"Does anyone here have experience unlocking phones?" Wednesday asked, holding up Galpin's device. "I'm certain it contains something useful."
Ethan gave a faint, dry smile. "Not my specialty."
Agnes raised her hand with quiet confidence. "I can help," she said. "On the condition that I'm allowed to join the investigation."
Wednesday regarded her for a moment, then glanced at the phone. "Demonstrate competence first. Negotiation can follow."
"Wednesday." Enid stared at her. "She tried to kidnap me. You're seriously considering this?"
"She failed," Wednesday replied, turning the phone over in her hand. "Which places her firmly in the category of amateur. I do not consider amateurs a threat."
"That is absolutely not the point—"
"It is precisely the point." Wednesday extended the phone toward Agnes. "You have ten minutes."
Enid looked at Wednesday, then at Agnes, then back again. "I just want it officially stated that this is a terrible idea."
"Noted," Wednesday said, already writing it down in her notepad.
Agnes slipped out and returned with a girl she introduced as Josephine. Josephine took one look at the photograph of Galpin from the box, then shifted.
The resemblance was exact.
Wednesday held up the phone. Face ID unlocked instantly.
"You're genuinely good at this," Ethan said, watching Josephine's features settle back into place. He turned the idea over in his head—complete structural alteration, down to the smallest detail. He already worked with blood at that level. With enough control, it wasn't impossible.
He paused.
Considered something.
Then dropped it.
Agnes looked up, eyes bright. "So, am I in?"
Wednesday set the phone down and finally gave her her full attention.
"I find your lack of boundaries exhausting," she said. "Your devotion is misplaced. And I made you no promises." She picked up her notepad. "I said I would consider it."
Agnes didn't move.
Wednesday studied her for a moment longer.
"Don't make me repeat myself," she added. "And if you touch anything without instruction, I will ensure you regret it."
Agnes's expression stayed the same, but something in her eyes sharpened, like she had just been handed exactly what she wanted.
Enid buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. Clearly enjoying it far too much.
"No need to laugh at me, wolf." Agnes looked at her with complete composure. "I'm more competent than you in many areas."
Enid's head came up.
"Excuse me—"
"If you say another word, I'll show you why messing with a wolf is a bad idea," Enid snapped.
"I'm standing right here," Agnes replied. "Go ahead."
Wednesday ignored both of them. She scrolled through Galpin's phone, paused on a voice message, and played it.
"They're onto me. If I don't make it—the evidence is safe at the bullpen."
A crow cawed somewhere in the background. Then static.
Wednesday set the phone down.
"Bullpen," she said. "Bradbury hasn't been a cop in years. He wasn't referring to the station." She picked up her notepad. "We're looking for a residence. Somewhere he personally referred to as the bullpen."
She flipped through the files, stopping on a photograph—a wooden cottage. Behind it, a label.
"Bullpen ,Pine Crest. 2015."
She looked up. "That's our address."
She opened the map and traced the location. As she adjusted the view, Thing pointed toward another marked spot—Camp Jericho, near the lake. The same area they were already scheduled to visit in two days.
Wednesday closed the map.
"Thing, pack the weapons."
Ethan glanced at the location again. Something about it didn't sit right. Not Camp Jericho exactly — but close to it. Close to something darker. A dead patch of woods that swallowed sound and gave nothing back.
He kept that thought to himself for now.
***
Deep in the woods outside Jericho, past the tree line where the ground went soft and the light stopped reaching properly, a castle sat surrounded by graves.
Every headstone was marked with a cross. The structure looked abandoned — walls crumbling, windows long gone — but something moved through it anyway, a sound that wasn't wind, low and continuous, like something breathing inside the stone itself.
A fire split the dark.
Baphomet stepped through it, straightened to his full height and looked up at the castle with something close to satisfaction.
"Valak." He moved toward the entrance, forked shadow stretching across the graves. "Still trapped in this hole. Don't worry — I found the key to your release."
He reached the door and pushed.
The blast hit him before he got the door halfway open — force enough to throw Baphomet clean off his feet and send him skidding back across the graveyard, knocking headstones sideways before he stopped.
He lay there for a moment.
Then slowly pulled himself upright, brushing grave dirt off his shoulder.
He looked at the castle, then at his hand where the blast had scorched it.
"Blessed." He said it like a diagnosis. "Those church people blessed the entire castle."
He rolled his neck once and stared at the walls. As a demon he couldn't cross a blessed threshold — not directly, not without something nullifying it first. The key meant nothing if he couldn't get through the door.
He needed another way in.
***
A/N: It's decided—the next world will be .
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