Page 44 of Virgil's Demons

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 connectionthey 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 hissomething 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 whatyoudo."

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.

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