What seemed to be an eternity to Annabelle was but a mere second to Jules and Bastien. 

When the girls stopped dead in their tracks, the two men also glanced over at the mirror. But in the end, they did not see anything out of the ordinary. There were no monsters with split cheeks and bloodshot eyes, nor were the teenagers strangling themselves. All that could be seen were three smiling teenage girls, their eyes curved into beautiful crescent moons. 

Truly, it couldn’t be any more banal.

And yet, something didn’t feel quite right. The girls were too serene-looking, making Jules frown. He didn’t remember his sister being so well-behaved. 

“Anna?” he tentatively called out. “Iris? Melody?”

But no one answered. There was no reaction whatsoever, and as his eyes traveled down to his sister’s back, he caught a glimpse of something that made his blood run cold. 

Cursing under his breath, Jules bolted to his sister, dragging Bastien in his wake. Ignoring the groaning demon on his back, he pulled the collar of Annabelle’s jacket and took a better look at her neck. 

His heart then skipped a beat. 

The girl’s clothes concealed the bruises, but once out of the way, the finger marks were striking. They were purple-blue, as ugly as can be, and seemed to twist the skin. Although Jules could now see the blackened neck, he still could not hear his sister’s ragged breaths. He didn’t need to, though. 

The teenage girl obviously could not breathe. She also could not move, much less speak.

Noticing the state Annabelle was in, Bastien dashed toward Iris and Melody, forcing his legs to move. One glance, and he knew they weren’t faring any better.

“Cut the visual contact!” the demon yelled as he covered the teenagers’ eyes with his hands, leaving Jules to do the same with his sister. “Shh, everything is ok now. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Listen to my voice, and only mine. You’re safe, I promise.”

The incubus whispered gentle and soothing words while Jules yanked his sister to his chest, turning her around to press her head against the crook of his neck. As soon as she was nestled in her brother’s arms, Annabelle broke down in tears, her small shoulders trembling like a leaf as loud, raspy sobs escaped her pale lips. 

Jules kissed his sister’s head, his blood boiling with rage. Had he been any later…

He gnashed his teeth, refusing to think about it. Instead, he focused on the mirror, on the things lurking inside.

Now that the visual contact was broken, the reflections blurred to reveal their true nature. The ghosts still wore the teenagers’ faces, but it was barely recognizable. Blood and pus smeared the skin; the eyes were sunken into the orbits; the cheeks were split to the ears, a few torn muscles barely hanging between the two half of the jaws.

With a tilt of their heads, the ghosts grinned at the men. A taunting light glinted in their otherwise dull eyes as if to mock them. A pity they realized something was wrong. Just a bit longer, and...

And Jules lost it. 

The hunter lifted a leg and kicked the mirror, shattering the glass into thousands of pieces. He crudely wrapped his spiritual energy around it in his haste, the spider net thus full of holes. His mishap didn’t go unnoticed, and one ghost took the opportunity to flee through the gaps while the others fell prey to the spiritual energy, turning into dust. 

“Goddammit,” Jules growled, a snarl distorting his usually calm face. “One ran away.”

“Chase after it,” Bastien said, matter-of-factly. “You won’t have a second chance to catch it.”

The hunter hesitated, lowering his eyes to look at his little sister. She was sniffing and panting heavily, still trying to catch her breath. He did not want to let go of her, not when he had almost lost her just moments ago.

“I’ll watch over the girls,” Bastien insisted, knowing the clock was ticking. If Jules were to wait for too long, the residual energy on the ghost would disappear, making it impossible to track it down. “Go.”

Biting his lower lip, Jules made up his mind and bent over to kiss his sister on her forehead. He told her in a soft yet firm voice: 

“Listen to Bastien. I’ll be back soon.”

Then, Jules pushed Annabelle toward the demon and her friends. However, the teenager gripped his clothes and refused to let go, her panicked eyes searching for her brother’s. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. 

“Be good,” Jules smiled, forcing the girl to loosen her fists before disappearing in the blink of an eye.

After which, a dead silence fell, and only the girls’ heavy breaths could be heard—not for long, though.

“…What’s going on?” Iris asked in a hoarse voice, lowering her brother’s hand to sideglance at him. “That… That wasn’t normal.” 

She was the first out of the three to come back to her senses. Though her thoughts were still in disarray, she didn’t beat around the bush and directly inquired about the events. If anything, her not-so-human brother should know.

“It’s not something for you to worry about, so take time to calm down first. Us brothers will take care of it—”

Bastien stopped mid-sentence, the reassuring smile on lips faltering. In a fraction of a second, he wrapped his arms around the three teenagers and switched places. The man squeezed them against each other, covering their smaller bodies with his. He pressed their heads against his broad chest, holding them in place.

‘For goodness sake, this is bound to hurt.’

The fleeting thought crossed his mind as Bastien braced himself, tightening his grip around the girls. His back soon felt as if it had been set ablaze, blood gushing out and soiling the floor.    

***

How many mirrors had he shattered? Jules hadn’t counted and didn’t want to count. All he knew was that the heavy usage of his spiritual energy was starting to drain him. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and his vision was flickering, spots of white and black flashing before his eyes.   

He knew he was being reckless, yet he couldn’t help it. 

The moment Jules felt a trace of his energy emanating from a mirror, he broke it without hesitation, but whether the ghost was still inside or not was another story. Until now, he had only fallen for decoys, irking him to no end. That shitty thing was playing with him, making a fool out of him.

“Dammit it, where is it?”

His patience was running thin, very, very thin.  

Jules took in a deep breath, trying to calm down. His nerves were stretched taut as he forced his legs to move forward, suppressing his urge to run back to the others. Leaving the teenagers, who were still in a state of shock, and a weak incubus alone didn’t settle well with him. However, Jules had no other choice. 

In the end, this was the best course of action.

The ghost he was currently pursuing was probably the master of this realm. A ghost wall didn’t usually host many ghosts, and among the three he had fought earlier, two turned to dust and one escaped. There shouldn’t be any more left, thus the third ghost was likely the ruler of this forsaken place.

If they wanted to get out of their predicament, Jules needed to find it and annihilate it. Like Bastien had said, he wouldn’t have a second chance. If that thing were to go into hiding, there was no guarantee they could ever leave this place.

Still, his thoughts always veered to the girls and the demon he had left behind. They were currently defenseless, just like little hatchlings. Though Jules knew there shouldn’t be any more ghosts wandering the place, his guts nevertheless twisted with nervousness.

What if he was wrong…? 

As if to taunt him, a shrill scream then resonated throughout the silent corridor like a gunshot, far and wide. It seemed particularly loud to Jules, making his ears ring.

“BASTIEN!” 

Jules blanked out for a second before abruptly veering, almost falling in his haste.

“Fucking hell!”

He knew he shouldn’t have left, he really shouldn’t have. What was the point of exorcising the ghost and breaking the wall if only corpses awaited his return? None, absolutely none. 

Oh good Lord, please let them be safe.

.

.

When Jules arrived, the sight that greeted him wasn’t something he would forget anytime soon. Bastien’s back was a mess, so mutilated that the spine and the shoulder blades were laid bare, the white bones standing out amid the sea of blood. The clothes and the skin had been torn wide-open, and bits of organs littered the floor.

Still, the demon did not let go of the girls, dutifully protecting them with his mangled body.

For a second, the hunter forgot to breathe.

The ghost that had been feasting on Bastien’s flesh turned around when it heard footsteps, its blood-red lips stretching into a broad smile as its black eyes met Jules’s. It was a young woman with ankle-length hair and beautiful features. She wore a white gown, but blood spatters tainted it, stiffening the fabric. 

“Are you also hungry?” she asked, bringing a bloody nail to her lips while digging a little deeper into the man’s back. “I can share.”

Jules couldn’t hear her, his ears buzzing and filtering all sounds except for Bastien’s weak and raspy breaths. But though his mind was a mess, his body still moved on its own. Not even a second later, the silhouette of a thin double-edged sword appeared in his hand, shining faintly like the moon. 

The next instant, Jules swung the weapon, not caring whether the blade had fully manifested or not. The cut wouldn’t be clean, but it didn’t matter. He had no time to waste, not when the demon was bleeding his life out.

Taken aback, the ghost blinked, then her head rolled off her shoulders, a bundle of long hair falling on the floor. Everything had happened too fast, leaving her unable to react in time. In the first place, she wasn’t a strong ghost; her prey was only too weak to fight back.

As the ghost’s body started to vanish, her mouth moved to say: 

“You don’t want to share? What a pity.”

Again, Jules ignored her and rushed to Bastien, discarding his sword. Iris looked at him with pleading eyes, holding onto her brother for her dear life, but Jules responded with a frown. It did not look good, not at all.

With gentle movements, the hunter took the demon from his sister and cradled him to his arms, scanning his injuries. Soon, his hands were covered in blood, as were his legs on which he had laid the man. 

“…Why aren’t your wounds closing up?”

A demon’s regenerative ability was frightening, yet Bastien wasn’t healing, the blood still gushing out. The amount was alarming and wasn’t getting any less.

“Cut me some slack, will you?” Bastien groaned between two heavy breaths. “I haven’t eaten in ages, and the first thing I finally fed on after so long was poisonous to me. Of course my regenerative ability is shit right now.”

He smiled, but his smile wasn’t reassuring in the least. His voice was growing weaker as he said:

“Take the girls and go. Come on, don’t pull that face. It’s my fault, I miscalculated. I didn’t think the ghost would share its space with so many others.”

“For your defense, it’s usually not the case,” Jules scoffed. “I didn’t think of it either.”

There was a short silence, soon interrupted by a violent fit of coughing. If Bastien had been human, he would have long been dead. 

“Please…” Iris sobbed, gripping her brother’s bloody hand. She lifted her head to look into the hunter’s eyes, panic making her voice tremble. “Do something, anything! I’m begging you!”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, snot falling from her nose. She looked like a mess, way more than when she was about to die.

“Don’t cry, your brother will be fine,” Jules murmured, bending over to shorten the distance between his face and Bastien’s.

Now, there wasn’t even an inch separating them.

“I swear you’re a handful,” Jules told him, a discreet sneer lifting the corner of his mouth.  

That being said, he roughly pressed lips against his, his gray eyes locked into the demon’s. His tongue wormed its way inside, mingling with the man’s. It wasn’t a pretty kiss, nor was it romantic. It was rough and unsightly. 

Sensing that Bastien wanted to complain, Jules cupped his face and growled against his bloody lips: 

“Shut up and eat.”