The Tredex Grand Library sat on the hill like a brooding stone god, its gothic spires piercing the low-hanging clouds of the city. To the average citizen, it was a place of dusty silence and forgotten genealogies. To Samson, as he stood before its massive oak doors, it felt like the mouth of a tomb.
The blue ink was no longer just a glow; it was a throb, a rhythmic vibration that hummed against the bone of his wrist. It pulled his hand toward the heavy brass knocker, but the doors swung open before he could touch them. The air that rushed out was dry, smelling of ancient parchment and something sharper—the metallic scent of a thunderstorm held in a bottle.
"I knew you would come when the ink began to bleed," a voice echoed through the marble foyer.
Samson stepped inside, his hand instinctively resting on his holster. Standing by the central circulation desk was a woman who looked as though she had been carved from the same gray stone as the walls. She was the Head Archivist, a woman the streets called The Librarian, though no one could remember a time when she wasn't there.
"You're looking for the Ledger, Samson," she said, her eyes fixed on his glowing hand. "But the Ledger is only the skin. You're really looking for the heartbeat."
"No more riddles," Samson snapped, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "The Chemist says my blood is a map. He says I built this place. If I'm the architect of this 'Enigma,' then I'm the one who's going to tear it down."
The Librarian smiled, a thin, pitying expression. "You didn't build it to be a cage, Detective. You built it to be a shield. Follow the light. It knows the way home."
She stepped aside, pointing toward a restricted section behind a heavy velvet curtain. As Samson walked past her, the blue glow on his skin flared to a blinding sapphire. The compass in his veins was screaming now. He pushed through the curtain into a room filled with towering shelves that reached so high they disappeared into the darkness.
These weren't ordinary books. These were the Memory Vials—thousands of glass tubes filled with the same iridescent blue liquid that was currently leaking into his bloodstream. Each vial was labeled with a name and a date. He saw names of famous Tredex politicians, notorious gangsters, and even his own father.
The pull led him to the very center of the room, to a floor-to-ceiling mirror framed in blackened silver. But when Samson looked into the glass, he didn't see his own reflection.
He saw the city of Tredex, but it was burning. He saw a great darkness rising from the harbor, a shadow with a thousand eyes that devoured the thoughts and identities of everyone it touched. And in the center of the chaos stood a man—Samson, eighty years younger—holding a pen made of bone.
"If they remember the monster, the monster can feed," the younger Samson in the mirror whispered. "But if the city forgets... the monster starves."
The realization hit Samson like a physical blow. The Enigma wasn't a crime. It was a mass lobotomy. He had stolen the memories of the entire city including his own to protect them from a psychic predator that lived on the fear of the past.
But the predator was back. And it was hungry.
A low growl vibrated through the floorboards. The shadows between the bookshelves began to thicken, taking on the dragging, wet shape Samson had encountered in the tower. The "Wind People" were no longer dancing; they were circling.
"The seal is broken, Samson," the reflection said, its face beginning to crack like porcelain. "The memories are returning. And the shadow is coming to collect the debt."
Behind him, the dragging sound stopped.
Samson turned slowly. Standing at the entrance of the room was a creature made of smoke and teeth, its form shifting between a man and a beast. It had no face, only a gaping void where a heart should be.
"Detective," the creature hissed, its voice a thousand overlapping screams. "Give us the Ledger. Give us back the hunger."
Samson looked at his hand. The blue ink was spreading up his arm, turning his veins into a glowing map of defiance. He realized now that the ink wasn't just a map; it was a weapon.
"You want the truth?" Samson growled, clenching his glowing fist. "Then come and take it."