"God's reign here is absolute."
Those were the first words he ever learned to read. They were etched in fire and gold on the steel that saved his life.
The night was a predator. It was not the playful dark of hide-and-seek, but a final, suffocating shroud that swallowed light and sound whole. Above, the moon hung like a stolen trophy—swollen, white, and cold. Its light felt parasitic, as if it had clawed the warmth from the sun and now poured its pale imitation into the city's concrete veins. Around it, the stars were fragile sparks, scattered like forgotten diamonds across a vast and empty abyss.
When he was three, his mother had told him a story. The moon, she said, was a gentle protector. It shielded the tiny, timid stars from the sun's burning jealousy. Each night, the stars would dance, free and safe in their harmony. But with dawn, they would scatter, terrified of being devoured. And so the moon kept its lonely vigil, out of pity.
He thought of that story now, with his cheek pressed against the alley's cold concrete. A thin veil of smog blurred the stars above. They looked so distant. So untouched. So peaceful.
Are they happy? he wondered, a shiver wracking his small frame. Is that what heaven looks like?
His grandmother always said heaven was beyond the sky. A place so high and so pure that no evil could ever touch it. She had been wrong about many things, but he needed that one to be true.
"Mom?" His voice was a fragile thing, a tiny crack in the immense silence. "Did God really make the heavens… and the earth?"
He lifted his head to look for her.
But it wasn't his mother waiting in the dark.
The alley was a wound in the city's side—narrow, suffocating, walls bleeding graffiti. Rusted pipes hissed plumes of faint, acrid smoke. Shadows seemed to crawl over the cracked brick like insects. From the world above came the muffled sounds of life: a television laugh track, a couple arguing, the scratchy melody of a distant radio. Life went on, oblivious.
But not here.
Here, everything had stopped.
He saw his mother's body first.
She was slumped against the wall in a mockery of sleep. But sleep doesn't leave a body without its head. Where her neck should have been was only a ruin of meat and splintered bone. One arm was gone at the elbow. Her shoulder was a ragged mess of torn flesh. Blood dripped from the wounds with a terrible, rhythmic patience—drip… drip…—each drop pooling in the cracks of the pavement like dark, sticky sap.
And crouched over her was something that made the boy's mind want to unravel.
It lifted its head with a slow, deliberate grace, savoring the interruption like a gourmand disturbed mid-meal. A wide-brimmed hat cast its face in shadow, but its mouth was a wet, red gash in the gloom. The boy watched, paralyzed, as its jaw flexed, a long, dark tongue licking a stray droplet from its lips with relish.
Then it turned, and he saw its eyes.
They burned. Two pits of hellfire in the darkness—scarlet irises swimming around pupils of absolute black. They were not the eyes of any animal or man. They were windows into a place where only joyless, hungry evil resided.
The devil rose, unfolding to a terrifying height, a stark silhouette against the distant alley mouth.
And it spoke.
"God?"
The voice was wrong. It was beautiful. It poured into the boy's ears like warm honey, a soft, melodic sound that coiled in his chest and numbed his terror. It was the most terrifying thing he had ever heard.
Then it smiled. He couldn't see its mouth beneath the shadow, but he felt it—a wave of predatory amusement that washed over him and stole the air from his lungs.
"Yes," it whispered, the sound smooth as silk against his soul. "I am God."
The boy froze. His stomach twisted. The word itself felt like a poison.
Crunch. One step. Its boot settled on the concrete.
Crunch. Another. Closer.
Crunch. Until its shadow fell over him, swallowing him whole. The scent of copper and something sweetly rotten filled his nose.
"Tell me, child," it asked, tilting its head in a parody of kindness, its voice velvet-wrapped malice. "What is it you wish to ask of God?"
The boy's body was no longer his own. He couldn't move. Couldn't scream. His mouth opened, but only a silent gasp came out. A single, hot tear traced a path through the grime on his cheek.
The devil bent down. A pale, long-fingered hand twitched, then reached for him. The fingers trembled with the effort of restraint, moving with a mock gentleness towards his face—
—BAM.
The world exploded.
The devil's head ceased to exist. It vaporized in a spray of black gore and bone fragments that painted the alley walls. The headless body stood for a moment, puppet-like, then crumpled to the ground with a wet, final slap. The air, once filled with a beautiful voice, was now choked with the stench of gunpowder, ozone, and opened graves.
Silence roared back.
From the deepest shadows of the alley, a man stepped forward.
He was tall and straight-backed, a pillar of darkness in the ruin. He was dressed in a black suit of impossible perfection, untouched by the filth around him. A cigarette smoldered between his lips, its smoke weaving lazy patterns in the fouled air. Casually resting on his shoulder was a shotgun, its barrel still wisping smoke.
Etched along the steel, gleaming with a cold promise, was a line of golden letters:
"God's reign here is absolute."
The boy could only stare. The man didn't move at first. His eyes—a tired, weathered blue—took in the headless demon, the ravaged corpse, and finally, the small, blood-spattered boy. His expression, hard and unshaven, didn't change. Then he swore. It was a low, rough, profoundly human sound.
"…Fuck me. There's a kid."
He dropped to one knee, the movement economical and practiced. The shotgun remained balanced effortlessly in one hand, the cigarette still clung to his lip. His face wasn't that of a storybook hero. It was a map of weariness and stubble, etched by things a child couldn't imagine.
"How you holding up, boy?" His voice was steady, but it carried the weight of endless nights. "That your mother back there?"
The boy's throat was sealed shut. The only answer was the slow, metronomic drip… drip… drip of blood from the wall behind them.
The man sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion. It was the sigh of a man who had just shouldered a burden he never wanted but knew he couldn't leave behind.
*****
The child sat in a hard wooden chair in the precinct lobby, his legs dangling high above the scuffed tile floor. The cold here was different. It was a sterile chill that smelled of bleach, stale smoke, and old sweat. A wall clock ticked loudly above him, each second a hammer fall, but time had lost all meaning. His small hands were stained a rusty brown with blood that was not his own. He rubbed them together, over and over, a futile attempt to erase the feeling, but the stain remained.
His savior stood at the high reception desk, locked in a quiet, tense argument with a sergeant who looked like he'd been made from cigarette ash and bad coffee. The sergeant had thinning hair slicked back with grease, a tarnished badge, and eyes so exhausted they seemed to look right through the world.
"I told you," the Hunter's voice was a low, strained wire. "The mother's dead. No father. No family in the system. You want me to just leave him on a corner?"
The sergeant snorted, not even looking up as he flicked ash into a tray. "You think you're the first Hunter to play stray collection? Christ. Name? Birthdate?"
The Hunter went still. He glanced back at the boy. The boy looked back, his own eyes wide and empty. No words passed between them.
"For fuck's sake," the sergeant muttered, finally looking up. "He doesn't even know his name?"
The Hunter leaned in, his immaculate black suit a stark contrast to the grimy desk. "He's seen things," he said, his voice dropping even further. "Things that would curdle your soul. Just process it. Fast."
The sergeant held his gaze. It was a standoff between two tired men, but only one had another man's blood drying on his shoes. The sergeant finally broke, exhaling a cloud of smoke. He scrawled something on a form, stamped it with a definitive THUD, and shoved it into an overstuffed file folder.
"Fine. I'll run him. But after that? He's not my problem."
The Hunter's jaw muscle tightened. "He's not mine either."
The boy heard it. The words were sharper than the devil's teeth. Not mine either. He looked down at the floor, tracing the cracks in the tile, wishing they would open up and take him.
The Hunter sighed, pulled a flask from his inside coat pocket, and took a long, burning swallow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned. "C'mon, kid."
The boy followed, his small shoes making no sound on the dirty floor. The sergeant shouted something after them—about paperwork, guardianship, the law—but the Hunter never broke stride. He pushed the heavy doors open, and the hungry night swallowed them whole.
The car ride was a silence broken only by the hum of the engine and the flick-flick of the Hunter tapping ash from his cigarette out the window. The city blurred past—a smear of neon and shadow—but the boy saw none of it. His eyes were locked on the shotgun lying on the backseat. The golden words seemed to glow in the dark:
God's reign here is absolute.
The Hunter muttered to himself, low curses that weren't for the boy. Arguments with ghosts.
When the car finally slowed, it was on a street the light forgot. The buildings were older, the air quieter. They stopped before a formidable slab of stone and iron. And above its immense double doors, carved into the granite archway as if by divine commandment, was the phrase:
"God's reign here is absolute."
The boy stared. His chest felt tight. He remembered his mother's stories of heaven, a place of light and safety. This was not that. This was a fortress. This was a declaration of war.
The Hunter led him inside.
The lobby of Hunter Headquarters was not made for comfort. It was a cathedral of cold purpose. Marble floors, polished to a glacial shine, reflected the harsh white light from above. The ceiling vaulted high, hung with banners of scripture—Hebrew, Latin, Arabic—embroidered in gold and blood-crimson. The air hummed with discipline: the precise click of boots on stone, the rustle of paper, the quiet, clipped conversations of men and women with guns holstered under tailored suits.
A quote was starkly written across a massive slate board:
"The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?"
The boy's eyes darted around. One wall was a gallery of martyrs: photographs of grim-faced men and women in black frames, each with a date too soon. The opposite wall was a bestiary of nightmares: sketches of devils, their forms warped, their eyes burning with red ink even on paper.
Hunters moved past him, their eyes glancing over him without seeing him. He was just another orphan. Another piece of fallout.
They moved deeper, through corridors that smelled of gun oil, old books, and faint, sanctified incense. They passed an open chapel. Inside, candles flickered under the silent gaze of a crucifix, a Torah scroll, and an open Qur'an. Low, urgent prayers whispered from within.
The boy hesitated, drawn to the solace, but the Hunter's hand on his shoulder was firm. "Keep walking."
They arrived at an office at the end of a long hall. The door was open, and voices, sharp and contentious, spilled out.
Two men were inside. One was older, his face a roadmap of scars, a heavy cane leaning against the desk. The other was younger, sleek, his hair perfect, his suit without a crease. They were arguing about tactics, about losses, about the soul of their order.
Behind the desk sat a different man. Softer. Still. His hair was silver, his beard neat, his hands resting calmly on a large ledger. His eyes were ancient and calm, and when they fell on the boy, they held a deep, abiding sorrow.
The scarred man noticed them first. His voice cut off. "What's this?"
The Hunter nudged the boy forward. "Stray. Pride Devil got the mother. Nothing left for him."
The younger man frowned, his arms crossed. "We are not an orphanage."
"The street's worse," the Hunter replied, his tone flat and final.
The room went quiet. The boy looked at the silver-haired man. He felt like the center of a storm.
The man spoke, his voice a deep, calming instrument. "Bring him here."
The boy walked on numb legs, his footsteps tiny taps on the floor. He stopped before the desk, eyes downcast.
"What is your name, child?" the man asked, his gentleness feeling like a blanket in the cold.
The boy opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He searched for it—the sound his mother made when she called him, the melody of his own name. It was gone. Lost in the silence.
The man nodded, as if he understood perfectly. He opened a drawer and placed a small, plain wooden cross on the desk between them.
"You are safe here," he said, and his voice held no doubt. "This house belongs to God. And as long as you walk under His reign, no devil will touch you again."
The boy looked up. For the first time that night, he saw a face that held no horror, no impatience, no lie. Only certainty.
And though he did not believe the words, a tiny, trapped breath finally escaped his lungs.