Chapter 8: The Other Signatories

Chapter 8: The Other Signatories

The storage unit had become Dahlia's entire world. For two days, she had subsisted on lukewarm water from a tap in the facility's grim little washroom and the stale protein bars she found in a forgotten rucksack of Shelby’s. Sleep came in short, feverish bursts, her dreams a chaotic slideshow of writhing wallpaper and shadows that consumed the light. But even in her waking hours, the Collector’s presence lingered. It was in the low, almost sub-audible hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, a sound that felt layered with whispers if she let her mind drift. The clock was gone from her chest, but it was all around her now, a constant, low-grade psychic pressure.

Her desire was no longer just for survival; it was for a map of the battlefield. The journal, Shelby's final testament, was that map.

The obstacle was the sheer, terrifying density of the information. It was not a simple narrative. It was twenty years of obsessive, guilt-ridden research. Pages were filled with Shelby’s elegant script, which devolved into a desperate, spidery scrawl in the margins. Complex diagrams of astrological alignments were taped next to chemical formulas for warding salts. She found a shoebox filled with newspaper clippings from twenty years ago—announcements of community fundraisers, local political victories, charity galas. In each photo, John and Mary Thorne were smiling, surrounded by a rotating cast of the town's B-list elite. And in the margins, Shelby had made her notes.

Arthur Penn, real estate. His boon: a knack for finding the ‘perfect’ home. In truth, he senses a client’s deepest emotional vulnerability and exploits it. A minor empathic parasite.

Eleanor Vance (no relation, thank God), town council. Her boon: charisma. She can’t convince you of a lie, not like John could, but she can make you desperately want to believe her.

The names went on. A dozen of them. They weren't powerful occultists; they were ordinary, ambitious people who had stood in a circle one night and lent their will to a ritual they likely didn't fully comprehend, all for a taste of supernatural advantage. They were the pilot fish that swam alongside the sharks.

And then she found the entry that made the blood drain from her face.

Michael Bishop, groundskeeper at the university. Quiet man. Always felt overlooked. His boon is the most abstract, and perhaps the most dangerous to Dahlia now. The ability to see… resonance. Auras. The spiritual residue of significant events. He described it to John once as 'seeing the color of things that should be invisible.'

Dahlia’s hand trembled, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge of the lectern. A groundskeeper at her own university. He wasn't some distant threat; he walked the same manicured lawns she did. She had probably passed him a hundred times, a ghost in a green uniform she never would have noticed. But he could see her. After what she had done in that house, after being in the presence of the Collector, what terrible color must she be radiating now?

The realization was a jolt of ice-water clarity. Hiding in this concrete bunker was no longer an option. It was a tomb. Her absence would be noticed. Her friend Sarah would be leaving worried voicemails. Her professors would mark her absent. A missing student report would eventually be filed. That would bring attention, scrutiny—the last things she could afford. The only way to hide was in plain sight. She had to pretend her life hadn't been irrevocably shattered.

Her action was a desperate gamble for normalcy. She packed a small bag with a change of clothes, one of Shelby's less conspicuous notebooks filled with warding symbols, and the dented silver locket. The enchanted dental plate was a cold, alien weight in her mouth, a constant reminder of the violence she was now capable of. She looked at her reflection in a dusty, cracked mirror leaning against the wall. The haunted girl from the other night was still there, but her eyes held a new, hard glint. With shaking hands, she applied a little concealer to the worst of the bruises mottling her jawline. A fragile mask to place over the wreckage.

Walking onto the university quad was a profound sensory shock. The late afternoon sun was warm on her face. Students laughed on the grass, their conversations about exams and weekend plans a language from a world she no longer belonged to. The smell of cut grass—so innocent just a week ago—now filled her with a specific, targeted dread. Every man in a green uniform was a potential threat.

“Dolly! Oh my god, where have you been?”

Sarah’s voice cut through the haze of her paranoia. Her friend rushed over, her face a mask of concern. “I’ve been calling you! Professor Albright was asking about your Kant paper.”

“Sorry,” Dahlia mumbled, the lie feeling clumsy and brittle on her tongue. “My… my aunt’s estate. It’s been a lot of paperwork. My phone died.”

Sarah’s eyes searched her face, and Dahlia felt a flicker of the same invasive scrutiny she'd felt under John Thorne's gaze. “You look awful. Are you eating?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.” Dahlia forced a smile that felt like cracking plaster. “I’m heading to the library now, actually. To work on that paper.”

The lie worked. Sarah’s concern softened, replaced by the familiar camaraderie of shared academic suffering. They walked together for a minute, Sarah chattering about the impenetrable nature of the Critique of Pure Reason, and for that single, blissful minute, Dahlia almost felt normal. Then they parted ways, Sarah heading for the student union, Dahlia for the looming Gothic architecture of the library.

She felt a sudden chill, a prickling sensation on the back of her neck, the unmistakable feeling of being watched. The turning point. The abstract threat was about to become horrifyingly real.

She scanned the crowd. Students on their phones, couples holding hands, a professor hurrying past with a stack of books. Nothing. No one was looking at her. She told herself it was just paranoia, a side effect of no sleep and too much forbidden lore.

She was wrong.

Fifty yards away, near a freshly trimmed hedge of boxwoods, a man in a groundskeeper’s uniform stood frozen, a pair of shears dangling from his hand. His name was Michael Bishop. He was a man who had enjoyed twenty years of a small, strange gift. He could see when the sprinklers were about to fail before they sputtered, could spot diseased roots deep beneath a perfect lawn. He saw the subtle colors of life and decay.

And today, for the first time in twenty years, he was seeing a miracle.

Most people on campus were muted sparks, faint auras of beige anxiety, pale blue contentment, or dull red irritation. But the girl walking toward the library… she was a fucking supernova. She was a walking, talking tear in the fabric of the world. A churning vortex of impossible colors radiated from her—the deep purple of profound grief, the blood-red of recent violence, and beneath it all, an utter, light-devouring black that was not a color but an absence. It was the color of the pact. The color of the power that had given him his gift, now curdled and concentrated into a single, terrifying beacon.

His breath hitched. The shears slipped from his numb fingers and clattered onto the stone path. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, what he was seeing. This girl was the reason the subtle hum of magic in his life had guttered and gone silent two nights ago.

She felt his stare, he saw her turn, her eyes scanning the crowd. He ducked his head, turning away, pretending to inspect the hedge. But his heart was hammering against his ribs. He fumbled in his pocket, his hand shaking as he pulled out an old, scratched smartphone. He had a number in his contacts he hadn't called in years, a number that belonged to a real estate agent with a predatory smile.

Dahlia saw nothing but a sea of anonymous faces. Shaking her head, she turned and continued toward the library’s heavy oak doors.

The hunt had begun, and she was the prey.