It started with a smell. Not the faint scent of weed clinging to Smitty's flannel or the industrial-grade fake bacon Jake always microwaved into oblivion. No, this was something older. Sharper. Like burning plastic wrapped around old books and regret. It drifted through the open window, tugging at the corner of Smitty's brain like a half-remembered name or a prayer whispered in reverse.
He froze mid-sip, the ceramic mug trembling slightly in his hand. Jake had gone out for bagels twenty minutes ago, muttering something about wanting "real carbs for once" and taking his favorite hoodie hostage. Smitty had stayed behind, grateful for the solitude. The morning had been... almost peaceful. Too peaceful.
He'd even caught himself relaxing. Just for a moment.
They'd joked that morning—Jake tossing him a bottle of orange juice and saying, "If you ever do get me killed, I hope it's fast. No weird ritual crap, yeah?" Smitty had rolled his eyes and muttered something about Jake being too annoying to murder.
Now the juice sat untouched on the counter. Condensation weeping down its sides.
The breeze changed.
The air grew dense—coated with that acidic tinge of something synthetic unraveling. The taste of it coated his teeth. In the silence of the kitchen, the tick of the old wall clock grew louder, as if trying to fill the space left by every sound that had gone missing.
And then came the sound.
Not an explosion. Not a scream. Just the muffled whomp of something giving in—a wall, maybe. Or a lung.
He was halfway down the stairs before he realized he'd grabbed the flare gun instead of his phone.
Jake's car was still in the driveway.
The bagel place was four blocks away.
The house next door was on fire.
Flames crept up the siding like vines, silent and hungry. But it wasn't the fire that made Smitty stop dead. It was the mark.
Etched in blackened soot—carved into the wood with surgical precision—was a symbol. A spiral intersected by two sharp lines.
Wei Men.
Or more specifically: a kill notice.
This wasn't just murder. It was a signature.
Smitty's blood turned to ice.
He sprinted around the side of the house.
The back alley reeked of scorched chemicals. Trash bins melted in place. The heat from the building was intense, but not uncontrolled. It was a staged fire, deliberately choked so it wouldn't spread. Just enough to make a point.
And there, slumped against the alley wall, was Jake.
Mouth slightly open.
Eyes wide.
Unmoving.
No blood. No wounds. Just... stillness. Like a man caught mid-thought and never allowed to finish.
He was still holding a burner phone. The one Smitty had packed. His fingers clenched tight like he'd died gripping a secret.
The screen was lit.
Saw you.
No sender. No timestamp. No salvation.
Smitty stared at it for a long moment.
Then a memory punched through.
Jake in the campus quad, faking a limp to get out of gym class. Jake laughing until he wheezed, halfway through a conspiracy video about lizard monarchs. Jake, in a moment that didn't feel important at the time, shoving a cheap burner into Smitty's hand and saying, "You better use this if something happens. Or I'm going to haunt your ass. Like, aggressively. Shower singing and all."
Smitty knelt. His hand trembled as he gently pried the phone from Jake's hand.
He leaned forward, eyes stinging from something that wasn't just smoke.
He closed Jake's eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I shouldn't have stayed."
But it wasn't about him anymore.
It was about what came next.
He tore back to the apartment. No regard for subtlety. Grabbed the go-bag, the thumb drive, the notebook. He opened the HVAC panel in the ceiling and ripped out the duct-taped cash stash Jake had helped him hide. For a moment, the weight of guilt made him hesitate.
But only for a moment.
This was war. He was just the last to realize it.
He scrawled a single word—"Sorry"—on the back of a pizza flyer and dropped it onto the kitchen counter.
Then he vanished.
Three hours earlier...
Jake had woken up before dawn. The sky outside their apartment glowed that strange shade of purgatory gray that made you feel like time had gotten stuck. Smitty had been tossing and turning all night, muttering under his breath, haunted by ghosts that whispered in burned voices and old code.
Jake didn't ask questions. He just made coffee—extra strong, like drinking regret out of a thermos—poured cereal, and opened the window to let in a breeze that smelled faintly of gasoline and wet leaves.
He was a good friend. Loyal to a fault. Smart enough to know Smitty was dangerous now. Smart enough not to care.
The knock came just after 9:00 AM. Three sharp raps. Polite, like a dentist reminding you your insurance doesn't cover pain.
Jake paused his reread of Watchmen, mid-panel where Rorschach was about to do something unspeakable with a kitchen tool, and walked to the door barefoot.
The man outside wore gray.
Not black. Not tactical gear. Just soft, sterile gray—like someone who worked in HR but moonlighted in assassination.
"Jake Murphy?" the man asked. His voice was clipped, almost bored.
"Depends who's asking. If this is about the Girl Scout cookies, I swear I already paid."
"Courier service," the man said, smiling. "You signed up for premium delivery."
Jake frowned. "That's not even—"
The man stepped forward.
It was fast. No weapon drawn. Just fingers—two of them—pressed gently beneath Jake's ear. Like he was checking for a heartbeat and decided it didn't matter.
Jake's vision blinked. A sharp snap of white light. Then nothing.
He didn't fall. He was caught. Lowered slowly to the floor like a tired idea. His limbs arranged. His breathing already stopped.
The phone was placed in his hand. Message preloaded.
Saw you.
The agent stepped into the backyard. He hummed as he worked, not a tune but something almost like a frequency. A calculated sound. He planted a thermal charge behind the garden shed. Directional. Contained. Precision fire.
And when he lit it, it bloomed into flame just long enough to carve the spiral into the siding.
Wei Men didn't just kill people.
They left theology in their wake.
Now.
Smitty sat in a bathroom stall at the train station, his heart racing like a trapped animal.
He'd swapped clothes in a gas station, shaved in the mirror of a restroom that had more graffiti than tile. His reflection barely looked like him anymore—less man, more ghost with caffeine addiction.
The burner buzzed.
Ping.
Not Wei Men. Not their style.
This was... older. More analog. Like someone whispering from a rotary phone in a grave.
He opened Sam's notebook. The address in Detroit burned on the page like it wanted to be looked at.
Ferryman.
Bring something he wants.
He didn't know what the thumb drive held. He didn't know why Sam had died for it.
But he was done hiding.
The next train left in ten minutes.
He'd be on it.
Behind him, the toilet flushed.
No footsteps.
He opened the stall door. Slowly.
Empty.
Except for the mirror.
In the center, freshly carved, a spiral.
Wei Men had been there.
He stared at it for a beat too long, then walked out. His lungs felt like they'd been replaced with tightly coiled springs. The station was chaos, the kind that wore beige uniforms and name tags.
A teenager yelled at a vending machine. A toddler cried because her juice box betrayed her. A janitor muttered to himself in a Slavic language Smitty half-recognized as tactical Russian.
All normal. Beautifully, painfully normal.
He bought a ticket with cash. Sat on the far bench. Lit a cigarette. Not because he wanted to smoke—but because if anyone noticed, that meant they were watching.
Two rows over, a guy in a hoodie scratched his neck. Looked once. Looked away.
Could be nothing. But could wasn't good enough anymore.
The train screamed onto the platform like a mechanical banshee late for therapy.
He waited until the doors hissed open. Then stepped aboard.
No more defense.
No more dormancy.
Sam was dead.
Jake was ashes.
And Smitty?
Smitty was finally awake.
The Ferryman waited.
And Smitty had a soul to barter with.