A medium helped the FBI in search of a serial killer who was pursuing and terrorized the city.

The city of Oakhaven was draped in a perpetually dark shroud. The rain slipped the paved streets, reflecting the neon glow of the dilapidated bars and the sparkling lamps which project long distorted shadows. Fear was a real palpable entity like a gelatinous mass attached to the fingers, a frightening draft that served in the alleys and clung to the skin. For weeks, a serial killer attacked the inhabitants of the city, leaving behind a trace of terror and a police force of the FBI entering the straws. They called him the "Night Weaver", for the complex cords of strings he left on each crime scene, woven around the victims, a macabre signature that spoke of a twisted and macabre artistic spirit.

The detective Isabella "Izzy" Diaz, a woman hardened by years on force, was held above the last body. The victim, a young librarian, was meticulously placed in a deserted alley, the sparkling rope under the weak light. Izzy passed a hand through her short and black hair, the familiar frustration that simmer in his intestine. The night weaven was always one step ahead, a dancing ghost on the verge of their perception.

"Something, legal medicine?" she asked, the rough voice.

The technique of legal medicine, a young man by the name of Miller, shook his head. "Identical to the others, detective. Clean Kill, no forced entry, no witnesses. Just him and his macabre art." He made a gesture towards the chain, a complex pattern that looked like a furious spider.

Izzy sighed. They had consulted the profilers, the psychologists, even plunged into the occult section of the database, hoping for an index, everything to break the case. Nothing had worked. The night weaver remained an enigma, a nightmare woven in the Oakhaven fabric.

In a desperate decision, chief Henderson, a man known for his pragmatism, had authorized a consultation with a medium. IZZY had made fun of the idea, rejecting it as a stroke of advertising, a desperate attempt to appease a terrified audience. But Henderson had been categorical. "We tried everything else, Diaz. What do we have to lose?"

Thus, Izzy was standing in a room weakly lit in a dilapidated building in the city, facing a woman named Seraphina. Seraphina was an anomaly. Young, with eyes that seemed to endure the weight of the centuries, she radiated with a disturbing calm. She wore a simple black dress and a silver pendant in the shape of a moon crescent. The air around it crackled with an almost palpable energy.

"Detective Diaz," said Seraphina, her soft, but resonant voice. "I understand that you need my help."

Izzy, still skeptical, crossed his arms. "We have a serial killer. It is good. Too good. We need everything we can get."

Seraphina nodded, her unshakable gaze. "I can feel the darkness that surrounds it. It's ... thick. Like a shroud."

"Can you see it?" Izzy asked, trying to keep the skepticism in his voice.

Seraphina closed her eyes, her forehead coming out of concentration. The silence in the room was heavy, punctuated only by the distant groan of a mermaid. After a moment, she spoke, her voice barely a whisper.

"He is ... weaving. Always weaving. But it's not just rope. It's ... memories. Bread. Loss." She shivered. "He feeds on it."

"What's feeding on?" Izzy in a hurry.

"The pain he inflicts. It supports him. He builds something, a tapestry of suffering. "Seraphina opened her eyes, his gaze locks with Izzy." He sees models where others see chaos. He believes he creates art, but all he creates is death. "

Izzy wrote everything, even if part of her still doubted. But there was something about Seraphina, an undeniable authenticity, which listened to it.

"It is attracted to places of strong emotion, places where the tragedy has occurred," continued Seraphina. "He seeks to amplify the existing darkness."

It gave an Izzy break. "How what kind of places?"

"Old hospitals, abandoned schools, accident sites ... wherever pain persists."

An idea sparked Izzy's mind. The old Blackwood asylum. It has been abandoned for decades, a monument decaying to human suffering. It was also located near several crime scenes.

"Blackwood asylum," said Izzy, more for herself than in Seraphina. "How are you."

Seraphina nodded. "I feel a strong connection there. But be careful, detective. It is waiting for you."

Zzy, accompanied by a Swat team, approached asylum under the mantle of darkness. The building swung against the night sky, a skeletal structure of broken windows and ruined walls. The air was thick with the stench of decomposition and a feeling palpable of dread.

Inside, asylum was a labyrinth of corridors and parts, each more disturbing than the previous one. The graffiti have covered the walls, messages scribbled with madness and despair. The silence was broken only by the drop, the drop, the drop of water and the occasional sabat of the rats.

As they moved deeper into asylum, Izzy felt a feeling of growing discomfort. It was as if the building itself was alive, looking at them, waiting. Then they found it.

A large room, bathed in a strange glow of a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the room, suspended from the rafters, was a huge network of strings. It was much more complex than the canvases found in crime scenes, a complex tapestry of knots and models. And in the middle of the web was held a man.

He was large and emaciated, with long and greasy hair and eyes burned with feverish intensity. He wore a dark coat and gloves, and his hands were stained with what looked like ... dye.

"Welcome, detective Diaz," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I was waiting for you."

"You are the Night Weaver," said Izzy, his hand instinctively reaching his weapon.

The man smiles, a scary and disturbing smile. "I prefer to consider myself an artist. I create something beautiful, something significant. The reflection of the true nature of the world."

"You are a murderer," said Izzy, his hard voice. "You twist the pain in a kind of sick art."

"Pain is the most powerful emotion," replied the weaver at night. "It is the raw material of existence. I simply give it a form." He made a gesture to the web. "It is my masterpiece. A tapestry of suffering, woven from the sons of despair."

"It's a monstrosity," spat Izzy.

"You do not understand," said the Night Weaver, his voice rising in the field. "I show the world what it really is.

He took a step towards Izzy and the Swat team moved, their weapons raised.

"Don't move!" Izzy ordered.

The Night Weaver ignored him. "I create the order of chaos. I weave a new reality." He handed his hand in his coat and took out a pair of scissors. "And now, detective, you will be part of my masterpiece."

Before Izy could react, the weaver at night rushed to him, the shiny scissors in the weak light. But Izzy was ready. She bypassed her attack and lifted her weapon, pulling a single blow.

The ball struck the weaver at night in the chest, and he left behind, his eyes wide with surprise. He looked down at the injury, then returned to Izzy, a look of confusion on his face.

"But ... art ..." he whispered, before collapsing on the ground.

The Swat team rushed forward, obtaining the scene. Izzy knelt next to the Night Weaver, targeting a pulse. He was dead.

As she got up, Izzy looked around the room, on the huge rope canvas, with the decomposition walls of the asylum. She felt a cold going down her spine, a feeling of discomfort that lingered even after the Night Weaver. He was right about one thing. There was darkness in the world, an darkness that was hiding under the surface, waiting to go wild.

Back at the headquarters, Izzy was sitting in his office, fixing the file. The night weaver was dead, but the city was still felt tainted, as if its darkness had infiltrated its foundations.

Chef Henderson entered his office, his face grave. "Good job, Diaz. You stopped it."

"He died, chef," said Izzy, his flat voice. "But I don't have the impression that we won."

Henderson sighed. "I know what you mean. This case ... It was different. He was under your skin."

"He was subjected to everyone's skin," said Izzy. "And I don't think it's going to wash easily."

There was a blow to the door, and Miller, the technology of legal medicine, entered. He looked pale and shaken. "Detective, you have to see this," he said, his trembling voice. "We found something in Night Weaver's apartment."

Izzy followed Miller to the legal medicine laboratory, where a large display screen showed images taken in the apartment of Night Weaver. The apartment was a mess, filled with ropes, tools and sketches. But it was a particular element that caught Izzy's attention.

It was a photograph. An old faded photograph of a young boy standing in front of the blackwood asylum. And at the back of the photograph, scribbled in a disorderly writing, were the words: "My masterpiece begins here."

Izzy felt cold going down his spine. The obsession of the night's weaver for asylum had started a long time ago, perhaps even in his childhood. He had been planning this for years, weaving his network of terror, waiting for the moment to release his darkness over the world.

Then Miller spoke of another image. It was a close -up of one of the sketches of the Night Weavers. He represented a woman standing in front of asylum, his face dark by shadows. But Izzy recognized the pendant she was wearing. It was a crescent moon.

"It's Seraphina," said Izzy, her voice barely a whisper.

"We found several sketches of her," confirmed Miller. "It looks like he was obsessed with her."

Izzy felt a wave of nausea on her. Seraphina. The medium that helped them find the weaver at night. But how did she know about it? How could she have led them so easily to doing it?

A horrible thought came to Izzy. What if Seraphina was not only a medium? What if she was something more? What if it was… connected to the night weaver?

Izzy rushed to his office and composed the number of Seraphina. He rang and sounded, but there was no answer.

She grabbed her coat and headed for the door, the spirit of mind. She had to find Seraphina. She had to know the truth.

While crossing the streets soaked in Oakhaven rain, Izzy felt an increasing feeling of terror. The night weaver was dead, but his darkness was still there, lingering in the shadows. And somewhere, in the heart of the city, Seraphina was waiting.

The rain has intensified, blurring the lampposts and obscuring the buildings. Izzy grabbed the steering wheel, his white joints. She led to the heart of darkness, to a network of mysteries and deceptions. And she had the feeling that she was about to discover something much more terrifying than she could have imagined. The real masterpiece was not the chain canvases, but the manipulation of fate, carefully orchestrated by the puppet master who had hidden in sight throughout. The game, made Izzy with disgusting certainty, was far from over. He had just started. 

By Carlos del Puente relatos