POV: Mary
The smell hit her before the sight.
Rot. Copper. Smoke. It clung to everything—her skin, her clothes, her lungs. Mary crouched low behind an overturned prep table, keeping her profile tight as claws slashed through the steel above her.
Sparks burst across the dim space, metal groaning under the force of the impact.
Just a second slower and she'd have no head left.
Across the room, Jacobs was bleeding badly. He'd taken the first hit when the demon dropped from the ceiling—blindsided, fast, brutal. He'd barely screamed before he was down.
Now he was slumped in the corner, arm hanging limp, blood spreading out beneath him in a slow, ugly pool.
"Stay with me," Mary hissed, dragging him behind a knocked-over counter. "Come on, move, dammit—"
A low growl rumbled through the floor. The whole kitchen seemed to vibrate with it. Heavy claws clicked across tile somewhere beyond her cover.
She peeked out.
The demon was massive. Eight feet, maybe more—built like a predator, but upright. Its shoulders hunched with thick plates of bone. Its face was all exposed skull, with sharp teeth and deep-set eyes glowing pale white.
It was watching. Waiting.
Jacobs let out a strained breath behind her. "Shoot it… shoot the bastard…"
She didn't hesitate. She raised her pistol, aimed center mass, and squeezed the trigger three times.
The bullets weren't standard. They burned with an eerie white flare on impact—the experimental rounds designed to pierce demonic regeneration. They hit like small grenades.
The demon staggered, chest smoking.
But it didn't fall.
With a roar, it launched forward.
Mary shoved Jacobs aside, rolled out to the right, and spotted a combat knife lying beside a broken tray. She snatched it, turned, and slashed upward just as the creature lunged again.
The blade caught its face, scraping across bone. It flinched.
Mary planted her feet, pressed the barrel of her pistol to its throat, and fired.
The demon let out a choked screech, spun into the wall, and collapsed in a twitching heap.
Still. Finally.
She didn't move right away—just breathed.
Sweat clung to her skin. Her hands trembled slightly.
Not from fear.
From adrenaline.
She stepped over the corpse and dropped beside Jacobs.
He wasn't breathing right. Each inhale was shallow, wet.
"Come on, come on," she whispered, pressing fingers to his neck. Weak pulse. Barely there.
His lips parted, like he was trying to speak.
She held his hand. "You did good. You slowed it down."
He blinked once.
And then—nothing.
His body went still. No breath. No heartbeat.
Mary's hand lingered on his chest for a moment before she leaned forward and gently closed his eyes. The blood soaked into her gloves.
Then she stood.
Not shaking anymore.
Not angry either.
Just empty.
She reloaded, tucked the knife into her belt, and stepped through the ruined kitchen toward the hallway.
The Corridor
The first thing she noticed was the silence.
Then the blood.
It streaked across the walls in arcs—some of it fresh, some drying already. A boot print smeared crimson across the tiles.
At the end of the hall, two bodies.
One was Sergeant Harris—what was left of him.
The other was standing.
Michael.
His back was to her. His shirt was soaked through in blood, the fabric clinging to his skin.
He hadn't moved.
She stopped a few steps behind him.
"Michael," she said, voice low.
He didn't respond right away.
The air felt heavier near him. Charged. Tense.
She looked from Harris to Michael.
The body was torn open. Violent. Not a clean death.
But she didn't raise her weapon. Didn't flinch.
She'd seen what demons could do.
She'd also seen what Michael could do—and more importantly, what he hadn't done when he could've.
"You okay?"
Still facing away, Michael nodded once. "Yeah."
She stared for another moment, then turned and walked past him without a word, toward the trucks that had started to roll up outside.
POV: Michael
He stood there, the hallway strangely quiet now that the chaos was gone.
Harris's body lay still behind him, blood already drying around the jagged edges of torn armor. The man had gone for his weapon—shaking, panicked—and Michael had known then there wasn't going to be a conversation.
Still.
'Should've waited. Should've let someone else deal with it.'
His skull had been shattered moments earlier, and it barely hurt now.
The regeneration worked fast.
Too fast.
And Harris had seen it.
Had understood.
Michael flexed his fingers, feeling the slow shift of bone settling beneath the skin. The claws were gone. His hands looked normal again.
His head, too, had healed.
But the image of Harris's expression—the fear in his eyes—stuck.
"What I am must stay hidden—always."
He glanced toward the end of the hall.
Mary had seen something. She hadn't said a word. No questions. No panic.
That kind of silence… it wasn't safe.
It was dangerous.
He turned toward the far wall, where something faint glimmered on the floor.
A shard.
Red, jagged, warm to the touch.
He crouched and picked it up between his fingers. The crystal pulsed gently—subtle. But it felt alive in a way the dead demon carcasses hadn't.
'What's this'
It had been near the camouflaged demon. Embedded in what was left of its chest.
He pocketed it, eyes lingering on it for just a moment longer.
Then he stood and walked toward the sound of engines.
Outside
Cleanup teams were already at work.
Black-armored medics. Silver-case loaders. A dozen bodies—some human, most not—were being tagged and lifted onto stretchers.
The restaurant would be burned down by nightfall. Erased. Just another unexplained fire.
Mary stood near one of the trucks, arms crossed.
She watched the stretchers roll past without flinching. No visible grief. Just the kind of steel expression that came from too many missions and too few answers.
Michael approached.
She looked over her shoulder.
No questions.
No confrontation.
She nodded.
He nodded back.
And that was the end of it.
For now.