That night, despite bone-deep exhaustion, the motel room felt like a cage. Rest wasn’t going to happen, not with my mind uneasy and my skin itching for movement. I stepped out into the night, deciding that if I was going to be wide awake, I might as well get a head start. The scry board could wait. Bart was expecting me at a greasy little diner down the street—a place that served caffeine by the bucket and let the shadows gather in the corners undisturbed. I’d be there early, but better that than sitting alone, staring at a cracked ceiling.

Bart was a paper-pusher at the precinct, an old contact of mine—the kind who’d take a bribe of strong, black coffee over cash any day. He was a relic, one of the few good men left in a world fraying at the seams.

The moment I stepped onto the sidewalk, the city engulfed me in its cacophony. Streetlamps cast long, wavering shadows on the pavement, creating a patchwork of light and dark that shifted with every passing car and pedestrian. The sounds of traffic, distant construction, and snippets of conversation from passersby blended into a symphony of urban life—voices ranging from hushed whispers to raucous laughter.

The night stretched endlessly, the kind that hung heavy with cigarette smoke, half-finished thoughts, and barely buried regrets. My boots scraped the pavement, the rhythm familiar, comforting even, until I rounded the corner and slammed face-first into chaos. Cameras, boom mics, and blinding lights filled the street, making it look like a vaudeville show and Hell had gotten drunk and birthed an ugly bastard child. Between me and the diner’s flickering neon sign stood the real monstrosity—modern culture’s worst offender: a film set sprawled across half the street, all forced glamour and clumsy spectacle.

I sighed, pushing through the gawkers. Somewhere between the sweaty shoulder of a guy in a rugged, worn jacket—the kind magic-chasers wore when they craved just a taste of the unknown—and the sticky cloud of perfume from some high-society dame, dressed to the nines for a peek at the magic she’d never dare touch, I spotted him: the “hunter.”

His gear caught the lights, gleaming with a plastic shine that screamed for attention. He moved in these slow, deliberate arcs—every motion practiced, every smirk and grin dialed in for effect. It was too polished, too perfect. The kind of bright that never lasts, like a brand-new Cadillac that hadn’t yet met a real city street.

I stayed at the edge of the crowd, arms crossed, amusement flickering somewhere beneath my irritation. The actor pranced and posed like a peacock, each movement a flare of theatrical nonsense. His clothes were pristine—no blood stains, no stitched-up battle-worn armor—and that hair, perfectly coiffed, not a single strand out of place. I almost felt bad for him. He had no idea what real demon hunting was like; the ugly, relentless survival it demanded. It wasn’t just the fight, it was the aftermath—the exhaustion, the shrieking echo of the dead, the endless nights sitting alone in the dark with nothing but a bottle for company.

Annoyance bubbled up, settling into something deeper. Demon hunting wasn’t about grandeur or fame—hell, it wasn’t even about winning most days. It was about keeping people alive. It was about putting your ass between some helpless soul and a snarling, ancient terror. But to these kids, with their shiny gimmicks and Hollywoodland sparkle, it was all about fame, all about getting that one perfect shot for the highlight reel.

I’d hoped, maybe even prayed, that all this pomp and plastic would’ve stayed caged in the City of Fallen Angels, way out west where it belonged. But like a stubborn rot, it crept in anyway, oozing through my city with a sick inevitability. It stained everything it touched, wrapping it all in the garish, glittering veneer of modern entertainment, like a desperate streetwalker trying to look like gold.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I thought back to the night I first died, how Jac and Jean had begged me to show them the truth—how real it could be. The kind of truth that didn’t look good on a movie poster. The kind that tore you apart and left you crawling in the mud, praying for an end.

The lights of the set flickered. It was like watching porn and calling it sex—or staged wrestling and calling it a fight. A sick caricature of the real, dirty, painful thing. The truth was, if these people knew what it felt like to face a demon—the smell of sulfur, the cries that didn’t stop when you woke up, the feeling of your own blood sticky on your hands—they wouldn’t be standing here, wide-eyed and eager. They’d be running, or hiding, or praying. And they’d understand that the monsters didn’t always come with horns and claws. Sometimes, the monsters were the memories that wouldn’t let go.

A contraption sprayed a fine mist of water over the set, a sad imitation of rain. If they’d just waited another half hour, they could have had the real thing—I was sure of it.

“Action!” a voice called, and the actors snapped back into their roles, like marionettes jerked upright by some invisible string. A young girl, maybe thirteen, clutching a tattered pulp magazine to her chest, stared at the scene with eyes full of wonder. The cover depicted a demon hunter in a torn trench coat, backlit by a stormy sky, with eyes burning bright against the darkness. He wielded a silver-edged blade, poised mid-strike against a monstrous, shadowy figure with curling horns and a wicked grin. The crimson letters of the magazine’s title seemed almost to drip with blood. Her gaze softened the edges of my mood, just a little—that wide-eyed innocence that didn’t yet know any better. She probably still believed in heroes, in knights who could sweep in and save the day, that a good guy with a shiny blade was all it took to keep the monsters in check. I almost envied her. Almost.

I watched as the “hunter” turned to his supposed prey, a shadowy figure who had stepped forward, menacing and hulking in the fake, eerie light. The “victim” pleaded, voice cracking, a pathetic squeal that didn’t carry the real edge of terror—the kind that made grown men forget how to breathe. The hunter sneered, drawing his prop blade with a flare, his muscles flexing under his neatly tailored costume.

But it wasn’t the fake victim I saw. It was a man I remembered from the War—the look in his eyes when he realized that we weren’t going to make it. His voice, pleading, not for his life, but for me to remember him. To carry him forward, somehow, even when the darkness swallowed us whole. I blinked, the image fading back to the actor’s dramatics. The real thing wasn’t so clean. It wasn’t so pretty. It wasn’t something you could wrap up in a neat little package with a soundtrack and a happy ending.

“Cut!” The director’s voice sliced through the tension, and just like that, the illusion shattered. The actors broke character, stretching, laughing, slapping each other’s backs. The victim rubbed his neck, the hunter shook out his shoulders, and the cameras rolled back into place, the lights shifting to catch a close-up. It was all a game—something to distract people from the truth of what was really out there.

The crowd clapped politely, a few cheers breaking out as the actors reset. I looked at them, really looked. People with jobs to get back to, kids to pick up from school, bills they could barely pay. People who believed that someone else was out there, fighting the monsters, keeping the darkness at bay so they didn’t have to. I used to believe that too, once. Believed that what I did mattered. Maybe it still did, but it was hard to tell, with all the noise, all the glamor that twisted the truth until it was unrecognizable.

I pushed through, stepping out of the crowd, the diner’s neon finally visible again, promising hot coffee and five minutes of peace. Behind me, the false hunter posed again, jaw clenched, eyes distant, trying to conjure up some sense of grit for the cameras. I almost laughed.