Even under the best of circumstances, I wouldn't consider myself a skilled conversationalist. Small talk with strangers often felt superficial and left me uncertain how to respond, the sheer futility of the discussion insipid and tiring, a routine social norm formulated to mirror comfort in an uncomfortable world. When someone asked "How are you," I knew to reply with "Fine," because people don't truly mean the sentiment behind the words; it is not an invitation to unburden one's self of their troubles.

So when Daniel Fairchild stood in the doorway to my sister's bathroom and blithely commented on how I was supposed to be dead, I sat frozen and continued to gawk.

He frowned. Narrow, dark eyes fringed in brown lashes flickered over my person, the tub, and my bloodied hands, no emotion other than utter contempt on his polished face as he opened the plain manila folder tucked under his arm and rifled through the pages contained therein. He paused, then drew in a deep, rattling breath through his nose—twice, and I stared, slack-jawed, at the man plainly sniffing the air.

Perhaps going mad was inevitable in the end. I had to be mad; how else would I materialize a rich pop star in my dead sister's apartment?

He wrinkled his nose again and perused the folder. "No, not dead. The twin, then. He didn't say anything about you being here...." The man drifted off without further comment, leaving me behind in the bathroom while he continued along the hall. I lurched to my feet, braced against the answering pain in my middle, and went to the doorway.

"What do you mean by 'he'?" I demanded. "Better yet—what are you doing here? How do you know Tara?"

Daniel Fairchild didn't answer. Instead, he entered the bedroom being utilized as a home office and scanned the loose papers left out on the desk, tucking Tara's laptop and accompanying charger into the messenger bag left strung across the desk chair's back. I watched in a daze as the man slung the bag's strap over his shoulder and proceeded back into the hall, then into the bedroom, passing me by as if I had all the presence of a coat rack or oddly placed end table.

Had I been more myself, I would have screamed at Fairchild, would have thrown something at him or maybe called the police, not that the latter was a wise decision. However, given my exhaustion and heartbreak, I could do little more than watch the slim celebrity as he moved about my sister's space, opening and closing drawers, flicking through her clothes and possessions with bored, harried gestures.

I'm crazy. I have to be.

"Mrrow."

Further evidence of my declining mental faculties sat on the bed's mussed sheets; a black cat rested on its haunches and watched my dazed shuffle into the untidy bedroom, wide, amber eyes flashing in the sunlight spilling about the crooked window curtains, tail twitching back and forth in steady anticipation. Tara didn't have a pet.

Fairchild saw the feline as well and gave it a frustrated side-glance as he dug a duffel bag out from the closet's depths. "He never said anything about a damn cat...."

Who is he talking about?

The cat in question stretched and spilled from the bed, crossing the room to thread itself about my ankles. Without thought, I bent and scooped the feline into my arms, wondering when Tara decided to get it—him—and why she never mentioned having a pet before.

What a stupid thing to worry about right now, Sara. Get your head straight!

"You," Fairchild said. "Leave and take that with you." He flicked a dismissive hand at the cat and I stiffened, temper rising through the shock's obfuscating mist until it welled like blood in a bruise. He continued rifling through my sister's things and stuffed clothes into the duffel bag, moving on to the dresser and Tara's more personal effects.

"Why are you here?" I snapped. "Just what do you think you're doing—?!"

"Girl."

The voice came not from Fairchild, but from behind me, sending terror prickling down my spine like a sudden, frigid downpour. I spun on my heels, and the cat hissed in alarm as I found myself meeting the baleful gaze of the red-eyed demon who owned my soul. I hadn't heard him approach—hadn't even heard him enter the apartment. He glanced at the cat, brow furrowed, and his lip curled in answer to the feline's continued hissing before he directed his suspicious glare toward me again.

"What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same!" I retorted, voice gone high and breathy in fright. "In fact, I will ask you the same! How did you know about this place? Are you following me? Is he—." I jabbed a finger at Fairchild. "—with you? Why is he going through my sister's things?!"

The demon lifted a hand to curb my ranting and I fell silent, though suspicion still lingered in my watching glower. The sound of a zipper closing broke our hateful staring match, and as Fairchild finished stuffing Tara's things into the bag, he shouldered his way back toward the kitchen. The demon followed without giving me a second thought, and I stormed after the pair.

"I am here," he began as he leaned his shoulder against a wall and Fairchild opened the refrigerator. "To...observe."

"If you were going to come here anyway, you could have done this yourself," the pop star muttered, throwing an opened package of prosciutto into the garbage. No sooner had the bitter remark left Fairchild's mouth than the demon surged forward, moving again with eerie, liquid efficiency, and Fairchild dropped to his knees with his arms over his head and a jar of pickled ginger in his hand. "Forgive me, my lord. I forget my place."

"A stupid mistake on your part, Danyel," the demon spat. As I studied them, I didn't miss the change in inflection the demon used in the other's name, nor did I miss the subtle, irritated tick in Fairchild's eye when he glared at the floor. He rose, watching the demon as if he were a loose tiger he couldn't turn his back on, and continued emptying perishables from the fridge.

'My lord?' Why would Fairchild call him that? The demon appeared many things, and a lord was not among those titles. If anything, Fairchild seemed more the lord than the demon, dressed as he was in his stylish designer suit, as opposed to the other's worn leather jacket, jeans, and tennis shoes.

Appearances are deceiving.

"Is he—?" I sputtered. "Is he like you?"

The demon scoffed. "Like me? If you mean to ask whether or not he is a...demon, than yes, he is. He's just a creature summoned to do the bidding of petulant little mortals like yourself—but otherwise, no, this simpering moron is nothing like...me."

His derisive tone raised an angry red flush in Fairchild's cheeks as he finished with the garbage and roughly yanked the liner from the bin, drawing the top closed. "If that's all, my lord, I'll go now."

"Leave."

Fairchild gathered up the messenger bag, the duffel, and the garbage with ease and strode from the apartment, letting the front door slam so hard the windows along the wall rattled in their casements. I couldn't wrap my head around the notion; Daniel Fairchild attracted a fair amount of attention with his mystique, and the gossip rags constantly speculated on the nature of his private life—but to be a demon? He looked nothing like the red-eyed devil next to me, his eyes normal in coloration, his movements graceful yet different from the demon's predatory efficiency, more...human.

"Otherwise, no, this simpering moron is nothing like...me."

I shook my head, clearing it. "Why was he here? What was he doing with Tara's things?"

"Why are you here, girl?"

"Does it matter? I'm allowed to be, given I actually have a key to the place! It's my sister's apartment! I want to know why—!"

"Demanding thing, aren't you?" the demon sneered, taking a step nearer, and though the cat growled low in his throat as my hands tightened in his black fur, the demon paid him no mind. "What do you think happens when someone disappears without explanation, girl? Have you a brain between those ears? Think."

"I don't know," I retorted, not giving the question much consideration at first, but when the demon refused to speak more and the silence thickened, I drew in an unsteady breath and frowned. "Somebody—somebody would report them missing, and after—what is it? Forty-eight hours?—an investigation begins?"

"Yes." He opened his arms as if to gesture at the whole of the apartment. "And if these investigators were to come here without my instructions to Danyel, what would they find? Let me tell you; they'd find all of your sister's possessions strewn about with clear indication of her intended return. They would suspect foul play, and perhaps you are aware of whom humans first interrogate in such cases?"

"Co-workers, friends...." I swallowed. "Family. I—I was the last one to see her alive. They'd suspect me. I didn't...I didn't consider that."

The demon gave a mocking round of applause, the sound echoing through the empty kitchen and hallway. "It is typical human arrogance to assume such technicalities don't matter or affect how I move forward and operate in this realm." He twisted his hand and wrist in a quick, circular gesture, a curious tick of movement I couldn't help but track. "Humans seem to believe they need only wish for something to occur and it shall be done—like magic. They're petulant children who understand nothing of the world, nothing of those who were here long before they came sauntering out of their caves, and they think the universe can be twisted to suit their needs. I must contend with authorities, with nosy family members and dead bodies, with inconsistent DNA traces and the media, videoed scandals that cannot be explained away without debunking reputations, falsifying evidence, silencing the squeaky wheels."

He drew in a heated breath and grit his teeth. "Anonymity is what keeps your world from utter bedlam. Your sister needs to disappear, and Danyel will make it happen."

I listened to his rant, holding the cat close, and knew he was right; on a subliminal level, I had thought the demon would snap his fingers and somehow reconcile everything. Between this waking nightmare and reality, I'd lost reason; nothing made sense anymore, not in this world where Tara was dead and I somehow remained, and I understood nothing of the situation I'd thrown myself into. I should have considered Tara and Rick's popularity; they would be missed, had undoubtedly already been missed, and their whereabouts would be questioned. I didn't need police showing up on my doorstep asking questions I didn't know the answers to.

"What will he say happened to her? What will he tell my parents?"

The demon shrugged, and I bristled.

"He will tell me when he's thought of what to say himself," he said, indifferent. "It matters little at the moment. He will need to come back when he's finished sulking and sweep the flat—apartment again since you've left your blood laying about." He flicked his gaze over the dark stains on my hands, then toward the unlit hall and the bathroom beyond.

How does he know that?

"If he—Fairchild—is like you and yet not like you, then what is he?"

The demon turned his attention toward the entrance to usher us both outside. How had he gotten here? How did he know where Tara lived? Had he come with Danyel? Rolling his shoulder, a series of ghoulish cracks alighted along the demon's spine as he opened the front door and afternoon sunshine poured over us both, and when I stepped closer to the threshold, he made no further mention of the cat or my bloodied hands, and nor did he step away. Instead, we stood level with one another and he met my eyes. "He is...lesser."

"Lesser how?"

"In all the ways that matter."

The demon blinked, red in his irises like the red on my hands, and I blurted out, "What's your name?" Because Danyel had a name, and the green-eyed monster who tried to kill me had a name, and I wanted to know—.

He parted his lips. A moment passed, and when I thought he'd say nothing, the demon looked away and muttered, "Darius."

The apartment door closed at our heels with a final, resounding click.