Page 7

SIX MONTHS TOO LATE

SEAN

I hadn't slept in three days. Not since I picked up Asmodeus's trail heading toward the old subway tunnels. Sleep was for people who didn't have the world ending on their watch, and right now, that felt like everyone but me.

The warehouse looked like a tornado hit an army surplus store.

Maps tacked to every wall, photos scattered across tables, weapons stacked in corners like some kind of apocalypse yard sale.

Six months of hunting demons solo had turned my home into a war room, and honestly?

I liked it better this way. Gave me something to focus on besides the gaping hole where my partner used to be.

Roxie, my pain-in-the-ass Himalayan cat, was perched on a stack of demonology books, giving me that judgmental stare cats had perfected.

Found her in a vampire nest about four years ago—sole survivor after I torched the place.

Smart enough to know trouble when she saw it, dumb enough to stick around anyway. Story of my life.

When someone pounded on my door, I had the Colt in my hand before my brain caught up. Not many people knew where I lived, and fewer still dropped by for social calls.

“Expecting company?” I asked Roxie, who just flicked her tail like she couldn't be bothered with my paranoia.

I checked the security monitor and my world tilted sideways.

Sterling stood on my doorstep looking grim as death. Next to him was a tall figure in a dark jacket, face turned away from the camera. Something about the way he stood, the set of his shoulders...

No. Fucking. Way.

My hands shook as I cycled through the monitor feeds, trying to get a better angle. When the figure turned toward the camera, I dropped the remote.

Cade. Standing there like he'd just stepped out for beer instead of being dragged into Hell six months ago.

“Jaysus Christ,” I breathed, scrambling for my testing kit. Silver knife, holy water, salt—everything I'd need to prove this was just another sick joke from something wearing his face.

Because it had to be. Demons loved this shit, loved twisting the knife. I'd killed three shapeshifters in the past month alone, all of them wearing Cade's face, all of them getting close enough to hurt before I figured out the con.

I yanked the door open, gun raised and ready.

Time stopped.

The thing looked perfect. Every detail exactly right—the messy dark hair, the stubble he never quite shaved clean, that little scar through his left eyebrow from when we hunted that poltergeist in Detroit. If this was a fake, it was the best I'd ever seen.

“Sean,” Sterling said carefully, like he was talking to a cornered animal. “Before you do anything stupid?—“

I punched Cade in the face.

My fist connected with his jaw, a solid hit that sent him stumbling backward. The impact shot pain up my arm, but it felt good. Real. Not some ghost bullshit or demon smoke.

“What the fuck are you?” I snarled, grabbing him by the jacket and slamming him against the brick wall. Six months of grief and rage exploded out of me like a dam bursting. “What kind of sick game is this?”

Cade didn't fight back. Just stood there, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, staring at me with those blue eyes that looked exactly right and completely wrong at the same time.

“It's me,” he said quietly. “Sean, it's me.”

“Bullshit!” I shoved him harder, my voice cracking. “I watched you die! I watched that gate close with you inside and I couldn't—“ The words choked off. Six months of keeping it together, and now I was falling apart on my own doorstep.

Sterling's hand landed on my shoulder. “Sean, I've tested him. Silver, holy water, everything. It's really him.”

“No.” I shook my head violently. “No, that's impossible. Nothing comes back from Hell. Nothing.”

That's when Roxie decided to make her grand entrance. She shot between my legs like a furry missile, making a beeline for Cade. Started circling his ankles, meowing up a storm like she was chewing him out for being gone so long.

Then she did something that made my blood run cold. She stood up on her hind legs, front paws on his thigh, and started purring. Not the cautious, testing purr she gave strangers. The full-throated, rumbling purr she only gave me.

And Cade? He looked down at her like he'd never seen a cat before in his life.

“Hello,” he said, voice flat as cardboard. He reached down to pet her, movements careful and deliberate, like someone who'd read instructions on how to interact with animals but never actually done it.

Roxie didn't care. She was in heaven, rubbing against his hand, purring loud enough to wake the dead.

Animals don't lie. They can spot a shapeshifter from a mile away, sense things humans miss. If Roxie thought this was Cade, then...

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered, releasing his jacket.

“Can we take this inside?” Sterling asked, glancing around the empty street. “Before someone calls the cops about the domestic violence?”

I stepped back, numb. My living room suddenly felt too small with three people and a cat who'd apparently forgotten I existed. Roxie stayed glued to Cade's side, demanding attention like the spoiled princess she was.

“Sit,” I ordered, pointing at the couch. “Don't move, don't touch anything.”

Cade sat. Didn't argue, didn't crack a joke about my hospitality, didn't do any of the dozen things the real Cade would have done. Just sat there, hands folded in his lap like a kid in the principal's office.

I pulled out my testing kit, hands still shaking. “Every monster with a grudge has tried wearing your face these past six months,” I said, approaching him with the silver knife. “So excuse me if I'm a little fucking paranoid.”

“Test whatever you need,” Cade said simply, holding out his arm.

The easy compliance hit me like a slap. Shapeshifters fought tests. Demons mocked them. Cade always understood the protocols, but he'd still give me shit about it. This... this was like testing a mannequin.

I pressed the silver blade to his wrist, harder than necessary. Drew blood. No sizzle, no smoke, just normal human pain and the smell of copper.

“Not a shifter,” I muttered, reaching for the holy water.

I splashed it in his face without warning. Water ran down his cheeks, soaked into his shirt collar. No burning, no screaming, just Cade blinking water from his eyes with the patience of a saint.

“Salt?” he suggested, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Iron?”

I stared at him, my brain trying to process what every test was telling me. This was Cade. Somehow, impossibly, definitely Cade. But...

“Christo,” I said suddenly.

“Christo,” he repeated without flinching, no black bleeding into his eyes.

The word hung in the air between us. All my tests said human. All my instincts said wrong.

“How?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper. “How are you here?”

Cade's expression flickered, something dark passing behind his eyes before being carefully locked away. “I don't know. I remember the gate, I remember Hell, then I woke up in Central Park two days ago.”

“That's it? Six months in Hell and you just... woke up in a park?”

“That's all I remember.”

I wanted to scream. Wanted to grab him and shake him until the real answers fell out. Instead, I sank into my chair, suddenly exhausted.

“I tried everything,” I said, not caring how broken I sounded. “Every ritual, every summoning, every desperate deal with things that should have killed me just for asking. Nothing worked.”

“I know,” Cade said. “Sterling told me.”

The flat delivery hit me wrong. No gratitude, no emotion, nothing. Like he was commenting on the weather.

“You know?” I repeated, anger flaring. “That's it? I nearly got myself killed a dozen times trying to save your ass and you 'know'?”

Something shifted in Cade's expression. Not guilt or gratitude, but something that might have been confusion. “What do you want me to say?”

The question was so wrong, so fundamentally not-Cade, that I actually flinched.

“Jaysus,” I breathed. “What did they do to you down there?”

Before Cade could answer, Roxie jumped onto his lap, circling twice before settling down. She started kneading his thigh with her paws, purring like a diesel engine. Cade looked down at her like she was some exotic creature he'd never encountered.

“She's... affectionate,” he observed.

“She's yours,” I said sharply. “Was yours. Before you left, she used to sleep on your jacket every night. Wouldn't eat unless you fed her.”

Cade nodded, processing this information without any visible emotional response. He started petting Roxie with mechanical precision, like someone following a manual.

“Animals remember,” Sterling said quietly from his corner.

“Yeah, well, sometimes I wish they didn't,” I muttered, watching my cat make a fool of herself over someone who clearly didn't remember her.

The silence stretched until I couldn't stand it anymore. “So what now?” I asked. “You're back, but you're not... you're not right. You're not you.”

“I'm trying to be,” Cade said, still petting Roxie with that same careful precision.

“Trying?” The word came out harsher than I intended. “You're trying to be yourself?”

“Yes.”

The simple honesty of it hit me like a physical blow. Whatever had happened in Hell, whatever had been done to him, Cade knew he was broken. And he was trying to fake being whole.

“Fuck,” I said, scrubbing my hands over my face. “This is so fucked up.”

Sterling cleared his throat. “We need to focus on Asmodeus. He's been busy while Cade was gone, and something big is coming.”

“Right,” I said, grateful for the distraction. “The subway tunnels. The ritual sites.”

I moved to my wall of research, pointing at the mapped locations. “Three sites along the city's major ley lines. They're building up to something, gathering energy.”

Cade stood, dislodging Roxie, who gave an indignant meow before settling on the couch. He studied my work with clinical interest, tracing the connections I'd drawn between seemingly random events.