chapter word count: 623

noir heart: one hundred and twenty

"So," Aster coughs, looking a little more red in the face than one would expect from choking on coffee, "what's got your noggin ticking?"

"My what?"

"Your cogs. I can see them turning from here."

"Oh." Sometimes, just sometimes, he wishes Aster would speak English for a change. "It's this scopolamine stuff. I found out what it's used for."

Aster, clutching the coffee in his left hand, jerks up his suit jacket so he can perch his butt on the corner of Jack's desk. "So, what, you gonna tell me or do I have to guess?"

Picking up a pen from the side of his keyboard, Jack twirls it between his fingers as he leans back into his chair. "It's mostly used to relieve symptoms of motion sickness, and also post-surgery recovery from anaesthesia. Pretty innocuous."

Aster takes a sip and smacks his lips. "I'm presumin' there's more to it than that, else Cupid wouldn't be using it."

"Mmm." Jack points the pen toward the screen. "Apparently it's prevalent in Colombia, and they call it the Devil's Breath. All you need to do is spike someone's drink with it… and ask them to give you their valuables. The victim loses all willpower and becomes completely open to suggestion. Tell them to give you their wallet, they will. They are under your total control and will do anything you want."

"Jesus… that's terrifying." Aster hesitates midway through lifting the cup to his lips. "Almost like Rohypnol."

"Kinda, except Rohypnol takes away your control of your body. This stuff… it takes away your mind."

Jack stares at the computer as the cogs turn in his head, lowering another puzzle into the silhouette-with-a-question-mark of Cupid in his mind.

And then it clicks. It horrifyingly, chillingly clicks.

His eyes go off to a distant, dark place. "I know what he's using it for."

"Controlling his victims?" Aster offers. He's not wrong.

"More than that. What have all our victims got in common?"

With a perfectly deadpan face, Aster says before taking a sip, "They're dead."

For a few seconds, Jack doesn't know whether to laugh or punch him. In the end, he gives off a dry chuckle. "Other than that, genius."

Aster's free hand goes up, and his fingers stand upright as he reels off a mental checklist. "They're disposed of naked. Half a heart carved into their bodies. Abducted in pairs. The men are stabbed multiple times, the women stabbed once. They all…"

It's when Aster trails off, his face slackening in dawning horror that Jack knows he's not just on the same page, but the same paragraph, sentence and capital goddamn letter.

"Oh God…" One hand moves up to cover his mouth.

"He's using the scopolamine to force his victims to have sex, and they're not capable of consent. He's making them rape each other." Jack feels sick to his stomach at the prospect, and the growing urge to put a bullet in the guy becomes all the more tempting. "Cupid's not just trying to kill love, he's trying to teach us what he thinks love really is."

Aster shakes his head, and the checklist-hand becomes a gesture-hand as he leans toward Jack. "It's not just that - I mean, that's fucked up beyond fucked up, but… you remember what Hiccup said about the stab wounds?"

"Single, efficient strike on the women, but the men were practically perforated?"

"Yeah. What if-" Aster pauses to place his coffee cup near Jack's keyboard, "-what if he's making the women kill the men?"

...and we reach new levels of fucked up.

special thanks to: snowfire12345, doomstone, oninoko, hornedgoddess, jelsamaleval, isawaliciaarrow, waguneru, riverfall, northernfiction, ipizzipyreads, hopelessromantic, lunasnoir, afrakm, stefalove, ebonydeann, jubulicious and stellatenedrisx17 for the reviews!