I. IGNITION

Scott Ferriman awoke at his desk, bolting upright and guarding his neck. In his dream–or nightmare, really–long, slender claws had reached forward to tear into his throat. He remembered the howls of feral nightmares shift into cries of glee. They were joined by the rumbling of many legs, and Scott had been consumed where he stood.

In ripping, wet agony.

He wanted to fight. To run. It took him a moment to realize he’d fallen asleep in his office. He panted heavily, almost sobbing as his vision cleared. The twilit husks of his dream were replaced with the first rays of dawn rising over Detroit skyscrapers. 

He released the death grip on his own throat and used his hand to shield his eyes. He squinted, slowly sat back in the chair, and focused on controlling his breathing. His heart rate finally began to slow and, once he felt able, he rose slowly to close the blinds against another August sunrise. He crossed the room and paused momentarily at the window to take in the dying Detroit skyline. Dawn splashed against derelict skyscrapers, bathing the earth below in flares of pinks and oranges. Small shapes moved about on some of their balconies. The city was waking. Other balconies, however, were now overgrown with plant life, an unfortunate after-effect of war and pestilence, sadly.

This was a city built for millions. It was now being reclaimed by mother nature—just withered bones under the dried skin of a dead city.

He loved it here, this fading metropolis…withered bones and all. 

He closed the blinds and returned to his desk, checking for a newspaper that wasn’t there.

That’s right, Scott thought to himself, Mrs. Post is out for the week.

He wasn’t sure how they’d manage without their mysterious office manager. She seemingly knew what they needed before they asked for it. Now they’d have to fend for themselves for seven whole days while she left on her yearly post-summer retreat.

Anvil’s gonna staple his tie to his desk somehow, now that she’s out.

He moved to the front door to retrieve the morning paper. He passed through the inner door to the office, walked past Mrs. Post’s empty desk, and bent at the outer door to grab the paper. He looked up and down the hallway, still bent over, noticing the smattering of papers at the other doors. More than a few had small piles of them growing like fungus underneath their numbered thresholds. 

He stood up, then froze mid-spin as his eyes caught the paper’s headline. 

‘Mystery in Blue’ the headline screamed in bold serif, followed by another small subheading, ‘Police Cruiser Abandoned, Officers Missing’. 

Scott picked up the paper and skimmed the article, an unwelcome sensation entering his marrow. He absently shut the door to the outer office marked “Hammer and Anvil: Private Investigators.”

The feeling grew in rancor as he continued to read. It wormed its way through his body until it prickled and rose over his skin like gooseflesh. He barely registered that he’d crossed the small expanse of office until he sat back at his desk. The article consumed his vision as he read.

“…witnesses stated they saw bright lights from their windows in the late hours of Thursday night, followed by rhythmic thumping. Strange animal noises were also reported by others in an area approximately eight blocks from One Woodward. This correspondent has confirmed that power surges were documented in that same area—at the same time. Detroit Power Authority said no issues were reported at any nearby power stations—."

His phone buzzed in his pocket, ripping his attention from the paper. It was Ink, their handler. He quickly answered, still holding the paper in his other hand, and pressed the phone between his shoulder and his ear. “Hey, Ink,” he answered, flipping to the continuation page, “Yeah, I just saw it…yeah, we’ll be there… ok…out.” He let the phone be taken by gravity, feeling it plop into his lap as he turned his attention back to the paper. “Shit,” he murmured, flipping to the next page, “What fresh hell is this?” 

If Ink was interested enough to put them on the case, then he needed to know more. He read on. 

“The police cruiser,” the article went on, “was found empty on a rainy Motor-City Street just outside of One Woodward—stripped of all contents. Its radio, weapons, and even the remnants of day-old coffee, were suspiciously missing from the vehicle’s interior. ‘What truly baffles investigators,’ Authorities in city hall stated, ‘is the acute absence of anyone witnessing the odd occurrences in the night, nor anyone hearing the approaching sirens or lights from the cruiser itself.’ The mayor, in a not-so-subtle nod to her re-election campaign, blamed state officials for the delay on a lack of public service funding. Furthermore—.”

“What’s the paper say?” 

Scott jumped. He hadn’t heard his partner come in. 

Trevor Morrigan sat fiddling with a glass paperweight he’d snatched from Scott’s desk. It contained dust sized specks of gold, emerald, sapphires and rubies, with a large black pearl at its center. It was supposed to represent their galaxy and had been a gift—one Scott kept meaning to throw out.

He let the painful thought go and dropped the morning paper on his desk. “They found a police cruiser picked clean off Broad Street,” he said, rummaging for the Tylenol he kept stashed in the top drawer. He let out a small grunt of victory as he found the bottle, dumped a pile of pills onto his tongue, swallowed, then continued hoarsely, “No cops though. Witnesses heard something, but no one saw anything. Ink wants us to go poke around.”

His partner rose, rubbing his eyes. “We’ll need to stop for coffee; I haven’t slept for shit lately.”

“Tell me about it,” Scott grunted. He hadn’t divulged his dreams to his partner, but Trevor was beginning to suspect something was eating at him. Between the dreams and the divorce, the telltale signs of fatigue were beginning to show on Scott’s lightly tan skin. 

He hit the head, and looked in the mirror as the toilet flushed. Dark bags hung from sunken eyes, and his usually tamed hair hung in brown wisps across his forehead. He washed his hands, using the water from them to brush the locks back into a somewhat manageable pile. 

He needed a haircut.

“Alright,” he said to Trevor, switching off the light to the office restroom and grabbing his coat from the back of his chair, “let’s go see what we can make of this shitshow…”

Trevor split his attention between the police scanner and the radio, looking for something semi-decent to listen to as they cruised through a ghost town. Detroit looked no closer to recovering than it had when rats had been considered a delicacy in the worst days. A viral outbreak—followed by waves of EMP’s from foreign “allies”— had diminished the population and had only recently begun to recover. The Northern War had been hard fought, but Americans were once again feeling brave enough to venture into the upper territories. 

Scott had been in the academy at the time, along with Trevor and their orator, Rake. They had never experienced the bitter metallic taste of rodent stew, though many of their classmates had. They spoke of it in hushed tones, praising their rescue at the hands of Primacy recruiters and saving them from hungry bellies and leaky roofs. They had been called to a higher purpose, earning better rations and living conditions.

They hadn’t known that the cost of a better life would be that of a higher mortality rate. 

Scott was pulled from those thoughts as the LTD dipped violently into the mouth of a cavernous pothole. The worn-out leaf springs on the old chariot groaned, and the two enforcers were bucked and thrown about the interior of the old car. 

 “Christ, watch the road, dickhead,” Trevor cursed, holding the handle above the passenger door in a death grip, “I thought you were going to scrap this old shitbox, Hammer?” 

“Nah, thought better of it, Anvil.” He stroked the dashboard lovingly and cooed to her, the engine purring in knocks and misfires. He turned back to Trevor, eyes hardening, “If you’re not satisfied with our mode of transportation, you’re more than welcome to take the bus.”

“Alright, alright,” said Trevor, holding his hands up placatingly, “no need to be sensitive.” They rode on in silence, letting the knocks and creaks of the LTD serve as the music of their journey.

They arrived, finally, to a bustling crime scene. Scott shifted the LTD into park just outside the boundary of police tape and grumbled his dissatisfaction. Investigators milled about the area, doing their best to piece together evidence from a cesspit of trash and debris. 

They exited the old Ford and stood in place for a few moments, surveying the scene at a macro-level. 

Layers of graffiti covered crumbling buildings. Some of the structures were scorched in places, set ablaze by vandals then haphazardly extinguished by discontented firemen. Across from them were the sentinels of homes just outside the first downtown neighborhoods. Torched and gutted and left to rot in the sun, trash lay scattered in heaps across their small parcels of land, left behind by passing vagrants and the wind blowing off Lake St. Claire. 

The whole area smelled like rotting garbage and urine. It was one of the better neighborhoods in the area.

Scott turned back to the apartment buildings, craning his neck to the side in curiosity.  The relative cleanliness around the properties of the apartments compared to the housing were out of place for this part of the city. 

Trevor tapped his arm. “Are you noticing the ground here, Hammer?”

His partner had noticed it, too. “I was just thinking the exact same thing.” Scott answered.

“Last time I was down this road,” Trevor continued, snapping pictures with his phone, then stepping under the tape labeled do not cross to enter the crime scene. “You could barely see the concrete here. The street sweepers usually stick to the nicer parts of Detroit and avoid shitholes like this.” He stopped and held the tape up for Scott. “So, what happened here?”

Scott ducked under. “Good Samaritan, maybe?” 

“Right,” Trevor rolled his eyes, letting go of the police tape. “And Sickle lost her eye to a ferret.”

Scott chuckled, then quickly rummaged through a passing trashcan with a pen. He wondered what that Primacy zealot was up to, and envisioned her working over a lackey with a masonry hammer and a blowtorch. 

Knowing Sickle, Scott thought, that’s exactly what she’s up to.

“It’s more than that.” Trevor went on, looking up furtively at the towering apartment buildings “it feels like we’ve got eyes on us, only these feel heavy…oppressive, even.”

Scott had noticed it too; a presence he couldn’t quite make out. He thought it had just been his imagination, but he swore that whatever it was, it felt hostile, seething and, somehow, vaguely familiar. “Keep your eyes out for Skinwalkers.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “…or selkies.” 

Trevor chuckled. “Or your ex-wife.” 

Scott glowered. “Shut the fuck up, Anvil.” 

They approached the first two crime scene investigators. He didn’t want to think about Dhelilah, so he plastered on a fake smile and nodded to the CSI agents. “Morning, fellas. I’m agent Armond Hammer, and this is Agent Cleveland Anvil.” 

They flashed their badges–courtesy of the FBI–and waited for what they knew would follow.

“Wait,” The first investigator said, trying to hide a smirk under his thick blonde mustache. “Armond Hammer? Like Arm and Hammer?”

“Yeah.” Scott faked a look of embarrassment, putting away his credentials. “My mother hated me from birth.” 

 “Your mother?” Trevor scoffed “Mine named me fucking Cleveland.” 

They all laughed. The idiotic banter made the locals feel like the “bureau boys” were real people, and it certainly made it easier to get information from the outset of the operation. So, because of its resounding success, Scott and Trevor used it as often as possible. 

CSI gave the Primacy agents the rundown of the crime scene, showing them the empty police cruiser and going over the paltry clues left at the scene. So far, the only evidence they could safely conclude is that there was no indication of struggle within a three-block radius. 

Scott was combing through the backseat of the cruiser when a voice drawled from behind him, familiar and syphilitic. “What the fuck are you clowns doing here?” 

Scott winced.

“Great,” Trevor’s head popped into the cruiser from the other door, rolling his eyes in exasperation, “the local Dicks are here.”