Flickering Saints

The rain had not eased since morning. By the time Isabelle stepped out of the Cybercrime Division's sterile walls, the Parisian streets were slick with shimmering puddles, streetlights reflecting like fractured halos on the wet asphalt. The city seemed to fold in on itself beneath the heavy grey skies, the world shrinking down to the sound of tires hissing along the soaked streets and the soft tap-tap of her heels on the uneven pavement.

She walked briskly, her breath fogging in the chilled air, but her thoughts were faster. Faster than her pulse, faster than the rain gathering on her collar.

The words from The Velvet Chronicle still pulsed in her head:

"She seeks the truth, delving into the abyss, unaware that the abyss gazes also into her."

The last entry had left her cold. It wasn't the vague poetry or the haunting tone that unsettled her — it was the clarity. The story had mentioned a church: "...a place where the fallen whispered secrets to saints who could not save them."

The location wasn't given directly, but there were only so many places in the 1st arrondissement that fit. Saint-Roch. An old baroque church near the artist quarters, quiet, mostly forgotten except for the locals and the devout.

And, apparently, the missing.

The taxi came to a halt a few streets away. Isabelle had insisted the driver drop her off early, her instincts prickling at the idea of arriving directly in front of the church. If whoever wrote those stories was watching her — and her gut told her they were — it would be smarter to approach unseen.

The rain fell softer now, more a mist than droplets, seeping into her coat as she moved under the stone shadows of Paris' old buildings. Her boots left muted prints on the wet cobblestones as the looming silhouette of Saint-Roch came into view. The church stood as it always had, unspeaking, unmoved, while the city's centuries peeled away around it.

The bell tolled. One low, aching note.

Inside, the church was dim and mostly empty. Rows of votive candles lined the sides, their flames flickering — tiny defiant lights in the cavernous dark. The scent of wax and cold stone clung to the air.

She spotted him near the altar. Father Emmanuel. His figure hunched slightly, hands steady as he adjusted the candles, as if rearranging the stars in a dying constellation.

He turned at the sound of her footsteps, his face folding into quiet recognition. The lines on his face seemed deeper since the last time she'd seen him, long before she'd worn a badge, back when she'd been a girl standing at this very spot, gripping her mother's hand.

"Isabelle Laurent," he greeted, as if the name had already been on his tongue. "I wondered when you would come."

Her throat tightened at the familiarity, the ease with which he said it, as though her arrival was an inevitability, not a choice.

"You've been expecting me?" she asked, her voice kept low, respectful of the silence the church demanded.

"The stories." He gestured, his old hands trembling only slightly as they rested on the back of the pew. "And the faces. They come back to me now — those women. They sat here. They prayed here. Some of them came for confession, days before they vanished."

The rain, now only a distant patter against stained glass, gave the words space to settle.

Isabelle leaned in, the detective in her pulling forward. "You remember them? Leroux, Dubois... Masson?"

"I remember their faces," Father Emmanuel murmured. "Troubled faces. Frightened, in ways most confessions don't reveal." His gaze drifted to the old confessional booth tucked in the corner, its velvet curtain drawn closed. "One by one, they came. Some I never saw again."

Isabelle's attention snapped to the booth. The air around her prickled with unease, her mind stitching together the scattered hints — the names, the story, the church. Something had drawn them here. A ritual of sorts? A warning? Or perhaps one final confession, desperate and unheard.

"Would you mind if I..." she nodded toward the booth.

Father Emmanuel didn't stop her, though his expression darkened, as though he already knew what she'd find.

The booth was small, suffocating in its closeness. The scent of old wood, worn velvet, and something else — faint, but still lingering, a sharpness beneath the incense — clung to the air. Her fingers ran across the wood paneling. It was worn smooth in places, cracked and brittle in others.

And then her eyes lowered.

Near the seat, faint but unmistakable, the wood was carved. At first, she thought it might be graffiti — a child's mischief or some teenager's love declaration scratched into the wall. But as she leaned closer, the truth sliced through her like ice.

Names.

Camille Dubois.

Élodie Masson.

Isabelle Leroux.

And others. Some carved deep and angry, others faint, as if done with trembling hands. She counted at least nine, all names from the growing list of the missing — all etched here, hidden in plain sight.

Her eyes settled on the last one. An unfinished name, the strokes abrupt and broken off.

Isabelle.

Not Leroux this time. Just Isabelle.

Her own.

The booth suddenly felt much smaller, as if the walls were leaning in, pressing her breath out. She ran her fingertips along the carving, and at that moment, her phone vibrated in her coat pocket.

No name. No number. Only a message.

"Did you think the saints would save you?"

To be continued...