Extended Summary: Music is the brandy of the damned, and the town of St. Hetalia is about to have more than its fill, as a terrifying sweep of grisly murders strike a discordant note in the hearts of the community. Can Arthur Kirkland, Lieutenant Officer of St. Hetalia Police Department, work with Private Investigator Alfred F. Jones to solve this case before the final curtain call?
Author's Note: Thanks so much to all of you who added this to your story alerts! :D It's so encouraging to us that so many of you are interested in our little project! That said, this chapter was written by me, and I hope that you all enjoy it.
Disclaimer: Hetalia Axis Powers does not belong to us. We make no profit off of this story, and only write it for the enjoyment of ourselves and other fans.
Warnings: This fic will contain MULTIPLE CHARACTER DEATHS, blood and gore, gay and heterosexual couples, mentions of sex (and perhaps even description of sex in later chapters), and fowl language. If any of these elements bother you, please do not continue reading. Thank you.
The only sounds cutting through the thick silence that was blanketing the Austrian's music room were the soft, squelching slices of a crude kitchen knife moving through flesh. Roderich, perhaps much calmer than he should have been, was finishing up with changing the piano wire he had tried – and failed – to replace earlier that evening. His lovely wife Elisabeta knelt on the hardwood floor beside the body of their part-time maid. The Hungarian woman had long since closed the Belorussian girl's lifeless, staring eyes, before she had begun peeling pieces of flesh from the corpse. Each piece she removed contained a rough staff with notes carved into it. The music, Elisabeta thought, was sure to be beautiful, even if the canvas on which it had been formed was the height of grotesque. The young wife sighed, dropping the thick panel of flesh onto a tray with a sickening slap. Her husband glanced up from tuning the piano and watched her as she inspected the blood coating her fingers.
"What were you thinking?" she asked through another sigh, dropping her hands into her lap, mindful not to get any blood on her dress. Roderich let out a sigh of his own, although it was very drawn-out, and stroked his piano lovingly, as if it were a living thing.
"She was putting her dirty hands all over her," he whispered a bit brokenly, stroking the instrument again. Elisabeta gave him a flat look, but carefully stood, wiping her hands off with a rag. She frowned at a spot of dried blood and began scrubbing at it fervently with the cloth in her hands. Roderich, seeing his wife growing frantic, quickly crossed the room and captured her hands in his, ceasing her hysteric cleansing. She gazed up at him through tear-clouded eyes and willed her chin to stop trembling.
"What are we going to do about the body, Roderich?" she asked in a gently quavering tone. He bent and kissed her softly, calming her quivering lips for a moment.
"Don't worry about it, my dear," he crooned softly, pulling her into a waltz and twirling her gently around the quiet room. "We'll think of something."
They danced in the quiet for a few long moments – Elisabeta's breathing calming as they did, her head resting on her husband's shoulder as they stepped about the room, making circles around the body and the pool of blood surrounding it. Roderich's face was the epitome of calm and collected, perhaps even a bit aloof and distanced, and Elisabeta could tell that he was twirling them to the music playing in his head – the same song carved into the skin of the young girl he had just killed.
They split a moment later, the Austrian moving back to his piano to polish the instrument with a loving glow in his eyes, and his wife moving back to the body to begin cleaning up the mess. She took the platter with the sheet of flesh to the freezer, before returning to carefully mop up the lake of blood around the stiffening corpse. She found an old, stained tablecloth to wrap the body in, rolling the cadaver onto the cloth and wrapping it carefully, almost tenderly. After some careful deliberation, the couple moved her to the car, carrying her as if she was merely a piece of covered furniture to be stored in the garage. Elisabeta bent the girl's cocooned legs carefully as they eased her into the trunk, and the Hungarian woman tried to avoid looking at the face of her husband's victim as he closed the hatch.
They drove for miles in the still and silent night, both wondering where to dump the body. With each car that passed, Elisabeta gave a start, letting out a small, frightened whimper. The man driving seemed rather unaffected by it all, and his wife's whimpers grew into small sobs as she became increasingly aware of her own husband's detachment. After some time, the car slowed to a stop in front of an Eastern Orthodox Church. Elisabeta looked at the looming building with a hint of dread in her eyes before glancing to her husband behind the wheel of the vehicle. He removed his driving gloves and replaced them with a dark leather pair.
"Miss Arlovskaya was a member of this church," the musician informed his wife with the same sort of detachment he had been displaying all evening. Elisabeta shivered a bit, feeling somehow that the cold demeanor of the girl was suited to this harsh, impersonal building. It didn't occur to her that her shiver was partly due to the own cold tone of her beloved's voice. Her head turned as her husband began to speak again.
"Coincidentally, she also worked for another couple that lives nearby. It would be best to implicate ourselves as little as possible by implicating someone else," he spoke rather flatly, as if he hadn't just suggested that they should attempt to frame someone else for this innocent girl's murder. Elisabeta nodded in quiet agreement, not quite trusting herself to speak and fairly certain that words weren't required.
Pulling up to the side of the desolate building, Roderich swiftly exited from the car door and walked to the trunk, opening it at the push of a button with a soft click. His wife soon joined him, and together, Roderich and Elisabeta dragged the wrapped body from the trunk and towards the church steps. After propping the body against the door – the woman taking special care to make the girl look as peaceful and at rest as possible – she tied a scarf around the girl's neck, to cover where the piano wire had cut so cleanly through her throat. Elisabeta bowed her head and said a small, quiet prayer for the girl. Allowing this small moment of reverence, the Austrian soon took his wife by the arm and gently guided her back to the car. As they pulled away, Roderich watched the scene get smaller and smaller in his rear-view mirror.
"At least she'll be on time for mass tomorrow morning," he said with a small hint of irony. Elisabeta shot him a disapproving look through tear-filled eyes, but said nothing.
–
Private Detective Alfred Jones sat on the couch of his combined office and living quarters, flipping through the channels on his small TV to find the afternoon news. He stopped as he reached it, thumb hovering over the volume button as he watched a reporter standing before a building, where there was a large commotion of police moving back and forth in behind her.
"Hey, isn't that...the church on 75th Street?" he asked himself softly, before tapping the volume button a few times, listening as the reporter's voice slowly became audible.
"...-found this morning in front of Eastern Orthodox, has been identified as Natalia Arlovskaya, sister to Ivan Braginksy, the warden at St. Hetalia Penitentiary. Mr. Braginsky declined the comment on the matter, but his older sister Yekaterina Braginsky, when questioned by police just earlier today, stated...quote, 'I am not thinking it was anything to do with brother...even as prison warden, everyone is loving my brother.' Yekaterina was raised as a farmhand in the country of Ukraine; her late sister Natalia worked as a maid-service for many of the residences in the St. Hetalia area-"
Alfred switched his TV off as he jumped up from his couch. Scrabbling to get dressed and grab his badge, he began to plan out the questions he would ask the Braginksy siblings and Natalia's former employers.
Notes: The title Blut Zwischen Den Skalen (Blood Between The Scales) is a sort of play on words that we came up with. I won't go into detail at the moment, but may explain it at the end of the story for those interested.
A/N: That's it for this chapter! A bit shorter than the first, I believe, but I hope you all enjoyed it. Please leave a review! C: They make our souls happy.
