Demon Contract

The grate split open with a shriek of rusted iron.

Fingers burst through first – filthy, clawed, trailing blood. Then an arm, wrapped in muscle where it hadn't yet torn. Then a shoulder. Then Victor.

He hauled himself through the gap like something escaping its own grave.

His body hit the earth with a sick crunch – ribs grinding where they hadn't yet reset. One leg dragged behind, torn just above the knee. His shoulder was a torn mess of fur and flesh where the last tendril had tried to rip him back down. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, every breath a flare of agony.

But he was out.

Grey sky spread overhead. The Vltava rolled just beyond the slope – dull, sluggish, slick with industrial runoff and oil. It looked almost peaceful. Almost clean. But Victor could still smell the filth in his lungs.

He collapsed half in the mud, half in the river, his face against the wet gravel. Water licked his jaw. He didn't move for a long moment. Just breathed. Let the pain come in layers. Let the exhaustion crest.

His claws retracted. The mane along his spine dulled. His tail coiled, then vanished. The Chimera ebbed – slow, reluctant, like something being leashed again.

He was human now. Or close enough.

His hand clenched reflexively, knuckles scraping rock. It's not dead, he thought. The bastard's not dead.

Memory crashed back.

The drop into the pit. The screaming. The heat.

It hadn't been a creature in the way Victor understood creatures. Not something with intent, or hunger, or territory. He'd seen apex predators tear their way through the food chain. He'd tracked bears that starved themselves through winter. He'd dissected swarms, nests, parasites, and cells.

But this?

This wasn't an animal. It wasn't even a demon.

It was a system. A colony.

The body – if it could even be called that – had no central brain, no spine, no predator's grace. It breathed from a hundred mouths, screamed from a thousand throats, felt through miles of flesh-veins and retracting nerves. It didn't move. It distributed. It adapted.

Like a coral reef turned inside out. Like a termite hive made of screaming meat.

It didn't just grow into the pit. It had consumed the pit. Grown around it. The stone walls weren't just lined with it – they had become it. A conversion of architecture into biology.

Tendrils coiled up into the rock above, piercing old support beams and sewer shafts. They weren't seeking prey. They were plugging into something.

Victor had watched the way they pulsed. Not random. Rhythmic. Slow, and steady. Like breath. Or heartbeat. Or data.

He'd seen this before – not here, not like this – but in the rainforest, once. Leafcutter ants with fungal networks. The way the fungus grew laced through the colony, giving back just enough to control their behaviour. They weren't just harvesting. They were hosts.

That's what the monster reminded him of.

Not a killer. A reactor.

It didn't feed on flesh. Not directly. It fed on the meaning of flesh. On souls, on stories, on the psychic imprint of suffering. That's why it kept the minds. Why the bodies were preserved, not devoured.

It needed them alive. Or at least, aware. Long enough to be useful. Long enough to be wired in.

And if it had tendrils that deep in the stone… Then something above had been feeding it. Or worse—

Something above had been fed by it.

He'd wounded it. Maybe even crippled it. But not killed it. You didn't kill things like that with claws. You starved them. You cut their connection.

Victor swallowed, jaw tight.

It's not dead.

But he was out.

And that meant someone finally knew it existed.

It'll recover, he thought. If they keep feeding it. If they keep giving it people. Souls. Flesh.

He pushed up to one elbow.

Footsteps.

Two men on the riverside had frozen mid-haul, half a net still looped over their shoulders. One dropped his pole. The other took a shaky step back.

"That's him," one breathed. "That's the one they dragged off. Days ago."

The other whispered, like disbelief might break the moment: "He... he came back?"

More figures emerged. Silent. From behind crates, tents, rusting trailers stacked like tombs along the river's edge. A child peeked from beneath a tarpaulin. A woman covered her mouth with both hands.

Victor didn't rise. He just let the mud hold him, blood seeping into the earth.

He wasn't ready to speak.

But they were already listening.

…………………

The fire crackled low, throwing a soft orange bloom over the mud-streaked gravel. Someone had brought driftwood. Someone else lit it. No one talked about it. They just did what needed doing.

Victor sat with his back against a rusted signpost, one arm cradled across his ribs. The Chimera had receded – leaving behind scorched veins and a web of raw bruises that throbbed under the skin like something still trying to grow.

A boy offered him water. Victor nodded once, took the cup, but didn't drink. His lips were cracked. His breath rasped. But he couldn't eat. Couldn't swallow. Not yet.

Not after that.

A woman knelt nearby, wrapped in an oversized coat that once might have been military.

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"Where did they take you?" she asked.

Victor didn't answer right away.

Another voice from behind – older, masculine, cautious. "Did you see the others? The ones from Selection?"

A pause.

Then a third voice. Small. Breaking. "Have you seen my David? He's seven. He had a necklace with a bird on it. Was he there?"

Victor exhaled slowly. The fire popped behind him.

He looked up. Not at any one of them. Just beyond the flames.

And spoke.

"They don't go anywhere."

Silence.

"They're not transported. They're not released. Not exiled. Not converted."

He swallowed. It hurt. But he kept going.

"They're fed."

The word hit harder than shouting.

He let it hang a second.

"To something alive."

One man in the back stepped forward. "What do you mean, 'alive'? Like a demon?"

Victor didn't look at him. "Worse."

He turned his head slightly, so they could see the hollow behind his eyes. The fever of survival still clinging to him like smoke.

"A monster. It breathes. It remembers. It was built from everyone that was taken. Layered. Pressed. Preserved. An abomination of flesh."

"It doesn't eat meat," he added. "It eats... everything else. It takes your soul and everything that made you 'you'."

A girl began to cry. Young – six? Seven? She didn't scream. Just curled into her father's lap, burying her face against his coat.

Her father covered her ears. But he didn't ask Victor to stop.

Victor's voice dropped further. Flat. Final.

"Everyone you know that was taken is dead. The monster took them. I'm the only one that made it out."

He stared into the fire, but his mind slipped backward – twelve years, maybe more. A hospital corridor slick with antiseptic and grief. Max had sat on the floor outside the burn ward, hands still bandaged, uniform torn, face hollowed like someone had scooped the soul out of him with a ladle. April was gone. No body. Just heat and memory.

Victor had sat beside him in silence. No comfort. Just presence. That night, Max had whispered it – "I wasn't strong enough."

And Victor had believed it too.

He'd whispered it to himself a thousand times since Max was taken: He's not strong enough. Every time Max buckled. Every time the world leaned on him. Not out of spite. As a reminder.

But now?

Now the city was bleeding. Max was still missing. And these people had no one left to lean on.

I have to be strong enough.

For them. For Max. For what comes next.

The memory faded. The firelight pressed back into view – crackling low, painting long shadows on the gravel. Victor blinked once. And saw them.

No one had moved. No gasps. No shouts. Just breathing. Unsteady. All around him.

The crowd sat frozen – eyes wide, hands clenched, as if his words had cracked something in the air but left no one sure how to breathe again.

The fire crackled louder now. Like it was trying to fill the silence. Like it was ashamed to still be warm.

…………………

The fire hissed as damp wood split in the heat. Somewhere beyond the circle, a gull screeched once – too far to be seen, too close to be comforting.

Victor hadn't moved.

The crowd had.

Not away. Not entirely. But enough. Just a shift. A tension.

The boy with the water had returned to his mother's side. The old man who'd first spoken now hovered near the edge of the crate stack, half-turned, like he might bolt.

No one looked him in the eye anymore.

Just glances. Sharp. Flickering. Uncertain.

Then someone spoke.

"You're lying."

A young man – maybe twenty. Ripped sleeves. Eyes too wide. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, but the accusation stuck.

"That's impossible," he added. "They wouldn't do that."

Another joined in – an older woman this time, voice low and close to the fire. "He's a Contractor. Look at his hands and strange eyes. He could be one of them. Just... turned rogue for show."

Someone else: "Is this a trap? Is he trying to flush out sympathisers?"

Victor didn't move. Didn't argue. Just sat there, bleeding into the gravel, the firelight tracing the ragged burn that coiled from his shoulder to his jaw.

"You think I'd come back here if I worked for them?"

No answer.

"You think I'd crawl through blood and shit and break out of that to tell you a fucking bedtime story?"

Still nothing.

The quiet was different now. Not fear alone. Shame. Suspicion. Grief with nowhere to go.

Victor shifted slightly – only slightly – and his claws half-extended from the pads of his fingers. The motion was lazy. Unthreatening. But no one missed it.

"You don't have to believe me," he said. "But you will."

Then he folded his hands in his lap. Closed his eyes.

And waited.

Let them wrestle with it. Let them decide what they feared more – him.

Or the truth.

…………………

The fire had dulled to embers.

Smoke drifted up in ragged strands, fading into the copper-blue dusk like the breath of something dying. The river lapped softly nearby. No wind. No voices. Just the sound of gravel shifting under quiet steps.

Victor hadn't moved.

His coat – too small, too soaked – clung to his frame like dead skin. Blood streaked one sleeve. His eyes stayed on the fire, unmoving. He'd spoken the truth already.

He didn't have the strength to repeat it.

Then someone approached.

The man was in his forties but looked older. A welder, maybe. Or a mechanic. Someone whose hands had always been more useful than his voice.

He crouched beside Victor, knees popping, and said:

"My daughter's name was Eliska."

He didn't look at him.

"She used to fall asleep with her violin in her lap. Wouldn't talk, not much. Not since her mother passed. But the music – it was all there. Every note. Like she was telling secrets she couldn't say."

He exhaled, slow. "They came one morning. Said she'd been chosen. Relocated for 'gifted development.' I packed her bag. Tried to tell her it was a good thing. She smiled. That was the last thing she did."

Victor turned his head slightly.

The man's hand found his shoulder. Rough. Familiar. Not reverent. Just real.

Behind him, a woman spoke from the edge of the firelight.

"My son was named Marek. Couldn't walk right. He'd trip over nothing. Sweetest boy. Knew all the constellations." Her hands were clenched into her sleeves. "They said he didn't meet the physical standards for retention. Took him anyway. That was last winter."

She didn't move forward. Just stared into the flames like they owed her something.

Then another voice. Deeper. From a man hunched low against the wall.

"Lucie," he said. "My sister. Loudmouth, always arguing with the Enforcers. I told her to stop. To stay quiet. She laughed at me."

He rubbed his beard with a trembling hand. "They dragged her out in front of me. Said she'd be reassigned to the cathedral kitchens. Told me to be proud."

He didn't cry. But his voice cracked.

"She was wearing our mum's scarf."

More voices followed. One by one.

"My partner, Adam. He volunteered, thinking he could get better rations. Thought he could protect me from inside the system. That was two years ago. Nothing since."

"My grandson, Tom. They said he was too curious. Asked too many questions. I told him that was dangerous. He smiled and said someone had to ask them."

No one stepped forward for show. No one raised their voice.

They came because grief needs witnesses.

A girl brought Victor a dry cloth and tucked it against his neck. Another man lit a lamp, setting it in the crook of a rusted pipe to cast more light into the circle.

And when silence returned – deep and thudding – it didn't feel like fear anymore.

It felt like mourning.

Held. Shared.

Victor didn't say thank you.

Didn't try to console.

There was no comfort in the truth. Only the dignity of knowing someone had finally spoken it aloud.

And someone else had heard.

…………………

The fog rolled in slow and heavy, like breath from the lungs of the river.

It coiled around ankles and lamplight, draping the broken stones in gauze. The fire had dimmed to a faint pulse behind Victor, now more ember than flame. Voices had faded. No more stories. Just presence. Just waiting.

Victor stood.

He didn't grunt or wince, though every joint in his body screamed. His knees were caked in blood and river mud. One hand still trembled from the backlash of tearing the soul-core. But he stood tall – burned, scarred, limping, alive.

The mist kissed his face. Cool. Clean, almost. He turned to the water.

"They'll come for me again," he said.

Not a warning. A fact.

One of the women – Klara, who'd spoken of her son Marek – stepped forward from the fog. Her coat was thin, her face worn deep with grief. But her spine was straight.

She met his gaze. "Let them try."

Victor gave a slow nod. His hair clung wet to his brow. He glanced back at the others – at the welders, grandmothers, teenagers with soot under their nails. The forgotten.

"Tell the people," he said. "Tell them what happens when we're taken."

No one spoke.

So, he said it louder. Not a roar. Not a speech. Just words the fog could carry.

"Tell them why no one comes back."

Klara nodded once. A man behind her placed his hand on another's shoulder. A third lit a fresh lamp. It caught the mist and painted long shadows against the broken walls.

A message passed between them – wordless. But known.

The seed had taken root.

Victor didn't smile. There was nothing joyful in what came next. Only reckoning.

He turned away from the circle, cloak dragging through gravel and water. The mist thickened as he stepped forward, then swallowed him completely as he headed upstream.

Toward the Palace.

Toward the thing behind the doors.

And this time, the monster should be afraid.