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When I woke again, I did so without the pain or drama that'd plagued me the first time I opened my eyes.

Dawn had come and gone, replaced by the light of late morning piercing the blinds and sheer curtains over the window, and beyond my house I heard the thumping whir of the garbage truck picking up cans from the neighbor's curb. That made today Tuesday. Tuesday. Two days had passed since my sister lost her life.

I drew in a shuddering breath and turned my sore head, freezing when I spotted the—the demon seated on the carpet, leaning his back against the wall. He had a book of mine open between his hands, though I couldn't tell which in the poor lighting, the covers bent without care or attention. Blood stained his shirt's front.

I shot him. I shot a man in the chest and—and he lived.

Stilling, I feigned sleep and observed the demon through my lashes, wondering what he was doing and why he was in here. Fear drove my initial inspection of him in the kitchen; now I studied him with more intent, searching for horns or scales or similar deformity that would prove him to be other. He had hair the color of carmine, a deep red rendered black in appearance aside from where light filtered through its edges and revealed the crimson hue, cut short and carelessly mussed. His eyes, too, looked black, no longer bright and glowing and red like open pits looking down into Hell itself, his gaze roving over the page opened before him. The elements of his appearance seemed carefully chosen; either that or he saw a mannequin at an outlet mall and stole the clothes off its back.

I sighed and sat up, or tried to, anyway. I managed an ungainly half-slouch against the headboard, pained but not overwhelmed, body weak from lying immobile for hours on end. The creature watched my efforts with narrowed, mistrustful eyes.

Unnerved and wishing he'd leave the bedroom, I swallowed, then asked, "Where is my gun?"

"Why? Do you plan on shooting me again?"

"Possibly. You are a stranger in my bedroom, after all."

He sucked air through his teeth and sneered. "It's gone. Futile as the gesture may be, I don't actually enjoy being shot." The book shut with a snap, then landed on the carpet, the demon rising to his full, considerable height. "At least you're being amenable this time; it's the most I could hope for. I am in here because, after you made yourself sick all over my person—." The demon sneered again, and I knew I'd receive retribution for that eventually. "You hit your head on the floor. Again. I had to ensure you didn't scramble what little wits you've left."

I said nothing as I lifted a hand and prodded at my hairline until I found the fresh bruise. I guess it's too much to hope he'd catch me after I fainted. The demon picked the book up off the floor and returned it to the overburdened shelf by the bureau.

As he considered my library, seeming unimpressed by the selection, I considered him; a demon, the man labeled himself, a lowly demon. Often, in my literary studies, I delved into the mythologies of creation and otherworldly devils, fascinated by the dichotomy between good and evil depicted in Dante and Marlowe, Goethe and Milton.—the very same books he sneered at now. As a child, Tara used to read Nancy Drew while I horrified our mother by choosing Dracula and Frankenstein, but for all my curiosity, all my interest, I never once thought such beings true.

The demon selected a volume on contemporary art, flipped through the pages, then snorted with derision as he tossed it aside.

No, I hadn't believed in demons until I shot one in the chest and watched him dig out the slug with bored disinterest—and yet I hadn't ever thought I'd see my sister be murdered by madmen, either. Her screams would haunt me to my dying day, however near or far that time proved to be, and I felt nothing but unspeakable rage fulminating in my chest for the men and women who stood by and let her die.

God help me, but I'd have my vengeance on them even if I had to die and return from the grave to achieve it.

"What now?" I asked, earning a glance and a raised brow from the saturnine devil. He chose another book and didn't respond for some time; the only sound shared between us was the rough flap of pages and suburbia's distant ambiance.

"Now," he said within unveiled disdain. "We are going to discuss our arrangement, as I meant to do before you...." He waved a hand at his bloodied chest.

If the demon wished for an apology, he'd find none forthcoming. "Right," I replied. "You said...you said you would—."

"Kill those who killed you, yes. I say killed and not tried, because you would assuredly be dead if not for my timely intervention." He reached for the pocket watch on the bureau and—

"Put that down."

—dropped it again, the watch rattling where it landed. "Your tone leaves much to be desired, girl."

I swallowed again and shivered in the sudden chill arresting the room, the sunlight at the window seeming to fade and disperse into the thickening dark. His eyes blazed red once more, and though dread scoured my veins and dried my mouth, I met the demon's gaze and didn't look away. "What do you get out of this?" I demanded, voice soft, cracking. "What do you want?"

"You are my host. My anchor to this realm—and when I complete our contract, you will give your soul to me...willingly or otherwise."

"Why?"

He blinked. "Why what?"

"Why take my soul? What is the purpose of that? Why does it matter?"

"For sustenance."

"What—?"

"Enough," the demon snapped. "I have said all I wish to on the subject." He returned his attention to the bookshelf, a clear indication I would get nowhere in this line of questioning. I glanced about my bedroom and changed topics.

"How did you know where I live?"

The demon flicked a disinterested hand toward the room's entrance, and I noticed he had somehow recovered my purse—and Tara's. My driver's license listed this address, though how he managed to tell Tara and me apart, I would never know.

"And what happened to...to their...?"

"Bodies?" he offered, a cruel tilt to the word that riled my already incensed mood. "Disappeared by the time I returned. I had to save your wretched life first and had no time to worry about the dead."

My hands twisted in the sheet. I refused the sorrow burgeoning in my chest, the sting and burn of tears trying to escape, because I wouldn't weep in this...creature's presence. "That's my sister, and she was murdered. Show her respect."

"I could," he said in such a way as to suggest he wouldn't. "Tell me of these...humans I am to hunt."

"What do you want to know?"

He scoffed as he lifted my letter opener from the bureau and, when he flipped the dull blade through dexterous fingers, the glinting light stirred my jumbled memory, green flashing in the dark, a hateful smirk—.

"Humans are intolerably naive," the demon seethed. "What do you want to know—who they are would be an excellent start. How else am I to know? Through magic?"

I pursed my lips and decided it best not to comment, the creature's teeth sharp and bared as he studied the letter opener and spat vitriol. Are demons not magical, then? He did take a bullet to the chest; that seemed rather magical to me. Anger already sat tight in my chest, and his irritation only brought my own into my voice. "I don't know who they were. If I knew that, do you think I'd need your help?"

"Ah," he sneered, the word chilling as the blade flipped again. "I haven't missed human egoism. Kill them all, you say. Tell me, foolish girl, are you so cold-hearted? Do you think yourself a killer? I find it far more likely that you'd faint and wilt before perpetuating such violence."

"If they were in front of me," I said as I glanced at the bullet hole in his shirt and the demon did the same. "I wouldn't hesitate."

He smiled, and it was a frightful thing, white teeth and black, hungry eyes, like pecking crows mobbing a corpse half-dead in a snow bank, August's heat gone from the room as if it'd never been. "I stand corrected. My...I didn't think bloodthirsty harridans like you still existed."

"I'm sure more women are capable of violence if forced to watch a cult kill their siblings."

His brow rose. "A cult, was it?"

"You saw the one, didn't you? Dressed in that—." I gestured at my chest, then down, mimicking a robe. "—costume. That black cloak. They were...were chanting, some kind of nonsense I'd never heard before...."

The scene swam in my mind, tinged by terror and fury and a head injury's too-bright saturation. Their voices mingled as a single, screaming thing, and above it, I best remembered the wet thump of Tara falling, limp as a rag doll, the guttering candles, the basin scraping the concrete as the man dragged it away.

The letter opener spun in his hand.

"We were at dinner," I recounted, eyes on the blade, trying to remember. "And Rick and I...we were ill. There was a...van, and then that place...."

"How many?" the demon asked as he propped an elbow on the shelves. "Cultists, that is."

"I don't know." How could I? Their faces remained obscure in my warped memory, a sea of rippling cloaks, echoing shrieks, sonorous, rhythmic chanting in a foreign tongue. I bit my lip. "Two...three dozen. More, perhaps."

"Perhaps." He thrust the letter opener point down into the bureau, and I jumped when the blade made impact, sinking an inch into the thick wood. Jesus. "Marvelous. Three dozen—or more!—people to kill, and you've no leads to give me. Are you prepared for that reality, girl? That you're sending me out to kill dozens of humans?"

"They're hardly human—and don't call me girl."

"Saryt, then."

The name sent a jolt through me, because of course, he'd seen it on the license when he'd gotten my address, but I hadn't expected him to say it. "Sara," I corrected. "It's Sara, and I—remember fighting. I—." I lowered my gaze to the bandages wrapped tight about my left hand. "I got free long enough to hurt one of them. I saw his face, but it was...unremarkable. White, balding. Middle-aged." My thumb stroked the bandages. "I believe he's missing his left eye, now."

The demon laughed, the sound abrupt, short, and unamused.

"Another had very pale hands. Very, very pale hands, and a tattoo of a lizard looped about his right wrist."

"Is this all you have to give me? An unremarkable fool with a missing eye and a pale-handed, tattooed man?"

Ignoring him, I concentrated as images of Sunday evening clashed with one another, like puzzle pieces being shook in a box, bright colors and flashes and booming voices, but slowly I made better sense of the night's progression.

"Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné."

"'Better alone than in bad company?' If you say so."

"Mitch," I said aloud, startling myself. "Mitch, my—date."

"Date?"

"Yes. We all went out to dinner, and Mitch—he left early, without warning. Just disappeared. I didn't care at the time, but Rick and I...got sick after that."

The demon frowned and crossed his arms. "Is such behavior typical for this...Mitch?"

"No. I don't know. I didn't—we weren't familiar with one another. He's—was—Rick's friend." Was he? Reflecting on the assumption, I recalled Rick describing his relationship with Mitch as "acquaintances" the first time I met him, and I'd been convinced Rick pulled the guy out of his address book at Tara's prompting.

"He's most likely involved in this farce, you understand? Coincidences are not usually so coincidental."

I opened my mouth to reject his assertion—he can't be, he can't, I would have seen it!—and caught myself. What did I know? What did I actually know? Apparently, nothing at all, if true demons walked the earth and cults sacrificed people in shitty warehouses. Rick and I fell ill right after leaving the restaurant. Tara had been fine, yet Tara didn't drink anything. Did Mitch poison us?

Distracted, I didn't see the demon approached until he caught a lank piece of my hair between his thumb and forefinger and I jumped, startled, but had nowhere to retreat to as he leaned closer. A blush of color swept through his eyes once more, there and then gone, and I stared in equal parts fascination and horror.

"Give me an order, host," he said, and I imagined the serpent in the Garden of Eden hissed like that in Eve's ear. "Tell me what you wish for me to do."

"I—what?"

He leaned nearer still, twisting the single lock tighter about his finger until my scalp stung. The threatening crooning morphed into disdain and repeated himself like a teacher trying to drum theories into an inattentive student's head. "Give me an order."

"Why? Why does it matter? I told you what I wanted—." Want them dead. Dead for what they've done, what they've stolen from me. "Let go."

He did so, untangling my hair from his fingers, though he did place his hand on the headboard and I watched him, wary, disliking how fear prickled cold and unwelcome along my skin. "I need your order. I am...subservient to your whims, and thus the consequences of my actions are yours to bear, so long as I act upon your word. This is how I avoid...punishment."

Punishment? The notion of there being an entity or force responsible for punishing self-proclaimed demons boggled my mind and I refused to think upon it at the moment. "I want you to kill them."

"That's it? So eager. You're an odd girl, as most humans barter endlessly when they realize they've sold their souls, supplementing endless addendum—and and and and and, ad infinitum. Though it does you no good to drag your feet, you do realize you'll die when I take your soul, don't you?"

I met his stare and didn't flinch, didn't waver. I smelled ash and must, like an old book that had survived a fire, the pages smoldering and yellowed and coated in soot—the scent of an ancient Roman tomb cracked open and exposed to the light of day. "They killed my sister and her fiance and their unborn child. She was the person I loved best in my life, and you think I care that'll I die at the end of this? I would be dead already without your intervention. This...this is all I have to live for, and I will see those monsters dead for what they've done."

His eyes flickered—red in the black again, magma bleeding through scalded earth—and his lip curled. "Naive," the demon said as he straightened, pulling away, and my shoulders slumped. He moved toward the door. "As I said before. Well, then—."

The words jerked a memory forward through the confusing disarray—.

"Well, then—."

Blood between my toes, on his shoes, staring into black eyes with nothing looking back.

Light glinting on a golden fob, on white teeth, on a silver blade painted red. Pain, pain, so much pain—.

"There—there was something else," I whispered, eyes opened without seeing, trembling hand clasped against my side. How could I have forgotten him? "There was a man—."

"So you've said. Several times, in fact." The demon opened the door without truly listening.

"They were chanting—."

"Your repetition is tiring."

"They kept saying...such...such weird things.... Farirrath mir Ridmal."

The demon froze.

"Rath'le...forsuile valas...farath, Balthier—."

As the cold crept once more through the room, the creature at my door turned, his face gone as pallid as a corpse's, and he shut his eyes as if I'd just confirmed his worst fears. "Oh," the demon breathed. "This just got far, far more complicated."


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