Cain walked to his car with a lightness in his step. He slid into the driver's seat, started the engine, and pulled into the evening traffic, a genuine smile on his face. The meeting had gone better than he'd dared hope. He was going to get his job back.
But how had he lost it in the first place? The memory was a sour blur. It hadn't been Gabriel's decision. The HR committee, tired of his persistent lateness and the smell of liquor that sometimes clung to him, had made the call without her. They fired him first and informed her after. Gabriel had been furious, not at him, but at them. That same night, in a storm of shared frustration and old grief over Amelia, they had ended up at her penthouse, drinking expensive whiskey straight from the bottle. One thing led to another. The guilt had been immediate and crushing for them both. He'd slipped out the next afternoon while she was still asleep, the taste of shame bitter in his mouth. And that very same night, he had found Lucifer standing naked in the road. The timing felt less like coincidence and more like the universe closing a strange, messy circle.
Shaking off the thought, he focused on the road. It was fully dark now. He spotted a familiar, well-lit restaurant ahead and pulled over. He was hungry, and he should bring something back for Lucifer, even if she claimed not to need food. The experience of sharing a meal mattered.
As he joined the short queue inside, he glanced absently through the large glass window that made up the front wall. His gaze passed over the usual evening foot traffic and then snagged. An old homeless woman was standing directly outside, her face pressed almost against the glass. Her eyes were not just dark, but completely devoid of white or iris, pools of solid black. And she was grinning at him, a wide, stretched smile that showed too many teeth. Slowly, deliberately, she raised a gnarled hand and waved.
A chill skittered down Cain's spine, but he pushed it down. She was just a poor, mentally unwell old woman. He forced a polite smile and gave a small, awkward wave back before turning to face the counter.
Is one order enough for both of us? he wondered, and decided to get two identical takeout meals.
A few minutes later, holding the warm paper bag, he pushed through the restaurant door back into the night air. He immediately looked for the old woman, intending to give her the extra meal. He saw her shambling figure already halfway down the block. He quickened his pace to catch up.
"Excuse me, ma'am!" he called out, finally reaching her. He gently touched her bony arm.
She stopped and turned. The same blank, black eyes fixed on him. The same unsettling grin was plastered on her face.
Cain kept his smile friendly. "Ma'am, I bought some extra food. I thought you might like—"
The old woman's mouth opened. The voice that came out was not an old woman's voice. It was a low, wet gurgle, the sound of stones grinding deep underwater, the words barely recognizable as language.
"Come… children."
Cain blinked, the bizarre voice failing to fully register through his charitable intent. He nodded, assuming she was inviting him to where her family was sheltered. "Okay, lead the way."
She turned and shuffled into the mouth of a narrow, unlit alley between two buildings. Cain followed without a second thought, his only concern the weight of the food in his hands and the desire to help.
The alley was a canyon of darkness, the distant streetlights unable to penetrate the deep gloom. The air grew cold and damp, smelling of stale water and rotting garbage.
Why would they set up shelter way back here? he thought, squinting. I can barely see a thing.
The old woman stopped abruptly and pointed a crooked finger toward a makeshift structure nestled against the alley's dead-end wall. It was a pathetic shelter cobbled together from splintered wood, moldy cardboard, and filthy rags.
Cain assumed she wanted him to deliver the food himself. He stepped forward, peering into the dark opening of the little hut.
His breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened in pure, undiluted horror.
It was not a shelter. It was a nest. And it was filled with small, picked-clean bones. Tiny rib cages, miniature skulls. Insects, fat and glistening, crawled over the white remains. A swarm of flies buzzed lazily in the still air.
He froze, the paper bag almost slipping from his numb fingers.
From directly behind him came a sound. It was the wet, fibrous tearing of flesh, the popping of tendons, the crack of bone being rearranged.
Every survival instinct in Cain's body screamed at once. He didn't look back. He blasted forward, not toward the alley's entrance where the thing undoubtedly was, but sprinting headlong into the deeper darkness behind the nest, toward the dead end he knew was there. Panic was a fire in his veins.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!
What the hell was that sound?!
He ran blindly, his dress shoes slipping on wet pavement, the takeout bag still clutched absurdly in his hand. He just had to get away. If he could put distance between himself and that… that thing in the old woman's skin, he could find another way out.
Back at the nest, the transformation was complete. The old woman's body had contorted violently, her neck elongating, her torso splitting open like a rotten fruit. From the cavern of her chest, a grotesque, giant maw emerged, lined with rows of sharp, bony teeth that had sprouted from her very ribs. A long, prehensile tongue, slick with saliva, lashed the air. The being known as a Malignant had shed its skin suit. It tilted the old woman's grinning head, the black eyes now serving as sensory pits, and inhaled deeply. It caught the scent of Cain's terror, sweet and pungent on the air.
With a rasping roar that echoed off the brick walls, it dropped to all fours, using the old woman's limbs like insectile legs, and scuttled up the alley wall. It moved with horrific speed, crawling along the brickwork just below the roofline, following the scent trail.
Cain skidded to a halt, his chest heaving. He had reached the true end of the alley. A high, insurmountable brick wall rose before him, topped with rusted barbed wire. To his left and right were sheer, windowless sides of buildings. He was trapped.
No! A dead end!
"HELP!" he screamed, the sound raw and desperate. "SOMEONE HELP ME!" His voice bounced off the walls and died in the thick, suffocating darkness. No one was coming.
What is that thing? What the fuck is it?
A new sound reached him. Not the scuttling from above, but a slow, deliberate splat… splat… splat… on the wet ground behind him. Something thick and wet was dripping.
He turned, his body moving as if through syrup.
The Malignant had dropped from the wall. It stood in the center of the alley, blocking his only escape route. The old woman's face was now just a mask perched above a vertical, tooth-lined chasm that split its torso. Acidic saliva drooled from the jagged teeth, sizzling where it hit the pavement. It took a slow, shuddering step forward, drawn by the palpable heat of his fear.
Cain's mind went blank with primal terror. His legs refused to move. The warm takeout bag was still in his hand, a grotesque parody of a normal life.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die.
The cruel irony was not lost on him. After a day where everything finally seemed to turn around, this. To be eaten in a filthy alley by a nightmare.
The Malignant's limbs tensed. It coiled itself, a grotesque spring of bone and dripping flesh.
Then it leaped.
Cain squeezed his eyes shut and screamed, the sound ripped from the very core of his being.
"LUCIFER!"