AN: And so another week begins, please enjoy the chapter and have a nice day:
***Blake's POV***
Something buzzed and cast a bright light into my tiny hiding spot. I blinked away my confusion and dug through my pockets. The screen of my phone was almost too bright to read, I managed to answer it with my slow hands.
"Hello?" I groaned more than actually spoke.
"Blake? This is detective Morris. I'm sorry for calling so late, but we're in need of your services."
I was coming to a little bit more with each passing second. The walls around me creaked and cracked with each movement. Where was I? I pushed against the ceiling, it gave way to reveal the laundry room.
Oh. Right. My laundry room.
"Um, sure. Where at, what time is it?" I uncurled myself from the cramped hiding spot.
The room was pitch black aside from the little bit of light that came from my phone and squeezed past my cheek. The door to the kitchen was firmly shut.
"I'm at 51st and Pasadena avenue, it's eleven. Were you asleep?"
I walked into the rest of the house. Nothing was out of place, not that I could see that far – the only light was that flashing from the abandoned TV.
"No, I… I just dozed off watching TV. It's fine, I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Ok, please hurry."
The phone screen went black, I tucked it back into a pocket.
The house was fine, there was no one in here. I just had an episode when I heard the news report.
I grabbed my duffle bag.
There was no one after me, it was just a coincidence. Nobody was trying to break into my house, the FBI was just here for a routine investigation. They did it all the time, this wasn't about you.
I locked the door behind me.
There is no one outside. It's okay, you're going to photograph a crime scene just like normal. There will be people there, no one will do anything crazy.
I slumped into the driver's seat of the car.
It's fine. The police will handle this. There was no retribution for trying to forget about Temple Gate, this wasn't related. It wasn't my fault.
The suburb streets started giving way to city.
I had even run into someone looking into cults earlier, see this wasn't related to Temple Gate at all. It was something completely separate. It was fine.
Then why had Miles tracked down where I worked and then followed me to the police station? It wasn't safe there, it wasn't safe anywhere. The police couldn't protect me, no one could help anyone. Everything-
No. You stop that, everything is fine.
My knuckles had gone white from gripping the steering wheel. I hadn't even noticed.
Red and blue lights filled the street, I pulled my car to the side. This is the right place, unfortunately. I dug through my duffle bag for my ID, I had learned my lesson last time. While I searched for the little plastic bit of identification I took stock of the street.
A side alley was tapped off, I couldn't see down it from this angle but the corner of building that was visible shined with a glistening red that couldn't have been purely from the flashing police lights. A couple of suited people walked this way and that, a black SUV sat in the middle of the cruisers.
They were looking for a group, ages ranging from twenties to early thirties….
I clipped my ID to my jacket and got out of the car. There was no crowd gathered this time. Everything was fine. I would be fine. This was awful but it wasn't Temple Gate, nothing could be that bad.
I came to the squad cars, no one said anything as I made my way over to detective Morris.
He was talking to two of the suits when I came into earshot.
"Look guys, I'm sure you know what you're doing, but I'm just not sure we should be calling this a serial killing just yet." Morris spoke with his back to me.
A woman with blond-red hair spoke next, "Detective, I understand that you don't want to think about there being a gang of murderers in your town, but we have to face the facts and-"
She stopped when she noticed me walking up
"Who's that?" she asked.
"Agents Sorenson, Lopez," Morris gestured towards the woman and then the man next to her "this is our civilian consultant, Blake Langermann, he does photography."
The man – agent Lopez – held out his hand for a handshake, I returned the gesture with a weak grip.
"Langermann, eh? Hey Sorenson, wasn't that name in one of our case files?"
"Agent Lopez! That's hardly something to bring up now." Sorenson chided her partner.
"Oh, don't worry about it. What was it, the Temple Gate file? Yeah, that was it. Don't worry about it Blake, that file's closed. It was way too early in the timeline to be a Rainmaker case."
I didn't feel better. Why was my name in the system? Why bring it up? What was the point of that?
"It's fine, I'm glad that you remember your cases so well." I lied and tried to find a compliment in there somewhere.
"See, he's fine with it." Agent Lopez spoke to Sorenson.
Detective Morris coughed in that way that was really a request for attention. "Agents," he gestured towards the scene.
Sorenson gave a side eyed glare at Lopez before following the detective.
The three walked away, leaving me to take pictures of the scene. I was thankful for the distraction, but the sight made me sick to my stomach. They were here, people just as mad as the ones in the desert had come to my town. This wasn't a distant threat to be remembered in bad dreams anymore, it was real and right here.
The shutter of my camera clicked shut. The wall was red. The floor was red. I took pictures of the carnage. More pagan symbols were on the wall. I recognized one from the last murder scene. Three loops that ended in a point over lapped each other and sat over a circle. What did it mean? What were these people thinking?
I tried my best not to leave prints in the sticky fluids that had pooled here and there. A dumpster had been ripped apart at the seams. How did they manage that? The thing was made of sheet metal and bolted together.
How had Marta been so supernaturally tall and strong? Did madness just drive people to do impossible things?
I shook the thought from my mind. I had a job to do.
The camera shutter slid open and shut over a dozen different images. There were footprints that started in the middle of the scene.
Click.
The single set continued down the alley, only to disappear a foot or two after the blood stopped.
Had they cleaned their shoes? There was no water around there, no one had found dirtied rags.
"Mister Langermann" someone called for me, I heard them picking their way through the sticky ground.
I turned around to find agent Sorenson
"Yes?" What now?
"I just wanted to apologize for my partner, he's new to the field."
Ah, so that was it.
"It's fine." No it wasn't
"I'm glad you think so, do you think you could make an extra copy of the photos? I'll need them for my report."
"Sure." I better not have my name attached to anything having to do with this case. Crazy people do crazy things, I don't want to end up on anyone's hit list.
"Thank you. One more thing mister Langermann, could you also make some copies of the last crime scenes photos?"
"No problem."
I hope the negatives stand up to another use, they were already a little foggy.
The agent walked away, I got a shot of the blood spatter. I must have gone up to the third floor. How?
While I stood there wondering occasional beads would drip from the pipes above and splatter against the street. I got everything I was going to get. I went back to the entrance of the alley to talk to Morris before I left.
"Did you get everything?" he asked me after sending a uniformed officer off to some other corner of the alley.
"As much as I could… did the FBI say anything?" they said cult, but there was only one set of prints.
"Lopez likes to talk, but it hasn't been anything important." Morris kept an eye on the dark haired agent while he spoke, "How are you holding up Blake? I know you have an… issue with cults."
He caught me off guard "I… I don't feel great, I'm going to be honest."
"I understand. You've been doing good work, it's okay if you take a couple of days to get these pictures back to me."
Oh no, I'd already tried burying my head in the sand. Pretending everything was okay wasn't cutting it, not anymore. It didn't work with Jessica and it wasn't working with Lynn. I couldn't do a damned thing to save anyone or stop anything, but I could sure as hell be there to pick up the pieces. It was the least I could do.
"No, no I can get these to you tomorrow. You have work to do, don't slow down for my sake."
Morris looked away from the alley for a moment, "thank you Blake, now go home, it's been a long day."
My wrist watch said that it was past midnight, he was right.
I set the camera in the duffle bag, then put the whole thing into the passenger seat. The road was thick with police cruisers, it took more maneuvering than I would like to admit to get back to a main street. At least at this time of night there wasn't too much traffic. I passed a few trendy nightclubs, it was friday and the crowds would be growing through the night.
Where were the cultists? There had to be ten thousand people partying the night away, and a handful of murderers were in there with them.
I clicked on the radio for a distraction.
I better not wake up to another phone call.
The lights of the city were still bright behind me when I pulled into my suburb. I killed the engine and pulled my duffle from the seat besides me. I needed a shower and the closest thing I would get to a good night's rest. Tomorrow was saturday; I didn't need to be at the office so I could spend all morning working on Morris's and Sorenson's photos.
The living room was dark with the night. I let my bag slump to the ground by the front door while I set the dead bolts back into place. As much as I didn't want the pictures to look at me I needed to see, so I clicked on the kitchen light.
My house was a mess.
The TV had been toppled from its stand, half the pictures had been flung from their places on the wall. My couch sat against the far wall, the door to the bedroom swung wide on its hinges.
Oh my god, they were in my house!
I jumped for the door to the laundry room. It was safe, it would be safe.
The heavy door flew open. It was dark in there. Too dark. The light from the kitchen didn't cut through the moving shadows. A sound like a slaughterhouse filled the room, grinding noises of metal on metal chased me from the room.
"Shit!"
The kitchen light burst and rained sporks onto the ground. I scrambled over the counter in the dark.
I had to get out. Run! Run!
Fumbling fingers worked at the locks on the door.
I was too slow, something hot and impossibly fast lashed out from the dark. I crawled over the ground, my glasses fell and went clattering off somewhere unseen. Shit. Shit!
A hundred hot thorns dug into my sides. Oh god, I was back in the mines, they were everywhere, they were screaming. Why was there grinding metal? What was going on!
I twisted onto my back. I wasn't in the mines, this was my living room. That thing was there. Something was there. I couldn't see, the world was a black blur. The thing in the dark landed heavy on my chest. It was hot and weighed an impossible amount.
The sound of grinding metal grew in the air. Two rings of light watched from the hazy shadows.
"Get off me!"
I was screaming, the bright rings hung in the suffocating air.
"Let go! Go away!" I yelled, screamed. I closed my eyes.
This wasn't real. None of it was real. It was a hallucination, just like every other time. I was at home. I was safe.
I tried to take a breath, I opened my eyes.
It was Temple Gate.
No. No.
The ground was hot and wet, I'd sunk an inch or two before scrambling to my feet.
I'd seen way too many hallucinations. I'd had too many bad dreams. I'd seen too much shit.
I'd never seen this place.
