In a short period of time, my reality changed.

The impossible became possible, the unreal; real, the fantastic; common-placed. I had seen murder and deception, bore witness to the strange, inexplicable deeds committed by strange, inexplicable creatures—had shot a man in the chest and had survived a stabbing by an actual dagger. Days ago, I sat in the chair I sat in now and did nothing more than stare out the tinted windows of my glass cage thinking about dreams that had long since passed me by. I had been a jaded, depressed woman without prospects and now I—.

I couldn't rightly say what I was. Perhaps still a jaded, depressed woman without prospects, with accompanying gut wound, revenge plot, and dwindling life span. Surreality tinged normal life like sunlight through sea glass; nothing had changed, and yet everything was different, blurry and off-color. Nothing would ever be the same again.

When I woke and realized the date, the otherworldly squatter stealing space in my home had asked if I had "a job that needed attending," and if I shouldn't be there instead of at home. Having only just dislodged myself and Tara's clingy feline from my bed, I stood in the hallway—dressed in old pajamas, disheveled, with horrid morning breath—and glared at the Sin until he'd returned an unimpressed glower.

"This contract could take months. I will begin by searching for this Mitch of yours, but I've many others to hunt as well," he said to me. "If you mean not to starve in the interim, you will need to continue your employment. That is...if you can retain it." The unspoken sentiment being he doubted any employer would put up with me for long.

The bastard.

No small amount of rage spurred me through my morning ablutions and out the door, muttering curses under my breath the entire drive from Evergreen Acre's secluded suburbs to Verweald's industrial heart, at which point I took note of my surroundings and parked in the structure a block down from Imor Advances.

I sat behind my desk in the gleaming lobby and tried again and again to concentrate, to focus, and again and again, I failed. A loose cardigan and copious amounts of slightly off-color makeup hid the majority of my injuries from all but the most prying eyes, and those polite but otherwise disinterested inquiries that did come were easy to misdirect. A woman from HR whose name I couldn't recall asked if everything was all right, and I told her I'd taken a spill on the stairs the day before, covering for both my bruises and my absence. The day continued. Hours dragged by.

Crime happened. Just this morning I'd seen the remnants of yellow police tape fluttering across the avenue at Klau's headquarters, from a break-in, I assumed. Crime, violence, murder were indisputable truths of human existence, especially in a city like Verweald. I knew that, and yet....

Staring at the red indicator light for the call waiting system, I choked on the sudden urge to laugh hysterically at the sheer absurdity of it all. Tara had died, and I had a woman on line two complaining about wrinkled shipping inserts waiting to be transferred to the customer service department. Bandages pulled against my skin, bruises like brush strokes painting a horrific rendition of my life, and I had to sit here, smile, pretend, because the demon in my house told me to do so. How absolutely absurd.

The laughter soured, shifted, and I swallowed the building sob down until I could rise and cross the lobby's marble floor for the far corridor, earning a miffed look from an employee as I knocked his arm on my way into the restroom. A shuddering gasp escaped after I threw the door's lock, and it echoed in the tiled confines like the cry of some horrid, ugly beast.

Get a grip, Gaspard.

My chest heaved and tears clouded my vision, so I shut my eyes and forced air into my lungs, shoving off from the door behind me before I decided to slide down its length and collapse on the floor for a harsh, crying jag. The woman in the mirror looked harried and exhausted, and my fingers smoothed the smudged concealer and running mascara. I concentrated on the sound of water rushing out of the faucet, on the water's warmth as it rushed over my trembling fingers, and all thoughts of Tara and my guilt I shoved away before they could overcome me again.

"Idiot," I whispered as I shut off the water. My side twinged and, scowling anew, I hiked up my blouse's hem, caught the edge between my teeth, and studied the gauze strapped across my middle. Blood had soaked through the fibers again and, when I peeled back the sticky corner to peek inside, I saw that the black stitches had loosened and the nominal scabbing about the wound had rubbed off.

For such a small injury, it hurt hellaciously. Cursing, I tightened the stitches—biting down on my shirt, eyes watering, breaths issuing from my nose in ragged gasps—and when I couldn't take anymore prodding, I slapped the gauze back into place and spit out my blouse. "Stupid bastards—." My hand struck the mirror. Red splattered over the glass, but the sharp sting in my palm gave me something to concentrate on until the pain became manageable once more.

I'm standing in a work bathroom rinsing my own blood out of the sink. How much more absurd can this get?

Far more absurd, apparently, because once I finished cleaning the mess and dragged my weary self back into the dim corridor, I found I had a visitor waiting at the front desk.

"...what are you doing here?" I asked Darius as I slipped behind my partition and dropped into my squeaky chair, thankful my knees hadn't given out on the way there. The demon leaned on the upper counter's edge, dressed in his leather jacket despite the heat, dark wayfarers in place above his nose. I waited for him to say something, but when he continued to lean—loom, really—without breaking the silence, I fished the orange prescription bottle out of my purse and took two pain pills with a swig of cold, stale coffee out of my forgotten mug.

Evening waited outside Imor Advance's glass and steel structure, sitting fat and orange like a ripe fruit waiting to burst, and it slowed the endless tide of tourists and tired businessman passing along the avenue. I peeked at the demon from the corner of my eye, and though wearing such a thick, dark jacket in this intemperate weather was worth a confused second glance, he honestly looked nothing more than a normal man. Average. Boring. Faire l'imbécile, my mamé would say; Darius played the fool with startling ease.

"I found Mitch," he said without preamble. I blinked.

"You—?"

He nodded, bored, and reached over the higher counter above my desk to slip his hand into my purse, rifling through the contents. "So this is what the cavalier little mortal does; she's a receptionist."

"Secretary," I corrected without thought, frowning. "What are you doing?"

Naturally, Darius didn't answer and kept picking through my things until, like a bloodhound sniffing out prey, he unearthed one of the granola bars I stashed in the bottom for quick snacks and tore the wrapper open with his teeth. "Call yourself whatever you wish, girl. You're still the receptionist." He devoured the granola bar in two bites—how odd, does he really eat like a typical person?—and went back to hunting for another.

"You said something about Mitch," I hissed, snatching the purse away and dropping it on the floor by my feet. "Stop that."

The Sin glowered, but he did cross his arms and cease perusing my possessions and the accumulated work detritus. "I did, indeed, say something about Mitch. How wonderful; I was beginning to think you'd difficulty hearing."

I went to growl a heated reply, when the elevator chimed in the connected hall and I shut my mouth, turning my attention instead to shuffling papers and pretending I actually did work here. Darius tipped his head and watched with disinterest as several upper-level employees exited into the lobby, all dressed in their pressed suits, riding a cloud of too much cologne and musk, grunting and mumbling among one another about various issues as they made for the doors leading out onto the street. I spotted Martha tagging along with Michael Strauss, the head of advertising, and sneered.

Mr. Eoul crossed the lobby next, his head swiveling in my direction, and I wiped my expression clean. He paused, coming to a sudden stop, then turned on his leather shoes and approached the desk. Unease turned in my gut as I straightened in my seat and tried to smile, managing to bare my teeth in a grimace as the CEO—my boss—came to stand by Darius.

"Sara," he said. "Good to see you back."

"Thank you, Mr. Eoul."

"I trust everything is...well?"

"Yes, Mr. Eoul."

He shifted his grip on his briefcase and glanced at Darius, seeming unimpressed with the Sin's casual, indifferent attitude and manner of dress. "Good...though, next time you decide to take an unpaid day off, make certain you inform HR. It was irresponsible and careless not to report your absence yesterday, and repeated instances of this behavior will earn disciplinary action. Am I understood?"

My polite smile never slipped, and yet my jaw ached with the grinding force of my teeth clenching tighter and tighter against the snarl I wanted to unleash, the hate-filled screech bubbling in my chest trying to explode out my mouth like infuriated vomit. How dare he—!

I took a breath, then another, fluttering my eyelashes. "Of course, Mr. Eoul," I demurred, hoping the makeup covered the sudden angry flush in my face. "I'm terribly sorry. It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't."

The CEO gave Darius one last reproachful look over, then followed his colleagues out the revolving doors and into the hot evening swell. I relaxed my hands from where they'd balled into fists in my lap. Bastard. I turned to the Sin and—found him grinning, real pleasure lurking in the savage expression as if Darius had witnessed something he very much enjoyed. The sunglasses slipped along his straight nose, and his red eyes bore into my own, gleaming like garnets behind a shadowed veil.

"Your rage is a beautiful thing to behold," he said, flicking the used granola wrapper from the counter to the floor. "The little man better watch his step, lest he lose his head."

Exhaling, I kneaded the furrow between my brows, mitigating the oncoming migraine, and shut my eyes. Eoul had every right to be upset with a delinquent employee, though that did little to assuage my frustration and I didn't care for his demeaning speech; I'd be dead soon enough and didn't need Gregor Eoul lecturing me on attendance like some overpaid high school principal. I opened my eyes again. "Whatever," I muttered, picking up my purse. "You found Mitch. How?"

"Do you really care about the how, Sara, or would you like to simply trust me and come along?"

I came around the desk, adjusting the purse's strap on my shoulder, and met the demon on the other side. Darius didn't do anything so solicitous as offer his hand or gesture me forward; instead, he waited, wanting an answer to what I'd first assumed to be a rhetorical question, the wayfarers still low enough to reveal his eyes and the intense scrutiny which he bore me.

Trust, he said. What trust did I have for anything or anyone after Sunday night? Not much, and yet the emphasis was significant to the creature, and I pondered how often anyone trusted Darius in his long, lingering lifetime. A strange monster, standing there in the oncoming glow of sunset, painted red and orange and yellow, black bleeding from his shadow and the sharp angles of his bones, a Sin born when the world was young and my eldest ancestors still zygotes in the primordial ooze—who would give him their confidence? A fool. Only a fool would rely on a demon, right?

Trust.

Lips pressed into a firm line, I shrugged, my eyes hard, mouth dry, sweat on my palms and a timid, nascent fear of the unknown tightening my chest. Trust. "Well...shall we go, then?"

He jerked his chin in affirmation. We headed toward the same doors the rest of the Imor employees had disappeared through and the Sin slid his sunglasses back into place, but not before I saw approval glint in his odd eyes. I smiled.

How absurd.