MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

Rain hammered the streets of New Eden in unrelenting sheets, turning the pavement into a liquid mirror that fractured the neon chaos above. Detective Sophia Jones pulled her coat tighter, the damp chill seeping into her bones as she ducked under the crime scene tape. Her partner, Elias Korrin, followed close behind, his usual wry humor absent in the face of the oppressive night.

"High-end apartment in the Diamond District," Elias muttered, shaking water from his dark hair. "This is either a robbery gone very wrong or something much worse."

Sophia had a sinking feeling it was the latter. The air itself felt wrong, heavy with a silence that the storm could not pierce.

The first responder, a uniformed officer whose face was a pale mask of shock, met them at the polished mahogany door. "Detectives. I have to warn you, this one is different."

"Different how?" Sophia asked, her voice steady.

The officer swallowed hard. "You will have to see for yourself."

The apartment was pristine. Expensive furniture sat untouched on spotless rugs, and abstract art adorned the walls. Floor-to-ceiling windows would have offered a stunning panorama of the city if not for the storm's fury. Nothing was disturbed. There were no signs of forced entry, no hint of a struggle, no blood.

It was a scene of perfect, unnerving tranquility.

Then Sophia saw the body.

The victim lay in the center of the living room, arms spread wide as if in a final, desperate offering. Sophia recognized the face from the society pages as Claudia Winters, a socialite known for her extravagant charity galas and immense family wealth. The woman on the floor, however, bore little resemblance to the vibrant figure from those glossy photographs.

The body was desiccated, the skin pulled taut over the bones until it resembled fragile parchment. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a silent, agonizing scream. She looked as if she had been dead for months, not mere hours.

"The building manager found her two hours ago," the young officer said, his voice strained. "The medical examiner is on his way, but he said over the phone he has never seen anything like this."

Sophia crouched beside the body, her professional detachment a familiar shield against the horror. She had witnessed terrible things in her seven years with the New Eden Police Department, but this felt like a violation of natural law itself.

Then she saw the mark.

Branded into the pale skin of Claudia's chest was a symbol, rendered in what looked like dried blood. It was an intricate, geometric design, with flowing, impossible lines that seemed to writhe in her peripheral vision. The longer she stared at it, the more a dull ache began to throb behind her eyes.

"What the hell is that?" Elias breathed, his voice a low whisper of disbelief.

Sophia found she could not form a reply. Her throat had gone dry, and a sudden, unnatural cold crept into her hands. She knew this symbol. It was not from any case file or criminal database, but from a memory she had buried fifteen years ago.

A memory of another crime scene, another body, another rainy night.

The night she found her father.

No. It is not exactly the same, she thought, her mind reeling. But it is similar. It is too similar.

"Sophia?" Elias placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch grounding her. "Are you okay?"

She blinked, forcing herself back to the suffocating present. "I am fine. We need to photograph this, get samples of everything. And call the Arcane Crimes Division liaison."

"You think this is supernatural?" Elias asked, though the evidence was laid out before them.

Sophia stood, her knees protesting the sudden movement. "Look at her, Elias. Does this look natural to you?"

Within an hour, the case was officially theirs. The Arcane Crimes Division was a small, underfunded unit, composed of just four detectives in the entire New Eden Police Department. Most cops did not believe in magic, preferring to ignore the things that went bump in the night and the monsters that wore human faces.

Sophia and Elias had learned the hard way that the supernatural underworld was terrifyingly real.

They worked the scene until the first hint of dawn, collecting evidence that would likely tell them nothing. Whoever had done this was careful, methodical, and impossibly clean. There was no DNA, no fingerprints, and no witnesses. There was only the symbol and the drained husk of what had once been a woman.

As they finally left the apartment building, the rain having softened to a miserable drizzle, Sophia felt Elias watching her.

"You recognized that symbol," he said quietly. It was not a question.

She considered lying, but Elias knew her too well, knew the subtle tells she could not hide from him. "Maybe. I do not know yet."

"This is about your father's case."

The statement hung between them, heavy and inescapable. Sophia stopped at her car, keys in hand, and met his concerned gaze. Elias had been her partner for three years. He had never pressed her about her father, had always respected her silence on the subject.

But now, the past had violently resurfaced.

"There were ritualistic elements," she admitted, her voice tight. "They were never explained. The case went cold."

"Sophia, if this is connected..."

"Then I will solve it." Her voice came out harder than she intended, sharp with fifteen years of unresolved grief and anger. "I will solve both of them."

Elias nodded slowly, his expression full of a concern she could not bring herself to acknowledge. "We will solve them. Together. But you have to stay objective."

"I am always objective."

"You are always in control," he corrected gently. "That is not the same thing."

Sophia got in her car without responding. As she drove through the grey morning, the city lights blurred by exhaustion, she could not stop seeing that symbol. She could not stop remembering another rainy night, another body, and another mark that had never been explained.

Her father had been investigating something big when he died. She had been too young to understand it then, but she had kept his case file, memorizing every detail over the years.

Now, someone was killing again, leaving the same impossible calling card

Who are you? she thought, her hands gripping the steering wheel. And what did my father find that cost him his life?