Poison City

 

“So it’s gonna be real-tricky then.” Kevin flipped back a few pages of his report and frowned even harder: “Okay, folks. Do you know anything about electrical substations?”

 

“Yeah, a little bit.” Mick shrugged as Marcus shook his head: “What do you wanna know?”

 

“Okay, here’s what I found - ” Kevin pulled out an empty page from the report and started writing on it: “You know, I’ve been tracking some other cases in the city as well. And there was recently a surge of violent crimes, almost all homicides, even in South-Western District. And here’s the weird part - a lot of them seemed to coincide with damages to local electrical substations.”

 

“That - I don’t really know anything about that.” Mick raised his brows: “But it sounded like an unfortunate coincidence.”

 

“Okay, and do you know if our substations are special? You know, compared to the substations from other cities?” Kevin turned and looked Mick in the eyes.

 

“Well, I have a couple of college buddies who have family members that are higher up execs in these electrical companies. They were quite proud of the ‘revolutionary infrastructure’ of our city’s electric grid system.” Mick thought for a while, then answered: “Apparently they had some kind of high tech and extra sturdy transformers deployed in those substations. And they are not deployed anywhere outside of the city because it was a collective trade secret of the entire city. That’s about it, I don’t know any further details though.”

 

“Special transformers, hmm…” Kevin scratched his jaw, then sighed: “Yeah, enough about me. How’s your investigation otherwise? Any leads aside from having to deal with Brooklyn Payne?”

 

“Well - ” Marcus tried to formulate his thoughts and pose a few not so orthordox questions. But before he could do it, Mick’s cell phone rang and interrupted him.

 

“Sorry, I need to take this.” Mick took a look at his phone, then went out of the precinct to take this call.

 

“Okay, while Mick is away. Kevin, here’s where I would like your semi-professional opinion again.” Marcus took a quick look at Mick then turned to Kevin: “I know - I don’t usually talk to you or anyone about this kind of stuff. But let me ask a hypothetical question first: is it true that according to legend, if a woman dies wearing red, she’ll turn into a vengeful spirit?”

 

“Yeah, well, according to legend. But I’ve gotta ask - is there something that led you to approach the case this way?” Kevin nodded, but then asked Marcus with a frown: “You know, I for one am glad that we could see more eye to eye on this, but there’s no way Captain Ko would go along with this theory.”

 

“Nonono, I am not planning on it.” Marcus shook his head: “I want to find out the truth first, and then we can think about how to handle the Bensons. And if we’re going by the testaments of the people Mick and I interviewed today, things looked pretty bad for our rich boy Carl. Before he got in that car and probably started driving drunk with Lydia Mu, he actually hit several bars trying to pick up girls. From what the girl’s coworkers told us, he might have lied to take the victim with him. And they were likely both drunk at the time of death.”

 

“She was indeed drunk.” Kevin nodded: “The autopsy did find signs of her being intoxicated - she died of asphyxiation due to vomit. So - let’s say, if things did you as you suspected - ”

 

The lights in the officer flickered a few times. Both Kevin and Marcus stopped for a moment and looked around, but there was nothing anywhere.

 

“She killed him, because she was wearing a red dress.” Marcus scratched his forehead, then sighed: “But the main reason was that he lied, got her drunk, probably and very likely took advantage of her, and eventually got her killed. The burning of him was actually some kind of just desert, because Carl Benson was, according to multiple witnesses, very boastful about this new car.”

 

“Yes. I’ve gotta say I’m liking this new Marcus.” Kevin smiled: “That sounded - actually pretty likely. ”

 

The lights in the precinct flickered some more, and a gust of cold wind came out of nowhere and blew through them. A faint weep came from the inner parts of the precinct. Marcus immediately jumped up and stood before Kevin with his Qi coursing through his meridians and concentrated on his eyes and ears. This would not be like the last time, he promised himself.

 

The world grew dimmer in Marcus’s sight, yet this time, he actually saw things that were not there before, things he never saw before, things he still had doubts about, but of which he had become more accepting.

 

The lights in the hall leading towards the evidence rooms flickered the most. Some kind of dark mist flowed from the inner rooms. At the end of the hall, a shadow started to emerge. And as the shadow gradually took shape, the hairs on the back of Marcus’ neck stood up straight and he could feel the chills radiating from his extremities throughout his entire body.

 

This was the shadow of a young woman, in a dress that was literally dripping red. Pools of blood formed as more and more droplets of blood fell from her dress. Marks of tears of blood crawled down on her face, originating from her eyes, and ending at the edges of her chin. Marcus’s hands clenched tight as he stared at this shadow right at the eyes. Yes, it looked just like Lydia Mu, but there was no way he could if this shadow harbored ill will.

 

After a short while, seemingly all of a sudden, white spots started appearing on her dress, not many, but visible. When Marcus was staring at the shadow, the shadow was also staring back at him and Kevin as well. Before long, the lights flickered once again, and for but one extremely quick instant, Marcus saw something wrapped around the shadow’s left arm and wrist, then violently pulled her away.

 

“Marcus?” Kevin asked from behind him with a curious and worried voice: “Wha - what happened?”

 

The lights stopped flickering, and Marcus felt that the back of his shirt was wet from his cold sweat.

 

“Did you see that?” Marcus asked, still looking around just in case something else would appear.

 

“See what?” Kevin appeared confused, then his eyes lit up: “What did you see? Did something just happen?”

 

“What happened?” Just this moment, Mick came back into the precinct after taking his call.

 

“Okay.” Marcus quickly gathered himself, then turned to Kevin: “So, Kevin, when you have time, please continue looking into the things I mentioned to you last time. To be honest, I am still unclear what I saw, but I’ll come back and explain everything, okay? I need to check on something.”

 

“Detective, do you want me to come with you?” Mick asked, confused but slightly embarrassed: “I can’t if it’s too far, I’ve gotta …”

 

“No need, I need to go in alone.” Marcus opened up his drawers and shuffled through some files before he pulled up a map with Kevin’s drawings on it: “Kevin, if you are working here til late, be sure to prep more of those talismans, okay?”

 

“What’s going on?” Mick asked.

 

“Okay, let me know if you need some technical support.” Kevin nodded.

 

“I’ll explain later!” Marcus picked up the squad car keys again and ran towards the garage. On his way, he sent a quick message to his father, informing him that he would be late tonight again and there would be no need to wait for him.

 

The map he had in his hand was from more than a month ago at this point, it was one that was marked by Kevin. The marked area on the map, was the old turf of Bai Gu, the “junior” drug dealer of one of the crews under the local drug lord Carl Strong. Per his knowledge, that area should be abandoned right now due to some of the recent crackdowns from the city police forces, which would be beneficial for what he was about to do. Visiting an unsafe area at this time of day was not a good idea, but he could not help the urge to check the area out and could not wait till next morning. Bai Gu cried about a woman wanting to kill him, he did not believe him then. But right now he just wanted to try and see for himself.

 

One good thing about this time of day, at least to Marcus, was that traffic everywhere had mostly subsided. The drive was only about half an hour, and he was able to reach the area before the sun completely went down.

 

Under the dimming orange and red clouds, Marcus parked the squad car in a relatively secure corner away from the actual turf, then walked to the area and started looking around.

 

If it was before, Marcus would have no idea what to look for or even where to start. But now that his Qi controlling technique proved effective, he could revisit everything with literally a fresh new perspective.