When the authorities finally let him go, Byron was exhausted. They had questioned him, one nondescript officer after another. For hours they asked the same questions in hundreds of different ways, doing their best to make him slip up and reveal something. They sensed with whatever preternatural skills bigwig lawmen developed, his story didn't add up, that he knew more about the young woman's disappearance than he let on. He had done his best to answer their questions without, as far as he could tell, doing anything to betray Janice. Finally, their frustration cracked their professional masks and they let him go. Now, unlocking the door to his house, where he felt safer than anywhere in this whole mad world, he allowed himself to cry. No matter what happened with Janice, no matter if what she said was true, or if he was just another sucker drawn in by a charismatic madwoman, the fact his life had forever been changed was not in question. He only hoped

Looming like the villain in a million slasher films, the House cast its shadow over Janice. She stood now on its front steps, holding the vial of who-knows-what in her hand. She pulled the stopper from the vial and put it to her lips before quickly pulling it away. Whatever this concoction was, it smelled awful. Though she was no expert on drugs (that was always more Julia's domain), she knew that hallucinogenic drugs were often placed in an alcohol solvent for easy ingestion, so she had expected a grainy, yeasty smell. Whatever the liquid was, it smelled nothing like alcohol or grain. It was more like rotten eggs and the lingering fragrance you got after striking a match. “You can't be serious,” Janice said to nobody in particular. She tried the front door and was not in the least bit surprised it refused to yield. The doorknob had no give at all, not even the wiggle you get when you try to open a locked door. It was as though a mere m

At some point, the demon had lit a candle, and for the first time since being brought here, Byron could see the room that had become his prison. It was a simple room, unadorned. In the House's former life, as a normal place where normal people would live, (if it had truly ever been such a thing), the room would have acted as a sort of storage space for jackets, handyman tools, or whatever other sundry things the family had collected. He stood on a small footstool, painted black. The rope around his neck was nothing special, the same sort of thing you could buy at any hardware or department store in the country. It struck him as funny that such a simple thing could be his barrier, and possibly, if he wasn't careful, his vehicle to the afterlife. “She's coming,” the Emily demon jumped in excitement. It didn't sound very concerned to Byron, but then again, he wasn't an expert in reading the emotions of demons. He

One night before all the madness started, back when Janice and her friends were looking for something, anything, to break out of the doldrums of day-to-day life, they had stumbled upon a film festival. It was being held in a shady, dirty, independent theater, one of the final 42nd Street dives that had somehow survived the New York cleanup of the early nineties. Though they had seen a handful of short films that day, one managed to somehow stick in Janice's mind all these years, though she could never find out its name. It was nearly plotless, relying on stunning, garish visuals. In the film, a group of people, dressed like gods and goddesses from mythology, participated in a party/orgy that very much took on the trappings of an occult ritual as it went on. What Janice was seeing as she carefully followed the wolf through seemingly endless hallways, reminded her very much of that nameless film. Figures would flash before her for seconds, giving h

The room beyond the door was simple; squarish and small, able to be crossed with only a handful of strides. The walls were painted eggshell white, and the paint had started to peel, just a little, at the corners. The room had probably, Janice assumed, begun its life as storage. The only things in the room were a small bed covered with hospital white sheets, slightly yellowed with age, and a small machine which filled the air with soft, rhythmic beeping. Tubes ran from the machine to the bed where they attached to the figure tucked beneath the sheets. It was Emily Diamond… the real one. ***Adara felt the atmosphere change in her small apartment, the energies swell above her ritual space. She sensed (more than saw) a figure floating overhead in the shape of a majestic grey wolf. Thank you. She mouthed the words silently, not wanting the sound of her voice to break the preternatural silence that had eng