The squad cars arrived at 4:40 AM. Kelvin put Hana, her mother, and Kalina in his car. Not the squad car. His. Less traceable.
Aoi was waiting at his apartment. She looked at Kalina. At the way the baby was sitting up, studying Aoi like she was a suspect.
"That's not possible," Aoi said.
"No," kelvin agreed. "It's not."
He spread the case file on his kitchen table. Case #0819. Plus new photos. Claw marks. The kimono cloth. Kalina birthmark.
"Dark Mountain," kelvin said. "Where is it?"
Aoi frowned. "It's not real. It's a story mothers tell kids. 'Be good or Dark Mountain will take you.'"
"Yume's report said she ran toward Dark Mountain before she jumped."
"Because she was delusional, kelvin."
Kelvin pulled up a map. "There's no mountain named 'Dark Mountain' in Oyo State. Or Nigeria. I checked geological surveys. Satellite. Nothing."
"Because it's not—"
"There's a village called Daku. 40km from Omi. Local dialect: Daku means 'Dark'. 300 years ago it was 'Daku Mountain Village'. The mountain collapsed in 1847. Landslide. Buried the village."
Aoi went still. "How do you know that?"
"Archives. I haven't slept." kelvin tapped the file. "Every mother who claimed 'demons took my baby' in the last 60 years? They all lived within 50km of Daku. Of Dark Mountain."
He slid a list across the table. 23 names. All women. All cases closed as 'postpartum psychosis' or 'infant death, no body recovered.'
"Yume wasn't the first," kelvin said. "She was number 24."
Kalina cooed. First sound she'd made.
Everyone looked at her.
Outside, 14 floors down, something howled.