Chapter 142
- Micah -
The moment the handcuffs clicked around Uncle's wrist, and they put him into the cruiser, the entire street felt like it shifted.
The kids immediately burst into tears. Tomo's hands trembled, and his eyes darted toward the crying children.
"Please don't take them." One of the little kids—the girl with a star-shaped hairpin—cried out as she reached for him.
I'd fought aura-warping monsters, demon constructs, and collectors that twisted reality—but this? Watching regular people twisted by fear haul innocent men into a cruiser?
This felt worse.
Nothing felt real, but it was. My stomach dropped.
After everything—after Kaysi and Becky barely survived, after we finally made it back to the bakery—this was the last thing any of us needed.
"No!" Evan ran towards them.
"Evan—stop."
Uncle's voice was steady, even as the door closed on him. He gave a single nod—trust us.
I placed my hand on his shoulder. He shook under my hand, his aura still unstable and angry, now more than before.
I tried to reassure him while reassuring myself at the same time. "It will be alright; we will figure this out."
Jennifer stepped forward with the kids behind her. "I don't know Tomo or your uncle well," she said, "but not one part of them says 'criminal.' These wannabe cops are terrified of civilians with badges. None of this is fair."
This felt wrong and corrupted, and everyone could feel it!
The officer who shut the cruiser door glanced back at us—and I saw it.
His aura flickered to a grayish hue, streaked with sickly purple.
Not full possession… but influence. Taint enough to twist judgment.
Duke and Baby exchanged a sharp look.
Yeah, they saw it too.
The makeshift police force inside the dome was a mix of honest officers and terrified civilians given badges by desperation. Half corrupted by fear, some touched by something darker.
As they loaded Tomo into the opposite door, glowing sigils flashed faintly across the cuffs, which only we could see.
Josh scoffed. "What the hell do these cops need with demon cuffs?"
James leaned in, eyes narrowed. "They are definitely not made by hand and not theirs."
Jennifer frowned. "So you're going to follow them and break them out of that makeshift jail from those wannabe cops, right?"
"You bet we will be." Evan snapped.
The words barely left Evan's lips before the cruiser doors slammed shut. Engines revved. The makeshift cops were already pulling off like they expected to chase them.
I exhaled once, steadying the pulse in my temples. We don't have time for this. We have only minutes to reach them before their next move.
"Alright," I said, turning to the others. "We follow—quietly. We get eyes on where they're taking them, and we move in from there."
"I know where they're taking them," Jennifer said quickly. "The orphanage is near where city hall used to be… before the gas explosion." She swallowed. "The community event center survived. It has a basement that was once connected to the city hall. People go in there all the time now. I believe that's their jail."
"Got it," Duke said. "Baby and I will return the kids to safety. We'll meet you after."
Jennifer gathered the children, speaking calmly as she walked them away. Her expression shimmered with worry.
She didn't belong in what was coming next.
My eyes locked on the cruiser shrinking out of the line of sight down the street. I don't like the fact that they have some demon-powered cuffs on them. What are they scared of? Why did they do that?
" Josh came over, sensing my unease. "These aren't normal cops," he whispered. "In fact, I'm not sure some of them are cops at all."
"No," I said. "Some of them I remember from the bakery. They're scared. They're being handed tools they shouldn't even know exist. I can almost guarantee they don't understand what those cuffs are or do."
"Yeah," Evan said sharply, interrupting us. "And we're running out of time. Move."
We ran—fast.
When we arrived back at city hall, nothing but ash and rubble lay, but the community event center looked clean, like nothing ever touched it.
The event center stood untouched—like the fires politely skipped around it. Not a scorch mark. Not a cracked window. Nature didn't work like that. Accidents don't work like that, but demons do. I believe the demons may have preserved it for their games.
Jennifer overlooked the unnatural preservation. Normal people didn't see the spiritual realm the way the rest of us did at times.
Once we rounded the corners, we darted into the shadows, staying hidden—Evan, Josh James, and me.
We slipped around the side, following the cruiser tracks to a rusted metal stairwell half-hidden behind a shattered fence line.
Basement entrance.
We found an unlocked window around back and slipped in quietly. While in a room that might have been an office to someone, we heard movement outside the door.
An officer stood just outside—one of the makeshift cups—but there was a second step, and the door had cracked enough for us to see them. The man who had cuffed Uncle had a sickly purple aura hanging over him.
Possessed, as we thought. This place could be used to summon the demons, which is why we couldn't see it before.
James nodded to me.
He was it, and so did the others.
I stepped forward slowly, my palms raised in a gesture of peace.
"What are you doing?" Evan whispered.
"Only one way in..." I replied.
"Evening," I said. "We're just trying to pick someone up."
His eyes twitched. His grip on his baton tightened.
"You kids shouldn't be here." He barked.
"Funny," Evan muttered under his breath, "We were thinking the same about you."
The officer's pupils dilated—too fast, too wide.
A demon flaring.
Get back or else I'll— He didn't finish.
His knees buckled.
Josh moved behind him like a ghost and knocked him out cleanly with a sharp strike to the back of the neck.
Evan blinked. "Dude—what? Where the hell did you learn that we could have used that many times before?"
"Duke taught me this trick recently to keep things a bit more peaceful than us getting cornered as often." He shrugged.
We dragged the unconscious guy behind a dumpster outside.
Once back inside, we found a large steel door. It was sealed with some type of demon symbol—subtle, thin, and nearly invisible to the untrained eye.
But to us Waymakers, they glowed faintly like molten grooves.
I swallowed. "Definitely a containment structure of some sort.
James' voice deepened. "A prison."
Evan looked at the door, studying it. "Either way, Uncle and Tomo are in there...
Josh pressed a hand on the metal handle. "It's locked," he muttered.
"Not for long," I pulled out the tool I used to unlock doors. I placed the Slim Jim in the keyhole and worked around it until I heard a—click.
A cold draft slipped through the door, which creaked inward.
The hallway beyond was dim, unnaturally so.
The air felt heavy.
Old and musty, like the building had been uninhabited for a decade.
Evan and James stepped along with me, snarling wolf, his sword humming faintly in its sealed earring form hanging on Evan's right earlobe. James Key's chain, hanging from his belt, reacted the same way.
Evan, my owl-eyed ring pulsed with sharp urgency. We must be getting close.
We exchanged a look at the prisoners.
Uncle and Tomo weren't the only ones trapped in here.
I couldn't help but feel someone else was waiting for us. And we were walking straight into a trap ourselves.
We came to the cell with Uncle and Tomo both kneeling, still cuffed, eyes widening as we stepped into view.
"Uncle!" Evan rushed forward; for once, Uncle didn't tell him to stop or slow down.
Josh snapped the demon cuffs with a single twist from experience of their weak spots, no less. Light splintered out like glass breaking under water.
Tomo sagged forward, rubbing his wrist. "I knew you'd come..."
Uncle slowly stood, rolling his shoulder—then froze.
Something glinted on the floor where his knees had been.
A shard of metal and gold etching.
The air around it hummed—like a heartbeat, recognition.
I felt it too, and by the looks of it, so did the boys, as their gazes widened.
Uncle reached for it—
"Wait!" I called out too late.
The sharp, pulsed light exploded outward in a ring.
The fragment twisted, extended, and reshaped—lines forming, grooves cutting through the metal like serrated ridges—
Until a short, knife-like blade rested in Uncle's hand.
A demon-slayer metal awakened him alive.
The heart of iron
Uncle stood there staring at the blade as it pulsed like recognition of its wielder.
This means a hell gate has opened somewhere, and we are to seal it back shut and keep it from opening again.
The second key fragment to the hell gatekeeper. I teared up because it was my uncle's chosen sacrifice to keep the world at peace.