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I moved through them like a scythe through wheat, efficient and unstoppable. My gun emptied; I switched to the knife. Whena demon got too close, I used my fists, my elbows, my knees. Whatever would cause the most damage with the least effort.

“Cade, on your six!” Sean's voice cut through the chaos.

I spun, knife raised, just as a demon lunged at me from behind. I caught its arm, twisted until bone snapped, then drove the blade up under its ribs. Orange light flickered beneath its skin as the demon died with a scream that vibrated the air around us.

Looking over the fallen body, I saw Sean staring at me, his face streaked with blood and dirt. He was breathing heavily, shotgun held loosely in his hands. But it wasn't exhaustion or fear of the fight I saw in his expression. It was something else entirely.

“What?” I asked, wiping blood from my face with the back of my hand.

Sean didn't answer immediately. His eyes locked onto mine like he was searching for something, something he couldn't find. “Cade,” he said finally, my name coming out like a question.

And that's when I realized Sean wasn't looking at me like a partner who'd fought countless battles by my side. He was looking at me like he'd just seen a ghost. Like the person standing before him wearing my face was a stranger.

The hollowness inside me expanded, a void that swallowed the moment and any emotion it should have carried. I should have felt concerned, confused, defensive. Instead, I just cataloged his expression, filed it away as information to be processed later.

“We need to keep moving,” I said, already turning back toward the church. “The leader's still inside.”

I felt Sean's gaze on my back as I walked away, but he didn't call out again. After a moment, I heard his footsteps following mine, slower than before. More cautious.

14

THE DEMON LIVES

SEAN

We were still fifty yards from the church when the another wave hit us.

The night air erupted with movement and sound—shadowy figures pouring from the church doors and side streets, their eyes black as pitch, screams that didn't sound human tearing from their throats. Demons. Dozens of them. The stench of sulfur filled the air, thick enough to taste.

“Incoming!” I shouted, dropping into a firing stance as I raised my shotgun.

The battlefield was instant chaos—gunfire, screams, the sickening crunch of bodies hitting the ground. Hawk and his men formed a defensive circle, their practiced movements speaking of countless battles fought together. I found myself back-to-back with one of them, a grizzled guy with a nasty scar across his cheek.

But all I could focus on was Cade.

He moved through the swarm of demons like a ghost, silent and deadly. Each movement clean, deliberate. No wasted motion, no hesitation. A shot to the kneecap to bring a demondown, knife to the throat to finish it. Again and again. Bodies dropped around him like rain.

“Holy shit,” the hunter at my back muttered, his voice barely audible over the sounds of battle.

I knew what he meant. This wasn't Cade. Not the Cade I knew. Cade had always been a good hunter, one of the best, but he fought with strategy, with purpose. He tried to save the hosts when he could. He regretted every life we couldn't.

This man... this thing wearing Cade's face... it wasn't just fighting. It was killing. Perfect, relentless killing. No hesitation, no remorse, no second-guessing. Like a fucking machine.

A demon in the body of a middle-aged woman lunged at me, her face contorted with rage and something beyond humanity. I dodged left, bringing my shotgun around in a tight arc. The butt connected with her temple, and she stumbled. Before she could recover, I grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her back.

“Exorcizamus te,”I began, the Latin flowing from memory as I restrained her thrashing body.

Across the street, Cade fired twice in rapid succession. Two more bodies hit the pavement, blood pooling beneath them. Dead. Not just exorcised, but dead.

“Cade!” I called, panting as I finished the exorcism. Black smoke poured from the woman's mouth, and she collapsed, unconscious but breathing. Because I made sure of it. “Cade, what the hell?!”

No response. Just another kill. Another body with Cade standing over it, expression blank, eyes cold and distant.

I didn't recognize the man I was looking at. And that scared me more than any demon.

I cut through the chaos, ducking under a wild swing from a possessed teenager. The kid couldn't have been more than sixteen. In the back of my mind, I cataloged his features—brown hair, freckles, wearing a faded Metallica t-shirt. The kind of kidI would have shot the shit with about classic rock in any other circumstance. Now, I just needed to get him out alive.

I gritted my teeth, reaching into my coat. My fingers closed around the hilt of Ruby's knife—the demon-killing blade we'd acquired years ago. A weapon that could sever the demon from its host without killing the person underneath, if you knew where to strike.