Detective Stone could not believe what he was seeing.
Two bodies lay on the morgue tables — and a single detached hand. The hand, though mildly charred, still had two perfectly manicured fingers; French tips, just as Jane had when he last saw her.
Stone had seen plenty of horrors in both war and police work, but this scene surpassed them all.
Scott's body — still in his work uniform — lay closest to the door. He'd died en route to the hospital. The fact that he'd lived that long was a miracle. Both of Scott's eyes were gone, claw marks visible around the sockets. His jaw was completely missing, torn from left to right, and his tongue was gone.
{It appears someone ripped his jaw from his face. Torn clean through — not cut. Ripped.}
Stone noticed all of Scott's fingers were broken, each twisted in a different direction.
{That took time. This was torture. Deliberate. Personal.}
He moved to the second table. Under the white sheet was Dale — or what was left of him. His face had been burned until it melted into an unrecognizable mess. The blisters across his bald scalp told Stone it wasn't from the restaurant fire; this was a grease burn, done before the blaze. Dale's ribs bore a single stab wound, angled upward, precise and practiced.
{Whoever did this knew anatomy. Avoided the sternum and ribs. They wanted it slow. Painful.}
On a tray beside the body lay a pair of ceremonial golden scissors — long, ornate, and slick with blood. Stone recognized them instantly; they'd once hung framed beside a photo of the brothers cutting the ribbon to open their restaurant.
He clenched his jaw.
{So they used the symbol of their success to kill them. Cruel irony.}
But Jane — where was Jane?
The Moirai were gone. Three more of the old families erased from existence.
The Mepple brothers. Now the Moirais. And Gwen's attack. He didn't yet know how it all tied together, but the timing wasn't coincidence. Someone wanted him — and them — off balance.
The killers who butchered the Mepple brothers had worked in silence, precision, and secrecy. Their cause of death: decapitation and dissolution by acid. Their hearts had failed before the beheading, the coroner said — sheer terror stopped them cold.
But the Moirai murders? This wasn't silent. This screamed notice me.
Someone powerful had declared open war.
---
1:50 a.m. – Saint James Hospital, ICU
William, Bai, and Officer Cain stood at the window, watching the faint orange hue flicker over the skyline. News of the fire had already reached them — Jacob heard it first over his radio.
Marci slept curled on the fold-out chair beside Gwen's bed, still holding her sister's hand. Earlier, she'd been reading Alice in Wonderland aloud, Gwen's favorite book. Flowers — lilacs — filled the room with a faint, bittersweet scent. William had found the chair; Bai had "borrowed" the pillows and blankets from somewhere else.
The two old men bickered and teased like an old married couple, but their affection for Gwen was genuine — almost paternal. Jacob had never met anyone like them. Detective Stone had warned him they were dangerous men, but Jacob wasn't sure he believed that anymore.
They stared out into the night sky, where the glow of the fire was dying down. They could feel Stone's presence somewhere in the city — or rather, the absence of it.
A hollow in the air. A void. Cold and suffocating.
And that emptiness was what allowed something else to move unseen.
---
Outside Saint James Hospital
An old man rummaged through the dumpsters behind the hospital. Staff didn't mind him; they often left food, blankets, and even the mechanical room unlocked for him in the winter. Tonight, he was humming to himself when he heard it — a low rumble mixed with a wet, hissing breath.
He followed the sound down the service alley and froze.
Two figures stood at the far end. One — a man-shaped shadow. The other — a moving pool of tar. They clicked and hummed to each other like insects. The shadow's red eyes glowed through the dark, and when the old man blinked, they were staring straight into his.
He didn't have time to scream.
Another creature — a second tar-like being — slithered down the wall above him. It dropped onto his back. Claws, cold as metal, pierced his flesh. He tried to cry out, but something warm and wet forced its way into his mouth. It burned like frostbite. He gagged as the arm slid deeper, the sound of bones cracking filling the alley.
The creatures hissed with glee.
When the body fell limp, the tar beasts circled it, crawling on all fours like cats playing with a mouse.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Three light taps drew their attention. The shadow man stood a few feet away, cane in hand. No words were spoken — only understanding.
The creatures scattered.
One climbed the hospital roof.
Another seeped into the ground.
The shadow turned to the power lines, tapped twice more — the pole split apart with a splintering crack. Sparks filled the air like fireflies.
The first creature crushed the backup generators before they could hum to life.
The second glided toward the main building — toward Stone.
---
Saint James Hospital – Morgue
When the lights died, Stone's stomach dropped.
{Damn it. The fire… it was bait.}
He realized it instantly — the Moirai murders, the fire, the call to the morgue — all of it had been orchestrated to draw him here. His very presence, that void of magic he radiated, had cloaked the arrival of the true threat.
For the first time in years, Detective Stone felt fear.
---
Saint James Hospital – ICU
When the power cut, chaos followed. Monitors screamed. Nurses scrambled through the dark.
William blinked beside Gwen's bed, appearing from nowhere. Bai stood still as stone near the window, the faint red dragons embroidered on his jacket seeming to move of their own accord.
Jacob Cain stood in the doorway, calm, eyes closed, filtering the noise — listening for the wrong kind of sound.
Marci stirred awake.
"What's going on?"
"The power's out," William said. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."
{Gods, please let that be true.}
Then Jacob heard it — a hiss. Low. Close. Getting closer.
The window behind Bai shattered.
Glass exploded inward as a tar-like creature burst through, tearing apart the waiting area. Splinters and debris impaled the walls, one shard slicing open a nurse's throat. Blood painted the tiles. Another nurse screamed and turned to run — but the monster was faster.
Bai moved like lightning. He was between her and death in an instant, his stance tight and balanced. But the creature's arm split in two — half drove through the nurse's mouth, the other flung the entire station desk across the room. The woman's body burst open; organs hit the floor before her body did.
Doctor Aaliyah never even screamed. The desk crushed her where she stood, pinning the emergency exit closed.
Marci's cry tore through the chaos.
"What the hell is that?"
William's whisper was barely audible.
"Shadow demon."
And for the first time since this began, even Bai looked afraid.
---
End Chapter 10