#caelixs

Rules: Send me a “ .:‡:. " and I will generate TWO random numbers. The first for a situation, the second for a sentence I have to incorporate into my character’s reply for a drabble/starter [specify].

Situation: #23 — in the back of a police carSentence: #14 — “have you got a better idea?”

The milk pours pleasantly over his tongue, its soft warmth serving as a shield to the chilly night out the window. He distances the mug's rim from his lips to gulp down the milk, giving the cityscape one last slow gander, fingers leisurely bunching up the salt rocks over the window ledge, before he pulls away from the fogged pane, pulling the sweater closer to his skin.

Times have been darker lately. Better not to stare too deep into the abyss.

It might open its eyes back to you.

Nineteen gruesome killings in Seoul city and Gyeonggi area within five days, the headlines cry out, not bothering to spare one ounce of sensationalism. It's their duty, after all, to spread an instant terror propaganda with practiced ease as soon as chance rises, a skill built and perfected throughout the years of Korean republic to distract the peoples from the scandals of their less competent governors. Nonetheless what has been happening in northern South Korea is far from the usual horror-manufactured political red herring.

Taemin sets his mug on the wooden table in the middle of his living room area, fingers massaging his jaw softly. The door has been barricaded with generous rows of salt, jugs of holy water stored behing the kitchen counter. He couldn't be too safe in times like these.

Shifting his attention back to the paper work, he marks the map with his pencil following the last location of disturbance, the one of the murder of Kwon Heeyoung, unemployed social climber. She had been found that exact morning by her friend in her bathtub. Boiled to death. Not really the kind of business a burglar would pull, but that doesn't keep media from speculating.

Timidly glistening under low candle light, the dark chrysanthemum hovers over the marked location, the quiet holding for a few seconds as he holds the cord safely above the map. Then a violent swing, an invisible force tugging the gemstone down, spreading some of the demon ash embedded into it. Taemin's hardly shocked to confirm Heeyoung had been visited by a demon companion in the time of her death. Hell is elbows deep in the chaos springing in the area, and no self-respecting occultist in the forsaken country was moving a pinky finger to put a stop to it. Small time crooks, the bunch of them.

Whatever it was, its seeds had been planted long time ago. The attacks were moving too fast for the massacre to be a last minute, single culprit affair. No, the soil had been prepared, and now is harvest time. He'd been too distracted with Geumcheon Pa and the handling of a gun shipment from Singapore to notice, but it had been growing its fruits right under his nose the entire time.

It's granted they have advantage, but there's still time to catch up, he thinks, admiring the paper sheets under the flickering lights. The lines all seem to cross at Jongno gu across the bright-colored map, ancient area of the city, traditional heart of Seoul.

Well, in stark honesty, Taemin is not a conjurer that can boast a lengthy line of successes in a long-lived career; however, he is no crook. He's got some victories to boast, a few tricks up his sleeve and certainly an excess of bite.