"Sometimes the devil offers you a deal... and sometimes he just wants to gossip about your love life."– From the Memoirs of Lieutenant H. Baxter, filed under 'W.T.F.'
Mornings in Arkwick always smelled like desperation, espresso, and burnt printer ink. A perfect trifecta of existential dread wrapped in a neon sunrise.
Detective Haru Baxter's voice was already echoing down the hallways of Bastion HQ, vibrating the walls like a siren on its third coffee.
"Dennis!" Haru barked, veins in his forehead staging their own uprising. "You spelled 'suspicious' as 'sushi-picious' again!"
The intern—wide-eyed, jittery, and clutching a folder like a lifeline—sputtered, "B-but sir, it was a Yakuza seafood raid, wasn't it—?"
The next thing Dennis knew, he was gracefully ejected from a second-story window. Landed with a thump on the Bastion-approved intern crash mat. A crow applauded mockingly from the rooftop.
Standard protocol.
Meanwhile, across the city, Asher Blackwood slouched in his usual corner booth at Café Ouroboros—the best worst place to get coffee that tasted like regret but came with free cryptic fortunes scrawled on napkins. The café's décor was a mismatch of gothic decay and IKEA, but somehow it thrived, much like Arkwick itself.
The barista—a pale-eyed girl with black lipstick and a pentagram nametag that read "Hi, I'm Lilith (Not That One)"—slid a steaming cup toward him.
"Your aura smells like betrayal," she whispered, tone conspiratorial. The flat white in front of him was topped with foam shaped suspiciously like a decapitated goat.
Asher stared down at it, deadpan. "...Extra cinnamon?"
"Of course." She winked and vanished into the back, leaving a trail of glitter and mild existential dread.
Slice of Life Interlude:A city in chaos, pretending it's normal.
Outside the café, a group of teens were filming a dance challenge on a cracked sidewalk—half of their backdrop a shattered summoning circle still pulsing faintly. Across the street, a Succubus UberEats driver was nose-to-nose with a Watcher officer, arguing over parking in infernal tongues while her delivery bag hissed ominously.
Billboards overhead flickered in neon agony, flashing ads like:
"Need legal help? Summon Saul, the Law Djinn!"
"HOT MILFs in your cathedral district want to bless you."
"Join Bastion Watcher Force – we offer dental and existential dread insurance!"
And through it all, Arkwick breathed—crooked, corrupted, and impossibly alive.
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Back at Bastion HQ, the mood was darker—cold, and pulsing with an unspoken warning.
Asher stood alone in a basement room so deep it might as well have been carved into the city's forgotten heart. The walls sweated. The flickering lights buzzed like nervous insects. Before him, a file lay sprawled across a battered metal table, oozing threat in every fiber.
This wasn't just any file. This was a Dead File.
One sealed in crimson wax, the sigil scorched with dried demon ichor that still shimmered faintly under the fluorescents. Files like this didn't just gather dust—they hunted it.
Codename: Siren Rouge.
He stared at the heading, jaw tight.
This wasn't your standard rogue spell or cult clean-up. This was the kind of case no one talked about without a double shot of whiskey and a priest on speed dial. The last attempt at containment had ended in disaster—a seduction gone ballistic, a dozen agents compromised, and the suspect riding a flaming subway car straight out of Bastion HQ like a demented victory lap.
He cracked the seal.
The file whispered as it opened.
"You're not ready for her," it hissed from the brittle pages.
Asher narrowed his eyes. "Neither was puberty," he muttered dryly, "but here I am."
Inside: a name, a face—danger pressed into every photo, every word. The scent of her perfume seemed embedded in the ink itself: equal parts jasmine, sin, and gasoline.
Delphira Noir.Half-demon. Half-devastation.Seductress-class anomaly.
Bastion's own notes labeled her with chilling precision:"Uncontainable. Unapologetically hot. Approach at your own risk (or don't)."
Asher exhaled slowly, closing the file as if that might keep the storm contained.
But the storm had already noticed.
The lights flickered. Once. Twice. Then held.
A voice, smooth as velvet and twice as dangerous, slid into the room behind him.
"Miss me, darling?"
He spun around.
And there she was.
Leaning casually in the doorway, wearing a trenchcoat that suggested it might be purely decorative, crimson stilettos that clicked like war drums, and a smile that could break hearts—or kneecaps—without effort. Her eyes gleamed with mischief and malice in equal parts.
Delphira Noir.
"Been a while," she purred, her voice like silk on broken glass. "I hear you're chasing ghosts. But what about chasing something a little more... fun?"
Asher arched a brow, already exhausted. "You broke through three seals, a coded firewall, and an anti-succubus ward just to flirt?"
She smirked, stepping deeper into the room, each movement dripping with calculated grace. "Well, I also brought muffins."
She held up a paper bag.
Asher eyed it warily. "...Are they cursed?"
"Of course they are," she purred. "What else would you expect?"
She sauntered closer, the smell of brimstone and vanilla curling in her wake, and placed the bag delicately on the table—right on top of the file.
Leaning in, eyes glowing faintly, she whispered, "Let's make a deal, Blackwood. I'll help you find your little masked friend... if you help me bury the one who trained her."
The flames around the old file cabinet shivered—then pulsed, as if something ancient and angry had just awakened.
Asher didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
He couldn't tell if the fire flickering in his chest was dread—or something dangerously close to desire.
[End Of Chapter 41]
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Chapter 42 – Muffins, Manipulations, and Memory Leaks
Asher reluctantly teams up with Delphira to infiltrate a rogue pleasure cult masquerading as a baking society, where frosting is the least of their worries. Meanwhile, Bastion faces a baffling outbreak of selective memory loss among its agents—except Haru, who, against all logic, begins recalling events from timelines that don't exist. With trust unraveling and paranoia peaking, the lines between casework and catastrophe blur in a swirl of sugar, secrets, and supernatural sabotage.