Had she been home, Christine could have told the demon to avoid using the sandwich grill, as her now-deceased cat had chewed through the insulation of the cord. She had a mind to fix it – the cord, not the cat, which was decidedly beyond patching up with electrical tape – but as usual she had left the task for a more opportune time, having understandably failed to anticipate that her apartment would be invaded by a being from another plane with a hankering for grilled cheese.

But the demon had taken great care to ensure that Christine, the only person who knew the dangers of the frayed cord, was not at home at the time of the sandwich-making, and therefore was not around to warn him, nor even to ask him why he was in her kitchen making a grilled cheese sandwich in the first place.

It occurs to me that I may have made it sound as if the demon broke into Christine’s condo specifically in order to make a grilled cheese sandwich, which is not at all the case. He broke in with the singular goal of vandalizing her condo;[3] the sandwich-making was what is commonly known as a “crime of opportunity.”

Here is what happened:

Once he was satisfied that Christine would be out for some time, the demon, who went by the name Nisroc, used a very small amount of interplanar energy to line up the tumblers in the lock on Christine’s front door. He then thought better of this, having considered the fact that vandals tended not to be expert lock pickers. It would make a much more convincing crime scene if the door had been forced open. So, having relocked the door, Nisroc backed up a few feet into the hall and then rammed his shoulder into the door.

This was a surprisingly effective maneuver; unfortunately the effect was primarily to cause a great deal of pain to radiate from Nisroc’s shoulder to the rest of his wiry, five-foot-two frame. Nisroc then miraculously re-unlocked the door, rationalizing that there must be at least one vandal out there who was also a disgruntled former locksmith.

Nisroc walked into the apartment and began systematically tossing items – candle holders, paperback books, Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons – from shelves and end tables onto the floor. He had never vandalized anything before, but he figured that disrupting the condo’s organizational system was a good start. He realized, though, after getting rather far along in this task, that Christine’s condo had no organizational system. In fact, it seemed to him that he had rather improved things by clearing several shelves and end tables of random detritus.

This was a demoralizing setback to Nisroc, who didn’t particularly want to be vandalizing a condo in Glendale in the first place. He had recently converted to demonhood after a long and reasonably successful career as a courier angel, and he had protested that the commission of petty crimes was beneath him. His new superiors had insisted, however, that he prove himself with a simple task before advancing to higher functions. And now he was in danger of screwing it up.