The familiar skyline of home appeared on the horizon, and Zoey felt something in her chest loosen. Three weeks. She'd been gone for three weeks, playing spy in a foreign city, making deals with terrorists, fighting an army of magjistars in a public plaza. It felt like a lifetime. And now, finally, she was almost home.
"Is that it?" Tiffany pressed her face against the bus window like a child seeing the ocean for the first time. "Your city?"
"Yeah." Zoey shifted in her seat, trying to ignore the way Tiffany had somehow migrated closer to her over the course of the twelve-hour bus ride. "That's home."
"It's so... normal looking."
"What were you expecting?"
"I don't know. Something more dramatic? You're the Devil, after all. I thought you'd live somewhere more devilish."
"Sorry to disappoint."
Tink stirred in Zoey's hoodie pocket, the small fairie having spent most of the trip sleeping. "Are we there yet?"
"Almost."
"Good. I miss your mom's cooking."
Zoey smiled slightly at that. Her mom's cooking wasn't anything special. Standard home-cooked meals, nothing fancy, but Tink had developed an obsession with Alicia's fried chicken that bordered on religious devotion. The fairie had been complaining about the food in Dhara for weeks.
"She'll probably make it if you ask nicely," Zoey said.
"I always ask nicely. I'm very polite."
"You threatened to stab Peter in his sleep."
"That was Peter. Peter isn't family."
The bus pulled into the station twenty minutes later. Zoey gathered her minimal belongings, she'd traveled light, leaving most of her stuff at the MLF mansion, and stepped out onto familiar concrete. The air smelled different here. Cleaner, somehow.
"So what now?" Tiffany asked, bouncing on her heels beside her. "Do we go to your house? Meet your family? I've never met a boyfriend's family before, well, you're not my boyfriend, you're my future girlfriend, but the principle is the same-"
"We're not dating," Zoey said automatically.
"Not yet!"
"Not ever."
"That's what they all say."
Zoey ignored her and started walking. The bus station was about forty minutes from her neighborhood on foot. She could've called a cab, but after being cooped up in vehicles for most of the day, she wanted to stretch her legs. Plus, it gave her time to think. Prometheus's warning echoed in her mind. What had he meant by that? She'd tried calling him twice during the trip home, but he hadn't answered. Unusual, but not unheard of, the daemon had his own life to manage, and he couldn't always drop everything for her. Still, it nagged at her.
'You're being paranoid,' Inner Zoey said.
'Maybe. But Prometheus doesn't say things without reason.'
'He also doesn't tell us everything.'
'Fair point.'
They walked through the city as the afternoon sun began its descent toward evening. Tiffany chattered endlessly about everything she saw, the street vendors, the architecture, the humans going about their daily lives completely unaware of the magji world existing alongside them. Tink occasionally popped out of Zoey's pocket to add commentary, usually contradicting whatever Tiffany had just said. It was almost peaceful. Almost normal.
…
The house looked exactly as she'd left it. Two stories, small yard, attached garage. The same faded blue paint, the same slightly overgrown hedges that her mom kept meaning to trim, the same crack in the driveway that Bruce had been promising to fix for two years. Everything in its place. Everything normal. Except the lights were off. And the car was gone. And something felt wrong.
"Zoey?" Tink's voice was quiet, sensing her sudden tension. "What is it?"
"I don't know." Zoey checked her phone. 6:47 PM. Her family should be home by now. Her mom got off work at 5:30, Bruce around the same time, and Everett would have been back from school hours ago. "Stay here."
"But-"
"Both of you. Stay here."
She approached the house slowly, her senses stretching outward. The protective magji traps were still intact, she could feel them humming faintly against her skin, a familiar sensation that meant home and safety. Nothing had breached them. Nothing had tried. So why did her instincts keep screaming that something was wrong? Zoey unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
"Mom? Bruce? Everett?" Silence.
The house was dark and empty. She moved through the rooms methodically, living room, kitchen, dining room, upstairs bedrooms. Everything was in order. No signs of struggle, no broken furniture, no blood. Just... emptiness. Her phone buzzed. Zoey looked down at the screen. Unknown number. A video message. She tapped it open. And her world collapsed.
…
The video was thirty seconds long. It showed a warehouse of some kind, industrial, abandoned, the kind of place criminals used in movies. And in the center of the frame, bound and gagged, were her mother, her stepfather, and her baby brother. Alicia was crying silently, tears streaming down her face. Bruce was struggling against his bonds, his thin frame straining uselessly. Everett was huddled between them, his thirteen-year-old face straight with anger.
And behind them, one clawed hand resting casually on Alicia's shoulder, stood a woman with emerald-green hair and glasses.
"Hello, Zoey." Poison's voice dripped with satisfaction. "I hope your trip was pleasant. I've been taking good care of your family while you were away." She ran a claw gently down Alicia's cheek, leaving a thin red line that made Zoey's mother whimper. "They're such lovely people. Your mother especially. She reminds me of you, in a way. The same defiance in her eyes, even when she's completely helpless." The video panned to show the three captives more clearly, then back to Poison's smiling face.
"I'm sure you have questions. I'm sure you're angry. I'm sure you're already planning all the terrible things you're going to do to me." Poison's smile widened. "Good. Hold onto that anger. Let it consume you. And then come find me."
An address appeared on screen, a location on the outskirts of the city, in the old industrial district.
"Come alone," Poison continued. "Come quickly. And Zoey?" She leaned close to the camera, her emerald eyes filling the frame. "Welcome home. We've been waiting for you." The video ended.
Zoey stood in her empty house, phone clutched in her hand, and felt something inside her snap. She moved before she could think. Mahna flooded her body, surging through every muscle and nerve. Overdraft activated, pushing her already enhanced physiology past its normal limits. And beneath it all, Combo Magji began its work, each step faster than the last, each movement building on the one before.
Zoey exploded out of her house like a bullet from a gun. The world blurred around her. Streets became smears of color. Buildings flickered past like frames in a film. She was running faster than she'd ever run before, faster than any human had a right to move, faster than most magjistars could track with their eyes.
"ZOEY!" Tink's voice was a shriek in her ear. The small fairie had latched onto her shoulder the moment she burst outside, tiny hands gripping her hoodie with desperate strength. "SLOW DOWN!"
She couldn't slow down. Wouldn't slow down. Every second she wasted was a second Poison had her family. A second that green-haired bitch could decide to start cutting pieces off. Behind her, far behind her, she heard Tiffany's voice calling out, but the words were swallowed by the wind and the pounding of her own heartbeat. The purple-haired girl couldn't keep up. Couldn't even come close. Zoey was moving at speeds that left normal people in the dust.
'We just need to get there and tear that daemon apart!' Inner Zoey snarled.
'The family-'
'FUCK THE FAMILY! No, wait, SAVE the family, THEN tear the daemon apart!'
Zoey's mind was a hurricane of rage and terror. Her mother's crying face. Her stepfather's helpless struggles. Her little brother's anger. Poison's smile. Poison's claws. Poison's voice, dripping with satisfaction as she welcomed Zoey home. She was going to kill her. She was going to rip her apart with her bare hands. She was going to-
The industrial district loomed ahead. Old factories, abandoned warehouses, the skeletal remains of a manufacturing boom that had died decades ago. Zoey didn't slow down as she approached the address from the video. Didn't stop to scout, didn't stop to plan, didn't stop to think. She saw the building, a converted meatpacking plant, lights visible through grimy windows, and she aimed herself at the front door like a missile. The door didn't stand a chance.
Wood and metal exploded inward as Zoey crashed through, splinters and debris scattering across the warehouse floor. She landed in a crouch, mahna crackling around her body, Combo Magji coming to a crawl. And there they were. Her family, bound against the far wall. Alive. Terrified, but alive. And Poison, standing behind them with those elongated claws pressed against three throats simultaneously. One set at her mother's neck. One at Bruce's. One at Everett's.
"Ah." Poison's smile was radiant. "There you are. I was starting to think you'd gotten lost."
Zoey froze. Every instinct screamed at her to attack. To close the distance, to end this, to paint the walls with Poison's blood. She could do it. She was fast enough, strong enough, angry enough. One punch and this would all be over. But those claws were already touching skin. Already drawing tiny beads of blood from three throats. And Poison's smile said she knew exactly what Zoey was thinking.
"Go ahead," Poison purred. "Try it. I wonder which one I'll kill first. The mother, maybe? She has such a lovely scream. Or perhaps the father, he's been so brave, trying to protect his family. Or..." She pressed her claw slightly deeper into Everett's neck, making the boy grunt. "The little one. Children are always so fragile."
"Let them go." Zoey's voice came out as a growl, barely human. "This is between you and me."
"Oh, I know. But where's the fun in a fair fight?" Poison laughed, and the sound echoed through the empty warehouse. "You took everything from me, Zoey Winters. My pride. My dignity. My future. Do you have any idea what it's like to be stuck? To feel yourself stagnating, unable to grow, unable to evolve, all because some human decided to humiliate you?"
"I don't care about your problems."
"No, you wouldn't. Because I was nothing to you, wasn't I? Just another daemon you defeated and forgot. You probably don't even remember our first meeting." Poison's eyes flashed with fury behind her glasses. "But I remember. I remember every second of it. The pain. The fear. The certainty that I was going to die. And then your face, looking down at me like I was garbage. Like I wasn't worth the effort of a finishing blow."
Zoey's hands clenched into fists. The mahna around her body pulsed dangerously, straining against her control.
"So yes, this is between you and me," Poison continued. "But I'm not stupid enough to think I can beat you in a straight fight. You're a monster, Zoey Winters. A freak of nature that shouldn't exist. So I'll beat you the only way I can, by taking everything you love and making you watch as I destroy it."
"If you hurt them-"
"You'll what? Kill me?" Poison laughed again. "You were always going to try to kill me. That's not a threat, that's an inevitability. But can you do it fast enough to save all three of them?" She tilted her head, genuinely curious. "Let's find out, shall we?"
Zoey stood frozen, trembling with rage and helplessness, as Poison smiled at her from behind the bodies of everyone she loved. And Tink, still clinging to her shoulder, whispered: "Zoey... what do we do?" She didn't have an answer.