The brass key from Locker 4B finds the hidden lock beneath the customs annex. It turns with a heavy click, just like it did back at the chapel supply run, when the secondary number on the tag finally made sense.

The panel swings inward. Red light spills across Dallas Fontaine’s face, and the containment unit hums with the same low pulse he heard in the chapel, only louder now, fed through conduit and concrete.

Inside, the routing bundles are stacked with occult freight tags, church inventory slips, and wrapped components wired into the annex machinery. The smell of ozone and old dust hits hard, like a vault that has been breathing for years.

Murderbone stiffens at Dallas’s side, teeth bared at the glow. Beyond the open panel, the annex walls throb with hidden power, and the whole place feels less like a building than a machine pretending to be one.

Dallas slides the brass key into the override slot and gives it a firm twist. The unit answers with a sharp internal clunk, and the red pulse changes tempo, like something has accepted a command it did not want to hear.

A hidden tray inside the cabinet unlocks with a metallic snap. Folded route slips, a church attachment form, and a torn page from the Liber Signorum Rubrorum shift into view, all stamped with matching grid marks and annex transfer numbers.

Murderbone edges closer, nose working fast, then stops short at the smell of hot wiring. The red relay lights above the unit flicker in sequence, answering the key's turn like a map lighting up one station at a time.

One of the bundles splits open, exposing a hand-drawn junction sketch beneath the freight tags. The lines run from the chapel run, through customs storage, and into a city feeder node marked with the same annex code.

The containment unit does not shut down. It lurches into a diagnostic hiss instead, and a concealed indicator slides from red to amber, showing Dallas exactly which relay branch is still live.

Beyond the wall, a door somewhere in the corridor slams once, hard. The unit hums lower now, as if it has noticed the intrusion and is deciding whether to lock the corridor or dump the load.