The rain hammered London like bullets from a vindictive god, each drop exploding against the pavement with the fury of a city that had forgotten how to forgive. I stood in the doorway of the abandoned warehouse in Rotherhithe, watching the crime scene techs dance their careful ballet around what used to be a human being.
Detective Inspector Marcus Kaine, they called me. "Razor" to the few who knew me well enough to use the name and stupid enough to say it to my face. Twenty-three years on this earth, eight in the SAS, five in the Met. The math was simple: I'd been killing things longer than I'd been protecting them.
The body—what was left of it—lay spread across the concrete floor like a jigsaw puzzle dropped by a drunk child. Tommy Ashford, enforcer for the Crowns, the East End's most charming collection of psychopaths. Someone had taken their time with Tommy. The symbols carved into the walls around him suggested this wasn't just your average gang execution.
"Jesus, Kaine," DS Sarah Chen materialized beside me, her face pale in the harsh crime scene lighting. "What kind of animal does this?"
I studied the symbols etched into the brick: spirals within spirals, angular runes that hurt to look at directly. The same marks I'd been seeing in my dreams for the past month. The same ones that had appeared at the other two crime scenes.
"The same kind that took Derek Morrison and Fat Charlie Brennan," I said. Three rival gang enforcers, three different territories, three nights. The pattern was there if you knew how to look for it.
Sarah followed my gaze to the symbols. "You think they're connected?"
"I think London's about to get a lot more interesting." I pulled out my phone and took photos of the wall markings. The camera flash illuminated something else—scorch marks on the concrete, arranged in a perfect circle around where Tommy had died. "And I think we're going to need a bigger boat."
The premonition hit me like a freight train wrapped in barbed wire. For a moment, I wasn't standing in a warehouse in Rotherhithe. I was underground, in tunnels that reeked of age and malice, watching shadows move with purpose and hunger. Someone was screaming, but the sound was wrong—too deep, too resonant, like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
"Kaine? Marcus?" Sarah's voice dragged me back to the present. Her hand was on my arm, steadying me. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Just tired," I lied. The visions had been getting stronger since the first disappearance. Afghanistan had left me with a few unwanted gifts—the ability to sense violence before it happened, for one. Most days, I could pretend it was just good instincts and pattern recognition. Most days.
Not today.
Dr. Emma Fitzgerald, the medical examiner, approached with her usual blend of professional detachment and barely concealed irritation. "Cause of death is… complicated," she said, pulling off her latex gloves. "The obvious answer is blood loss, but there's something else. Something I've never seen before."
"Such as?"
"Every bone in his body is broken. Not shattered—broken. As if something grabbed him and twisted until everything snapped. But here's the thing: some of the breaks healed before he died. The calcium deposits suggest weeks of healing, maybe months."
Sarah frowned. "How is that possible? Tommy was seen alive three days ago."
"I don't know," Emma admitted. "But there's more. His blood… it's wrong. The composition is off. Too much iron, not enough of everything else. And the symbols carved into his skin? They go deep. Deeper than they should. Some of them reach the bone."
I studied the marks on Tommy's chest, fighting another wave of recognition. "Any idea what they mean?"
"I'm not an expert on occult symbolism, but I've seen similar patterns in medieval manuscripts. Binding rituals, mostly. The kind of thing people used to do when they thought they could trap demons."
The warehouse suddenly felt colder. Outside, the rain had stopped, but the silence was worse than the noise. London held its breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
"I need to see the other crime scenes again," I said.
Sarah checked her watch. "It's past midnight, Marcus. The scenes are sealed. Can't it wait until morning?"
"No." The certainty in my voice surprised even me. "It can't wait. Something's building up to something bigger, and we're running out of time."
"Running out of time for what?"
I wished I knew.