Facilis Descensus Averno [REWRITING]

6. Eyeless Jack

A/N: Probably the chapter most of you have been waiting for.

I should also mention that, despite the dialogue, relationships here are still completely platonic, and I explained the reasoning behind it in the behind-the-scenes commentary for this chapter, but it will eventually be explained in future chapters. I was still debating whether to leave some bits in, and figured why not since the thought came to me easily anyway, but I'm leaving this disclaimer here just in case, since I know a couple of people have commended my choice not to focus on romance here, and I assure you, romance will be the last thing that this story focuses on.

TL;DR: don't read too deeply into the dialogue to infer relationships; all will be explained soon.

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"What's going on?" Bishop asked the person in front of her as soon as she reached the end of the hallway, tapping his shoulder, turning him around and realizing it was her desk neighbor, Torres—an well-renowned detective, at least in New Haven, in his own right, just a couple of years her senior both in terms of age and experience.

He was already drawing his Glock from its holster as he addressed her with a frown. "We got an officer down," he growled underneath his breath, though she knew it wasn't directed at her. "Another one tried to shoot the bastard, but it didn't do jack-shit to 'im. You didn't hear the gunshot?"

"No." Bishop's frown deepened. "We were interrogating a suspect."

"Suspect?" Torres threw a glance over his shoulder. "Oh—for that mass homicide case you were working on with that fed, right?"

"Yeah." Behind her, she could hear Gilliam's footsteps as he caught up to them, and resisted the urge to say anything else.

"Well." Torres clicked the safety of his Glock as he moved to join the others crowding by the entrance, guiding Bishop along with him. "Looks like that case and that fed coming in here sure stirred things up around here, huh?"

Almost all of the officers on duty and on site were gathered by the front entrance—some were just arriving, others were standing by the staircase, most with their guns drawn out and pointing it towards something, guarding the entrance as the first line of defense against someone.

That someone—Bishop soon realized the moment she burst out into the daylight—was a figure, dressed head to toe in nothing but black, standing in the margins of the parking lot, with what she could confirm was another one of their officers—her colleagues—lying in a growing pool of blood at the figure's feet.

She gasped, hand flying to cover her mouth as Gilliam appeared beside her and froze.

It was Clarke—Bishop could instantly recognize the downed officer by his larger build and balding ginger-haired scalp exposed to the air as he lied by the mysterious figure's feet face down. He was moving, just barely, but enough to indicate that he was still alive, as long as he was given medical attention very soon, if not immediately.

Bishop's eyes trailed up from her fallen colleague to the black-clad figure who she could rightfully assume did this to him. She could not tell if it was a man or a woman—her gaze was immediately drawn to the person's face, which was entirely covered with blue. It was a mask, she decided and later realized, completely lacking in facial features with the exception of two holes for eyes and the vague outline of a nose, except that, staring into said eyeholes, Bishop could see nothing—literally nothing, but two bottomless abyssal pits that ran shivers down her spine the second she looked at them.

The figure was quite tall—taller than Bishop was, if she wasn't standing above the staircase leading up to the entrance of the police station—and quite lean, perhaps quite fit even, if the body wasn't entirely clad in its loose black clothing. The hood of the jacket was flipped up to cover most of the person's head aside from the mask and a few strands of dark hair peeking out from the small exposed area. The cargo pants and sneakers were generic, chosen for functionality more than aesthetics.