Demon Contract

The front doors of the warehouse blew inward on the first charge.

Flashbangs cracked white against the walls, soulforged rounds snapping through the gloom. Six Institute soldiers stormed the threshold in a perfect wedge, Hawthorne at the point, voice booming orders over the comms.

For half a breath, the breach looked clean. Empty space. Just dust and the echo of boots on concrete.

Then the shadows moved.

They dropped from the rafters, crawled out of gaps in the walls, peeled themselves from the floor like scabs breaking loose. Husk-level demons — dozens of them — twisted silhouettes of bone and sinew, eyeless, mouths packed with wet teeth. Behind them came heavier shapes, shoulders brushing the girders: fiend-class, their hides plated with chitin and black iron, claws dripping heat.

The warehouse became a pit.

Gunfire erupted. Soulforged rounds burned holes straight through the husks, tearing them apart in sprays of ash and sulphur smoke. Screams ripped across the entryway — human and inhuman colliding into a single, ragged roar.

"CONTACT!" someone bellowed.

Two soldiers went down in the first wave. One's throat ripped clean before his rifle left his shoulder. Another dragged under, boots kicking, until the sound cut off in a wet snap.

The rest fought like men who'd already died. They smashed their pendants against the floor — ruby shards exploding in their fists, bleeding red light into their veins.

The air stank of burnt copper.

The berserker stones took hold instantly. Muscles knotted, eyes burned bright, veins lit like molten wire. The four surviving soldiers roared as one and threw themselves forward.

One lifted a husk straight off its feet and pulped it against the wall. Another tackled a fiend head-on, driving a warded bayonet between its plated ribs and ripping upward until the creature split.

For a moment, they weren't men anymore. They were something worse.

Hawthorne didn't waste the time they bought.

He drew the blade from his hip — a knife long enough to be a short sword, etched with runes that hissed as they hit open air. The steel pulsed blue, alive, bonded.

The biggest fiend charged him — three metres of horned muscle, maw wide, claws smoking.

Hawthorne didn't step back.

He met it.

His knife carved a line across its chest, deep enough that black ichor sprayed like oil. The fiend shrieked, swung wild, claws tearing sparks out of the concrete. Hawthorne ducked inside the arc, drove the blade up under its jaw, and split the skull in two.

The body collapsed in a heap of bone and steam.

But more kept coming.

A dozen husks scrambled over the corpse, shrieking. A second fiend lunged from the right, slamming a soldier into the ground so hard his spine snapped audibly through armour.

"Hold the line!" Hawthorne roared, blood already soaking his shoulder. His voice cut through the chaos, sharp as the knife in his hand.

The berserker squad answered with fury. One soldier smashed his fist straight through a husk's chest and tore out the steaming core. Another locked arms with a fiend and, screaming, twisted until bone shattered.

The fight had turned from a breach to a butcher's pit. Gunfire rattled, steel clashed, screams layered over the thunder of claws and boots. The smell of sulphur and blood was thick enough to choke.

Hawthorne slashed down another husk, his breath ragged, eyes burning with the faint blue halo only a Contractor carried. He could feel it now — the design behind the chaos.

This wasn't resistance. It was a net.

A trap strung tight the moment they entered.

One of the berserkers — face streaked with blood, eyes glowing — howled as he tore another husk apart with his bare hands. "We've got them! We've—"

The rest of his words vanished as a claw sheared his head clean off.

Hawthorne's blade cut the attacker down in a single brutal sweep, but it didn't matter. They were surrounded. Outnumbered. Already bleeding out.

He snarled through his teeth, voice cracking the comms.

"It's a slaughterhouse!"

***

The side entrance didn't so much give way as surrender.

Victor's boot slammed into the steel fire door and the frame split inward, buckling with a scream of torn hinges. The crash rolled through the narrow corridor like thunder, echoing down into the dark. So much for stealth.

Max moved in first, chain wrapped in his hand, Soulfire coiled beneath his skin like a storm pressing against glass. The air here was different from the entry bay — tighter, sour with mould and old ash, walls sweating with damp that hadn't been cleaned in years.

Then the shadows shifted.

Shapes peeled out of the gloom. Husk demons — six, maybe seven — crawling on all fours, their joints bent at wrong angles, teeth clattering as though gnashing against each other. Their eyes were pits that glowed faint and hungry.

The sight punched through Max's chest like a memory he'd tried to bury. The hospital corridor — the crash of glass, the shrieks in the dark, Jack's blood on the floor. He felt it all over again. The helplessness, the heat, the way every scream had sounded like someone he couldn't save.

His grip on the chain tightened until it cut his palm. These weren't just husks. They were echoes.

Victor raised his Institute rifle without hesitation. The stock runes lit blue as he sighted down the barrel. "Contact," he muttered, calm as a man at a firing range.

The first burst tore through a husk's chest, blowing it apart in a spray of ash and sulphur stink. A second fell before it could leap, its torso ripped open by a glowing bullet that hissed as it burned.

The others didn't slow.

They shrieked in broken harmony, claws scraping across the walls, shadows flaring with every lunge.

Max stepped forward. The heat inside him answered.

His hands lit gold.

The corridor bloomed with fire. Golden soulfire roared down the narrow passage, washing over the oncoming husks like a tide of burning glass. Their screams hit a higher pitch as the flames ate through their bodies, dissolving them into trails of ash that curled into the damp ceiling.

The walls rattled. Smoke bled through the cracks.

When the light dimmed, only three still moved — limping, writhing, their flesh half-gone but their hunger undiminished.

Victor cut them down with surgical precision. Three bursts, three kills. His rifle hissed as the magazine clamped empty.

He reloaded fast, muttering under his breath, "So much for stealth."

Max shook the fire off his hands, golden embers falling like sparks from a forge. His chest heaved, more from rage than effort. Ethan's voice was still echoing in his head, that scream — raw, human, broken.

The sound had cut through him worse than any blade.

Victor glanced sideways. "You good?"

Max's jaw flexed. "No. But I'm not stopping."

Victor nodded once, no more words. He slapped the mag into place, the click sharp in the silence.

They moved deeper.

The corridor bent inward, past collapsed lockers and broken equipment racks. Once, this had been a training hall — Max recognised the outline of firehose reels along the walls, the scorch marks from controlled burns. He remembered rookies laughing here, stumbling through drills with masks askew.

Now the only sound was their boots and the drip of condensation. The air smelled like rust and wet stone.

And underneath it all — a groan. Human. Weak.

Victor froze, hand up. "You hear that?"

Max didn't answer. He was already moving, pulled by the sound like a moth to flame.

They rounded the last corner.

The office loomed ahead, door cracked open, a thin line of red light spilling into the hall. Inside, chains rattled against metal. A silhouette sagged from the ceiling — arms spread, body limp, head hanging low.

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Ethan.

Max's throat closed. His pulse hammered against his ribs.

Victor's rifle came up automatically, covering the angles. "Clear the corners," he muttered. His voice was tight now, clipped.

Max didn't wait. He crossed the threshold, soulfire coiling in his fists, eyes locked on the man who had once been his captain.

The groan came again, shuddering, full of pain.

Ethan lifted his head just enough. His face was pale, slick with sweat, eyes bloodshot and wide.

"Max…" His voice cracked like glass.

And before Max could answer, the door behind them creaked.

A shadow lengthened across the floor.

Someone else had arrived.

***

The office smelled of rust and old smoke. A cracked window rattled in the wind, throwing a thin blade of city light across the floor. Ethan hung from the ceiling like an afterthought — arms strung wide, chains hooked into the girders. His head lolled forward, hair matted dark, breath wheezing through clenched teeth.

Max's chest seized. For a moment he wasn't in a warehouse. He was back in a hospital room, standing outside Jack's curtain, hearing the monitors flatline while demons crawled through shattered glass. Different walls, same stink of loss.

"Max…" Ethan's voice cracked. Weak. Raw.

Max stepped forward, but the door behind them creaked open.

The light shifted. A new shadow stretched across the floor, long and elegant.

And then he walked in.

Not a beast. Not a hulking terror dripping gore. Just a man in a black suit so crisp it might've been tailored out of the night itself. His skin shimmered like oil on glass, black threaded with violet-blue runes that shifted under his collar as if alive. His lips were too red. His cheekbones too sharp. His eyes—

No pupils. Just twin rings of white fire, humming softly, as if a forge burned inside his skull.

He smiled.

Max's soulfire erupted instinctively, golden fire racing up his arms, jagged light throwing violent shadows across the cramped room. Heat beat off the walls.

Kimaris didn't flinch.

He tilted his head, studying the glow like a child admiring a candle on a cake. "So," he said, voice smooth as poured silk. "This is the Contractor everyone keeps whispering about."

The words weren't loud. But the air bent toward him. Dust froze mid-fall, leaning toward his mouth, as if eager to listen.

Max stepped in front of Ethan, fire spilling through his fists. "Get away from him."

Kimaris's smile didn't fade. "Oh, I don't want him. Not anymore. He was… useful. Fragile. Full of guilt and softened bones. But he's outlived his function." His gaze slid to Max's burning arms. "You, on the other hand…" His voice warmed, almost reverent. "You're something new. Not a puppet. Not a husk. Something… cracked open."

Max's jaw clenched. "You know my name?"

Kimaris's grin stretched wider. "Max Jaeger. Former firefighter. Survived a blaze that should have killed you. Survived Aamon's bite. Burned him from the inside until he screamed."

Victor's rifle lifted, sights locked on Kimaris's skull. "One more step and I put you down."

Kimaris didn't even look at him. His eyes stayed on Max. He stepped forward — not rushed, not threatening. Just curious.

"I've watched thousands of souls fracture. I've broken most of them myself. But you…" He inhaled, slow, deliberate. "You're unfinished. Undone. A scab where a scar should be."

His tongue flicked across his teeth, too long, too sharp. "I want to see what happens when you finally fall apart."

Max's fire roared brighter. The floor smoked beneath his boots.

Kimaris laughed — low, delighted, disturbingly human. "Oh, don't be like that. I came to talk. Study. Perhaps even… help. But if you insist."

He lifted one gloved hand.

A ripple of white light passed through the room. The emergency bulb overhead flickered, then died. The air froze, dust suspended mid-breath. Ethan's chains stopped rattling. Even his terrified gasp hung half-finished, caught in the stillness.

Kimaris's smile sharpened. "We can dissect instead."

Max's heart hammered. He could hear it, too loud in the silence, as if the demon wanted him to. He didn't move. Fire coiled off his skin in jagged streams.

Kimaris lowered his hand slowly, as though reeling in a leash. His voice dropped to a purr. "One last thing before we begin. You should know—" He leaned forward, lips curling. "—Lord Mammon sends his regards."

The name cut through Max like a blade. Grimm's warning flared in memory: Demon Lord. Hunger incarnate.

Kimaris watched him, eyes gleaming. "He's curious about the man who brought Aamon here… and made the chaosbringer scream."

Max launched forward, fire bursting from both palms.

And Kimaris vanished.

Not teleported. Not dodged. He simply wasn't there anymore.

A whisper slid behind Max's ear, cold and intimate: "I'm unimpressed."

***

Max spun, fire still blazing in his fists, but Kimaris was already behind him, white-fire eyes gleaming in the dark. The demon stood so close Max could see the shimmer of runes crawling under his collar like worms in glass.

Victor didn't wait. He squeezed the trigger.

The Institute rifle barked, soulforged rounds ripping across the office in a staccato roar. Each bullet hissed bright blue, carving streaks of burning air.

Kimaris raised one hand and let the shots slam into him.

The rounds punched through his chest, tearing black ichor in smoking bursts. For a heartbeat it looked like it might matter—like the demon might falter.

Then Kimaris sighed. Flicked the ichor off his suit like rain. His expression shifted from amusement to mild irritation, as though the gunfire was static interrupting his music.

"You're wasting metal," he said.

Victor's jaw tightened. He kept firing until the rifle clicked empty, casing smoke rolling off the chamber.

Kimaris moved.

One step.

A blur of shadow and white light.

Victor didn't even register it until the stock of his rifle was snapped in half, his arms twisted wide, the demon's gloved hand around his throat.

The soldier slammed his fists against Kimaris's arm, snarled, tried to bring his knife up—too slow. Kimaris lifted him off the floor like a child caught stealing.

"Fragile," Kimaris murmured, voice vibrating through the walls. "All sinew, no substance."

He drove Victor into the wall hard enough that plaster exploded in a halo around his body. Victor dropped, coughing blood, the ruined rifle clattering beside him. Still alive. Barely.

"Victor!" Max shouted, surging forward.

Kimaris turned. White-fire eyes met gold.

Max's soulfire roared, spilling down his arms, crackling brighter than it ever had. He launched himself across the room, chain flaring molten in his grip, and swung.

The chain cut through the air in a golden arc.

Kimaris caught it.

The metal seared against his palm, sizzling like water on a skillet. For a moment his smile twitched—but then it was back, too wide, too red. He yanked, dragging Max forward like a fish on a hook.

Max let go, spun, and hurled fire point-blank. Golden flame detonated against Kimaris's chest, blasting him backward into the office window. Glass shattered outward, shards raining into the warehouse floor.

The impact drove them both out of the office and onto the open warehouse floor beyond. Steel beams loomed above, shadows clawing at the high ceiling. The cracked remains of safety posters peeled from the walls, firelight washing over them as Max advanced.

Kimaris stepped through the wreckage without hurry, smoke curling off his suit. His runes burned brighter now, violet-blue lines crawling across his face like veins.

"That's better," he said softly. "Show me."

Max charged, fists lit like suns. Fire and shadow collided in the centre of the room.

Each strike was a thunderclap. Max's blows landed heavy, golden flame charring the floor with every swing. Kimaris countered with hands of black light, his movements smooth, precise, almost lazy. Every parry sent sparks cascading off the walls.

Behind them, Ethan sobbed. Chains rattled with his shivering. "Stop—please stop—"

Neither heard him.

Max roared and drove both fists forward, a torrent of Soulfire engulfing Kimaris in a storm of gold. The walls shook. Ceiling tiles rained down.

When the fire cleared, Kimaris was still standing. His suit was singed. His smile wasn't.

"All this fire," he murmured, stepping close enough that Max felt the unnatural cold leaking from his skin. His hand snapped forward, striking Max square in the chest.

Max flew backward. He crashed into the far wall, the impact splitting plaster and driving the air out of his lungs. Fire guttered around him, flickering, unstable.

Kimaris advanced, slow and inevitable. "And still so weak."

Victor tried to push himself up, blood running down his temple. He staggered, knife in hand, and lurched toward Kimaris.

The demon didn't even turn. A flick of his hand sent Victor crashing back into the rubble, pinned by invisible force.

"Stay," Kimaris said, voice like a parent to a child.

Max forced himself up. His ribs screamed. Blood ran from his mouth. He could barely stand, but the fire crawled up again, answering his rage.

Kimaris tilted his head, eyes burning white. "Yes. Show me more before you break."

***

Max barely felt his legs under him. His ribs ground with every breath, fire sputtering at his fingertips like dying candles. He staggered forward anyway, because stopping meant Ethan stayed chained, Victor stayed broken, and Kimaris's smile stayed carved into the world.

The demon met him halfway.

Kimaris's hand slammed into Max's chest, a strike faster than thought. Bone cracked. Max felt his spine jolt as he was hurled into the concrete. The floor cratered beneath him, dust billowing up in choking waves.

He lay there, coughing blood, soulfire guttering. His vision swam, every heartbeat louder than the last. His chain slipped from his hand, clattering uselessly beside him.

Kimaris crouched, immaculate even with ash clinging to his suit. "All that noise," he murmured, eyes burning white. "And in the end, you're nothing but smoke."

He pressed one hand against Max's chest. Not crushing. Not killing. Just holding him there — pinned like an insect. The fire refused to come. Max's body shook, betraying him.

Blood filled his mouth, thick with iron. He tasted ash too, the same choking grit from the hospital corridor when Jack's scream had ended under demon claws. It was happening again — helpless, smothered, forced to watch everything slip away.

Victor groaned from the rubble. He tried to rise again, blood soaking his jaw, knife trembling in his fist. "Get off him—"

Kimaris flicked his fingers. Shadows coiled like ropes, snapping around Victor's wrists and throat, yanking him upright. The blade clattered from his hand. Chains of light and dark welded him against the wall, choking the fight from him.

"Finally," Kimaris said. His smile widened. "One worth keeping."

Max tried to shout, but blood filled his mouth. He pushed against the hand crushing him to the floor, but it was like trying to move a mountain with broken fingers.

Ethan sobbed in the background, voice shattering. "Stop—please, God, stop—" The links shivered with every word, scraping against the girders above. He wept, a broken man watching hope fail.

His head jerked up suddenly, eyes bloodshot, face twisted in rage through the tears. "It's all your fault, Max! You brought this here! YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

The words hit harder than Kimaris's hand. Max's fire faltered, the guilt tearing through his chest sharper than broken ribs.

Kimaris leaned lower, his voice a whisper close to Max's ear. "I will unravel you. Piece by piece. And when Mammon sees what I've made of you…" His tongue clicked softly, amused. "…he'll thank me."

The world went white.

A flash like lightning detonated across the room. The roar of a flashbang cracked against Max's skull, leaving his ears ringing, his vision seared. Kimaris recoiled with a hiss — not pain, but surprise. His eyes flared wide, the runes across his face spasming as the light burned against them.

Hands grabbed Max, rough and desperate, dragging him across the floor. He tried to resist until the voice cut through the ringing.

"Hawthorne. Move."

Max blinked through the blur. The captain was half-shattered — armour blackened, blood slick down his arm, his Contractor's halo burning ragged around his head. He hauled Max up like deadweight, dragging him toward the door.

Kimaris straightened in the smoke, blinking against the light. His voice rolled after them, calm, almost amused. "Run, little spark. But leave me something."

Victor screamed, chains binding tighter, cutting his voice to a ragged choke. His eyes locked on Max's as he thrashed — not fear, not even anger. Just defiance, and a command unspoken: Don't waste this.

Max's throat tore open on his own scream. "Victor!"

Kimaris tilted his head, studying the soldier pinned to the wall. "Yes. This one will do."

Hawthorne didn't stop. He slammed his shoulder into the office door, half-carrying Max, half-dragging him through. Smoke and shadows swirled in their wake.

The warehouse howled behind them — Ethan's broken sobs, Victor's muffled roar, Kimaris's laughter curling through the dark.

Outside, night air hit Max's lungs like knives. Hawthorne shoved him against the wall of the alley, sucking air between bloodied teeth.

The street beyond was empty, silent but for the ringing in Max's ears.

Hawthorne kept his grip tight on Max's collar. "We move now or we die here."

Max tried to push back toward the door. His ribs screamed, his legs buckled, but his voice broke anyway. "We can't leave them."

Hawthorne's eyes blazed with blue fire, tired and furious. "They're already gone. You want the whole squad to die for nothing? Then walk back in. Otherwise—" He yanked Max forward, forcing him down the street. "Live, Jaeger. Live long enough to make it mean something."

Max stumbled with him, every step tearing further from the men left behind. His heart pounded like a drum of failure, his fire nothing but dying sparks.

Behind them, Kimaris's voice floated through the night. Smooth. Final.

"I'll keep the other one."