Dial-Up Demon

Every time Jax dies, he comes back stronger. The catch? It's eating him alive. Orphaned at four. Dropout at sixteen. Four months behind on rent. He survives on classified ads and bus fare, scraping by in a Philadelphia that'd rather forget he exists. It's 2002. Center City drinks lattes and talks stocks. Everyone else gets the demons; twisted things that crawl out of the tech garbage the dot-com bust left behind. Old monitors. Dead servers. The toxic stuff nobody wants, dumped in neighborhoods nobody cares about. The Demonic Control Bureau handles the big infestations. The rest goes to freelancers like Jax, who've learned that "licensed contractors only" is more of a suggestion. Then a routine job goes wrong. Jax wakes up in a government facility with blood on his hands, gaps in his memory, and something under his skin that definitely wasn't there before. The DCB makes him an offer: steady pay, hot meals, and a real bed. All he has to do is hunt demons for them instead of against them. It's the best deal he's ever gotten. So why does it feel like a trap?