Chapter 18: THE SOLO TEST
The farmhouse sat at the end of a dirt road three miles from anywhere.
September in Connecticut meant leaves just starting to turn, morning mist that clung to the fields, the smell of harvest in the air. The Henderson property had been in their family for four generations—good land, stable home, the kind of place where nothing bad should ever happen.
But something bad was happening.
I parked my car at the end of the drive, gathered my equipment, and approached the front door. Ed had assigned this case personally—a B-rank, my first true solo. No backup. No safety net. Just me and whatever waited inside.
"Prove yourself, kid." His words from that phone call, half encouragement and half challenge.
Mrs. Henderson opened the door before I could knock. Mid-fifties, gray streaking her hair, the exhausted look of someone who hadn't slept properly in weeks.
"You're the investigator? From the Warrens?"
"Paul Franco, ma'am. They sent me to help."
She studied me with the skepticism of someone who'd expected someone older. Someone more... official.
"Come in, then. It's worse at night."
The farmhouse interior was worn but comfortable. Family photos on every wall. A piano that looked like it hadn't been played in years. And there, above the fireplace, the source of all their troubles.
The mirror was ornate—baroque frame, probably 18th century, the glass clouded with age. It should have reflected the living room behind me. Instead, it showed shadows that moved wrong. Shapes that didn't correspond to anything in the physical space.
[ENTITY DETECTED: BOUND SPIRIT — B-RANK]
[CONTAINMENT VESSEL: ANTIQUE MIRROR]
[STATUS: SEAL DEGRADING — CONTENTS LEAKING]
Mr. Henderson joined his wife in the living room. Older than her, hands rough from farm work, face weathered by decades of sun and wind.
"It was an estate sale," he explained. "Three months ago. Beautiful piece, good price. Didn't think anything of it until Sarah started having nightmares."
"What kind of nightmares?"
Mrs. Henderson's face went pale. "A woman. In the glass. Reaching for me. Trying to pull me through."
I approached the mirror carefully. Spirit Sight activated automatically now—the passive perception Lorraine had helped me develop. What I saw made my stomach tighten.
There was indeed a woman inside. A spirit bound to the glass decades ago, trapped by someone who knew enough occultism to create a prison but not enough to make it permanent. She'd been alone in there for what must have felt like eternity, her sanity eroding, her humanity slipping away.
Now the seal was cracking. And she was reaching for any life she could grab.
"I can help," I said. "But I need to remove the mirror from your home. It's not safe to attempt a binding here—not with the seal this degraded."
"Take it." Mr. Henderson's voice was hard. "Take it and never bring it back."
The wrapping process took an hour. Blessed cloth in three layers. Salt poured around the frame. Prayers of containment recited with each fold. The spirit inside raged against the new restrictions, hammering against the glass, making the mirror shake in my hands.
But the prayers held. Ed's training held. My faith, tested by months of work and failure and growth, held.
[ENTITY CONTAINED]
[TRANSPORT READY]
I carried the mirror to my car, loaded it in the trunk between bags of salt and jugs of holy water. The Hendersons watched from their porch, clinging to each other like survivors of a shipwreck.
"Thank you," Mrs. Henderson called. "God bless you."
"He already has, ma'am."
I meant it.
The man appeared as I was closing the trunk.
He came from the tree line—a direction that had been empty seconds ago. Tall, gaunt, dressed in a dark coat despite the September warmth. Symbols were embroidered on his collar, barely visible: pentagrams, inverted crosses, glyphs I recognized from Ed's warnings about cult activity.
"That mirror belongs to my coven."
His voice was flat. Emotionless. The voice of someone who'd looked into darkness and decided they liked what they saw.
"No," I said. "It doesn't."
"It was consecrated to our purpose. Bound by our rituals. You have no right—"
"Your rituals trapped a woman's soul in glass for decades. Tortured her. Drove her mad." I stepped away from the car, positioning myself between him and the trunk. "Whatever claim you think you have ended when you turned a human being into a battery for your spells."
The man—Marcus Webb, I'd learn later—smiled. It was the ugliest expression I'd ever seen on a human face.
"You don't understand what you're dealing with, boy. The forces we serve—"
"I know exactly what you serve." My hand moved to the rosary at my chest. "And I know what serves me. So here's how this is going to work. You're going to walk back into those trees. You're going to forget my face. And you're never going to come near this family again."
Webb's smile faltered.
"Or?"
"Or I'll show you what a year of training with Ed Warren looks like."
The standoff lasted maybe thirty seconds. It felt like hours. Webb's eyes flickered between me and the trunk, calculating odds, weighing options.
Then he stepped back.
"This isn't over," he said. "My brothers will hear about this. The mirror—"
"Is going somewhere it can never hurt anyone again. Including you." I moved toward my car door. "Now walk. Before I change my mind about letting you."
He walked. Disappeared into the trees as silently as he'd emerged.
I drove away with shaking hands and a pounding heart, checking the rearview mirror every thirty seconds until I was back on the main road. The farmhouse vanished behind me. The Henderson family was safe.
But I'd made an enemy.
The diner was called Rosie's. Roadside establishment, chrome and red vinyl, the smell of coffee and grease and American comfort.
I sat in a booth by the window, hands wrapped around a mug that had been refilled three times. Apple pie congealed on a plate in front of me, half-eaten. Outside, the sun was setting over Connecticut, painting the sky in oranges and purples.
My hands had finally stopped shaking.
[CASE CLOSED: HENDERSON MIRROR — B-RANK]
[RESOLUTION: CONTAINMENT FOR MUSEUM]
[REWARDS: +600 EXP, +400 FP, +150 EP]
[SYSTEM LEVEL UP: 14 → 15]
[STORE TIER UNLOCKED: INTERMEDIATE]
Level 15. A milestone. The system's intermediate store now offered equipment I'd only seen in Ed's arsenal—Saint's medals, banishing chains, weapons designed specifically for combat against the forces of darkness.
But I couldn't celebrate.
Webb's face kept appearing in my mind. That flat voice. That ugly smile. The symbols on his collar and what they represented.
"This isn't over. My brothers will hear about this."
Cults had been more active lately—Ed had mentioned it during our fishing trip. Old networks reactivating. New players entering the game. The world was getting darker, and the dark things were getting organized.
I paid for my pie, left a generous tip, and walked to the payphone outside.
Ed answered on the third ring.
"It's done," I said. "Mirror's contained. Family's safe. But there's something you need to know."
I told him about Webb. About the confrontation. About the threat.
The line was quiet for a long moment.
"You did right," Ed said finally. "Bringing the mirror here, not engaging. These people hold grudges, but they're usually too scattered to cause real trouble."
"Usually?"
"Usually." A pause. "Watch your back for the next few weeks. Let me know if you see anything suspicious. And Paul?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Good work. I knew you were ready."
The line went dead.
I hung up the phone and stood in the parking lot, watching the last light fade from the sky. The evening star appeared, bright and steady against the gathering dark.
Ready, Ed had said.
Ready for what? Ready for cults and demons and things that went bump in the night. Ready for a war that had been raging since before humanity learned to write, a war between forces that dwarfed anything I'd faced so far.
The drive home took two hours. I checked my rearview mirror the whole way.
Empty road.
But I knew better than to believe I was alone.
The nightmares started that night.
I was standing in a corridor that stretched forever, doors on both sides, each one locked. Light came from nowhere and everywhere, flat and gray, casting no shadows.
At the end of the corridor, something waited.
A figure in black. A nun's habit, I realized with dawning horror. But the face beneath the veil wasn't human—it was absence given form, darkness pressed into the shape of features, eyes that weren't eyes staring into me with recognition.
"Soon," it whispered. "Soon, little anomaly. We are all waiting for you."
I woke gasping, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, the word echoing in my head.
Valak. I knew that name. Knew what it meant. Knew what was coming in the years ahead.
And now it knew me too.
I sat in the darkness of my apartment, Ed's rosary clutched in my hands, and prayed until dawn.
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