“By the time I went to college, I was still disfigured. The doctors did all they could. Yet the ridicule didn’t stop. People laughed softer, perhaps, but the mockery remained. And Declan Frost and his sidekick Elliot Price were the worst of all. They had everything—money, charm, looks. Every joke they made was a theft. They chipped away pieces of me until there was nothing left. I wanted revenge. God, I dreamed of it. But what power did I have? I was small. Weak.”
Gordon lowered his gaze and turned away, pacing now in his own slow orbit, the sketchbook clutched like a relic. His voice took on a distant quality, as if he were half in another place. “So I studied. Medicine. Anatomy. When they proved futile, I turned to occult sciences. Forbidden texts that whispered of flesh as clay. And six months ago, as I scoured dust-caked volumes in the city library, I met a man called Laval. He spoke as though he had been waiting for me. We talked of philosophy, of fate, of histories swallowed by time.”
Ash felt something cold crawl the length of his spine.
Gordon’s eyes glinted in the candlelight. “He told me of a book older than every scroll and tablet of the ancients, its words inked in blood and pressed into skin. A record of truths men were never meant to learn. The medieval alchemists who translated it into Latin called itCodex Tenebris. Mr. Laval claimed that the one who mastered its secrets could bend even the laws of physics to his will. And to prove it, he uttered a few words, foreign syllables that made my head hurt and my nose bleed. I went home with the worst migraine of my life. But the next morning, when I woke up and glanced in the mirror, I was transformed. For the first time in my life, I was normal.”
Ash studied him. Rational words, delivered with the calm conviction of a man who believed what he said. Yet beneath them ran a tremor, a wire pulled taut, vibrating with madness.
“Laval gave me his card, so I went to his manor that same afternoon. I asked him what he wanted for the Book. I was ready to give him my very soul if he were the devil himself. He said he wanted nothing. That I was… worthy.” Gordon smiled, eyes fever-bright, caressing the sketchbook as if it were that very tome. “He placed it in my hands. And from that moment, the world changed.”
“So you’re saying this book… changed you. That it gave you powers, knowledge.” Ash kept his tone flat, probing. “Did it also turn you into a psycho, or were you born that way?”
“You think I’m evil.” Gordon’s smile turned thin, bloodless. “But such facile notions are insignificant against the infinite cosmic vistas of ultimate reality. I’ve seen what waits beyond the veil. The Old Design—the pattern behind all patterns—the geometry that dreamed us into being. Mind can be expanded, flesh can be undone, reshaped, reborn. Beauty is the smallest gift in the ledger.” His eyes gleamed, alight with exaltation. “And you—” he breathed, reverent, yearning— “you’re the final key.” He paced in a slow orbit around the markings, candlelight shivering. “Frost was supposed to be my final offering. But I suppose I’ll have to settle for him taking the fall instead.”
“Lucky me,” Ash muttered.
Gordon smiled to himself, small and private. “Two more nights, when the membrane between the worlds is at its thinnest. Then the last hinge turns, and my work is done.”
Ash forced his shoulders loose, mouth twisting into a half-smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” His voice was steady enough, though his mind was racing. Best not to feed the fire. Best to wait for his moment. If this is where it ends, he’ll go down swinging.
Shame he’d never see Rick again, though. Even if only to take the heat for getting caught.
Gordon lingered a moment longer, his stare weighty enough to press against Ash’s skin. He drew in a slow breath, composed himself, and pivoted toward the exit. “I must go now. I must get ready.” Gliding toward the doorway, he slipped out without another glance. The hinges groaned after him, metal scraping shut.
Ash lowered himself and sat cross-legged on the cold concrete floor, every swallow like dragging sand down his throat. The hunger he could ignore, but the thirst gnawed raw. Then, a crude idea formed.
He rose, legs stiff, shoulders rolling as he squared himself toward the rim of the trap. For a moment, he just stood there, feet spread wide, glaring at the boundary like it might flinch first. Then he thrust his hips forward, aimed his dick, and let go.
The piss came hot, steaming in the chill air, its sharp tang rising around him. The arc should have carried across, but the stream hit resistance a finger’s breadth from the line, breaking apart in a fine spray that pattered back to the stone inside the circle. The painted sigils shimmered once, oily and brief, and dulled again, untouched.
“Figures,” he muttered and shook himself off, the bitterness of ammonia clinging to his nose. A useless move, but it’d been worth the try.
The thirst dragged his gaze upward. The steady plink of water he’d half ignored before seemed louder now, mocking. A bead welled on the pipe, gathered weight, and dropped straight onto the painted rim. The dark stain softened, feathered at the edges. Another bead soon followed. Then another.
Ash’s breath caught, pulse hammering in his ears. The water was eating at the line. Slow as rot, but it was working. The boundary could break.
Hope snapped awake, fragile but fierce. He pressed it down, sat still as if nothing had changed. His face stayed blank, but his stare never left the circle’s edge. He could endure. He would endure. All he needed was time.
Chapter Fifty-Two
(10:01 a.m.)
The city slid past in blurred streaks of morning light, stone and steel washed pale by the unseen sun. Rick gripped the wheel tighter with every block, his thumb flicking the screen again.Come on, kid. Pick it up.The call rang out, hollow, unanswered. He shoved the phone into his pocket, jaw locking, and tried again two minutes later. Still nothing. Each silence weighed heavier than the last, until the whole car felt close and airless. The burrito he’d forced down on the way over curdled in his stomach, souring with each mile.
Since leaving Gloria’s lab, the same thought kept circling him like a vulture: the checkered scarf. The one Ash had seen looped around the Sculptor’s throat.Gordon’sscarf.
It could be a coincidence, nothing more than fabric and pattern. But Rick had never trusted coincidences. Too often, they were the mask thrown over something darker, waiting underneath. Frost might be the one in cuffs, but something didn’t sit right. Threads didn’t line up. And until they did, he had to be sure.
He turned onto Ash’s street, tires screeching over the slick concrete. Relief sparked when he spotted the Harley at the corner, chain looped, handlebars beaded with dew. Ash was home. Probably just passed out, phone switched to silent.
God, he hoped so.
He pulled to the curb, cut the ignition, and stepped out into the gray drizzle. Rainwater splashed against his shoes as he started toward the firehouse—but his gaze snagged on something small and black lying beside the bike’s rear wheel.
A glove. One of Ash’s. Fingers splayed, palm up, as if dropped mid-struggle.
Rick crouched, snatched it up. The leather was damp, limp in his grip. His stomach hollowed, a cold knot tightening behind his ribs. Forcing breath into his lungs, he turned for the entrance, calling Ash’s number again—and froze.
