He has fired seven nurses this week, and if your child makes a single sound, you will both be thrown into the snow, Chief Guard Mikhail warned me at the heavy iron gates of the Volkov estate.
Mikhail’s words, “The gates are locked,” echoed like a death knell. My heart pounded with frantic energy. Drake’s web was closing in.
Local town marshals were clearly under his influence, so calling them was useless. But I had one hope left: Dr. Silas Montgomery.
Back in our sealed-off west-wing quarters, I pulled out the hidden secondary burner phone. It was an old flip phone, meant for emergencies, with an untraceable SIM card. A relic from a past I thought I’d escaped.
My hands trembled as I took out the obsidian vials. The aconite, the spectral ashes. I took quick, blurry photos, hoping they would be enough.
I typed out a coded SMS, a short, urgent message: “Manor locked. Vials found. Aconite + spectral ash. Drake’s crest. Need help. Clara.”
Then, with a prayer, I attached the photos and sent it to Silas’s number. The signal was weak, but the message finally went through.
Silas, true to his word, had been working. He received my message as he sat at his cluttered home lab, surrounded by strange equipment and even stranger reference texts.
The photos flashed on his phone screen. He zoomed in on the intricate serpent-and-rose crest.
“I knew it,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses.
He immediately cross-referenced the unique crest with federal dark-market tracking databases, a network few knew existed. Within minutes, a match.
“The Blackthorn Guild,” he breathed, a name whispered in hushed tones in certain circles. A defunct, yet still dangerous, network dealing in rare toxicological compounds and occult artifacts. Julian Drake was not just a greedy opportunist; he was deeply involved in something far more sinister.
Silas didn’t hesitate. He picked up his secure line and dialed a number he rarely used.
“Detective Jenkins? Silas Montgomery. I have an urgent matter regarding the Volkov Estate. Attempted murder. I have photographic evidence of illicit compounds and a lead on the perpetrator’s identity.”
Detective Sarah Jenkins, known for her sharp mind and cynical demeanor, listened intently. “Montgomery? You mean the one from that… ‘esoteric toxicology’ incident last year?”
“The very same,” Silas confirmed, his voice precise. “This goes beyond local jurisdiction. We’re talking organized, and possibly supernatural, crime. I have an insider, a nurse, who is currently trapped there with her daughter.”
He relayed the details, the impossible cold, the aconite, the spectral ashes, Dr. Finch’s leaked confession, and now, my trapped status.
Jenkins, despite her skepticism of “occult claims,” understood the gravity of “attempted murder” and “illicit compounds.” The name “Volkov” carried weight in the state.
“An urgent warrant for suspicious hazardous materials and potential kidnapping is being drafted now,” Jenkins said, her voice crisp. “State Police will be there within the hour.”
A small victory. My desperate plea had reached the right ears. But the question remained: would they arrive in time?
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