Chapter 7: TRUTH AND PEACE
Mancini's car was a '61 Ford Falcon, rust around the wheel wells, heater that wheezed more than it warmed. We drove through Hartford's empty streets in silence.
I stared out the window. My reflection looked like a stranger—pale, hollow-eyed, older than twenty-one. Two ghosts in two weeks. Two souls helped across. Two cases closed.
"Is this what the rest of my life looks like?"
The question sat heavy in my chest. Not a complaint. Not exactly. More like... adjustment. I'd been a data analyst. Spreadsheets and coffee breaks and arguments about parking spaces. Now I was helping dead children find peace.
The upgrade was significant.
"You did well back there."
Mancini's voice broke the silence. His eyes stayed on the road, hands steady on the wheel.
"I got lucky. Danny wanted to be helped. He just didn't know how."
"Most of them do." The priest turned onto my street. "The violent ones, the angry ones—they're not evil, usually. Just hurt. Confused. Trapped in the moment of their worst pain." He pulled to the curb outside my building. "You have a gift for seeing that. For reaching the person underneath the haunting."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I said nothing.
"Get some sleep." Mancini shifted the car into park. "Tomorrow, we talk about next steps."
"Next steps?"
"You've proven you can handle the work. Now you need proper training." His eyes met mine in the dim light. "I know people. People who've been doing this longer than either of us has been alive. If you're serious about this path—and I think you are—you should learn from the best."
The Warrens. He had to mean the Warrens.
"I'm serious."
"Good." He nodded toward my building. "Go. Rest. I'll make some calls."
I got out of the car, legs stiff from sitting. The February air bit at my face. Mancini's taillights disappeared around the corner, and I was alone with the night and the weight of everything that had happened.
My apartment was cold. I'd forgotten to leave the radiator on. I turned it up, listened to it clank and groan, and stood by the window waiting for warmth.
[CASE RESOLUTION CONFIRMED: DANNY MILLER]
[REWARDS PROCESSED: +500 EXP, +200 FP, +150 EP]
The notification pulsed in my peripheral vision. I accessed the Hub.
The cramped study was brighter than before. The candles burned steadier. The walls had grown—still small, but less claustrophobic. And the branching pattern of the Clairvoyance Tree pulsed with new light.
[SENSE PRESENCE LV.1 — FULLY INTEGRATED]
[NEXT ABILITY AVAILABLE: SPIRIT SIGHT LV.1]
[COST: 100 EP]
I had 313 Essence Points. Enough for the upgrade with points to spare.
But something made me hesitate. Sense Presence had been useful at the pool—I'd known Danny was there before he attacked. Spirit Sight would let me see ghosts more clearly, perceive their nature, understand what I was dealing with.
Both were information tools. Neither was a weapon.
"What happens when I face something that doesn't want to talk?"
The thought lingered. Danny had been angry, but he'd also been a child looking for acknowledgment. Thomas had been sad, waiting for a goodbye that never came. Both cases had ended with compassion, not combat.
But the case board showed other pins. B-ranks. A-ranks. Things that wouldn't dissolve into peaceful light just because I told them the truth.
I purchased Spirit Sight.
[SPIRIT SIGHT LV.1 ACQUIRED]
[COST: 10 PS PER MINUTE / SEES SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES, RESIDUES, AND INFLUENCES]
A warmth spread through my eyes—not painful, but present. Like a muscle learning to flex in a new direction. The apartment looked the same when I opened them. But something had shifted in my perception. A potential waiting to be activated.
I made myself eat. Cold sandwich from the icebox, stale bread, processed meat that probably hadn't seen an animal in years. It tasted like survival.
Three months. I'd give myself three months to build strength, close more cases, learn what I could do. Then I'd seek out the Warrens myself if Mancini's calls didn't pan out.
The radiator finally started producing heat. I stripped off my jacket, hung up my rosary, and collapsed onto the bed without undressing.
Sleep came fast. The dreams, for once, were peaceful.
[Hartford — March through April, 1968]
The weeks blurred together.
Eight cases. Eight closures. D-ranks and C-ranks, the bread and butter of supernatural work. A woman who'd died alone in her apartment, haunting the new tenants until I found her cat and had it adopted. A child who'd been hit by a car in the '40s, still waiting at the crosswalk where it happened. A man who'd hanged himself in his garage, not malevolent, just sad—I'd prayed with him until the light came.
Mancini helped with three of them. The others I handled alone.
My arm healed from where Danny had grabbed me. The scratches faded to faint lines, barely visible unless you knew to look. My body grew stronger from the work—all the walking, the climbing, the running when things went wrong.
And things went wrong.
A poltergeist in a Bridgeport tenement had thrown a table at my head. I'd ducked, but barely. A residual haunting at an old mill had nearly trapped me in a collapsing floor. And a vengeful spirit in Waterbury—the ghost of a factory foreman who'd beaten workers to death—had required three visits and every ounce of holy water I owned before finally crossing.
Each case taught me something. Each failure showed me what I lacked.
By April, I was at System Level 5. Sense Presence and Spirit Sight were both at Level 2. My Faith Resonance had climbed to 28 from all the prayers and blessings. I could feel the supernatural now like a constant pressure at the edges of my awareness—a sixth sense that never fully turned off.
The case board showed forty-one remaining pins. I'd made a dent. Barely.
And then the B-rank appeared.
[NEW CASE AVAILABLE: B-RANK]
[LOCATION: MORRISON RESIDENCE, HARTFORD SUBURBS]
[ENTITY TYPE: DEMONIC — TIER 2]
[WARNING: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED]
Demonic. Not a ghost. Not a spirit. Something alive and malevolent, something that had chosen to hurt.
I should have waited. Should have called Mancini, coordinated, planned.
But the case file showed children in the house. Two kids, ages seven and nine, experiencing night terrors and waking with scratch marks they couldn't explain.
I went in alone.
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