Nightfall – Shelby Residence
Rain began to fall in slanted sheets, drumming softly against the windows.
Tatiana tucked Elena into bed, brushing a curl from the girl's forehead. "No more dreams tonight," she whispered. "Only good ones."
Elena blinked up at her. "Mama, who's the man in the street?"
Tatiana paused. "What man?"
"He was looking at me. He smiled… but his eyes didn't."
Tatiana's blood ran cold. She kissed her daughter quickly and stepped from the room, drawing the door shut behind her.
In the hallway, she found James, soaked to the bone, peeling off his coat. Before she could speak, the lights flickered—once, twice—then died. The house was swallowed in darkness.
"Generator?" she asked.
James shook his head, already moving.
"No. This is something else."
Outside – The Candle Burns
The black candle Father Rinaldi had lit was still burning, though the rain should've drowned it. Its flame danced unnaturally, casting shadows in the shape of wolves across the cobbled street.
The priest stood with arms raised, muttering a hymn that hadn't been spoken aloud in nearly a century.
Latin twisted into Romani, then into something else entirely—something forgotten.
His eyes rolled back.
Beneath him, the cobblestone began to pulse faintly, red lines etching across it like veins.
Inside – Elena's Room
The window creaked open on its own.
A soft wind blew the curtains inward.
Elena sat up, clutching her lion. "Who's there?"
A voice—syrupy and slow—answered from the darkness beneath her bed.
"Just a friend. Come to show you a secret."
She screamed.
But the sound never left the room.
James and Tatiana – Seconds Too Late
They burst into the bedroom to find the bed empty, the window wide, the wind howling.
Tatiana collapsed to her knees, sobbing, as James ran to the ledge. On the windowsill, drawn in soot, was a symbol: a spiral wrapped in barbed lines.
James touched it.
The mark seared his skin like hot iron.
At the Garrison – Minutes Later
The bar was half-lit by lanterns, tension so thick it might've been fog.
Arthur slammed a glass down. "They took her? A kid? That's the fucking game now?"
Tommy stood silently, staring at the black candle that now burned at the Garrison's entrance.
Ada had tried to extinguish it. The flame wouldn't die.
James paced, fists clenched, eyes wild. "This isn't just vendetta anymore. This is blood magic. He's using old rites—Romani curses we were taught to forget."
"Then unforget them," Tommy said coldly. "You've got the fire now. Burn through it."
James looked up.
"No. Fire won't be enough. I need to go where this started."
Somewhere in the Highlands – The Old One
James traveled that night—alone, by train, then by foot. Past the city. Into the fog-thick hills where the Romani once camped before England was England.
There, in a cave wreathed with ash, he found her.
The Old One.
A woman older than memory. Her eyes were cataracts of smoke, and her voice was the sound of bones settling into earth.
"You seek the child," she said without turning.
James knelt. "They've taken her into the shadow."
"No," the Old One replied. "They've taken her through it."
She turned to him then, and for a moment her face was his mother's.
"She is not lost. But if you want her back, you must cross into the place where even spirits dare not walk."
James's voice cracked. "Tell me what it is."
She stepped forward and touched his chest.
"It is the Hollow Between. A place of echoes and nightmares. You'll need all three fires to walk it."
James flinched. "I've walked them."
She shook her head.
"No. You've seen them. Now you must become them."
She pressed something into his palm—a black stone, warm with heartbeat.
"When the doorway opens," she whispered, "you'll have only one chance."
Back in Small Heath – The Door Opens
At midnight, the candle's flame shot upward, a column of black and red fire twisting into a doorway above the street.
Tatiana stood in the doorway of their home, weeping silently, clutching Elena's lion.
James returned, stepped past his brothers, and stood before the flame.
The mark on his hand glowed.
And without a word, he stepped into the fire—and vanished.