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??The Devil Knows Her Name

Cassian

I’ve hunted gods in the gutters of old worlds, bled angels for truth, slit open demons to read their memories like scripture.

But this girl?

She was a ghost in the system. A whisper buried in ash.

Ember Carr.

That was her name. Kreed killed her mother. Tried to kill her, but left her with a constant reminder that he’ll always be there.

A scar.

Every time I dug deeper, something burned back.

First came the banshee, her mouth sewn shut with silver thread. I paid in blood and breath to pry it open.

“She’s not meant to live,” the banshee rasped, black foam spilling from her lips. “The Gate marked her. The Hollow King wants her back.”

Then came the witch who read time backward. Said she saw Ember wrapped in flame and prophecy, the girl with a scream that split the Veil.

Said she was dangerous.

Said she’d burn us all.

I smiled.

Danger was always my favorite flavor.

I left with more than intel, I left with a name that tasted like prophecy. Ember Carr. It slipped past my lips like a secret I wasn’t meant to know, and now I’d follow it to the girl fate tried to hide.

I found her in the last place I expected, tucked into a shadowed corner of the Stygian Café, laughing quietly behind a chipped porcelain mug like the world hadn’t been hunting her since birth.

The place stunk of burnt coffee and demon residue. Nothing but the damned and the curious come here. The walls breathed softly, like they remembered the last time someone died inside them.

She didn’t see me at first. Too busy scribbling in a leather-bound journal, headphones resting around her neck, one fingernail tapping a rhythm into the wood. The nail’s painted black. Chipped. A single silver ring on her thumb.

She looked…Ordinary.

Until she lifted her eyes.

Then it hit me.

There was weight behind them. Old weight. Fire buried under fresh grief. She had seen things she shouldn’t and kept walking anyway.

I slid into the seat across from her like I’d always belonged there.

Her brows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“You’re Ember Carr,” I said, voice low and even, like her name was a password. “I’ve been looking for you.”

She stilled. Not fear. Calculation.

Then she smiled, slow, sharp. Not warm. Not for me. “I don’t do interviews with men who skip introductions.”

“Cassian Black.” I extended a hand I knew she wouldn't take.

Her expression flickered. “If this is about the latest episode of my podcast, my lawyer would advise you to fuck off.”

I grinned, settling back. “Relax. I’m not here to sue you. I’m here to understand you.”

“That makes one of us.”

I studied her. She didn’t squirm under the attention. Good. The girl had backbone. And secrets curled beneath her skin like sleeping vipers.

I watched her like she was carved from starlight, wild, dangerous, and far too beautiful for this broken world. Even in the dark, she burned too brightly to look away from. A wildfire, wrapped in skin and secrets, and gods help me… I wanted to burn.

“You’ve been asking the right questions,” I said. “The kind that get people buried.”

Her lips twitched. “You threatening me, Mr. Black?”

“Not yet,” I murmured. “But I do want to know why a podcaster with zero supernatural ties keeps stumbling onto murder scenes that don’t involve your kind?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Supernatural? My kind? Maybe I’m just lucky.” She huffed as if she didn't believe what I just asked.

“You’re marked,” I said softly.

Her smile faltered, just slightly.

I leaned forward, voice dropping lower. “I can feel it on you. The Veil stains people differently. Most don’t notice. But I do. You’re the one they say is the prophecy. That you are the bridge. The vessel. The tear and the seal.”

She tensed. Barely. But I caught it.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“Known what?”

“That you’re not just someone.”

Ember stared me down, like she was measuring where to strike if I lunged. “You think I’m part of some prophecy? That the things that go bump in the night are real?”

“I know you are. I’ve heard whispers in languages long dead. Seen omens bleed into walls. And your name? Ember Carr? It shows up in places no living hand wrote it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re insane.”

I smirked. “Not yet. But I’ve lived long enough to know crazy and prophecy share a bed.”

Silence stretched. The café hummed with dark energy around us. Behind the counter, a demon served espresso to a banshee wearing a Yale hoodie.

Finally, I pulled a card from my pocket and slid it across the table.

She eyed it warily. No number. No name. Just a black sigil etched in ash, ancient, unmistakable.

Watcher of the Unseen.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Keep digging,” I said. “But next time, don’t do it alone.”

She picked up the card. Her fingers lingered on the sigil.

“I don’t trust men who flirt like they’re offering a deal with the devil.”

I rose from the seat, smile crooked. “That’s because I already did.”

I left her sitting there, coffee forgotten, that sigil burning against her fingertips like it knew her.

And maybe it did.

Because prophecy had a scent.

And she reeked of it.

As soon as I stepped through the threshold to my home, I knew that I wasn’t alone. He was already inside.

Not seated. Not waiting. Standing in the farthest corner like he grew out of the wall itself, no breath, no pulse, no fucking decency.

Kreed Elias.

“I wondered how long it’d take you to crawl out of whatever crypt you’ve been bleeding into,” I muttered, tossing my keys on the counter like this was just another night.

“It was the girl, wasn’t it?” His voice cracked across the silence, low and uneven, like something trying to remember how to speak. “You spoke to her?”

I didn’t flinch. Just removed my coat, slow and deliberate. “What business is it of yours?”

His laugh was a jagged sound. “You always were stupid when you were curious.”

“She’s not yours, Kreed.”

“She will be.” He stepped forward now, eyes black as floodwater. “Body. Mind. Blood. The Gate wants her. The Hollow King whispers her name through the Veil every night.”

“She’s not a prophecy. She’s a person.”

“Not anymore.”

The room groaned with the pressure of his power. The sigils hidden in my floorboards sizzled. My wards twitched like they’re trying to escape.

“If you get in my way again,” he said, almost tender, “I’ll do worse than kill you.”

I grinned like a bastard. “You always did talk too much.”

I moved. Shadows rose.

He didn’t.

And that’s the problem.

The spell hit me before I finished the countercurse. A pulse of rotted air. A language I hadn’t heard since the catacombs under Kiev. My bones locked up like I’d been buried alive.

“You think you’re the predator in this room?” Kreed hisses, stepping into my frozen stance. “You think you’ve been hunting me?” His lips brushed my ear.

“Dorian’s been hunting you.” I groaned as the pain started.

It wasn’t physical. Not at first.

It was memory. Being peeled apart. Burned. Rewritten.

I screamed. Just once. He stole the sound and swallowed it.

And in that final moment, before everything inside me cracked and collapsed, I saw his smile.

Not satisfied.

Triumphant.