Sid stared, dumbfounded, not knowing in the slightest how to respond. Every logical part of him was looking at this…thing, and completely giving up hope as to finding any reasonable explanation for any of this. “I-I-I did?” he stammered.

  The creature grinned wider and stood slowly, impressively revealing every inch he had on Sid, which happened to be many, many inches. At least a foot. It reached a clawed hand out, darkness swirling around it. “You have my amulet.”

  Sid instinctively touched the tiny plastic butterfly that was hanging around his neck. “A-amulet? You mean this thing?”

  The creature beckoned with its claws to hand it over. “I would like it back.”

  Every part of Sid wanted to give the creature what it wanted so that it could go back to wherever it came from and he could go back to his normal life. Except one part. One tiny part that adamantly refused to give the creature anything out of spite. And that part clutched the butterfly, holding onto it for dear life. “I-I—” he began.

  Before he could stutter anything vaguely resembling words, his office door swung open, revealing a woman he recognized but didn’t see very often. “Hey there, Sid, whatcha—”

  And before she could finish her thought, a clawed hand veiled in inky darkness shot out, and with the sound of a loud, visceral crack, Ada’s eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed onto the floor before them.

  Sid looked at the limp body on the floor and then back at the creature, whose grin was gone. “What’d you do that for?!” Sid exclaimed, his tone hushed, in case anyone was still around.

  “I’m sorry,” the creature’s voice resounded, “She startled me. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Startled you? Startled you? Is…is she dead?!” Sid rushed to the body to examine it, checking for any sign of breathing or a pulse. Nothing. He couldn’t even find any obvious causes of death. “What did you do to her?”

  “Disconnected the brain stem from the spinal cord.”

  “…Why?”

  “I don’t know, she startled me!”

  Sid sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is bad. This is really bad.”

  “It’s not all bad,” the creature’s voice reverberated across Sid’s brain, exacerbating the headache that had begun to form. “It was just another measly human.”

  “No. No,” Sid disagreed, looking the eldritch terror directly in its godawful face, “She was not just another measly human, she was the Chief’s secretary. Somebody who is going to be sorely missed. Plus, I think she had a husband at home…”

  Sid’s mind started running at a million miles an hour as he tried to figure out what in the hell he was ever going to do about the situation at hand, until the demonic voice in his head began humming some kind of wistful tune, and somewhere behind him, he sensed movement. Behind him, where the body was…

  He turned around. There was Ada’s body, up and moving around, dancing all by itself as the swirling darkness oozed out of every visible orifice.

  “Wh—what are you doing?”

  “Dancing!” The voice in Sid’s head sounded at the same time the woman’s voice (or, at least, an approximation thereof) came out of the body’s mouth.

  “Would you stop? I’m trying to… Wait a minute…” Sid suddenly got an idea. A horrible, selfish, morbid idea, but an idea nonetheless, which is more than he usually had. “If it wasn’t for that…darkness…fog…thing, this might actually be great.”

  “What, the miasma?” the voice clarified. “Only you can see that. Just like you’re the only one that can see me.”

  “Really?” Sid’s lips spread into a conniving grin. “Then this is definitely going to work out. How long can you do that for?”

  “As long as I want,” the creature’s voice lingered in Sid’s ears along with the warbled voice of the woman’s body. “At least… until the body rots.”

  “That shouldn’t be for a while though, right?” Sid said more to himself than to anyone else. “This’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. It’ll give me time to think of a way to deal with this… and then everything will be fine!”

  “Everything will be fine…” the voice sang as the body continued dancing.

  “We are definitely going to have to go over some things, though, like…talking.”

  “Talking?” The body stopped dancing and faced Sid with its arms at its side in an almost puppet-like fashion. “What’s wrong with the way I talk?”

  “Well…just try not to talk for extended periods of time. We’ll say you have a cold and that’s why your voice is all…croaky like that.” Sid considered the way the body was currently standing as well. “And don’t ever just stand like that, it’s creepy.”

  “What am I supposed to do instead?”

  “I don’t know, move your arms or your head or something.”

  The body’s arms flopped around like dead fish.

  Sid sighed in exasperation. “No, I mean…put them on your hips or something, like women do.”

  The body did as was suggested, and instantly looked ten times more human, like it was going to nag him for not doing the dishes or something. “That’s better,” Sid said.

  “Now,” he continued, “The Chief is coming in in a few hours. You are his secretary, so you’re supposed to do what he says. Only answer him with ‘Yes, Chief.’ We don’t want to give away the fact that you’re actually a dead body being puppeteered by a…what are you again?”

  “I am Killgrath, Archduke of the Underworld.”

  “…Right. That. Now, let me show you how to use a typewriter.”

  As it turned out, using a typewriter was incredibly difficult when fine motor skills were less than existent. Possessing a body really was like using a puppet; it was pretty easy to make it look like it was using a typewriter, but actually producing anything from the performative action of moving the hands around the keyboard was nigh impossible. Nevertheless, the detective and the demon worked together throughout the rest of the night, learning how menial office tasks were done. Many times, Killgrath complained, although he could readily admit it was fascinating how humans could have anything at all going on for them that would require them to do these things.

  The next day, after a full night of instruction, Sid retreated back to his office to sit in his chair and rest his eyes. Killgrath (aka Ada the Chief’s secretary), who thought himself fully prepared, sat at the now-dead woman’s desk, pretended to type as he was taught, and waited.

  Promptly at 7:00 AM, the Chief, all six feet of pure masculinity, strode past Ada’s desk with a, “Morning, Ada. Were you here all night?”

  Killgrath responded with the only thing he had been permitted by Sid to say: “Yes, Chief.”

  The Chief slowed on his way to his own office, giving Ada a suspicious look. “You sick or something? You look pale.”

  “Yes Chief.” Killgrath forced a smile onto the body’s face, which did not lessen the Chief’s suspicion whatsoever.

  “I don’t want you pulling all-nighters if you’re sick, Ada. I appreciate you being here, but you don’t need to kill yourself for the department.” The Chief offered a short, ironic laugh.

  Killgrath responded with a laugh of his own, which came out of the body as more of a rapid, heaving, loud series of breaths. Apparently laughing in a borrowed body was also extremely difficult.

  All previous evidence of mirth faded quickly from the Chief’s face. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  The Chief hesitated, giving the body of his secretary another look-over, before finally saying, “You should go home. Rest up. Be at your best tomorrow. I’ll have Cooper do my dictation today.” He laughed again.

  Killgrath decided against laughing with him this time. “Yes, Chief.”

  Still laughing, the Chief entered his office and closed the door behind him.

  Killgrath got up from Ada’s desk and walked the body into Sid’s office, making sure his door was also closed before releasing the body, which collapsed to the floor with a thud.

  The sudden noise woke Sid, who opened his eyes to a familiar sight—the Chief’s secretary in a crumpled heap on the floor, and a monstrous creature towering over him.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” Sid exclaimed, launching himself out of his chair toward the body.

  “The Chief said to go home,” Killgrath’s voice resounded inside Sid’s head. “I didn’t know where that was, so I came here.”

  “Well, you can’t just leave her on the floor like that,” Sid said, lifting the body from under the arms. The first place he thought of to put the body was into the chair in which he was previously sitting. “I don’t know why I’m doing this myself when you could just move the body with your mystical demon powers.”

  “It’s funny to watch you suffer,” the voice said. Sid cast a glare at the colossal creature which showed off a sharp-toothed grin without remorse.

  “Since you’re here,” Sid began as he hoisted the body into the seat of the chair and spun it so that the back was to the door in case someone was to walk in, “I have some questions for you.”

  “And what makes you think I’ll answer them?”

  Sid remembered the plastic beaded necklace that was still around his neck. “I have your amulet. And I’m not giving it back until you answer my questions.”

  The voice inside Sid’s head sighed, annoyed, before taking a casual seat in another available chair, one on the other side of the desk from where the body was seated. “I can’t kill you since you’re the one that summoned me, so if that’s the only way to get my amulet back, ask me anything you want, I guess.”

  With this little bit of information, Sid suddenly felt far more powerful. “So you can’t kill me, huh? Any other special privileges?”

  “Wait, you didn’t know the terms of the summoning before you performed the ritual?”

  “Um…no.”

  “It’s all right there in the book.”

  “I didn’t read it.”

  “Well then how—”

  “I’m the one asking the questions here,” Sid interrupted.

  Killgrath sighed again, rubbing an exasperated clawed hand across his forehead between his ram horns. “I can’t believe I’m bound to an idiot.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who got us into this mess—wait, bound, you say? So you have to do what I tell you?”

  “More or less…with the understanding that I will get the amulet back.”

  “Right, right, the amulet.” Sid waved a hand in the air dismissively. Then he remembered the case he was on that led him to summon a demon in the first place. “So what’s with all those people that died? Eyes melted out of their sockets? That couldn’t have been you, could it?”

  Killgrath laughed evilly. “The summoning only works every hundred times. I have a cult, you know. They offer themselves as sacrifices by the hundreds until I may offer my services to them.”

  “And I just happened to be the hundredth.”

  Killgrath nodded, and Sid was suddenly extremely grateful that he was in his current predicament and still had his eyes…and his life, for that matter. “You seem very proud of this,” Sid mentioned.

  “I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I guess you would be,” Sid mused, “Prince of the Underworld and all that.”

  “Archduke,” Killgrath corrected.

  “Whatever.” Sid thought for a moment. “Well, that’s my case solved, I guess. Now we just need to figure out what the hell to do with that.” He gestured toward the chair where the body was still slumped.

  “Frame it as a suicide?” Killgrath offered nonchalantly.

  Sid looked off into the distance, thinking. “Yes…yes, I could do that. But how?”

  He glanced at his gun holsters hanging on the coat rack in the corner and got an idea. An awful, terrible idea. But one that would work.

  Probably.

  He got out the phone book he kept in his desk drawer and opened it up. Ada… What was her last name? Black…something? He scanned every name in the B’s for anyone named Ada. And…aha! Ada J. Blackburn, 44 Sycamore. Perfect. Except for the fact that there was a “Mrs.” next to her name. So she was married.

  Damn it.

  “Murder-suicide?” Killgrath offered from over Sid’s shoulder.

  Sid must have muttered under his breath without realizing. “It’ll have to be, I guess. I don’t feel good about killing another innocent human being, though.”

  “No human is really innocent,” Killgrath said.

  Sid rolled his eyes. “Okay, Edgar Allan Poe. Possess the body again, please, so we can get this over with.” He showed the creature a map of the area and pointed out where he should take the body, since Sid would have to leave a few minutes later so as to mitigate suspicion.

  Killgrath did as he was asked, walking the body downstairs. Thankfully, 44 Sycamore was only a few blocks away, which made for fewer people to see the clumsy walk of the possessed body, made worse due to the fact that rigor mortis was setting in. It was the wrong hour for such a totter to be explained away by inebriation, and therefore, it had to be over quickly.

  Killgrath eventually got to the front door of 44 Sycamore and tried the doorknob.

  Of course, it was locked.

  Key. Key. Where do humans keep keys? Killgrath thought with all his might and couldn’t come up with a solution better than standing there and waiting for Sid and his human brain to come help him.

  “Hey there, Ada!” A cheerful voice grated on Killgrath’s borrowed ears, and as he looked toward the adjacent yard to the left, he saw another human female approaching the door of the house adjacent to it, bearing a ring of keys in one hand and a purse slung across the other shoulder. “Forgot your purse?” Purse. Of course that’s where a human would keep their keys.

  Killgrath shrugged the body’s shoulders and nodded with a forced smile. At this point, he could barely move the mouth at all due to the seized muscles.

  “It’s alright,” the other woman giggled as she approached, rounding the hedge that divided the two properties. “I’ll just use the spare you gave me, and then you can repay me with mimosas sometime.”

  Killgrath had no idea what a mimosa was, but he kept the forced smile on the body’s face, simply grateful that this woman was here at exactly the right moment.

  The woman unlocked the door and opened it for him, and he responded with a nod of gratitude. But as she got close to the body, her nose crinkled in disgust. “Have you been dumpster diving or something? You smell awful. Like…like rancid meat.”

  Uh oh. The body had now been dead for almost twelve hours without preservation of any kind and had just been walking in the sun for a solid half hour. It was rotting; time was running out.

  Killgrath quickly stepped inside the house and closed the door without a word, dropped the body into a nearby living chair, and exorcised himself, pacing the floor in waiting for the detective to arrive.

  The detective did arrive in due time with a knock at the door. Killgrath didn’t understand why he would knock rather than just entering, but he quickly remembered the nosy neighbor he just dealt with and decided that Sid knew what was best in these situations. He was his reference for human behavior.

  So Killgrath possessed the body again, just to walk it to the door and answer it.

  Sid flashed his police badge. “Just a show for the neighbors. We wouldn’t want any more suspicion placed on us.” He pushed his way inside past the body, which shambled back over to the chair in which it was previously sitting and collapsed into it yet again, rigid against the seat. “Is the husband here yet?”

  “No,” replied Killgrath.

  “Damn. I wanted to get this over with quickly. I don’t want to spend more time here than I have to. Especially not hanging around a dead body.” He then had to think for a moment before coming upon a sudden realization. “He’s probably at work. And it’s…ten after eight. We’re going to have to wait a while. The neighbors are going to be suspicious if they’re as nosy as I think they are.”

  “They are quite nosy,” Killgrath confirmed.

  “Great. So. What’s a good reason for me to be here for so long?” Sid threw the question out into the open hoping that something would stick to it.

  “Perhaps… An affair?” Killgrath said with an entertained grin.

  Sid thought for a moment. “Ada would never in a million years go for a scumbag like me. But…it is the only thing that makes sense. I suppose we could go with that.” He snapped his fingers with an idea. “And that would be the motive for the murder-suicide! Killgrath, you’re a genius.”

  And so, they waited. For several hours. Sid made a tuna fish sandwich out of ingredients he found in the kitchen, and found the smell was just barely enough to wash out the stench of decaying flesh if he ate it far enough away from the living room. He also made himself coffee using the coffee machine, which fascinated Killgrath to no end. The demonic growling sounds of the boiling water delighted him and reminded him of home.

  Finally, 5 o’clock rolled around, and so did a car into the driveway. Sid got into position on the couch in the living room and waited. Killgrath stood looming in the corner of the room just to observe, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be seen no matter what, so it didn’t particularly matter where he was.

  The sound of footsteps on the porch approaching the door made Sid almost break into a sweat. He had never killed someone before, not even in the line of duty. He wasn’t sure if he could handle it.

  But he had to. For his own good.

  The door opened, and in walked the Husband. Prim and proper in appearance, wearing his work suit. A guy straight out of a magazine ad. “Honey? Are you home?” he called. “You didn’t answer my calls today…” He trailed off as he finally looked up and saw the scene before him: his wife, sitting slouched and very, very limp with eyes wide open in a chair next to a stranger on the couch, staring right at him, as though he were expecting him.

 

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