Chapter 2: The Sanguine Pigment

Chapter 2: The Sanguine Pigment

The painting sat on the kitchen table, a malevolent presence that seemed to suck the warmth from the room. The distorted, fish-eye-lens portrait of Elara’s terror-stricken face was an open wound in the fabric of her home. Liam had wanted to burn it, to reduce the canvas to ash and cleanse the house of its influence, but Elara couldn't let him. It was evidence. It was the only tangible piece of a nightmare she couldn't prove was real.

"He was in my bedroom, Liam," she whispered, her voice raw. She hadn't slept. Every shadow was a figure, every creak of the old house a footstep in the hall. She kept touching the faint scar on her forearm, the anchor point that proved the first painting, and therefore this one, was not a hallucination. "He was there."

"We don't know it was a 'he'," Liam countered, though his voice lacked its usual steady confidence. He was pacing the length of the small kitchen, his knuckles white where he gripped his phone. "It could be anyone. Some sicko with a drone and a projector..." His voice trailed off. They both knew how thin that explanation sounded. A drone couldn't have placed the package on the back porch unnoticed. A projector couldn't explain the impossible detail, the palpable malice radiating from the oils on the canvas.

Elara stared at the image, at the slick, dark pigment that formed the stretched-out horror of her own eyes. She was a graphic designer, a digital artist, but her roots were in traditional media. She knew the smell of turpentine, the feel of gesso under her fingertips, the specific viscosity of different paints. And something about this was wrong. The colors were too rich, the blacks too deep. They seemed to absorb the light.

An idea, born of desperation and a lifetime spent with art supplies, sparked in her mind. It was a fragile, insane little flicker of a plan, but it was better than sitting here, waiting for the next "gift."

"Your sister," Elara said suddenly, her head snapping up. "Becca. She works at the museum, right? In conservation?"

Liam stopped pacing. "Yeah. She restores old paintings. Why?"

"She has equipment. Mass spectrometers, x-ray fluorescence... things that can analyze materials," Elara explained, her words tumbling out faster now, fueled by a surge of adrenaline. "She can tell us what this is. What kind of paint. Maybe there's a rare pigment, something we can trace. Something that will lead us to a person, a real, living person who does this."

Liam stared at her, then at the painting. His pragmatic mind, so comfortable with servers and code, seized on the logic of her idea. It was science. It was data. It was a weapon from their world to use against this... other thing. A flicker of his old self returned.

"It's a long shot," he said, but his jaw was set with new resolve. "But it's better than nothing. Let's do it."

Getting a sample felt like a desecration. Elara used the edge of a palette knife, her hand shaking so badly that Liam had to steady her wrist. She chose a spot at the very edge of the canvas, where the deep black of the background met the raw canvas. The paint didn't flake off like old oil paint would. It was tough, almost leathery. With a sickening little scrape, a tiny, dark red-black sliver came loose. She carefully nudged it into a small plastic baggie. It looked like a scab.

The city museum was a fortress of glass and white marble, a temple to logic, history, and order. Walking through its echoing halls, past curated exhibits under soft, controlled lighting, felt like stepping into another reality. The sterile, quiet atmosphere was a balm on Elara’s frayed nerves, a temporary illusion of safety.

Becca Carter was a sharper, more focused version of her brother, with intelligent eyes behind stylish glasses. She met them in the hushed, clinical environment of the conservation lab, a room that smelled of solvents and old paper. White-coated technicians moved silently between tables laden with delicate instruments.

"Liam, you are a menace," she said, her professional tone softened by affection. She glanced at Elara with a sympathetic look. "He said it was urgent. Is everything okay?"

"We just need you to look at something for us, Bec," Liam said, placing the small baggie on the clean steel table. "A paint sample. We need to know what it's made of. Anything you can tell us."

Becca picked up the bag, her brow furrowing in curiosity. "Unusual request. Is your friend in the art forgery business?" she joked, peering at the dark flake. "The texture is odd. Almost... organic."

She promised she would run it through the gas chromatograph and a few other tests between her scheduled projects. It was the best she could do. They thanked her and left, the sterile sanctuary of the museum giving way to the gray, uncertain world outside.

The wait was agonizing. They went back to Elara's house, a place that no longer felt like a home but a cage. They tried to watch a movie, but the sound of the television was jarring. Every minute stretched into an eternity, every buzz of Liam’s phone sent a jolt of panic through Elara’s chest. They were banking everything on this one, desperate hope: that science could shine a light into the darkness that was consuming them.

When Liam’s phone finally rang late that afternoon, displaying Becca’s name, they both froze. He jabbed the screen, putting it on speaker.

"Becca? Did you find anything?"

"Liam..." Becca's voice was different. The professional crispness was gone, replaced by a strained, hesitant tone. "Where did you get this sample?"

"It's from a painting. A new one. Why? What is it?" Liam pressed.

There was a pause, filled with the sound of shuffling papers. "Okay. This is... this is going to sound strange. I've run this three times because I didn't believe the results. The pigments are standard, mostly. Iron oxide, carbon black... ochre. But the binder... the medium holding it all together. It's not linseed oil. It's not egg tempera or acrylic polymer."

"What is it, then?" Elara whispered, leaning closer to the phone.

"It's an organic compound," Becca said, her voice dropping lower, as if she were afraid of being overheard even in her own lab. "Primarily albumin and hemoglobin."

Liam frowned. "In English, Bec."

The silence on the other end of the line was heavy and terrifying. When Becca spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper.

"It's blood, Liam. The paint is bound with human blood."

Elara felt the air leave her lungs. The room tilted, the cheerful yellow of her kitchen walls seeming to mock her.

"But that's not the impossible part," Becca continued, her voice trembling now. "We use carbon-14 dating on rare acquisitions to verify their age. On a whim, I ran a trace from your sample. Liam... it's a mistake. The machine has to be broken. The reading I got... the sample dates back over two thousand years."

"What?" Liam choked out. "That's impossible. The painting is brand new!"

"I know!" Becca's voice was high with a mixture of professional frustration and genuine fear. "But the technique, the composition... it matches descriptions of ritualistic pigments from pre-literate, pre-Roman cults. They believed that to capture a piece of reality, the artist had to give a piece of themselves. A sanguine pigment. An offering of blood to... to make the image real."

Elara looked from the phone in Liam’s hand to the grotesque portrait on her table. The twisted face stared back, its silent scream painted in a medium of ancient sacrifice. They had reached for science, for a logical explanation in a world of reason.

And science had just told them they were being haunted by a ghost two millennia old.