They walked in silence.
It wasn't the comfortable kind. Darren understood the difference now, had learned it over the past week watching Ace move through the world like someone carrying something too heavy to set down. Comfortable silence was what they used to have, back before everything got complicated. The kind where you could sit in the same room for hours without speaking, just existing next to each other, and it felt fine. Normal. Easy.
This wasn't that.
This was the silence of two people who had fought twenty minutes ago and hadn't figured out how to exist next to each other since. The silence of words that had been said and couldn't be unsaid. The silence of a palm against a chest, of shoves that weren't quite fights, of a voice cracking on the word please and the horrible pause that followed.
Ace walked ahead, his pace steady, his eyes fixed forward. He wasn't looking at anything in particular. He was just looking. Away from Darren. Away from the house they'd left behind. Toward whatever waited at the end of this road.
His notepad was in his hand again. He kept it there like a talisman, like something to hold onto when everything else was slipping. He wasn't reading it. He wasn't even looking at it. He was just holding it, thumb moving absently across the cover, tracing the same path over and over.
Darren trailed half a step behind, watching Ace's back. The backpack—Ace's backpack, heavy with things Darren had only glimpsed—was slung over his own shoulders now. It was heavier than it looked. He kept adjusting the straps, trying to find a position that didn't dig into his collarbone, but nothing worked. The weight just settled in and stayed.
They had been walking for maybe ten minutes. It felt like longer. The neighborhood was changing around them, the familiar streets of their childhood giving way to roads they didn't know as well. The houses here were smaller, older, their paint peeling and their porches sagging. The trees thinned out, replaced by telephone poles and chain-link fences. The sidewalks cracked and patched and cracked again, a patchwork of repairs that told the story of a place no one had money to fix properly.
A car passed. Then another. Normal people going normal places, living normal lives, completely unaware that two kids were walking toward something that would change them forever. A woman in a minivan glanced at them as she drove by, her face blank with the boredom of routine. She saw two boys walking. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Darren envied her.
He couldn't take the silence anymore.
"So." His voice came out too loud in the quiet, sharp and sudden like a door slamming. He winced at the sound of it. Tried again, softer. "So. What's this new lead you got?"
Ace didn't answer right away. He kept walking, his pace steady, his eyes still fixed on whatever was ahead. For a moment Darren thought maybe he hadn't heard, or maybe he was just going to ignore the question entirely.
Then Ace stopped.
Darren stopped too, a beat late, nearly stumbling over his own feet. The sudden halt made the backpack lurch against his shoulders, and he had to grab the straps to keep it from sliding off.
Ace reached into his pocket. His movements were slow, deliberate. Not dramatic—he wasn't trying to make a moment of it. Just careful. Like he was handling something fragile. Something dangerous.
The photo came out folded, worn at the edges, creased from being carried and unfolded and folded again so many times that the paper had gone soft along the folds. Ace smoothed it against his thigh before holding it out, his fingers pinching the corner like he didn't want to let go of it entirely.
Darren leaned in.
It was a group photo. Maybe ten people, all men, all wearing the same kind of blue work shirts. Their faces were dirty, rough, carrying the kind of tired that came from long shifts and hard labor and not enough sleep between them. They stood in front of machinery—big metal things with levers and dials that Darren couldn't identify—in a space that looked dark and cavernous. A factory. Some kind of factory, with high ceilings and bad lighting and the kind of air that probably smelled like oil and sweat.
Ace's finger touched one face.
The man was bald. Completely bald, his scalp shining under whatever light had been used for the photo. His smile showed crooked teeth, some missing, some yellowed, the kind of smile that came from a lifetime of not being able to afford a dentist. He had a belly that strained against his work shirt, soft and round, the kind of belly that came from cheap food and long hours and no time to take care of yourself. His clothes were dirty, his face was dirty, his hands were dirty.
He looked ordinary. Completely, terrifyingly ordinary.
"What about him?" Darren asked.
Ace didn't answer immediately. His thumb stayed on the man's face, pressing slightly against the glossy paper, like he was trying to feel something through the image. Like he was trying to connect.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet. Quiet in a way that made Darren's stomach tighten.
"That's the poltergeist I fought."
The words didn't land right away. Darren's brain needed a second to process them, to fit them into something that made sense. His eyes went from Ace's face to the photo and back again. To the ordinary man with the crooked smile. To the bald head. To the dirty work shirt. To the face of something that had tried to kill his cousin.
"What?"
Ace nodded. Just once. His expression didn't change.
"I'm sure of it. That's him. That's the thing that was in Layla's house."
Darren stared at the photo. At the bald man. The crooked teeth. The belly. The dirty work shirt. A normal man. A worker. Someone's father, maybe. Someone's husband. Someone who had probably gone to work every day and come home every night and watched television and paid bills and argued with his wife about money and forgotten to take out the trash.
A poltergeist.
His stomach dropped. It was a physical sensation, a falling feeling, like the ground had opened up beneath him and there was nothing to hold onto. His mouth opened. Closed. No sound came out.
"But how do you know? I mean, that photo could be from anywhere. Anyone. How can you be sure it's him?"
Ace put the photo away. Carefully. Folded along the same creases, slipped back into the same pocket, patting it once as if to make sure it was secure.
"I'm positive about it." His voice was flat, matter-of-fact, the voice he used when he was reciting information he'd memorized. "That crooked smile,it's the same one I fought at Layla's house."
"You looked up his death?"
"Spent all night on it. After the library." Ace started walking again, his pace the same as before, steady and unhurried. "Chris Jackson. Fifty years old. Worked at a factory about forty kilometers from here. Died on the job. Official report said accident. Machinery malfunction."
"But you don't believe that."
Ace didn't answer. He didn't have to. The set of his shoulders said everything.
Darren hurried to catch up, the backpack bouncing against his shoulders with every step. "Does Axl know about this? About Chris?"
"No."
The word was flat. Final.
"Why not? I mean, if this guy's connected, if he's the same thing that attacked you, shouldn't Axl—"
"Because Axl doesn't have this." Ace's voice sharpened, just slightly, a blade catching light. "Chris Jackson isn't in any of his files. The murder happened seven years ago, different jurisdiction, different investigation. Different everything. Axl's been focused on the recent stuff. The ritual pattern. The geometry. The murders that fit his map. He missed this."
Darren didn't know what to say. The idea that Axl—the expert, the priest, the one who knew everything about everything, the one who had been trained by Neal Eldren himself—had missed something was unsettling. It was like finding out your teacher didn't actually know the answers. Like realizing the ground you'd been standing on wasn't as solid as you thought.
"So we're ahead of him?"
"We're somewhere." Ace's voice was quieter now. Less certain. "I don't know if it's ahead. But it's somewhere."
They walked in silence again. A different silence this time. Heavier. Fuller of things neither of them knew how to say.
---
Marco's house was big.
Not mansion big, not the kind of big that made you think of movie stars and trust funds. But big enough. Four floors of light green paint and clean lines and big windows that caught the morning sun and threw it back in bright rectangles. The kind of house that screamed modern minimalist design, all sharp angles and intentional simplicity, the kind that cost more than most people made in a year.
A garden stretched in front of it, carefully maintained, full of plants Darren couldn't name. There were flowers in colors he recognized and flowers in colors he didn't. A stone path led from the sidewalk to the front door, each slab of grey stone perfectly spaced, perfectly level, perfectly placed.
Marco was already outside.
He was leaning against a bike parked at the edge of the garden, one foot on the ground, the other hooked casually over the seat. Red Kawasaki Ninja 650. It gleamed in the sunlight, the metal polished to a mirror shine, the tires black and clean and unworn. Someone loved this bike. Someone spent hours on it, cleaning it, adjusting it, just looking at it.
He wore a hoodie and jeans, the same uniform as every other teenager in the city. His hair was messy in a way that looked intentional, falling across his forehead in a way that probably took ten minutes to achieve. But there was something in the way he stood—easy, relaxed, completely at home in his own skin—that Darren envied instantly. Marco knew who he was. Marco didn't have to pretend.
Ace approached. They fist-bumped. The gesture was easy, familiar, practiced. Two people who had done this a hundred times before.
"This the bike?" Ace asked.
"Yup." Marco patted the seat with real affection, his palm sliding across the red paint like he was petting an animal. "Sweet baby right here."
Ace circled it slowly, taking it in. The lines. The curves. The way the light caught the red paint and made it glow. He crouched slightly to look at the engine, ran a finger along the edge of a mirror. For a moment, he wasn't a hunter with a notepad full of secrets. He wasn't a grounded kid lying to his mother. He wasn't carrying the weight of everything that had happened and everything that was about to happen.
He was just a guy looking at a cool bike.
"Sweet baby," Ace murmured. "Damn straight."
Marco tilted his head, casual curiosity in his voice. "So why do you need it?"
Ace's pause was almost imperceptible. A fraction of a second where his face went still, where the mask slipped back into place.
Ace didn't answer. He just reached out and tapped Marco's shoulder. Friendly. Easy. Dismissive.
Marco sighed. He knew that tap. He had gotten it before, more times than he could count over the years they'd known each other. It meant don't ask. It meant I'm not going to tell you. It meant this is how Ace is, and you either accept it or you stop being his friend.
"Just be careful, okay?" Marco's voice was lighter now, but there was something underneath it. Concern, maybe. Or resignation. The acceptance of someone who had learned long ago that Ace operated on a different set of rules. "It's my brother's. If something happens to it, he will literally kill me. Like, not metaphorically. He will end my existence. I will cease to be a person."
"Yeah, yeah." Ace waved a hand, already swinging one leg over the seat. "I know how to drive. Trust me."
Marco looked at him for a long moment. His eyes moved from Ace's face to the backpack Darren was carrying, to Darren himself, standing silent and awkward behind his cousin, trying to look like he belonged there.
Something passed through Marco's expression. Not suspicion, exactly. Just awareness. He knew Ace was lying. He knew there was more to this than Ace was saying. He was choosing not to push.
"You bringing your cousin too?"
Ace nodded. Didn't explain. Didn't justify.
Marco looked at Darren again. Really looked this time, his gaze steady and assessing. Darren felt exposed under that look, like Marco could see right through him to all the things he was trying to hide.
"Take care of him," Marco said.
It took Darren a second to realize Marco was talking to him. Not to Ace. To him.
He didn't know what to say. He just nodded, a jerky motion that probably looked as awkward as it felt.
Marco held his gaze for another moment, then nodded back and stepped away from the bike.
Ace turned the key. The engine roared to life—a deep, throaty sound that vibrated up through the seat and into Darren's bones. It was louder than he expected. Deeper. More alive.
Ace glanced back at him. "Get on."
Darren climbed on behind him, the seat hard under him, the engine warm against his legs. He slung the backpack over his other shoulder, trying to find a position that wouldn't make him fall off the second they started moving. He gripped the sides of the seat, then realized that was stupid and grabbed Ace's jacket instead.
The leather was soft under his fingers. Warm from the sun.
Then they were moving.
---
The world became speed.
Darren had never been on a motorcycle before. He had seen them, heard them, watched them zoom past on the highway and imagined what it would feel like. He had thought he understood.
He had not understood.
The wind didn't just blow. It attacked. It tore at his face, his clothes, his hair, screaming past his ears so loud that he couldn't hear anything else. His eyes watered instantly, the tears ripped away before they could fall, leaving his vision blurry and stinging.
He gripped Ace's shirt so hard his knuckles went white. His legs clenched the sides of the bike, muscles screaming with the effort of holding on. Every bump in the road jolted through his spine, rattling his teeth. Every turn made his stomach lurch, the bike tilting at angles that felt impossible, that felt like they should tip over and send both of them sliding across the pavement.
And through it all, the speed. Constant. Relentless. The world blurring past in streaks of grey and green and blue, too fast to focus on anything, too fast to think.
Ace wove through traffic like he had done this a thousand times. Cars loomed ahead, then vanished behind them. Red lights approached, and Darren braced for stopping, for the relief of stillness, but Ace just found a gap and slipped through, the bike tilting and weaving between vehicles that seemed impossibly close.
Darren wanted to close his eyes. He couldn't. He wanted to scream. He couldn't do that either—the wind would just steal the sound before it left his mouth.
So he held on. And held on. And held on.
For the first time since they had left, Ace felt something like peace.
Not happiness. He wasn't happy. He hadn't been happy in days, maybe longer. But peace. The kind that came from moving too fast to think, from having to focus completely on the next second, the next turn, the next gear. The wind screaming past drowned out everything else—the guilt, the fear, the notepad full of questions he couldn't answer, the memory of Cedric's arm hanging useless at his side, the look on his mother's face when she let him go.
For a few minutes, he wasn't Ace Eldren, grounded son of a legendary hunter, carrying secrets no one else knew. He wasn't the boy who had pushed his eleven-year-old cousin until his eyes went wet. He wasn't anything.
He was just a boy on a bike, going somewhere, anywhere, fast enough to outrun his own head.
He didn't want it to end.
But it did.
He braked hard in front of a dark alley, the sudden deceleration throwing Darren forward into his back. The engine idled, a low growl that vibrated through the frame.
Darren gasped, sucking in air like he had been holding his breath for hours. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.
"What—where—"
Ace was already off the bike, grabbing his backpack from Darren's shoulders. The weight lifted, and Darren felt almost light without it.
"To change." Ace was moving before the word finished, sprinting into the alley, swallowed by shadow.
Darren sat alone on the bike, in the bright daylight, trying to remember how to breathe.
The alley smelled like garbage and old rain.
Discarded boxes leaned against the walls, their cardboard soft and sagging with moisture. A cat watched from a fire escape, eyes gleaming, then turned and vanished into the darkness. Puddles of murky water reflected the sliver of sky visible between the buildings.
Ace moved quickly, efficiently. The school uniform came off in pieces—shirt first, pulled over his head and stuffed into the backpack without folding. Then pants, stepped out of and shoved in after the shirt. He worked fast, not because he was in a hurry, but because standing half-dressed in a public alley felt wrong. Vulnerable.
The new clothes were at the bottom of the backpack, folded carefully. He had packed them last night, in the dark, while his mother slept down the hall. He had chosen each piece with intention, the way Axl had taught him. Clothes are armor. Wear them like it.
Grey flannel. Soft from washing, the sleeves worn at the cuffs from years of use. He pulled it on, the fabric settling against his skin like a second layer, familiar and comfortable.
Light brown leather jacket. Cropped, a little worn, a little scuffed at the elbows. His father's, once. He had found it in the back of Neal's closet months ago, buried under older coats, forgotten. He had taken it without asking. He didn't know if Neal would notice it was gone. He didn't know if Neal would care.
The jacket smelled like nothing now. The scent of his father had faded long ago, replaced by the mustiness of the closet and the faint smell of whatever Ace had worn last. But it still felt different from his other clothes. Heavier. More important.
Dark blue jeans. Raw denim, stiff from being new, already fading at the knees from the few times he had worn them. Dr. Martens, brown, scuffed from a hundred walks through a hundred unknown places, the laces worn but still holding. Black gloves, fingerless, the kind that let you feel a trigger while keeping your hands warm.
He looked at himself in a cracked piece of mirror leaning against the wall, someone's forgotten trash propped up and abandoned.
The person looking back wasn't the boy who had left the house this morning. That boy had worn an inside-out uniform and lied to his mother and felt guilty about it. That boy had been someone who still cared what his mom thought.
This person had harder eyes. A straighter back. A jacket that had belonged to someone else.
He didn't know if it was an improvement.
He walked out of the alley.
Darren did a double-take. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. He looked Ace up and down, taking in the flannel, the leather jacket, the boots, the gloves.
"You look..." He trailed off, not sure how to finish.
Ace didn't ask him to. He just took the backpack, slung it over his own shoulder, and got back on the bike.
Darren climbed on behind him. The engine roared. They were moving again.
Slower now. Ace had found his rhythm, or maybe the urgency had faded. They were on the highway, the city falling away behind them, replaced by industrial sprawl—warehouses with corrugated metal walls, storage yards full of shipping containers, empty lots where rusting machinery sat abandoned and forgotten.
The road stretched ahead, grey and straight, lined by chain-link fences and billboards advertising things no one needed. The sky was grey too, the same grey as everything else, low clouds that pressed down like a ceiling.
Darren leaned forward, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.
"Where exactly are we going?"
"The factory." Ace's voice came back to him, fragmented by speed but clear enough. "Where Chris Jackson worked."
"What are we looking for?"
"Anything. Everything. Something that doesn't fit."
Darren processed this. The factory was forty kilometers away. They had been riding for maybe twenty minutes. They were probably halfway there.
"But if he died seven years ago, what's left to find? I mean, a factory's a factory. People work there every day. Whatever happened, it's been seven years. Everything's probably changed."
"Maybe." Ace's shoulders shifted in a shrug Darren could feel more than see. "Or maybe some things don't change."
Darren thought about that. About the idea of a place holding onto something for seven years. Waiting.
The road stretched ahead. Empty. Grey. The factory wasn't visible yet, but it was out there. Waiting.
Darren's hands were still gripping Ace's jacket. His knuckles were white. He didn't loosen his grip.
He thought about Chris Jackson. Fifty years old. A normal worker. A bald man with crooked teeth and a belly from cheap food. Someone who had probably gone to work one day and never come home.
And now he was a poltergeist. Now he was the thing that had tried to kill Ace and Cedric and Layla.
What happened to you? Darren wanted to ask. What turned you into that?
But Chris Jackson couldn't answer. Chris Jackson was gone. All that was left was the thing wearing his face.
Forty kilometers. It wasn't far.
It felt like forever.
The engine roared. The world blurred. They rode toward something they didn't understand, carrying questions no one else was asking, following a lead that might go nowhere or might change everything.
Ace's eyes stayed fixed forward. His father's jacket was warm against his skin. The notepad was in his backpack, the page folded soft from his thumb.
Forty kilometers.
They would be there soon.