The plastic garbage bag she'd laid right under the window crackled as she closed the window and began struggling out of her stinking clothes, glad she'd left the lights off. It took about ten minutes, but at the end of those ten minutes she was able to dump everything in the stackable washer and dryer in her laundry closet. I am endlessly happy that I don't have to wash my panties in a Laundromat. Never mind that I have to pay a little extra in rent. It's worth it.

The red eye of her answering machine blinked balefully. Chess pressed the button, then hobbled into the bathroom to pee. Yet another thing the demon-hunting manuals don't tell you: getting close to death makes your bladder shrink. Maybe it's something to do with electrolyte balances messing up renal function. I'll look it up in the morning. Just one more odd fact to add to my steadily growing store of trivia.

The answering machine beeped as she sat on the toilet, elbows braced on knees and head hanging. Her hair was wet and filthy. Gooseflesh stood up all over her skin, hard sharp prickles. I think I'm dealing with this rather remarkably well, all things considered.

"Chess, it's your mother. Listen, Uncle Bill is in town. Do you want to come over on Saturday for lunch and a hot game of Scrabble? I'll make a pitcher of margaritas. Also, your sister wants her Death Cab For Cutie CD back, and I'd like my Nine Inch Nails collection too. Give me a call, sweetie, I miss hearing your voice. Bye!” Mom sounded, as usual, unremittingly perky. My mother, the original Pollyanna.

Chess's older sister was the bright one in the family, having gone to law school and taken a punishing corporate-law job that would make her filthy rich before long. She was already a partner. Librarian was an honorable avocation; their grandmother had been a schoolteacher and education was highly regarded in the Barnes family. But still, Chess didn't earn nearly enough.

I wish I could get paid for hunting down demons. But really, how much do you get paid for almost being strangled and drowned in garbage water before you can consider it worth it?

Next message. “Hey Chess, it's Charlie. Come rescue me Saturday. Mom and Uncle Bill want to murder me with Scrabble. And Mom wants to borrow my Death Cab For Cutie CD. Can I borrow your Charlie Feathers box set? I'll let you hold my Johnny Cash in return. Give me a call at work tomorrow. I'll tell the secretary to put you right through.” Her sister chuckled and hung up. Chess made a face at her dirty scraped knees in the dark.

Next message. “Francesca.” A piercing childish giggle. “Frannncessssssca…"

Damn phone. It had been doing that a lot lately. Well, what do you expect when you find a clutch of priceless sorcerous books in a dusty boiler-room basement of a building built in 1906, since the damn city was too cheap to buy a new one?

Still, Chess loved the old library; its mellow wooden floors, its cranky heat, its moldering shelves and groaning ceilings. Its antique Art Deco elevators—in the twenties, apparently, the citizens of Jericho still cared about their library. She even loved her crammed little nook of an office—as head librarian, she was accorded that one luxury, the office that had been the head librarian's since 1922.

"Frannnnncessssssca…” The voice turned even sweeter, more piping. “Frrraaaannnnncesssscaaaaa…"

"You know, as a prank caller, you really suck,” she muttered. The message ended with a squawk of feedback. Her hair dripped. I think I'm still alive. God. Really dealing with this well. Chalk one up for me. I'm not in a straitjacket or clawing my own eyes out. This is fantastic.

Next message. “Hey, girl! It's Bobby."

Chess groaned into her knees. Oh, please. No.

"I didn't catch you at work today,” Robert continued pleasantly, “and you're not home now. Wow, you've gotten busy. Can you give me a call? I think I have to cancel our date on Saturday and I want to talk it over with you."

Meaning you want to gauge whether or not I feel bad about it. Meaning you want to know whether I know you've been seeing that Cuban piece of trash on the side. Meaning you want to see just how long you can string me along before I get tired of it, wondering if you can drop me first but you're unwilling to give up the sex. Christ I'm glad I made you wear a condom. “Loss of sensitivity” my ass.

Robert made a few more meaningless remarks. She covered them up with the sound of the flush and hobbled out into the living room, wondering just how many messages there were. Then again, she wasn't home in the evenings much anymore, too busy spreading out in a search pattern with a dowsing-pendulum to track down the skornac.

Another beep. “Chessie! It's Al. Didn't see you at practice today, was worried about you. Give me a call."

End of messages. Chess sighed. Al Brown was the kickboxing teacher at Grant's Gym. He was also a big cuddly giant of a man who seemed to have taken it as a personal quest in life to make Chess the best asskicker she could be. It was kind of sweet; after all, she'd picked him because he looked the meanest out of all the teachers. Unfortunately, he's so goddamn nice I feel guilty every time I sock him one. Another case of no truth in advertising.

A long, hot shower helped. Chess emerged in a pink fuzzy bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a pink towel; she carried a small jar that gleamed faintly blue, looking like Brylcreem with glitter. She plopped down on the faded rose-patterned couch and turned the TV on, unscrewing the jar lid. The smell of mint and bitter wormwood exhaled into the apartment, and she took a thick glop of the goo and pushed her robe down, applying it to the spreading red-black bruise beginning to rise to the surface of her shoulder. It tingled and went numb.

"Ah.” The sound of her voice, a hurt little cry, bounced off the wall. She sucked in a long breath, flinching as she massaged her shoulder. Oh, ouch. Ouchie.

Abbot & Costello was on the comedy channel. Chess turned it up and dabbed the ointment gingerly around her bruised eye, blinking furiously as tears trickled down her cheeks. The smell was so strong it coated the back of her throat, but the numb tingling was much better than the throbbing pain. Hallelujah, I'll no longer look like the poster child for domestic violence in the morning. There would be a little puffiness and soreness, but the shiner would be mostly gone. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

Wish I could market this stuff. It'd be worth millions. Chess stared at the television. Maybe they'd do Who's On First? one more time. The tears stopped eventually, she breathed deeply and felt her stomach settle. She'd survived her first brush with a demon and come out alive and only bruised.

She yawned, digging her toes into the rug, and barely lasted another half-hour before dragging herself to bed. That's another thing they don't tell you about demon hunting: how damn exhausted it makes you. She fell into her messy, unmade bed surrounded by its stacks of books and piled with blue and green pillows, staring at the framed print of Buster Keaton on the bedroom wall for a full thirty seconds before she passed out. The nightmares, when they came, were expected… but that didn't make them easier to handle.

The next few days went as well as could be expected, except for a slight lingering headache. The tenuous peace went on, actually, for a whole week and a half.

Chess decided to do some paperwork at the Reference desk. They were shorthanded as usual and she could keep an eye on the checkout counter while she worked. Really dealing with this well, she told herself over and over again as she initialed, collated, read, and tried to ignore the way her stomach kept flipping. There was nothing in it; she hadn't managed to eat her toast this morning. It was still sitting on her kitchen counter, precisely placed on a blue porcelain plate.