Rain hammered down, drenching them the instant they stepped outside. Midnight in Seattle. The street shimmered, neon and streetlights fractured across water. Boots splashed through puddles. Jared unlocked the car. A black sedan, standard issue, armored, its engine humming with unease.

Jared drove in silence through the slick, rain-blurred city. Traffic was thin. The late hour reduced the crowds to stragglers and shadows. Police drones drifted above the rooftops like lazy fireflies armed with stun canons. The steady wipers beat a slow rhythm across the windshield, carving momentary clarity through the wet world.

Adrian scrolled through the data again. Blue light flickered over wet glass, over the tired lines of his face.

“The medic estimates their times of death were within three minutes of each other,” Adrian said without looking up.

“Coordinated?” Jared asked.

"Hard to say," Adrian said, shrugging slightly.

The Dark pulsed beneath Jared’s skin, a subtle crawling. Curious. He let a thread slip free. A thin black tendril uncoiled from his wrist, reaching for Adrian. It brushed the back of Adrian’s hand. Adrian stilled, eyes on the shadow. No comment. He turned back to the files, reading on.

Jared felt Adrian through the Dark, but nothing clear came back. Only closeness. As if they were holding hands, not just touching through shadow. The contact steadied him.

Jared turned left onto Western. The brick building loomed ahead. He pulled into the lot, found a space. Police drones circled above, slow as vultures. At the alley’s mouth, a holographic barrier shimmered, CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS scrolling in six languages.

Uniformed officers took one look at Jared’s badge and stepped aside. One of them stared a little too long. Jared didn’t bother to correct whatever rumors the precinct had whispered into their coffee mugs. Rumors kept them out of his way.

The alley behind The Alchemy Room was tighter than the photos had shown. Low-income housing pressed in at one end, old brick restaurants at the other. Trash cans overturned, rot spilling into puddles. The nightclub’s backdoor sign flickered, barely alive.

The bodies lay where they’d fallen. Blue static shimmered around them, holding them in place.

The Dark stirred again. Something was here. But not yet. Too many eyes.

“Let me take point,” Adrian murmured, stepping past him with the calm of a man who had long ago become comfortable amongst the dead.

“Knock yourself out,” Jared said.

Adrian moved to the body slumped over the fire escape, Andrew Federson. The neck bent at an unnatural angle. He activated his scanner. It hummed, the sound merging with the rain.

“No defensive wounds,” Adrian murmured. “No bruising on the arms. Whoever snapped his neck did it quickly.” His brow furrowed. “And with force no human should possess.”

"How'd he get up there?" Jared asked.

"Looks like he was tossed," Adrian said.

Adrian turned to the second body, Antoine LeMere, the rich man. A gunshot wound bloomed in his chest.

“A single bullet,” Adrian noted. “No apparent struggle here either. He was dead before he hit the ground.” He leaned closer. He waved his scanner over the corpse, muttering to himself.

Detective Harris, the local liaison, approached cautiously. “Doing your spooky voodoo thing, Agent Blake?”

“Something like that,” Jared said. “What you got for me?”

Harris handed him an evidence bag. Inside: a gold whistle etched with runes, a dagger crusted with dried blood, a vial of cloudy fluid. He’d seen them before, in Kate’s photos.

Jared held the whistle to the light. The carvings spiraled, symbols of Seth, storm and chaos. His fingers brushed the plastic. A shrill noise stabbed behind his eyes. Not sound, but pressure. He dropped it, breath caught.

“You okay?” Harris asked.

“Fine,” Jared muttered. “Just didn’t like the sound.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples and took a deep breath.

“What sound?” Adrian asked. Jared hadn't noticed him come over. He was standing close now and holding the evidence bag.

Jared said nothing. The Dark rippled through him. Whispering. Command. Bind. Obey. He forced it down.

“Anyone see anything?” Jared asked, looking at Harris.

“One witness,” Harris said. “Bartender from across the street. Said he heard a whistle, high-pitched, like a dog whistle. Then a bunch of gunshots. By the time he got out here, the alley was empty.”

"More than one shot?" Adrian asked.

"Yeah," Harris said with a nod. "My officers went over the scene, but the only bullet we found is the one that killed that guy."

"Clear the scene," Jared said.

"You got it," Harris said and turned away. He went to his people and gave the command. They all quickly left the alley, giving Jared the room he needed to work.

Jared knelt by the body. His hand hovered above the preservation field. The Dark pulsed inside him, never quiet now. Hard to tell when it was warning him, and when it was just noise.

He closed his eyes. Let the Dark unspool. Black tendrils snaked out, scattering across the scene. Touching. Searching. Feeling. A sound crept in at the edges. Less noise, more the echo of something already gone. A memory. Residue.

Something screamed here.

Adrian’s voice cut through the fog. “Jared. You alright?”

The Dark whispered, brushing his mind with half-seen images. Shadows shifting. Something large, answering the whistle.

He reached forward.

His fingers brushed the field. The Dark surged, plunging through, touching dead flesh. The whistle shrieked inside his skull.

It wasn’t audible. Adrian didn’t hear it. But Jared felt it. A psychic scream that lanced through every nerve, a sound shaped like an order. A command. A plea. A warning.

He jerked back. Chest tight. Breath sharp. The Dark wound around the corpse, cocooning it in writhing shadow.

“Jared?” Adrian touched him gently on the shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Jared said through clenched teeth.

“You’re very obviously not.”

Jared pointed at the whistle in the evidence bag that Adrian was still holding.

“That thing controls something. Or tries to.”

Adrian studied him. “Should I assume this is a Dark artifact?”

“It reeks of it,” Jared said. “But… It’s wrong. It’s not designed to kill.” His fingers twitched. “It’s designed to summon.”

Rain thickened overhead, heavy drops splattering on the field. They would lose the scene soon. Officers waited, restless, needing to collect what they could.

Jared pulled the Dark back. It surged around his ribs, a pressure wave. He jogged to the alley’s end, waved to Harris. Officers trickled in, collecting what evidence they could. Jared ignored their glances.

“This was a failure,” Jared said.

Adrian looked at him. “Failure of what?”

Jared shrugged. He didn’t know. He closed his eyes, listening. Rain on metal. The distant rumble of a tram. Water dripping from a broken gutter. Familiar city music. Beneath it, something else. A tremor, a bruise in the air.

He moved deeper between the dumpsters. Shadows clung to the walls, too deliberate, too thick.

“Jared?” Adrian followed, scanning the darkness. “Talk to me.”

Jared pressed his fingers lightly against the wall. He leaned his head against the cold brick and let the Dark trickle out where his skin was making contact.

Images slammed into him.

A gaunt man, raising the whistle. The shrill sound. A hulking shadow answering. Knife glinting. Gunshot. Cold, wet air shivering as something slipped free. A scream. More gunshots. Rage, then flight. Something escaping into the night.

Jared staggered back.

Adrian grabbed his arm. “Jared! Hey! Look at me. Breathe.”

The Dark coiled around his heart, hungry for more. He forced it down, jaw clenched. Hands shaking. Breath ragged. Eyes unfocused.

“LeMere wasn’t killing people. Something else killed them. Something he called. Something he couldn’t control.”

Jared rubbed at his eyes.

Adrian’s face tightened. “And where is it now?”

"I don't know," Jared whispered.