Rain threaded through the narrow city streets like veins of silver. Detective Jeena Morrow parked her jeep outside the forensic wing of St. Albrecht Hospital, the faint hum of the city drowned beneath thunder that rolled like slow applause.
She hated hospitals — too quiet, too clean, too alive with the stench of something pretending not to rot.
The call had come at dawn: "Another one, Detective. Same pattern — red residue, crystalline growth on the spine."
Jeena stepped out, raincoat flaring behind her, and flashed her badge at the waiting officer. "Show me."
He led her to the morgue, where a sheet-covered body lay under cold light. The coroner, Dr. Niloy Sen, lifted the cloth halfway.
"Third case this month," he muttered. "No ID. Found near the old canal district. Skin lesions, mild luminescence under UV. Take a look."
The glow beneath the body's veins pulsed faintly crimson, like trapped fireflies under glass. Jeena leaned closer, frowning. "What's this residue?"
"Not blood," Dr. Sen said. "Crystalline compound. Organic, but not—" He hesitated, searching for the right word. "Not earthly. Its composition matches fragments recovered from that Point Veert research transfer shipment last semester."
Jeena froze. "Point Veert College?"
He nodded. "The one that got the Ministry's special clearance for hybrid biobotany trials."
She muttered, "Ethan Callahan's there now."
Dr. Sen raised a brow. "The same Ethan from your previous case?"
Jeena didn't answer. She slipped on gloves and traced a fingertip across the glowing vein. It pulsed once, reacting to her touch — then went still.
Her mind ticked through details like gears in a watch.— Crystalline blood compound.— Victim linked to Point Veert shipment.— Faint electromagnetic feedback near neural tissues.
Someone was experimenting on something alive.
She turned to Niloy. "Run an elemental scan. Trace isotopes, plant DNA signatures, heavy metal anomalies. Send me whatever glows back."
He nodded grimly. "You think this ties into the Crimson Covenant again?"
"Too soon to tell," she said, pulling off her gloves. "But their kind never really dies. They just… change uniforms."
Two hours later, Jeena sat in her dim office at the precinct, a dozen case files open like wounded memories. The rain hadn't stopped; it felt like the whole city was trying to wash itself clean.
She replayed the last message Ethan had left before his transfer:
"If anything happens, don't come looking for me. Point Veert isn't what it seems. Just… trust the forest, not the people."
Trust the forest.
Jeena exhaled, staring at the city map. Point Veert was marked in red — a dot surrounded by a hundred kilometers of wilderness.
A knock at her door broke her focus. Officer Soren leaned in, holding a tablet. "Ma'am, the scan from Dr. Sen just came in."
She took it. The display flickered — molecular diagrams overlaying plant cell structures, interlaced with human blood chains.
Her eyes narrowed. "That's… impossible."
Soren squinted. "Looks like some kind of cross-species graft. A flower cell fusing with erythrocytes?"
"Not just any flower," Jeena said, zooming in. The cell pattern — circular nucleus, petal-like membrane ridges — was unmistakable."The Scadoxus multiflorus. Blood Lily."
Soren frowned. "Wasn't that part of the restricted genetic botany program?"
"It was," she said softly, "until it got stolen from the Thapar Biolab three years ago."
Her pulse quickened. That case had gone cold — the same case Ethan and Seth stumbled into when the Covenant was still whispering in shadows.
She leaned back, rubbing her temples. "And now the residue's showing up on corpses."
Soren hesitated. "You think someone's reactivating the old project?"
"I think," Jeena said, "someone's growing something they shouldn't — and feeding it people who won't be missed."
By evening, Jeena was driving again — out of the city this time, toward the borderlands. The GPS flickered twice, losing signal as the forest swallowed the road.
She stopped near an abandoned checkpoint. Through the mist, a single lamppost flickered weakly. A sign half-buried in ivy read:RESTRICTED RESEARCH ZONE — FORMER POINT VEERT SUPPLY OUTPOST.
Her breath fogged in the cold air. The rain had stopped, replaced by a silence too deep to be natural.
She stepped through the gate.
The ground was soft, almost pulsing. Then — a faint hum. Low, rhythmic. She crouched, touching the soil. It vibrated faintly.
"Subterranean current?" she murmured.
A whisper drifted from the trees.Not the wind — a voice.
"You shouldn't have come, Detective."
She spun, gun raised.
The janitor stood there. Rourke. Same quiet smile, same gray uniform.
"Rourke?" Jeena lowered her weapon slightly. "You're supposed to be dead."
He tilted his head. "Death's a flexible thing, in Point Veert."
"What are you doing here?"
"I keep things clean," he said simply. "Even the messes no one wants to see."
"Then maybe start by telling me what they're building in that college."
He looked past her, toward the fog-shrouded horizon. "A gate. Not to hell — to understanding. But the toll…" He smiled faintly. "The toll is blood, as always."
Jeena stepped closer. "Who's behind it? Fargrave? The twins?"
Rourke's expression darkened. "Names don't matter anymore. Only the bloom does. It remembers everything. Even you."
Before she could respond, the ground shuddered. Red light seeped from the cracks like liquid fire.
Rourke's eyes glowed faintly. "They're calling. I have to go."
"Rourke!"
But he was already fading — his form breaking into fragments of ash that drifted upward like petals in a storm.
Jeena stood alone, the crimson glow still pulsing beneath her boots.
She took a deep breath, voice low. "Ethan, whatever you've walked into… it's not just biology anymore."
She looked up at the sky — the clouds had parted just enough to reveal a full moon tinged faintly red.