Kael's POV
Marcus is screaming my name, but he doesn't see me.
I'm holding him in my arms—my baby brother, the kid I raised after our demon father abandoned us—and he's staring right through me like I'm a ghost. His eyes are wide and empty, filled with horrors only he can see.
"Kael?" he whimpers. "Kael, where are you? They're coming for me. The dead ones. They want me. Please, Kael, make them stop!"
"I'm right here, Marcus." My voice breaks. "I'm holding you. Look at me. LOOK AT ME!"
But he can't. Whatever that silver-eyed woman did to him, it broke something fundamental inside his mind. The Marcus I knew—selfish, cruel, but still my brother—is gone. There's just this hollow shell left, trapped in an eternal nightmare.
I want to scream. I want to destroy something. I want to find that woman and rip her apart with my bare hands.
Instead, I just hold him and wait for Dr. Vale.
The old man arrives twenty minutes later in his wheelchair, taking one look at the destroyed penthouse and shaking his head. "What happened here looks like a war zone."
"Close enough." I gently lay Marcus on the couch. My brother curls into a ball immediately, sobbing about shadows with dead eyes. "A woman attacked him. Supernatural. She did... something to his mind."
Dr. Vale rolls closer, his experienced eyes scanning Marcus with the kind of sight that sees beyond the physical. After three decades of hunting supernatural creatures before a curse crippled him, Vale knows things most humans never learn.
"Devil magic," Vale says quietly. "Old. Powerful. Whoever did this made a serious deal." He touches Marcus's forehead, and my brother flinches. "She didn't just hurt him. She made him see his sins. All of them. Forever."
"Can you fix him?"
Vale meets my eyes. The pity in them tells me everything.
"No," he says. "This kind of damage is permanent. His mind will heal around the trauma, but he'll never be the same. He'll spend the rest of his life seeing ghosts of the people he hurt."
My demon blood surges, hot and angry. My eyes burn red. The windows rattle.
"Kael," Vale warns. "Control it."
"She destroyed him!" I roar. "She didn't just kill him—she made him suffer forever! What kind of monster does that?"
"The kind who thinks she's delivering justice." Vale wheels over to the wall where the shadow-messages still linger. He reads them carefully, his expression growing darker. "The Pale Judge. I've heard rumors about her. A vigilante taking down criminals the system can't touch. But this..." He gestures at Marcus. "This is extreme even for her."
"I don't care about her reasons." I force myself to breathe, to push the demon back down. "She hurt my family. Now I hurt her."
"Kael." Vale's voice is sharp. "Think. Your brother was involved in the cursed artifact trade. He sold objects that killed innocent people. Children, Kael. A fourteen-year-old girl jumped off a bridge because of a mirror Marcus sold her mother."
The words hit me like punches. "You knew?"
"I suspected." Vale looks tired suddenly. Old. "I've been tracking cursed artifacts in the city for months. The trail kept leading back to Marcus. I was going to tell you, but—"
"But what?" My voice is dangerous now. "You thought I'd protect him anyway?"
"Wouldn't you have?"
The silence between us is heavy. Because he's right. I would have. Marcus was corrupt and cruel and everything our demon father was. But he was still mine to protect. That's what big brothers do, even when their little brothers become monsters.
"It doesn't matter what he did," I say finally. "She had no right."
"Didn't she?" Vale challenges. "You've spent three hundred years fighting your demon nature. Starving yourself rather than hurt innocents. But Marcus? He embraced the worst of humanity without any demonic excuse. Who's the real monster?"
The question stabs deeper than any blade.
Before I can answer, my phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number.
I open it, and my blood turns to ice.
It's a photo of me holding Marcus. Taken tonight. Taken from inside the penthouse.
Below it: "You have 72 hours to leave New York, half-demon. The Pale Judge doesn't negotiate. Your brother was evil. You protected evil. That makes you guilty too. Run, or join him in madness. - PJ"
"She was still here," I whisper. "The whole time. Watching."
A second text arrives immediately: "P.S. - Your demon father is back in the city. He's killed six people this week. Maybe focus on the REAL monsters instead of hunting me? Just a thought. - PJ"
My father. Zuriel Draven. The demon who abandoned us, who taught Marcus everything wrong with the world, who I haven't seen in fifty years.
He's here. In my city. Killing.
Vale reads over my shoulder. "This is a test."
"What?"
"She's testing you." Vale points at the messages. "She's giving you a choice. Hunt her for revenge, or hunt your father and stop him from killing more innocents. She wants to see what kind of monster you really are."
My hands shake with rage. "This is manipulation."
"Of course it is." Vale wheels back, studying me carefully. "But it's also information you needed. If Zuriel's really back, you have bigger problems than one vigilante. Your father is pure demon. Ancient. Powerful. He could kill hundreds before anyone stops him."
I look at Marcus, broken and whimpering. Then at my phone. Then at the messages on the wall.
My demon nature screams for vengeance. For blood. For hunting the silver-eyed woman until I destroy her the way she destroyed Marcus.
But my human side—the part I've fought to keep alive for three centuries—knows Vale's right.
"I can do both," I say quietly. "Hunt my father. And hunt her."
"You're not that strong, Kael. Nobody is."
"Then I'll become stronger." I stand, and my shadow stretches across the wall, growing teeth and claws. "I'm done starving myself. Done pretending I'm human. If she wants to see the real monster—"
My phone buzzes again. A final message.
"Your demon side is showing, Kael. Careful. The more you feed it, the more you become what I hunt. And I never miss. Sweet dreams, half-demon. - PJ"
And beneath it, a video file.
I click it with trembling fingers.
It's security footage from Marcus's building. From tonight. But the timestamp is from thirty minutes AFTER the fight.
The video shows the silver-eyed woman—the Pale Judge—standing in the hallway outside Marcus's door. But she's not alone.
Standing next to her, whispering in her ear, is something that makes my demon blood scream in recognition and terror.
A being made of starlight and shadow. Beautiful and terrible. Ancient beyond measure.
Azrael. The Devil of Deals.
In the video, Azrael puts a hand on the woman's shoulder and smiles directly at the camera. Directly at me.
The video cuts to black.
Then one final text arrives from a different number: "She's mine, half-demon. You can't save her. You can't stop her. You can barely save yourself. But feel free to try. It's been so boring lately. - Azrael"
I stare at the phone, my mind racing.
The Pale Judge isn't just some vigilante. She's a devil's puppet. Azrael's weapon.
And somehow, I've been pulled into a game I don't understand.
Vale's voice cuts through my thoughts: "Kael. What did you see?"
I show him the video. Watch his face go pale.
"Oh no," Vale whispers. "This is so much worse than I thought. Azrael doesn't make simple deals. If he's involved, then she's—" He stops. "You can't fight her, Kael. You have to run."
"I don't run."
"Then you'll die." Vale grabs my arm with surprising strength. "Or worse. Azrael collects souls for a reason. Whatever game he's playing, you're a piece on his board now. And pieces don't win against the player."
Behind us, Marcus starts screaming again about the dead children reaching for him.
My phone buzzes one last time.
"Tick tock, half-demon. 71 hours, 42 minutes left. - PJ"