So all this rambling is really just a lead up to where I am now. It's been over five hundred years since I was forced to live on Earth. Nations have risen and fallen. I've been a bystander to most of it

What is the worst thing you can do to a demon?

So many humans say they don't want to die. That they'd like to live forever. Not one of them knows what that really means.

“How long can you spend sitting and staring at a monitor before you go insane?” I asked to nobody in particular. Of course, there were only two other people in the room so it wasn't that much of an audience.

It was then that I thought I'd lost her. The last echoes of her presence died away in the corners of my mind. It had always given me comfort. I often forgot they were there, but when I was lonely or lost, I could always reach in and see her. I could tell myself: “She is there. She loves you. She will always be there for you.”

Abruptly, she was not.

“So,” Heinrich said. “We have three keys, fifteen numbers, thirty-two statues of various fishes, and an electromagnet. Am I missing anything?”

“I found a coil of rope!” Lida shouted.

“And a coil of rope,” Heinrich said.

Have you ever had one of those days that you just can't make things go right, no matter how hard you try? Like you wake up early on a Saturday morning. You have a list of plans for the day. The weather's beautiful, you're well rested. You get up to make breakfast.

And you trip over your own feet and slam face-first into the ground.

“Time to clean house again,” Red said, tossing open the ammo bin. He started pulling out boxes of shells and tossing them into a cardboard box.

“What, already?” Julie asked. She sat up from her ramshackle cot, tossing her dog-eared paperback aside. “It hasn't even been a month.”

Click-clack went momma's needles, just like they always did this time of night. 'Specially during the winter when it got dark early. She'd light up the little fireplace, sit herself down, and knit from when it first got dark 'til she fell asleep in her armchair.

“Next!” the desk-worker called. That referring to number three seventy seven. The sweat-wrinkled slip in my own hand was three eighty nine. And I'd been here... nevermind. I didn't want to look at the time. I was stuck here until it was all handled. No point in stewing.

When Tim walked in at a quarter past six – nearly an hour late – I was expecting him to look sick, or at least bedraggled. Hell, I'd been creeped out enough the night before I'd nearly expected his body to show up on the morning news. That's what I get for taking a drunk lady's rants too seriously. I'd lost some sleep worrying and I was sure it showed.

“Did you know demons live forever?” she asked. Her elbow was the only thing keeping from faceplanting on the bar. Her boobs were just about falling out of her dress as she leaned over, but I kept myself from staring. I'm professional like that.

What is a dream but a thought gone mad?

“Who would have thought?” Mauria asked. “A necromancer and an enchantress, lying in bed together. Furthermore, not trying to kill one another.”

“Chickens?” Sir Albert asked. His thick, snowy brow raised into the shadow of his helmet. “Are you certain the scout has not gone mad?”

“How did you sleep, Master?” George asked. At least, I assumed it was George. The name was supposed to pass down as part of the legacy. He was the man opening the crypt door for me, anyway, so therefore he was George.

This can't be happening. Think, dammit, think. Where was the last place I saw it? The desk? Maybe my bookbag? God, this can't... I glanced at the clock. Only five minutes until I had to catch my ride to school. Dammit! Why hadn't I made sure it was here last night? Wait, hadn't I? It should have been right here, right? Right on the desk?

“I'm dying, you know.”

“Ha! Right. You're going to outlive us all.”

“Maybe. Nonetheless, I'm dying.”