THE CASE FILE

Frank Mercer has seen enough strange things come through his office door to know trouble rarely knocks politely.

This time, it arrives in a box.

Heavy cardboard.
Pressed symbols.
No sender.
No note.

Inside is a carved stone eye.

Cold. Pale. Almost alive.

Before Frank can make sense of it, the phone rings. No voice on the other end. Just the sound of a drawer, a doorbell, and a scream.

Murph calls him down to a pawnbroker on 56th Street, where the dead man on the floor has had his eyes removed and replaced with small white stones.

Then Frank finds the note.

The eyes are the window to the soul.
The Alabaster Eye will see through you too.

The same phrase follows every body.

A warning.
A ritual.
A judgment.

And Angel Devine wants the Eye badly enough to come looking for it herself.