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Her eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, the ritual array's red glow pulsing faster and faster.
That malicious presence was trying to claw its way across dimensions, forcing itself into Annie's body.
Cold steel flashed in Soren's hand. He swung Alastor in a clean, brutal arc straight at her neck.
Thud.
Her head tumbled off and hit the floor, body collapsing right behind it and smashing the folding screen.
With no vessel left and no other meat to jump into, the malice whipped around the attic like smoke in a windstorm, desperate to escape.
A tidal wave of demonic power erupted out of Soren, forming a massive hand that clamped down on the writhing evil.
The two forces hissed and boiled on contact, demonic energy eating the malice alive.
But the thing was just formless sludge in the end. It burned out and vanished in seconds.
Click!
A sharp tongue-click echoed through the attic out of nowhere.
Soren sheathed the greatsword and stepped behind the screen Annie's body had knocked over.
A life-sized wooden puppet stood there, carved from dark wood.
Two corpses knelt in front of it, heads bowed in worship.
One was small—a kid.
The other was rotting, skin black and crusted with dirt.
Holy exorcism flames flared around the gun in Soren's hand. He pressed the barrel right against the puppet's face.
Bang!
The silver round, laced with demonic power, blew the puppet's head clean off and punched straight through the curse-covered wooden wall behind it, turning both into splinters.
The shockwave ripped through the attic and snuffed out every last candle.
Scrape… scrape…
Climbing sounds came from behind him.
Steve's head poked up through the trapdoor. The sight of blood everywhere and the thick copper stench nearly made him puke on the ladder.
When he finally saw the pile of naked corpses and his wife lying headless in a pool of red, his arms gave out. He almost fell back down.
"Annie…"
Steve's eyes went bloodshot. Fighting the horror, he crawled on hands and knees to her side.
He'd actually noticed his wife acting strange for weeks—sleepwalking at night, weird scribbles on the walls, her nervous muttering…
But he'd looked the other way, telling himself if he just pretended everything was normal it would blow over.
Now his wife and all these naked bodies had ripped that fantasy to shreds.
Soren watched the broken man. "You lived under the same roof. You're telling me you didn't notice a damn thing?"
Steve shuddered. He pushed himself up, voice raw. "I… I did notice…"
He looked like a walking corpse as he stumbled down the stairs and led Soren to a locked old bedroom on the first floor.
The room was stacked with dusty cardboard boxes. Steve opened them and stepped aside.
Inside were books with sinister symbols on the covers—ancient black-magic rituals and sacrifice rites.
Soren shoved the books aside. Underneath lay stacks of envelopes and one old black-and-white photo.
The photo showed a grim-faced old woman wearing a crown, seated on a high chair.
At her feet knelt a crowd of naked men and women.
Soren picked up a notebook and skimmed the handwritten notes. The scattered clues snapped together in his head.
Steve's mother-in-law had been the leader of this cult.
They weren't summoning some random demon. They were after Paimon—one of the seventy-two pillars of Hell, the ninth King of Hell, the one with power over every secret in the world.
Soren's earlier guess had been close but not quite right. Annie hadn't lured him here for a live sacrifice. They wanted his body as the perfect vessel for Paimon's consciousness to descend.
Paimon liked male hosts.
The mother-in-law had once jammed a sliver of Paimon's mind into her granddaughter Charlie as a temporary host.
But that was just a placeholder.
Their real target had always been Steve and Annie's biological son.
The ritual to awaken Paimon had brutal requirements: three heads—an elder, a youth, and a young adult—all tied by blood.
So the old woman had used her own life to fill the "elder" slot.
She'd ordered the cult to stage little Charlie's gruesome death to complete the "youth" sacrifice.
When Annie was at her absolute lowest, the cultists had approached her pretending to be a grief support group.
They fed her lies about a ritual that would let her talk to her dead daughter and bring her back, slowly brainwashing her into setting up the full demon-summoning ceremony.
Annie herself was supposed to be the final "young adult" sacrifice.
That explained the piano-wire scene in the attic—she was meant to slit her own throat right in front of her son.
The blood and shock were supposed to shatter the boy's mind so Paimon could slide in without resistance.
The perfect plan had fallen apart at the very end.
Their chosen vessel—the son—had gone into the women's bathroom to pull a stupid prank and gotten himself exploded by a freaked-out Carrie.
When years of work went up in smoke, the cult lost it.
After learning about Carrie's powers, they switched targets and tried to grab the witch girl as a new temporary host.
Then, by pure coincidence, Soren—their new proxy—had walked right in, and they'd changed plans again on the spot.
Soren tossed the notebook back into the box.
In the cultists' eyes, this younger male body was obviously a much better fit for Paimon.
That was why Annie had suddenly dropped the cash demand at the diner and insisted he and Carrie come to the funeral to apologize.
Everything made sense now.
Soren flicked a thought and dumped all the relics into the Silent Hill domain to destroy them. Shit like this needed to burn.
He turned and left the villa.
Outside, the sky was already getting dark.
The cult members who'd been staking out the house from the edges were gone.
Even the ones who'd been standing under the treehouse had vanished.
Soren pulled out his phone and dialed Detective McClane.
"It's me. The extortion problem's handled."
His tone stayed flat. "Come clean this up. Bring plenty of body bags—the scene's a little messy."
A chair scraped on the other end, followed by a string of muffled curses.
…
Early the next morning, Soren walked back into the office.
Soft sunlight spilled across the lobby. Patty was curled up on the couch under a thin blanket.
She heard the door, rubbed her eyes sleepily, and sat up.
"You're finally back. Still got all your limbs?"
Patty looked him over. When she saw his clothes were clean, she let out a relieved breath.
"That shitty family… you take care of them?"
"Yeah, it's done," Soren nodded. "They won't be bothering us anymore."
Patty's tense shoulders relaxed a fraction.
Soren changed the subject. "But the mess you two caused was pretty loud. Someone's probably already got eyes on Carrie."
Patty's heart jumped right back into her throat.
She bit her lip, thinking for a second, then said, "What if… Carrie stays at the office for a while to lay low?"
Real worry showed in her eyes. "Her mom died back in high school."
"Now with all this, she can't even go back to school…"
Soren gave her a mental thumbs-up. It lined up exactly with what he'd been thinking.
Having Carrie at the office working for him would save him a ton of hassle with her powers.
Even if he didn't need her later, she'd be able to protect herself—and Patty—on her own.
"She can stay," Soren set his water glass down and pretended to hesitate. "But I don't keep freeloaders around here…"
Patty had known him for years; she saw right through it and nodded. "She can handle the daily cleaning. That'll make things easier on me too."
"I've got this. I'll talk to her!"
Straight-up charity would just make sensitive Carrie feel awkward and scared.
Giving her an actual job would let her stay with her dignity intact.
Right then Carrie came down from the second floor, still half-asleep and wearing one of Patty's pajamas.
Patty walked over, took her hand, and explained that the problem was solved and that she could stay at the office for now.
"Just relax and crash here until the heat dies down."
She wrapped an arm around Carrie's shoulders, glancing sideways at Soren on purpose. "Plus, going back to school right now would just get you stared at and whispered about."
"This guy's always running around on jobs anyway. He can take you out sometimes, show you the city, help you clear your head."
Soren rubbed his forehead. "You make it sound like I'm on vacation every day. I'm out there taking cases and earning a living, okay?"
"Where's the money then?"
"…"