Lt. John Kove and two fellow officers emerged from the structure as Blaire and I walked toward the main entrance. The good lieutenant wore a sober expression. The fact that I was returning with only one of the missing hikers told him everything he needed to know.
Kove’s men draped a blanket over Blaire’s shivering shoulders. Would the traumatized young woman ever be the same again? Most people who survived supernatural horrors ended up being scarred for life. Trust me, I know from personal experience. Hopefully Blaire would somehow beat the odds and not become another grim statistic.
“What happened out there, Raven?” Kove asked. Despite his burly six-foot-two frame, he appeared smaller since I’d last spoken to him, his shoulders hunched. This case had weighed heavily on him. Maybe he didn’t like what he saw on my face, because he added, “On second thought, better keep it to yourself. I can’t put any of this shit in my report, anyway.”
Ignorance is bliss.
A melancholic note had crept into Kove’s voice, his eyes growing distant as he stared off somewhere over my shoulder. “You know, I moved out here to get away from the craziness of the city. It’s happening all over again, isn’t it?”
I shook my head, though I couldn’t be certain. In fact, I’d asked myself the same question recently, but I sensed that Kove needed to hear something reassuring at this weak moment. He remembered all too well the way supernatural activity had escalated in the city, two years earlier.
Now might be a good time to bring up why I haven’t disclosed the name of my current place of residence and keep referring to it as “the city.” You may wonder why I’m being vague about geography and won’t provide identifying details. Well, there’s a good reason for that. The less you know, the better. Trust me on that. I’d rather not have a group of amateur monster hunters descend on my home turf.
Want the gist of it? My city and the surrounding countryside–numerous suburbs and small towns–are cursed.
A little less than two years ago, Skulick and I had come to the city to stop a doomsday cult from opening a gateway into hell–just another day on the job. Sadly, we were only partially successful in stopping the Crimson Circle’s ritual. On the bright side, we prevented the end of the world. But their ritual hadn’t been a complete bust. It opened a rift between the city and the dark dimension. With the barrier between the two worlds no longer able to do its job, the city became a nexus for unholy creatures and paranormal horrors. It turned the whole area into a hotspot for supernatural activity.
A cursed city.
Working the city’s murder beat at the time of the breach, Kove got a front-row seat for the craziness. To his mind, as soon as Skulick and I appeared on the scene his city went to hell—literally. Each week brought another new occult murder case or rampaging paranormal creature. As special consultants to the police, my partner and I had our hands full.
Of course, that was before the accident that put Skulick in a wheelchair. During our investigation of a haunted hotel, a vengeful spirit caught Skulick off guard and dropped him out a window. The three-story fall should’ve killed the demonologist, but Skulick wasn’t the sort to go gentle into that good night.
Not long thereafter, Kove decided that a change of scenery was in order and traded the blood-filled alleys of the cursed city for the pastoral beauty of this idyllic small town. Nothing terrible could happen out here, right? But monsters don’t respect county lines. This latest case served as a sharp reminder that there was no true safe haven left. The city might be Spook Central, but Hell’s terrifying influence was spreading beyond its limits at an alarming rate. Swift and merciless, evil could strike anywhere.
Thinking about the Crimson Circle and the creatures their blind fanaticism had unleashed must’ve darkened my expression, because Kove decided to change the subject.
“How’s Skulick holding up?”
“You know how stubborn he can be. The man is a fighter. He’s hanging in there, but he hates being stuck in a wheelchair.”
Kove nodded. He didn’t press me for the grisly details about the thing that almost killed my partner. There are two types of people in this world: those who face the darkness head-on, and those who would rather not know about a supernatural war being fought behind the scenes. Kove belonged to the latter group and intended to keep it that way. I didn’t blame him; I even envied him sometimes. I’d never had a chance to ignore the threat of the underworld. That, along with everything else, was taken from me the night my parents were killed.
“You know how to get a hold of me if you ever need my services again,” I said, extending my hand to shake.
Kove smiled, but his eyes told me he hoped he’d never see me again. That would mean things were going pretty well out here.
I looked at Blaire one final time as the cops whisked her inside. Her eyes looked about a hundred years older than the rest of her, haunted by the sight of things that no mortal should ever have to face.
I recognized that expression. I saw it every time I looked in the mirror.
CHAPTER FOUR