Chapter 1: Come Get Him

Chapter 1: Come Get Him

The call came at 2:17 AM, a jagged tear in the fabric of a dreamless sleep. Alex’s phone buzzed violently against his nightstand, a furious, insistent vibration that felt less like a notification and more like a warning. He fumbled for it, his eyes gritty and unfocused. Blocked Number. Of course.

He almost ignored it. It would be Peter. It was always Peter. Drunk, broke, or in some kind of trouble only a younger brother with a PhD in self-destruction could conjure. But the buzzing didn’t stop. It was relentless. With a groan, Alex swiped to answer, a weary script already forming on his lips.

“Peter, what is it this time?”

The voice that answered was not his brother’s. It was a low, gravelly rasp, like stones grinding together at the bottom of a dry well. It smelled of stale cigarettes and desperation, even through the phone’s tiny speaker.

“You Alex Vance?” the voice demanded, no room for pleasantries.

“Who is this?”

“Don’t matter. You Peter’s brother?”

A knot of ice formed in Alex’s gut. This was different. This wasn’t a bartender demanding an unpaid tab or a landlord threatening eviction. This felt heavier. “Yes. Where is he? Is he okay?”

A humorless chuckle crackled down the line. “He ain’t okay. He ain’t been okay for a while. He went digging where he shouldn’t, opened a door he can’t close. You better come get him.”

“Get him from where? What are you talking about?” Alex was sitting bolt upright now, the last remnants of sleep scorched away by adrenaline.

The voice gave an address on Governor Nicholls Street, a part of New Orleans he knew only by reputation—a place where the tourist-friendly veneer of the French Quarter peeled back to reveal something older and more worn.

“Come get him,” the voice repeated, the urgency sharpening to a razor’s edge. “Before it does.”

The line went dead.

The two-hour drive from Baton Rouge to New Orleans was a familiar purgatory, a stretch of interstate Alex had traveled countless times, always in response to a crisis manufactured by Peter. Each mile marker was a monument to a past failure: a bailed-out gig, a failed rehab stint, a disastrous relationship. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, replaying their last real conversation—a screaming match over the phone six months ago after Peter had sold their late mother’s last piece of jewelry.

“You don’t get it, Alex!” Peter had yelled, his voice thin and frantic. “There are other worlds, other ways of seeing! I’m close to something real, something powerful!”

“The only thing you’re close to is rock bottom,” Alex had shot back, his words cold and precise. “Call me when you decide to grow up.”

He hadn’t called. And now, someone else had.

Governor Nicholls Street was shrouded in the thick, soupy humidity of a Louisiana night. The air was heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine, damp earth, and rot. Towering oaks, draped in ghostly Spanish moss, loomed over shotgun houses with peeling paint and sagging porches. The address from the phone call belonged to a derelict Creole cottage, set back from the street and half-swallowed by an overgrown garden. A wrought-iron fence, rusted and bent, leaned like a tired old man.

This was it. The place where Peter had found “something real.” It looked like a place where things went to die.

Alex’s heart hammered against his ribs. Every rational instinct screamed at him to turn around, to call the police, to do anything other than walk into that decaying house. But the image of his brother—reckless, foolish, but still his brother—pushed him forward. He was a moth drawn to a flame, and Peter was the one who had lit the match.

The gate screeched in protest as he pushed it open. He made his way up the cracked flagstone path, his footsteps loud in the oppressive silence. He tried the front door. The knob, slick with damp, turned easily in his hand. It was unlocked.

“Peter?” he called out, his voice swallowed by the darkness within. “Peter, are you in here?”

The air inside was stale and suffocating, thick with the cloying smell of incense, unwashed bodies, and something else… something metallic and vaguely sweet, like old pennies. Dust motes danced in the slivers of moonlight that pierced through the grimy windows. The house was a tomb of discarded things: yellowed newspapers, empty liquor bottles, and furniture shrouded in dusty white sheets like forgotten ghosts.

He moved deeper into the house, his phone’s flashlight beam cutting a nervous path through the gloom. “Dammit, Peter, this isn’t funny!”

He found him on the second floor.

A single door stood ajar at the end of a narrow hallway, a faint, flickering light leaking from beneath it. The coppery smell was stronger here. Alex pushed the door open and froze.

The room was bare except for a scattering of spent black candles. In the center of the floor, Peter knelt, his back ramrod straight. He was gaunt, his skin stretched tight over his cheekbones, his familiar band t-shirt hanging loosely on his skeletal frame. His head was bowed, his long, greasy hair obscuring his face. He was unnervingly still. For a horrifying second, Alex thought he was dead.

Then he saw the symbol.

Drawn on the wide, dusty floorboards around Peter was an intricate, sprawling design. It was a complex web of lines, curves, and symbols that meant nothing to Alex, but it was drawn with a shocking, visceral clarity. The lines were a dark, reddish-brown, still glistening wetly in the candlelight. A discarded razor blade lay just outside the circle.

Blood. It was drawn in blood. Peter’s blood.

“Peter?” Alex whispered, his voice cracking. He took a step into the room, his foot landing just inches from one of the bloody lines. “Pete… what is this? What have you done?”

There was no response. Peter didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe. Alex rushed forward, his earlier anger replaced by a tidal wave of pure, cold fear. He grabbed his brother’s shoulders, ready to shake him, to scream him back to reality.

“Peter, snap out of it!”

As Alex’s hands made contact, Peter’s head lolled back. His face was a hollow mask. His eyes were open—wide, black, and utterly vacant, like two holes burned into the world. His jaw was slack. A thin line of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t there. The brother Alex knew, the vibrant, chaotic, frustrating artist, was gone. This was just a shell.

Desperate, Alex began to drag him, pulling the dead weight of his brother out of the bloody circle. As he hauled him toward the door, Peter’s lips parted, and a sound issued from his throat.

It wasn't a word. It was a dry, rasping exhalation, a sibilant whisper that was not in Peter’s voice. It was lower, ancient, and filled with a chilling amusement.

“...The rider has found his horse…”

Then, for a single, soul-shattering instant, Peter’s eyes focused. They locked onto Alex’s, and in their terrifying depths, Alex saw him. He saw his brother, trapped and screaming behind a pane of glass, his expression one of absolute, unadulterated horror. It was a silent plea, a desperate SOS from a drowning man.

Then it was gone. The eyes glazed over, becoming vacant pools once more.

But Alex had seen it. He had seen his brother. And in that moment, he knew the gravelly voice on the phone was right. This wasn't a drug trip. This wasn't a mental breakdown. Peter had opened a door he couldn’t close.

And something else had walked through.