Baccano! - Volume 21 - Chapter 18

Chapter 18 They Don’t Go Back on Their Word

The day after Ennis’s kidnapping, a sign that read CLOSED hung on Alveare’s main door.

Even so, more people than usual were crowded into the restaurant.

The Martillo Family belonged to an organization known as the Camorra, an outfit with roots in Naples, Italy. However, these gangsters had evolved independently in America. Although their territory was a small one in a corner of New York, the mere fact that they were an independent syndicate in Manhattan was unusual.

People wondered how they and the Gandor Family managed to stay around; on the other hand, the outfit also tended to get mocked for being so small the big fish didn’t feel the need to deal with it.

Alveare was a restaurant managed by the family. The place was aboveboard now, but before Prohibition was abolished, it had been a pretty famous speakeasy.

Inside, a crowd of visibly anxious young men had gathered. They were the most junior members of the Martillo Family’s soldiers.

Some of them had been too intimidated by the executives to stop by the restaurant, so there were only thirty or so present. Considering the size of their territory, this was pretty good, though some people in the crowd were obviously not criminals. The group was a rather motley one.

Most of the members had been summoned, including the young men who worked at Firo’s gambling den.

However, none of the camorristas—the executives—were present in the crowd. They were all in the room with the round table, under the restaurant.

As a rule, the group only assembled there to give their regular reports, or for the “ritual” when someone was promoted to executive. Even the young soldiers knew that neither of those things was happening today.

The Runorata Family had issued a challenge to the Martillos’ underground casino.

The executives Yaguruma and Maiza had been attacked.

And then Firo’s roommate Ennis had been kidnapped.

All these things had happened in rapid succession, and word had reached even the lower levels of the organization. They put on a brave front, but most of them were scared.

The Martillo Family had always been a small outfit, and in recent years—ever since New York came under the control of the Five Families—they’d seen hardly any fighting at all.

Just once, they’d almost gone to the mattresses with the Gandor Family, but Molsa Martillo and Keith Gandor had met and managed to cool both families down in the nick of time.

They’d had an anti-war pact with the Gandors ever since, and it had never been broken.

Unfortunately, that made the recent attacks even more disconcerting for the family.

After all, the aggressors hadn’t been an outfit their own size. They were up against the Runorata Family, one of the biggest syndicates in the East—fear was perfectly natural. Plus, they didn’t know what had triggered the hostilities. All they could do was wait for the verdict of the executives who were meeting in the basement.

The timid ones briefly considered selling out to the Runorata Family, but they didn’t even know what the Runoratas were after. Realizing this meant they had no idea what to sell out or how, they started making plans to skip town instead.

Seina, the restaurant’s proprietor, had been watching the scattered reactions from behind the counter. She turned to Lia Lin-Shan, one of the waitresses. “Good grief. Look at these ninnies, all ready to run. Pathetic.”

“It really is.”

The women knew all about the situation. They were aware that they might be targeted, but they were staying calm. Panicking wouldn’t turn the situation in their favor.

“This is why we’ve gone four years without getting any new camorristas. I thought Firo was wet behind the ears before they promoted him, but he was a good sight better than this crew.”

Grumbling, Seina worked alongside Lia to get the food ready. The restaurant might be closed for the day, but the two women had stayed there to cook for the Martillo Family.

The young men didn’t seem to hear their complaints. They just kept on muttering among themselves in a mixture of unease and excitement.

Meanwhile, down in the basement, the executives’ meeting was underway.

The basement of Alveare

Alveare had begun as a Prohibition-era speakeasy.

Until a few years ago, its large underground room had been a stern, forbidding place used only on special occasions, such as the promotion ritual for executives.

However, after Prohibition ended and the place began operating as a legitimate restaurant, the areas they could use for Camorra meetings gradually decreased. As a result, the forbidden room had been opened.

It was generally used when “guests” visited or for the meetings where they gave their regular reports, as well as for promotions. Although there had been no promotions since Firo Prochainezo.

A dozen men were gathered in that room: Molsa Martillo, the caposocietà of the family, and the other executives.

As a rule, Pezzo and Randy cracked jokes together in the restaurant, but now they were somber enough for a funeral.

Everyone was silent, and the tension in the room was winding tighter and tighter. One of the men clenched his fists, wrestling down the impulse welling up inside him.

It was Firo Prochainezo, the one whose roommate had been abducted.

He might have been the youngest present, but he’d also won his way up to the rank of executive.

It would have been understandable if he’d ditched the meeting entirely, but he buckled down and toughed it out.

Granted, he had no idea where he would’ve gone. His only option would have been to fight his way into the Runorata Family. And there was no way a Camorra executive would attack the Runoratas on his own say-so. Firo loved Ennis; she was family—but so were the Martillos. He couldn’t let his emotions put all of them in danger, too.

Biting his lip, Firo kept fighting the fire that blazed within.

After checking to see that everyone was present and that silence had fallen, Molsa Martillo spoke. “I doubt any of you need an explanation, but we do need to make sure we’re all on the same page. Let’s review the issue at hand.”

The mere sound of his somber voice set the executives’ skin buzzing with tension.

“We’ve been targeted by an open act of aggression from a certain quarter.” With a deep sigh, Molsa narrowed his eyes slightly. “Or to put it more succinctly, they’ve picked a fight.” Settling into his chair and making it creak, he coolly laid out the facts. “The one responsible is a kid who claims to be a casino dealer for the Runorata Family. He’s going to be in charge of their area at the upcoming ‘party.’”

The Runorata Family.

The information itself wasn’t news to the executives, but hearing it directly from their boss’s lips gave it extra weight.

“That said, we don’t know whether he’s acting on the Runoratas’ orders or not. It may be he simply has an ax to grind.”

Firo bit his lip even harder.

The dealer, Melvi, was an immortal, and this wasn’t just territorial harassment from the Runoratas.

The last words Melvi had said to Firo over the telephone rose in his mind.

“That’s simple. Because you ate Szilard Quates.”

“You stole my future…and now you’re going to give it back.”

He’d said that was why he hated Firo.

The problem was—Firo had no idea what he was talking about.

Reluctantly, he rifled through Szilard’s memories. The name “Melvi” didn’t turn up, and the only face he could find was the one that belonged to Gretto, Maiza’s kid brother.

Dammit… After all this time, that damn geezer is still giving me grief?

Firo had only known Szilard for a few minutes.

During that brief time, the man had tried to kill him, and Firo had paid him back with interest—as a new immortal, he’d ended up devouring him with his right hand.

Even for somebody who wasn’t immortal, it would have been just a passing encounter. A murderous thug had jumped him, and he’d killed his attacker in self-defense. For a gangster, those incidents were a dime a dozen.

But now, Firo felt as if Szilard had been his mortal enemy for many long years.

After all, the man had had the memories of all the alchemists he’d eaten, and every one of them had died hating Szilard. All of them were inside Firo now. Pulling those memories out too often would break his mind, so he kept them shut away whenever he could. He didn’t have the skills it would take to forget everything except his own life, though. Every so often, he’d remember a stranger’s memory, or sometimes a recollection of being eaten by Szilard would surface in the form of a nightmare.

Every time it happened, Firo had a certain thought.

He didn’t want to think it. He knew he shouldn’t. But the question would rise from the depths of his heart, whether he wanted it to or not.

Who am I anymore?

It was a question that shook his very foundation.

Inheriting someone else’s knowledge meant inheriting their memories as well.

Some of those memories were from people with tastes Firo didn’t have, who’d taken pleasure in completely different things.

Among them, Szilard’s desires to control and destroy were particularly intense. He had enjoyed taking from others and laying waste to everything. Firo couldn’t understand him.

But many of the others Szilard had eaten—both alchemists and the ordinary people he’d made into “failed” immortals specifically for the purpose—had been similar.

Szilard had eaten far too many people.

Sometimes Firo wondered whether a decision he’d made had actually been based on his own will. It didn’t happen often, but when his own common sense didn’t mesh with someone else’s memories, he’d start questioning himself.

Conversely, this also meant that Szilard Quates had managed to maintain a clear sense of self even with the knowledge and ethics of so many others churning inside him.

Taking a casual look into the man’s memories didn’t leave Firo racked with guilt or anything of the sort.

Could that wrinkly bastard have been any greedier?

The problem was that all the glutton’s memories were now inside him.

Was there really pleasure in destroying things?

He hadn’t developed the same nature, had he?

As a test, he’d once wrecked a domino array Isaac and Miria had set up. Immediately after, he’d felt so bad about it that he wanted to knock his own lights out.

That disgust had come with a sense of relief, too. I’m really not like Szilard, he’d thought.

The man’s memories weren’t eating away at his heart—but now they’d brought disaster down on him in another way.

Melvi had told him to wager Szilard’s knowledge in a gamble with him.

These memories had caused him nothing but trouble. If the guy wanted to take them off his hands, he would have happily given them away. However, to take that knowledge, Melvi would have to eat him—meaning Firo would die. And he couldn’t agree to that.

Why had Melvi proposed a bet, though?

All he’d had to do was say, If you value Ennis’s life, let me eat you.

Firo might be furious, but being around Molsa and the others had restored enough of his reason to let that question cross his mind.

Did the guy want to make him suffer more?

Or was he planning to make the most of his relationship with the Runorata Family by forcing him to participate in the casino party?

“Well, if you want to cheat, you could cobble together a homunculus, use your left hand to share some knowledge with it, then give it to me. That would be easy if you used Szilard’s knowledge, wouldn’t it?”

The man had said that, too, he remembered.

Szilard had created homunculi from his own cells, using the knowledge of another alchemist he’d eaten. Since it was born from the cells of an immortal, this type of homunculus could be called that immortal’s clone.

Maybe because they seemed to have the same body, in a way, or possibly due to some caprice of the demon’s, the creator was able to transfer knowledge to his homunculus at will through his left hand.

In other words, Melvi was telling him to make a sacrificial homunculus for him to eat.

As far as Firo was concerned, that wasn’t an option.

To him, homunculi were no different from humans.

Say he did create and hand over a being like Ennis. If Ennis knew he’d done something like that to save her, she’d be sad. Firo was sure of it. She might not give in to anger or hatred and blame him, but he could imagine multiple ways it would hurt her.

He couldn’t force her to carry that sadness forever. Homunculi were prisoners to the same immortal fate as their creators.

The one difference was that there was another way Ennis could die, aside from being eaten.

If the immortal who was her host rejected her as “unnecessary,” her pulse would immediately begin to weaken, and she’d die a slow death.

Ever since eating Szilard, he’d felt an odd connection with Ennis—less like a thread and more like having another self nearby. He could also sense a “switch” of sorts. It wasn’t a physical switch, of course, but if he truly rejected Ennis, that switch would flip automatically and sever their connection.

As a matter of fact, Szilard had flipped that switch himself, a few minutes before Firo had eaten him. That moment—or, more specifically, the memory of it—was still inside Firo. So was the memory of how it had felt.

If he wanted to reenact that, he could do so immediately. He could kill Ennis from anywhere.

But obviously, he’d never wanted to.

It wasn’t about the relationship between a homunculus and her host. Firo had never said so aloud, but he felt a genuine affection for Ennis. The emotion was so platonic that his friends ribbed him for being too innocent, while Ennis didn’t seem to register his feelings for her as romantic ones. However, even if it was an unrequited love with no payoff, Firo could never abandon her.

Was Melvi testing to see what he’d do?

If Ennis had been taken hostage, no doubt Szilard would have summarily cut her off and shown his enemy that hostages would accomplish nothing.

Or maybe the guy was watching him to see what he did. Maybe he wanted to know if Firo would take his “sacrificial homunculus” suggestion to heart.

Was he trying to tip the scales of their gamble in his favor by learning more about Firo?

Firo could imagine a range of possibilities, but he set them aside for now. At this stage, they were all just random guesses.

Quietly forcing himself to take steady breaths, the young camorrista focused on honing three emotions.

His hostility toward Melvi. His desire to save Ennis.

And his awareness that he belonged to the Martillo Family.

I can’t cause trouble for everybody else.

I’ll have to settle this on my own…

But how?

Is there any way to take on that shithead man-to-man instead of going to war with the Runoratas?

Just as he was thinking these things, Molsa spoke to him. “Firo. Do you remember the oath you swore during the ritual?”

“…Yes.”

By ritual, he meant Firo’s promotion to camorrista.

Molsa recited the oath from memory, confirming them again with Firo. “Your right foot is in prison. Your left foot is in your coffin. Even then, you wish to keep your eyes fixed on your own path, and to at times grasp honor with your right hand… You swore it to us, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You swore that, if necessary, you can use your left hand to take your own life for our sake.”

“Of course.”

Even allowing for his newfound immortality, Firo’s resolution hadn’t changed. The Martillo Family had made him who he was today. To repay them, he’d step onto any battlefield without a moment’s pause.

Although, when I factor Ennis in, I can’t let myself die that easily, Firo thought.

Molsa went on. “Firo Prochainezo. If your father killed one of our comrades, you said you could kill your father and avenge your comrade.”

Firo shuddered, feeling a nasty cold sweat break out on his back. “…I did.”

He could replace the word father with family.

Firo’s parents were dead, and he didn’t have any relatives.

Except, in a way, he did. With their bond as homunculus and host, he and Ennis were similar to blood relatives.

Molsa wasn’t going to tell him to abandon Ennis for the sake of the family, was he? What should he do if he did?

Just as his anxiety started transforming into outright fear, Molsa continued. “Yes, that is what you swore, right here.”

“……” Firo gulped.

But Molsa’s next words weren’t what he was expecting. “You aren’t the only one. Everyone present swore that same oath.”

“……?”

Of course they had; it was part of the promotion ritual. Molsa himself might have taken that oath somewhere else, before he formed the Martillo Family.

“Taken the other way around, unless your fathers turn against us, they’re no enemies of ours. All of you are members of my family, and they are your blood relatives.” Molsa addressed the executives coolly. “Ennis is Firo Prochainezo’s family. Firo is a Martillo Family camorrista, one of our own. Messing with his family is an act of clear hostility, and an insult to us.”

“…Capo masto.”

“You all swore that same oath. You are prepared to grasp honor with your right hands and to snuff out your own lives with your left.”

The executives watched Molsa silently. Even though they didn’t speak, their sharp, resolute eyes affirmed what he was saying.

“Let me ask you again. Are you prepared to risk your lives to save Ennis and reclaim our stolen honor?”

The perfectly dispassionate question left Firo stunned.

With grave faces, Maiza and the other executives gave their replies.

“Of course, sir.”

“Do we even need to say it?”

“Naturally.”

“Miss Ennis is practically family to us, too.”

“Yeah, what he said.”

When he heard them, Firo finally understood what was going on. “Fellas…”

“Your family is our family. Isn’t that right, Firo?”

“Capo masto…”

“Don’t insult us by trying to shoulder this on your own, Firo,” Molsa told him.

Firo hung his head, feeling deeply grateful. He was ashamed of ever fearing that they’d tell him to abandon Ennis. All sorts of emotions welled up inside him, and words seemed to stick in his throat. Still, he managed one brief remark. “…Thank you…so much, sir.”

He remembered.

He’d joined the Martillo Family because he’d admired its leader’s chivalrous spirit.

Then he was reminded of one more thing.

Molsa Martillo might be soft toward his own people, but that wasn’t all he was. He was also a gangster who’d started a syndicate here in New York City and had survived.

“Now, depending on the situation, we may end up making an enemy of the Runorata Family. They’re one of the leading outfits in the East. In terms of numbers, they’re probably a hundred times our size.”

Molsa began to summarize the enemy’s threat in specific terms.

“Even in this day and age, they’ve got connections to the police, the papers, and the politicians. No doubt they can fake a crime and turn the public against us whenever they want… In the worst case, we may end up making an enemy of the nation itself.”

As his boss explained how formidable their opponent was, Firo gulped again.

Immortality wouldn’t be enough to make them feel safe around an enemy like this. In fact, it was much likelier they’d be put through something worse than death.

Most of all, when Molsa had pointed out that America itself might turn against them, he hadn’t been joking.

In the quiet room, one of the executives swallowed audibly. The scale of the Runorata threat had everyone on edge.

Meanwhile, Molsa Martillo gave them a dauntless smile. “See? Even the worst case isn’t all that bad.”

Slowly, he got to his feet, but he didn’t make a speech. His tone was casual; he could easily have been suggesting that they get ready for lunch.

“They spat in our eye, so let’s give them hell. We’ll make them wish they just had the rest of the world to deal with instead of us.” Then he brought the meeting to a close. “I’ve got Ronny checking into it now.” Ronny was the only executive who wasn’t present. “I’ll give you detailed instructions later.”

Their boss’s voice didn’t hold a hint of false cheer or bravado, and the executives began to really believe they might have a shot at winning. Even against the Runoratas.

And maybe that confidence was unfounded, but one thing was certain.

They were no longer scared of the Runorata Family.

For all of them, Firo included, that just might turn out to be their greatest weapon.

No matter what results it brought them.

An hour laterAn apartment somewhere in New York

The stonework apartment building was a fifteen-minute walk from Alveare.

When Firo Prochainezo knocked on the door of the fourth-floor room, there was no response. He waited a little while, then knocked again, calling out this time. “It’s me. Firo. Are you there, Annie?”

Inside, he heard something move.

After waiting a little longer, Firo set a hand on the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked; it swung open easily.

“I’m coming in.”

He didn’t want to walk in on her when she was changing. He moved carefully, calling out again so she would know exactly what he was doing.

He eventually found her in the bedroom.

Annie wasn’t wearing her Alveare waitress’s uniform, or a negligee. She was dressed in ordinary street clothes.

“…Oh, I knew it. I knew you’d come.”

Her voice sounded childish; it wasn’t the way she usually spoke.

Firo knew why. She was Annie, a new waitress who’d joined up after Lia, but she also had a completely different person inside her.

…Which wasn’t to say she had a fractured identity.

A separate mind called Hilton had fused with Annie’s consciousness. Since Annie’s memories and values were still there, she was, for all intents and purposes, both people.

However, Firo didn’t address Annie or Hilton. Instead, he used the name of Hilton’s first personality, the young girl who was her main body.

“Leeza.”

“What’s the matter, Firo?”

Leeza Laforet.

She was Huey Laforet’s second daughter, Chané’s little sister.

She and Firo had met in Alcatraz, and their relationship was complicated; she’d tried to kill him, and he’d saved her from a deadly punch, courtesy of Ladd.

Although Firo knew he was talking to a ten-year-old, he apologized right away. “First off, sorry for walking into a lady’s room uninvited.”

Annie stared back for a moment. “Um… Yes, well. I expected you to come, so that’s fine.”

“I bet you know why I’m here, too.”

“Yes. Ennis, right?” As she spoke, she looked away. There were several different emotions in her voice when she said Ennis’s name, but Firo didn’t notice.

He gazed at Annie, his expression serious. “Did your dad…? Did Huey take her?”

Annie’s eyes widened. “No! Father didn’t do it!” she protested. “If he had, he wouldn’t have sent that Melvi person. He’d come after you himself!”

It was clear from her voice that she was genuinely angry, and Firo apologized again. “I see. I shouldn’t have doubted him. I’m sorry.”

“Huh?! O-okay. That’s fine; I forgive you.”

She was so bewildered by his honest, up-front apology that she accepted it automatically.

Looking straight at her, Firo asked a second question. “Thanks. But, uh… You do know about Melvi, then?”

“……Yes.”

“Huh. That was fast.” Firo seemed rather deflated.

“I didn’t expect this,” Leeza told him. “I thought you’d kick down the door, grab me by the throat, and start making threats.”

“I wouldn’t have choked you, but I was planning to get answers out of you. And I’m not above threats.” Sighing, Firo leaned back against the wall. “The thing is, Mr. Molsa got me calmed down. Besides, Melvi’s a tough bastard. I gotta keep it together if I want to beat him.”

When she looked into Firo’s eyes, Leeza realized something.

He appeared calm, but not because he’d given up on Ennis. He was fighting down the desire to scream and truly trying to do everything in his power to rescue her.

……

He really does cherish Ennis, doesn’t he?

Privately, she was jealous, but she still couldn’t hate the other woman completely.

It had been a little while since she’d infiltrated Alveare as Annie.

At first, Ennis had been no more than a subject of observation. Leeza had been amused that Firo, the homunculus’s host, was dizzy for her.

But after the incident at Alcatraz, Ennis had taken on a new significance for Leeza.

When Leeza had connected with her—first as an individual, then as a woman—she’d been caught off guard by Ennis’s extreme, simple honesty. She was much too pure to pass for a human. That said, she wasn’t an emotionless doll. She had feelings, and she was familiar with both the light and darkness of human society.

As a person, she was forthright and principled, and she tried to be sincere with everyone.

The only thing she kept hidden was the guilt she felt over various acts she’d committed on Szilard’s orders. Even then, if you spent a little time with her, her regret was so obvious you might wonder whether she was actually trying to hide it at all.

Firo was such a late bloomer that his affection didn’t seem to make sense to her. If Ennis did notice it, though, what would she do? Romantic feelings might be a bewildering thing for her—but at the very least, she’d try to respond to him sincerely.

Leeza understood this—which was mortifying to her.

Ennis, an artificial human, seemed far more noble than she and her cohort were.

Of course, the fact that Leeza was capable of feeling this way showed how she’d changed as well.

In the beginning, she’d lived only for her father. Huey’s attention and praise had held her world together. That was why, when she took over the bodies of humans or birds and used them as Hilton, she hadn’t cared how much anyone hated her.

But ever since the Alcatraz incident, some buried part of her had begun to care about interactions with other people.

For the most part, she was still dependent on her father, and if she’d had to choose between Huey and Firo, she would have picked Huey instantly. Even so, the presence of someone else in her heart at all was a clear change.

That was what had transformed the way she saw Ennis. She’d become conscious of the other woman’s humanity, something she hadn’t even tried to see before.

She was jealous of Ennis, but she also wished she could be like her.

Harboring these complicated emotions, Leeza had waited for Firo to visit her apartment.

She’d expected him to be furious, had even steeled herself to lose this body—

—but Firo was calmer than she’d anticipated. Not because he wasn’t thinking of Ennis, but because he was. Realizing this, she sank back into her complicated feelings.

With no idea what was going through Leeza’s mind, Firo spoke to her again, his expression earnest. “Please. Tell me what you know about Melvi. I won’t tell Huey or anybody else about anything you say to me. I just want to save Ennis.”

Leeza was silent for a little while. Then she responded, using Annie’s body. “Is that really all you want?”

“Huh?”

“If you save Ennis, will you let Melvi go? Don’t you want to kill him?”

“……” Firo thought for a little while. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have it in for the guy. Frankly, I’d like to beat him to a pulp, and once wouldn’t be anywhere near enough. If I can’t save Ennis that way, though, she gets priority.”

“Hmm…”

“Besides, he’s not just my enemy now.”

“Huh?” She tilted Annie’s head, perplexed.

“The Martillo Family is officially hostile to him. If I got orders to stab him, I’d do it even if I personally wanted to let him off the hook. On the other hand, if the boss says he’s free to walk, then it doesn’t matter how much I want him to die.” After he’d said it, Firo remembered Leeza’s actual age and hastily backpedaled. “Sorry. You’re a kid; I shouldn’t be sayin’ this stuff to you.”

“Don’t treat me like a child. Besides, I hate him, too. If you beat him up for me, I’d be kinda happy about it,” Leeza said, and Firo averted his eyes. “…But listen. Just hypothetically, what if Mr. Molsa told you to kill Ennis? Could you do it?”

Firo looked sad. After thinking for longer than he had earlier, he shook his head. “What would I do? I dunno. The boss isn’t the sort of person who’d order a hit on Ennis for no reason, though. That’s why I pledged my loyalty to him.”

When Leeza saw the expression on his face, she fell silent. Even ignoring Firo’s natural baby face, there was something especially childlike in the way he deflated. Blushing faintly, she tried to distract him.

“…If it were me instead of Ennis, you wouldn’t think twice, would you?”

“Whoa, hey. I said I was sorry for treating you like a kid, so go easy on me.” Sighing, Firo looked straight into Annie’s eyes. “Besides, you shouldn’t put your own life on the scales to test people.”

“……”

Annie’s face flushed even redder, and she turned away so that Firo wouldn’t see. Setting her hand on the window frame, she looked outside.

“Melvi Dormentaire.”

“Huh?”

“That’s his full name. You’ve heard the name ‘Dormentaire’ before, haven’t you?”

“Oh…”

She’d jumped to the main subject so abruptly that it threw Firo for a second, but he quickly remembered what the name “Dormentaire” meant. A second later, he registered the fact that the knowledge wasn’t his; he’d pulled it out of the memories that had belonged to Szilard and the alchemists he’d eaten.

“Dormentaire… You mean the Dormentaires?”

“I think you probably know more about them than I do, Firo. Hilton doesn’t have any people who’ve interacted with them directly.”

“But…why now…?”

In Szilard’s memories, the House of Dormentaire periodically appeared as something important to him personally. It seemed as if they’d been using each other, but they’d had almost no contact after he started basing his activities in America. That was how things stood in his memories, at least.

The other alchemists and Maiza’s little brother had remembered the House of Dormentaire vividly as good-for-nothing aristocrats, but none of their memories provided a direct link to this incident, either.

However, considering Melvi’s strong resemblance to Gretto, there had to be a connection. The city of Lotto Valentino was Maiza and Gretto’s hometown, after all.

The town the House of Dormentaire had effectively occupied, and the family Maiza had left behind—what was the link here?

Firo thought desperately, but he couldn’t guess anything more from what he currently knew.

As he racked his brain, Leeza gave him some additional intel. “He approached Father fairly recently and said he was a messenger from the House of Dormentaire. He stole the position of Time’s leader from Croquis and the others.”

“Croquis? Time? What?”

“Um, wait a minute… More importantly, Mr. Firo, I assume Czes is fine?”

She’d abruptly reverted to Annie’s personality, which puzzled him. She didn’t seem to be simply derailing the conversation, though, so he went along with her. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Czes is with Maiza right now, so he should be okay.”

“I see… I hope he’s all right—Oh, Firo, sorry for the wait! Um, so Father says it’s okay to tell you about Time and the other things!”

The way she switched back to Leeza midsentence knocked Firo for a loop. “Wait, were you asking Huey over there while you were talking with me over here?”

“If I couldn’t do that, I’d never manage as Hilton.”

“…Come to think of it, you did make several dozen birds work together, didn’t you?”

“Hilton” was the collective name for the women whose minds were synced with Leeza’s. Since they all lived their lives simultaneously, it wasn’t as if everyone else fell silent whenever one of them spoke. Having to function that way would have limited the number of people she could use.

It was possible that while Leeza withdrew, Annie’s original personality spoke by default.

Once Firo had put the pieces together, he had a sudden thought.

So…what does this mean, exactly?

Does it mean the women Hilton took over are dead?

Or are they still alive, as part of her?

The problem might have some bearing on his own situation, but he suspected that would be a complicated topic, so he decided to focus on Melvi for now.

“…So, Time. What kinda crew are they?”

“Ummm, first, the members of Rhythm develop new machines and homunculi and things. Then Larva and Time put the mass-produced versions of those things to practical use. Larva supervises people like Christopher and Chi, and then, um, Time systematically utilizes the mass-produced airplanes and weapons and things.”

She was using grown-up vocabulary, but the way she spoke was still childish.

As Firo took in that rather lopsided explanation, his eyebrows drew together. “…Airplanes? Hey, the day Melvi came to the casino—Are you sayin’ those planes were…?”

“I dunno. Hilton isn’t anywhere near him,” Leeza said; she sounded troubled. Then she jumped to another piece of information. “From what I hear, a lot of the Runorata Family don’t like him much, either. It’s because he took a job from this lady named Carlotta. The people who think Melvi stinks are trying to kill him.”

Firo pinched the bridge of his nose. “Great. Just what I needed.”

It wasn’t possible for mere mafiosi to physically kill Melvi. His immortality didn’t even need to come into it; with Claire Stanfield as his bodyguard, he was essentially untouchable.

Plus, he didn’t want Ennis to get hurt in any firefights. She wouldn’t die, but she could still feel pain. He wanted to avoid putting her through even a few seconds of agony. Even worse, if Melvi mistook his attackers for the police or the Martillos, he might get violent with her.

Claire… Could I get in touch with him somehow?

Felix Walken—aka Claire—might be on the enemy’s team now, but he was technically only working as Melvi’s guard. If Firo asked him to help save Ennis without shirking his bodyguard duties, he might cooperate. The idea was ludicrously reckless, but pulling off reckless stunts like they were nothing was his childhood friend’s specialty.

“I hate that redheaded hitman! ……Huh? Oh, hang on a second!” The way Leeza spoke changed abruptly. “Um, listen! Firo, Father’s speaking to me right now, and he says to ask you something.”

“Ask me what?” The idea of a question from Huey made Firo even warier. He’d gouged out the man’s eye in Alcatraz. There was no way he wasn’t carrying a grudge after that. Steeling himself, Firo waited.

And then—the words Leeza relayed were more straightforward than he’d anticipated.

“So, um, Father says…, ‘Can we meet now?’!”

While Firo was trying to decide whether to go see Huey, one of the root causes of all this trouble—

—the Martillo Family was fielding another emergency.

Ronny Schiatto, the man who’d been checking into Melvi, had vanished.

He had called Molsa on the phone, though.

“It looks as if I won’t be able to return to you for a while, capo masto. I’ve been pulled into some personal trouble that has nothing to do with the family. I am prepared to accept any punishment or reprimand for the delay in carrying out my duty, but the fact of the matter is that I can’t come back at the moment.”

That was the apology he’d given.

Upon hearing about this, Maiza frowned. “In trouble?” he murmured to himself, after he’d left Molsa’s office. “…Ronny?”

Maiza knew what Ronny really was, and he wondered what trouble could possibly be serious enough to tie him down. He couldn’t think of anything.

Ronny was a being many called “the demon,” and he was effectively omnipotent. As soon as he got back, Maiza had been planning to ask him to at least guarantee Ennis’s safety, even if it did go against his usual principles.

If Ronny made a serious attempt, he could probably make the Martillo Family the biggest syndicate in all of America overnight. However, because he respected—and was entertained by—human autonomy to a certain extent, he kept his hands off. And Maiza was fine with that.

Exactly what sort of trouble could someone with his abilities have been dragged into? It was definitely concerning.

If the disaster was big enough to cause problems for a demon, and it happened to be man-made—and if its instigator was Melvi, the man who had his brother’s face—then that changed things completely.

After all, if Melvi turned that disaster on the Martillo Family, or on Firo specifically instead of on Ronny, he really didn’t think they’d be able to cope.

The most serious part of this was the fact that Ronny Schiatto—an executive and the Martillos’ greatest fighter—had left the front line.

There was no knowing when his “trouble” would be cleared up, but Maiza did know one thing: The Martillo Family wasn’t the kind of syndicate that would kiss up to Ronny and depend entirely on his abilities.

Even if the demon wasn’t here, and even without the power of immortality that Maiza had accidentally brought them, the Martillos would still be the Martillos. He was sure of it.

Molsa Martillo and the camorristas he’d chosen had the strength for it.

That was why, although he’d avoided getting involved with people, he’d bent his own principles to join this syndicate. Remembering this—

—Maiza, the Martillo Family contaiuolo, made a quiet resolution.

It didn’t matter if Melvi bore a strong resemblance to his younger brother.

Maiza would plunge into the fight without hesitation. Not as an immortal alchemist but as a spear and shield for the Martillo Family.

Maiza wasn’t the only one.

Ronny Schiatto’s absence had caught the executives off guard—but it ended up only solidifying the Martillo Family’s foundation.

At the same time, Ronny’s disappearance gave many of them a sense of what they were in for.

Whether or not this turned into a war, the most important part was bound to be the casino party at Ra’s Lance.

And so they resolved to make for the casino, using their own destinies as chips, and take with their right hands the honor of protecting the family.