Daniel stared through the windshield.
The farmhouse stood exactly where the motel had been.
Same broken porch.
Same sagging roof.
Same dead oak tree beside the driveway.
Even the old red mailbox was still leaning toward the road.
Nothing had changed.
Not in twenty-two years.
Daniel looked at the dashboard clock.
2:13 A.M.
Still.
He shut off the engine.
For several seconds, he remained completely still.
Then he looked at the passenger seat.
The black book was gone.
Daniel searched the floor.
Nothing.
He checked the back seat.
Nothing.
"Of course."
He grabbed his flashlight and stepped outside.
The rain had stopped.
That frightened him more than the storm.
The farmhouse stood silently beneath a cloud-covered moon.
Daniel walked toward the porch.
Every step brought back something he'd spent years trying to bury.
The swing where his mother used to sit.
The kitchen window where his father would stand after returning from a hunt.
The wooden post where Daniel had carved his initials when he was twelve.
He stopped at the front door.
There was no lock.
The door opened before he touched it.
Daniel raised his pistol.
"Dad?"
Nothing.
He stepped inside.
The smell hit him immediately.
Dust.
Wood.
Old smoke.
And something metallic underneath it.
Blood.
Daniel swept his flashlight across the living room.
The furniture was still there.
The couch.
The fireplace.
The photographs.
His childhood photographs.
One showed Daniel at eight years old, standing between his parents.
Another showed him at sixteen holding his first rifle.
He moved closer.
Someone had scratched out his father's face.
Daniel lowered the flashlight.
"Who did this?"
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Daniel immediately raised his weapon.
He moved toward the staircase.
Halfway up, he stopped.
A photograph sat on the step.
His father.
Daniel picked it up.
There was writing on the back.
I DIDN'T ABANDON YOU.
Daniel's throat tightened.
He turned the photograph over again.
His father's face stared back at him.
For years, Daniel had remembered him as a hard man.
A hunter who believed feelings were weaknesses.
A father who taught his son how to kill monsters before teaching him how to drive.
But this photograph had been taken only weeks before he disappeared.
His father was smiling.
Daniel had never seen that picture.
He continued upstairs.
The hallway was dark.
At the end stood his old bedroom.
The door was slightly open.
Daniel pushed it inward.
The room was exactly as he'd left it.
His childhood bed.
His old desk.
A faded baseball glove.
Posters peeling from the walls.
And on the desk—
the black book.
Daniel approached slowly.
The book was closed.
He reached for it.
A voice came from behind him.
"Don't."
Daniel spun around.
A woman stood in the doorway.
Mid-thirties.
Dark hair.
Black jacket.
A silver pendant around her neck.
Daniel immediately aimed his gun.
"Who are you?"
The woman didn't move.
"Put the gun down."
"Not happening."
"I'm not your enemy."
"Everyone says that."
She glanced at the book.
"You opened it."
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm still alive."
Daniel stared at her.
Something about her was familiar.
He lowered the gun slightly.
"Have we met?"
"No."
"Then how do you know me?"
"I know your father."
Daniel's grip tightened.
"Everybody who knew my father is dead."
The woman shook her head.
"That's what they wanted you to believe."
She stepped into the room.
"My name is Mara Voss."
Daniel studied her.
"You're a hunter."
"Yes."
"Which family?"
"None."
Daniel frowned.
"Everyone comes from somewhere."
"Not everyone."
Mara looked toward the hallway.
"They're listening."
Daniel glanced outside the bedroom.
"Who?"
"The people who wrote the book."
Daniel looked at the black cover.
"You said the book was written by people."
"I said people wrote it."
"What's the difference?"
Mara's expression hardened.
"Because the people who started it aren't the ones controlling it anymore."
The house groaned around them.
Daniel looked at the book.
"What is it?"
Mara walked toward the desk.
"A record."
"I already know that."
"No."
She pointed at the cover.
"You know what it looks like."
Daniel waited.
Mara continued.
"It started as a hunter's journal nearly three hundred years ago. Every generation added to it. Monsters. Demons. Curses. Rituals. Weaknesses."
"Then why hide it?"
"Because someone started writing things that hadn't happened."
Daniel thought about the page containing his name.
"Predictions."
"Not exactly."
Mara opened the book.
The pages were blank.
Daniel frowned.
"It was just open."
"It doesn't show everyone the same thing."
She turned another page.
Nothing.
Then she looked at Daniel.
"Put your hand on it."
Daniel hesitated.
"Why?"
"Because it recognizes hunters."
"That's not comforting."
"It isn't supposed to be."
Daniel placed his hand on the cover.
The book immediately became warm.
The symbols carved into the leather began glowing faintly.
Mara stepped back.
Daniel's eyes widened.
Pages began turning.
One.
Two.
Ten.
Twenty.
They stopped.
A photograph appeared.
Daniel stared at it.
His father stood in the middle of a dark forest.
Beside him were four hunters.
One was Mara.
Daniel looked at her.
"You knew him."
"I told you."
"When?"
"Twenty-two years ago."
Daniel looked back at the photograph.
His father was holding the black book.
But there was something else.
A symbol had been painted on the tree behind them.
Daniel recognized it.
He had seen it before.
On the final page.
"The thing in the motel."
Mara shook her head.
"No."
Daniel looked at her.
"Then what?"
Mara's voice became almost a whisper.
"The thing in the motel was one of them."
"One of what?"
She pointed at the photograph.
"These."
Daniel stared at the hunters.
One by one, their faces began changing.
Their eyes darkened.
Their mouths opened unnaturally wide.
The photograph distorted.
Then all four hunters turned toward Daniel.
Even though they were frozen in an old photograph, their eyes appeared to follow him.
Daniel dropped it.
The book slammed shut.
Mara grabbed his arm.
"We have to go."
"Why?"
"Because now it knows where you are."
The bedroom door slammed shut.
Mara turned.
The lights flickered.
A voice whispered through the walls.
"Daniel."
Daniel froze.
His father's voice.
Mara's face went pale.
"No."
The voice came again.
"Daniel, it's me."
Daniel stared at the door.
His father's voice sounded exactly as he remembered it.
Warm.
Tired.
Familiar.
"Son."
Daniel stepped toward the door.
Mara grabbed his shoulder.
"Don't."
Daniel looked at her.
"What if it's him?"
"It's not."
"How do you know?"
"Because I watched your father die."
Silence.
Daniel stared at her.
Mara swallowed.
"He didn't die fighting a demon."
She looked at the book.
"He died trying to destroy it."
The voice behind the door became louder.
"Daniel."
Then something scratched slowly across the wood.
"Open the door."
Daniel raised his gun.
Mara pulled a silver knife from inside her jacket.
The scratching stopped.
For three seconds, there was silence.
Then the entire farmhouse shook.
Every window shattered at once.
The bedroom door exploded inward.
Daniel fired.
Mara swung the silver blade.
Something moved through the darkness.
Fast.
Too fast.
Daniel barely saw it.
Then the creature stopped in the hallway.
It looked human.
An old man.
Gray hair.
Blood running from his mouth.
Daniel stopped breathing.
His father.
The man smiled.
"Hello, son."
Daniel's gun lowered.
Mara whispered one word.
"Run."
The creature's eyes turned completely black.
And the farmhouse lights went out.