What the Devil Was Owed

Taemon Pallid had been an abusive father, and Caemon had escaped him as soon as he was old enough. That left Daemon alone in the house with their parents. Daemon remembered his mother crying. And baking where she was sad. During one of Taemon Pallid’s alcoholic rages He attacked his young son. Daemon blacked out. Daemon was young about 8 or 9. When he woke there was a strange voice in his head. It always whispered, what mood his father was in, When to run. When to hide. When his mother needed him to stay out the kitchen or the house.

Then, when Daemon was ten, his parents were murdered. That same voice told him to hide. To climb out of his bedroom window. 

And Caemon came back.

His older brother fed him, clothed him, and kept a roof over his head—but Caemon never let him forget the cost. He had been young himself, forced to trade whatever life he might have wanted for the burden of raising a hollow-eyed little boy who rarely spoke, never cried, and smiled at nothing.

For six years, resentment lived between them like a third brother.

Then three men tried to kill Caemon.

Daemon was sixteen.

He did not remember deciding to intervene. One moment, Caemon was on the ground with blood pouring from his mouth. The next, Daemon had his hands around the first man’s throat.

He killed all three.

No gun. No knife.

By the time Caemon managed to stand, there was very little left in that alley that still resembled men. Daemon stood among the bodies, six feet two inches tall and already carrying one hundred ninety-five pounds of hard muscle beneath his black clothes. Blood coated his hands to the wrists.

His expression was empty. He had nearly torn three men apart with his bare hands, yet his breathing remained calm.

That was when Caemon finally noticed him.

Not as a burden.

Not as the silent little brother who occupied the spare room and ate whatever was placed in front of him.

Caemon saw a weapon. Caemon did not create what lived inside his brother.

He was simply the first person to reward it. And for the first time in six years, he praised him.

Daemon discovered that praise felt dangerously close to love.

Caemon bought him a motorcycle soon after. Black, loud, and powerful enough to make the streets of Neo Vegas tremble beneath its tires. Daemon had never owned anything that was truly his. He spent hours taking the bike apart and putting it back together, learning every bolt and wire until he understood the machine better than he understood most people.

After that, Caemon began taking him on jobs.

At first, Daemon stood beside him and watched.

Then he intimidated men who needed frightening.

Then he hurt men who needed convincing.

Eventually, he killed those who needed to disappear.

Daemon never questioned the orders. Caemon promised approval, and Daemon delivered bodies. He could silence a room with one look. Men twice his age lowered their eyes when he entered. Women moved out of his path. Those foolish enough to challenge him rarely received a second opportunity.

The Silent Order took notice.

Though Caemon worked closely with the organization, Daemon served as a freelance executioner—unbound by rank, loyalty, or conscience. He belonged only to Caemon, and Caemon was always willing to promise his brother’s services.

One mission earned Daemon the name that would follow him for the rest of his life.

His orders were simple.

Send a message.

Make it memorable.

Daemon obeyed.

He massacred an entire adult family and every member of their household staff. The crime scene was so brutal that even seasoned detectives refused to discuss what they had witnessed inside that house. Neo Vegas whispered about the killings for six months. Parents hurried their children indoors before dark. Criminals who had once mocked the Silent Order began paying their debts early.

No one knew the executioner’s name.

They only knew the Devil had come.

For years, the Silent Order grew larger and deadlier on the strength of his reputation.

Caemon would make the promise.

The Devil will handle it.

And the job would be done.

Daemon did not care who died. He did not ask why. Right and wrong were words for people whose lives contained choices. His life contained orders, violence, and the brief warmth of Caemon’s approval afterward.

Then he met Leto.

Leto became his first real friend.

He did not merely point Daemon toward a target. He spoke to him. He brought him books, taught him history, and showed him maps of cities Daemon had never seen. He introduced him to art, music, expensive food, and ideas that had nothing to do with death.

For the first time, Daemon began to understand that a world existed beyond Neo Vegas.

Beyond Caemon.

Beyond the Silent Order.

Leto spoke of freedom as if it were something men could take with their own hands. For a while, Daemon believed he understood him. Perhaps that was why Daemon followed him to Ravenside.

Leto wanted to own the city.

Daemon had never wanted anything.

Then he met Sherri.

For a time, he believed she loved him. More dangerously, he believed she saw him—the man beneath the black clothes, the empty stare, and the name whispered by frightened men.

Their relationship burned hot and vicious. Whenever things went wrong between them, someone else bled. Daemon mistook jealousy for devotion, possession for love, and violence for passion because he had never been taught the difference.

Then came Iris and Malone.

They changed everything.

Malone met Daemon’s deadly stare without flinching.

Iris laughed at it.

“Get yourself a new look,” she told him, bending over his motorcycle with a wrench in one hand, “before I fix your face along with this engine.”

Daemon had not known how to answer her.

Neither of them treated him like a weapon. They did not fear him, flatter him, or ask what he could do for them. Malone invited him to sit. Iris handed him tools and expected him to help. They argued in front of him, laughed around him, and made room for him without demanding blood in return.

Then Daemon saved Iris’ life. 

That night, before every biker inside Helix, Iris wrapped her arms around him and declared that he was her little brother.

Daemon stood frozen in her embrace.

Across the room, Malone cried.

The hardened biker tried to hide it, turning his face and wiping roughly at his eyes, but Daemon saw. He saw the terror of nearly losing Iris. He saw the love Malone could not conceal.

Daemon wanted that.

For the first time in his life, he wanted something that could not be bought, ordered, or taken through violence.

He wanted what Malone had with Iris.

And he believed he might have found it with Sherri.

Then she left him for another man.

Soon afterward, Daemon was betrayed, tortured, and abandoned to die. His body was broken so badly that survival should have been impossible. The men responsible left him in the dark, certain even the Devil could not return from what they had done.

Malone and Iris found him.

They took him home.

They washed the blood from his body, bound what wounds they could, and remained beside him through the fevers. When violent nightmares dragged him awake, Iris was there. She sang soft lullabies in the darkness, songs meant for frightened children, while bathing his burning forehead with a cool cloth.

Daemon had never been sung to before.

When Iris grew tired, Malone took her place.

He sat beside the bed and talked to Daemon.

Not at him.

Not through him.

He never issued an order. Never told Daemon what he owed or what he had to become once he could stand again. Malone explained what was happening, asked what Daemon needed, and waited for an answer.

He always gave Daemon a choice.

It was such a small thing.

It changed him more completely than any act of violence ever had.

Caemon had raised him.

The Silent Order had sharpened him.

Leto had opened his eyes.

Sherri had taught him how easily love could be imitated.

But Iris and Malone taught Daemon that he was still a man—and that even the Devil could choose what he became next.

The sedan sat across the street from Helix with its engine idling and its headlights off.

For hours, the driver watched people come and go.

Bikers. Drifters. Wolfwater regulars. Men and women who entered laughing too loudly and stumbled out with arms draped around one another. He photographed faces, license plates, motorcycles—anything that might matter to the men paying him.

Then the growl of a familiar engine rolled down the street.

The driver straightened.

A black motorcycle came around the corner and slowed before Helix. Its rider wore black from throat to boots, his long blond hair streaming behind him. He brought the bike to a stop beneath the light over the entrance and planted one boot against the pavement.

The driver lifted his camera.

Click.

Daemon removed his helmet.

Click.

The scar on his face was visible when he turned toward the street.

Click.

The driver stared through the lens, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing.

The Devil was alive.

Not merely alive.

Whole.

Older, perhaps. Harder around the eyes. But unmistakable.

The photograph would be worth a great deal of money. Proof that the dead had refused to remain buried.

Daemon went still beside his motorcycle.

Slowly, his head turned.

His gray eyes settled on the sedan across the street.

The camera slipped from the driver’s hands.

For one terrible moment, neither man moved.

Daemon could not possibly see him through the dark windshield. The distance was too great. The street was poorly lit.

Yet the driver felt those eyes find him.

Not the car.

Him.

His hands shook as he twisted the key. The engine coughed before roaring to life. He pulled away from the curb so violently that another vehicle blared its horn as he cut across two lanes.

He did not look into the rearview mirror.

He had seen what happened to men who lingered after the Devil noticed them.