Chapter 22: The Mountain Town Crisis (6)
The room was dimmer than the rest of the building, curtains drawn halfway to keep the afternoon glare off the monitors.
The satellite feed still ran quietly on one screen, three dots moving in disciplined unison, but the boss wasn’t watching it as closely now.
His attention was on a thin folder laid open on the desk, pages yellowed not with age but with deliberate handling.
Gorchov leaned against the wall near the window, arms crossed, posture loose in a way that only looked relaxed. He was listening. He always was.
“There’s a local legend,” the boss said, flipping a page. “Urban, technically. Older than most of the city, newer than the mountains.”
Gorchov’s eyes flicked over. “That narrows it down immensely.”
The boss ignored the comment. “Dhapalan Khyah.”
Gorchov tilted his head. “Say that again.”
“Dhapalan Khyah,” the boss repeated. “Stairway spirit. Allegedly.”
“Allegedly,” Gorchov echoed, amused.
“It appears,” the boss went on, “at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Always stairs. Always dark. Basements, old apartment blocks, abandoned buildings. Anywhere people assume the darkness is just darkness.”
Gorchov’s smile sharpened slightly.
“And?”
“And it asks to be fed,” the boss said. “Food. Offerings. Sometimes favors. If someone goes down the stairs and complies, it eats them.”
Gorchov blinked once.
“Direct. I respect that.”
“If someone refuses,” the boss continued, “or turns back-”
“Let me guess,” Gorchov said. “It eats them anyway.”
“Yes.”
Gorchov let out a short laugh.
“Classic.”
The boss finally looked up from the folder.
“You find that funny.”
“I find it honest,” Gorchov replied.
“All that ritual for a foregone conclusion.”
He pushed off the wall and paced a step, then another.
“People like to pretend rules matter because it makes the threat feel manageable. Feed it, don’t feed it. Go down, don’t go down.”
He shrugged.
“But if something has power over you, real power, why would it ever want to play fair?”
The boss watched him closely now.
“That’s your takeaway.”
“Yes,” Gorchov said without hesitation.
“If you can compel an outcome regardless of choice, the choice only exists to make the victim complicit.”
The room hummed softly with electronics. Outside, a faint echo of the city filtered through the walls, distant, irrelevant.
The boss closed the folder.
“Hm,” he said.
Gorchov glanced at him.
“That wasn’t disagreement.”
“No,” the boss replied. “That was recognition.”
He regarded Gorchov for a long moment, then added, dryly, “Truly the words of a former demon king.”
Gorchov laughed, the sound deep and unrestrained.
“I’m not wrong, am I?”
The boss didn’t answer immediately. His gaze drifted back to the satellite screen, where the three dots continued their measured path, stubbornly close together.
“No,” he said at last.
“You’re not.”
The laughter faded, leaving something quieter in its wake.
“And that,” the boss continued, tapping the folder once, “is why I don’t trust legends that pretend monsters care about rules.”
Gorchov’s smile returned, smaller now, edged with something thoughtful.
“Neither do I.”
They stood there in the dim room, two beings who understood power perhaps a little too well, listening to the soft hum of machines and the distant movement of others carrying out a plan that depended, entirely, on staying together.
Outside, the city remained blissfully unaware that some of its oldest stories were being reexamined, not as warnings, but as case studies.
***
The route folded back on itself in gentle curves, a path that felt deliberately uncommitted, neither leading anywhere important nor avoiding anything outright. Lena suspected that was the point. They walked because the map told them to walk, because movement itself was data, and because standing still for too long invited the wrong kind of attention.
So far, the city had given them nothing.
No pressure changes. No flicker at the edges of vision. No sense of being watched beyond the ordinary awareness that came with walking unfamiliar streets. The sun filtered through high cloud, soft and diffuse, casting light that refused to form sharp shadows.
Shops were open. People passed them without a second glance. A delivery bike sputtered by, followed by the faint smell of fuel and spices.
Normal.
Too normal.
Lena shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and scowled faintly.
“You ever get the feeling,” she said, “that it’s ignoring us?”
Khalid glanced at her, eyebrows lifting.
“You mean the anomaly?”
“Obviously.”
Li Wei kept his eyes forward, but his pace adjusted subtly, matching hers.
“Ignoring us how?”
Lena shrugged. “Like… we’re boring. Or invisible. Or not worth the effort.”
Khalid chuckled. “You think it’s giving us the cold shoulder?”
“I think,” Lena said, “that maybe it doesn’t see us as proper prey.”
That got Li’s attention. He turned his head slightly. “Because?”
She gestured vaguely at the three of them. “Because we’re not exactly human.”
There it was. The thing she’d been circling for the past hour.
Khalid laughed outright. “That’s generous.”
Li allowed himself a small smile. “We’re more or less human,” he said. “At least by this world’s standards.”
Lena shot him a flat look. “Uh huh.”
They turned a corner onto a quieter street, the kind lined with low residential buildings and balconies crowded with potted plants.
Somewhere above them, a radio played softly, music drifting down in a language Lena didn’t understand but didn’t need to.
Khalid rolled his shoulders. “Seriously. We pass. We eat. We sleep. We complain about work.”
“We also used to rule hellscapes,” Lena said dryly.
“Details.”
She snorted. “You say that like it’s a footnote.”
Li shook his head. “Perspective shifts.”
Lena slowed half a step, eyeing him. “That’s a very calm thing to say for someone who used to rewrite reality by accident.”
Li didn’t rise to it. He rarely did.
They walked in silence for a few moments, the rhythm of their steps syncing unconsciously. Lena felt the familiar itch building, the need to poke at the quiet before it turned into something else.
“So,” Khalid said suddenly, glancing at her sideways, “were you a demon lord back in the day too?”
Lena nearly tripped.
She recovered quickly, but her scowl deepened. “Wow. Just, straight to it, huh.”
Khalid grinned. “We’re walking. Might as well talk.”
She huffed. “Yeah. I was.”
Li’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “Lord, or king?”
“King,” she corrected automatically. Then grimaced.
“Unfortunately.”
Khalid laughed. “Unfortunately?”
She waved a hand around them. “Look at me. Look at this. I’m walking patrol routes in borrowed clothes, trying not to spook civilians, following a map like a well-behaved intern.”
She kicked at a loose pebble. “I used to have an army.”
“And now you have us,” Khalid said cheerfully.
“That’s not helping.”
Li’s mouth twitched.
Lena continued, voice dropping into a grumble. “It’s humiliating. I was terrifying. People trembled when I entered a room. Now I get asked to ‘please wait while your order is prepared.’”
Khalid laughed harder. “You make great dumplings.”
She glared at him. “I will end you.”
“See?” he said. “Still got it.”
Li let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. “You’re not wrong, though.”
“About what?” Lena asked.
“About the adjustment,” Li said. “It is strange. The scale changes.”
They reached another intersection, paused just long enough to check the route, then continued straight.
Lena folded her arms. “You two don’t seem bothered by it.”
Khalid shrugged. “I’ve been a lot of things. King was just one of them.”
Li nodded. “Same.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Lena snapped. “You don’t act like it ever meant anything.”
Li glanced at her then, expression thoughtful rather than defensive. “It meant everything,” he said. “And then it stopped meaning what it used to.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure which part of that irritated her more.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Khalid said. “I miss parts of it. The authority. The clarity.”
“The fireballs,” Lena muttered.
“The fireballs,” he agreed. “But I also like hot showers and not being constantly stabbed.”
Li reached into his jacket pocket as they walked and pulled out a chocolate bar, slightly melted, wrapper crinkling softly. He broke off a piece and popped it into his mouth with visible satisfaction.
Lena stared. “Did you just-”
“Yes,” Li said, chewing. “Chocolate.”
“In the middle of a potential anomaly zone.”
“It’s very good chocolate.”
Khalid laughed. “See? Comforts.”
Lena groaned. “You’re unbelievable.”
Li shrugged. “This life has… advantages.”
She shook her head. “You’re both demon kings. Why don’t you act like it?”
Khalid spread his hands.
“Define ‘act like it.’”
“Menacing,” she said immediately. “Dramatic. At least a little bit unhinged.”
Li swallowed and considered. “I prefer being well-fed and unremarkable.”
“That’s depressing.”
“It’s peaceful,” he countered.
Khalid nodded.
“You’d be surprised how nice peace is after centuries of constant escalation.”
Lena fell quiet, chewing on that as they passed a small shrine tucked into a building’s alcove. Fresh flowers had been placed there sometime that morning.
“So Gorchov’s the only one still clinging to his old image,” she said eventually.
Khalid winced. “Clinging is one word.”
Li nodded. “He hasn’t adapted.”
“Or he refuses to,” Lena said.
“Same result,” Khalid replied.
They walked on, the designated route looping gently ahead, the city continuing to ignore them with impressive consistency. Lena felt the earlier tension ease slightly, not gone, but redistributed, settling into something more manageable.
She glanced at her reflection in a darkened window as they passed. Just another person walking down the street.
No crown.
No aura.
No visible proof of what she’d been.
“Still humiliating,” she muttered.
Khalid bumped her shoulder lightly. “Give it time.”
Li took another bite of chocolate. “You might even start to like it.”
She snorted. “Don’t push your luck.”
They continued on, three former rulers blending into the flow of ordinary life, watched by nothing and no one, at least, nothing that chose to make itself known.
For now.
