His eyes widened. "" Sho asked."" Drake pulled another copy of the figure out from his desk and handed it to Sho, """" Sho took the figure and stared at it for a while, ""Drake laughed, """" he told Drake without moving his eyes off the figure.

Someone nearby cleared their throat to catch Drake and Sho's attention. A curly haired, portly man stood a few feet from them with a disapproving look upon his face. His eyes darted from Sho and then to Drake. "Is it safe to a.s.sume you two weren't discussing work related things, right?""Actually""It was rhetorical, Winchester.""Sorry Barry.""It's Mister Sanderson.""Sure.""Now, would you both please get back to work? Or am I going to need to confiscate...whatever that is," he said with a wag of his finger at the statuette. "What is it?""It's a model going out to anyone who buys the deluxe version of Creeping Darkness 2. Sho is going to forward photos of this figure to different companies to inform their branches to start advertising about the new, more expensive version that this figure comes with," Drake explained."Right...well, that's fine, but let's skip the chatter and try to stay on task.""No problem Barry..." Drake muttered while his manager left them ""Sho chuckled and agreed. ""Drake watched Sho leave and then immediately set his head in his arms on his desk. Business related items mainly covered his desk, from his computer and phone to a stapler and various doc.u.ments. The only things on it that were not standard issue were his Creeping Darkness 2 figure and a small hourgla.s.s. The hourgla.s.s consisted of two gla.s.s chambers, the inside contained fine sand that drained down into the lower half of the object the outer was a cylinder that protected the inner chamber. The top and bottom of the item were made of wood; the two ends were connected and held in place by four long shafts of wood. Drake checked the time, 3:25 pm, and he flipped the hourgla.s.s.His phone rang once before he answered, "Drake Winchester.""Drake you have a visitor.""You don't have to call me for this, y'know? You can just send them over okay?""Oh, sorry Drake," the secretary apologized."It's fine. Just send them down." He hung up, counted to twelve and pointed at the opening in his cubicle, where his unscheduled appointment arrived.The young man had dark shoulder length hair and brown eyes. He wore jeans, a loose shirt from their high school, and loosely tied black tennis shoes. He was a bit taller than Drake, but not physically larger."Ian, take a seat." Drake told his friend as he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger."Didn't get much sleep?" asked Ian."No..." He replied, and looked past Ian to find Sanderson scurrying toward them, "Great...one moment."Drake rose from his seat to intercept Sanderson, but to his surprise a lanky bespectacled coworker stopped Sanderson and turned him away from Drake and Ian. Taken aback, Drake returned to his conference with his friend, "Never mind. We'll have to make this quick though. When are you planning on moving to London?""The twenty-sixth."Drake nodded. "Alright, then that means we need to throw a farewell party," Drake told him."No. Not after the Fourth of July fiasco.""Nick and Jordan put the fires out.""Yeah, well I sprained my wrist and you guys p.i.s.sed off about half of the town because of what happened to the football field.""Hey, a replacement was donated by an anonymous group concerned about the well-being of our great football team," Drake reminded him with a wry smile."Which consisted of the three idiots who burned the first field down, three idiots who were only trying to spare themselves the wrath of an angered city," Ian said.Drake set his head on his desk and added, with a yawn, "The explosion was worth the money if you ask me.""Why are you so tired?" Ian questioned him, as Drake's behavior began to wear on him.He groaned, "I was up 'til around three watching a colony of bats flying through the night sky.""Didn't it rain last night?""Not until two," yawned Drake."Why didn't you go inside?""Bridget Williams was keeping me up." Drake grinned."You were busy I take it?"Drake only smiled. "I'll let you know more about the details once I know more about the party," he looked out and felt that his coworker wouldn't be able to hold Sanderson off much longer. He turned back to Ian, "I'll call you later, but you need to go."Ian agreed and snuck out of Sanderson's sight by crouching as he left. By the time Ian was well beyond the parking lot Sanderson approached Drake and interrogated him as to who he was talking to.Drake looked at him, confused. "What are you talking about?""I'm not an idiot Winchester, who was he?""He?" Drake looked about, completely perplexed, "Mister Sanderson, I have no idea who you are talking about. I was talking to Sho Kazeke but you interrupted us and now he's working in his cube on the other side of the room.""Not him," Sanderson barked, "The other one.""What other one?" he looked past him at the lanky coworker who tied to conceal his laughter. "I'm sorry Mister Sanderson, but I think I need to get back to work before I waste any more time. Besides," he looked at the man behind Sanderson, "I think Mister Dalton wants a word with me."Startled, he whipped around and examined the man. He nodded, looked at Drake and muttered, "We'll talk about this later Winchester."Drake smirked, "Of course we will." He looked at his coworker and chuckled, "What's up?"Jeremy took a seat and laughed, "I do love messing with him," he told Drake with his slight German accent. He stopped a moment to recall why he'd even dropped by, but suddenly realized it, "Oh! Do you happen to have the sales reports for the last quarter? I've been looking for it but I can't seem to get my hands on it."Drake shook his head, "Sorry, ask Sho, he might have seen it."Jeremy nodded and thanked him, but stopped at the end of the cube and asked, "Might I be able to persuade you to lend me a set of headphones? The right ear of mine just died on me."Drake agreed (as he felt obligated for the stunt Jeremy performed to give Drake the leeway to have his brief talk with Ian) and fished a set of black earbuds out from his desk and tossed them at him. Jeremy failed entirely to catch them, but thanked him anyway as he picked them off the ground. As soon as Jeremy left Drake cursed his luck as he watched Sanderson make his return approach.7:05 PM.Baltimore, Maryland Detective Ryan Sage sorted through a few pages of notes he'd collected on a case he wasn't overly convinced existed. His office was small and didn't offer too much room to think, let alone pace as he did on more than a few occasions, but it did allow him a bit of respite from the cacophony outside his walls. The office only signified that he was the head detective and allowed him a bit more wall s.p.a.ce than he would normally usurp to plot out investigations. His newest case, one he's stumbled upon and one he wasn't even approved to investigate, utilized nearly all of the desk and wall s.p.a.ce he had, even though he knew a majority of it was caused by his own inept.i.tude toward traditional organization.He glanced outside his window at the city of Baltimore. His second story view showed him very little of how bad it truly was in the city. Detective Sage took a breath and watched the shadows of a few birds that streaked across the amber sunlit windows of a nearby tower. Sage gathered his thoughts and left his office and intercepted his partner on his way out."You ready?" Detective Chuck Felton asked him.Sage nodded, "As ready as someone can be with this sort of plan."They had been partners for nearly half a decade. Detective Felton was partnered with the previous head detective, but that man died during a failed drug heist. Three weeks later Detectives Sage and Felton interrupted the same group who they had previously attempted to bust and successfully stopped one of the most notorious East coast gangs' spread of illicit drugs throughout the city. The arrests made headlines nationwide, though the press quickly died down, to both detectives' relief. Sage was promoted to head detective at Detective Felton's recommendation, though the two remained partners afterward."How sure are you again?" Detective Felton asked."You read it over didn't you?""Yeah.""It's unfortunate, but probably the case.""You do realize this will put us on the case, right?"Sage nodded, "Of course, that's the whole point."The pair walked up to the Chief of Police's office and knocked on the door. Once he told them to enter they did. Chief Martin Johnson sat behind his desk with a concerned look on his round face. His short gray hair complemented his thick black moustache, which only held traces of gray. The man weighed a bit more than both of the detectives believed he should, for someone in his position, but neither of them, nor anyone within the station ever made mention of it, out of respect for both the man's position and his feelings.He looked at the two of them, and asked hesitantly, "What is this about?"Sage began, "Sir as you know, there have been a number of murders all over Baltimore.""You gotta be specific here, Sage," Johnson told him while he rubbed his head with his dark hands."A string of murders related to an a.s.sa.s.sin who burns a crescent into his victim's right forearm."Irritated, the Chief interrupted, "Sage I've told you that there's no case, this is probably some rising gang trying to get some territory or street credit or something."Sage tossed a file onto Johnson's desk, "Eight bodies in the past forty days, all with the same mark on their forearms."Johnson picked the file up and examined it as if it were a relative's long, stale photo alb.u.m. "Are you saying you think this is the work of a serial killer Detective Sage?"Felton answered for him, "Unfortunately yes chief. Any rookie would say so, as would the general public."Johnson swore. "The last thing we need..." he looked at the detectives, "Do you have any leads other than the matching scars?"Sage nodded, "Each victim met the following victim before they died."The chief leaned back in his chair. He nodded, "Keep talking.""The first guy was Red Irons, age forty-three. He ran a yoga...house? Shop?" He looked to Felton for the correct term, but his partner only shrugged. "At one point he thought he was the anti-Christ, which is why he attempted to kill himself, I guess."Felton continued, "Red tied chains to his feet and jumped into the harbor. Half an hour later our second victim, Breanna French, is jogging by and then jumps in to save him, claiming she 'knew he was down there.' Four days after that, Red dies. He's the first victim with the scar in his arm.""Six days later Breanna's found dead in her car by the third victim, Bryce Noland, who opened the locked car by merely touching the vehicle, no key or anything. Four days after that, Bryce gets in a wreck with our fourth victim, Tim Qing, who walked away from the accident without a scratch. A day later, Bryce is killed at his apartment after he was released with a minor concussion and a broken wrist."The Chief intervened there, "Qing dies five days after Bryce right?"Sage nodded, "But he found and returned the missing cat of our fifth victim, Ana, before then.""How did you find that out anyway?" asked Felton."I ran a search for both of their names and found that a lost cat notice was revoked, with Qing as the one who returned it.""Anyway," Felton continued, "Ana, the fifth victim, meets Tony Allen at a train station; Tony's our sixth. Ana dies in Tony's bed eight days later. Tony's accused of murder and meets the attorney he's given, Rachel Schmitt, who's our seventh victim. She watched Tony die two days after Ana in one of our holding cells." Detective Sage made sure the chief understood and repeated where it happened. "Rachel gave her testimony of the incident to Brett Foster; she died a day after Tony.""And Brett's killed nine days later." Johnson finished. "Every victim is in some way connected to the next person before they died...""Which means someone Brett met within the past nine days is going to die," Felton muttered."So it seems. Who do you think he met within that time frame?"Detective Sage told him it could be anyone. "Brett set the record for the marathon last Sunday, so between all the runners he met, the press, and any other random person he could have ran into there's a wide area of possible targets...""Well who do you think is still in Baltimore?""Who knows? It could even be someone he met when he bought groceries, or when he brought someone into the station," Felton answered.Sage flipped open the file and browsed through it. Brett Foster was an officer at nineteen, was very athletic, despite his asthma, and regularly attended the Baha'i Faith church. On the fifth of August he set the world record for the marathon at an hour and forty minutes, and after numerous drug screenings, he was awarded the world record as well as the first place prize for the marathon in which he raced. He was found dead in his apartment by a neighbor four days later, dead at the age of twenty-five.The detective tossed the file on the desk and rubbed his eyes, "There are too many people..." he mumbled, "We don't have a good lead.""Can you at least make a guess?""It could be anyone," Felton told him, "Someone he met at the marathon, or a movie...anybody."Chief Johnson nodded, "Then there's nothing we can do until the next stiff turns up."Sage looked cross, "We can't just ignore this. We've got a duty to these people and if we don't do our d.a.m.n job this son of a b.i.t.c.h is going to slaughter too many people before he draws enough attention to himself to force our hand. It'd be better if we tried to stop him early rather than"