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The precinct was quiet when Sophia arrived, caught in the lull between the weary graveyard shift and the incoming day shift. She made coffee, strong and black, and settled at her desk with her laptop. A familiar sense of dread settled over her like a shroud.

Elias arrived twenty minutes later, carrying pastries from the bodega down the street. He set one on her desk without comment, a silent peace offering for the tension that had passed between them in the car.

"Thanks," she murmured.

"Did you sleep?" he asked, his voice low.

"A little." It was a lie. She had spent the few hours she had at home staring at her ceiling, seeing the crimson symbol burned onto the back of her eyelids every time she closed them.

They spent the morning running the mark through every database they could access. They cross-referenced it with criminal records, occult libraries, and historical archives. They found nothing. The symbol was either unique or not catalogued in any system the police could reach.

"Whoever did this is either very knowledgeable or very insane," Elias said, rubbing the fatigue from his eyes. "It is possibly both."

Sophia leaned back in her chair, a knot of frustration tightening in her chest. "We have nothing. There is no physical evidence, no witnesses, and no matches in any database."

"We have a victim with influential friends," Elias reminded her. "The commissioner is already asking questions."

"Of course he is." Sophia closed her laptop with more force than necessary. "God forbid we solve this before it becomes a public relations nightmare."

Elias studied her, his gaze perceptive. "You are going to pull your father's file, are you not?"

"I have to."

"Sophia..." he began, his tone laced with caution.

"I know what you are going to say. Do not let it cloud my judgment, stay professional, and do not make it personal." She met his eyes, her own resolve hardening. "It is already personal, Elias. It has been personal for fifteen years."

He let out a long sigh, a sound of resignation. "I know. I just worry about you."

There was something in his voice, a careful softness that made her look away. Elias was a good partner and a better friend. She did not want to examine the possibility that he might want to be something more.

"I will be fine," she said, her tone clipped. "I just need to see if there is a real connection."

The cold case files were stored in the precinct's basement, a labyrinth of dusty boxes filled with forgotten crimes and unresolved sorrows. Sophia had not been down here in two years, had not allowed herself to dwell on the past. But now she navigated the narrow rows with the ease of long familiarity, drawn by an inescapable pull.

Her father's file was exactly where she had left it.

Detective David Jones. The official report stated he was killed in the line of duty. Sophia knew better. He had not been killed during a bust or a chase. He had been found in an abandoned building, alone, his body bearing marks that the department had classified as "ritualistic" and then quietly buried.

She spread the contents across an empty metal desk. The faint smell of old paper and dust filled the air. There were crime scene photos, witness statements that led nowhere, and her father's own notes. She had read them all a hundred times, but now she looked with fresh, horrified eyes.

Her father had been investigating a series of disappearances. They were low-level criminals and homeless people, the kind of victims no one looked for too hard. But he had found a pattern, a thread connecting them all. His notes contained references to a "shadow court" and theories about demonic pacts and timeless hierarchies.

Most of his colleagues had thought he was losing his mind.

Then he had died, and the investigation had died with him.

Sophia found what she was looking for in a folder marked "Unidentified Evidence." It was a sketch, done in her father's careful, steady hand. It was rough and incomplete, but the design was unmistakable.

It was the symbol from Claudia Winters' chest, or at least an earlier, less refined version of it.

Her hands shook as she held the sketch up to the dim light. Fifteen years. The killer had been dormant for fifteen years, and now they were back. Or perhaps they had never stopped, and had simply gotten better at hiding their victims.

"Sophia."

She looked up to find Elias standing in the doorway, his expression grave.

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, her voice raspy.

"Long enough." He crossed to the desk, his gaze moving from the sketch in her hand to the crime scene photos from last night. "That is the same symbol."

"It is a more refined version, but yes."

"So your father was chasing the same killer."

"Or someone connected to them." Sophia gathered the papers, her mind racing, connecting dots that had been invisible for years. "He was investigating a shadow court. He wrote about demonic pacts. What if he got too close?"

"Then they killed him to shut him up," Elias finished, his voice grim. "And now they are active again."

Sophia looked at her father's notes, at his familiar, looping handwriting. He had been on the verge of something. She could feel it in the urgency of his later entries, in the way his notes became more cryptic, more careful.

Be careful who you trust, he had written in the margin of one page. They are watching.

"We need to find out what he knew," she said, a new determination cutting through her grief. "We need to learn everything he knew."

Elias nodded, his expression resolute. "But we do it carefully. If they killed a cop once, they will do it again."

"I am not afraid."

"I know," he said, his voice quiet. "That is what worries me."

Sophia held the sketch up to the new crime scene photo. The sigils aligned perfectly, the old one a blueprint, the new one a masterpiece.

"He was this close," she breathed. "Dad was about to crack it."

Elias's voice came quiet, devastated. "And they stopped him."

The weight of it crushed down on her chest. Her father had not died in some random act of violence. He had been murdered deliberately, ritualistically, by the same person who just killed again.

She looked at Elias, and the promise burned in her throat.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.

A single image loaded on the screen. Her father's badge, photographed against today's newspaper.

Beneath it, two words in crimson text: Stop searching.

Sophia stared at the screen, her blood turning to ice. Someone was watching. Someone wanted her afraid

She looked up at Elias, her jaw set with fierce resolve. "I am going to finish what he started."