The city had gone past dead. It felt buried.
The waiting has come to an end, and the endless wandering continued.
Every block we crossed reeked of something sour and long forgotten—old smoke, rust, wet concrete. My boots ground against shattered glass and crumbling asphalt, each step a brittle whisper that I couldn't quiet, no matter how slow I moved. Lucy led the way, his shoulders hunched and a kitchen knife clutched like an extension of his arm. Angelica followed behind me, her breath shallow and quick enough that I could almost see it shaking in the faint moonlight.
I tightened the strap of the gun across my chest. It was a rifle that i instinctively picked at the sight of a dead man across the street earlier.
But before i can even give my sympathies for the dead, the name of Michael kept ringing in my ears, dreading to know if he's even alive. I kept saying my brother's name in my head, like if I repeated it enough times he would appear—grinning, teasing, calling me "Mira sis." like it wasn't the end of the world. But every empty street corner we turned made his name feel more like a prayer whispered into a dead radio.
"Any sign of—" Angelica began, but Lucy shot her a sharp look over his shoulder.
Silence.
That was when I noticed it too.
It wasn't just the absence of sound; it was the way the air seemed to fold in. The wind that had been teasing the loose tin signs moments ago had gone still. No flapping scraps of paper, no distant groan of a ruined skyscraper settling. Even our breathing sounded wrong. It was too loud, too alive.
A pulse of dread crawled up my spine. I glanced down the street. The cracked windows of the towers above us gaped like jagged teeth, swallowing the moonlight. For a second I could have sworn the buildings leaned closer, like they wanted to listen.
Lucy raised one hand. It was slow and deliberate. A signal for us to stop.
Angelica froze while i followed, every muscle turning to stone. And then.. Something scraped.
A faint scuff like the edge of a shoe on grit, slid through the silence. Too soft to pinpoint. Too sharp to ignore. I bit down on my tongue to keep from calling out Michael's name.
The image of devila flashed across my mind. Then it was Michael's lovely smile. My skin stretched tight over twisted bones, the stink of burning hair and sulfur. I sniffed the air. Nothing. Just the city's metallic rot.
Humans.
My heart sank. Humans wore the wost traits of the worst Devils. Intelligence.
I shifted my grip on the rifle, the leather strap damp against my palm. The shadows were wrong. They moved when I wasn't looking. Out of the corner of my eye, the alley to our left seemed to breathe. I dared a glance and caught the faintest flick of metal, moonlight on glass? No. The hard glint of a blade.
Lucy's jaw tightened. He knew.
Angelica's breath hitched.
"Shh," I whispered, but it came out like a hiss.
Then,low, guttural. As someone chuckled.
It came from the alley. The sound slithered across my skin like rusted wire. Another laugh, softer, to our right.
I swallowed hard. The weight of the night pressed on my shoulders, heavy as wet cloth. My ears rang with the rush of blood, drowning out even my own heartbeat. Lucy eased his knife higher, his knuckles ghost-white. Angelica stumbled back a step, nearly tripping on a chunk of broken curb.
The shadows answered with a shuffle. A slow, deliberate scrape of boots on rubble. Not one pair. Many. I forced my breathing into silence and tried to count the echoes. Three. Four. Maybe more. They were patient. Not like the devils who came screaming with claws and teeth. These were men. The people who had survived long enough in the world's ashes to become something else.
"Show yourselves," Lucy said, voice barely above a whisper. It was a bluff. We all knew it.
The city seemed to grin back.
From the black mouth of a ruined shopfront came a voice—ragged, almost playful. "Pretty night for a walk." A voice, a man, dripping with amusement. "Pretty night for a hunt." I tightened my grip on the rifle until the metal bit into my palm. My mouth tasted like iron. The darkness shifted again, and a figure stepped just enough into the moonlight to let me see the curve of a smile. It was too wide, too calm. Behind it, more shadows unfurled, tall and thin, like smoke rising from a fire you couldn't see.
I thought of Michael. His laugh. His promise that he'd see me again on that telephone. I wondered if he'd kept it, or if he too had learned to smile like that in the dark.
The city held its breath. So did I.
Somewhere in the ruins, the night began to wander. So did my mind. I thought of Michael. I kept whispering Michael's name inside my head, my brother's name, like a prayer that refused to die. If I said it often enough, maybe he'd hear me across this graveyard of a city and call back. But every empty street we turned only made the name feel heavier, like I was burying it in dust.
A sudden stillness slid over the ruins. The wind cut out mid-gust, leaving the world holding its breath. The tin signs that had clinked and rattled only moments ago now hung silent, like they were listening. The shadows seemed to lean closer, bending the moonlight until every corner felt like an open mouth. From the left alley came the faint glint of metal. Knife? Bottle shard? My chest tightened. Then a low chuckle rolled out of the dark. Another, to our right. Lucy's knuckles whitened on the crowbar. Angelica gritted her teeth as the placement of her finger leaned to the sheathe of her sword. The shuffling grew louder. Boots dragging rubble. Not one set. Many. Figures emerged from the black like smoke made solid. Men in tattered coats and scavenged armor, guns and blades gleaming where the moon struck them. Their eyes were pale glints, hungry and empty. At their center strode a man with a rusted shotgun cradled in one arm and a revolver aimed with lazy precision at— My breath caught. "Michael—" The name slipped out before I could choke it back. My brother stood rigid between two men, a bruised smear darkening his jaw. His eyes found mine for an instant, fear and relief colliding, before the leader jerked the gun against his temple.
"He accidentally slipped," the man said, his grin wide and yellowed, "that one of you is his sister." The grin cut through me like broken glass. Angelica's fingers clamped onto the sheathe of her blade. Lucy shifted a fraction, his arms raised, the tension in his shoulders wound like a wire about to snap.
And then, a new presence bled into the street.
He did not step from the shadows so much as unfold from them. A figure taller than any of the armed men, draped in a coat so black it drank the moonlight. His movements were slow, deliberate, as if the air thickened around him. The stink arrived first, an awful, coppery rot that crawled down my throat and made my stomach clench. Even the armed men stiffened. Their leader's grin faltered. The figure stopped behind them. I could barely make out his face, but the suggestion of it, long, hollow, as though carved from night itself, was enough to make my skin tighten. When he spoke, the voice carried like cold smoke. "And i heard.. " he said, every word drawn out like the scrape of a blade on stone, "that one of you is Lucy Forester… the messiah." The word messiah hung in the air like a curse. Lucy stiffened, his knife trembling just enough for me to see. Angelica sucked in a sharp breath. My own heart hammered so violently I could feel it against the rifle strap biting my shoulder. No one moved. Even the city seemed to bow its ruined head, waiting.
"I represent lord Belphegor. And i promise that these fools will let go of Michael, though in exchange, Lucy will come with us."