Novels by Peniel Stevens

The air outside the apartment complex was as sharp and merciless as a new bill. Caleb was on the stoop, holding the black notebook like a very tiny, very damned book. Everything else seemed to be just… ordinary. A man in a business suit rushed by, speaking on his phone. A little kid, six at most, was trying to ride a training-wheel bike that squealed around each bend. A woman was watering some plants. The sun was shining bright, the birds were singing sweet melodies, and all the air was filled with the scent of fresh pavement and coffee. It was an incredibly beautiful, typical morning, and Caleb felt like a fraud to walk through it.He was a new soul hunter. The thought was so ridiculous, so utterly insane, that he almost laughed. Almost. But then he remembered the mooing milk and the starving trash can, and the chuckle stuck in his throat. This wasn't funny. This was reality. He was a man who spent his afternoons trying to write a brilliant chorus, and now he was doing this. He was a

The garbage can shook once more, an enraged, leaping jig that caused the recycling can beside it to sway. A pool of soy sauce spread along the floor, one black line of liquid ink-thick that declared HUNGRY, the words trembling slightly as the can heaved. A soft, greenish glow emanating from within beat with a life of its own. It was an ugly, gut-roiling spectacle.Caleb’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He stood in the middle of his kitchen, a frozen statue of abject terror. He’d faced down an impossibly perfect demon, a terrifyingly ordinary accountant, and a smug eternal coffee drinker, but this? This was new. This was different. The mundane had become monstrous.Just as the garbage can trembled with one last violent jerk, and the hum along the baseboards started to build to a frenzy, it all just ceased.Immediately.The glow went away. The garbage can landed gently with a click. The humming stopped, leaving a silence so profound it felt like a physical void. The o

Caleb sat hunched on the couch, chin in his hands, glaring at the pizza box humming on the counter like it was mocking him. The smell still hung in the apartment—cheesy, greasy, way too alive for anything edible. It wasn’t even food anymore; it was a dare. His stomach growled like an angry dog. “No,” he muttered, jabbing a finger at the box like it could hear him. “You don’t get me twice. I’m not about to have another heart-to-heart with pepperoni.” The pizza hummed louder, like it was offended. Caleb dragged himself to the fridge. He yanked it open, bracing for more horrors—maybe glowing milk, or an apple that coughed—but what he found made his eyes widen. Sitting dead center was a neat black plastic tray of sushi. Salmon rolls. Tuna. Even a tiny container of soy sauce, like it had been catered by some five-star Japanese place. Caleb blinked. “Oh… oh my God. Actual food.” He didn’t even question it. Hunger bulldozed suspicion. He grabbed the tray, popped it open, and dunked a

The room was so quiet, Caleb could hear the hum of the cursed pizza box vibrating like it was waiting for someone to open it again. He sat on the edge of his bed, palms sweating, eyes flicking between Lena and Dev like he was caught between a firing squad and a stand-up act.Lena had her arms crossed, eyebrows locked in their most terrifying formation — the one that meant she wasn’t just angry, she was disappointed.“Thirty days,” she repeated, voice flat. “You signed something that gave you thirty days before—what? Before you’re dragged screaming into eternal damnation?”Caleb winced. “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds—”“Dumb?” she snapped.“… yeah.”Dev stirred his latte with a plastic straw like they weren’t having the world’s worst intervention. “Technically, it’s thirty calendar days. Business days would’ve been generous. Hell’s not big on federal holidays.”Lena’s glare snapped to him. “You knew? You’ve been stringing him along like some kind of—”“Handler,” Dev cut in

Caleb woke up to the smell of pizza.Not a normal pizza smell either — not grease-slick delivery boxes, not frozen cardboard reheated at three a.m., not even Lena’s half-burnt homemade “I followed the recipe, I swear” attempts.This was perfection.The kind of smell that made your stomach growl before your brain even caught up. Dough kissed by smoke, cheese melting like sunlight, toppings arranged with the mathematical precision of a god.He opened his eyes.There was a steaming, perfectly boxed large pizza sitting on his nightstand.Caleb sat up so fast he nearly headbutted it. “What the—?”The box was pristine. No grease stains, no delivery stickers, no receipt shoved under the lid. Just a little embossed symbol on top: a circle with a tiny devil tail curling off the edge.“Oh, hell no,” Caleb muttered. “Literally hell no.”But his stomach betrayed him. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, when Lena had confiscated his “emergency ramen stash” after discovering it was six months expired.

The door didn’t just open—it unraveled.The wood groaned like it was tired of existing, peeling apart in long strips as if soaked in invisible acid. Paint bubbled. Dust rained down. A line of black veins spread across the frame, cracking out like spiderwebs.Lena screamed and stumbled back, nearly tripping over the coffee table. Caleb, running on nothing but panic and caffeine, did the bravest thing his brain could manage: he swung his guitar stand like a sword.It wasn’t sharp. Or heavy. Or remotely intimidating. But it was something between him and the nightmare clawing its way in.Except—it wasn’t a nightmare.On the threshold stood… a man.Not a monster. Not a demon. A man.No horns, no flames, no dripping fangs. He was dressed like an overworked bank manager: scuffed loafers, wrinkled button-down, tie hanging loose. His glasses slipped halfway down his nose, and he had that permanent hunched posture of someone crushed by paperwork.In one hand, he carried a clipboard. In the othe