The rain didn’t wash the city clean; it just turned the grime into a slick, black mirror. Dr. Karl’s silhouette was a jagged shadow against the streetlamps as he dropped me at the curb. We traded a few hollow words about meeting at a café tomorrow—a strategic retreat disguised as a coffee date—before his taillights bled into the fog.

  I pushed inside. The house was a tomb, smelling of stale copper and neglected corners. I flicked the switch, and the sudden yellow glare felt like a physical blow.

  There, smeared across the floral wallpaper in a visceral, wet crimson, was a greeting:

  “The Devil watcheth thee through treach’rous optics.”

  The air in the room didn't just turn cold; it curdled. I stood paralyzed, the silence of the house amplified by the frantic thrumming in my ears. I tried to draw a breath, but the oxygen felt like jagged ice sliding down my throat. My mind went numb, drifting toward a white void until the stinging scent of iron pulled me back to the present.

  I scanned the floor, the baseboards, the doorframe. Nothing. No muddy prints, no dropped cigarette butts—just the mocking message and the stillness of a predator that had already fed.

  My hand dove into my coat pocket, searching for the scrap of paper—the code from the café. Empty. A cold realization settled in my gut: it had been in my jacket the night I went down in front of Cressy’s place. It wasn't lost; it was taken.

  I slumped into my armchair, the leather groaning under my weight. The one thread I had was snapped.

  Then, the phone on the side table shrieked. The caller ID read Mayor Johnson. I picked up, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger.

  "Hello, Mr. Mayor."

  "Hello, Officer," the voice crackled, dripping with a polished, political brand of malice. "I heard you had a little... episode. Don’t tell me I’m going to have to find a more stable officer to handle my wife’s case."

  I tasted bile but swallowed it, clutching the receiver until my knuckles turned white. "No, Sir. I’ll be back on the clock tomorrow. I have leads."

  "You better be on it, then."

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  The line went dead, leaving me alone with the silence and the bleeding wall.

  It was evident Johnson didn’t care if the city—or I—burnt to ash in the process. He didn't want justice; he wanted a result. It was personal. Perhaps a lapse in judgment for a Mayor, but the expected cruelty of a husband.

  I stared at the phone, I remembered the day I met mayor in his garden the three voice messages and the third anonymous one, my thumb hovering over the playback button on my machine. The anonymous message hissed into the room again: “Go to The Mother Oak Church on Wrullaidweak Street. You will find strength under the shades.”

  The words were a cryptic lure, but I was starving for a lead. I stepped to the locker and pulled out Spirit. The silver barrel caught the sickly yellow light, its leather strap worn and familiar, the iron inlay engraved with a jagged ‘J’ biting into my palm. I slid it into my holster and stepped back out into the rot of the night.

  Wrullaidweak Street was a graveyard of drowned neon and mist. I killed the engine and let the car coast to the curb across from the church. The Mother Oak loomed through the fog like a skeletal hand reaching out of the earth. I pushed through the wrought-iron gate, the metal screaming against the silence of the yard.

  Then, the world narrowed.

  A cold ring of steel pressed into the base of my spine. The click of the hammer cocking was the loudest thing in the universe.

  “I know you’re trying to find me,” a voice rasped.

  “Surya,” I said, my pulse a frantic hammer against my ribs. “Don’t do this. You’ll regret it.”

  “I won’t,” he spat, the words jagged with grief. “This city and the Devil himself should be the ones to regret. They can beg for mercy, but they won't get it—not like my wife and children didn't.”

  “I know,” I said, trying to steady my breath. “I regret not doing anything that night. But the Mayor... he’s a good man, Surya. He’ll help.”

  His laugh was a dry, hacking sound. “The Mayor’s a fool. Hear this, Officer: I’ll put a hole in you too if you cross my line. This town has secrets buried so deep they’ve begun to rot. Soon, the earth is going to spit them all back up.”

  I felt the pressure of the barrel ease—a fraction of an inch of daylight. It was my only window. I spun, my hand diving for Spirit, but the air suddenly turned thick and sweet. A cloud of acrid gas hit my face, searing my lungs. The world tilted, the church spire spiraling into a black vortex, and then the pavement rose up to swallow me whole.

  Darkness. Then, a strange, floating sensation—as if I were being carried through the ether, weightless and fragile. A phantom warmth wrapped around me, a stark contrast to the biting cold of the street.

  When my eyes finally cracked open, I wasn't on the pavement. I was staring at a dark wooden ceiling, heavy beams crisscrossing like the ribs of a giant. Nearby, the rhythmic crackle of a fire danced against the shadows. I struggled to my feet, my head spinning with the ghost of the gas. I was in a room where the darkness felt intentional, draped in white curtains and heavy blankets that seemed to be trying—and failing—to soak up the gloom.