Chapter 92 - 93: Seth’s Anomaly

Chapter 92: Chapter 93: Seth’s Anomaly

Chapter 93: Seth’s Anomaly

Just as Axel Vance reached for the office doorknob, Chief Woody called after him. "Wait." Axel stopped and turned as Woody came around the desk with a much more serious expression than before.

"Listen carefully, kid. This is not a real paid vacation, and I don’t want you treating it like one," Woody said. "If anything connected to the cult shows up, you call for backup immediately and keep the department informed."

Axel gave him a small nod, but Woody was not finished. "If we manage to catch one of these people alive, we question them immediately and keep them under constant protection. The last time we had human witnesses tied to this network, somebody managed to silence them before we got anything useful."

That failure had clearly left an impression on the chief. Woody was no longer willing to let a cult-linked suspect disappear into normal processing without officers watching every step. "We get the information while we can, then we lock them down somewhere secure."

"Understood, Chief," Axel replied.

Satisfied, Woody finally stepped aside. Axel left the office and had barely turned into the corridor when he found Steve leaning against the opposite wall with barely concealed excitement. The expression on his face made it obvious he had been waiting for Axel to come out.

"Well?" Steve immediately whispered, moving closer like an amateur spy. "Did he give you some secret assignment? Plainclothes work, undercover infiltration, something dangerous?"

Axel looked at him. "Yeah. Extremely dangerous."

Steve’s eyes widened.

"The main objective is continuing my vacation."

Steve blinked.

Then his excitement somehow increased. "Oh, so it is undercover. Like in the movies."

"Exactly," Axel replied dryly. "Very glamorous."

Before Steve could ask another question, Axel changed the subject. "You know anything about the rental market around Miami? I’m thinking about finding somewhere bigger."

Steve thought about it for several seconds, then scratched his head. "Rental market? Not really." He shrugged and admitted, "I still live at my dad’s place, so I’ve never actually rented anything."

Axel had expected that answer.

Steve suddenly snapped his fingers. "Wait, though. I’ve seen plenty of house-related cases in the files." He grabbed Axel by the sleeve and started pulling him toward the archives. "Some of those places are probably dirt cheap now."

The records room smelled like old paper and dust. Steve moved confidently between the filing cabinets until he reached a section marked for old and unresolved cases, then pulled out a yellowed folder. He blew the dust from the cover and dropped it onto the table.

"This one."

Axel opened the file.

Steve pointed toward the summary. "Family rented the place, and less than a month later they were all dead." His tone became quieter as he added, "Officially it was treated as a family suicide, but nobody ever explained why."

Axel turned the page.

There had been no obvious forced entry.

No clear signs of outsiders.

No convincing struggle suggesting an attacker had broken in.

Eventually, with nothing else to work from, the investigation had gone nowhere.

"The house got a reputation after that," Steve continued. "People started calling it cursed, haunted, whatever you want." He tapped the property information. "It’s been sitting on the market forever, and nobody wants to touch it."

Axel studied the address.

The place was nowhere near the busy parts of Miami.

In fact, calling it suburban was generous.

It sat far enough out that forest surrounded most of the property, making it feel closer to wilderness than city.

That immediately made it more appealing.

The photographs showed a large house with plenty of rooms and a full basement. There was no proper garage, but the open space around the property was large enough that Axel could park several vehicles without worrying about neighbors.

Most buyers would probably look at the isolation and old murder case as problems.

Axel saw privacy.

Space.

Cheap rent.

And if there really was something supernatural in the house, that was almost a bonus.

"This place is actually pretty good," Axel said.

Steve stared at him. "You understand the entire family died there, right?"

"I heard you."

"And that made you more interested?"

Axel ignored him and copied down the address along with the real-estate contact information. It had everything he needed for a potential base: isolation, room for equipment, a basement for Spirit Binding work, and enough distance from ordinary neighbors that nobody would complain about strange noises. "I’ll take a look."

By the time Axel returned to his apartment, he opened the door and immediately thought he had walked into the wrong unit. The cluttered living room had been transformed completely, with books stacked neatly, papers organized into piles, and the floor cleaned until it almost looked new. Even the battered coffee table had been wiped down until the wood actually reflected some light.

A faint detergent smell filled the room.

Carrie White was kneeling near one corner with a cleaning rag in her hand, carefully working on another section of the floor. On the couch, Lionel Cosgrove had stretched himself out comfortably with a beer and looked like he had contributed absolutely nothing.

Axel stared at the room. "What happened in here?"

Carrie looked up quickly.

"You didn’t have to clean all this," Axel said. "If you’re uncomfortable staying here, I can arrange a hotel."

Carrie immediately shook her head. "No. I’m fine here."

She hesitated before continuing.

"I just... can’t relax when everything is scattered around."

Her fingers tightened slightly around the cloth. "It makes my head feel wrong until I put it back in order."

Axel looked at her for a moment and understood enough not to push. Carrie had grown up in a house where rigid control had been tied to safety, punishment, and routine for nearly her entire life. Even after leaving Margaret, some habits were not going to disappear in a day.

Lionel raised his beer from the couch. "She almost organized me into the trash pile earlier."

Carrie turned red.

Axel sighed.

Then the apartment door opened again.

Dr. Seth Brundle walked inside.

That alone was not unusual.

His expression was.

Seth was normally restless, energetic, and confident enough to explain scientific theories to people who had not asked. Now he looked quiet, exhausted, and deeply troubled.

Without greeting anyone, he crossed the room, opened the refrigerator, took out a beer, and drank nearly half of it before lowering the bottle. The atmosphere inside the apartment changed immediately.

Axel frowned. "Mission handoff go badly?"

Seth shook his head.

"No."

He set the bottle on the table harder than necessary.

"The mission was successful."

Lionel sat upright.

Seth continued, "They accepted the disk, verified the data, and acted like I came back from a war carrying the cure for cancer." There was no pride in his voice. "Everybody kept calling me a hero."

Axel removed his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. "Then why do you look like somebody died?"

Seth stared at the beer.

"Because something was wrong."

Carrie quietly stopped cleaning.

Lionel leaned forward.

Axel asked, "What kind of wrong?"

Seth lifted his gaze toward the three of them. "Not the data. The disk was genuine, and they confirmed that immediately."

He rubbed one hand across his face.

"When I got back, everything seemed normal. My coworkers came out to meet me, everybody congratulated me, and honestly, I didn’t think much of it." Seth shrugged faintly. "We don’t exactly send physicists into abandoned nuclear facilities every week."

His expression darkened again.

"Then I handed the disk to my supervisor."

"Who?" Axel asked.

"Dr. Evans."

Seth took another drink before continuing. "He put the disk into the decoding equipment right in front of me and checked the files himself. Everything was intact."

Lionel reached into the refrigerator and tossed Seth another beer when he noticed the first bottle was empty. Seth caught it automatically, opened it, but this time did not drink immediately.

"And then?" Lionel asked. "He forgot your bonus?"

Seth gave him a humorless look. "I almost wish that was the problem."

He rested both hands around the bottle.

"When Evans confirmed the data was good, he was ecstatic. He walked over, hugged me, told me I’d made a major contribution, called me a hero of the country—the whole thing."

Axel watched him carefully.

Seth’s voice lowered.

"But when he hugged me, his body suddenly went rigid."

Lionel frowned.

"Only for a second," Seth continued. "Maybe less."

He looked directly at Axel.

"Then Evans stepped back."

"The smile was still on his face."

"But his eyes weren’t smiling."

Seth swallowed.

"For one instant, he looked at me like he had just seen a ghost."

He paused, remembering it.

"Not figuratively."

"Real fear."

"Then a second later, it was gone, and he acted completely normal again."

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