The blood wasn't fresh, but it was still red.
It pooled just off-center on the living room floor, near broken glass and splintered wood, as if dropped with care rather than spilled. Jacko lingered in the doorway, eyes wide, voice already shaking.
"I don't like this," he whispered. "This don't feel right."
Elias crouched beside the blood, ignoring him.
The place had been ransacked—clearly—but not chaotically. Furniture overturned, drawers dumped, shelves cleared. There was a pattern to it. Certain areas had been searched more thoroughly than others. The bookshelf was methodically emptied, each volume inspected and discarded. The couch cushions had been sliced open with care.
Someone had been looking for something specific.
"Looks like the work of three, maybe four people," Elias muttered, scanning the room. "One took the kitchen, another the living room, and at least one more for the bedroom."
He remembered the way men moved around Dunwich—in small groups, always in threes or fours, like schools of fish. Safety in numbers. Against what, he still didn't know.
"Could be anyone," Jacko offered.
"Not just anyone," Elias said. "Someone who knew what they were after."
He studied the destruction. Too messy for Deepwell's people—they'd have been surgical. This had desperation to it. Urgency.
What unsettled him most wasn't the mess.
It was the blood. No signs of a fight. No overturned furniture where someone might've fallen. Just that perfect pool—and no trail leading away.
"Maybe Deepwell sent people," Jacko mumbled. "On account of Pike stealing from them."
Elias frowned. "Is that what people are saying? That Pike stole something?"
"It's what they fired him for," Jacko said. "Never said what he took, though."
That would explain the thoroughness. But this didn't feel like a corporate clean-up job.
Jacko edged toward the door. "I'll keep lookout."
Elias stepped forward and snapped the door shut, locking it. "If someone's out there," he said, "they already know we're in here."
Jacko cursed under his breath and shrank back against the wall as Elias turned toward the bedroom.
The door creaked open into more disarray—wardrobe drawers yanked out, clothing flung everywhere. Elias stepped over a shattered picture frame and moved to the bed. His flashlight caught a soft floral blouse, the lace at the shoulder torn.
Women's clothes, among the mess.
Maddie?
He wasn't sure. He couldn't remember what she'd worn the night they spoke. The fabric looked familiar, but maybe that was just his mind reaching. Still—she and Pike were close. Greaves had hinted at more than friendship.
Three days ago, he'd been supposed to meet her.
Three days. The same time this mess likely happened.
He felt a twinge—not guilt exactly, but something close. If he'd met her, pushed her for more, would she still be here?
He set the blouse down and paced slowly. The search here was more thorough than the rest. They'd thought it was hidden in the bedroom. Whatever it was.
He returned to the living room.
"Whoever broke in didn't take much," Elias said. "They either found what they wanted—or left empty-handed."
Jacko hadn't moved from the far wall. He nodded toward the blood.
"What if they left something?"
Elias knelt again, dipping two fingers into the dark stain and raising them to his nose.
Jacko flinched. "You're mad."
"Three days," Elias murmured. "Maybe less."
Same as Maddie's disappearance. The same night she never showed.
He wiped his fingers on his coat. "This doesn't make sense. If they killed someone—where's the body? If they took them—why leave blood?"
Jacko looked pale. "Maybe it ain't his blood."
A fair point.
Then came the sound.
A hammering, from the bedroom wall. Steady. Deliberate. Not wood-on-wood. Something harder. Metallic.
Like a mining pick.
"That sounds like a rock pick," Elias said, his voice tight.
Jacko's face drained of color. "Pike was a miner."
They both stilled.
"You saw anyone in there?" Jacko asked, barely audible.
"No." Elias swallowed. "No one."
The temperature had dropped. Not a breeze. Something deeper, like air from underground.
The hammering persisted.
Crowbar in one hand, flashlight in the other, Elias stepped back toward the bedroom door. He paused, listening. The strikes grew louder, urgent.
He laid his hand on the knob, the cold metal biting his skin. Then, slowly, he turned it and eased the door open.
He raised the light—
And froze.
The mess was gone.
Drawers tucked in. Clothes folded. The bed made, corners tight like no one had ever disturbed it.
A breath caught in his throat.
In the corner, just at the edge of his vision, a shadow moved—darker than the rest, slipping away as the light passed. There, then gone, like smoke caught in a draft.
Elias clenched the crowbar tighter, heart thudding.
He turned the beam toward the wall where the hammering had come from.
A black cloth hung there now, wide as the wall itself. Draped like a curtain, taut and deliberate.
On it, painted in crude, thick red—an eye.
No iris. No pupil.
Just the outline. Watching.
The hammering had stopped.
Behind him, Jacko shuffled in. Then he saw it.
He stopped mid-step, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.
Elias turned. "You know it," he said softly.
Jacko didn't answer.
He just stared at the mark like it had spoken to him.
The room held its breath.
---