How to be Badass (2nd Draft)

The day that Dustin discovered just what it was that Allen did that caused him to disappear once a week was a Sunday.

Allen always felt safe on Sundays, because they were smack dab in the middle of the week. At least, they were when you defined the beginning and end of your week as Wednesday. It was a day much like any day of the week that is not Wednesday; it involved Allen, a saxophone; it involved Dustin, a book. They were in a park.

It was not the same park they usually went to. This one was a little closer to home, because Allen had sprained his ankle during the last possession and wasn’t in good condition for travelling long distances. It was prone to being occupied by more grass and children and less flowers and stones. There were more pigeons and less geese.

Allen tapped his toe on the case of his sax, fiddling with the latch. It was raining, and he cringed to think of his instrument out in the rain, but he was also massively bored. Sighing, he leaned back against the back of the bench, and looked up into the leaves spread above his head. A raindrop landed in his eye. He closed it reflexively.

“Maybe we should go to the library,” he said to Dustin, rapid blinking the offended eye.

“I’m always up to go to the library,” Dustin said.

That was true—even in the thick of winter, when Dustin had all but hibernated, he would still brave the library. Allen was about to make a teasing comment on this when it happened: the world went black around him. The part of him usually dormant this time of the week roared to life, panic spreading in him like an algae bloom. Why is this happening why is this happening why is this it’s Sunday-

He hurtled back into consciousness. Catching him by surprise had afforded him more time in that vile, dark nothingness than he had experienced in years. He ate up the details of the world around him. The greenness of the grass. The lack of people because of the dreariness of the day—thank god. And Dustin—who was looking at him with a sadness so profound it might be called anguish.

“Oh, Allen,” he murmured. “What did they do to you?”

Guilt crashed through him as he looked at his friend’s face. He’d been afraid to tell him, not wanting his only friend to see him for all the things he knew he was. Weak. Pathetic. Demon plaything. Worthless.

However, as Allen was not in control of his own body, he could not respond to that horrible understanding in Dustin’s eyes. The demon possessing him hesitated, but then launched Allen’s body at Dustin, arms outstretched to wrap around his throat. Allen had killed people he knew before, when he was doing jobs nearer to home, but usually it was the type of knowing where you’d met them once or twice, or seen them at the same store you went to often—never his friend, his only and closest friend. It was only one person and it should have been nothing compared to the hundreds but killing didn’t measure that way.

Allen was helpless, but Dustin wasn’t. Dustin lurched out of the way, panic in his eyes. He landed on the grassy ground with an ungraceful thud, scrambling back from Allen. Oh, as long as he lived Allen would never forget that, the awfulness of seeing someone you love with fear in their eyes because of you. The grass around Dustin cracked and turned white. That’s right—Dustin was a cold demon. Sure, Allen had never seen him use his powers, leaving Allen to assume they’d been too weak to use, but maybe he was just controlled. He could fight Allen off if he wanted to. It might kill him but Allen deserved to die more than Dustin did.

Quite suddenly, Allen went still. It was jarring, because he had been mid-scramble and he simply stopped dead like a puppet with its strings cut, falling onto his face, one arm folded under himself. He felt control flood back through his limbs, and it was so sweet he thought he might cry. His breathing sounded harshly as he jolted up and back, so that he supported himself with his hands behind him.

He looked at Dustin, still breathing hard, panic still careening through him, unable to say anything. A ragged sound worked its way out of him, like the sound of a wounded dog, and a couple tears slid down his face. He tilted his head back, as if by baring this to the world it might forgive him.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Dustin move. He crawled over to Allen, and put an arm around his shoulders, slowly and carefully drawing him into his arms. “I’m sorry,” Allen whispered into his chest, putting his arms around himself and digging his nails into his own arms. Dustin’s arms were a reassuring barrier around him. “I’m so sorry.” The tears started coming faster, until he couldn’t keep them silent anymore, and he let it happen. He let the sobs pour out of him, letting his brokeness out. He hated himself, and still Dustin didn’t move away. Instead, he brought a hand up to Allen’s head, holding it there against him.

“You could have told me, you know,” Dustin murmured, so gently that Allen cried harder. “I don’t think badly of you. What a hard life you must lead.”

No one had ever offered Allen comfort in concern to his situation—of course they hadn’t, when the only person who had ever known was his father, and he was the one that did this to him. The novelty of it was like a balm to his soul, a soft touch to his mind. He felt known.

In the days that followed, Allen told Dustin the rest of the story, in fits and starts, a bit here and there. He hated himself every time he did it, hated his weakness and hated putting it out into the world so—so unapologetically. But Dustin never seemed to mind, and with time, Allen learned to trust him with his flaws. Allen hoped that someday Dustin would trust Allen with his, too.

Mimi was no longer feeling as optimistic about their lead shiny new lead.

It had been a week and there was nothing to show for it. The kid was too young for a driver’s license, and even though Fay had been combing through high schools, health insurance, and even dating websites, all within the area the incident occurred, they still didn’t have a hit. It was maddening.

Considering the level of planning and cunning put into other parts of the operation—having a powerful half demon possess the boy to get him out of the demonslayers’ way for god’s sake—Mimi didn’t even want to think of what size of operation had a half demon at their beck and call—Mimi wouldn’t be surprised if the kid wasn’t even from the area, but then where did you start? He could be from anywhere. He could be out of the system, off the grid completely. She had Fay slowly widening out the net, but the nearest they could get was that he didn’t have any discernably foreign accent when he spoke. That was great. He could be fucking Canadian. That wasn’t even that far.

She, Queri, and Sparrow all had the day off from work, so when Mimi had gotten a tip from her preccinct that something was up, it was them that went to deal with it. Demonic possession had picked up since the descimation of the guilds, naturally, and people had noticed, naturally. Only, they didn’t call them demonic possessions. They called them ‘an increase in homicides’ or ‘a pick up in terrorist incidents’, or even ‘an increase in terrorist attacks’. There had also been an increase in people who pleaded madness in their trials. The way a person’s mind reacted to being possessed was controlled by several factors, but the bottom line was that they often went mad. It wasn’t an altogether natural experience, being possessed by a demon. Even if one hadn’t gone mad, the experience of waking up with only corpses for company and remembering only that you had made a deal with a demon was enough to make even sane people plead that way.

Either way, there were observant people that Mimi counted on to inform her when something looked suspicious. They weren’t quite in the know, but people are shockingly observant and there were people who had put together that something had changed in the past twenty years, and that Mimi was neck deep in it. Today an officer had let her know that a stranger had entered an office building that didn’t look like he belonged there, and followed up with the fact that the security cameras in the building had been turned off. It sounded more like one of the regular attacks than a random one—those usually had no warning and no surrounding signs. This was more likely a purely human plan, but Mimi was clutching at straws at this point. It could be a regular attack.

She didn’t know what she could do about it if it was; she supposed they could try to interrogate the demon, but that would be difficult and likely useless. Even if they could get it to answer in human words, which was already looking impossible, demons possessing vessels were often customers of gangs that did all the heavy-lifting when it came to finding and fixing a deal with a vessel. It probably wouldn’t know much about the operation itself. Still, it would be better than nothing—might know the demon in charge, or the half demon that had helped last time.

That opened a whole other can of worms. Why had they helped the kid out of the situation? The most obvious solution was that they didn’t want him giving away any information, which implied that he had information, which begged a lot of questions. What kind of valuable information would a vessel have? They were disposable. They were even less likely to know something than the demons that possessed them. There was something unbearably fishy, something very deeply wrong about everything in this operation. It turned everything Mimi had been taught on its head.

Mimi drummed her fingers on the steeringwheel. She was abruptly jarred from her embroiled thoughts when she percieved a demonic presence. Huh. She supposed this was a demonic job after all. Good thing she brought Queri and Sparrow. Pulling over in front of the building, Mimi eyed it up. It was grey, dull, and looked like it had built twenty years ago and now probably had water stains on its cielings.

They got in without a fuss; Mimi was in uniform, and once she flashed her badge people got out of her way. Queri and Sparrow could be detectives for all the staff knew. They tracked the demonic presence to the second floor, and asked some of the staff if they’d seen someone who looked like they didn’t work here to be sure. Mimi eyed a door that she was certain was the right one. Left side of the hall. Fifty feet down.

“Did I hear that guy say that’s the break room?” Sparrow asked. “Do you think they have tea?”

“Not the most important thing right now,” muttered Queri.

“Surely we’ve done this enough times by now that I can ask if we can have tea afterwards,” Sparrow retorted.

“I don’t see why Sparrow can’t have tea,” Mimi said.

“It’s stealing,” hissed Queri. “We’re not talking about this right now. We need to take care of this job before it hurts anyone.”

She was right.

“But,” Queri said, face straight as anything, “if there are little cookies, I’ll eat those. But only if Mimi feeds them to me.”

Mimi didn’t quite whip her head around to look at her best friend, but she did jerkily glance at her. “Not the most important thing right now,” Mimi jibed, but she was thinking, Please let there be little cookies.

Mimi walked up to the door, and put a hand on her whip. It didn’t quite go with her NYPD uniform, but it was her favourite weapon for demonslaying and she didn’t intend to give it up for appearances. “We’ll go in quickly, close the door, surround the vessel. Capiche?”

There were nods.

Mimi took the weight of her whip in one hand, handling it so that she could flick it out easily, and with the other hand she opened the door. Queri and Sparrow in first on either side, and Mimi up the middle, pushing the door shut behind her.

Mimi briefed the room. Aside the vessel, there were two dead employees. That was disappointing. The table in the middle of the room didn’t leave much room to navigate, and the chairs were scattered and tipped, like thrown dice. One of the employees was fallen over one.

Mimi looked more cloesely at the vessel. To her surprise, it was a child—in an office building? No wonder he looked out of place, though his formless, nondescript clothing did that on its own (and would do a fairly good job of disguising the fact that he was a child if you didn’t see him head on). He was a young teen—Mimi would guess fourteen—and dark, thick hair that was overgrown and unkept. A scar under his left eye. He was close enough that Mimi could see that his eyes were grey and their use less than human.

One typically doesn’t realize how normal human eyeball movements look until they see demonic eyeball movements.

“Mimi,” Queri said, her eyes focused on the target, in a combat position. “I’m—I’m not freaking out, exactly, but this is the same boy that I fought with Char.”

Mimi’s heart rate spiked, greedy interest filling her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! He looks fucking identical. If nothing else that scar has to be unique.”

“Wait, wait,” Sparrow said. “This is the kid that died last time except not really?”

The demon looked at his new guests with interest, and then started towards the front of the room, clumsily fighting its way around the chairs and table

“Fair enough,” Mimi said. “In that case, we’re taking him in by force. We can’t have him escaping like last time. Pin him up!”

Queri and Sparrow advanced on the kid from opposite sides, Sparrow with her staff out, Queri with her brass knuckles. Mimi didn’t move- three demonslayers was really overkill on a mission like this. She thumbed the worn leather of her whip’s handle, still ready to intervene should she need to.

The demon wavered. That unto itself was interesting, but more importantly it gave Sparrow and opening to lunge forward and use her staff to pin the boy to the wall, and Queri quickly followed up by gently resting her weaponry against the base of his neck. The vessel thrashed, bucking Sparrow’s hold. Sparrow cried out, arm muscles rippling.

“Holy fuck!” she gritted.

“Sorry,” Queri said, and then the boy slumped. “It was stronger than I thought.”

“Don’t release him,” Mimi said quickly. The boy wasn’t saying anything, but he was looking more terrified by the second. Mimi didn’t even want to start thinking about all the reasons that could be. At least she wasn’t thinking about little cookies anymore.

“This is a disaster,” Queri muttered, taking off her brass knuckles and cocking a hip. “We don’t know anything about this kid, but he’s murdered at least seven people as far as the law’s concerned.”

“That’s why we’re kidnapping him, not arresting him.”

“That’s a crime too, Mimi.”

“I don’t have to have a lawyer tell me that,” Mimi said.

“Mimi, I think the boy is having a panic attack,” Sparrow said, sounding distressed. “I do not like pinning a panicking child to the wall.”

“Both of you have far too many moral scruples to be saving humanity,” Mimi snapped. It wasn’t that she didn’t have moral scruples, but she was very good at setting them aside when the situation called for it. This definitely qualified. “You know how many times I’ve seen repeats of vessels? Zero. You know why? Demons are assholes who don’t keep their ends of the deals and humans aren’t that awful at learning. So there are only a couple possibilities here, and one of them is that this kid is working with them.”

Sparrow looked doubtful. “He’s like, twelve.”

“We’re not taking chances. He’s our only lead on those goddamn attacks.”

Sparrow glared at Mimi, and turned back to the boy. “Hey,” she said. “We’re not here to hurt you. I don’t know what’s gotten you into this fix but our job is to get you out. We want to help. Now listen to my voice. I want you to breathe in, and I’m going to count, and you’re going to keep breathing in until I stop counting.”

Tears were streaming down the kid’s face, and Mimi genuinely believed that he would pass out if he continued breathing like that. She would say that she was concerned he would pass out if he continued breathing like that, but she wasn’t really concerned about it—in fact, it might make things easier. He didn’t make any indication that he had heard Sparrow, or that he was going to cooperate.

“If you can calm down, I’ll let you go,” Sparrow said. “Ready? One, two, three… Okay that wasn’t awful. Let’s try again…”

This went on for a while. Mimi didn’t mind because she was still trying to figure out how they were going to get out of here. It wasn’t as if they could take a crying, blood covered child out the front door.

“Please,” the boy said. “Please, you have to let me go you don’t understand, they’ll kill her, I know I’m—this is worse, I killed—”

The boy stopped talking again as his breathing escalated again. Mimi frowned. “Sparrow, let him go.”

“Thank you,” Sparrow said, releasing him. He immediately sank to the floor, back curled and legs held close so that he looked as much like a comma as a human being can.

Mimi walked up to the child, crouched in front of him and said, “I don’t know what the demons said they would do, but they don’t keep their deals. Your best hope for saving ‘her’ is us. Okay? And we will save her.”

The boy was shaking his head though, before she’d even reached the end of the sentence. He still couldn’t speak. Mimi sighed. Whatever the demons behind this had told this kid, they had him under their thumb. “Well, it seems that he’s either a victim or a really good actor.”

“He’s like, twelve.”

“Twelve year olds can be good actors. Haven’t you seen the Parent Trap? I’m going to scout out an exit route,” Mimi said. Her head whirled as she stepped out of the room. What was with that kid? The enormity of the situation was staggering. Demons didn’t threaten. They offered. Why would they choose this child over another victim? He was too small to be a prime option, especially if they were reusing him, which unto itself was unheard of-

Mimi strode out of the break room, and peered down the hallway in either direction. No one. That was… odd. It then occurred to her that, following the pattern from the other attacks, this was right. It seemed painfully obvious to her once she thought of it. No witnesses; no cameras. They should be able to walk right out and be fine as daisies. She did a quick exploration of the main rooms to make sure, and then returned to the break room.

Walking back in she said, “Okay, let’s go.” Seeing that the boy was now lying on the floor, Mimi gave Sparrow a look that clearly said, What the hell?

“He just passed out,” Sparrow said. “I suppose from the panic… I’m worried for him. He’s… so young. Not twelve but still a kid. Barely pubescent and all that.”

Mimi grunted. “Well, If we didn’t already know this is connected to the regular attacks, then we have another piece of circumstantial evidence. The building is empty. No witnesses. Let’s just get out of here while that lasts; we can try to revive him in the car.”

Sparrow, from her position crouched in front of the boy, said, “Okay.”

Queri picked up the boy, and they left the building.

“Until he calms down, we won’t be able to get anything out of him,” Queri said, getting into the passenger seat. “Every time Sparrow got him calmed down enough to answer anything, the question—or the answer—freaked him out enough that he couldn’t get it out. Eventually he just passed out.”

Mimi pursed her lips. “I suppose we’ll have to let him get more comfortable, as much as we can. We need to know if there are other threats that we need to deal with related to his situation, though.”

Queri nodded. “Let’s get him home.”

When Allen next woke up, he immediately sat up and felt a wave of dizziness hit him. Disorientation—and a head rush. The ground was moving. That didn’t help.

He slouched forwards, tangling his hands in his hair as he tried to think past the panic. He had no control—none. He had been used his entire life and now he’d been taken—

“You’re awake,” someone said softly, as if he was an animal to be easily startled. He supposed he sort of was. He supposed he was on the floor of their car now. Unable to move, his hands simply tightened, the pain in his scalp grounding him somewhat. He could see only his legs out in front of him, and those of someone kneeling beside him. Long brown hair fell down just above them. A van?

“How are you feeling?”

How was he feeling? He felt like he was going to throw up. He felt like he was going to pass out again. He felt like he was doing something awful. The car jerked and Allen’s elbow hit the side of the car with a jolt. Someone in the front swore, smoothly and matter-of-factly.

“We don’t want to hurt you.”

“Please,” was all Allen managed. Please just go… They would possess him, hurt him, kill his mom… The shame was unbearable. The fear was worse. “Help…”

Hands gently pried his hands out of his hair. “We will help you,” she said, taking his hands in hers and holding them in between them. He could feel them trembling, and he hated that too, because it was there for him to hate. “Tell us how to help you.”

Help. He didn’t even seem like a possibility. How vehemently he didn’t believe in it. How desperately he wanted it. He wanted it the way he’d wanted a friend when he’d found Dustin. But that was a peer—it wasn’t like this. He looked up. “My mom,” he started. His throat was so dry. He cleared it and tried again. “They’ll kill my mom. Save her.”

The woman was suddenly very still. “Where is she?”

“Hospital,” he croaked. “They’ll… pull the plug.”

“She’s a coma patient?”

“Yes.”

“Which hospital is she in?”

Allen blinked, realizing he had no idea. He hadn’t been allowed to visit her for… years. He shook his head.

“What’s her name, then?”

“Cadence O’Connell.”

“We’ll search all the hospitals in the area for her.”

Allen nodded again, not quite able to thank her.

“Let’s move you into a car seat, yeah?” the woman said. “You must be beat. Try to sleep.”

Gently, she guided him into a car seat, and did his seat belt up for him, a fact for which he was greatful. He was still shaking so badly that it was hard for him to move at all.

“My name is Sparrow. We’ll take care of you, you know.”

Take care of him. He had a vague sense of what that was. Early, fuzzy memories, bright like honey in the sunlight, turmeric in milk. But for years being taken care of had been of the getting him out of murder scenes variety rather than the being tucked into bed variety. He swallowed. The words bounced around in his skull like ricochet. He wished Dustin were here. He took a deep breath. He’d have to—he’d have to think about all this. It was hard to think past the immediate reaction, the refusal that rose from him before anything else could get through.

Why did he want to refuse so badly? Wasn’t this what he wanted? They were demonslayers, after all. Maybe they’d be able to fix him.

More words that sounded like a fantasy.

But then again, so were demons to most people.

Possessions always took a lot out of him, but when he woke up he was still surprised that he’d stopped trembling and his mind stopped spinning enough to actually fall asleep in the van. What kind of person fell asleep in the back of the van they were just kidnapped into?

Possibly ones that were possessed by demons. That shit was tiring.

When he woke up, for the second time since he had been kidnapped, he spent a blissful moment of disorientation feeling nothing at all before he realized that he was in a well-sized room—well, it was much bigger than his at home at any rate. Ah, yes, he thought. I’m freaking out. He was so emotionally worn out at this point that he was surprised he still had the capacity to feel stressed, but he supposed this was a uniquely stressful situation, even by his standards.

He sat up in the bed, mulling over whether or not he should leave the room. Would the door even be unlocked? They had kidnapped him. He got up eventually and started pacing, but even that felt forbidden, somehow. It was very timid pacing.

Eventually he tried the handle. It was a very old handle in a very old door, and it was unlocked. Cringing at the noise the old mechanism made, Allen slowly opened the door. His heart hammered as he peered outside. He saw a long, narrow hallway lined with four other doors. Each one was coloured differently, and they seemed highly personalized. One looked like it had been painted entirely by being shot with paint guns, and another looked like it was covered in intricate doodles.

The humanity of them calmed him. He felt his shoulders loosen, just a bit.

Still, it wasn’t intrepidly that he stepped out of the room and padded down the hallway. The paint on the wooden floor was white and mostly scrubbed off by the passing of feet, and the stairs were of an small sizing that made it awkward to take them one at a time or two at a time. Allen, already feeling uncertain, took them one at a time, trying to swallow down the persistently sick feeling in his stomach. His mind wouldn’t stop screaming at him that this was wrong wrong wrong even though in the same stretch of thought it refused to provide him with a reason.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a wall that forced you to turn left. Once that was done, Allen could see two things: An small step down into an entrance hall with a clutter of shoes and coats and a door with loamy sunlight floating through its foggy window pane, and a vast sitting room that looked like it took up the entirity of the floor plan on the first floor. It was cluttered full of love seats, couches, and chairs, pillows, bean bags, and blankets. It was very bright. It was very cozy, despite how large and airy the room was.

Despite himself, Allen liked it immediately. Much like the doors in the hallway, Allen found the sight calming. And if they could help his mom…

Allen heard footsteps in the hallway upstairs, and tensed. The people still scared him.

The woman who came down the stairs was not one of the ones Allen had met before. How many of them were there? This one looked younger—maybe not even into her twenties yet, Chinese, and with her hair buzzed. She was taller than Allen by a few inches and solid—she wore a muscle tee that distinctly showed off her toned arms and shoulders. Her face was hard-planed and strongly featured. She looked like she’d just woken up, and she intimidated Allen.

The girl blinked at Allen, stopping halfway down the stairs. “Hello,” she said, sounding as sleepy as she looked. Her voice was husky. It squeaked a little bit with sleep. “What’s your name?”

Allen was unsure if she had been warned of his presence or if she was just too tired to care that a random fourteen year old had shown up in her house. “Allen,” he managed. Her lack of adultness made Allen calmer. She seemed more like a peer than an authority figure. Less like Allen’s father and more like Dustin.

The girl smiled, just a bit. Really more of a twitching of the lips. “I’m Kidd,” she said. “With two ’d’s ’cause it’s cooler that way.”

Allen managed the barest smile in return.

“I’m crap at cooking but if you’re hungry I can make you more of whatever I make myself,” Kidd said, walking down the rest of the stairs and walking past Allen. She gave him a reasonable berth, a fact for which Allen was grateful. He felt like a skittish colt; full of nervous energy and likely to bolt if someone tried to tame him.

Allen felt ill, but again, possessions took a lot out of him and he was starving. He wavered, but Kidd didn’t seem to be waiting for a response anyways. Somehow that made it easier for him to make the decision. Allen just followed her tentatively through the enormous sitting room into the back of the house, where the kitchen was, taking up only a fraction of the downstairs floor plan. It was cramped, really, with barely enough room for the table, the counters, and room to move between the two. Allen imagined the chaos of work mornings, if indeed all the women he’d met lived here, and his lips twitched again, involuntarily.

She banged around in the kitchen for a while, and Allen shyly observed her, standing in the door way to try to stay out of the way. Although all the others had seemed strong, Kidd seemed especially solidly built—possibly the only one bigger than her was the scary big one from yesterday, the one who hadn’t been pinning him against the wall or pressing brass knuckles to his collar bone. Her strength was obvious in the way she moved, and in the strong ridge of muscle that extended from her armpit down the side of her back when she reached up to grab a plate in the top shelf of a cupboard. She was gangly and impressive, and she offered Allen instant oatmeal upon finding some in the cupboard.

“Uh, y-yes please,” Allen mumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest tightly.

The making of said oatmeal was remarkably full of cursing, considering it only included putting it and some milk in the microwave. Allen felt awkward, not knowing enough to help out or feel comfortable not doing so.

“There are chairs for a reason, you know,” Kidd said, glancing back at him. Allen flushed and took a seat. She didn’t sound accusing, but, well, Allen’s lifestyle didn’t result in a lot of socializing. He was awkward.

“Thank you,” Allen said softly when Kidd put the bowl of oatmeal in front of him.

Kidd grunted, and then looked up past Allen to say, “Morning.”

“You’re up early,” someone said, walking into the kitchen and in front of Allen. “I thought you had the day off.” It was the woman who’d woken him last night, she’d had a bird name… Robin? Sparrow? Wren? Her build supported the name. Despite the way she had Allen held to the wall yesterday her frame was thin and graceful, and the way she stood and moved looked almost like she wanted to take flight.

Kidd shrugged. “Didn’t sleep well.”

Bird lady said, “Ah,” and then looked at Allen, who immediately looked down at his food instead. “I’m not going to bite you if you look me in the eyes, you know.”

Allen shrugged, and didn’t look up. He thought she just might.

“What’s your name?”

“Allen,” he said, for the second time that morning.

“Does anyone call you Al?”

Allen wrinkled his nose and shook his head. His mom hated the name Al. Allen didn’t like it either, possibly because his mom had been so vehemently against it. “Only Allen.”

“Okay,” Sparrow said. “Do you want to tell us how you got yourself into the pickle you’re in?”

Just like that, Allen lost any semblence of calm that he’d cobbled together. His breath caught as his lungs tightened, and his vision tunelled. His brain reeled from the shock of the physical reaction. He tried to breathe, and found it coming too fast. A pickle was far too casual of a word—how did he even begin to describe his life? How did one begin to betray their family? Logic struggled to make itself heard through the clamour of panic, that killing people was far worse than anything he told the demonslayers. Through the whine in his ears he cringed as he imagined he heard his father yelling at him that he was foolish and weak and would never be able to protect the family the way he had-

And just like that he was crying again, and Allen hated himself all the more for it. Weak. Emotional. Useless. He wished he could be alone to claw himself out of this.

“You only need to be a tool,” Allen’s dad had told him once, in the weird between time of the white room and when he’d become cold and violent. “Leave the rest to the adults.”

As engrossed as he was in his own self-pity, his senses were all the sharper for the panic, and he heard when a third person walked into the kitchen. The fist around Allen’s heart tightened and fought to not make any noise.

“Is there coffee?” the new person said. Allen squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears fall from his eyelashes to his cheeks and his jawbone and chin. He shrank backwards on the chair, pulling his chin to his chest. Something between a whine and sob escaped him despite his best efforts.

“Allen,” the bird lady said, “you don’t need to tell us anything yet. It’s okay. We don’t want to push you.”

Somehow that seemed absurd to Allen, and therefore funny, and he let out a choked laugh, shaking his head. The movement was cool on his tearful face and caused a few drops to fall onto his lap. It tickled his chin and he reached up to wipe his face hastily. The sound of coffee pouring, and the footsteps out of the kitchen. Allen still didn’t look up. He formed the words in his head, and they looped around his thoughts many times before he managed to get them out. “It’s a long story.”

“This has been going on for… a while?”

“Whatever this is,” Kidd said.

Again, the absurdity of the question made a giggle rise from Allen’s stomach, which turned into anger before it made it out, and he scowled as he gently ground his fist into the chair. It had been his whole life. Yes, it had been going on for a while. Allen nodded.

“Can you look up?”

Allen shook his head. He burned with shame.

“That’s okay.”

Somehow this made him cry again.

“Fay is going to start looking for your mom today.”

“Thank you,” Allen whispered, phlegm catching in his throat.

“Do you want to go to your room or a couch?” bird lady asked gently. Even the simple decision was beyond Allen in his current state. He had reached a point where he realized he either needed to stop caring or continue feeling like he was falling apart from the inside out.

So he stopped caring. As long as no one tried to make him care again he would be okay. His body was still tightly wound, but his face and mind slowly let go, going numb and slack. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and shrugged.

“Couch, then,” she said.

Suddenly, Allen remembered Dustin. He bit his lip. Maybe it wasn’t safe to bring a half demon into a house full of demonslayers, but Allen desperately wanted him to be here.

“I have a friend,” Allen managed quietly. It was an effort to get every word out. “He lives with me. Can he… can he come here too? He’s a half demon, but please don’t hurt him. He’s good.” He’s kind, he’s empathetic, he’s observant, he’s kept me alive. Please don’t hurt him.

“A half demon?” Kidd said, sounding shocked.

That’s what I just said, Allen thought with a flare of irritability that died as fast as is came. He only nodded. “He’s good. Don’t hurt him.”

“Okay,” bird lady said, sounding confused and doubtful. “Where do you live?”

Allen gave her an address, and then said, “Please just explain everything that happened. He’ll… I hope he’ll come. I mean, don’t force him, but…” but he’s everything I have and I’m pretty sure I’m everything he has too, so I believe he will. That was far too many words and feelings, and all of them were far too personal, so he trailed off.

“This is not that close, Allen. What were you doing so far away from home?” the woman said.

Allen tilted his head in a half-shrug, looking up at her through his eyelashes, dark and wet in his peripheral vision. He felt them prick cooly against his eyelids. “They ship me around.”

She shook her head. “You sure are a strange boy. But don’t worry about that. We’re all strange here.”

Dustin was sitting on the heating vent again when the demonslayer came.

The heat wasn’t turned on (he supposed this made sense, since it was only early October), but one could hope. He held the quilt around his shoulders with one hand and with the other he propped up a book. Evidence by Mary Oliver. He did love the shapes in it.

Allen hadn’t been home. Dustin knew Allen could take care of himself, but he also knew that Allen was angry and did a very unsafe thing when he left on Wednesdays. There was a knock on the door, and Dustin jumped, but didn’t move. However, when they knocked again, Dustin wavered. It was possible that Allen had forgotten his key or something. As long as it wasn’t Allen’s dad, Dustin didn’t see the harm in opening the door.

He silently made his way to the front door, making sure his footsteps were inaudible so that if it was Allen’s dad he wouldn’t become suspicious. Why Allen’s dad would be knocking on his own front door was a mystery to Dustin, but he peered through the peep hole nonetheless. There was a willowy woman with straight, long sheets of light brown hair and a perky expression who certainly wasn’t Allen nor his father. This meant he didn’t have to open the door, but again the woman knocked, and Dustin didn’t have anything better to do with his time. She seemed quite determined.

“Hello,” Dustin said, opening the door and shoving his hands in his pockets. Maybe she was a missionary. He’d never met one of those before. It might be interesting.

“Hi,” she said. “My name is Sparrow. You are Dustin?”

Immediately Dustin’s curiosity turned into wariness. No one knew his name here, except Allen and a handful of unimportant strangers. He was sure this woman was neither. Dustin had his past to run away from and wasn’t keen on it catching up to him. He could only think of a couple people who might be looking for him, and that was his his old mentor, known ambiguously as M, or maybe his father. Maybe a host of other demons who ran operations who wanted a half demon on their roster. None of these options were good.

“I’m here about Allen,” she said, and Dustin’s wariness morphed into confusion. “I’m a demonslayer. Me and my colleagues—”

“My colleagues and I,” corrected Dustin softly, though he somewhat liked the way the bouncy shapes of the incorrect speech matched the woman’s bubbliness.

Sparrow’s lips quirked up into a smile and without missing a beat, said, “My colleagues and I have taken him into our care. We’re going to try to help him. He asked for you.”

Allen was getting help… from demonslayers. That was either a lie, or very good. Well, if this was a way for Dustin’s father to get to him, it was going to work. If there was a chance in the demon realm that Allen wanted him, Dustin was going.

“Should I grab my things?”

“If you intend on staying with him, yes.”

Of course Dustin intended on staying with him. “Please come in, then,” Dustin said. “You’ll have to come up with a cover story if Allen’s dad comes home. He’s an asshole and doesn’t know I exist.”

“I see,” Sparrow said, stepping inside. “I’m a missionary and you’re a squatter?”

Dustin smiled. “I thought you might be a missionary when I opened the door.”

Sparrow laughed. “Maybe demonslayers should have missionaries. It might make our job easier if people knew what to look out for.”

Dustin had lots of questions about demonslayers, but first he got his things. He didn’t have much; he did grab his public library books, and Allen’s saxophone. He grabbed a couple more sweaters.

When he got back downstairs, Sparrow was looking at the photos on the wall with interest. “Is that Allen’s family?” Sparrow asking, pointing at a photo on the wall that showed a man playing with a toddler in the ocean, holding on to his father’s fingers as he lifted him just above the lip of a wave. His shriek of joy was evident from the photo. A woman was laughing from where she sat on the sand, watching them.

“Yes,” Dustin said. “His mother’s been in a coma since he was four. His dad isn’t like that anymore.”

“He looks like her,” Sparrow commented, touching the frame of the photo lightly before clasping her hands in front of her. “What is he like? His dad?”

“That’s a very personal question to ask someone it’s not personal to,” Dustin said. “But it’s his fault that Allen’s in the mess he is, discounting the demons themselves of course, and I’m certain his current behaviour counts as emotional abuse.”

“Ah,” said Sparrow. “Allen was right, you may be a half demon but you seem lovely.”

That pleased Dustin immensely. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes crinkling in a smile. “I do my best.”

“Let’s get going then,” she said. “We’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us. We’re headed for NYC.”