• A few minutes later, after their ruse was set up and Jean had called to ask if she could go home with Seth after school, the pair stood behind the gym ready to leave the campus. “Wait,” Wasré said quietly, grabbing her arm and pointing to a forgotten ladder that lead to the gym’s roof. Jean gave him a questioning look, but climbed up the ladder anyway while he held it steady. When she got to the top she turned to hold the ladder steady for Wasré, but he was standing beside her.

    “How’d you get up here so quick?” she gasped.

    “You asked me to show you shape shifting,” he said, ignoring her question. “Are you still wanting to see?” Jean nodded, the coldness in her eyes temporarily replaced by curiosity. Without warning, Wasré turned inky black from head to toe and stretched into the shape of a creature that Jean had never seen before. It had four, long legs and a body that looked like a cross between a lizard and a horse, ending in a serpentine tail. The creature’s head also looked like a reptilian-equine cross, with a large round spot for an ear, like a frog or snake. Spikes grew along part of the creature’s broad neck and down sections of its legs. In the chest and neck its ribs were just faintly visible through the unnaturally black, shiny skin. But most fascinating of all were the huge, thinly webbed wings that it spread. Veins filled with black blood were visible when the sun shone through the wings’ membrane.

    “Is this…what you look like?” Jean asked in a shaky voice.

    “Some of my kind looks this way, but not me.” She shivered at Wasré’s voice, a combination of nails-on-chalkboard and honey. The creature melted and reformed under her, so that she sat with her folded legs rested on the stretch of membrane that connected the wings to Wasré’s flanks.

    “Wait! What are you-?” Jean gave a small shriek as Wasré took off into the sky, sliding smoothly on the air under his wings. Goosebumps stood up on her arms when she learned what a demon truly felt like. His skin felt coarse and rough even though her fingers slid across it like it was slime. She pulled her hand away, for a moment thinking that his skin had burned her, but she found her fingers cool to the touch when she rubbed them against her neck. It also had a smell that was impossible to discern, thick and sweet with just enough of a strange twist in it that it made her head spin. The smell was dark and oppressive.

    But she only noticed these things for a moment, because she soon realized that she was hundreds of feet off the ground. A wave of fear suddenly washed over her and she swayed almost without meaning to. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll not let you fall,” Wasré assured her, looking back with crimson eyes. Jean closed her eyes and realized that she was safer than she thought. Spanning out to each side were Wasré’s huge demon wings, so she wouldn’t fall off to the side. Underneath her she could feel the muscles in Wasré’s back working smoothly and surely with each breath he took and each beat of his wings. He had no fear of crashing, which probably meant that she shouldn’t either.

    “How did you know I was scared?” she shouted into the wind.

    “I felt you tense.” After a moment he added, “And I can smell your fear.” Jean hunkered down as Wasré took a turn to the right, angling so that his rider wouldn’t be unbalanced. Wasré glided through the air, slowly losing height as he did. His long, freakish legs were tucked up under him so they wouldn’t interfere with his steering.

    “Where are you going?” Jean asked, sure now that Wasré could hear her even through the wind.

    “There’s a fair in town. Would you like to go?” His polite speech was totally out of sorts with the eerie voice he used.

    “Sure.” Wasré turned his head back one more time to look Jean in the eyes.
    “I want you to go totally limp, okay? Just relax.” Her eyes dilated with fear. A Ferris wheel loomed larger and larger the closer they got to it. “Ready? Go!” Jean tried to relax, she really did, but relaxing was difficult when she found herself hurtling towards a Ferris wheel and falling through a confusing explosion of ink and color.

    When she opened her eyes, having squeezed them shut during the fall, she found herself sitting safely in a seat on the Ferris wheel. “There was an empty seat,” Wasré said, back in the form of Seth, and shrugged. “Wouldn’t want to waste it.” Jean’s heart momentarily skipped a beat and her eyes widened. “What?” Wasré asked. “You’re blushing.” She lowered her head and looked at the floor.

    “For a second I had the illusion that I was on a date with Seth.” Wasré dropped his eyes as well. The chair swayed gently as it started to descend, bringing them closer to the people below. Jean and Wasré sat quietly while their ride swooped passed the people below for a second revolution.

    “It’s how we survive, you know,” he said quietly. “Too long without a host and we die.” Jean’s eyes sparkled with hope at this information.

    “Then if we could keep anyone from getting the virus long enough…” Wasré shook his head.
    “It was a demon that produced that virus. If it should become extinct, there is a species of demon that could create it again.” Jean slumped and sighed. “Demon’s are a rarity, compared to the number of people that populate this planet,” he reasoned. “We don’t do that much damage.” She looked over at him with a blank stare.

    “You don’t get it, do you? It’s not how many people your kind takes each year, or the ratio of demon possessions to car wrecks or any of that. It’s that fact that when someone gets infected, they lie awake at night waiting to die and wondering what it’s going to be like to be shut up and tied up inside their own body while a demon takes over. It’s that fact that when a person gets possessed, their face still smiles at you, their fingers can still touch you, and their legs can still walk to you, but the person who used to control the face, the fingers, and the feet is dead, and if not dead, then they’re never, never, never coming back.” Jean paused for a moment. In a quieter voice she went on. “And even worse is realizing that the demon who took that person’s place might not be so bad, realizing that if they were not a murderer and if they were human, then you might have been friends with them.” The ride paused at the apex of the Ferris wheel and Jean looked out at the people scattered throughout the fair, laughing and enjoying themselves. They seemed so clueless for a moment, so far away from her agonies, but then she realized that at some point all those people had had an agony of their own and she didn’t feel quite so alienated. She wondered what Wasré’s agony had been. When she turned around to face him again, he was still staring at the ground in thought.

    “What if…I tried to fix this?” he proposed hesitantly. “What if I tried to bring Seth back?”

    Wasré’s stolen heart pounded with nervousness and indecision. In his ears he heard Jean’s heart speed up too. His reasons for actually helping Seth were shaky, but he couldn’t stand seeing the hurt he’d caused this human girl. Only now did he understand why demons normally went a-traveling after possession and settled somewhere different: demons can never forget. If he didn’t fix at least this one girl’s hurt, he would never be able to force it from his mind. After this, he reasoned with himself, I’ll just not make the mistake of staying around afterwards. No problems, just one messed up possession.

    “Are you serious?” Jean asked breathlessly. “Because if you’re lying, I’ll…I’ll… I don’t what I’ll do. Die maybe. Please tell me you’re not lying!” she pleaded.

    “I promise to try, okay? You can’t trust me with anything more than that.” Wasré nearly had the wind knocked out of him when Jean attacked with a hug. She was cutting off circulation to his brain, but he gently hugged her back.

    “All right, you two. Ride’s over,” a man boomed, flipping a switch to stop the ride for a moment. Jean pulled back and helped Wasré to his feet. Once they were off the Ferris wheel, Jean hugged him again with slightly less force.

    “That was a fast change of heart,” he whispered into her ear.

    “If you fix this,” she whispered back, “then I don’t have to be afraid to be your friend.” Wasré pulled back and looked at her in surprise. Then he winced and resisted the urge to hold his head in his hands as Seth fought at Jean’s words, though he was immensely happy at the prospect of being free. Jean noticed him wince, but chose to ignore it.

    “Let’s pretend,” Wasré said in a strained voice. “Let’s pretend that I’m not possessing Seth and that I’m just a regular kid. Let’s pretend that you know for sure that Seth will be back in a couple of days.” Jean slid her hand into his.

    “Okay.” They bounced back and forth through the fair, getting cotton candy here, playing a game there. After three o’ clock the number of people their age increased dramatically. Teenagers and elementary school kids started streaming in with parents and friends to ride rides and play games. Several hours after agreeing to a game of pretend, Wasré and Jean wandered hand in hand down the streets, occasionally laughing at something the other had said. Pretending was so much easier than living life according to what it should be. Jean should have been hating Wasré to the core, but instead she was laughing at his jokes. Wasré should have been traveling without a care in the world for the host he used or the host’s friends, but instead he was offering to give up a host to suit a human’s request.
    They pressed through a crowd that stood in the street, countless people all going different directions. Without warning, Wasré grabbed the back of a girl’s shirt. Jean halted to see what he would do. “Do you like peppermints?” he asked seriously.

    “I guess so,” she said in confusion.

    “Keep some with you always, especially when you sleep.”

    “Why?” The crowd nearly pulled them apart, but Wasré leaned to her ear and whispered something that made her eyes get as wide and round as silver dollars. He let go of her shirt and she hurried off.

    “What was that for?” Jean asked curiously.

    “She reeked of the demon virus,” he explained. “Raw demons won’t go near peppermint.” They continued walking down the street. Jean was contemplative, wondering why Wasré would have shared this tidbit of information with her.

    “I’ve never heard that before,” she remarked.

    “It’s one of our best kept secrets, which of course means you can’t tell anyone.” He looked over at her. “Though I know you will.” Wasré sighed. “The other demons are going to have my head for this.” Jean put her head on his shoulder but didn’t say anything; she didn’t want to lie to him.

    “Only if someone close to me gets it, then I’ll tell them,” she reasoned.

    “Then someone close to them, then someone close to them, then someone very important that can tell the world… Oh well. We’ll adapt. Demons always do.” Jean sagged slightly despite herself. “Of course,” he said quickly to comfort her, “you humans will always have that thing you call progress. It seems you can’t go too long without it. You’ll first find ways to hold us off, then slow us down, then bind us up, then kill us dead.” She looked up at him in surprise, hardly able to believe what almost sounded like confession. Wasré smiled sadly at her. “That’s just how you humans are. Being dependant on a species like you to live, we’re not destined to last. And that’s all because I told you about peppermint. We’ll become smallpox, with only a few samples of us and our virus remaining in cold storage in a couple countries in case there’s another ‘outbreak’ of us among you humans. We’ll become the frightening thought but long-dead reality in textbooks, a horror that a future generation will be glad they missed. The possessions will be tallied up and presented like a number of soldiers dead from a war, but the war with us will be over. The Redcoats are defeated, the Northerners have won, Japan is at peace, and Hitler is dead… That’s all we’ll be: the defeated enemy, and the humans and goodness will have triumphed over evil again.” There was a silence between them that lasted for a few seconds before Jean broke it.

    “That almost sounded rehearsed.”

    “It was. I’ve thought about it a lot.” He gave a small, wry laugh. “Hm. Peppermint. Let’s go rock climbing.” He grinned and led her to a short line where kids waited to be harnessed so they could climb a confusing array of hard plastic handholds to a their ultimate goal: a lofty red button.

    “I love rock climbing!” Jean said, smiling.

    “Did Seth like it?”

    “I guess so.”

    “Good, that means he can actually do it. I hate possessing out-of-shape fat people and having to get them into shape.” Jean laughed despite herself, amused at the image Wasré put in her mind of a deadly, shape-shifting fat guy. Seth was lean enough not to be overweight, but he wasn’t pencil thin either. Jean always thought he just had more to love.
    Two boys strapped harnesses around Wasré and Jean’s legs and waists before hooking them to a cable that would slow their descent when they let go of the rock wall. Jean labored up via the seemingly randomly placed hand and footholds. Wasré pretended to labor up since he had perfect coordination to make up for any lack of strength on Seth’s part. He climbed slowly, directing Jean whenever she was at a loss until they were both at the top. “Look around,” Wasré suggested. “See if there’s anybody you know.” She painstakingly twisted around and scanned the mass of people that thronged the fair. Even if her entire school were here, she wasn’t sure that she could pick them out from everybody else in this town and the surrounding ones. And yet, she heard a familiar voice calling her name and looked down to see Cason waiting at the bottom.

    “Cason!” she cried happily. She quickly pushed the red button and let go of the rock face, doing a slow free-fall to the ground. Wasré imitated her and landed at her side, where the same boys from before freed them from their harnesses. When he looked up after a moment, he noticed Cason giving him a strange look.

    “Hey Seth? Remember that time you told me you liked Sarah Habro?” Wasré’s pulse quickened.

    “Yeah. What about it?” Cason closed his eyes and reached into his pocket.

    “Everybody knew…” It sounded like he was talking about Sarah, but his voice was strained. Wasré’s eyes widened when he realized what Cason was really talking about.

    I never liked Sarah, a small voice in his head muttered.

    “Everybody knew but me!” Cason opened eyes that were filled with hatred, rage, and betrayal. “Jean! You knew he was a monster and you didn’t tell me!” In a flash, he had drawn a knife from his pocket and slashed Wasré across the torso, and the tail end of his wide swing just barely cut Jean across her forearm. Jean screamed from panic more than pain as Cason raised his arm for another blow and black blood started to pour from Wasré’s wound. Before he could, though, Wasré had him pinned to the ground and knocked the knife from his hand. “Get off me!” Cason shrieked. “Don’t let your disgusting demon blood drip on me!” At a loss, Wasré quickly stood up and started stumbling through the crowd that grew more and more panicked. They shrieked and scattered when he passed by after hearing that he was a demon and seeing the unnatural blood that stained him. Jean held her arm where red blood, human blood, was dripping down her skin. “I’m so sorry,” Cason said in horror, looking dazed. “I wanted to kill him… I…” He cut off and looked at the ground.

    “Just trust me,” Jean pleaded before running after Wasré and following the trail of ink. Cason would get over whatever he was going through, though she wished she could have stayed with him and explained.

    Jean eventually found Wasré in the shower stall of a public bathroom, where he’d gone to escape from the crowd’s prying eyes. He was panting heavily and holding a black-stained hand over his right side. Jean locked the main door of the family bathroom, leaving the doors to the men and women’s room unlocked. “Are you okay?” she asked urgently. “Should we go to the hospital?” Wasré gasped as another spasm of pain shot through him.

    “You honestly think they’d help a demon? Not a chance. I can heal on my own; it just takes a little time. You, on the other hand, will need stitches.” Jean seemed to notice the gash in her own arm for the first time. “Does it hurt?”

    “It does now that you said something about it.” She sucked air through her teeth when it started stinging. Wasré leaned back against the tile and took a deep breath. “How deep is it?”

    “Pretty deep right here.” To illustrate, Wasré stuck his finger into his side almost up to the knuckle and Jean suddenly felt nauseous.

    “There’s so much blood…” She looked at the trail that went across the floor and out of the bathroom entirely and at the marks and stains where Wasré had touched the walls.

    “Hmm,” Wasré said, not gasping or appearing to be in as much pain anymore. “I should probably wash some of it off. Are you okay with shirtless guys?” Jean nodded and Wasré pulled Seth’s formerly green shirt off over his head, revealing a wound that was slowly mending itself. From a safe distance, Jean watched as he picked up a discarded coke bottle and filled it with shower water. Then he let a drop of blood fall into the liquid, where it spread like black dye and quickly turned the water the same color. Wasré tossed the bottle of sable-colored liquid to Jean before turning to let the blood be rinsed away. “Add a drop of vanilla and a few grains of sand to that and you’ll have a remedy for depression. That’s another secret I’m not supposed to tell you.” Jean juggled the dripping wet bottle between her hands. She might need it if Wasré failed in his mission to get Seth back. “It’s not even addictive. There’s no risk of dependency!” he added brightly as if he were advertising on TV, making Jean giggle despite the throb in her arm. When Wasré turned around a few minutes later, all that remained of the ghastly wound was a purple scar running across his torso like a thin sash. He slipped on the mostly-cleaned green shirt. “Come on. I’ll fly you to the hospital.”

    “You’re going soaking wet?”

    “Nope.” As Jean watched, his shirt became a lighter color of green and his jeans returned to their normal color as they rapidly dried. The next thing she knew, she was out the door and on the creature’s back again, about to be hurtled into the sky. She didn’t panic this time, only held on tighter as Wasré leapt into the air and beat his huge wings for altitude, much to the amazement and fright of the people below. In moments those frightened humans were only specks in the distance and in the past as the hospital loomed huge and white as their destination. The wind that blew in her face was cool, a nice change from the baking hot sun that tormented her on the ground. Even with as much blinking as she had to do, she kept her eyes open to look around. It wasn’t every day that one got to view the world from atop a demon’s back, after all.

    Wasré quickly landed in a deserted part of the parking lot, transforming almost too fast for human eyes to see. Jean stumbled, and then righted herself in time to walk alongside him. Together they headed for the emergency room and checked in at the large desk up front. In a bored tone, the receptionist recited, “Please take a seat and wait until your name is called. Please be reminded that we accept patients by severity of their injuries, not necessarily in the order you come.” With that, she turned to the next in line and Jean guessed that they were dismissed.

    “Does it hurt?” Wasré asked again quietly after they had sat down in the white waiting room. A TV muttered on the opposite wall, not loud enough to be heard unless one concentrated very hard.

    “Like crap,” she said through clenched teeth. “But I know it’s going to hurt worse when they stitch it, isn’t it?”

    “I don’t know. I’ve never had stitches. Do you think we should call your Mom since she probably has to sign some things?”

    “True.” Jean pulled out a cell phone and speed dialed number two. “Mom?”

    “Hey Honey! How’s it going?”

    “Um…remember when I called and told you I was going to the fair after school?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I kind of…fell. I hit the sharp edge of a table and sliced up my arm pretty good, so I’m in the emergency room with W-Seth.”

    “How bad is it?! Oh goodness…” Jean heard the sound of a car door opening and closing and the quiet thrum of the engine turning over.

    “I might need stitches. Do they put you to sleep for stitches? Please say yes.”

    “I don’t think so, Honey. I’ll be there in just a second, okay? I love you Sweetie!”

    “Love you too Mom.” Jean flipped the phone closed. When Jean’s mom got there (in a hazardously short amount of time) she gave first Jean and then Wasré a tight hug.

    “Jean, oh my baby girl! Let me see.” She gasped at the sight of the blood-covered slice.

    “You’re right; it needs stitches. Have you already checked in?”

    “Yeah. I filled out some papers as best I could, so they have a name to call us by.”

    “Number eighty-three?” the receptionist called.

    “That’s works too.” Wasré followed them into a small room where a nurse checked over Jean’s injury. There was a lot of talking and paper signing before she was led to another room and finally given a shot in her arm: a localized anesthetic. Though the shot hurt, she still sighed in relief that they wouldn’t just dig in with the needle.

    “Whoa,” she said with her eyes wide. “That feels weird…” The nurse scrubbed the area down to clean it before getting out her supplies. Jean was so entranced by the fact that her arm was completely numb that it took her a moment to realize Wasré’s absence. After a quick look around, she saw him leaning against the doorway, facing away and down the hallway. He turned around as if he’d felt her gaze.

    “I don’t like needles,” he said quietly before facing back towards the hospital corridors. Wasré tried to ignore her stare and concentrate on something else. After all, why should a demon be afraid of something as silly as a needle when they could heal in a flash? He relaxed and pushed the idea of stitches from his mind, instead listening to two nurses talking in the hallway. The conversation immediately captured his full attention when he heard the words “demon virus.”

    “The poor kid had an aneurysm, so he’s technically brain-dead. It’s a shame though; he was an organ donor but we can’t use anything because he’s infected.”

    “Yeah,” the other replied with a sigh. “He’s in perfectly good condition except for that. What’s the doc going to do? Save him for a patient with the virus that needs a transplant?”

    “Nope. Too dangerous. They had to get in full protective gear just to move him here and check him out. They’re so scared of accidentally cutting him.”

    “The family must be heartbroken… Did they know?”

    “No. They just found out. He was in the very, very early stages of it. He’s on the machine right now, but that’s because the doctor’s having misgivings about just letting an otherwise perfect organ donor go to waste.”

    “Such a shame.” They sat quietly for a moment, thinking about the situation. Wasré was amazed that they didn’t hear Seth’s heart, what with how wildly it was beating. This could be his chance! But could he do it? Could he give up this host? Would the kid’s family even let him have their son? Maybe if he explained…

    “Well, I’m going to go get the family to sign these papers.”

    “Wait!” The nurses jumped, apparently noticing him for the first time. The taller nurse had a teal do-rag that matched her scrubs and the shorter one had scrubs with a pattern of dragonflies printed on them and blond hair up in a ponytail.

    “Yes?” the short one asked.

    “That…that family…” Wasré was almost in a cold sweat from anxiety. “I’d like to talk to them.” The nurse’s looked at each other for a moment.

    “I don’t know if I can do that…”

    “That boy is dead, but he’s on the machine, right?”

    “But…”

    “I might know a way where he could still help someone, save their life even.” Wasré hoped he sounded convincing enough. The nurses looked at each other again with indecision written all over their faces.

    “What are you proposing?” The tall one asked, pushing back a stray lock of brown hair that had escaped the do-rag. Wasré looked quickly back at Jean, but then quickly wished he hadn’t since there was a needle through her skin.

    “Jean,” he said sideways into the room, “I might be a minute. I’ve got to do something.”

    “Oh. Okay.” Wasré quickly moved out of view and earshot of everyone but the nurses, making them edge closer together.

    “All right, look. Please don’t go crazy when I tell you this, okay? Just hear me out. I’m a demon and I possessed a kid named Seth.” Their eyes got wide and Wasré could smell the fear radiating from them, thick and heavy. “However, I made a promise to a human that I would try to leave if I got the chance. As long as that dead kid’s body is intact, then I can still possess him and leave this one,” he pointed to his chest, “alone and free of the demon virus.” Wasré felt their fear turn to excitement.

    “I could check into it I guess,” said the short blond. “I’ll tell the family the same thing you told me before you come in so it isn’t too much of a shock; then if they consider it, you can come in and explain anything else you need to.” The other nurse ran a hand over her do-rag, like she would have put her fingers through her hair if she could.

    “This is probably violating so many human rights laws…”

    “My existence violates human rights laws.” Wasré thought he saw the shorter nurse look a little sad, as if she was thinking about what it would be like to be hated by an entire species.

    “All right. Follow me,” she said, taking off with short, quick steps down the hall. Wasré and the tall nurse trailed behind and tried to keep up as they followed her through the many hallways and floors until, finally, they found a room with a grieving family and an apparently sleeping boy. He had short blond hair and what would have been a fair face if not for the breathing machine covering his nose and mouth, making his chest rise and fall. Wasré waited outside as planned while the family heard his story.

    Through the window, he saw a blond woman stand up and turn to face the door. Her eyes were red and swollen and her face looked haggard with agony. Her hair would have been lovely if it were not so dishelved. When she spotted Wasré through the glass, she collapsed back into a chair, hiding her face from his line of sight, and started sobbing again into a tissue. The blond nurse continued talking to her until her shoulders stopped shaking so badly. The nurse motioned for Wasré to come inside.

    Once the door had closed behind him, the woman shakily asked, “So, if you take my son then that boy you have now,” she looked Wasré up and down before going on, “will be free?” Wasré nodded and quickly glanced over at the boy in the hospital bed. He looked to be a little older than Seth and possibly athletic, maybe a basketball player or a member of the track team.

    A whole host of family members were crowded into the tiny room, but they all looked to the blond woman that Wasré guessed to be the boy’s mother. A twelve-ish girl clung to her mother’s arm with wide, scared eyes. “No, Mommy,” she murmured in her ear. “Do they have to take Jason away?”

    “Jason’s already gone, Cynthia. We can’t have him anymore.” Tears started to flow from both pairs of eyes. “But somebody else might be able to.”

    “No, Mommy! Don’t let them!” Cynthia cried. “Don’t let him take my brother!” The others in the room got, if possible, even quieter. Maybe they had stopped breathing for a moment.
    “Cynthia, look at me,” she said sternly. “Do you see that boy?” Wasré blushed when they both looked at him, the black blood in his veins turning his face a darker shade of grey. “That boy is going to die if we don’t let him have Jason. Do you understand?”

    “No,” she whimpered, though she obviously did.

    “Do you want to be the one to kill him?”

    “No!” Cynthia curled into a fetal position in her chair and buried her face in her knees. Wasré hung his head, ashamed for the second time of pain that he’d caused a human. “Fine,” she murmured. “He can have Jason.” Everyone around the room seemed to sigh, most likely in exasperation mixed with relief. It was a hard thing to agree to, no matter how much it might benefit someone else. Jason’s mother took a deep breath.

    “All right. Explain the details, as there are always details.” Wasré took a deep breath too.

    “The virus isn’t very far along yet, so he’ll have to stay that way for a month or so before I can…do it.” Using the word “possess” seemed like it would be too much of an insult to their pain.

    “If you can possess him,” she asked, using the word herself, “then doesn’t that mean other ones can too?”

    “Yeah. There’s a way to stop them though.” The rest of the family and the nurses exchanged glances and started whispering, waiting for the information. “Raw demons won’t touch candy cane wrappers.”

    “Are you sure?” the tall nurse asked, speaking for the first time since she’d been in the room. “That sounds very…simple.”

    “It’s one of our best kept secrets. Just a few around him will keep them away.” If they just put out wrappers, then maybe they wouldn’t find out the demons’ secret about peppermint, but the smell would be strong enough to keep all but the most persistent of the creatures away. However, a candy cane wrapper could be overcome once this situation was over and they figured out that the humans were fooling them. An actual candy cane, though, would be potent to a demon.

    Wasré awkwardly got down on his knees in front of the woman and bowed his head as a show of respect. “Seth’s family, his friends, and I all thank you and your daughter. It will mean the world to them, and I can’t thank you enough.”

    “I know. It means the world to us as well, just in a different way. Will April third give you enough time?” Wasré glanced over at Jason again. He looked like a strong host, so the virus should spread quickly.

    “Yes ma’am,” he replied, remembering that human’s used “ma’am” and “sir” as terms of respect.

    “I’ll see you on the third, then,” she said faintly, as if she were already distracted. Cynthia wailed and started crying into her mother’s shoulder. Wasré stood smoothly and left. On the way out, he memorized the room number and location so that he’d be able to find it again. Jason McElroy was written on a clipboard that hung beside the door.
    Dewasré Sartre had one month left.


    Click here for the last part, part 7!