The first thing I learned about working in the Demon Crimes Division was this:
you don't point a gun at something that's crying.
That rule wasn't written anywhere in the manual. It was whispered—passed around in break rooms between cups of bitter coffee and sleepless nights. I didn't believe it until I saw a twelve-year-old demon sobbing in the corner of a blood-soaked apartment, surrounded by three dead humans and a cat that wouldn't stop meowing.
That was my first week.
Now, six months later, the crying doesn't bother me anymore. Or maybe it does, but I've gotten better at pretending.
The department's nameplate read:
"Metropolitan Police Bureau — Division of Demon-Psychological Crimes."
We call it "Depsy." Sounds cute, right? Like a mascot. Like something that hands out pamphlets at schools about demon awareness.
In reality, it's five detectives, one malfunctioning coffee machine, and a whole city pretending we're doing something about the impossible.
I joined Depsy after washing out of Homicide—not because I was bad, but because I asked too many questions. That's apparently a crime here. My transfer notice came with a sticky note: "You like understanding monsters? Try these ones."
So here I am, Detective Ren Ishikawa, twenty-nine, human (mostly), and currently staring at a wall covered in crime scene photos that don't make sense.
The latest case: three victims, no visible wounds, no signs of struggle. Just… empty faces. Like their souls had been scooped out and replaced with silence.
Demon activity? Probably. But the real question—the one that keeps me up at night—is why.
That's where the "psychology" part comes in.
"Morning, Detective Ishikawa."
The voice came from behind me—soft, melodic, and just a little too smooth to belong to a human throat.
I turned to see my partner, Aria Vale, already perched on the edge of her desk, legs crossed, holding a paper cup of black coffee like she was posing for a noir movie poster.
Aria wasn't just a demon; she was a succubus. Technically. She hated the word. Said it made her sound like she spent her days lounging on velvet sofas, whispering in men's ears.
In reality, she wore oversized sweaters, chain-smoked imported cigarettes, and spent most of her time psychoanalyzing suspects until they broke down crying.
"Morning," I said. "You look terrible."
"Thanks. I was up all night reading the incident logs."
"You do that for fun?"
"I do it because someone around here has to." She took a slow sip, her crimson eyes flicking toward the crime board. "They're calling this one the Hollow Smile Case, right?"
"Yeah. Media's already having a field day."
Aria smirked. "Humans love their poetic tragedies."
"So do demons," I shot back.
She tilted her head, half-amused. "Touché."
The bodies had been found in Shinjuku, in a run-down apartment complex half a block away from a demon-run therapy clinic. That alone made the higher-ups twitchy. The new interspecies peace act had been in effect for only five years—long enough for the public to forget the war, but not long enough for the scars to fade.
"Three humans dead near a demon facility," Aria said, tapping her nails against the desk. "That's not a coincidence. But it's too clean for a hate crime."
"Maybe not hate. Maybe ritual."
She raised an eyebrow. "You think a cult did this?"
"Could be. Or maybe one of your kind finally lost it."
Aria didn't flinch. She never did. Instead, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a small vial of black sand, and rolled it between her fingers.
"I used to think demons didn't 'lose it,'" she said quietly. "We were designed too well for that. But the longer I stay around humans, the more I realize madness is contagious."
I looked at her. "That supposed to be a compliment?"
"Take it however you like."
We arrived at the scene around noon. The sun was high, but the air felt cold, heavy with that electric hum that always followed demon interference.
The apartment was ordinary in the way haunted places are ordinary—too normal, like the world was trying too hard to convince itself nothing had happened here.
The bodies were gone, but the feeling lingered. The smell of burnt incense. A faint smear of something dark near the wall.
I crouched down beside the stain. "Blood?"
Aria shook her head. "No. It's ink."
"Ink?"
She touched it lightly, then brought her finger to her lips. "Infernal binding ink. Used for contracts, rituals… and sometimes therapy."
"Therapy?"
"There's a treatment some demons use to help humans process trauma," she explained. "They draw symbols—let the subject externalize their pain. But if you do it wrong…"
Her voice trailed off.
"What happens?" I asked.
"They drown in it."
We spent the next hour combing through the apartment. Aria's instincts were sharp—too sharp sometimes. She could feel emotions the way I felt air pressure.
At one point, she stopped suddenly, eyes narrowing. "There was a fourth person here."
"Witness?"
"No. A demon. Low resonance, but… familiar."
"Familiar how?"
She didn't answer. Just stared at the wall, where faint sigils had been drawn in circles—spirals that seemed to move if you looked too long.
Her hands trembled slightly. I'd never seen that before.
"Aria?"
She exhaled, voice low. "It's my handwriting."
That night, I couldn't sleep. I sat in my apartment with the case files spread across the floor, the city humming outside my window.
Aria had been silent the entire drive back. Didn't even look at me when she left. Just said, "Don't call me until morning."
But I couldn't stop thinking about those spirals, about the way her eyes flickered when she recognized them.
Demons weren't supposed to remember their lives before the treaty. Too much chaos. Too much blood. The process of "binding" their souls to the peace accord erased most of it.
If she remembered something… something from before…
I closed the file and leaned back against the wall. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed.
They say every demon has two hearts—one that beats, and one that listens.
I don't know which one of Aria's is louder.
At 2:37 a.m., my phone buzzed.
Unknown number. No message. Just an audio file.
I pressed play.
A woman's voice—soft, trembling—whispered through static:
> "Detective Ishikawa… she's not what she thinks she is. And neither are you."
Then silence.
I stared at the screen until it dimmed, then glanced toward the window.
In the reflection, for just a second, my eyes glowed red.