Then opened it and stepped inside, "Forgive the delay," Michael said pleasantly, voice carrying through the vast, decaying interior. "I didn't mean to barge in."
The room beyond was wide and gutted, furniture overturned, ten figures stood or crouched within, men and women wearing human shapes poorly, black ichor seeping from eyes and ears.
Michael strolled into the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back, utterly unconcerned as they slowly formed a circle around him.
"I'm here," he continued calmly, "because word has reached me that certain miscreants have taken up residence on this property." His eyes swept over them. "Individuals who should not be topside."
The pressure in the room intensified, his presence alone bending the air, his calm more terrifying than rage.
"There are eleven of you," he said thoughtfully. "Well. Ten now." One of them hissed at him making him raise an eyebrow.
Michael smiled faintly. "We can make this quick and painless if you cooperate. If not…" He tilted his head. "Your deaths will be delivered in a rather less savory manner."
Silence.
Then one of them charged and Michael sighed. The sound came out soft and almost disappointed.
His eyes closed just as the first attacker lunged at him. The creature's claws passed through empty air.
Michael moved not too fast or slow with no wasted movement, he caught the attacker by the wrist with a clawed hand, his claws digging in as if bone were wet clay. With a smooth pivot of his hips, he spun, momentum carrying the body across his back.
Then his other hand came around in a backhand. The blow landed with a sound like thunder cracking stone. His knuckles were already aflame when they connected, hellfire crawling over the back of his hand in jagged fractures of light. The creature's head snapped sideways, neck collapsing inward as flames exploded through its spine, racing down its body in a blink.
It didn't even get the chance to fall as It burned where it stood, flesh blackening, bones glowing, mouth frozen mid-scream as hellfire consumed it from the inside out until nothing remained but drifting ash meeting the floor.
Michael rolled his shoulder once, as if loosening a joint.
"Well," he said mildly, opening his eyes and holding out his hands in invitation, "the room is officially open for action."
They rushed him, all of them. Nine bodies surged forward at once howling, their claws were out, black ichor spraying as their malformed mouths split wider than human jaws ever should. The floorboards cracked under their weight.
Michael watched with a blank expression. Then, he vanished.
The first never saw him move.
Michael reappeared behind it, his claws sliding cleanly between ribs. He lifted the creature off the ground with one hand, fire blooming from his palm. The heat liquefied organs instantly. The creature convulsed in pain, limbs jerking uselessly before Michael twisted his wrist and tore straight through its torso, leaving two burning halves to collapse separately.
Another leapt from above.
Michael ducked, grabbed its ankle mid-air, and swung it like a flail into the wall. The impact shattered brick and bone simultaneously. Before the creature could recover, Michael blurred to it and drove his heel down onto its skull, hellfire erupting on contact. The head burst like overheated glass, flames pouring out of the cavity as the body went limp.
A third tried to flank him. Michael feinted left, then blurred right, appearing inches from its face with a wicked smiled.
His claws punched through its jaw and out the back of its skull. He yanked downward, tearing the head clean off, then casually tossed it into another charging body. The head detonated mid-air in a flash of fire, taking both down in a rain of burning fragments.
Two more came at once.
Michael inhaled and the temperature in the room spiked violently.
He spread his fingers, palm outward.
A superheated blast detonated from his hand, white-hot, concussive and absolute. The force crushed two bodies at once, compressing them inward before fire erupted outward, blowing half the building apart. Walls collapsed. The ceiling screamed. Smoke and debris filled the air as burning remains were flung through shattered windows and broken beams.
Silence followed.
Then the sound of footsteps retreated. From the smoke, Michael stepped forward, his coat untouched, boots crunching over ash and bone. His eyes glowed brighter now, molten red. The remaining creatures already dead and already damned took a step back.
He tilted his head, surveying the ruin.
"Hm," he mused. "Structural integrity could've been better."
One charged anyway and Michael met it head-on, "No sense of self preservation as usual."
He caught its throat, lifted it effortlessly and dragged his claws down its chest, carving glowing runes of fire through flesh. The creature screamed as hellfire poured into the wounds, burning its already warped soul directly. Michael leaned closer, voice calm, almost instructional.
"This is what happens when you mistake noise for power."
He released it and It hit the floor already burning, thrashing until it stilled.
Another tried to escape through the side room but Michael snapped his fingers and fire coiled like a chain, lashing out and wrapping around the creature's waist. He yanked once.
"Get over here!!!"
The body flew back, slammed into his waiting hand and Michael drove his claws through its sternum. He then opened his mouth and flames surged outward like a dragon or a certain scorpion, consuming it in a blink.
Only two remained.
They stood frozen, bodies shaking, black tar leaking freely now as fear finally reached whatever was left of them.
Michael looked at the, really looked at what used to be people before the warped and corrupted souls of the supernatural dead possessed them. Cade might be a fraud but he is a genius, using the souls in his domain, warping them, turning them into entities capable of coming topside, possessing other supernatural creatures and to some extent even humans. In doing so he gets the souls of the possessed body and agents in the world of the living.
"Run," he said softly.
They hesitated and he smiled at that.
"No?" His flames flared around him as more cracks appeared on his face and inbetween his eyes, filling the room with unbearable heat. "Then listen carefully."
Fire erupted from him in a vast and controlled burst. The walls groaned and the air screamed. The flames climbed toward the ceiling like a living thing.
"You will deliver a message for me," Michael said, voice carrying through the inferno without effort. "To Arcadius."
The two nodded frantically.
"Tell him," Michael continued, stepping closer, eyes burning like twin red suns, "that if he wants me he does not send pets."
Flames licked the floor beneath their feet.
"He does not send echoes. He does not hide behind stolen bodies and rotting souls."
Michael leaned in with a sharp and dangerous smile."
"He comes for me himself."
Then suddenly, fire receded.
"Go," he said and they ran.
Michael turned away from them and walked a bit before exhaling slowly.
"…On second thought."
The air cracked again as he blurred.
The last thing the two ever saw was his face inches from theirs, his eyes blazing with an utterly diabolical smile.
Then everything burned.
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