Chapter 3: The Wedding Gift

Chapter 3: The Wedding Gift

The box on the passenger seat was a lie. Wrapped in tasteful silver paper with a white bow, it contained nothing more than a brick from a construction site down the street. It was heavy enough to feel substantial, and plausible enough to get him past a lazy security guard. It was his wedding gift, his Trojan horse.

Getting to the front door, however, proved to be the first unexpected obstacle. The elegant, wrought-iron gates Jack remembered were gone. In their place stood a monolithic slab of black, impenetrable steel, a brutalist statement that screamed keep out. There was a new, state-of-the-art security panel next to it, its single camera lens staring at him like a cyclops's dead eye. There was no guard to fool.

Jack drove past, pulling over a quarter-mile down the winding road. He grabbed the brick-box and a pair of bolt cutters from his trunk. So much for the easy way.

He found his entry point where the new, imposing fence met the old stone wall bordering the property. The installers had been lazy, leaving a small gap masked by overgrown ivy. It was a tight squeeze, scraping his coat and leaving him covered in leaves, but it got him onto the grounds.

The perfectly manicured lawn felt different now. Oppressive. The silence was thick, unnatural, broken only by the faint, tinny sound of music drifting from the house. It was a single song, a classic love ballad from the fifties, playing on a loop. “...forever my darling, my love will be true...”

He crept towards the back of the mansion, staying in the shadows of the cypress trees. The pool, once a sparkling sapphire, was still and dark, its surface like black glass. He found a side door to the kitchen unlocked—a shocking lapse in security for a place so heavily fortified from the outside. Or perhaps, Jack thought with a chill, the fortifications weren't designed to keep people out, but to keep someone in.

The moment he stepped inside, the smell hit him. That cloying, sweet rot was no longer a faint haze; it was the very air of the house. It was in the marble, in the upholstery, in the goddamn drywall. It was the smell of a tomb perfumed with dying flowers.

The jukebox music was louder here, echoing from the grand living room. He followed the sound, his footsteps silent on the polished floors. The house was immaculate, but soulless. It was like a show home where the designer had been given an infinite budget but had no concept of human comfort. Everything was perfectly placed, cold and untouchable.

And then he saw her.

Seraphina was standing in the center of the living room, arranging a bouquet of roses in a crystal vase. The same perfect, single roses that her stalker used to leave her. She wore a simple, elegant silk dress, and her movements were slow, deliberate, graceful. A perfect housewife in her perfect home.

Through The Glimmer, the sight was a horror show. Her once-brilliant aura of gold and fire was now just a flickering pilot light, almost completely swallowed by a thick, pulsing cocoon of sickly pinkish haze. She was a battery being drained, a flower being deliberately choked by a parasitic vine.

"...Seraphina?" he said, his voice a low rasp.

She turned. There was no surprise in her eyes, no alarm. Just a placid, gentle recognition. The vacant look from the paparazzi photo was even worse up close. It was the serene emptiness of a mind that had been scrubbed clean.

"Mr. Thorne," she said, her voice a soft, pleasant melody. "What a surprise. You shouldn't be here."

"I was worried," he said, taking a step closer. The sweet stench intensified, emanating from her like a perfume. "The wedding was so sudden."

"It was wonderful," she sighed, a beatific smile gracing her lips. "When you know, you just know. Fredrick takes such good care of me. He gives me everything I need." She turned back to her flowers, her attention span as short as a child's. "He says the world is too loud. That my love for him is all that matters."

The lyrics of the song washed over them. “...the world disappears, when you are near...” It wasn’t just music; it was a goddamn incantation, a constant, looping reinforcement of her programming.

"Where is he, Seraphina?" Jack asked, his hands clenching into fists.

"He's running errands. For our home." Her focus was entirely on trimming a thorn from a rose stem. She was a puppet, her strings pulled by a master who wasn't even in the room. This was Fredrick's lair, his gallery, and she was his prized exhibit.

Jack’s eyes scanned the room, desperately looking for something, anything that could break this spell. His gaze fell upon the mantelpiece above the cold, unlit fireplace. It was cluttered with pristine, silver-framed photographs of the happy couple. But among them was something else. A small, ornate wooden stand holding a collection of antique lockets. There were at least a dozen of them, each one different—silver, gold, pearl-inlaid.

He collects lockets containing photos of his 'conquests.' The phrase from his hastily scribbled notes on Fredrick screamed in his mind.

With Seraphina lost in her floral arrangement, Jack moved quickly to the fireplace. He picked up the largest one, a heavy silver oval engraved with ivy. His fingers fumbled with the clasp. It sprang open.

Inside, on one half, was a tiny, professionally shot photo of a smiling, blonde woman Jack didn't recognize. Her eyes were as placidly vacant as Seraphina's. On the other side was a picture of Fredrick Marr, the handsome, all-American boy from the news.

But as Jack stared, The Glimmer ignited behind his eyes. The photograph flickered, like a bad TV signal. The charming smile and placid blue eyes wavered, the glamour that hid the truth thinning for a fraction of a second.

Beneath the handsome human face, something else looked out. The image distorted into a tall, slender, insectoid thing. Chitinous, bone-white skin stretched over a narrow skull. Multiple black, unblinking eyes glittered like chips of obsidian. And where the perfect smile had been, delicate, serrated mandibles twitched, hidden just beneath the dissolving illusion of human flesh.

Jack recoiled, dropping the locket with a clatter. The sound broke Seraphina's trance.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice losing its placid tone for the first time, replaced by a flicker of programmed panic. "You shouldn't touch his things! Fredrick won't like it!"

A fatal mistake. He knew it in his gut. This wasn't a man. This was a Collector, a Fae-like thing wearing a human suit. He hadn't just broken into a house; he had stumbled into the nest of a creature ancient and utterly alien. He had seen its true face.

And just then, from outside, came the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. A car door slammed shut.

He was trapped.