An ethereal presence creeps slowly over Lydia’s sleeping face, gently warming her pale skin, coaxing her consciousness back from the depths of a dream. Sunlight. Eyes still closed, she stretches her arms and legs, muscles groaning and joints cracking. Then she lies still again, an unfamiliar satisfaction flowing through her body from head to toe. It is pleasant. Peaceful. She savours it for a few long, lazy minutes.
Finally, she turns her head to look at the clock. Nine thirty-three. Earlier than her alarm, yet she feels completely rested and full of energy. What witchcraft is this? She reaches for her phone and the screen lights up. A message from Alex, timestamped exactly seven o’clock. He must have work this morning. She swipes to read it.
TURN ON THE NEWS. URGENT.
Lydia sits up sharply, her heart racing. What on earth could be so important to her at seven in the morning? She jumps out of bed, crosses to the television and turns it on. The local news station shows a reporter speaking to the camera outside of a familiar-looking building. The police station from last night, she realises with a start. It looks different in the daytime. ‘BREAKING’ says the ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen. ‘BODIES OF KRIMSON KILLER’S FINAL VICTIMS FOUND.’
“… names not being released at this time,” says the reporter. “But police confirm that the bodies bear the identifying hallmarks of serial killer Jason Devere, who is behind bars at Mortem Asylum. All eight bodies were discovered in a storage facility in the warehouse district of Decanten.”
Lydia stares at the screen. Can this be a coincidence? These poor people have been missing for years; now she shows up sniffing around the case and suddenly the bodies are found?
“My locker’s the next one down,” says a short, round man wearing camouflage pants and a white T-shirt. “I was just grabbing my gear to go fishing when I smelt something real nasty that definitely wasn’t me. So I called the manager and he called the police, and here we are.”
Lydia frowns as the stranger’s pale blue eyes stare at her from the television screen. Many things about this turn of events are troubling her, yet none of them explain the peculiar feeling of panic now causing her heart to race. She picks up her phone again. But who will she call first? Alex? Gretchen? What will she say? She drops the phone onto the bed. Think, she commands herself. This changes things, but how?
The answer comes to her in a flash. There’s only one person who can tell her for sure what happened to those people, and he has promised her the truth. Lydia knows something is wrong about this situation. She knows that she is playing her opponent’s game now. But there is nothing else for it at this point.
She needs to see Jason Devere again, and find out once and for all the secrets of the Krimson Killer.