They cut across the overgrown lawn dotted with the wispy wishes of dandelions. Max kept pace beside her, biting his thumbnail as they moved toward the door.

Vera pulled his hand from his mouth. “It’s gonna be okay.”

She had no idea if this were true, but Max slipped on an awkward grin.

The door was unlocked. Apparently, demons weren’t concerned about armed robbery, or maybe they welcomed violent chaos. Father Chuck stepped a cowboy boot in the entry, and immediately a low growl reverberated down the hall, through the living room, and onto the stoop.

Maxwell tensed beside Vera, eyes flinching. That was the sound of his mother. This creature had taken her body and her face, his father’s voice, his childhood memories, and his hugs and kisses. And it left that sound.

Vera grabbed his hand. “I got you,” she whispered.

They stepped into the house together.

The chalky scent of smoke had grown in texture over the course of a single day—cigarette, marijuana, matchbook, and campfire, now tangled together and dried on their tongues. Max coughed into a fist, trying to force out the stench—or maybe their reality.

No electrical lights were on, and all the curtains and blinds were drawn. The only glow came from the wavering flames of every votive in a knickknack and every taper on a table.

They turned in to the hall, and Vera’s chest seized. The layout, the actual physics of the home, looked warped.

Two candle wall sconces were lit, their flames starbursts, beams of gold too luminous and high, bouncing off the white ceiling in odd angles, making the space seem endless. The ivory moldings of the bathroom and bedrooms tilted left and right, zoomed in and out. Was it the smoke? Was it making her dizzy? The floor sloped downward, the gravitational pull adding to the force already reeling in Vera, but more than that, the pine boards seemed to breathe, bowing and heaving with her every step, threatening to give way.

A come-hither hiss slithered down the hall with a curled, bent finger, daring them to keep going. They did, her pulse accelerating and Max’s breath in her ear. A gust of wind rushed by, gritty with dry heat, swishing back Vera’s black shirt like a parachute. She smoothed it down. Then the front door slammed. Everyone jumped.

“You’re back,” greeted a baritone voice. “And you brought a priest. It’s not even my birthday.”

They all paused. This wasn’t hypnosis, and this wasn’t some form of “influence.” The demon speaking to them now was in complete control of this woman. It possessed her fully. Vera knew that for sure.

“I thought we should be introduced,” called the priest, his voice calm, but the hand clutching his crucifix shook with betrayal. “Lilith, I’m Father Chuck.”

“Don’t waste my time. You’re more boring than your sermons, Father. But not your frieeends. They’re fun to play with,” the voice singsonged, a chorus of guttural tones harmonized inside a human body.