The bass didn't feel like music anymore. It felt like a construction crew was jackhammering directly into Jude's skull.
He stood wedged between a structural pillar and the crowded couch, holding a red solo cup filled with lukewarm tap water. He took a sip. It tasted like plastic and dirt.
Across the room, Natalia was a blur of silver sequins, jumping up and down in the center of a circle of guys who looked like they were made in a factory that specialized in creatine, obscure college basketball jerseys, and boat shoes. She looked happy. She looked beautiful. She looked like she didn't know Jude existed.
Jude lowered the cup. He looked down at his combat boots. He looked at the black shirt he had spent twenty minutes ironing to impress her.
Who are you fucking kidding? the voice in his head scoffed. It sounded suspiciously like Greta, but deeper. You put on a costume. You put on some cologne. You thought that would change the facts?
He was the mascot. The NPC. The background character meant to make the main characters look cooler.
"God, I'm fucking pathetic," Jude whispered.
The confidence of the afternoon, the "Alpha Jude" David had been hyping up, the guy who killed a demon in an alley, it all evaporated. He felt small. He felt stupid. He felt like a fraud wearing a hero's skin.
I don't belong here, Jude thought, the misery settling into his brain like lead. I should be in my dorm. I should be asleep. I should be dead.
He turned toward the exit. He was going to walk home. He would talk to Bob in the morning and tell him the patrol was a bust. He would tell the gang he got sick. He would—
The air pressure in the room plummeted.
It was an instantaneous shift. One second, the room was a humid, sweaty sauna of three hundred college students. The next second, Jude was standing on the peak of Mount Fuji in the dead of winter.
Whoosh.
A cold chill; violent, invasive, and fundamentally wrong, ripped through his body. It bypassed his skin and went straight for his heart. It was the feeling of standing bare naked in a snow squall.
It was worse than the alleyway. The Scavenger had felt like a dirty animal. This? This felt like the ocean weighing down on his soul.
Jude's hand went numb.
Splat.
The red solo cup slipped from his fingers. It hit the hardwood floor, splashing water over his polished boots.
Jude didn't even move to pick it up. He couldn't. His breath hung in his throat, and when he exhaled, he saw a distinct puff of white fog in the red strobe light.
"No," Jude whispered, his teeth starting to chatter. "No, no, no."
Bob hadn't been kidding. This wasn't a little imp knocking over trash cans and eating rats. This was a heavyweight. And it was here. Outside the house.
Panic, cold and sharp, overrode his depression.
Get out. You have to get out. You have to arm up.
He couldn't summon the bow here. He couldn't fight in a mosh pit. He needed space. He needed air.
Jude shoved off the wall.
"Move!" he rasped, pushing into the crowd.
The party was still raging. Nobody else seemed to notice the temperature drop yet, the alcohol blanket was keeping them oblivious, but they were moving slower, sluggish, like flies trapped in syrup.
Jude elbowed a guy in a onesie. He stiff-armed a girl taking a selfie.
"Hey, watch it!"
"Dickhead!"
Jude ignored them. His heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Where is it? Where is it coming from?
He didn't look back. He kept his eyes on the front door. The large oak door at the end of the hallway. Freedom, safety, a place to breathe.
He was ten feet away. Five feet.
He lunged for the handle.
WHAM.
Jude slammed full-force into a body blocking the exit.
It wasn't a soft collision. It was like hitting a sack of bricks wrapped in denim.
"Ow! Watch where you're going, you fucking freak!"
The voice was jagged, slurred, and furious.
Jude stumbled back, looking down.
Greta stood between him and the door. She looked wrecked. Her eyeliner was smeared down one cheek, her hair was a bird's nest of static, and she was swaying on her feet like a boxer in the twelfth round. She was clutching a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels by the neck like a club.
"Greta," Jude gasped, reaching for the doorknob. "Move. Seriously. I have to go."
"Go?" Greta laughed, a harsh, barking sound. She stepped in front of him, blocking his path. She reeked of whiskey and something chemical. "We just got here, Jude! The party's just... it's just starting!"
She poked him hard in the chest with a manicured nail.
"You trying to sneak out? Again?" Her eyes were wide, black pits in the strobe light. "I told you. I told you if you left early, I'd fucking kill you."
"Greta, please," Jude pleaded, feeling the cold intensify behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something was watching them. "It's not safe. Let me go."
"Not safe?" Greta sneered, leaning in close. "You're fucking pathetic. You're scared of a little noise? You're scared of life again?"
She shoved him back, away from the door. Away from safety.
"You're not going anywhere, pussy."
"Move!"
Jude didn't ask this time. He shoved her.
He put both hands on Greta's shoulders and pushed hard. It wasn't graceful, and it wasn't polite. It was the desperate, primal shove of a prey animal trying to escape a predator.
Greta stumbled back, her heels catching on the carpet. She hit the wall with a thud, the bottle of Jack Daniels sloshing dangerously.
Jude didn't wait to see if she was okay. He bolted.
He hit the heavy oak door, threw it open, and burst out into the night.
The cool air of October hit him like a slap in the face, stripping away the heat of the party. But it didn't strip away the chill in his bones. The supernatural cold was still there, clinging to him, stronger now.
Where is it? Where the hell is it?
Jude spun in the middle of the street, his boots scraping against the asphalt. The frat row was surprisingly empty. Everyone was inside the houses, drowning in noise. The streetlights buzzed overhead, casting long, yellow shadows.
"Okay," Jude panted, scanning the rooftops, the bushes, the parked cars. "Okay, Bob. I'm outside. I'm ready. Show yourself."
WHACK.
The world exploded into white sparks.
Pain detonated at the back of his skull. Jude's knees buckled instantly. He pitched forward, catching himself on the hood of a parked sedan before sliding down to the pavement.
"You touch me?" Greta screamed. "You put your fucking hands on me?!"
Jude groaned, clutching the back of his head. His vision swam. He looked up.
Greta was standing over him, silhouetted against the streetlamp. She was vibrating with rage. She gripped the whiskey bottle by the neck, raising it for another swing. She wasn't the cynical, sarcastic girl from the friend group anymore. She was a hurricane of chemical anger.
"Greta, run," Jude wheezed, scrambling backward on his hands and heels. "Seriously. Get the hell out of here."
"Shut the FUCK up!" Greta shrieked. She swung the bottle at the air, missing him by inches. "Don't tell me what to fucking do! You don't get to tell me fucking anything!"
She advanced. Jude retreated.
He crawled backward, his boots skidding on the grit of the road. He scrambled up to his feet, stumbling, backing away from her.
"Greta, listen to me," Jude begged, holding his hands up. "There's something here. You have to go back inside."
"I'm not going anywhere until you fucking explain yourself!" Greta roared.
She lunged.
Jude dodged, backing into the mouth of the alleyway that ran between the Sigma Chi house and an abandoned laundromat. It was dark here. The shadows were thick.
Greta followed him in, cornering him.
Jude hit the brick wall. He was trapped.
Greta stopped three feet away, blocking the exit. She was heaving, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her mascara was running down her face in black tears.
"You want to know why I fucking hate you, Jude?" she spat, her voice trembling with venom. "You want to know why I can't stand looking at your stupid, sad fucking face?"
"Not really," Jude said, eyeing the darkness behind her. The temperature was dropping again. His breath was fogging.
"Because you're a mirror," Greta hissed, stepping closer. "You sit there, in the corner, sober and quiet, watching us. Watching me get wasted. Watching me ruin my life. And you don't say anything. You just judge."
She slammed her free hand against the brick wall next to his head.
"You think you're better than us because you don't play the game," she screamed, tears finally spilling over. "You think you're some tragic fucking hero? You're just a coward! You're too scared to live, so you just watch us die!"
"Greta—"
"Say it!" she screamed, raising the bottle again. "Tell me I'm a pathetic junkie! Tell me I'm a fucking mess! Say it to my face, you fucking coward! I know you think so!"
CLANG.
The sound was louder than a gunshot.
It came from the ground, directly behind Greta.
They both froze. Greta's arm halted in mid-air. The rage on her face faltered, replaced by a flicker of confusion.
Slowly, both of them looked down.
The heavy iron manhole cover in the center of the alley shifted. It scraped against the concrete with the sound of metal screaming in agony.
Then, it blasted upward.
It flew ten feet into the air, spinning like a coin, before crashing down onto a pile of trash bags.
Steam poured out of the sewer. Thick, foul-smelling steam.
And then, the darkness rose.
It wasn't a humanoid shape. It wasn't a Scavenger. It was a mass of disgusting, obsidian sludge. Thick, wet tentacles—thick as tree trunks and slick with oil—erupted from the hole. They grasped the edges of the pavement, cracking the concrete as they pulled a massive, squid-like creature up from the depths.
It towered over them, blocking out the streetlight. It had no eyes, only a dozen weeping sores that glowed with a pale, violet light.
The smell hit them instantly: rotting meat and rust.
Greta stood there, the whiskey bottle dangling loosely in her hand. She blinked. She swayed. Her brain, soaked in alcohol and drugs, tried to process the image and failed completely.
"What..." Greta slurred, staring up at the nightmare. "What the f..."
The demon let out a sound, a low, gurgling vibration that shook the loose bricks in the wall.
Jude pressed his back against the cold brick, his heart stopping in his chest.
"Greta," Jude whispered, his voice barely audible. "Don't move."