Dangerous Diners

“So, Deadman, what’s the play?”

“Figure out who’s gunning for me, what foul play led to McGuffey’s death, and who’s pulling the strings. And hopefully, without dying—again.”

He nodded, like he’d made up his mind. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a folded photograph and tossed it my way. “One photo got developed before the Council hushed it all up, ordered everything destroyed. But you know me.”

“Perks of working in the filing room,” I said, unfolding it.

“Thought it might come in handy. Was I right?”

If I’d eaten, I’d have lost my lunch. The scene looked dredged up from the blackest corner of a nightmare—a body split wide, flesh shredded from the inside out, like something monstrous had clawed its way free. Blood painted the concrete, a dark stain as permanent as the horror it left behind. Bits of skin, splinters of bone, and what might once have been organs were strewn across the ground, a grotesque kind of confetti.

It was far too much body for one man. No, this was a dozen lives, at least. And if it made the news? They’d be nameless, or maybe the kind with no one left to care. That narrowed down the options. Whatever had been trapped inside him hadn’t just escaped; it had torn itself free with the fury of something starved and mad, ripping through every poor soul in its path.

I felt the key in my pocket. You and your other half did this?

Mabel returned with Bart’s pie and cup of blasphemy.

I turned back to Bart. “Clear suicide, huh?”

“That’s the official report. Got any idea why this warranted a Council hush-up?”

“I’m piecing it together, but there’s too much guesswork. They’re after something. Something he had, something that… did that to him.” The weight of the key in my pocket, heavier than it had any right to be.

Bart nodded somberly and, with a calm I could barely fathom, took a bite of his pie. I stared at him, incredulous.

“What?” he mumbled through a mouthful.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, a hint of a smirk tugging at my mouth. “So, what else can you tell me about McGuffey?”

“Not much. Just what’s in the file.”

I read it over again, pricked by that gnawing sense that I was overlooking something—something obvious, staring me right in the face. I flipped to the interviews. “We did the usual, talked to all his closest living relatives. Didn’t take long; not many of them left.”

Bart’s eyes held a hint of sympathy, but I could see his wheels turning too. He took another bite of pie, speaking as he chewed. “The man’s wife was estranged. Left him a few months before he... well, you know. Makes sense, right? Man loses his wife, decides dive into dark magic, maybe try and get her back.”

“Did they interview her?”

“Yeah, but nothing interesting. She left him over his gambling. Her address is in the file.”

I nodded, leaning in. “Anything else? Any incidents? Criminal connections?”

Bart shrugged. “He was a collector, but nothing unusual—nothing more illegal than any other rich guy with more money than sense.”

I sighed, glancing at the files again. “I appreciate this, Bart.”

“Don’t mention it, Jack. Just make sure whatever you’re digging up doesn’t come back to haunt me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied with a smirk.

Bart took another slow bite of his pie, chewing thoughtfully.

I shook my head, flipping through the photos again.

“You know what bothers me?” Bart’s tone shifted, catching me off guard. I blinked, trying to keep up with the sudden depth in his voice.

“What?”

“What do you think it’s like to be the poor schmuck who has to clean up after something like this?” he asked, voice low, eyes distant, like he was envisioning mop buckets and industrial-grade bleach.

I frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, Bart?”

“I mean, think about it. It’s a thankless job. Imagine it was some elaborate demon-rigged suicide, for argument’s sake. Guy sets it up, kaboom. Someone’s gotta come in and deal with… well, whatever’s left.” He shook his head, mock horror on his face. “I’d at least leave a tip for the cleanup crew.”

Mabel sidled over, topping off our cups with the weary resignation of someone who’d clocked out of caring by 9 a.m. She flicked Bart a look—half an eyebrow, all judgment—likely adding this to her invisible list of “Reasons I Should’ve Majored in Something Useful in College.”

“Look, even if you’re pissed off enough to go out with a bang, you still tip the waitress, right?” Bart plowed on, tipping an imaginary hat to Mabel. She rolled her eyes so hard I could almost hear them creak, and I barely managed to smother a snort in my coffee.

“Yeah, but how would they know if the service was any good?” I added.

“Fair point,” Bart said, nodding thoughtfully. “Fair point. But it’s just rude, you know? I guess the family could leave a tip—if they even had a family worth mentioning.”

Then it hit me, like a punch I should’ve seen coming. It wasn’t in the file, nothing buried in the interviews, no missed detail hiding between the lines. No, it was the absence—something, rather someone missing, a shadow-shaped gap in the story. For hell’s sake. How I hadn’t spotted it before was beyond me. A rookie mistake, one that left me feeling colder than the fresh rain drizzling down in icy sheets outside.

But I couldn’t act on it yet, I needed to firm up the theory, because if I was wrong…

The diner hummed with the low murmur of quiet conversations, the soft clink of cutlery, and the sizzle of grease on the grill. I leaned back, letting the sounds wash over me as I ran the idea through my mind, over and over, replaying the past few days like a tape with a bad rewind.

“I know that look,” Bart said, eyeing me over his pointless coffee . “You’ve got something.”

“Not yet,” I murmured, tapping my fingers against the table. “But maybe.”

Before I could chew on it any further, my thoughts shattered.

The diner’s front door exploded open with a bone-rattling crash, cutting through the low hum of conversation. Two armed men stormed in, their eyes scanning the room, and the air thickened with a tense, electric silence as every patron froze, breaths held.

The first figure, a gremlin-touched Hexborn, bore a sickly pallor, his skin gleaming with an unsettling, oily sheen that caught the dim diner lights in all the wrong ways. His fingers were unnaturally long, tapered like talons, with blackened nails that looked charred, as though burned down to some twisted point. Beside him, his partner—a wiry man whose twitchy movements radiated nervous energy—shifted and jittered, his gaunt frame wracked by paranoid tics.

His eyes darted around the room, never settling on one spot for more than a heartbeat, a man looking for threats in every shadow. He was clearly amped up on Surge-Spice or whatever else the junkies were riding these days. Truth was, I didn’t even know what the addicts were hooked on anymore. The street cocktail changed faster than I could keep track—new poisons hitting the veins every week, each one nastier than the last.

The Hexborn brandished a gun, its muzzle sweeping across the room in threatening arcs. “Everybody down! Now!” he shrieked.

Suddenly, the human convulsed, his form blurring into something inhuman and terrifying—hadn’t seen Spice do that before. Its eyes glowed with a sickly light as it lunged forward, fangs dripping venom. Devil-kissed, no doubt—made some desperate deal and now paying the price in blood and shadow. You almost had to pity these guys, selling their souls for a hit of power they’d never fully control. I watched them lunge at the couple that were sharing a shake earlier in the night. In an instant, the diner’s calm shattered, peace spiraling into chaos as tables overturned and screams filled the air.

The gremlin’s eyes flickered with uncertainty. “Alright, everybody—wallets out! Put them on the table. Rings, jewelry, everything. My friend here will be collecting.”

The Devil-Kissed goon lurched over to the cute couple who’d shared a milkshake earlier. They shrieked, fumbling out their wallets, but he wasn’t satisfied. He pointed at the woman’s engagement ring, fingers twitching with impatience.

“P-please, it was my mother’s,” she pleaded, her voice trembling as she tried to sound confident despite the faint stutter.

“P-p-pleeease,” he mocked. “Hand it over!”

Inside me, there was the familiar surge of heat as Frank stirred, his voice whispering in my mind, dark and eager. Shall we?

“Let’s try not to kill them unless we have to,” I muttered under my breath.

Boring , Frank shot back.

The gremlin-touched thug’s sneer deepened as he swung his gun my way. “Got something to say, old man?”

Bart didn’t even flinch, just shook his head and took another unbothered bite of pie.

I stood up slowly, stepping toward the gremlin, my gaze hard as stone. “Stay back! I’ll shoot!” His voice cracked, hands shaking, but I had his attention now. The Devil-Kissed was focused on me too, both of them running on bravado and adrenaline.

I took another deliberate step forward, voice low, lethal. “You don’t want to do that. Pick a different night. It’s been a long few days.”

Desperation twisted into rage in the gremlin’s eyes. “I’ll kill you, you f-f-freak!”

Please, Frank murmured, his eagerness simmering.

Fine.

Finally, Frank scoffed. Thought I’d have to listen to you two jabber all night.

Adrenaline surged as Frank’s dark excitement thrummed in my mind. I saw the Hexborn’s finger twitch on the trigger and moved, sidestepping as a shot tore through the air, splintering the wooden table near Bart, who didn’t so much as blink, busy with his second slice of pie.

In a blur of motion, I closed the distance, twisting the gun from the gremlin’s grip with a practiced ease. I turned it on the Devil-Kissed, who whipped out a knife, eyes wide with shock. The shot echoed, the bullet ripping through his hand and sending the blade clattering to the floor.

He howled, clutching his mangled hand. I glanced at the gun, then back at the gremlin, a smirk tugging at my lips. “Think I’ll keep this.”

Unfazed, Bart took another bite of his pie. “That was entertaining.”

The diner fell into a hushed silence, the air thick with the aftermath of violence and the scent of fear. I stood in the midst of it all, my body tense, eyes sharp, surveying the scene. Broken tables and chairs littered the floor, evidence of the intense struggle that had taken place.

The demon lay subdued on the ground, its twisted form now reduced to a pathetic, weakened state. The gremlin was pinned and disarmed, sweat glistening on his face as he struggled against his restraints. The patrons slowly began to breathe again, their terror fading but still lingering in the air.

As the tension ebbed and silence reclaimed the room, I held my breath for a moment before letting it out slow. My gaze flicked to the subdued demon—reduced, exhausted—a flicker of triumph curling in my chest, tempered by something that was uncomfortably close to pity.

“Well,” Bart grumbled, pushing himself up from the creaky diner seat. “Guess it’s time to haul these idiots back to the station. You mind giving me a hand with this one?” With a practiced flick, he snapped cuffs around the troublemakers, linking them together like some twisted chain gang. We steered them out to Bart’s battered patrol car, its dark frame glinting under the neon glow of the city lights.

“Thanks for the pie, Jack. Always a pleasure,” Bart said, sliding into the driver’s seat with that gruff nod of his.

We shared a moment, unspoken words hanging in the air like smoke. Then he nodded again.

“Don’t be a stranger, eh?”

“I’ll do my best,” I replied, giving him a wry smile before wrapping my knuckles on his car. The machined hacked its way into gear and he drove away, leaving a cloud of dust and the faint scent of cherry pie lingering in the air.

As I turned back, the neon signs cast jagged shadows across the cracked pavement. Standing there was a woman with piercing emerald eyes, fixed on me with a mix of curiosity and… something else—admiration, maybe. She had that bookish, stern air of someone who’d stepped out of a library and found herself lost in the gritty night. I remembered catching sight of her earlier, scribbling in a tiny black notebook in the corner of the diner.

She stepped forward, her short, fiery red hair catching the neon glow, and extended a hand with a small card that glinted in the dim light. Her blazer was fitted, stylishly paired with a vintage band tee and dark jeans tucked into heeled ankle boots. She looked polished, but with enough rough edges to hint at midnight meetings in dimly lit alleys.

“That was incredible,” she said, voice brimming with enthusiasm. “Absolutely marvelous!”

I took the card, barely getting a word in before she launched into her pitch. “I work in Hollywoodland. I’m sure you’ve heard of Demon Hunters, the Real Deal? ”

I tried not to grimace. “The pulps?”

“One and the same! But it’s so much more than pulps now—we’re up to five seasons.”

“We’re exclusively contracted with SpectraVision—“

She paused, watching me for some spark of recognition. I stared blankly, and she must’ve pegged me as too out of touch to keep up with the latest tech trends, because she elaborated, “the enchanted little box everyone’s losing their minds over. It’s ten times better than a holo entertainment.”

“I’m aware of it,” I said.

She carried on, unfazed. “Anyway, there’s a whole line of toys and clothing on the way too. You must have seen Demon Hunters by now. An episode? One of the films? You’d have to be living under a rock to miss it!“ She paused, evidently waiting for a response.

“Would have to be,” I replied flatly.

I didn’t have a Spectra at home, but I knew of the series. Unfortunately.

Her smile practically glowed with confidence and charm, the kind of look that suggested she was used to getting what she wanted. She leaned in, her eyes bright and undeterred. “Listen, what just happened back there—that was the real deal. Ever thought about selling your stories? You could make a tidy fortune with the right buyer.” The edges of her card shimmered faintly: Felicity Night, Talent Scout.

“I’d have to be pretty desperate,” I replied.

She didn’t blink. “Of course, of course. But think it over. Call me sometime.” She tapped the card with a long painted fingernail, that smile never faltering. She gave me a quick once over, and a question flickered behind her eyes—a question that she too polite to ask.

“Do call,” she repeated, her voice honeyed with charm. And with that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the night, the sharp click of her heels echoing down the sidewalk.

I looked at the card and chuckled softly. What kind of sellout did she take me for? Me, hawking my life’s work to the greediest vampires in Fallen Angels just for a quick buck? Besides, who’d watch something about me? What would they even call it— Washed-Up Wonders? Halfway to Hell? Who wants to read about a dead guy… well, mostly dead, anyway. Just some ghost in the gears.

I’d need to be desperate. And I mean really desperate. I rolled my shoulders, trying to shrug off the thought. But I pocketed the card before heading back to the motel.