To my surprise, the darkness had vanished. The beige drywall and rich hardwood floor were as well-lit as the kitchen.
I looked past the stainless-steel appliances to my right before rubbing my eyes with both hands. As a sudden realization dawned on me, I froze in place.
Though the fixtures all matched my apartment near downtown Chicago, the layout of the house was all wrong. My apartment was an open floor plan. The kitchen was nestled in a corner, and a breakfast bar looked out over the dining and living rooms.
This layout was… Ian’s house.
Another scuffle reminiscent of the legs of an insect drifted over to me. Inch by agonizing inch, I turned to face the doorway.
Another flash of white light revealed syrupy blood running down one of the man’s muscular arms. Even as I traced the rivulet up to his shoulder, I already knew the source.
A droplet dangled from his earlobe like the earring of an eighties lead singer, and when I met those familiar green eyes, I wondered how much longer my legs would hold me.
The light flashed again, and this time, a faint voice followed. A woman’s voice.
“Ian,” she cried. “Please, honey, where are you?” Her words came out choked and tearful.
Guilt gnawed at my heart.
Shaking my head, I took hold of the counter as I stepped backward. “I’m sorry, Ian. I…I had to.”
Crimson stained the ceramic tile as he advanced on me. I’d been so focused on the unbridled hatred in his dead eyes that I hadn’t noticed the shadows swirling behind him, eating everything in its path.
They were waiting for something. His command, maybe.
The woman called out again, but Ian’s malevolent stare was unwaveringly locked on me. “You broke the code. You turned your back on your brothers, and now the darkness is coming for you. You belong to it now. It owns you.”
I opened and closed my mouth, but no sound would come forth. Swallowing against the tightness in my throat, I backed up again.
This time, Ian didn’t follow. As the living darkness crept closer, he turned his back on me and headed down the hall. Before he disappeared into the shifting abyss, the streetlight revealed a mass of ruined brain tissue oozing from a crater in the back of his head.
When the darkness was only inches from me, it began to scream…and scream…
I sat bolt upright, my arms coming up to my ears to protect them from the sound.
It came again…and again.
“What?” I pushed the sweat-soaked strands of hair away from my forehead and glanced around the room. I was in the center of my king-sized bed.
Only when the ring sounded out again did I recognize the source of the disturbance that had pulled me from the nightmare. My phone.
I scooted to the edge of the mattress and scooped the device off the wooden nightstand. With a cursory glance at the screen, I swiped and raised it to my ear.
“Hello?” I didn’t bother with sounding sleepy because most cops I knew could go from sound asleep to wide awake in an instant.
“Hey.” The man on the other end of the line cleared his throat. “This is Detective Floyd Yoell. I’m sorry if I woke you. I know you have the day off, but well…it’s about Ian Strausbaugh.”
My pulse spiked, but I kept my tone level. “Ian? What about him?”
“His body was found this morning, just a couple hours ago.”
This was the part I’d dreaded. I’d known Ian for years, and the man had become one of my close friends. How was I supposed to act when I already knew that he was dead? When I was the one who had killed him?
I gritted my teeth and let the line lapse into silence. I’d been around long enough that I’d seen fellow officers, even fellow detectives, fall in the line of duty. The most recent friend of mine to meet his untimely end had been a younger guy from the homicide department of a neighboring district.
Trevor Storm.
But that had been almost three years ago, and I hadn’t known Trevor half as well as I’d known Ian.
“Detective?” Floyd’s voice snapped me back to reality.
“Where? How?” My voice wavered, but only some of the uncertainty was feigned. I inhaled through my nose and straightened my back. “Where was he found?”
“At his house. His wife was out of town with her sister, and she’s headed back to Chicago now. Ian’s, sorry, Detective Strausbaugh’s stepdaughter found him when she got home from her mother’s house this morning.”
“Does…does Dana know? Dana, Ian’s wife, does she know he’s dead?” The question was stupid, but those in the throes of grief didn’t always make logical inquiries.
“Yes. I made sure her sister was driving her back. I didn’t want her to have to make the trip by herself.”
“Sarah isn’t Dana’s sister.” Some detective Floyd was. “She’s Ian’s sister. Dana’s sister-in-law.”
I couldn’t think about the two heartbroken women in that car. A sister and a wife both trying to comfort each other.
“Oh.” Floyd sounded flustered. “I didn’t realize that.”
No, shit.
I cleared my throat when emotion tried to creep in. “What do you need me to do?”
“Well, you know what’s coming, right?” Detective Yoell’s voice was calm and non-accusatory, and I had to remind myself that he’d been on the job for almost as long as I had.
“I know. You need me to come to the station.” I pushed to my feet. “It’s okay. I know you’re just doing your job. I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“I appreciate it, Detective. Be safe.”
“You too.” Swiping at the screen again, I dropped the phone to the crumpled sheets as I mostly stumbled over to the closet.
Though the world seemed crooked, like my version of reality had been knocked askew, I went through my morning routine. Part of it, at least.
I wondered if I should wear a black suit, but in the last second, decided against it. The color of mourning was too on the nose. Instead, since it was my day off, I threw on a t-shirt
