Chapter 4: Chapter 2: Arrested and Imprisoned
"Your Destiny will overshadow me, my past will be your gift, and should anyone betray this, they will die without a grave."
Her hand pressed against Baron’s chest. He caught it, and though startled by its silken smoothness, he still managed to say in a low voice, "Miss Carmen..."
He couldn’t get the rest of the words out.
Because Carmen, pressing the rolled parchment between them, had kissed him. She bit his lip, letting the blood dissolve into the scroll.
’My first kiss is gone.’
That was Baron’s first thought.
’Worth it.’
That was his second.
’That hurts.’
That was his third, and it gradually took over his entire mind.
A powerful wave of dizziness washed over him, like coal burning in the depths of the Abyss. In a trance, he seemed to see the Fire forging his nerves until they were transparent. For an instant, his pupils turned a molten, reddish-gold, as if a Fire had been ignited there, only for a gust of wind to blow it out.
"To survive or to perish, that is a question worth pondering."
The woman’s voice faded, drifting away like a veil caught in the wind.
He heard the CLATTER of footsteps on the stairs outside the attic, followed by a violent BANG, BANG, BANG on the door—sharp and quick, like a drum beating the army to a charge.
Baron saw that at some point, the street outside the window blinds had filled with police cars, their red and blue lights flashing. Police officers huddled together, whispering. Neighbors on the street below were doing the same.
He could somehow hear the content of their whispers from a hundred meters away. They were saying that the officers had received a call about a murderer who had broken into a private residence, killed a family of three, and was now hiding in this very villa.
’Murder? A family of three? A killer?’
Baron thought they had to be joking. A Giant Dragon lived in this villa; what killer would dare to make trouble here?
’Unless the killer is also a Dragon,’ he thought, ’or some mythical Dragon Slayer or Dragon Knight... But this isn’t a fantasy movie. Where would a Dragon Slayer or... a Dragon Knight come from?’
Something stirred in Baron’s mind. He suddenly recalled Carmen’s chant.
’Knight Law...’
"Miss Carmen..."
Baron looked down, but Carmen’s figure was gone. The soft, smooth arm he’d held in his hand had, at some point, become a sharp paring knife, its blade slick with wet blood.
Filled with a dreadful premonition, he looked toward the bed.
His heart plummeted.
Three blood-spattered bodies.
They looked just like the people in the family portrait that now, inexplicably, hung on the wall: a grandfather, a grandmother, and a beautiful, pure young woman—Carmen, her body concealed beneath tangled clothing and congealed blood.
The only difference was that her red hair was now silver, matted with blood.
Just as Baron was reeling, trying to comprehend what had happened, the door crashed open with a loud BANG. It had been smashed down by riot police with a battering ram.
But the first person to burst in wasn’t a riot officer. It was a beautiful, silver-haired woman in a bespoke suit and gold-rimmed glasses.
The police tackled her before they got to Baron. She only had time to raise her head, her light-gray eyes fixing on him with a deathly stare.
On the floor, Lady Eleanor glared at him with pure hatred and screamed, "Constantine! Look what you’ve done!"
Just before the police swarmed and tackled him, Baron pulled out the note Alice had given him for this mission.
On it, the handwriting slowly twisted and dissolved, the name "Dragoon" melting away to become "Morgwen."
Eleanor Morgwen—the true owner of this villa.
The knife clattered to the floor. Baron was pinned to the ground as police swarmed him from all sides. In the last instant before the press of bodies blocked his view, he craned his neck and saw the irises on the windowsill wither and die.
...
[Baron Constantin (Previous Self) Work Diary:
January 4, 1985 / London / Overcast
After so many years in Worlington, I’ve finally made it to London. It’s just a transfer on my way to report for duty in Birmingham, but at least I got to see Big Ben.
Ha! It really does look just like in the papers—like a proud, standing Lance.
I once wrote a poem about it in composition class. I even made it into a little booklet that I passed around to my classmates.
Let me see, how did that poem start again?
Oh, great Big Ben, you race against the clock to save the United Kingdom...
Well, to be honest, Kristen wasn’t a huge fan of that poem.]
...
From the back of the police car, Baron looked through the barred window. He saw Big Ben, just as his previous self’s diary had described it: towering into the clouds, like a proud, standing Lance.
He’d arrived in London.
Or more precisely...
Expressionless men in black suits, holding umbrellas, took custody of the shackled, black-haired young man from the police.
Baron looked up at the plaque on the wrought-iron gate.
He had arrived at a prison called London City Thirteen Prison.
He was a little surprised.
’Does the United Kingdom skip interrogations now and go straight to assigning dorm rooms to suspects?’
—
