Facilis Descensus Averno

One

Author's Note: Edited and re-published. Extended notes about canon, setting, etc. here: https://ghoulical.tumblr.com/post/719133253522653184/notes-on-fda

Original, unedited version still available on AO3.

Thanks for reading!

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The police found seven bodies that morning.

It was around seven a.m. when the mailman arrived at 1912 Rosswood Ave and noticed its front door unlocked and ajar, wide enough for him to nearly vomit from the nauseating stench emanating from inside. Twelve minutes later, first responders found three bodies upstairs.

When they were about to do the first round of interviews with the neighbors, they found the door to 1910 in a similar state, and called for backup. Four more bodies.

Two families—two sets of parents and their respective children. As autopsies and evidence analyses would later show, all seven died in that same night, within the same hour, if not literal minutes from each other.

Another two officers had been called in by the time Abigail Bishop arrived at the scene. Out of the six total, half of them were scattered across the front yard. She took in a long, deep breath before she exited her car, counting the steps it would take for them to finally notice her on the property.

She counted seventeen.

"Ma'am—"

She ducked under the police tape and strode across the path cutting through the yard, ignoring the flickering eyes.

"Excuse me, ma'am? Ma'am!"

He would have caught her sooner if he broke into a full sprint, but one foot on the porch steps, and a blue gloved hand stretched out in front of her and stopped her dead in her tracks. She did her best to hide her scowl when he took the opening to rush two steps ahead of her, and she turned her head up to glare at her younger colleague's steeled eyes.

"Ma'am, please—"

"Don't," she started, already anticipating the invisible script laid out between them. This script had never been rehearsed before, but she had read it before, in one form or another. "Not today, Parsons."

The young man was just a little bit shorter than her, but up the porch steps, she had to tilt her head up a little to meet his gaze before he broke contact by bowing his head in a heaving breath. "With all due respect, ma'am," he said anyway, and stared back at her with a sigh, "You can't be here today."

She swallowed, and tried not to let her eyes roll. "Jake—"

Jacob Parsons shared her title and rank, but he was a fresher face still—she remembered the first time he arrived at the station, fresh from the academy, only a handful of years since he graduated from their local high school—so he was still on the straight and narrow, much more than she was. On some days she admired that, of him. Today was not one of those days.

"Don't make this hard on us," he said, almost pleading, but more exasperated than anything.

"You need me here."

"Not until the chief says so."

"Is anybody else coming?"

He didn't answer—couldn't, because she was painfully aware how understaffed they were, and she wouldn't have dared shown up the way she did if she wasn't.

"Seven bodies—"

"Which is exactly why you shouldn't be here."

"No, that's exactly why I should be here." She nodded at the house behind him. "You need me here. You need my help."