A Darkness That Descends

Bartley and Samantha drove a cruiser to a couple of blocks not far from the ECPD Headquarters. Samantha didn't know where Bartley was taking her, but she had a feeling that it had something to do with the book. Samantha wasn't keen on the music selection in the car and so she watched the streets that they drove by. She noticed that there were a lot of men in the street that wore attires similar to that of a 1960s America, those of which were distinctly wearing fedoras. They were an icon in that era, but Samantha did find it unusual in today's time.

She glanced over at Bartley who was focused on the road, occasionally changing the music and looking at his rear mirrors. She wanted to know more about him on a personal note, be close associates but not in a romantic level. She hesitated at first, but would back out the second she mutter something.

Bartley noticed that Samantha was looking at her, staring in a way like someone was obsessed with a person. It didn't bother him as much, though he was eager to know why she was looking at him like that.

"Hey, you okay?" Bartley said as he swiftly looked at Samantha and back at the road.

"Uh, yeah. I- I just wanted to ask a question, well, several questions actually."

Bartley gave out a small chuckle as he slowed down the car at a red stop light. "I knew you'd have questions. But yeah, fire away Lieutenant."

"Uh, yeah. I haven't exactly gone over the departmental handbook and everything, but, why are demons and angels living in our reality?"

Bartley didn't reply. He gave the question some thought and rolled his eyes to search for an answer to give to Samantha. She waited for about two minutes, but her answer was floating in dead air. Bartley muttered something, Samantha catching that mutter and asked.

"You said something?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. I was just thinking." Bartley replied as he crudely turned towards a cul de sac area, next to a parking lane. He pulled the breaks and shut off the engines, turning to Samantha to give her the question she asked. "So, yeah. They came here as part of a peace treaty after centuries of battle between the two realms."

"A battle, sir?" Samantha asked curiously as she grew more invested in the questioning.

"Yep. Basically." Bartley said as he turned and took off his seat belt, but remained in his seat. "You need to ask anything else before we go in?"

"Uh, yeah. Where are we exactly going, and why are we here?" Samantha glanced around the car, checking the buildings and noticing that they parked at a parking lane next to a dead end street.

"For the Librarian." Bartley said as he reached out and opened the passenger storage compartment to look for something. Samantha watched his hand reach for the compartment.

"The Librarian? I don't see any libraries here sir. It's just a cul de sac area."

"Well, this 'Librarian' is special actually. I know her very well, and she only opens the place at a certain time. When she does open it, it'll be visible to the naked eye." Bartley explains to Samantha as he found what he had been looking for; an ace card.

"I'll take it that this person is some sort of black magic craftsman-"

"Craftswoman, Lieutenant." Bartley corrects Samantha as he places the ace card inside his breast pocket. Tapping it with his hand as a safe gesture.

Samantha looked to her right to scan the area, and search for this library place that Bartley just talked about. They both shared a moment of quietness within the car. It continued on for several minutes until a red-wine building appeared beside the parking lane that they parked at. Bartley tapped Samantha and pointed to the building beside them.

Both exited out the car and proceed to approach the building. A wooden sign was visible on top of the door way that read 'Bloody Mary Street' that made a creaking noise as the wind blew it gently. There was a flak of stairs that they had to walk on to reach the main door, which appeared to have a medieval architecture design, and painted with a mixture of red and black.

Bartley approaches the door. He was about to knock the door when suddenly the door opened by themselves, revealing the inside to be a bit dark, but sunlight penetrated and illuminated the building halfway. He entered first as Samantha followed last. He'd been to this place numerous times, and had gotten used to the unnerving environment that the place had to offer.

Samantha felt unease as she entered. There was something off about the place, but she couldn't point exactly to what it was. She placed her right hand on her firearm that was holstered on her waist, it made her safe as she looked around the place with Bartley walking to the register. Bartley rang a bell on the counter, waiting for someone he knew to come by and meet with him once more. As the bell rang, a black shadow descended behind Samantha that casted and formed a shape figure of a woman. Samantha didn't notice her until she was tapped from behind and jumped in a panic, her firearm out and pointed to whoever had tapped her.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. But who are you?" The woman said calmly, her face unphased by the gun pointed at her from Samantha.

Bartley walked to where Samantha and the woman was, and his expression changed from calm to disappointment. He was expecting Bloody Mary to man the shop today since she ran this shop around the city. He sighed, his eyes locked onto Samantha who still held her gun at the woman.

"Lieutenant. Gun down?" Bartley ordered to Samantha as she pulled it away quickly, and apologized to the woman in front of her.

The woman wavered at her for no apology and she looked at Bartley with an unease smile. "I thought someone was taking the day off from work?"

"I was. But worked called me, Pamela." Bartley explained himself as he called the woman's name out.

It was Pamela, the psychiatrist that Bartley had been seeing for therapy. Bartley was surprised to see her, but was unsure what Pamela was doing in here in the first place. Something wasn't right about her presence.

Pamela approached Bartley the same way as she did when he left her workplace hours ago. Bartley sensed that sparked once more, her scent was drawing him to get closer as his heart pounded. He wanted to resist but his body persisted as he leaned closer. Samantha popped between them, interrupting a an usual greeting, and Bartley could feel control of his body once more.

"Sorry to interrupt your greetings, but who's this?" Samantha conjectured to Bartley as his eyes were visibly widen when he glanced at her and back to Pamela. She noticed that he had long, fang-like teeth as he was panting heavily through his mouth unusually, before his mouth was shut.

"Oh, um, this is Pamela Mary. The ECPD's employed psychiatrist." Bartley said to Samantha as he calmed his heart down. He hid his left hand behind his back as he rolled it to ease his anxiety as it had hit him the second Pamela got close to him.

"It's nice to meet you, Lieutenant Grace. I've heard quite about you from the station." Pamela said to Samantha as her eyes were locked on to hers. It unnerved Samantha as she stared right at her, but looked away as Pamela walked to the counter.

"You mind telling me what you're doing here, Pamela?" Bartley asked he approached the counter with Pamela stationed in it.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing, Captain."

"To see Mary, but it appears you've taken a part-time job which I was unaware of."

"I work here on Thursdays. I even told you this in our sessions. I guess you weren't even paying attention as much."

Samantha walked up to the counter, interrupting their leeway conversation as she cleared her throat loudly to catch their attention. "Sir. The book." She said straight forwardly at Bartley.

Bartley sighed and took out the book from his pocket, revealing to Pamela and passing it to her. Pamela took the book from Bartley and touched it, analyzed with care, and placed it aside as she looked at both Samantha and Bartley.

"You two understand what this is, right?" Pamela said with an odd tone.

"It's a literature book." Samantha said as she confronted the counter.

"Not just any literature book, Lieutenant Grace. This is a forbidden codex book."

Bartley stared at Pamela as she said the word 'forbidden.' This was not a good sign. He assumed that the book had answers that would lead them to the killer, but it turns out that the book were instructions that the killers were following to initiate a dark ritual.

"Wait, what do you mean a forbidden codex book?" Samantha asked as she didn't know what she meant.

"What do you think when you hear the word forbidden, Lieutenant Grace?"

Samantha paused, her mouth wide open to say something but muttered to herself. She shook her head and replied. "A banned ritual, basically?"

Pamela nodded at Samantha. "This one you are holding?" She paused, waving the book in front of them. "It's a class five, meaning whoever used this is wanting to create chaos on a large scale."

Samantha looked at Bartley. He was staring at the book that Pamela placed down. He didn't say anything after what he just learnt. He looked at Pamela for a moment, his throat cleared and said.

"I'm going to guess you have some brief knowledge about this particular book?"

"A small amount. I only know of this book, because I studied it in secret when I was back in the Underworld. Thing is though, only a handful of these ever existed."

"Why was that?" Samantha interjected as she placed her arms on the counter, facing towards Pamela.

"Because it was too dangerous to perform, obviously. It was used in other worlds to recreate an atmosphere similar to that of my realm, a recreation ritual more or less."

"Huh." Samantha thought to herself as Bartley looked around the shop a bit while listening onto Pamela. "But why would the killer want to do such a thing?"

"Power." Bartley said as he turned to Samantha. "There was an image in the book that had a figure floating or something in the skies while beams from all the people with the symbol shoot at it. It's not just a recreational ritual .."

"It's a transcendence ritual." Pamela said as she finished off Bartley's sentence for him. "It guarantees the person to have god-like powers, similar to that of the overlords from the High Council."

The situation was larger than Bartley and Samantha had anticipated. They now knew that the killer was seeking to cause chaos and terror, probably recreate an apocalypse onto this realm. They were getting somewhere after minor progress, but hope to end this sooner. Bartley's phone buzzed and rang in his pocket, and took it out to see who it was calling him. It was Sergeant Avery from the station. He answered it and wanted to know what she had to say.

"Bartley here. What is it Sergeant?"

There was a brief pause in the call. Bartley could hear sirens in the background, chatter and loud noises, but he couldn't discern what was going on at her end.

"Captain, sir. We've got a situation at the station."

Bartley looked at Samantha's eyes directly. He used his mouth to mutter 'Avery' to Samantha as she muttered at him to as who it was.

"How serious? What happened?"

"It's Superintendent Baylor, sir. He's dead."