Page 17

THE LIGHT THAT BURNS

SEAN

I watched from my car as Edward Hayes slipped through the front door of the rundown house like he owned the place. Typical haunted house shit from every B-movie ever made.

But something had changed in Hayes since I'd followed him here. Gone was the nervous, paranoid man glancing over his shoulder. Now he moved with purpose, as if whatever had been calling to him had finally taken full control.

The rain had stopped, but the air remained thick with humidity, the kind that makes your clothes stick to your skin and your hair curl in ways it shouldn't.

I'd been following Hayes for nearly an hour, watching him buy ritual supplies before driving to this abandoned dump on the edge of town where normal people don't go after dark.

My instincts were screaming. This was it. Whatever had been hunting the prayer revival men was about to make its move on Hayes.

I reached for my phone, dialing Cade. It rang five times before going to voicemail.

“Dammit, Cade,” I growled, ending the call. He was probably still following Whitmore, who apparently was behaving like a perfectly normal family man. Just my luck to get the one heading straight into the monster's jaws.

I stepped out of the car, the night air pressing against my skin like a warm, wet blanket.

The street was eerily quiet—no passing cars, no distant sirens, just the hum of crickets and the occasional rustle of leaves.

I popped into the back seat, grabbing my duffel of emergency supplies: salt, holy water, silver knife, gun loaded with consecrated iron rounds.

Probably useless against whatever ancient thing we were dealing with, but old habits die hard.

The silence felt wrong, heavy, like the world was holding its breath. I checked my phone again and fired off a quick text to Cade: “Get your ass here. Now.” I followed it with my location, hoping he'd see it soon. Whatever was about to happen, I didn't want to face it alone.

Moving across the overgrown yard, I kept low, stepping carefully to avoid snapping twigs or rustling leaves. Years of hunting had taught me how to move silently, how to become part of the shadows. The house loomed before me, a dark silhouette against the night sky.

I crept up to a grimy window, wiping away decades of dirt with my sleeve to create a small viewing space.

Through the smudged glass, I could make out Hayes standing in what must have once been a living room.

The furniture was gone, leaving only a bare wooden floor covered in dust—except where Hayes had clearly been moving around.

He was speaking, his voice a low murmur I could barely hear through the glass. But that's what threw me—he was talking like he was having a conversation, but there was no one else in the room. At least, no one I could see.

“I'm ready,” I caught Hayes saying, his voice hushed, almost reverent. “I understand. Just make it quick.”

“Bollocks,” I cursed under my breath. This was worse than I thought. The poor bastard was talking to thin air, which in our line of work usually meant one of two things: either he was completely off his rocker, or something invisible was in there with him.

Given our current case, I was betting on the latter.

I moved toward the front door, testing the handle. Locked, of course. I sized it up—old wood, rusted hinges. Nothing I couldn't handle. Glancing around to ensure the street remained empty, I took a step back, then rammed my shoulder against the door, putting my weight behind it.

The door gave way with a splintering crack, swinging inward to reveal the darkened interior.

The air that rushed out was cold, unnaturally so given the summer heat outside.

Wrong. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, a primal warning system honed by years of facing things that shouldn't exist.

“CITD” I shouted, an automatic cover that hardly mattered now. “Edward Hayes, I need you to step outside!”

No response. Just silence.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw them—symbols.

Circular, intricate designs drawn onto the walls in what looked like a mixture of chalk, ink, and.

.. was that blood? The patterns formed a complete circle around the room, covering every wall in flowing script and geometric shapes that made my eyes hurt to look at directly.

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered, recognizing elements from various traditions—Enochian script mixed with symbols that looked Sumerian, overlapping with patterns that reminded me of ancient star charts.

This wasn't some amateur hour summoning ritual.

This was old. Powerful. And way beyond anything Hayes should have known how to do.

Hayes stood frozen in the center of the room, staring at me with wide, frightened eyes. But there was something underneath the fear—a terrible, feverish anticipation.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling me. I pulled it out, keeping one eye on Hayes, who hadn't moved from his spot in the center of the room.

Skye's voice came through immediately, focused and precise as always. “Hayes isn't alone. I've been running pattern recognition on the thermal imaging from the satellite feed. There's a cold spot moving through that house that doesn't match human biology.”

I glanced around the empty room, tension coiling in my gut. “I don't see anyone else. How accurate is this?”

“Accurate enough to bet your life on it,” Skye replied, their voice clipped and professional. “The thermal anomaly is consistent with non-corporeal entities—likely the same class we encountered at the Ravensbrook case.”

Great. Just bloody great. Ravensbrook had been a clusterfuck of biblical proportions. Three dead hunters and a town that would never quite recover from what had happened there.

“I've been monitoring Hayes since you tagged him,” Skye continued, keyboard clicks audible in the background. “His movements follow the exact same pattern as the previous victims—48 hours of seemingly normal behavior followed by a sudden deviation toward isolated locations.”

I kept my eyes on Hayes, noting his jerky, unnatural movements as he shifted position. His head occasionally tilted as if listening to someone I couldn't hear. “Can you tell what's influencing him?”

“Working on it. The spectral wavelength signatures are... unusual. Not demonic, but something I've never seen before. Almost like it's from somewhere else entirely.”

That was a new one. We'd dealt with plenty of demons over the years, but this energy signature was completely uncharted territory.

“Watch yourself, Sean,” Skye said, their voice softening slightly. “After what happened with the possession case in Queens, we can't afford to lose anyone else.”

I knew what Skye wasn't saying. After losing two hunters to what we'd thought was a standard possession, Skye had blamed themselves for missing the signs that it was something more powerful. It had nearly broken them, driven them to leave Hallow and strike out on their own.

“Why are you still helping us, Skye?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “You could've disappeared after leaving Hallow.”

The pause before Skye answered was telling. “Because Hallow would handle this with their usual sledgehammer approach. And I've seen too many innocent people caught in the crossfire when they decide something's a threat.”

Fair enough. Hallow had a nasty habit of eliminating supernatural threats with extreme prejudice, regardless of collateral damage.

Their “shoot first, never ask questions” policy had led to countless civilian casualties over the years—a methodology I had embraced wholeheartedly until meeting Cade.

Which is why I had helped Skye fake their death and disappear from Hallow's radar after they started questioning the organization's methods—the same methods I'd only recently begun to question myself.

“I've mapped the sigils visible from your body cam,” Skye said, bringing me back to the present crisis. “They're forming a summoning circle, but with a twist—it's designed to turn the subject into a vessel rather than just bringing something through.”

My eyes darted to Hayes, who had now moved to stand directly in the center of the room, arms slightly outstretched, palms up. Like he was offering himself.

“Sean, move now!” Skye's voice turned urgent. “The completion sequence has started. Whatever's coming?—”

The phone cut out abruptly, dissolving into a burst of static that made me wince.

The temperature in the room plummeted within seconds, dropping twenty degrees at least. My breath clouded in front of my face as Edward Hayes doubled over, his body beginning to glow from within—a faint blue-white light tracing the veins under his skin.

“Fecking hell,” I cursed. “Edward!” I shouted, advancing into the room with my gun drawn. “We need to get out of here. Now!”

Hayes didn't even flinch at the sound of my voice or my approach. He remained in the center of the room, trembling slightly, but didn't turn around.

“You shouldn't be here,” he murmured, voice oddly serene despite his shaking body. “It's already begun.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” I replied, moving carefully around the edge of the room, avoiding stepping on any of the symbols. “Which is why we need to leave. Whatever you think is happening, it's not what you signed up for.”

My fingers twitched toward the holy water in my jacket pocket. If this was angelic, as Skye suggested, holy water might not do shit. But it was better than nothing.

“Look, man, I just want to help,” I said, softening my tone. “You're in danger.”

A ragged laugh escaped Edward, echoing strangely in the empty house. “No. No, I'm not.”

He finally turned to face me, and I stopped cold. His eyes were wild, feverish, pupils dilated so wide the irises were nearly invisible. His face was streaked with sweat, but his expression was one of rapturous joy, like a man who'd found salvation at the end of a long, dark road.