CHAPTER 5: TWO SIDES OF COIN

A soft knock on a large mahogany wooden door to a study room can be heard echoing through the hallway. After a few minutes pass by, a second louder knock echoes once again. This time, the young gentleman inside the room who is currently nose deep into his books finally heard the knocks and hurriedly opened the door. Standing in front of him from the other side is a woman in her fifties wearing a full attired suit while carrying a tray.

"Sorry to disturb you, master, but it seems like my assumptions are correct that you are still in this room." She glances inside the room and sees the scattered papers and books inside. "It will be a long night I assume? I have prepared coffee for you."

"Viora, I am so sorry for the mess, I will clean it up before bed. Can you knock on the door again when it is past midnight? I will stop working by that time."

"Then I should have knocked sooner. It is already past midnight, master. Two more hours until sunrise to be exact." Viora steps in to enter the room and sets her tray on the table. From the tray, she took out a cup and served it in front of Arno. As she prepares the coffee, her eyes scan into some of the paper that was being researched until she stops at a familiar case. Orthrus Murder, Two faced dog that bites his master. This case has made quite a commotion back in the days as a case of murder where Alexander Orthrus, an esteemed blacksmith known to handle rare materials used the ceremonial sword that had been commissioned by a noble family that supported him to slaughter the noble and all of the noble family members.

"That is quite an interesting read before bed."

"What? Oh, that one? Orthrus?" Arno took the cup of coffee on his table and sipped a little. "Well, it intrigued me. I found some inconsistencies between official statements from the guards and factual data on the field. This may relate to the other case that I'm working on."

"The current one? Didn't you catch the culprit already? At Eden's Garden?"

"No, that was a bust. Turns out it is not the As-Tasheena. She is harmless."

"Shame." Viora shrugs. As the one who taught Arno all of his lessons since he was a little boy, she is used to entertaining her master for discussion. "What is weird about the Orthrus case if I may ask?"

"Well, first of all, the official report said that the murder weapon is a ceremonial sword, right? Specially commissioned by Marquis Marcell Ventio himself, the victim. This murder weapon was found right at the hand of the suspect, Mr. Alexander Orthus, who ran away from the crime scene, The Ventio Manor, with his daughter and was found three blocks away." Arno digs through his stacks of papers, pulls out a page, and shows it to his head maid. " But look at this, this is the unreleased autopsy report from the guard. Every single one of them said that all of the victims had at least three parallel slash marks on their body, all of them almost at the same distance with each other almost as if they are not slashed by the swords but by a–"

"A claw…" Viora added.

"Exactly. See, even you are smarter than the guards in this city." Arno stops for a second, his eyes looking for something in the pile of books and papers until he finds a folded piece of paper and picks it up. "According to this commision letter, the sword should not be sharp anyway. Hence, it is impossible to brutally murder someone. And even more impossible to kill a whole family with it."

"Well, a direct report from the guards stated that they found Orthrus three blocks away from the scene, trying to get rid of the murder weapon with blood on it."

"That is for the second question. Whose blood is it? Every eyewitnesses testimony only saw Orthrus run away from the crime scene. No actual witness saw him kill the victim. He and his daughter also denied all of the charges and did not admit to killing the Ventio Family. They fell in silence when being asked regarding the blood."

"That is still incrementing enough for him. Unless we have clues to the real culprit."

"That is true, we can get information if we can get testimony from real eyewitnesses who happen to be at the location during the murder." Arno sips his coffee. A smirk shows up on his face.

"That would be hard. As far as I know, it was a closed dinner where the maids were not even present in the room. There is no one there except the victims and…" Viora stops as she realizes where this conversation is going. "You want me to arrange a visit to meet with the Orthrus."

"No, I've tried that and each time, my request was denied either by the guards or Orthrus himself."

"So, back to square one. We do not have any means to get any information from them."

"Well, it's not like we do not have any means, we still have not tried everything yet. If we cannot talk with him at the prison. We can always bring him out of there."

"Breaking out a prisoner? That plan seems to be too reckless even for you."

"Well, we still did not have the right tools yet. When the opportunity comes Viora, when the opportunity comes." Arno stands up from his chair and stretches for a little. "What is my schedule for today?"

"Right, I think you should rest for a little. Today you will be having three meetings in the afternoon, one lunch invitation by the first daughter of Lady Flintborne, and a ball dance party invitation by Sir Lavington."

"See, just as I said it. The opportunity comes." Arno smirks as he hears the name Sir Lavington. "Reschedule one of the least important meetings, deny the lunch invitation but send her a beautiful bouquet and diamond necklace as an apology, and prepare my suit. I will go to the ball dance."

***

In a small dining room filled with the fragrance smell of spices and well cooked meals, no sounds can be heard except the sound of utensils and chewing as awkward silence fills the room. Sitting around a small wooden table that serves as a dining table; Basur, Esther, and Naurel enjoyed their dinner. The food prepared by Basur was quite exquisite despite his limitations in ingredients, good enough to make Naurel unconsciously mutter about how amazing it is.

"God dammit, if no one did not talk for one more second I might go crazy." Basur frustratedly screamed as he felt uncomfortable with the awkward silence in the room. "You guys barely talked to each other after you went to the market. Care to explain what this is about?"

As Esther is about to open her mouth, she glances at Naurel across the table. Her vision focused on his face for a second and as if recognizing her glare, he looked up to look her in her eyes. A sweet smile shows up once again on his face as their eyes meet, and just like that, every word on the tip of her tongue disappears without a trace. She only pouts and went back to eating.

"Fine, if nobody wants to tell me then. I also have my own secret and will not share it with you all." Basur dramatically sighs. "Naurel, darling, how are you feeling?"

"All good, thanks for the medicine. It worked really well." Naurel shifted his glance toward Basur. "You truly are a miracle."

"Well, you are the weird one darling. You were in a really bad condition when Esther brought you here. If it is Esther, I would be used to it, but you also recovered quite fast." Basur puts down his utensil as he finishes eating. "What happened to you anyway? Who attacked you?"

"Oh, yeah, that monster. Who is he?" Esther joined in excitedly. "What did he mean by you knowing too much?"

"I don't know either. I was walking alone on my way home when I heard a strange sound. And when I decided to see the source, I saw a hulking monster with four arms transformed into him." Naurel scratches his nose a little. "I don't know which one is the real him, The monster or the human."

"Maybe we should look into this further. I mean, a monster that lives among us sounds dangerous. Moreover, his human form is an Azdhaka. He might be one of the nobles in the city."

"How? We did not have any clue at all. We don't even know who this person is." Basur adds. "It's not like you have a list of Azdhaka friends who can help you identify that person, right?"

"Basur is right, Esther. This is also dangerous. Remember what he can do against the two of us. We cannot just blindly track him. We need strategy."

Silence fills the room once again as the three of them think of the best steps that they should take next. Esther's head is filled with every scenario that she can think of. In her mind, she can accept what Basur and Naurel said as blindly tracking this creature is dangerous, but she is afraid about what might happen to other people if this kind of monster freely roams this city. A sense of justice and duty once again filled her head. As the one born with exceptional blessing from their deity, it is her duty to protect the people, whatever it takes.

As her head is raking for any possible way to track the creature, suddenly, she remembered something that she heard yesterday from a certain someone. That this city is in danger, that somewhere out there, a creature that has never been seen before is lurking, taking prey on innocent citizens of Aizdihar. Remembering that sentence, her head was filled with shame and regret. She instinctively slammed her own forehead at the dining table in front of her when she realized that she was too hot headed at that time, surprising both Basur and Naurel.

"I think I have someone that we can rely on for this matter." Esther's voice is muffled with the table in front of her mouth. "I might not like this and regret it later, but I know someone that can help."