Knowing the truth hadn’t made accepting things any easier. Actually, I was glad it was me and not Cody in this situation. Every parent wanted to take the suffering in place of their child, and while part of me died the day that he had, he no longer had to endure everything I continued to. It wasn’t a nice feeling, though. One burden just changed into a different one. My focus for doing right by them had sharpened, a blade designed to cut through the fog looming ahead so I could see—and breathe—clearly.

I stood from the table. “Wight, call Korc and get anyone near to the area to gather and wait for us.”

“Downstairs.” Rodney nodded to the demon, who hopped down to follow him to the basement.

I was already behind them, but running up the stairs. I needed to get dressed properly, in my actual gear. Get my gun. Sharpen my tongue, ready to ask the pointed questions. He was in Hell? With no patron too, something wasn’t clicking.

In the bedroom, Pearl appeared in a flash of pink, now in her battle leathers. Hair tied up and a passive expression on her face. “I’m here to be used, if you need me.”

“Later, sure,” I waved my hand at her, “but it’d be great if you could come to Hell with me.”

She rolled her eyes and smirked before vanishing in a flash of pink again.

Wish I could do that. Instead, I practically slid down the stairs, now fully geared up, to hop down into the basement where they were all waiting for me.

It was quite the sight. Rodney in his chair, the screen of his device illuminating his face. The blur of the portal spooling up, light dancing around the room. Wight and Pearl looking annoyed at each other for reasons I didn’t care to worry about right now.

“Right.” I clapped my hands. “Wight, you’re my right hand in this. We want to go with the soft touch and use our words rather than weapons. Pearl, if you could check around our drop area to make sure it’s not a trap or we don’t get interrupted. When shit hits the fan, you can jump in and kill everything.” She nodded, a soft smile at the corner of her mouth. “Rods, do your thing—where is the drop at?”

He opened and closed his mouth, perhaps slightly overwhelmed by my sudden desire to do things with proper effort. “Small town. He is in one of the buildings—medium hostility.”

“We can handle that.” I nodded to my patron.

“There’s a complication, though.” He scratched at the back of his hair. “Org got whiff somehow and wants to watch.”

I blinked and looked around the room at my gathered team. I knew why, of course. Partridge had bent the ear of one of the Directors, and now they wanted to see if I was ready for the Mids.

[This is the test, Eric. They want to know if we are ready for the Mids.]

“I’m okay with it.” Pearl nodded. “If this pushes us forward.”

“No objections here.” Rodney grimaced.

[We will prove ourselves.]

I smiled and tipped my hat to them. “Let’s go to fuckin’ Hell, then.”

Of course, I was the only one that had to physically go and walk through the portal, so my amazing one-liner was shortly followed by silence as I walked over to it. I paused briefly to hand Rodney a note before continuing into the shimmering surface.

A flash of light and then I was there, in the Lowers once again. Not even warm, but it was oddly dark, a deeper red painting the landscape instead of the usual glowing orange. A false nighttime, I assumed, which tickled a part of me that would kill for some noir vibes. All in good time.

“Wight,” I said, as he pooled in beside me.

[Eric.]

He withdrew his knife from my belt and stowed it somewhere in his person where it couldn’t be seen. I didn’t question it.

//Audio and visuals confirmed. Confirming Org is now online.

I could feel it. If I closed my eyes and focused, there was a slight draw. A line attached to me, and then a second. One for Org, one for Rodney. The Org one felt weaker, which was a thought for another time.

My eyes narrowed as I studied our surroundings. The outskirts of a small town—or it looked like a city block that had been plucked and placed in the middle of nowhere. A few high-rise buildings that looked burned out. A few shopfronts, and a patch of dried out land that might have been a park at one point. Or intended to be one.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I had the knack for this sort of thing by now, however, and could guess exactly where the other Demon Hunter would be. The diner, illuminated by dim fluorescent lights just down the road a little. It was almost perfect, like a movie scene ready to be replayed.

A flash of pink and Pearl appeared beside us. It was a risk for a handful of reasons, but we had to go all out when under observation. They’d hate that I was working with a demon, despite needing one to vouch for my Mids ascension. Some confusion and anger that I was supposed to have killed Pearl after they had drugged me to do so. As far as I knew, they still thought she was a Mids demon, so that little secret was still ours.

I nodded towards the diner, and she returned the gesture. She intended to circle around the left of the building as we approached the road on our right. As much as I wanted to doubt that we would even need her help to deal with a patron-less Hunter, it was better to be over-prepared.

[Questions before violence?]

“Yeah.” It didn’t seem likely that we could convince him to head back to the Org with his tail between his legs, but we had an ulterior motive. Assuming it wasn’t them that took the hit out on Rodney’s mother, we needed to get the truth out of the Hunter instead.

//Smaller buildings have between ten and fifteen hostiles in each. Not reacting to your presence.

As my boots hit the edge of the warm asphalt, there looked to be four such buildings on the right, and two on the left right before the diner. It was on the corner of the t-junction, windows running all around it. Figures within, but I couldn’t make much out with the distance and odd lighting.

So much easier if we could jump through the window and lay waste to everything inside. I knew that wasn’t the thought-process the Org wanted from the Mids Hunters, but it was hard to kill all demons when they didn’t let you. We clearly had different ideas about what a Demon Hunter should be.

Down the street, my boots echoed slightly. It would be impossible to not start drawing attention. There wasn’t even a bad feeling about it, though.

“Demon levels?” I said quietly.

//Between four and seven.

Walk in the park then. Even if this was an ambush, and all the buildings emptied to come for us—Wight and I could take them no problem. Not to mention with Pearl’s help. Plus, we could always head back home on a whim. This was as low of a threat mission as I could imagine. The only apprehension was the growing hunger for answers.

Frank had been correct. I was parched.

I now knew why my family was killed, for all the good the information did. The bigger question would be how I could get revenge on the demon who had done the deed. But for now, we needed to see what Gunther was up to, and if he was responsible for murdering Rodney’s mother.

If he had? I had already discussed it with the Blank on three separate occasions. When he was angry, when he was sad, and when he was calm. He had given me the blessing to put a bullet in the Hunter’s head thrice over. No wavering in his response at all. Justice outside the norms of our society. But then again—I barely did anything normal. Living in the mortal plane just seemed like a formality some days.

We moved past the two buildings on the left, and my eyes idly went to all the darkened windows of the ones opposite. No light or movement. Odd, with so many demons here in this faux night, there should be some illumination—unless they were bat-demons or… other things that could see in the dark.

//No acknowledgement of your movements.

Not even looking out the window to see who this new asshole was, strolling around being a human—or at least partly one. Stationary demons were slightly worrying. I raised an eyebrow to Wight, and he nodded that he understood. No need for telepathy, even. Then we were illuminated by the glow of the diner lights.

//Twenty-three demons. Three known targets. One demon is level twelve, handful of tens, the rest are sub seven. Can’t track Gunther.

That stood to some reason. He could track demons and Gunther was neither one, nor had his patron anymore. There was a good chance that he was sitting with one of the other targets, or perhaps the higher level demon—if they were even separate. Knowing their levels did little to move the needle.

We reached the door, and I licked my lips before entering. It moved silently, only the displacement of air alerting the nearest tables to my entrance. I was almost disappointed that there was no bell, but then again, it would be better not to get Gunther's attention too soon and allow him to escape.

My eyes darted around the tables, looking over the odd and different shaped demons in hopes of finding the mostly-human looking man. Nobody immediately caught my attention. It aggravated me, as if things should be plain and simple. Each of the small tables beside the windows was taken, but I couldn’t see the prime target.

//Building opposite the diner northward is occupied by Redd Death. Estimated twenty-five friendlies.

I grinned to myself. Pearl would be out there somewhere. Between all of us, we would be prepared for anything.

Relenting to playing it cool, and well aware that I was more than my fair share of odd compared to the assorted patrons, I sighed and walked up to the angled counter and sat on one of the stools.

Wight hopped onto the one next to me, struggling a little due to his smaller height. Immediately, he glared up toward the signs showing what the diner could provide. I doubted it had anything I could eat or drink, but perhaps I needed to go through the motions to make it look like I belonged here.

My eyes went out to the building where my gang was hiding out. That one definitely had lights and movements in the windows. Something gnawed at my temperament, being unsure of why the rest of the buildings were so passive. Just sleeping? My brain tried not to overthink things. Night time, that’s when people slept—demons too.

There was movement behind me as the diner worker moved down from wherever they had been before.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting, what can… I…”

I turned on the stool slowly to see the rather confused face of Gunther looking back at me.

“Coffee and pancakes,” I requested, my jaw clenched tightly.