Kovida's blood was all over my back.
It soaked through my jacket. Sticky. Warm. Heavy. Not mine. Hers.
She was still breathing. I could feel it—barely. If she died before we got back, they'd split the payout. That'd piss me off.
I kept walking.
The desert stretched forever in every direction. Flat, dry, hot. Not a single thing moved. Just wind. Sand. And me, carrying a body like a damn corpse mule.
I didn't mind carrying her. What bothered me was I wasn't getting paid extra
...hot air in my throat...
Pain, mostly in my side. I didn't know how deep it went. I couldn't open my eyes. But I knew who was carrying me. Koushik's walk was always the same. Heavy. Cold. Like he didn't care if the world burned as long as he got paid.
Still...
I wasn't dead. That had to count for something.
She saved me. Took the hit meant for me. Jumped right in front of that demon like a fool. Dumb move. I could've dodged it.
But now she was bleeding out, and I was stuck carrying her through miles of burning sand.
VEIL didn't send pickups for Executioners. You lived, you walked. That's how it worked.
Her arm was still twitching. That was a good sign. Dead people didn't twitch.
"You owe me for this, Ice Doll," I muttered. Not loud. Just enough for the sand to heal
I heard him. Barely.
I didn't reply. I didn't need to.
He was always like that. Cold. All ego. Thought money could buy God if it had to.
But his hands never dropped me. Not once.
The sun was dipping. Good. Heat made blood dry too fast.
Finally reached the outer wall. Desert sensors scanned us and blinked green. The ghost gate hissed open, and I walked through.
VEIL's headquarters sat underground, built inside some ancient demon skeleton. Hallways pulsed like veins. Everything smelled like old blood and metal.
I dropped Kovida onto a medical slab. Not gently. Not cruelly. Just done.
Nurse bots moved in. One scanned her. Another stabbed a needle into her neck. Her eyes fluttered. Still alive.
"Stable," the med drone said.
I didn't wait around. I turned and walked off. My job was done.
That table was cold. My whole body ached. I didn't want to sleep, but I couldn't stay awake.
I heard his boots walking away.
Of course he didn't stay.
I went straight to the payment terminal.
5,400 credits.
No bonus. No extra cut. No hazard pay for carrying a bleeding body through the desert.
Just the base payout.
I lit a cigarette. Took a long drag. Blew it at the ceiling.
She better wake up. Because next time, I'm not carrying dead weight.
Five weeks passed. Kovida healed up. I got bored.
I'd burned through most of my last payout in three days — smoking, gambling, running up debts I never planned to pay. The rest went into a deadbeat exorcist who swore he could "clean" my contract mark. He couldn't. I decked him. No refund.
I was halfway through a bottle of sour synth-whiskey when a knock hit the mess hall door.
Reaper badge. Rank 5. Young guy. Nervous eyes. Not built for front-line work.
He stepped in like he was scared to breathe my air.
"Executioner Koushik," he said. "I have... a request."
I looked up, leaned back in my chair, and smiled slow.
"Does the request bleed?"
I stood in the hallway just outside, listening.
The Reaper's voice trembled as he explained:
A girl. Cursed. Demon attached. A Devil Girl had marked someone again — probably some dumb human who wanted revenge. Classic Contract Demon.
"Unofficial case," the Reaper said. "The higher ranks turned it down. But the family's offering money. A lot of it. No questions."
No clearance. No report. Just cash.
I stepped in before Koushik could take the whole thing for himself.
"I'll go too," I said.
She still moved like a ghost. Always showing up quiet. I didn't mind.
I just hated splitting payment.
I raised an eyebrow. "You sure? Might ruin your honor."
Kovida didn't flinch. "Might save someone."
I snorted. "Same thing."
We left that night.
Desert wind howled outside the gate. Kovida wore her usual armor: tight, clean, no flash. I carried my Khanda blade across my back, my Desert Eagle holstered under the coat. No plan, no backup. Just coordinates, a name, and a contract paid in full.
Just how I like it.
I watched him walk ahead of me, boots crunching the dry ground.
He never looked back. He never checked if I was keeping up.
That's how he is. He walks forward. If you fall behind, it's your problem.
But I wasn't going to fall behind.
We found the site by midnight.
A rotting farmhouse out in the wastes. No lights. No wind. The silence wasn't peaceful — it was wrong. Like the ground itself had stopped breathing.
The air buzzed with leftover rage.
She was inside. The girl. Or whatever was left of her.
I kicked the door in.
There she was — sitting on the floor, dress soaked in blood that wasn't hers. A child's doll lay in pieces by her feet. Her eyes were gone. Burned out. But her smile was wide.
"You brought fire," she whispered.
I raised my gun. "You called it."
She didn't move.
Just sat there on the floor, smiling like she didn't even know she was a demon.
Her arms were too long. Fingers stretched past her knees, dragging on the dirt floor. Her skin twitched in places — like it didn't fit. Like someone stitched it on in the wrong order. And the smell? Grief. The thick, sour kind.
Contract Demon. Fresh.
"You came to break me," she said in a soft, cracked voice. "You'll scream like he did."
"Sorry," I said, raising the gun. "I only scream when I'm broke."
The room went black.
Not like night — more like drowning. The walls stretched. Time slipped. I heard children laughing, but the sound came from inside my chest.
Illusion field. Emotional bleed. High-level grudge spirit. Someone had really hated whoever she was made from.
I drew my blades and steadied my breath and looked towards koushik.
"Focus," I whispered.
She lunged. Arms snapping into the air like rope. Too fast for normal limbs.
I dropped low, slid under the swing, and fired a shot through her knee. The bullet passed clean — no blood. Illusion skin. False form.
She shrieked — a hundred voices layered together. Not real sound. Soul static.
The room melted. Now we were in some classroom — broken chairs, chalk on the floor, red handprints across the walls.
"Your turn, Kovida," I muttered.
She liked illusions. That was fine. I didn't need eyes to kill.
I dashed in from the left. My twin blades sliced through the image of a teacher, a mother, a dozen flickering ghosts.
All lies. She hid behind them.
I found her core — a flicker of energy near the ceiling — and launched upward.
Blade through the spine. A clean stab.
She screamed, but her mouth never opened.
She dropped like meat.
I walked over, put one boot on her neck.
"Name?" I asked.
She didn't answer.
I pulled the trigger. Head gone. Smoke. Silence.
Contract demons always think they're special. They're not.
I wiped the blood from my blade. Not hers. Mine.
I'd taken a hit to the side. Didn't mention it. Koushik didn't ask.
"You want to burn the body?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Not my problem."
Outside, the Reaper was waiting with the transfer chip.
"Client said thank you," he said, handing it over.
"Client paid?"
"Yes."
"Then tell the client they're welcome."
I didn't look at Kovida before I turned and walked off.
We got back to VEIL an hour later.
I didn't even go to my bunk. I went straight to the pay station. Split the cut.
50/50. That was the deal.
I sent her share.
I didn't care if she opened it.
My half? Already gone in my head.
I don't celebrate wins. I spend them.
The second that money hit my account, I was already gone — out of VEIL's quiet stone halls, deep into the lower blocks where the rules were thin and the lights buzzed dirty yellow.
One smoke in my mouth. One bottle in my hand. One girl on my arm. Another watching from the booth.
They liked the scars. Said I had "devil-hunter energy." Said it like it was sexy.
They didn't ask what I did.
They just liked that I looked like I killed for a living.
They weren't wrong.
A private club under Sector 4. Neon everywhere. Smell of sweat, cheap alcohol, and incense covering up old blood in the floorboards. This place didn't take IDs — just credits and silence.
I dropped a thousand just sitting down.
Cards on the table. Faces I didn't know. All of them trying to act like they weren't scared of me.
They played safe.
I didn't.
I stayed in my room.
Didn't bother asking where he went. I knew.
The system always looked the other way with him. As long as he kept killing demons, no one cared how dirty his soul got in the process.
I cared.
But I didn't say anything.
Third drink in. Fourth hand won. Then I started cheating.
Nothing fancy. Just subtle finger pressure — marked chips, fake tells. Sloppy enough that someone would notice if they looked hard enough.
That was the point.
I wanted someone to notice.
And one did.
Old man. Sitting across. Wrinkled, sharp-eyed, too calm for a place like this.
"You switch the deck?" he asked.
His voice didn't shake. That annoyed me.
"You accusing me?" I asked, finishing my drink.
"I'm saying your game's rotten. Like you."
People around us went quiet.
I smiled slow. Stood up. Cracked my knuckles.
"You know what I hate, old man? I hate unpaid advice."
He moved fast for someone his age — ducked, tried to grab my wrist.
I slammed him face-first into the table. The cards flew. The bottle shattered. The girls screamed.
I hit him again. And again.
Blood sprayed across the table. His nose folded. Teeth cracked against the floor.
"Stop—!" someone shouted.
I didn't.
He gasped through the blood. "My son… works with Corvus Codex…"
I stopped for half a second.
Then leaned down. Right up to his ear.
"So what should I do? Send him a get-well card? I'm a devil hunter too."
And I crushed his throat with my boot.
One clean stomp. Cartilage. Silence.
I heard the alert in the mess hall an hour later.
"Incident in Lower Block. Casualty confirmed."
I didn't ask.
I already knew.
I stepped out of the club, cigarette lit, blood still on my hands.
The girl from earlier followed me out. Didn't say a word. She just looked at me like I was something fascinating. Something dangerous.
I didn't ask her name. Didn't care.
She came with me anyway.
People talk about heaven like it's some reward.
Me?
I already got what I want.
Cash.
Control.
And no one who can stop me.
Her lipstick was still fresh when she kissed my neck in the elevator.
She didn't flinch at the blood on my collar.
Didn't ask about the bruise on my knuckles or the red stain drying on my boot.
She didn't care who I'd hurt — and I liked that.
We stepped into my room. Top floor. No questions. She dropped her heels at the door and looked around like she'd never seen luxury wrapped in rot before.
The lights stayed low. I poured two drinks.
She sat on the bed, watching me like I was the most dangerous thing in the room.
She wasn't wrong.
I handed her the glass. She took it without a word.
"Ever been with a devil hunter?" I asked, leaning in, not smiling.
She nodded. "Once. He cried after."
I laughed once — dry, sharp. "I don't cry."
She leaned into me. I didn't resist.
It wasn't love. Wasn't pleasure.
It was noise. Distraction.
Like scratching an itch that never ends. Like filling a hole that gets deeper every time you pour something into it.
She moaned soft. I didn't listen.
I wasn't there for her. I wasn't even there for me.
I was just passing time until the next kill.
Later, she rested her head on my chest. Said something I didn't hear.
I stared at the ceiling.
"Don't fall asleep," I muttered.
"Why not?" she whispered.
"Because I don't like waking up next to people I forget."
She didn't answer. She got dressed in silence. Left without a word.
Good.
I walked past his room on the way to the sparring hall.
I heard voices inside. One male. One female.
Then a door shutting.
Same routine.
Same void.
Morning came slow.
I lit another cigarette. Money was low again. I needed another job. Another body to break. Another devil to butcher.
I didn't feel bad about the old man. He stepped in. He talked too much.
His son works at Corvus Codex?
Not my problem.
I don't do politics.
I do coin.
I picked up my coat. Holstered the Eagle. Sharpened my blade.
Another day. Another contract.
Nothing personal.
Just business.
Always.