The cop gave me a last once-over, then with a stony expression, shook his head three times. I sighed, He waved me in again, this time with a little more intended force.

My feet were cooperating this time, it was the rest of me that resented the need to go into the place.

I glanced back at the big cop, and then turned to the apartment door which was open a crack, enough for a line of light to delineate the threshold I was about to cross. I reached out reluctantly, felt the cold smooth off white surface on my fingertips added some pressure, and slowly pushed the door open and stepped through.

Now one thing about, the apartments that we rent here. Generally if we’ve had a tenants who’ve occupied an apartment for a number of years, we’ll send in contractors to give the place a look, provide a quote for repainting, wall plastering, new appliances, you know the drill..

My mind started working on the number of figures redoing 213 would entail.. At least five, I thought, at least. Shit, I thought. It was going to be a lot more than even the extra we could pocket from Billingsly’s security deposit. Damn me.

At least if we wanted to do more than wash down the appliances put a couple coats on the wall and replace the carpet.

Emily was definitely going to chew me out.

Now in the case of this particular apartment, before the current tenant moved in earlier in the year. May. The junior two bedroom apartment’s previous tenant had been there for a good seven years, from before I even was hired. She had happily have found love on the Internet and had moved off to somewhere west, Seattle I think. And again not to disparage her but it’d been a good seven years since the apartments have had professional work cleaning it up.

So Arturo went over the place, had A&G come in. They repainted the walls, the nice HL white we have done to all our apartments, they replaced the stove and the fridge, laid down new carpets, changed a few of the fixtures, the general things you do if it matters. The place looked right, wiped, and clean. Virginal, you might say.

And you figure, six months, how much could change?

When I stepped over the threshold and looked into the apartments I was stopped dead cold. I really couldn’t move another step.

The place, the walls, ceiling wasn’t dominated by eggshell white anymore. There was a new layer coating the place, it covered the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and it covered the furniture as well.

Red. Blood Red, everywhere, floor, walls, ceiling, furniture, appliances. A lot of work was put in here.

I stopped and shut my eyes, but that wasn’t much help. The light that managed to burn through my lids was red tinged. I took in a breath, twelve of one, half a dozen of the other.

But, God, it wasn’t a pretty sight what laid in front of me. Too much I involuntarily recognized. The broken patterns of the wall, ceiling and floor scrawling were bloody, fucking clear.

And it wasn’t a flat red block red the kind of raid you paint the whole wall with so that it’s monochromatic. This wasn’t any kind of acrylic overcoat that you roll or spray on. It all looked like it was brushed on, painted in a language that is usually kept in thick leather bound books that are the one’s rumored to be bound in human skin. And not just characters or pictographs. There were circles, and pentagrams, and all the sorts of things that you’re someone like me that you’re really not eager to see painted in red in the building that you not only manage, but that you live in.

By now you might have guessed that I know something of the occult. And I hope that you understand that isn’t at all a good thing. A necessary thing, yes, a good thing, no. A lot of people do these days, or claim to, even if practice of it is unpredictable and often tragic, fatally tragic, I might add. But when your world is filled with zombies and werewolves and vampires and a whole variety of the walking dead that used to be called ‘monsters under the bed’ back before the 1980s rolled around, it’s only natural that you’d find this sort of crap in all sorts of places.

Even splattered all over a junior two bedroom apartment.

All the people who use this sort of thing have their reasons. Some for power, some for favors, some for sex. For the last decade and more, the most I’ve used it is to stay quiet, stay hidden, stay as non-descript as I possibly could.

I have my reasons. And things had worked pretty well until now.

I felt a solid pressure from behind, turned back to the blonde constable who’d offered the persuasive hand.

“All right, “ I told him. “All right.”

Then I stepped forwards. Into the hell that this tenant had created all around me, and very likely, I worried, as an invitation.