Paddy's Wake
Chapter 15
The Watcher
The knock on the door wasn’t loud. Just three soft raps. Barely audible. But it snapped Paddy out of the half-sleep he’d been drifting in.
He looked at the clock. 3:33 a.m. “Of course,” he muttered. The numbers had shown up too many times to be coincidence.
He slid off the couch, his service weapon already in hand. Not because he thought someone was coming to kill him—he just wasn’t in the mood for conversation without backup.
Another knock.
He peered through the peephole. No one.
He opened the door anyway. The hallway was empty.
Except for a single white feather. It lay there like it had floated down from Heaven or been left as a warning.
Paddy picked it up, half-expecting it to burn his fingers. It didn’t. Just soft. Light. Real.
He shut the door, bolted it, and stood still for a moment. Something had changed.
The next morning, the precinct felt off. Not in any tangible way—no alarms, no bad calls, no panicked detectives. But Paddy’s gut told him the storm was brewing.
Sal was already at her desk, hair tied back, sleeves rolled, typing like the keyboard owed her money.
“You sleep?” she asked without looking up.
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.”
He poured coffee—finally decent stuff since she took over the pot—and sat beside her.
She tapped a file. “Father Brennan. You’re not going to like this.” Paddy scanned the page. The death certificate said “heart failure,” but the ME’s original notes were different.
Signs of asphyxiation. Petechial hemorrhaging. Broken hyoid. He looked at her. “Strangled.”
Sal nodded. “Then someone changed the record. Weeks later.”
Paddy rubbed his face. “He was a priest.”
“Priests die too. Especially ones who meet with Kray.”
Before he could respond, their Task Force Captain—Rodriguez—stepped in. He looked like he hadn’t slept either. “Both of you. Briefing room. Now.”
The screen in the briefing room showed a map with pins. Cult activity. Sightings. Murders. Rituals. All of it spiraling out from a central point in the city—like spokes on a demonic wheel.
“Someone’s coordinating this,” Rodriguez said. “This isn’t random.”
Sal pointed. “That’s the old seminary.”
Rodriguez nodded.
“Abandoned since the early ’90s. But neighbors say lights have been on. Strange noises. We’ve got permission for a surveillance op.”
Paddy’s jaw clenched.
That place. He remembered driving by it years ago. Gothic spires. Black windows. A stone arch with Latin carved into it.
It gave him the same feeling he got before a shooting—like death was watching.
Later that night, Paddy and Sal parked across from the seminary in an unmarked van. The building loomed like a fortress from another age.
“Creepy as hell,” Sal said. “Literal hell, maybe.”
They sat in silence, eyes on the windows.
At exactly midnight, one flickered. Then another.
Paddy raised the binoculars. Movement. A figure in robes. Hooded. Carrying something.
“Tell me you see that,” he whispered.
“I see it,” she replied.
Another figure joined the first. Then another. A dozen in total.
A procession of silence. And then—something impossible.
The third figure turned toward them. And smiled. Even from across the street, Paddy felt it.
The man was blindfolded. Yet he saw them. His hand rose and drew a symbol in the air.
Paddy felt his stomach turn. His mouth went dry. It was the same symbol from his nightmares.
The Ash Circle.
Sal cursed softly. “We need backup.”
Paddy lowered the binoculars. “No. We go in.”
“You’re kidding.” “
They know we’re here. If we leave, they disappear.”
“Paddy—”
“If we wait, someone dies. I feel it.”
She hesitated, then grabbed her gear. “Let’s end this,” she said.
Inside, the seminary smelled like mold and incense. Old stone and older sins. The air was thick.
Every footstep echoed like a confession. They moved slowly, clearing room by room.
Then came the chanting. Low. Rhythmic. Not Latin.
Not any language Paddy knew—but something ancient.
They followed it down a corridor lit only by flickering candles. At the end: a sanctuary.
Crumbling pews. A desecrated altar. And the twelve.
The cult stood in a circle, surrounding a boy—barely thirteen—bound and gagged, tears running down his face.
A hooded man raised a curved dagger.
Paddy didn’t think. He fired.
The man dropped.
Chaos erupted.
Sal tackled one. Paddy shot another.
The circle broke.
Two figures dragged the boy toward a side door. Sal ran after them.
Paddy followed.
They made it outside in time to see a black SUV peel away, nearly hitting Sal.
She screamed in frustration, then turned to the boy.
He was safe. Shaking. But safe.
Sirens wailed in the distance—Rodriguez had called backup.
Paddy stared at the building.
And saw him again. The blindfolded figure stood at the window.
Watching. Grinning.
Paddy raised his weapon.
The man raised a hand.
Paddy felt an invisible punch to his ribs. Like a Mike Tyson punch that would break a rib. He lost his breath, doubled over in pain.
Then he looked up, the blindfolded man had vanished.
Back at his apartment, Paddy lit a cigar and poured a Tully. And stared at the feather on the table.
He should’ve told the department shrink everything. About the dreams. The visions.
The sense that he was being... led somewhere. But they’d lock him up.
Instead, he opened the flash drive again.
The last folder. Unlabeled. Inside: a single video. He hit play.
It showed him—Paddy—standing over a body in a warehouse. Blood on his hands. But he had no memory of it.
And behind him, in the shadows—stood the blindfolded man. Whispering.
Paddy slammed the laptop shut. There was something inside him he didn’t understand.
And he was starting to wonder if it wanted out.
He bandaged up his ribs. Not telling even Sal what had happened and went to bed.
He fell asleep and the dreams started.