Elias Voss

In winter, the damp crept under your clothes, and the air smelled of industrial smoke and wet asphalt. Elias Voss pulled the collar of his worn coat higher. People had a way of ruining even the days when the weather alone was more than enough to put you in a foul mood.

The folder dropped on his desk that miserable Tuesday contained photographs from two murder scenes. Another lunatic? Nothing unusual there. But judging by the evidence, killing his victims wasn't enough for this one. He'd fussed over the bodies, arranged symbols around them, and left behind all sorts of junk, as though he expected someone to appreciate the effort.

The first body had been found in an abandoned warehouse by the docks. The victim had been placed in an elaborate pose, with some intricate pattern drawn in chalk around him. The second victim was discovered in a derelict mansion on the outskirts. A star had been drawn on the floor, and a book lay nearby. A cheap paperback with a battered cover, stained with candle wax.

Elias flipped through the photographs, taking the occasional sip of coffee. The sight of it all made his stomach turn. Not because of the blood—he'd long since gotten used to that—but because of all the ritualistic bullshit.

"Fucking theater kids," he muttered.

He'd dealt with types like this before. Their own lives seemed so pathetic that they went looking for some grand meaning to give them purpose. They bought books on the occult, memorized symbols, performed their little rituals. Being an ordinary person with ordinary problems wasn't good enough for them anymore. They wanted secret knowledge, a sense of being chosen, a connection to forces normal people didn't even think about. And once a corpse entered the picture, the whole thing got a hell of a lot uglier.

Elias turned over the next photograph. Someone had genuinely spent time putting this circus together, and now it was his job to figure out what lay behind it. Did the killer actually believe his own bullshit?