Chapter 22 The Investigation Deepens
Thaddeus's POV
Two thousand Hollow Ones attack at once.
I move on pure instinct, blade flashing. Cut through the first wave. Then the second. But they keep coming.
"There's too many!" Isolde screams beside me, fighting with her bare hands. Her corrupted strength lets her tear through Hollow Ones, but for every one we kill, three more take its place.
Cressida stands frozen in the center of the chaos. Staring at Sable. At the devil wearing her father's face.
"CHOOSE!" Sable screams again. "SURRENDER YOURSELF AND SAVE ONE! OR FIGHT AND WATCH THEM ALL DIE!"
"Cressida, snap out of it!" I grab her shoulder. "We need you!"
She blinks. Looks at me. Her eyes are flickering between brown and black so fast I can't track them.
"I can't choose," she whispers. "How can I choose?"
"Then don't!" I shove her toward the door. "We fight our way out! All of us together!"
But even as I say it, I know it's hopeless. The apartment is packed wall-to-wall with Hollow Ones. The windows are blocked. The only exit is through a sea of monsters.
Lumiel burns in my chest. "LET ME TAKE FULL CONTROL. I CAN KILL THEM ALL."
"And what? Burn out my body in the process? No thanks."
"THEN WE ALL DIE HERE."
Maybe. But I'd rather die fighting than surrender to a celestial entity's bloodlust.
A Hollow One nearly takes my head off. I dodge, slice upward. Black blood sprays.
Beside me, Isolde is losing control. Her eyes have gone completely black. She's fighting on our side for now, but I can see her transformation completing. Any minute, she'll turn on us.
And Cressida... Cressida is collapsing. The hybrid energy burning her out faster. Her skin is turning translucent. I can see black and silver veins pulsing underneath like a map of her dying body.
We're not going to make it.
"LAST CHANCE!" Sable's voice cuts through the chaos. "CHOOSE NOW OR I CHOOSE FOR YOU!"
The devil snaps his fingers.
All the Hollow Ones stop attacking. Stand perfectly still.
Then they turn toward Isolde.
"No," Cressida breathes. "No, don't—"
"You took too long to decide," Sable smiles. "So I'm making it easy. Give yourself to me, or I command them to tear your friend apart. Slowly. Painfully. While you watch."
The Hollow Ones close in around Isolde. She backs against the wall, terrified.
"Cress?" Her voice is small. Scared. "What do I do?"
Cressida looks at me. At Isolde. At the devil.
I can see the exact moment she makes her decision.
"Stop," she says quietly. "I'll do it. I'll surrender. Just let her go."
"NO!" I grab her arm. "Don't listen to him! We can fight—"
"We can't." She pulls free gently. "You know we can't. Look around, Thaddeus. We're surrounded. Outnumbered. Dying." She touches my face. "But maybe I can save one person before I go. That's worth something."
"It's worth nothing if you die!"
"I'm already dying." She smiles sadly. "At least this way, Isolde lives. You live. That matters."
She walks toward Sable. Every step looks like it costs her everything.
"Smart girl," the devil purrs. "Always knew you'd see reason eventually."
"Let Isolde go first," Cressida demands. "Cure her corruption. Prove you're not lying."
"As you wish."
Sable waves a hand. Black energy flows from Isolde's body like smoke being pulled away. The veins on her skin fade. Her eyes turn brown again. Her fingers return to normal.
She gasps, stumbling. Human again.
"There," Sable says. "One saved. As promised. Now come, daughter. Let me consume that beautiful hybrid energy. Let me become something greater than devil or celestial. Let me become god."
Cressida takes another step forward.
I try to move. Try to stop her. But Lumiel freezes my body.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I scream inside my head.
"Stopping you from interfering," the entity responds coldly. "She made her choice. A sacrifice play. Noble. Stupid. But it might actually work."
"Work how?"
"Watch."
Cressida stands before Sable now. Face to face with the devil wearing her father's face.
"I have one condition," she says.
"You're in no position to negotiate."
"I am. Because you need me willing. Isn't that how consumption works? The victim has to surrender freely or the energy corrupts." She meets the devil's eyes. "So here's my condition. Answer one question honestly. Then I'll give myself to you completely."
Sable considers. Then nods. "One question. One honest answer. Then you're mine."
"Why me?" Cressida's voice breaks. "Out of everyone in this city, everyone in the world who was suffering and desperate, why did you choose me?"
The devil smiles. Not cruel this time. Almost... sad?
"Because you reminded me of someone I used to know," Sable says quietly. "Before I became this. Before I was devil. When I was still human."
The room goes silent.
"What?" Cressida whispers.
"Devils aren't born, child. We're made. Created from humans who broke under suffering so complete, so absolute, that our souls shattered and reformed as something else." The devil's face flickers—showing something underneath. Something almost human. "I was like you once. Desperate to help. Desperate to fix a broken world. I made a deal with something older than devils. And it twisted me into this."
"That's impossible. Devils are—"
"Were human. Every single one." Sable's eyes aren't red anymore. They're brown. Familiar. "I chose you because when I sensed your suffering, your rage, your desperate need to matter... I saw myself. And I wanted to save you from becoming what I became."
"Save me? You're destroying me!"
"No. I'm giving you a choice I never had." The devil—the thing that used to be human—steps closer. "Surrender to me and I'll consume your hybrid energy. Use it to break free of what I've become. Use it to finally die." Sable's voice drops to a whisper. "Please, Cressida. Kill me. Set me free. End this cycle."
My blood freezes.
The devil doesn't want to consume her to become stronger.
It wants to consume her to finally die.
"This is the real contract," Lumiel whispers in my head. "The hidden clause. Cressida's hybrid energy is the one thing that can destroy a devil permanently. Not banish. Destroy. End their existence completely."
"And if she does it?"
"Then Sable dies. The contract breaks. Everyone infected gets cured." Lumiel pauses. "But Cressida dies too. The consumption will burn her out completely."
So that's the real choice. Let the devil live and damn thousands. Or kill the devil and die in the process.
Sacrifice. True sacrifice.
Exactly what contract-breaking requires.
Cressida seems to understand too. She looks at Isolde—human again, saved. At me—frozen but alive. At the thousands of Hollow Ones waiting for orders.
"If I do this," she asks Sable, "everyone gets cured? Everyone goes back to normal?"
"Everyone. I swear on what's left of my humanity."
"And you'll finally be free? Finally at peace?"
"Yes."
Cressida closes her eyes. Tears stream down her translucent face.
"Okay," she whispers. "Let's end this."
She takes Sable's hand.
The moment they touch, light explodes. Black and silver energy swirling together, consuming both of them.
Cressida screams. The sound tears through my soul.
"NO!" Isolde lunges forward but I grab her. Hold her back even though every instinct screams to save Cressida.
"Let her go!" Isolde sobs. "We have to help her!"
"We can't. This is her choice. Her sacrifice."
The light gets brighter. Brighter. Until I can't see anything.
When it finally fades, both Cressida and Sable are gone.
Just... gone.
The apartment is empty except for me, Isolde, and two thousand confused humans who don't remember being Hollow Ones.
The black veins on their skin are fading. Eyes returning to normal. The infection is breaking.
Cressida did it. She broke the contract. Saved everyone.
By killing herself and the devil together.
"No," Isolde whispers. "No, no, no. She can't be gone. She can't."
I sink to my knees. Seventeen years of hunting. Forty-seven kills. And the one I actually wanted to save...
"I'm sorry," I say to the empty air. "I'm so sorry, Cressida."
Lumiel is silent in my chest. Even the celestial entity seems shocked.
My phone buzzes. Unknown number. A video message.
I play it with shaking hands.
The screen shows a figure made of light and shadow. Half human, half something else. Cressida.
She's smiling.
"If you're watching this," her voice comes through, distorted but recognizable, "then it worked. The devil is dead. The contract is broken. Everyone should be cured." She pauses. "I'm not dead, Thaddeus. Not exactly. I'm... somewhere else. Somewhere between devil and celestial. Between life and death. And I need your help."
My heart stops.
"There are others like Sable. Other devils who used to be human and want to die but can't." She looks directly at the camera. "I can find them. Free them. But I can't do it alone. I need a hunter who understands. Who won't just kill but will listen first."
She holds out her hand toward the screen.
"Will you help me? Will you hunt devils not to destroy them but to save them?"
The video ends.
I stare at the phone.
Cressida is alive. Somehow, impossibly alive.
And she's asking me to abandon everything I've known for seventeen years. To become something new.
"What do I do?" I ask Lumiel.
The entity is quiet for a long moment.
Then: "I think... I think you follow her. See where this path leads."
I look at Isolde. At the cured humans wandering out of my apartment. At the broken city that's starting to heal.
Then I text back one word: "Yes."
Wherever Cressida is, whatever she's become, I'll find her.
Even if it takes me to the end of the world.
Or beyond.