The first thing Jack felt was wrongness.
Not danger—not yet.
Wrongness was quieter. Subtle. The kind of feeling that crept in before instincts screamed. The air around the abandoned underground station tasted… flat. Not dead. Suppressed.
Jack slowed his pace.
The platform was empty, lit by flickering fluorescent strips that hummed unevenly. Old posters peeled from tiled walls. Water dripped somewhere in the dark. His footsteps echoed too cleanly.
No whispers.
No crawling pressure in his skull.
No tug at his infernal core.
"No possession," Jack muttered.
That didn't mean safe.
He crouched, fingers brushing the concrete. His eyes flared red—not blazing, just enough to see. The storm within him stirred, restless.
Then it happened.
The air collapsed.
Jack's chest seized as if an invisible fist had wrapped around his heart. His knees buckled. He gasped—and nothing answered.
No fire.
No shadow.
No lightning.
Just pain.
"Now," a voice echoed across the platform.
Lights snapped on.
Floodlights. Harsh. Blinding.
Jack barely had time to raise his arms before the first impact hit him.
Not bullets.
Something heavier.
Kinetic rounds slammed into his torso, each one detonating with a concussive pulse that shattered bone and hurled him backward. He crashed through a pillar, skidding across the platform in a spray of dust and blood.
He tried to rise.
Failed.
His infernal core thrashed—but it was muffled, wrapped in something cold and tight.
Suppressor field.
Stronger than before.
Footsteps approached. Measured. Confident.
Jack spat blood and forced himself onto one knee.
Commander Elias Crowe stepped into view.
No helmet. No armor. Just a dark coat, gloves, and eyes that had already decided how this would end.
"You learn fast," Crowe said calmly. "I respect that."
Jack coughed, laughing weakly. "You brought… friends."
"All human," Crowe replied.
Figures emerged from the shadows—eight of them—each armed with unfamiliar weapons etched with pale blue lines. Technology, not magic. Precision, not faith.
Crowe gestured slightly.
"Open fire."
Jack moved on instinct.
Too slow.
The second volley hit harder. One round shattered his left shoulder. Another tore through his thigh, pinning him to the ground. The pain was white-hot, blinding.
Still no fire.
Jack roared, forcing himself up—
And the floor electrified.
A lattice of energy surged through the platform, slamming him back down as every nerve in his body screamed.
He convulsed, teeth grinding, vision flickering.
Crowe crouched beside him, close enough now that Jack could smell gun oil and rain on wool.
"You feel that?" Crowe asked quietly. "That's not hell tech."
Jack glared up at him, eyes burning even without flame.
"What… is it…?"
Crowe leaned closer.
"It's human ingenuity," he said. "Turns out, if you study the devil long enough… you can build a cage."
Jack laughed through the pain. "You think… this ends me?"
"No," Crowe said honestly. "This teaches you."
He stood.
"Extract."
Hands grabbed Jack. Shackles snapped closed around his limbs—different from Mercer's. Heavier. Anchored into the floor itself.
Jack's breathing was ragged now. Blood pooled beneath him.
Crowe watched without satisfaction.
"My wife begged," he said suddenly. "When it happened. When the thing inside her realized it was losing."
Jack's laughter died.
Crowe's voice stayed even. Controlled.
"She begged me to kill her. I hesitated. Thought maybe… there was another way."
He looked down at Jack.
"There wasn't."
Jack swallowed.
Crowe turned away.
"Run diagnostics. Then we move him."
The station trembled.
A low vibration rolled through the air—deep, resonant.
Jack felt it before he heard it.
Hell.
His infernal core surged violently, reacting not to suppression—but to threat.
The lights flickered.
Crowe stiffened. "What is that?"
Jack smiled, bloodied and feral.
"You shouldn't have brought me somewhere so… thin."
The floor cracked.
A fissure split the platform, bleeding red light. Heat flooded the station as something answered Jack's presence—not summoned, not commanded.
Called.
Crowe backed up. "All units—fall back!"
Too late.
The fissure tore open fully, and something crawled out.
Not a demon.
Not exactly.
A malformed thing of shadow and molten bone, stitched together by symbols Jack recognized with horror.
A collector.
The Infernal Broker's hound.
It looked at Jack.
Then at Crowe.
And smiled.
Jack's heart pounded.
"I didn't—" he started.
The Collector moved.
It tore through Crowe's men like paper. Weapons bounced uselessly off its hide. One scream. Then silence. Blood painted the walls.
Crowe fired—rounds exploding uselessly against it.
Jack strained against his bonds, panic rising.
"Crowe!" he shouted. "It's not here for you!"
Crowe snapped a glance at him. "Then what the hell is it here for?"
The Collector lunged—
And stopped.
Its gaze locked on Jack.
Payment overdue, it whispered inside his skull.
The suppression field shattered.
Hellfire erupted.
Jack screamed—not in rage, but in refusal—as the storm inside him exploded outward, lightning and flame tearing into the Collector with brutal force.
The creature shrieked, retreating into the fissure as it sealed violently shut.
Silence fell.
Smoke hung thick in the air.
Jack collapsed, power draining fast. His wounds burned, refusing to heal fully.
Crowe stood amid the carnage, breathing hard, weapon lowered.
They stared at each other.
Finally, Crowe spoke.
"That thing wasn't yours," he said.
Jack shook his head weakly. "No."
"…But it came because of you."
Jack didn't deny it.
Crowe holstered his weapon.
"Then we're both learning," he said quietly.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Crowe turned and disappeared into the smoke, leaving Jack broken, bleeding, and shaken in a way no demon had managed before.
Jack lay there, staring at the ceiling.
For the first time since his rebirth…
He wondered if earning his life back might cost everyone else theirs.