Page 18

A pair of crystal blue eyes gleamed in Evan’s face the moment he opened the front door. He was still reeling from the realization that his best friend had probably gone missing when the doorbell had gone off.

“Uh…” Evan blinked, staring at the uninvited guest at his doorstep.

Delos grinned, all cheeks and charm. “We meet again, Evan.”

“I saw you an hour ago.”

“Yes,” he paused, then chuckled. “Oh—no, don’t misunderstand, please. I didn’t follow you here,” he pointed to his feet. “I came to return this home.”

Evan’s furrowed brows lowered to the ground just as a head full of silver fur emerged from between Delos’s feet.

“Rue? What—” The dog leapt on his hind limbs to hug Evan’s leg with a happy whine. With a resigned sigh, he crouched down, letting his furry friend lick his jaws before guiltily glancing up. “Thank you…again.”

Maybe Rue didn’t like Evan as much as he’d hoped. Why else would he run away a second time to this peculiar young man? Was it just the familiarity with his silver hair?

As if sensing the direction of Evan’s thought, Rue whined and reached up to lick his face again, consoling him that his little adventures were nothing personal. The new collar he’d bought for Rue was a deep shade of red, standing out brilliantly in the light coat.

Why red? No one knew.

“It sounds lively in there,” Delos chuckled as laughter and chatter poured out from inside the house. The kids were having a fine old time while Evan was struggling to keep a straight face and not run into a wall.

“Quite,” As Evan stood up, Rue’s ears perked upright in excitement, and he bolted inside. Moments later, someone screamed—sounding too much like Nick—and then another round of “aww” and “so cute” erupted.

Evan had no idea what to do or say amidst the crowd of spirited teenagers. And he certainly didn't have the luxury of fooling around at the moment. There was no news about Aaron. And Xen was somewhere in the kitchen, lingering like a ghost. Invisible. Watching.

Although it felt like he was right there with him.

Evan threw a brief glance at the Shadow Hand clinging to his shirt sleeve. Even though it was impossible to see it without the gift of Sight , Evan was uneasy roaming around with Xen’s shadow.

I need a cig .

Evan patted his empty pockets. Recently, all his packs of cigarettes were vanishing into thin air.

Delos still stood at the door, staring at Evan as he shifted from foot to foot, distracted. Ever so slightly, his silver brows drew close.

“You seem stressed,” Delos pointed out.

Evan’s eyes bounced back to him, running his fidgety fingers through his messy hair. “I’m fine.”

He was not.

Aaron was missing. Xen wasn't exactly trying hard to stay hidden. And Evan hadn't had a proper moment to talk to his sister, who'd be leaving on Monday. Nothing about this was fine, and the lack of control over any of it was gnawing at his nerves.

“Have you heard?” Delos leaned against the wall beside the front door, his expression that of a nosy old woman reporting gossip to her equally nosy neighbor. “People have gone missing in the town lately.”

Evan’s cat ears puffed out as soon as he heard the term missing . Not even wondering why Delos thought sharing this information was relevant, or how it—coincidentally— was relevant to Evan, he stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

With a subtle look of interest, Evan asked, “How many?”

“So far…” Delos counted on his fingers. “Over fifteen. Including seven loggers who were working for the road construction project.”

Evan’s brows furrowed. “And what are the cops saying?” He hoped the cops were involved at this point. If the Nightshade cult freaks were kidnapping people, like Choi had suspected, then the authorities could very well handle it. No need for the involvement of the church, or even Evan for that matter.

But then Evan recalled the video he’d seen on the phone Choi had found in the forest, and his evaluation seemed off. Those people didn’t seem like they’d been forcefully kidnapped. No, there was solid proof that they’d simply vanished into thin air.

“The cops have recorded the missing cases, but it seems that’s about it,” Delos shook his head, looking guilty on the authorities’ behalf.

That complicated everything.

If the rest of the people had disappeared the same way the loggers had, there was not a single clue left behind as to where or how they went missing. Not a scent trail a dog could sniff, no electronic gadget that could be tracked.

Suddenly, a giant bell of warning went off in Evan’s head, shaking his entire brain with tremors.

Holy shit. Had Aaron vanished into thin air like the rest? Was he the sixteenth victim?

Fuck.

Irritation like he hadn’t experienced in a long time gripped Evan’s shoulder, urging him forward to go and find the people behind this and make them pay. Touching his friend made it personal, even though it probably wasn’t personal for the people who did it.

Evan’s hands balled into fists before he pocketed them and tried to calm his mind. Nothing was achieved with an agitated brain. He needed to think straight if he was going to bring Aaron back.

And he was going to bring him back.

Evan turned to Delos. “Were all the people who disappeared men, in their twenties? Physically fit?” Evan asked.

“Quite so.”

Aaron fell into that category. Well, somewhat. If he wasn’t cancelled off for being too physically fit, he’d easily be a preferred target for freaks looking for healthy sacrificial chickens.

“Damnit,” Evan sighed.

Delos’s gaze flickered to him before he leaned off the wall and patted Evan’s shoulder. “Do you know the upcoming full moon falls on a Friday? This Friday, actually.”

The sudden shift of topic once again stumped Evan. “The full moon?”

Friday full moons were considered auspicious and believed to grant wishes. But praying to the evening sky wasn’t going to bring back those who went missing, would it?

“Not just any full moon,” Delos’s eyes gleamed. “A red moon.”

Evan’s eyebrows almost brushing his hairline. “Oh,”

Red moon on a Friday night, also called a Reaping Moon.

The wandering souls of the dead, especially the troublemakers, were harvested by grim reapers that walked the dark with lamps. Perhaps it was only a legend, perhaps it wasn’t, but the townspeople weren’t really eager to find out, and every Reaping Moon, they shut their doors at dusk and kept them shut until the next morning.

Evan had wandered out once or twice on a Reaping Moon—in his defense, he never kept a check of the lunar calendar and wasn’t aware it was a Reaping Moon—but hadn’t encountered any reapers with lanterns. He did, however, run into foxes, bats, and animals that usually stayed cooped up in the woods, away from humans. And the air on these nights felt especially heavy with so many different energies of varying intensities, like smelling several strong colognes in one tiny room. It was suffocating.

But what did the Reaping Moon have to do with the missing people?

Evan’s eyes fluttered to the youth beside him, and he had this strange, almost stupid feeling that if he asked, Delos would know the answer to his questions. He was weird, yes, pronouncing words wrong without even realizing it, but he also had the gaze of an old soul that had seen more than it willingly let on. The lack of anything else in his aura other than calmness was another itch in Evan’s brain that he couldn’t quite scratch.

No human was so calm all the time.

Sensing the intense wavelengths of confusion emitting from Evan, Delos smiled that gentle, fatherly smile. “I’m sure your friend could help you. All you need to do is ask.”

“Friend?” Evan shook his head in defeat. “My friend has also…gone missing. Probably the sixteenth one.”

Delos mimicked Evan’s head shake. “Not that friend.”

Before his words sank into Evan’s brain, a current of dark energy slammed into Evan from the back. He felt his presence before the faint rustle of clothes reached his ear. The Shadow Hand froze on Evan’s arm before dissolving into the air.

Evan tilted his head, and sure enough, over him loomed the demon he couldn’t get off his back with his gorgeous stupid face.

The usual impassiveness on Xen’s face had vanished, replaced with a look of barely suppressed irritation. His dark brows drew close and jaws clenched tight as he stared at Delos.

The youth, on the far end of the emotional spectrum, smiled warmly up at the towering giant like they were long-lost brothers.

Evan stood in between them like a broken bridge, completely useless.

“Long time no see, old friend,” Delos chirped, one eyebrow quirked like he was enjoying a private joke.

Xen’s lips lifted into an almost scowl.

“Old friend?” Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Evan glanced back and forth between the two figures. “You two know each other?”

“Yes,” Delos replied. At the same time, Xen grunted, “No.”

Evan paused for a moment, considering whom to trust. Then turned to the silver-haired ball of sunshine. “Since when?”

Delos shrugged with an ever-pleasant expression. “A long time.”

How long is ‘long’?

The imperceptible suspicion Evan had of Delos not being human was now spiraling off the charts. He knew Xen for a “long time,” this demon who had been locked away in an enchanted mirror for at least a few decades, if not centuries? Then how old was this young lad exactly?

“Go away,” Xen rumbled, staring down the white-haired youth who barely reached his chest.

Delos grinned. “This isn’t your house.”

“Go. Away.”

“You’re being meaner than usual.”

A vein surfaced on Evan’s temple as he forced himself to calm the turmoil in his brain. There were too many things happening way too fast for his scarcely used intelligence to comprehend.

He pinched the bridge of his nose before trying to decide which topic deserved his attention at the moment. But before he could shove the two… entities away for more mental clarity, Xen stepped closer, knuckles brushing Evan’s other arm. “We have somewhere to be.”

Evan blinked, taken aback by the sudden intensity of his eyes. “What?”

“Now.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to—”

“ Now .”

Evan gasped as his feet shuffled without warning, trying to follow Xen’s command on their own. What was terrifying was Evan’s upper body, the part of him still under his control, refused to move as he grabbed onto the nearest stump of the front porch, clinging on for dear life.

If not for his horror of having his body split at the waist, Evan might have thought the scene hilarious.

Fuck this blood bond.

“Stop it,” his eyes flashed to Xen. “Right now.”

Xen remained unimpressed by Evan’s struggles as the two halves of his body tried to move in opposite directions. “Come with me.”

“You damned unholy rat !” Evan jabbed an angry finger in Xen’s face, the other arm wrapped around the concrete stump in a death grip. “I have responsibilities! I can’t leave those kids alone and go about meandering with you.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t really care about them.”

“I do!” Evan hissed. “There’s my sister in there!”

His best friend had already disappeared, and there were two young men inside. What if something happened to them? They’d blame this town for it, then Celie for bringing them here. They’d outcast her in school, then she would go into depression and cut Evan off from her life—

“If I may,” A gentle hand landed on Evan’s shoulder, momentarily disrupting his explosive thoughts. “I could watch over your guests while you’re gone.”

Delos’s voice was soft yet confident and somehow reassuring all together.

“Why would you?” Evan blurted, still not fully convinced he bore goodwill. Come to think of it, Delos was ridiculously friendly to Evan ever since the first time they met. What was his motive? What was he ?

Surely not a human.

Seeing the wheels turning rapidly in Evan’s head, Delos chuckled, “Please, trust me with this. You have my word, as long as I’m here, no harm shall come to any living being inside this house.”

That was a very wise and really comforting way of phrasing that sentence. By “any living being” he was implying that not only would he protect the humans, but also the two precious pets Evan cherished like his own kids.

Evan’s tense shoulder slightly lowered. “Well… thank you.”

Xen redirected his cold stare towards the front gate with an unreadable expression. “Let’s go.”

Evan shot a glare at his back. “Hold your fucking horses. I need to talk to my sister before leaving.”

As he let go of the stump, his feet still tried to move toward Xen, and he collided into the wall that was his back with an oof . Evan stumbled back, groaning as he rubbed his nose.

“Make it quick,” Xen tore his dark eyes away, and the invisible pull against Evan’s feet disappeared.

Delos was stifling a smile as Evan turned around and fixed his hair before marching inside the house. After a moment, Delos and Xen followed behind him, with the latter maintaining more than necessary distance between them.

The group inside were laughing at something Elysia said as she stood in the center of the living room, arms wide spread. Rue was rubbing against her legs, and Misty was curled in Rumi’s lap with a scrunched face, annoyed that her peace was being disturbed by a group of teenagers.

As soon as Evan walked in, Celie’s eyes snapped to him. But when the other two figures followed, all laughter died down. The following silence was so tense Evan almost coughed out blood.

Other than Celie, the rest had witnessed the ethereal beauty that was Delos, but who the hell was that ?

Tall as a tree and built like a Greek sculpture, the top of his dark head brushed the door frame as he walked in, his blood-red suit clinging to his body like a second skin. And those endless pools of dark eyes seemed to suck all light that grazed their surface.

Xen slipped his hands into his pockets, staring at the floor with a look frigid enough to freeze hell over. Which, somehow, only made him more appealing, in a mysterious kind of way.

Elysia—the shortest of all—craned her neck to look up at him, Celie seemed mildly intrigued, Wren took one glance, then went back to typing on his phone, and Nick was thoroughly dumbstruck, his glasses tipping to a side.

Suddenly, Misty’s shriek startled everyone.

Rumi shot upright, face pale and wide eyes glued to the floor.

“E-Excuse me,” muttering that, she fled towards the bathroom.

Nick straightened next and motioned to Elysia, who quickly nodded and followed after Rumi.

“She’s exhausted from traveling,” Celie said as Evan glanced in the direction of the bathroom, his eyes narrowed in that peculiar way when he was wary of someone. Celie cleared her throat, then her eyes landed on the two strangers. “Who is this?”

Oh, I wish I knew, sis.

“I’m Delos,” chirped the silver-head.

The group of unwavering stares redirected to the red-clad figure next. But when he remained stone-faced, glowering at the floor, Evan said in his stead.

“This is Xen.” Evan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “They’re my friends.”

Celie’s brows twitched in surprise. The silent exclamation was evident. You made “friends”?

Evan scratched his temple. “I’ll go grab my coat.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Celie, surprisingly, followed Evan into his room. He’d made an effort to clean his room the previous night for this exact reason. But there was nothing much in there to clean, so he’d simply just shoved all the clean clothes into the closet and dirty ones under the bed.

“Uh, yeah. Aaron has run into a…slight problem. I’m gonna go bring him back,” he threw the coat over his arm and rummaged through the drawers before finding a crumpled pack of cigarettes and pocketing it.

Strange, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smoked, which was ridiculous considering he was a stress smoker and nothing was constant in his life if not stress. Especially for the past couple of weeks.

“What happened?”

At her strained tone, Evan stilled. When he turned around, Celie was frowning deeply at his feet, her fists clenched. She looked close to bursting into tears.

Evan’s stomach dropped.

“Hey, it’s okay. Nothing happened,” he reached for her head, reflexively settling over the soft locks of hair and ruffling it like he used to when she was little. “Everything will be fine.”

Celie froze at his touch, then stepped away as if burnt, blinking furiously at the floor. Evan’s hand hovered in place before falling back to his side.

Oh, she wasn’t worried about him . Aaron had been more of a brother to her than Evan ever could be, even when he tried. It was at Aaron that her concerns were directed, justifiably.

“Aaron will be fine. I promise I’ll bring him back,” he said, shrugging on the coat, expression blank as he stepped around her and out of the room. “Delos will stay back. He’s easy to get along with, so I’d suggest all of you stay inside until I return. Please,” he added the last word with more emphasis than necessary.

Evan had dusted and aired out the guest room for guests. If he had any idea that Celie would bring four people along, he’d have booked them a room in the town’s best motel. But for now, their safety was more important than hospitality, and he couldn’t guarantee that anywhere other than his own house.

Celie didn’t respond as Evan stopped at the threshold of his room. She didn’t even move. And after a few moments, he smiled at her back before walking away.

At least she is home. That’s enough for me.

Delos was on the couch, watching something on Wren’s phone that he was proudly showing to him, with Nick hovering behind them. When Delos saw Evan, he gave him an encouraging nod. That made Evan square his shoulders as he stepped out of the front door, ready for battle. Ready for war.

Late afternoon sun scattered hues of pinks and oranges across the sky, the sun hiding away as the ever-present dark clouds slowly hovered into the colorful canvas. There was a storm coming.

Xen stood leaning against the front gate, hands pocketed in his slacks, hair tousled in the blowing wind, and his suit blazer unbuttoned, fluttering idly. The scene could make an artist fall to his knees and weep for mercy.

As Evan approached him, those dark eyes with a glint of red rose, tense brows drawing back to rest as he spotted him. Just a few minutes back, he seemed like he could bite somebody’s head off, probably Evan’s. Why was he so relaxed now?

Ignoring whatever act he was putting on for attention, Evan opened the gate and shut it behind him, not sparing Xen a single glance before striding towards the town.

“Where are we going?” His tone was no-bullshit. Aaron’s phone sat heavily in his pants pocket, a reminder of what he was neglecting in order to bear this demon’s tantrums. “This better be important.”

Xen easily caught up to him with two wide strides, hands still in his pocket. “The Old Temple.”

Evan halted abruptly in his steps before his wide eyes trailed to Xen. “We’re going to the Old Temple ? Now? Why?”

It was nearly evening, and that place was infamous for being extremely haunted by not just human spirits.

Creatures of the dark, bloodthirsty monsters, and beasts from hell lurked in its periphery—or at least that’s what the townspeople warned overexcited tourists about. That was the reason the area around the Old Temple was deserted, houses dating back to over a hundred years abandoned for good.

Among the many tales of the fantasy-rich history of Emberlyn, a recent addition stood out: the story of the last priest who’d looked after the Old Temple some seventy years ago. He’d died mysteriously at the age of ninety-eight, leaving behind a cryptic note. His body had been found in bed, lying in a peaceful sleeping position—with a broken neck. The note clutched in his fists read:

Light from heaven, fire of hell,

Ashes of a beast under a spell.

Broken in part, his head and heart,

Like a burning star, he fell.

Hush, don’t make a sound.

Hush, don’t lift the veil.

Lest the beast of beasts

Rises to hail.

There was still some debate whether he was really gifted with clairvoyance or just delusional beyond cure. Perhaps he had a vivid imagination, and the last note was a product of his mind reeling on his deathbed.

But if what the tales read was true and the clairvoyant priest had witnessed a premonition before death, it was still a mystery what exactly he saw. And how far away in the future it was. Because it’d been over seven decades since his death and nothing like a beast of beasts had risen from hell yet.

“The relic,” Xen said, eyes narrowed at the sky like he was internally cursing the heavens. He didn’t provide any further information on what this relic had to do with the Old Temple, so Evan decided to add one plus one.

“Is that relic inside the Old Temple?” Evan asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay. But can’t this wait?”

“No,” Xen turned and continued walking on.

“Why not?” Evan quickly followed, trying to coax the moody guy. “You’ve waited this long, can’t we put it off for another week?”