Shower of Gold 01

Shower of Gold 01

T/N: CW for mention/implied of self-harm

Herstal heard a knock at the door.

At the time, he had just arrived home and had not yet switched on the light. He had first thrown the blood-stained jacket and gloves he had taken off into a bag, tied it up and left it in the corner for the time being. His fingers were still covered with the remnants of the dried liquid; there was a hint of blood in the air, subtle and difficult to conceal, the evidence of sin.

He paused for a moment and looked over in the direction of the door – this door obscured the earth-shattering[1] sound of the rain which was pelting the outside, making that noise strangely indistinct. And with his knife still properly in its scabbard, he should be safe.

[1]铺天盖地, lit. hiding the sky and covering the earth, meaning (in this context) very loud.

Herstal paced cautiously to the door and glanced out through the peephole. The sight he saw seemed to make him hesitate, then he slowly opened the door.

– Albarino stood in the doorway gazing at Herstal. The man surveyed him with an almost admiring gaze, sizing up the splotches of blood covering him from his fingertips to his elbows. His certainly quite expensive shirt with its silver, eagle eye stone encrusted cufflinks was completely covered in a gradually drying sticky liquid.

The cold fall breeze poured into the porch, and Albarino's hair was drenched by the rain, clinging in strands to his forehead. He had casually tidied up his hair, smoothing the strands, which had become very curled up due to being wet, to the back of his head, and flashing out a smile.

Herstal looked at him cautiously as a bolt of lightning striked through the air outside. The indoors was abruptly plunged into a flash of white light before it was swallowed up once more by the darkness.

Albarino said, "Good evening."

By then, it was already over 10 at night; by this time Bart Hardy should be standing at the scene of the crime, having received that letter about an hour earlier. Herstal digressed for a moment to think about how eroded by the rain the damned bouquet of mint was; he didn't trust the soft branches to hold up through the downpour, so the complex ball of flowers had probably shriveled long ago.

"I thought you were in prison." Herstal said cool-headedly. Albarino should have been indeed, since after the judge had denied his request for bail at the preliminary hearing, he should have been in prison before the trial started.

"As my lawyer, you might be somewhat incompetent, Herstal." Albarino's voice was soft and cheerful, although rain was trickling down every inch of fabric of his body and his fingers were, clearly, slightly shaking from the low temperature. "The charges against me were dropped – thanks to Bob Landon, who apparently has a habit of leaving parts of his victims as trophies so he can use them to relive the process of his killings whenever he wants. Today, the CSI found his diary and all the victims' hair under the floorboards of his house."

"So, it was discovered that you didn't kill Sarah Adelman." Herstal said lowly. It was difficult to tell whether he was dissatisfied by this fact, at least not from his voice.

"Yes, although they still can't figure out how my fingerprints were on that knife. But since the evidence is so irrefutable, there's no point in keeping me in prison any longer." Albarino shrugged as another drop of rain dripped from his hair onto the top of his shoulder. He neither commented on the bloodstains on Herstal's body nor greeted the other, just forcefully squeezing past him into the house, sighing contentedly at the warmth of the indoors.

Herstal sized him up but said nothing, merely closing the door in passing.

Albarino continued in a level voice, "As compensation, the Forensic Bureau wanted to put me on paid leave first; I was told that they would discuss... compensation, or something along those lines. At first, I went back to the Forensic Bureau to take some of my daily necessities. Then, I planned to head straight home."

"I really wish that you had stuck to your previous plan." Herstal said in a low voice.

"I had wanted to do so, but on the way there Bart sent me a message, so I decided to come and find you directly." Albarino shrugged and held out his phone to Herstal. A blinding white light illuminated the darkness, and on the screen was a photo of a dead body:

Bob Landon was hanging from a piano string; his body appeared strangely elongated because the weight of it was all on it. The rain wasn't too heavy yet when this photo was taken, so Landon's body looked unusually bloated and pale under the curtain of night, his chest all covered in dried bloodstains, crisscrossed with scars. His chest was open, ribs poking out, and in place of his heart were some tender green leaves and tiny purple flowers.

"A floral ball made of mint to replace this murderer's heart." Albarino sighed, softly, lamentingly, turning to Herstal. The two men stared at each other in the relative darkness of the entryway. "It's rather romantic, don't you think so?"

"I'm afraid the average person wouldn't think so, Mr. Bacchus." Herstal's voice sounded as cold as ever, as if the subject they were talking about didn't stir any ripples in his heart. "So what made you think that you should come to find me after you'd seen a photograph of a murder scene?"

"Curiosity." Albarino's voice was almost as low as he was whispering. He took a step forward; the owner of the empty residence without much character frowned. He was already nearly standing against the wall, but now he had no intention of stepping back anymore. "The Pianist stabbed that victim a lot of times, far too many... By the time tomorrow comes, we'll see the exact autopsy report by the Forensic Bureau. He did that when Landon was this alive, and I thought that those blood must have inevitably stained his fingers."

He slightly raised the corner of his lips, reaching out to grasp Herstal's right wrist, slowly lifting his hand higher. Using the blurry light from outside the window, a layer of blood on his skin could be seen, difficult-to-wash-off blood stains soaked in between his nails.

Albarino tilted his head slightly, the interest in his eyes seemingly intensified a little, "Latex gloves do a better job of stopping the blood from sticking to the killer's skin, of course. But rubber is too... industrialized, not intimate enough to touch skin and flesh through it, right?"

"How do you want me to answer this?" Herstal asked, seeming neither actually troubled nor really wanting an answer.

"'Yes, in the same way that a lot of men don't want to wear condoms when they do the deed'. I think that would be a quite witty answer." Albarino murmured, looking completely and strangely engrossed, like he hadn't actually listened to the other's snort of contempt.

His fingers slowly slid over Herstal's knuckles, grazing against the bumps of his knuckles, then tracing their way to his wrist. Herstal looked down, watching his movements, not saying a word. The corner of Albarino's mouth was still raised slightly as he pinched the blood-soaked fabric – he could imagine that scene: Herstal with his jacket off, kneeling in a dim alleyway, burying his hand deep into the dead man's chest, the white fabric of his shirt drenched by the other's blood pouring out little by little.

His fingers deftly wrapped around the cuffs of his shirt and nimbly undid the cufflinks. Herstal heard a slight clattering sound as the pure silver cufflink slipped from between his fingers, falling to the ground and rolling away with a series of crisp sounds.

Albarino pushed the reddish-brown stained fabric up a few inches, revealing the pale skin on Herstal's wrist which had barely ever seen the light of day. Then Albarino saw the scars on Herstal's wrist: all of them very old, layers upon layers on them, pale and indented, all of them parallel to each other.

"Albarino." Herstal said, as if to warn.

But Albarino's fingers still slowly brushed over the wounds; near the deepest cuts were many shallower, messier scars in parallel. Albarino's fingers slightly exerted some pressure, trying to wipe the bloodstains clean, making the other's skin on his inner wrist a little red. Herstal's shoulders were tense, but for some reason he didn't pull out his hand.

"Hesitation wounds." Albarino said softly.

"Don't analyze me with that forensic pathology stuff." Herstal's voice was as tense as his body language.

"Sorry, occupational habit." Albarino grinned, then he lifted Herstal's hand and surveyed it with a judgmental gaze – then, he suddenly moved forward, pressing his lips on top of the other's knuckles.

Albarino was quite pleased to hear the sound of the other slightly gasping. This was the most vivid reaction he could force out of him.

Herstal, on the other hand, could feel the soft lips against his skin – blood-stained skin – far too soft for the nature of the man before him. He tentatively brushed his lips over the bones, like a predator sniffing its territory. Then, suddenly, Albarino licked with the tip of his tongue, a wet, soft feeling tentatively brushing over the blood on his knuckles.

"What does that feel like? To take a man's life in that way?" Albarino said lowly, his voice slurred due to his wanton use of his tongue to clean the blood between the other's fingers, "I hadn't even imagined it before ... It isn't necessary to do so from an artistic creation standpoint, is it? To paint a picture, you don't have to make the paint yourself, so–"

Herstal looked down at him, the other was slightly lowering his head, a posture that made Albarino look a little shorter than him no matter how he examined the other.

Then Herstal said abruptly, "Like a theremin."

Uncertain whether it was done in return, Albarino put his fingertips into his mouth. His mouth was much hotter than his fingers.

There was a vague grunt from the other, barely forming a question. Herstal continued, "Your fingers only touch the physical flesh, never the soul in the metaphorical sense. Yet, through the strings you cannot touch, the soul does lie between your fingers –"

Albarino choked out a muffled laugh. He looked up, releasing Herstal's fingers and licking his shiny lower lip without any care. Smiling, he followed up, "Hoarsely[2] – "

[2]声嘶力竭, meaning to shout yourself hoarse

" –wailing." Herstal ended the sentence, closely staring at him, "Indeed."

"Like I said, that's quite romantic." Albarino concluded lightly, absentmindedly helping Herstal to straighten his sleeve, "Although there is still room for improvement in the handling of the flowers, overall the merits outweigh the flaws[3]."

[3]瑕不掩瑜, idiom, lit. the flaws cannot obscure the splendor of the jade, meaning the pros outweigh the cons.

That surely was as courteous a comment as the Sunday Gardener could make, especially when there was a bouquet of flowers on the corpse. Even though Herstal knew this, it didn't stop him from letting out a cold sniff from his nose.

"So, have you got what you wanted?" Herstal asked, beginning to feel impatient with the conversation beating around the bush.

Albarino smiled, not saying a word as he let go of Herstal's hand and slowly fiddled with the blood which had stained his fingertips. Then, he suddenly took another step forward, catching Herstal off guard and shoving him against the wall.

– In the same second, a cold blade was pressed against his neck.

Albarino didn't even make out how Herstal pulled the knife out, but that didn't matter. The sharp blade pressed slightly against his skin, the tip vibrating slightly in rhythm with the throbbing pulse of his neck, like a beam of thin and cold light in the dim environment.

"I have too many things I want, Mr. Armalight." Albarino continued smiling, continuing that same posture of pinning the other to the wall with his hand, "Like I said, I'm very curious. If I were to tell you about those enormous and complicated thoughts, you might feel bored."

"That's not a good answer." Herstal said slowly, a hint of sarcasm leaking through his voice while the blade sank into the other's skin a little deeper. He knew full well how much force was needed to be able to cut through his opponent's windpipe. "It seems that you haven't found out where I 'should be' yet, yes?"

"Indeed." Albarino replied, and with courage that was almost suicidal, he took another step forward, slamming Herstal's entire body against the wall with his torso. Herstal's hand was very steady; as his posture shifted, the knife still remained against Albarino's neck, but did not cut any deeper.

Albarino didn't even try to suppress the smile on his lips. "Although the progress might be worrisome, just like with my imprisonment – just like how you tested me – at least I saw something I wanted to see."

"What did you see?" He felt that Herstal's voice sounded smoother and darker, and wondered if it was the voice the dead who died by the Pianist's hand would hear before they died. Albarino unbridledly gazed into those eyes, callously pale blue, pupils dilated like puddles full of sin.

"I see beauty. Mr. Armalight, right now," Albarino pressed closer, not yet obliterating the distance between his own lips and the corner of the other's lips, but that didn't prevent him from blowing blood-tinged breath onto the other's skin. "You look like Danae from the brass tower."

Author's Notes

1. Hesitation wounds: Before the person committing suicide makes a fatal wound, they make lighter cuts because of inner struggle, testing how sharp is the acute object, and experiencing pain, et cetera. Typically, they are rather light, short, in indefinite amounts, and can appear independently or have multiple unconnected light cuts. They are usually parallel to the fatal primary wound, below or above the edge of the primary wound, independent of it.

2. Theremin is the world's first electronic musical instrument invented by ex-Soviet physicist Professor Theremin in 1919. The principle is to use two LC oscillator working units that sense the distributed capacitance of the human body and the earth to generate changes in the frequency and size of the oscillation respectively (T/N: read the wikipedia page to understand more). It is the only electronic musical instrument in the world which does not require physical contact.

3. King Acrisius listened to a warning by an oracle: he was going to be killed by his daughter's son. King Acrisius was very afraid, so he put his daughter inside of a very tall brass tower, not letting his daughter be in touch with people. Yet, the King of the Gods Zeus fell in love with Danae's appearance. Zeus turned into a shower of gold and entered Danae's chambers, birthing Perseus.