Chapter 1

January 12, 1987, incident report logged with the Department of Public Safety

Incident Report #OR23467

Location: Clackamas county, Oregon

Damages: $720,000 in property damage, 32,000 acres of forest burned

Casualties: 0

Recorded Devil/s:

Forest Devil(neutralized)

Fire Devil(apprehended)

Andrew awoke, shivering in a cold sweat. He didn't know what had happened, or why he was so cold. He reached for the blanket he remembered carrying with them into the forest but it was nowhere to be found. And in his sleep addled brain he suddenly was struck in the face with the intense smell of ash and burnt wood, and the smell of charred flesh. This immediately awoke him, and he gasped as his brown eyes fully opened, taking in a scene of desolation. The forest around him that he remembered getting lost in was completely burnt to cinders, and he didn't recognize where he was. He had attempted to build a fire to keep warm in the frigid January Oregon air, but the basic pit he had constructed, hemming the flame and Arthur in with stones was nowhere to be seen. And then he realized that all his clothes were gone and the sharp pang of panic dug into his gut like a knife. And he had no idea where Arthur was. He looked around for the little talking ball of flame that had kept him company these past three years, that he considered his only friend in the world, but couldn't find him. He searched his memory while analyzing his surroundings.

"Could he have done this?" Andrew asked himself. But he was unsure. Arthur had always shown restraint, burning things when Andrew was around. Arthur didn't want to grow too big and lose control, potentially hurting Andrew. Andrew searched his memories as he sat up on burnt sticks and flat stones, against the charred remains of what had once been a pine tree. He remembered that they had gotten off the road into the woods to seek some place of warmth, like a cave, or maybe, if they were lucky, an empty summer cabin they could break into and spend a week, weathering out the negative temperatures that were passing through on a cold front. But it was never that simple, was it? Andrew was unfamiliar with the area and had quickly gotten lost. But it was strange, he marked trees with a pocketknife, but even when he circled back, he couldn't find the trees he'd marked. He felt like he was walking in circles but could find no evidence he was doing so.

After around 5 hours of that continuous walking, he decided to finally sit down and try to weather the storm with the old coat and the layers of clothing he had scavenged from a donation box a few towns ago. How had it gotten so cold since December? He only maintained feeling in his hands because Arthur, the small ball of fire, had insisted that he carry him in his hands, and cooled his lower regions enough that Andrew could hold him without burning himself. But he found himself having to hit his legs with a free hand to try keep them working, making sure they could feel so he wouldn't just fall over and bust his face on the forest floor. When they'd stopped, he built a small fire pit with stones and gathered up branches, pine needles, and logs. He was lucky he had Arthur, he thought. Since Arthur could burn hot enough to skip the difficult and tedious parts of starting a fire and just focus on getting warm. And sure enough, Arthur hopped into the fire pit and the haphazard pile of needles, branches, and dead wood immediately burst into flames and Andrew was practically in the fire pit, desperately trying to absorb every ounce of warmth it provided.

Arthur was worried, and kept asking Andrew how he was feeling. Andrew got progressively quieter though, he couldn't find the words to answer Arthur with and just resorted to nodding. He was so cold, and the fire didn't seem like it was helping. Arthur burned bigger, hotter, but it didn't help. And then, a change. A slow warmth started to creep over Andrew, starting in his feet and spreading over his body, and with it he realized how tired he was. He fell over onto his side and curled up into the fetal position, facing the fire.

"Hey! Hey! Stay awake, Akio! Stay with me!" Arthur demanded in his resonant, nasally voice. Ah yes, Akio was his name wasn't it? He'd only told Arthur. But Arthurs demands had never seemed more unreasonable than now. Andrew was tired. He just shaked his head feebly as his eyes started to close of their own accord. The last thing he remembered was Arthur pushing himself close to Andrew's face, looking directly into his eyes with those dark blue wisps of flames in his center that acted as his eyes. He was shouting something, as Andrew fell into the warm abyss, enveloping him, dissolving him until he'd be nothing. But he'd be warm. And that felt like an improvement in those last moments before true unconsciousness.

Then there was a flash of light in that endless abyss, a small pinprick almost like starlight, that came to him, and grew and grew until it was before him, bigger than he could conceive with the radiance of the sun. He couldn't move, couldn't breath, couldn't shield himself from it, he was nothing, and could do nothing as it enveloped him, and there was nothing but blinding light and the most intense burning he'd ever felt in his life. He'd scream in agony, but he had no mouth. And so he simply bore the torture, because he couldn't do anything else.

The flame grew brighter, and hotter, and more painful, until eventually it started to recede, get smaller and less hot until it retreated inside him, he could feel the ball of flame pulsing within him like a heartbeat. Arthurs voice cut through the miasma that felt like underwater vacuum.

"I'm sorry." were the first two words. But Andrew had no thoughts to be confused with it, uncritically absorbing the statement. "I'm sorry things are like this. You won't see me for a long while. If we see each other again. But this is what I had to do to save you." He was quiet after that for what felt like an eternity, but Andrew couldn't have been able to tell, he was timeless. "You deserve life. You deserve better than this. I love you, Akio. And things might be hard but remember that I'm always with you. Go out there and use this gift I'm giving you to do better for yourself. And live the life you deserve. And remember, if you forget everything I tell you now, remember this: Never look back, to the skeleton of a home, wet ash and death on the wind, burnt photographs and charred furniture. There's nothing for you there, never go back there. No good can come from a housefire. Goodbye, Akio." And with that, he was gone.

Andrew crouched naked in the ashes and tried to piece together what happened, that last memory burned into his consciousness. And then he heard the snapping of branches and the displacing of burnt leaves. He looked over to the source, and a man with a reflective vest and a gasmask had just stepped into his vicinity and froze on making eye contact with him. That moment between them seemed to stretch on for hours, until the man broke eye contact and yelled.

"I found someone!" He yelled, and before too long, there were many people with such vests and masks, and one in a black suit and tie that seemed completely out of place arrived last. The others started to approach Andrew after the man had arrived, but he barked. "Back! Do not go near it!" He growled, loud enough they all heard it despite being muffled through the mask. The other people seemed confused and then a realization seemed to pass over them all and they quickly retreated, keeping a safe distance from Andrew, some taking cover behind the charred pillars, peeking around to look at him warily.

The man in the suit slowly approached, and for some reason extended his open palm in front of him and.. "Is that steam? Rising from his hand?" Andrew asked himself silently. He was slumped over, resting on his knees, a sitting fetal position, he showed none of his privates but he never felt so exposed. The man kept cautiously approaching, waiting for.. Something. And seemingly, when he was within 10 feet of Andrew, he decided he wasn't going to get it and the steaming stopped. He squatted down on his haunches and looked Andrew in the eye where he looked up, kneeling, maybe 4 feet between them. He took off the gas mask, revealing an aging Caucasian face with a wide nose and flecks of grey in a dark brown mustache and in his short hair. His blue eyes pierced into Andrew like icicles.

"Son, I don't think I can overstate how deep shit you're in." were the first words he spoke, thick with a southern drawl.

All Andrew could do was look down, ashamed but he didn't know for what.

January 20, 1987

Jared Langer, Department of public safety regional director of the west coast of the united states of the Devil Hunting and Capture agency loathed his job. Not a day went by when he didn't regret giving up fieldwork to manage devil hunting efforts in the region. When he was fighting devils, a kind of hyperfocus would overtake him and everything else flew away, like a shifting landscape through a car window speeding as fast as it can go. And in those moments it was just him and the target. And in these moments of absolute serenity, he had wracked up a significant kill count of the foulest devils and fiends hell could raise in Western America. Langer didn't know if he believed in God, Afterall, the earth was filled to the brim with demons, some devil and some human, and he'd been forced to combat them on a daily basis. But-, he'd read about spiritual experiences, and how they felt to the person going through them. Usually they'd be achieved through a period of starvation and intense meditation, or an artist when they achieve a flash of inspiration, or athletes after intense exercise, they always resulted from hard work and dedication bringing human perfection of body or mind closer to the divine, or so it was said. In those moments when he was running at a devil, picking out every point of weakness on their alien bodies, and getting to utilize his contract, he could believe that God lived in that moment, and dispatching these things brought him closer to the divine. He wouldn't have made one of the deadliest hunters on earth, like the mysterious Kishibe of Japan or the even more mysterious hunter, Quanxi of China, but he thought he could make it in the top 100 at least.

And all this made it even more frustrating that he was now trapped behind a desk in a special kind of hell of his own making. As he read reports and wrote requests to his superiors for permission for an agent to sign a contract, or an increase in funding, or permission for staff increase, or reports of particularly troubling incidents in motion, or any number of tedious inanities, he had to remind himself that this was a martyrdom he had accepted upon himself after Hanger, his predecessor was detained for an illegal contract and abuse of his authority to the benefit of his contractor, was removed and the board back in Washington DC thought he would make an ideal candidate for his replacement. Well, not ideal. Their ideal candidate, Richard Stone was killed in action by the Hole devil an hour south of Sacramento. And then the next best person, Michael Worry, was arrested after his evaluation turned up that he'd been taking money from the mob to turn a blind eye to their unlawful devil contracts. So that left him, their best field agent, as their next choice. And knowing how to best maximize the effectiveness of field agents and wanting to make the office one worth the salary, he had reluctantly accepted the promotion. But he had no idea at the time just how much of a sacrifice he was making.

Looking down at a report of the incident in Clackamas county as Agent Martin stood in front of him, he lifted his eyepatch over his left eye with the crosshairs on it to get a better look at the report beneath him, and after scanning it, lowered the eyepatch again and looked up to Martin.

"So you captured it then? The devil that caused the fire?" Jared asked. Before receiving a response he continued. "I suppose they couldn't have picked a better place to go on a rampage at least, that whole woodland was mostly unoccupied and the threatened mountain towns were able to be evacuated ahead of time, leaving no casualties. Thank God for small mercies." He finished, now giving Martin the opportunity to speak.

"Yes, sir. Though the situation involving the devils capture was extremely unusual. I was first on the scene and saw to its apprehension myself. Which is why I requested to brief you in person rather than just sending in the report." He said formally. Langer hated the pageantry this office seemed to compel from people. And they weren't the army, he didn't think he should have had to tell agents to be at ease. Jared began making short circular motions with his right hand, urging Martin to continue.

"What made it so unusual?" He asked. The whole situation piqued his curiosity, since while many agents did capture devils to try to hold them for contracts, or even being used to fight other devils in a handful of cases-, Martin had a bone to pick with all of devilkind after some devil killed his family. An all too common story in the public hunter corps. But what was uncommon, unprecedented in fact, was Martin sparing a devil for apprehension.

"Right." He started, seeming to be reading off a mental script he had prepared before the meeting. "As you know, for a week, the devil was in the form of a kilometer high pillar of flame that traversed across the wilderness. When the flames finally stopped, rescue teams managed to locate the source, the only thing that it could possibly have been as it was the only thing that survived. When we came upon the devil, it was in the form of a human, a young man in fact. That's not particularly uncommon with some of the more anthropomorphic devils, but my first instinct was that it was a fiend. I prepared to execute, but as I approached, I got a good look at its eyes and found they were entirely human, which is statistically impossible for a fiend."

Langer's eyebrows rose slightly as he contemplated what this could mean and where he was going.

"For all the world, the creature looked as human as you or I. When I detained it, I had a med team look over it and found that it was almost entirely a living human, save that it glowed dimly in the dark, and exuded an abnormally high body heat that would leave most people lethally feverish, which seems to be how it avoided frostbite before we arrived on the scene. Its blood tests came back completely human. It identified itself as Andrew Johjima, which I crosschecked, still expecting to find a deceased person. And at first I didn't find anything. However, I found that a person was in fact alive if unaccounted for, after a house fire killed all but one of the entire Johjima family back in '84, a survivor named Akio Johjima. He was taken into state custody but escaped from the transitional home he was placed in and was missing, until 8 days ago. Old file notes said he went by Andrew as his English name. Have you heard of anything like this? A living fiend? Coexisting with a devil in their body?" The thought seemed to make Martin visibly revolted, and his tone incredulous.

Langer steepled his fingers on his desk as his brain turned over all this information. "Well.. There's been rumors.. But nothing tangible that I know of. I'll go meet with this 'Andrew' myself and evaluate the situation before making a decision. You're dismissed agent, thank you." He said with finality. Martin nodded and exited the room.

Langer of course had heard rumors of devil 'hybrids' as they've been dubbed in the global security community. But as far as his pay grade was concerned, they were just unsubstantiated urban legends. Devils and humans never mixed in a nontransactional nature. The idea of a human and devil befriending each other and fusing into one being was patently absurd. But he couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea of an agent with the abilities of a powerful devil fully at the tips of their fingers, no contract involved. And if what martin was saying was true, this child had control of a particularly powerful one. If Langer was a betting man, as he sometimes was on weekends after payday, this kid might have bonded with the Fire Devil, or some other devil capable of incredible destruction via flames. And he couldn't ignore that resource. In fact, if he was on the threshold of something as big as he suspected, he might have to 'misidentify' the kid as a fiend just to make sure he wasn't scooped by his superiors. And with the current situation brewing in the pacific, they'd likely need all the help they could get.