Embedded Files
Some histories don’t stay buried. Beneath moss and marble, Nellie and Sam uncover halls built on secrets, wards that remember intruders, and shadows that refuse to fade.
Word Count: 14k
TW: canon-typical violence. ANGST. brief descriptions of unethical experiments by the Men of Letters. use of mild language.
- - - - - -
Twilight has already begun its slow crawl across Savannah as the Impala eases off the main road. The sun sags low behind the trees, bleeding orange into violet, and the air feels thick enough to drink; humid with brine, mildew, and the faint sweetness of something blooming where it shouldn’t. Cicadas rasping in the darkening canopy.
A cemetery sprawls beyond rusted iron gates, vast and old. Narrow paths wind through ranks of marble crypts and stone crosses. Some of the mausoleums in the lower grounds have sunk unevenly into the soil. Spanish moss drapes over everything — trees, statues, even the angel wings crowning headstones — like funeral veils no one has ever bothered to lift.
Sam kills the engine and sits a moment, listening. The stillness carries weight, as though the grounds themselves have been waiting. He opens the battered notebook taken from the Baton Rouge outpost, its pages warped from damp and crowded with spidery Men of Letters shorthand.
“This isn’t like the Baton Rouge outpost,” he says, thumbing to the marked page. His voice stayed low, like he didn’t want the cemetery overhearing. “It’s bigger, like our bunker. Set up for extended research.”
Nellie leans forward in the passenger seat, flannel already pulled up against the humidity, eyes narrowing at the maze of crypts waiting in the gloom. “And they just buried it here?”
“Men of Letters liked their secrets deep,” he answers, snapping the notebook shut. He swings his duffel over his shoulder. “Problem is, Baton Rouge didn’t leave details. Just ‘beneath the old grounds.’ No maps. No floor plans.”
Her mouth twists. “So, translation: we don’t know what we’re walking into.”
He gives her a steady look, then nods. “Exactly. Could be wards. Could be traps or security systems.”
She crosses her arms. “Comforting.”
He pushes open the driver’s side door, stepping out into the heavy air. The cemetery smells of wet stone and rust. He circles the hood of the car as she climbs down, her boots crunching dry gravel underfoot.
The gate looms before them, its bars streaked with rust, scrollwork twisted and broken. He lifts his flashlight, the beam catching on sigils etched faintly into the posts, weathered almost to nothing, but still recognizable if you know what to look for. He presses a palm to the gate and shoves. The iron shrieks, the sound echoing too long into the maze of tombs and shadows.
“Eyes open,” he says. “No telling what’s active down there.”
She casts a last glance at the Impala, waiting in the dusk like the last safe place they’ll see tonight. Then she pulls her duffel tighter against her and steps through the gate at her uncle’s side. It clangs shut behind them, the sound swallowed quickly by the heavy silence of the cemetery.
Sam flips the Baton Rouge notebook open again, thumb steadying the page against the damp breeze. The handwriting is dense, all cramped loops and tight margins, as if the scribe had been jotting things down mid-mission. Between diagrams of sigils and coded glyphs, one phrase stands out, underlined twice: “Follow the saint who turns his face from heaven. He guards the way below.” He slows, shining his flashlight across the crooked ranks of mausoleums. Their carved façades stare back, angels and saints eroded by time, some faceless altogether.
“That’s what we’re looking for,” he says aloud. “A mausoleum with a saint carved above the door. One that’s turned away.”
Nellie’s eyes track the rows of crypts ahead, her boots crunching on gravel, the only sound in the air besides cicadas. “And if the Men of Letters were screwing with whoever came after them?”
He gives her a look over the top of the notebook. “They weren’t in the business of screwing around. If this made it into their notes, it means something.”
“Comforting,” she mutters, though she angles her flashlight at the nearest row of stone doors anyway.
They stop at the first mausoleum, its door framed by fluted columns. A weathered saint stands guard above, gaze lifted skyward, eyes gone to blank pits of stone.
“Face to heaven,” she says flatly. “Wrong one.”
He nods and keeps moving. They wind deeper through the cemetery paths, the ground uneven, lined with tilting headstones and cracked angels with missing arms. The flashlight beams sweep past names carved so long ago they are little more than shadows in the stone.
At the next mausoleum, the saint’s head is bowed, but forward, toward the path, not away. Another dead end.
She exhales hard through her nose. “This feels like we’re trick-or-treating for ghosts.”
Sam allows the corner of his mouth to twitch, but his eyes keep scanning. “Better than walking in blind.”
The third mausoleum’s carving is too worn to tell, the face broken away by decades of rain and roots. He lingers there a moment, fingertips brushing the rough edge of the stone, before moving on.
They round another bend in the path. The air feels heavier here, the cicadas falling quieter. Their lights pick out a line of crypts set low against a slope, where the ground itself seemed to sag.
And then, there it is. A mausoleum stands apart, its façade cracked but still imposing. A single saint carved into the arch: shoulders squared, head turned sharply to the side, away from the heavens, away from the path. Averted. Guarding.
Nellie stopped short. “That’s gotta be it.”
Sam doesn’t answer right away. He lifts his flashlight, running the beam slowly over the doorway. The heavy stone door is shut tight, edges rimmed dark with damp. The air smells faintly of mildew. The base sits lower than the rest, sunken just enough that a line of moisture marked the stone. Puddles of dark glistened in the cracks of the steps leading down.
He shuts the notebook with a quiet snap. “Yeah. This is the one.” He leads the way, the flashlight beam bouncing off slick walls carved with worn, ancient reliefs. The air cools as they descend, heavy with mildew.
At the bottom, their boots splash into ankle-deep water. The chamber is half-flooded, stagnant pools lapping against submerged columns. Moss climbs the stone, and faint sigils gleam where their light skims across them.
Nellie squints at the dark water. “Great. Just what I wanted. A nighttime swim.”
Sam doesn’t look back. “Keep moving.”
She grins anyway, voice carrying a playful lilt. “I swear, if a kelpie shows up down here —”
He whirls a sharp look over his shoulder, flashlight beam catching her flannel. “Don’t.”
Her grin widens. “What? Too soon? Imagine it: a tombstone kelpie. All teeth and horse legs sticking out of the water. Instant nightmare fuel.”
He exhales, shaking his head as he sloshes forward. “You almost drowned last time. And now it’s a punchline?”
“C’mon, I lived.” She wades after him, deliberately splashing closer, bumping his arm with her elbow. “Besides, you should be proud. I’m developing coping mechanisms. Very healthy.”
He stops, lowering the notebook to give her a long, put-upon look.
She smirks. “Admit it. It was kinda funny.”
For a beat, it’s quiet except for water rippling against stone. Then he huffs through his nose and mutters, “You’re impossible.”
“Family privilege,” she fires back.
He rolls his eyes, but the edge in his shoulders softens. He flips open the notebook again, shifting the focus. “Notes say there’s an entrance down here. Look for anything carved that doesn’t match the rest. Crosses, saints. Anything off.”
She nods, sweeping her flashlight across the walls. The humor lingers in her expression, but her eyes are sharp now, intent.
They split directions, beams cutting twin arcs through the chamber, the banter fading into silence as the weight of the place settles back in. Sam’s flashlight beam sweeps across the chamber wall, tracing rows of carved saints and angels. All but one look skyward, hands raised in prayer.
He murmurs, “Patterns. There’s always a pattern…”
Nellie stays close, her light steady, eyes scanning carefully. “They’re all looking up. Except…” She steps forward, pointing. “That one’s different. Hand over its chest.”
He moves to her side, brushing away moss to reveal a flat stone plate hidden in the carving. “Good catch.”
They separate, moving along opposite walls. The silence stretches, broken only by the drip of water and the occasional splash as they shift positions.
She raises her voice quietly. “Found another. This one’s head is tilted down, not up. Almost like it’s staring into the water.”
He crosses over, running his fingers along the seam. “Two.”
Minutes pass as they uncover more anomalies: an angel with one wing curled inward, a saint with its palm outward in warning.
He steps back, lowering his notebook. “Four symbols. It’s a sequence.”
She studies the chamber again, brow furrowed. “So, we press them? Together?”
He glances at her, considering. “Yeah. But if it’s the wrong order…”
She lifts her shoulders, calm but resolute. “Then we deal with it. That’s what we’re here for.”
He nods once, appreciating her steady tone. He places his hand against the first relief. She mirrored him at the opposite wall.
“One… two…”
They press.
A resounding click echoes, followed by the grinding of stone. Water ripples violently at their feet as a slab of wall slides inward, revealing a narrow passageway beyond. Dark. Half-flooded. Waiting.
She aims her beam into the opening, eyes narrowing. “Well. Either that’s the right way forward… or we just woke something up.”
He adjusts his duffel, expression tight. “Let’s assume both.”
They step through together, the passage swallowing them, the narrow stairwell giving way to a corridor that stretches into pitch darkness. Their flashlights cut thin tunnels of light through the stale air. Carved sigils glimmer faintly here and there, etched deep into the masonry, pulsing with a low hum just at the edge of hearing.
Nellie slows, eyes darting to one of the glowing wards. “They’re still active?”
Sam nods, his light sweeping over the symbols. “Wards don’t need electricity. They’re etched, charged, meant to last decades. It’s why this place is still sealed.” He shifts his beam down the hallway, the darkness stretching on. “But the rest of the grid? Dead. No lights, no archives, nothing. We’ll need to find the electrical room if we want this place running again.”
Her voice drops, cautious. “And until then, we’re blind.”
“Not blind. Just careful.”
They press forward, footsteps echoing against the stone. Each junction reveals more hallways lined with iron doors. Some marked with worn Men of Letters sigils, others blank, their locks sealed tight. The air carries the faint tang of rust and damp stone, oppressive in its stillness.
At one turn, Nellie sweeps her light across a faded sign bolted to the wall, the lettering just barely legible through corrosion: ARCHIVES ->. Another arrow pointed in the opposite direction: <- MAINTENANCE.
Sam pauses, considering. “Electrical room will be near maintenance. Once we get power back, we can map the place properly.”
They move towards the indicated hallway. But as they step deeper, the wards humming along the walls flicker faintly, the sound vibrating in their bones like a warning. Her senses buzz in her head, pulsing at the same beat as the sigils. The silence presses in heavy, until a low thrumming shakes the air, deep as a heartbeat.
She freezes. “Sam…”
All along the corridor, the carved runes that have been faint and steady suddenly flare to life, glowing white-hot. Their hum rises in pitch, vibrating the stone beneath their feet.
His jaw tightens. “The wards aren’t welcoming us in. They’re calling something up.”
The floor quivers. Dust sifts down from the ceiling. Ahead of them, the light pools in a swirl of shadows, shaping itself into a towering figure: faceless, formed of smoke and fractured light, its body stitched together by glowing sigils.
She instinctively steps back, lifting her flashlight as if that alone might hold it off. “What the hell is that?”
“Guardian construct,” he replies quickly, pulling the iron knife from his duffel. His tone was calm but sharp, measured. “The Men of Letters built them.
Manifestations bound to the wards. They don’t let intruders pass.”
The figure looms, a hollow outline that seems both solid and insubstantial, its voice an echo through the hall: “Identify.”
Sam raises his hand slowly, careful not to spook it. “Samuel Winchester. Men of Letters legacy. Authorized.”
The construct hesitates, the glow pulsing erratically, then surges brighter, charging forward as if rejecting the claim.
“Guess it’s not buying the sales pitch!” Nellie shouts, scrambling to the side as the guardian’s arm slams down, cracking the stone floor where she’d been standing.
He shoves her back. “It’s keyed to this facility. We need to find the counter-sigils. Cancel them, or it won’t stop.”
The construct straightens again, light burning hotter in its chest as it prepares another strike. The runes on the walls flare in tandem, responding to its rage.
She swings her beam across the corridor, panic sharpening her focus. “The wards! It’s pulling strength from them. If we break the pattern —”
He glances at her, already moving toward the nearest sigil. “Then it goes down.”
It surges forward, its body flickering between smoke and searing light, arms swinging with the weight of a sledgehammer, each strike rattling the stone floor.
His eyes flick to the runes blazing along the corridor. “It’s an alarm. Feeding it power. We shut down the sigils, it drops!”
She darts sideways, flashlight beam slicing across the construct’s faceless head. It recoils just enough for her to shout back, “Then go! I’ll keep it busy!”
Sam presses a hand to the nearest ward, fingers flying as he traces the etched pattern backward, muttering the cancellation under his breath. The sigil sparks and fizzles, its glow dying. The guardian staggers, flickering. It roars, an echo that rattles in their skulls, and turns on him.
“Hey!” Nellie shouts, her hand shooting out, trying to psychically pull it. There is nothing to hold onto, but the act draws its focus. The guardian’s arm slams down where she’d been standing seconds earlier, shattering stone.
He yanks his knife across another ward, the blade breaking its lines. The sigil winks out. The construct lurches again, its outline breaking apart.
“Almost there!” he barks.
She backs toward the far wall, raising her light like a shield as the guardian bears down on her. “Anytime now, Sam!”
The third rune fizzles under his hand, the glow dying like a snuffed candle. With a final desperate rush, Sam presses to the last sigil and scores it out with the knife’s tip. It lets out a soundless scream as its body collapses inward, smoke imploding into nothing. The wards along the corridor gutter, then go dark, leaving only the beam of their flashlights.
Breathing hard, Nellie leans against the wall. “Still better than fighting a kelpie.”
He shoots her a glare, half warning, half exasperated. She smirks faintly, even as her shoulders sag from the adrenaline dump.
He exhales, sliding the knife back into his bag. “Come on. That was just the door greeter. Let’s get the power back before anything else wakes up.”
They follow the rusted MAINTENANCE arrow deeper into the bunker until the hall narrows, ending in a steel door with flaking red paint. Sam pushes; it groans reluctantly but swings inward to reveal a cavernous chamber. Rows of dormant machinery loom in the dark, their outlines jagged in the sweep of their flashlights.
“Electrical room,” he mutters, stepping inside. The air smells of ozone and oil, even after decades of neglect.
Nellie hovers near the threshold, light trailing over cracked gauges and thick conduits bolted into the walls. “Feels like Frankenstein’s lab in here.”
He nods in agreement. “Here,” he says, pointing toward a panel covered in dust. “Main breaker. If the grid’s intact, this should bring life back to the place.”
He pries open the metal cover, coughing as dust spills out. Inside, the breakers waited, old but intact. He flips one, then another. Sparks crackle. The machinery groans like something waking from a long sleep. A low rumble shakes the floor as generators cough to life. Overhead, a few emergency strips flicker on, painting the room in pale amber light.
She shields her eyes briefly, blinking at the sudden glow. “Well, that’s less creepy. Still creepy, but… progress.”
He checks the meters, nodding. “Power’s running. Now, it’s research time. With how big this place is, we’re probably looking at a full day, maybe two, before we’ve combed through it all.”
She leans against the wall, finally lowering her flashlight. “So, we’re camping here.”
“Yeah. Which means we make this place safe first. No telling what else is still lurking.”
The hum of the newly awakened machinery follows them through the halls, a low vibration running beneath their boots. More emergency lights glow faintly along the ceiling, turning every corridor into a tunnel of pale amber. Nellie keeps close as Sam guides them through turns. At last, they stop before a broad set of steel double doors, embossed with the Men of Letters crest. The handles are stiff, but together they push the doors inward. A breath of stale, dry air spills out, air that has been sealed for decades.
Their flashlights sweep across a vast chamber, and Nellie’s mouth parts in quiet awe.
The walls are lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves sagging under the weight of tomes and journals, their spines cracked, and titles etched in fading gilt. Steel file cabinets stand in rows, orderly even after so many years. At the far end, broad record books sit on slanted lecterns, waiting like sentinels.
Sam steps forward slowly, reverence in his eyes despite the exhaustion tugging at him. “This… this is the Savannah archive.”
She trails a hand along the nearest shelf, fingertips brushing the cool wood. “Feels like stepping into someone’s brain. Every secret, catalogued.”
He gives a faint nod, though his focus stays sharp. “If the Nightshade Coven left traces anywhere, it’ll be here.” He exhales. “Let’s start looking.”
At the center of the room sits a podium, an odd, almost altar-like construction of dark wood and brass. On top of it is something that resembles a typewriter fused with a filing cabinet, with keys and levers gleaming faintly under the warm light's flicker. Strange wires snake down its pedestal into the floor, like roots burrowing deep into the stone.
Nellie tilts her head. “Okay, that’s not ominous at all.”
Sam steps closer, reverent. “It’s… a terminal.”
“A what now?”
“Database interface. Old Men of Letters bunkers sometimes had custom indexing systems, but…” He crouches, running a hand lightly along the brass keys. “I’ve never seen one this advanced.”
She leans in beside him, flashlight beam sliding across the contraption. “This thing looks so damn cool.”
He chuckles faintly, already too absorbed. He sets his duffel down and carefully presses a few keys.
The machine clacks with a sharp metallic snap. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, a pulse of light surges from the base of the podium, streaking across the floor like veins of electricity. Lines race outward, branching along the stone until they reach the shelves. Several books glow faintly in response.
Nellie jumps back a step, eyes widening. “Holy shit, Sam, did you just wake this thing up?”
Before he can answer, a file cabinet drawer on the far side shuddered and slid open with a low groan. Neatly arranged index cards fan upward as though presenting themselves. The two of them stand frozen, the glow of the shelves and the open drawer the only movement in the cavernous room.
His voice is hushed, awe threading every word. “It’s a living archive. You type a query here, and it lights the path to every relevant source. Books, journals, files. Probably even cross-references.”
She exhales, stepping forward to peer at the glowing book spines. “So… haunted Dewey Decimal system.”
He turns, unable to hide his grin, broad, unguarded. “Exactly.”
She shakes her head, lips quirking even as her eyes shine with the same reverence. “And here I thought I loved research.”
He places his fingers over the keys again, almost trembling with anticipation. “Let’s put it to the test.”
The machine hums faintly, waiting.
Sam rests his fingers on the brass keys, his gaze sharp, but boyish excitement flickers in his eyes. Nellie hovers at his shoulder, chewing her lip as though waiting for the podium to lunge at them. He types one word: COVEN. The machine clacks, gears turning somewhere deep in the podium. A moment later, the archive responds.
Dozens — no, hundreds — of lines of light burst across the floor, streaking out in every direction. Entire walls of books shimmer faintly as if chosen, their spines pulsing with faint light. File cabinets rattle, one after another, drawers sliding open with metallic sighs. Cards fanning outward like blooming flowers, each promising another path of research.
Her jaw slackens. “That’s… that’s insane.”
He gives a quiet laugh, incredulous even. “This room has everything. Every coven the Men of Letters ever documented.”
“This isn’t a weekend project, Sammy. This is a lifetime.”
He is already typing again, hands steady with purpose. NIGHTSHADE COVEN.
It responds faster this time. Fewer beams light up, still dozens, but narrow now, converging toward a corner where tomes glow faintly. Across the chamber, only two drawers open, index cards sliding forward like offerings.
His smile falters into something sharper, more focused. “That’s manageable. Still a lot, but… a fraction of what we just saw.”
She follows the glowing path, light dancing in her wide eyes. “Plenty to keep us busy for a long time.”
His gaze lingers on the glowing shelves, reverent but heavy with meaning. “If there are answers about the Nightshade… they’re in here.”
They exchange a quick look, half excitement, half determination, and then wordlessly move in opposite directions.
Nellie’s boots echo as she follows a line of light toward the eastern shelves. She passes rows of dust-laden books until her beam catches the faint shimmer of a chosen spine. She reaches up, tugging free a cracked leather-bound volume, sneezing as a plume of dust curls into the air.
Across the chamber, Sam crouches at a steel cabinet, pulling open the glowing drawer. His flashlight catches the neat rows of index cards, each labeled in the Men of Letters’ careful hand. He plucks out the first stack, fanning through them, his brow furrowing in concentration before tucking them under his arm.
Back and forth they go, following the luminous trails: Sam with his methodical precision, Nellie with her quick, curious energy. Together, they build a growing pile: books bound in fraying cloth, journals inked in cramped handwriting, and records stamped with red wax seals that crack as they are opened.
At last, they reconvene at a massive oak study table near the podium. Its surface is scarred with decades of use but cleared as if waiting for them. Sam lays down the index cards and a thick ledger. Nellie drops her armful of tomes with a soft thump that echoes in the cavernous room. They look at the mountain of knowledge they have assembled; formidable, overwhelming, yet tantalizing.
She pulls out a chair and flops into it, tugging the closest book toward her. “Well,” she says, flipping past brittle pages, “guess we’re officially librarians of the occult.”
He smiles faintly, adjusting the nearest lamp, which is now humming faintly with restored power. “Let’s see what the Men of Letters knew about Nightshade.”
The table quickly becomes a battlefield of parchment and ink. Journals stacked two high, fragile index cards spread in neat rows, spines of tomes groaning as they lay half-open. The lamp’s glow makes the dust swirl like smoke.
Sam traces a finger down a page in a crumbling ledger. “Here. Savannah, 1923. A series of drownings. Victims found in wells and cisterns. No signs of struggle, no evidence left behind. Men of Letters tagged it as aquatic binding, a ritual for channeling energy through stagnant water. Most witches wouldn’t touch something that dangerous.”
Nellie winces, flipping the brittle pages of another book. “And this one talks about — ugh — bone harvests. They’d dig up fresh graves, grind bones to powder, and use it in wards that supposedly couldn’t be broken. No wonder the Men of Letters hated them.”
He nods grimly. “That tracks. Bone, blood, water, anything that blurs the line between the natural and the profane. Obscure, unstable. It’s not just ritual magic, it’s… corruption.”
She pulls out an index card from the pile, squinting at the cramped handwriting. “And look here. Some kind of skin-binding rite. Describes stitching animal hides into charms, but with… ‘unwilling donors.’” She swallows, laying the card down a little too quickly. “Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.”
He leans back, rubbing his temples. “They weren’t just dabbling. They specialized in magic no other coven would touch. That’s why they were impossible to predict. Every case file, every reference. It’s a new pattern.”
She glances at the pile of glowing-marked books still waiting for them. “And all those lives, just footnotes in somebody’s ledger.”
“Which makes it our job to make sure they don’t write the ending.” He frowns at the index card he’s just pulled. “Central Texas. Here it is again.”
She glances up, puzzled. “What about it?”
He slides the card toward her. “Men of Letters flagged the area more than once. Nineteenth century — ritual drownings outside Austin. 1950s — fires near Lockhart, unexplained, suspected Nightshade. Looks like they returned to that region now and then.”
She skims the cramped handwriting, the words sinking in. Her mouth tightens. “So that’s it. They had to be back in Texas at some point if my mom crossed paths with them.”
“Hopefully, we’ll figure out their other normal haunts from these notes. Because then, we will find them and take them out.”
• • •
The hours stretch long, measured in the scratch of Sam’s pen and the soft thud of books closing. Their pile of notes grows, but so do the shadows under their eyes. The archive’s humming lanterns never dim, but the air has gone thick and heavy, reminding them how long it has been since sunset.
Nellie slumps back in her chair, rubbing at her temples. “I swear, if I read one more journal entry about goat bones and ash circles, I’m going to dream in Latin.”
Sam glances at his watch. The hands tell him what his body already knows: it is late. Too late. He shuts the ledger with quiet finality.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he says. “We’ve been at this for hours. If we keep pushing, we’ll miss something important.”
She arches a brow. “You calling a research time-out? Who even are you?”
“Somebody who’s learned the hard way that exhaustion gets people killed,” he replies evenly, gathering the scattered notes into a neater stack.
She looks around at the endless shelves. The idea of sleeping in this place, this cold tomb of secrets, makes her skin prickle. But she isn’t about to admit it. “Fine. But if I wake up with mothballs in my hair, I’m blaming you.”
He gives her the ghost of a smile. “We’ll find a room. These bunkers always had quarters for their members. Cots, at least.”
They leave the table behind, their footsteps echoing down the silent hall. Doors line the corridor, most locked tight, but one creaks open into a narrow chamber with iron bunks bolted to the walls. Dust coats the mattresses, but the space is intact. Safe enough.
Nellie throws her duffel onto a lower bunk, grimacing. “Luxury accommodations. Really rolling out the red carpet.”
Sam sets his bag down, checks the door lock, and sits heavily on the opposite bunk. For a moment, neither speaks. The silence isn’t awkward, just weighted, like the bunker itself is holding its breath.
He finally breaks it. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we go deeper.”
She lies back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the wards in the walls. The bunk creaks every time she shifts, the thin mattress smelling faintly of dust and iron. Across the room, Sam’s breathing has already leveled out into the steady rhythm of sleep. She envies that, his ability to just shut it off.
But her own head won’t quiet.
She stares up at the ceiling, watching faint lines of ward-light pulse through the stone. The archive room still lingers in her mind. The glowing trails, the typewriter that hums like it is alive, the shelves answering questions like an oracle. She’s never seen anything like it. For a second earlier, she’s even forgotten the danger. Just pure awe at how much knowledge the Men of Letters have hoarded here. And what they’ve already uncovered… centuries of whispers about the Nightshade. Rituals that twisted flesh, bones, and blood. Patterns across states, decades, lifetimes. Every page they pull back shows just how deep the coven’s claws went.
Her chest tightens. The more they learn, the clearer it becomes. This isn’t just another hunt. This coven is bigger, older, and crueler than anything she’s imagined. And she is dragging Sam right into the middle of it.
Sam.
She turns her head, watching him in the dim light. He looks older when he sleeps, the weight of years carved into the lines around his eyes. She knows he has people waiting for him. A wife. A son. A life that doesn’t revolve around crumbling bunkers and coven ledgers. And here she is, tethering him to her mess. To the echoes of her mother’s failures. To a coven that already knows her name.
She rolls back onto her side, pulling the thin blanket over her shoulder. She presses her eyes shut, willing the thoughts away. Tomorrow, she tells herself. Tomorrow they’d find answers, maybe even a way to cut the Nightshade down before the coven can hurt anyone else. But the question gnaws anyway, sharp and cruel as the dark: what if chasing answers costs Sam everything he already has?
• • •
The mattress might as well have been made of stone. Every time Nellie drifts off, she jolts awake again. Dreams snapping her back into the dark, ears tuned to the hum of wards deep in the walls. Sam’s steady breathing across the room only makes her feel more restless.
Finally, Nellie gives up.
Careful not to wake him, she slides from the bunk, pulling on her boots, and creeps into the hall. The corridor’s air is cool and dry, like the bunker itself has been holding its breath for decades. Her flashlight beam bobs across locked doors and stone arches until the path widens again into the archive chamber.
The room greets her in silence, except for the faint mechanical tick of the podium at its center. Rows of shelves still stand waiting, books and ledgers still haloed faintly from the hours they had spent combing through them. She lingers at the podium, fingertips brushing the cool keys.
They’d asked about covens. Witches. Obscure rites that warped skin and bone. And the system had answered. But a thought tugs at her now, unbidden: "What about people like me?"
The bunker was built to track occult networks, not individuals. Still, the Men of Letters had filed away everything: names, sightings, experiments. If they’d catalogued covens, wouldn’t they also have filed research on psychics?
Her throat tightens. She knows what she risks finding. Maybe lists of “subjects,” maybe experiments. Proof that her abilities make her a curiosity, a threat, or worse, an expendable tool.
And yet… she can’t stop herself.
Nellie slides her hand over the typewriter. The keys gleaming up at her in the dim light, waiting. One word whispers in her mind, her hands hovering above the keys: PSYCHICS.
She hesitates, her pulse thrumming in her ears. Then she types out the word.
The machine gives a soft clunk and then goes dark. The faint light lines that had traced through the shelves wink out like dying embers, leaving only the dim hum of the bunker’s emergency lamps.
Nellie leans back, pulse still hammering. “Figures,” she mutters. “Guess psychics didn’t make the cut.”
She starts to rise, ready to head back before Sam notices she is gone, when a sharp snap echoes behind her.
She freezes.
Across the archive, three card catalogue drawers have creaked open on their own, the metal slides groaning with age. Inside, index cards stick up like little white flags in the dark.
Her boots scuff quietly as she crosses the floor. She plucks the cards one by one, frowning at the tidy typewritten codes. No names, no subjects. Just numbers. File numbers.
Her gaze drifts toward the farthest wall, where towering cabinets loom. Each drawer is labeled in the same blocky system.
“Of course,” she whispers. “You don’t give answers. You give directions.”
The rows seemed taller tonight, swallowing her as she wove between them. Dust scratches her throat, the air smelling faintly of iron and mildew. She counts the drawers until the sequence matches the card in her hand. The metal handle is stiff, but it yields with a rasp. Inside sits a row of file cases, thin and uniform, stamped with those exact sterile numbers.
Nellie slides one free. It is lighter than she expected, but the weight of it still makes her stomach knot. She sets the box atop a nearby shelf, flipping the lid, and draws out the first folder.
Its pages crackle faintly as she turns them. At first, they read like everything else in the archives: routine case reports, written in the clipped, sterile voice of the Men of Letters.
“April 12, 1952 — Philadelphia. Ritual dismantled. Three coven adherents neutralized.”
“October 9, 1968 — Natchitoches. Host entity banished. No collateral damage reported.”
Dates, places, outcomes. Nothing special.
Then, deeper in, a page shifts tone. Narrow margins, faint notations along the edges.
“Subject demonstrated unusual perception of ritual elements not visible to others. Recommended observation.”
Another: “Precognitive intuition suggested. Subject directed field agents toward successful interception of coven ritual.”
She frowns, brow furrowing. These aren’t about witches. These are about… people.
She keeps going, faster now, the words making less sense the further she reads.
“…deployment successful. Subject indicated path of occult movement. Containment achieved.”
“…sensitivity to coven gatherings confirmed. Subject able to locate hidden assembly point ahead of schedule.”
Her eyes narrow. “Subject indicated.” “Subject able to locate.” The notes read like… assignments. As if whoever these “subjects” were had been — what? — in the field? Helping track down witches?
She skims a block of dense, clinical text: “Recommendation: subject-type is to be considered viable adjunct in occult detection. Maintain observation for further use.”
Nellie blinks, heart thudding harder. Adjunct? Detection? She doesn’t recognize the language exactly, but it sounds cold. Utilitarian.
The pages blur in her hands, and for a sick second, she imagines herself tucked into one of these files, flattened down into typewritten margins. Not a person, not Nellie. Just “Subject.” She snaps the folder shut, hugging it close, confusion and unease knotting in her stomach.
She slides the folder back into its box, but the tightness in her chest won’t ease. The drawers still gape open across the archive, as if the place itself is daring her to keep looking. She returns to the podium, cards clutched in her hand. The machine sits dark and inert, yet when she rifles through the remaining index cards, one catches her eye. Another sequence of numbers. Different section.
Her boots whisper against the stone floor as she moves toward the opposite wall of file drawers. She matches the number and tugs. The drawer screeches as it opens, revealing another neat row of boxes. The second set of files feels heavier. She sets one down, flipping it open. These are even clearer.
“…Subject guided agents toward coven site before ritual completion. Deployment considered a success. Recommendation: repeat strategy in future engagements.”
“…Psychic subject’s sensitivity narrowed search radius by 43%. Containment of occult activity achieved with reduced casualties.”
Her stomach lurches. This isn’t just observation. This is strategy. They hadn’t just studied psychics. They’d used them. Tools. Trackers. Pointing the way toward covens and occults, like bloodhounds following a scent.
She rubs her eyes, the words crawling under her skin. Was that all she is, too? A compass needle swinging toward the weird?
Another note catches her eye at the bottom of the page: “Cross-refer to CONTROL ROOM for extended case files and experiment logs.”
Nellie freezes, staring at the phrase. The Control Room. She hadn’t seen a door marked that way yet, but she can picture it. The kind of place the Men of Letters would keep their real records, the ones they don’t want anyone stumbling across. Her thumb smears faint dust across the margin as she retraces the words, unable to stop rereading them: “…Subject demonstrated sensitivity to occult gatherings. Field agents deployed accordingly. Containment achieved.”
Her chest tightens. The next page is worse. Clinical as a scalpel, detailing percentages, success rates, and strategies. Psychics as assets. As if people like her are little more than dowsing rods for blood and fire.
She doesn’t hear the footsteps until the flashlight beam cuts across her shoulder.
“Nellie.”
She jumps, snapping the folder half-shut. Sam stands a few feet away, hair mussed from sleep, his expression sharp but shadowed in the low light.
“What are you doing down here?” His voice isn’t angry, just concerned, low and steady. The kind of tone that makes it impossible to lie.
She swallows, clutching the folder tighter. “Couldn’t sleep.” Her voice cracks around the edges. “So I… I figured I’d look around.”
His gaze drops to the file in her hands. “That doesn’t look like just ‘looking around.’ What did you find?”
She turns the folder toward him, almost shoving it like proof. “They — these guys — they used people, Sam. People like me. They sent psychics out to sniff for covens and the occult, like they were some… some kind of hunting dogs.”
He steps closer, gently taking the folder before she crumples it in her fists. He skims the notes, his jaw tightening. “And you’ve been down here alone with this?”
She shrugs, but her eyes are wet. “Yeah, well, the machine spat out the cards, and I followed the trail. Guess I should’ve just left it. But then I saw…” She gestures helplessly at the file. “How do you not read that?”
He closes the folder, setting it carefully on the nearest table. His hand rests on her shoulder, grounding. “I get it. But you don’t have to carry this alone, okay? Whatever they did, whatever they thought people like you were good for, it doesn’t define you. You’re not a tool. You’re my family.”
She tries to look away, but her breath shudders. “They even mentioned a place with the bunker. The Control Room. Said there are more files there.”
His brow furrows. “The Control Room?” He squeezes her shoulder lightly. “Alright. Then we’ll find it. Together. But right now…” He gives her a soft, insistent look. “… You need rest, Nellie. Whatever’s in these files, it’ll still be here in the morning.”
But Nellie’s whole body resists, vibrating with restless energy. The hum of the bunker, the wards, the half-lit corridors, the strange pressure in the air, had been crawling over her nerves since they walked in. Now, it is worse. Her skin prickles like the place itself is whispering at her.
“Sam,” she rasps, voice rough from holding it in too long. “I was already having a hard time sleeping. My head was buzzing before I even opened this thing. Then I find this —” She shoves another file against his chest, the pages trembling. “You think I can just shut it off? Pretend I didn’t just read about people like me being sent out like… like bloodhounds?” Her throat tightens, the words spilling out before she can stop them. “If I lie down now, I’ll just see it again. Every word. I need to know what’s in that Control Room.”
Sam studies her, his face shadowed by the unsteady beam of the flashlight. His silence stretches long enough that her heart hammers harder, like maybe he’d tell her she isn’t ready, that she’ll have to wait.
Finally, he sighs, quiet but heavy. “You sound just like your dad right now. Once Dean caught the scent of something, there was no talking him down.”
That lands hard. She blinks, chest tightening. “Guess I come by it honest.”
His mouth tugs into a faint, sad smile before settling again. He gently pulls the folder from her grip and lays it back on the table with the others, neat and careful, as though it might bite.
“Alright,” he says. His voice drops low, serious. “We’ll look. But we do this together. You don’t run off alone, and you don’t burn yourself out. You stay with me.” He lets the words hang a moment, weighted. “I already lost my brother. I’m not losing you, too.”
She swallows, throat thick. Her nerves still buzz, but his words ground her enough to nod. “Then let’s find the Control Room.”
The archive door sighs shut behind them, leaving the rows of card drawers in shadow. Sam swings the flashlight in a slow arc, the beam catching faded signs bolted to the walls: ARCHIVE, STORAGE, MAINTENANCE, arrows rusted and half-faded with age.
“Control Room isn’t listed,” he mutters, frowning. “Figures.”
“Because it’s the place they don’t want you finding.” Nellie’s voice is tight, her senses already prickling at every turn. The wards still hum in her head like a faint electrical buzz, louder the deeper they go.
He glances at her. “You feel something?”
She rubs her temples. “I’ve felt it since we walked in. Like the air’s thicker here. The files just made it worse.”
He nods, adjusting the beam. “Alright. Systematic. We take it one hall at a time. Look for anything unmarked, sealed, or warded heavier than the rest.”
They move slowly, boots echoing off damp stone. Each corridor they chose leads past rows of iron doors; some are labeled in peeling paint, while others are blank and locked tight. At each junction, Sam makes quick marks in a weathered notebook pulled from his jacket, sketching out a crude map.
“If we keep left every time,” he comments, “we’ll cover the outer loop before moving in.”
The halls feel endless. Pipes rattle somewhere overhead. Every so often, a flicker of emergency lighting glowed weakly to life, throwing jagged shadows across the walls before sputtering out again.
After nearly thirty minutes of searching, they stop at a crossroads where three corridors split like veins into the dark.
Sam crouches, brushing dust off a half-broken sign bolted into the wall. Only one word was still visible, scratched deep into the metal like someone carved it by hand: CONTROL.
They exchange a look.
“Guess we found it,” Nellie whispers.
He tightens his grip on the flashlight, his voice low but certain. “Stay close.”
They start down the corridor together, the silence pressing heavier with every step. It narrows the deeper they go, the ceiling pressing lower, the air stale. It ends in a heavy iron door, green with corrosion but still intact.
She freezes before they reach it. Her breath hitches, and her hand flies to her temple. The pressure slams into her head like a migraine blooming behind her eyes.
“Sam…” she says, backing up a step. “It’s here. I can feel it.”
He raises the flashlight, sweeping it over the door. The beam catches faint scratches carved into the frame. Circles within circles, lines intersecting, symbols that shimmer faintly even in the dim light. Wards. Dozens of them. Some look fresh, with the etching still sharp, while others have been reinforced over time, layer upon layer of protection. The whole door thrums with a low, vibrating hum, like a tuning fork pressed to bone.
Sam sets his palm lightly against the metal. It hums under his touch, and he pulls his hand back at once. “Yeah. You’re right. This is it.”
She presses her knuckles against her brow, willing the buzzing to quiet, but it only worsens the closer she looks. The sigils seem to swim in her vision, like they are alive, trying to crawl off the surface and into her skull.
She takes a shaky step closer. “Why would they lock it up this tight? If it’s just files —”
“It’s not just files,” he cuts in, his voice steady. “Whatever’s behind this door, it mattered. To them. Maybe too much.”
The words sink into the stale silence between them. She stares at the door, her stomach twisting with equal parts dread and determination.
“Then we need to open it,” she says.
He looks at her, the flashlight beam catching the steel in his eyes. He nods once. “Yeah. But carefully. This kind of warding, if we mess it up, it won’t just stay shut. It could lash back.”
He crouches low, studying the sigils like puzzle pieces. She stays rooted, the psychic hum digging deeper, making her sway slightly where she stands. He pulls a piece of chalk from his pocket, the stub worn down to the nub.
“Alright,” he mutters, more to himself than her. “Most of these look like reinforcement loops. Cancel the wrong one, and it’ll feed the others. We need to find the keystone.”
Nellie crouches beside him, her skin already crawling from the psychic hum. The wards seem to pulse with each beat of her heart. “I can… feel some of them,” she whispers, eyes narrowing as she traces the symbols. “Like pressure points. That one’s… dull. That one’s sharp. But here —” She points to a circle intersecting three others. “That one’s loud. Too loud.”
Sam follows her finger, studying the etching. “Makes sense. If that’s the anchor, the rest are drawing from it.”
He digs out a small vial of blessed oil, uncorking it carefully. “I’ll trace counter-sigils over the keystone. Once it breaks, you’ll probably feel it snap. Tell me if it shifts before I finish.”
She nods, swallowing hard. Her palms are clammy, but she keeps her eyes fixed on the tangled lines.
His hand is steady as he works, sketching careful curves with the oil, whispering under his breath.
She sucks in a sharp breath. The hum in her head spiking, then dipping. “It’s fighting back,” she hisses. “But, yeah, you’re close. Keep going.”
The chalk hisses faintly against stone as he draws the final stroke. The air in the corridor shudders. One by one, the wards around the door gutter and go dark, the shimmer fading like embers snuffing out.
The pressure behind her eyes vanishes so suddenly she gasps, staggering back. “Oh God. It’s gone.”
He caps the oil, rising to his feet. “Not gone,” he replies, voice low. “Dormant. A door like this doesn’t stay shut by accident. Whatever’s in there, they wanted it locked away for a reason.”
She steadies herself against the wall, jaw set. “Guess we’re about to find out why.”
The heavy door creaks wide, and a rush of cold, stale air rolls out, smelling faintly of oil and dust. Sam raises the flashlight, its beam sweeping over rows of metal consoles, switchboards, and observation glass clouded with age.
It isn’t a war room. It is a lab.
Tables stand in neat rows, their surfaces littered with restraints, worn clipboards, and the remains of machines whose purpose isn’t immediately clear. Electrodes dangling from cracked rubber wires, a reel-to-reel recorder half-buried under a tarp.
Against one wall is some sort of compact armory. At first glance, it looks like weapons, but as Sam steps closer, the light reveals something worse. The cabinets are filled not with blades or guns, but with tools: iron implements whose purposes aren’t obvious, their edges worn with use; jars cloudy with age, containing unidentifiable matter suspended in liquid; bundles of dried herbs bound with string, their labels long since faded. Sigils had been painted on the glass fronts in a rusty red, as if to warn or to bind.
But what stops them both is the doors.
Half a dozen, set into the far wall like cells. Thick, windowless, each with a narrow observation slot no bigger than a hand.
Nellie freezes on the threshold. The buzzing under her skin roars back, worse than before. It isn’t just the wards, it is the room. Every instinct screams at her to turn back, to leave it locked.
Her voice is tight, almost breaking. “I don’t… I don’t want to be in here.”
He turns immediately, scanning her face. “Then we don’t have to.”
She shakes her head, clenching her fists. “No. I need to know what they were doing. What they were doing.” Her eyes flick toward the cell doors, the weight of them dragging at her chest. “If I walk away now, it’ll just eat me alive.”
She forces herself across the threshold, each step heavier than the last, her stomach knotting against the aura pressing in from the walls. The Control Room seems to thrum around her, like the echoes of a hundred unspoken thoughts, trapped and waiting.
Sam eases open the first door. It groans on its hinges, and the beam of his flashlight cuts across a small, claustrophobic chamber. Instead of a cot or even chains, there is only a bolted-down table and a steel cabinet pushed against the wall. The cabinet’s drawers hang slightly ajar, stuffed with yellowing folders stamped with the Men of Letters insignia.
He pulls a drawer fully open and draws out a stack. “Case files,” he murmurs, thumbing through pages scrawled in tight, clinical handwriting. He freezes, then hands one to Nellie. “Here. Look.”
The page is a log. Experiment dates are lined in neat rows. Beside them: Subject A, Subject B. No names. Just designations. Observations coldly detailed “psychometric readings,” “empathic bleed,” and “failures.”
Her stomach turns. “They weren’t just tracking people,” she whispers. Her eyes flick down the columns, the words blurring together until one line sears itself into her brain: “Subject C provided sustained energy output sufficient to catalyze minor ritual. Expired during trial.”
Sam’s jaw tightens as he skims another folder. “They used them. Not just to sniff out occult activity. They were catalysts. Guinea pigs. Pushed into rituals to see if psychic energy could… boost results.” His voice is low, laced with a hint of disgust.
Nellie’s hands shake as she presses the folder shut. “Subjects.” She spits the word, her throat raw. “That’s all they were to them. Tools to burn out, or threats to put down.”
Their flashlights sweep deeper into the row of doors. One by one, they push them open. Each room is different, but the story is the same. The second door reveals a narrow chamber where the concrete floor had been scored with sigils. Ritual circles etched into the stone so deeply that the grooves still catch dust. In the center, metal restraints are bolted into the floor, their leather straps cracked with age. A faint, reddish-brown stain darkened the grooves. She doesn’t need him to tell her what it is.
Her breath hitches. “They… they sat people here. Made them hold it together while they ran their experiments.”
His jaw clenches, but he keeps moving, flashlight steady.
The third door groans open to a cell stripped bare except for a toppled chair and a shattered glass jar in one corner. Whatever it once held had long since seeped into the floor, leaving a warped, black stain. Carved into the wall behind the chair are fingernail scratches, shallow but frantic, like someone had tried to claw their way out.
Another door reveals nothing but silence and shadows, until Sam angles the beam down. The corner was marked by a burned circle of chalk and ash, as though a ritual had been attempted here and abandoned. The circle isn’t perfect; parts are smudged, blurred by a hand or a struggle.
Nellie shudders, her eyes darting across the mess. “They didn’t just test psychics. They burned them out. Used them until they broke.”
The Control Room seems to breathe around them, heavy with what it remembers. Each door opened is another weight dropped onto her chest, pressing her deeper into the abilities she’d inherited but never asked for.
Sam finally closes the last door, his expression grim. “This place was never meant to be found. And now I see why.”
She moves back into the heart of the Control Room like she can’t quite stop herself, like some magnet inside her chest drags her forward even though every part of her screams to run. Her boots scuff against the concrete as she passes a table stacked with case files. She grabs the top folder with shaking hands, half afraid of what she’d find.
The pages are brittle, yellowed, and the ink is applied in sharp, angry-looking strokes. A diagram sprawls across the paper: restraints rendered in clinical detail, cuffs drawn tight against arms and ankles. Below them, sketches of human forms. The figures aren’t shaded like people. They are blank mannequins, canvases. Over their pale outlines, sigils are scrawled across throats, ribcages, foreheads, hands, wrists, and ankles. The lines aren’t delicate symbols; they are brutal brands.
Her breath shudders. “They… they tattooed the spells into their skin.”
She turns the page, and her stomach lurches. This one shows the same outline, but the notes scrawled along the margins spoke in flat, clinical language: “Test subject responded with increased potency; duration limited; subject expired during third cycle.”
Nellie’s hands shake harder.
Sam shifts, his face shadowed in the flashlight glow. “Nell —”
She doesn’t hear him. Her gaze locks on something half-hidden under the papers: a steel instrument, narrow, almost elegant in its shape. She picks it up without thinking.
Pain detonates behind her eyes.
Not hers, someone else’s. A needle driving into soft tissue. A mind screaming, voices breaking inside skulls until they go silent. The echo of it slamming into her, bright and unbearable, and she cries out, stumbling. The tool clatters from her hand and rings across the floor.
She gasps, pressing her fists against her temples. It isn’t just a tool. It is an executioner’s wand dressed as a doctor’s toy. A weapon sharpened not for demons, not for monsters, but for people like her.
Sam starts forward, his voice urgent. “Nellie.”
“Don’t!” Her voice is raw, cracking on the word. She staggers back from him and toward the desk again. Rage boils up through the nausea, hotter than the fear. She grabs a sheaf of notes and hurls them across the room. Pages burst into the air and drift down like dead leaves. Her breaths come fast and shallow. She seizes another jar, one cloudy with age, and pitches it into the wall. Glass shatters, the sharp scent of old herbs and rot spilling into the air. The sound cracks like thunder in the silence.
She wants to break everything. Every vile paper, every tool, every damn sigil scrawled across the walls. Burn it until the Control Room is nothing but ash. She sweeps her arm hard across the table, scattering more files, sending folders spilling onto the floor in a storm of dust and paper.
“Subjects,” she shouts, her voice shaking. “That’s all they were. Tools to bleed out. Things to strap down until they broke!” Her throat closes, and her eyes burn. She grabs another rusted piece of equipment and throws it with a ragged cry. It slams into the corner, pieces skittering across the floor.
Sam’s voice rises again, steadier now. “Nellie, stop. It’s not you. It’s not —”
But she can’t. Her whole body trembles, her hands curling into fists as she shakes her head violently. “They didn’t even see them as people! Just… just experiments. Notes in the margins. Failed attempts. Dead ends.” Her voice cracks on the last word, breaking into a sob. She presses both hands to her face and staggers toward the door.
He moves, but she shoves past him, boots pounding against the floor. “I can’t —” Her voice comes muffled, choked. “I can’t stay in here.”
The hallway swallows her in shadow, her footsteps echoing, ragged with fury and grief. She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t dare. If she stays one second longer, she knows she will rip that room apart with her bare hands or collapse in the middle of it.
The door slams behind her, the echo ricocheting down the dark corridor. She staggers to a halt halfway down the hall, pressing her back to the wall. She wraps her arms around herself like she can hold in the quake rolling through her chest. The tears come hot and fast, spilling before she can even choke them back.
Sam catches up, breathless, flashlight beam jittering across the stone before he steadies it. “Nell —”
She whips around, eyes blazing, her voice raw. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s okay!”
He freezes. He’d seen Nellie tired, seen her scared, seen her cracked open by grief. But never like this. Rage and anguish pour out of her in one storm, tears streaking her face even as her fists clench.
“I felt it,” Nellie snaps, trembling. “Every single thing they did in there, I felt it. Like they shoved it all into my head at once. Like they… like they strapped me down too. And I can’t get it out, I can’t —” Her voice breaks into a sob, and she buries her hands in her hair, pulling like she can tear the echoes loose.
He steps closer, steady but cautious, like approaching a wounded animal. “Nellie… hey. Look at me.”
She shakes her head violently, words tumbling out ragged and fast. “They didn’t even think we were people, Sam. Just subjects. Just… test cases. They carved into them, branded them, bled them dry and wrote it down like it was nothing.” She slaps her hand against her chest. “And I felt it! Every scream, every tear, every damn second. It’s still in me!” Her knees buckle, and she slides down the wall, curling into herself, sobs shaking her frame.
Sam drops beside her without hesitation, the flashlight rolling across the floor and casting jagged shadows. He doesn’t try to hush her. Doesn’t tell her to stop. He just presses a hand against her back, grounding, solid.
“You’re not them. You’re not what they wrote down. You’re here. With me.”
Nellie’s shoulders tremble as she drags in a breath that comes out as a growl. She scrubs her face with the heel of her hand, smearing tears into streaks. “Don’t — don’t you pity me, Sam. Don’t you dare.” Her voice cracks, fury laced through every word, though her eyes glisten.
He shakes his head, calm but unflinching. “It’s not pity.”
“Yes, it is!” she snaps, fists balling at her sides. She surges to her feet, pacing a jagged line in the narrow hallway. Her boots slap against the concrete, each step a desperate attempt to outrun the tremor in her chest. “You’re looking at me like I’m… like I’m broken. Like I can’t handle this.”
His gaze tracks her steadily. “You’re not broken.”
She whips around, tears spilling fresh. “Then why does it feel like I am?” Her voice cracks again, raw and hoarse. She presses her fists to her temples, trembling. “Why does it feel like I’m splitting open with all of it? Like I’m drowning in screams that aren’t even mine?”
Sam steps closer, slow and measured, until he is within arm’s reach. He doesn’t touch her, not yet. “Because you felt it. Because you’re carrying more than anyone should. That’s not weakness, Nell. That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”
Her jaw clenches, tears streaming unchecked now. She glares at him through blurred eyes. “I don’t want to be the strong one! Not this time!” The words tear out of her, ragged and childlike. Her hands, shaking and defiant, finally press against his chest as if to shove him away. Yet they linger there, faltering.
He doesn’t flinch. His voice stays low, steady. “Then don’t.”
Nellie’s breath hitches. The anger that had been holding her up drained all at once, leaving her trembling. With a sob that breaks her down to the bone, she collapses forward into him.
He catches her without hesitation, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in tight against his chest. She shakes with every breath, her fists twisting in his shirt like she is terrified to let go.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, one hand bracing at the back of her head, the other firm across her shoulders. His voice is a steady anchor in the storm of her sobs. “You’re safe. You’re here. I’ve got you.”
She buries her face against him, tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt as her body heaves with raw, unrestrained grief. For the first time in a long time, she lets herself be small, lets herself be held.
Sam closes his eyes against the burn in his own, holding on as tightly as she needs, letting her pour out every scream and sob until there is nothing left but the sound of her breaking heart echoing in the dark hall.
For a long while, Nellie just clings to him, her cries tapering off into ragged breaths. The tension in her frame slowly eases, though every now and then another tremor passes through her shoulders. He doesn’t let go until she shifts, until she finally pulls back, wiping at her damp face with shaking hands. Her eyes are rimmed red, lashes wet, but there is steel under the exhaustion.
He studies her a moment, then speaks gently. “Nellie… what do you want to do?”
Her brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean right now,” he says softly. “We’ve still got work to do, but you don’t have to be the one to do it. You’ve got options. You could head out to the Impala, wait for me while I finish up the research.” He pauses, weighing her expression. “Or you could stay in here, keep helping me dig through these files. Whatever you choose… You need some rest, too. Either in the bunks or out in the car. You’ve been running on fumes.”
For a beat, she says nothing. Just stands there in the dim hallway, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.
Finally, she shakes her head, jaw set. “I don’t want to wait in the car.” Her voice is raw, but firm. “I don’t want to lie down, not yet. I want to help finish this. And then I want to get out of here. I can’t —” She swallows hard. “I can’t stay in this place any longer than I have to.”
He nods slowly, relief flickering in his eyes at the certainty in her tone. “Okay. We’ll finish what we need, then we’ll go. No more dragging it out.” He reaches down, retrieving the flashlight from where it had rolled across the floor. He gives her one last look before angling the light back toward the hallway, towards the archive. “Then let’s get it done.”
The library has settled into its eerie stillness while they were gone, dust motes spinning in the cone of Sam’s flashlight as the two of them get back to work. Nellie perches at a table stacked with folders, her face pale but resolute. She forces herself forward, eyes tracing references to Nightshade across decades: ritual blueprints, whispered warnings, accounts of disappearances in towns that no one remembered.
At the far table, Sam stops. A single slip of yellowing paper is tucked into the back of a folder, scrawled in cramped handwriting. He reads it twice before exhaling. “Nellie.”
She looks up, wary. “What is it?”
He lays the slip flat in the light: “Coven-related materials too dangerous for open storage. Restricted. Vault access required.”
Her throat tightens. “Vault?”
He nods slowly, scanning the note again. “If Nightshade material made it into restricted storage… there’s got to be something useful in there. Something we can’t find out here.”
For a moment, her stomach churns. The word restricted conjures images of wards, cells, and the oppressive psychic hum she felt in the Control Room.
His eyes soften. “Listen. After what you went through… You don’t have to come. I can track it down myself and bring back whatever we need. You deserve a break.”
Her jaw clenches. “You think I can just sit here? Pretend I didn’t see that? Pretend it’s not about them and not about me?”
He starts to protest, but she cuts him off, voice sharp even through her exhaustion.
“No. If it’s Nightshade, I’m coming. You’re not doing this without me.”
For a long second, the only sound is the flicker of lamp light. Then he gives a slow nod. “All right. Together, then.”
Armed with the scrap of paper and a rising sense of purpose, they leave the archive room and begin combing the bunker’s corridors. Their boots echo down the stone halls as they pass rows of rusting doors and peeling signage.
“Keep an eye out for anything sealed, reinforced,” Sam says, running his flashlight beam over walls as though a hidden outline might reveal itself.
They search for nearly an hour, testing doors that open into supply closets, locked storage, and hallways that loop back on themselves. Nothing fits the description. No heavy vault doors. No sealed chamber humming with wards.
Frustration begins to creep in. Nellie kicks at the floor with the toe of her boot, muttering, “Figures. Big scary note about a vault, and it’s like the damn thing doesn’t exist.”
He presses a hand to the wall, frowning. “I don’t think it’s that simple. If they wanted it restricted, they wouldn’t exactly slap a label on it.”
They circle back, eventually returning to the library archive where stacks of files and the typewriter still wait in silence.
Sam drops into a chair, running a hand through his hair. “All right. We missed something. If there’s a vault, it’s not out in the open. That means it’s catalogued differently.”
Nellie frowns, eyeing the typewriter system. “The Men of Letters loved their codes and their weird filing tricks. Maybe the vault isn’t even marked as ‘vault.’ Maybe it’s hidden in the index.”
He nods, leaning forward. “So, we let the archive tell us where it is.”
Her stomach turns at the thought of feeding another query into the system. Still, she squares her shoulders and moves toward the typewriter anyway. The keys gleam dully in the library’s half-light, as though waiting for her touch.
She hesitates, then glances back at her uncle. “Guess we ask the magic eight ball where they’re keeping their secrets.”
He gives a grim half-smile. “Let’s see what it says.”
With a clack, she begins typing: VAULT ACCESS.
The typewriter gives a mechanical shudder, keys twitching as if an invisible hand presses them. The two words clatter out onto the yellowed paper feed. Then silence.
She frowns. “That’s it?”
But just as the words leave her mouth, a faint rumbling creeps through the stacks. Somewhere behind them, wood scrapes against wood.
They turn together, flashlights swinging. One of the massive card catalogue cabinets has come to life. A drawer halfway up the wall slides out with a groan.
Sam approaches carefully, running the light over the drawer’s brass handle. He glances back at Nellie. “Guess that’s our answer.”
“Yeah, because drawers totally open themselves.” Her voice is dry, but her stomach knots as she steps closer.
He wraps his hand around the handle and tugs. It comes all the way out with a final creak, and then the floor shudders beneath their feet. A grinding noise echoes through the library, ancient gears straining after decades of silence. Slowly, a square of the stone floor just a few feet away sinks inward, revealing a recessed platform. Dust sifts up in lazy clouds as the panel locks into place, exposing a narrow staircase that spirals down into darkness.
Their flashlight beams skim over the first few steps, stone worn smooth with use. Beyond that, the light is swallowed whole. The air that rises from the passage is colder, older, and carries a metallic tang like rust.
Nellie hugs her arms around herself, the hair on her neck prickling. “They buried it under the library.”
“Hidden in plain sight,” Sam says grimly. His eyes linger on the gaping stairwell. “Makes sense. No one would stumble on it by accident.”
She tries for a shaky joke. “Unless they really, really needed to reshelve a card.” The smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
He offers a small smile to her, his voice steady. “I’ll go first.”
She shakes her head, already stepping forward. “We go together. That was the deal.”
The stairwell winds down farther than either of them expects, each step echoing off the stone walls until the sound feels endless. The deeper they go, the colder the air grows, thick with a copper tang that clings to the back of their throats. At last, the passage levels out into a narrow antechamber. The flashlight beams sweep over carved stone and heavy ironwork until they stop on what looms ahead: a massive vault door, set into the wall like the sealed heart of the bunker. The Men of Letters crest is emblazoned across its face, brass dulled by age but still unmistakable. Around it, etched into the stone and metal, are layers of warding sigils, some glowing faintly with a residual charge, others blackened from use. The overlapping lines aren’t decorative; they are protection spells, warning glyphs, and layered locks all woven together.
Nellie takes one step closer and winces. The buzz starts in her temples, a low-level static that intensifies the longer she looks. “They didn’t want anyone opening this.”
Sam circles the perimeter slowly, examining the carved inscriptions. His fingers hover over grooves filled with dried resin and ash. “These aren’t just wards. They’re puzzles. Some of these are designed to cancel each other out if you know the sequence. Get it wrong…” He gestures toward a scorched patch of stone near the floor. “…you trigger whatever’s left.”
She squints at the crest. Several sigils have been etched around it, each with a blank space or missing line, like half-finished keys. “It’s… like a riddle. You complete the marks in the right order to undo the wards.”
He gives her a sharp look. “You can see that?”
She shrugs, uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze. “I don’t know how… I just… feel it. Like pieces missing from a song.”
He nods slowly. “Then we’ll work it out. Carefully. One at a time.” He crouches near a couple of the sigils. “This one’s protective, but if you finish the wrong line, it twists into a binding hex. Which means —”
She cuts in, pointing. “— you pair it with that one, three layers over. They cancel out.”
He gives her a half-smile. “Good eye.”
It becomes a dance: Nellie senses the “pull” of each incomplete mark, while Sam cross-references from memory and notes, ensuring they align with the Men of Letters systems rather than a trap. One by one, they complete the missing lines with chalk, the wards dimming and fading as though finally put to rest. When the last sigil fades, the crest glows faintly, and a low mechanical click echoes from deep within the door.
Sam steps back, shining the light along the seam. “That was just the wards.”
From the base of the crest, a panel slides open, revealing a strange array of levers and dials, along with an intricate gear-lock mechanism. The craftsmanship is unmistakably Men of Letters: equal parts safe-cracker’s puzzle and occult riddle.
He leans in, brow furrowing. “Combination lock, Men of Letters-style. Three levers, each tied to a rotating dial of symbols. We need the right sequence.”
Nellie tilts her head. “I can… feel when it’s wrong. Like pressure behind my eyes. If you turn them slowly, I can tell you when they line up.”
He gives her a sharp nod. “Then let’s do this.”
The chamber fills with the groan of shifting gears and her shallow breathing as he carefully moves each dial, waiting for her to flinch or nod. After several tense minutes, the last lever locks into place with a satisfying thunk. The crest flares once, then dims. The entire vault door shudders and begins to roll open on unseen tracks, grinding loudly in the silence. A cold draft rushes out from the widening gap, carrying the smell of dust, iron, and something faintly sour, like the remnants of long-forgotten rituals. The door reveals shelves, row after row stretching into the dim chamber, stacked neatly with file boxes, leather-bound tomes, glass jars sealed with wax, and artifacts swaddled in faded linen. The place looks more like a private collection than a forbidden chamber of horrors.
Sam steps inside first, flashlight sweeping across the orderliness. “Figures. Men of Letters never could resist their filing systems.”
But Nellie lingers at the threshold. The moment the stale air hits her skin, her stomach turns. To him, the vault looks tidy. To her, it vibrates with a sickly chorus of energies:
A dagger wrapped in cloth but pulsing with a hunger so sharp it feels like teeth dragging across her nerves.
A jar that hums faintly, the energy coiling like smoke, whispering against the edge of her hearing.
Entire shelves of files that radiate a prickling, anticipatory heat, as if the very paper inside remembers what had been written.
She presses a hand to her temple. “Sam… these things aren’t just artifacts. They’re… alive. Every shelf is screaming at me in a different voice.”
He turns back, concern in his eyes. “Can you handle it?”
Her jaw tightens. “If this is what they locked away, then yeah. I need to handle it.”
He hesitates, then nods, letting her lead.
She steps across the threshold. The moment her foot touches the stone floor, the buzzing under her skin shifts, like the vault has recognized her. They move slowly down the first aisle, Sam shining his beam across boxes stamped with inventory codes while Nellie drifts a step behind. She tries to keep her eyes on the shelves, but it is like walking into a chorus where every voice sings a different note. Jars, books, and relics, all resonating in her senses.
Then something tugs.
Not a sound. Not even a thought. More like a subtle tightening in her chest, pulling her forward as though a cord had caught around her ribs.
Nellie stops, breathing hard. “Sam.”
Sam turns, instantly alert. “What is it?”
She doesn’t answer right away. She lets the pull guide her, feet carrying her deeper between the rows. Each step narrows the focus until all the background noise falls away, leaving only one steady pulse ahead.
Her hand trembles as she reaches for a low shelf. There, nestled in a plain wooden box, lay a polished, semi-flat stone about three inches in size, its dark surface flashing with veins of iridescent blue when the light strikes it.
He crouches beside her, eyes narrowing. “I think that’s a scrying stone.”
Her throat tightens. “Like Camille said we’d need.”
He leans closer, angling the flashlight. The color catches again, dark, shifting, like trapped fire under ice. His brows furrow. “That’s… labradorite. That’s not normal. Usually, they’re made of obsidian, jet, or quartz. Stones that channel clean, focused energy.”
She drags her gaze away from the strange gleam. “So, what does it mean if this one isn’t?”
Sam’s jaw works, his voice low. “The Nightshade Coven specializes in obscure rituals. Maybe a scrying stone from labradorite is what we need to use to find them.” He straightens from his crouch, flashlight beam fixed on the stone. Its blue veins catch the light in restless flickers, almost like it is breathing. “Alright,” he says firmly, tone leaving no room for argument. “Go upstairs to the library. In the green duffel, there’s a warded bag. Bring it down here.”
Nellie hesitates, eyes darting between him and the stone. “You’re not planning on touching it, are you?”
“I’m not planning on letting it sit here, either,” he replies. “We need it contained.”
Her lips press thin, but she turns on her heel and hurries back the way they’ve come. The air in the vault seems heavier once she leaves, the shadows pressing closer, as though the stone knows its chosen audience has slipped away. She returns a couple of minutes later, handing Sam the bag, runes stitched carefully into its canvas. He nods his thanks, tugs his flannel loose from his arm, and wraps it tight around his hand.
“Here goes.”
With deliberate care, he reaches into the wooden box. The instant his fingers close around the stone, a faint vibration thrummed through the fabric, as if the thing is straining against the barrier. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t let go. He moves quickly, lowering the stone into the warded bag. The canvas gives a faint shudder when it hits bottom, then stills.
She exhales slowly. “It’s quiet.”
“Only because the wards are holding,” Sam says, cinching the bag shut. He grips the bag tightly in his hand and gives her a reassuring glance. “We’ll figure out how to use it safely. Until then, it stays in here.”
“Fine by me. I don’t need some skipping stone to give me weird dreams.” But, despite her humor, she can’t shake the way the pull hasn’t disappeared; it just shifts, settling into her bones like an echo.
The vault door seals shut behind them with a low, final groan. They climb the narrow stairs into the library, going back to the table with all their research material. Both start stacking files and journals to take with them. Nellie carefully straightens out a thinner pile of papers, pages brittle and yellowed with age. One of the sheets slips slightly, and her eye catches on a line of faded type.
She slows, lips parting. “Sam.”
He stops, instantly alert. “What?”
“Not danger. Just… look.” She holds the file out, pointing to the section near the bottom of the page.
The Men of Letters notes are clipped, clinical: ‘Subject encountered during coven gathering. Female, late twenties, American, dark hair pinned back. Demonstrated proficiency in concealment rites and ward disruption. Escaped initial detainment attempt.’ Her finger presses against the final line: “Her name is Solene.”
Sam reads it twice before exhaling sharply through his nose. “So, she wasn’t just a name in Eleanor’s book.”
She shakes her head, throat tight. “They saw her. Wrote her down. They knew exactly who she was.”
His gaze lingers on the description. “And she was dangerous enough to evade them. That means she wasn’t on the fringe. She was central.”
The words echo inside her chest. Solene. The same name she’s already seen whispered in her mother’s book, woven into coven rosters and rituals. A name that keeps resurfacing, no matter how far back they dig.
“Which means,” Sam says, “if the Nightshade’s still active… odds are she is too. This isn’t just research anymore. It’s a lead.”
Her gaze flicks higher up the page. A date is stamped neatly at the top: March 12, 1938.
Her throat tightens. “Sam… these notes. They’re from the thirties.”
He leans closer, eyes narrowing as he reads. His jaw tightens.
She whispers, “That was almost a hundred years ago. Is it even possible she’s still alive?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah. Witches can learn to stretch their lives, sometimes unnaturally long ones. And with the kind of obscure magic the coven dabbled in?” He exhales through his nose. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Solene is a lot older than we think.”
She hugs the files tighter, unsettled. It isn’t just a name anymore. It is a shadow reaching across decades, one that had slipped the Men of Letters’ grasp and might still be out there, watching, waiting.
His tone is steady but grim. “If she’s survived this long, she’s not just some coven member. She’s central. And that makes her dangerous.”
The lamps in the library flicker as if on cue. She shivers. Not just dangerous, she thought. Enduring.
They finish gathering their research into neat stacks, careful not to leave anything behind.
On their way back to the entrance of the library, both slowed almost in unison. The podium sits waiting in the middle of the room, the typewriter keys gleaming faintly in the dim light. The drawers of the card catalogue are closed now, silent, as if the whole thing has gone dormant again. But as quickly as they slowed, they continue out of the archive, retracing their steps through the quiet corridors, their footsteps echoing off the stone. The emergency lights flicker occasionally, as though the bunker itself is watching them go.
When they reach the mausoleum stairwell, Nellie hesitates, glancing back one last time. The silence presses heavily behind them, full of unanswered questions and history too vast to carry.
Sam catches her look and gives a slight nod. “We are one step closer to ending this, Nell.”
She lets out a slow breath, then follows him up the narrow stairs toward the mausoleum doors and the night air beyond.
It is still half-flooded when they return, the water dark and cold around their boots as they splash their way back through. Sam pauses at the hidden mechanism one last time, making sure the panel slides firmly back into place. With a low grind of stone, the stairs vanish, leaving nothing but smooth floor and a row of silent coffins.
“Looks like it was never here,” Nellie murmurs, her voice hushed in the still air.
He gives a small nod, double-checking the seam with a hunter’s eye before he is satisfied. “Good. Better it stays that way.”
They push open the heavy mausoleum doors and step out into the graveyard. The air hits them like a baptism, damp and cool, threaded with the faint pink light of morning. Fog clings low to the headstones, curling around the angels and crosses as if the cemetery itself is still asleep.
She draws in a deep breath, shoulders loosening. “Feels weird, seeing daylight again.”
He adjusts the strap of his bag, giving her a faint smile. “It does that.”
Together, they cut across the rows of graves, their footsteps muffled in the wet grass. The Impala sits where they’d left it beneath a bare oak, black metal gleaming faintly with dew. A quiet sentinel waiting for them.
She glances back once, eyes scanning the fog that rolls lazily between the stones and crypts, before sliding into the passenger seat. The bunker is buried again, its secrets sealed. But she can’t shake the feeling that it hasn’t let them go; it has only allowed them to leave.
The Impala’s engine rumbles to life, low and steady, a familiar sound against the quiet of the cemetery. Sam grips the wheel, eyes on the road ahead, but before he can shift into gear, Nellie slumps back against the seat.
Her voice comes out hoarse with exhaustion. “Sam… can we just… find a motel? Just for a little bit?”
He glances over, caught by the raw look in her eyes: tired, drained, shadows clinging under them. She isn’t asking for luxury, just a place that doesn’t smell like damp stone and blood in the mortar. A place where she can be something other than a hunter or psychic. Just herself.
His grip on the wheel eases. He studies her a moment longer, then gives a faint nod. “As long as you actually sleep this time, I’ll find us a motel.”
Her mouth twitches into the ghost of a smile. “Deal.”
Sam turns the Impala onto the gravel road leading out of the cemetery, the rising sun stretching long shadows across the headstones. The car rolls forward, carrying them toward something softer than wards and archives, if only for a few hours. For the first time since stepping into that mausoleum, Nellie lets her eyes drift shut.
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