Jalen stood just out of Aunty Darcy’s door, staring at the radiant moon, which hung high in the clear night sky. Its network of impact craters was a sight to behold.

“So where next, new god?” Prillon asked, floating beside him as Jalen descended the stairs. “I hope we are through with this sappy crap and you’re itching to hunt some bloody spawn.”

“No yet,” he replied, almost absentmindedly. “There’s still one more stop before I’m ready to get my hands dirty.”

On the street, he swung around to take in Aunt Darcy’s apartment complex one last time, hoping that they would remain unaffected by the impending chaos looming on the horizon of the city before he turned and shot into the air. Minutes later, he reached the outskirts of Southside Haven.

If he remembered Ella correctly, she stated that Caleb lived in a community of prefab homes along the lip of the district. So, from his lofty vantage point, he kept his eyes peeled for box houses with flat or slanted roofs along clusters of neighborhoods. Soon, his superhuman eyesight picked up an area that matched her description. Hundreds of box-like houses akin to shipping containers joined at ninety-degree angles dotted a large swath of land.

Now all that was left was finding the teen in the maze of steel and wood. That was until he remembered he had Caleb’s number. As he floated at a lower altitude, looking for somewhere to land and change back into his human form so that he could use his phone, he spotted a boy, no older than fourteen, lying on the roof of a house. The boy had placed a blanket beneath him for comfort and was engrossed in a book. He instantly recognized who it was, swerving around and landing softly on the roof as his form shifted and shrunk.

“What’re you reading there?” he asked.

“Holy shit!” Startled, Caleb jumped and swung around to discern the source of the voice, only to sigh once he saw Jalen. “You’ve got to be careful, dude. I almost had a heart attack.”

Jalen chuckled, walking on the slippery metal roof still spotting patches of frozen snow, and sat on the ledge beside Caleb, who tried to delve back into the book before ultimately setting it aside. They stared ahead at the snow-covered terrain dotted with prefab houses. Some kids, a bit to the right, engaged in a competitive snow fight while further down originated the hums of a snow blower as a woman cleared her modest driveway.

“It’s one of Becca’s,” Caleb said.

“The book?” he inquired.

“Yeah…,” Caleb held the book delicately. “She tried to get me to read her books all the time. Said it would be uplifting. Would get the mind thinking. Would have you questioning why you do the things you do.”

“Well, is that ringing true?”

Caleb tilted his head, giving him a blank look. “Nope. It’s the opposite, really. The more I read this… trash, the more I understand how shit my sister’s taste was. I mean… looked at this shit.” Caleb showed Jalen the sections of the book he vehemently stated as stupid, like the main heroine falling in love with a noble from another kingdom and running off with him in the dead of the night. This led to the king, whose wife disappeared, declaring war on an entire nation over one woman. Unfortunately for the runaway wife and the noble, the king’s forces were decimating their kingdom with no hope in sight.

He laughed as Caleb continued to rant. “Everyone is so stupid. The noble for seducing the queen of a powerful kingdom. The king for wasting countless lives of his men just for revenge. Don’t even get me started on the queen and her annoying declarations of love for the noble while thousands of people are killed and displaced just so that they can make love under the moonlight.”

Finally reigning in his laughter, he said. “Maybe the book is trying to tell you what not to do.”

Caleb shook his head vigorously. “Nope. I get a sense it’s preaching to me how love transcends all. Like I said, it’s stupid. Like, will I actually kill a thousand people to get Becca back? I don’t think so.” Caleb paused for a moment. “How about you? If bringing your mother back was possible, would you do it?”

His smile tapered. “For a thousand people?”

“Yeah.”

“Random people?”

“Yeah. They’d be complete strangers.”

He recalled the Cosmonar trials where the same example was raised, albeit more vividly. Rather than answer the question, he said. “I think you’ll find that you may be in the minority, Caleb. Your mom. Would she do it?”

Caleb nodded, running his hand over the hardback cover of the book.

“If you died instead and Rebecca had the chance to exchange a thousand people for you, would she do it?”

“I think so. Yeah.”

“To answer your question, yes. I’ll exchange as many lives as possible to have my mother back.”

“Then people are stupid,” Caleb muttered.

“And you’d be right. People like to think they are rational and fair. But when faced with reality, their biases show who they really are.”

Stolen novel; please report.

They fell silent for many minutes until Jalen remembered why he had come. “Anyway, it is good seeing you, Caleb. Do you remember the demons?”

He told Caleb everything he relayed to Aunt Darcy about the demonic presence in the city. Unexpectedly, the teen took it well.

“So this world is going to shit is what you’re saying,” Caleb said when he finished.

“Yeah.” He agreed. “This is as normal as things will ever be.”

“Thanks for the warning. Though I doubt what I can do if I come face to face with a fucking demon from hell. I mean, if the police and HAVEN can’t do shit, what does it matter?”

He wrapped his arm around Caleb’s shoulder, holding him firmly. “Your brother. Is he still at the hospital?”

“Yeah, with no timeline for discharge. My mom left to see him. Why’d you ask?”

“Well, I’m going to give you a gift. Tomorrow, go see your brother. Hold his hand when you see him. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He fixed Caleb with a steady, unyielding gaze. “You make sure to hold your brother’s hand. Remember that.”

Before a response came, Caleb screamed and clutched his chest. He stood to his feet on the ledge, watching the teen roll around in agony.

“My apologies for the pain,” he said. “But your gift is quite substantial and you carry your brother’s as well. When the time comes, call on the name Erebus.”

And so he transformed and ascended into the night, watching as Caleb’s pain subsided. Caleb looked around for him after coming to. Then, upon finding he was alone, Caleb dropped from the roof and rushed inside, no doubt looking for some water to quench his burning heart.

Aware Prillon was close by, Jalen said. “Now it’s time to hunt some spawn.”

He flew toward Stormhaven Park at speeds just short of breaking the sound barrier, a complaining Prillon left far behind. It didn’t take him long to spot Dynamo sitting on a park bench by her lonesome, staring into nothingness. He attempted the same tactic he used to scare Caleb previously, but Dynamo caught on immediately.

“I can hear you, Mr. Nkanga,” she voiced out, as he landed softly behind her.

“And I told you Jalen would do,” he said.

Dynamo rose to her feet and approached him, noticing his reversion to human form. But she chose not to mention it. “You sure took your time. Where are we headed?”

“I said three hours and I’m just on time. We’re going to the Hermosville meat packaging plant.”

“What? That is over three hours away on foot. Why did you make me come here, then?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to enjoy some scenery before business.”

Her tone was laced with anger. “You are trying to dump me. You never planned on working together.”

He transformed before her eyes, growing and radiating with power. “At least I told you where to find me. That is... if you make it in time.”

By the time she spoke again, he was already zooming across the sky, her words fading into the distance. He shot past Prillon, causing the imp to curse before changing course. Minutes later, he landed next to the plant—an L-shaped grey building spotting no windows—his keen sense probing for signs of life or movement and finding none.

Jalen, in his god form, pulled down a portion of the wall before stepping inside. He surveyed the spacious room, lined with a network of sleek stainless steel machines used for meat processing. On one side, the machines emitted a low hum, while conveyor belts transported ropes of the end product, which appeared to be sausages, to the other side.

With no one to attend to them, the grinding machines operated relentlessly but produced nothing, while sausages accumulated at the end of the room on rolling platforms, having been dropped by the conveyor belts.

He entered the next room, finding that the entire facility was deserted only recently. The processing rooms, butchering area, cold storage, and the two docks found on either end of the building carried no signs of life. However, on his second inspection, he noticed some peculiar details, specifically human blood, previously thought to be from livestock. It was in the butchering area he found the highest concentration. In a storage room, human blood clung to hanging hooks used for storing animal carcasses and collected into pools below.

“That was fucking amazing what you did there,” Prillon barked after flying in. “Leaving me behind like that after I battled boredom watching you drone on and on with those mortals. Bloody spectacular, I tell ya.”

He glanced at the demon. “I never asked you to eavesdrop.”

“Well, what else could I do, eh?” After landing on a storage platform, Prillon reached for the raw meat cuts laid out on trays. Then the demon grabbed a chunk of meat and threw it into his mouth, chewing with delight. “Not as good hell’s delicacy, but nothing beats good old freshly cut meat.”

Disgusted, he turned to the empty rows of bloodstained hooks hanging from the ceiling. “Do you have any idea what happened here?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Prillon sampled another piece of meat, licking the blood of his fingers as if it were ice cream. “Ah, that hits the spot. Hold on, new god. We can’t let all this go to waste.”

He released a quiet breath and watched as the demon indulged himself. Soon after, Prillon met his cold gaze and froze mid-bite.

“Rats.” Prillon gasped nervously. Then the imp took flight, circling the large room. He watched as Prillon inspected the hooks with a keen eye. Afterward, Prillon gave the room one last sweeping glance before flying into an adjacent room, with Jalen not long behind.

“What do the mortals call this shithole?” Prillon asked, while sniffing the spilled blood on a long, cutting table. “Disgusting. It’s human.”

“Should be the butchering room,” he said. “The previous room was for hanging the carcasses. Further than that looks like the place they killed the animals.”

The entire building functioned like an assembly line that funnelled livestock in and spat out the ready products at the departing dock.

“Oh, they were dealing with animals. You got that right,” Prillon said, flying back to him and landing on a clean cutting table nearby. “Just ain’t livestock.”

He voiced his thoughts out loud. “The demon makes them here, right?”

“Damn right. And it looks like the demon was churning out a whole lot of them.” Prillon nodded, studying him. “Do you find that hard to believe? After everything we’ve seen?”

“No, it’s just… this place is used to process meat that I consume.” He shook his head, suddenly nauseous from all the human blood surrounding him. “It’s fucking disgusting. I mean, I initially thought a fight broke out here with the workers and some spawn. But—”

“No new god. This here is a spawn-making factory. Ship in some terrified mortals, put a pike through their hearts, do some demonic mumbo-jumbo, and out pops a dumb-as-rocks husk ready to die again.”

The gag-inducing odor of blood annoyed him now. The demon’s days were numbered. Corrupting Hermosville with her filth would be her undoing.