Page 15

O f course, the day Celie was coming home, Evan had to be called away for a new case. What even was life if not a series of predictable but unavoidable disappointments?

Aaron had offered to accompany Evan after dropping Celie at home, but Evan refused and asked him to stay with her instead. If the first thing she came back to was an empty home, Celie would probably despise Evan more than she already did.

Who knew for how many years she’d avoid him this time?

Evan had grown up hearing his mother—disowned by the Blackwood family after marrying his father—speak of her siblings, never able to reach out to them again. Evan didn’t want to inherit that same fate with his sister.

Hence, he let Aaron give her a warm welcome at home and decided to handle this case on his own.

At least that’s what he’d hoped for.

A semi-demolished house stood in the center of the forest clearing. There had once been several more, but over time, as the forest slowly reclaimed its territory and people grew reluctant to cut the trees, the area was eventually abandoned. All except for this one house.

As Evan circled the ruins of the house, a warm presence lingered behind him.

Xen had traded his formal shirt for a full-blown, blood-red suit. Exactly like Evan had fantasized about in a moment of weakness. His hair was tousled at the top, trimmed shorter along the sides, like he'd stepped out of a damn fashion magazine. He stood barely half a meter away, because personal space? What was that?

And this overextravagant roleplay getup was what he called his normal human form .

What about it was “normal” was still a mystery.

As Evan surveyed the clearing, the demon’s presence loomed behind him, more imposing than the heavy air that clung to the ruined property.

Finally, he stopped and spun around. “Remind me why you’re here again?”

Xen barely glanced at the half-destroyed house, his expression bored. “Didn’t you say you hate going to such places alone?”

“I was thinking about it! Why were you eavesdropping on my thoughts again?”

Xen shrugged before looking away.

In that expensive-looking suit and poised stance, he was ridiculously out of place in a forest, investigating the ruins of a house that was supposedly haunted. Actually, there wasn’t a single place in Emberlyn where he’d “belong” in that attire without a profession to back it up.

“Go back,” Evan snapped.

“Where?”

“Wherever. I don’t care.”

“Mm.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Mm.”

Before Evan could hurl a blast of spiritual energy at Xen in hopes of rattling his brain into place, a figure emerged at a distance. As the man drew closer, Evan noticed the straw hat perched on his head and the timeworn attire he wore, splattered with mud.

It was the Chief Forest Officer, Steave Choi.

The old man approached them and tipped his hat with a smile. “Long time no see, Mr. Blackwood.”

Evan gave him a brief nod. “Steave.”

Steave Choi could be considered Evan’s sole accomplice, who’d helped him earn his stubborn reputation of appearing where he wasn’t supposed to . Because it was with this Chief Forest Officer’s permission that Evan continuously trespassed into the forbidden areas of the forest, like the Dark Woods. Even though the townspeople seemed upset over the matter, Choi was a merry old man with very little time to cater to ancient superstitions.

His life motto was quite literally couldn’t care less .

As long as Evan could remember, Choi had always been the Chief Forest Officer, a single man who lived in a treehouse somewhere deep in the forest. How he survived in the supposedly dangerous and mostly undiscovered woods was still unknown to many, including Evan.

“Thank you for showing up on such short notice,” Choi’s eyes flickered to the man in red behind Evan, standing with his arms crossed behind his back. He smiled. “Good morning, I’m Steve Choi.”

Xen’s face remained impassive.

Evan cleared his throat and offered a twitch of his lip. “He’s not much of a talker.”

Choi chuckled softly. “Hard to believe anyone such is from this town.”

He didn’t leave the forest much, so Choi was unfamiliar with trends and whether wearing a suit in summer was a thing among youngsters. Anyone else from town would take one look at Xen and declare he was an overdressed tourist.

“So,” Evan started. “What’s the problem here?”

“Ah, yes. The problem is that ,” Choi pointed at the ruins of the house behind them.

The roof had completely caved in with a gaping hole right at the center, like something huge had plummeted in from above with enough force that not only the roof but a third of the house had collapsed.

Unease stirred in Evan’s guts. “What happened here?”

“Something awful. There used to be a tree right behind that house,” Choi pointed at a pit in the ground a few feet away from where they stood. “While clearing it, the loggers accidentally dropped a huge chunk of the trunk on the house.”

Evan’s eyebrow perked, a memory fluttering past his mind.

Dropped a tree on a house… Where have I heard that before?

Choi sighed, shoulders drooping. “A man and his wife were inside when it happened.”

“Were they…”

“The man didn’t make it to the hospital.”

Oh. Unnatural death due to human error. That was sufficient criteria for a haunting.

Yet, no matter how much Evan stared at the ruins, he couldn’t locate a single residual of resentment on the property. Other than an unusual heaviness in the air, nothing in particular stood out. He turned to observe Xen’s reaction, hoping to catch any shifts in his demeanor, but those expressionless dark eyes were staring straight ahead at the forest. He looked like he’d spaced out.

A vein throbbed in Evan’s temple.

Why are you here if you’re just gonna be useless? He barked in his head at Xen.

Evan turned back to Choi, missing the way Xen’s eyes fluttered in his direction. “What about the wife? Where is she?”

Choi pushed the hat off his head, scratching at his receding hairline. “She is…well, still around.”

Still around? Was she in a coma? Evan opened his mouth to question when Choi suddenly sighed. It was so unusual to see the ever-blossoming bud of a man just wilt so easily that Evan couldn’t help but place a hand on Choi’s shoulder.

“Victor and Mila. I knew them since they’d been married thirty-five years ago and moved here,” Choi said, dejected. “When a couple is together that long, together and happy, you know it must be true love. But when Victor died,” he sighed. “Mila couldn’t take it. Drove her out of her mind.”

Evan paused. “Mila…”

Mila, as in old Mila?

Right. Old Mila.

No wonder the incident sounded familiar.

A few weeks ago, Evan had overheard some men at the bakery talking about “old Mila cursing the workers who dropped a tree on her house.” He'd chalked it up to old men exaggerating town gossip, but clearly, that wasn’t the case.

They had literally dropped a tree on Mila’s house. Her husband had lost his life during the accident. And the shock had driven her mad.

Evan could sympathize with the case, but again, anyone could. Why was he called here for this?

“You’re not saying Mila is possessed, are you?” Evan pocketed his hands as a breeze blew across the trio.

Victor could’ve possessed Mila. Since he loved his wife so much in life, maybe he’d wish to stick by her side after death too.

“No, I don’t think so,” Choi dismissed the possibility with a laugh. “It’s not Mila. It’s this house that is possessed. At least that’s what people are saying.”

Evan turned his attention back to the destroyed house and walked closer, inspecting it carefully. “Why are they saying that?”

“The other day someone passing by heard screams coming from the house, something like a woman wailing. Someone else said they saw Victor standing at the window of this house a few days after the accident.”

“And what do you say?” Evan grazed his fingertips against the cracked wall. “You’re not the one to believe rumors.”

Indeed, he wasn’t. Choi was the man who’d dig into those rumors and flesh out the truth. If the matter involved his forest territory, he could get pretty intense. If he’d called Evan to this place for inspection, it had to be because he thought there was some truth in those rumors.

“I’d say karma takes no prisoners,” Choi tucked the hat back in its place on his head with a smile. “Two nights ago, seven loggers disappeared from their tents without a trace. Just…gone. Their belongings and tools were left behind, but other than that, there was no sign of a living human.”

“They could’ve run away,” As Evan traced the cracked walls with his fingertips, a hand suddenly clasped his wrist and tugged him away. He stumbled towards Xen, then scowled. “What—”

A piece of debris tumbled off the cracked wall and crashed to the ground, creating a huge crater right where Evan stood a few moments ago.

Evan blinked at the hole in the ground, then at Xen, who stared down at him with a slight furrow between his brows. “Careful."

“They could have,” Choi stared at the pair curiously, “if I hadn’t found the tents zipped from the inside after they’d disappeared and then discovered this .”

Choi took out a phone from his pocket, handing it to Evan.

It was a brand-new phone by the looks of it, but the screen was cracked at a corner. A small, roughly carved wooden animal dangled from the cover, splashed in mud.

Evan’s face twitched.

Is that a…raccoon?

“Sea otter,” Xen muttered from beside him.

That looked nothing like a fucking sea otter.

“I was making rounds yesterday when I heard a phone ringing,” Choi stared at the ruins behind Evan, and a look of agitation flew past his wrinkle-ridden eyes. “This is a hotspot for homeless folks wandering at night, but when I peeked from the window, there was no one inside. Found this phone lying near the door. Townspeople come around here for sightseeing often, so I took the phone to keep it safe until someone came to pick it up,” Choi frowned. “But when I took it back with me, I had this...strange urge to look through it. I don’t know what came over me.”

That was really a shocker to anyone who knew Choi because he was the epitome of a gentleman slash friendly neighbor slash I mind my own business fellow. Unlocking someone’s lost phone was a privacy breach, something more upsetting to Choi than losing his finger to a hyena attack.

“What did you see?” Evan asked.

“Why don’t you check it out yourself?”

The phone didn’t have a lock, any contacts, or any photos. Nothing but one lonely video sitting in the otherwise empty gallery. Xen came up behind Evan as he pressed the “play” button.

At first, only a pitch-black screen greeted them, with faint rustlings in the background accompanied by the buzzing of cicadas. The clip was clearly recorded at night. Evan’s eyes squinted at the screen, not even blinking for a moment as he waited for something to pop up onto the screen and scare the living spirit out of him. After a good minute of silence, when his patience ran dry and he was about to shut down the video, a light flashed across the screen.

Evan brought the phone close to his face as what looked like a firefly fluttered into the dark night. It wouldn’t have been weird if the said firefly wasn’t ten times bigger than the naturally occurring insect and so bright it shed light on the trees and the ground as he floated onward. It was all but an orb of purple light. By some coincidence, the phone was positioned at the perfect angle to record the firefly moving towards the far end of the forest, where three triangular shapes lit up in the dark.

The loggers’ tents.

The firefly stopped before one of the tents. Some faint voices could be heard in the background, their words too muffled to comprehend, but it didn’t take a genius to recognize the distress in their tones.

When the firefly neared the first tent, its light flickered ominously. Two silhouettes stood up inside the lit tent, stone still like they’d been frozen. From their stature and build, they were definitely men. The two silhouettes turned as if facing the front of the tent. Outside, the orb flared brighter.

Then something strange happened.

As if sand blowing away in the wind, the silhouettes of the two men scattered.

Evan paused the video, rewound it, then played it again. But he saw the same thing. Those two men simply turned into nothing. One moment they were there, and the next, they weren’t.

Another two shadows stood up in the second tent, then another pair in the third. It seemed as though they had been stirred awake from their slumber in the middle of the night by something, and then, all of them vanished. The firefly seemingly glowed brighter with each disappearing figure before floating out of the video frame.

Evan handed the phone back to Choi, his brows furrowed. “Did you report this to the cops?”

“Yes,” Choi pocketed the phone with a sigh. “But they took one look at the video and decided this was the church's responsibility, not theirs.”

Evan almost rolled his eyes. Fucking cowards.

“And what did the church say?”

Choi shrugged. “Didn’t go to them. They’d probably just try to put a wrap over things like they’ve tried to do for years.”

“What do you mean? Put a wrap over what?”

“You don’t know? I thought you might have heard from the church.”

“Well…the Blackwoods and the Church don’t really get along,” Evan ran a hand through his hair, recalling the side-eyes he’d received all his life from the priests. “Never mind that. Tell me more about what they’re trying to hide.”

They walked towards a few chopped wood logs erected upright as temporary stools and took a seat as Choi explained, “Some decades back, there was a strange rumor going around about the Old Oak, saying it was haunted. Well, not exactly haunted, but that there was a spirit residing in it. It was way before you were even born, so it’d make sense if you don't know.

“Those days, I caught many “explorers” trying to sneak towards the oak at night to catch a glimpse of the spirit and make offerings. Even though I turned most of them away, some managed to go around the barricades, cross the riverbank, and reach the Old Oak. I found hundreds of fortune talismans tied to the branches. Some even offered animal sacrifices in hopes the spirit would grant them their wishes.”

“And did the spirit grant their wishes?” Evan asked, then quirked a brow. “Was there even a spirit?”

“Who knows?” Choi shrugged. “But it eventually came to an end when the people sneaking to the oak started disappearing.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Evan noticed a subtle movement, but when he turned around, no one was there. In fact, the one who was supposed to be there had also vanished.

Evan’s eyes snapped around to spot a red-clad figure, but to no avail. He turned back to Choi with a frown. “Were they ever found?”

Choi shook his head, dusting off flakes of mud from his pants. “We searched the whole forest and even went past the outskirts of the town, but they seemed to have vanished into thin air. But that wasn’t even the weirdest part.”

Evan cautiously probed. “What was the weirdest part?”

“All types of people of varying ages and sizes visited the oak, but the only ones who disappeared were young lads.”

Okay, someone has a preference .

Considering the circumstances of the disappearances, it could have been the work of a demon. But based on Evan’s personal experience, he concluded that if a demon had sucked the life out of those men, at least their skeletons or tattered clothes should have been discovered. Unless those remains were hidden away for another purpose.

But what demon would try to hide the evidence of the wreckage it caused? These creatures were proud of the chaos they brought about. It would’ve made more sense if bodies were found hanging from the branches of the oak.

“I am not completely sure, but at that time, at least a few dozen men had gone missing,” wrinkles pulled at his face as Choi frowned down at the ground. “And I have a bad feeling that this time, it could be more.”

Evan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You think the loggers’ disappearance has something to do with that old incident?”

For a moment, Choi seemed to have spaced out as he mumbled, “It might have something to do with the Old Oak.”

“Why do you—”

A strong stench wafted into the air.

Evan stilled, the hair at his nape spiked in attention. His head snapped around, catching a glimpse of a figure before it snuck behind a tree trunk.

“Who’s there?” Evan stood up from the tree stool, eyes focused on the tree trunk behind which a figure still poked two wide eyes out to watch him. A creepy shiver crawled up his spine when tendrils of dark energy curled around the figure, wafting off its form like black steam. The stench of its resentment could suffocate a room full of people had it not been in the open.

Evan was about to walk towards the spirit to exorcise it before it could harm anyone when another figure appeared behind it. Evan stopped in his tracks.

Xen had showed up so silently that the spirit didn’t notice him, not until Xen cocked his head and said, “Enjoying the view?”

Before the startled spirit could flee, Xen grabbed it by the scruff and hauled it with him as he returned to Evan’s side.

The spirit was missing half its head, its jaw dangling broken to one side, its spine jutting out from the side of its neck. Yet it flailed wildly in Xen’s grasp, shrieking and wailing.

Xen smiled at Evan as he showed him the piece of human spirit dangling from his left hand, proud of his discovery.

“Evan, look what I found.”

Evan was dumbfounded for a moment, then decided to ignore him and concentrate on the spirit thrashing in his grasp.

Its resentment was heavy but also fluctuating, as if it couldn’t decide whether to seek revenge or pass over to the other side. Evan tilted his head, consciously avoiding its eyes, and studied the missing half of its face, where a few tiny splinters of wood jutted from its skull.

Something clicked in Evan’s mind, and he turned to a confused-looking Choi, who couldn’t see the spirit as he squinted at Xen’s seemingly empty hand. “What did you say Victor looked like? Was he…short, skinny with gray hair?”

Choi blinked, surprised. “That pretty much sums him up.”

Evan turned back to the spirit, then looked at Xen. “Let him go.”

Xen cast a look at Evan, then lowered his head and whispered something in the spirit’s ear. Abruptly, it stopped flailing, eyes bulging out of the sockets, and only then did Xen let go of its scruff. Folding his arms across his chest, he returned to Evan’s side, eyes fixated on the spirit as if making sure it remembered what he’d whispered to it.

“Victor,” Evan said, voice softened yet firm. “Do you know you’re dead?”

One of the main reasons so many souls failed to pass over to the other side was because they were not aware of their deaths. Or refused to accept it. Even though the resentment on the spirit was a testimony of its awareness of its death and the anger was a reaction to it, Evan still wanted Victor to hear it clearly before proceeding.

At Evan’s question, Choi sucked in a soft breath behind him but remained still otherwise. The spirit stared at the ground with a blank stare, hands fisted on both sides. Again, it was difficult to tell whether he was resentful or simply confused.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you. But lingering around your house cannot undo what has happened,” Evan said. “You need to move on.”

Other than the trembling of its fists, the spirit didn’t move or even try to attack. Evan’s brows furrowed, and he moved, eyes shimmering blue as he reached forward to touch the spirit and put it out of its misery. Xen was right beside him, so he didn’t have to worry about getting possessed.

But a hand grabbed his elbow, drawing his arm back.

“There’s something in its hand,” Xen said, staring at the spirit’s fist.

Evan followed his gaze but couldn’t make out anything with the black mist obscuring the spirit’s form. “What is it?”

Xen tilted his head, eyes boring right through the thick resentment and peering into that clenched fist. “Golden, pointy, green.”

Evan turned a confused look on him. “What are you describing?”

With a shrug, Xen reached forward and wrenched the thing from the spirit’s fist, effortlessly. Yes, effortlessly, because had he exerted a tiny bit of force, the spirit would’ve been torn apart, not just the arm.

Upon losing the item, the spirit groaned like a wounded beast, looking like it wanted to take it back, but one cold glare from Xen and it shrank.

Xen dropped the tiny thing into Evan’s hand, and to his surprise, it was indeed golden, pointy, and green—an earring. A pea-sized green gem was embedded into the stud, a golden star dangling from it.

A woman’s earring, perhaps Mila’s.

Evan brushed his fingers against the green stone. Traces of resentment clung to it along with a smudge of dried blood on its stud.

“He wasn’t hoarding it out of affection,” Xen prompted.

Evan glanced at him. “What do you mean? This must be Mila’s.”

And they had a strong bond of affection. Wasn’t that love?

Is my dictionary outdated?

Choi glanced at the earring in Evan’s hand. “From what I recall, Mila didn’t have pierced ears.”

“Oh,” Evan turned to Xen, eyes narrowed in suspicion. How had he found out the spirit wasn’t holding onto the earring out of affection? Could he communicate with spirits? Or perhaps read their minds too?

Even if he was just helping, Evan found it difficult to convince himself that this perverted demon was doing so out of sheer goodness of heart. He must have some ulterior motives.

Alas, even if he had his reasons to be wary, Evan had a blood bond tying him down. And unless he fulfilled Xen’s wish, he couldn’t get rid of him.

“I think I’ve seen one of those before,” Choi squinted at the earring, almost shoving his face into Evan’s hand as he studied the piece of jewelry. “Oh, I have seen this.”

“Who does it belong to?”

An unusual darkness blanketed Choi’s face as he straightened, lips twitching in distaste. “Covenant of Nightshade,” he murmured.

Evan’s eyes narrowed before widening slightly in recollection.

Years ago, when he was still a newbie in the business of the supernatural, Evan was prone to running into trouble with his seniors . People who had been exorcising, cleansing homes, and fortune-reading way before Evan was flung into this little world.

They were usually sour-tongued old men who couldn’t bear to see a newbie advancing up the ladder so quickly and efficiently. But the Blackwood name kept them at an arm's distance, enough that they at least feigned civility when coming across Evan.

Born out of this pseudo civility was an unsolicited advice Evan got a lot back in the day.

“Stay away from the Covenant of Nightshade,” an old man with a silver beard and sunken narrow eyes, whose name Evan couldn’t remember, had told him one day. The wariness around his wrinkled eyelids had deepened as if foreseeing the near future and all the disaster it carried. “Messing with the children of the Dark Spirit will bring you misfortune if lucky. If not…certain death.”

Only a fool would sit back and heed warnings for their well-being. Fortunately, Evan was no fool and wanted to know more about these children of the Dark Spirit. His curiosity had been thoroughly piqued and tingled.

Covenant of Nightshade was a cult established who knows how many years ago. They worshipped some deity of unknown origin and called it the Dark Spirit. Rumors had it these people danced naked around ritual fires, had sex under their deity’s figurine, and fed each other their blood, for it “strengthened their bond.”

It definitely strengthened their gag reflexes.

But those were merely surface rumors. Cheap gossip for the churchgoers and the circle of other spiritual practitioners who sat in their empty shops, chasing away flies. Buried under the pile of all the bullshit were whispers that passed from ear to ear, yet were never acknowledged out loud.

Covenant of Nightshade was accused of practicing human sacrifices.

But not only were they never interrogated by the authorities, the church even tried to cover up the rumors for some unknown reason. It made no sense why two parties who stood at the opposite ends of the religious spectrum would try to help each other. If Evan had any more interest in the subject and free time on his hands, maybe he would’ve dug deeper and probably set himself up as bait so he could be kidnapped by these Nightshade freaks and see for himself exactly what they were doing behind the scenes.

Of course, other than banging their ugly bits together under the moonlight.

“Did the disappearances all those years ago have anything to do with the Nightshades?” Evan asked, sensing the direction of Choi’s vague response.

Choi grimaced, and that was enough of an answer.

Evan tossed the earring into the air, catching it without glancing at it as he studied the spirit, who swayed with every toss of the earring, agitated.

How had Victor gotten his hands on an earring from a member of the Nightshade? Did the disappearance of the loggers have anything to do with those cult freaks?

If spirits could talk, Evan would have directly asked Victor and gotten it over with. But as he watched the spirit in front of him, he worried things were just beginning to get complicated.

A rustling at a distance jolted Evan’s senses into alert. Victor’s dislodged head cracked as he sensed something, and without a word, vanished into a fog of black smoke.

Evan, Xen, and Choi glanced over their shoulders as a glimpse of silver hair peeked above an overgrown bush. Two wide eyes poked up, then ducked behind the leaves again, muttering and whispering something under their breath.

Evan sighed. Old Mila.

No wonder Victor’s spirit had disappeared. If their bond was anything like Choi had described, Mila would probably be able to sense her husband’s spirit. And if she could sense it, eventually, she’d see it. And Victor’s spirit wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight to behold.

Just then, something occurred to Evan.

“Say, Steve,” Evan turned back, sliding the earring into his pocket as Xen unblinkingly watched Mila’s head poking out of the bush. “By any chance, would you happen to know where the Nightshade freaks crawl out from every night? A secret hideout, a cave, or something like that?”

Choi thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ve never dug into them too deep, for the same reason as everyone else. But…” he scratched his chin, “I’ve caught a few of them wandering near the Old Oak.”

Evan had figured that much. Logger’s disappearing, a tree crashing down on a house and taking an innocent life, and the spirit of the same deceased roaming around with a souvenir from the cult.

If the authorities had taken Victor’s death seriously, the clearing of the forest would have ceased immediately. And while Victor’s spirit was lingering around, he didn’t seem to be haunting anyone. So the rumors about him haunting the ruins of his house were possibly fake too.

Someone was, quite aggressively, trying to stop the clearing of the forest.

After this area of the forest, the loggers would have headed towards the Old Oak. And if Evan’s deduction was true, all these incidents—the fake haunting stories and the disappearance of the workers—were to prevent the falling of the oak. But why?

Guess I’ll have to pay a personal visit to the site.

As they made their way back from the forest clearing, Mila vanished just as swiftly as she’d appeared. Once they were out, Choi invited Evan and Xen to stay for tea in his treehouse cabin.

Xen stared at him, completely unmoved by his hospitality, while Evan politely declined.

“My sister's home after a long time,” a corner of his mouth lifted. “I should head back soon.”