Chapter one

The interrogation room at Blackthorn’s Central Precinct was as bleak as a coffin: windowless, square, painted in gray that made the walls sweat under the fluorescent light. A metal table divided the room, scarred from years of fists, cigarettes, and confessions carved into its surface.

Detective Jonah Voss sat across from Father Marcus Hale, hands folded, his coffee cooling untouched. Hale looked smaller in daylight than he had last night among the candles—just a gaunt man in a stained cassock, cuffs digging into his wrists. His lips moved silently, a prayer or a curse, Jonah couldn’t tell.

The tape recorder clicked on. Jonah leaned forward.

“Father Hale. Three victims. Same ritual. Same verse on the wall. Same black feather in the chest cavity. You were found at the scene surrounded by photographs of all three. Do you want to explain that?”

Hale smiled faintly, eyes drooping as though Jonah’s voice were distant thunder. “I already explained it. I am the witness. The hand is not mine.”

Jonah pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re not playing theology, Father. We’re talking about homicide. Three families without daughters because of you.”

“No.” Hale’s eyes snapped open, sudden clarity in them. “Not because of me. Through me. There is a difference.”

The one-way mirror hummed with unseen eyes. Behind it, Assistant District Attorney Evelyn Cross watched. She was sharp-eyed, dark-haired, a presence that filled the observation booth despite her silence. She’d been brought in early at Jonah’s request—if this case went to trial, they’d need her razor intellect from the ground up.

Evelyn’s voice came through the intercom. “Push him. Find the crack.”

Jonah tapped the table with his pen. “Let’s talk about the victims. Emily Garner. Age twenty-four. Pre-med student. Found in an abandoned tenement. You lived three blocks away. Coincidence?”

Hale tilted his head, lips curling. “She prayed once in my confessional. About the things she did in the dark. Do you want to know what she whispered? Do you want to hear her sins?”

Jonah slammed the table. “Her sins don’t matter. She’s dead. Heart carved out. Feather left behind. That’s your ritual, Father. Or your… thing’s ritual. Take your pick.”

For the first time, Hale leaned forward, chains rattling. His voice dropped to a rasp. “If you truly believe I did this, Detective, then you must also believe that I did not. Because no man—no man—could peel back a chest and leave no trace. Did you see the cuts? Did you see how clean they were? Like glass. Like fire.”

Jonah kept his expression flat, though his gut churned. The coroner had said the same thing last night: no human blade could have carved with such precision, as though the body had been opened by heat itself.

Ramirez shifted against the wall, uncomfortable. He broke the silence. “Then who, Father? Who kills them if not you?”

Hale’s smile spread wider, his eyes gleaming with something feral. “Ask him. Call him. He’ll answer.”

Jonah shot Ramirez a look, then pushed his chair back. “Break,” he muttered, clicking off the recorder.

---

In the observation room, Evelyn Cross was waiting with arms folded. She didn’t waste time.

“He’s posturing. Either schizophrenic or running the possession defense early.”

Jonah scrubbed a hand across his stubble. “I’ve seen schizophrenics. They don’t stage corpses like art exhibits. They don’t write scripture in perfect calligraphy with blood.”

Evelyn’s gaze cut into him. “So what are you suggesting, Detective? That the devil really is his alibi?”

Jonah met her stare. He wanted to laugh, to dismiss it, but the words stuck. Instead, he shrugged. “I’m suggesting he’s not telling us everything. Whether it’s psychosis or cult involvement, we don’t know yet. But there’s something… organized.”

She nodded slowly, lips tight. “Then we’ll crush him in court with his own words. But we need motive. A jury won’t convict on feathers and Bible verses alone.”

Jonah glanced back at the glass. Hale was still sitting there, head bowed, lips moving in silent prayer. For a moment, Jonah could almost believe he was just a broken man begging for salvation. Almost.

---

The second round began with Evelyn in the room. She had the presence of a surgeon—cold, precise, cutting through flesh to the bone. She slid into the chair opposite Hale, a slim folder in hand.

“Father Hale,” she began smoothly, “I’m Assistant District Attorney Evelyn Cross. You’re in a precarious position. Three murders, overwhelming evidence, a city screaming for justice. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a cage, if not worse. Unless you start cooperating.”

Hale raised his eyes. “And who are you to bargain with damnation?”

Evelyn leaned in, her voice like steel. “The woman who decides if you face a jury or a needle.”

For the first time, Hale’s smile faltered. His hands twitched against the cuffs, chains rattling like nervous bones. Then, almost inaudibly, he whispered, “He won’t let me.”

“Who?” Evelyn asked sharply.

Hale’s body stiffened. His eyes rolled back, breath hitching as though an invisible rope tightened around his throat. The veins in his neck bulged. Jonah rose instinctively, but Evelyn held up a hand.

“Let him,” she whispered.

Hale’s voice changed. Not deepened, not masked—changed, as though layered with another frequency. Words dripped from his mouth like oil.

“She cannot save you. None of you can. The pact is older than your laws. Older than your blood.”

Jonah’s skin crawled. He slammed his fist on the table. “Enough games! What pact? What do you want with these women?”

The thing inside Hale laughed, dry and hollow. “Want? I do not want. I take. They are tithes. Payments. The price of his silence.”

Evelyn narrowed her eyes. “Whose silence?”

Hale’s head snapped toward her with unnatural speed, eyes locking onto hers. For a moment, the entire room felt smaller, air sucked thin. Then he whispered a single word:

“Yours.”

The lights flickered. The tape recorder squealed. Ramirez cursed from the corner.

Jonah yanked Hale upright, slamming him against the wall. “Tell me what that means!”

Hale collapsed, choking, the strange resonance gone. His body trembled, sweat soaking his cassock. He looked suddenly human again, fragile. His eyes darted to Evelyn, wide with something between fear and reverence.

“He knows you,” Hale whispered hoarsely. “He’s been waiting.”

Evelyn’s jaw clenched, but her hands didn’t shake. She gathered the folder, snapped it shut, and stood. “This interrogation is over.”

Jonah grabbed her arm as they left the room. “What the hell was that? He called you out.”

Evelyn didn’t break stride. “Coincidence. He’s playing mind games.”

“Really?” Jonah shot back. “Because it didn’t sound like coincidence. It sounded like he knew something.”

She stopped in the hallway, turned, and met his gaze with a steel-cold glare. “Detective, you’re superstitious. That’s dangerous in our line of work. Stick to evidence. Stick to what we can prove.”

Jonah wanted to argue, to tell her about the cold drop in the air, the impossible shift in Hale’s voice, the way his eyes had locked onto hers like recognition. But her expression told him it was useless. She had built her career on logic, not on shadows.

“Fine,” Jonah muttered. “Evidence.”

But even as he said it, the phrase twisted in his gut. Evidence wouldn’t explain the cuts on the victims. Evidence wouldn’t explain the feathers, the verses, or the way the lights had died when Hale spoke.

And evidence sure as hell wouldn’t explain why the devil had just given Evelyn Cross an alibi.

---

That night, Jonah sat alone in his apartment, blinds drawn, whiskey sweating in his glass. The city outside roared with sirens and rain. On the table lay the photographs of the victims, spread like a grotesque tarot deck.

He studied them one by one, tracing the wounds, the positioning, the feather. Always the feather. Always in place of the heart.

His phone buzzed. Unknown number.

Jonah hesitated, then answered.

A voice hissed on the other end—low, guttural, familiar.

“Detective Voss… careful where you search. You might find your own heart missing.”

The line went dead.

Jonah sat frozen, glass trembling in his hand. He’d heard that voice once before.

This morning.

In the interrogation room.

Coming from Father Hale’s mouth.

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