The van screeched to a stop. Men in bulletproof gear spilled out into the mud, rifles raised, breaths fogging in the bitter air.
"On my signal," Joel muttered into his mic.
He crept forward, boots squelching, eyes locked on the old farmhouse up ahead. No lights. No barking dogs. Just a scarecrow in the yard wearing a gas mask.
Charming.
The team breached the door like thunder. Wood splintered, glass flew, boots pounded through the halls. Screams echoed, human, inhuman. It didn't matter.
Joel moved like a storm with a badge, clearing rooms with clinical rage. In one corner, a child-sized cage. In another, pentagrams drawn in something that smelled like iron and rot.
Candles were lit on a bloodstained altar.
Then he found them.
Six cultists in black robes kneeling around a convulsing girl. They didn't flinch when the rifles pointed at them. One even smiled.
Joel shot him first.
And then the others.
No hesitation. No arrest. Just righteous fury.
The sixth man, the one in the center, raised his hands slowly. His robe was cleaner. His smile was wider. He didn't resist as the others fell dead around him.
"Detective ," the man said, as if greeting an old friend. "We finally meet."
Joel lowered his gun, confused. "You know me?"
The cult leader chuckled. "Not yet. But I will. The Devil's been waiting for this meeting."
The words should've sounded ridiculous. But they didn't.
Joel stared. Then said the only thing that made sense at 2:12 a.m., covered in blood and rainwater:
"…You're under arrest, you creepy bastard."
Few hours later.
Joel sat across from the cult leader in a concrete interrogation room, fingers tapping the table. The man hadn't said a damn thing besides riddles and nursery rhymes.
"I ain't got time for riddles, freak. You trafficked kids. You summoned something. You lose," Joel growled.
But the cultist just smiled. "Losing's just another way of opening the right door."
Joel slammed a hand on the table. "Where are the others? Who's funding you? Why the children?"
The cultist leaned forward, eyes wild. "Because children are the only currency the Devil accepts with interest."
Joel froze. For a split second, his heart struck with a chill he hadn't felt in years.
And that's when his phone rang.
Eliza.
His wife.
He answered,expecting her voice.
But it wasn't her.
"Sir we've got a problem"
The last thing Joel remembered Eliza saying before she vanished was:
"You two need backup in there?" during their afternoon escapade.
Then she was gone.
No smashed window. No signs of a struggle. Not even a scream
Yvonne was the first to notice.
"Mom?" she called from the hallway, after hearing what seemed to sound like a whisper in her bed,clutching her toy police badge. "Mom, where'd you go?"
No answer.
That night, Joel didn't sleep. He searched the backyard with a flashlight and his service weapon. Kicked down doors. Screamed into the trees like they had answers.
Joel searched every corner. Called in favors. Pulled street cams from five miles in every direction. He even broke into a psychic's office, held up her snow globe, and screamed, "WORK, DAMN YOU!"
Nothing.
Just static and silence.
Yvonne asked, "Is Mommy playing hide and seek?"
Joel said yes.
Because what the hell else could he say?