"Are you here to see Dr. Ruxton?" a fairly attractive woman asked, coming up to the gate from the inside.

  "Yes, I am," Mihalis said.

  "Come with me, please," she said and looked him up and down.

  "Lead on," he replied and followed her through the gate. As soon as he got close to her, he smelled it—she was possessed. He wondered if they knew inside the offices.

  Now that he was inside the compound, he could see to the south, there was indeed a tank farm, one with a lot of compressed gases from the labels, apparently. He counted at least four each for oxygen, carbon-dioxide, and helium. Then again, it wasn't like they could depend on regular refills. The labs themselves were three buildings. The one to the north looked like it was the power plant for the whole place. The one to the south by the tank farm, which was the largest, looked almost like a warehouse. There were no windows, and only a few doors that he could see. But the roof had a lot of equipment on it, so he figured that was probably the actual lab.

  The building in the center was both the nicest and the smallest of the three. He guessed it was the administrative offices, and as they were headed that way, probably where the boss was.

  When they got to the door, the guard there looked him over.

  "I'm afraid you'll have to leave that sword and dagger here, Sir."

  Mihalis sighed and looked at him. "The sword was a gift from my mother; if you think I'm taking it off and letting some human handle it, sorry. Not happening. Besides, it's not like I can't kill you with my mind," he said, then grinned. "I will let you hold onto the dagger if that'll make you feel better. I just took it off a dead djevel, so I don't care all that much about it."

  "I'm sorry, but you can't go inside with the sword."

  "Fine, then you can tell your boss we're meeting outside, in this wonderfully fine, lovely Nevada summer, at noon, when it's nice and hot."

  He watched them as the guard looked at the girl, who looked back at him, and then they both looked at each other.

  "I better call," the guard sighed, opened up the call box by his post, and spoke to someone briefly.

  "Fine, you can go inside," the guard said, giving him a nasty look.

  He continued following the girl, who led him inside, then up a nice looking staircase. If it hadn't been for the stink of possession, he might have enjoyed the view. Then she led him back towards the front of the building and over to a door to what was obviously a corner office.

  "Dr. Ruxton, your guest is here," she said, opening the door and stepping inside.

  "Thank you, Melissa."

  She motioned for Mihalis to come inside. Stepping into the room, the first thing Mihalis noticed was the man standing there waiting for him. He was definitely of Indian descent, though his skin was perhaps a little lighter than Mihalis would have expected. He had black hair with a touch of gray at the temples, brown eyes, and fine features. He was definitely a handsome man. He was probably an inch or two shorter than Mihalis, and had an average build, from what he could tell. He was wearing an expensive pair of dark slacks and a silk shirt that was somewhere between a light gray and a light blue in color.

  The office itself was huge, probably three times the size of his dad's, and the east and south walls were mostly windows. The desk sitting catty-corner to the southeast made it clear that the occupant didn't waste time on the view. The floor had a nice, thick carpet, and the walls were paneled in a dark wood. Mihalis walked over to the man, who was standing by a coffee table that was surrounded by nice furniture.

  "Hello, I'm Mike," Mihalis said, coming up to him with a smile.

  "Dr. Ruxton," Ruxton said and extended his hand.

  "Trusting, aren't you?" Mihalis said with a smile and shook hands with him.

  "If you meant me ill, I don't think it would matter if I shook hands with you or not, now would it?"

  Mihalis nodded, still smiling. "In that case, I guess it's only fair to tell you that Melissa there is possessed."

  Dr. Ruxton immediately turned to look at Melissa and frowned angrily.

  "How did this happen?" he demanded, looking at her.

  "What? No! I'm not possessed! He's lying!"

  "Those liars told me they hadn't touched her," Dr. Ruxton said as he bent over and pressed a button on a device on the coffee table.

  "Jules! Melissa's compromised!"

  A man rushed into the room from a door Mihalis hadn't previously noticed, grabbed Melissa by the arm, and tried to drag her out of the room. Melissa of course wasn't having any of it and threw him across the room.

  "Fools! I will kill you…"

  Mihalis' sword took her head off.

  "Sorry about the blood, Dr. Ruxton. I take it you bought her from the djevels?"

  "Her fool of a husband sold her because he thought she was cheating on him. My head of security rescued her. They only had her for a few hours."

  Mihalis nodded and wiped the blade of his sword on her dress before sheathing it. Thankfully he'd gotten a clean cut, so it hadn't bled too much.

  "They probably had her possessed when they found out she was coming back here," he said, turning back to Dr. Ruxton.

  "Tell me, is there no cure for possession?"

  "Not the kind these djevels do; they eat the host's being, their mind and soul. There's nothing left. The djevel that takes them over gets most of their knowledge and memories."

  "Hmm, interesting. I didn't know that. Please, have a seat," he said and motioned to one of the chairs.

  Mihalis had all his empathy abilities running; he didn't feel any hostility or subterfuge directed towards him, so he took the seat.

  "Tell me, did you eat her?"

  "If you're asking if I consumed the essence of the djevel possessing the body when I killed it, yes, I did."

  "Fascinating. Will you evolve into something else after you've eaten enough?"

  Mihalis laughed. "No, of course not. I was born like this, and I'll continue like this. This is what I am. I'm not a djevel."

  "Yes, my men mentioned you said something about that yesterday, that you're a demon of the Earth, and that these"—he motioned to the body Jules and two others had already bagged and were removing from the room—"are not?"

  "I'd have thought their coming through the gateways from another realm would have made it clear they're not of this Earth," Mihalis said with a shrug. "They're not natural here, and as I've been led to believe, weren't natural to the place they came from, either. They're despoilers. They destroy all and consume all. To be honest, they're not even all that bright."

  "Did your mother really give you that sword?" Dr. Ruxton asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  "Yes, she did, and I'm quite fond of it. As you can see, it works quite well."

  "Interesting. If you don't mind my asking, why do you eat demons—or rather, 'djevels' as you call them—and not humans like those djevels do?"

  "First off, I can't eat you like a djevel does—no demon of this Earth can. Not sure why that is, it just is."

  "I'm not sure I follow, Michael. You're an incubus, are you not?"

  Mihalis nodded, curious where this was going.

  "Well, don't incubi feed off humans during sex?"

  "Ah! I think I see where the misunderstanding is. Okay, if I were to have sex with a human woman, I can feed off of her, and I would get a little power from her, and she'd never even know. Now I could hurt her by taking a bit more than that, or even take it all—which would kill her. However, while I would be killing her, I wouldn't be destroying her. Her soul would continue on to wherever it is human souls go.

  "Djevels, however, don't care about that other power, as they can't use it. They eat the human soul. They destroy your very being. They do the same to each other, as well, when they kill one another."

  "I fail to see the difference; dead is dead."

  "Yes, I'm told you humans argue over things like this quite a bit. Rather silly, if you ask me."

  "Still, why would you eat djevels, which apparently are hard to kill, when you can simply seduce women?"

  "Because human women don't have as much power as a djevel."

  "What if you killed them?"

  "Why would I want to do that?"

  "Why wouldn't you?"

  "Other than finding that killing a lover is distasteful, and once dead, could never feed me again?"

  "Yes, other than that."

  "Well, I suspect a lot of the other races and demons wouldn't appreciate it, then of course, if the humans were to find out, they'd take a dim view of it, and most importantly of all, of course, there's the lions."

  Mihalis almost smiled at the surprised look on Dr. Ruxton's face.

  "The lions?"

  "The lions take a dim view of anybody living off humans that way."

  "Why's that?"

  "Ask one. Good luck getting a straight answer out of them, though, their sense of humor is a bit…odd."

  "And everyone just goes along with this?"

  "Arguing with lions is pointless, and often painful. Your turn. Why are you here, Doctor? What in the world possessed you to build a lab here of all places?"

  "You would question me?" Dr. Ruxton replied a little heatedly. Mihalis could feel that he didn't care much for that.

  "Looking beyond the fact that I didn't come here to simply play twenty questions, especially when I have a pretty good idea of why your men were sent out to 'fetch' me yesterday, I'd like to point out that I saved your life today.

  "Now, I'm not going to threaten you or cajole you, or any of that kind of thing. Yes, I respect you— hard not to when I look around and see what you've built here—but don't sell me short, either, Doctor. I've been extensively schooled and tutored, and unlike humans, I have the ability to learn from people who were actually there during all of history's great, and not so great, moments. Besides," Mihalis said, turning on the charm and his charisma ability for a moment, "who else are you going to brag to?"

  "If you know why I sent my men out to get you yesterday, why did you come today? How do you know I'm not laying a trap for you?"

  "Uh-uh. Your turn," Mihalis said, smiling. "Though you're brilliant enough that I'm sure you already know my answer to that one."

  "Because you don't believe we can hurt you, you believe you're more powerful than I am, you hold us in contempt, and you find us humorous."

  "Not you; I don't hold you in contempt at all, Doctor, and honestly you're the only one here I take seriously. Why else would I have come?"

  He could feel Dr. Ruxton ruminating over that one for a few moments.

  "I find I must concede your point," Dr. Ruxton said after a minute. "Your words towards me have been neither rude nor dismissive, and you did take action to save my life, all of which shows you have assigned value to me.

  "As for why I'm here? Because I wish to experiment on the 'djevels', as you call them. They're not natural to our planet, as you pointed out, and they're different from life here in a good many ways. This is really the only place one can experiment on them, without endangering the world at large, as well as the only place where they're freely available.

  "Plus," Dr. Ruxton sighed, "those very lions of whom you speak have promised to rid the world of them, so they're a limited resource. Studying them will take decades, and if I want to learn anything before they're gone, I need to start now."

  "What are you hoping to learn from them, Doctor? Because honestly, I haven't been able to figure that out, so that definitely puts you one up on me."

  "Their evolution, how they manage to take power from people and use it to live and grow, for all that they are as dissimilar to us as a thing could be. Their strange mental powers that are such a threat to humans that they can use to easily control us. Why they turn into tar-like masses when they die…there are so many things, and trying to study their biochemistry is equal parts frustration and fascination.

  "Now, why are you here?"

  "I figured if the lions were going to fence in this great big game preserve, it'd be a waste not to make use of it—plus," Mihalis snorted, "I really do want them all dead."

  "So it's not just about the power, then?"

  "Oh, the power I get from them is nice; don't get me wrong, I enjoy it. However, why become dependent on something that will one day cease to exist? Besides, it's very much an 'us or them' kind of thing—there's still a war for survival going on, no matter how much people have tried to push it out of their minds.

  "So what have you learned so far, Doctor?"

  "Nothing major, frustratingly enough. The small ones…"

  "Gnashers."

  "Yes, those. They all look the same, but they don't seem to be. We've documented several different types, eight so far, though two of those are fairly common."

  "Can the djevels tell them apart?"

  "If they can, they haven't told us. Six of the eight turn into those Bonde things. The other two, the rarer types, one started to turn into something that looked like those rage demons, and we killed that pretty quickly. The other one showed an ability to do magic, so we killed that one off, too."

  "When you take samples from them, do the samples turn into tar as well?"

  "Yes, but not as quickly as when you kill them, for some odd reason. Also, while they have a stomach, they don't have small intestines, and only enough of a large intestine to be able to empty it."

  "How were you able to dissect one without it turning into tar?"

  Dr. Ruxton smiled. "We dropped it into liquid nitrogen. While it didn't completely stop the decay, it slowed it down more than enough for us to cut them into sections and do autopsies."

  "Smart."

  "Right now, however, our biggest obstacle is being able to keep the samples we take from them from degrading long enough to do experiments with them."

  "If you can't take the sample out of the body, why not just leave it inside the body and experiment on it there?"

  Dr. Ruxton gave him a look. "And how would we do that?"

  Mihalis shrugged. "The same way they do arthroscopic surgery? Don't they have all sorts of small tools and cameras for that?"

  "Why, I hadn't considered that," Dr. Ruxton said, suddenly looking quite thoughtful.

  "You might have to make some of your own tools, though; I don't know what sticking something with steel in it into the insides of a djevel will do. Maybe use obsidian, or something like it that can hold a sharp edge."

  "Yes, we've already tried that, and it's yielded positive results, but the samples still decayed too quickly for us to achieve anything with." Dr. Ruxton suddenly brightened. "Suddenly I don't feel so bad about not getting to dissect you!" He chuckled for a moment, and Mihalis immediately labeled him a 'Mad Scientist' in his head. An evil mad scientist, if he turned so many of his workers over to the djevels to have their souls destroyed.

  "What can I say, Doctor? I find what you're doing fascinating, and even more so as long as you're not doing it to me!" He added a grin at the end of the statement. "And with that, I guess I'll let you get back to work. Shall we meet again? Say, next week?"

  "I could send you an invitation, if I knew where you lived."

  "Oh, I don't live here; I just visit often. See you next week then, Doctor. Good luck with your experiments." Mihalis got up, gave a small bow to the doctor, and headed out the door.

  He was halfway down the stairs when Jules caught up with him.

  "Dr. Ruxton wanted to know if you'd be willing to take a few tests?"

  "Nah, I suck at tests. I'm more of a practical kind of guy," Mihalis said as they got to the bottom of the staircase. "You been working for the doc long?"

  "Since before we came here, so, yes."

  "So he must engender a certain amount of loyalty, then."

  "He pays well enough, if that's what you mean."

  "Not exactly, but I guess that answer will do."

  "I couldn't help overhearing some of the conversation in there. Do you really think you have nothing to fear from us?"

  "The things I fear aren't the things a human fears. Are there things I fear might happen here? Yes, of course there are. But I don't fear for my safety here, I fear for the safety of others. Ask yourself this question: How can it be that you're walking with a demon who is more powerful than anything else you've ever encountered in your entire life, and yet, you have no fear?" he asked as they set foot outside.

  "But if you were to step through those gates—" Mihalis pointed towards the exit from the protected laboratory area, which they were headed towards—"alone and unarmed, you'd be terrified."

  "Well, because they'd kill me."

  "And yet they, out there, fear me for that very same reason. They fear what you don't. Why is that?"

  "I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say."

  "Yeah, I guess parables aren't exactly my strong suit." He felt it as he got closer to the exit. Jules was getting excited; there was definitely a hint of subterfuge going on. He palmed the two magical grenades in his left hand. Something was definitely going to happen once he went through that gate. Calling up his offensive framework, he checked his defensive one, made sure the camera-blocking program was still up, and reinforced his shields.

  "Perhaps a small demonstration is in order," Mihalis said, picking up the speed a bit. He strode quickly out through the gate, and immediately he saw it. It was tall, probably eight feet. The skin was black as ink, blacker than that of most djevels, and at first, he thought it was covered in fur, but quickly realized there was something crawling all over the demon's skin. Or maybe it was the skin itself that crawled all over the body.

  The eyes were red, it had short horns, two on either side of the head that came up out of the forehead, and there were large fangs that slipped down past the lower lip. Its arms were longer than a man of the same size would have had, coming down to the knees, and the hands had long, wicked-looking fingers with claws at the ends, while it walked on cloven hooves.

  The demon was nude, which he found a little surprising, and it had large, pendulous breasts, as well as a large penis that swung between its legs, though there was no sign of a scrotum.

  "That's it? A raseri djevel?" Mihalis said. "I think I'm offended."

  It tilted its head back and screamed. His father had told him about them, and sure enough, it sounded like broken nails across a chalkboard times a thousand. He wondered briefly if Ruxton's windows would survive as the raseri threw itself at him.