With a labored sigh I stiffened my spine, crinkled my nose up and down, blinked my eyes wide open a few times and rolled my neck and shoulders to get the kinks and fear out before turning towards the demon that had invaded my pleasant ride home from the coffee shop down on Eighth Street. And to think I was having such a splendid night off.

The demon in question had ransacked the body of a little old lady with odd purplish-lavender hair curled tightly against her head like she’d just recently had it permed. She was probably in her mid-seventies, pale-skinned with that paste-like flat pink lipstick you’d find slashed across their lips, smelling of Emeraude.

It was early autumn, so she was dressed in a tweed jacket, brown and orange with mambo orange buttons at its closure. A sheer orange scarf coifed her hair to keep it all in place. The colors were not a good contrast for her, especially against that purple day-glow hair. Seeing the void of all things sacred at the bottomless well of her black eyes staring back at me from that sweet, wrinkly face creeped me out.

“Little Huntress,” the demon croaked. Its voice sounded scratchy and high-pitched as it warbled at me.

“Demon spawn,” I countered.

“I’ve a message,” it replied while twisting the fingers of the old woman this way and that, the bones popping and crunching. The sound of it grossed me out. Knowing it was so nonchalantly, so carelessly breaking this poor woman’s fingers began to piss me off.

“Speak,” I demanded. “And stop what you’re doing to the poor woman, or I will make your short and pathetic stay here quick and your departure twice as painful as your infliction of her suffering.”

The demon laughed, guttural, screeching, like nails on a chalkboard. The windows of the bus began to crack in a web of fractures. The hairs on the back of my neck peaked to attention, my flesh breaking out in a clammy sweat. I really did hate conversations with the damned, demon or otherwise. Actually, small talk of any kind was not my forte. Couldn’t people just say what they meant?

The laughing continued, and my nerves were growing frazzled as the seconds ticked off. Could this damn thing not just shut the hell up and get on with it already? I mean, that laugh should not be coming out of that sweet old lady’s voice box. Thirty seconds later the thing seemed to catch its breath, its head snapped forward with an audible pop and with a speed I’d never witnessed, a bony hand shot forward, latching onto mine, pulling me from my seat.

I had no choice but to dig my heels in. The rippled rubber in the center aisle gave me a little help, but when the creature’s strength changed, intensified, I knew I was in for bigger problems.

“Come, Faith. Have a seat and talk with me awhile,” the voice suggestively advised. “It’s been ages since we’ve conversed.”