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Chapter 92 - Eyes that Weep Blood

> "Ten years ago, in this very district — Rue d'Alban — the city lost its innocence."

> "The first known victim was a local butcher. Alphonse Gervais. Fifty-seven years old. Lived alone above his shop. Known in the neighborhood for his thick mustache and dry humor. The kind of man who'd give you bones for your dog even if you didn't buy anything."

> "He was found — what was left of him — by a delivery boy who came in early that morning. The boy went into shock and couldn't speak for two days. That's how bad it was."

> "There was blood everywhere. Walls. Floor. Ceiling. Some reports even claimed it had been flung deliberately like a sick kind of signature. But here's what disturbed the investigators most…"

> "Alphonse's eyes had been gouged. Not sliced. Not surgically removed. Gouged. Torn."

> "And in the sockets… they found pieces of what seemed like black marble. Polished. Cold."

> "There was no sign of forced entry. No fingerprints. No defensive wounds. But the killer had left something behind — a note, written in smeared ink:

'CAN YOU SEE IT?'"

> "From there… the nightmares began. 22 victims. Over the course of just ten years. Each killed differently. But always — always — with their eyes destroyed. And always, a cryptic note left behind. Never the same words, but always haunting."

> "Then suddenly… nothing. The killings stopped. The case went cold. People forgot. Then again after a year. It's the same pattern since then. Each year 2 or 3 killings."

---

Present

The words echoed in Brendon's head as he knelt beside the rusting fence near the old alley. The same fence shown in the old crime scene photos. Overgrown ivy, peeling paint. Still intact. No forced repair. This place hadn't changed.

Brendon touched the cold metal, his sharp eyes flicking across the surrounding structures.

Christopher stood behind him, arms crossed, his usual casual tone replaced by one of quiet dread. "I was never on this case. I have just read the files. But I can't shake the feeling that whoever did this… wasn't trying to just kill. They were trying to make... some sort of point."

Brendon stood up slowly. His voice was low. "Then the question is… what was that point? And why still now? What is the point we didn't understand, yet?"

He took a few steps toward the nearby corner shop — now closed. The butcher's old place was a café now, painted a nauseating shade of yellow with outdoor tables and no trace of its grim past.

But Brendon noticed something others wouldn't.

An old vent shaft near the back of the alley. Covered partially by a bent sheet of rusted aluminum. The marks around it were faint — but there. Scrapes. Small ones. Fresh.

He crouched, pried open the sheet, and peered inside.

Empty, save for—

A small, silver pendant, hanging by a nail hammered into the side wall. The design was obscure — a circle with a crooked line across it.

"What the hell is that?" Christopher asked, stepping closer.

Brendon carefully took it, examining the back. "Nothing. No engravings. No tag. But it wasn't here in the original file photos."

"Someone's been back," Christopher muttered.

Brendon's mind was working fast now.

"Maybe the killer… or someone connected. Maybe our suspected copycat. Or maybe someone just returning to the scene."

---

As they walked back into the main street, Brendon felt his energy realign. That subtle, wolfish part of him — always lurking under the skin — began to pulse again.

The sounds of Paris returned. Horns. Shoes on cobblestone. Conversations. But to Brendon, it all sounded distant.

Because the moment Christopher spoke the words "black marbles," his instincts had flared.

> What kind of killer leaves black marbles in their victims' eyes?

That isn't sadism. That is symbolism. The killer wants to tell them something. But what?

And if Brendon had learned anything from the alleyways of human and hybrid psychology, it was that symbolism always came with ritual.

And rituals means patterns.

---

Later that night, Brendon sat near the open window of Christopher's apartment. The faint scent of baked bread wafted from the neighboring house.

He lit another cigarette. This time, no pickpocket trick — Christopher had already given in.

The pendant lay on the table before him. Cold and silent.

"'Can you see it…'" he muttered to himself.

He pulled out his phone. Opened the gallery. Two crime scene photos—one from the recent case. One from ten years ago.

The layouts were different. The methods weren't identical.

But the expressions — the final facial twitches of the victims — matched.

That same rigid fear. That same silent scream.

Then his phone buzzed.

A message from Dr. Banik.

> "Received the fabric. It carries animal dander — hybrid origin. Also found faint traces of concrete dust and coal ash. Unusual in urban zones."

Brendon's eyes sharpened.

Concrete dust. Coal ash.

Areas like construction sites have this kind of materials.

He opened his city map app. Began marking the locations of all confirmed crime scenes across the last decade.

And then he saw it. A pattern.

They weren't random.

They were shaped like a crescent around the city's forgotten underbelly — the rail lines and hidden sectors where the hybrids lived in exile.

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