She's already taken off her clothes, standing completely naked in front of me—unabashedly so. She's holding two dresses in her hands, one blue, one purple, regarding them with her lips pursed.

"It's very hard to say," she adds absentmindedly. "You can bait them, but usually they are the first to make contact. It also depends on the level of awareness they have. An old spirit like Olive would be easier to goad into showing herself to us—if she weren't demon food, of course."

"Not a newer one?"

"Those are the most unpredictable. I pity those teams who got assigned to a fresh soul." She shakes her head.

"Your brother mentioned mid-level demon. What's that?"

Thea turns slightly toward me.

"Demons have hierarchies too. A mid-level demon means that it's sentient and often cunning in how it lures its victims. It could be why people have been seeing Olive's ghost."

"You mean he might have been masquerading as her?"

She nods.

"At this level, however, they are still monsters. The higher up the ladder you go, though, the more humanoid they look. They also don't get their hands dirty like this. They have their army of minions to do their bidding."

"Do they also possess people?" I ask, thinking of those horror exorcist movies I would watch with Nikki.

"The low-level ones. They have no corporeal form, so to speak, so the only way they can consume a soul is from within," she explains.

"So how do exorcisms work then? Because there are a lot of stories about that... Also, how do Christianity and God and the Bible fit into all of this? How do any religions fit into this?"

Her lips curl up.

"It's the intention that matters. Your Christian priests are no different from Buddhist priests or any other priests—they all pray for the good of the soul. The legend goes that eons ago, the Primordial gods created mortals in their image as an experiment—or, if I'm honest, as toys. But after mortals were created, the gods saw that mortal souls, created from the purest source of energy, were actually immortal. And soon, these souls developed their own free will, thinking themselves omnipotent. Not wanting their toys to turn against them, the gods combined their forces and wove into each soul nine threads of fate—controlled by the Gods of Fate. This way, they regained control over that mortality, and the Gods of Fate were able to sever the threads whenever they wished. Naturally, the soul would survive to be reincarnated at a later date, but without memories or knowledge of the past, thus making it impossible for them to ever rebel."

Thea pauses, taking a big gulp of air.