Lexington, Massachusetts — After Midnight
The rain came in sideways sheets, soaking the cracked asphalt of the industrial outskirts like the sky was in mourning. Knox didn't bother to charm himself dry. The cold grounded him. Bella's engine fell quiet beneath a broken streetlamp, its flickering bulb struggling against the dark.
He stepped out, boots crunching against gravel and broken glass, coat flaring like a shadow behind him. Ahead stood a warehouse that had long been forgotten by zoning boards and memory. It sagged under the weight of time, ivy choking its frame, its doors hanging off hinges like teeth knocked loose.
But wards still pulsed on its walls.
Knox paused. Subtle ones. Inverted containment glyphs… set to keep eyes away, not intruders out. Typical.
A silhouette emerged from behind a stack of old crates near the loading dock—slim, sharp-shouldered, wrapped in an oversized bomber jacket embroidered with fading runes.
"Took your sweet time," Moira said.
"Didn't realize we were on the clock," Knox replied, one brow raised.
Moira Callahan. Squib by birth, survivor by necessity. Years ago, she'd worked the black market circuit—risky smuggling, relic trafficking, information brokering. One night gone wrong, and her lungs would've melted if Knox hadn't intervened. Now she moved in the shadows for him, threading through the criminal undercurrent of the magical world so Knox could remain a ghost.
She gestured him inside. "Come on. This place hums louder when you're near."
Inside, the warehouse smelled of rust, rotting paper, and damp spell-rot. Crates lined the walls like tombstones, most broken or pried open long ago. But a small storage office had been converted—runes scrawled around its doorframe, a faint green lantern hanging overhead.
Moira shut the door behind them and tossed a thick canvas satchel onto the desk. "You're gonna want to sit for this one."
Knox didn't sit.
She opened the bag and pulled out a rectangular shard—stone, about the length of a forearm, carved with interlocking sigils so ancient they curled the eyes to look at them too long.
"I pulled this from a locked vault beneath what used to be a MACUSA outpost. Third sublevel. The whole thing was rigged with collapsing enchantments. Got out thanks to your little insurance ward."
Knox's jaw tensed. "The failsafe glyph? You still use that?"
"Every damn time," she said. "I like my limbs attached."
He leaned forward. The sigils seemed familiar in a way that burrowed beneath language. They pulsed faintly—then glowed brighter as his fingertips hovered near.
The system stirred.
[System Notification: Unknown Sigil Resonance Detected]Classification: DemonicPattern Family: GREED (Partial Overlap)
Knox flinched. Moira didn't see the interface, only the flicker of confusion that crossed his face.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Just… déjà vu."
She reached into her jacket and handed him a second item: a folded sketchbook, worn and smudged. "I couldn't carry out the vault walls, so I copied them. These were drawn in blood, Knox. And some of the patterns match the tattoos on your shoulder and left arm. Not exactly. But close enough to raise hell."
He opened the sketchbook. Runes. Swirling lattice clusters. Angular curves that hooked around circular cores—arrangements he'd seen before, etched into his own skin like scars.
But they weren't exact copies. They were like shadows of the same source. Incomplete.
"The witches?" he asked.
Moira nodded. "Salem Pact. What's left of it, anyway. Seven witches, back in the 1690s. Rumor says they survived the trials by forming a pact. Not with demons—at least not back then. It was with each other. A soul-bound tether to share power. It corrupted them. And now?"
She flipped to the last page—a pattern Knox didn't recognize, but his stomach twisted all the same.
"They're hunting something."
Knox's hands curled around the book.
No. Not something.
Someone.
[System Notification: New Quest Available]Title: Echoes of the PactObjective: Trace the recovered lattice sigil to its origin. Determine intent behind the replication of sealed glyphs.Reward: ???
Moira watched him closely. "You've got secrets, Shadowmere. But even you look rattled. What's wrong?"
Knox folded the sketchbook closed and tucked it into his coat. "These sigils… They're part of something I never meant to share. Something I don't understand myself."
She tilted her head. "You think they're copying you?"
He hesitated. "No… worse. I think they've been studying me for longer than I realized."
Moira didn't flinch. "You're the only one I've seen with live runes etched into skin without corruption. That makes you rare. But Knox… if they're trying to recreate your patterns, then they're not just following breadcrumbs. They're building a map."
Knox stared at the stone shard again.
It wasn't random.
It was bait.
They're leaving these behind on purpose.
But why?
He reached inside his coat and withdrew a warded pouch, placing the shard inside. Moira watched him with wary eyes.
"Are you telling me someone wants your tattoos?"
"No," he said quietly. "They want what's beneath them."
[System Notice: Passive Insight Triggered]Observation: External parties are reproducing your sealed cluster glyphs.Hypothesis: Tattoos are part of containment protocol. Source unknown.Status: Latent power clusters dormant. Surface unlocking continues with active exposure.
Knox barely processed the words.
"I need to know where they're going next," he said.
Moira smirked faintly. "Already on it. There's chatter in some of the older Eastern covens—unusual purchases, sacred space requisitions, obscure lunar timing rituals. I'll sniff deeper. But Knox—this isn't some curse-happy teenage circle. This is big magic."
"I know."
She hesitated. "You think you're a target."
He didn't answer.
She walked to a locked drawer, pulling out a final item—a coin-sized medallion with an inverted eye engraved across the surface.
"Found this near the vault entrance. Tied to the counterseal. Might slow down whatever they're building."
Knox took it with a nod.
[Item Acquired: Pactbreaker Charm]Passive Effect: Briefly disrupts mirrored sigil reconstructions. Single-use.
Moira stepped forward. "I'm not just your errand girl, Knox. I was your friend before the world burned weird. Don't go alone."
Knox's voice dropped. "I have to."
Her voice dropped with it. "Then don't die before you tell me why those sigils are moving like they're alive."
He didn't respond.
He turned toward the door, the system's silent hum trailing behind his thoughts.
As he reached the threshold, she called out, "They're not afraid of you anymore, are they?"
Knox stopped.
"No," he said. "They're preparing for me."
And with that, he vanished into the mist.
[System Update: Quest 'Echoes of the Pact' Active]Progress: 1/4 Fragments IdentifiedAdditional Clusters Possibly Involved: UNKNOWN
As Bella pulled out into the fog, the dashboard clock ticked toward dawn.
The Salem Pact had begun their game.
And Knox had just picked up the first piece.