Demon Contract

The air outside the hospital was thick enough to chew.

Max leaned on the rear exit's handrail, cigarette pinched loosely between his fingers. Unlit. He hadn't smoked in years, but the weight of it was grounding — something familiar to hold while his mind tried to fold in on itself.

The sunrise had burned through the skyline an hour ago and now hung like a furnace lid clamped over the city. Singapore's glass towers shimmered, each pane holding a warped, blinding reflection of the heat. Sweat ran down his back in slow rivulets.

Dan was inside, "reviewing Liz's chart." Max knew what that meant. Dan was giving him space. He'd always known when to stand close and when to step back.

Max rolled the cigarette between his fingers, stared up at the pale glare above — and that's when the screech cut through the morning.

Tyres on wet asphalt. Brakes biting deep.

A matte black SUV swung into the staff parking bay and pulled up hard. The engine's low growl lingered a moment before cutting out, leaving the air even heavier in its absence.

Max straightened, his grip on the rail tightening. The driver's door opened with enough force to jar the frame, and a shadow climbed out.

Victor Drake.

Six foot something, all hard edges and blunt force wrapped in a man's skin. Combat boots darkened with road spray. Cargo pants wet from the knees down. A battered duffel hung from one shoulder — army surplus green, stitched with duct tape and memories that didn't fade.

Tattoos wound up both forearms, half-lost beneath the rolled sleeves of a faded black T-shirt: RANGERS NEVER QUIT. Half the letters were worn to ghosts. The rest looked ready to start a fight.

His beard had grown in thicker since the last time Max saw him, black hair pulled back in a rough knot. Same square jaw. Same nose, once broken and never set right. Same eyes — dark, sharp, scanning everything like the world was just one long threat assessment.

He moved like weather coming in.

A hospital security guard stepped forward, opened his mouth — then shut it. No one stopped a storm.

The duffel hit the pavement with a thud that carried years in it.

Victor closed the gap in three strides and caught Max in a one-armed bear hug that crushed air from his lungs. The other hand slammed into Max's back in hard, rhythmic blows, like knocking dust from an old rug.

"You stupid son of a bitch," Victor muttered, his voice rough as gravel under boot. "What the hell did you do this time?"

Max grunted. "Good to see you too."

Victor pulled back, eyes scanning him head to toe. His brow tightened.
"You look like shit."

Max tried for a smile and failed. "Appreciate the warm welcome."

"Shut up. I fly halfway across the world expecting a deathbed, and instead I get news footage of a hotel going up like a war crime with your name stamped on the crater."

Max rubbed his temple. "Allegedly."

"You torch half of Geylang, vanish, and then Dan sends me a four-word text — 'Get here. Max snapped.' You think I was gonna keep watching lions in Africa after that?"

Max tilted his head. "You were still doing that?"

"Not anymore. Where is she?"

Max's hesitation was short, but Victor caught it. His voice dropped.

"Max."

"She's alive," Max said. "Different. But alive."

Victor's shoulders eased, just barely. A breath left him like he hadn't realised he was holding it. "Good. That's good."

His gaze flicked to the hospital doors, then to the skyline. "And the explosion?"

"Long story."

Victor gave a sharp snort. "I'm not here for the short ones."

They stood in the heat, two men welded together by too many years and too many bad nights, the silence between them solid enough to lean on.

"Thanks for coming," Max said quietly.

Victor didn't look at him. "Would've burned the whole damn country if you'd asked."

Max huffed a dry laugh. "Let's not make that the fallback plan."

Victor rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles. His eyes narrowed on the hospital like he could see straight through the walls.

"Then let's go see your girl," he said. "And you can tell me why the air's been wrong since I stepped out of that car."

***

The rooftop was quiet.

Not the main observation deck — this was a forgotten service platform tucked behind the east wing, with rusted railings, cracked tiles, and a dying air-conditioning unit thumping in the corner. From up here, the city's noise felt distant, filtered through the thick, restless wind that dragged Singapore's humidity over them like wet cloth.

Storm clouds swelled over the skyline. Low. Heavy. The glass towers below shimmered under their weight like they knew something was about to break.

Max stood with his back to the railing, gaze fixed on that slow-moving wall of weather.

Dan had just arrived. Victor had pulled him into a hard, bone-cracking hug — half greeting, half warning shot — and muttered something about missing his ugly face. Dan had answered with the same quiet force.

Now the three of them stood in a loose triangle. The last of the ones April had left behind.

Max didn't rush. He let the silence work, the wind filling the space where his words should be.

Dan waited. Victor didn't.

"Well?" Victor grunted. "You dragged us halfway across the world. Start talking."

Max ran a hand through his hair, the hood of his sweatshirt tugging gently in the wind. His voice, when it came, was rough.

"It started with a book."

Victor's eyebrow went up.

"April's," Max continued. "One she left behind. Liz found it first — months ago, maybe longer. After… everything… I found it again."

Dan's head tilted. "What book?"

"The one with the Latin. Ritual diagrams. A summoning circle in her handwriting. The cover was wrapped in silk, tied with twine."

Dan's face shadowed. "You read it?"

"All of it."

Victor crossed his arms. "So this is a ghost story? You broke out a Ouija board in a motel room?"

"No," Max said quietly. "It's about a father whose kid was dying. And the doctors stopped fighting. And he couldn't."

That shut Victor up.

"I didn't believe in demons," Max went on. "Not really. But if there was even a one percent chance I could bring her back…" He shook his head. "I had to try."

Max's voice caught there. The wind pushed damp air into his face, and for just a second, he caught the memory of Liz at eight years old, barefoot on the balcony at night, hair sticking up from static, asking why the stars didn't fall. April had been inside then, humming along to a record. The memory pressed into the present like a bruise.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Victor's jaw worked. Dan's eyes didn't leave Max's.

"I performed the ritual. Copied the symbols. Spoke the words."

"And something answered," Victor said.

Max nodded once. "It didn't… appear. It hijacked a body. Someone who'd come to stop me. Aamon —" the name cut like a blade "— burned his way in through the corpse. Offered me a Contract. But not for me."

Dan's voice lowered. "Then who?"

"For Liz," Max said.

Dan inhaled slowly. "You gave it to her?"

"I tried to keep it from her," Max said. "I made myself the conduit. Forced it through me."

Victor's eyes narrowed. "Jesus."

"Aamon didn't want a deal. He wanted to devour me. Possess me. Stay." Max's voice thinned. "When he tried, I pushed back. And something inside me pushed harder. I took his fire. All of it. And locked it down."

Victor frowned. "Locked it down where?"

Max looked at his hand.

"I've been burning ever since."

He opened his fingers.

Golden light flared.

Not flame — no smoke, no flicker — but something alive. Soulfire. It curled from his palm like liquid sunlight, pulsing in steady beats that weren't quite heat, weren't quite light, but something deeper, primal. Beautiful. Wrong.

Victor's boots shifted back half a step before he caught himself. His eyes narrowed, scanning Max like he was sizing up a bomb.

Dan didn't step away — but his pulse jumped in his throat.

Max didn't lower his hand.

"This is what's inside me now. This is what kept her here."

The Soulfire pulsed once, brushing their faces with faint warmth. Above them, thunder grumbled.

Victor's voice was ragged. "That's not normal."

"No shit," Max muttered. He closed his hand, and the light snapped out.

Victor shook his head slowly, still staring at where the light had been. "Jesus, Max. Couldn't you have tried therapy instead?"

Dan's voice was quiet, but unshaking. "Max… what did you do to her?"

"I gave her everything I had," Max said. "Almost all of it. Reached into her soul and lit the fuse. Not to hurt her. To keep her breathing."

Victor stared. "You put that in a coma patient?"

"It was that," Max said, "or watch her die."

The wind dragged silence over them.

Finally, Dan nodded once. "I believe you."

Victor shook his head. "I don't. But I believe I saw that flame. And I believe you're scared of what comes next."

"You're right," Max said.

Dan's arms folded. "Then we face it together."

Victor's mouth twisted. "…Fine. But if a guy with goat legs starts talking to me, I'm punching him in the face."

A flicker of something passed between them — the kind of grim humour April used to roll her eyes at.

Max almost smiled. But it didn't last.

Because somewhere deep in the hospital's corridors, the Soulfire had whispered.

And this time, the thing that heard it wasn't just coming.

It was already here.

***

The elevator doors sighed open onto the ICU floor.

Max stepped out first, the weight of the rooftop conversation still pressing on his shoulders. Dan followed, Victor bringing up the rear like a shadow that blocked the light.

The corridor smelled sharper up here — antiseptic mixed with something faintly metallic. The kind of metallic you didn't find in cleaning supplies.

They walked past curtained bays and silent doorways until they reached Room 805. Max hesitated in the hall.

"You go in," he said quietly to Victor.

Victor's eyes narrowed. "Why aren't you—"

"Later," Max cut in.

For a moment, Victor looked ready to argue. Then he reached for the handle and went inside. Dan followed him in, pulling the door closed behind them, leaving Max alone in the corridor.

Through the glass, he could see Victor stop at the foot of Liz's bed. The big man's posture shifted almost imperceptibly — shoulders uncoiling, hands loosening — the way someone did when they saw a face they'd been afraid they might never see again. His jaw worked once, like he was trying to swallow glass.

Dan murmured something, but Max couldn't hear it.

A nurse's shoes squeaked past behind him. Max glanced her way, then back toward the elevators. The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed louder now. One of them buzzed intermittently, a faint flicker along the ceiling.

He shifted his weight. The air felt heavier, thicker, clinging at the back of his throat. His pulse picked up without reason.

Through the glass, Victor leaned over Liz and said something that made Dan smile faintly. Max should've gone in, should've joined them. But his eyes kept dragging toward the far end of the hall.

The elevator doors down there stood open, empty. But it felt like someone had just stepped out.

Max's hand went to his pocket, closing around nothing.

***

The stairwell outside Room 805 was quiet in a way that didn't feel safe. Not restful. Not peaceful. Just… wrong.

A nurse passed along the corridor, clipboard in hand. She didn't look at him. Then, in the space of a single step, she stopped.

It was subtle at first — her head tilting like she'd forgotten where she was. The clipboard slid an inch in her grasp. Her lips parted slightly, searching for a breath that wouldn't come. Then her eyes rolled upward.

A thin thread of blood slid from her nostrils, then thickened into something darker, heavier — the slow leak of something ruptured deep inside. The sound of the first drop hitting the tile was far too loud.

Max pushed away from the wall. The fire in his hand flared in answer.

She folded to the floor without sound.

Further down the hall, a wheelchair rattled once, as if bumped by a careless hand, then began to shake with sudden violence. Its frame jerked and twisted against the tiles, the sound sharp and metallic in the otherwise still air.

Max's chest tightened.

A man in scrubs emerged from a side room and collapsed mid-step, another followed, then another — each dropping without warning, as if some unseen hand had cut their strings.

It was the same each time: no cries, no warning. Just bodies dropping.

Only one nurse remained upright — young, maybe twenty, frozen in place. Her eyes darted between the fallen until they found him.

Max. The only other person still standing.

Her mouth opened, but no words came. She stepped back, then turned and ran, the sound of her shoes fading quickly down the corridor.

Max looked toward the door to 805.

"Dan," he called, voice low but clear. "Get Victor."

No reply.

He took one step toward the door — and froze.

The air thickened. Not cold, exactly, but heavy, as though the entire building had sunk into deep water. A slow, immense pressure settled over him, making the hallway feel narrower, the ceiling lower.

The lights dimmed, then flickered.

From the far end of the corridor, something emerged.

It was barefoot, its surgical mask soaked a deep, spreading red. The hospital scrubs hung loose and torn, flapping with each uneven step. Its head tilted at an angle no living spine could sustain, and the movements beneath its skin were wrong — like the bones inside were rearranging themselves as it walked.

It came forward in those twitching, broken strides, head jerking as if scenting the air.

The aura hit first — a wave of heat without warmth, slick and clinging, like gasoline poured over skin.

The Soulfire roared to life. Gold light bled from his palm, curling up his arm in slow, deliberate coils. For a heartbeat he thought of Liz — pale in that bed, chest rising because this was in him. If it went out, so would she.

Overhead, the emergency lights snapped and burst, sending brief showers of sparks to the floor.

"Dan," Max said again, his voice steady but sharper. "Get Victor."

The thing's head snapped upright. Its eyes were nothing but black pits.

Behind him, Dan's voice broke the stillness, tight with disbelief. "Max… you have a halo."

Max didn't turn. The fire above his brow burned in his periphery, not gentle like a saint's, but restless, predatory. "Not the time."

The figure tilted its head further, the sound that came from it scraping the air like a vent fan tearing itself apart.

"Found… you..."

The fire climbed higher, wrapping his wrist and forearm in molten gold.

"Dan," Max said once more, every word deliberate. "Now."

Dan ran.

Max stayed, facing the thing in the corridor — halo burning, heat curling into the vents, the taste of ash sharp on his tongue — while the Soulfire whispered the same words over and over:

Burn it. Burn it all.

***

It woke in the walls.

Not from slumber — demons did not sleep — but from a stillness so deep it could be mistaken for death, the kind of waiting that stretched across hours or years without hunger ever dulling, without the coil of its intent loosening even once. It had lingered here in that stillness, folded into the hollows between pipes and vents, letting the quiet hospital breathe around it, letting the fragile lives within it go about their work and their dying without notice.

The change came as a pulse, not a sound but a tremor in the soul-layer — a ripple moving across unseen depths — bright, resonant, wrong. It was not a tethered light; it carried no signature, no leash, no Master's claim. It was raw, unclaimed, and so loud in its brightness that the demon turned toward it without thought.

It moved upward, gliding through the building's skeleton, weaving through ductwork and service shafts, flowing along copper wires that hummed faintly with the residue of dying prayers, tasting the chemical tang of oxygen being pumped into pale lungs. And as it climbed, it caught the scent.

The glow.

It was not a scent humans would recognise — it was the taste of a soul laid bare, the burn of potential laced with mortality, the mingling of rot and fire in a single breath. Human, yes, but layered with something older, stranger. And there were two of them. Two flares in the fog. Neither bound. Neither claimed.

The closer it came, the more the air pressed back against its shape. The hospital's walls seemed to flex and tighten as its claws scraped across the seam between realms, but no wards flared, no sigils lit in warning.

The host body moved awkwardly down the corridor now, barefoot on cold linoleum, the faint tack of each step sticky with drying blood. Its hospital scrubs were torn and stained, the surgical mask over its mouth soaked through to a deep red. The young doctor who had worn this face had been strong, clever, arrogant — qualities that made for an easy kill and a durable shell — but all that remained was meat stretched thin over the wrong bones. The neck bent too far, the joints moved with uneven clicks, the weight inside not matching the proportions outside.

It tilted the head to study the first light. Gold, bright as hammered sun, flaring above the man's brow like a crown but with no holiness in it — no mark of Verrine or Mammon, no crest of any Lord the demon recognised. It was lightning trapped in flesh, unstable and beautiful, and it belonged to no one.

Rogue.

It lingered on that word, tasting its meaning. A soul like this should not be free.

The other light came from the girl. She slept, yet her aura strained against the air, wound tight in a furious red coil like a furnace sealed behind glass. It was old fire, but not sealed by a Lord's glyph, no infernal brand seared into the core of her being.

Another rogue.

Two unmarked, in the same place. Impossible. Unacceptable. The hunger sharpened.

Freedom was an infection. And like all infections, it needed to be cut out.

It stepped once, testing the hall. No sigil rose from the floor to burn its feet, no cold chain whipped tight around its throat. If these souls belonged to a Master, the Master would already be here, defending them. But the hall was empty.

The absence was intoxicating.

Already it could feel others waking, subtle shifts in the deep like predators rolling over in their sleep as the scent of blood reached them. They would come from the drains, from the cracks in church cellars, from behind locked Contractor doors — all for this. All for what it had found first.

It bared its teeth behind the mask, a smile in shape only, a grimace of intent. There was no joy in it, only ownership.

If they were Lord-marked, they'd be defended.
If they were claimed, they'd be hidden.
But no one came. No chain. No name. No claim.

So they belong to me.