"So the thing is, wherever these murders take place, there's… a kind of stain left behind. Not physical. More like a cold spot in the air, or a greasy feeling on the back of your neck. Some people call it mana, chakra, qi… but whatever name you give it, it's bad energy. And that's all that matters."
Axl spoke slowly, choosing his words like he was picking up broken glass. The RV's interior was dim, the only light coming from the dashboard and the occasional streetlamp sweeping through the windows. He had a worn leather journal open on his lap, filled with cramped handwriting and rough sketches of symbols.
Before he could finish, Cedric cut in, his voice sharp with impatience. He'd been sharpening a knife on a whetstone, the rhythmic shhhk-shhhk stopping abruptly.
"Energy? Bad energy? What the fuck does that mean, Axl? "
Axl's jaw tightened. He closed the journal, his fingers tapping its cover. "It means something violent happened there, Cedric. Something that ripped the place. It lingers. The psychic didn't just feel it—she could taste it. Metallic, like blood and ozone. Anyways," he pressed on, voice lowering, "as I was saying, that bad energy is a fingerprint. She performed a cleansing ritual, and in the middle of it, the pendulum didn't swing to purify—it pointed. Like a compass needle finding north. It pointed here. That's where we're going."
Cedric set the knife down. Its blade caught the green glow of the dashboard. "Okay… so does this murder happen now? And I know I'm not a priest and shouldn't tell you how to do your job, but you can identify a location just based on a… a vibe?"
The skepticism was a physical presence in the RV. Ace was slumped in the corner booth, tracing a pattern in the condensation on the window. Garath was a silent silhouette in the driver seat up front, but his stillness meant he was listening.
Axl let out a slow breath, fogging the cold air between them. "She didn't just point a direction. I've been mapping the all the murders." He flipped the journal open again, revealing a hand-drawn map of the city. Twenty locations were marked with red Xs. A fourth, on the outskirts in a suburban grid, was circled in shaky blue ink. "They form a rough crown. This new location completes a pattern. She felt the pull. I saw the geometry. Together, they point here."
"Okay, okay," Cedric nodded, though his eyes were still narrow. He picked the knife back up but didn't resume sharpening. He just held it. "But what about the pattern, huh? You don't even know what it is. How are we supposed to fight, or hunt, or… whatever this thing is?"
"It's a summoning ritual." Axl's voice dropped so low they all leaned in slightly to hear. "I don't know what the murderer is trying to pull into our world, but the energy residue, the specific symbols one of the victims carved into the floorboards before they died… it's invocation. It's a gate. I'm positive."
"Then research it, dumbass," Ace snorted from his corner, not looking away from the window. His reflection was pale and tired.
"What do you think I was doing all day today, huh?" Axl's voice lost its careful control, fraying into something raw and offended. He gestured to the journal, to the dark circles under his eyes.
"I don't know? Destroying my room?" Ace's words were flat, clearly sarcastic, but there was a real edge beneath them. A resentment that had been simmering for miles.
"Hey. Shut it, kiddo. I was resting. Gathering focus. You can't read this kind of lore with a scattered mind. I'm starting the real research tomorrow."
"Yeah, sure," Cedric added, spinning the knife hilt on the table. "But where are you even gonna research that kind of stuff? I'm pretty sure 'Demonic Summoning for Dummies' isn't on the shelf at the public library."
Axl nodded, the anger cooling back into grim resolve. "I'm gonna research your dad's book room." He pointed a blunt finger at Ace.
Ace finally turned from the window. His expression closed off, a shutter slamming down. "That's impossible. It's a locked room. Needs a specific key. Otherwise, it's… it's impossible."
Wordlessly, Axl reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket. He didn't fumble. His movement was deliberate. He pulled out a heavy ring holding three old, skeleton-style keys, their teeth worn silver from use. He let them dangle, the metal catching the light with a dull gleam, before dropping them on the table with a final clink right in front of Ace.
"What do you think I have?"
Ace didn't reply. The air left his lungs in a heavy, silent sigh. His eyes fixed on the keys—keys he'd never been allowed to touch, to a room whose very existence was a secret kept from him. Of course. His own dad wouldn't give him the key. But he'd give them to Axl. The trusted one.
The sound made perfect, painful sense.
Soon enough, the RV's engine dropped to a grumble, and the vehicle rolled to a halt. The sudden quiet felt heavy after the tense conversation. Outside the windows, the world was still.
Garath's voice cut cleanly through the silence from the driver's seat. "We're here." There was a final click as he turned the key, killing the engine. He removed it from the ignition and slid it deliberately into the front pocket of his jacket. The simple motion felt like a period at the end of a sentence. This is it. No turning back.
The squad clambered out of the RV, the metal door groaning shut behind them. The air outside was cooler, carrying the faint, clean scent of cut grass and distant asphalt. They were parked in the vacant corner of a convenience store parking lot, the fluorescent sign buzzing overhead, painting everything in a sickly white light. Across the street, rows of tidy, two-story houses sat under the deepening twilight sky. It was a nice neighborhood. Not wealthy, not poor. Just average. Suburban. Quiet. The kind of place where the most exciting sound was probably a lawnmower on a Saturday morning.
Ace shoved his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched against a chill that wasn't entirely from the evening. He scanned the rows of identical rooftops, his expression flat. "So where is the murder gonna take place, exactly?" he asked, his eyes still on the houses but his question aimed at Axl.
Axl was surveying the area, his gaze methodically sweeping from one end of the visible street to the other. "Dunno," he said, not looking at Ace. "But it's gonna happen somewhere in this neighborhood. So we gotta stand watch."
"Watch?" Ace's head snapped toward him. "Seriously? You dragged me out here to stand watch for a neighborhood that looks like the most dangerous thing that could happen here is a dog biting someone's ass?" His voice rose, blending frustration with disbelief. Cedric, standing beside him, gave a low grunt of agreement. They had geared up, mentally prepared for a confrontation, a hunt. All they'd gotten was a cul-de-sac.
"That's the job, kid," Axl said, finally turning to face him. His patience, worn thin from the drive, was beginning to show cracks. "Not every problem can be solved by kicking a door in. Sometimes you have to wait for the problem to show itself."
"Sounds like a waste of time to me," Cedric chimed in, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "We could be doing a hundred other things. Checking leads. Actually finding this thing instead of waiting for it to find us."
"The psychic's reading is a lead," Axl countered, his voice tight. "And the pattern is a lead. This is where they converge. This is us finding it."
Axl opened his mouth to say more, but Garath's voice came first, calm and absolute. He had walked around the front of the RV and now leaned against its grille, arms crossed.
"It's the job. Deal with it."
"Job my ass," Ace shot back, taking a step forward and pointing a finger straight at Garath's impassive face. "And stop trying to sound so mature. It irritates me. You're only three years older than me."
Garath didn't flinch. He uncrossed his arms and stood up straight, his posture making him seem taller. "You think this is about acting mature? It's about being responsible. You think I want to be out here, waiting in the dark for something I can't even see?" He took a small step forward, closing the distance slightly. "You and Cedric got this habit of just pulling up and kicking ass because me and Axl usually do all the time-consuming work. The scouting. The waiting. The research you hate." His eyes held Ace's, unblinking. "But you two have grown. You're not kids just along for the ride anymore. So now, you gotta deal with the time-consuming work, too. All of it."
Ace held his challenging stare for a long moment. The parking lot's fluorescent buzz was the only sound. He could feel Cedric tense beside him, ready to back him up, but Garath's words, delivered without heat, had found their mark. They weren't an attack; they were a fact. The fight drained from his posture, his raised hand dropping back to his side.
"All right, fine," he muttered, the word sharp, looking away to glare at a perfectly trimmed hedge across the street. He kicked at a loose piece of gravel on the pavement. It skittered into the darkness with a sharp tick-tick-tick. "Just tell me when the murder is gonna take place. Give me a time. Midnight? Three AM? When do we at least think this thing kicks off?"
"We don't know," Axl said, his voice quieter now. The earlier edge was gone, replaced by simple, heavy truth.
Ace blinked. Once. Twice. The information failed to compute. He looked from Axl to Garath and back again. "Are you serious right now? You don't have a time?"
"How could we?" Cedric interjected, throwing his hands up. "Your psychic give you a timeline with her compass trick?"
Axl ignored Cedric's jab, keeping his eyes on Ace. "Yeah, we're serious. We gotta stand watch every night until something happens. We don't know when. It could happen tonight. It could happen tomorrow. Next week. Next month." He let the grim timeline hang in the air. "The ritual's pattern gives us the where. The energy residue suggests it's imminent—soon. But 'soon' isn't a clock. We just know it's gonna happen here. Not when it's gonna happen."
"That's insane," Ace breathed out, a humorless laugh escaping him. "So we just… live here now? Sleep in the RV, take shifts staring at brick walls and swing sets until something maybe happens?"
"Basically," Garath confirmed, his tone matter-of-fact. "But one thing's for sure the murders take place only during night time.So,we'll keep watch every night.Two on watch, two resting. We'll cover the main entrances to the subdivision and the park in the center. We keep our phones on, comms open. We watch for anything that doesn't belong. Anyone who seems out of place. Any… feeling that's off."
"A 'feeling'?" Cedric echoed, skepticism dripping from the word. "We're basing this whole operation on bad vibes and a hunch?"
"We're basing it on the only clues we have," Axl fired back, his composure slipping again. "You got a better idea? You want to drive back to the city and wait for the next morning's news? See where the body turns up after the fact? That's not how we work. We get there first. We stop it. And to stop it, we have to be here."
The finality in his voice left no room for argument. Ace looked at Cedric, who just shook his head, a scowl fixed on his face but no rebuttal coming. They were stuck.
Axl reached out and gave a firm, almost sympathetic pat on Ace's shoulder. Ace stood frozen under the weight of the pat, lost for words, the immense, shapeless dread of a stakeout with no end date settling over him like a fog.
"Alright, listen up," Axl said, his voice shifting into a clear, directive tone. He pointed down the main road that led into the heart of the subdivision. "Cedric, you're with Garath. Take the south loop, from Elm Street around to the back of the elementary school. Keep to the shadows, but look casual. You're just… guys out for a late walk."
Cedric snorted. "Casual. Right. With him?" He jerked a thumb at Garath, whose neutral expression hadn't changed.
"You'll manage," Garath said, already turning to head in that direction. "Let's go. The light's fading."
"Ace," Axl said, turning to him. "You're with me. We've got the north side, from the convenience store here, up past the rows of houses to the little community park. We watch the streets, the alleys between the garages. We listen."
Ace finally found his voice, though it was thick with resigned frustration. "For what? The sound of ritual chanting? A scream?"
"For silence," Axl said, his eyes sharp. "For the dogs to stop barking. For the crickets to stop chirping. For the ordinary night sounds to just… cut out. That's usually the first sign something's wrong in places like this." He glanced at Ace's stunned, weary face and managed a thin, wry twist of his mouth that wasn't quite a smile. "Come on. Let's go guard this safe-ass neighborhood."