Doctor Demon

Inside the Cho mansion, Youngjoon and his wife were sitting inside Sungki's room with the shaman. They were eyeing him with fear and hesitation. He was in some kind of meditative state, communicating with Sungki's spirit.

Ciara could no longer hold in her curiosity. "Umm...shaman?" she began. "Where is our son now?"

He did not reply and kept on meditating. Ciara was getting impatient but Youngjoon hushed her.

"Let him work in peace!" He scolded his wife. "If he succeeds then we will finally get an heir!"

Ciara hushed up and waited for the shaman to speak. Finally, he opened his eyes.

"Your son's spirit has latched on to a body," the shaman stated. "But the body is not very stable nor healthy. He has to go in and out of it several times and hence, returns to his family quite often. He is especially stalking your daughter, Baekha."

"Why her?" Youngjoon sneered. "She's a useless brat!"

"Siblings share the same blood and have a stronger spiritual connection compared to their parents," the shaman said. "Her spirit energy keeps him sustained but if he keeps on sucking too much from her, she will also die."

"Why does he need spirit energy?" Ciara frowned. "He's merely a spirit, right? All we need is for him to give us a son, an heir whom we can name as our successor! After that, we have to send him back to...the dead world."

The shaman smiled and said, "Of course we will send him back. But for now, he needs the spirit energy from your daughter to stay in the living world. That is all you need to know. As for the heir, he will only have a son with Jisoo. He wants her and no one else."

He stood up and nodded at them. The couple were not sure about his methods but after he conducted a seance where they heard their son demand for Jisoo, they were sure that their son's spirit was around. The shaman took his payment for the day and exited the house.

Baekha had just arrived from school and was walking towards her outhouse when she spotted the shaman coming out of the house. Her nostrils flared up and she stormed towards the man.

"Hey you!"

The shaman turned around to find Baekha glaring at him.

"Those two might be blind, but I'm not!" she snarled at him. "You're fooling them with your hocus pocus and feeding on their obsession for an heir! Do you even have a conscience?"

To her annoyance the shaman was snickering. "Do not talk about things you have no idea about, little girl," he warned. "For you need to watch your own back."

He was turning away but Baekha was not done. "Hey, I'm still talking!" she exclaimed, running after him.

Suddenly, something invisible grabbed her throat and she felt as if she was being choked. Baekha coughed and wheezed, falling to the ground in shock. The hold around her throat was tightening and she was nearly losing her consciousness.

The shaman paused a few steps away from her.

"I hope you now know what I am truly capable of," he said in a cool tone. The grip on Baekha's neck loosened and she coughed violently. What the hell was that?

She glared at the man with her grey eyes, not wanting to lose to him. There was something dark and dangerous about him. Whatever he was doing, she knew that he was going to destroy them all.

I have to expose him! She swore. This man was duping the two geezers and the two fools were buying into his bullshit. She could only helplessly watch as the shaman walked away from her, feeling victorious.

"FUCK!" She yelled at him. "FUCK YOU!"

…

Hobin was studying the notes he put up on his bedroom wall about the recent murders. He was munching on ramen as he worked on the case. The latest couple were named Jang Yuri and Kwon Jaejoon. They were a newly married couple and had recently moved into the flat. To add to the strange nature of the crime, Yuri received a bouquet of blue hyacinths a few days before her death.

"This couple had no children," he muttered. "So that is ruled out from the MO. But why these people?"

There was a knock on the door and Jina entered. She found him sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the crime wall he had set up for himself.

"Any clues?" he asked, offering her the ramen. She took it and began to chow down.

"Nope," she sighed. "Kyuhyun is still doing the autopsy. We checked for a connection between the victims but there were none. Not even a shared paper route! They lived on opposite ends of the city and had different lives."

"Travel routes?" Hobin suggested. "Mutual friends or colleagues? Shopping centers? Anything?"

"I even checked if they bought the same bathroom cleaner," she said in a sullen tone. "Both were different as night and day. No connection at all. Not even between the husbands or their relatives."

But there was a connection. What was it?

"The sign," he began. "I looked it up on the internet but there's nothing. Did you ask your grandfather?"

"I tried to reach him but he went out of town this morning," Jina sighed. "Apparently, there's a water spirit causing some problems at a village and they called him. Plus, they're paying him."

Curse the money lovers in my family, she scowled.

"The killer is a demon or at least possessed by one," Hobin said. "Luckily for us, this guy has a set pattern. Unlike the last one who went off the rail. But he's raping the women. Clearly, there's a connection between these women which we are missing. If only I could get more information on him…"

Then an idea hit him.

"Hey, when there are demon attacks, spirits nearby might be witnesses as well, right?" he asked.

"Spirits can see demons," Jina nodded. "But they're not always available at the same spot. Even if a spirit saw something, they might not linger at that spot for long and move elsewhere. Also, spirits are afraid of demons. They don't wanna mingle in all this."

Then she thought for a second. "It's not entirely impossible though," she added. "I think there might be a way to lure in a spirit and ask them!"

"How?" Hobin frowned.

Jina smirked and said, "Food."