The security footage came in just after dawn.
Jonas hadn't slept—not that he expected to. He was running on adrenaline and cold coffee, perched in the surveillance room at the precinct as grainy black-and-white videos rolled across the monitor. Time-stamped. Quiet. Boring.
Until it wasn't.
"There," he muttered, leaning forward.
The man who entered The Tern at 12:47 a.m. two nights before wasn't a regular. Not by the way he moved. He didn't socialize. Didn't drink. Just stood near the back wall for thirteen minutes, watching. Then left.
And he showed up again the next night. Same behavior. Same corner. Same blank stare.
Jonas replayed the footage and zoomed in. The man's face was partially obscured by the low light and the tilt of his hoodie, but the camera caught his jawline, a glimpse of his cheek. Late twenties. Maybe early thirties. Sharp features. Calm. Cold.
He wasn't here to party.
He was studying people.
Jonas scribbled notes, cross-referencing the timestamps with the bar's logs. Same nights as both victims. But never approached either of them.
"Who are you?" Jonas muttered.
He printed stills of the man's face and added them to his working board. The list of suspects was growing thin—but the questions were growing fat. This wasn't a coincidence anymore. Someone was playing a game, and they were playing it with precision.
Jonas turned to the stack of files Damien had marked up the night before. A red marker circled one name.
Elliot Marlowe.
The guy from the logbook. The same one seen in the footage.
Jonas frowned. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
He pulled up DMV records. Public databases. No priors. No flagged addresses. But something about the name gnawed at him.
He decided to pay him a visit.
11:12 a.m.
Damien's House
Cole was pacing.
"You think he's gonna find him before we do?" he asked, pausing just long enough to catch Damien's expression.
"I think Jonas is about to discover Elliot Marlowe isn't just a random name," Damien said. "He's going to want answers. And when he doesn't find any, he'll start pressing harder."
"Why haven't we eliminated him yet?" Cole asked flatly. "If he's playing with your kills, mimicking your style, shouldn't we—"
"No." Damien cut him off, voice sharp. "We don't even know who he really is yet. He could be bait. He could be a warning."
Cole narrowed his eyes. "Or he could be one of yours. A ghost from back then."
Damien's jaw clenched.
That wasn't something he wanted to consider. Not yet. Not until he was sure.
He looked out the window, rain still trailing down the glass in slow, lazy streaks. "Find him," Damien said. "Before Jonas does."
12:02 p.m.
Elliot Marlowe's Apartment — Downtown
The door was already ajar.
Jonas paused, one hand hovering near the grip of his holstered weapon. He knocked, but it creaked open at the lightest push. Inside, the place was dark. Curtains drawn. The smell of bleach hung in the air, sharp and recent.
"Mr. Marlowe?" Jonas called out.
No answer.
He stepped in, careful not to touch anything.
The apartment was small, but clean. Too clean. Like someone had wiped it down on purpose. A few dishes in the sink, a single toothbrush on the counter, and a couch facing a blank TV.
Jonas's eyes drifted to the desk near the window. A laptop sat open, powered off. A notebook next to it. Handwritten pages.
He stepped closer.
One sentence repeated over and over, like a mantra:
"I am what he made me."
"I am what he made me."
"I am what he made me."
Jonas swallowed hard. On the last line, the writing turned jagged. Angry. The page torn slightly at the edge.
Then came the drawings.
Each page after had crude sketches of crime scenes—some recent, some unknown. But one caught Jonas's eye.
A man, tied to a chair. Throat slit. Tongue on the floor beside his foot.
He flipped another page.
A child. Young. Alone. Staring into a mirror, red ink drawn across the eyes.
Jonas took photos of every page with his phone. Someone had left this here for a reason.
2:45 p.m.
Underground Parking Lot — Unknown Location
Cole found the car exactly where the signal had said it would be.
Unmarked. Black. Tinted windows. A burner phone sat on the driver's seat, ringing the moment Cole opened the door.
He answered.
"Who are you?" he said.
Silence.
Then a voice he didn't recognize—young, soft, calm: "You're his son."
Cole's spine stiffened.
"You've been watching," he said.
"I've been waiting," the voice replied. "You know his patterns. But you've never questioned them. You've never questioned him."
"What do you want?"
The voice chuckled. "To finish what he started. But this time… we do it right. No masks. No lies."
"You're not him."
"No," the voice agreed. "I'm the result of him."
The line went dead.
Cole stood there for a moment, heart pounding in his ears.
Someone wasn't just copying Damien.
They were declaring war on him.
6:30 p.m.
Damien's Office
The precinct was quieter now. The chaos of the morning had settled into the usual hum of evening paperwork and tired voices.
Jonas stepped into Damien's office, still holding the photos from Elliot's apartment.
"I think we've got a serious problem," Jonas said, placing the images on Damien's desk.
Damien picked them up, studying them one by one. The writing. The drawings. The message.
I am what he made me.
He kept his face still, but inside, something broke open.
Jonas watched him closely. "You recognize anything?"
Damien shook his head slowly. "Only the obsession."
Jonas folded his arms. "He knows too much. About the crime scenes. About you."
That last word lingered in the air.
"Why me?" Damien asked.
Jonas shrugged. "You're the lead on the investigation. Maybe he's targeting you. Or maybe he's trying to prove something to you."
Or about me, Damien thought.
Jonas turned to go, but paused at the door.
"You ever think someone out there might be trying to punish you for something?" he asked, almost gently.
Damien held his gaze. "Every day."
Later that Night
Damien sat alone at his desk, staring at the notebook pages again. Each stroke of the pen felt deliberate. Each word aimed like a knife.
Cole entered quietly.
"I spoke to him," he said. "The mimic."
Damien looked up.
"He said he's not just copying you," Cole continued. "He's finishing you."
Damien's voice was quiet. "He thinks he's my legacy."
"What are we going to do?"
Damien's eyes went cold.
"We're going to find him," he said. "And we're going to show him that the original doesn't share his crown."
Because in Damien's world, there could only ever be one devil.
And this imposter had just declared war.