Sarah Blackwood had spent seven years investigating crimes that ordinary detectives refused to believe existed.
She had questioned ghosts, tracked cursed objects, and once arrested a man who had been stealing people's shadows to extend his own life.
Yet nothing in those seven years had prepared her for the words written on the strip of paper.
THE FIRST VICTIM LIVES.
"If this is a joke," Sarah said, slipping the paper into her coat, "someone has a very unfortunate sense of humor."
Elias Thorne looked toward the end of the alley.
"We need to visit the morgue."
"Finally, a sensible suggestion."
"Sarah, if that woman is alive, we have to find her before whoever marked her does."
"And if she isn't?"
"Then someone wants us to believe she is."
Sarah hated it when he made sense.
---
The city morgue stood beneath the old courthouse, where the stone corridors smelled of dust, candle smoke, and secrets that had outlived their owners.
A tired attendant looked up as Sarah entered.
"Detective Blackwood. I thought you had already taken the body."
"I'd remember doing that."
"The young woman from the alley. Her name is listed as Eleanor Voss."
Sarah stopped.
"Who identified her?"
"No one. We found a name stitched into the lining of her coat."
Elias exchanged a glance with Sarah.
"Show us the body," she ordered.
The attendant led them through a narrow corridor and unlocked a refrigerated room. Metal drawers lined the walls. He pulled one open.
The woman lay beneath a white sheet.
Sarah approached slowly.
Without the strange symbols glowing on her skin, the victim looked almost peaceful. A faint scar crossed her left eyebrow, and her fingers were stained with something dark.
Sarah lifted the woman's wrist.
There it was.
A black rune, barely visible beneath the skin.
"Elias," she whispered.
He leaned closer. "It's different from the others."
"How?"
"This one is incomplete."
Sarah reached for her silver compass. The needle pointed directly at Eleanor's chest.
Then it snapped backward.
A sharp crack echoed through the room.
The compass had broken.
Sarah stared at it in disbelief. "That was expensive."
The woman beneath the sheet suddenly inhaled.
The attendant stumbled backward with a shout.
Eleanor's eyes flew open.
Sarah immediately stepped forward. "Eleanor? Can you hear me?"
The woman's gaze moved wildly around the room before settling on Sarah's face.
"No," she whispered.
"No, what?"
"You shouldn't have followed him."
Sarah glanced at Elias. "Who?"
Eleanor tried to sit up, but her body trembled. Sarah steadied her shoulders.
"The man in the dark," Eleanor gasped. "He wears a human face, but he isn't human."
Elias went pale.
Sarah noticed.
"Something you'd like to tell me?"
Before he could answer, Eleanor seized Sarah's wrist.
"He knows your name."
A cold sensation spread beneath Sarah's skin. The rune on Eleanor's arm glowed, and a matching mark appeared for a heartbeat on Sarah's palm.
Sarah jerked away.
The symbol vanished.
"What did you just do to me?"
"Nothing," Eleanor said, her voice breaking. "It chose you."
A distant bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The morgue's lights flickered.
Eleanor began to panic.
"How many?" she whispered.
Sarah listened as the bells continued.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Elias grabbed Eleanor's coat. "We have to leave. Now."
"Why?" Sarah demanded.
"Because the thirteenth bell isn't a time," he said. "It's a warning."
The seventh bell rang.
Every drawer in the morgue slammed shut.
The eighth.
The candles extinguished themselves.
The ninth.
A shadow stretched across the ceiling, though no one stood beneath a light.
Eleanor covered her ears.
"Don't let him open the door!"
The tenth bell rang.
At the end of the corridor, a figure appeared.
Tall. Motionless. Dressed in black.
Its face was hidden beneath a smooth porcelain mask.
Sarah drew her enchanted dagger.
"Elias, get Eleanor out."
"And leave you here?"
"That's generally what 'get her out' means."
The eleventh bell rang.
The masked figure tilted its head.
Then it spoke in Sarah's own voice.
"Hello, Detective."
Sarah felt every muscle in her body tense.
The twelfth bell rang.
Silence swallowed the corridor.
The masked figure lifted one gloved hand and pointed directly at her.
"Now," it whispered.
A thirteenth bell rang.
The floor split with a flash of violet light. The corridor twisted, its stone walls stretching into impossible shapes. For one breathless moment, Sarah saw another city beyond the opening: a city beneath a black sun, its towers crowded with watching silhouettes.
Then the vision vanished.
The masked figure was gone.
So was Eleanor.
Sarah rushed to the empty stretcher.
On the white sheet lay a folded note.
She opened it with trembling fingers.
The handwriting was unmistakably her own.
If you are reading this, you have already forgotten me once.
Beneath it was a second line.
Do not trust Elias Thorne.
Sarah slowly turned toward the man standing behind her.
He looked at the note.
For the first time since she had known him, Elias seemed genuinely afraid.
"Sarah," he said quietly, "whatever happens next, you must promise me one thing."
She tightened her grip on the dagger.
"What?"
"Never let yourself remember what happened thirteen years ago."
Sarah's breath caught.
Because suddenly, from somewhere deep inside her mind, she remembered a little girl standing in a burning room.
A little girl with glowing runes on her hands.
A little girl who had the same face as Sarah Blackwood.