Chapter 192: It's Catching Up to Me...

Ethan passed the time counting the dollar dollar bills they'd managed to gain over the course of their developing criminal organization. Mindlessly flicking through each bill, stacking it in one pile till it couldn't handle the weight of itself before moving on to making the following stack. The small light of his lamp and the screensaver of his triple monitors were the only sources of light in his room. Usually, he would be gaming or just mindlessly dragging his mouse around while exploring the internet, but recently, he's gotten into the habit of counting money to relax his mind.

Money was a beautiful, ugly thing. It was unfortunate he couldn't convert this to digital money yet. A lot of games need players to use digital money instead of real money for additional services while playing. Battle passes, season passes, premium currency, none of that could be bought with cold hard cash. If Ethan wanted to be dramatic, the current age of gaming was nothing but a curse to a criminal like him with nothing but real money and no digital money. All these stacks of green, but they couldn't help him where it mattered most.

Although it was a shame for the most part, Ethan could still buy the latest games that were out. If they had any DLC or additional services, he was pretty fucked. Although Ethan hasn't really been in the gaming mood ever since he got caught up in the crime life stuff. It's been taking up a lot of his time. Especially finding ways to convert the jewelry into cash for his employees.

Thankfully, he got that over and done with. Now, he just had to think of their next heist after he paid these people. But to be honest, Ethan's mind was still going in circles about the fact that most of his life, he was living a lie. Monsters called Daemons were real. Daemons that ate humans for sustenance or for fun? Ethan noticed that Poison ate human food without a problem. She did have a preference for cooked meat, but besides that, he hadn't noticed her leaving the house to hunt for humans or whatever. His mom hasn't said anything about her leaving the house frequently or at all.

Supposedly, these Magjistars hunted daemons to protect humans from being eaten. Ethan didn't know if they were a division of the government or just their own secret group doing what was right. He really wasn't in the questioning mood after being able to massage Poison's feet and legs. It was an improvement if you asked him. At first, he could only touch her feet, but now she let him move up to her lower legs! But now, he wasn't doing something that could potentially help him out later. He was just alone with his thoughts and stacks of money on his bed.

It hasn't really sunk in yet, but he's really working for the bad guys for the chance of Daemon pussy. Turning his back on his own race just for the smallest chance of tapping that daemonic monster's green tight ass. Putting it like that really helps Ethan realize that he may be a piece of shit. Ethan wasn't going to lie to himself. Before meeting Poison, he knew he was a waste of space and a waste of life that wouldn't accomplish anything in his lifetime. But now… Sure, it went against everything he should be doing as a human but hey, monster pussy?

How many people could genuinely say they managed to tap another sapient species in the universe? Imagine if Ethan could get that on his list before he passes away. It'd be an achievement! Plus, what if their species were compatible enough to create hybrids between humans and daemons? Ethan sighed.

He was trying to delude himself. That what he was doing would be worth foregoing his own species and making up for the crimes he has done and will do in the future. At the end of the day, Ethan is doing nothing but listening to his heart or his dick. For some reason, he really couldn't tell which one was whispering to him that following Poison down this dark path would be worth going against his morals as a human being. But whichever one it was, it was really insistent that all of this would be worth it. His brain, which has been so deprived of anything resembling physical or emotional pleasure, couldn't even retort against his heart and manhood. 

Trapping himself in the house with his mother doesn't give him a lot of chances to meet with other people. Friends, a girlfriend, just sharing his interests and hobbies with others was borderline impossible unless he went on some online forum and gushed with strangers over the internet. While it temporarily helped, at the end of the day, those people would never be someone he could rely on to relieve him of that specific pleasure. Ethan needed to take his mind off this depressing spiral he was going down.

He sent a message to the employees who helped him in the jewelry heist and told them payday was soon. Of course, he used a messaging app that gave him a virtual phone number completely different from his personal phone number. Ethan sent them the address to another abandoned place he found, along with the date. He's been cruising around the city searching for unused buildings to use as meeting places. It wasn't like he could invite them to his house. There were hundreds of issues with doing something stupid like that. The fact that they and those people who came to the interview knew his face was already a big enough risk.

Then he got up and left the house. "Where are you going?" His mother asked him on his way out. "For a walk." He replied. Ethan saw his mother's eyes briefly glance toward the guest room where Poison was before replying back to him. "Alright, come back soon. It's getting dark." She went back to making dinner.

Ethan grasped where the pistol and vials of poison were hidden in his coat as he made his way out of the house and down the street. He was still afraid of using the gun, but it provided a sense of protection for Ethan. Putting in his earbuds, Ethan walked down the street while bumping his head to the music, clearing his mind of any thoughts as he took in the sights of winter in the city. Blankets of snow, cars passing by, and large giant buildings, Ethan simply took in the sights of the world.

After spending half an hour walking around in the biting cold chill, Ethan made his way home, fed up with the coldness of the air. On his way back, he encountered a young homeless woman shaking a cup of coins. Ethan silently glanced at her, stopping in front of her. She was dressed in a graphic tee with no bra since he could see her nipples poking out along with ripped jeans in this weather. He gave her a hundred-dollar bill. It was cold as shit for him, and he was dressed up properly in this winter air. If he didn't help her out, she'd probably die by the morning.

But if he was being honest, he was probably helping her out to ease his own guilty conscience. As he attempted to walk away, she tightly grabbed onto his wrist, preventing him from leaving. "Please, let me thank you…" Her voice was quiet and pretty cute as she dragged him into an alleyway. Ethan tried to refuse her advances as he was in a pretty intimate relationship with Poison right now. But she was pretty damn strong for a homeless girl… What the hell? He knew he was nothing but a shut-in whose only form of exercise could be considered self-abuse and sin, but she was pulling his right arm! His strongest arm! What the hell were the homeless doing if a girl who looked scrawnier than him was this strong? Was she lifting bricks or something?

"Listen, I'm not… There's no need for this… I'm kind of with someone right n--" Ethan's lips were taken without his consent as she pressed him against the wall.

As pleasurable as the experience of her soft lips pressing against his, Ethan didn't hesitate to try and push the pretty girl off of him. However, that was a seemingly impossible task as he suddenly realized the girl was growing in size?! Ethan's eyes widened in disbelief as the young girl transformed into a horrifying monster that was a head taller than him. Her lips stopped pressing against his as terrifyingly large sharp teeth meant only for biting and tearing appeared in front of Ethan's face. "Thank you so much for the meal, kind human…" The daemon kept her cute voice from earlier despite transforming into a horrifying monster. 

The young girl's skin seemed to ripple and tear as her bones cracked and reshaped beneath the surface. Her limbs elongated, and her body expanded, pushing through her tattered rags, which tore apart like tissue paper in a hurricane. A sickening chorus of cracking and popping filled the alley as her joints elongated, granting her an unnatural height that dwarfed Ethan. Her face, once delicate and innocent, was now a grotesque visage of terror. Her eyes, pitch black and devoid of humanity, glowed with an eerie malevolence. They bore into Ethan's soul, promising unimaginable horrors. Her nose had twisted into a snout-like shape, filled with jagged fangs that jutted out at odd angles. The lips that had pressed against his moments ago were now peeled back, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth meant for rending flesh and bone.

Her hair had grown wild and tangled, resembling a nest of serpents, each strand seemingly alive with malice. Dark, leathery scales covered her body, giving her an unsettling, reptilian appearance. Sinister, elongated claws adorned her fingers, sharp and deadly as they reached for him. As she hunched over in her newfound, monstrous form, her limbs seemed too long and disjointed, giving her an uncanny, spider-like quality.

Fear seized Ethan's body as he reached into his chest pocket. Without hesitation, he let off a full clip into the daemon's chest as her teeth came close to chomping his head in a single bite. His finger continued pulling the trigger even when the daemon was brought to her knees, staring up at him while clutching her riddled chest. Just as he was about to toss the emptied gun at the daemon's head, he remembered he had something else on him that could protect him. A vial of Poison's blood.

"W-Wait… Don't… I'm sorry…" The daemon seemed to recognize that whatever was in Ethan's hand came from another daemon. "I didn't realize you were someone else's toy… Please let me live…" She returned back to her human disguise.

Ethan tossed the poison at the daemon as his heart was beating out of his chest. He turned his head at the sound of her screaming while her flesh was being melted down to nothingness. The only thing remaining of her was some sort of glowing gem… Something inside of Ethan seduced him into picking up the mineral that was larger than his fist. A scream escaped from his throat as the rock shattered into pieces and merged with his gun?

"What the hell?" Ethan cautiously held the pistol by the grip with just his index finger and thumb.

The gun transformed into a bracelet that tightly wrapped around his arm. Nothing Ethan did seemed to work in pulling off the daemonic accessory. Biting, pulling, tearing, and even smashing it against the wall in the alleyway didn't work. So, he decided to walk home and ask an expert in daemonic matters. Hopefully, she could comfort him as well. How often did one nearly die against female daemons in their lifetime? Maybe she would be more forthcoming with a lap pillow as he detailed his experience of narrowly surviving an encounter with a daemon.

"I'm a little tired for some reason…" Ethan fell facefirst into the snow.