15. Spectre
SPECTRE
T he call came in just as I was about to head upstairs, my hand halfway on the railing, the old wood cool against my skin. Raven was already in bed, her body curled around the soft pillows, her pregnancy giving her a glow that made my chest tighten every time I saw her. It had been quiet lately, our life, for the first time in years, felt... peaceful.
But that was the thing about peace in our world—it never lasted.
My phone buzzed on the table, Bulldog's name lighting up the screen. My gut twisted. Bulldog was the only person in this whole world who knew where to find me. We'd been running ever since Lucifer had set his eyes on us, and let me tell you, it's not easy hiding from the devil.
Which meant that I had to stay away from my brothers, keeping them out of harm's way. But as a tracker, I still performed my duties and I knew that Bulldog wouldn't reach out to me unless he needed me to find information or something was seriously wrong. And if he was reaching out to me now, it meant only one thing—trouble.
I snatched up the phone and hit the answer button, putting it on speaker.
"Spectre," Bulldog's gravelly voice crackled through the line, sounding more worn than usual.
"Prez."
There was a long pause before he continued. "We need your help."
I frowned, already sensing the tension in his tone. "What's going on, Prez? You know I'm not exactly free to ride out these days."
"No, I get that, but there's someone here who asked me to contact you."
I frowned, my voice dropping a dangerous octave. "Who?"
"Spectre, brother...it's Virgil."
I froze for a second, surprised at the name. Virgil? I hadn't heard that name in years. Not since New Orleans. Not since we'd first crossed paths through Madame Laveaux, the High Priestess herself.
Virgil wasn't the kind of man you forgot easily, especially considering what we'd been through back then. That city had nearly swallowed us whole, both fighting our own demons—his more literal than mine.
After all this time, I never expected him to contact me, let alone ask for a favor. He wasn't that type. He was the type to run, wallow in self pity as he self-destructed. I knew he was in a bad way back then and had asked him to come back with me, but he declined. I never thought I'd see the day he'd become a club member but it was Bulldog who got to him on my behalf.
I'd told Bulldog months ago to bring him in, that we needed him after what went down with Lucifer. That residue left on the club, the darkness was eating at the edges of the place, a slow rot. I'd figured Virgil might be the key to wiping it clean. But he'd stayed off the radar. Until now.
"What the hell are you doing calling me, Virgil?" I growled, suspicion lacing my words. Virgil never asked for help, not even when demons had their claws in him. For him to reach out? This had to be bad. Real bad.
There was a long pause before he continued, "I'm in deep shit, man. You're the only one I could think of who could help me."
I frowned, the weight of his words hitting harder than I wanted to admit. Virgil and I had a history, and he wasn't wrong about that debt. But the idea that he —of all people—was asking for help? It didn't sit right. I leaned against the railing, staring at the floor, already feeling the tension in my muscles.
"What's this about?"
He exhaled, a rough, tired sound. One that carried the weight of years. "It's about a woman...Barythaya."
My frown deepened. "What about her?"
"It's complicated, but without mincing words...I exorcized a demon out of this girl and now Death's taken over her body, like a goddamn vessel," he spat, the frustration clear in his voice. "I need your help figuring out how the fuck to get it out. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope here."
I closed my eyes, rubbing a hand over my face. Barythaya … I'd heard whispers about her through the club. Knew she had some connection to Virgil, though I hadn't realized it had gotten this deep.
What he was describing to me was bad. Death walking around in a living body? That was unheard of, and not something you handled lightly. Hell, it wasn't something anyone really handled.
I felt a knot tighten in my gut, and memories of New Orleans came flooding back—those long nights we spent trying to banish spirits, demons, things that crawled out of the darkest corners of the world. Madame Laveaux had shown us things no one should ever see. Virgil had barely walked away from that mess intact. And now, he was diving back into it headfirst.
"You sure this isn't something you can handle on your own?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
"No," he said flatly, his voice cold with finality. "I need you, Spectre. Trust me, I wouldn't be asking if I had any other option."
I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of his words settle in my chest. Virgil asking for help... that was like seeing the devil on his knees. He wasn't just asking for me to come back and fight some ghost. This was personal.
Barythaya.
I could tell She wasn't just some girl he'd gotten tangled up with. She meant something to him. And that's what had my mind racing. When someone like Virgil lets someone else get close, when they mean something, that's when the real danger starts. He was fighting to save her, but I knew what that fight would cost him.
And me.
I clenched my jaw, memories of our last stand against Lucifer flooding back. We had fought the darkness before, and it had nearly swallowed us whole. I didn't know if I had it in me to go back down that road, especially not now, with Raven expecting our first child. But I couldn't shake the feeling that if I didn't help, this was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
I let the silence stretch a beat longer as my mind worked through the mess.
"You need to call Exorcist," I said, my voice firm. "That's his wheelhouse. He'll know how to handle this better than I can." Exorcist was a true Reaper, one that ran with the Tonopah Valley chapter, he'd helped me before, he'd know what to do.
"No." Virgil's voice shot through the phone, sharp as a blade. "I'm done with Reapers, brother. I don't want them anywhere near me or her, I don't know what kind of personal connection they may have between them. Besides, I don't think we should be letting demons in on our secrets."
"They're not demons," I growled, quick on my brothers' defense.
"I never said they were, but their Reapers aren't fucking saints, or are they?"
My jaw clenched as I stared at the wall. Virgil didn't trust easy, and I knew he was right. The knowledge of expelling death from this world, should be ours and ours alone. He was trusting me with this, and that meant something.
"Virgil," I said, keeping my voice level, "you know what we've been through. I can't risk?—"
"Listen to me, Spectre," he cut me off, his voice raw with desperation. "I need someone who can help me chain this demon back to hell. I can't do this alone. You're the strongest bastard I know. You and Raven… You've dealt with worse. You've fought Lucifer and come out breathing. Don't leave me hanging, brother."
I gritted my teeth, the memories of that battle with Lucifer flooding back like a bad dream. Raven had nearly lost herself that day, tapping into forces neither of us fully understood. And now? Now she was carrying our child—there was no way I was putting her in harm's way again.
"I can't," I said, my voice low and rough. "Not this time, Virgil. Raven's pregnant, and I'm not throwing her into that kind of fire again. You know what it took to rid ourselves of Lucifer. It damn near destroyed us."
There was a long stretch of silence on the other end, thick and suffocating. I hoped, maybe foolishly, that Virgil would back off. That he'd understand. But instead, his voice came back, softer this time, almost pleading.
"You brought me into this family too, Spectre."
Those words hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut. Family. The one thing Virgil had always fought for but never quite had. He'd been in the shadows too long, running from his own demons. And now, Barythaya? She wasn't just some girl to him—she was his something more . I knew what that meant to a man like Virgil.
I stared at the floor, the tension in the room growing heavier by the second. I could hear the pain in his voice, the desperation that clawed at him.
And something inside me shifted, something I'd tried to bury a long time ago. Family wasn't something you walked away from, even when it dragged you back into the abyss.
"Spectre?" Raven's voice broke the silence. She was standing in the doorway, one hand resting protectively over her stomach, the other brushing her hair away from her face. There was a calm determination in her eyes that I'd come to rely on more times than I could count.
"We're going to help him," she said softly, but there was no arguing with her. That was Raven, steady as a rock, even when the ground beneath us was shifting.
"Raven..."
"We're going to help him," she repeated, stepping closer, her hand finding mine. "It's what we do. It's what you do."
I clenched my jaw, knowing she was right. Knowing I couldn't walk away, even if every instinct screamed at me to stay out of it. We didn't just fight demons for ourselves. We fought for family. For the people we'd sworn to protect.
"Alright," I muttered, rubbing a hand over my face. "Alright, Virgil. We'll help you."
There was a pause, and I could practically hear the weight lifting off his shoulders. "Thank you, brother."
"But this isn't gonna be easy," I warned him. "We're still laying low after what went down with Lucifer. I'm not dragging Raven into anything unless we're damn sure about this."
"We'll figure it out," Virgil said. "Between all of us, we can get rid of this bastard."
I hung up the phone, my chest heavy with the weight of what was coming. There were no half-measures when it came to the supernatural, not in our world. Raven had been marked by the dark, and I wasn't about to let that happen again, not now.
Raven stepped closer, her hand brushing against my arm, her touch soothing me. I looked at her, seeing the worry in her eyes but also that unwavering resolve.
"We've done this before," she whispered, offering me a small, knowing smile. "And we'll do it again."
I nodded, my mind already racing with the things we'd need. The preparations. The blood. The magic.
But one thing was clear—we were walking straight back into the fire. And this time? We had even more to lose.