"Locking lips is practically a global pastime. And this one'll get you: people pay a fee to sit in a big, darkened room as a group and watch other people's images on a screen—a larger version of the TV, where you saw baseball. One of the things those images often do is kiss."

"I think you are a harper after all, because you tell fantastic tales with great ease and skill."

"Nothing in those knowledge banks about movies?"

She frowned, but tipped her head and searched through. When her eyes widened, lit with delight, he knew she'd hit on it.

"Movies." She tested the word. "I would like to see one."

"It's a date." He heard the rumble of the approaching uptown train. They had another date to keep first.

She liked the train that flew under the earth. She liked the way people crowded inside, bumping together as they clung to metal straps. There were colorful drawings to study and read. Some spoke of magical liquid that gifted the user with shiny, sexy hair. Another advised her to practice safe sex. There was a wall map provided for lost travelers, and yet another picture that boasted its elixir could transform the skin to make it sexually attractive to others.

Kadra leaned close to Harper's ear. "Is sex the religion of your world?"

"Ah… you could say a lot of people worship it. Why are you whispering?"

"No one is speaking. Is conversation permitted?"

"Sure. It's just that most of these people don't know each other. They're strangers, so they don't have anything to say."

Kadra considered it, and finding it reasonable, she tapped the shoulder of the woman standing beside her. "I am Kadra, Slayer of Demons. My companion in this dimension is Harper Doyle. Together we hunt Sorak."

The sound Harper made was somewhere between a laugh and a moan. "Rehearsing," he said with what he hoped was a nonthreatening smile. "New play. Way, way off Broadway. Honey," Harper said to Kadra as the woman edged as far away as the press of bodies would allow, "maybe you should just talk to me."

"Making introductions is courteous."

"Yeah, well, you start chatting about demons, it tends to weird people out."

The train stopped. People poured off, people poured on. Kadra scowled and planted her feet. "As you said, how can they defend against Sorak if they are unaware of him?"

"I've thought about that. Thought about going to the cops. The National Guard." Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. "Nobody's going to believe us, and the time we'd waste trying to convince them we're not candidates for a padded cell would only give Sorak more of an advantage."

"You said there were demons in this world, that you put them in cages."

"There are plenty of them. But they're a different type than you're used to fighting. They're not another species, they're us. People come in a variety pack, Kadra. Most of them are good—at the core, they're good. But a lot of them aren't. So they prey on their own kind."