Keeper of Darkness and The Mysteries's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

The Keeper of Darkness had one job, and he was failing it. He crouched behind a broken brick wall and watched the ruins. Souls passed through here. He was supposed to see each one and decide where it went next. But from the ground, he saw nothing useful. Shapes slipped between the rubble and vanished before his red glasses could read them. He did not ask for this job. Two Keepers before him quit the same week. Now he understood why. He pulled his bathrobe tight. It kept him warm and nothing more. Through the glasses, the ruins glowed with faint trails. The trails crossed and tangled. He could not tell one soul from another at this height. He needed to look down on the whole field, not up at it. Across the broken ground stood a tall building. Boarded windows. A radio tower crowned its battered roof. The sign still read St Alphonse's Pancake House. A smaller sign named it a raider place now. The roof was the highest point for miles. From there, he would see every soul that crossed. He moved fast and low. A skeletal scout lay against the front steps, dressed in a torn safari jacket and a camouflaged pack. The bones did not stir. He stepped over them and slipped inside. The stairs groaned under his boots. On the second floor, a cracked photo frame hung crooked on the wall. A woman's face stared through the broken glass. The Keeper looked once, then away. He had misread faces before. He did not trust his own eyes without the glasses, and he did not fully trust them with the glasses either. He climbed to the roof. Wind hit him. Below, the whole ruin opened up. The glowing trails spread out clear and separate now. For the first time, he could follow each one from start to end. He could see them. He could judge them. He raised the glasses and started to count the souls below. Then a wet sound came from the stairs behind him. He turned. A shape climbed through the roof hatch. It had the frame of a deer, but wrong. Its ribs glowed orange from inside. Its jaw hung open with teeth no deer should have. The mutant stag stepped onto the roof and fixed one burning eye on him. The Keeper did not move. He had his vantage point at last. He could finally do his job. But he could not do it from the ground, and now something stood between him and the only roof that worked. The stag lowered its glowing head and scraped one hoof across the tar.