DAGON MANSION

CHAPTER SIX: THE SECOND RITUAL CRIME

Three months later.

It was an ordinary morning in Glouminster — the kind of pale, quiet dawn that came wrapped in mist and salt. Stephan, a man in his sixties with the weathered skin of someone who had lived his whole life by the sea, walked along the cliffs near the lighthouse with his golden retriever, Trevor. The tide below crashed against the rocks in slow, rhythmic fury.

Trevor ran ahead, barking toward the old lighthouse. Stephan smiled faintly, thinking the dog had found another seagull or crab. But then he smelled it — the heavy, metallic scent that clung to fog and stone. Blood.

"Trevor, heel!" he called, his voice unsteady.

The dog stopped, whining beside something sprawled in the grass. As Stephan approached, his breath caught in his throat.

A man lay in the center of a chalk-drawn circle, surrounded by crimson smears and broken sigils. His shirt was torn open; his chest bore deep, savage bites. The throat — ripped, mangled — looked as if something had clawed its way inside. His arms were cut and bruised, hands frozen in a desperate attempt to fight back.

Stephan swallowed bile. "Oh, dear God..."

He took a trembling step back and fumbled for his phone. Trevor barked again, louder this time, as if calling the entire world to witness what it was never meant to see.

Twenty-five minutes later, Rogers and Brady stood before the corpse. The morning fog had thickened, turning the world around them ghostly.

The forensic team worked in silence. Cameras flashed like nervous lightning.

Brady knelt beside the body, her gloved fingers tracing the bloody sigils. "Same patterns," she murmured. "Same style as Sia's murder. The symbols are back."

Rogers grunted, staring out toward the sea. "Don't start that again, Brady."

"Start what?"

"The serial killer nonsense."

She straightened slowly, meeting his gaze. "It's not nonsense if it keeps happening."

"Or it's a copycat. A sick one." He turned away, jaw tight. There was something brittle about him — like a man barely containing his own darkness.

When the forensic tech brought the ID, Brady sighed. "Gale Merrick. Local. Owned the little bookstore by the docks."

"I knew him," Rogers said softly. "He used to lend me books when my son and daughter were kids."

The wind howled through the cliffs, scattering a fine mist of salt over the dead man's face.

That afternoon, Theolinda visited Ryan.

The prison felt colder than usual — not because of the season, but because something in the air had shifted, subtly, like a pressure before a storm.

Ryan's face lit up when she entered, though his eyes still carried that haunted gleam — the look of a man who saw too much and slept too little.

"Another ritual murder," she said, sitting opposite him. "A man, thirty years old. Same wounds. Same symbols."

Ryan leaned forward. "So the vampires are back."

"I didn't tell Rogers about that," she replied. "He's been... strange lately. Distant. Agitated. I'm worried."

Ryan gave a dry laugh. "Rogers has always been strange. I don't know what you ever saw in him."

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"

He smiled — not cruelly, but knowingly. "Come on, Theo. You like him. Madly, I'd say."

Theolinda laughed, half-shocked, half-defensive. "You're insane. And tell me, who should I be attracted to, then? You?"

She regretted it the moment the words left her lips.

Ryan tilted his head, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I didn't say it. But you did." He leaned back. "Unfortunately, I'm already in love. Hopelessly, completely."

She didn't need to ask who.

"Mia Richardson," she said softly.

He nodded. "Yes. My daughter's mother. The woman who ruined me — and saved me. I love her like some tragic hero in one of your mother's novels."

There was laughter in his tone, but pain beneath it. Theolinda looked away.

Jealousy burned like ice in her chest — senseless, humiliating, yet real. She had no reason to feel it, and yet she did. Ryan was dangerous in ways she couldn't name.

"Love changes everything," she murmured.

"It certainly has for me."

She forced a small smile and rose to her feet. "Anyway. I came for your advice. I don't know what to do."

"You must find the entrance," Ryan said, his eyes sharpening. "If vampires are killing again, the portal to their world must have reopened. I thought it closed after Forestvale Manor burned. Someone must have unlocked it — someone powerful."

Theolinda felt a chill. "I'll go there," she said. "To the ruins. I'll find out."

Far from Glouminster, in the warmth of a small London kitchen, Mia stirred a pot of vegetable soup. The scent of thyme and garlic filled the air. Scarlett played in her room down the hall, her laughter a soft melody.

Come, Mom.

The voice was gentle, echoing inside Mia's head. I'm starving.

Mia froze, spoon hovering midair. She looked toward the hall. "Scarlett?"

Silence. Then another voice — clearer now, more insistent.

Mom, this horse is so beautiful. I'm going to take it. I want it!

A crash echoed through the house. Mia dropped the spoon and ran. Scarlett was on the floor beside a broken porcelain horse, its head severed cleanly from its body. The girl looked frightened, but unharmed.

"I didn't want it to break," her voice whispered in Mia's mind. Bad horse.

Mia knelt, checking for cuts. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom," came the telepathic reply. The child's lips never moved. Her blue eyes, luminous and calm, seemed far older than her years.

Mia's heartbeat quickened. The gift had awakened — the same telepathic link she shared with Ryan, now passed to their daughter. Scarlett had inherited the legacy of the Light Dimension.

Mia held the girl close, whispering into her hair. "It's all right. You're safe."

But as she rocked her child, a distant unease crawled up her spine — the feeling that something vast and unseen had just begun to stir.

She would need to speak to Rowena. Immediately.