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“I need 5 minutes in a dark room” O’Malley said as he charged in to the ante-room.
Chief Quinn was leaning against the edge table, staring through the two way mirror at the solitary figure in the next room. The solitary figure, was a dark skinned man who sat perfectly still oblivious to O’Malley and Quinn. Or maybe not.
“Not likely.” Replied Quinn. Quinn was a bald middle aged man of generous proportions. He looked like your favourite uncle. But there was steel in his voice which few people dared to argue with.
“4 then.” O’Malley persisted.
Quinn was having none of it. “I am not cleaning up the blood from the walls again. You crossed the line last time O’Malley. I’m not going there again.”
“Firstly. I cleaned the blood. Secondly. You’re forgetting that it worked. I had a confession in 6 minutes flat. This is probably the biggest case we have ever handled. And you can't give me 4 minutes?”
There was a long pause as the two men glared at each other.
“3 minutes” Quinn conceded.

continued.... "Chapter III: A Dark Room"

The Habits

&
The Church of the Infinite Night

Blackwood Abbey perched on the edge of Blackwood Hill, watching over the city of Poison Bay like a vulture watching over a dying calf.

It used to be a place of worship once. But things have changed a lot since the mysterious death of the last head abbot, and the ascension of Father McGuire. The abbey was closed for so called repairs, and remained that way for almost 4 years. Things were finally exposed when the National Church suddenly sent out an edict de-recognizing the abbey. Father McGuire, was officially defrocked and several charges of corruption, heresy and embezzlement were raised against him. An official investigation was launched. But not the charges seemed to disappear one after another. Almost a year later, Father McGuire resurrected himself. He formed a new Order called the Church of the Infinite Night and proclaimed himself to be its head priest. Their vows were simple. Complete secrecy and confidence.

This was a well planned move on Father McGuire’s behalf. The Church established itself as one of the powers of Poison Bay. People called them, “The Habits”. If anybody wanted anything done, which they didn’t want to do themselves, they came to the Habits. The Habits had at their disposal an almost endless number of assassins, hitmen, lawyers, bureaucrats, dirty cops, and every other form of human filth conceivable. For the right price, they could hire any of them to get your job done. Any job. If by some chance, the operator was tracked, it would only lead back to the Habits, the high walls of the Abbey and the impenetrable vow silence. All investigations, by the authorities or otherwise would not proceed beyond the Church. That was the guarantee they offered.

This line of work made the Habits extremely wealthy in an extremely short time, and Father McGuire’s thoughts turned to security. He had strange engineers brought in from overseas. They worked day and night for 4 months to convert the abbey into a fortress – with motion trackers, gun turrets, sniper towers and a few hundred cameras. Underneath the abbey, the old catacombs were converted into an enormous vault. Half of it was reserved for the use if the Habits themselves and the other half had a number of ultra-secure deposit boxes, to be rented out at exorbitant rates. The entire vault was encased in titanium-lead alloy, with door several feet thick. It could only be opened by a 10 digit code, retina scan and a spoken password, known by only a few of the monks.

Mayor Crum’s attention had fallen on the abbey once. He had sent a task force, led by none other than O’Malley, to raid the place. They were to open the vault, and seize all its contents. O’Malley and his crew had worked on the door, with every conceivable piece of equipment, for almost 5 hours before the monks finally lawyered up. But to no avail. Atleast O'Malley had the satisfaction of thrwoing one of the monks through a stained glass window on the first floor.

Father McGuire had shown him the warranty agreement. It stated that the vault would withstand any direct attack by a moderate thermo-nuclear missile.

The next day, Mayor Crum joined the list of The Church’s illustrious clients, renting out 3 deposit boxes at once.