By the next night, Arthur still couldn’t quite logically piece together what had happened to him the night before, only that his brain kept telling him subconsciously he should avoid it at all costs. He couldn’t help but agree. Unfortunately, it was Friday, and he had a feeling that if he went through with this job that he very well might have to experience it again. The worst part was that he still was in the same situation as he’d been in a week ago, just now having experienced something invasive and terrible on top of it all. He still had no solution for getting out of this, still knew little to nothing about the job, and still had a feeling that he should up and leave the country instead of going through with this. But, he didn’t have the money, resources, or frankly the guts to do something like that. So, Arthur was resigned to his fate.

  His apartment blinds were closed, door locked, and the box was sitting in front of him on the floor like it was some kind of cursed object. It might as well have been. Arthur tapped his fingers against his knees, stood up, paced around, sat down, continued tapping. He was aware he had been doing this for a while, but couldn’t stop.No matter what he did to try to calm himself, or get his mind off it, nothing worked. Whenever he did briefly get his mind off of it, the next thing that came up was the people in the truck, and that was almost worse.

  One deep breath, hold. He sat, holding his breath. He blew the air out, took in a second, and counted down from ten. It helped for about five seconds before he started feeling anxious again. Arthur glanced back down at the box, considering calling it off again. The absurdity of it made him laugh. He knew he was completely out of options at this point. The only other option was to run. Run far, far away, start a new life in a new city. But for a cop, fleeing for no obvious reason and abandoning your job wasn’t a good bet. At best, he would sever a relationship with a powerful underground contact that knew many people in the precinct. He might’ve been able to put in for a transfer, but it would’ve taken a week. He couldn’t just up and leave and expect any other precinct to hire him after abandoning his duties in Longley. It was too complicated, too messy, and too difficult. Running away wasn’t as easy as it seemed, he thought. Maybe why they caught so many perps trying to flee.

  So, he did the only thing he could think of that cleared his mind; act like he was working on a case. He opened the box again and began to thoroughly investigate the hand like it was evidence. It was chilled from the internal fans on this box, which he noticed still hadn’t faltered, and the ice was still solid. The fans were connected to a thick battery, exposed as he pried open a screwed panel on the interior wall. It was like a custom made box for holding organs. Arthur wondered if this was a common occurrence for these people or if there was some sort of specialized market for illegal organ transportation devices. Probably both.

  The hand itself appeared strange, too. It had been cleanly severed, as if removed from a cadaver rather than torn off or cut off. All the blood was drained from it, so it had lost most of it’s color and was slightly shriveled. It was olive skinned. This is so stupid, Arthur thought as he gently removed the rings from the fingers. He didn’t know that much about jewelry, but these appeared to be valuable. All gold, some inlaid with valuable looking gems, ones similar to stolen gems he’d seen in the past. There was one on each finger, although noticeably no tan marks underneath any of them. None appeared anymore than a display of wealth. No significant meanings, as far as he could tell.

  It occurred to him that this jewelry alone was probably worth a decent little sum of money. He wasn’t exactly sure why they had left them on, instead of taking them for themselves. Maybe as identifiers…more likely some code of honor, considering the tattoos all over the hand were better identifiers than a couple of pieces of jewelry. Of all the tattoos, the one that stood out was below the knuckles, on the front of the fingers with four letters. CLAW. It didn’t ring any bells. Arthur couldn’t even think of anything it’d be short for, that would be relevant to being involved in having one’s hand cut off. Nothing gang related, nothing military related. Whatever CLAW meant, Arthur was out of the loop on it. The other standout was one tattoo that had previously belonged to the arm was still showing it’s edges on the hand. It appeared to be a series of points, maybe once linked to daggers, or swords. It almost looked like armor in a way, with how many there were and how closely they were linked.

  On the back of the hand was some sort of generic reaper design. Arthur flipped the palm over, noticing yet another tattoo on the palm he hadn’t seen before. The tattoo was a noticeable black sun, with curled rays forming a mesmerizing pattern around it. Almost more like an eclipse, than a sun. Arthur thought hard for a while trying to remember if any of these were connected to underground syndicates. Maybe prison gangs, or other groups that specialized in other crimes. Once again, nothing came to mind. But out of all the tattoos, the one that kept standing out was the CLAW on the fingers. For some reason, it seemed like the most important one. Like if this person had been trying to show off, that was the first thing you would see, and be able to identify. Arthur considered maybe it had a literal meaning.

  But the nails were poorly kept, seemingly even before the severing. Some chipped, one broken. They were dirty, too. Not very claw-like. The palms of the hand were rough, holding a stark contrast to the expensive rings. To Arthur, that meant this hand belonged to someone who wasn’t afraid to do dirty work. Arthur had a sudden thought, thinking back to the two goons who had followed him and did whatever they did to him. This hand appeared to be male, but could well have fit on a large, burly woman’s arm. It only took a second of thought to remember that even in his terror, she had two arms, two hands. He thought instead about the partner. The whole time he only kept one hand on the wheel. Arthur never saw his left arm, or hand. He had a peculiar thought for a moment, then realized this hand was from a right arm. They both also had a lot of tattoos, but nothing that matched up with any on this hand. In other words, he was right back where he started. Again. Arthur chucked the hand across the room, only realizing how stupid that was by the time it smacked against the corner of a beam and flopped against the ground with a grotesque squishing sound. As Arthur went to pick up the hand and make sure it hadn’t been damage, his phone alarm went off causing him to jump.

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  It buzzed at him angrily, letting him know it was time to go to the church. Time to face God.

  At the very least, Arthur’s little investigation had helped calm him down some, clear his mind. He replaced the hand and it’s trinkets carefully, before putting the box in a small carry bag. He was carrying his sidearm, with two extra magazines in a hip holster. Even for being a detective, it felt like a lot. His job wasn’t to get into gunfights, yet he felt like he was walking into something he’d need them for. As he exited his apartment, he hastily locked and closed the door and quickly got into his car. There was a lot of sound pollution from the street nearby, but he swore he heard a raven screech outside, but he ignored it.

  Arthur began the drive to the church. It was a dark night out, the moon obscured by clouds. But, the streets were quite busy being a Friday, even at this late hour. It gave him some comfort knowing he was surrounded by other mostly normal people. If he was going to get jumped by goons or shaken down by a priest again, there was a high chance of witnesses this time around. At least until he was inside. Although none of the people around were likely not doing the same sort of business as he, it still made the whole thing feel a bit normal. Like he was blending into a big crowd of fish, just swimming along the two lane road that led north into town. They were headed to their homes, families, friends, popular restaurants and clubs. He was heading somewhere equally, if not more, exciting. But much less pleasant.

  Arthur put on the radio, listening to the smooth droning of some late night station operator speaking in low tones about various occurrences and mentions of her favorite track from this or that era. The radio, and the flow of people out partying or getting home late from work calmed him as he drove, and for a little bit he almost forgot about the hand in the box. That was until he got to the same upscale neighborhood the church was located in about fifteen minutes later. The street was completely empty. That didn’t seem like a good sign, although this place always seemed empty. Like it was one big fake neighborhood that was supposed to look good on the outside but had nothing of value inside. His car was the only visible one driving down the road, the only other signs of life being an flood light on some of the nearby houses. Nobody outside walking. Nobody driving. Deserted. Even the church, as he pulled up to it, seemed ominously quiet. However, unlike the night before, there were more cars in the church parking lot.

  There were six cars total. Three were cars he remembered from the night before, seemingly belonging to the church. The other three were blacked out sedans. He couldn’t get a good look at them in the darkness, but they appeared identical in all respects. Black tinted windows, painted black, black rims. That’s ominous, Arthur thought, like he needed more help stirring his anxiety. At the front door, the flickering, gas powered lamps shone lengths of light across the church’s large wooden doors that cast deep shadows around the stone stairs. Above the door was the stained glass window he’d seen before. Although for some reason, tonight, it wasn’t reflecting the blues, greens and purples he’d remembered from Thursday; instead it seemed only to be reflecting reds. Fear was building in Arthur again, and he did his best to stifle it as his approached the front.

  Arthur double checked his watch. He had the time right. His foot was tapping nervously against the floor of the car. He checked the gun in his holster again. Checked the box again to make sure it hadn’t grown legs and run away. Then he checked his watch again. He knew he was just wasting time. Let’s go. You’ll be fine. It felt like he was lying to himself.

  Arthur took a sharp breath and got out of the car, nearly forgetting the hand, having to duck back in and grab the case. Never in his life did Arthur think that a church could somehow be so ominous. At night, driving past them sometimes when they were darkly lit with their tall spires and imposing architecture, churches could sometimes inspire a sense of dread. But this church wasn’t large, or tall, or powerful looking in any sense of the word. It was small, pretty, and more like a little chapel where you could retreat to for safety. But tonight, it seemed quite the opposite, and as Arthur walked up approaching the door it felt like he was walking into the jaws of a beast. Nevertheless, he gathered himself and pushed forward, trying to maintain any level of confidence. The doors were closed shut, so he knocked on them with his fist, trying not to knock too hard. This was still a church, after all. He half expected there to be no answer for a while, or for Father Arlo to appear after a few minutes in a nightgown holding a candle, but that wasn’t the case. The large wooden doors creaked open almost immediately after he knocked.

  From behind the door a face peered out. It was a man with a big jaw and a bigger neck. His hair was combed tight against his head, and he wore a black t-shirt under a black blazer. He had that sort of look that Arthur recognized mostly in killers he’d arrested, but that he’d also seen in fighters, boxers, and soldiers. Calm, relaxed, but ready to do harm if it came to it. It wasn’t always easy to recognize it, but when you saw it, you knew. And Arthur saw it in this man. His expression wasn’t necessarily hostile, just more serious, but it still made Arthur feel uncomfortable.

  “What?” The man said flatly.

  “I’m the- I mean, I have a delivery. For Mr Strissa.”

  The large man stared, expression unchanging. A moment later the door shut, and Arthur was standing out in the dim light of the outside lamps for almost half a minute. He almost took it as a cue to leave, but figured he was well past trying to get out of this. Arthur almost went to knock again, before the door re-opened, fully this time. The man was even bigger than he had initially appeared. He stood tall and was heavily muscled, arms bulging under his coat. He looked like he could snap Arthur in two if he wanted. Instead of that, he brusquely waved Arthur in.

  As Arthur walked inside the man closed the door behind him with a conclusive thud. The first thing Arthur noticed, was slung over the man’s shoulder like some sort of tote bag was a mean, powerful looking gun. It was some sort of rifle, probably automatic, with a big magazine and a bigger muzzle. Somehow, that felt like a sign he needed to get the hell out, but he ignored it. Arthur realized he was staring as he caught the mans gaze again, averting his eyes to look straight forward. As he looked around the church, he realized there were many more people inside. No more young, carousing socialites of all colors with wine in their hands. Instead all were more or less carbon copies of the door guard. Big, mean looking men wielding guns of various shapes and sizes, completely unafraid to brandish them openly. Each wore a variation of dark pants and and jackets, and they were posted up at various places around the church. At least one at each of the three doors and others lurking in dark alcoves and corners around the area. It became apparent that these men were bodyguards of some kind. And it shortly became apparent who for, because two of them were standing at either end of the pew, while the only distinct looking person in here was sitting in the middle of the pew.

  Alone the middle of the church, back faced towards Arthur, was Bartolome Strissa.