It was rush hour, and the two men had been stuck in traffic for hours, the humid air of the city thick with exhaust fumes and the frustrated blare of horns. Eric, ever the restless spirit, was rummaging impatiently through the car’s compartments, a whirlwind of CDs and charging cables. He looked over at him, his face a picture of exasperation, and asked, "You don't have any CDs, boss? Seriously? What kind of car is this?" He gave Eric a silent, withering "fuck off" look, a glance honed by years of managing subordinates, and returned his eyes to the endless line of brake lights ahead.

  Eric, undeterred, reached for the dashboard to pair his phone, his fingers dancing over the infotainment screen. "What’s the name of the device? It's not showing up."

  He didn't answer. Instead, with a practiced flick of his wrist, he simply reached over and switched the entire console off, plunging the car into a sudden, unexpected silence.

  "Oh, come on, man! My tunes!" Eric groaned, throwing his hands up in mock despair.

  He was about to retort, a sharp, dismissive comment forming on his tongue, when his gaze snagged on something impossible. An entity, a swirling mass of shadow and malevolence, was hiding in the car directly in front of them, crammed into the back seat. He watched, utterly transfixed, as the demon, looking agitated and scared, its form shimmering with a frantic energy, peered anxiously outside the vehicle, its unseen hands seemingly trying to squeeze itself deeper into the dark shadows of the car’s interior, as if trying to become one with the upholstery.

  Eric waved a hand in front of his face, breaking his trance. "Hello? Earth to bossman! What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost in broad daylight."

  "Nothing," he replied, his voice flat, the single word a dismissive barrier.

  Eric looked at him with a weird, appraising stare, a hint of concern mixed with irritation. "Okay, boss, if you say so." Eric tapped the infotainment screen again, and this time, with a triumphant beep, the car finally accepted the interface, pairing his phone to the system. The familiar beat of a pop song immediately filled the quiet cabin.

  He was about to switch it off again, the music an unwelcome distraction to his heightened senses, when another entity, larger and more aggressive, suddenly materialized, jumping onto his car hood with a sickening thud, then effortlessly leaping onto the car in front of them. It was almost as if an unseen force was playing a cruel game of leapfrog. Since the car wasn't tinted, he could see everything inside with chilling clarity: an infant was strapped into a car seat in the back, its innocent face framed by the window, and the man driving, a kind-looking older gentleman, appeared to be the infant's grandfather.

  Suddenly, to everyone’s shock, the car ahead flipped with impossible violence, as if it had been violently struck by something colossal and unseen, cartwheeling through the air before crashing onto its roof with a sickening crunch of metal and shattering glass. Amid the chaos, the cacophony of screeching tires and terrified screams, he saw a light like a bullet, a pure, blinding projectile of energy, strike the two entities inside the now-upside-down vehicle, followed by a silent, internal scream that only he could hear. Eric, his face pale with shock, scrambled out of their car like the other bystanders who had witnessed the inexplicable, horrific crash, his earlier exasperation replaced by raw terror.

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  "Did you see that?" Eric exclaimed, his voice hoarse, pointing with a trembling hand at the wreckage. "There's a baby in that car!"

  He calmly unbuckled his seatbelt, his movements precise despite the adrenaline coursing through him, and stepped out as well, his eyes already scanning the scene. Both men ran toward the crash site while others, their voices frantic, called 911. When he arrived at the wreckage, stepping over broken glass and debris, he saw an Angel, its form shimmering with an intense, cold light, systematically killing the entities, its movements swift and brutal, dispatching them with an almost surgical precision.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed, the words torn from him, a protest born not of compassion for the demons, but of a deep-seated unease with this overt display of supernatural violence in the mundane world.

  The Angel gave him a piercing look, its eyes like chips of ice, after slitting the entities' necks with a gesture so swift it was almost invisible. The Angel then stepped forward, its gaze fixed on him, as if about to speak, but then Eric caught up to him, panting.

  "Hey, boss, are they still alive? Is anyone hurt?" Eric asked, his eyes wide with concern, gesturing at the car.

  He looked at Eric, then back at the Angel, but the celestial being was gone, vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only the lingering smell of ozone and a faint, metallic tang in the air. The baby, miraculously, began to cry, a small, fragile sound cutting through the stunned silence. Eric, with surprising tenderness, reached into the wreckage to carefully extricate the child while he, his movements still calm and efficient, went to help the grandfather out of the flipped car. Miraculously, incomprehensibly, both were unharmed, not a scratch on them. When the medical rescue team finally arrived, their sirens wailing, they were utterly surprised to find the victims hadn't sustained any injuries. Looking at the sheer, brutal damage to the car, it was nothing short of a miracle they were alive.

  The sirens of the police cruisers finally cut through the heavy air, their blue and red lights reflecting off the shattered glass scattered across the asphalt, painting the scene in garish, pulsating hues. Two officers hopped out, their faces grim, immediately pushing the growing crowd back to create a perimeter.

  "Everyone back! Give the medics room!" one officer shouted, his voice firm.

  Eric, still holding the infant with surprisingly steady hands, looked over at him, his expression a mixture of awe and confusion. "We’re going to have to give a statement, boss. They’re going to want to know how the car just... flipped like that. It defied physics!"

  He didn't answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on the spot where the Angel had stood—the exact place where the entities' throats had been slit. To the police, to Eric, there was nothing there but empty air and a wrecked car. To him, the spiritual "blood" of the demons was still a dark, shimmering stain on the pavement, visible only to his cursed eyes.

  The officer, a burly man with a skeptical expression, approached them, notepad in hand. "You two were the first on the scene? Did you see what caused the vehicle to lose control? Was there another car involved? Anything out of the ordinary?"

  He looked the officer directly in the eye, his expression precise and empty, just as it had been at the cathedral, a practiced mask of disinterest. "No other car," he said calmly, his voice flat and even. "It just flipped. A freak accident."

  The officer frowned, looking from the clear, unobstructed road to the impossibly damaged vehicle, then back at him, clearly disbelieving. "A car doesn't just pull a 180 and land on its roof for no reason, sir. There are no skid marks, no collision points."

  "Then call it a miracle," he replied flatly, turning his back on the officer to head toward his own car, leaving the baffled policeman to scratch his head. The mundane world had its explanations; he had his own, far more terrifying, ones. He knew now that the war wasn't just in his dreams or his office; it was right here, on the asphalt, in plain sight, hidden only by the veil of human ignorance.