The smell coats the back of my throat before I see him. Sulfur and standing water, the kind that's been rotting in a drain for weeks.
I stop at the alley entrance.
The figure in the center is tall, robed, wrong. The water spreading from his staff isn't normal water — it moves against the slope of the ground, crawling up the walls in thin dark veins. And the people on the stoops across the street are twitching. A woman mid-rock. A man mid-shout. All of them flinch at the same moment, like something just pressed down on them from above.
The beads on the figure's neck pulse. One. Two. Three. Each pulse sends a ripple through the air that I feel in my teeth.
"Hey."
My voice comes out steadier than I expected. I step into the alley. My hands are shaking but I keep them at my sides where he can see them.
"Whatever you're doing to those people, stop."
The figure turns. His face is pale, almost gray, and his eyes are the kind of dark that doesn't reflect light. He looks at me the way someone might look at a bug that landed on their food.
"Another human," he says. His voice is soft. Polite. Somehow that makes it worse. "How... persistent your species is."
"I'm serious. Stop it. Now."
He tilts his head. The beads pulse again. Across the street, the woman on the curb lets out a small, broken sound.
"You don't even know what you're interrupting, do you?" He smiles. It doesn't reach anywhere. "This isn't an attack, girl. It's a harvest."
"I don't care what you call it."
I don't know what this thing is. I don't know what it can do. But I know what it feels like to have someone else pull your strings, and I know what it looks like when people can't fight back.
I plant my feet.
"Last chance," I say. "Stop, or I make you stop."
I don't move.
Shaujinmon's dark eyes study me, and the beads on his necklace pulse like a slow, sick heartbeat. The people on the stoops across the street are still twitching, still caught in whatever he's doing to them. I can feel it now — a pressure behind my eyes, faint but there, like someone pressing a thumb against the inside of my skull.
It's not enough to control me. But I can feel it trying.
"Handle her," Shaujinmon says.
He's not talking to me.
Impmon steps out from behind a dumpster, and my stomach drops. He looks the same as always — purple skin, red scarf, that sharp grin — but the grin isn't there now. His mouth is a flat line. His green eyes won't meet mine.
"Impmon?"
He doesn't answer. He just looks at Shaujinmon, then back at me, and there's something in his face I've never seen before. Something that looks almost like shame.
"You know this human?" Shaujinmon asks. His tone is light. Curious. The way you'd ask about the weather.
"She's nobody," Impmon says.
The word hits harder than it should. Nobody. Like the pretzels we shared on the bench never happened. Like he didn't show up at my school, didn't sit with me while I tried to figure out how to be a person again.
"She's not nobody," I say. My voice comes out rough. "Impmon, what are you doing with him?"
He flinches. Just barely. Just enough that I see it.
"Leave," he says. "Just go. You don't belong here."
"I'm not leaving."
"Jessica —"
"Then tell me what's going on!"
The words echo off the alley walls. A pipe drips somewhere behind me. One of the twitching people on the curb moans.
Shaujinmon laughs. It's a soft sound, almost gentle, and it makes my skin crawl.
"The human has spirit," he says. "How refreshing."
"Shut up," Impmon snaps at him. Then, to me, louder: "I said leave. I'm not asking."
He moves fast. Faster than I expect. One second he's by the dumpster, the next he's in front of me, hands shoving against my shoulders. I stumble back a step but don't fall. My feet plant. My hands come up.
"Impmon, stop —"
He shoves again, harder this time. I catch his wrists. His skin is warm, almost hot, and he's stronger than he looks. But I'm stronger than I look too.
"I don't want to fight you," he says through his teeth.
"Then don't."
"Then go!"
"I'm not going without answers!"
He pulls free and fires a blast of purple flame at the ground between us. I jump back, the heat washing over my face. He's not aiming at me. He's aiming near me. Trying to scare me off.
It almost works.
Almost.
I charge forward. He dodges left, quick and agile, and I pivot to follow. My fist catches his shoulder — not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough to make him grunt. He spins, tail whipping, and kicks at my shin. I block it with my forearm and feel the impact rattle up to my elbow.
"Stop fighting me!" he shouts.
"Stop working with him!"
We're circling each other now, both breathing hard. His eyes are wild. Mine probably are too. I can feel Shaujinmon watching us, feel his attention like a weight on the back of my neck.
Immon fires another blast. I dodge right and it scorches the brick behind me. I close the distance and grab for his arm. He twists away, but not fast enough. My fingers close around his wrist and I hold on.
"Just tell me why," I say. "Tell me what he has on you. Tell me what's going on and I'll —"
"Enough."
Shaujinmon's voice cuts through the alley like a blade. The pressure behind my eyes spikes, and then something hits me in the chest. Not a fist. Not fire. Something worse. It feels like every bad thing that's ever happened to me compressed into a single point and driven straight through my ribs.
I fly backward.
The world spins. Brick rushes up to meet me and I hit the wall hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. I slide down to the ground, gasping, my vision swimming. The alley tilts. My ears ring.
Shaujinmon walks toward me. Each step sends ripples through the water on the ground. The beads on his neck are pulsing faster now, and I can see faces in them — eyes, mouths, stitched shut but still somehow screaming.
"Interesting," he says, looking down at me. "The data from a human in distress is... particularly rich."
He raises his staff. The crescent blade at its tip glows with a dark, wet light.
Impmon moves between us.
"No."
Shaujinmon pauses. "Excuse me?"
"I said no." Impmon's voice is shaking. His whole body is shaking. But he doesn't move. "You don't need her. You've got what you came for. The people, the data, whatever. Just leave her out of it."
"The girl is a complication."
"She's nothing. She's a nobody. She can't do anything to you."
"Then why do you care what happens to her?"
Impmon doesn't answer. His hands are clenched at his sides. His tail lashes once, twice.
Shaujinmon studies him for a long moment. Then he laughs again, that same soft, terrible sound.
"Ah," he says. "I see."
He lowers his staff.
"You've grown attached. How... inconvenient."
"She's not — I'm not —" Impmon sputters. "It's not like that."
"Of course not." Shaujinmon turns away, robes swirling. "Very well. I'll humor you. For now. The girl may live."
He starts walking toward the alley's far exit. After three steps, he stops and looks back over his shoulder.
"Coming?"
Immon looks at me. I'm still on the ground, still trying to breathe, still trying to make my legs work. His face is a war — anger and fear and something else I can't name.
"Go home, Jessica," he says quietly.
Then he turns and follows Shaujinmon into the dark.
I watch them disappear. The pressure in my head fades. The people on the stoops start to stir, blinking, confused, like they're waking from a dream they can't remember.
My chest hurts. My back hurts. Everything hurts.
But I'm already pulling out my phone.
I don't know where Impmon went. I don't know what Shaujinmon is planning. But I know Impmon just stepped between me and a monster to keep me safe, and I know that whatever's going on, he didn't want to do it.
He's still good. Under all of it, he's still good.
And I'm going to find out what's happening if it's the last thing I do.
***
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