Crozz Seraph needed a stadium, and he had six weeks to find one. His bandmates were carrying a demon lord inside them. The only way to tear it loose was a banishing ritual, and the ritual needed one thing he didn't have: a stage big enough to hold the power. Small rooms would burn. He'd seen it happen once, and he still smelled the smoke in his sleep. He spread the booking sheets across the floor of the practice room. Every arena had turned him down. No credit. No label. No draw big enough to fill the seats. A nobody couldn't rent a room that seated forty thousand people. Kita Choi kicked the door open with her boot. She was the only hunter he trusted, the one who'd pulled him out of that burning room. She dropped a folder on the sheets. "Stop begging strangers," she said. "You already have a stage." Crozz opened the folder. Photos of a performance platform spilled out. Steel towers. Blue lights. Panels covered in old warding marks. A ritual circle was built right into the floor. "The Moonlit Idol Stage," Kita said. "Someone designed it for exactly this. A concert that hides a banishing. It's been sitting empty for years." "Then why hasn't anyone used it?" "Because of who holds the lease." The door swung open again. A woman walked in without knocking. Blue hair, sharp ears, a tail curled behind her like a question. Crozz had seen her face on a thousand old posters. Azure Hellsong, the idol who'd vanished at the top of the charts. A demon wearing a pop star's smile. Kita's hand went to the blade at her hip. Azure didn't even look at it. "That stage is mine," Azure said. "I built it to channel power. Not to throw it away on your friends." "Those friends are dying," Crozz said. "Everyone's dying." She studied the ritual photos. "But I'm curious. You think you can fill forty thousand seats? You can't fill a bar." Crozz stood. "Give me the stage and I'll prove it." Azure laughed. The lights flickered when she did. "Fine. The lease is yours. One condition." She tapped the photo of the circle. "I perform with you. On that stage. When you light the ritual, I'm standing in the center of it." Kita stepped forward. "That's insane. She's the thing we hunt." "Those are my terms," Azure said. "Take the venue, take me. Or keep begging arenas that laugh at you." Crozz looked at the circle in the photo. He thought of the smoke, the small room, his bandmates. He had his stage now. He'd traded one problem for a worse one. "Deal," he said. Azure smiled and signed the lease across his palm with one claw. "Then let's sell out a stadium, demon hunter."

Crozz had the stage now. He did not have the ritual. He stood alone on the Moonlit Idol Stage, inside the circle etched into the floor. His father had known the banishing chant. His father had died before teaching it. Crozz knew the shape of the thing and none of the words. If he lit the circle wrong, the demon lord wouldn't leave his drummer. It would jump. Into Kita. Into whoever stood closest. Kita Choi climbed the steps two at a time. She dropped a cracked leather book on the floor. "Your father's. I kept it. I hoped you'd never need it." He opened it. Half the pages were water-stained to nothing. The chant was gone. Only a drawing of a hand remained, fingers spread, thumb folded in. "It's incomplete," Crozz said. "I can't run a banishing from half a page." "Then we test it," Kita said. "On something small. Before forty thousand people watch it fail." That was when the demon in the pop star's body walked into the light. Azure Hellsong leaned on the rail where Crozz's new drummer sat tuning her kit. Hana kept her hands moving, red hair falling over her eyes, pretending she heard nothing. Azure smiled at the broken book. "Your father's gestures were right," Azure said. "His words were wrong. He got himself killed with those words." Crozz kept his face still. "You'd teach me how to banish your own kind." "I'd teach you to banish a rival." Azure's tail flicked. "The lord in your bandmates isn't my friend. And I want my show. A botched ritual burns this stage. Burns me with it." Kita's hand found her blade. "Don't trust a word." "Then prove me," Azure said. She lifted a hand and folded her thumb, the shape from the drawing. "Call something small. A shadow-beast. I'll show you the real binding." Crozz looked at Hana's drumsticks. He looked at the circle. He chose to test it. He traced the marks and spoke the words he did know, the broken ones. Shadow pooled at the circle's edge. A wolf rose out of it, black fur lit with neon lines, fangs glowing. It snarled and lunged at Kita. "Now," Azure said. "Thumb in. Say it with me." She gave him the words his father never finished. Crozz repeated them and drove his folded hand down. The circle flared blue. The wolf twisted, shrank, and vanished into smoke. The floor marks dimmed. Nothing burned. Kita lowered her blade, breathing hard. "It worked." "It worked," Crozz said. He knew the chant now. He knew the gestures. He could banish the lord without losing a single bandmate. Azure stepped into the circle beside him. "You needed me," she said. "Remember that when the night comes." Crozz had his ritual. He had also just proven, in front of the demon, that he couldn't run it without her.