"Belief" - Synopsis

Belief chronicles the odyssey of young detective Illia Crow as she delves into the shadows of a cold, crime soaked city. Gradually, she deciphers mysteries, of the known and the unknown, and will ultimately discover an enigmatic link between reality and what is perceived by the human mind. This will force her to reevaluate her own misunderstood Native American ancestry, the ethereal remnants of watch over her intently.
Belief
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Max Planck; Physicist, Nobel Prize winner, Father of Quantum Physics.
The power of human consciousness is evolving, beyond even that of which we can consciously perceive.
Rookie cop Illia Crow breaks a big case. She’s hastily promoted to violent crimes detective, an unpopular job but a great excuse for her superiors to meet gender quotas. Raised by her Native grandmother, she‘s been taught to find a productive life path with a foundation on education and hard work. Looks like it’s paying off, and she didn’t even have to buy into all that ‘Native culture’ crap. Technically though, she counts for two spots in the quotas.
Blake Morris is Illia’s veteran partner. He’s had partners come and go at the merciless hand of this ‘lost city’ so does his best to help her through her firey baptism. As a former African child soldier, he’s faced and conquered unimaginable personal demons . As a detective, he’s rarely shocked or overwhelmed. He’s the coolest head in the room and an intellectual bloodhound. One of the cities best.
1.
Illia’s first case is a child kidnapping. The only witness is a simpleminded oaf named Edgar, who, among other things, believes he can speak to dead children. Such is the state of mental healthcare nowadays.
Blake does what he can to keep Illia from caving under the pressure, but when all leads dry up even he struggles to stay cool. The kid is only 6 years old and was snatched on her way to school.
By the grace of good fortune, new information comes out about the victim and Edgar’s ramblings are somehow more credible. With no other choice, the pair follow up on his clues which inexplicably lead them straight to the girl and her elderly kidnapper, Clive. They interrupt Clive’s horrific ritual before it’s too late. She’s safe.
Blake has seen stranger cases and won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Beginner’s luck it seems, for Illia. Case closed…
Something doesn’t sit well with her though, something the old man said. A bit of digging and she finds proof that Clive might actually be older than he seems. Centuries older.
2.
Clive dies in police custody, burned alive judging from the wounds. His last words were something about ‘the dreams ruining everything’. The guards on watch won’t loose sleep over a dead child killer. Tweakers die spontaneously all the time.
The dreams do start ruining everything though, for everyone.
Niccola Tavone, a mid-level mobster, has commisioned a device that broadcasts synthetic brainwaves to the unconscious minds of ‘impressionable’ people. He quickly rises in rank, his territory and revenues grow.
Once Illia gets on his tail and asks the wrong questions he orders his men to kill her. She barely gets out alive, shot in the chest and with a collapsed lung she’s lost in an unfamiliar part of the city.
She hallucinates that her Native ancestors are smiling, and is lead straight to Eido’s garden. Nestled in the urban sprawl; a sanctuary in the heart of chaos. Nice foliage too.
3.
Eido, a buddhist monk, heals her with a few waves of his hands, to her disbelief. He even gives her the bullet he pulled from her lung and reminds her that pain is in her head. He makes her promise to come back for a visit when she isn’t bleeding to death, they have much to discuss.
Having ordered a hit on a cop, the game has changed and Illia calls in SWAT to take down Niccola. She knows the arrest might not stick due to her miraculous lack of dying, and no record of an open wound, but she gets inside his office with back up and hopes to get him off the streets for a few days.
Niccola won’t go quietly though, and with a legion of guards willing to die for him they fight the cops.
When the dust settles Niccola and his gang are a pile of corpses. Illia survives unscratched but is in shock, seeing too many of her brothers and sisters dead or wounded. The guilt weighs on her.
She gives Niccola’s office a sweep and finds some handwritten letters and the dream device. In a rage, as if possessed, she smashes the device against the wall. The dreams stop.
Blake spies her and once she leaves enters the letters and broken device into evidence.
3.
With more questions than answers, an uneasy feeling in her gut, and the vague recollection that her dead ancestors may have saved her life; Illia’s grandmother takes a turn for the worst and is on her deathbed.
With her last hours, Gran breathes new life into the Native myths, fully aware that Illia is ashamed of her roots. She retells how their tribe is thought to be extinct but that they’ve survived these past years with guidance from the eternal spirits and by the grace of Mother Earth. She explains the mystic powers that their rituals and customs hold, from dreamcatchers to war drums. Illia’s disbelief has been in suspense since meeting Eido, so the stories take root.
Gran talks about a powerful warrior spirit, Kako, who now leads other warriors to safety from the spirit realm. Illia has already met him. She doesn’t know what’s real anymore, all she can do is comfort her ailing grandmother.
Gran describes the three Gods their tribe has worshipped for thousands of years. The God of Time, The Goddess of the Forest and The Trickster.
She leads Illia down a vision quest where Illia encounters her spirit guide; a hawk. As the hawk manifests, her grandmother dies. Her essence is absorbed by the creature. The hawk becomes one with Illia. She cries.
The three spirits visit Illia that night. They declare a sense of urgency. The Earth is reaching a breaking point and people must change or succumb to their extinction, this is her warning. Mother Nature is getting pissed.
4.
Monday morning brings a new case for Illia and Blake. Drugs and violent addicts in a neighborhood not used to the sort. Blake isn’t impressed. Illia wrestles to keep a grip on reality.
The pair canvas the area for leads. It’s a formerly religious neighborhood, but the youth are now disillusioned and dejected. In contrast to Blake, Illia uses compassion and understanding to get the citizens to cooperate and give up information. It’s a new drug and it’s being handed out by a cult. Illia meets Angel, a young teenage girl with no home, she offers to take Illia to the meetings where the drugs are had.
Blake doesn’t like the idea but admires Illia guts. He waits outside as she goes in undercover, reiterating that it’s for information only, to get a sample of the drug and get out.
The cultists are given dark robes and take the drug as part of a ritual. Calling them his ‘herd’, the leader channels the conscious enegies of the cultists. The herd becomes agressive. The leader is envigorated.
Illia gets closer and sees the leader is terribly disfigured. Two of his acolytes start to mutilate him as the agression rises to a crescendo. Blake orders her to get out with the evidence. Illia finds Angel who attacks her. Illia has no choice but to leave without her. With Blake she heads to the precinct to regroup and get the drug to forensics. They decide it’s best to wait until morning to confront the cult, in order to avoid a body count.
Blake and Illia return in the morning. There’s no one left alive. The leader is decapitated. The whole herd is slaughtered. Angel included. Blake mutters that they’re damned if the do and damned if they don’t.
5.
Cops swarm the site of the massacre. The coroner says the wounds are all from the same weapon, a sword which can’t be found.
Illia is shaken but still functioning. Blake is losing his patience. The drug results come in and it’s a very harsh hallucinogene synthsized with a strong stimulant. Nothing special. Not a great profit drug because it’s lethal if taken regularly. Dead end, literally.
Church bells ring out nearby, echoing through the mourning neighborhood. In the basement of that church a man wipes blood from his trench coat and off his blade. A priest brings him fresh clothes and the two banter about his mission. The priest knows it’s not his place to question but asks if it was necessary to kill them all. The man replies that demons must be destroyed even if the blood of the innocents must spill. He is a modern crusader working for a secret faction of the Vatican.
The priest holds a mass for the dead. A smattering fill the pews. Illia is among them, a lost sheep. Lamenting having left Angel behind. As the words of the priest resonate with her she is moved. A bright aura begins to materialize around the priest. It seems to be tugged at from above and wisps upward as if on a thread. She can see the other’s auras too, less vivid and weaker but present. A white haired man in the front row has the strongest aura, bright and blood red. The crusader.
Questioning the nature of hope, Illia waits to speak with the priest after the sermon. He gives her guidance. He suggests that faith is simply claiming true what can’t be proven, and that in that alone the mortal world is shaped. Hope is a choice, he says. Illia’s spirits are raised.
The priest sees off the crusader once they are alone, and a second priest joins them. The crusader express his gladness that the second priest came by,for it saves him having to track him down. The crusader abruptly stabs the second priest in the chest, wipes the blood off the blade and moves for the door. He turns to the first priest, who is aghast, and tells him that priests should not seek to betray God, least of all with the bodies of children.
6.
Blake is sitting at a casino blackjack table. All the gamblers in the room are feeding an unseen feminine entity, ‘Lady Luck’. Docile and young, this spirit can affect the outcomes of games of chance.
A lounge singer is on stage doing a mediocre rendition of ‘My Way’. Once he’s done he joins Blake at the table. The two chat. Blake is investigating a series of suicides on the grounds of the casino. The singer understands now why he thought Blake looked out of place and leaves.
A man loses big at roulette. His children’s college funds. He hangs himself in the washroom.
The manager approaches Blake, who’s been waiting for him. He tells Blake that if he’s here to investigate the suicides they’ve got a fresh one for him. Blake obliges and asks about the man, just a normal guy with a gambling problem. Lady Luck weeps over the corpse she calls her lover.
The singer gets a call. The illicit transaction went through and the money deposited in his account. Lady Luck appears and speaks to the singer who can’t hear her. She wants him to play a song for her.
Blake is at his desk tracing the cash the man used to buy his chips. He finds a bank that had a withdrawal transaction near the casino a few hours prior for the same amount. The account was in the name of the singer, who later gained control over the dead man’s account which was then emptied.
Blake confront’s him; tries to get him to give up his bank contact. The singer refuses saying ‘it’s all on the up and up’. Blake has no recourse. Lady Luck hears the conversation and realizes that the singer drove her gambling lovers to suicide. She falls in love with Blake and at the next possible opportunity arranges the gears of chance to destroy the singer. A bus loses control and wipes him out.
7.
Illia tracks down Edio’s garden. Not as easy as she originally thought. It’s more magnificent than she remembered. They discuss her recent experiences and he assures her she’s on the right path. He tells of his time in Tibet studying martial, his love and his children. He’s much older than he looks as well.
Crusader is still killing those who God command’s him to.
8.
The new act at the casino is a stage hypnotist. He is a good showman and people come to the casino just to see him. When he isn’t performing he uses hypnosis regularly, on himself and on others to get what he wants. He has a great understanding of how manipulating beliefs and perceived truths reshapes the world. He has a friend who’s a Quantum Physicist and they philosophize. The Quantum Physisist works for the company which created the dream device Niccola bought and the cultists drug.
Illia and Eido venture into a nearby forest and pay tribute to the forces of Nature and the Earth Mother.
Crusader is becoming drunk on his own power. He’s much stronger than before.
9.
Illia is approached by the priest who gives her some clues about the massacre. He alludes to an organization that polices where reality and the spiritual meet, but he’s afraid that they’re overstepping their bounds. He warningly points her towards the Crusader. Illia finds the Crusader and he tells her not to get in his way, because innocents must die if they get in the way of God’s hand. The crusader confronts the priest, tells him that he made a mistake by telling the cops. Doesn’t kill him, he is not evil in God’s eyes, but tells him to make sure that he is doing God’s work.
Illia and Blake are overloaded with cases. They try to wrap up what they can. Blake shows Illia the broken dream device and tells her he knows where it came from. She’s shocked.
The hypnotist and the physicist discuss his latest experiment; a way to view the past through quantum mechanics.
10.
A public school teacher, Patrick is sitting in a café and sees Illia walk by. He has demons. He falls in love with her at first sight. He sees her true self. He approaches her. She is reluctant. He asks her out, she says no.
Illia gets a wiff off the Crusader. Her and Blake tally his bodycount so far. Eventually the higher ups are going to notice. They have to bring him and his sword in.
Patrick miraculously saves a stray dog from getting run over. He retreats to an alleyway where he curls up into a ball and has violent, bloody seizures. The price of his supernature. The dog runs away. Eido finds him and helps manage his pain.
11.
Illia, at Eido’s, finds out Patrick’s secret. He vows to protect her. She reminds him he’s not a cop.
The crusader is given new instructions. The experiment must be stopped. Illia has him under surveilance. She’s tipped off. Eido and Patrick follow her, Eido enthusiastically says she’ll need them.
Blake is back at the tables. Finds out about the singer’s death. Watches the hypnotist. Doesn’t trust him. Has questions for the Quantum Physicist though, the hypnotist tells him where he works. He program’s Blake to believe he is invincible. Blake hits a twenty-one.
12.
Crusader is caught trespassing by security at the facility where the experiment is being run. He goes with them quietly. Illia and Blake show up with cavalry. They ask for the crusader to be handed over.
Inside, Crusader takes out the two guards. He’s looking for the experiment. His sword is pure energy.
Showdown. Scientists flee, cops and guards are kills. Crusader as well; trying to destroy the experiment. His spirit becomes an angel named Tygris. Only Illia and Eido see him now. Eido’s met him before.
The experiment threatens the whole faclity and everyone is evacuated. Tygris speaks with Eido.
A hugeanti-matter blast goes off and Patrick unconsciously freezes time. Tygris appears to him. They do what they can to contain the blast and save everyone close enough to be threatened.
Time resumes and Patrick collapses. Eido rushes to his aid. Tygris helps Eido, channeling spiritual energy to ease Patrick’s pain. They’re taken away in an ambulance.
Tygris speaks to Illia before disappearing. Apologizes. Tells her about the sect he worked for and how he thinks they may somehow be affiliated with this corporation. Neither are on God’s side.
End of Volume 1.