Ode: “…”
If he’d planned this from the start, then why wait until Ode had opened the Dream Realm to mention it? It only made him look like a show-off.
Ode leaped down from the Fissure. The rift, wreathed in swirling wisps of smoke, sealed itself in an instant, silencing the chorus of disappointed grumbles and sighs from the prey that hadn’t made the cut.
He hurried a few steps to catch up with Cavendish. As they passed through the iron gate, he glanced back at the vintage car parked in the night-shrouded road. “They’re just going to wait out there on the roadside? Call me paranoid if you want, but at this witching hour, leaving two defenseless people in such an exposed spot right outside a mental hospital? I’m already getting a bad vibe.”
“…” Cavendish glanced back with perfect understanding. “They won’t tip anyone off.”
His true thoughts laid bare, Ode decided to just lay his cards on the table. “Why? Using the fake ID from GORCC to track down Reid might tip someone off, but a vintage car worth nine figures parked all alone at the sanatorium gates in the dead of night won’t? What, do all rich eccentrics who drive antiques share some thrill-seeker’s itch for hanging around asylum entrances, staring at the front door until they can finally nod off?”
“…” Cavendish opened his mouth as if to respond, held it for a few seconds, then gave up. He walked back to the gate and waved his men over, signaling them to find another parking spot. “Happy now?”
Ode shrugged and led the way into the sanatorium corridor. Not a single light was on.
Whether from shoddy initial design or years of neglect, the looping hallway was crammed with junk, lending it a cramped, claustrophobic feel.
Muffled groans, inexplicable sobs, and the sudden squeak of straining bedsprings leaked constantly from behind the doors—each fitted with a small frosted-glass window. Even the occasional quiet room set hackles rising with the chilling thought:
What’s inside that one? Dead or alive? Would it lunge at the door in the next instant, pressing its face to the frosted pane to peer out?
Either out of caution or simple necessity, neither man switched on a flashlight. They groped their way forward in the feeble light.
Ode took point. The Duke—who claimed he needed assistance—clung tightly to Ode’s wrist, trailing right behind him like a… big tail. His vibe screamed, “Sure, I’d stake my life that my people will be fine, but as for me? I’m helpless, weak, pitiful, and blind.” “Doctor’s office first. I don’t know which ward Reid’s in.”
‘Ha.’ Ode mouthed a silent laugh. It felt like the funniest thing he’d heard in the past two weeks.
The omniscient and omnipotent Yog-Sothoth didn’t know where a mere mortal slept? If Ode dared put that down as an answer on a culture-class exam, the instructor would slap a big fat zero on it.
“This place looks like a real dump… No nurses on rounds, skimpy doses of sleeping meds at night, and don’t get me started on the lights. You ever seen a legit hospital with pitch-black hallways after dark? Especially ones littered with crap all over the floor.”
“If you hadn’t told me this dump’s called the Reid Sanatorium, I’d swear your old pal Reid was flat broke, his family too strapped to ship him somewhere decent.”
“His finances are a mess, all right.” Cavendish’s voice was matter-of-fact. “By the time the sanatorium passed to him, his family was already on the ropes. Keeping the doors open is like shoveling what little cash they have left into a black hole… But maybe that’s family pride for you. Even then, he never considered selling the place. Who’d have thought he’d end up a patient in his own institution one day?”
“But didn’t you say he was a sculptor?” Ode shot a surprised glance over his shoulder.
“That wasn’t me—it came from the police and detective reports.” Cavendish corrected him. “From what I know, Reid never dabbled in art, much less moonlighted as a sculptor.”
“But when the cops busted in, that statue next to him was eerily lifelike… Like a second Reid, alive and standing right beside the real deal. Unless Reid’s some kind of prodigy who unlocked god-tier sculpting skills while tweaking on drugs, how do you explain it? Cops checked every artist who came through London that month, and none matched that style or skill level—”
Zzzt.
Cavendish’s “level” hung unfinished as a shower of tiny electric sparks erupted from a ceiling corner.
Ode snapped his gun up, aiming at the spot. All he saw was a surveillance camera dangling limply, hissing wisps of white smoke. “…? Your handiwork?”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Cavendish shot back convincingly. “I’ve got a genuine agent right here. Cleanup’s your job, not mine.”
“Then why’d the camera—” Midway through his puzzle, Ode clocked something else. “No dust on it… Brand new. Weird… This shithole sanatorium can’t spring for a new shelf, patients fend for themselves at night just to catch some shut-eye, but they’ve got cash for state-of-the-art cams?”
What was it watching? What in this sanatorium was worth spying on?
Ode broke into a long stride, rounding the next corner in seconds. He swung his gun around—and there, on the ceiling, another camera lens smoldered quietly in the dim light.
“…Hurry up, pick up the pace! We’ve gotta find Reid fast.” Ode seized Cavendish’s wrist in turn and charged ahead, sweeping left and right down the corridor. Footsteps be damned—he hadn’t spotted a single orderly the whole way. “Injection room… Staff lounge… Doctor’s office!”
Cavendish beat Ode’s elbow or gun barrel to the door, picking the lock with practiced ease. They slipped inside without a sound.
Ode didn’t waste time expecting Cavendish to do anything but play locksmith. He dove behind the nearest desk and fired up the computer. “Shit—password protected!”
Cavendish, meanwhile, lounged against a filing cabinet, idly thumbing through a file. “Check this out. Looks like the patient registry—”
Thud.
A muffled thump against the wall from outside froze them both.
Before it could happen again, Ode ditched the mouse, yanked the computer’s power cord to force a shutdown, jammed it back in, then bolted to Cavendish’s side. He hauled the man under the desk farthest from the cabinet.
Ode’s movements were lightning-quick—the whole drill took under three seconds. Cavendish, all long limbs, tried to squirm free even after being stuffed inside. Ode crammed in after him, pinning him bodily. His right arm locked around Cavendish’s knees; his left hand mashed the man’s forehead against the desk’s inner wall, holding his head fast.
Forced into an awkward tilt of his head, Cavendish: “…”
He’d probably never been this undignified in his life. After a beat, he reached out and gripped the ankle of Ode’s right foot, planted squarely on his abdomen.
Ode, eyes locked on the gap under the desk, spared him a quick glance before refocusing. Then he felt it: Cavendish tracing letters up the inside of his calf from the ankle.
【Mind telling me why we’re hiding from whatever that is?】
Ode ground his foot down a bit harder on Cavendish’s stomach. The polished leather of his shoe nearly crumpled. 【I don’t need to. But aren’t you the frail, helpless little blind man?】
He still recalled the flicker of annoyance on Cavendish’s face when Ode had agreed to take the case.
Add in that line about “not wanting to disturb folks so late,” and Ode had every reason to suspect Cavendish was stalling. Biding time to pull off something tonight—or because he knew something favorable would go down under tonight’s cover.
If Little Qianning’s call hadn’t come out of nowhere, inviting him to that soiree, Cavendish had zero intention of bringing him here tonight. Not even with his ironclad knowledge that intruders would target Reid under the cover of darkness.
So the question was: Why the stall?
What did Cavendish aim to accomplish tonight—or hide behind its veil?
Did the conspiracy festering in this sanatorium tie back to him?
Ode pushed aside what it might mean that Cavendish had still chosen tonight to bring him here, party invite be damned. That didn’t matter for the job. Duty came first.
Right now, priority one was intel. Tail the intruder if he could, catch any slips revealing true motives, and piece together Cavendish’s place in all this.
Frankly, he wasn’t optimistic.
Even pinned, making enough racket in this tight space to draw the intruder would be child’s play. In the end, he might still have to roll out guns blazing…
What surprised him, though, was Cavendish actually settling down. Going still.
“…?” Ode couldn’t help sneaking another glance. 【…Not clinging to your precious secrets anymore?】
【What secrets?】 Cavendish could play dumb with the best of them—mostly because his skin was thicker than armor. 【Just fretting over my Daimler DE27, you know. For it, maybe a glorious bang of an explosion beats puttering down highways its whole life. Way more exciting.】
“…” Ode slowly drew his legs together. That message was long-winded enough to scream intentional. 【No clue. I’d rather it sit pretty and safe in a garage. Preferably mine.】
Cavendish quirked a brow at him, lips curving in an odd little hook. Just then, the office door creaked open—pushed gently inward.
Ode went dead silent, holding his breath. No footsteps followed.
Cavendish tapped his shoulder noiselessly and pointed off in a direction. Ode followed the gesture. There, projected on the office’s moldy, grimy wall: the shadow of a Great White Shark.
It glided slowly, silently through the air—as if suspended in water, oxygen its buoyant sea.
The long, massive snout angled with eerie precision, coming to rest before the filing cabinet. It engulfed something in one gulp, then spat something else out.
The whole maneuver was blindingly fast. Done in under ten seconds. Ode counted barely two before the door nudged open once more—then clicked shut.
Ode: “…………”
It was too unbelievable. As Ode dove under the desk rummaging for the file the Great White Shark had swapped out, only one thought filled his mind: the enemy’s shark could fly—could you pull that off, Father of Sharks?
“It replaced a medication record,” Ode said, catching a faint briny tang on one of the documents. “Joshua… Could the mastermind be trying to pin the blame on this pharmacist?”
By now, Ode had to admit that his original goal had warped a bit. It had shifted from simply rescuing Reid and unearthing the truth to something more like, “Damn… can this shark actually give patients injections?”
He tossed the files aside in a hurry, grabbed Cavendish, and bolted out of the office.
Cavendish nearly stumbled from the yank. 【Why do I get the feeling you’re especially pumped about this?】
Under normal circumstances, Ode wasn’t a fan of animal shows. But these weren’t normal circumstances… What he meant was! How many times in life did you get to watch a great white shark administer a shot to someone?
Ode dragged Cavendish along the whole way, tailing the shark until they crouched outside Reid’s room. He raised his Beretta, ready to shoot and intervene at a moment’s notice, then couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer. He peeked through the half-open door.
How was it going to do it? Ode couldn’t picture it at all. With its fins? Its teeth? Or maybe it could levitate the syringe like it did with itself?
In the midst of Ode’s bated breath, the white shark finally lowered its sharp, massive slate-gray snout. The next second, a sickening sound of twisting flesh and bone filled the air as a burly human figure took the shark’s place, standing at Reid’s bedside.
“…”
The spark in Ode’s eyes snuffed out in an instant. At the same moment, three bullets flew from the barrel, striking with deadly precision: one into the intruder’s left hand as it raised the syringe, and one into each leg.
He ignored the intruder’s sudden howl of agony and strode through the doorway with a blank expression, leveling his gun at the man’s remaining right hand.
“Bang!”
Cavendish slammed the room’s door shut as the gunshot rang out, sealing the intruder’s screams inside the cramped space. “Why do I get the feeling you’re disappointed?”
“It had so many possibilities! But it went with the most boring one.” Ode squatted down and, with what could only be called personal bias, wrenched the intruder’s jaw loose in one yank. He probed inside, pried out the false tooth laced with poison, and tossed it into his Alchemy Space.
Reid still hadn’t stirred, even as the intruder’s screams neared the breaking point. Clearly, the former director was the only patient in Reid Sanatorium who wasn’t being shorted on his sleeping pills.
The intruder’s wails devolved from piercing shrieks into wet, gurgling noises. Ode leaned down to meet his gaze. “I can put your jaw back, but what comes out of your mouth had better be a confession—not another disappointment. Clear?”
“…”
The intruder shook with pain, sweat matting his temples. Hatred flashed in his eyes; cooperation clearly wasn’t on his mind. But then he got a good look at the red-haired agent crouched beside him, and his expression shifted involuntarily.
There was something about that upward angle that amplified the impact.
Sprawled helpless on the floor, the intruder stared up at the taut lines of the agent’s thighs and glutes from his squat. The agent’s arms rested casually across his thighs; his pale right hand loosely gripped the sleek black Beretta, its blue veins snaking visibly beneath the thin skin before vanishing into the cuff of his suit, adorned with an emerald stud.
Ode caught the flicker of uncertainty in the intruder’s eyes and snapped the jaw back into place. “Who sent you?”
“Dee…”
The word slipped out almost on reflex—but the next instant—
“Boom!!!”
Blood and flesh erupted in every direction.
Even Ode hadn’t seen it coming from a perfectly healthy man. Hot gore and chunks of meat splattered across his head and face.
As bits of brain matter dripped from his jaw, Ode’s face turned ashen. His whole body went rigid, coiled like a spring compressed to its limit. After a long moment, he wiped his face with one hand and whipped around to glare icily at Cavendish, who had wisely kept his distance and stayed spotless. “Your doing?”
Cavendish had been leaning against the bed, watching the drama unfold with keen interest. Now his expression hardened. He straightened up, his voice laced with barely contained fury. “Listen.” It was a rare, commanding tone from him. “You can suspect me of plenty of things, but not this.”
“Why?” Ode didn’t budge an inch. “Because you regretted sharing the case with me and tried to stall for time? Or because you warned me not to spook the culprits, then parked your flashy car right out front like a billboard?”
“Because I made a choice! For you!”
Cavendish had never shouted in such raw anger before. His voice echoed off the walls of the room.
Ode flinched despite himself, but a conscience soaked in prisoner guts wasn’t much good right then. “What choice?”
He locked eyes with Cavendish, refusing to yield. “You’ve never told me a damn thing about any ‘choices.’ How am I supposed to know if you’re telling the truth or what you even picked for me? All I see are your secrets.”
Cavendish reined in his emotions—or at least tried to on the surface. “I did it for us.”
“I wasn’t in the loop. So it wasn’t ‘for us,'” Ode said, his tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth. His words cut like a dagger. “It was just your wishful thinking.”
“…”
Cavendish’s face froze.
For a split second, Ode had the illusion—maybe not an illusion at all—that time and space itself had frozen with him. Everything around them trembled faintly.
But the eerie anomaly passed quickly. Cavendish stood rigid by the windowsill, the cold moonlight draping over him like a shell of frost encasing his seething rage. “Then consider it—”
He cut himself off, as if foreseeing the fallout of going any further.
Anger blazed in his eyes, fueling him to barrel ahead anyway—but in the end, he swallowed the words, even if it only stoked the fire higher.
“…If I wanted to sabotage your investigation, why not do it back in the office? I had a dozen ways to kill him. Why wait for this?”
He held back, then couldn’t anymore. “Don’t you think it’s unfair, the way you treat me? Everyone else gets your trust handed to them on a platter—except me.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Ode cut in, sensing Cavendish veering off course. “Since when does ‘everyone else’ get my trust easily?”
Cavendish let out a scoff, his sarcasm dripping—never had he laid it on this thick tonight. If he could bare his teeth like thorns, Ode figured he’d jab a few holes just to make a point.
“Really? Then who was it that spent one night with that blond punk and ditched their old friend without a backward glance? Vanished forever, even breaking their first promise?”
“…”
Ode couldn’t make sense of it. “What blond… Wait, you don’t mean the Soviet Colleague from tonight’s gala, do you? He has blond hair?”
Cavendish’s face turned green. “Got a problem with white hair?”
“???”
Ode braced one hand against the floor and stood up straight, figuring he couldn’t sort this out while squatting—something about the blood flow. “So everything tonight—from the car bomb to coming here—was all because of that party? That Soviet Colleague? In some futures you saw, I run off with him and we never cross paths again? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not exactly ‘never cross paths again.'” Cavendish’s smile was pure fakery, his tone laced with venom. Ode had never seen the man’s emotions run so hot and vivid. “We did meet one more time. When, you ask? Oh, right—when you two came hand in hand to kill me.”
“…”
Ode’s mouth fell open. “Uh…”
He tried to piece it together. “So in those futures you glimpsed, I’m… with the Soviet Colleague? That’s why you were smirking every time he hit a snag tonight?”
Cavendish’s brow twitched; Ode’s phrasing made him sound anything but restrained. “I wasn’t smirking.”
Ode shot back, “Schadenfreude, then.”
Cavendish: “Just… pleased.”
Ode nodded firmly. “Schadenfreude.”
Cavendish: “…” He threw up his hands. “Call it whatever you want. Point is, when I blew up that car, I made my choice. Backing out after? Not my style. I’d stand by at worst, but I wouldn’t interfere.”
He nodded toward the bed. “Look on the bright side—at least you’ve still got Reid to question.”
“I didn’t pack any antidote for sleeping pills.” Ode approached the bed and gave the slumbering Reid a few light slaps on the cheek. “The sanatorium must have dosed him way over the limit, or he wouldn’t be out this cold.”
“What’d he take?” Cavendish pulled the room’s door open.
“?” Ode dredged up the medication record. “Uh… Lorazepam?”
“Benzodiazepine sedative. Standard antidote’s Flumazenil.” Cavendish strode out into the hall. “I can whip up an injection—push it IV.”
Ode jogged to catch up. “…Who’s doing the pushing? You?”
Cavendish halted abruptly, his tone icy with lingering ire. “If you don’t trust me—”
“You’ll just leave?” Ode had to admit, Cavendish brought out his snarkier side more than usual. He reflected on that.
Cavendish sneered. “—I’ll go kill Reid right now. That what you want?”
“…”
Ode’s snide follow-up died in his throat. A blink of his lashes, and his eyes brimmed with innocence. “I’ve never said I don’t trust you.”
Cavendish returned the feigned innocence with a smirk of his own. “Then get back in the room and wait like a good boy. Wouldn’t want to come back and find Reid had an ‘accident’—and have you blame me for it again.”
Ode blinked all doe-eyed. “…Oh.”
