Chapter 9 Jasmine
Jasmine
Ifollowed the stink of my own doom out past the edge of the city, where the road shed its asphalt skin and the trees crowded closer, too hungry for sunlight to ever grow pretty.
The church hunched behind a chain-link fence that even the local taggers avoided, every stained-glass window busted or painted over.
Someone had firebombed the rectory years ago, but the main building just shrugged it off and kept rotting in peace.
On a good day, you’d call it abandoned. Tonight, it was a mausoleum, and my name was already on the wall.
I should’ve run. Every self-preservation instinct I had, from the original factory settings to the demonic patches, was screaming at me to turn around, light a cigarette, and watch the sunrise from somewhere safe and vodka-fueled.
But the beacon was too strong. It clawed at my chest, hauled me closer, refused to let me take the long way around.
It wasn’t a siren song. Sirens at least offer you a shot of dopamine before they drown you.
This was more like a subpoena from the universe.
It was mandatory, final, and impossible to ignore.
I circled once, keeping to the shadows. The lot was a tangle of busted glass and last year’s leaves, the occasional whiff of cat piss hanging in the breeze.
A single set of tire tracks cut through the dirt, the tread pattern familiar enough to make me hiss.
Torch was here, probably had been for hours, and if I squinted, I could almost see him inside, stalking the nave in tight little loops like a big cat with a grudge.
I didn’t want to walk in blind, but the closer I got, the more the walls vibrated.
It was like trying to tiptoe through a bag full of tuning forks.
The front door was a plank of waterlogged oak, braced with a warped iron cross and a string of beads that had once been a rosary. I flinched when I touched it, and it burned my fingers worse than pepper spray. I bit down on the yelp, shook off the static, and shoved my way inside.
The air hit me like a slap. Not hot, not cold—just alive, every molecule humming with the memory of prayers and punishments.
I swallowed hard, felt the sanctity crawl into my nose and make a little nest there, where it could gnaw on the base of my brain.
I tried to breathe through my mouth. It didn’t help.
“Torch,” I said. “Quit fucking around and show yourself.”
Torch had gone full psycho with the prep.
Chains everywhere, some looped around the pillars, some coiled up neat at the edge of the altar.
Salt lines jagged across the aisle, thick enough to trip on if you weren’t careful.
On the altar itself, he’d stacked an arsenal: knives, guns, a couple of glass vials with stoppers so black they looked like they were cut from obsidian.
There was even a hand mirror, face down.
Amateur hour, I thought, but the joke didn’t land.
This wasn’t for show. He’d built this place into a bomb and was just waiting for me to walk across the tripwire.
He was kneeling at the edge of the altar, leather jacket creaking every time he shifted.
His scars glowed faintly under the ruin of the church’s main window, blue-white and alive, like he’d tattooed his nerves on the outside to save time.
His head was bowed, but I could tell he was tracking me—every footstep, every shiver in the air.
If I so much as sneezed, he’d have the 1911 on me before I finished the exhale.
“Are you expecting company, or just planning to redecorate?” I called. My voice sounded too loud, too brittle.
He didn’t look up. “You made good time,” he said, voice slow and thick as bourbon molasses. “Didn’t think you’d come.”
“I’m not here for you,” I lied. “It’s the beacon. You’ve been broadcasting your location like a Chernobyl test run.”
He snorted, but it was a joyless sound. “Figured it’d work. You never could resist a straight line.”
“Careful,” I said, letting the demon seep into my words. “I could surprise you.”
“Not tonight.” He finally looked up, and it almost knocked me flat. The eyes were too clear, too sharp, not a trace of fear or hope in them. Just the hunger, and the certainty that this was going to end badly for someone.
I drifted up the aisle, keeping one heel outside the salt line just in case he’d loaded it with explosives.
My skin itched everywhere the light touched.
Some idiot priest must have blessed this place three times over, and the residue still buzzed like an old electric fence.
The closer I got, the worse it stung, but I forced a smile. Never let them see you sweat.
He stood, slow and deliberate. Even with the scars and the haunted eyes, he moved like a soldier with no wasted motion, all muscle and math. The jacket made him look even bigger, as if he’d layered on the world’s regret as body armor.
“You want to tell me why I can’t stay away?” I asked. “Or are you hoping I’ll figure it out before you set the trap?”
He ignored the jab. “You ever been to confession?”
I blinked. “You really want to go there?”
He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “You ever wanted something you knew would ruin you? Not the usual demon shit, but real want. The kind that makes your teeth ache?”
I felt my mouth go dry. “Yeah. Once or twice.”
He nodded, satisfied, as if I’d confirmed something he’d suspected since the first kill. “That’s what this is. You keep coming because you want to. I keep letting you because I need to.”
“How was last night’s dream?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Too real.”
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
He chuckled again. “It wasn’t enough, Jasmine. I want so much more that I can’t think straight.”
I looked around the room. “Looks like you’re mind is pretty clear.”
“Fuck, Jasmine. I gotta do something. We can’t keep going in this direction. The road has to fork or some shit like that.”
“So what’s the plan, Torch?” I spat his name out like a challenge. “You tie me up, drag me back to Hell, and hope Lilith sends you a fruit basket?”
He flinched at the name, just a flicker, but it was enough. I filed it away for later.
“I’m not here to collect you,” he said, and for the first time, I heard the weariness under the anger. “I just want it to stop.”
I laughed, and it was so bitter it gave me heartburn. “You think killing me ends it? There’s always another Jasmine. Always another girl with a quota and a clock.”
“Maybe I want it to end for both of us.” His eyes burned brighter than the window behind him.
The air in the church thickened, every atom charged. I watched his hands, waiting for the flicker that meant a weapon was coming, but he just stood there, letting the scars do the talking. My own marks throbbed, the tattoo at my hip searing like someone had jabbed it with a cattle prod.
“I’m not here to play martyr,” I said, soft but sharp. “You could have finished this a dozen times. So why wait?”
He smiled, and for a second it was the old smile, the one I’d dreamed about every night since the carnival. The smile that promised violence and absolution in the same breath.
“Because I wanted you to see it coming,” he said.
I stepped closer, toes almost to the edge of the salt. The church was a fever dream now, the air packed so tight with intent that it felt like a living thing. Every breath scraped the inside of my throat, and the blood behind my eyes pulsed in time with his scars.
“Then do it,” I whispered. “Get it over with.”
He moved—fast, but not fast enough to scare me. He crossed the salt line, stepped up to me, close enough that I could see the flecks of silver in his stubble. His hand came up, not with a gun or a knife, but bare, palm open, as if he was about to touch my face.
Instead, he stopped an inch away. The heat from his skin made the world tilt.
“You’re calling me,” I said, suddenly breathless. “You’re the reason I can’t leave.”
He nodded, and it looked like it hurt.
The moment held, tight as a wire, neither of us willing to snap it first.
I should have screamed, or run, or spat in his eye. Instead, I just stood there and let the need crawl through me, sharp and sour, all the way down to the bones.
“Why can’t I stay away from you?” I said, and the question tasted like blood.
His eyes locked on mine, blue-white and endless.
“You already know,” he said.
And I did.
The church was supposed to be a two-player game.
But the universe—Hell, specifically—loved nothing more than a good twist, and as the air tightened, I felt the new presence before it even hit the door.
It started as a chill at the base of my spine, then a greasy pressure behind my eyes.
Torch must’ve felt it too; the hair on his arms stood up, and the scars lit to a low simmer, brighter than before.
He turned, scanning the nave. His fingers twitched, but he didn’t reach for the gun yet. I edged one heel back, just in case, but it wasn’t him I was worried about.
The side door groaned open, the hinges giving up a scream.
Something squeezed in sideways, hunched low, skin sloughing in wet folds that steamed in the old church air.
It was tall, even bent double—seven feet, maybe, with arms too long and legs jointed the wrong way.
Its face was a rubber mask stretched over a baboon skull, eyes wet and pink as peeled grapes.
Every inch of it was wrong, a nightmare sopping in tar and willpower.
I recognized the signature. Lilith’s, right down to the pheromone haze that rolled out with it, all scorched honey and moldy velvet. An observer, probably. Sent to make sure the job was finished, or to record it for the home office.
Torch’s voice dropped, a growl ripped from the bottom drawer. “This one’s new.”
I kept my eyes on the thing, letting the demon inside have the wheel for once. “She’s not here to talk.”