“No,” Marcus calls back, voice drenched in grief. He’s a man of strong emotions, rage and love especially potent, and he had loved Sam as one loves a brother, had found in him a partner when it came to fighting back the darkness, an equal in exorcisms and demons. Of all the people Marcus has loved in his life, and there have been more than one might expect for a former priest, Sam had been unique.

“It’s Marcus,” he adds a moment later, as Viktor descends.

Marcus is sitting at the table, fingers resting lightly on top of one of Sam’s notebooks. He hasn’t opened it, he doesn’t want to, already knows what a lot of the notes say. It’s Betty’s exorcism. The case that has drawn them together, that had seen them fight side by side, each with their own strength, buttressing the other.