Exorcist Servant: Demon Hunter

The weapon loosened a little from Caleb's sweaty palm.It's good that he didn't drop the weapon and cut off his own foot.Every muscle in his body tensed and his heart hummed like a hummingbird.The further they went into the house, the less sure he was that he had made the right decision.

First of all, the house should kill them before they can find the demon.Just to get to the door, they had to bend down a rusted spiral staircase.This staircase originally connected the porch and the balcony on the second floor, but not only did the staircase fall obliquely, it also brought most of the balcony down.Years of wet weather had caused the front door to swell and warp, until it eventually got stuck in the frame and could barely move.No matter how the demon managed to get in, it certainly didn't get in here anyway.Fortunately, that "brother guard" was worthy of his stature, so he pushed the door open with his shoulder.

At least the floor in the room wasn't the worst.There was a stench of mold and rat urine in the air.The wallpaper on the wall was peeling off in large patches, hanging upside down on the wall, the original pattern was covered by mildew, and the weak sunlight coming in through the dirty windows didn't help.The cobwebs were all over the ceiling, hanging high in the air, and the breeze passed through the gaps in the walls, making it tremble slightly.

"Look. It's a ghoul," Karen said, casting the beam of her flashlight across the corner of the room.

Caleb's heart skipped a beat at the sight of the creature lying in the dust against the wall.Its canine mouth was overgrown with teeth, and its twisted hands became giant claws for digging through the earth and stones of graves.It's hard to believe it was ever born as a human.

"It's been dead for a while," he said, somewhat proud that his voice didn't tremble.

Karen snorted in disgust.

"They decompose faster than normal corpses," Melanie explained. "I mean demons. If there are still wreckage left, it won't be dead for long."

"Oh." Great, just one more attempt at trying to prove he knew something and only succeeding in sounding like an idiot. "What killed it?"

Karen shrugged, "Why do you care about that? Let's go."

They found the bodies of three more ghouls on the ground floor, scattered in different locations; they lived in groups, or so Caleb had heard.And even though Karen decided to ignore it, he still saw the rest of the team exchanging worried glances.

"Do you think the devil did it?" Caleb whispered to Melanie as they went through a dining room that was no longer bright.The chandelier on the top had already fallen to the ground, and twisted into a big lump of metal and wires, so they had to carefully go around.

She shook her head, "The messengers of hell never interfere with each other."

Caleb bit his lip.It would be a dangerous subject if Melanie really believed in the fundamentalist bullshit. "I thought... I mean, they weren't really demon minions. That's just what people said before science, wasn't it?"

"Satan's greatest triumph is convincing people that he doesn't exist."

What the hell happened to Melanie during the years she was married to Ben?Wasn't she like this before?It certainly wasn't the case anyway.Even if the calls between them have become less and less, if something happens, wouldn't Ben tell him on the phone?

Yes, they drifted apart, but Caleb and Ben should have split the pot.He kept busy painting, trying to get some appreciation without drawing too much attention.Since boyhood, he's been hiding his abilities, and he's succeeded, but he can't risk revealing too much of himself.

Now is obviously not a good time to argue about religion, "Who killed them? Someone like your friend? SPECTR's exorcism team wouldn't leave the body here."

"I don't know. Quiet now and focus on the task."

The first floor of the house is empty except for the corpse of the ghoul.Dave led them up to the second floor, where the stairs creaked ominously.

The floor here was much weaker than downstairs, and the planks groaned with every step they took.Caleb flinched at every strange sound.Not far from them was a demon who would kill them all at the first chance.If it had cleared out a whole horde of ghouls, it would be more dangerous than he'd imagined.What if it was watching them now?

"Here!" Dave called out in a low voice, with an urgent tone.He crouched on the grimy hardwood floor and cast the beam of his flashlight on the floor in front of him.A set of footprints stood out clearly in the dust, resembling the smooth-soled dress shoes of the kind Ben had been buried with.

The footprints went straight to the end of the corridor, where an open door led to a narrow staircase leading to the attic. "There's not much room for maneuver," Karen said, and it occurred to Caleb in that moment that he still preferred her cynical confident gesture to her worried voice.

Dave stepped forward first to occupy the key point, while the rest of them quickly walked up the steep stairs.Afternoon sunlight filters through a hole in the ceiling, revealing the long and narrow attic.Rattling boards, rotting furniture, and assorted rubbish turned the place into a maze, and Caleb shuddered.

There is something wrong here.

He involuntarily looked behind him, calculating the distance from here to the stairs.But they found that the shadowy doorway they just passed was not empty.

A man stood there, looking at them.It was impossible to make out his face in such dim light: only the gray hair and the shape of his face, the outline of his expensive suit, stood out against the decaying building.

Caleb's thoughts of loudly warning the crowd were interrupted by the sudden slam of an old armoire, sending up a cloud of smoke and dust.

Something rushed out of the closet, swift, gray, and flowing with shadows.A dead ray of sunlight fell through a hole in the roof, illuminating its face.No, it was Ben's face: pale and bloodless, but still his, shockingly familiar.But those eyes...

They were as black as oil slicks, with neither whites nor irises.Something in that abyss gleamed like lightning on an infinite horizon.

The demon inside the main body hesitated for a moment, tilted its head slightly back, and flared its nostrils.It grinned its lips, its white tusks gleaming.

Anger crashed into Caleb's chest like a train, and he forgot about the mysterious figure at the door.It had his brother's face on it, but it wasn't Ben.With a muffled roar, he ran towards it, raising the ax and dagger in his hand.Melanie yelled his name, and Dave yelled at him to get out of the line of fire, but he couldn't stand the thing desecrating his brother's body any longer.

The demon moved like a rabbit, quickly shortening the distance between them, and they met before Caleb could feel the fear.

But they don't actually touch.It passed him swiftly, as if he wasn't there at all, as if his presence was no different to it than the rotting furniture.

The blade of his ax cut through the air in vain.His sneakers slid on the dusty floor as he tried to stop.After a loud crack, the floor under his feet cracked, and one foot went straight into the air.He screamed in fright, and his body hit the ground——

Then he was falling, falling in the ensuing rain of rotting sawdust, Melanie's screams echoing in his ears.He was flailing his arms and legs wildly, but he couldn't catch anything to stop him, and the ground was closing in on him.Huge pain pierced his back and shoulders, and under the impact he could feel the wooden board that supported him break again.The last thing he heard was the sound of bones shattering as he fell straight down three floors.

***

The smell of the demon was strong, but the humans blocked the way.Are they for it?Perhaps, he had seen such a man, though he did not understand why.Could it be that they want to become its prey?

But that doesn't matter.He avoids one of them; a sporadic memory is triggered, a dull impulse from his inhabiting body.brother, family.Humans either love or hate things, in their strange ways.The man was no threat to him, and he ignored it, just as he ignored the sound of wood snapping after a moment.

Another human rushed to the stairwell, calling a name.The rest loomed over him, making him feel a little annoyed.The force of the bullet made his borrowed body unable to maintain stability, and the sterling silver was burning in his body, a smoldering fire.A machete came from one side, chopping off one of his arms until only a tiny piece of flesh remained.

It's so annoying.

He knocked the human aside with his remaining arm, sprinted, and followed the trail of the demon all the way to the stairs.But the rotting floor beneath him betrayed him; he stamped one foot through it, holding him back just in time for the humans to stalk him again.

With his claws stretched out, he grabbed one person's face, and blood spattered.The wound wasn't fatal; the captured human screamed and staggered back covering his wound.Three of them have been dealt with, which means there is one left——

The machete smashed straight into the back of his neck, breaking all his bones.No!His prey will escape!he must—

The second blow directly knocked his head off.

For a moment, he was formless, separated from the body that could no longer live in him.

Then the familiar heaviness envelops him, the nearest empty shell attracts him, as a magnet attracts iron filings.It was the same as every time in his life... only, this time someone pressed his chest hard, the broken ribs continued to bend under the pressure, and a voice above him sobbed, begged, and screamed.

Something moved inside his chest, and the world exploded.

He once thought that he knew what pain was, from the memories left in the bodies of the dead he lodged in, through their rigid nerves, he could feel the faint sting of blades or bullets when they penetrated the body of the host.

He was wrong.

This was far from mild discomfort, but pure, heart-piercing pain.The stuff in his chest was still pounding, endlessly, while his bones grinded against each other.The ends of the ribs snapped back into place on their own, followed by the vertebrae, his neck no longer bent, bone and flesh growing back together.He's healing... but dead bodies don't heal, so how did this happen?

God, what's going on?

A voice appeared in his mind, accompanied by a new emotion, which he had never experienced except in the memory of other hosts: panic.

Something was wrong, so wrong.Was the demon killing him?

it's in me!The thing that killed Ben is now inside me!Omg no, get it out!

Fear made it harder to breathe - he didn't need to breathe - and something was pressing on his chest.Someone was attacking him; he had to make it stop, make it stop, stop, stop!

He rose from the ground, claws digging into the attacker's body.He caught a glimpse of a pale face, his fangs brutally dug into her arm, and there was a scream—

No, don't hurt Melanie, don't hurt her, I'll do my bidding, stop, stop, stop!

He tasted blood, but that was all.Just the smell of blood.Without any demon energy, he couldn't feed his stomach, so he spat out the blood.He could barely smell the demon anymore, but now there were other smells in the air that he had never known existed before: perfume, dust, urine, car waste, human blood, flooded his senses.

And the voice was still screaming in his head (stop stop stop stop stop stop), and that unfamiliar pounding in his chest.

A living heart is beating.