The entity didn't attack with a lunging strike this time. It uncoiled. Its limbs stretched like pulled taffy, snapping across the vaulted ceiling of the junction.
Jay stood his ground, the jagged blade held low. He wasn't a detective anymore; he was a butcher in a suit.
"You like the quiet?" Jay asked, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Let's see how you handle a symphony."
Such a cringe line but he had to.
He kicked a trip-wire he'd set seconds after entering. A row of industrial UV strobes he'd rigged to a portable battery burst into life.
The junction transformed into a strobe-lit nightmare. Flash. Flash. Flash.
The creature screamed—a sound of tearing metal. In the bursts of light, Jay saw its true form. It wasn't just a shadow; it was a mass of translucent, pulsing tubes and calcified plates.
The light acted like acid on its skin, boiling the "molted" exterior.
Jay moved during the dark intervals. Flash—he was ten feet away. Flash—he was in the creature's reach. Flash—he buried the jagged blade into the entity's thigh.
The "blood" that sprayed out was black and freezing. It hit Jay's cheek, searing the skin like dry ice. He didn't flinch. He twisted the blade, feeling it grind against that strange, vacuum-grown bone.
The entity lashed out, a whip-like appendage catching Jay in the ribs. He flew backward, slamming into a rusted support pillar. The air left his lungs in a wheeze, and for a second, the "quiet" Silas talked about threatened to swallow him whole.
"You... bleed... noise," the creature hissed, its vertical mouth-slit dripping black bile. It loomed over him, its shadow stretching long and thin in the flickering UV light. "So much... regret... for the friend."
Jay spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "Regret? No. I'm just annoyed I have to do his paperwork now."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, pressurized canister—another "off-the-books" toy. As the creature leaned in to harvest his chest, Jay jammed the canister into the vertical slit of its face and triggered the release.
Pure, concentrated liquid nitrogen hissed into the entity's core.
The creature froze instantly from the inside out. The grinding voice stopped. The shimmering organs hanging from the ceiling stopped pulsing. For three seconds, the entity was a statue of jagged, crystalline ice.
Jay didn't wait for it to thaw. He scrambled up, gripped his blade with both hands, and swung with everything he had at the creature's neck.
The head shattered into a thousand black glass shards.
**********
The sun was barely peeking over the View District skyline when Jay walked back into the VPD. He was covered in soot, dried black ichor, and his own blood. His shirt was ruined, and he was limping.
The place was quiet. A few officers stared as he walked past, their expressions a mix of disgust and a strange, newfound fear. He looked like a man who had gone to hell and decided he didn't like the decor.
Sarah was standing by his desk, her eyes wide. She looked at his face, the raw burn on his cheek, and the way his hands were shaking.
She stepped forward, reaching out as if to touch his arm. "Jay? My god, what happened? We found Silas... he told us you went to the junction."
Jay stepped back, avoiding her touch. He didn't see the way her hand lingered in the air, or the way her worry wasn't just professional.
"The junction is clear," he said, his voice a gravelly rasp. "Tell the Sergeant he can find what's left of the 'collector' closer than he thinks. And tell him I'm taking a week off."
"Jay, wait," she said, her voice soft. "You're hurt. Let me...."
"I'm ugly enough as it is, Sarah. A few more scars won't change the view."
He sat down at his desk and pulled out his leather notebook. He opened it to a fresh page and began to draw. He didn't draw the monster. He drew the heart, suspended in that orb, finally still.
"He's gone," Jay whispered to the empty desk.
He looked up and saw his reflection in the window. The sunlight hit his face, and for a moment, he didn't look like a suspicious detective or a nonchalant joker. He looked like a man who was very, very tired of being the only one who knew what lived in the dark.
He felt a presence behind him. He didn't turn. He knew it was the Sergeant.
"You found it?" the older man asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.
"I ended it," Jay said. "But Sarge? There were fifty slots for organs in that ceiling. Only twelve were full."
He closed the notebook.
"The others are still out there. And I think they're starting to realize I'm the only one who can see them."
The sergeant didn't quite understand what he was saying but....
Jay didn't wait for the Sergeant to reply. He grabbed his coat and walked out, the heavy glass doors of the VPD swinging shut behind him.
He didn't go home. He drove to a bridge overlooking the View River, the engine of his beat-up sedan ticking as it cooled in the morning air.
He leaned against the railing, pulling a sweet from his pocket. He didn't lick it; he just liked having something to chew on.
"You're late for your own funeral, Jay," a voice drifted from the shadows of the bridge pillar.
Jay turned as he knew the gait. It was Daniel, a contact from the "other" side of the city's ledger. Daniel Wellings was a man who dealt in secrets the VPD didn't even have codes for.
"The guest of honor was a bit tied up," Jay said, tossing the stick of the sweet in the river.
"What are these things Dan?"
Daniel stepped into the light. He was dressed in a sharp, charcoal suit that cost more than Jay made in a year. He looked at the burn on Jay's face with a clinical curiosity. "You survived a Shifter. That's a short list, Detective. But you didn't kill the source. You just broke the siphon."
So he knew.
"I broke its head," Jay corrected. "Which usually stops the breathing process."
"They don't breathe," Daniel said softly. "They resonate. And now that you've silenced one, the others will be looking for the source of the static. That's you, by the way. You're the static."
Jay finally turned, his eyes cold and distant. "I've been static my whole life. Let them come. I've still got plenty of pages in my notebook."
**********
Three days later, Jay was back at his desk. He'd patched his cheek with a medical strip and bought a fresh pack of paperclips. The office felt different. The air was thick with a tension he couldn't quite name.
He noticed a coffee cup on his desk—black, two sugars. Exactly how he liked it. He looked toward the forensics lab and saw Sarah watching him through the glass partition.
She gave a small, tentative nod before turning back to a microscope.
Jay frowned. Probably poisoned, he thought. She probably wants to see if my blood is as black as the coffee.
He took a sip anyway. It was perfect.
His computer chimed.
An internal memo had been blasted to the whole department: RE: Missing Persons - View North. Five names. All disappeared within the last forty-eight hours. All from the same apartment complex where a woman named Daniella Creek lived.
Jay opened the file on Daniella. She was an older woman, a mother, whose daughter Alice had reported her missing. But the report was weird. It said Daniella hadn't been "taken"—it said she had "faded."
Jay felt that familiar prick at the base of his skull.
"Jay," the Sergeant barked, walking past. "Take a partner. Check out the Creek residence. And for God's sake, wear a tie. You look like a vagrant jeez."
Jay stood up, ignoring the tie comment. He looked at the empty chair where Jake used to sit. The desk had already been cleared. A new recruit's name tag was sitting in a plastic bin nearby.
"I don't need a partner," Jay muttered.
He grabbed his keys and headed for the exit. As he reached the parking lot, a black SUV pulled up, blocking his path. The window rolled down to reveal Daniel Wellings.
"The Creek woman isn't missing, Jay," Daniel said, his face a mask of iron. "She's been converted. The Shifters are done hiding on the streets. They're moving into the homes now. They're starting with the mothers."
Jay leaned against the SUV, his lopsided, suspicious grin returning. "Well, I always did have a problem with authority figures. Might as well start with the neighborhood moms."
"This isn't a joke, Detective," Daniel warned. "If you go in there with just that blade and your 'nonchalant' attitude, you're not coming back. They've evolved. They know your name now."
Jay tapped the side of his head. "Good. It saves time on the introductions."
He pushed off the car and headed for his sedan. He had a stop to make first. He needed more liquid nitrogen, and he had a feeling he was going to need a bigger blade.