Chapter One: Night of Red Calls
Rain hissed down on the dark streets of Calverton, dancing off rooftops and bleeding into gutters already swollen with filth and memory. The police station was a storm inside a storm. Phones rang like alarms in a war zone, overlapping voices shouted over one another, and somewhere in the chaos, a woman wept quietly by the vending machine.
Detective Hale stood at the center of it all, unmoving.
He leaned over a cluster of desks, hands planted firmly, his jaw locked. The homicide board behind him had been cleared at dawn. It was already full again.
"Fifteen," said Officer Welles, flipping through a report. "Fifteen bodies. And that's just tonight."
Hale didn't respond. His eyes traced the names and photos pinned up. Every victim showed signs of extreme blood loss. No forced entries. No survivors. No suspects.
He straightened and stepped away. "Make that board twenty," he muttered.
Welles blinked. "More?"
"Five new calls. All within the last fifteen minutes. Same M.O."
The room seemed to shrink. The hum of computers and radios receded behind the weight of that silence.
Another officer dropped his phone mid-report. "What the hell's happening out there?"
No one answered.
---
The air outside was thick, heavier than the rain alone could explain. Hale stood by his cruiser, staring down Calverton's narrow streets like they were hiding something. He lit a cigarette, the flare of the match trembling in his fingers before he tossed it away.
Something was off. More than off.
He'd seen bloodbaths before. Serial killings. Gang purges. But this wasn't that. This wasn't human.
His eyes wandered toward the shadows where streetlamps didn't reach.
You know what it was, Wayne.
He shut the thought down instantly, jaw tightening.
No. Not again.
Not like her.
He slid into the cruiser, slammed the door shut, and radioed dispatch.
"Send units to the outskirts. South district, near Haven Hill. Tell them not to go in until I get there."
The dispatcher hesitated. "Copy that. Should we—"
"Just do it."
He dropped the radio, leaned back, and stared at the cracked ceiling. Then he peeled off into the rain, tires screaming over pavement like they knew what was coming.
---
Across the city, beneath the cracked flicker of an old neon sign, a teenage boy shoved his bike into a rack and pulled up his hoodie.
Jace Hale was late.
Again.
He darted up the steps of an apartment complex, took the elevator to the sixth floor, and slipped into a cramped apartment filled with silence. No lights. No "you're late again." Just the hum of the fridge and the faint buzz of a streetlamp outside his window.
He dropped his bag by the door and flopped onto the couch. His phone lit up.
Kimberly: [U alive or nah?]
Kimberly: [School's in 5 hours genius.]
Jace smirked and tossed the phone onto his chest.
"I'm alive," he muttered. "For now."
Outside, thunder cracked loud enough to shake the window. He didn't flinch.
What was another storm, anyway?