Page 57

“Call his name.”

Evan was about to snap in irritation when the youth’s figure flickered. The light started dimming. Fading.

His heart lurched to a stop.

No, no, no. My core.

He cursed and shut his eyes, clutching his head as he racked his brain for a clue.

Name. Name. Name. His name.

What the fuck is his name?

The image of the scratched door, creeping shadows, and the clawed walls of the girl’s bedroom flashed across Evan’s conscience. The foreign words scribbled in blood…and the few English letters that had stood out. Like a broken video record playing one piece of footage over and over through his mind, it focused on three letters.

Big and bold.

And so, so bloody.

NEX

INCENDERE

AMNIS

Evan’s eyes cracked open.

He was back in the wrecked, dark room. And that huge claw was coming straight at his abdomen. The intention was quite obvious: to rip his core out.

Compelled by the words of that youth and something deep inside his being that was trying to force its way out of his mouth, Evan parted his chapped lips.

A sharp exhale. A faint whisper.

“Xen…”

A whisper of that name was no less than a curse in itself. Its effect was instant, something both terrifying and mesmerizing to behold.

The huge claw froze mid-air towards Evan. A sudden rise in temperature assaulted the dense energy in the room. If the air had been stifling earlier, now it was suffocating.

Threatening.

A flash of red lightning, swift and deadly, sliced past the claw, severing it clean in half.

With a gasp, Evan sucked in a lungful of air. The invisible fist that had enclosed his lungs had finally opened, allowing him to breathe again. Huffing and coughing, he stumbled back to his feet and stepped away from the claw and the black, gooey blood oozing from the still-twitching limb.

Evan slumped against the nearest wall, blood dripping down his temple and into his eyes.

The huge glowing eyeball frantically spun in circles, shedding faint light over the bloody mess on the floor. It squinted, pupils contracting and dilating, in agony over losing a limb as it tried to sight the culprit.

In the darkness, right above the eyeball, a pair of scarlet eyes flashed. Like a predator creeping up on its prey.

Still panting in a corner, Evan frowned at the demon, wanting to curse him out of habit but unable to form words.

One of the scarlet eyes closed, as if winking at Evan.

“Missed me?”

Not a second later, chaos erupted.