It was a perfect trap. She stood at the window, biting her lip, glancing frequently, obsessively, at her wristwatch. 3:10. 3:11. 3:13. She’d gone more than a minute without looking that time. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, butterflies dancing in her stomach. 3:14. She placed her palm at the nape of her neck, caressing the skin in an act of self comfort. She shifted her weight again, about to check her watch when she heard the tell-tale sounds of a large vehicle crunching its way down Gladiola Road.

Gracey leaned forward, her hips pressed against the counter’s cool formica. The school bus stopped just across the way, and she waited impatiently as Alejandro and Marco alighted from the bus.

Dammit, she thought, kicking herself mentally. She’d forgotten about Alejandro. How could she forget about the twin? She glanced back at the table she’d set for two with a huge peanut butter pie and two roast beef sandwiches. She could invite them both over, but it wasn’t Alejandro she needed to speak with.

Cursing again, mind racing as she revised her plan of attack, Gracey rushed outside, waved at the boys. Alejandro returned her greeting with perfunctory politeness and then hurried into the house. That was easy, she thought. He scrambled out of here like I had the plague.

Marco, however, lingered, looking at Gracey with an expression that seemed far too old for the eight year old to wear. Desperation colored the lines of his face, and for a moment, the child seemed ancient, too knowing, careworn. It was all Gracey could do not to rush to him and bring him into a furtive hug.

Instead, she dug her hands into her pockets, trying to appear casual. “Hey, Marco,” she began, her fake smile too wide. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” he said. “I got 15 out of 16 on my music memory test.”

“That’s great. Which one did you miss?”

“I couldn’t remember who wrote Gianni Schicchi.”

“Oh. Do you know now?”

“Puccini. But I remembered it too late. Hey, Gracey?”

“Yeah?”

Tears began to well in the boy’s eyes, his lower lip trembling ever so slightly. “I think I did something bad.”

The words came out as a whisper, and Gracey’s heart leaped when she heard them. She held out her hand, which the boy accepted gladly. “Do you want to come inside and talk about it?”

He said nothing, only nodding as he followed her into the house, bravely fighting the tears that tried to make their way down his cheeks.

She sat him down at the table in front of the pie, but she knew immediately that he wasn’t hungry. She cleared away the plates and glasses and sat down with him, folding her hands on the table, trying to smile. Her face felt tight. “It’s ok, Marco,” she said. “Just start at the beginning.”

The boy faltered, uncertain where to begin. But once he got going, the story rushed out of him like water breaking free of a dam. He told her about the Ouija board in the cemetery, about seeing Rubio Bautista in the tree, about the susto that caused him to sleep for three days. He told her about the visits from Two Rabbit and finally he told her about the woman at the funeral, the woman who Marco was sure, absolutely sure, was no woman at all, but something he had unleashed, something that had come to Love & War for reasons Marco couldn’t begin to guess at.

“She screams in her head,” he concluded, his nails digging into the flesh of his palm. “She walks around smiling but in her head she wants to burn everyone up.”

The deluge having dried up, Marco crossed his arms on the table and put his head down. Gracey leaned back in her chair, mind awhirl as she tried to take it all in. She felt her fingertips going cold, her stomach beginning to turn. She hoped she wasn’t about to get sick.

The boy’s story was outlandish, of course, and no sane person with an average understanding of the world could have possibly believed a word of it. It was all the fancy of an imaginative, lonely little boy. She wanted to believe that, even flirted with forcing herself to believe that. But every fiber of her being reverberated as he’d spoken, and she could sense the truth flowing out of him. The story was as true as silver, right as rain. And in a sick, horrible kind of way, it all made sense. At least, it all fit together.

But why a ghost would return to the manifest world simply to murder the descendants of the founding families was a question Gracey had not even the beginnings of an answer to.

“But if she’s a ghost, why does she have a real, tangible body?”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the words out loud until Marco raised his head, his eyes red from crying. “She’s a witch.” He said this as though these words explained everything.

And perhaps they did.

They sat in shared, uncomfortable silence for a long time. She reached out, stroked Marco’s hand. She wasn’t sure how to console the child. Finally, she stood up, kicking her chair to the side. She walked to the refrigerator, poured two tall glasses of iced tea. Sat down again.“Crying always makes me thirsty,” she explained, putting the glass in front of Marco. “Do you want any lemon?”

Marco hesitated before taking a long drink. When he looked up again, his face was full of apprehension. “Gracey, there’s something else I didn’t tell you.”

“What’s that?”

Marco swallowed hard, nervously twisting his fingers in his lap. “The witch woman? The ghost? You know her.”

Now, Gracey felt her chest grow tight as a ball of dread welled up from her stomach, pressed against her lungs. “I do? Who is it, Marco?”

“She’s that woman with your friend. The magician. Simon St. Laine.”

It took Gracey a moment to process Marco’s words. What woman? Then realization rushed over her, turning dread into abject nausea as she leaned forward onto her elbows, hoping Marco couldn’t read the fear in her face. “His cousin? The woman he brought with him to the funeral?”

Marco only nodded.

Gracey pushed herself away from the table, her head swimming, everything moving slightly out of focus. It was difficult to breathe. She found herself suddenly cold despite the heat, and as she wrapped her arms around her torso, the only thought she could hold onto was, I can’t be sick in front of Marco.

At last she turned again to face him, searching his face for…something. She didn’t know what. He was only a child. “Does he know? What she is?”

Marco shrugged, shook his head. “I can’t read minds.”

She laughed then, needing to laugh despite everything else. No, of course he couldn’t read minds. She didn’t know the extent of his gifts, of course, but even Marco, as talented or cursed as he was, couldn’t know everything. What he did know was obviously a burden for him. The boy’s face had aged in the preceding weeks; she saw that now. How had she missed it before? But she hadn’t been looking then. She’d been wrapped up in her own world, subject to her own concerns and fears. Her thoughts had been full of Audra Fairgood, and her mother, and the Prime of Darkness and, of course, her ever-deepening affair with Simon St. Laine.

“Gracey?”

His voice yanked her out of the feeble cycle of questions churning though her mind. “Hmm.”

“Will you help me?”

The plea was so sincere she thought her heart might break into a hundred pieces. She gathered the boy in her arms, smoothing his hair as he rested his cheek against her shoulder. “Yes, Marco. We’ll figure it out. I’m going to find a way to make this all go away.”

She supposed she hadn’t yet outgrown the habit of speaking aloud to convince herself the idea was true.

The Prime of Darkness had nothing in the way of a cell phone, or a social network, or even an email address. Of course, most of the time, the last thing Gracey wanted to do was call upon the demon, but sometimes she needed his power to add to her arsenal. Today was such a day, and the Prime of Darkness was nowhere to be found. Undeterred, Gracey began pulling ingredients from her larder, mentally blending the perfect concoction of flavors and texture.

The only surefire way Gracey knew to attract the demon’s attention was to make a phenomenal dinner.

Chiles arboles went into the molcajete. The griddle was turned up high to inflate the corn dough into tortillas. She’d barely chopped the final clove of garlic for the guacamole when the air around her grew almost imperceptibly darker and colder, alerting her to the Prime of Darkness’s presence.

“You’re almost as reliable as Batman when I have the right tools,” she commented as she chopped, not even deigning to look up. “I need your help.”

The demon leaned over her shoulder, took a sniff. “Carnitas?”

Gracey shook her head. “Carne asada. Carnitas take too long. I need your help.”

The demon retreated, took a seat at the kitchen table. “I’m listening.”

Gracey dumped the garlic into a bowl, wiped her hands on her apron. When her eyes met the demon’s, they were unblinking and wide. “What do you know about ghosts?”

The demon shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The demon drummed his fingers on the table, his head cocked to one side. “Why would I know anything about ghosts?”

Gracey threw up her hands. “Because you’re a demon!”

Gracey’s logic seemed to defy the Prime, whose expression broke into the barest resemblance of a smile. “Ghosts are things that were once human. I was never human.”

“Have you ever met one?”

The Prime of Darkness nodded. “Yes.”

“And?”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Gracey. Ghosts are humans who have died and yet, for reasons I don’t know, linger. Between the two of us, I should think you’d more about ghosts than I do. You, after all, are at least human.”

Gracey glanced up at the clock. After Marco had left, she’d invited Simon over for dinner. She’d argued with herself over the wisdom of this move, but in the end she decided she had no choice, and better to face her suitor on her own turf than in some neutral, public place.

At least at home she had the advantage of demonic backup.

“There’s a woman,” Gracey explained slowly, “who, it turns out, isn’t a woman at all and who is probably responsible for all the people who have died here recently.” Gracey checked the burner, turned the heat up a little higher. “If that weren’t enough, it seems I’ve been dating her cousin.”

The demon raised his eyebrows. “Your boyfriend is connected to this ghost.”

“She’s been staying with him. At his house. Does that seem strange to you? I mean, does that seem…suspicious?”

“Yes.”

Gracey let her head fall back, eyes closed, as she breathed out in a loud, slow sigh. “That’s what I thought.” She picked up a knife, cut thin slices of beef. “I assume you’re going to stay for dinner.”

“Of course.”

Gracey grunted, threw the steak on the griddle. “Well, good. I may need your help. If it turns out…” Gracey shook her head, unable to finish the sentence.

But the demon understood. “You don’t want him to kill you.”

Gracey blinked. “Well…god! That’s not what I…” She shook her head again. “I don’t know. I suppose. Not that I think Simon would ever hurt me.”

“Why not?”

Gracey sighed. “Jesus, after all this time you’re still so not human. Because, Darkness, I think, in his way, that he loves me.”

“So why do you want me here?”

Now, Gracey did face the demon. She searched his face, looked deep into those sparkling black orbs in the middle of his face, and saw nothing of recognition or understanding. In all his time on earth, in Texas, he knew nothing of the human condition.

“Relationships are complicated,” she began, leaning against a counter, arms crossed over her chest. “And people are complicated. I don’t know what Simon does or doesn’t know about this woman who may or may not be a supernatural murderer. But if he knows…I just have no way of knowing what his role is in all of that. Why he’d tolerate it. Does she have something over him? Does he secretly….enjoy it?” She shuddered, shaking her head. “I just don’t know what will happen, Darkness. And although I don’t necessarily trust you, either…What I’m saying is, I don’t think Simon would ever hurt me. But plenty of men are wolves in sheep’s clothing. And I don’t want any nasty surprises.”

The demon wrinkled his brow. “Isn’t that what I said from the beginning?”

Gracey opened her mouth to answer just as the doorbell rang. She turned her head, shouted, “It’s open!” She was glad not to have to continue the conversation. Try as she might, she couldn’t really explain human relationships to the demon. Nothing she could say would ever make him understand. It something that had to be experienced, and yet, of course, the demon would never, could never, experience it. It was one of man recent truths she couldn’t reconcile.

She was drying her hands on her apron when Simon walked into the kitchen. The soles of his shoes had barely touched the linoleum when the demon stood, eyes darting back and forth between Gracey and her suitor. The demon raised a hand, pointing. “This is Simon?”

Gracey smiled, preparing to make some kind of introduction, when she noticed the look on Simon’s face. Eyes wide, lips pressed together, nostril’s flared, color draining from his face.

He was afraid. No, he was terrified.

Gracey blinked, trying to make sense of it. Yes, the Prime of Darkness was startling—the blue gray skin, the comic-inspired armor, the odd impassiveness of his face all contributed to unease in his presence. But he wasn’t imposing, not with his diminutive stature. And moreover, Love & War knew him. They’d seen him. And even those who hadn’t actually seen him had heard of him. In a town this size people talked. But after a year in their presence his status had dwindled. He was nothing more than a curio. So why was Simon looking at his with such abject horror?

Gracey cleared her throat. “Ah, Simon, this is my…this is Darkness. Darkness, this is Simon.”

Neither demon nor man budged. The demon glanced away from Simon’s face only briefly. “This is the Simon you were just speaking of, the one who loves you?”

Now, Gracey felt Simon’s horror reflected in her face. Mortal embarrassment colored her cheeks a deep crimson as she swallowed, stammered. “Um, well, this is my boyfriend, Simon St. Laine.”

The demon’s expression was incredulous. “That’s ridiculous,” he said.

Gracey balked. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s ridiculous,” he repeated. “If there’s any love between you it’s entirely one sided.”

Embarrassment gave way to anger as Gracey watched both men steadily, her hands clenching into fists. “Why would you say something like that, Darkness?”

The demon wasn’t much of a laugher, but his expression betrayed a certain kind of mirth as he said, “Because that isn’t a man, Gracey. That is a homunculus.”

The Prime of Darkness waited until the sun had completely disappeared from the desert sky before enshrouding himself in darkness and hauling the wood and rope out of Gracey’s garage to the side of her yard where the big oak tree waited patiently for him.

Materials in hand, the Prime of Darkness stood before the tree, looking up though its leaves to the glittering stars that peeked out from behind the tree’s foliage. How this oak had managed to thrive in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert baffled the demon. Was it the soft, dense undercurrent of magic that he felt circulating throughout the entire town that allowed this majestic tree to grow here amid the lechuguilla and mesquite? He could think of no reason for any kind magic to keep a tree alive, but he was wise enough to know that as much as he knew of the world, there was much he might never understand.

He’d visited Earth hundreds of times over the course of his ancient existence, but the demon had never before climbed a tree and was unsure how to begin. But the oak was knotty with dense bark and low-hanging branches, and after only a few unsuccessful starts, the demon soon found himself up in the tree, tying the ropes around one of the large branches, giving his knots a good, strong pull to test their strength.

The knots held. The demon grabbed the rope with both of his hands and then with his knees, wrapping his legs around it like a fireman on a pole, hanging on as though for dear life, his brow creased in concentration as he waited for gravity to do its worst.

But the rope held.

He smiled in satisfaction before he realized that suspended as he was from a rope twenty feet off the ground, he was quite unable to get down. He was a demon, but he was not superhuman, and the body that he currently wore was either not capable of pulling him back up to the branch or he simply lacked the know-how to tell the muscles how to make this feat happen. He unwound his legs from the rope, trying to throw them upward to latch onto the branch, but succeeded only in swinging to and fro like Tarzan. The best he could do was dangle from the tree branch like the sad remnants of a forgotten piñata.

The demon found this situation utterly unacceptable. And so with a sigh and bitter resolve, the demon simply let go.

It was a longer way down that it looked.

The ground rushed up to meet him, and he slammed into it with a jolt that shook his ankle and knee joints and he toppled to the ground. He groaned in pain, doubling over, hands clutching knees, grimacing into the darkness. How much longer would he have to endure this corporeal contraption?

Still, as long as he was burdened with the body, he might as well put it to use. He hauled himself up and brushed himself off. Grabbing the ropes in either hand and settling his backside onto the suspended plank of wood, the Prime of Darkness propelled himself forward, chest out, elbows back, a slow but steady beginning. Pumping his arms and legs, the demon pulled on the ropes, kicking his legs out, leaning backward to gain momentum. The swing picked up speed and height, and in a moment the demon was gliding through the air, full of grace, accompanied only by the low creak of the great oak branches and the silent trailing of his red cape.

From his bedroom window where Marco watched this glorious scene, the demon looked spectacularly like a superhero from a comic.

The boy smiled. He knew without needing to be told that the Prime of Darkness had built the swing for him.

Too excited to sleep, Marco arose early the next morning, quietly pulled on tennis shoes so as not to wake his brother, and dashed out the front door. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his pajamas. The night’s coolness had not yet been displaced by the irascible sun, and Marco’s skin pimpled over just a little as he darted across the street to the wooden swing newly dangling from Gracey’s oak tree.

It was a beautiful sight made the more glorious by his having seen the Prime of Darkness use it to fly through the air, his red cape streaming behind him like Superman himself. Marco envisioned himself similarly heroic as he positioned himself at the seat, which hung ever-so-slightly higher off the ground then was ideal for the boy. A clumsy but sufficient running start, and Marco jumped up, catching the edge of the swing seat with his butt and scooting backward until he was properly positioned. The swing’s ropes were long, and Marco was strong despite his skinny stature, and before long he was sailing high into the sky, head back and laughing, his red pajamas a smear of color across the golden desert horizon.

He swung with gleeful vigor until his thighs began to ache, and with reluctance he let his velocity slow. It was only when the swing had almost come to a stop that he noticed the Prime of Darkness sitting on the ground, his back propped against Gracey’s house, watching Marco with a soft smile.

“Do you like the swing?”

Marco grinned, nodding. “I’ve always wanted one,” he said. “But we don’t have a tree in our yard.”

The demon nodded. “I meant to build this for you a while ago. But time got away from me.”

Marco gave a carefree shrug. “My mother says that happens to grown ups. El tiempo vuela!” Marco kicked his feet, twisting the swing from side to side. “You put in the swing last night. I saw you.”

The demon narrowed his eyes at the boy. “You saw me last night?”

Marco grinned again, nodding. “I saw you swinging. You were great. Your cape was going like this.” Marco held his arms aloft at his sides, flapping them like a bird’s wings. “Like Superman.”

The demon shook his head. “You should not have been able to see me, Marco. I was supposed to be hidden.” He paused a moment and added, “But you can see things that other people can’t see, can’t you?”

Marco dropped his gaze, looking down at feet dangling just above the ground. “I guess so,” he said quietly. He shrugged his shoulders and when he looked up again, he was smiling, light dancing in his eyes. “I saw you fall out of the tree,” he said. “You shoulda just teleported.”

The demon raised an eyebrow, wondering first why he hadn’t thought of that himself, and then wondering how Marco knew about this ability. “You’ve seen me do that, too?”

Marco only shrugged.

The demon chose not to pursue this line of questioning. He had gathered all the information he needed for the moment. “You’re up early,” was all he said.

“I couldn’t wait to try the swing!”

The demon grinned—he never laughed—and Marco, having rested his legs sufficiently, began to swing again. “It’s a little bit too tall,” he complained genially.

“You’ll grow.”

“Did you ask Gracey before you hung this?”

“No.”

“Do you think she’ll get mad?”

“No.”

Marco laughed. “Me neither. I like Gracey. She’s awesome.”

The demon nodded. “I like Gracey, too.”

The demon was surprised at his own words, but now that they were spoken he couldn’t very well retrieve them. Not that it seemed to matter, as the boy had either not heard or not thought the statement particularly strange. And why should he? He supposed that to a young boy, it was obvious that a man—even a blue-skinned man who never changed his odd clothes—who perpetually appeared at a woman’s house would like that woman.

The demon frowned. If only reality were so neat and tidy.

“Who was the little girl you were playing with yesterday?”

Marco continued swinging, but his smile thinned and he didn’t meet the demon’s eyes. “What girl?”

“The girl with the pink shirt. I saw you with her yesterday.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Marco.” The demon sighed. “You saw me when you weren’t supposed to. And I saw your friend when no one else can. Some would say that makes us allies.”

“What’s allies mean?”

The demon decided to try a new tack. “You can invite her to play on the swing. I don’t think Gracey will mind.”

Marco seemed to consider this a moment. “Her name is Alma,” he said. “She’s my friend.”

“How do you know her?”

“I just know her. How do you know Gracey?”

The demon admired the boy’s spitfire, and was in no mood to enter a pissing content with a little kid, so he let the situation be. At least Marco now had an opening to talk about the invisible little girl when—and if—he wanted to.

Her armload of laundry quite forgotten, Gracey watched Marco swinging from the little window of her laundry room. It was just after 6 AM; she’d come home from the bakery to unload the laundry machine, sure that Tiny couldn’t be relied upon to do it, and she needed a fresh blouse for tonight’s date with Simon. Mitsuo was alone at the shop, and while Gracey was sure of the boy’s capabilities, he suffered from typical teenaged lack of self-confidence. Gracey didn’t want to leave him long, but the scene before her caught her rapt attention.

She’d known nothing of the demon’s intention to hang the swing and had not seen him do it, so its appearance was as mystifying as it was wonderful. She watched Marco swing with expert grace, babbling to someone Gracey could not see. She assumed he was talking with this invisible friend, for she couldn’t see the demon who sat just beneath her window.

She should have thought to hang a swing for Marco ages ago. The boy frequently assaulted her porch swing with or without an invitation. And he was such a loner. The swing would undoubtedly provide him a needed respite. Why hadn’t she thought of it?

She opened the lid of the dryer, throwing the clothes into the machine with a small grunt. She closed the lid, turned the machine on, and left the laundry room. She walked through the kitchen and down the hallway toward her bedroom.

But as she walked through the hallways, something pricked at the back of her brain. She stopped, looking at the line of grave stone rubbings Tiny had made when she’d first moved to town. She examined the names: Rose McGovern Allen, Mark Carlton Howard, Minerva Katherine Auckland.

Gracey’s breath caught in her throat as she read and re-read the third name that adorned her wall. She knew she’d heard it before, knew it wasn’t a name that Marco should have wielded so easily. Of course, Tiny had taken the rubbing from the graves in the Love & War cemetery, and Marco had admitted to playing in the cemetery every now and then, but it seemed strange to her that he should lift such a name from his memory with such ease. It didn’t fit.

Did it?

She thought back to the day before, to the Prime of Darkness saying that Marco had been playing with a little girl that Gracey couldn’t see. She’d suspected there was something special about Marco for some time, but she didn’t know much about the paranormal, her associations with angels and demons to the contrary. She had no idea what else lurked out there in the great beyond, had no idea what Marco’s abilities meant or what he could do.

Or why he’d asked her if Minerva Katherine Auckland had “gotten” Audra Fairgood.

A thought struck her that made her blood run cold. Could Marco see ghosts? Could that be why he played in the cemetery? Was the little girl Gracey couldn’t see the spirit of a deceased child? But he’d told her that there was no such thing as ghosts.

Gracey smiled to herself. Of course he’d said that. He’d said it as much to convince himself as her. She’d done such a thing herself as a child.

She could just go ask him. But what if she were wrong? She didn’t want to spook the poor kid. But as she stared at the grave rubbing before her eyes, she began to feel a sense of urgency coiling up in the pit of her stomach. For some reason, this was important. She needed to know what Marco knew.

The air conditioner was definitely broken.

Gracey cursed inwardly and made a mental note to call the service company first thing Monday morning. The godforsaken air conditioner broke ever year at the height of summer, no matter how religiously she maintained the unit. She supposed it might be time to replace it altogether, but  installing new appliances was a hassle. She didn’t love the idea of having strangers out to her home.

After all, she never knew when the Prime of Darkness was going to show up, and he was always more than a little difficult to explain.

Changing out of a damp t-shirt into a tank top, Gracey poured herself a glass of iced tea and made for the front porch. It wasn’t any cooler outside, of course, but she reasoned that if she were going to sit around sweating she might as well do so while getting a bit of fresh air. Besides, she enjoyed putting the ceiling fan to good use.

It was warmer outside than she’d hoped. Sighing, Gracey flipped on the overhead fan, plopped down on the porch swing, one leg tucked underneath her while she gave herself a little push with the other. The chains creaked and floorboards groaned. Gracey wondered if it might be time to try another diet. Maybe South Beach this time.

“Morning, sugar!”

Gracey leaned forward, smiled to see her friend Bibi Armstrong walking up her driveway, rivulets of sweat running down the sides of her face. “Don’t tell me you walked over here,” Gracey scolded. “It’s too hot for that!”

Bibi waved the concern away. “I’m too old to worry about what’s gonna kill me,” she said with her usual wry disregard for conventional wisdom. “Something’s gonna do me in one day. Besides, it’d be a sin to drive over here. It ain’t like you’re miles away.”

That was true enough. With the entire country gone crazy about “going green”, Gracey could certainly see her friend’s point, even if she herself wasn’t so sure she’d trade a brisk, air conditioned drive for a healthful walk in the 100+ degree heat. Though maybe if she did, she wouldn’t need South Beach after all.

Gracey frowned. It was a lose-lose situation.

Bibi came up the porch steps, and Gracey scooted over to make room for her friend on the swing. She winked at Gracey and lowered her voice. “I think I saw Marco skulking around your bushes,” she said, waving her hand toward the front of the porch Gracey couldn’t see from her perch.

Gracey cocked her eyebrows, called out. “Marco?”

A brown, scruffy head popped up over the porch railing, a timid smile revealing handsome, crooked teeth. “Hi, Gracey,” he said, cheeks rosy with sun and bashfulness.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Waitin’ for you.”

“Waiting for me to do what?”

“Come outside. So I could get my pie. You said. And Mama said I couldn’t ring your doorbell to ask for it.”

Gracey chuckled and beckoned for Marco to come up on the porch. He scrambled up, still smiling. “Well, in that case, I’m sorry I kept you waiting. Tell you what. Go on inside and get yourself some pie. I’ve got apple and cherry. Get whatever you want and a glass of milk and bring it out here and sit with me and Bibi. Can you do that?”

Marco’s eyes brightened as he bobbed his head up and down. He held up a finger. “I’ll be right back,” he said, darting into the house.

When Marco was out of earshot, Bibi squeezed Gracey’s arm. “You should have kids,” she said.

Here we go, Gracey thought, biting her tongue to keep from saying something she’d regret.  After all, Bibi was her friend, not her mother, and her intentions and motivations were completely different than Annette’s. Gracey knew that at thirty, she was expected to have children, especially in a family town like Love & War. She also knew that Bibi, who loved her a great deal, couldn’t have children of her own and was only projecting her own desires onto Gracey. She knew that these words, though portending a guilt trip when uttered by one’s maternal unit, were meant only as inspiration coming from Bibi.

Still, they stung. The lack of children in the Daylittle home was a sore circumstance, though Gracey had never discussed that situation with anyone. Not even Bibi.

Gracey shrugged. “Well, I think I’d like to. Just haven’t had the opportunity. Never could hang on to a guy for long enough.”

For a fleeting moment she thought of Gabe, snatched away from her before they’d even begun their lives together. After all these years, the memory was still a dull pain.  And then, without warning, Gracey found herself thinking of the magician, Simon St. Laine. Did he want to have kids? Would he make a good father?

Gracey’s breath caught in her throat as she realized what she was thinking. They hadn’t been dating long. Marriage wasn’t anywhere on the table, or even underneath the table as far as she could tell. Still, it wasn’t her fault if she secretly hoped it was the direction they could be heading. She wasn’t getting any younger, and Simon was handsome and caring. She imagined he would make a very good partner.

She blushed, forced herself to stop thinking about Simon before Bibi noticed and intruded on her thoughts. She wasn’t ready to discuss this particular train of thought with anyone just yet.

At that moment, Marco came outside, letting the screen door slam behind him. His mouth made an o shape in surprise as he carried his plate of pie—he’d helped himself to a slice of each—and a tall, plastic cup of milk to the swing. He squeezed in between Bibi and Gracey.

As Marco began shoveling pie in his mouth, Bibi reached over and mussed he boy’s hair. “I heard they found the Fairgood girl.”

Gracey’s head snapped up, her heart seeming to freeze in her chest. “Dead?”

Bibi made a face, motioning at Marco over the boy’s head where he couldn’t see. “Good Lord, Gracey, no! Why on Earth would you say that?”

A wave of relief washed over her even as a healthy dose of guilt hit her for saying something so macabre in front of Marco. Something deep inside her broke as she choked back a sob, hand covering her mouth. Ever since she’d realized the connection between all the recent deaths, she hadn’t believed that anyone would ever see Audra Fairgood alive again.  She was incredibly glad to be wrong. “My god,” she said, blinking back nascent tears. “When? Is she all right? What happened?”

Bibi shrugged, nodded. “She got home late last night. Apparently she’d gone up to Midland to stay with her daddy. He didn’t know that Shira was out of the loop.”

Gracey’s expression clouded with confusion. “Her daddy? I thought Aleister…?”

Bibi chuckled, shaking her head. “Aww, sugar, I love that you ain’t never been much on gossip. Otherwise you’da heard long ago that Aleister wasn’t the girl’s daddy. Folks don’t talk too much about it anymore, but it was a big to-do when it happened, since Shira and Aleister were married at the time. You have to respect a man who’d take care of another man’s child and wouldn’t let loose a cheating wife. He was a good man. A good man,” Bibi said, melancholy and nostalgia rich in her voice.

Gracey said nothing as she mulled over the news. If Audra Fairgood wasn’t Aleister’s natural daughter and wasn’t a natural-born Fairgood, that fact might have saved her from whatever curse had befallen the founding families. Was that possible, or was the whole thing just a coincidence? Was the terror over, or was it still waiting out there, ready to claim more lives at a moment’s notice?

“You okay, sugar? You look a little pale.”

Gracey feigned a small smile, shooing away her friend’s worry. “Oh, I’m fine, I’m just glad to hear Audra’s home safe. I thought…”

“You thought Minerva Katherine Auckland got her?”

Marco had been so quiet during the whole exchange that the women had assumed he wasn’t paying them any attention, so his interruption surprised them both. Gracey looked down at him, smiling. “Who’s that, honey? That a super villain in one of your comics?

Marco’s forehead creased as he swallowed his pie, shaking his head. “Not from my comics,” he said. “Minerva Katherine Auckland. You thought she got Audra Fairgood, didn’t you?”

Gracey didn’t know what Marco was talking about, of course, but something about the conversation sent chills down her spine all the same. Minerva Katherine Auckland. It wasn’t anyone she knew, no one who lived in town, and yet the name was familiar for some reason. A character in a children’s book, perhaps? A movie character? She searched the pages of her memory, flipping through them for an image or a lyric she could hold onto, something that might pin a face to the name, but nothing came to her. She would have to google the name later.

“Well, thank God Shira got her daughter back,” Gracey said, “though I can’t imagine what she went through having to tell her daughter about Aleister.”

Bibi whistled, giving a slow shake of her head. “Fate I wouldn’t wish on nobody,” she agreed.

Comfortable silence settled between them as Marco finished his pie, Gracey and Bibi keeping the porch swing in motion with a gentle push of their toes. Although the fan whirred busily overhead, it offered little relief from the sweltering heat, and under other circumstances, three bodies on a porch swing might have been too much. But at that moment, closeness was a commodity. It made them feel safe.

“I guess I best get going,” Bibi said after a while, pushing herself up out of the swing with a gentle groan. “I got a bunch of vegetables from my garden I gotta take down to the Badlands. Plus I gotta put some more pink dye in that Japanese girl’s hair today,” she said.

Gracey smiled. “You’re a good head, Beatriz.”

Bibi waved away the compliment with a frown. “I’m a sucker with no business sense,” she said. But Gracey knew she didn’t mean it. She was well aware how much Bibi loved lending a helping hand.

“Okay, I’m done. I’m going home, too,” Marco said, hopping off the swing. He pushed his plate and cup into Gracey’s hands. “Thank you for the pie, Gracey. Can I come back tomorrow and have some more?”

Gracey chuckled, nodding. “As long as it’s okay with your mama,” she said. “You can have as much pie as I can make.”

She watched him scamper off, the heels of his sneakers kicking up dust as he made his way down the drive and across the street. When he was safely inside, Gracey stood, stretched, walking languidly back into her house, content now with the knowledge of Audra Fairgood’s safety, even though small doubts and fears still nibbled at her like a hesitant mouse.

She deposited Marco’s dishes in the sink, absently wiping down the counter where he’d spilled a few drops of milk and left a trail of crumbs. What was that name he’d mentioned earlier that seemed so strange? Minerva Something? She rinsed off the rag, wringing it out as she frowned, deep in thought, wracking her brain for the tickle she felt when the name filtered through her mind. She did know it from somewhere. From somewhere strange. From somewhere she wouldn’t expect and eight-year-old boy to reference. But where?

She blinked, shook her head, shaking herself out of her thoughts. She couldn’t remember. She knew if she stopped thinking about it for a while, it would come to her on its own later.

Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, and Gracey planted herself in its beam, ambivalent to its warmth, but smiling as she looked out across the street. Marco, who was not one to be easily contained (she supposed that was an indigenous quality of most eight-year-old boys), had come back outside, was playing in the yellow-and-brown grass that constituted the Esquivel lawn. He was normally animated, but now he was speaking loudly and gesturing to someone who was not there, and Gracey’s smile widened, remembering the entourage of invisible friends she’d amassed in her own childhood.

“What are you doing?”

Yelping in surprise, Gracey spun on her heel to find the Prime of Darkness standing in the doorway, filling it up, his head cocked lazily to one side, a puzzled expression on his face. Gracey shut her eyes, opened them, taking in a breath. “I’ve asked you a million times not to sneak up on me like that,” she said, her voice unsteady. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention. I was just curious about whatever it was you were looking at.”

Gracey stepped to one side, a wordless invitation for the demon to sidle up beside her. She pointed to the window, indicating the scene across the street. “It’s nothing, really. I’m just watching Marco play with his imaginary friend. Brings back memories.”

The Prime of Darkness said nothing, his mouth settling into a perfect line as he joined Gracey in watching the boy across the street. Then, “Why do you call his friend imaginary?”

It was Gracey’s turn to look confused. “Because it isn’t real. Kids do that, sometimes. They invent a friend when there’s no one to play with. That’s why it’s called imaginary.”

The demon gave her a disdainful look. “I know what imaginary means,” he said.

She blushed. “Right. Sorry.”

The Prime of Darkness returned his gaze to the boy across the street. “Are both of the children playing with the imaginary friend?”

“Both what children? I’m just talking about Marco. He’s over there playing by himself.”

The Prime of Darkness furrowed his brow. “No, he isn’t. There’s a little girl playing with him.”

Gracey turned slowly, her eyes taking in the demon’s facial expression. As far as she knew, he wasn’t able to joke, or lie, or exaggerate. But there was no one else on the Esquivel lawn. Marco was alone. “Darkness…you see Marco with another child?”

The demon nodded. “Yes. A little girl. Short, brown hair. Pink shirt. Looks the same age as he is. You don’t see her?”

Gracey looked again, but there was absolutely no one with Marco. Either the demon was lying, seeing things, or… “That’s impossible,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t see anyone. I don’t see anyone at all!”

The demon shrugged. “There’s probably a great deal in your world that you cannot see that I can,” he said. “What’s interesting isn’t that you can’t see her, but that that little boy can.”

She was about to ask the demon what he meant by that, but when she turned to him, he had gone, leaving only a chill in the air and an impression of undulating shadows in her peripheral vision to indicate that he had ever been there at all.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath, and looked back out the window. She saw the Esquivel’s front door swinging shut. Marco had gone back inside.

“Oh my God, Gracey. You’re completely crushed out.”

Gracey looked up from her newspaper and offered her sister an innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tiny, ambling into the kitchen in her nightie, motioned toward the vase of pink peonies on the kitchen table. “What’s with the flowers? You’ve got them in here, in the bathroom…where did you even find peonies this time of year?”

Gracey shrugged, looking back down at her newspaper to hide her grin. “Simon left them.”

Tiny raised an eyebrow. “Simon left them,” she repeated.

Gracey bit her lip, pretended to be reading. “I found them on the porch this morning when I set the pie out to cool. Oh, there’s cranberry apple fig on the counter.”

Tiny shuffled to the sideboard, pulled a plate from the cupboard. “You had time to bake a pie already? How long have you been awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Tiny cut herself a healthy slice of pie and poured a mug of lukewarm coffee. “So your freaky friend left two dozen peonies—which are not even in season—on the porch, and you made pie.” Tiny’s eyes flew open in bewilderment. “Oh my God, Gracey, you guys didn’t…bow chicka wow wow?” Tiny pumped her hips in a suggestive movement.

“Tiny!”

“Well what am I supposed to think?” With her pie and her coffee, Tiny slid into the chair across from her sister. “I love you, Gracey, and I love to see you happy but I really don’t know what you see in that guy.”

Gracey sighed. “He’s intelligent, he’s charming, he’s polite—”

“He’s corny as hell,” Tiny cut in, scooping a bite of pie into her mouth. “What is up with the hat? And the way he talks?”

“He’s old fashioned,” Gracey sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Tiny echoed. “So you really don’t think that guy’s even, like, a little…” She swiveled her index finger near her temple, making the universal crazy sign. “…Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Froot Loops?”

Gracey grimaced. “Love the cereal references. Very mature.”

Tiny cocked an eyebrow at her sister.

Gracey threw up her hands in exasperation. “Well, what do you want me to say, Tiny? He’s different! I noticed! But that doesn’t make him crazy. I mean, Tiny.” She shook her head, sighing. “I am the last person who could condemn someone for being a little different.”

Tiny shrugged in tacit agreement, chewing her pie thoughtfully. “But it’s not just how he talks and dresses. There’s just something off about him. He kinda gives me the creeps.”

“Just drop it, Tiny. He makes me feel really good about myself. When I’m with him, I feel normal. And I don’t mean by comparison,” she explained before Tiny could interrupt. “I just mean, I feel like I can be myself. It’s very liberating.”

Tiny took a sip of coffee. “You don’t feel like you can do that with me? Or Bibi? Or Darkness?”

“Darkness!” Gracey laughed, rolling her eyes. “Nothing—nothing—about Darkness makes me feel normal. Where is he anyway?”

“Don’t know. I just woke up. Answer my question.”

Gracey sighed. “I’m talking about feeling normal with a man. A real man, not a demon that looks…sort of like a man. I’m talking about a man that I could love.”

Tiny’s jaw dropped, eyes practically bugging out of her head. “Wait, you’re falling in love with Simon St. Laine? Are you kidding me? You’ve been on one date!”

“I didn’t say I was in love, I said…” Gracey shook her head, standing up and clearing her place. She took the dishes to the sink. “You’re right, it’s silly to keep a bouquet of flowers in the bathroom. Let’s take them to the cemetery so more people can enjoy them.”

Tiny licked her fork. “What people? The dead dudes? I don’t know, I kind of like having something pretty to look at while I pee.”

Gracey walked over to the table and kissed the crown of her sister’s head. “Aw. Then you can just look in the mirror.”

Tiny wrinkled her nose. “While I pee? Seriously, Gracey. You are so weird.”

The cemetery was a short walk from the Daylittle house. It had been a long time since Gracey had been there, and she was surprised to see so many fresh graves. She’d known that Rubio Bautista had been recently buried, of course, but as she walked up and down the rows she noticed three graves that had only recently been dug. Two were on the Galina family plot, and the other was a single for Buddy Heffman.

Walking over the Buddy’s grave, Gracey threw her sister a look over her shoulder. “What on earth…? When did Buddy Heffman die?”

Tiny stood, arms akimbo, surveying the cemetery. In the year she’d lived in Love & War, she’d never set foot in it. “Like a week ago, I think? I heard about it when I was visiting Darkness at the salon.”

Gracey separated out one of the peonies she was clutching and laid it on Buddy’s grave. “And you didn’t tell me about it?”

Tiny kicked at a stone lodged in the dirt, shrugged a shoulder. “I’m telling you about it now.” She ignored the look Gracey threw her. “I heard he didn’t have any family left, so there wasn’t much of a funeral. That’s kind of sad, to die alone?”

Gracey knelt down, nodded. “He lived with his sister Evangeline on the far edge of town, but she died a couple three years back. Emphysema, I think. Neither of them ever got married or had any kids.” Gracey chuckled to herself, shaking her head. “When I first moved to town Buddy used to find all sorts of reasons to show up at my house, fix things. Used to hint about how he wouldn’t mind seeing me in a swimsuit.”

Tiny made a face. “You moved here eleven years ago, so Buddy must have been…what, seventy?”

Gracey smiled at the memory. “Randy old fart,” she agreed. “It’s sad he never had kids. I think the Heffmans were one of the original settlers of Love & War. His death is…mildly historical, I guess.”

Tiny looked around, noticed there were no other Heffmans buried nearby. “Where are the others buried?”

Gracey shrugged. “I don’t know; fair question. Lots of families are buried on their own land. I’ve never been out to the Heffman place, but that could be it.”

“I heard Mr. Heffman’s eyes were missing when they found him.”

Startled, Gracey and Tiny looked around and found Lakmei standing behind them, arms crossed over her chest, her porcelain face drawn, hiding behind a curtain of white hair. She was wearing an oversized rugby shirt and jeans. Gracey had never seen her dressed so casually. For that matter, Gracey had never seen her without Lilac at her side. Seeing only one of the two identical women temporarily threw Gracey for a loop.

“Lakmei.” Gracey stood, dusted herself off. “I didn’t see you come up. You look…What was that about Buddy’s eyes?”

Lakmei remained stoic, slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Horace Green found Mr. Heffman dead on the floor of his garage. His eyes were missing. Not ripped out or dug out. More like burned out. I heard he had a black hole in his face where his eyes should have been.” She paused a moment, shrugging. “I can’t say for sure. The only people to see Mr. Heffman were Mr. Green and the coroner. But it’s what I heard.”

Tiny looked from Lakmei, to Gracey, and back to Lamkei. “I suspect Mr. Green in the garage with the tire wrench.” When Gracey snapped her head around and gave Tiny a horrified look, she changed tactics. “Well, I didn’t hear that,” she said. “How come I didn’t hear that? That’s the kind of thing people would be talking about, isn’t it?”

Gracey returned her attention to Lakmei, her horror still evident in the lines of her face. “Where did you hear such a nasty rumor?”

Lakmei shook her head, clear, blue eyes locking on Gracey’s. “I don’t remember,” she said. “But I heard that’s why he wasn’t buried with the other Heffmans. They’re Catholic,” Lakmei explained. “And what happened to his face was the work of the devil.”

Gracey’s mouth dropped open as she glanced anxiously from the angel to her sister. Finally she asked, “Well…was it?”

It wasn’t what she had planned to say. Until a year ago, Gracey had no reason to believe in Hell or devils or angels for that matter. But the night she and Tiny had found the Prime of Darkness lying on the side of the road, everything had changed. Gracey wasn’t sure what to believe in anymore.

But Lakmei only shook her head, unblinking eyes never breaking contact. “Probably not,” she said simply. “I thought you didn’t believe the Prime of Darkness was dangerous.”

The slight mocking in Lakmei’s voice wasn’t lost on the pie baker. “I never said I didn’t think he was dangerous,” Gracey said carefully. “But I have no reason to think Buddy Heffman would be Darkness’s enemy. Besides. I assume Darkness doesn’t have a monopoly on diabolic acts.”

Lakmei, chagrined, said nothing for a moment as she watched Gracey work through her own inner conflicts. It was no secret to either of the angels that Gracey’s feelings toward the demon were not altogether logical. Lakmei cocked her head to the side, expression evaluative. “There’s something different about you, Gracey.”

Gracey blinked. “Different how?”

Lakmei watched her a second, then shook her head slowly. “I don’t know exactly.”

Breathing an agitated sigh, Gracey nodded toward the other two graves. “Do you know what happened over there?”

Lakmei followed her gaze and sighed. “Car accident,” she said. “Carmen Olaya and her son, ah…”

“David,” Gracey whispered.

“That’s the one.”

“David was just a baby,” Gracey said. A wild shudder ran through her and she wrapped her arms across her chest in the same manner as Lakmei.

“But why is she buried with the Galinas if her last name is Olaya?” Tiny asked.

“Olaya was her married name,” Gracey said. “The Olayas and the Galinas don’t get along. Most of the Olayas have left Love & War by now; they came into money about twenty years ago, I think. Carmen’s husband Christopher was the last of them, if you don’t count the baby, of course, and he left about a year ago when he and Carmen divorced.”

Lakmei glanced down to the flowers Gracey was still holding. “Were you going to lay those anywhere in particular?”

Gracey had forgotten all about the peonies. She glanced at them, suddenly feeling foolish. She shook her head. “No, I just thought…” she shrugged, letting her words trail off.

“Do you mind if I..?” Lakmei reach for the flowers, and as though jarred out of a daydream, Gracey shook herself, handing the small bouquet to the angel.

“Not at all, please.” She handed the flowers over to Lakmei and for a brief moment, their hands brushed against each other. Lakmei drew in a sharp breath, eyes popping wide as saucers. Her lips parted, drew close in a round little O. She caught hold of Gracey’s hand, closing her delicate fingers around Gracey’s strong ones. She leaned in, pulling Gracey to her in a furtive embrace. “Is that what’s different?” She shook her head, blue eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Gracey! Whoever he is, I hope he doesn’t break your heart.”

Gracey and Tiny were curled up on the couch together, sharing a bowl of popcorn. Gracey pointed the remote at the television, absently scrolling through the disappointing options on the TV Guide channel. “I should just cancel the cable,” Gracey complained for the hundredth time. “There’s never anything good on.”

“Oooh, no no wait, go back,” Tiny said, waving frantically at the television. Gracey scrolled up and Tiny squealed. “Oh my God, you guys! Harold and Maude is coming on in fifteen minutes. I love that movie!”

Gracey made a face, hit the “select” button. “I’m surprised you even know this movie,” she said, shoving a handful of popcorn in her mouth. “This is way before your time.”

“I watched it with Mama once,” Tiny explained. “You know how she is about Cat Stevens.” Tiny shook her head, acquired false poise, fluttered her lashes and sang in a forced soprano with too much vibrato, “If you want to sing out, sing ooooooooout, and if you want to be free, be freeeeeee. There’s a million things to beeeeeeeeee, you know that there are.”

Tiny and Gracey collapsed into each other in a fit of giggles. “But you know what we need,” Gracey said, “is a six pack and Funyuns.”

Tiny’s mouth made a perfect O. “I haven’t had Funyuns in ages,” she breathed. “Is there anywhere to get them around here?”

“Oh sure. They have them at the BRB.” Leaning forward so she could see around Tiny, Gracey put on her prettiest smile and said, “Hey, Darkness, would you mind going out to the BRB and picking up some beer and Funyuns for me and Tiny? Please?”

The Prime of Darkness looked up from his book, annoyed. Settled deep into the reclining chair with a throw pillow in his lap and a blanket tossed across his knees, the Prime of Darkness looked like the king of the living room. He wrinkled his brow. “I want to find out what happens,” he said. He was reading Smilla’s Sense of Snow.

“The ending’s no good anyway; it’s everything leading up to the end that’s the good stuff,” Gracey explained. The Prime of Darkness only frowned. Switching tactics, Gracey smiled pleadingly at the demon, folding her hands prettily beneath her chin. “Pretty please, Darkness? I don’t want to risk missing the beginning of the movie.”

“Don’t you have beer in the refrigerator?” he asked.

“Drank it,” Tiny answered.

The Prime of Darkness sighed. “I don’t even have my bike,” he said. “It’s in the shop, remember? Brake’s been acting weird. I asked Tucker to have a look at it.”

“That’s okay,” Gracey said, her smile brightening. She was radiating at least two thousand lumens. “You can take my car,” she said. “I’ll even let you adjust the seat. The keys are on the table.”

“Oh, no,” the Prime of Darkness said, shaking his head and holding up his hand in objection. “No way. I’m not driving the Matrix; I look ridiculous in that car. What if someone recognizes me?”

Tiny and Gracey exchanged looks, and both women did a respectable job containing their laughter. “It’s just a car,” Gracey said, rolling her eyes, mock exasperation drawing out her words. “Anyway, what’s wrong with my car? It’s a great little car,” she said, pretending to be offended.

“I like my motorcycle.”

“We know,” Tiny put in. “And your cape looks so adorable trailing behind you when you ride.”

The Prime of Darkness gave Tiny a cold stare. His exasperation was quite real.

Gracey gave Tiny a look that meant maybe they’d pushed him too far; he was a demon, after all, and his sense of humor was wanting. She sighed, waved off the previous conversation. “Ah, well, it’s dark anyway.” Gracey cocked her head to the side, gave the demon a sincere smile. “And I’d really, really appreciate it.”

Sighing, the demon dog-eared the page he was on and set the book aside. He stood up, gave Tiny and Gracey a defeated look and said, “What kind of beer do you want?”

“Shiner,” the said at once. They turned to each other and giggled like little girls. The Prime of Darkness rolled his eyes.

Rising from her seat, Gracey shuffled over to the Prime of Darkenss and wrapped her arms around his neck, careful to avoid the spikes on his pauldrons. Against her chest, she felt the demon go rigid with uncertainty and discomfort, and Gracey was reminded fondly of her first slow dance with a boy. This awkward embrace was not unlike that adolescent rite of passage. When the demon didn’t pull away, Gracey leaned in and planted a noisy, squishy kiss in the crook of his neck. She was surprised by the warmth of his skin. She looked up at him and saw that he was blushing. She’d never kissed him before.

When he’d recovered from the shock of Gracey’s unexpected display of affection, the Prime of Darkness grunted, made a good show of retrieving the keys form the table by the front door. “Where’s your wallet?”

“Oh.” Gracey ambled into the kitchen, retrieved her purse, and fished her wallet out form its depths. She handed it to the demon, who grimaced and shook his head.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “How old are you?”

Gracey made a face. “Old enough to not take things so seriously,”she said. “Loosen up, Darkness.”

The Prime of Darkness looked down at the wallet. It was plastic, pink, and sported the annoying visage of Hello Kitty all over it. It was a wallet intended for an eight-year-old girl, not a thirty-something woman. He snapped it open. “You don’t even have any money in here,” he said. Incredulity practically dribbled down his chin.

“Use the debit card,” Gracey called, plopping down next to her sister. “Oh, and bring back some antacid, too, please. Funyuns upset my stomach sometimes.”

**

The BRB was mostly deserted, save a couple of teenaged girls pumping gas and nursing cherry Slurpees; still, the Prime of Darkness parked in the shadows. The chime dinged as he walked through the BRB’s glass doors, and the Prime of Darkness cringed. He preferred, as much as possible, to meander around Love & War undetected. Of course, being the only person he knew who habitually wore black leather, spiked pauldrons, and a cape, it wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, but he’d mostly managed to get by.

He stood in the chip aisle, carefully reading the different titles in order to identify the brand Gracey had requested. He didn’t understand why humans needed so many different forms of junk food. He’d tried some of these fried monstrosities only once when he’d happened upon them in Gracey’s pantry. Artificial color and flavoring, he discovered, were poor substitutes for actual food. He much preferred barbecue or a slice of Gracey’s coconut cream pie to anything you could buy prepackaged from the BRB. Even the Ding Dongs made his stomach churn.

When he found the right bag, he grabbed it and popped it under his arm. He retrieved the Shiner Bock from the refrigerated case and laid his bounty on the counter. The girl at the cash register, snapping gum, sniffling, and probably high on something, hardly looked up as she rang him up. “$12.97,” she said.

The Prime of Darkness opened up the horrendous wallet and retrieved the debit card. He handed it to the girl who sighed and asked, not without annoyance, “Credit or debit?”

She looked up as she asked. Recognition washed over her face, and her cheeks flushed a charming crimson. The Prime of  Darkness steeled himself. She cocked her head to the side, tapping the credit card against the palm of her hand. “Say,” she drawled, a coy smile playing over Bonne Belle coated lips, “ain’t you that Prime of Darkness?”

He cleared his throat. “Credit, if you don’t mind,” he answered. He tried a smile. It didn’t feel natural.

“You are though, right? Wow, this is better’n the time I saw Angelina Jolie at the Walmart.” She slid the card through the reader.  “She was with that little boy of hers, that Oriental one? What’s his name? She’s super tiny in real life.”

He shifted uneasily, not knowing how to respond to her prattle, or even if he was supposed to. How many times would people ask him the same ridiculous question? Of course he was the bloody Prime of Darkness, who else would he be? The town didn’t have that many blue-skinned, diabolical, cape-wearing bikers.

She handed the card and the receipt back to him, still smiling. He signed the receipt, and snapped open the wallet to replace the card. He was about to wish the girl good night when she made an awful sound, something between a laugh, a bark, and a scream, and pointed a finger at the plastic abomination in his hand. “Oh my stars, is that a Hello Kitty wallet? My little sister has the exact same one!”

“It’s a terrible trick for God to allow it to rain on Halloween.”

Tiny was frowning as she poured a handful of candy corn into her mouth. “I mean, I get it. Most years the weather is awesome, right, so I guess that’s the treat. But when we get the trick…”

Tiny, Gracey, and the Prime of Darkness sat huddled together on the porch swing, listening to the rain fall in heavy sheets, waiting for the neighborhood kids to come beg for candy. Gracey was dressed as Rainbow Brite; Tiny, dressed as a belly dancer, had succumbed to the cold and damp and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. The demon wore what he always wore—a molded chest plate of indeterminate material, black leather pants, motorcycle boots, spiked metal pauldrons, and a red cape. He had a plastic cauldron filled with candy balanced on his lap. The flames from the line of jack-o-lanterns perched jauntily on the porch rail threw dancing shadows on the walls of the old house until an ill wind swept through and extinguished half the candles.

It was a miserable Halloween.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Gracey said, chewing a Tootsie Roll. “Don’t you remember going trick or treating in the rain, running through the puddles and laughing when your makeup melted into streaks down your face? I remember,” Gracey smiled. “I remember … I wasn’t quite sixteen so you must have been about six. You were a fairy princess. It was raining that year, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t let you wear the ballet slippers that went with your outfit. They made you wear boots, and you threw a fit because you said fairies don’t wear boots.”

“Well, they don’t,” Tiny interrupted. “I mean, I was just a kid but I was going for verisimilitude.”

“Actually,” Darkness said, his face drawn, “I don’t think fairies exist at all.”

The sisters exchanged exasperated looks.

“Anyway, you were mad about the boots, and then when we got outside you were mad about the rain. It smudged your makeup. So you started crying and carrying on until I told you to just tell people you were a Rambo fairy.”

“Oh my God,” Tiny breathed, eyes wide. “I do remember that! You said I looked like Rambo, but I didn’t know who that was. But I did what you said, and everyone laughed and said I looked awesome. Like I planned it.” She grinned, dug into the cauldron on Prime of Darkness’s lap. “Ooh, Butterfinger,” she purred, ripping off the wrapper.

A small group of kids bounded up the gravel drive, making their way to the porch. They were squealing with laughter, their costumes invisible beneath their rain slickers. They produced their candy bags and sang out a chorus of “Trick or treat!”, their smiling, ruined faces upturned and glowing.

The Prime of Darkness reached into the cauldron and grabbed a large handful of candy, dropping pieces into the children’s bags. One of the little boys in front, who might have been dressed as a cowboy, looked Darkness up and down with appreciation. “What are you?”

The demon smiled. “I am a Prime of Darkness.”

The boy cocked his head to the side in confusion. “What’s a prime of darkness?”

The Prime of Darkness faltered. It was a question he wasn’t sure how to answer, not to a child to whom he couldn’t possibly reveal the whole truth. On the other hand, he was incapable of lying. It posed a small dilemma. “Well, it’s a kind of soldier,” he said, after the uncertain pause. “A top soldier, above an ace or a deuce. But, just a soldier. That’s all.”

The boy didn’t look satisfied, but more explanation would have meant less time to acquire as much candy as possible, and his friends were already growing antsy. “Cool costume,” the boy said. “Thank you!” A disingenuous chorus of obligatory thank-yous followed, and the children took off toward the next house.

The wind picked up, and Tiny pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Gracey noticed, took a motherly interest. “Tiny, you should go in the house and put on a sweater or something. You’re shivering,” she said.

“I’m all right.” The redhead shrugged beneath the blanket. “It’s mood weather. We gonna watch a movie tonight?”

“What do we have?” The Prime of Darkness unwrapped a roll of Smarties and began popping them into his mouth.

Tiny counted the movies on her fingers. “Army of Darkness—I got that for you, Darkness, you’ll love it—Serpent and the Rainbow and, my personal favorite, Shaun of the Dead. And I even made caramel popcorn,” Tiny said, smiling.

“I made the popcorn,” Gracey corrected. “You sat on the counter and stuck your fingers in the caramel.”

“I kept you company,” Tiny said.

Another group of children approached, these wearing masks. When they arrived on the porch, they thrust their bags out before them and shouted, “Trick or treat!” It was more a demand than a pleasantry.

The Prime of Darkness handed out the candies, and two of the three kids muttered “Thank you” as they ran away. But the third stayed behind and removed his mask. It was Marco.

“Hey, Marco,” Gracey said, smiling. “Your costume is great; what are you?”

“A demonic overlord,” he said. The mask in his hand was a metallic orange with a pointy chin and horns. He wore a simple black tunic and glow-in-the-dark skeleton gloves.

The Prime of Darkness made a face. “You know, there isn’t exactly—”

But Gracey placed a hand on his arm, squeezing lightly. The demon took this as a cue to discontinue that thought. “Well, you look great,” Darkness finished.

If Marco noticed the exchange, he didn’t let on. He was looking at the Prime of Darkness with concern. “You’re not wearing a costume,” he said finally.

“Oh!” The Prime of Darkness leaned back into the porch swing, clearly taken aback. “Ah. Well, this is a costume,” he said. Even in the dim light, his pauldrons gleamed.

But Marco shook his head. “You wear that every day. On Halloween, you’re supposed to be something else.”

The Prime of Darkness crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?”

“It’s fun.”

The demon and the boy stood in silence, examining each other in earnest. After a moment, Marco took a sheepish step forward. “Well, here,” he said, handing the mask to the demon. “You can have that. You have to wear something,” he said.

Tentatively, with a strange feeling in his chest, the demon accepted the proffered mask and carefully fixed it over his face. It was a little snug, but the eye holes were big enough. “Thank you,” he said. His voice came out muffled.

“My name’s Marco,” the boy said, holding out a hand.

The strange feeling in the demon’s chest grew until it pressed against his lungs. Something caught in his throat. The Prime of Darkness accepted Marco’s gesture, and the two demons, one makeshift and the other not so much, shook hands. “I’m a Prime of Darkness,” he said for the second time that evening. “Ah, you can just call me Darkness.”

Marco smiled, his eyes flicking briefly to Gracey. He saw that she was grinning.

Without another word, he took off. He had some catching up to do.

When Marco was gone, Gracey turned to Darkness and admired his mask. “Pretty,” she said. “Looks like you made a friend.” She was still grinning.

The demon nodded. “Guess I did,” he said, his voice curiously soft.

The strange feeling in his chest was still there. After a moment, he realized the feeling was tenderness.

He didn’t take the mask off all night.

Gracey came home with an armload of groceries and dropped them on the kitchen table. Hearing her sister arrive, Tiny popped in the from the living room and began digging through the bags as though searching for buried treasure.

“What are you looking for?” Gracey asked, only slightly annoyed. Tiny had always been this way. Impatient.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know, Gracey. Please tell me you got Snickers. Or Reese’s Cups! I’d settle for–Oh, God, Skittles?” Tiny slammed the enormous bag of Skittles on the counter and gave Gracey a dark stare. “Are you kidding me?”

Gracey raised an eyebrow as she began methodically sifting through the groceries, putting everything in its proper place. “What, who doesn’t like Skittles? Taste the rainbow,” Gracey said, stifling a grin.

“Where’s the chocolate, Gracey? It’s not Halloween without chocolate!”

Gracey chuckled as she wedged a 5 pound bag of sugar onto the pantry shelf. “Cool your jets, sunshine, there’s chocolate in there. I got a bag of Twix and a bag of Reese’s Cups. I don’t think I got Snickers, though. There’s also a bag of Smarties in there, but don’t give me crap about that; those are for Darkness. He asked for them specifically.”

Tiny wrinkled her nose as she pulled the bag of small, chalk-like candies out of the grocery bag and tossed them disdainfully on the counter. “You know, sometimes you can almost forget he’s a demon, and then he asks for Smarties, and you remember he’s from Hell.”

Gracey nodded. “Yep. Smarties are proof of Satan’s dominion on Earth,” she said simply. Glancing around, she asked, “Where is he anyway?”

Tiny waved her hand toward the back of the house. “In the barn. I sent him to go see if you had any Halloween decorations.”

“Finish putting these away,” Gracey said, motioning to the groceries. “And don’t eat up all this candy, Tiny, I mean it. I don’t want to have to go buy more for the kids,” she said. She gave Tiny a Very Stern Look, which Tiny returned with wide eyes and all but an angel’s halo circling the crown of her head. She smiled as she ripped open the bag of Reese’s Cups, and giggled as they spilled onto the floor.

Gracey found the Prime of Darkness in the garage, rummaging through piles of junk. He was muttering something under his breath as he flung cardboard boxes around impatiently.

“Heya, Darkness,” Gracey said.

The demon jumped, startled, and then gave Gracey a small smile. “Heya, Gracey. I’m sorry I’m making a mess back here. I’m just… looking for something.”

Gracey waded through the dislodged junk and picked out a cardboard box with the word “HALLOWEEN” written across the front in black marker. “This what you’re looking for?” she asked.

Darkness took one look at the box and shook his head, returning to the piles of stuff at his feet. “Actually, no,” he said. “I found that immediately. I’m looking for…do you have any rope? Or an old tire? Or some wood you don’t need…like a two by four?”

Gracey propped the box on her hip and looked around. The barn was normally in disarray, but now it was an utter mess. “I’m not sure, Darkness. Maybe. Probably. What do you need it for?”

Darkness opened his mouth to answer, and then promptly shut it again. He thought for a minute, then said, “I think that kid across the street’s been spying on me,” he said.

“Which kid? Marco or Alejandro?”

The Prime of Darkness shrugged. “I don’t know, aren’t they twins?”

“Yup.”

“Then I don’t know,” he said again. “Is he a nice kid?”

Gracey, surprised by the question, shifted her weight and shrugged. “Well, I don’t know which one you mean. I mean, they’re both nice boys. Alejandro’s a bit of a handful, but I think they’re supposed to be at that age. Marco’s real quiet; awful sweet. Withdrawn, though. Kind of a loner; I hardly ever see him playing with anybody.”

The Prime of Darkness nodded. “I thought so,” he said simply.

Gracey waited for the demon to speak again, but he didn’t, retuning to his hunt for wood and rope. She watched him a moment, bewildered. She was always surprised, and more than a little put off, by the ease with which he could dismiss her even while she was still standing with him. It was just another way in which he was...different.

“Anyway,” she said finally, “I just came out here to see what you wanted for dinner. I got stuff to make fish tacos or ratatouille, your choice.”

Darkness seemed to think a moment. “Ratatouille’s the stuff with the vegetables, right?”

“Yup.”

“Fish tacos,” Darkness said, returning to his hunt. As Gracey turned to leave, Darkness remembered something, and hopped up one last time. “Hey,” he said, “did you get the Smarties?”

Gracey smiled sweetly, cocking her head to the side. “My favorite supernatural creature,” she purred. “I got your back.”

She dropped him a wink and carried the box of Halloween decorations out to the front porch.

Sitting on the porch swing eating orange popsicles, Tiny Daylittle and the Prime of Darkness were being watched.

Although officially over, summer still hadn’t quite given up the ghost. Nestled in the heart of west Texas desert, Love & War was as hot as a pizza oven. Or Hell, Tiny thought, casting a sideways glance at the Prime of Darkness. She made a mental note to ask him about this one day. Sweaty and irritable, Tiny pushed the swing with her foot to stir the still air. Breezes were obstinate and refused to blow. As she bit off the end of her popsicle, Tiny squinted at the house across the street.

“They’re looking at you,” Tiny said after a while. “That’s gotta be so weird, to have people staring at you all the time.”

The Prime of Darkness shrugged, licking around his popsicle so it wouldn’t drip. “It’s probably a lot like being famous,” he said. “Like being a celebrity.”

Tiny snorted. “Not that this town’s ever seen anything remotely as interesting as a celebrity. Hell, I guess you’re the closest thing to excitement they get out here.”

Darkness followed Tiny’s gaze and saw that the family across the street was indeed watching them, though they made a good show of pretending they weren’t. “How do you know they’re not looking at you?”

Tiny cocked her head to the side, thoughtful. “They might be,” she admitted. “Should I give them something to look at?” Smiling, Tiny swiveled on her butt, leaned back, and stretched one leg out in front of her, pressing the ball of her foot against Darkness’s chest. She made sure the lookyloos across the street got an eyeful of a long swathe of alabaster skin from her ankle to her hip. With a devilish grin, she turned her head, stuck out her tongue, and wriggled her fingers coquettishly at the folks across the way.

The family across the street turned their backs, and Tiny could swear she heard the woman gasp.

Darkness shook his head and knocked Tiny’s foot from his chest. He wasn’t sure what game Tiny was playing, but he was pretty sure she was up to no good.

“I’m bored,” she complained, turning back around and crossing her legs Indian-style underneath her. “There’s nothing to do in this town. There’s not even– oh, hey,” she breathed, a sudden light flickering behind her eyes. “We should go see that Simon St. Laine show over in Placerita tomorrow tonight, you want to?”

“Who’s that?”

Tiny shrugged. “I saw a flyer last time I was at the BRB. ‘Simon St. Laine–implausible magician’ or something. Gracey said he’s not very good. Corny. But it might be fun. You want to?”

The Prime of Darkness thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know, Tiny. It might be…awkward.”

She was about to ask why when understanding struck and she dropped her shoulders, deflated. “Oh. Because of the whole.…armor-wearing demon thing.” She indicated his outfit with a noncommittal wave of her hand.

The Prime of Darkness nodded.

“Well, listen,” Tiny said, her voice carefully light and nonchalant. “Can’t you just do that thing you do with the shadows? Where you sort of…bring them to you? And hide?”

The Prime of Darkness nodded slowly. “I can if it’s dark enough. But what about inside the theater? House lights can be bright enough that I can’t hide that well.” He shrugged his large shoulders, peered off into the distance. “I’ll just stay here. People here have gotten used to me. Or they’re too polite to say anything. You and Gracey should go, though. I can look after myself.”

Tiny thought about this a moment. It was true that the people in this backwoods town were surprisingly kind to the Prime of Darkness. Of course, that was probably because they didn’t know what he was. No one knew but she and Gracey. Most people seemed to think he was a circus performer, or mentally handicapped, or a participant in a reality TV show. (How they explained the lack of camera crews Tiny had no idea.) But ever since they had brought him home after finding him passed out on the side of the road, folks had just accepted him, like a blue-skinned man in a superhero costume wasn’t the strangest thing they’d ever seen in all their lives.

Actually, their willingness to accept him was kind of weird.

Tiny shrugged. “Well, whatever. Let’s at least go for a walk or something. I’m sick to death of this house.”

The Prime of Darkness nodded, got to his feet. “Yes. Sure,” he said. “You want to go now?”

Tiny stood, stretched, and tossed her popsicle into the trash. “I got to put on some sunscreen first. I’m so white I burn if you look at me wrong. But I guess you don’t have to worry about that?”

Darkness looked down at his bare arms, his blue skin almost purply-black in the shade. “I don’t think I burn,” he said. “But I don’t usually go out in the sun if I can help it.  Maybe I should put some sunscreen on, too. Just in case.”

Tiny was about to point out that if he didn’t burn in Hell, he probably wouldn’t burn in Texas, but figured he would miss her joke and retort something about not having a physical body when he was in Hell. So instead she just smirked and said nothing as she followed Darkness into the house. If nothing else, the smell of Banana Boat sunscreen wafting off the Prime of Darkness’s blue-gray skin was something she didn’t want to miss.