The Hermes Protocol: Supernatural Detective

Chapter 8: The Artist's Obsession

"Wait, Dimas, don't just run off," Irina said, her hand reaching out to catch his arm before he could dissolve into a motion blur. "I know you're fast, but you can't outrun a lack of information."

Dimas paused, his heels hovering an inch above the library carpet. He turned back to her, a sheepish look crossing his face. "I need to find a tether, right? I figured the quicker I get back to the gallery, the quicker I can grab something of Elias’s."

"A tether isn't just any random paintbrush or a spare tube of acrylic, Dimas," Irina explained, closing her laptop with a soft click. "It has to be something deeply personal. Something that connects him to the physical world, but specifically away from the dark, obsessive energy he poured into that canvas. If you grab the wrong object, you might just trigger the trap and end up trapped right next to him."

"So we need to know who he was before he started painting his own nightmare," Dimas said, pulling up a chair and sitting back down. "How do we do that?"

"We investigate his background," Irina said, tapping her chin with a pen. "His life, his early works, his psychological state before this exhibition. If we find the shift, we find the anchor. I’ll search the university’s art registry for his early career. You find the people who actually knew him."

"I can do both," Dimas said, a confident grin returning to his lips. "But having a second pair of eyes—especially yours—makes things a lot easier. Let's start with the gallery. Adrian is still there, and he might have staff who worked closely with Elias."

The air outside the Seraphina Gallery was warm, but the moment Dimas and Irina stepped through the glass doors, a distinct, unnatural draft swept past them.

"Adrian," Dimas called out, spotting the gallery owner pacing frantically near the administrative offices. "We’re back. And I brought someone who can help us make sense of this."

Adrian rushed over, his eyes bloodshot, his hands trembling. "Thank god. The temperature in the hallway is dropping now, Dimas. I locked the studio door like you said, but I swear I can hear a low humming sound coming through the wood. Did you find him? Is Elias okay?"

"Not yet, Adrian," Irina said, her voice calm and grounding. "But to get him back, we need to understand him. We need to know who Elias was before he locked himself in that studio. Who did he talk to? Did he have any close friends or colleagues here?"

Adrian let out a dry, humorless laugh, rubbing his face. "Elias? Friends? The man barely tolerated me, and I’m the one funding his life. He was a recluse, especially these last few months. But... there’s Clara. Clara Ward. She’s our lead curator. She’s the only one he allowed to touch his older canvases."

"Where is she?" Dimas asked, his eyes scanning the immediate area.

"In the archives downstairs, trying to organize the catalogue for the exhibition," Adrian said, pointing toward a flight of concrete stairs. "She’s terrified, but she’s trying to keep busy."

Dimas and Irina descended the stairs, the air growing slightly mustier but thankfully warmer than the exhibit halls above. They found Clara, a young woman in her late twenties, frantically sorting through folders on a metal table.

"Clara?" Dimas said gently, not wanting to startle her.

She looked up, clutching a stack of papers to her chest like a shield. "Are you the... the detective Adrian hired? Is it true? Is Elias really gone?"

"He's missing, yes," Dimas replied. "But we're trying to track him down. I'm Dimas, and this is Irina. We need to ask you a few questions about Elias's artistic process."

Clara let out a shaky sigh, setting the papers down. "His process? It was exhausting, honestly. Elias was a genius, but he was also... haunted. When I first started working with him two years ago, he was completely obsessed with light. He’d spend days trying to capture 'the vanishing light'—that exact, fleeting second right after the sun dips below the horizon, where the world is half-shadow and half-color."

"And then?" Irina prompted.

"And then, about six months ago, the light went out," Clara whispered, her eyes widening slightly at the memory. "He stopped talking about the horizon. He started talking about what lives inside* the shadows. He told me that sorrow isn't just an emotion, that it's a physical weight. He said to me, 'Clara, if I can paint the weight, I can make it real. I can make people feel the absolute gravity of despair.'"

"Did he ever mention any strange books? Or perhaps a new technique he was trying?" Dimas asked, leaning against the table.

"No, nothing like that," Clara said, shaking her head. "But he did have this old, leather-bound sketchbook. He never let anyone touch it. He told me it was his 'anchor' to the real world, but then I'd hear him in his office, muttering and screaming at it. I thought he was just having a typical artistic breakdown. Now, I feel terrible for not saying anything."

"You couldn't have known, Clara," Irina assured her. "But that sketchbook... do you know where he kept it?"

"Usually in his private office, upstairs," Clara said. "But he kept that door locked, too."

"Thanks, Clara. You've been incredibly helpful," Dimas said. He turned to Irina, his eyes flashing with determination. "Give me five minutes."

"What are you going to do?" Irina asked.

"Every exhibition catalog he’s ever had is in these archives," Dimas whispered. "I’m going to look through all of them. I need to see the physical progression of his work."

"In five minutes? Dimas, there are dozens of binders here."

"Just watch."

In a silent, invisible rush of wind, Dimas moved through the archive shelves. To Irina and Clara, he was nothing but a sudden, gentle breeze rustling the loose papers on the desk. He pulled binders, flipped pages at superhuman speed, registering every title, every theme, every color palette Elias had used over the last five years, and returned them to their precise spots.

He reappeared beside Irina, barely winded, holding a single dusty folder. "Done. You were right, Irina. The transition is incredibly clear. Look at these catalog descriptions from five years ago."

Irina blinked, still adjusting to his sudden reappearance, before taking the folder. "Let me see... 'A delicate study of morning dew.' 'The fading embers of twilight.' Then, three years ago: 'The cold truth of the eclipse.' And finally, last year: 'The silent scream of the canvas.' It’s a literal descent into darkness."

"But it’s too abstract," Dimas muttered, crossing his arms. "How does a painter go from depicting sorrow to accidentally performing a high-level spiritual sealing ritual? There has to be a concrete link. A catalyst."

"Artistic expression is highly subjective," Irina sighed, rubbing her temples. "It’s hard to find a logical, rational link to a supernatural ritual in a bunch of oil paintings. To any normal investigator, this is just a genius losing his mind. How do we prove it's something else?"

"Because of the cold, Irina," Dimas said, his voice dropping. "A genius losing his mind doesn't drop the temperature of a room to thirty below zero. There is a physical, supernatural force at play here, and the bridge is in his private office. Let's go find that sketchbook."

They headed back upstairs, Adrian watching them nervously as they approached Elias's private office.

"The door is locked," Adrian warned. "And I don't have the key. Elias was very strict about his privacy."

"That's fine," Dimas said. He reached down, testing the handle, and with a quick, micro-second burst of pressure, he popped the lock without breaking the wood. The door swung open with a soft click.

"How did you—" Adrian started, but Dimas was already inside.

The office was a mess of dry brushes, crumpled receipts, and half-empty coffee cups. The air here was chilly, but not freezing like the studio.

"Search the desk," Irina said, stepping inside and scanning the bookshelves. "Clara said he called the sketchbook his anchor. If it's a true grounding element, it won't be out in the open. He would have hidden it."

Dimas swept his gaze across the room, his heightened perception picking up on the smallest anomalies. He walked over to the heavy mahogany desk, kneeling down to look at the floorboards beneath it. "Irina, look at this. The dust patterns are wrong here. This floorboard is slightly loose."

He slid his fingers under the wood and lifted it easily. Tucked into the shallow recess beneath was a heavy, tattered sketchbook bound in dark, scarred leather. It felt surprisingly heavy, and a faint, rhythmic vibration seemed to pulse through the cover.

"Is that it?" Irina asked, stepping closer, her breath catching.

"I think so," Dimas said. He opened the cover.

The pages weren't filled with beautiful, fleeting light. They were covered in frantic, overlapping charcoal sketches of towering, shadowy figures. The lines were jagged, carved so deeply into the paper that some pages were torn.

"Oh my god," Irina whispered, looking over his shoulder. "These aren't landscapes, Dimas. These are... entities."

"And look at the faces," Dimas said, his voice tightening. "Or rather, the lack of them. They don't have eyes. Just empty, swirling voids where their features should be."

Irina pointed to the chaotic, scribbled handwriting in the margins. "Read this. 'They whisper from the border. They want to see. I must open their eyes to the unseen. If I give them a face, they will give me peace. The canvas is the key. It must be cold. It must be hungry.'"

"He wasn't an unwitting victim," Dimas realized, a chill running down his spine that had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "Elias knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn't just expressing his pain, Irina. He was bargaining with whatever is on the other side."

"And look at this symbol, Dimas," Irina said, her finger tracing a recurring drawing at the bottom of every page. It was an intricately stylized, weeping eye, surrounded by sharp, geometric lines that resembled a cage. "This isn't a random doodle. It's a binding sigil. He didn't just open a door. He actively built a lock, and then he let the shadows hold the key."