The Vance family manor, now the Oakhaven Historical Museum, was a monument to old money and carefully curated history. Unlike the dusty chaos of the House of Regrets, the museum was immaculate, highly secured, and thoroughly mundane—which made Caleb's job easier in some ways, harder in others. Mundane security systems responded to electricity, not exorcisms.
Caleb stood across the street, in the cover of a small park, watching the building. It was 1 AM. The security detail consisted of two rotating guards and a standard laser grid alarm system that he could see humming faintly in the main exhibit hall windows.
He needed a distraction.
He pulled out his phone and made a call to a burner number he kept for emergencies. It rang once.
"It's me," Caleb whispered into the phone.
A familiar voice replied, slightly muffled. "You owe me big time for this, Thorne." It was Mara. She was alive, just bruised and annoyed.
"I know. I need you to create a localized ethereal anomaly two blocks north of the museum. Something that will pull the guards' attention for five minutes, maybe a weeping angel or a spectral dog fight."
"Make it a spectral dog fight," Mara sighed. "More flair. Five minutes is all you get."
Caleb hung up. He watched the museum's security hut. Exactly five minutes later, a distant wailing started up the street, a sound that seemed to shred the fog itself—the sound of spectral hounds fighting over a spirit bone. It was profoundly unsettling.
The guard in the hut immediately picked up his phone, eyes wide, and yelled orders to the patrolling guard. Both hurried off in the direction of the noise.
"Thanks, Mara," Caleb murmured.
He moved quickly, crossing the street and slipping around the side of the museum. He located a ground-floor window that led into the gift shop. A quick application of a glass cutter and a suction cup, and he had a clean, silent entry point.
He slid inside. The museum was dark, cool, and silent. He moved past displays of antique Oakhaven artifacts and headed toward the main exhibit hall: "The Architects of Oakhaven: The Vance Legacy."
He needed Eleanor’s personal effects display. He found it near the back. It was a glass case containing a few mundane items: a delicate fan, a pair of opera gloves, a small, silver-framed photograph of a stern-looking man (presumably Edmund), and a leather-bound diary, open to a random page of elegant, looping script.
He used a small screwdriver to pop the lock on the case. The alarm system let out a brief, sharp beep before Caleb disabled the local connection with a small electronic jammer he carried.
He grabbed the diary and the photograph, turning the photo over. Nothing on the back. He focused on the diary. He flipped through the pages until he found the last entry, the one that matched the letter fragment he carried:
...The stone has to be moved tonight. I've hidden it beneath the vanity, the same place we used to meet. You must take it to the Asylum Chapel and give it to the only one we can trust now: Father Thomas. The others in the society are compromised.
He turned the page. The rest of the letter wasn't there, but glued to the inside back cover was a meticulously drawn map of Oakhaven, overlaid with fine, red ink lines that formed an intricate web across the city grid. The ley lines. A single spot near the center of the map was circled in red, labeled simply: The Nexus Point. The potential Breach Site.
This was what Julian wanted. The blueprint for destruction.
A sudden, high-pitched static ripped through the quiet museum. The lights flared on overhead, blinding Caleb. The wailing outside had stopped. The guards were coming back.
He shoved the diary and the photo into his satchel, grabbed the Stone from his pocket, and sprinted for the back exit, the red circle on the map burned into his memory. The game had shifted from defense to offense.
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