The sky had settled into a low, grey press, and the rain came down in thin steady sheets —
Not heavy enough to shelter from, just persistent enough to soak everything it touched.
Tire tracks cut through the mud on the suburban road and stopped in front of a two-story house.
A dark blue sedan.
Two figures stepping out, both wearing red gloves, one of them knocking on the front door.
The woman who answered was somewhere past fifty.
The years had worked their way into her face in deep lines, and her eyes were sharp in the way that comes from watching people carefully for a long time.
"Oh, thank God — you're finally here."
The relief in her voice was audible and immediate. Raphael and Evelyn exchanged a glance over her shoulder.
The original report had said the complainant fled the house after the priest was found and hadn't returned. She shouldn't have been here at all.
"I'm Ana Lance — I'm the one who filed the report. Everything happened the way I described it, so I imagine there's no need to go through it all again?"
As the newest member of the unit, Instructor John had made it clear that Raphael was expected to take the lead on direct contact work.
He nodded and picked up the thread.
"We'd like to see the attic. Your second child — the one who passed — what was his name?"
Ana's face carried exhaustion in every line of it. She answered without pausing.
"My poor boy was called Rick Lance. We all take my husband's name in this family — it's the custom around here."
She exhaled slowly.
"He died not long after he was born. The doctors said it was a congenital condition. I couldn't tell you which one — I'm an old woman, I don't understand all that."
Evelyn had drifted quietly into the room, holding a sheet of plain white paper, her clear eyes taking in the space without appearing to.
Ana sighed.
"After we buried him, the strange things started. Knocking sounds from the attic.
Small objects dropping onto the floorboards up there — the sound carried all the way down to where we were sitting. Clear as anything."
She shook her head. "There was no one up there."
She rubbed the side of her nose and handed Raphael a key.
"My husband and I started keeping the attic door shut. But every morning it would be standing open again. So we tried locking it."
Her voice dropped slightly.
"That made it worse. The crying started that night — terrible, the kind that gets into your bones — and the knocking turned into pounding.
All night, without stopping, until it was practically shaking the door."
Her hands weren't quite still.
"When daylight came, we went to check. The lock had been broken from the inside. Wood splinters all over the floor."
Raphael let a beat pass. He moved to the side table where the framed photographs were arranged and looked them over.
Ana with her husband. A young man in a well-fitted suit, briefcase in hand — presumably the first son.
Ten photographs. Not a single one featured a second child. Which was unusual — people took more pictures of newborns than they did of anyone else.
"There are no photos of Rick."
Ana noticed the direction of his attention and came over to explain.
"After he passed, we put everything related to him away. Looking at the photographs... it was too hard. We couldn't."
Raphael looked at her for a moment.
"Understandable."
He drew the silver short blade from his jacket — unhurried, matter-of-fact — and turned it in his hand, as though preparing it for something. Making the motion visible.
"Go on. Tell me about the priest."
Ana glanced at the silver blade. Her expression didn't change. Her voice stayed level.
"We brought him from the local church. He told us he could perform exorcisms. Charged us a thousand Colin for the privilege."
Her composure cracked slightly there — frustration surfacing alongside the fear, two things that hadn't finished settling into each other.
"It wasn't our fault he died. It wasn't — he lied to us. He said he knew what he was doing—"
The words were coming faster. Something behind them giving way.
"He threw holy water around. Put out garlic. Stood there and prayed." Her voice broke. "A fraud. And then they found him hanging from the beam—"
She pressed her hand over her face. Her shoulders shook.
Evelyn stepped in without being asked, her voice dropping into something low and steady.
"Easy. Look at me. Breathe."
While she held Ana's attention, she turned her head fractionally toward Raphael.
No words. Just a look.
He was already moving — quiet, unhurried, around the edge of the room and toward the stairs.
He pulled out the device Eva had given him and headed for the attic.
On the way through the corridor, he passed a window.
A man in the side yard, middle-aged, jaw set in a permanent cast of gray displeasure.
Splitting firewood with a hand axe, methodical and silent. The husband from the family photograph.
He looked up. Caught Raphael's eye through the glass. Said nothing — just gave a single slow nod and went back to the wood.
Raphael kept moving.
This family is strange. The thought settled in quietly. Ana lied about something. The question is what, and why.
He made use of the time while the second floor was empty.
Three rooms. The first was a double bedroom — warm arrangement, personal objects, clearly where Ana and her husband slept.
The second was stripped back: a bed, a desk with a laptop on it, a single wardrobe. On the desk sat a selfie in a small frame.
The young man from the family photo, one corner of the shot showing his own handwriting.
Steven Lance.
He noted the name and moved on.
The third room stopped him in the doorway.
A nursery. A crib against one wall. Soft mats laid across the floor, and toys arranged across them —
Stacking rings, a cloth rabbit, small wooden shapes in primary colors. Cheerful and careful and completely still.
Every surface wore a visible layer of dust. The crib rails. The toys. The windowsill.
The curtains had been pulled shut, probably months ago, and the air had gone stale and enclosed in the way that rooms do when no one opens the door.
"Abandoned. Nobody's come in here for a long time."
He ran a fingertip along the side of one of the toys and held it up to the light for a moment.
"At least a year without cleaning. Maybe longer." He turned the thought over. "A year."
Ana had said the haunting started after Rick's death. That the priest's death prompted her to file the report.
But this room had been sealed for over a year. And the toys — some scattered in the way that suggested a child had moved them, others arranged in deliberate neat rows that a child hadn't.
"Someone lived here."
He stood in the middle of the room and looked at it properly.
Then he heard the footsteps.
Wood under pressure — the particular sound of hollow-framed stairs taking weight.
Not from below.
From above.
The attic.
Coming down.