Chapter 1
JAGG
Athin fog slithered through the headstones like a virus, creeping through the cemetery like a living, breathing thing.
The crowd had long gone. I was the only one left.
I tipped my head toward the moon. Clouds, thick and glowing with an iridescent sheen, crowded its edges.
A full moon was coming—and I didn’t like it.
The temperature hadn’t dropped below the low eighties, and after six straight days of triple-digit scorchers, it felt like the air itself had a pulse.
I leaned back against the tree, my feet planted in front of me. Uneven rows of headstones—most tilted and unreadable—speckled the rolling hills, the grass now brown and wilted.
I popped another pain pill, chased it with whiskey, and flung a rock into the bush in a half-hearted attempt to shut the cicadas up. They didn’t.
Despite the bugs and suffocating humidity, I couldn’t leave. I stared at that damn trident, etched on the headstone in front of me, until the thing began to blur.
It had been eight hours since the small, southern town had gathered in their black best, weeping, grieving, trying to understand.
I scanned the tree line past the clearing for the hundredth time. The chatter had died down, like it always did in small towns after eight p.m. Only a single logging truck had passed.
I smashed a mosquito the size of a thumbnail against my arm, already feeling another land near my ear.
God, I hated the heat. I hated this place. And I hated this tie around my neck.
I hated the smell of overturned earth—a scent that never failed to trigger memories. One dead body, two, three, four… spinning, spinning, spinning, their eyes locked on mine, begging for answers. Begging for justice.
I swiped the sweat from my brow and dropped my head against the tree.
I found myself contemplating heaven and hell, and good and evil, as I had done so many times before.
The lines between them blurred a long time ago for me.
I didn’t believe in absolutes anymore. Not after everything I’d seen.
Evil wasn’t a red-eyed demon with horns—it was human.
Ordinary. Evil drove kids to pull triggers and mothers to lie under oath. Evil wore lipstick and made dinner.
People talk about evil like it’s some external thing. A monster. A ghost. A scapegoat.
It’s not.
It’s us.
My job? To face it. To call it what it is. To speak for the dead. To bring evil to justice.
And tonight, that job had never felt more personal.
I pushed off the tree with a grunt. Pain flared through my back and I froze midway, like Bigfoot caught on camera. Waves of nausea followed seconds later.
Always the nausea.
Damn the nausea.
The pain, as always, was followed by a rush of fury.
Anger at the realization that I wasn’t the invincible man I used to be.
Anger that my life had changed in an instant, leaving me with a constant reminder of what had now become the good ol’ days.
Anger that I couldn’t fight the heavy hand of time.
I reached for the pill bottle again, then stopped.
Wait until you get home, Jagg.
The gravel crunched under my boots as I started down the path, avoiding Main Street and cutting through City Park. The trees swallowed me whole, the darkness pressing in, broken only by the soft glow of the trail lights ahead. I’d walked these paths a thousand times. I knew every twist, every turn.
But tonight, something felt off.
The moon slipped behind the clouds, and just like that, I was blind.
That’s when I heard it.
A sound—soft, distant, musical. Not music exactly. Not a melody. Just… chimes. High-pitched and slow, like a child’s mobile in the wind. My feet slowed.
The clouds parted, moonlight washing over me again as I stepped off the trail and into the woods, following the sound.
More chimes, this time followed by a sparkle of lights flashing through the trees.
My hand slid to my holster as I picked my way through the brush, each twinkle of light increasing in speed as I approached.
The music grew louder. My senses piqued.
A massive oak tree sat in the middle of the clearing with long, low branches, snarling around each other like arthritic fingers. A perfect climbing tree—aside from the fact that someone had turned it into a shrine.
Dozens of wind chimes, crystals, and strings of broken mirrors dangled from the branches, catching the slivers of moonlight and reflecting in a kaleidoscope of colors on the surrounding trees. Wiccan symbols had been carved into tree trunks.
A rotted branch had been positioned at the base of the oak, a circle of candles flickering on top.
And nestled in the twisted arms of the oak were... dolls.
Tiny ones.
Dozens of them, strung up like sacrifices, their limbs stiff and crooked.
I stepped closer, their black, beady eyes locked on mine.