Dusk was closing in. A fine rain drifted down outside, and the sky was still that same oppressive smear of grey-blue that made people feel vaguely ill at ease.

  At last, the front door of the Victoria household swung open.

  The ambulance parked in the drive kept strobing its lights across the garden, and the paramedics were racing through their checklist, busying themselves with all the small, necessary preparations. They had just hoisted the stretcher and were about to step into the house to retrieve the patient when a group of people with vacant, lifeless eyes slowly emerged from behind the crucifix-marked door.

  Victoria and Matthew were half-supporting, half-carrying Jonathan as they brought him toward the stunned paramedics. He was badly injured, semi-conscious, but still breathing. The crystal sphere with its mounted base was still wedged in his mouth. The blood on his jaw had half dried, crumbling and flaking away in small scales as he moved. In the confused shuffle of footsteps, one of his shoes had been kicked off. Now he wore only a single black cotton sock, painted with planetary sigils, as they eased him onto the stretcher.

  “How did this happen to him? My God, look at that swelling on his head—there’s blood seeping through, and his jaw is completely dislocated and torn, with some foreign object shoved inside! You guys beat him?” The lead female paramedic stared in disbelief, then snapped back into motion. “Jake! Get me a cervical brace and bandages, now!”

  She began working on Jonathan’s injuries with frantic efficiency. Just as the paramedics were about to ask for more details, Jonathan fumbled a hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The facial recognition failed to register his battered face; tears welled in his eyes as he gave up and tapped in his passcode instead. He opened the notes app and typed a single line for the paramedics to read:

  It’s my own fault. No one here is to blame. I didn’t buy accident or disability insurance, so please don’t waste your time. Just let me die.

  The two paramedics stared at the screen, then at each other, momentarily at a loss for how to respond.

  Seeing this, Victoria spoke up at once. “Forget that for now. I’m coming with you to the hospital. I’ll pay for his surgery. If the police need to be informed, or there’s any legal paperwork afterward, we’ll fully cooperate. Please—just do everything you can to save this kind man.”

  With his wife already negotiating with the medical team and making the first arrangements for appropriate treatment, Matthew turned and drifted back toward the two priests.

  “Thank you… for coming today,” he said, his voice hollow, his expression slack with exhaustion.

  The two priests remained silent. After a long moment, they both slowly turned their heads and stared up at the crucifix fixed to the door, their eyes unfocused. Beside them, Redeemed’s legs gave out. He folded to the wet, cold ground and burst into tears. It sounded as though he were mourning the collapse of his faith itself—yet at the same time, it might have been the last desperate struggle against his own ignorance, helplessness, and cowardice.

  As for Mondena, she simply walked out into the fine rain, step by step, letting the cold drops soak her hair and clothes. She was trying, in some dim, instinctive way, to let that chill water wash away her helplessness, confusion, and lostness.

  Two escalating supernatural incidents within a single week had pushed her past ordinary terror. The fear was gone now, burned out. In its place was only a hollow space—a sense that all of her understanding,beliefs, even every rules she had for how life and the world were supposed to work, had been stripped out of her and carried away, leaving behind nothing but infinite, echoing emptiness.

  “Waiting in the car

  Waiting for a ride in the dark

  At night the city grows

  Look at the horizon glow

  Waiting in the car

  Waiting for a ride in the dark

  Drinking in the lounge

  Following the neon signs

  Waiting for a word (waiting for a word)

  Looking at the milky skyline (skyline)

  The city is my church (the city is my church)

  It wraps me in its blinding twilight (twilight)…”

  A blast of chaotic music suddenly erupted from somewhere inside the house. It was loud—so loud that the neighbors began opening their doors one after another, craning their necks to see what was happening.

  The male paramedic and the driver both stared up at the house, mouths hanging open.

  “That’s ‘Midnight City’… from M83…” one of them muttered.

  Slowly, everyone raised their heads.

  There, at the window, stood Mary.

  Her skin was a corpse-grey white, laced all over with violet veins. Blood still wept from her eyes. She wore a pure white lace dress and a golden crucifix at her throat, her hair loose and hanging wild around her face. In both hands she held the same sacred chalice now sloshing with whisky, the cup poised lightly as if it weighed nothing.

  She struck a match with a cold, practiced motion, lit a cigarette, took a long drag, then blew the smoke straight out into the open air.

  At that precise moment, the rain intensified. It came down in sheets—and within it, there seemed to be a scattering of fine, hard pellets of hail.

  To the blare of the distorted music, Mary—no, Belphegor—stood there, gazing out at the endless world with its own inhuman vantage.

  In that olive-shaped eye, brown-green like old glass, scenes flickered and shifted: at times it showed drunken, glittering decadence, a world drowning in luxury and excess; at times it broke apart into battlefields of power struggles and the scramble for fame, a slaughter-ground of ambition. Revelry and ruin intertwined, dancers and the damned tangled together, all merging in rhythm with the music and the distant boom of cannons, until it all blurred into a single grotesque panorama.

  Then, suddenly, Belphegor’s gaze settled on a particular ruin—half-buried beneath the broken shells of modern buildings, under steel reinforcement and crumbling concrete. In that field of rubble, a few surviving columns still stood, their reliefs almost completely worn away by time.

  Seeing those barely recognizable, eroded pillars, Belphegor’s eyes flickered. It blinked, almost without meaning to:

  It remembered the temple that had once been raised in its honor. It remembered the people who had called upon it, who had screamed its name and—long before the Bible ever took shape—had received from it something like equal exchange, even help…

  Ages passed. The temple was torn down by Crusaders and the Church. Innocent children, women, and men were wrenched away from their families, from their communities; persecuted, humiliated, treated with a cruelty so methodical it no longer needed fire to burn. For the sake of power, for the Church, for petty, tangled interests between rulers and the ignorant masses, they were marched before ecclesiastical courts and condemned.

  Their cries came in wave after wave, never ending. The spears and swords that once clashed on open battlefields gradually transformed into what they were now: rumors as sharp as blades, artillery as loud as judgment. And in all that time, countless of its brethren skulked through the shadows of the world, restless and hunted, yearning for the freedom and glory they had possessed in ages past…

  Without meaning to, a single clear tear slid down Mary’s cheek, tracing the path of the long-dried black tracks left by earlier blood.

  Mary—no, still Belphegor—lifted its hands a little higher. It stood there like a saint’s statue brought to life, silhouetted in the window, and with innumerable overlapping voices—male and female, old and young, pleading and mocking—it slowly gave voice to the words that had been locked in its heart for thousands of years:

  “Viva la Vida.”

  At this sight, the priests felt no ripple in their hearts at all:

  Faith?

  Understanding?

  The grace of the Lord?

  The value of a life?

  All of it had already been swept to dust by the demon in that afternoon’s exorcism, ground down to nothing and scattered.

  What remained of them now was only the shell: two carefully dressed men, bodies standing upright, faces drained, like wax mannequins frozen in place.

  Meanwhile, the medical team no longer had the luxury of shock. To prevent infection and avoid further trauma, the paramedics hurriedly lifted Jonathan—stretcher and all—into the ambulance, shouting instructions to each other as they moved.

  “Ma’am, you need to ride with us. Now!”

  Victoria was urged into the vehicle, the doors preparing to slam behind her.

  “Midnight City” had already switched into single-track repeat, looping on ...

  In the front yard, beneath the pounding rain laced with tiny hailstones and that bright, relentless rhythm, every person present was being battered again and again by a terror and despair that rose not from the body, but from the very depths of the soul.

  The ground was still slick with rain. Mondena walked home alone, her eyes vacant, her steps aimless. As for her ridiculous excuse for a father, he had been so shattered and hollowed out that he’d driven off in a daze without even waiting for his daughter to get in the car.

  So this was what remained of a man when his authority and faith collapsed: what was left in his mind?

  If a medieval, God-fearing tyrant were to stand before the Church and, together with its clergy, lose the very foundation on which his rule rested—the bedrock of his spiritual comfort and the purpose of his life—what would remain then? A body that hadn’t yet fallen down to death? Or a lifetime of self-punishment, with visions of hellhound torment dogging him even beyond the grave?

  “Hey! You crazy girl! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!”

  A lumber truck loaded with wood thundered past, missing her by a heartbeat. The blast of air jolted Mondena back to herself, and only then did she realize she had wandered out onto the crosswalk while the light was still red.

  “Are you all right?” An elderly man’s voice broke in, full of concern. “You’re so young. Don’t do anything foolish.”

  “I… I’m fine. I just got distracted, thinking about something,” Mondena muttered, more to herself than to him.

  “That’s good, that’s good. The light’s green now—are you crossing?” the old man asked again.

  A sudden gust of wind tore down the street. Because of where they were standing, the umbrella in the old man’s hand was whipped sideways, the stiff metal tip at its edge jabbing twice, three times, right against Mondena’s chest—right over her heart.

  “Ah—” She couldn’t stop the sharp hiss of pain that escaped her.

  “Sorry! I’m so sorry! I have to run—just be careful crossing the road, all right?” the old man said kindly, then turned and disappeared into the stream of people.

  Mondena had in fact been jabbed rather hard. The sensation was like needles striking into her, sharp enough that it made her flinch. She let out a helpless breath and glanced down at herself.

  “Thank God, no blood,” she murmured.

  When she lifted her head again, her gaze fell, as if led by an invisible thread, on a shop across the street. It was a small, carefully decorated storefront, its sign painted in elegant script:

  Occult & Witchcraft…

  She sounded the words out under her breath.

  Something shifted in her eyes.

  She stepped back from the curb, retreating to the side street, and pulled out her phone. After a long moment of indecision, fingers hovering over the screen, she finally pressed the familiar contact and waited.

  “Mondena, Hi!what’s up?” Elisa’s voice came through the speaker, underscored by the low, bubbling roar of boiling water.

  “I… I was wondering…” Mondena’s voice still caught and faltered. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What is it? Go on, ask. Ah, damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have put in that much tea—” Elisa grumbled on her end.

  “I wanted to ask… do you know how to perform an exorcism?” Mondena’s voice carried a thread of exhaustion and embarrassment, growing softer and softer as she spoke.

  “What? Exorcism?” Elisa’s tone shifted at once, growing strange, wary. “Where is this coming from all of a sudden? Did you find another horror novel and start ‘researching writing material’ again?”

  “No. It’s not that. It’s just… I…”

  Mondena hesitated, then, as if something inside her finally gave way, she told Elisa everything that had happened today, word for word, without leaving out a single detail.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

  When Elisa finally spoke, her voice was low and serious. “I’m really sorry you had to go through that. Are you okay right now? Are you hurt at all? Did that thing try to attack you?”

  “No. She just looked at me. That’s all she did. But, Elisa… I know it’s asking a lot, and it might be out of line, but… I wanted to know if there’s any way to save that poor child.”

  Her voice trembled. “When I was little, her mother was always kind to me. Every time she saw me playing alone, she’d come over and give me an orange… That orange…”

  Warm tears began to well up, blurring Mondena’s vision until the streetlights smeared into streaks of white and gold. She didn’t even notice when she started to sob.

  She thought of the affection she had never received at home.

  She thought of what had happened a few days ago.

  She thought of the unspeakable scene that had shattered her mind and her beliefs in this very afternoon.

  She thought of Victoria and her husband, who had treated her kindly when no one else did.

  Something in her finally broke. Her defenses—both emotional and rational—crumbled all at once.

  Silence again on the line.

  “Our rules forbid us from interfering lightly in matters outside our own people,” Elisa said at last, her tone cool and distant again.

  “But… this is the first time you’ve asked me for something like this.”

  She paused, then sighed.

  “All right. I do have a way. And I happen to need to go out later anyway. I’ve got a gathering at a little after nine. Before that, I’ll go with you and take a look.”

  Her voice sharpened, turning precise, almost ceremonial.

  “But I have two conditions. First: you cannot let that girl’s parents see me before and after the ceremony. Second: you are not allowed to tell anyone about this. Not now, not ever.”

  When she heard Elisa’s reply, Mondena was struck momentarily dumb. Still sobbing, she could only nod, shoulders are shaking, until after a long struggle she finally forced out a single, choked sentence…

  “I know… thank you. Really. Thank you.”

  “I’m not doing this to hand out charity or perform some random good deed,” Elisa sighed. “I’m doing it to save you, my dear foolish girl. You and I are friends. If something’s weighing on you, you can tell me any time. You shouldn’t have to carry all of this alone.”

  She paused, and the sound of boiling water on the stove crackled faintly through the line.

  “And I know you’ve been out of sorts ever since we walked out of that alley. You’ve been dragging this around for days. And now your own family forced you into this mess on top of it… All right, enough. Send me the address. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  Mondena blew her nose, eyes still brimming, and ended the call. Once she’d double-checked that the location pin had been sent, she wiped her face with the back of her hand, grabbed the nearest shared bike, and sped off toward Victoria’s house.

  Upstairs, the chaotic music was still blaring.

  Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

  Mondena jabbed the doorbell again and again. After a long wait, a voice finally came from inside.

  “Who is it?”

  The door opened a crack, and then fully. Matthew stood there, a dripping mop clutched in one hand.

  “Mondena? You came back?” he asked, dazed. “Did you forget something here?”

  “A… a very special friend of mine is coming in a bit. She has a way—she might know how to save Mary.”

  Mondena was breathing hard as she spoke; there were no bike docks near the house, so she’d had to lock the bicycle nearly a kilometer away and run the rest of the distance.

  “Thank you, Mondena.” Matthew’s eyes were still dull and unfocused, but at her words he managed to squeeze out an awkward, strained smile. “After this exorcism, though, we’ve already stopped hoping for anything. And besides…”

  As he was speaking, a ride-share car rolled to a stop in the front yard.

  Victoria was back.

  She stepped out slowly, exhaustion etched into every line of her body, a thick stack of documents and hospital bills clamped tightly in one hand. When she saw Matthew and Mondena at the door, she gave them a small, wooden nod.

  “Darling,” Matthew said gently, “Mondena says she has a friend who might be able to help us with all this. But I… I just don’t see how. After everything that happened today, even with priests and a sorcerer involved in the ritual—if that didn’t work, how could there possibly be any other way left in this world?”

  “Please give me—and my friend—a chance.”

  The words came out of Mondena’s mouth harder than she’d intended, with an edge she didn’t recognize as her own. She startled herself.

  After years of her father’s suppression, and the cold eyes of everyone around her, the timid girl she had always been could hardly believe that this was the first time in her life she had ever spoken in such a tone.

  Victoria slowly crouched down halfway, Tears shone in her eyes as she gently took Mondena’s hands and stroked them.

  “My dear girl, we truly are grateful that you came today,” she said softly. “I know you’re doing this for us—for Mary. But we really can’t bear to see anyone else get hurt. As for Mary…”

  Her voice broke on the name. She fell silent, then slowly dissolved into tears.

  Beside her, Matthew’s eyes were reddening as well. He turned away, shoulders hunched, and wiped at his face in the shadows.

  “I know what we went through today,” Mondena said, voice trembling but growing steadier with each word. “I was there the whole time. And I’m going through the same thing you are—the collapse of everything I believed about faith, about life, about how the world works.”

  She drew in a sharp breath.

  “But, Mrs. Victoria… what if this is the last chance to save Mary—and to save all of us? Don’t you want to try? I believe my friend can do it.”

  In the cold wind and fine, misting rain, the three of them slowly reached out and clasped each other’s hands.

  At that exact moment, a blinding streak of lightning tore across the sky…

  “In the land of Gods and Monsters

  I was an angel living in the garden of evil

  Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed

  Shining like a fiery beacon

  You got that medicine I need

  Fame, liquor, love, give it to me slowly

  Put your hands on my waist, do it softly

  Me and God, we don't get along

  So now I sing

  No one's gonna take my soul away

  I'm living like Jim Morrison

  Headed towards a fucked up holiday

  Motel sprees, sprees and I'm singing…”Lana Da Rey · Gods And Monsters

  Inside the room, Mary still wore the same snow-white outfit from that afternoon.

  Now she was draping a sheer embroidered shawl around her shoulders, moving in time with the music spilling from the record player. The sacred chalice dangled from one hand, a cigarette clamped between her lips, as she watched herself in the mirror and began to dance—slow and lazily.

  In that gilt-edged, carved wooden mirror, it was the demon’s true form that stared back.

  A murky, black-brown miasma seeped constantly from its body, its shape twisting and contorting in ways that refused to stay human. Its voice, layered with both male and female timbres, hummed and chanted the low, throbbing lyrics along with the song.

  And when the line “It’s innocence lost” came, Belphegor seemed to recall something.The relaxed expression it wore tightened, then warped into a hideous, contorted snarl.

  With a sharp crack, the mirror exploded.

  The glass split from the very center, fractures spidering outward like a burst of fireworks. Shards trembled in their frame, the reflected image of Belphegor’s body broken into scattering fragments.

  The demon stared at its splintered reflection and let out a short, humorless laugh.

  “Heaven and hell—what difference does it make?” it hissed. “This struggle of a thousand years is nothing more than a game, a little spectacle everyone’s forced to play in.”

  “The God adored by thousands of souls?” It scoffed. “Don’t delude yourself that under this realm you’re the only decrepit old thing that mortals ever hoisted onto a pedestal.”

  “A greater storm is coming. And with that storybook your followers clutch in their hands, and with your utter lack of good faith, your self-contradictions, your centuries of self-praise and indifference to anyone’s suffering—you really think you can win?”

  “You don’t even save your own flock. You let them kneel and beg and murmur that they’ll enter heaven if they bow to you, while you watch the chaos unfold and dream of reaping the spoils. Well, this era has given you exactly what you wanted. Buried in all this noise and oblivion, without language, without a congregation, your worth is less than the dust of a dead world.”

  At that moment, a second thunderclap tore open the sky, lightning blazing white through the storm.

  Belphegor was still smiling when a sudden convulsion jolted through its chest. For an instant its heart seemed to seize. Its body went rigid. The chalice slipped from its grip and crashed to the floor.

  Down below, headlights swept across the yard.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  As if realizing something all at once, the demon bolted toward the window. The instant its hands touched the sill—

  “Ah!”It screamed.

  From its perspective, the skin of its palms had gone instantly, viciously red, as if seared from within. The fine hairs there curled and blackened, the flesh charring and splitting as filthy, dark blood welled up and spilled over.

  Up until then, Mondena had noticed none of this.

  After explaining the rules and settling Victoria and Matthew in the conservatory—insisting they cover their eyes and locking the door behind them—she had simply stood outside with her umbrella, staring at the street and waiting for Elisa to arrive.

  It wasn’t until the taxi’s headlights washed over the driveway that her vacant gaze finally snapped into focus. She rushed forward at once.

  “God, that was so far. Next time you make me run that much in the rain, you will pay for this” Elisa muttered as she climbed out of the car, shaking droplets from her coat.

  “I’m… I’m really sorry. I know this is a lot to ask,” Mondena said quickly, her voice small, almost swallowed by the rain. She barely dared to look Elisa in the eye. “Maybe you’d like to come in for a hot tea first? That thing—no, Mary—she’s been on the second floor the whole time. I was terrified she’d suddenly come charging down the stairs while I was waiting…”

  “Where else would it go?” Elisa snorted. “With Odin and Thor ‘s sigils locking this place, even the gods would think twice about to stepping in. And for demon,They have nowhere to run. Right,enough of chitchat,Now lead the way.”

  Brushing the rain from her shoulders, she reached into her handbag and drew out a small, dark wooden box, its surface densely carved with runes.

  “You’re sure that’s all you need?” Mondena asked nervously as they headed toward the house. “I thought you’d show up with a whole suitcase. This afternoon, when I saw the priests and that sorcerer, they were dragging in bags and boxes and—”

  Her eyes flicked back to the receding glow of the rideshare as if hoping to hear Elisa mutter that she’d left some essential ritual tools in the car. After the catastrophe of that failed exorcism, the last thing Mondena wanted was to have dragged her dearest friend into a situation riddled with danger—possibly even life and death—without proper preparation.

  And she hoped that she can help with something, passing items, holding candles… anything to at least ease the guilt of asking Elisa to come.

  “I’m here to exorcise a demon, not for holiday,” Elisa said dryly. “Why would I drag half my house along?”

  She grabbed Mondena’s hand and strode straight toward the door.

  The moment the half-latched door swung open again, a powerful stench of decay rolled down from the second floor. The girls instinctively flinched, brows knitting, and clapped hands over their noses and mouths.

  “Of course,” Elisa muttered. “Still hasn’t changed its habits. Turning those place as passes through into a sewer every time …”

  She reached out with her right hand and traced the rune Kennaz on Mondena’s forehead with her thumb. Then she pulled a silver pendant from her pocket, its surface finely engraved with a compound pattern of runes, and fastened the chain around Mondena’s neck.

  “Right. You can breathe now,” she said. “Once we get upstairs, you will do exactly as I say. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to run, you run. You follow my instructions without question.”

  Her tone had gone very still and very serious.

  “If you end up in direct conflict with that thing, I might not have a free hand to save you. Do you understand?”

  Mondena swallowed and nodded.

  “Good,” Elisa said. “Let’s go tame this stubborn bastard.”

  Mondena had been nodding, trembling, trying to show she understood—but at the word “every time”, she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes flicked sharply toward Elisa, wide with sudden, startled realization.

  Just as the two of them set foot on the final step of the staircase, a thick torrent of smoke burst out from the room where Mary lay.

  It was dark, a bruised purple-red, heavy with the stench of blood and something older, fouler. It poured into the hallway like a living thing and swept straight toward them, curling and billowing as it rose to engulf them both.

  “Sjónir ljóss, augnaráe í gegnum tíma,mee oreum mínum, lát nú lopt ok skj?ld brenna!

  【Sights Of Light,The Gaze Through Time,By my words,Let The Air And Shield Now Ignite · English Version】”

  Elisa reacted instantly.

  Even as the last syllable of her incantation left her lips, she snapped up her hand and traced a complex rune in the air—a sigil built from three overlapping Thurisaz.

  The lines she drew hung there, burning faintly in the open air. At the same time, the silver Mj?lnir at her throat flared to life, shedding a soft, gold-white radiance. The floating rune answered, its edges sharpening with light.

  The entire mass of foul smoke vanished in an instant, blown apart as if it had never been.

  Mondena stared, stunned, her mouth slightly open.

  Before the shock had even fully registered, Elisa had already shoved her behind her, placing herself squarely in front.

  “That’s all you got?” she snapped. “Cheap illusions and poison gas? Really?” She glanced down at herself, irritated. “Don’t mess with my new jeans.”

  As the smoke dispersed, Mary stepped into the doorway of the room.

  Her bloodless, tear-streaked eyes—emptied of human warmth—fixed coldly on Elisa.

  “So, someone competent finally decided to show up,” she said, voice layered with Belphegor’s deeper timbre. “What is this? You people still insist on meddling?”

  Seeing the possessed girl at last appear in front of her, Elisa flexed her fingers, formed a second mudra, then rolled her shoulders back, vertebrae cracking softly as she straightened to her full height.

  “Meddling?” she replied. “I don’t have time for that and I’d like to get it done quickly. So—are we doing this or not? The sooner we finish, the sooner I can make my next appointment.”

  “Ah—”

  Mary’s jaw unhinged with a grotesque crack, opening far wider than any human mouth had a right to. Rotting fangs crowded the darkness within, slick with viscous, foul-smelling slime. She raised both hands—

  —and an invisible force slammed into Elisa and Mondena, hurling them backward into the wall lined with family photographs.

  Before they could slide to the floor, Mary tilted her head up toward the floral wallpapered ceiling. With a single, vicious thought, she shattered it. Chunks of plaster and wood tore free and came crashing down toward the two girls.

  “You have got to be kidding me—”This time Elisa was truly angry.

  The moment she saw the ceiling give way, she flung up her right hand, fingers still locked in the casting seal. The falling debris halted in midair, suspended like a frozen wave.

  She muttered a few rapid words under her breath.

  As her eyes flared red, she snapped her wrist toward Mary. The suspended fragments obeyed, whipping forward like a storm of stone.

  The possessed girl was driven backward, hammered off her feet and flung into the room. The impact smashed her spine against the windowsill, pinning her there with a sickening crack.

  “Ah—!”

  Her scream was layered—a child’s voice laced through with something deeper, older, and hateful. Gasping, Mary forced her chest away from the sill and dropped to her knees, hunched forward, struggling to breathe.

  Gritting her teeth, she risked a glance back over her shoulder.

  From the demon’s vantage, the entire expanse of skin across her back glowed a furious, charred red. The runes embedded in the house had branded themselves into her flesh; wherever the burned meat cracked open, blisters and filthy, dark blood welled up and seeped through.

  “You okay?” Elisa called over her shoulder.

  Mondena had collapsed to the floor where she’d fallen, terror locking up her limbs. She stared blankly, unable to form words.

  Once Elisa had made certain she was still breathing and not physically harmed, she turned back toward the kneeling girl, who still hadn’t managed to stand.

  “I told you,” she said, her tone dry as stone. “Those were new jeans.”

  At that, Mary’s once-pale eyes flushed a deep, furious red. The blood still leaking from them thickened, darkening until it became a viscous, pitch-black stream.

  She didn’t say a word.

  Instead, she lowered her gaze to the wooden floorboards beneath her.

  The black tears fell, pattering on the planks. The liquid seemed to come alive, sinking into the wood grain, worming its way into every hidden crack and pore. Within seconds, the floor began to heave and bulge, splintering upward as if something inside were trying to claw its way out.

  Slats of wood tore free and sharpened, twisting into a spray of jagged spikes all pointed straight at the doorway where Elisa and Mondena stood.

  Seeing this, Elisa unclasped the silver Mj?lnir from her neck and held it before her like a tiny shield. With a flick of her left foot, she hooked Mondena backward and swung her behind her body, cutting her off from the direct line of attack.

  As Elisa began to chant, Mary flicked her eyes up—just a tiny gesture, but it was enough.

  Every wooden spike launched forward in unison, a storm of splinters screaming down the hallway.

  The ones that came closest slashed open Elisa’s forearm and tore jagged lines along the hem of her jeans. Blood welled up through the fabric.

  But she forced the last word of the incantation out through gritted teeth—

  —and Mj?lnir answered.

  The little silver hammer erupted in a burst of blinding white light. Wherever the radiance passed, the airborne shards simply disintegrated, pulverized to dust mid-flight. The remains drifted down in a fine, choking cloud that settled across the floor.

  Mary staggered, the aftershock of the amulet’s power hitting her full-on. Blood poured from her nose and mouth. One hand clamped over her chest as she glared at Elisa with raw hatred.

  Then something else caught her eye.

  As Elisa lifted her left arm to examine the blood seeping from the cut, Mary noticed the object clamped tight in that hand: a dark little box, its surface covered in intricate rune-carvings.

  Mary smiled—a harsh, mirthless curl of the lips.

  In the same instant, she lashed out with her will.

  The box tore free of Elisa’s grip and flew into the air, landing neatly in Mary’s waiting hands.

  Seeing Elisa’s box ripped away from her, Mondena felt something in her finally collapse. Standing on the thin edge between shock and outright breakdown, she could only assume that whatever was inside that box had been their last weapon.

  With the weapon gone, what chance did they have?

  Her body shaking, she threw her arms around Elisa from behind and broke down into sobs.

  Belphegor, for its part, felt a flicker of genuine unease as it studied the box up close. Even a demon knew to be cautious before an ancient artifact wrapped in the language of the gods; there was no telling what might be sealed inside.

  Still, it reasoned, Elisa had been gripping it so tightly—clearly, it was meant to be some kind of trump card. A blade, perhaps, or a talisman, or some other weapon designed to pierce the host’s body and force the demon out.

  Well then. If the weapon was dangerous at close range, why not destroy it at a distance?

  If the box were shattered before Elisa could use it, the exorcist would be stripped of her last advantage.

  Simple.

  Mary raised her hand and brought it down with a sharp, decisive motion.

  With a loud crack, the rune-carved box split cleanly down the middle, then crumbled into several pieces - But what spilled out was not a dagger, nor a radiant charm, nor any strange sacred implement.

  Spread across the floorboards at its feet was a small heap of dark green powder, tangled with bits of dried roots and stems.

  Mary sneered and lifted its hand again, ready to ignite the worthless debris and be done with it. But as the powder stirred, its scent hit her full in the face—sharp, bitter, layered with something ancient and burning.

  The reek bored straight up into her skull.

  In that brief moment of cold clarity, Belphegor finally recognized what it was looking at.

  Its expression shifted.

  Panic—real panic, not a feigned amusement—flickered across Mary’s ravaged features. Cold sweat began to bead along her hairline, tracing paths down her temples and cheeks, seeping from every pore across her skin.

  “You reckless idiot,” Elisa said mildly, smearing some salve from a small tin onto the cut on her arm as if they were discussing spilled tea rather than lethal sorcery. “Go on, then. Set it alight. Burn it！”

  “You bitch,” Mary hissed. “I didn’t think you’d actually bring the sacred powder. I underestimated you.”

  “What else did you expect?” Elisa shot back. “I told you, I’ve got another engagement after this. You think I’m going to waste my time on you?”

  She brushed ash and plaster off her hair and shoulders with a disgusted little flick.

  “Do us both a favor—burn it, dissolve into ashes, and let me get home in time to shower and change.”Elisa slapped dust from her hair and shoulders with a look of pure distaste.

  “We were always supposed to leave each other alone,” Mary said quietly. She stepped carefully around the scattered sacred powder and rose to her feet, her movements deliberate, predatory. “Sometimes we even… had use for one another. So why are you standing in my way?”

  There was something in her voice—something that crawled under the skin, threaded with an odd, shifting undercurrent of emotion.

  Elisa turned her head sharply, checking on Mondena with a speed that suggested long habit. The girl was still shivering behind her, pressed to the wall, but aside from a few tears in her clothes where stray splinters had cut through, she was unharmed.

  “It’s not about ‘getting in your way,’” Elisa said, annoyance roughening her tone. “This had nothing to do with us in the first place, and my friend was dragged into it for no reason.”

  She jerked her chin slightly in Mondena’s direction.

  “And as it happens, this girl’s parents are among the very few people who ever showed her real kindness when she was young. Since this is the first time she’s ever asked me for help, I’m making it easy on her and seeing it through. That’s all.” She tilted her head, eyes narrowing as she looked back at Mary. “As for you… at this point, what exactly do you think you’re going to do? I’d say the end has already been decided.”

  As she spoke, she lifted her right hand and sketched Kennaz in the air, fingers closing into a tight fist around the completed rune.

  It was a very clear warning.

  The demon was already trapped. If it pushed too far, all Elisa had to do was open her hand. The fire-binding would answer, and the sacred powder on the floor would go up in flames.

  “Staring at me won’t help you,” Elisa added. “You know as well as I do that neither your sorcery nor any physical substance can corrupt this powder. And even if you did manage to soak it, it would still find another way to destroy you.”

  Mary said nothing.

  She simply stood there, watching Elisa in silence, pupils thin and glassy.

  After a long moment, she exhaled slowly and spoke.

  “Fine. I’ll spare the girl—for now.” Her lips curled. “We’ll have plenty of chances to meet again.”

  “Pretty words” Elisa replied, a cold smile touching her lips. “But no!Use her body and your true soul and swear to me in blood. Otherwise, how would I know you’re not planning to break your promises when the moment you slip free?”

  Mary’s head tilted slightly, as though she were listening to something only she could hear.

  Then she turned to look at the shattered mirror on the floor.

  In the fractured glass, the demon’s true form bared its teeth in disgust, lips pushing into a pout before it rolled its eyes skyward. With a flicker of will, it lifted a jagged shard of wood etched with runes and sent it drifting through the air to hover in front of Elisa.

  Only then did Mary slowly raise her chin and hold out her left hand, palm turned upward.

  Elisa took the splinter in her left hand, gripping it like a knife. Her right hand remained clenched tight around the air-drawn Kennaz.

  “Move a little closer and stay where you are,” she told Mondena without looking back. “Hands over your head.”

  After giving the instruction, she began to murmur a spell under her breath and stepped forward, crossing the threshold into Mary’s room with slow, careful movements.

  Mondena, already terrified past words, pressed herself as flat as she could against the hallway wall. The dread of seeing more blood—or watching her friend die in front of her—made her feel that if anything worse happened now, she would simply faint on the spot.

  Inside, the demon did not try to trick her.

  Once the rune-carved shard was poised against the pad of Mary’s left index finger, Elisa locked her gaze with Mary’s and said, very softly:

  “Repeat after me.”

  “Mee Teim Sáttmála, Er Bindr Mátt Ok L?g Níu Heima Ok Tíma,Er Ore Ok Forl?g Hafa Spáe,

  Innsiglie Er Fest Ok Haldit Undir Ríki Yggdrasils;

  Sá Er Brytr Tetta L?g, Skal Sjá Dauea Sinn Opinberan.

  【By The Covenant That Binds The Power And Rules Of Nine Realms And Time,

  Once Words And Fortune Have Foretold,

  The Seal Is Set And Held Under The Dominion Of Yggdrasil;

  Whoever Breaks This Law Shall See Their Death Revealed · English Version】“

  As the three layered voices rose together, Elisa drew the rune-carved splinter across Mary’s left thumb. The shard’s etched symbols flared faintly the moment they met that foul, reeking blood, then drank it in—every drop that welled up was swiftly absorbed into the wood.

  Satisfied the pact was sealed, Elisa tucked the bloodstained splinter into her belt.

  “Out,” she said. “What are you still waiting for?”

  Mary glared at her in silence.

  Then, without a word, she crossed her arms over her chest in an unnaturally twisted posture and bent forward. Her limbs stretched at grotesque angles, bones grinding under the strain, and the lace at the back of her dress began to split and tear.

  The sounds coming from her were so strange that even Mondena, who had been doing her best not to look, couldn’t help herself. She stole a quick glance—and when she saw the massive bruised patch blooming across Mary’s back where she’d slammed into the windowsill, she couldn’t stop a cry from slipping out.

  “Elisa, her back—”

  “Compared to dying for nothing, she’s fine” Elisa snapped, cutting her off with a flick of her hand. “Hold and Be quiet...”She gestured insistently for Mondena to resume her defensive crouch, then fixed her eyes on Mary again.

  As Mary bent past a certain angle, beads of black, stinking liquid began to seep from along the line of her spine—one after another, oozing through the skin. Their number increased visibly, dripping faster and faster until they pattered to the floor and pooled into a small, glistening puddle.

  With the final drop, the change was immediate.

  Color flushed back into Mary’s flesh. Her body sagged, then collapsed straight to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Elisa’s right hand closed around the silver Mj?lnir at her throat as she stared at the obscene, reeking black puddle on the floorboards.

  A sound like meat twisting over itself filled the room. The puddle shuddered, thickened, then began to rise, pulling itself inward and upward. It coiled, condensed, then stretched, slowly extruding limbs and bone until it took on Belphegor’s true form.

  It was nearly two and a half meters tall, a hulking monstrosity of a thing. Its frame was massive, skin crawling with strange sigils, muscles bunching and flexing in restless waves beneath the surface. Pustules swelled and throbbed across its body, glistening with fluids that made the air itself feel diseased.

  Once fully manifested, it let out a long, weary sigh.

  Then it opened its brown-green, olive-shaped eyes and locked its gaze on Elisa.

  Mondena had never seen anything remotely like this.

  Terror snatched the breath from her throat. Her vision went white at the edges, and she pitched sideways and fainted dead away.

  “Don’t forget our deal,” Elisa said, turning her head as if bored, her lip curling. “Get going. I’ve got other things to do.”

  With a careless wave, she dispelled the runic barrier enfolding the house, then walked over to where Mondena lay crumpled on the floor.

  A sharp, tearing sound hissed through the air.

  Elisa glanced down instinctively at the source of the noise—and her temper ignited on the spot.

  “My pants!”

  She spun around, shouting, and glared daggers at Belphegor.

  The demon looked at her unperturbed, utterly expressionless.

  “If the hem’s torn, stitch it back together,” it said calmly. “Personally, I think the ripped edges give it more… character.”

  “I let you walk out of here out of the goodness of my heart, and you still tear my pants?” Elisa roared. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to snag these in an online flash sale?”

  The sheer outrage in her voice was enough to jolt Mondena back from the edge of unconsciousness. She jerked awake with a start, eyes flying open.

  Belphegor was still standing exactly where it had been.

  Elisa shut her eyes, dragging in a long breath as she tried to steady herself. Seeing that Mondena was conscious again, she forced her rage down—barely—and spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Darling, would you mind getting me some needle and threads?” she said, every word tight with fury. “If I don’t mend this right now, the fabric is going to unravel into fringe. Gosh!I’ve still got a party to go!”

  She paused to catch her breath, then went on.

  “And—ugh—bring something for Mary to eat and drink, will you? She’s been possessed this long; she needs food in her system if her body’s going to recover. And I need to stay here and watch. To make sure that Belphegor won’t dare to harm her again.”

  At Elisa’s request, Mondena pushed herself into a sitting position, still dazed.

  She glanced at Belphegor and reflexively snapped back into her old habit, arms coming up to shield her head and face.

  “Don’t just sit there—move!” Elisa snapped at last, unable to hold back. “If she keeps starving like this, Mary’s body really won’t hold out.”

  It was only after the second sharp bark of urgency that Mondena finally unglued herself from the spot.

  She rubbed her stiff legs, then began edging toward the stairs—keeping her eyes locked on Elisa, as if afraid the world might twist again the moment she looked away. Supporting herself with one hand on the wall, she made her way down stairs by slow, dragging step.

  When she finally disappeared from sight, Elisa let out a helpless sigh and went back to inspecting the damage to her pants, muttering under her breath.

  Belphegor, meanwhile, had no intention of standing idle.With a casual gesture, it lifted a chair from in front of the vanity and sent it sailing toward Elisa.

  Her heart lurched; she immediately threw up her hands, fingers moving in a defensive seal. But this time, when the sigil locked into place, the chair simply drifted down in front of her and settled gently on the floor.

  “You’re not going anywhere for a while anyway,” Belphegor said, that eerie, layered voice softening into something almost conversational. “Why don’t you keep me company for a drink?”

  It tilted its head, regarding the room with faint disdain.

  “The decor in this house is atrocious—but they do have a nice whisky.”

  Keeping in mind that the demon was still upstairs, Mondena first asked Victoria and Matthew for permission to use the kitchen. Once they’d agreed, she fetched the sewing box and gently urged them back into the conservatory, telling them to wait there a little longer.

  Then she microwaved three slightly congealed sandwiches, poured three cups of hot tea, and, balancing the tray with both hands, crept nervously up the stairs.

  By the time she reached the doorway of Mary’s room, the scene before her nearly shattered what remained of her worldview.

  Mary had been laid out on the bed. Elisa and Belphegor sat opposite each other, saying nothing. Stranger still, Belphegor was calmly pouring whisky into the chalice.

  For a second, Mondena’s brain turned to mush.

  She had exactly three questions:

  Why is that thing still here?

  Elisa, why haven’t you sent it away yet?

  What in God’s name is any of this supposed to be?

  “What are you panicking for?” Belphegor didn’t even look at her. It lifted the cup and downed its contents in one smooth swallow. “Honestly, what’s with the dramatics? We’ve been doing possessions for thousands of years. A drink and a little chat every now and then isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

  “I really don’t understand you,” Elisa said. She still didn’t look directly at the demon, instead eyeing the burrs along one of its horn ridges with open disgust. “Thousands of years, and you still manage to be the most undignified, underpaid demon in existence. Every time you possess someone, you never pick anyone strategically useful. You just go after ordinary people. Or children. What’s the point?”

  “Stop staring at that spot,” Belphegor snapped, its expression souring as it raised a hand to its horn. “That stupid spur has been stuck there for centuries. I’m sick of it.”

  It glowered at its reflection in the shattered mirror and began fiddling with the protruding barb, trying in vain to snap it off.

  Listening to them talk, Mondena continued to stand there with the tray in her hands, speechless.

  She tried to untangle her own logic, to find some coherent way to understand what she was seeing—but every attempt ended in failure. This whole thing was insanity. An exorcism that had started as a nightmare and somehow spiraled into an ending no normal person could ever hope to process.

  “Sweetheart, pass me some tea, would you?” Elisa called, waving a hand at her. “Watching it drink is making me thirsty. And for the record, that black fog you coughed up was absolutely revolting.”

  “Everything in the dark realms smells more or less like that,” Belphegor said, rolling its eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t smelled it before. What I don’t understand is you. They’re not paying you. You’re not getting any real benefit. Why bother? Ah—tch…”

  It had been tugging harder and harder at the horn spur as it talked. This time, it yanked too hard and winced, letting out a hiss of pain—but the offending burr remained stubbornly in place.

  Elisa took the teacup from Mondena and drained a large gulp before setting it down. Then she dug into the sewing box, folding up the torn cuff of her jeans and preparing to stitch.

  “You sit down and drink something too,” she said to Mondena. “Mary’s not awake yet; let her rest as long as she can.”

  With a small gesture, she used telekinesis to drag the little stool by the window over to her side.

  Mondena blinked hard, trying to force her mind into focus. But when the two at the center of all this horror simply kept chatting, she found herself with no choice but to obey. She set the tray down on the nightstand, then took another teacup and perched nervously on the stool beside Elisa.

  “Heat a piece of iron until it’s red, dab on some valerian root, and cauterize it,” Elisa said, glancing up at Belphegor’s horn. “The spur, I mean. It’ll hurt like hell, but at least it won’t be such an eyesore. Even I’m getting annoyed just looking at it.”

  Her needle jabbed through the denim with more force than necessary, her mending growing increasingly aggressive.

  “But really, with what you’re capable of, wouldn’t it be more efficient to infiltrate the Church, seize the high ground, that sort of thing?” she went on. “Or you just bored?”

  Belphegor thought for a moment, then finally let its hand fall away from the horn.

  “The smell of valerian makes me sick,” it grumbled. “And iron… every time I touch it, it feels like my skin is being cooked off. No, thanks.”

  It coughed lightly, then noticed Mondena still sitting there, looking utterly lost.

  Realizing it had perhaps said too much, the demon straightened its posture and turned its gaze toward the window.

  “It’s not that we never considered it,” it admitted. “We just gave up a few thousand years ago. They’re too boring. Watching them monologue about themselves day in, day out? I’d rather find… other entertainment.”

  “Unifying belief, sowing discord, spreading lies—that’s what you’re supposed to be good at,” Elisa said. “What, even that bores you now? Ugh, these frayed edges are driving me insane. Look at this mess, this is all your fault.”

  She yanked another loose thread through, teeth clenched, stitching with visible irritation.

  “What’s more exciting than blood and war?” Belphegor replied. “For centuries, all we had to do was whisper a little here and there among the people—just enough to stir the pot. Then the Church and the nobles would lose their minds all on their own. The truth is, their game just isn’t sophisticated. We barely have to try; their paranoia and greed do the dirty works and killing for us.”

  It glanced at Mary, still fast asleep, then pulled a face, bored and faintly contemptuous, before continuing:

  “And honestly? After so many centuries, our ears have grown calluses from all the ‘good news’ preached in our general direction. Even we’ve run out of patience with that lot. Half the time, we walk away after an exorcism not because they ‘won,’ but because the hosts are useless. Most of them get beaten to death by the Church or their own families before we’ve even had a chance to do anything for fun.”

  It shrugged.

  “If someone dies, that’s whatever. We just can’t be bothered to waste time on rabid dogs. You don’t seriously think that every disaster in this world is all need to blame on us, do you? We’re not that bored.”

  As it spoke, it flicked a glance at Mondena, then poured itself another drink, crossing one leg over the other as it drank.

  “You’re blocking my light,” Elisa grumbled. “Move over. If I don’t leave soon, I really will be late.”She shoved Belphegor’s furry thigh with her hand, forcing it to shift.

  The demon’s expression twisted into something between exasperation and irritation, but in the end, it scooted over, rearranging its long limbs with obvious reluctance.

  Watching the two of them chat in this bizarre, almost easy harmony, Mondena’s brain finally blue-screened.

  She had no idea what she was supposed to think anymore. To be exact, faced with a conversation that cheerfully trampled on boundaries of logic, history, and faith all at once, she had no idea how a normal person was meant to react.

  “But back to the point—why did you latch onto this girl in the first place?” Elisa asked, glancing over her shoulder at Mary, who was trying to roll onto her side but only managed a few weak shifts before sinking back into sleep.

  “What if I told you she came to me first?” Belphegor pointed lazily at Mary with the hand holding its cup, its tone oddly playful.

  Mondena froze.In her mind, it had always been demons who hunted people, and devout believers who wouldn’t dream of going anywhere near such things.

  “You’re lying,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

  Elisa blinked and turned to look at her. Belphegor’s gaze followed, the demon’s strange eyes fixing on her as well.

  Under the weight of their twin stares, Mondena’s composure shattered. Her hands started to shake. When she lifted her head and met the demon’s grotesque face and those oversized eyes, a cold sweat broke out down her spine.

  “I—I just meant—”

  She didn’t even get the sentence out.

  Belphegor flicked its wrist, and Mary’s body, which had been lying flat on the bed, was jerked abruptly upright like a puppet pulled by its strings.

  The jolt was so rough that Mary’s consciousness was dragged back in one violent swing. Still dazed, she rubbed at her eyes, then immediately hissed and clutched at the bruised mess of her back, burying her face into the blankets again.

  “Easy, easy—”

  Both Elisa and Mondena rushed forward to steady her.

  “My God,that push!you’re killing me!” Mary gritted out between clenched teeth. She turned her head and glared at Elisa like she wanted to bite her.

  “What?” Elisa stared at her, honestly taken aback. “You can feel everything? You remember what just happened?”She lifted her eyes, frowning, and shot Belphegor a look of open confusion.

  “You didn’t take full control of her consciousness?”

  “That day in the woods, when she was drunk, storming around shouting at everything, muttering about how it’d be fun to get ‘possessed’ and scare her parents half to death, I just happened to be passing through,” Belphegor said. “Didn’t even plan to bother with her at first. But for some reason, I had a feeling that riding along with her might lead to something fun, so I did.”

  It smirked.

  “At the start she screamed her head off when she realized I was there. But you know how it goes—once she figured out that having me inside her meant she could act out whenever she wanted, use my tricks to force those two blockheads she calls parents—and the parish—into paying attention, she started playing along.”

  It jerked its chin toward Mary’s back.

  “That little bruise won’t kill you. Don’t be dramatic. Now hurry up and fetch that Marlboro you hid under the bed. And the whisky in the wardrobe.”

  Elisa and Mondena just stared, stunned.

  And the most unbelievable part was that Mary actually did as she was told.

  “You shouldn’t have come so early,” Mary muttered, pressing her hand against her back as she shuffled to her knees in front of the bed. “We’ve spent the last while making a complete mess of this house and those priests. I was just starting to have fun.”

  “Why would you do something like that?” Mondena demanded, bewildered.

  “Didn’t you want to do the same?” Mary shot back.

  She handed the cigarette to Belphegor, then turned and started digging through the wardrobe that had already been half-emptied onto the floor.

  “This afternoon, when I saw you through its eyes,” she said, “I realized we’re basically the same kind of person. We just live it out differently.”

  She snorted, voice growing sharper with every word.

  “My parents treat me like a piece of décor. Besides throwing some money at my daily life, all they ever do is force me to learn this and that and drag me around as a prop for their social performances. They’ve never once cared how I actually feel.”

  “All the good things in this family? They keep them for themselves. And every mistake, every little ‘step out of line,’ they dump on me. They never stop to think how disgusting their own hypocrisy is—Always fashioned themselves with jewels and pretty words but hypocrites behind bars.”

  After rummaging for quite a while, Mary finally dragged out a squashed box of Highland Park. She set it down, pulled the bottle free, and—almost ceremoniously—poured Belphegor a drink.

  “The parish people are just as bad,” she went on, handing the cup over. “Every last one of them speaks one way and thinks another. If they’re not secretly competing with each other, they’re fawning and flattering. And every damn time I go to church, no matter what I’m wearing, those clergy just keep staring …”

  She jerked her chin at the demon.

  “Thanks to it, the last two days we’ve turned the whole lot of them upside down…”

  “As for you,” Mary added, climbing back onto the bed and grabbing one of the now-cold sandwiches, “I have no idea how you managed to survive in that family of yours this long.”

  The words hit Mondena like a stone dropped into an empty well.

  Her heart sank straight to the bottom. She had no idea how to respond. Or rather, there was nothing she wanted to say. She didn’t want any part of that place that called itself “home” anymore—not even in words.

  “Want to have some fun together?” Belphegor said, turning its gaze on her.

  The moment its eyes aligned with hers, the demon’s eager heart skipped a beat. Something in her made it falter. It caught the faintest trace of something strange—something that didn’t belong to this room, this house, or even this world.

  Its smile froze. Without meaning to, it took a small step back.

  “You lay a hand on her and I’ll turn you to ash where you stand,” Elisa snapped.

  She had already begun to lift her hand to form a seal when Belphegor, wearing an odd expression, reached out and pushed it gently back down.

  “Calm down…” it said quietly. “Your friend is… not simple. If you ask me, no one in Hell would dare to touch her.”

  At that, Elisa slowly lowered her hand.

  She also noticed, now, how stricken Mondena looked—how cornered, how small—and chose to steer the conversation away. She turned deliberately to Mary instead.

  “Anyway,” Elisa said lightly, “you’ve done what you set out to do. You forced your parents to react. What’s your plan from here?”

  Mary took a long gulp of tea, then shoved her wild hair back from her face with one hand.

  “We’ll see,” she said. “Human nature doesn’t change that easily. If they start up their nonsense again, I hope I can get possessed one more time…”

  Belphegor, who had still been half-watching Mondena, slowly turned its head and fixed Mary with a cold stare. The murderous gleam in its eyes made Mary flinch.

  “I mean…” she corrected herself, voice wobbling, “I mean I’ll pretend to be possessed and act crazy a few times. That’s all…”

  “Have fun…” Elisa muttered. “Just one thing—don’t drag half of the world into it again… come on, let’s go!” Elisa standing up and taking Mondena by the wrist. “Oh, and—Bel. I may need you to put on a little performance.”

  “Bel?”

  The name clearly didn’t sit well. Belphegor’s face twisted in confusion, then darkened with fury as it rose to its full height and glared down at her.

  “We’ve been holed up on the second floor all this time,” Elisa said, unbothered. “We need to give them an ending. Once she and I leave the house, have Mary stand in the entryway and scream a bit to bring her parents there. Then you show them your true form, step out, and that’s it.”

  “You mocking me?” Belphegor’s eerie voice carried a distinct thread of anger.

  “When have I not mocked you?” Elisa arched a brow. “Look, if you put on a good show and scare them properly, maybe your image will finally spread through the world in a form that isn’t completely mangled. Free publicity. You’re welcome.”

  …

  “Ah! … Don’t come any closer—don’t come any closer!”

  “Help! Somebody help!”

  “Mary—my daughter! Are you all right?!”

  Under the tree outside, Elisa was still fussing with her hair in the front-facing camera, taming stray strands as if all of this were just a slightly inconvenient evening.

  Beside her, Mondena stood with her head bowed, saying nothing.

  “I just called a rideshare,” Elisa said. “I’ll get you home first, then go meet my friends. Rest well tonight...Look at youself now,seems like you’re about to collapse.”She patted Mondena’s shoulder, then gently smoothed out her crooked collar.

  “Thank you,” Mondena whispered. Her voice was barely there. “If you hadn’t been here today…”

  She was still trying to piece herself back together, to gather up the fragments of her emotions, her thoughts, her sense of self. Everything felt like it was coming apart at the seams.

  “There’s no need for such pretty words between us,” Elisa said. “Keeping you safe comes first. Always. …Hey, where’s that car now…?”

  The answer came with a thunderous crash.

  With a deafening boom, the front door of Victoria’s house exploded outward, torn clean off its hinges. Belphegor stepped through the splintered remains, boots crunching on shattered wood. Behind it, the family’s screams and sobbing rose in an unbroken wave.

  The demon lifted its head and glanced up at Elisa. Its gaze flicked down once to the butchered hem of her hastily mended jeans, the crooked stitches and dangling threads.

  With a look of open disdain, it snorted—and then its body unraveled into a roiling cloud of black smoke that scattered into the night.

  Neighbors, having heard the blast, were already spilling out of their houses, craning their necks to see.

  “The car’s here,” Elisa said quietly. “Let’s go.”

  In the car, neither of them spoke. Exhaustion sat heavy between them, thick as fog.

  Mondena simply stared out the window, watching the city lights smear into streaks of color against the glass.

  When they arrived at her building, she got out slowly. She thanked Elisa once more, then turned toward the stairwell, dragging her near-collapsing body and soul along behind her.

  Halfway to the entrance, she stopped.

  Slowly, she turned back to look at the rideshare pulling away into the night. Her lips moved, the words barely more than a breath—perhaps the first request she had ever truly allowed herself to voice in her entire life.

  “I want to become you,” she murmured. “Because I don’t want to live in the shadows anymore…”

  ——

  Elisa was dragged out of sleep by Mrs. Sigrún’s voice far earlier than she would have liked.

  She hadn’t fully clawed her way out of her dreams when a string of baffled exclamations yanked her down the stairs. By the time she shuffled out into the back garden in her slippers, the scene before her was so surreal she briefly wondered if she was still dreaming.

  A brand-new pair of jeans was hanging from a branch of the willow tree by the riverbank, dangling there at a peculiar angle, swaying faintly in the damp, icy morning breeze. Against the washed-out grey-blue of the sky, that patch of dark fabric looked almost unnaturally vivid.

  “Did you see that when you came in last night?” Mrs. Sigrún narrowed her eyes at the willow, suspicion all over her face. “Or did you put it up there as some kind of joke? Because those jeans look exactly like the pair you were wearing when you went out yesterday.”

  “I did not,” Elisa said. She was still half-yawning—until that question snapped her properly awake. “I saved up four months of part-time income for those. Who in their right mind would throw something that expensive away, let alone toss it up there?”

  As the words left her mouth, a thought struck her.

  Her heart clenched.

  She bolted straight for the tree, lifted her hand, and yanked the jeans down from the branches with a flick of telekinetic power.

  “Sure, and yet you’re clutching them like they’re treasure,” Mrs. Sigrún remarked dryly, though there was a smile at the corner of her mouth. Her hands were already busy rifling through the stack of parcels piled beside the conservatory. “If you swear you only ordered one pair, then maybe they messed up during packing and slipped in an extra by mistake. You should email them and ask. If it’s a shipping error, you’ll have to send this one back.”

  Mr. Ingvar wandered over with his morning coffee, his expression unusually serious.

  “Darling, did you hear about this?” he said. “One of the priests killed himself last night. I heard about it during my morning jog—one of the neighbors, on his way to Mass and told me. They say that priests was hanging on the big tree outside the church,and the worse of it is before he died, he even stabbed his own eyes blind with a crucifix.…”

  Still fussing with the jeans, Elisa let out a long, quiet sigh.

  “What for…” she murmured. “It was just a routine exorcism. Once you involve into such things like that, you should know what you’re signing up for…”

  As she spoke, something on the waistband caught her eye.

  There, at the back, was a faint, black-brown stain she could have sworn hadn’t been there before. She scraped at it with her nail, but the discoloration had already soaked into the fibers. Frowning, she lifted the jeans closer and took a cautious sniff.

  “Oh my God—what is that smell?”

  She gagged, clapping a hand over her nose, retching dramatically.

  And then, abruptly, she laughed.

  Because that rancid, metallic reek… she recognized it all too well.

  ?

  That evening, as she scraped rust from an antique scythe with a steel knife, another idea came to her.

  She paused, fingers resting on the corroded blade, then began to recite a fragment of an old, obscure verse under her breath. Her expression was impatient, almost bored, but the words were not. The air around the garden steps seemed to thicken with them.

  When she was finished, she scattered a layer of crushed valerian root across the stone steps in front of her. Then, with a sharp, practical motion, she dragged the scythe blade hard along the stony edge, letting metal shriek against stone and herb.

  Afterward, she carried the old thing down to the riverbank and propped it under the willow tree.

  ?

  The next day, in the middle of tidying the yard, she suddenly remembered she’d left the scythe out overnight.

  When she went to retrieve it, she found that the once uniformly rust-coated blade now bore a dark, sticky stain—black-red and viscous, like burnt tar—caked along one side.

  And caught in that reeking patch of matter was a single, long spur, dark brown-green and wickedly sharp, like a thorn torn from something that was never meant to bleed…