GODDESSBLESSYOUFROMDEATH, Case File 40: The Final Battle

Thup continued to reach for the glass shard without averting his gaze from the ghost girl in front of him. If anything was to happen, let it happen after he had what he needed in his hand.

The white eyes rolled around until the deep black pupils appeared, staring at Thup’s hand as it grasped a piece of glass.

“Got it!” Four, four, what will you cut, eyes, mouth, arms, or legs?

‘…’

   Thup held it in his hand before turning back to King, but then he saw the troublesome ghost girl running her long, sharp nails along Darin’s body.

‘This one…’

   King glanced at the long nails stroking the belly before they slowly dug in.

“Ugh!”

‘Or this one?’

   The ghost girl returned to her own body, no longer possessing Chaba. She slid her hand to stroke Lieutenant Khem’s face with a wide smile reaching her ears.

‘Which one will you stab…’

   “Let them go.” Thup said before standing up to his full height. Despite the pain throughout his body, all he could do was clench his teeth and fight.

‘Which one, which one to kill, which one to kill, which one, kill,’

   “Me!” Thup spoke with confidence.

Her already wide smile grew even broader, satisfied with the response. She withdrew her hand from the others and looked at Thup as if she had found something she liked.

‘Take it off.’

   Her index finger pointed at Thup, signaling her intent. The young man knew well what she wanted.

His slender, beautiful hand slowly lifted to remove the amulet necklace that Singha had put on him earlier. He held it in his hand before looking up at what he had feared his entire life: ghosts, spirits, wandering souls, everything that should have vanished after returning to the earth. He had always been afraid of them.

But not today.

Thup accurately threw the amulet necklace at the ghost girl in front of him. A scream, a long, painful wail echoed before disappearing, giving Thup the opportunity to rush towards King, attempting to cut the rope with the glass shard.

“Give it here and run!” King urgently told Thup as he saw the father and son about to move Jump’s lifeless body from the ceremonial ground.

“No.”

“I said run! Go get help, go get Singha!!”

“Phii Singha…” Thup paused slightly, his eyes hot with tears. His bandaged hand, wrapped with wounds, started bleeding again.

“Hey!!!” Bom shouted, preparing to charge towards them.

“Go!! Run!!” King shouted again, but it seemed the kid in front of him wasn’t listening at all, “Hey, Thup!!”

“It’s almost cut. Just a bit more.” Thup ignored the pain in his hand. He sawed, continuing to cut through the glass with increasing force and speed.

Just as Bom was about to grab Thup by the neck, the rope that bound the young detective came loose.

“It’s cut!!”

“Go help the others!” King yelled a warning before kicking Bom in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards.

Thup immediately went to help Darin, a soft groan from his throat making him proceed cautiously.

“Ugh, damn it hurts…”

“Hold on, Phii Darin.”

Meanwhile, King was relentlessly stomping on Bom without holding back. He kicked Bom in the ribs again before dragging the young man back to the ceremonial ground where the former abbot still sat calmly in place.

“Lie down on the ground or your kid dies.” King locked Bom’s neck, tightening his grip until it blocked the young man’s airway.

“Father… just… just…”

“The ceremony must continue.”

“I said your son will die!!” The former abbot merely glanced over, put down the thread in his hand, and picked up a clay doll instead.

“Someone like you thinks you can touch my family?” The abbot twisted one arm of the doll until it broke off.

“Ugh, argh!!” King’s painful cry made Thup turn around immediately.

“Phii Darin, sit here for now. If you have the strength to escape, you must run, understand?” Darin nodded and then looked up at Lieutenant Khem, “I’ll leave this with you, okay?”

Thup placed the cracked glass shard into Darin’s hand, then approached King, who was lying on the floor in agony, before running off.

“Khun King! What are you doing?” Thup looked at the object in the former abbott’s hand, a clay doll marked with some symbols. There were also traces of blood around it.

They were using black magic on King.

“You dare mess with me, you damn cop!!!” Bom, looking like he was losing his sanity, his face and actions filled with rage. He walked over, pushed Thup away, and began punching King in the face.

“Call your mother out.” He said coldly.

“No!”

Aisuan or the former abbot responded with a firm voice.

“Fine.” A wrinkled hand lightly touched the shoulder of his son who was losing control, and Bom immediately stopped. “Bring him to the ceremonial ground.”

“But father, you said we had to wait for the right day.”

“Not anymore.”

Thup tried to crawl away but didn’t get far before Bom grabbed him by the hair and dragged him into the ceremonial ground. Thup’s arms and legs were tied to stakes on the ground, his head locked in place by AiSuan, who then used blood to write symbols on his forehead.

“Your son. Take him.” A needle and red thread were picked up, another spell was chanted, and as it neared Thup’s eyes, his little heart trembled even more, clenching together.

‘Don’t mess with my son!!!’ An unfamiliar chant from Thup made him clench his fists.

“Show yourself, troublemaker!”

“Mo… Mother…” Thup raised his head to look. At his feet stood a woman, slender, her skin deathly pale. Her long black hair, wearing a tattered sarong, one eye sewn shut with red thread, the other with broken thread revealing an eye full of anger and sorrow. Her lips also showed signs of broken red thread.

It was that ghost, the one he had seen all his life, the ghost that used to watch from afar, the ghost he feared and never wanted to see again, the ghost that once was his mother.

“Finally, huh? That thread finally snapped. I should have dragged you down into the water back then!” Aisuan picked up a knife enchanted with spells and slashed at Thup’s shoulder, making the young man thrash about.

‘Don’t hurt my son!!!’

   A scream echoed alongside the gusting wind, scattering frangipani flowers and the sweet and savory offerings before coming to stand behind Bom’s father, who covered his face with his hands.

“Catch him, Dad!!” The wind blew fiercely, messing up the ceremony area. With no one pinning him down anymore, Thup tried to free himself from his bonds. “Just kill me already!!”

Bom shouted before pulling out a gun from his father’s bag, aiming at King, but before he could pull the trigger, a flying basin knocked the gun from his hand.

“Don’t do it!!!”

Bom mounted Thup again, raising the knife above his head, but before he could act, his neck was gripped tightly, causing pain down to his bones.

‘You hurt my son, I’ll hurt yours.’

   “Chaba.” a calm voice called, unfazed by the chaotic situation. The cruel-hearted ghost woman and her daughter appeared behind Thup’s mother, tearing her arms from her body.

‘Aaaahhhhh!’

   Bom’s body was flung hard against a nearby pillar. Screams filled the air before everything calmed down again. Aisuan chanted over a talisman cloth before placing it on the lid of an earthen pot with spells. His violent coughing indicated his time was running out. Standing up to his full height, Aisuan took the enchanted knife towards Lieutenant Khem, stabbing him in the neck, blood splattering everywhere. Despite looking frail and sickly, Aisuan had the strength to drag Lieutenant Khem’s body next to him to seal his spirit. He then began sewing shut the eyes and lips.

Closing the eyes so they cannot see or search.

Closing the lips so they cannot curse or condemn.

Just like it was done successfully before, it must succeed again now.

“You can’t escape, when you don’t have any magic. With no protection, you will sacrifice yourself.” Thup said to distract the deranged person in front of him, so he wouldn’t notice one of his hands had already slipped free from the rope.

“Never, not until I’m dead.”

“Do you really think so? Haven’t you seen the expressions on those two ghosts? How do they look at you?” Thup tried to untie the other side while speaking to distract, “Those two ghosts don’t see you as their master, they see you only as the one who finds them prey. And when you’re no longer useful, the next life they’ll take is yours.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Why should I care? I just know you’ve lost all humanity.”

“Hah, do you know when my son was near death, nobody cared at all. Even my wife said there was no cure, but now look, he’s alive. He survived!” Aisuan began to pierce Lieutenant Khem’s lips with a needle, the red thread piercing through the tissue until it was stained with thick blood, making the thread even redder.

“What did you do to my mother?”

“Your mother will become a ghost, never to be reborn, serving underfoot because she cursed us!!”

“No…”

“Because of her, I’m sick like this, because of her!”

“My mother didn’t do it.”

“The day she ran away, she cursed, she damned me to die like a dog on the roadside. She cursed for my family never to find happiness just because we left her. Because of her!!!” Thup freed himself from the restraints before grabbing a knife lying nearby and stabbing it into Aisuan’s foot.

“Aargh!!! You damn kid!!! Even if you’re like your mother, I shouldn’t have let you be born!!”

“What’s that?”

“Hold him down.”

Thup, caught off guard from behind, was locked in place by Bom who had just regained consciousness. Despite bleeding from the temple and looking slightly dazed, he still obeyed his father’s command well.

“Stay still!!” Thup tried to struggle, but both his previous wound and the fresh cut on his shoulder made him increasingly weak.

“Ugh!!!” Thup writhed in pain from the needle piercing his lip.

Bang!!!

But before it could be pushed through, a gunshot from the entrance sounded first.

“If you move that needle one more bit, I’ll lodge a bullet in your skull. Whether you move or not.”

Tears flowed from his eyes when he saw that the person coming to his rescue was the one he had hoped to see all along… Phii Singha really came.

“Why the hell are you so hard to kill!” Bom cursed as soon as he saw Singha, who should have been dead, standing there with a gun in hand.

“Both of you, father and son, get down on the ground.” Singha sighed wearily when he saw neither of them moving as instructed.

Bang!!

“Ouch!!” A bullet hit Bom’s leg, causing him to release Thup and writhe on the ground instead.

“You have no right to shoot my son!!” Aisuan was shaking with anger. He stood up, holding a knife towards Singha.

“Really? Didn’t realize that, seeing as you take other people’ lives without asking, I thought it was okay too.” Singha approached, seemingly unafraid of the knife in the villain’s hand.

Bang!!

Another gunshot rang out as the bullet embedded into the former abbot’s shoulder, the knife dropping to the floor. The icy and cold-blooded expression of Singha was now the scariest thing for Thup. The young man slowly stood up before running towards the older man with tears; the pain was one thing, but seeing Singha there was overwhelming.

“Phii, how are you? Sob, are you in a lot of pain?”

“Which bastard made a mark on your face?” Singha said in an irritated voice, before grabbing Thup’s chin to turn it back and forth to examine the wound on his face.

“Hey, Singha, huff, huff, the search team will be here in half an hour.”

“Yeah, go check on King and the others.” Singha pulled out handcuffs from his back pocket and began to do what a policeman should do.

“Anuphap. No, Aisuan, you are under arrest for serial murder, assaulting an officer, destruction of state property, attempted murder, and a dozen other charges that will ensure you and your son spend the rest of your miserable lives in prison. If you have a personal lawyer, call them, or if not, the state will provide one, but with this much evidence, not even a top lawyer would be crazy enough to help.”

“You think it ends here?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never lost, I will never die.”

“Oh really?” Singha stood up to his full height before aiming his gun at the forehead of the psychopath in front of him. “Want to test that?”

“Try it and see.”

“You caught the two of us, but what about the rest? Can you catch them?” Aisuan sneered before starting to laugh maniacally.

Thup looked around the warehouse after hearing that sentence. They’re not here, those ghosts of a mother and daughter. They’re not around here, and he really sensed that it wasn’t because of Singha’s arrival.

“Phii Singha.” Thup pointed towards the back of a nearby pillar, where a hand covered in blood slowly appeared, followed by the body of a young woman who…

“…Darin.” Singha called his friend. Deep down, he knew well that the sneering smile wasn’t his friend’s anymore.

“I Am Not Da, Rin.”

 

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