"Lillith!?"
Iblis's disbelief was absolute while she scrutinized the girl standing in front of her.
It made no sense!
The Lillith she remembered, her neighbor in the infernal strata for centuries, was a sadistic and proud entity, famous for her cruelty and her refusal to submit to anyone.
And yet... the creature before her inhabited a child's body.
Worse yet: she was standing behind a human and not as the dominant one...
"Is it really you...?"
Lillith nodded with indifference.
"...How have you fallen so low?" upon seeing her nod, Iblis's brain short-circuited, "I remember you lost your territory to a Great Monarch, but this... ending up like this—?"
"Shut your mouth," Lillith coldly cut off her babbling, "My circumstances are none of your business, Iblis. Worry about yours. You always boasted of being an expert in manipulating powerful and influential men, and now it turns out you let yourself be sealed by a simple crusader knight with a hero complex?"
"Nine hundred years locked in a basement by a human with a sword?"
With every word that came out of Lillith's mouth, Iblis's face changed more.
To be defeated and locked up for centuries was her greatest shame!
She opened her mouth to retort but when she looked back into Lillith's eyes.
She knew that look... she knew it too well.
Lillith was many things: cruel, vengeful, arrogant.
But she was never stupid. And above all, she never bowed before the weak.
Her pride was her most defining trait.
If she was there, voluntarily, tolerating that human form and following orders...
Iblis's gaze slid slowly from Lillith toward the man who was calmly at her side.
If Lillith accepted walking in his shadow, there could only be one logical explanation...
!
The sound of a long yawn interrupted the tension in the room.
"Hey, are you guys done with the nostalgic reunion? I'm in a hurry to get back."
Iblis's heart skipped a beat and, swallowing her pride, she forced a smile.
"Um... sir, listen," she said softening her tone until making it almost pleading. "Look, Lillith and I are old acquaintances. All this is a terrible misunderstanding that we can..."
"Misunderstanding?" Lief raised an eyebrow, amused. "You stabbed my client less than a minute ago, and you have the nerve to call it a misunderstanding?"
He made a vague gesture toward the door, where Thomas, who was being held up by Linda and Richard, was grimacing in pain.
"Oh and I forgot to mention something important," he added with his smile becoming bright. "When doing business I take consumer satisfaction very seriously."
"Once I accept the request, I am responsible until the ultimate consequences and that means... that my client's enemies are my enemies."
Iblis's smile transformed into a grimace of panic.
"So..." Lief's expression emptied of all emotion, while he raised his right hand with an open palm. "Do me a favor and go back to hell."
!
An incandescent bluish light exploded from his palm, flooding the room with the intensity of a nascent star.
Iblis's scream was a tearing sound that did not belong to human vocal cords.
Under the torrent of light, the illusion of the "sleeping beauty" tore apart.
Briar Rose's perfect skin seemed to become translucent, revealing underneath her true nature: a twisted mass of black scales and flesh that began to boil upon contact with the holiness of the attack.
Dense columns of black smoke sprouted from her pores, trying to create a defensive barrier, but the darkness had no chance.
She tried to retreat, flee, merge with the shadows, but the light had her pinned in place.
She was being erased!
"Die already," Lief snorted with annoyance, closing his fingers.
The intensity of the glow doubled in a second.
"..."
Iblis's shriek cut off abruptly.
Her demonic form disintegrated completely, dissolved down to the last particle.
The light faded, returning the gloom to the basement.
But what remained on the floor defied logic.
The human body of Briar Rose, which had served as a vessel, lay on the floor.
Far from being incinerated along with the parasite, the light had acted like a filter: it had eradicated the evil and repaired the tissue.
The girl was intact, as if she had fallen into a deep sleep again, but this time, the air around her felt clean.
"Have sweet nightmares in hell," Lillith murmured coldly.
"..."
In the doorway, the trio was barely beginning to catch their breath, when that monstrous woman, whose mere presence had paralyzed them with terror and brought them to their knees, had been annihilated in an instant.
Without an epic battle... she had simply been illuminated and erased.
Ignoring their shock, Lief turned toward Briar Rose's body, and examined her briefly.
"Not bad..." he commented nodding with delight.
With a subtle gesture of his finger, an invisible force wrapped around the girl's body, lifting her gently from the floor until leaving her floating, suspended like a doll.
Controlling the cargo, he turned around and walked toward the exit.
Upon reaching Thomas, who was leaning heavily against the wall while Richard tried to stop the bleeding from his shoulder, Lief stopped dead.
Thomas shuddered violently at the proximity, causing the pain in his shoulder to explode again, but fear kept him pinned in place.
Without rushing, Lief reached into his own pocket and took out a folded piece of paper and, with delicacy, slid it inside Thomas's shirt pocket.
"Those are my bank account details. My fees are one hundred thousand dollars. I want to see the transfer before the month ends. And remember: US dollars."
"What...?" Thomas froze.
Lief leaned slightly toward him and gave him a smile that wasn't a smile.
"If the money isn't there by the deadline," he whispered close to his ear, "I will return. And I assure you that you will end up in the same state as her."
Patting him on the healthy shoulder, he resumed his path.
The footsteps moved away down the hallway until fading.
When Richard, Linda, and Thomas finally managed to shake off the terror freezing them, they found themselves alone.
...
Click
The agency door closed with a definitive click, shutting out the noise and sealing the end of the contract.
Lief released the control holding the girl, letting her fall with a thud onto the sofa, before dropping heavily into his chair with a sigh.
"May I know why we have dragged this empty vessel here?" asked Lillith, wrinkling her nose while observing the body with disgust. "However pathetic Iblis was, that vessel is nothing more than used human flesh... Do you have some kind of fetish?"
"Fetish? Please, don't project your filth on me," Lief replied, shaking his head as he stood up again.
With a lazy gesture of his wrist, he wrapped the body in telekinetic force again and made it float behind him while he walked toward the large full-length mirror.
Before attending to the matter, Lief stopped for a moment in front of the glass.
He leaned in to examine his reflection, smoothing a rebellious lock of his hair.
Satisfied, he knocked three times on the glass surface.
"Airam, come out to receive a package."
________
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