PROLOGUE
Squall Leonhart's only clear childhood memory is of his mother's execution. He is three, maybe four, standing in the front row, dazzled by the way her red dress looks in the early afternoon sunlight. He does not understand what is about to happen but he knows it's bad. Red is for traitors. Bad people.
What he remembers most vividly is the way her eyes find his the instant the first bullet tears through her chest. Pale, wide, frigid blue and full of sorrow. Her dark chestnut hair is unbound and flying in the wind. Her hands are bound in front of her, her ankles chained to a stake at her back. Blood blooms on the front of her dress, darker than the thin scarlet fabric. One splotch, then two, three, four. Wine black flowers that grow and spread like watercolor paints on wet paper.
A hand slips into his. A small hand, only slightly larger than his own.
"Don't let'em see you cry, stupid."
The boy at his side has always been unkind. Loud and mean, but his voice is barely a whisper, only a shade louder than the wind. This kindness is unlike him.
Something inside Squall goes cold and still when the light leaves his mother's eyes and her body slumps to the ground. Her eyes remain open but he knows she is no longer in there. He knows this because she is standing beside herself, unbloodied and smiling and her arms are open wide to receive him into her embrace.
He wants to run to her, into the safety of her arms but he is frozen, encased in ice. The only source of warmth is the other boy's hand in his.
Later, after they've returned to the dormitory, that same boy shoves him to the floor and calls him a crybaby. The other boys laugh.
But Squall pays him little mind. All of his attention is focused on the shape of his mother in the corner of the room, not as she was as she died, but as she appeared in the photographs he would look at from time to time when he was older and struggling to remember her face.
ONE
Squall Leonhart remembered these gardens. He remembered the smell of earth and petrichor and greenery with just a hit of floral perfume. Like stepping back in time. A stone formed in the pit of his stomach, heavy and cold. He thought he would never set foot in this place again, and he never would have if not for the favor his favorite teacher Sister Kadowaki asked of him.
"Where's the body?" he asked.
Kadowaki adjusted the folds of her habit and gestured toward the massive iron gate that lead to the cemetery. Vines and weeds poked through the thick iron bars and shadows prevailed in the space beyond.
Squall was reluctant to set foot inside. His memories of childhood might not have been terribly clear, but they were clear enough to remember what kind of hell this place was. Kadowaki was one of the few good things he'd encountered at Balamb Garden, one of the only truly kind souls among the staff at the orphanage. She was the reason he and a few others escaped. He owed her for that.
Squall pushed the gate open and the hair on his arms rose at the sound the rusty hinges made. Like the daemons Father Cid had talked about in sermon. Daemons that came to take the souls of disobedient, dishonest children. He shuddered and stepped forward into a wildly overgrown scene.
The tops of ancient tombstones could barely be seen above tall grass and weeds, the broken fountain in the center choked with vines and clogged with green slime. It smelled of mold and wet dirt and decay. Unlike the rest of the garden, nothing moved. No breeze, no insects, no sound, like stepping into a vacuum.
He didn't need to ask where the body was. That was plain. It hung from a rusted antique style lamp post by the steps of the mortuary chapel. Clad in red. Hands bound behind his back. Face purple and bloated, tongue protruding between swollen, black lips.
"Father Cid," he said mildly but filled with barely contained rage. "You didn't tell me it was Cid."
"I was afraid you wouldn't come," Kadowaki said. "Was I wrong?"
"I would have told you to go fuck yourself."
The Sister sighed but didn't scold him.
"Perhaps, but murder's still a crime, isn't it?" she asked.
"Doesn't mean he didn't deserve it."
He turned the body slowly, looking for any sign of injury. Gun shots. Stab wounds. There was nothing obvious. He stepped back and surveyed the area.
The steps to the chapel were broken, the mortar between the bricks crumbling. One of the stained glass window panes was busted and vines had edged their way inside. The stone cross atop the slate roof sat at an angle and a large oak branch lay against it, twisted gray threads of Galbadian moss dripping over the gutters.
Hidden in the shadow of an overgrown crepe myrtle, a stool lay on its side. For just a second, Squall remembered standing upon one just like this in the Sinner's Corner of the classroom, balanced on one foot, arms held out, blood trickling from his nose.
He flexed his hands, a long forgotten memory of throwing a punch in retaliation. Seifer's smug face, blood flowing from his lip. The other's laughing.
Squall shook it off and judged the distance from the body to the stool.
"Looks like suicide to me."
"Perhaps," Sister Kadowaki said. "Or perhaps it was made to look like suicide."
Squall turned to face her, to look her directly in the eye for the first time since they set foot in the garden. Her face was more lined than he remembered, her eyes a little less bright. She looked tired and defeated. Old.
"What do you want from me, Sister?" he asked. "This isn't in my wheelhouse."
"You hunt monsters, do you not?"
It was true, he did. Monsters, most of them human with the occasional vampire thrown in to keep things interesting. If this was not suicide, this was also not the work of a monster. The real monster in this case dangled before the scene of his own crimes reeking of decomposition and piss.
"I suggest you call the cops if you suspect foul play," Squall said. "I can't help you."
,
"They're going to come to the same conclusion you did."
"Case closed, then. Good riddance."
"At least help me compile a list of suspects," she said. "Can you do that?"
"Suspects," Squall murmured. "A list of people who aren't suspects would be shorter, Sister. Hell, I'd be at the top of the list if I'm being honest."
"And yet I know you didn't kill him."
"How do you figure?"
"Because this is the first time you've been back here since you were a boy," she said. "I saw the way you looked at the garden. You never wanted to come back."
Cid, appearing younger and more alive than the bloated corpse that twisted slowly on its rope, stood on the steps of the chapel watching Squall. His glasses glinted gold in the sunlight, his robes navy blue and starched.
A cold, sick feeling flooded into Squall's chest and he fought the urge to vomit at the sight of him.
Squall let out a slow, calming breath. Cid was dead and the world was better for it. If someone killed him, Squall owed them a drink.
The dead haunted him. Always there, always around. Most didn't bother to speak to him, most were wary, but they were aware that he could see them, and if he couldn't see them, he could sense them. And Cid, standing there on the steps, knew Squall saw him.
Cid gestured toward the bushes and Squall debated if he should go investigate, or walk away from this place for good.
"For better or worse, Cid loved you boys," Sister Kadowaki said. "Even if he was a monster."
If Cid had loved them, he'd showed it in the worst way. Squall bore the scars of that supposed love to this day. Inside and out.
Against his better judgment, Squall moved into the shadows and pushed aside a section of a shrub. On the ground, at the base of the plant, was a syringe containing a bright blue liquid. He caught a whiff of something chemical, a household cleaner of some sort perhaps.
"Maybe you're right, Sister," he said. "But I want no part of this."
"Squall, please -"
"No. I said I'd take a look," he said. "I never promised to help."
"If you change your mind -"
"I won't."
And with that, Squall left Sister Kadowaki, Cid Kramer's corpse, and his smiling ghost there in the cemetery, without so much as a goodbye or a glance over his shoulder.