Be very very quiet, we're hunting demons.

Night time in this city was always a bit hectic. The night life was irresistible to many people. The lights of the city lit up the sky and laughter and music filled the air. The air was crisp and cold to the skin and a light rain fell upon the city. The smell of the rain filled Tyren's nostrils as he inhaled deeply and breathed a heavy, satisfied sigh. "Nothing like the smell of rain to soothe the soul." he chuckled. Unfortunately, his current business was no laughing matter. He was in a dark back alley with a gun in his hand looking for something that couldn't be seen. He was trailing a monster; a monster that had been lurking in the dark corners of the city for a while now, killing anyone foolish enough to get caught. After a bit of a wild chase through the city streets, it finally backed itself into a corner. Now if only he could find the damn thing! Things like this were ordinary for him though. Working for a discreet organization of demon hunters makes one numb to the normally strange. He had seen it all, eight foot beasts, shape-shifting creatures, ungodly monstrous abominations, etc. But even before that, he knew about these monsters as he was one himself.

The demon Rosel had been on this plane for years under the assumed guise of a man named Tyren Rowe. He came to this world after finding out that demons were escaping to this plane of existence. Once he was here, though, he realized that he was much more powerful than in his home. He traveled the world, partaking in all of the vices of the human world rather than reeking havoc like some of his brethren were doing. Sex, drugs, alcohol, it was all so good for someone who existed in a place full of emptiness and strife. It was nice, but nothing was as intoxicating as sheer power; power that he obtained from his demonic brothers. He realized this a few years after his escape when he battled a fellow demon who mistook him for an ordinary human. Quickly killing the monster, he found that he had gotten stronger by absorbing the demon's power (a skill he didn't even know he had). This newly discovered ability was incredible! Soon he was chasing down and killing demons just to consume them. That was when he learned of that organization.

He was taken in by a society of demon hunters who trained him in the ways of true hunting (and even taught him ways to kill demons that even made him cringe). Tyren excelled, and due to his extensive knowledge of all things demon, he became a demon researcher on top of a hunter to give a non-suspicious reason as to just why he knew so much about demons. As the years went by, he gained more and more power. He was one of the top hunters for a while until his mental breakdown due to the over consumption of demonic power. Having to hide what he truly was, it was blamed on stress and he was put on hiatus for a year.

Tyren stepped softly and his shoes clicked the pavement, the sound being echoes by the walls of the buildings surrounding them. "Come out, come out. You can't hide forever. OR maybe you can, but that's fine because I can too!" he challenged. His gun was gripped tightly and the back of his neck was sweaty. He'd seen what this thing has done to people and he wasn't too excited about the fact that it could happen to him first. He walked further and further into the dark alleyway, listening for any sound that would give away its presence. He didn't notice the slight breeze as the shadow creature moved behind him and silently raised itself, ready to attack.

Tyren turned just in time to watch a chunk fly out of the demon. The beast collapsed and he looked back up at his partner standing just a few feet away with a smoking gun in her hand. Madeline Summers. He'd been partnered with this girl since he came to INFERNO. She was an excellent hunter to her credit and really the only person he could have been partnered with in the organization since he just couldn't stand every other hunter at her level. Hell, he could barely stand her, but that wasn't the point. He turned back to face her and looked down, his gray tinted eyes matched her stare. He wasn't much taller than her, standing at 5'7", but he never let her forget that. He glanced behind at the corpse of the demon and gave a slight scoff, "I could have done that you know." He returned his attention to Madeline at her taunt and put his hand on her shoulder, moving his face closer to hers, "You know, when I came back, there was no 'welcome back' or 'good to see you again' or anything! All they said was, 'You're back, your obnoxious partner is waiting, you guys have work to do so get to it.'" he sighed and stood straight again, "Now is that any way to treat an employee?" he groaned with a fake frown. He sighed and shrugged, "Oh well. I might be getting rusty, but I'm still better than you regardless." he taunted her with a smile and tussled her hair.

She inquired about the identity of their assailant and he crouched down and turned its body over. "Let's see what we're dealing with my pretty little assistant." he teased her with a chuckle. He examined the demon, "Occus Rolx, a shadow demon. If they're not in direct sunlight, they can bend light around them to make themselves invisible. A real pain in the ass to track at night," he looked up at her with a grin, "any questions?"

He grabbed the demon by its arms and lifted it up, "So we're just going to drag this to the dumpster and let the garbage people take care of it right? I mean, INFERNO can't get too mad about it can they?" he joked. He dropped it and stepped on its chest, "So what are we going to do about this one?" he asked, growing bored with being their already.

He stood up straight and crossed his arms. His eyes closed and his head tilted as if concentrating on something. "Gratefulness huh?" he said, stroking his chin contemplatively and then shaking his head, "I just don't have it in me Madeline." he said apologetically. "And if I see that tongue one more time, I'm taking it." he threatened.

"'Ingrate?' that's a pretty big word." She did bring up a good point though, they did just shoot a demon in a dark alley so someone was bound to notice. "Okay, I'll be serious for a second, what are we seriously going to do to get rid of this thing?" he asked in a calmer voice although he couldn't help but to stomp on the chest when she berated him for getting blood all over the place. He stepped off as she circled the body and watched her do her work. If he had to say one thing about Madeline it would be how thorough her work was. He respected his partner for what it was worth, but he'd never just outright say it unless he had to. For a human, she was very talented. He looked down at the body of the freshly killed devil and scoffed, Better you than me, he thought. This thoroughness was wasting time though, especially because the authorities would be here soon and he didn't really feel like explaining just what it was these three were doing back here. "You're going to have to speed this up. Just torch him already" he sighed impatiently.

He pulled a lighter from his pocket as she covered the body with dust. He wanted this one though. After she spread the powder, he grabbed her arm quickly, "Did you hear that?" he whispered. His gray eyes darted from side to side as he gave her instructions, "I think I heard something, I don't think we're alone, go check and see if there's anyone around or coming, I'll guard the body and we'll burn him when you get back. If someone's back here, we could be compromised."

Tyren was motionless as she left to investigate his phony sound. All of his senses were trained on her as he watched her disappear into the shadows further away from him. He heard the sound of her shoes fade as she got far enough for them to no longer be audible. His eyes moved down to the demon he stood over and white teeth cut through the dark with a hungry grin. His prey wasn't too hard to subdue this time. Taken out by a single shot. Most of the demons they had been chasing lately were weak and this one was no different, but it would give him a bit of a boost at least. He unbuttoned his shirt and vest and took an arm from its sleeve and hung it out of the open shirt. He made sure again that Madeline was nowhere around before he continued. He didn't sense her near and chuckled, "Good, I'm clear."

Tyren's arm shook violently as it quickly reverted to its original form. His arm was now black and horrifying. The skin was tough and the muscle was sinewy, and his hand was tipped with long, sinister claws. He looked at his own arm as if it were an old friend he hadn't seen in a long time, which was true as he hadn't taken this form for a while now. It was refreshing to feel demonic blood run through a real appendage again. This wasn't the time to reminisce though. He plunged into the body with those evil claws and felt a pleasant rush of electricity shoot into his arm and fill his entire body. It felt so good! It was like Tyren could feel every cell in his bedy being filled with a glorious light and then exploding into pure power. The feeling faded quickly-- his least favorite part of the process-- and was replaced with energy and a feeling of rejuvenation. His arm reverted back to its human form and he wiped the blood covering it on the body. "Better get this guy on fire pretty soon." he sighed. He stood back up and stretched, groaning loudly.

He looked around to see if he could locate Madeline, but couldn't. He whistled for her before hearing the shriek and her subsequent exclamation, "Dammit, what has she done now?" he growled before running to the sources of the noise. He slid across the corner and dashed to Madeline's side with his gun drawn.

"Jikiniki?" he wondered with an almost amused laugh. He stood between Madeline and this creature and lowered his gun. The creature screeched at the barrier between it an its meal, but Tyren merely chuckled. He easily kicked the creature away and turned to Madeline, "You going to just stand there or what?". He looked back at the rotting monster and saw it got close again. Once again he kicked it away, "Jikinikis are pretty weak. No real support in their bodies due to all of the rot. I wouldn't expect you to last very long against it though, everyone ends up doing pretty much the same thing you did." He turned one more time and his eyes met with its nightmarish stare. He shook his head, "I'm afraid that won't work on me." he said with a casual shrug of the shoulder and the quick pull of the trigger of his gun. The body fell to the ground with a sickening thud that almost made Tyren laugh. "Do we even have to put this in the record?" he groaned, "I really don't want to write this up. Wait, I know! Since I did save your life, you get to do the write up!" He clapped his hands together and smiled, "It's perfect."

He walked past her and nudged her with an elbow, "Don't worry about that, let's get the big one and then worry about this little cover up after." He ran back to the body and pulled his metal lighter from his pocket. The flame was large and lit up a large area around him. He held it up to guide her to his location and called for her to hurry up before hearing the last thing he could have possibly wanted to hear right now.

Sirens. Close sirens...

"Fuck! We've got cops coming!" he called out to his partner and quickly setting the body of the first demon ablaze in a brilliant (and very conspicuous) green flame.

Tyren reacted quickly as soon as she finished her instructions. Being energized by the demon he had just consumed, he was agile and strong and ran to the back of the alleyway in nothing flat. He grabbed the body of their previous assailant and threw him onto the pile of his victims. He pulled another bag of the sandy substance, but his was white, "I'm using white power, try not to look this way!" he called from the corner. Windows began lighting up as their situation attracted bystander spectators. Tyren dropped the bag in the middle of the corpses, lit it, and took off into the darkness to meet Madeline. The bag went up in a bright white flare before exploding with a nearly blinding light and destroying all traces of the bodies.

He had entered nearly a second before Madeline slammed the door behind them. Everything went black instantly in the empty, windowless staircase they now hid in. He lit his lighter again to give them some light, but the stairway was large and only darkness could be seen past the soft yellow glow of the flame. Blackness threatened to consumed them. It was if the fire was holding it off, but the dark was about to extinguish it by sheer willpower. He moved his small torch to Madeline so they could both see each others faces. "What do we do now?" he asked, lowering his voice mid sentence just in case someone was nearby or right outside.

Now that the danger had passed (for the most part anyway), Tyren no longer felt the need for seriousness. To tell the truth, he didn't truly feel threatened throughout that encounter since they were just humans after him and not even humans who knew how to deal with these kinds of things. He ran the torch along the wall to look for a light switch of some kind. He found one that obviously needed some kind of special janitor key to actually use so that was no help to them. He returned with a look of failure in his eyes, "Well we're not going to have any other light so we can't split up now can we? I wouldn't want to leave poor little Madeline in the dark by her self now would I?" he teased with a grin that looked almost sinister due to the light of the fire.

There were footsteps and voices outside of the door. Tyren quickly glanced at the door and swore, "We're going up this one." he whispered quickly before grabbing her arm and pulling her along as he ran up the left set of stairs as silently as possible. After two flights he stopped and leaned against the railing to listen for any sounds. Thankfully the police hadn't heard them in there. A wave of relief had Tyren sliding down the railing and reclining against it on the ground, "This is my last mission. I'm done with INFERNO after this bullshit." he complained. He held the light up to illuminate their area a little better and stared down behind him at what seemed to be a bottomless pit even though they were only two stories up. Looking back at Madeline he groaned, "So what's the plan when we get to the top?" he asked, "Are we calling in a helicopter or are we just going to teleport back home?"

"I am aren't I?" he grinned. Even though he had just killed a demon getting up from a relaxed position was almost more than Tyren could bear. He pulled himself up with a lazy grunt and stretched out loudly, knowing that it was highly unlikely that anyone would hear them from two stories up a windowless stairwell. His body went almost limp after that good stretch and he leaned against the railings for support. He wished he could take on the powers of victims so he could easily go outside and see what the police were doing and if the area was clear or not. "You know, we could probably leave from the door we came in through. I'm sure the police have started searching for us elsewhere. They're probably pretty far away by now." he suggested although he knew there would be no argument with the stubborn Madeline. He was currently attempting to formulate a plan for getting off the roof once they got to the top, but he was at a loss. It looked like they were going to have to continue upward since she was so adamant about it.

Tyren laughed at Madeline's comment and turned to her with a gentle smile, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I would miss you Maddie." he said with a soft chuckle, moving close to her. Standing close to her, he wrapped his arm around her waist and smiled, his eyes reflecting the dancing flame from the lighter. He spoke softly and gazed deeply into her eyes, "I'd miss you Madeline. I'd miss your fighting spirit, your beauty, your voice, your touch." He leaned his face in past hers and whispered, "Don't kid yourself." before laughing and quickly moving back as to not be attacked, "Come on Madeline, are you serious? you know me, I was way too busy partying to miss anyone." he laughed.

"Anyway, let's get up to the roof because I'm starting to get claustrophobic in this little light bubble of ours." He turned to the next flight of stairs and the flame of the lighter suddenly extinguished. In the darkness a loud, "Shit!" could be heard followed by footsteps and ascending flashes as Tyren attempted to reignite the lighter. The first thing Tyren saw when the light returned was a large metal pole that he could not avoid walking into. It slammed into his chest sending him nosily rolling down the stairs. The room was once again dark and he had dropped the lighter. "Madeline!" he coughed as the pain in his chest quickly shot through the rest of his body with every breath he took.