Page 72 of Devil Inside

“A lot longer than it should’ve,” she says. “It took us years to break free.” Her face is partially buried in the blanket, these cotton dunes. She looks...happy. Content. Softened, somehow, by the sun. Her hair slips into her face.

“You stuck around this time.”

“You seem surprised,” she says with a hint of a smile. What a devilish grin. I only see half of it, her face buried in my bed, the sheets washing against her cheeks, so the corner of her lips reaches directly up toward the ceiling. A crescent-shaped vermilion moon.

“Sorry. Yeah, I guess... You just don’t strike me as the sleeping in type.”

“It’s unclear what we are,” she says. “You tired us out.”

Pillow talk with the devil. “I don’t make a habit of one-night stands with demons.”

“We don’t make a habit of waking up next to humans.”

“Who am I talking to now?”

“Who do you think?”

“I’m sorry, I...” I’m trying to find the right words. “I want to know how this all works.”

“This is as new to us as it is to you.”

“How’s that?”

“Chatting.” She rolls over and stretches, a feline sprawl. “Afterward.”

The blanket tugs away from me, dragged along with her body, exposing the slope of her spine. Her skin is flushed, warm with sleep. I can see the creases in her shoulder where the bedsheets pressed against her overnight, this slight fracture in her flesh branching outward. It reminds me of porcelain, the infinitesimal cracks spreading through the glaze.

She has more tattoos than I noticed before, so I play a game ofNaked I Spy...

I spy a tat of a briar patch and thistle. I spy a tat of a pair of seamstress shears. I spy a tat of a cherub, staring blindly at me... and I can’t help but stare back.

I swear that angel blinks at me, the ink shifting across her skin.

I press again, more persistent this time, “Who are you? Am I talking to you or your...”

“...Host?”

“Yeah.”Host. So that’s what she calls them.Us, I guess. People. Humans?

“Just me,” she says.

I can’t help but think of every goddamn exorcist movie I’ve ever watched, where a priest demands the demon name itself. They always obfuscate, sidestepping the question.

It’s all a game. These demons duck the truth from some dipshit in a clerical collar.

“Who is she? Your host?”

“A void,” she says. “There is a space within her. A chasm. I crawl in. Take a spin.”

“Sounds like you’re hot-wiring a car.”

“I’ve been known to go on the occasional joyride.”

“What would you call... this?”This, meaning last night. Meaning me.

Meaning... us.

“Good question,” she says after considering it for a spell. “No dings or dents just yet. We’ll try to leave her body in the same condition we found her in, we promise.”