Chapter 1

This story touches on religious themes — the fundamental concepts of Light and Darkness, faith and fear. It does not aim to offend or disrespect anyone’s beliefs. The characters and events are fictional, and the portrayal of religious elements serves the narrative only. If you’re sensitive to depictions of exorcism, possession, or ecclesiastical themes, please read with care.

The gum had gone tasteless ten minutes ago. His jaw ached.

Mark Brennan stared into the gray wall of rain, fighting to see more than a yard past the hood. The storm hammered the windshield like a waterfall. The wipers wheezed once, twice — then gave up entirely. He did not bother turning them on again. Pointless.

Mark was thirty-two, but he looked younger if anything. Blue eyes. Blond hair, cropped short. Clean jawline. The kind of face that belonged on a recruitment poster — almost too perfect, like someone had carved him out of marble and forgot to add the scars.

“You know,” David Hale said from the passenger seat, “we could just stop.”

Mark did not look at him. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “We have a call.”

David was a different breed of blond. Lighter, almost silver at the temples. His hair was always perfectly combed, even in this weather — and how he managed that, Mark had never figured out. His narrow-frame glasses probably cost more than Mark’s entire wardrobe. The guy looked like he belonged in a yacht club, not a patrol car. Elegant. Refined. The kind of man who knew which fork to use and did not have to think about it.

Mark had never let him forget it.

“Still wearing those ridiculous glasses?” Mark glanced over — quick, then back to the road.

David touched the frame with two fingers. A habit. Slow. Theatrical. “They are Prada.”

“Does not make them less ridiculous.”

“You are just jealous because I look like a human being and you look like a recruitment poster.” David’s voice was dry, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

Mark snorted. He honked — short, sharp — at an old woman who had decided that horizontal rain was the perfect time to shuffle across the street. Her red raincoat was the only color in the world. She flipped him off without looking back.

“At least she is visible,” Mark muttered.

“You are so disrespectful to the elderly.” David shook his head slowly, but he was still smiling. He pulled a pack of mints from his jacket pocket, shook one out, offered it to Mark.

Mark waved it away.

David shrugged and placed one on his own tongue. Then he adjusted his cuffs — because of course he did.

“Running her over would be disrespectful,” Mark said. He eased the car into a turn, his eyes squinting through the flooded windshield. “I cannot stop. We have a call.”

David let out a long breath through his nose. He turned his head toward the window, watching the rain streak across the glass in rivers. “You are so damn proper it makes me nauseous.”

Mark said nothing. His jaw tightened. He kept his hands on the wheel and drove.

A moment passed. Then another. The wipers, dead, just sat there.

“The guys at the precinct say we are from another planet, you know that?” Mark’s voice was quieter now. Almost thoughtful.

David did not turn around. His reflection in the window was pale, blurred by rain. “Let me guess. Because we shower?”

“Because we are clean. Both of us. Apparently that is suspicious.”

Now David looked at him. A crooked grin spread across his weathered face — slow, easy, the kind of smile that had been around long enough to know better. “I will take that as a compliment.”

“Take it however you want.” Mark’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. He signaled left, even though there was no one on the road to see it. “We still have a call.”

David laughed — a short, breathy thing. “Half an hour will not change anything. It is not even a hot call.”

Mark did not answer. The church was half a kilometer away, but at this pace — crawling slower than a jog — the coroner would beat them there. He knew David was right. He just did not care.

He drove.

An eternity later, blue-and-red lights pierced through the curtain of rain. Two patrol cars, their engines idling, fogged the air with exhaust. The church rose in front of them — old stone, dark with moisture, its spires lost in the low clouds. The stained-glass windows were black holes. No light inside. Just the gray gloom of a storm afternoon.

Rain, as if on cue, came down harder.

By the time they made it from the car to the entrance, they were soaked through. Water dripped from Mark’s collar down his spine. His boots squelched on the stone steps. He could feel his socks getting wet.

David went in first through the half-open door. He did not wait. He never waited.

Mark hung back. Habit. He scanned the street.

On the corner, pressed flat against the wet wall, stood a short man in a soaked summer jacket. The man was smoking — cupping the cigarette in his palm to shield it from the rain, like he had done this a thousand times. Mark squinted through the downpour. For a second, he thought he saw a priest’s collar glinting at the throat of a black shirt.

The stranger shivered — a quick, involuntary thing — and turned his face away. Deliberately. As if he did not want to be seen.

Mark filed it away. Then stepped inside.

The narthex smelled of old incense, damp stone, and something else. Something metallic. Fresh. Wrong.

“Hey, Richie.” Mark spotted her immediately — tall, dark-skinned, arms crossed so tight her biceps bulged. She stood with her back to the wall, watching everyone like she was waiting for someone to try something stupid.

Richie did not smile. Did not do pleasantries. “Some kind of fucked-up shit.” She jerked her head toward the nave. “Go see for yourself. Body is still up there.”

Mark frowned. “Not taken yet?”

“No.” She held his gaze. Her eyes were flat. “There is nothing to take.”

He walked past her into the main space.

The church was vast and cold. High vaulted ceilings disappeared into shadow — he could not see the top, just darkness and the occasional drip of water from somewhere up there. The stained-glass windows were dark voids now, offering nothing. The saints and martyrs were just shapes without light.

Portable work lamps stood in a triangle around the altar. Harsh. White. They carved sharp shadows across the floor and made everything else look blacker by contrast.

To the right, near the crossing, three officers huddled together. The oldest one, Fergus, had pushed his cap back and was rubbing his forehead, shaking his head slowly. Next to him stood a younger guy — Rusty. Mark knew him by sight. Solid. Reliable. The kind of cop who did not rattle easily. Tonight, though, Rusty looked rattled. His face was pale, and he kept glancing at the altar like he expected it to move. The other two kept glancing at the altar — then looking away, like they could not help themselves and regretted it every time.

Mark stopped.

The floor around the altar was black. Not wet. Not dry. Something in between. A thick, oily puddle had spread across the stones — no, not a puddle. A lake. It caught the work lights and reflected nothing. Just absorbed them. Drank them.

Blood.

So much blood.

The hairs on the back of Mark’s neck stood up. Then his arms. He could smell it now — copper and salt and something chemical underneath, something that did not belong in a church.

“Cheerful, partner.” David appeared soundlessly at his other side. Mark had not heard him approach. “Watch your step.”

Mark’s boot squelched. He looked down. He had stepped to the edge of the puddle without realizing it. The sole of his shoe was dark.

David shot him an icy look — half annoyance, half something else, something Mark could not read — and walked over to the patrol crew. His shoes did not squelch. Of course they did not.

Mark crouched down.

Up close, the blood looked almost black. Thick. Coagulating strangely — too slowly, like something had been added to keep it liquid. He leaned in. The chemical smell was stronger here. Formaldehyde? Something like that. His stomach turned.

“Where is the body?” he asked without looking up.

Richie’s boots appeared at the edge of his vision. She sighed — long and tired, the kind of sigh that said she had been waiting for someone to ask that question all night. “No idea. Nothing about this makes sense. Take a closer look at the altar.”

Mark straightened. His knees cracked. He walked toward the stone table.

The altar was old. Marble, probably, with carved edges worn smooth by decades — centuries — of hands. But now it was covered in something else.

Scrawls. Symbols. Jagged lines that curved and crossed and made no sense to his eyes. They ran across the altar’s surface, down its sides, and continued behind it — almost to the wall. The same dark red. Blood.

“What the hell are these?” Mark leaned in, squinting. He did not touch. He knew better than to touch.

Richie shrugged behind him. He could hear the fabric of her uniform move. “I do not recognize a single letter. Thank God.”

“So no body?”

“No.” She stepped closer. Her boots made soft sounds on the stone. “We checked everything. Side naves — clean. Not a drop anywhere else. Just here. The puddle and the writing.”

Mark turned his head. “ME been here?”

“Came and went.” Richie’s jaw tightened. “Says someone added something to the blood. Keeps it from clotting or drying. But it is definitely blood.”

“Human?”

She held his gaze. “Waiting on confirmation.”

Mark stood there, hands on his hips, staring at the symbols. They seemed wrong. Not just because they were written in blood. But because of where they were. On an altar. In a church. Like a joke. Like a challenge.

“Either way,” he said slowly, “that is a lot of blood. More than one person. Unless someone robbed a blood bank.”

“Thought of that.”

“Check the call logs anyway.” He turned to face her. “If that is the case, David and I can clear out. Stop annoying your friends.”

Richie’s face softened — just for a second. Something almost like a smile. Sad. Tired. “You annoy them anyway.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Patrol guys have a superstition.” She crossed her arms again. “If Mark shows up to a call — especially if he was nearby — trouble follows.”

Mark stared at her. Then he laughed — short, sharp, surprised out of him. “Thanks a lot.”

“Anytime.”

She walked off, her boots echoing on the stone. Mark watched her go, then turned back to the altar. He stood alone in the middle of the nave. The low murmur of the patrol officers bounced off the walls — indistinct, like whispered prayers. Their words climbed toward the vaulted ceiling and disappeared into the shadows.

Mark looked up.

And stopped breathing.

Near the dome, nailed directly to the wooden beam ceiling, hung a man in black. His arms were spread wide. His head slumped forward, chin to chest. Thick iron spikes — the kind you would use for construction, not for anything human — pinned his wrists and feet to the old timber. Dark trails had dried on his face, or maybe it was rain from before. It was hard to tell from this distance.

Mark’s voice came out louder than he expected. Harder. “Hey!”

Everyone froze. The murmuring stopped. Even the rain seemed quieter for a second.

He pointed without lowering his arm. “Found the body.”

All heads tilted back.

A woman screamed. Sharp. High. Someone Mark had not noticed before — a nun, maybe, or a volunteer — her hand flew to her mouth, and then she was crying, shaking, another woman grabbing her arm, pulling her back toward the door.

Richie stared up at the ceiling, her face unreadable. Her arms fell to her sides.

David muttered something under his breath. Mark did not catch the words. He did not ask.

He just kept looking at the man nailed to the beam.

A priest. Black shirt. Dark pants. A white collar still visible at his throat, stark against the shadows.

What kind of monster does this?

It took another three hours before anyone even thought about leaving.

Most of that time went to paperwork. The lesser part — to getting the body down.

Father Frederick. That was who it was. A priest. Mark stared at the name on the form and felt nothing except a dull, tired anger.

No one had any theories. Who could do something like this? The local sisters just cried and wrung their hands. No theories. No common sense. Nothing.

David came back from a call with the captain, muttering under his breath. His usual composure had cracked — just a little. He stood by the pew, running a hand through his perfect hair, messing it up for the first time all night. Then he fell into a dark, brooding silence.

Mark did not ask. He did not need to. The brass was not happy. Who would be? A psycho in the city. And not just any psycho — an inventive one. Whoever did this had somehow lifted a full-grown man forty feet up and nailed him to a beam.

No equipment. No ladders. Nothing.

Like the pastor had just been tossed up there. For good measure, they had driven several thick, long nails through his hands and feet.

David pulled off his glasses, folded them carefully — habit — and tucked them into his shirt pocket. Then he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Ready?”

Mark did not answer. He was sitting in the front pew, legs stretched out, staring at the dark burgundy puddle. It was perfectly still. Perfectly flat.

“Mark.”

“Why are not there any drops?” Mark did not look up.

“What?”

“The blood.” He gestured with his chin. “It is all here. On the floor. On the altar. In the writing. Nowhere else.” Finally, he turned to look at his partner. “How do you do something this messy and leave it so clean?”

David sighed. He put his glasses back on. “If I had the answers to your questions, I would be commissioner at least.” He nodded toward the door. “Let us go. Nothing left for us here.”

Mark stood up slowly. His joints cracked. He took one last look at the altar, at the symbols, at the dark stain that should have dried by now but had not.

Then he followed David toward the exit.

They almost ran into him in the doorway.

The man from the corner. The one who had been smoking.

His black shirt was unbuttoned at the collar now — two buttons, maybe three. No white collar underneath. No priest’s band. Just skin. Despite the black pants and the jacket draped over his arm — typical, almost clerical — there was nothing official about him.

Water dripped from his clothes. His hair was plastered to his skull and cheeks, curling at the ends. Dark hair. Darker eyes. Alive. Watching.

Those eyes traveled up and down the two detectives — slow, deliberate, like he was filing them away in some mental cabinet.

David spoke first. Polite. Always polite. “I am sorry, sir, this is a crime scene. You cannot be here.”

The man smiled. Tight. Small. Not unfriendly, but not warm either.

“I can,” he said. “I came to see Father Frederick.”

Mark’s head snapped up. “You knew the victim?”

“No.” The man’s face did not change. Still pale. Still calm. “We had mutual acquaintances. They sent me.”

“Sent you for what?”

“Church business.”

Another tight smile. And those eyes — burning like coals, black and hot.

Mark stepped closer. “What time did you arrive?”

“Fifteen minutes before your patrol units. I am the one who called it in.”

Mark felt something snap in his chest. “Why did not anyone tell us that?”

The man tilted his head. Just slightly. “Does it matter?”

“Everything matters.”

David was staring at his partner. He had seen Mark angry before — but not like this. Not over a stranger. Not over a few words.

Usually, they called Mark the stone statue. Nothing got to him. Except that one time — and everyone remembered that one time. Mark had gone off, and everyone in the blast radius got burned. Including himself. A verbal reprimand, no paperwork. But still.

And now here he was, boiling over in two seconds flat, just from looking at this guy.

The man smiled again. But different this time. Almost apologetic. “You are right. I am sorry. I was not thinking. It all happened so fast.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed. “Did you see the body when you came in?”

“No.”

Mark knew, with absolute certainty, that the man was lying. Right to his face. Brazen. Not a single muscle twitched.

But he had no proof.

“Fine,” Mark said. “Do not leave town. We will need your statement.”

“I understand.” The man nodded. “I was not planning to go anywhere.”

He turned and moved toward the exit — not walked, not stepped. Moved. Silent. Careful, as if the air itself should not be disturbed. His shoes made no sound on the stone. He did not glance at the nuns huddled by the door, did not acknowledge anyone. Just glided past them and out into the rain.

Mark’s eyes followed every inch of that retreating back until the man was gone. He did not move. Did not blink. Just stood there, staring at the empty doorway.

A hand landed on his shoulder. David. A gentle shove toward the exit. Mark let himself be guided, but his head stayed turned, eyes still fixed on where the man had disappeared.

Another shove, firmer this time. David’s look said it all: We have got paperwork. Move.

Mark finally looked away. They walked out into the rain.

“What the hell was that about?” David asked as soon as they were back in the car.

Mark was digging through his pack of cigarettes. Empty. He crushed the pack in his fist and threw it onto the dashboard. “Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.” David pulled out of the parking lot. His eyes kept flicking to Mark, then back to the road. “You went zero to sixty in two seconds.”

Mark finally found a loose cigarette at the bottom of his glove compartment. He put it between his lips but did not light it. “That guy is lying.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

David was quiet for a moment. He rolled down his window. The rain had stopped, but the air was still wet. He stuck his hand out, catching the last few drops.

“I do not like him either,” David said finally. “But we cannot arrest him for being creepy.”

“I know.”

“So what is the play?”

Mark stared out the windshield. The streetlights blurred in the damp. “We wait.”

David snorted. “That is your plan? Wait?”

“For now.” Mark finally lit his cigarette. The flame flickered in the dark. “Guys like that always slip. They cannot help themselves.”

David glanced at him. “You really think he is involved?”

Mark exhaled smoke toward the window. “I do not know what he is. But he is not just some random witness. He showed up too fast. He knew too much.” He paused. “And he was not scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of any of it. The body. Us. None of it touched him.” Mark turned his head. “That is not normal.”

David held his gaze for a long moment. Then he looked back at the road.

“Yeah,” David said quietly. “I know.”