Greta was doing something unnatural.
She was lying in her own bed, completely sober, trying to read a book written by a dead French guy who seemed to think suffering was a lifestyle choice.
She held the copy of The Myth of Sisyphus above her head, squinting at the text like it was written in alien hieroglyphics designed to cause migraines. Professor Tragen had called it "medicinal," but so far it just felt like a headache in paperback form.
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
"Bullshit," Greta muttered, letting her arm drop to the mattress. "He's pushing a rock up a hill for eternity, Albert. He's not happy. He's miserable and his back hurts and he probably wants to die except he can't because that's the whole point of the punishment."
Across the room, Emily was sitting cross-legged on the floor, ostensibly sorting through a pile of laundry. But she wasn't really folding anything. She was watching Greta.
The look on Emily's face was soft. Dangerously soft. It was the kind of look that lingered a little too long, tracing the sharp line of Greta's jaw and the way her dark hair fanned out against the pillow. Admiration mixed with something quieter underneath; a fragile, terrified hope.
Greta caught the look in her peripheral vision. She felt that weird flutter in her stomach again, the same one from the hug this morning, and immediately shoved it down into whatever mental basement she kept all the feelings she didn't want to examine.
Feelings were messy. Feelings got you hurt. Feelings were for people who had the luxury of a future.
"Stop staring at me, Em," Greta grumbled, though there was no real bite in her voice. "I can feel your eyes. It's making me itch."
"I'm not staring," Emily lied, quickly folding a t-shirt into a lopsided square that would never fit in a drawer. "I'm just surprised. You're actually doing homework. It's a historic moment. I should document this for future generations."
"It's not homework. It's penance," Greta sighed. "Tragen's making me read this as punishment for the drywall incident."
She groaned dramatically and hurled the book across the room. It hit the opposite wall with a satisfying thwack and landed in the pile of dirty clothes where it belonged.
Greta reached over to her nightstand, grabbed a rubber stress ball, and started tossing it at the ceiling. Thump. Catch. Thump. Catch.
"I can't focus," Greta admitted, staring at the popcorn ceiling. "My brain won't stop vibrating."
"Is it… the stuff?" Emily asked quietly. She meant the withdrawal. She meant the constant, humming need that lived in Greta's bones.
"No," Greta said, tossing the ball harder. "It's Jude. Stupid Jude. On his stupid date with stupid Natalia at his stupid fancy restaurant."
Emily giggled. "You sound jealous."
"I'm not jealous," Greta scoffed, sitting up and glaring at the wall like it had personally offended her. "I'm annoyed. It disrupts the ecosystem. Jude is supposed to be the sad, mopey one. He's the designated disaster. If he starts being happy and successful, what does that make me? I become the backup disaster. I don't want that promotion."
She flopped back down, deepening her voice into a monotone drawl, doing her best impression of Jude.
"Oh, look at me, I'm Jude," Greta droned, making an exaggerated sad face. "I listen to The Smiths and stare at rain. I'm going to wear a blazer to dinner and pretend I don't have a crippling fear of eye contact. Maybe I'll order the soup and sigh into it like a Victorian orphan."
Emily burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her hand. "That's so mean! He looked really nice in that suit!"
"He looked like a funeral director who got lost on his way to the morgue," Greta countered, though she was fighting a smile. "And Natalia? God. She's going to eat him alive. She's going to chew him up, spit him out, and post a TikTok about 'the worst date of my life' with a sad filter."
She threw the ball one last time. It hit the ceiling fan and ricocheted wildly around the room, nearly taking out a lamp.
"I just have a bad feeling," Greta murmured, the humor draining from her voice. "The vibes are off. The air feels heavy."
"That's just the humidity," Emily said soothingly. "It's supposed to rain later. The weather app said thunderstorms."
Greta opened her mouth to argue; to explain that humidity didn't make your skin crawl, didn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up like something was watching, when her phone buzzed on the mattress.
It was a jagged, angry vibration. Urgent.
Greta picked it up. The caller ID read: NERD (DO NOT ANSWER).
Fernando.
"Speak," Greta answered, putting the phone to her ear.
"Greta!" Fernando's voice was high-pitched, breathless, and punctuated by the audible chattering of teeth. "Greta, are you near a heater? Is your apartment warm?"
"What?" Greta sat up, swinging her legs off the bed. "Fernando, why do you sound like you're standing in a meat locker?"
"Because I basically am!" Fernando shrieked. "My dorm! The tracker! The obsidian cube! It woke up!"
Greta went rigid, every muscle in her body locking into place. "Slow down. What do you mean it woke up?"
"I mean it's acting like a localized air conditioner from the ninth circle of Hell!" Fernando yelled, his voice cracking. "I came back to my room to study, and the temperature dropped to negative ten degrees! My coffee is a solid block of ice, Greta! I am wearing three sweaters and I cannot feel my toes! I think I am developing frostbite!"
"The signal," Greta barked, switching instantly from bored college student to soldier. "Where is it pointing?"
"It's not pointing," Fernando stammered. "It's screaming. The energy signature spiked off every chart I have. This is not a Scavenger. This is not a Beast. This is…"
His voice dropped to a terrified whisper.
"It's him."
Greta gripped the phone tight enough to crack the screen protector. "Caligo?"
"The signature matches the residue from the factory exactly," Fernando confirmed, teeth still chattering. "He has surfaced. He is in Center City."
"Where in Center City, Fernando?" Greta stood up, already scanning the room for her boots. "Give me coordinates."
There was a pause, filled only by the sound of Fernando frantically typing on what was probably a frozen keyboard.
"The triangulation is imprecise because of atmospheric interference," Fernando said. "But the epicenter is approximately 15th and Locust. A restaurant. The Tops."
The blood drained out of Greta's face.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. The Tops. The steakhouse. The date.
"Jude," Greta whispered.
"What?" Fernando asked.
"Jude is there," Greta said, her voice rising to a shout. "He's there right now! With Natalia!"
She didn't wait for Fernando to respond. She didn't say goodbye. She dropped the phone onto the bed and scrambled for her boots.
"Greta?" Emily stood up from the laundry pile, her smile vanishing. "What's wrong? Who was that?"
"I have to go," Greta said, hopping on one foot as she yanked her left boot on. "I have to go right now."
"Is it Jude?" Emily took a step forward, looking genuinely frightened. "Is he hurt? Did something happen?"
Greta grabbed her leather jacket from the back of the chair. She looked at Emily; sweet, safe, innocent Emily who sorted laundry and watched her with soft eyes and didn't know anything about demons or angels or the fact that her roommate killed monsters with a magic axe.
She wanted to tell her. She wanted to say: There's a demon lord hunting our friend and I have to go stop it before it tears him apart in front of fifty witnesses.
But she couldn't.
"He forgot his wallet," Greta lied, the words tasting like ash. "And he's panicking. You know Jude. I have to go save his ass before the restaurant calls the cops."
"You look scared, Greta," Emily whispered. "You never look scared."
Greta paused at the door, her hand on the knob. She looked back at the girl standing amidst the laundry, illuminated by the soft lamplight.
"I'm not scared," Greta said, her voice hard. "I'm pissed."
She ripped the door open and sprinted into the hallway, leaving Emily alone in the quiet room with a philosophy book in the corner and a very bad feeling settling into her chest.
At The Tops, the atmosphere had shifted from "nervous first date" to something dangerously close to "falling in love."
The plates had been cleared, leaving only two half-empty glasses of the obscenely expensive wine and the flickering candlelight between them. The noise of the restaurant had faded into a soft roar, a background track that only served to make their private booth feel more intimate.
Jude was leaning back in his chair, feeling a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the alcohol. He was making her laugh; actually laugh, not the polite networking chuckle she deployed at parties, but a real, unguarded sound that made her nose scrunch up and her eyes squeeze shut.
"Stop," Natalia gasped, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "You did not tell the Dean that."
"I absolutely did," Jude grinned, twirling the stem of his wine glass. "I told her the fire alarm was a piece of performance art representing the urgency of the climate crisis. She was so confused she forgot to suspend me."
Natalia shook her head, looking at him with a gaze that felt like standing under a heat lamp. She reached across the table, her fingers grazing the back of his hand. This time, she didn't pull away.
"You are not who I thought you were, Jude Miller," she said softly.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No," Natalia murmured, her thumb tracing his knuckles. "It's a very good thing. I feel like I've been friends with a cardboard cutout for three years, and suddenly the real person just walked into the room."
She leaned closer, her voice dropping.
"I'm having a really great time, Jude. Like, the kind of great time that makes me want to do this again. Soon. Maybe tomorrow?"
Jude's heart slammed against his ribs like it was trying to escape. A second date. Tomorrow. This was the endgame. This was the victory lap. Every instinct in his body wanted to leap over the table and scream YES at the top of his lungs.
"I would love that," Jude said, his voice surprisingly steady despite the internal fireworks. "Tomorrow works. Tomorrow is perfect."
"But," Natalia said.
The word hung in the air, heavy and sharp as a guillotine blade. She didn't pull her hand away, but her grip tightened slightly. The playful light in her eyes dimmed, replaced by the calculating intelligence of the Crisis Management major who noticed everything.
"Before I commit to that," Natalia said slowly, "I have a question. And I need you to answer it honestly. No jokes. No deflections."
Jude's stomach dropped through the floor. "Okay. Shoot."
"Where do you go?"
She stared directly into his eyes, searching for a flinch.
"You disappear, Jude. For hours. Sometimes entire nights. You and Greta run off together, and when you come back, you look exhausted. You look hurt. You think I don't notice the limps? The bruises? The way you flinch when someone touches your ribs?"
She took a sip of wine, her eyes never leaving his face.
"And then there's Fernando."
Jude's blood went cold.
"You guys just produced him out of nowhere," Natalia continued, her voice dropping lower. "One day he didn't exist, and the next he's hanging around the dorms, sleeping on couches, looking at everyone like he's terrified we're going to arrest him. He's weird, Jude. He acts like he's on the run from a federal agency."
She paused, letting the implication hang.
"Is he a dealer? Is he your supplier? Is that why you and Greta are always sneaking off with him?"
Jude's mind raced. Fernando. The pyrokinetic physics nerd. The guy who was currently freezing to death in his dorm because of a magical demon-tracking cube. To Natalia, he probably just looked like a twitchy weirdo they'd randomly adopted.
"I need to know," Natalia said, her voice softening into something that sounded almost like a plea. "I really like you, Jude. I think I could really like us. But I can't do secrets. I can't date a guy who has a whole separate life I'm not allowed to touch."
She squeezed his hand.
"So just tell me. Transparency. Please?"
Jude looked at her. He saw the vulnerability beneath the polished exterior—the girl who'd been hurt before, who'd learned to guard herself, who was taking a risk by even asking.
She wasn't accusing him. She was giving him a chance. Opening a door. Asking him to walk through it.
Transparency.
He thought about the contract. Bob's warnings. Secret identity. Veil of secrecy. Mortal peril for anyone who knows.
Then he looked at Natalia's hand holding his. At her eyes, dark and hopeful in the candlelight.
Screw the contract, Jude thought. I can't lie to her. Not if this is real.
He took a deep breath.
"Natalia," Jude started, his voice serious. "You're right. I haven't been honest with you. There's a lot going on. And it's not drugs, it's not anything like that. It's complicated, but I want to tell you. I need to tell you."
He leaned forward across the table.
"The truth is—"
BUMP.
A waiter, moving with the frantic speed of someone managing six tables at once and losing the battle, clipped the edge of their booth as he turned. The tray in his hand wobbled violently.
A half-full carafe of house red wine tipped over the edge.
SPLASH.
Gravity did its work with malicious precision. The dark liquid cascaded down, missing Jude entirely but splashing directly onto Natalia's feet. It soaked the hem of her emerald dress and pooled inside her designer heels with a wet squelch.
"Oh!" Natalia cried out, jerking her legs back. "Oh my god!"
The romantic tension shattered like glass hitting concrete. Natalia looked down at her ruined shoes, her face twisting into genuine dismay.
"My Jimmy Choos," she groaned, grabbing a napkin and diving under the table. "They're suede! You can't get red wine out of suede! They're destroyed!"
"I am so sorry!" the waiter gasped, his back still turned to Jude as he fumbled for a towel on his belt. "So clumsy! Let me help you with that, miss!"
"It's fine," Natalia snapped, though her voice wavered with real distress. "I just need to go to the restroom. I need to dab this before it sets completely."
She stood up, shooting Jude an apologetic look that was at war with her obvious frustration.
"I'm so sorry, Jude. Hold that thought? Don't stop being honest. I just need five minutes to attempt to save these shoes."
"Go," Jude said, half-rising from his chair. "Do you need help? I can—"
"No, I got it," she said, already rushing toward the back of the restaurant, heels squelching with every step.
Jude sank back into his seat. He let out a long, shaky exhale. The moment was broken, but the resolve remained. When she came back, he would tell her everything. Demons. Angels. The whole insane truth.
He looked up at the waiter's back. The man was frantically wiping the spilled wine off the floor with a rag.
"Hey, man," Jude said, his tone annoyed but trying to be forgiving. "Accidents happen, but maybe be a little more careful? That was kind of a big moment you just—"
The waiter stood up and turned around.
"That was a tactical intervention," the waiter said.
Jude choked on his own spit.
The waiter wasn't a stranger. He was wearing a white button-down shirt, a black apron, and a nametag that read "ROBERT." He had a thick, bristle-brush mustache and eyes that looked like they had personally witnessed the birth of the universe and found the whole thing moderately disappointing.
It was Bob.