Chapter Text
And now on to weather—
The Korean Meteorological Association has reclassified the Category 3 tropical storm as a typhoon, with winds exceeding a two hundred kilometers per hour. The storm, now designated Typhoon Mettugi, passed over Ulleung-do just this afternoon and is expected to make landfall at Samcheok early next week, making its way northwest to Seoul. Authorities are monitoring the situation, and while most major roads remain open, many large-scale public events have been cancelled due to inclement weather.
—Yes, the rain is especially bad news for HUNTR/X and their fans. After their explosively experimental performance at Namsan Tower in September, fans have been waiting with bated breath for their return to the stage. Now, with the cancellation of this year’s Idol Awards, it seems they’ll be joining their fans—on the couch.
“I can’t believe it,” Zoey groans as she tips backwards onto the couch. “We’ve never missed the Idol Awards before!”
“Looks like mother nature did what even Gwi-Ma couldn’t.” Mira tosses an orange stress ball at the opposite wall. “We’re grounded.”
The ball ricochets off the wall, bounces like a kitten between the cabinet and the dining table—and lands unerringly back in Mira’s hand. She hasn’t even taken her eyes off the television, or stopped scowling at the weather reporter now gesturing at the 2D thundercloud hovering over Seoul.
“Rumi?” Zoey calls out, peeking from behind the couch. “You okay?”
Rumi jerks her head sharply. “Yeah—yeah. Don’t worry.” Then, she sighs, consciously unclenching her fists.
“You’ve been staring out that window for, like, thirty minutes,” Mira drawls as she turns her head.
Rumi forces her gaze away from her own tense and anxious face, reflected in the glass against the backdrop of a metropolis drowning in torrential rain. The floor-to-ceiling window shimmers, ever so slightly, in the half-submerged glow of the Honmoon casting its protective shield over Seoul as it has for the past five hundred years.
“It’s the Honmoon.” Rumi massages her arms, her fingers running over the wool sleeves of her hoodie. “We’ve always recharged it during the Idol Awards. What happens this time? What if we miss it?”
“That was the old Honmoon. Remember?” Mira rises to her feet, pocketing the stress ball. “We made a new one. Had a whole song and everything.”
“Yeah!” chirps Zoey. “And I’m pretty sure Honmoon 2.0 can hold on for a few weeks until the Idol Awards are rescheduled. Right?”
“I should think so,” Mira nods. “I mean, ever since the last time, we haven’t seen any demons. Past few months have been quite boring, really. I kinda missed our late-night patrols.”
“Yeah!” Zoey pumps her fists. “Gwi-Ma’s been smacked down into hell and he ain’t ever coming back up.”
“Way to tempt fate, Zoey.” Mira scoffs. Rumi feels rather than hears her step closer. “You’re worried about something else, aren’t you Rumi?”
Rumi sighs. “I’ve been thinking about Jinu. It’s just—none of this would have been possible without his sacrifice. If he hadn’t done what he did, I—” She pauses to inhale, fingers clutching at the strings of her hoodie. “We were so close to losing everything. Everything.”
She feels it linger in the air, that familiar string of unease. Tightening around the three of them like cellophane tape, transparent but no less suffocating, an adhesive distilled from broken trust and hidden secrets.
Then Mira’s hand lands on her shoulder.
“Rumi, I can’t say I wasn’t mad at you for hiding your secret from us, but I understand. In a way. You were trying to find a way out. It couldn’t have been easy to do what you did. You spent nearly your whole life thinking yourself a monster, and it made you vulnerable.” Mira exhales. “And honestly, all this could have been avoided if a certain someone had been honest with us all at the very beginning.”
The hint of that unspoken name chills the air in the penthouse even more than the rain ever could. Celine had made several phone calls to the landline, and then to each of their numbers, in the weeks and months following the Namsan Tower incident—none of which were answered.
“We’re a team, okay?” Zoey’s slender fingers interlock with Rumi’s, the warmth of her palm pressing into her own. “You girls—you’re the only family I’ve really got. Let’s not let anything change that. Please?”
“Yeah.” Mira squeezes Rumi’s shoulder. “I wanna stick with this family. My last one sucks.”
Rumi turns to Mira. “Your—parents got in touch?”
“Nah. And that’s probably worse, somehow.” Mira shrugs. “The Idol Awards. Us breaking records. The thing with the Saja Boys. The quote-unquote breakup on stage. And now the storm. Not so much as a call. Not even a text, how are you, hope you’re okay, we’re proud of you. Hyun-Soo might as well have been an only child for all they care.”
“Well he suuuuucks!” Zoey barks. “And I’ve never even met him!”
Mira scoffs. “My brother’s been in Taiwan for the last ten years. Landed that prestigious scholarship, and suddenly it was like he was made of solid gold. Still remember how proud my parents looked when they sent him off. All smiles and tears, my beautiful smart baby boy.” Her eyes sweep over the drenched Seoul skyline. “The day before that, I’d just gotten signed. It was the biggest day of my life up till then. The day I finally felt like my dreams were close enough to catch. They didn’t give a shit.”
“Mira,” Rumi begins to say.
“Anyways, forget them.” Mira shakes her head, the smile creeping back upon her lips. “I’ve got everything I need right here. And so do you. Look, I think the rainy weather’s getting to you,” Mira says matter-of-factly. “What you need is some snacks and a trashy show to watch on Netflix.”
“Operation couch, underway!” Zoey pipes up. An instant later, an entire plastic tray materialises from—somewhere?—laden with an absolute mountain of—
“Crispy seaweed! Dried squid! Tteokbokki! A footlong kimbap! And every flavour of chips I could find at the supermarket!” Zoey slams the tray of snacks down onto the table, causing a the seaweed-wrapped kimbap to bounce up like a gigantic noodle. “Aaaand—I’ve already picked a show. Ten episodes. It’s about a guy who works with this really shady organisation, and he’s trying to climb the ranks, but now there’s this crime boss getting in touch with him, and now he might end up betraying his family—”
“Hey, hey! Spoilers,” Rumi giggles, raising her hands. “Alright, alright, I get your point. It’s not like the storm is going anywhere. So let’s just sit tight, enjoy the downtime, and—”
Bzzt.
Mira’s phone vibrates on the kitchen countertop.
“Be right back,” she mutters.
“Every episode is, like, ninety minutes.” Zoey drags Rumi down onto the couch, pressing a bag of chips into her hands. “The ratings are through the roof. And the lead is, like, super-hot too!”
“Mira, you joining us?” Rumi calls out. Then, she notices Mira’s frown. “What’s wrong? Is it Bobby? About the online concert?”
“Celine again?” asks Zoey softly.
“No.” Mira’s eyes linger on the glowing screen in her hand. “It’s Hyun-Soo. He’s here in Seoul. And he wants to meet.”
She almost changes her mind when she steps off the bus and walks into a wall of rain. Sloshing in waterlogged boots and a bogged-down raincoat that defeats its own purpose, she jostles past gruff pedestrians that emerge and melt away like ghosts in the endless torrential rain. She almost turns away, except that would mean that she got wet for nothing, and Hongdae Street is just right there, so—
Might as well.
She ducks under the cover of an overhanging roof, squeezes past a gaggle of college students, and utters a breathless excuse me as she narrowly avoids bumping into a street vendor peddling fried food.
Mira pushes the glasses (non-prescription) back onto her nose, dimly aware that her disguise is pretty much redundant. With everyone preoccupied only with staying dry, she could stand in the middle of Eoulmadang-ro in full HUNTR/X regalia and nobody would bat an eye. Probably a cosplayer that missed the last bus out.
She wipes her glasses with a wet hand. It gets even more stained.
Hyun-Soo, you better be worth it.
He probably won’t. Everybody she cares about thinks so.
“This guy’s an asshole! Meet him? Really? In the middle of the biggest storm in, like, ever? Forget it!” Zoey had said, crushing a potato chip with her fist.
“Mira, he didn’t bother contacting you for a whole decade. He wants something. Is that the sort of brother that would care about you?” Rumi had said, arms crossed. “Is he worth getting wet for?”
“Rumi, ew! Phrasing!” Zoey had stuck out her tongue and gagged.
All good points. But maybe all she needs is a chance. To take all that suppressed anger over the years, all her resentment towards him, and shove it up his ass in person.
At the next corner across the street, the neon sign winks next to the giant coffee cup with a smiley face, and her pulse quickens despite herself. Mira sighs, gathers the raincoat around herself, and rushes across the street.
The café welcomes her with a warm glow, the tinkle of a wind chime, and the scent of freshly-ground arabica. She takes the time to wring the water from her raincoat before stepping in, offering a sincere smile to the waiter by the door.
“Mira, here.” She turns, sees the hand raised up.
She hesitates for a moment, dripping water onto the welcome mat, before striding over with her shoulders squared in battle-readiness. The handbag isn’t quite her Gok-Do, but she grips its strap with the same ferocious intent.
It takes a moment. Last she saw him at the airport, he’d been a snotty, acne-ridden, puffy-faced thing, slightly shorter than herself, trussed up in a blazer and buttoned shirt with a humongous floral bouquet in his hands, gazing off into the distance as her parents took photo after photo.
That’s the image in her mind, frozen in time. Hyun-Soo had no social media presence—she checked, despite herself—and posted nothing online. No photos, no memories to adjust that image to his current age. Just an undocumented existence in a foreign land, reaping success after success.
Mira doesn’t quite reconcile this stranger with the mental snapshot. Gone is the horrendous bowl-cut hairstyle, replaced with a neat slicked-back top with fade on the sides. He’s clean-shaven, and the baby fat has disappeared to leave a high set of cheekbones and an angular jawline.
But only her brother could wear a whole-ass three-piece suit to a café meet-up, black tie and all. And keep it immaculately dry.
“Traffic was bad, I got here as fast as I could,” Mira mutters, as she pulls the chair out and plops down first her handbag, then her butt. She narrowly avoids kicking the black suitcase under the table.
“Yes,” he says, stirring his coffee. “The rain.”
She orders a medium latte, no sugar. He offers to pay, she declines.
“Not gonna ask me if I got here okay?” Mira says flatly.
He pauses. “Did you get here okay?”
“Drenched. You can see that.” She gestures at her wet hair. “So what’s so important that you had to meet in the middle of the damn monsoon season?”
Hyun-Soo pinches the teaspoon, pulling it free of the sticky surface of his latte. He taps it upon the side of the cup, shaking the droplets free, before placing it onto the saucer. All the while, Mira continues to glower in silence.
“I haven’t seen you in years. And given I was in Seoul, I thought we should meet.” His answer is as rehearsed as an interview script. The same voice she’d always hear from his room, as he practised in front of a mirror. “It seemed convenient.”
“Great. So not out of some brotherly concern for your sister?” she huffs. “Figures.”
“Should I be concerned?” he asks.
“You tell me.” She tightens her jaw.
“I lack the relevant information,” he replies.
Mira rolls her eyes. “You haven’t changed one bit. Not where it matters, at least,” Mira snaps back. “Then again, you’ve always been the golden child. Why would you need to change?”
“Golden child?” he repeats.
“Mum and dad wouldn’t shut up about you, even when you were gone. Kept going on and on about how you were honouring the family name.” Mira tries, and fails, to stop the involuntary clenching of her fingers. “Meanwhile, I might as well have been invisible. Nobody asked if I was doing okay. Everything was about you.”
“You seem upset.” Hyun-Soo lowers his voice.
“Very perceptive.” Mira scowls. “Maybe it just pisses me off that after everything I’ve gone through, seeing you—sitting—here, not a care in the world, it gets to me. You know?”
“You appear to have a successful career,” Hyun-Soo says, and the contrast in their tone makes her suddenly aware that she’d been raising her voice. “I fail to see the issue.”
Some of the nearby guests glance at their table.
“The issue?” Mira laughs humourlessly. “You’ve got no idea what I’ve been through. You were placing first in maths Olympiads and bagging trophies for martial arts tournaments. And me? I got rejected by my first label and floated around for a year doing freelance work and posting my songs on YouTube. While you were grabbing awards in your university, I was doing gigs in dive bars and shopping malls just to get exposure and make rent. I struggled for so long before HUNTR/X ever became a thing. You coasted by on our parents’ money and basked in their approval. So don’t you ever talk to me about issues.”
She’s a wall. A solid bastion that holds back all that repressed rage and resentment, castle ramparts bristling with cannons to rain down sass and sarcasm on anyone looking at her wrong. A wall that doesn’t crack, or so she’d thought until now.
And she’s talking, talking, talking, spilling her guts, and can’t stop despite herself, for the first time she can remember. Opening up. The same way a wound opens up. Messily and painfully.
Hyun-Soo’s eyes drop down to the cup in his hands. He takes a painfully long sip.
“I was not aware,” he states simply, meeting her gaze again. “I had no information.”
“You would’ve if you bothered to ask.” Mira crosses her arms. “So, what have you been up to in Taiwan? What’s kept you so busy that you’ve only come back home now?”
Her brother cocks his head, smacks his lips, and pauses before answering.
“I work with a Taiwanese conglomerate with holdings all over the island,” he says. “Our work is a combination of data analysis and flexible field activities. I mainly specialise in loss prevention and protocol enforcement. It’s quite a busy job.”
“Uh-huh,” Mira says deadpan. “I’m sure it’s more important than your family.”
“Anyways, I’m in Korea on a procurement assignment. I was due to fly out today, but my flight was cancelled due to inclement weather,” Hyun-Soo continues. “I thought I’d make use of my time to make contact with you.”
Make use of my time. Make contact. Like she’s just an afterthought to his extremely important career. A pleasant distraction squeezed in between two red-blocked items on his daily planner.
“Guess I’m just a detour then.” Mira stirs her coffee. “If your flight was on time, you’d happily fly off without ever meeting me.”
“Well,” he says, hesitating. “Most likely.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Mira turns away, biting back the curse that’s just gathering at the back of her lips. “What about mum and dad? You talked to them?”
“I texted them earlier,” he answers. “Dad’s busy with the company as usual. Mum’s got a formal luncheon to attend. Both unavailable.”
“You know, the three of you deserve each other,” Mira says sharply. “None of you give a shit. Not just about me—about anyone but yourselves.”
“I wanted to meet—to—” Hyun-Soo stammers. “I wanted to inquire as to your welfare.”
“My welfare,” she repeats.
“Yes,” Hyun-Soo says.
Mira exhales. “I’m fine. Doing as well as I can.”
“That’s good.” He nods. “Your colleagues?”
Colleagues. Impersonal, cold. Maybe that’s how Hyun-Soo can ever see the world. Colleagues. Assets. Contacts. Connections.
“Rumi and Zoey are fine,” she replies. Not quite the truth, but he’s clearly not earned anything else. “We’re just taking a break at the moment. The storm’s cancelled both this year’s Idol Awards and our scheduled spring performance at the arena.”
“I can understand that,” he nods, looking sideways out the window. “Typhoon is forecasted to hit next week. Given localised air pressure and windspeed, it’ll last another eighteen days after. Probable flood damage and structural compromise to the outdoor arena renders it unsuitable. You’ll need somewhere indoors.”
He inhales, closes his eyes for a second, then continues. “Best suitable indoor venue is KSPO Dome. Factoring in superficial structural damage, road closures, vehicular logistics, personnel availability, aggregate costs, local zoning regulations—forty-two days at the earliest. That’s when you can perform.”
Mira stares back.
“With a margin of eighteen hours either way,” he adds. “Provided your manager files your paperwork with the city council before five PM today.”
“You worked all this out beforehand?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’m touched.”
“Yes, I calculated this.” He taps his fingers on the wooden table, as if on an invisible keyboard.
“When?” Mira leans back.
“Just now.” Hyun-Soo looks back at her. “Three seconds ago. Give or take.”
“Huh.” She raises an eyebrow. Behind the annoyance, the seething resentment, she stifles the rising tide of alarm.
We’re out of commission for forty-two days? Plus-minus eighteen hours?
Hyun-Soo’s spitballing. Bullshitting just to show off. He can’t—
She looks at his eyes. Frank, earnest. And his brow furrowed in concentration at a spot on the table just between them.
No. If this is the same guy, he’s anything but a bullshitter.
She’ll have to talk to Bobby. An online concert is anything but perfect. But there’s no way the Honmoon could last longer without some way of reaching their fans and replenishing its magic.
“Well, this was nice.” Mira begins standing up. “But I’ll have to head back. Like you said—we’ll have to start planning for the rescheduled concert.”
Hyun-Soo picks up his cup and drains the coffee in a single gulp. He retrieves a handkerchief and dabs at his lips.
“I’ll walk you to the station.” He rises to his feet, and suddenly she’s craning her neck to meet his eyes, aware that the last time they met he hadn’t even hit puberty yet. He retrieves his briefcase and a black umbrella. “Train is much more reliable than the bus.”
“You don’t have to,” she says.
“It’s more efficient. My hotel is along the same line.” He nods at the door. “And this umbrella is big enough for the both of us.”
She doesn’t turn him down. When they step out into the street, he draws ever so slightly closer to her, bringing the open umbrella over them both. He’s wearing cologne—interesting. She doesn’t quite cling to his body, but she moves under his raised forearm, close enough to feel the smooth cotton of his black blazer. Mercifully, the umbrella shelters her from the worst of the rain until they make it to the underground.
They tap their cards and go through the turnstile. The crowd is suffocating, many of them seeking shelter from the constant rain rather than looking to ride the train. Thankfully, the mass of people thins somewhat when they arrive at their platform.
“Train to—Myeongdong—arrives in two minutes,” announces the PA system.
Her brother’s eyes rove over the LCD screen on the wall, to the clock, then the people queuing alongside them, hopping from person to person like a laser pointer.
“Here.” He gestures to the queue for the second-to-last coach. “Statistically less likely to be packed.”
Then the train pulls up with a screech and a mechanical sigh, the crowd lurches forward, and they are borne into the carriage like fish in a tide of floodwater.
There are advantages, she finds, in being with someone a little over six feet tall. Hyun-Soo’s body parts the human wave like the prow of a ship, allowing them to find a hollow just by the opposite door where they have room to breathe and stretch.
Still, statistics my ass.
The train jerks as it begins to move away, and she grasps at Hyun-Soo’s jacket before releasing her hold quickly.
“It’s fine,” he mutters. “Grab hold of my waist. Closer to the centre of gravity. Less sway.”
“No thanks,” she huffs, turning away and fixing her eyes on the blank brick wall just outside the windows.
The next station is a popular hotspot. Most people leave; few get on. The station after that, the crowd thins even more, and they find a place to sit—with an empty seat between them, of course.
“How long till your stop?” she asks, breaching the awkward silence.
“Three stops after yours,” he answers, looking straight ahead.
It’s past the fifth station that Mira finds her unease mounting. Not from the handful of people in the same carriage, mostly college students still glued to their phones. But from the other carriage directly behind theirs. The last carriage of the train.
She peeks through the glass aperture of the door separating them. The carriage is still packed full of people.
“Nobody got off,” she mutters to herself. “Nobody got on either.”
“What’s that?” Hyun-Soo says. His eyes are fixed straight ahead, his grip tight over his umbrella.
“Nothing.” Mira rises to her feet. “I got to go—to the toilet.”
“There’s one in this carriage,” Hyun-Soo says, standing up as well.
“The other one’s cleaner,” she says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“You should stay,” he replies, gripping his umbrella. “We’ve got seats.”
“They’ll still be there. I’ll be back before we get to the next station.” She walks towards the rear of the carriage, eyes trained on the crowd of people behind the door that separates them.
Then, in the briefest second before it vanishes, she sees a face in the glass. Purple, pockmarked with patterns, adorned with a set of horns.
Demon.
It can’t be. Can’t be. The Honmoon is sealed for good. Unless—
Was the delay too long? Had a breach opened right under their noses?
Mira peeks through the glass panel of the door. None of the passengers appear to be looking her way. She pulls the door open, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand erect.
It’s not the smell; it’s the lack of it. Sweaty skin, clothing soaked with rain, cheap perfume and aftershave, the tang of sweet-and-sour sauce spilled over a collar—the expected pungent aroma of a jam-packed train carriage, all missing. Instead, a sterile absence stings her nostrils like steam from a hot spring.
Because demons can mimic faces, voices, bodies. But never smell, because the fire of the hells has long since burned their noses dull.
She summons her Gok-Do. The crescent-bladed glaive gleams bright with ancient magic, and suddenly every face turns her way. Old men, old women. Children wrapped in bright yellow raincoats. Salarymen in faded grey jackets.
At once, the same humourless smile flashes across every face. A whole crowd of grinning faces. Hungry.
“Demons,” she grunts. “And I was just getting bored.”
In the split second before launching into combat, she realises her body has been preparing for this—rather, itching for this. The long hiatus spent brooding in their penthouse had done nothing to dull her prowess.
She’s a Hunter. This is her world, her song.
The Gok-Do sweeps through the air, her grip transitioning from underhand to overhand smoothly from one hand to the other, carving through the figures who—
Stand still?
She blinks. The crowd shimmers with a soft purple light as her blade passes harmlessly through. Mira’s eyes widen as she readjusts her stance, bringing the polearm back to a defensive position.
The mirage ripples. Then, the crowd of people dissolves into nothingness. In their place stands a tiny figure, curved goatlike horns poking out from a wrinkled face, cackling wildly.
“Heheheh—no fans here, Hunter!” It bares its tusks. “Only me!”
Mira thrusts forward with the glaive, only for the creature to somersault backwards. A puff of purple smoke, and the creature vanishes.
“What the hell?” she mutters, glancing around the now-empty carriage.
But why would they bother casting an illusion just to avoid a fight?
Unless it’s not just an illusion. It’s—
Bait.
She spins around, finding herself nearly nose-to-chest with a red-skinned demon glistening with swollen muscle, brandishing an axe nearly as long as she is tall.
The Gok-Do spins in her grip as she leaps backwards, legs settling into the familiar attack stance.
Then, instead of charging forward, the demon swings its axe in a wide arc around its body. Demon-iron cleaves through modern Korean steel, carving a glowing red wound around the interior of the carriage.
The demon grins.
Then the carriage shrieks, and an irresistible force throws Mira towards the front of the carriage. Only the Gok-Do, plunging down into the metal floor, arrests her momentum. The steel frame rattles, screaming as a woman in labour, and Mira gapes as the floor—the walls, the ceiling—split along the widening circumferential wound, and the carriage splits in two.
As her half of the carriage slows down, Mira stares at the train tracks, the freezing air striking her face like a slap. And in the distance, the train hurtles onwards, the axe-wielding demon laughing as it dances in the front half of the mutilated carriage.
Mira leaps onto the tracks, nearly slipping on the wet metal as she bounds into the rain, Gok-Do in hand. Driven by sheer physical will and the hum of her Hunter’s magic, her feet tear across the distance like a dragonfly across pondwater, eating up the distance easily—but the train is already two hundred feet away and further with each passing second.
She looks up, into the storm, and her heart drops like a stone.
A shadow passes over her head. Quivering movement, and the wild sounds of frenzy. Dark bodies tearing through the air, riding the night like an oceanic current, rife with the appetite and hunger she knows too well.
Bounding from the trees, the rooftops, the overhanging bridge—a horde of demons descends upon the train containing nearly a hundred passengers.
And her brother.
“Hyun-Soo,” she gasps, breathing in the frigid air. Then, she shouts. “Hyun-Soo!”
“This episode is so slooooow—” Zoey moans, clutching her penguin plushie. “I thought this shit was critically acclaimed! Come on…” She shakes her head at the TV, where the two leads are having their third minute of a mumbled conversation in terrible lighting; as usual, the sound balance is totally off.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
“It’s Mira. She’s done meeting her brother?” Rumi reaches for her phone. “Huh. That was a lot faster than I thought.”
“Told you it was a waste of time,” Zoey mumbles, pressing her face into a pillow. “Like this episode.”
Rumi taps the green button and lifts the phone to her ear. “Hey. Mira, how are—”
Her posture stiffens. Zoey turns her head, in time to see the colour drain from Rumi’s face.
“Wait—slow down. So—” Rumi’s eyes widen.
“What is it?” Zoey calls out, rising quickly to her feet..
“Shit.” Rumi looks up. “Dongdaemun. The Blue Line. Demon attack. And—Mira’s brother is on the train.”
“It can’t be—the Honmoon—” Zoey mutters quietly, lips trembling.
And then the discipline of a Hunter asserts itself over both the women, pushing aside uncertainty and fear.
“Let’s go,” Zoey says.
An instant, and they are out the door and bolting down the corridor, hurtling towards the staircase.
When the shock rumbles through the carriage, Hui-Cheol stands to his feet.
“Time to move,” he growls. Across from him, the two women in identical floral dresses rise from their seats, barely hiding their grins—and the viper-like teeth behind their lips. The time for subterfuge is over.
The rest of the passengers, dull and pitiful mortals that they are, clamour in confusion and call to each other as the lights overhead flicker. Someone yells that somebody should do something. They always say that; nobody ever does.
He strides towards the back of the carriage, tailed by the two emaciated demons, no longer even bothering to hide their claws. As he passes by the toilet, the door slides open, and a lanky blue-skinned water demon steps off the filthy toilet seat, dripping with its swampy scent.
“Finally,” it rasps, grinning.
“Yes,” Hui-Cheol replies with a nod. “Finally.”
“A bit early,” one of the twin women snarls from over his shoulder.
Hui-Cheol unlocks the door. “No matter. If my plan worked, then the Hunter is isolated. And she won’t get in the way of your feast.”
He pulls the sliding door open and walks across the closed gangway into the next carriage. When he opens the next door, he’s met by a gaggle of hungry faces, tusks bared and red eyes gleaming, as their human disguises fall away like old skin from a serpent.
The Hunters’ magic—the damned Honmoon—had banished all but a handful of Gwi-Ma’s forces back to the hells, leaving a handful of scattered foot soldiers eking out miserable existences in the dark corners where the Honmoon’s light grows faint. Yet it had taken Hui-Cheol only a matter of months to make contact with an untapped resource.
Wild demons. Nomadic, leaderless, unbound to any infernal king or lord. And hence spared by the sacred magic that had repulsed Gwi-Ma back to the hells.
“You know the deal.” He flashes his own fangs in response; a show of dominance. “You get the front half of the train. We get the back.”
“That’s if your plan works, Romance,” a one-eyed rock demon jeers at him.
Hui-Cheol’s grimace widens. “Do not call me that.”
“What’s the matter? Struck a nerve?” the demon steps closer. “Look at you. Pretty boy with pretty hair. I’m not trusting the word of one of the weaklings that caused Gwi-Ma to fail.”
Romance. The name had been Jinu’s idea, approved heartily by Gwi-Ma. More than a catchy moniker for a pop idol—a constant, biting reminder of the utter failure of his mortal life that drove him into the arms of the demon lord to begin with.
Jinu—the thought nearly makes his skin roll up like a carpet. A merciless taskmaster, a wily demon general, a name feared for four hundred years—and he turned traitor right at the cusp of victory, for the sake of a mere girl who’s probably already tossed out the memory of him. The thought makes him retch.
“Watch it, rock.” The water demon shuffles from behind Hui-Cheol, long hair draped around its wet shoulders like seaweed. “Hui-Cheol’s kept us fed so far. If you’d prefer to go hungry, you can scram.”
The rock demon’s face contorts in fury, as it raises a club threateningly.
“Enough,” Hui-Cheol sweeps a hand between them both. “We’re wasting time. My plan has worked already.”
“And how do you know?” the rock demon demands.
“Because we’re here, and the Hunter isn’t,” Hui-Cheol responds. “I knew Mira wouldn’t back down from a fight. That’s her weakness—bravado. Too easy to bait.”
He glances around the gaggle of demons.
“You all keep forgetting something. I was one of the Saja Boys. We came closest to destroying the Hunters for good.” He sweeps a strand of hair from his face. No longer pink, no longer coiffed, now brittle and unkempt and wild like the rest of him. “As Romance, I’ve watched these Hunters up close, closer than any of you. I know how their minds work, and I know how to use it against them.”
He turns behind to look at the former foot-soldiers of Gwi-Ma. “Follow my lead, and we’ll devour enough souls to double our numbers.”
“What about the other Hunters?” asks a short ogre, squinting its beady eyes.
“They won’t get here in time,” says Hui-Cheol, keeping his eyes on the rock demon. “Now, about what we talked about earlier. Do we have a deal?”
The rock demon continues to glare at him. Then, tense purple lips fold back over boar-like tusks. “You just hold up your end of the bargain. I’ll eat until I’m about to burst—and then, I’ll think about joining up with you.”
Hui-Cheol nods. “Your brethren?” The wild horde of demons that have always prowled the mountainsides and forgotten waterways of Joseon are fickle and ungovernable. But their one superior quality, their numbers, that he can depend on.
The rock demon scoffs. “They’ll be on time for the food. And once they’ve eaten—well, maybe they’ll be a mood to negotiate an alliance.”
“Then it’s time to eat,” the twin demons speak together.
“Remember the deal,” Hui-Cheol raises a finger. “Half the train for us. Other half for the wild ones.”
“Crystal clear.” The rock demon is almost salivating.
Hui-Cheol opens his mouth to speak.
The lights above flicker once, then die. The carriage plunges into darkness, and for a second all Hui-Cheol can see are the glowing eyes of his compatriots.
“What—” he hears himself saying.
As the train groans and jerks over the tracks, he picks up the faint noise of the carriage door sliding open. Followed by another noise. Hissing, like a snake.
From the windows, the streetlights flash into the carriage as they pass at dizzying speed, alternating each second between blinding fluorescent light and pitch-black darkness.
It’s the one weakness of demonic vision. Excellent vision in the day, perfect vision in the night. But in the transition—where darkness meets the light—their eyes become clouded, their vision speckled. A drawback so circumstantial, so rare, that it seldom bears considering.
Until now.
Hui-Cheol turns his head, eyes still straining against the dark, the seconds feeling like years as he struggles to adjust his vision. Blearily, he sees an arc of thin smoke dancing through the air, followed by another one on its heels.
The smell. Chrysanthemum?
Then the smoke expands with the explosive sigh of a punctured lung, and—
His lungs turn to stone, and Hui-Cheol drops to his knees open-mouthed. His clawed fingernails claw at his chest, rending the thin fabric of the T-shirt. The silhouettes of the other demons hunch over as if kicked in the guts. Retching, heaving, coughing.
Then one of the shadows seizes up, releases an airless cry, drops to the ground—and crumples into dust. From behind the shower of dust, a shade floats out of view, then closes back in.
A harsh sound, of flesh violently ripped. A strangled cry. Another shadow collapses.
And another.
Like rice plants falling before a scythe, Hui-Cheol watches the outlines of a dozen demons vanish in death.
A shadow falls over Hui-Cheol, and he raises his arms—too late—as a bulk collapses over him with the weight of an anvil.
“Bastard!” he hears. It’s the rock demon. “You set us up, you—”
A wet sound, of metal puncturing metal.
Hui-Cheol’s face runs slick with moisture. His nostrils fill with the scent of rusted iron. His eyes meet the demon’s eyes. Wide, bloodshot. Pupils dilating. Eyelids quivering.
His gaze drops downwards. Through the demon’s chest, a conical metallic point gleams. It twists, and the rock demon’s blood bubbles from its ruptured heart. Life’s blood, pouring from a body woven from infernal flesh and hellish magic, impervious to any mortal weapons.
Not a Hunter’s weapon. Not an implement blessed by sacred magic, banishing demons beyond the veil of the Honmoon.
A demon’s weapon.
The rock demon’s body spasms, the air around it shimmering as the magic sustaining its existence fails catastrophically. Then, in a shower of dust, it simply implodes.
Searing white light burns into Hui-Cheol's eyes as the lights come back on.
Somehow, his hands find the cold metallic wall of the carriage, and his knees find the strength to straighten. The air lightens, the oppressive stench of chrysanthemum dissipates, and his eyes readjust.
He feels his throat clench up as he surveys the scene. Where a troop of demons had stood ready to visit violence upon mortals, there now lies an irregular puddle of dust strewn over the floor, dancing and undulating with each movement of the carriage.
A dozen demons. Dead. Not banished, not retreated. Dead.
As the train rounds a bend, the abandoned war-club rolls from under one row of seats to the other. Along its way, it bumps into two small canisters, each still spouting a thin stream of gas.
Grenades.
He stands to his feet, summoning his magic. The flow of energy is sluggish under his skin, his lungs wet with the residue of the gas.
His vision clears, and his heartbeat quickens.
A lanky figure approaches from the opposite end of the carriage. At first, Hui-Cheol’s watery eyes paint the vivid picture of a scarred ogre arrayed in black-and-white armour—then the image sharpens, and he sees the black hair, the eagle-like eyes, the black formal suit that covers the figure immaculately from shoulder to soles. A mask covers its very-human features from nose to chin. A metal mask, painted with the red lips and white fangs of a dokkaebi.
A mortal—wearing the insignia of a demon?
The man kicks the war club aside, scuffing the floor with his black leather shoes. Good ones too, quality ones. Hui-Cheol’s brain scrambles to filter information through the sieve of panic.
The black suit is stained, purple-on-black all the way down both sleeves and across the front, soaking through his maroon dress shirt. Fresh blood. None of it his.
“Who are you?” Hui-Cheol snarls, his claws lengthening as he crouches.
The man raises his arms, and the fluorescent light gleams across the rudimentary implement grasped in each of his fists. A cylindrical wooden handle joined at a right-angle to a longer length of wood, tipped with a heavy metal ring on one end and a short stabbing blade on the other.
A weapon of peasants. A crude, pitiful human invention, created in desperation by a people denied the dignity of real weapons to survive the scourge of war.
He knows the name of the weapon. Tonfa.
And from the blade of each tonfa, demonic blood drips onto the floor.
“Who the fuck are you?” yells Hui-Cheol.
The man spins the tonfa in each fist, aligning the stabbing point with his forearms.
“Kang Hyun-Soo, Sentinel Four-Two-Eight,” the man answers, his voice distorted by the mask into an inorganic noise. “And you have miscalculated.”