"Is that the best you can do?"
Strangely, she had a soft voice, something that didn't match her imposing appearance.
"D-D-D-De-Demon!" Damon managed to stutter, but the fear was so real that the words stuck in his throat.
He stumbled backward, cold sweat running down his body, until his back hit the wall. He tried speaking again, but not a single sound came out.
"Yes… what are you planning to say? That I'm a demon?" she continued in a mocking tone. "Are you going to tell me something I already know?"
Damon was about to surrender to panic when suddenly, a sharp pain pierced through his right eye.
ZAP!
In front of him, an electric-blue status window opened:
[NAME: AIWASS]
[RANK: UNKNOWN]
[AGE: UNKNOWN]
'Rank unknown?!'
'Even S-Rank Hunters have measurable stats.'
He was facing an entity the system couldn't even classify.
GULP.
Damon tightened his grip on the kitchen knife.
"Why are you in Zero's apartment?" Damon asked, trying to sound like he had any control at all, even though his knees were shaking.
The demon girl let out a soft giggle while holding the towel wrapped around her body.
"That should be my question," she answered with a calmness that was terrifying. "Why are you in Zero's home, stranger? And tell me, how did you manage to open the door?"
Damon swallowed hard. He knew he couldn't keep lying to her.
Aiwass, with that "Unknown Rank," could probably see through his lies as if they were made of glass.
"Well… now I know you know I'm not Zero, Aiwass," Damon said, trying to sound firm. "So tell me, what's your relationship with him?"
Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted.
The demoness stopped smiling. Her eyes locked onto Damon like twin daggers.
"Hey, hold on a second…" she said, slowly approaching him. "How do you know my name?"
Shit. SHIT.
Damon's brain froze. He had read her name on the status window and blurted it out without thinking.
How stupid could he be?
"Uh… I…"
Aiwass was already on top of him, cornering him with her imposing height.
"Tell me why you know my name right now or…"
Her fingers closed around Damon's neck.
When suddenly… BOOOOOOM!
A brutal explosion shook the entire penthouse. The reinforced door, supposedly impenetrable, blew apart.
Damon and Aiwass froze at the impact. Smoke flooded in from the hallway.
"Come out, sewer rat!" shouted Viper, leader of the loan sharks. "We know you're not Zero! Stop hiding!"
Damon felt his heart leap out of his chest.
Viper had kept his promise.
They were there to collect the 50 million or to collect his head.
He was trapped between a demoness who wanted to kill him for knowing her name and thugs who wanted to kill him for money.
But then Damon's brain clicked.
He stared at Aiwass, ignoring her hand still gripping his neck.
"If you kill me… I'll never tell you the truth," Damon forced out. "You'll never know how I know your name or why I could open the door. The secret dies with me."
"You need to help me!" he exclaimed, pointing at the destroyed doorway where Viper was about to enter. "Take them out and I'll tell you everything!"
Before Aiwass could respond to his desperate deal, time ran out.
CRASH!
The thugs stormed into the room like hungry wolves.
Viper strutted forward with an arrogant smile, looking at Damon standing alone in the middle of the room.
"Look at him," Viper said with contempt, spitting on the floor. "So pathetic. Did you really think this worm was the great Zero?"
Damon knew he had zero chance against armed hunters.
His only hope was the demon.
He quickly turned around, looking for his supposed six-foot-two tank.
She wasn't there.
Aiwass had vanished. Where she'd been standing a second earlier, only the white towel remained on the floor.
'She left? She abandoned me?'
'Did she use stealth? Teleport?'
He was going to die alone and pathetically in a penthouse that wasn't even his.
But then, something moved beneath the towel.
A small black head with pointy ears peeked out.
"Meow!"
Damon's mind went blank.
'What the hell? Where's Aiwass? And why is there a cat here?'
It made no sense. Had the demoness left and some stray cat wandered in through the broken window?
Viper and his men advanced, ignoring the animal entirely.
But in that instant, the black cat locked its golden eyes on Damon's, and Aiwass's voice thundered inside his mind with a final verdict:
'I'll handle the rest. But you owe me your soul.'
Pure survival instinct made Damon raise a trembling hand to shield his face.
But the incoming blow never arrived.
From the shadows behind him, Aiwass in her feline form launched an attack.
BOOM!
To everyone watching, it looked as if Damon's simple hand gesture had triggered the strike.
CRASH!
The force was so overwhelming that the loan sharks were sent flying, bursting through the penthouse's reinforced wall.
Viper staggered up from the rubble, bleeding, face twisted in terror.
"It was a trap!" Viper screamed, coughing blood. "He pretended to be weak! It seems it's true… HE'S THE REAL ZERO!"
"Run! Before he one-shots us!" Viper howled as he fled through the hole in the wall, followed by his limping, terrified subordinates.
Damon collapsed to his knees, pale as a corpse.
He felt his soul slipping out of his body.
'What… what just happened?'
Suddenly, Aiwass shifted back to her semi-human form, now fully naked, taking a bite out of an apple from the kitchen fruit bowl.
Damon felt heat rush to his face and whipped around toward the wall, staring at an abstract painting as if it were the most fascinating thing in the universe.
His instincts screamed that if he stared too long at the predator behind him, she might rip his eyes out.
"Crunch," she munched, completely ignoring his embarrassment. "That was fun. I've never seen humans run that fast."
She swallowed the bite and looked at Damon.
"But anyway, fun's over," Aiwass said as she approached him. "Now, let's talk about the contract. You owe me your soul, remember?"
[BINDING SOUL CONTRACT]
[Creditor: Aiwass]
[Debt: 1 Human Soul]
[Time Limit: Indefinite]
[Penalty for Breach: Annihilation]