Then the air changed.It got thick. Heavy. Like someone poured cold oil over everything.A low growl rolled from the shadows between two houses—deep, wet, wrong.Deji froze. Mina's grip tightened until it hurt.From the darkness stepped… something.Four heads. One body. Each head was a twisted mockery of a human face—snarling, eyeless, mouths dripping black tar. Horns curled from skulls that looked stitched together. Claws scraped concrete, leaving sparks. The thing was tall—taller than the streetlamp—and it smelled like rotting meat and burnt incense.Deji's Bible was still tucked under his arm from morning devotion. He clutched it like a weapon."Run," he whispered.Mina didn't move. Instead she stepped in front of him."No," she said calmly. Too calmly.The demon lunged—fast, impossibly fast.Deji shoved Mina aside and swung the Bible like a club. It connected with one head. The thing howled, recoiling as if burned. Smoke rose from the impact.Mina laughed—sharp, dangerous. "Nice swing, church boy."Before he could ask what she meant, she moved.She didn't run. She danced.Her body twisted like liquid. Shadows peeled off her like smoke, wrapping around her arms. Her eyes flashed—not brown anymore, but molten gold. She raised one hand and whispered something in a language that made the streetlights flicker.Black tendrils shot from her fingertips—living darkness—and wrapped around two of the demon's necks, yanking hard. The heads snapped back with sickening cracks.Deji stared, mouth open. "Mina…?""Less staring, more hitting!" she yelled.The demon roared, breaking free. One head lunged at Deji. He ducked, rolled, came up swinging the Bible again. This time he shouted the only verse he could think of under pressure:"The Lord is my shepherd!"The book glowed—faint, warm gold—and the head shrieked, blistering where it touched.Mina was everywhere at once. She leaped onto the demon's back, drove her elbow into the base of one skull. Something cracked. She whispered again—words like knives—and the shadows thickened, slicing clean through a neck. Black blood sprayed.The last two heads turned on her.