“So, captain, how long have you beeing this safe house?” Kevin looked around the interior of the house around him. It retty nice for a safe house. The rooms were spacious, shelved with an abundanergency food, first aid kits and some restricted or even ht forbidden ons, like trated pepper spray, stun guns and small caliber pistols. In the living room there were two very fortable looking luxury chairs, one se enough for oo sleep on, and a simple looking but sturdy coffee table.

  “Several years. Doesn’t matter right now.” Captain Ko tossed a string of keys to Keryn: “Here’s the key to the house and other ets and drawers. When I leave, you must lock the pce down. There’s another exit in the level below, you drive out there or you go into the sewer tunnels following the blue pipes over your head. There’s also some talismans and inse here - just in case you .”

  “Is this pce - hardened?” Mick looked around: “Like - like your house, I mean. Captain…”

  “Not as safe as my pce - I’ve spent most of my time and energy there. But in this pce you still have some basic prote.” Captain Ko checked his phone: “Alright, it’s time for me to go. I still o hahe business in the prect. You guys stay safe and stay low. I have a puter iher room, but it’s not ected to the outside world. You read the dots I have in there, print something if you’d like - just be careful not to write anything down or spread what you read around.”

  “Thank you - captain.” Keryn the captain.

  “No problem. Stay safe.” Captain Ko sighed: “Oh - there’s food and drink in the fridge. Nothing fancy, but better than nothing.”

  “Fuck!” Kevin colpsed into one of the fortable chairs. After almost a whole day on the run and stressful versations and the meeting iy hall, the exhaustion was a bit too much to bear. A b ced on the back, and he pulled it close to himself.

  “Really, you wanna sleep? Now?” Keryn chuckled.

  “I’m fug drained, it’ll just be a minute.” Kevin yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  “I’ll, uh, I’ll help you look.” Mick also yawned, and picked up the folder marked “1148”: “1148, what is this fain?”

  Keryated for a moment, then exged looks with Kevin before answering: “This is - this is actually for Marcus, or - actually, to Gloria Lee.”

  “Gloria Lee, that sultant from the South-Eastern District?” Mick frowned: “Why?”

  “This is her token, her payment for helping us.” Kevin answered while curling into the b with his eyes closed: “And captain agreed to the deal. We don’t know for sure why she wa. It’s just - something she wants.”

  “Okay - this is iing.” Miodded and flipped open the folder: “‘... the peculiar missing, or theft of this unknown grimoire raised s iy, not iy hall itself, but in the department that interfaced with the South Eastern District. In fact, the unity collective had requested several times that they take over the iigation, or at least colborate with the city in the iigatio all these efforts were deyed or had faced hurdles due to various circumstances. Eventually the focus on the case dwindled, and the case was left cold.’”

  “A grimoire? What does it do? What did the unity collective say about it?” Keryn looked up from the 1149 folder: “This is - I hope this is not getting more disturbing.”

  “Let’s see - ” Mick checked the notes behind a picture of the grimoire: “‘Acc to the iigators and ritualistic officers from the unity collective, this is a grimoire doting a series of old, forbidden and even some barely tangible a rituals and spells. This was found in a secret temple during the flict betweey and the South-Eastern District. And at the request of the unity collective, it was not destroyed, for it being a cultural relic. But it was held iy, against the protest of the collective.’”

  “That sounds like trouble. That’s - that’s some horror movie shit! Why didn’t they just burn it?” Keryn sighed and shook her head: “Okay - but why does this - Gloria chick want it? Why does she want to know about this grimoire?”

  “Marcus likes w with her. He told me she was friends with a watcher and a clergyman of a small temple, so she knows a lot more about this - paranormal stuff.” Kevin answered with his eyes still closed and his entire body curled up in the b: “It’s probably got something to do with some kind of paranormal shit that happens in the South Eastern District, right?”

  “Well - I guess…” Mick scratched his jaw as he looked through the report: “It was missing without a trace, looks like they checked the security footage, access logs to that vault and even searched through the workers’ private property. They couldn’t find anything - And, uh, please remind me, why is it only a South-Eastern District thing?”

  “What do you mean?” Keryn and Kevin asked at the same time.

  “Well - ever since I came to our prect, even when I’m not doing active paranormal iigation, I still hear a lot about ghosts and spirits appearing somewhere in the South-Eastern District. Sometimes it’s a wandering spirit, sometimes it’s a dead person appearing in their pce to haunt people. I’ve only heard some random story when I was ba my old prect, ghost stories are just stories, I hought - ”

  “Yeah, we all kinda wanna know that.” Keryn chuckled and sighed: “You may not believe this, but we haven’t knowhing we know now lohan you. Because - you know, the city’s position on this. e to think of it, if it weren’t for that rotten Benson kid - ”

  A bolt of lightning struck Kevin as he was both trying to take a nap and sort through the chaotic threads in his head. He shot up from the fortable chair, throwing the b on the ground: “Wait - wait wait wait wait - wasn’t there some - some kind of infrastructure project a few decades ago? Ohat involves power lines?”

  “What? What kind of project?” Keryn was not sure what Kevin was talking about at first.

  “Yeah, I remember that.” Mick scratched his nose: “A new kind of transformer and circuit system. Smart grid or something, if I recall correctly. It’s smart and auto-rey power in times of outage, and it’s easier to maintain, saves energy… My parents know people who were involved in that project, they’re mega riow. But - ”

  “Nonono, I don’t care about that.” Kevin picked up the 1033 folder and ope with his firembling: “Power lihe answer is the power lines and those electric stations!”

  “What - ” Mick was fused now.

  “Hehe electricity. Almost all the deaths are around energy outage areas or during low energy avaibility time! ” Keryn threw the files in her hand down on the ground: “Holy SHIT! Holy SHIT! You think they know!? You think they KNEW!?”