My job? To face it. To call it what it is. To speak for the dead. To bring evil to justice.
And tonight, that job had never felt more personal.
I pushed off the tree with a grunt. Pain flared through my back and I froze midway, like Bigfoot caught on camera. Waves of nausea followed seconds later.
Always the nausea.
Damn the nausea.
The pain, as always, was followed by a rush of fury. Anger at the realization that I wasn’t the invincible man I used to be. Anger that my life had changed in an instant, leaving me with a constant reminder of what had now become the good ol’ days. Anger that I couldn’t fightthe heavy hand of time.
I reached for the pill bottle again, then stopped.
Wait until you get home, Jagg.
The gravel crunched under my boots as I started down the path, avoiding Main Street and cutting through City Park. The trees swallowed me whole, the darkness pressing in, broken only by the soft glow of the trail lights ahead. I’d walked these paths a thousand times. I knew every twist, every turn.
But tonight, something felt off.
The moon slipped behind the clouds, and just like that, I was blind.
That’s when I heard it.
A sound—soft, distant, musical. Not music exactly. Not a melody. Just… chimes. High-pitched and slow, like a child’s mobile in the wind. My feet slowed.
The clouds parted, moonlight washing over me again as I stepped off the trail and into the woods, following the sound. More chimes, this time followed by a sparkle of lights flashing through the trees. My hand slid to my holster as I picked my way through the brush, each twinkle of light increasing in speed as I approached.
The music grew louder. My senses piqued.
A massive oak tree sat in the middle of the clearing with long, low branches, snarling around each other like arthritic fingers. A perfect climbing tree—aside from the fact that someone had turned it into a shrine.
Dozens of wind chimes, crystals, and strings of broken mirrors dangled from the branches, catching the slivers of moonlight and reflecting in a kaleidoscope of colors on the surrounding trees. Wiccan symbols had been carved into tree trunks.
A rotted branch had been positioned at the base of the oak, a circle of candles flickeringon top.
And nestled in the twisted arms of the oak were... dolls.
Tiny ones.
Dozens of them, strung up like sacrifices, their limbs stiff and crooked.
I stepped closer, their black, beady eyes locked on mine.
2
JAGG
Ipulled the gun from my belt and did a three-sixty scan, the shadows from the candles taunting me, playing tricks on my vision.
Once I was certain I was alone—in the human form, at least—I slid my Glock into the holster and used my cell phone flashlight to scan the tree. One particular doll caught my eye. Stringy, black spirals of hair fanning across a carved face. A flash of light lit the doll’s eyes.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
My gaze shifted to the slashes of moon through the leaves, spotlighting each doll, their beady gazes fixed on me.
I was familiar with witchcraft. But it had been years since I’d come across a Wiccan shrine in the middle of the woods… Yards from the cemetery… Days before a full moon.
In school, I took an interest in astronomy, particularly cosmology, where I learned about the highly debated theory that a full moon affects human behavior. “The Lunar Effect,” or “The Transylvania Effect,” suggests the full moon causes changes in behavior and exaggerates mental illness. Theories are just that, though. I prefer facts, and I knowfrom experience that crime is more common on nights with full moons.
