“So, ahh...” I said. “What makes you want to work in channeling node services?” I restrained from straightening my unfamiliar tie. I tried to peak my hands in front of me like Mr. Jevol did, but my shaking fingers ruined the drama.

I have been at this every day for over a year. It's something to be proud of, I think. I've also learned a lot along the way.

“Stop! Right there!” Shannon shouted. “That's perfect. Set it down.” The goblins gently laid the stone pillar to the ground, coordinating the six of them as if they were telepathic. Which maybe they were. Who knew? They were just goblins.

“Break it,” Smithy said. His arms were crossed across his chest. Never a good sign. Art looked up at him with wide eyes. “Break it, I said.”

There is a time for forgiveness.

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.

“And remember: pain is a gift.”

“Oh, dear,” Helai said, looking down at the body of Rile Andersen. “I guess he was right.” She hit her pager and started filling out the paperwork while waiting for Mr. Washburn to arrive.

“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.

“I'm pretty sure an hour of this is going to kill me,” Rile said. His face glowed bright red with blood and the sentence only came out between gasps.

“I don't expect you'll actually die,” Helai said. “You might wish you had, but we'll be here to pick up your sad, collapsed body and get you back to working order soon enough.”

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.