Chapter Nine: Barbarian
Selene's House, Edge of Detroit, Michigan
April 30, 2002 – 8:12 A.M.
Jay had turned the kitchen into a command post: laptop open, headset coiled, a few printed maps, missing-person flyers, and a short checklist that read: Veil fractures / squatter reports / Airbnb owner. Her coffee sat untouched.
Keshaun dropped into a chair, hoodie up, chalk dust on his sleeves. Selene dried a plate at the sink with unhurried hands. Hugh hovered near the door with a duffel and the twitchy energy of someone trying not to bolt.
Jay tapped the trackpad and the screen flashed a listing photo from the Detroit Free Press classifieds. "First flagged case. Brightmoor. A house that's been used as a short-term rental. Neighbors reported screams at night. Squatters go in and don't come out. Police did one welfare check—called it 'vacant' and left."
Hugh snorted. "Means they didn't open the one door that matters."
Selene glanced over. "Brightmoor eats the careless. Thin places. Old rot. We go in careful."
Jay nodded. "I'm classifying it Level Three: Predator/Entity with escalation potential. I'll stay on comms—maps, records, time checks. If you lose contact, fall back to the van."
"Roles," Keshaun said. "Out loud."
"Right." Jay pointed as she spoke. "Selene: wards and occult calls. Keshaun: field lead and combat. Hugh: gear, light, rope, eyes on exits. I run the desk."
Hugh lifted a hand halfway. "Permission to run if faces get eaten?"
"No," Keshaun said. "You run only if you're dragging a bag and yelling directions."
"I can yell," Hugh muttered.
"Eat," Selene said, sliding a plate of bread to the table. "Fear burns fuel too."
Nobody took any. They were already full of first-mission nerves.
Jay breathed once, steadying. "Headcams charged. Comms check in the van. One local named Andre has been warning people off that block. If you see him—listen."
"Copy," Keshaun said, standing. The house's threshold was chalked with simple rules. He touched it and felt it agree. "Let's go be the wall."
Van, Westbound on I-96
April 30, 2002 – 9:03 A.M.
Jay's voice came clean through the earpieces. "Deed history: built in the 1930s, bounced between owners, foreclosure, then an LLC bought it two years ago. Property manager listed it for temporary rentals in the paper—cash and check only. Current owner of record: an actor from L.A., 'AJ.' Dropped from a show after… allegations. Neighbors say he hasn't been seen in weeks. Last two renters were dropped off by cabs, but nobody saw them leave."
"Two people never left," Hugh said under his breath.
"Don't decide the ending before we read the middle," Selene said.
Cloud cover thickened toward the city. Burned-out homes and overgrown lots appeared as they exited the freeway. The air changed—less traffic, more damp metal.
"Comms check," Jay said. "Three, two, one—"
"We hear you," Keshaun finished, a small smile despite the taste of rust in his mouth.
Brightmoor, Detroit
April 30, 2002 – 9:27 A.M.
They parked a block away. The house looked… normal. Aluminum siding, intact windows, hedges that needed trimming. That was its trick.
A man peeled out of shadow down the street: gray coat, white beard, clear eyes, hands visible. He moved slow, learned harmlessness.
"You the ones with the phones," he said. "Girl told me to watch for you. Name's Andre."
"Thanks for meeting us," Keshaun said.
Andre tipped his chin at the house. "If you hear a baby crying down there, that ain't a baby you can fix."
Selene's gaze sharpened. "You went inside?"
"Once," Andre said. "Basement has a way of asking you to open it. I didn't."
"We appreciate the warning," Keshaun said.
"Don't be inside after dark," Andre added. "If you are, you sleep with it."
"We won't," Keshaun said.
Andre studied him like weighing a loud promise against a concrete wall, then melted back to his corner.
"Sunset is 8:30 p.m.," Jay said in their ears. "You've got eleven hours. Don't use them all."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Keshaun muttered, and moved.
Rental House
April 30, 2002 – 9:41 A.M.
The front door resisted. Selene chalked two small sigils beneath the knob—simple, polite. The door opened.
Inside smelled like lemon cleaner layered over old dust. A suitcase tag hung by the entryway. An extra toothbrush in a cup. Flats lined neatly by the couch. The normalcy crawled.
"Cab logs match two drop-offs last week," Jay whispered. "No return calls for pickups."
"Copy," Keshaun said.
They cleared the ground floor: tidy kitchen, quiet living room, no mess because the house was careful. The basement door sat off the kitchen. Three fresh scratches on the lock said someone had learned something too late.
Hugh balked. "I hate basements."
"Top of the stairs then," Selene said. "If we yell 'run,' you run. If we yell 'rope,' you throw."
"Rope," he said faintly. "I can throw rope."
Keshaun took point, set his breath—slow inhale, short hold, long exhale—and opened the door.
Basement air breathed on them. Chain-pull bulb. Concrete floor slick with damp. Boxes. Paint cans. Washer and dryer humming though nothing ran.
"The door's at the back," Jay said softly. "There's always a door."
There was. Paneling that didn't match, a finger notch, a dark smear. Keshaun pried it open. Behind it: a narrow corridor dug through earth, timbers shoring it up.
Hugh swallowed. "Nope."
"Stay," Selene said gently, handing him a second flashlight. "If anyone comes behind us—yell."
He nodded too fast, knuckles white on the light.
Keshaun stepped into the corridor. The ceiling hunched low. Wet air touched the back of the throat. The hall turned and ended at a cheap interior door with a bright brass knob polished by fear.
"The difference between a door and a mouth," Selene murmured, "is consent."
Keshaun pressed his ear to the wood. The Force handed him the shape of space on the other side: small, ugly. He opened it.
A bare bulb lit the room: stained mattress, bucket, camera on a tripod, old blood on cinderblock at hip height.
Hugh gagged into his sleeve. "This is—he—God."
Selene's jaw set. "Not a haunting. A breeding ground."
"Something else is behind this," Keshaun said. The left wall was a lie. He felt the seam and pushed—not with hands, but with intent. The latch sighed. A second door opened onto stairs cut into dirt.
"Sublevel confirmed," he told Jay. "Going in."
"Copy. I'm with you," Jay said, voice tight.
Sublevel Tunnels
April 30, 2002 – 10:08 A.M.
The tunnels felt wrong. Walls dug by hands that didn't care if they held. Ceiling sagging. Drips out of rhythm with any clock. The smell of spoiled milk over iron.
Scratches scored the walls. A low sound came from ahead—half wind, half swallowed sob.
"Forward," Selene said quietly. She marked chalk on beams as they moved. Hugh's light jittered. Keshaun walked point, the Force sitting coiled and ready.
The corridor widened into a rough chamber. Chains hung from a pipe. A shattered bottle glinted on the floor. Feathers clung to a seam near the ceiling.
Movement.
"Down!" Keshaun barked.
She hit them out of the dark—tall, naked, deformed, hair in filthy ropes, eyes wide and empty. The Mother. She hit the wall off a Force Push hard enough to crack plaster—and bounced.
Selene threw witchfire—blue, hungry flame. The Mother ran through it. Burned hair stank. She screamed—high, thin, too strong.
Hugh dropped his flashlight and crab-walked back. "No, no—"
She reached for him with hands that had too much strength for any mercy.
"Here!" Keshaun stepped in, caught her wrists with his will, and wrenched them wide. The invisible grip shook. She shoved, tendons popping. He layered a tight Force Barrier over his chest. Her knee hit it and spider-cracked the light. He fed it, teeth clenched.
"Move her, not you," Selene snapped. She sketched a quick chalk circle on the dirt. "Kesh—bait her."
He feinted right and let one wrist go. The Mother lunged. Her foot crossed the chalk.
Selene spoke a word that bit. The circle flashed. Her sole smoked. She jerked back, shocked and furious.
"Up!" Keshaun yanked Hugh to his feet and they backed through the corridor—Selene last, drawing an X on the doorway. The Mother hit the frame, stopped short, and pounded it with her fists, child-angry, eyes wet.
"Hostile seems to be a mutated human, not a spirit," Keshaun told Jay. "Strength is… abnormal. She is also inhumanly fast."
"Copy," Jay breathed.
The house groaned like old bones shifting.
"Back upstairs," Keshaun said. They climbed hard. He shoved the fridge in front of the basement door with a telekinetic heave. Glass rattled.
Selene tilted her head, listening past sound. "There's another room," she said. "Hidden."
"Lead," Keshaun said.
Frank's Room
April 30, 2002 – 10:41 A.M.
A closet pivoted. Metal stairs dropped. The room beyond was lit by a sickly lamp. On a bed lay a man whose body had lasted too long and learned nothing: Frank. Tubes to nowhere. Shelves of unmarked cans. A revolver. A neat stack of VHS tapes with names.
The Force went quiet in Keshaun—not empty, just silent in respect for the kind of evil that doesn't need magic.
Selene skimmed her hand over the tapes and inhaled, steady. "He is a wound," she said. "He is the reason this house is so cursed and likely the culprit behind that mutated creature."
Hugh stepped too close to the bed. "Sir? We're—"
"Back," Keshaun said.
Frank's eyes tracked to the revolver like a reflex carved by years. He moved slow, hand trembling. He lifted it anyway, small smile ghosting his lips. He pulled the trigger.
The pop was small. The mess was not.
Hugh staggered back into Selene. She steadied him without taking her eyes off the body.
"Originator is deceased by suicide," Keshaun told Jay. "Evidence of multiple victims. We're not touching the tapes."
"Understood," Jay said, voice thin.
A heavy thud echoed through the house—deep structure settling, or something under it waking.
"The Mother won't leave while his room breathes," Selene said.
"Then we end it," Keshaun said.
Tunnels Again – Second Fight
April 30, 2002 – 11:03 A.M.
They went back because sometimes the only way out is through. Selene salted thresholds. Keshaun set his breath to sprint. The tunnels waited. The Mother didn't.
She charged on all fours, then rose. The shriek was smaller now—more anger than triumph.
"Right," Selene said. Chalk flared under her fingers as she slapped a sigil on the beam.
Keshaun cut right with Force Speed, narrowing the hall. He shoved the beam a hair into the tunnel—not wood, the idea of space—so The Mother had to turn her shoulders. She brushed the hot chalk. It sizzled her skin. She screamed and clawed at the mark like a sticker on a cut.
Hugh threw a coil of rope. It bounced off her shoulder and fell. "That did nothing!"
"It told her you're here," Selene said, and poured slow witchfire along the burning rune. The beam smoldered. The tunnel hissed.
The Mother swiped at Selene. Keshaun yanked the air under her chin—an ugly, effective Force Pull—and turned a grab into a miss. He followed with a low Push at the hips. She stumbled, scraped a wall, then lunged again.
"Walls," he said, more to himself. He stepped into her and snapped a tight Barrier at chest height. She smashed into it. Dirt slid under his heel. Light cracked like ice. He fed it, not wide—dense.
"Now!" Selene stomped a small chalk wheel at The Mother's feet. Keshaun dropped the barrier, tugged her forward with a sharp Pull, and the wheel flared under her arch. Burn. Head crack. A tooth skittered across dirt.
She went still for a beat.
Keshaun hopped up, caught a beam, and dropped with both feet together—shockwave rippling the floor. Her knees buckled. He didn't press; he moved, baiting her down a bend.
"Where can you hurt the house?" Selene called.
He felt it: one brace two corners back sang off-key. He fell toward it, luring her with short Pushes at ankles and shoulders. Hugh flicked a red flare into that corner. It hissed. The Mother glanced at the light, drawn despite herself.
Selene drew a long chalk line on the brace and whispered, remember being a tree. Keshaun stretched that line with his will and sheared across it. The brace cracked like old age. Dirt sagged. The tunnel dumped a wave past The Mother's calves. She flung both hands up like a child warding off a fall.
Keshaun slammed a centered Force Push into her chest and sent her skidding into the wider chamber—more space to finish it.
She rolled to a crouch in one awful smooth motion. Selene tore three salt packets and stomped them at the chamber's corners. Lines flared, not perfect circles—just boundaries. The Mother hit them, bounced, hit again, toddler-furious. Each slam dimmed the line.
"Won't hold," Hugh said, voice thin.
"Give me quiet," Selene said, and the whole space seemed to listen.
Keshaun looked at The Mother and understood the only mercy left. There was no person to pull back from this edge. She'd been made into a mouth and a fist. Mercy meant stop.
"Jay," he said. "We're taking her outside."
"I'm here," Jay said softly.
Back Yard – Final Fight
April 30, 2002 – 11:38 A.M.
They kicked the back door open. Dead grass, chain-link, a small square of sky. Hugh yanked a flare, cursed, finally got it lit. Keshaun nudged The Mother with quick bursts—ankles, knees, shoulder—herded her like a stubborn animal.
She hit sunlight and screamed like it lied to her. Selene chalked a fast ring. The Mother stepped onto it and hissed, retreating to the center of the yard.
"Hey!" Hugh shouted on instinct, waving the flare. She tracked the red, snatched it, crushed it, flung it into the fence.
"It helped," Keshaun said. "Thanks."
He opened his hands and asked. Light rose—white-gold along his forearms, brighter than yesterday, steady. It tingled over scabbed knuckles; it felt like rain waiting to turn to thunder.
The Mother recoiled, then lunged. He stepped in. Both glowing palms flat to her clavicles.
"Sleep," he told the house, not her. "Let this one sleep."
The Force poured.
It wasn't a blast. It was a truth, pressed into stolen flesh: you were not meant to be this. Light branched under her skin. She screamed—high, pained, almost childlike—and clawed at his wrists. Sparks skittered off the aura cladding his arms. He fed the light, jaw tight.
Selene's voice wove through the moment, chant low and exact. She closed the chalk ring at The Mother's heels. The circle sealed with a soft pop.
"Hold," Selene said.
He held.
The Mother thrashed against the ring and his hands. The fight in her changed—less hunger, more fear. He focused the light tighter, turned it firm. Not torture. Ending.
"I'm here," Jay whispered into his ear, as if she'd stepped closer though miles away.
The Mother convulsed once, twice. The light ebbed. Her body sagged. He guided her to her knees and then to the ground. She lay still. The chalk ring brightened, dimmed, went quiet.
Silence.
Hugh lowered the flare tube. "Is it… over?"
"With her," Selene said. The house answered with a deep, wet shift. "Not with it."
"Log it," Keshaun said, flexing sore fingers as the glow faded. "Primary threat down. Site still wrong."
"Logged," Jay said.
"Salt the room," Selene added. "Mark doors. Call the police from far away. Let them find what they can handle."
"Copy," Jay said.
Andre waited across the street when they emerged. He studied their faces, then the yard. "You look like you dug your hands into something that remembered your name," he said.
"We told it ours, too," Keshaun said.
"You kill it?"
"We stopped her," Selene said. "The place will take longer."
Andre nodded once. "Well ain't that's usually how it goes." He squeezed Keshaun's hand a second longer than strangers do—respect, not thanks. "Go home."
"We will," Keshaun said, and meant for now.
Selene's House – Debrief
April 30, 2002 – 1:47 P.M.
Water, bread, bandages. Chalk dust in Selene's braid. Jay's laptop open to the case form. She typed as they talked.
"Threat level?" she asked.
"Level Three," Selene said. "Marked for Level Four potential if we dig the tunnels."
"Victim list unknown," Jay said softly. "We leave names to the police when they process the tapes."
"Notes," Keshaun said, flexing his hands. "Force Light works on corrupted flesh when I treat it as mercy, not attack. Barriers last longer small and tight. Push/Pull is better at joints than center mass. Mark it."
Jay's mouth twitched. "Marking 'no massive heroic barriers.'"
Hugh cleared his throat. "Mark that rope did nothing but… it felt like I helped. Flares distracted her. I almost ran. I didn't."
"Fear isn't failure," Selene said. "Running is. You stayed. That matters."
Hugh looked down, embarrassed and relieved.
Jay finished typing. "S.H.I.E.L.D. Case File 001 – Brightmoor House. Primary threat neutralized. Site remains contaminated. Police notified anonymously. Team shaken, no injuries." She saved it. The spinner turned, stopped.
Keshaun stared at the water stain on the ceiling until it looked like a sleeping dog again. "We didn't fix the world. We still have a long way to go," he said.
"We alone a small team right now, but I can see the potential in what we're doing," Selene replied.
Jay closed the laptop. "First case is done," she said, testing the words. "We did it."
"Yeah," Keshaun said. He stood, joints honest. "Let's make sure to leave our mark on history."
Keshaun stepped onto the porch. The chalk on the doorframe said Knock. Leave. He rested his palm there, thinking of a woman never allowed to be one, a man who chose to be less, and a house that learned to lie. He didn't feel proud. He felt right.
The Force breathed with him. Nature breathed with it. Somewhere, in Brightmoor, a house adjusted to a new rule.