(A/N):
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Jojo walked toward the desk without the slightest hesitation.
"D-Don't touch it!"
Danny's voice escaped almost instinctively.
Everyone turned toward him.
The boy looked at the ancient book with lingering fear.
"...Every time I looked at it..."
He swallowed.
"...it felt like it was looking back."
Jojo gave him a brief glance before calmly reaching down.
The moment his fingers touched the leather cover...
The entire book shuddered.
A low vibration traveled through its spine, as though something buried deep within its pages had suddenly awakened.
The leather rippled beneath his fingertips like living flesh.
Several of the tiny fang-like clasps clicked against one another, producing a faint chattering sound.
To Beth and Bruce, it looked like an old book settling in Jojo's hands.
But to Leah and Lorraine...
It was something entirely different.
The veins beneath the cover suddenly began pulsing violently.
The book was alive.
And it knew someone far more dangerous than Danny was holding it now.
Leah instinctively folded her arms.
"...Ugly little thing."
Lorraine's eyes never left the book.
"It isn't trying to attack."
"No."
Jojo answered while observing the cover.
"It's afraid."
The room became quiet.
Even the entity screaming in the other room seemed to have fallen silent.
Jojo slowly turned the book over in his hands.
The leather was warm.
Almost feverishly so.
It possessed a heartbeat.
A slow...
Uneven...
Heartbeat.
His thumb traced the edge where Bridget had mentioned Danny had been cut.
Sure enough, among the decorative metallic "teeth" was one slightly longer than the others.
Its tip still carried a faint reddish stain.
Not fresh blood.
Blood that had become part of the book itself.
"It fed..."
Jojo murmured.
Danny lowered his head.
"...I didn't even notice."
Jojo looked at him.
"You weren't supposed to."
"Artifacts like these are designed to make the first contract seem accidental."
Danny's face became even paler.
"...Contract?"
"Not a complete one."
Jojo shook his head.
"Think of it as... introducing yourself."
He lightly tapped the cover.
"You gave it your blood."
"It learned who you were."
"It learned your soul."
Danny felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"So..."
"...it's connected to me?"
Jojo nodded once.
"At the moment."
"But connections can be broken."
Those few words visibly relieved everyone in the room.
Jojo then shifted his attention toward the old cassette recorder lying beside the book.
It was in miserable condition.
The plastic casing had been cracked open.
One side was caved in from a heavy impact.
The tape compartment no longer closed properly.
Danny rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"I..."
"...I smashed it."
Everyone looked toward him.
"The recording wouldn't stop."
His breathing became uneven as the memory returned.
"I pressed stop."
"It kept playing."
"I pulled the batteries out..."
"It still kept playing."
Bruce frowned.
"Without batteries?"
Danny nodded frantically.
"I even threw it against the wall."
"It just..."
"...kept talking."
He pointed at the cracks covering the recorder.
"So I grabbed a hammer from the toolbox."
"I hit it until it finally stopped."
Silence filled the bedroom.
Leah quietly muttered,
"...Yeah... I'd probably do the same."
Beth slowly stepped forward and carefully picked up the damaged recorder.
She turned it over in her hands, examining the broken casing with practiced eyes.
"I might actually be able to repair this."
Everyone looked toward her.
She gave a small, embarrassed smile.
"I repair old electronics as a hobby."
She gently opened one of the damaged panels.
"The internal components are damaged..."
"...but not completely destroyed."
"If the tape itself survived..."
She looked at Jojo.
"...I can probably make it functional again."
Jojo nodded.
"Do it."
"If that recording is the invocation..."
"...I want to hear every second of it."
Beth held the recorder carefully, almost as though afraid it might suddenly come back to life.
"I'll need a little time."
"Take it."
Jojo's attention returned to the book.
He carried it toward the desk and slowly opened the first page.
Unlike before...
The book offered no resistance.
It opened willingly.
As though recognizing that resisting him was pointless.
The room leaned in.
The pages were covered in symbols unlike any modern language.
Some resembled ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform.
Others looked almost Latin.
Several appeared to shift subtly whenever someone tried focusing directly upon them.
To ordinary eyes the writing would have been meaningless.
But Jojo...
Could read it.
Not because he knew the language.
The Ghost Rider's power allowed him to perceive intent embedded within infernal writings.
He wasn't translating words.
He was understanding the will behind them.
His eyes moved steadily across the first several pages.
The room remained silent.
Occasionally he turned another page.
Then another.
The deeper he read...
The more serious his expression became.
Leah noticed immediately.
"...Bad?"
Jojo didn't answer at first.
Instead, he continued reading.
The book wasn't a spellbook.
Nor was it a ritual manual.
It was something closer to...
A field journal.
An encyclopedia.
Its pages catalogued dozens of infernal lifeforms.
Each section contained detailed sketches.
Behavioral patterns.
Methods of reproduction.
Preferred hosts.
Weaknesses.
Several pages had clearly been written by different hands over centuries, with annotations filling the margins.
Someone had spent generations documenting demons.
Most of them were familiar.
Lesser fiends.
Possession spirits.
Hell hounds.
Soul leeches.
Then Jojo reached a chapter marked by a black sigil resembling an eye surrounded by branching veins.
The illustration beneath it resembled tangled roots wrapped around a human heart.
He stopped turning pages.
"This is it."
Lorraine stepped closer.
"What did you find?"
Jojo looked at the illustration.
"It's describing parasitic demons."
He slowly continued reading.
"They don't possess living people in the conventional sense."
"They infest."
His finger traced several paragraphs.
"They enter through blood."
"Corrupt tissue from the inside."
"They create biological nests."
"Eventually the host dies..."
"...but the body continues functioning as an incubator."
Leah frowned.
"That's exactly what happened to Ellie."
Jojo nodded.
"There's more."
He turned another page.
This one depicted dozens of thin silver threads connecting people to a single grotesque mass hidden underground.
"They don't create isolated hosts."
"They create colonies."
"The infected are extensions of a single consciousness."
Lorraine's expression hardened.
"So killing one doesn't solve the problem."
"No."
Jojo closed the book halfway.
"It only removes one branch."
He looked toward the bedroom where the possessed corpse was still restrained inside the circle of hellfire.
"If this book is accurate..."
His voice grew noticeably quieter.
"...Ellie isn't the source."
The room fell silent.
"She's only the first nest."
Outside, thunder rolled across the city.
And for the first time since entering the apartment...
Jojo began to suspect that the true enemy wasn't inside Apartment 803 at all.