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“One more thing,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Did Reeves ever mention any unusual dreams? Nightmares, maybe?”

Kelley's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How'd you know? He was just talking about it last week. Said he hadn't been sleeping well, kept having the same dream over and over.”

“Did he say what the dream was about?” Cade asked, suddenly intent.

“Something about a fire,” Kelley recalled, brow furrowed in concentration. “And someone watching him through the flames. Weird stuff. I told him to lay off the scotch before bed.”

We thanked Kelley for his time and stepped outside into the afternoon sun, both of us blinking against the sudden brightness after the dim bar.

“Recurring dreams before death,” I muttered, loosening my tie further. “That could be significant.”

“And the burned-out eyes,” Cade pointed out, his pace brisk as we headed toward the Impala. “Something wanted to make sure he couldn't identify it.”

I exhaled sharply, frustration building. “So what? Ghost? Demon? Something new?”

Cade looked back at the bar, his expression unreadable. “We'll find out. Let's check with the ME, see if the autopsy reveals anything.”

The county morgue was housed in the basement of the hospital, all sterile white tiles and the sharp scent of disinfectant barely masking the underlying smell of death.

Our CITD badges got us past the front desk with minimal questioning, and soon we were being led down a corridor by a harried-looking assistant.

“Dr. Cohen is just finishing up the preliminary examination,” she explained, pushing through a set of double doors.

The autopsy room was colder than the hallway, the temperature kept low to slow decomposition.

In the center, beneath harsh fluorescent lighting, stood a stainless steel table where Martin Reeves lay exposed.

The medical examiner, a slight woman with steel-gray hair pulled back in a severe bun, looked up as we entered.

“CITD?” she asked, eyebrows raising slightly over her surgical mask. “That was fast. I only just started the examination.”

I flashed my badge again, offering a practiced smile. “Agents Tennant and Smith. We're investigating a series of similar deaths.”

Dr. Cohen's expression shifted from skepticism to interest. “Similar to this? I'd remember if I'd seen anything like this before.”

“Not locally,” Cade smoothly interjected. “We're tracking cases across state lines.”

She nodded, accepting the explanation, and gestured us closer to the body. “Well, you've got a strange one here. I've been at this job twenty years and never seen burns like these.”

Up close, without the distraction of the crime scene, I could see just how unnatural the injuries were.

The burns weren't just around the eyes; they extended inward, the eye sockets charred black as if someone had taken a blowtorch to them.

But the surrounding skin showed minimal damage, no sign of the expected radiation pattern that external heat would cause.

“The burns originated internally?” Cade asked, voicing my thoughts.

“That's my working theory,” Dr. Cohen confirmed, using a probe to indicate the pattern of tissue damage. “It's as if the heat source was behind the eyes, burning outward. There's no evidence of any accelerant, no entry wound for an injected substance, nothing that explains this pattern of damage.”

“Cause of death?” I asked, swallowing hard against the acrid taste in the back of my throat.

“Cardiac arrest, technically,” she replied with a shrug. “But this?” She gestured to the burns. “No idea. Never seen anything like it. The brain tissue shows extreme thermal damage, concentrated in the visual cortex and spreading outward.”

Cade leaned closer, examining the damage with clinical detachment. “Was there any damage to other sensory centers? Auditory, olfactory?”

Dr. Cohen looked impressed by the question. “Minimal impact to other areas. Whatever this was, it specifically targeted the visual processing systems.”

“Almost like it came in through the eyes,” I muttered.

“That would be my assessment,” she agreed, “though I have no scientific explanation for how such a thing would be possible.”

Cade straightened, stepping back from the table. “What about toxicology?”

“Still pending,” Dr. Cohen said, “but preliminary tests don't show any common drugs or toxins. No alcohol in his system, despite coming from a bar.”

As she continued detailing her findings, I found my attention drawn to the victim's face. Even in death, even with the horrific damage, the expression of terror remained frozen in his features. This wasn't just a killing; it was an execution, meant to inflict maximum suffering before death.

“Not just the eyes,” Cade murmured, voice pitched low enough that only I could hear. “Something deeper. Like it was erasing what he'd seen.”

The suggestion sent a chill down my spine, but I couldn't argue. There was a lingering emptiness around the body, an absence that went beyond the mere cessation of life. I'd felt it enough times to recognize it—the distinctive void left when something supernatural had fed on more than just flesh.

“Time of death?” I asked, forcing myself back to the practical details.

“Between 1 and 3 AM,” Dr. Cohen replied, pulling her surgical mask down. “Rigor mortis was just setting in when he was found at 4 AM.”

We thanked the doctor for her time and headed back upstairs, both of us silent until we reached the privacy of the Impala.

“So our victim leaves the bar around midnight, talking to someone no one else can see,” I summarized, starting the engine. “Then shows up dead in an alley a few hours later with his eyes burned from the inside out.”

“And whatever he saw during that conversation, someone wanted it erased,” Cade added, staring thoughtfully out the windshield.

“You think it might be connected to the gate? Something that came through?”

“It's possible,” he admitted, his voice unnervingly calm given the subject matter.

“We need more information,” I decided, pulling out of the hospital parking lot. “Let's find a motel, go through that security footage, see if we can spot anything.”

The neon sign of the Sleepy Pine Motel flickered erratically as I pulled into the cracked asphalt lot, the 'vacancy' portion buzzing with electrical uncertainty.

The place was exactly the kind of establishment that had become familiar territory during my hunting years—cheap enough not to question cash payments, discreet enough not to ask why two men needed only one room.

It smelled like stale coffee and regret. Perfect.

Cade went to check us in while I gathered our equipment from the trunk. By the time I'd shouldered our duffel bags, he was returning with a plastic key fob, tossing it to me without comment.

The silence between us stretched, heavier than it should have been.

Six months ago, this would have been filled with casual banter, theories about the case, maybe an argument about where to get dinner.

Now there was just . . . nothing. A void nearly as palpable as the one surrounding our victim's body.

Room 108 was predictably dismal—two queen beds with faded floral bedspreads, a particleboard desk supporting an ancient television, and carpet that had seen better decades. I dropped my bag onto the bed nearest the door, my usual spot. Some habits never changed, even when everything else had.

“Right,” I said, breaking the silence that had followed us from the car. “What the feckin' hell are we dealing with here?”

Cade sat at the small desk, already opening his laptop and inserting the USB drive from the crime scene. “Something that doesn't just kill—it erases. Burns them from the inside out to destroy what they've seen.”

I watched him for a long moment, the blue light of the screen casting harsh shadows across his features.

He looked fine. Acted fine. Moved with the precise economy I'd come to expect from him since his return.

But there was a tension in his shoulders, a tightness around his eyes that told me this case was affecting him more than he was letting on.

“What's bothering me,” I pressed, unwilling to let him retreat behind his wall of calm detachment, “is that you seem to recognize this. It's triggering something for you.”

Cade's fingers paused briefly on the keyboard before resuming their steady typing.

“I keep getting flashes. Not memories exactly, but feelings. Like déjà vu, but stronger.” He frowned slightly.

“This burning . . . it feels like a punishment.

For witnesses. People who saw things they weren't supposed to see.”

“And you think what—some demon is hunting people who've witnessed something?” I moved to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder at the grainy security footage now playing on his screen.

“Maybe,” he conceded. “Or something else that doesn't want to be seen.”

The unspoken concern hung heavily between us. Since Cade had returned from the pit, changed in ways we still didn't fully understand, I'd wondered what exactly had come back with him.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said softly, still not looking away from the screen. “And I understand why. But it's not connected to me, Sean.”

“Never said it was,” I replied, though the thought had fleetingly crossed my mind. Not seriously, not really, but in that dark corner where worst fears take root.

“You didn't have to,” Cade said simply.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair in frustration.

“Look, I know you're not involved in this.

But I also know there's something about this case that's setting off alarm bells for you.

And if you're getting these . . . impressions, then we need to figure out what they mean. You can see why that might make me a wee bit concerned.”

Cade finally turned to face me, his expression uncharacteristically open. “I'm not hiding things to be difficult. These impressions . . . they feel dangerous. Like picking at a scab that's better left alone. I'm trying to protect us both.”

The sincerity in his voice caught me off guard. It was the most emotionally honest he'd been since his return, a glimpse of the old Cade beneath the mechanical precision of his new self.

“I get that,” I said, softening my tone. “But we can't hunt this thing effectively if we're ignoring valuable insights. Even if they're just impressions.”

Cade held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded once, decision made. “Whatever this is, it's targeting the eyes specifically. Not just to kill, but to . . . erase something. Knowledge, memories, something the victim saw that they weren't supposed to.”

“So our victim saw something he shouldn't have,” I concluded, focusing back on the case. “Question is, what?”

Cade was quiet for a moment, staring at the frozen frame on his laptop screen.

“Before the gate, I used to think attachments were what kept me human,” he said finally, his voice distant.

“The connections to other people, the things I cared about. They were anchors.” He paused, something painful flickering across his features.

“I can remember feeling that way, but I can't .

. . I can't access it anymore. Those feelings, those connections—they feel like they belong to someone else.”

The admission hit me like a physical blow. I'd suspected something like this, but hearing him say it so matter-of-factly made it real in a way that observation couldn't.

“Cade . . .” I started, not sure what to say.

“I'm telling you this because whatever we're hunting, it's doing something similar. Taking something essential from its victims. Not just their lives, but their ability to bear witness. And I recognize that kind of theft.”

The weight of his words settled between us, heavy with implication. Whatever had happened to him in Hell, whatever had been taken or changed, it was more fundamental than I'd realized.

“We'll figure it out,” I said, the words feeling inadequate but necessary. “Both the case and . . . the other thing. We'll figure it all out.”

Cade turned back to the laptop, the moment of vulnerability closing like a door. “For now, let's focus on what we can control. What killed Martin Reeves, and how to stop it from killing again.”