Martin's steps halted.
He instinctively reached towards his lower back, and upon touching the hard tal casing of the weapon, felt slightly reassured.
"Grab a knife and follow ," Shiller glanced toward the kitchen before turning to leave.
Martin took a deep breath. When he crouched down to place the statue's box on the ground by the door, he saw, reflected in the floor, that Shiller had taken a box with a dical emblem on it from the kitchen cabinet.
A strong instinct urged Martin to flee, but a firr rationality steadied his steps as he walked towards the kitchen.
He chose a sharp steak knife, its serrated tip glinting a cold light. The evening sun flooded the room, casting a brilliant golden sheen on every reflective surface.
A gentle breeze caressed, warm and inviting, what should have been a cozy evening of reading or chatting with family and friends on the porch, watching the sun dip below the glimring horizon, was suddenly tainted with a blood-red horror by the overly glamorous sunset.
Martin pushed open the rear door of the house.
Shiller had donned a plastic raincoat, and in front of him lay a naked corpse with a tattoo pattern all too familiar to Martin.
He gripped the steak knife tighter.
It was already late, and Gordon had finally managed to clear up most of the issues left by Deputy Chief Clay, with only the biggest troubles remaining.
To resolve these major complaints, he needed to talk to the involved parties, but it was too late to call them now. Gordon packed up the paperwork, ready to leave the departnt.
Suddenly, a series of rapid footsteps ca from outside the door, causing Gordon to cease what he was doing and frown toward the entry.
Soon a capable female officer pushed open the door and told Gordon with a serious expression, "There's trouble in the East District, a large-scale shootout between two xican gangs at the East District's second-hand market. Incidents of vandalism, theft, and arson occurred. The police departnt has received over twenty reports from the surrounding residents."
"Get the car!" Gordon imdiately grabbed his coat and holstered his gun, walking briskly out while instructing, "Send soone to seal off the area and evacuate the citizens imdiately, go to the armory for helicopters and ard trucks!"
"Ask journalists from Gotham Daily and other major news outlets to co, let them shoot from outside the third cordon, issue a level-two ard conflict warning for the area, let Brock inform all the involved businesses to close for a day, tell the market investors we'll hold a public hearing later..."
"Officer Brock has been sent out by you," the female officer followed Gordon down the stairs, saying, "He and Officer Clay took a police car this afternoon, don't know what they were up to."
"Which direction?" asked Gordon, turning back.
"West District."
A police car sat in the bleak night.
The darkness here was even more intense, like a black hole that had never been touched by light, with many houses around being demolished, and all sorts of construction machinery at night looking like indescribable chanical monsters, rearing their heads and bristling with fierce shapes.
The dust on the road was occasionally lifted by the cool night wind, swirling past the pitch-black gate, with the pointed spires of the ancient Gothic manor highlighted by the bright night sky, exuding a chilling intent to kill.
The manor gate was slightly ajar, dim light seeping through, a whiff of blood odor drifting out, and if one listened carefully, muffled voices could be faintly heard.
Brock was bandaging Clay's injured left leg.
That afternoon, following Gordon's orders, Brock had tailed Clay, who had gotten an address from sowhere and driven straight to a manor in the West District.
The black gate's columns bore a dark copper naplate inscribed in script with the surna of the manor's owner— "Rodriguez."
Without a stern warning to Clay, Brock indirectly contributed to their current predicant, resulting in Brock losing his gun and his arm being slashed, while Clay's ankle was completely pierced by a nail, bleeding profusely.
Upon arriving at the manor gate, Clay effortlessly climbed over, with Brock following suit out of his duty as a police officer, though he reminded Clay that breaking into private property was illegal.
Clay seed unconcerned, striding toward the main entrance, and then they encountered their first obstacle of the day—the door wouldn't budge.
Typically, manor doors don't use electronic locks but rely on physical security asures, usually a massive lock that would make any petty thief abandon the attempt at first glance.
Clay had professional lock-picking tools, unfazed by any physical security, but, unfortunately, he couldn't find the lock.
The door was seamless, without a lock, security asures, or even a handle to pull.
Initially disbelieving, Clay had to admit after comprehensive inspection that the door was probably opened by so kind of remote control.
If there was a remote, there had to be a switch, but after scouring the entire front of the manor, there was no trace of it.
Unable to go through the door, Clay decided to go through a window, breaking the glass to enter the house more quickly. Brock expressed no opinion but reminded Clay that damaging the manor's property would constitute burglary.
Clay decided to do it anyway.
He moved a folding ladder from the car, climbed up to the window, and smashed the glass, only to find that the window had been nailed shut from the inside with a layer of tal plates behind it; rely shattering the glass did nothing.
Brock noticed that the tal plates had a pattern of bizarre carvings, resembling Latin letters twisted out of shape, sowhat similar to the pattern on the door but different. However, by this ti, Clay was already planning to enter through the chimney.
Such manors, lacking modern heating systems, usually had large fireplaces, which ant the chimney flues were wide. Clay made his way to the backyard, climbed up the large tree close to the house, and then scaled the exterior wall to the roof.
The inside of the chimney was pitch black, so Clay dropped a flare down it, found the flue open, and not blocked, and confidently jumped in.
But halfway down, the chimney suddenly narrowed, trapping Clay. He had no choice but to call for Brock's aid.
It took Brock the strength of an ox to pull him back up, but by then Clay's clothes were rubbed pitch-black, and his face and arms were sared with soot.
Clay was aware of his disheveled state and punched the chimney opening forcefully; Brock felt the echo was a bit off.
Clay then found another sewage pipe, but the entrance was too small for him to fit through. At the ti, the Gotham Police Departnt already had modernized tactical equipnt, so Clay sent a remote-controlled reconnaissance vehicle down the sewage channel.
The reconnaissance vehicle entered the manor smoothly. Through the night-vision goggles, Clay could see the lavish interior decoration of the manor, which, however, was pitch-dark at the mont.
Even when the vehicle made it inside the main gate, no switches were seen, all the windows were sealed, and there were no passages for entry or exit.
However, Clay discovered a door near the tool shed in the back garden that might lead to the basent.
Clay believed that the basent couldn't have just one door; there should be another one in the fron court's or the back garden's tool shed. Brock wanted to say that he hadn't seen any signs of locks or handles on the basent doors either, only those strange patterns, but Clay was already rushing towards the tool sheds.
Indeed, there was a tool shed on the side of the yard, and in it, a door with a padlock. Clay clipped the lock off swiftly with hydraulic cutters.
Brock kept reminding him that the fallen lock, the marks from the cutter, and the fingerprints on it would serve as perfect evidence for indictnt, but Clay had already descended the stairs behind the door.
Brock had no intention of following him down, but less than 30 seconds later, a scream echoed from the basent.
When Brock went down, he only saw an old-style nail gun and Clay's ankle, pierced by a nail. Looking around, he picked up a fishline in the corner, obviously stretched and then snapped and curled from being pulled tight.
"This damn killer devil!" Clay cursed angrily through gritted teeth, "He's set traps in his own house!!"
Brock really wanted to say that if there were traps here, it ant that he might have expected your arrival, but Clay was shouting too loud, completely drowning out Brock's whispers.
Brock tried to help Clay up, but at that mont, heard noises upstairs; turning back, he saw nurous pitch-black tentacles pouring in from the stairwell.
Both scread in unison, with Brock dragging Clay to the other end of the corridor. Reaching another door, Brock couldn't find any locks or handles and began to ram against it with his body.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
After several hits, the door finally burst open, both tumbling out, with Brock crying out in pain as splinters from the door cut his arm.
They finally entered the manor, but it was just the beginning—all the cabinets had neither locks nor handles, apparently controlled by remote switches, but again, no switches could be found.
Brock found it hard to imagine how the butler worked in this manor. Could he have a remote control that opened all doors and cabinets?
Clay evidently thought the sa, and his new objective beca finding this remote control.
Before that, he had to dress his wound; fortunately, they had brought basic dical supplies with them. Clay had Brock bandage his ankle.
Looking at the iodine and bandage in his hands and then at Clay's skewered ankle, Brock really wanted to say that such a deep puncture wound should be more than a bandage, or else Clay might be the first cop in the departnt to die of tetanus.
But he said nothing; he sanitized the wound with iodine and then wrapped it with a bandage, awarding the injury a consolation prize like in the movies.
After dressing the wound, Clay didn't rest but darted into the manor interior like a greedy ghost starved of sustenance, seemingly desperate to find sothing therein.
He began to scrutinize the kitchen, storeroom, and tool sheds, scanning each item with his instrunts, searching for traces of bloodstains.
He broke through door after door, piled up all the carpets, began scanning and inspecting repeatedly, and recorded all his work.
"I will find it... this damn murderer must have committed countless major cris here..."
anwhile, Brock, after managing his own wound in the entry hall, groped his way to the hall's chandelier switch in the moonlight.
The mont the light switched on, he saw the tall, thin shadow standing at the back door.
With a snap, the light went out.
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