Over the many centuries I’d lived I had gained a talent for intuition. Human behavior is full of patterns, observe them enough and you’ll begin to notice. This is especially true when you realize that you’re dealing with the same souls over and over again. Thus I knew as soon as Grayson’s cousin was mentioned that this was the person we were interested in. Each call he made asking where this guy was, where each person had less of an idea than we did, only made me even more certain.

My final confirmation came not from a call made, but a call revieved. I overheard the words “where is she?” and “what happened?” spoken frantically with this caller. “Who was that?” I asked when he hung up.

“Laura, she’s a friend of my sister.” He said. “We need to head back to the house, apparently something happened and she’s freaking out.”

The drive to the old house was a brief one, I caught Grayson speeding a couple times but didn’t say anything. It was his sister in danger, and in our kind of life family isn’t something you get to have long.

When we arrived and ran through the front door, I saw exactly what I expected. A young man about Grayon’s age, with short hair wearing a white polo and white khacki shorts, standing arms crossed, as if anticipating us.

“Where’s my sister?” Grayson demanded.

“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t know?” Christian said, smiling. “To be totally honest, I came here because I wanted to kill her, but apparently someone else got here first. If I had to guess, it was whoever killed dear beloved grampa.”

“So you didn’t kill him.” I said.

“That’s correct.” Christian said. “I’d love to say that I did but there’d be no pleasure in taking the credit for something I didn’t actually do.”

“Since you’re being so forthcoming, I have one last question.” I said. “You aren’t totally human, are you?”

“My, I should have expected your type to be so observant.” Christian said. “In that case allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Christian Blackwell, sociology student by day and serial killer by night, but I am also someone else, a traveling companion I picked up long ago, one who shares my ideals.”

Was this a human willingly possesed by a demon? Such a thing was rare, but not without precedent. Most demons had to maintain at least some control over their host but this… this demon was in perfect sync.

“To be honest, killing normal humans was starting to get old. Killing your kind? Now that will be a challenge worthy of our talents. Christian said. “Oh Jack! It’s time to come out and play!”

Knives spawned in Christian’s hands, his pupils dilated, his body began hunching forward. This was no ordinary demon, this was something more powerful. And now it was lunging towards us.