Rick shifted his weight, his gaze scanning the image. Ash wasn’t faking, not this time. You couldn’t manufacture sleep like that—boneless, unaware. It made something tighten in Rick’s gut. He told himself he was watching for signs of deception. It was just surveillance, nothing else. What he didn’t admit was how long he’d been staring.
Minutes passed. A muscle ticked in his cheek. The hum of the monitor filled the space where logic once lived. Finally, Rick pulled away with a grunt. “Don’t let anyone else down there tonight.”
Jacobs nodded quickly. “Understood.”
Rick turned and walked away, the flare of tobacco briefly illuminating his face before darkness returned. Back in his office, the door shut behind him with a soft click. The bourbon bottle in his drawer was nearly empty. He loosened his tie, toed off his shoes, and poured what was left. Then he put out his cigarette and lowered himself onto the couch in the corner, the steady drip of the storm outside beating its own rhythm against the ache inside his skull. The last wisps of smoke danced in the lamplight as his eyes closed against his will.
{ III }
Monday, October 23
Chapter Nine
(4:22 a.m.)
The dream came for him like a tide, black and hungry, pulling him into depths where light had no meaning.
The symbol bloomed first, suspended in the void, painted in blood that never dried, lines coiling and curving with geometries that hurt to perceive. Wrong angles. Impossible spirals. A language carved into the foundation of the world before speech existed. It pulsed, each throb sending ripples through the dark, and with every pulse came the word.
Almost audible now. Almostthere, on the tip of his tongue.
A syllable pushed at the edges of his mind, thick as oil, ancient as stone, a prayer offered to something vast and indifferent. His lips moved in sleep, trying to shape it, but the sound resisted him. Teased him. Whispered from some place older than bone, older than breath, a place where things waited in patient hunger for the seals to crack.
Then the dream shifted.
The void tore open, and he waselsewhere.
An underground chamber, walls sweating with moisture, the air thick and rancid with the stench of mildew and fear. Candles ringed the space, their flames guttering in the breathless gloom, casting shadows that writhed like living things. The light was amber, sick, trembling. It licked across stone that looked more ancient than the city above.
And in the center—
Jimmy.
Strapped to a wooden X-shaped cross, arms spread, legs splayed. Naked. Shivering. His eyes were wide, glassy withterror, tears carving tracks through the grime on his cheeks. His mouth moved, forming words, pleas, prayers to gods that had long ago stopped listening.
“Please,” Jimmy sobbed. “Please, I didn’t do anything… Please don’t—”
Ash wanted to scream, to run, to tear the restraints away and pull Jimmy free. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. He was trapped inside the dream, a passenger in his own mind, watching through eyes that weren’t his.
No. Not just watching.
His hands lifted into view. Gloved. Steady. One held a blade, thin and curved, the steel catching the golden candlelight. The other reached forward, fingers brushing Jimmy’s cheek with something almost tender, almost reverent.
Jimmy flinched. “No… No!”
The blade touched skin. Ash felt it. Felt the pressure of the knife, the give of flesh, the warmth of blood welling against the edge. Felt the exquisite precision required to cut just deep enough, to follow the line from hairline to jaw, peeling back the layers with surgical care.
The blade moved again, and Jimmy’s screams turned liquid, choking, drowning in his own terror and the blood filling his throat. The sound filled the chamber, bounced off stone, shattered into echoes that never quite died. His eyes rolled back, whites gleaming in the candlelight. His body convulsed once, twice, then went slack. But the hands never stopped. They worked with the patience of ritual, the devotion of a craftsman perfecting his art.
And beneath it all, humming in the blood and marrow, the word pulsed again. Closer now.So close.Ash could almost hear it. Almost speak it. The syllables pressed at his teeth, hot and writhing, begging to be born.
You know it, something whispered from the deep.You’ve always known.
The word swelled, a tide about to break, a star about to collapse—
Ash woke.
His eyes snapped open, breath tearing out of him in ragged gasps. His heart slammed against his ribs, a frantic thing trying to claw its way free. Sweat slicked his body, cold and clammy, soaking through the thin jumpsuit. The cell swam into focus: concrete walls, a metal cot, the yellow bulb burning overhead with its sickly glow.
