“Now I think I will brew some more tea,” she said and moved into the kitchen, pulling down a branded Starbucks mug celebrating the city of Newark (she had purchased it ironically) and popping in an herbal tea bag, filling it with sink water.

“Most of these entities go back to Mesopotamian times,” Blackwood said. “And their sole reason for being is to harm, erode, or destroy whatever is good in the world…”

She slid the mug into the microwave and pressed the 30 SECONDS button.

“Please don’t do that,” he said.

She looked back at him. “Do what?”

“What you are doing.”

She realized he meant the microwave—as opposed to boiling water in the kettle on the stove, as he had. “It’s fast,” she said.

He emitted an unhappy exhale, not quite a sigh, not exactly a grunt, but with elements of both. “So is a beheading.”

The microwave beeped and she pulled out the hot water, stirring it. “You have to let it steep,” he said.

“Ha,” she said, returning to her chair. “Nobody has that much time.”

She noticed he was still looking at her as though she had committed an atrocity. “Do you eat the tea bag when you are done?” she asked.

“The tea bag itself is a modern convenience. A shortcut from pouring water over loose tea, brewing the beverage, and straining out the leaves. You are circumventing even that process, sacrificing the pleasure of taste for immediacy.”

She nodded, sipping the tea, perversely enjoying his contempt. “It’s good.” She sat back.

“These entities,” said Blackwood. “They respond to many names, favor certain rituals.”

“Favor?” said Odessa. “What do you mean?”

“The same entity can appear in Palo or in a Catholic exorcism,” said Blackwood, “under a different name. They cherish role-playing. Lies. Pretense. Emotion. Just as you would tune in or out of a radio station. So they get attuned to whatever they feel like at that particular time…”

“Are you a professor of religion or something?”

“Or something,” he answered.

“You’ve dealt with situations, cases, like this before.”

“Many times, too many times, in too many places. It never really ends, you see? They’re the Yin and…you could say I am the Yang.”

“You sound like a fortune cookie—how do you know the things you know?”

“Experience. You appear to be a novice agent.”

“Hardly,” she said, offended. “I’m relatively new to the Bureau.”

“Solomon was a novice once.” Blackwood glanced around her apartment as though he were reading her résumé. “One has to start somewhere, I suppose, in acquiring clients.”

“Acquiring—clients?” she said, not understanding him.

“At your Bureau. You are an agent.”

“I’m a special agent, it’s a designation. I’m not a…a representative.”

“An agent is a liaison, as I understand it. An envoy, an instrument. A representative, yes, of the Bureau of Investigation.”