In one of the corridors of Demonstone Hospital’s psych ward…

  After tearing through No. 19’s face bandages, Ugo stood, frozen and dumbfounded, with his Black Magic-coated pen aimed at the floor.

  Why did this monster have Kian’s face? It didn’t feel exactly like Kian, but close to him, mixed with something else, his Mana detection abilities were having trouble remembering.

  No. 19’s cowl fell back, and then it screamed continually as it peeled off the rest of the bloody bandages around its head.

  A messy pompadour was revealed, and then Ugo realized that Kian’s face was inside someone’s caved-in head.

  The monster finally made its move as Ugo stared at it, completely defenseless. No. 19 thrust its wing at him, and Ugo was lucky to only get a graze off his forehead as a hand grabbed his pant leg and pulled him onto the floor.

  Ugo looked over to Naomi as she pulled her hand away. “Thanks!” he said and launched the enhanced pen up at No.19 as it neared them. It lodged onto the bottom of its chin.

  Next, Ugo got up, yanked the pen from under its chin, clicked it twice to make sure the tip was out, and stabbed it right in the shoulder.

  Up close to the screaming monster, Ugo analyzed the head Kian’s face was inserted in. The pompadour that lost most of its flair and the graying olive skin used to both be majestic at one point.

  Ugo’s mind traveled back to the crime scene of Yaalon’s murder when they revisited it a few moments later.

  Yaalon’s face was gone, just a bowl of meat overfilled with rats.

  Ugo wondered if he would see the same wound Kian’s hungry plague rats opened if he tore through the rags and bandages covering its torso.

  He plucked out the pen just in time to block another blade swing by No. 19 and remembered Zeke telling him that Gill had taken Kian’s body after his death.

  It turned out Kian wasn’t the only corpse he collected that day.

  What his Mana senses were picking up was now making sense. It was traces of Kian’s and Yaalon’s Healer’s Garbs layered with Ashlin’s magic.

  No. 19 used its other arm to pick its archaic, jagged sword off the ground and swung both weapons at Ugo. Its movements were heavy but quick. Dodging the first couple of swings was pure luck, but it wasn’t going to last for long.

  Knowing this, Ugo managed one meager pen slash at No. 19’s side and turned to Naomi. “Okay, back to running!”

  Naomi walked past the two with a blank look on her face.

  “Naomi?” Ugo turned and asked. “Naomi, where are you—?”

  Ugo learned the lesson of why one never turns their back to an opponent mid-fight. He took the heavy slashes of the monster’s blades to his back and caromed off the wall before him, dropping his pen somewhere along the way.

  The double sizeable slash marks on his back had him curling up and screaming at the top of his lungs. It was a violent reminder of how different pain feels when without his Healer’s Garb.

  Ugo fisted the floor and got up, making hisses while scowling at No. 19. He had to endure the wounds since using White Magic was out of the question. Healing with Black Magic was a thing, but using those on a Black Magic-inflicted wound would be like trying to put out fire with fire.

  The only way to cure himself using the dark energy would be by triggering a Positive Reaction.

  He had read about it in one of the books in the Infirmary’s Library. The process required applying Black Magic healing on a Black Magic-inflicted wound, with both outputs being the same in a single second. The Positive Reaction acted as a proxy for White Magic and rids of the injury.

  Needless to say, the timing was difficult, and failure would trigger a 921: Death Hex.

  Without giving him more time to recover, No. 19 jetted at Ugo, blades first.

  Ugo avoided getting pierced by dropping to the floor. He looked up at the monster, and it was struggling to pull its swords that got jammed into the wall. Ugo would’ve pointed and laughed if he wasn’t afraid of accidentally tasting the pieces of dead skin flaking off its face.

  He slid past between his legs and spotted his pen waiting for him. Ugo crawled towards it but was pulled back by the ankle.

  As No. 19 had one hand focused on pulling the large sword out of the wall, the other gripped Ugo’s ankle and pulled it up.

  Ugo scoffed and reached into his pocket as he hung upside down. “Ugh! Damn you for making me use this!” He whipped out his smartphone and infused it with Black Magic.

  The Surgeon’s opponent tightened its grip on his ankle but didn’t get far enough to break anything. Ugo bent upward and jammed the magically enhanced smartphone into its eye.

  No. 19 dropped Ugo.

  He brushed off the bad landing that almost broke his neck and looked around. “Naomi?” said Ugo. He looked around while controlling his breathing and focused on his senses.

  Black Magic energy was everywhere, and Naomi’s was camouflaged within them. There was no way for him to point her out. He ran in the direction she walked off and screamed for her name, hoping for the best.

  Naomi heard Ugo screaming her name from afar, but the lure tugging on her attention was difficult to pull away from. Even with her mind absent, her feet moved with purpose, leading her to turn into a corner where she found a door ajar waiting for her.

  Her steps slowed as she neared the door, and a grainy static sound arose.

  Is there a TV in there? Naomi thought as she got closer, and the white noise grew louder.

  While working at Heath’s Sports Bar, she had overheard some humans claiming that listening to it helped them sleep. After hearing it for a few seconds, she became befuddled by the idea of how one could possibly sleep to such noise.

  She entered the room, which was empty except for a single chair in the middle, where the figure from her dreams sat, clad in a well-fitting suit.

  The thing that had been appearing in her newly-spawned dreams—The TV Head entity.

  It turned back to her. The television it had in place of its head was a bulky, old-fashioned kind that Naomi had seen before.

  It was a few months back when Zeke and Ugo were showing her around their region—Blackmarsh Grove. A television set that matched the one sitting on TV Head’s shoulders was in a house’s front yard, along with other items. Zeke and Ugo explained that the homeowners were practicing a custom called “yard sale.” Which occurred when humans sought to get rid of things they no longer needed in exchange for coin.

  The buzzing from TV Head’s black and white static screen grew more aggressive, and then it reached for the dial on the side of its television head. As it spun the dial, distorted voices at low pitches arose, followed by beeping, which was cut, becoming static once again as TV Head adjusted the antennas poking off the top.

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  Naomi heard quiet breathing but was unsure where it was coming from. Then, the static on TV Head’s screen was replaced with a black-and-white image of a living room.

  A woman wearing an apron over a polka-dot dress was on the sofa, donning an overstretched smile that seemed to beam through the television screen and right into Naomi’s soul.

  The woman on the TV had an interesting hairstyle Naomi didn’t see on any other woman in the Human Realm ever since she left the cage. Perhaps, it was outdated.

  From the television, a door opened, and the woman, maintaining her smile, turned to it. A suited man emerged with a briefcase and stepped into the living room.

  Applause arose, and the woman sprung up. “Oh, darling, you’re here! Finally!” she said as TV Head got up, turned the chair around, and directed his hands at the empty chair. “Please, sit. We need to talk,” the woman on the TV said.

  Naomi’s brows furrowed as the man and the woman on the TV stopped and looked at her.

  “Well, are you just going to stand there?” the woman on the TV asked, speaking with a strange accent.

  “Who are you?” Naomi asked, unsure if she directed the question at the woman on the TV or TV Head.

  The woman’s smile on the TV grew wider. She stood completely silent while staring at Naomi and then tilted her head. “What you’ve been looking for,” the woman said with a slight sound distortion.

  “What the hell?” A voice from behind shouted.

  Naomi spun on her heel and watched Ugo enter the room. She glanced at TV Head and then fixed on Ugo. “You can see him?”

  “Yes!” he said, looking at her as if it was the dumbest question he had ever heard.

  Naomi lowered her head. “This is the thing from my dreams,” Naomi muttered, “or should I say nightmares?”

  “You never said anything about a creature with a TV for a head!”

  “You’re right... I’m sorry,” Naomi said and looked away.

  As TV Head moved forward, Ugo stepped in front of Naomi and stretched his hand out. “Whatever you want from her. You’re not getting it, alright?”

  The man on the TV put his briefcase down and neared the screen. His eyes were wide, and his smile just as over-the-top as the woman’s. “You may want to be careful with how you’re talking to someone who can blow this entire patient abduction operation wide open for ya.” A laugh track played. “I can have Gill and all his goons on ya in minutes.” The man on the TV spoke with an outlandish accent like the woman.

  According to Nananiel, Naomi recalled that human television used to be in black and white. Maybe, like the woman’s hairdo, it was an accent from the past.

  On the television screen, the focus pulled away from the man and panned over to the woman. “All I want is to talk to her for just a few minutes, but you can’t be here while I do.”

  “No way,” Ugo said.

  “Tsk, tsk.” The woman on the TV shook her head and waved her finger. “Have you considered what the girl wants?” She said. “Men always think they can make decisions for us…”

  An uproar of boos came from the television screen.

  “Of course, she doesn’t want to talk to—”

  “Ugo,” Naomi said softly.

  Ugo looked down at her in horror. “Naomi, no, this is—“

  “Just let me do this. Please.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while and even tell you where the inseminated girl is,” the woman on the TV said.

  “How do you know all this?” Ugo asked.

  The screen panned over to the man who said, “How about you stop asking questions and wasting time?”

  Applause and laughter arose.

  “I’ll be okay,” Naomi said and caught Ugo’s look. “Please, trust me.”

  When Ugo looked back at TV Head, it raised a finger aimed at the door.

  After a short moment of silence filled with plenty of angry and confused looks from Ugo, he finally relented and let himself out of the room,

  As soon as the door slammed closed, Naomi asked, “What do you want from me?”

  “How does it feel being here for the first time?” the woman on the TV asked.

  “What do you mean by “here”?”

  The woman on the TV didn’t answer. Just kept staring.

  Naomi sighed, realizing that TV Head already knew she understood what it meant. “It feels… good,” she said.

  “Of course it does!” The woman on the TV said and spread her arms far apart. “This is your hooooome!” The audience cheered and whistled in content.

  TV Head tapped the top rail of the chair and gestured to it.

  As she moved towards the chair, her movements became heavy as she felt the clash happening within her already conflicting soul.

  To the detriment of her angelic side and elating her demonic side, she sat.

  TV Head brushed her arms up and down and then walked around to her front. It dropped to his knees and moved its TV head closer to Naomi’s face.

  On the TV, the camera followed the man as he joined the woman on the sofa.

  “You need to visit Gageriel,” the man on the TV said.

  Naomi stared back vacantly.

  The man and the woman on the TV exchanged looks as the laugh track played.

  “The angels didn’t even tell you about the Archdemons.”

  Naomi shook her head. “No, they didn’t. I didn’t learn much about demons. Most of the lessons I’ve received from Irin and Maliel were just about the history of angelkind and… how much of a mistake I am.” She averted her eyes to her hands as she gripped her arm, letting out slow breaths.

  Again, the warring conflict within her mixed soul stirred a mess of thoughts in her head.

  The angel side told her that she should be thankful the angels allowed her to have contact with them at all, and the demon side reminded her calling those visits “lessons” was a stretch.

  Especially the ones with Maliel…

  Naomi shuddered and blinked repeatedly as she felt the sting in her eyes.

  “What did you remember?” the woman on the TV said.

  Naomi raised her head and opened her mouth, but nothing came out aside from a choked breath.

  Slow music began to play from the TV as the camera zoomed in on the woman’s face, twisting with anger and hardening with sternness.

  “They tortured you just for existing…” the woman on the TV said, and several agreeing murmurs came from the audience. “Irin and Maliel are praised as heroes even though they’ve abused you constantly when you were in the cage…”

  “I guess so…” Naomi said with a quaver in her voice. “But they did a lot for angelkind and humankind—”

  The camera zipped over to the man. “Don’t defend them!” he barked. “They are monsters.”

  Naomi stared back at the TV in silence, her red-doe eyes wide and glistening. She tried to obey the angelic part of her that told her she had to correct the TV Head for badmouthing prominent saviors of humanity, but it just wasn’t strong enough to overpower the demonic part.

  TV Head pulled a handkerchief from its breast pocket and extended it to Naomi. A soft “awww” came from the audience.

  “Thank you,” Naomi said, taking the gray handkerchief.

  The camera zoomed out on the TV, showing both the man and woman.

  “The Archdemons are the highest-ranked demons in all of the Netherworld,” the woman on the TV said. “And each one is in charge of an important sector essential for the regular functioning of this Realm.”

  “Gageriel is the Royal Diplomat of the Netherrealm and doesn’t like the changes the Demonologist is making,” the man on the TV said. “In fact, most demons don’t like the changes happening to their home. They are not on Gill’s side. The only reason he is being allowed to make these changes in the first place is because of his contributions to Demonstone Hospital and the promise he made to the King of Hell to bring back Bergulsaab via the Rebirth Seed he inseminated that girl with. If Gill fails, he’ll be kicked to the curb. Gageriel, like many other demons, wants this.”

  “What will happen if Gill succeeds?”

  “Asmodieus, the King of Hell, will have the motivation he needs to cooperate with Gill to wage war on Heaven. Even if Gageriel is against it, he’ll follow the King anyway, but this is all under the condition that Bergulsaab is reborn,” the man on the TV replied.

  The woman on the TV leaned forward and continued for the man. “If you introduce yourself to Gageriel alone and offer to help get rid of Gill, he’ll accept. And then, you can introduce him to the Providence Infirmary team. You’ll be connecting with your family and helping out your friends by defeating Gill. Does this sound like a bad deal to you, Naomi?”

  “Family?” Naomi said.

  “You are not just the daughter of Cathetel.” the man on the TV said.

  “You are Terthran’s daughter,” the woman on the TV added. “Demons are your family, too. Have demons done anything to you to make you feel ashamed of who you are?”

  The question had Naomi afraid to speak aloud, but she shook her head slightly.

  “Exactly,” the man on the TV said. “Okay, I need to show you something. It’ll be useful for your current mission, trust me.”

  Trusting. It was a big ask from the entity, but Naomi was willing to take the risk. She nodded and extended the handkerchief back to TV Head.

  TV Head raised a hand and shook it. “Keep it,” the woman on the TV said. “It’s for you.”

  Naomi, smiling, crumpled the handkerchief and held it close to her chest. She noticed that TV Head’s energy felt like a demon’s, but it didn’t dissuade her.

  TV Head stood up and outstretched his hand.

  Naomi took it and let it lead her out of the room.

  Anderson’s Supernatural Medical Fun Facts: Souls that were sentenced to hell must suffer the pain of hellfire as a punishment even after they have gone through demonification. However, by accepting the terms of an Infernal Contract, the condemned can gain immunity toward hellfire.