Descent

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.

~John 11:10

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The man’s body was barely recognizable.

There were deep wounds all over his face and down his body, wide, jagged gashes that looked almost like markings from the claws of an animal. Blood covered his torn clothes and what was left of his skin, a dark, maroon color that stained the grass around him.

His eyes were the only part of him that seemed to have been left untouched. They were wide open, a shade of blue that perhaps had once been radiant but now looked empty and cold. Something about how clear and pristine they were was disturbing, like it was the only remnant of humanity in a mass of flesh and blood.

“His name was Adam Hollander.” Erika murmured, her voice flat, like she was trying to keep her emotions under tight control. “I knew him since we were kids. He was the only politician in this town I felt like could trust.”

“I’m sorry.” Jacob said, looking away from the body. They were standing in the center of a park, a clearing with a tall, stone fountain sitting in the middle and several benches on either side.

The park looked the same as he remembered. The lush, deep green hedges, the fading grey statues and pale, crumbling stones, the old gazebo by the pier…it all felt so familiar.

The strength of the feeling, of the vivid memories coming to his mind now, surprised him. For a long time, most of his memories of this town had been hazy, like half-forgotten dreams. A part of him had liked them that way, buried deep in a fog, their sharpness dulled. But ever since the electric room it was like something in his mind had shifted, stirring them up, bringing them out of the fog and up to the surface.

When he was a child, he’d used to like coming here after school. The park had been a quiet, peaceful place, and something about it had felt captivating to him.

He’d spent hours here, sometimes, walking along the pier and looking out at the waters of the lake as the sun set. At dusk it looked almost otherworldly. A soft, vivid magenta glow would fill the clouds in the sky as the forest on the hill faded into a dark silhouette. The lake’s surface would reflect it all like a mirror, its waters still and silent.

He’d had an episode here, once. It was something he hadn’t thought about or been able to recall in a long time. But now he remembered.

He’d been walking around the park for a while, his thoughts drifting as he lost himself in the quiet of the narrow paths between the hedges, before the feeling came.

The chill ran through him suddenly, like a gust of wind, making his skin crawl. It had never happened here before. It hadn’t happened in a long time, long enough that he hoped it never would again.

The silence in the park felt eerie and empty now. He could sense something was different, like a shift in the air, and his heart started pounding.

A thick white fog was starting to fill the path around him, and he walked faster, looking for a way out.

“Hello?” He called. There was no answer, only the suffocating stillness. “Is anyone there?” Fear was bleeding into his voice now. “Can anyone hear me?”

He walked faster still. But he couldn’t recognize where he’d been before. The fog was strangely disorienting, making everything look unfamiliar.

Eventually he found his way out of the maze of pathways and entered an open section of the park. The stone walls and sidewalk were covered in overgrown vines, cracked and crumbling.

There was something in the mist ahead of him. It was low to the ground, like an animal, almost dragging itself along. Then it stopped, as if hearing his footsteps, turning in his direction.

He backed up. He couldn’t see what this one was. But it didn’t look human.

Slowly it emerged from the fog, and he froze. It was a contorted thing with bone-white flesh and a body that looked like a combination of an insect and an animal, its eyes black as darkness-

“He was a good man. He helped me on a lot of cases related to the White Dahlia trade.” Erika’s voice jerked him back to the present, and he focused on the sound, trying to shake the memory away. The fear lingered like an echo. “He saw what White Dahlia was doing to this place, to our kids…the withdrawals were terrible, like nothing I’d ever seen.” She continued, and her eyes were somewhere else, like she was lost in bitter memories of those past cases. “He ran for council to try to stop it. He was a rare breed in this town. He cared enough to try to make a difference.”

He got too close to the truth, the words hung heavy in the air, unspoken, but he could sense they were just on the tip of her tongue. He found out something he wasn’t supposed to.

“I can’t see how a human could have done something like this.” He said, kneeling down beside the body. Part of his mind was still struggling to process what was in front of him. He’d never seen anything like it. It looked more like the man had been attacked by a bear or some other large animal than a human killer. Or something else, he thought, dread creeping up his spine. It shouldn’t have been possible. But he had seen a lot of things that weren’t possible. “Even with a serrated weapon, seems like it would take more than one person to inflict this kind of damage.”

“I’ve seen something like this before.” She replied, her voice grave. “One of my deputies went missing a few years back. When we found his body, it had wounds like these.” She pointed to what was left of the man’s face. “These wounds are uniform, deliberate.” She continued, and as he studied the wounds more carefully the slow realization dawned on him, opening up a pit of disgust in his stomach. There was a precision to the wounds that only a human was capable of. “Once we begin an autopsy, it should be able to tell us whether this mutilation happened just before his death or shortly after.”

“He must have been killed somewhere else and then dumped here.” He said, rising to his feet and looking around the park center. The clearing was sealed off with yellow tape. Two deputies were searching the rest of the area, but so far they did not seem to be having any luck finding anything out of the ordinary. “There’s not nearly enough blood on the grass around him to account for these kinds of wounds.”

Before she could reply, a woman appeared at the edge of the perimeter of the yellow tape, ducking under it and heading in their direction.

“Where is he?” She called out, desperation mingling with grief at the edges of her voice. Her face was pale, eyes rimmed with red.

Erika moved to meet her, her voice gentle, like she was talking to a friend rather than an intruder. Adam’s wife, he guessed. “Beth, you shouldn’t be here.”

But her voice came too late; Beth looked at the body near his feet and came to a stop, her face full of horror. “Oh, god, is that Adam?” She looked back at Erika, who nodded solemnly.

“It’s him.” She pulled the other woman into a hug. Beth’s body was starting to tremble. “I’m sorry.” She continued, her voice low and soft. “I’m so sorry.”

“What did they do to him?” Beth cried, sounding like she was fighting nausea, and he frowned. Something in her voice gave the impression that she’d been expecting something like this to happen and terrified that it had become real.

“Was there anyone that wanted to hurt him?” Jacob interjected, approaching them, and she pulled back to look at him.

“People in high places. He was a good, honest man, and everyone hated him for it.” She replied after a moment, trying to find her voice. It was rough, ragged. “He got threats all the time. A few days ago, he told me he thought people were following him.” She continued. “I wanted him to resign. I…I knew that something bad was going to happen if he kept pushing. But nothing could change his mind. He was stubborn when it came to fighting for something he knew was right.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Yesterday evening.” She replied. “He told me he’d been contacted by someone who was working as a carrier in the White Dahlia trade, that they wanted to meet him at Toluca Lodge.”

“Toluca Lodge?” Jacob echoed. He’d never heard of that place before.

“It’s a country club on the other side of town.” Erika explained. “It’s the favorite haunt of the rich and powerful-everyone in this town with connections are regulars there.”

“It’s a den of rats.” Beth muttered, anger flickering into her voice like a flame before being drowned out by a heavy, deep despair and hopelessness. “They’re all part of the same group, some old secret society. They’ve always run this town. They’ve been here since the beginning.”

“Who are they?” He frowned.

“Some folks call them the Watchers. My folks did.” Beth replied. “But I don’t know if they even have a name. Some folks think they don’t exist and never existed, that it’s all local legend and folk tales.”

“I’m in the latter camp.” Erika commented, looking at the other woman like this was an argument they’d had many times before. “There’s a lot of strange things that have happened here. And I’d bet money on some kind of conspiracy. But there’s no recorded evidence of this secret society ever existing.”

“Because they're smart enough to stay in the shadows.” Beth said grimly. “On the outside, they’re politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors. No one can touch them."

For some reason, a memory of the doctor’s voice rose up in the back of his mind, cold and bright and terrible. You can help bring us to Paradise.

“If they did this, we’ll find them.” Emily said firmly, before turning to him, unaware of his inner turmoil. “I need to head over to the morgue.” She handed him the keys to her van. “You go ahead, I’ll meet you at the lodge.”

“Will do.” He said, Beth’s words settling heavy within him. He thought of the red symbol he’d seen, the way he’d recognized it. There had been others, beside the doctor, others that had done things to him. There seemed to have been a purpose to everything they did, however perverse.

What if they were some of many?

In his thoughts the question was only answered by an uncertain silence.

____________

Toluca Lodge had a warm, elegant atmosphere.

It felt almost like the inside of a palace, with grand, spacious rooms and walls painted in a dark, gleaming shade of obsidian.

The main chamber was filled with people in immaculate clothes, gathered together at one of the tables or mingling in various groups in the center of the room, the collective sound of their voices blurring together and filling the air like a low, ever-present hum in the background. The lights were soft and muted, like the slow start of a sunrise, mixing with the brighter light that came in from the windows on either side of the chamber.

Something about the place reminded him of the surface of the lake it was named for. A glossy veil hiding an unknown world beneath.

Jacob made his way over to an empty table nearby, taking a moment to sit down and observe his surroundings. Best to talk with the employees first, he thought, watching servers move from one table to the next, flickers of normalcy in the glamour. They’d know more than the patrons. The only trouble would be knowing if they were telling the truth.

He scanned the room for a while, waiting for one of the servers to approach. Statues were positioned by the entrance and exits from the chamber, figures made of a brilliant white marble, both human and animal.

There was a mosaic that covered the ceiling, depicting a scene of a forest in autumn, with trees with red leaves and a white fog hanging in the air above the soil.

But the longer he studied it, the more he began to get a creeping suspicion that he had been wrong, and a chill passed through him.

This was not a forest in autumn. The scene was all wrong. The red did not just tint the leaves but bled into everything like a haze. The skies were too empty, too pale. The shadows between the trees looked too misshapen to be part of the forest.

This was something else, something all-too familiar. The thought made his skin crawl, and he looked away, disturbed. What was the sick mind that could have seen this and thought it was something to be immortalized-

Someone passed right by his side, close enough to jerk him out of his thoughts. By the time he’d looked up, she was already some distance away, hardly more than a flash of a light grey uniform.

He frowned, about to return his attention to the room, before noticing something had fallen on his lap.

It was a thin white napkin, and he picked it up. There was a message written on it in dark letters:

Meet me upstairs.

Last door on your left.

Don’t get up right away.

Jacob stared at the note for a moment, half-wondering if it was some sort of ruse, before deciding it couldn’t hurt to play along. He waited for another few long moments, as the note instructed, before looking around and slipping out of the room. No one seemed to notice. The sound of the voices dimmed as he made his way back into the foyer and headed for the stairwell he’d seen upon entering, climbing the steps and emerging into a dim, more modest-looking corridor.

He headed left and stopped at the last door, listening for a moment, but all was quiet on the other side. He waited another beat before reaching for the handle, and it opened easily, leading into what must have been a bedroom for guests. It was a wide, spacious chamber, with beautiful portraits dotting the walls and a mattress framed in gold with velvet sheets.

A dark-haired girl was standing with her back towards the door, looking out an open window, before turning to face him. Her face was weary and her eyes were a deep, cloudy shade of green.

She didn't say anything at first. ”You wanted to meet me?” When he spoke his words felt louder and heavier in the stillness of the bedroom.

“You’re here because of Councilman Hollander, aren’t you?” She asked, face darkening. “Did something happen to him?”

”We found his body today.” He replied. “The last time his wife saw him, he was heading here to meet someone who claimed to be working as a carrier in the White Dahlia trade. Was that you?”

“Yeah, it was.” She nodded. She looked young, but her voice gave the impression that she had seen much more than someone her age should have. “I reached out to him a few days ago. We met here last night.” She continued, guilt shadowing her face now. “I thought no one had seen us.”

“Why did you reach out?” He asked.

She shifted, seeming restless, uneasy. ”I was a kid when I started working here, just out of elementary school. I didn’t know anything about it at first-I thought I was just going to wait tables for a bunch of rich guys. But then they offered the real job to me. It seemed like easy money, so I took it.” She replied, regretfully. “It took me a while to realize how stupid I’d been. I’ve seen what that drug does to people. When I first heard about him, I thought he was bullshitting like everyone else, but he seemed like he really cared. And then I thought…I thought if I told him what I knew, maybe he could help me find a way out.” She continued, falling silent for a moment before shaking her head. “But I was wrong. If they can get to him, they can get to anyone.”

“You still have a way out.” Jacob said, firmly. “Sherriff Mayfield and I can help you. If you come down to the station, we can protect you-

"No, you can't. The sheriff doesn't have any real power in this town." The girl interjected, like some terrible realization had begun to sink in. "It's too late. They probably already know I told him something. They were watching me more closely this morning, I could tell." Fear was building in her eyes like an approaching storm. "I-I'm sorry, I can't help you. I don't want to end up like- She stopped suddenly, moving past him and towards the door.

"Like who?" He asked as she reached for the handle, and she paused, her whole body stiffening. "I want to help you any way I can." He insisted, approaching her. She looked over her shoulder, the internal struggle visible all over her face, before finally turning back to face him.

"A few years back, there was another girl who worked here. Andrea." She said, swallowing thickly. "She was a carrier, like me. They had us moving batches of White Dahlia every night. We didn't know where the stuff came from. We knew not to ask." She continued, a tremor in her voice. "After a while, Andrea told me she didn't want to do this anymore, that she'd gone to the police and told them everything. The next morning, she was gone. Her room was completely empty, like she'd never been there at all. No one ever talked about her again."

"I'm sorry." He said, gently. "But the best thing you can do now is to come with me. I can talk to the sheriff. We can take you to safe location, somewhere outside of town."

"They'd find me. They have eyes everywhere." She argued. "I have to go. It's going to be worse if I run." She added hastily. "Go down to the wine cellar. There's a door in the back of the room. I don't know what's back there, but you might find something if you can get in. That's all I know, I'm sorry." Then she turned away and opened the door before he could respond, heading into the corridor.

Jacob left the room and stepped into the hall just a moment later, watching her go with a heavy, sinking feeling in his chest, until she turned towards the stairwell and vanished from sight.

___________________

The wine cellar was damp and cold, with little illumination save for a dim, flickering light that hung from the ceiling above.

He'd made his way here as discreetly as he could manage, slipping out the back door and circling the lodge until he found the cellar's entrance. On his way he kept a close eye out for the girl. But he hadn't seen her again.

He moved past row after row of wine bottles, some vintage and some new, before coming upon the door the server had described. It was deep in the far corner of the room, almost like it had been deliberately positioned to be hidden from view, made of old wood and locked with a grey padlock.

He tried to break the lock with the butt of his pistol, raining down a few heavy blows on the lock that shook the door itself, but it held. S**t. He sighed, moving a few steps back and switching his grip before taking aim. He was hoping he didn't have to fire a shot off. Even underground, the sound might carry enough for people in the lodge to hear. But he didn't see any other way to get in.

The crack of the gunshot echoed like a thunderclap in the quiet of the cellar. The flash was momentarily blinding, casting shadows all around him as smoke and dust whirled up from the handle of the door. But when it settled, the lock had been damaged, cracks running up and down the middle. A swift kick did the rest, dislodging the lock and sending the door careening open.

Moving cautiously, he passed through the open door and found himself in a long, empty passageway. The corridor was even darker than the cellar, illuminated by a row of faint, flickering lanterns on either side of the hall. The walls looked like they were made of stone, covered in strange drawings that he could barely make out in the fading glow of the lanterns, and he paused and leaned closer to look at one.

It was a symbol of a half-open eye, painted in red ink, a character he didn't recognize written on its dark iris. The others were of eyes, too, identical drawings of that half-open eye with the character in the middle. It gave him an eerie feeling, like something inside the walls was watching from within those silent, unblinking eyes, watching whoever passed by.

He shivered and turned away, continuing forward. The passage kept going for some time until he came to an open chamber. A perimeter of tall, burning candles was positioned around the entire length of the chamber, spanning out from the entrance on either side until they met in the middle at the far end of the room. Multiple rings had been carved into the stone floor of the chamber, each circle elevated lower than the one behind it, like the seats in an ancient coliseum.

There was an altar in the center of the chamber and within the innermost circle, the iron slab marred with what looked like burn marks or dried blood, along with a table that held a book and a metal pot. A banner with a symbol hung from the wall behind the table, the same symbol he'd seen in the electric room, and it made his blood run cold. His head had started pounding again. He remembered a room like this. It hadn't been identical. The walls had been blood-red. But the candles, the symbol, the altar...that had all been the same.

The pounding in his head intensified suddenly, and every fiber of his being was screaming at him to run, to run as far and fast from this place as he could. Memories were rising up from the fog now, with a burning, terrible clarity.

A child's fear. The cold of the altar against his skin. The way the color bled from the room. The low, rhythmic chanting of voices in the dark. The cold, alien presence that hung oppressively in the air. The shadow in the shape of a man.

He felt a sharp cold fill the air around him, the weight of that alien presence, familiar and terrifying. The candles in the chamber sputtered and died to a low flicker. The symbol on the altar seemed to burn.

Go away. He'd said that as a child too, a desperate plea for deliverance from a power he didn't understand, a power so far beyond his own. It had never worked. Go away.

Then he heard a noise, something that tugged at his mind for the briefest moment, and he opened his eyes. The pounding in his skull was starting to recede, and the feeling of the presence was gone just as quickly as it had come, as if whatever sound he'd heard had woken him from a nightmare. But the terror was still there, and he struggled to catch his breath, his heart racing-

The sound came again. The faintest echo of a voice, of something scraping on stone. He pushed the fear down and scanned the room, spotting what looked like a trapdoor near the altar, and slowly he made his way towards it. The sound had come from there, from somewhere under the room itself.

The trapdoor was chained shut. This time he did not need to fire his weapon, breaking the lock on the chain with a few well-placed blows of the butt of his gun before removing the chain and pulling the trapdoor open.

At first all he saw was darkness, like the deep pit of a cave. But then he saw the outline of a figure in the small, featureless chamber below. It was a pale, emaciated girl, her face half-hidden in dark, grimy hair, her clothes stained with dust and her hands with what looked like blood. Her lips were moving without sound, and her eyes were wild, darting from one end of the chamber to the other.

He didn't recognize her at first. But then he saw the similarities.

The girl in the photo.

Mara.