AN: Hey guys, I have setup for my ko-fi because I needed to pay for my college fee so yeah if you want to donate there feel free to do it. ko-fi.com/frogking36
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The three trench-coated idiots followed us into the alley like lambs to slaughter. I gave them my best friendly smile, which in my case tends to look like a threat wearing aftershave.
"How about this," I said, spreading my hands like a used car salesman. "We settle this back here. No fuss, no mess. Don't want to ruin the motel's Yelp rating."
They looked at each other. Two balding accountants and a soccer mom—Midwestern avatars possessed by hellspawn. One of the accountants gave a slow nod, cracking his neck. Their eyes flickered with black oil-slick malice under the alley's flickering sodium light.
Perfect.
The soccer mom demon lunged first, snarling.
Snap.
I caught all three of them mid-air with a flick of my hand. Telekinesis locked them in place like flies in a jar of epoxy. Their limbs jerked against the invisible grip, straining muscles and tendons.
Lena sighed, clearly unimpressed, and strolled up to them with the casual confidence of someone picking out a wine. Her fingers traced slow, invisible patterns in the air—within seconds, red ice bloomed under their skin like cursed fractals, crawling up their necks.
"Talk," she said sweetly. "Where's your little demon book club meeting tonight?"
One of the accountants—let's call him Greg—snarled. "Go to hell, hunter."
I rolled my eyes. "You first."
Another flick of my fingers and Greg's ribs groaned like creaky floorboards under weight. The soccer mom whimpered.
"Garage!" she blurted. "Eastside Auto Repair! The summoning symbols—they're prepping for Azazel!"
I blinked. Azazel? Then I laughed. Out loud. Couldn't help it.
Lena tilted her head at me. "What?"
"These morons think they can summon Yellow Eyes with a garage full of doodles? What's next, bringing back Lucifer with a Sharpie and a mixtape?"
The second accountant furrowed his brow. "We were told the sigils would draw him in."
"Let me guess," I said. "Some middle-management demon dangled a promotion and a corner office in Hell if you finger-painted the Enochian alphabet?"
The soccer mom looked genuinely embarrassed. "...Yes."
Lena muttered under her breath. "Even Hell has MLMs."
I released my grip with a sigh. "Get out of those poor bastards and tell your demon boss this town's closed for demonic renovations. No new tenants."
The smoke slithered out of their mouths like snakes made of shadow, screeching into the wind. The hosts collapsed to the asphalt, groaning.
Lena knelt beside them, checking pulses. "They'll live. Probably have night terrors till they're eighty."
I nudged one with my boot. "Think they'll remember anything?"
She glanced up. "With our luck? Oprah interview."
We returned to the "Siouxper 8" like war-weary tourists. Lena belly-flopped onto the bed with a grunt while I fished out my phone and hit speed-dial.
"Bobby? Update. Your demons were lower on the food chain than canned spam. They're carving Azazel sigils in garages, but they're about two goat sacrifices short of a real ritual."
Bobby's gravel voice crackled back. "Eastside Auto Repair. That's where the third vic worked. Check the place. Bet my best flask there's hex bags all over."
Lena snatched the chips from my hand with ninja precision. "Tell Dean if he touches my leftover pizza, I'll banish him to Kansas."
"No promises," Bobby replied before hanging up.
I gave her a betrayed look. "You had pizza?"
She shrugged. "Emergency stash."
"Unforgivable."
Eastside Auto Repair was a concrete crypt in the moonlight. The flickering OPEN 24 HOURS sign buzzed like a wasp with a nicotine addiction. I activated my Dark Vision and caught it immediately—thin lines of corrupted energy running up the walls like veins. Enochian, but smeared. Fresh. Reckless.
"Amateur hour," I muttered, popping a bone sliver from my fingertip and jiggling the lock open with a flick.
Inside smelled like motor oil, hot rubber, and something else—sickly sweet. Like burnt candy.
Demonic magic.
Lena's heart—a warm amber pulse in her chest, ever since I regenerated it using the Wood Nymph's healing—gave a sympathetic throb. Not the corrupted red of Kharon's influence, but a living ember. A good sign.
We swept the garage, guns raised. Shadows clawed at the edges of the light. My hand hovered near the machete strapped to my back.
The back office was ground zero.
The walls were smeared with symbols drawn in… was that lipstick?
Lena made a face. "That's new."
"Low effort," I muttered, dragging a finger along the sigils. "Probably used off-brand too. The sigil work's lazy. These morons were spoon-fed a ritual and didn't bother to check the source."
A floorboard creaked.
We turned.
Leaning against a red tool chest was a woman with midnight-black eyes, dressed like Stevie Nicks had taken up necromancy. Her power rippled through the air, heavy as wet velvet.
"Marcus Hale," she purred. "The thief who stole a god's power."
I tilted my head. "Let me guess. You're here to reclaim it on behalf of our dark lord and savior?"
She smiled like a knife. "I'm the one who's going to peel it from your bones."
Lena didn't hesitate. "We done talking?"
The demon snapped her fingers.
Every hex bag in the building detonated at once.
BOOM.
The shockwave hit like a truck full of anvils. But my instincts were faster. I threw up a telekinetic barrier, a shimmering dome of warped air and psychic force. The world went white, then black, then vibrating red.
My ears rang like church bells on meth.
I dropped the barrier and staggered up. Smoke. Fire. Sparks danced across the floor. The back wall was caved in. Tools and shattered glass littered the floor.
Lena was up, coughing but otherwise unhurt—her own ward had flared bright gold just in time.
The Stevie Nicks demon floated in mid-air, laughing. "That all you've got?"
"Oh sweetheart," I growled, "I was born with worse migraines."
I flicked my wrist and the bone blades shot out of my arms with a satisfying crack, curving like twin scimitars.
I shadow-jumped.
One blink—I was behind her.
She barely turned before I sliced down, bone meeting demonic flesh with a hiss. Her arm fell to the ground, sizzling.
She screamed.
Lena opened fire, silver bullets tracing a clean arc into the demon's shoulder. She crashed to the floor, snarling, eyes flaring like twin furnaces.
The lights exploded overhead.
Chains rattled from the shadows as the demon summoned hell-forged links to whip across the air. One wrapped around my arm, another caught Lena's leg, yanking her off her feet.
I grit my teeth, focused—and my blood ignited with the Fleshweaver Morph. My bones snapped outward, growing into jagged spikes.
With a roar, I flexed—and the chain shattered against my mutated arm like glass.
The demon blinked. "What are you?"
I lunged. "Bad news."
I rammed my fist into her gut, bone blade first. She coughed black ichor.
"You don't get to walk away with half a ritual and a dream," I hissed. "You want to summon Azazel? You need more than lipstick and some hired morons. You need blood. You need focus. You need power."
"And you're never getting mine."
I grabbed her by the throat. Her black eyes flickered. The spell in my palm lit like a flare.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus—"
"NO!" she shrieked, writhing. The smoke tore free of her mouth like a hurricane made of tar.
The host collapsed.
Silence fell.
Lena groaned as she kicked off the last of the chain. "You good?"
"Bit crispy," I said, checking my arm. The bone was retracting slowly, the cost of the Morph already catching up—my limbs felt like jelly. "But intact."
We moved the unconscious woman to the front, tucked her into the manager's chair, and sprayed a basic memory-erasing sigil above the door.
"She won't remember squat," Lena said, reloading her Glock. "Lucky her."
I sighed, leaning against the wall. "That's one lieutenant down. But if they were prepping for Azazel—"
"Then someone up the ladder is getting bold," she finished grimly.
Outside, the sirens wailed in the distance.
"Let's go," I said, flicking the lights off behind us. "Before Sioux City PD decides to arrest us for redecorating the garage with arcane graffiti."
We vanished into the night, smoke in our wake.