The vanishing
The rain came down in sheets, drowning the city in a blur of neon streaks and ghost-light reflections. Elias Voss sat at the cracked window of his office, smoke curling from the cigarette hanging between two fingers. The room smelled like old paper and burned nerves.
The case file was open on his desk. Pages curling from the damp. Red ink circled a name: Anton Mercer.
The job was simple.
Find the book.
But nothing about The Codex Noctis ever stayed simple.
Mercer had vanished six nights ago. No ransom. No black-market bidding war. No blood. Just… disappeared. His apartment was untouched—door unlocked, phone on the charger, half-eaten leftovers still steaming when they found it. The kind of absence that felt deliberate.
Supernatural.
Elias took another drag, eyes scanning Mercer’s photo. A bookworm, forty-something, the kind of guy who should’ve lived and died in a dusty archive. Not the kind that ends up in case files. He had one rule: don’t deal with cursed books. Clearly, he broke it.
Then—three knocks.
Sharp. Clean. Like someone who knew what they wanted.
Elias snuffed the cigarette, slid the revolver from the drawer, and leaned back. “It’s open.”
The door creaked. She walked in.
Auburn hair pulled back tight. Trench coat soaked from the storm. Evelyn Pierce—journalist, chaos incarnate, and the last person he wanted breathing his air tonight.
“You really took the Halloway job?” she said, already halfway to his desk.
Elias didn’t look up. “Didn’t recall inviting the press.”
“Didn’t need to. You’re terrible at laying low.” Her eyes flicked to the file. “You know he didn’t just steal the Codex, right?”
Elias raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got something.”
She dropped a manila envelope on the desk like it burned her fingers. “I was supposed to meet Mercer that night. Said he found something inside the book—something hidden. A cipher.”
“A code?” Elias muttered.
“Worse.” She hesitated. “A warning.”
That pulled him in. He opened the envelope. One photo. An old page from the Codex, scrawled in ancient Latin—except the lines were broken. Interrupted by strange symbols. Symbols that didn’t belong. Almost… wrong.
His fingers tensed. There it was.
The itch. The whisper in his bones.
A mystery.
Then—the lights flickered.
A shadow moved across the window.
Evelyn went stiff.
Elias was already reaching for his gun. “Stay close.”
They weren’t alone.
And whoever was out there?
They didn’t want the book found.
The silence in the room felt alive. Not the peaceful kind—more like the kind that comes before a storm. Smoke drifted from the ashtray, curling in lazy spirals between them.
Evelyn’s eyes flicked to the window. Her fingers twitched slightly—trying not to look nervous but failing just enough for Elias to notice.
He didn’t say a word.
Just crossed the room in three quiet steps, back pressed to the wall beside the window, revolver already in hand. Rain streaked the glass, warping the city lights into trembling shadows.
And then he saw it.
A figure, standing across the street.
Still. Too still.
Not someone waiting for a bus. Not someone lost.
Someone watching.
Elias didn’t like that.
He reached over and flicked off the desk lamp. The office dropped into a dim, uneasy dark. Evelyn didn’t say anything. She’d been in enough close calls to know when to hold her breath and keep her mouth shut.
The figure didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even blink.
Elias counted the beats—one, two, three… six heartbeats later, a gust of wind slammed rain against the window.
And just like that, the figure was gone.
Elias exhaled slow. Rolled his shoulders. The tension never really left—it just settled into his spine like an old friend.
He turned to Evelyn. “Start talking.”
She hesitated. “Mercer contacted me last week. Said he found something inside the book. Something he wasn’t supposed to see. He sounded… scared.”
Elias ran a hand down his face. “You waited until now to bring this up?”
“I didn’t think it was real,” she admitted. “Book dealers get twitchy about everything—thought he was just being paranoid. But then he vanished. And now…” She motioned toward the window. “Now someone’s watching you.”
Elias sat back down, flipping the photo she’d given him. The ancient Latin script looked normal—until you spotted the symbols. Out of place. Wrong. Like they’d been scorched into the page.
He traced one with his thumb. “You ever seen markings like this?”
Evelyn shook her head. “No. But I know someone who might.”
Elias looked up.
“Professor Calloway,” she said. “Linguist. Ashcroft University. If these mean anything, he’ll know.”
Elias frowned. He knew the name. Calloway was a genius—and a man who never gave answers for free. But if Mercer found a cipher buried in The Codex Noctis, Calloway might be the only one who could crack it.
Elias stood, shrugging on his coat. “Let’s go.”
Evelyn arched a brow. “Just like that?”
“You said Mercer was scared.” He checked his gun. “Let’s see if he had a reason to be.”
Outside, the rain kept falling—hard and steady. Like it was trying to wash the city clean.
But Elias knew better.
Some things don’t wash off.
And whatever this was… it had already sunk deep.
