A little temple hidden in the woods of Central Park…unassuming at best, it had probably been overlooked thousands of times. It was a wonder Gary and his partner had been able to find the place, and they had been looking for it.
An officer greeted him at the entrance, "Right through here detective."
In his thirty years as a detective, Gary had seen pretty much everything a person could see. The good…the bad…the strange. The sight that greeted him definitely fit in that last category, and barely lit by the sconces along the walls, for once he was glad for the dim environment.
The place was bigger on the inside than it should have been, but that kind of thing had become fairly commonplace since the gates had opened about ten years back, though the forgotten temple had clearly existed long prior. He pulled out a notepad and scribbled a reminder to send a message to his contact in the NYC Gate Walker Association about it.
Gary had played with the idea of joining up as a Walker, but he'd hoped to avoid situations like this, especially since the ability he'd awakened was pretty much only useful in investigations.
Stained marble slabs creaked beneath his weight, the cracks strewn through them betraying a hint of the chaos that had ensued earlier that day. The now brown splashes that adorned them provided another, more sinister, clue to the events preceding his arrival.
The massive interior, with walls adorned with artifacts and symbols of some long forgotten god, seemed to loom over him, intent on rejecting his presence within. Fortunately, he wasn't here for the blood festival…no, when it had come to light that his ability was Retrocognition, to see the past events of an area, he had been moved over to the newly formed Gate Walker Investigations Division.
Their job was to look into crimes committed by Gate Walkers, in and out of gates, and to ensure they were apprehended appropriately. Previously, this had been handled exclusively by an remarkably obscure group known only as The Bureau, but the Walker Association hadn't been keen on so much external oversight.
Down the halls, a low keening sound shook Gary from his thoughts and back to the present, where a notable pool of blood was slowly expanding toward him from the darker parts of the temple.
A low, dusky voice spoke from the gloom, "Good evening detective."
Crimson eyes with narrow slits, gently glowing amidst the darkness slowly approached him, their owner shuffling along silently.
Gary's initial thoughts were that he was a Dweller, one of the extremely rare intelligent creatures to emerge from a gate…but his instincts told him otherwise. Despite his eyes and seeming apathy to the horrific scene surrounding him, this person was human…though Gary had doubts about his humanity.
"I was told that we'd be receiving guests, though I'm surprised they sent someone so…experienced," the man, now revealed by the light, spoke languidly.
He stood over six and a half feet, easily, and while his robe covered his body, the tight, controlled movements told Gary this was a man not to be trifled with. A flicker of light revealed his head to be totally lacking hair, though his focused expression was more distressing than Gary would like to admit.
Speaking quietly, hoping his discomfort didn't leak through, Gary said, "Yes…there was a report that a gate opened here?"
"A gate did open…though I'm not sure why. I was fairly certain it had been sealed adequately long ago," the man said, glowering.
Shaking his head gently, he continued, "My name is Terrowin. I am the guardian here. I ask you to forgive my…mood. Things have not been pleasant for the last few days."
Nodding curtly, Gary waved his hand and answered, "It certainly seems like it. I assume the others have already addressed the issue of the bodies?"
Gesturing for the detective to follow, Terrowin turned without answering and began walking toward the back of the temple, presumably where the gate was located.
It wasn't often gates formed in structures, but this was clearly an extremely unusual exception. Once he was inside, even Gary, who was admittedly of a low Walker rank, could notice that the entire structure radiated power.
The question rose to mind once again, this time aloud, "How long has this place been here?"
Terrowin cast an askance look at his companion and said, "Several thousand years now. The wards have begun to fail as of late…say around ten years back?"
Gary wrote the information down in his notepad, declining to comment on the supposed age. The gates opening had revealed all manner of strange and sometimes terrifying information about the world that everyone who mattered seemed to want to keep secret. Had it all happened even twenty years earlier, perhaps that might have worked…but they lived in the Information Era, and nothing was kept secret for long.
Cave explorers had found evidence of pre human societies that had died long before recorded history, and temples like this had been propping up all over the world.
Mythology began to take on new light and some of the cryptids had been revealed as monsters that were transported to Earth by unknown means.
There were even rumors that the gates led to entirely new worlds…though Gary had his doubts about that.
That wasn't his job though, and the glimmering light of the upcoming gate soon caught his attention.
Most gates were simple, if alien, rips in reality. Glowing vortexes of energy that drew anyone foolish enough to get close to them in…which prompted another scribbling in his notepad.
The blood he'd been walking through was seeping out from the bottom of this gate, which itself seemed to have formed within a structure of some kind.
Floating pillars wreathed in sparking energy presented a semi-circle doorway, which surrounded the familiar vortex.
"Will you be entering the gate, detective?"
Gary shook his head and said, "There are too many anomalies with this for me to try entering now…I'll need to gather the team and do proper preparations."
Terrowin raised an eyebrow and asked, "Anomalies?"
Gary pointed to the pillars and said, "Everything about this runs counter to what we know about gates. The previous construction, the blood, even the energy being so vibrant, are all bad signs."
"I hear people have taken to giving gates a ranking these days. In your professional opinion…what would you rank this," Terrowin asked, curiosity tinging his voice and lending it a more human edge.
Gary continued taking notes, including the signs of a dormant gate across the hall, behind him, as he said, "I'm not really great at that kind of thing…but I'd say its probably at least an A rank."
Focused as he was on his notes, Gary failed to notice Terrowin moving closer to him, though the burned and bloody hands that had begun clawing their way out of the gate didn't elude him.
Possibly a survivor of the massacre earlier, he noted, choosing to observe rather than assist. Considering the sheer amount of unusual circumstances surrounding this gate, he had to take into account the possibility that this was a ploy by something beyond the gate to draw in someone who might be nearby. The sound from earlier, a low keening before, a ragged scream of agony now, pierced the air and he winced at the volume.
The distraction bringing him back to his surroundings all too late, he felt Terrowin's hand, powerful and unrelenting, grab him by the shoulder. The tall man pulled him firmly, and slowly, to the edge of the gate, resisting Gary's every effort to resist.
"Hey! Let me go! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
Terrowin frowned and said, "You know…I like you much more than the teenagers who found their way here earlier. Respectful, dedicated, and focused on your task to a fault…in a different time, you might have found your way within our ranks."
"Your ranks? Who are you," Gary demanded, trying to stall for time, any time, any amount of time to figure ANY solution to what was becoming a major danger.
"I am personally the First Chair of the High Table, my brother's Shield…though you probably know the name of our sister organization more readily."
Pushing hard against the indomitable man, Gary was surprised when he fell backwards, away from the gate, and into the blood pooling around his feet.
Without wasting a second, or stopping to question why Terrowin had let him go, Gary scrambled to his feet and took off running, devoting his whole focus and all of his mana to running, escaping to the freedom of the doorway.
As he ran, the already dim lights along the walls flickered out, and soon he was sprinting in total darkness, though it only took him a few minutes to reach the entrance. He'd looked back only once, fear refusing to ignore the foolish impulse, and saw those gently glowing crimson eyes just behind him, within reach the whole time he bothered to look.
Panic overtook him and he activated Retrocognition by mistake, the mana within him gathering within his eyes and revealing the ghostly forms of the previous victims.
The sight was almost more than he could bear.
In the entryway, that flickering space that bore such malevolence as to almost repulse him, he saw them.
Gate Walkers, young, maybe younger than they should be…dying.
They fought amongst themselves, violently, thoughtlessly.
What could have caused this?
The fresh air of freedom was just entering his lungs as he saw the faint outline of Terrowin outside the temple, lifting a young man by his throat…and crushing it within his hands, and throwing him aside…as if he were trash.
Then…the pain came.
Then the fear.
Gary looked down and saw a hand slowly retracting from his chest, and then…slowly…ever so slowly…darkness took him.
His last thought before he died was a foolish one…a silly thing to wonder.
He'd noticed, in that last glimpse…the hand had a notepad in it.
Why had he taken the notepad?