Chapter 4 Chapter 4: Warehouse Shadows (Sam POV)

Tyler stares at me like I've just announced the world is ending. "Dead? You're absolutely certain?"

"I saw her die, Tyler." I grip the steering wheel harder than necessary. "Ritual murder. Stone altar. Same symbols as the Pike Place victims."

"Jesus Christ." He slumps back in his seat, notebook falling into his lap. "So what do we tell her father?"

"Nothing. Not yet." I start the engine, my mind already racing toward the warehouse in Georgetown. "First, I need proof."

"Proof of what? You just said she's dead."

"I need evidence. Something concrete to show Pedro when we break the news." The vision of Maria's terror burns behind my eyes. "I know where it happened."

Tyler groans. "Sam, please tell me we're not about to do something incredibly stupid."

"We're going to the warehouse."

"That's exactly what I was afraid you'd say." He checks his phone. "It's almost eight PM. Can't this wait until morning?"

"No." I pull out of the Starbucks parking lot, heading toward the industrial district. "The longer we wait, the more evidence gets contaminated or disappears."

Tyler fidgets with his notebook, a nervous habit I've noticed getting worse over the months we've worked together. "You know, Sam, sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for this job."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." He gestures vaguely at everything around us. "Normal people don't spend their evenings investigating ritual murder sites. Normal people my age are at bars, trying to talk to girls, failing miserably because they can't make eye contact without breaking into a cold sweat."

I glance at him. Tyler's anxiety about dating has been a recurring theme lately, usually surfacing when cases get particularly dark. "You're twenty-three, Tyler. You have plenty of time to figure out the social stuff."

"Do I? Because this job is making me weird, Sam. Weirder than I already was." He runs his hands through his hair. "Last week I went to a party with some guys from my computer science classes. There was this girl, Sarah, really pretty, seemed interested in talking to me. But when she asked what I do for work..."

"You told her you're a research assistant."

"I told her I help investigate supernatural serial killers." Tyler's voice cracks slightly. "She looked at me like I was insane and walked away. Now everyone in my program thinks I'm some kind of conspiracy theorist freak."

The guilt hits me hard. I've been so focused on finding Danny's killer that I haven't considered what this work is costing Tyler. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize—"

"It's not your fault. I chose this." He stares out the window at the passing streetlights. "But sometimes I wonder if I'm losing myself in all this darkness. Like, what if I become so comfortable with violence and death that I can't connect with normal people anymore?"

We're driving through Georgetown now, past the industrial buildings that house everything from art studios to small manufacturing companies. During the day, this area bustles with creative energy. At night, it feels abandoned and threatening.

"Tyler, you're one of the most compassionate people I know. This work hasn't changed that."

"Hasn't it? Six months ago, the thought of looking at crime scene photos made me throw up. Now I'm documenting ritual murder sites like it's just another Tuesday."

I park outside the warehouse from my vision—a concrete building with broken windows and rust stains running down its walls like dried blood. "You can wait in the car."

"No." Tyler grabs his camera and notebook. "If I'm going to keep doing this, I need to stop being such a coward about it."

The warehouse door hangs open, creaking in the evening wind. I pull out my flashlight and step inside, Tyler close behind me. The space is exactly as I saw in the death echo—vast, empty except for scattered debris and graffiti-covered walls.

And there, in the center of the floor, is the stone altar.

"Holy shit," Tyler whispers, his voice echoing in the empty space.

The altar is crude but ancient-looking, carved from dark stone that seems to absorb our flashlight beams. Dried blood covers its surface, and the same reversed containment circles are etched into the concrete around it. Candle stubs sit at precise intervals, their wax pooled and hardened.

"Don't touch anything yet," I warn Tyler as he raises his camera. "Let me get a reading first."

I approach the altar slowly, steeling myself for what I'm about to experience. Death echoes are never pleasant, but witnessing a seventeen-year-old's final moments is going to be particularly brutal.

I place my palm flat against the bloodstained stone.

Terror. Absolute, crushing terror.

Maria Fernandez lies bound to the altar, her eyes wide with horror as the hooded figure approaches. She tries to scream, but no sound comes—something has stolen her voice, leaving only the desperate gasping of someone who knows she's about to die.

"The barriers weaken," the figure chants in that same ancient language I heard at the Pike Place murders. "The blood of the innocent shall open the way."

The ceremonial knife rises, its blade gleaming in the candlelight. But this isn't just murder—it's a summoning. Power crackles in the air around the altar as something vast and hungry presses against the boundaries of our world.

Maria's eyes find mine across time and space, and in them I see not just fear but accusation. Why didn't you save me? Why are you always too late?

The knife comes down.

I jerk my hand back, gasping. The vision was stronger this time, more detailed. And there was something else—a sense that whatever killed Maria is still here, waiting.

"Sam?" Tyler's voice sounds far away. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." I wipe blood from my nose, a side effect of particularly intense death echoes. "Get photos of everything. The altar, the circles, the candle positions. Document it all."

Tyler moves around the space with professional efficiency, but I can see his hands shaking as he works. "Sam, this place feels... wrong. Like something's watching us."

He's not wrong. The warehouse has the oppressive atmosphere of a place where the barrier between worlds has been weakened. Every shadow seems to move independently, and the temperature is at least ten degrees colder than outside.

"Just keep shooting. We'll be out of here soon."

That's when we hear the growling.

Tyler freezes mid-shot. "Please tell me that was your stomach."

The sound comes again—low, bestial, definitely not human. It echoes from the far end of the warehouse, where the darkness is too thick for our flashlights to penetrate.

"Tyler, move toward the door. Slowly."

"What about you?"

"I'm right behind you."

But I'm not. Something is moving in those shadows, and my psychic senses are screaming warnings. Whatever performed the ritual here left more than just blood behind—it left a piece of itself, and it's waking up.

The growling becomes a snarl, and suddenly glowing eyes appear in the darkness. Multiple sets of eyes, all fixed on us.

"Run," I whisper.

Tyler doesn't need to be told twice. He bolts for the door, camera clutched against his chest. I'm about to follow when a figure emerges from a different section of shadows—tall, wearing a long coat that billows behind him like wings.

And he's fighting the things with glowing eyes.

The stranger moves with inhuman speed and grace, wielding what looks like a sword that pulses with blue light. Runes carved into his exposed forearms glow with the same ethereal fire as he cuts through the snarling creatures—demons, I realize, lesser demons drawn by the residual energy of Maria's sacrifice.

One of the demons breaks away from the fight, charging straight at me with slavering jaws and claws extended.

I don't think. I just react.

Power erupts from my hands—raw psychic energy crackling with silver fire. It slams into the demon mid-leap, sending it flying backward into the warehouse wall with a wet thud.

But the stranger's sword and my psychic blast hit at the same moment, and something goes catastrophically wrong.

The air splits open with a sound like reality tearing. A jagged rift appears in the space between us, maybe four feet across, howling with otherworldly wind. Through the gap I can see another place—dark sky, twisted spires, ground that looks like it's made of crushed bone.

The demon realm.

"What have you done?" the stranger shouts over the supernatural hurricane now pouring through the portal.

"I didn't mean to—" I start, but then debris begins flying toward the rift. Concrete chunks, metal scraps, even one of the dead demons gets sucked toward the gaping hole in reality.

The stranger grabs my arm, his grip like iron. "Get back!"

But it's too late. The portal's pull is getting stronger, and Tyler is screaming from the doorway as loose papers and trash whirl around us like a tornado.

"Tyler, get out of here!" I shout.

"I'm not leaving you!"

A piece of rebar goes spinning past my head into the rift. The stranger is fighting against the pull, his boots scraping against concrete as he tries to maintain his footing.

"Can you close it?" he demands.

"I don't know how!"

The wind is deafening now, and I can hear something else—voices from the other side of the portal, speaking in that same ancient language from the death echoes. Whatever realm we've opened a door to, its inhabitants are very interested in our world.

And they're coming through.