injury. She looked calm despite being attacked in surprise.

Valentine charged at her and managed to stab her left shoulder. She attacked Valentine in the neck with her unnaturally long nails, but he parried it with his knife.

"s.h.i.t!" she cursed.

Her beautiful face looked twisted. She ran out of the kitchen in a hurry. She held her shoulder tight while running towards the living room.

Valentine ran after her and but he was pushed back by a sudden gust of wind. He hit the wall and pain coursed all over his body. Suddenly, sharp fingernails stabbed him in the chest and he barely dodged it.

"b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.k!" he cursed in pain as blood dripped from his wound.

He managed to avoid being hit in his vital organ. He tried to attack back but he only hit thin air.

Mevrouw Cornelia had become much quicker!

Her red hair was blown by the gust of wind surrounding her. Her face looked calm with craziness hidden underneath.

Valentine charged at her but he was pushed back by a gust of wind.

Baam!

He hit a bookcase, books falling down on him.

Mevrouw Cornelia was standing there looking straight at him. Her lips moved as if she was chanting something.

"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l!" Valentine cursed and darted towards her.

He gripped his knife tightly in his right hand and aimed for her heart. She dodged but Valentine quickly slashed her abdomen.

He hit her!

Blood spurted from her slashed abdomen, and she was staggered, but she still didn"t stop her chanting.

Valentine used this opportunity to pin her down to the ground.

Crash!

She fell to the ground; her head hit the floor.

He got on top of her and quickly moved his knife in a stabbing motion aiming for her head.

She smiled!

As the knife was about to touch her forehead, he stopped moving and remained motionless. Valentine had lost consciousness!

"Finally, you are under my control. Now, what do I do with you?" she said sinisterly, looking at the motionless man on top of her. Her soft eyes were no more; now there was only evil intent reflected in her cold eyes.

Suddenly, the knife continued its course and pierced through her skull.

"Aaaah!"

Her eyes were wide open in disbelief. She thought she had won.

It was Graham! He had taken over because Valentine"s consciousness faded.

Blood spurted from her skull and her mouth. Her wide-open eyes became lifeless soon after. She had died.

Graham got up from her now dead body and fell to the ground. He had lost a lot of blood. He took off his b.l.o.o.d.y shirt and ripped it to cover his wounds. He needed to stop the bleeding soon.

"Val, what have you done to our body..." he complained. As he was saying that, Mevrouw Cornelia"s body suddenly burst into flames.

"What in the world!" Graham exclaimed.

Shortly after, her whole body had turned into ashes, and among her ashes, there were two scrolls left behind. Graham grabbed the scrolls and tucked them on his back. He then used what remained of his shirt to clean the blood off his face and body. After that, he also cleaned his blood off the floor as best as he could. When he finished cleaning up, the remains of his shirt were all b.l.o.o.d.y.

Graham went back to the kitchen to check Mr. Bakker"s condition. When he saw that Mr. Bakker had died of blood loss, he quickly went upstairs and left through the balcony door. He closed the door behind him and jumped down to the bushes. He couldn"t climb in that condition.

Graham carefully went to the alley where he had switched with Valentine, avoiding people while doing so. It took him a while to find where Valentine had hidden his coat because he was still unconscious then. He then took off his bloodied gloves and facemask and stuffed them inside his pocket along with his b.l.o.o.d.y shirt. He wore his trilby and walked naturally as if nothing had happened. n.o.body could see his blood under his coat.

He waved his hand to stop a public motor carriage. When he got one, he got in and sat down in pain, but he didn"t show it. The driver didn"t notice anything and just started driving his pa.s.senger to his destination.

Once he got home, he went to his bathroom and burned his b.l.o.o.d.y shirt and facemask in his bathtub. He then washed the blood off his coat and pants with hydrogen peroxide.

After he was done, he went back to his office to check the two scrolls that he had got from Mevrouw Cornelia.