The police boots stomped heavy rhythms into the creaking, rotting wooden floor of the mansion’s “basement”. It was less a basement and more a medieval dungeon, right down to the freaky chambers full of suspicious stains in front of the heavy stone fireplaces, but as far as Vincent was concerned, none of that amounted to the Really Big Problem they were having right in that moment.

The dungeon was fucking empty.

“CLEAR!” Shouted the young police woman as she swept the last room, her voice dropping in pitch as the panic drained out of her voice mid-word.

He figured it was probably at the knowledge that she won’t have to face down another horde of untold horrors (really routine horrors, but that probably didn’t make much difference to her). Practically-speaking though, the absence of said horrors was actually more horrifying. First of all, because it was making him doubt his earlier assessment of the Possession — he was dead-certain that it was a Non-cognizant, but the lack of cognition absolutely necessitated the witch to be somewhere near-by in order to direct her disgusting creation. So either the witch was still around, running loose and unaccounted for throughout the mansion, or he was wrong, and the demon that animated the Posession was actually cognizant (and if it was, ho boy did he have another set of problems… because the First Chant alone was not enough to send said cognizant demon back Down Under where it belonged).

Second of all, as of 10 minutes ago, they were at least reasonably confident that the Untold Horrors would be guarding the bus load of kidnapped children that the town had been trying to locate for the better part of the last 48 sleepless hours. So if the horrors and the children were not here… then where the fuck were they?

He could tell from Lucian’s — particularly puckered — pursed lips that he was going through a similar mental assessment. And considering the silence, he also did not have an answer, because Lucian would pass over a chance to gloat about his superior deductive reasoning.

The old detective’s breathing is heavy as he stomped over to the two exorcists.

“Detective, are you absolutely certain that your team correctly identified this mansion as the base of Aberrant operations?”

Well, if he couldn’t gloat, you could count on Lucian to move on to the next best thing. Figuring out how a problem was everyone else’s fault but his own.

The detective glared at him beneath a pair of bushy, sweat-filled eyebrows.

“We’ve had this place under surveillance for the better part of four months until the kidnapping.” He said, with a slowing lilt to his words like he was trying to keep his voice even. “When we found the empty bus that carried the taken children, there were footsteps inside the vehicle, pressed in with the same red clay dirt that’s predominantly found on the grounds of this estate. It is found nowhere else in the county.”

If Lucian’s mouth puckered even more, it would resemble a cat’s asshole.

“If that was your only clue—”

“Yeah, I’m sure it fuckin’ wasn’t, Lucy.” Vincent cut him off before he could continue on that wild rabbit chase. It wasn’t the time to dissect actions phrased in the past tense. Of course, then Lucian’s eyes fixed on Vincent, and narrowed.

“And that possession you supposedly neutralized? Are you certain it was a possession, and not an apparition? Those smears on your cassock could have come from where you hit the floor. As could double-vision. From, you know — hitting your head.”

At least Lucian had the small inkling of something - decency? humility? - to try and give him an “out” for the “mistake”.

“Lucian, do I look like someone who’s dumb enough to mistake an actual physical object for something that isn’t even fuckin’ corporeal? I swear to the Name in Vain, if you actually used your brilliant observation skills objectively, for once—”

He stopped.

He hit the possession with his staff, the metal tip sinking slightly into the decomposing flesh.

He remembered that.

The flash of light.

The smell of burning decay.

The frantic dance of shadows trying to escape that light…

…And the tail end of something dark, caught in the last shreds of the holy glow, scurrying up the broken staircase.

The suspicious stains in front of the heavy stone fireplaces. Dark stains, fanning out, like soot of scorching demonic flames… and fireplaces, that in mansions like this, inter-connected through the heavy chimney that pierced every floor. Almost like an elevator shaft.

“The top floor.” He said, slowly. “They’ve fled up the chimneys to the fucking attic."