“Oh my god! Alex! What happened to your face?”

I sat beside DiDi and she cupped my face in her hands. I wondered if it was as heavy as it felt. There was a weight inside of me from carrying secrets that I couldn’t tell DiDi.

“It’s no big deal, Daria.” I said and bit the inside of my cheek, my fingers drumming uncomfortably on my legs.

If I were to leave with Jezebel, I would be leaving DiDi. Maybe forever.

Her cheeks flushed and she flinched away from me.

“Daria?” She spoke the word like it disgusted her. “You never call me Daria- Alex, what's wrong? Oh, god- did you fight with Dax again? Alex, you shouldn’t have!” Perhaps it would be best if that was what she thought. She could never possibly believe what I had to tell her. A Golem? A demon? I still barely believed it myself.

“It's nothing, really.” I promised. But my voice was tired, scratched, heavy. She could see right through me, as she always could.

“Alex, this isn’t okay! You shouldn’t be getting into so many fights! Did Aver do this? Maybe I should try and talk to her- maybe that would help. Oh, does it hurt bad? Alex do you want-”

I wasn’t sure if kissing her would be the right thing to do. DiDi and I had never kissed at school before. Even my dad didn’t know. . .

Her lips softened under mine and let me melt into her- scared to let go.

I wish she’d kissed me longer- but the bell rang and I stupidly realized that I had somewhere to go to. I pulled away from her in pain. Not the pain of my eye, but the pain of goodbye.

“Alex, I. . .” Her face was flushed red.

I’m sorry DiDi. I’m sorry I have to go. And I’m sorry I can’t tell you where. I’m sorry I can’t take you with me. I’m sorry I kissed you and I’m sorry I haven't kissed you enough. I know that I’ll come back for you. You know that too. I just really need to go. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

“I need to go. Goodbye, DiDi.”

I couldn’t stay there anymore; I couldn’t look at her. If I’m being honest, if I had looked into her eyes, I probably wouldn't have gone. I would have taken the risk of the Golems and Ghouls and Spirits and crazy priests. I would have skipped class and snuck off with her somewhere. I would have kissed her again and again. . .

But then I would have put her in danger. Then I wouldn’t have gotten the answers that I needed. Every step I took away from her felt heavier on my heart. I felt so choked, so angry, that I thought I might tear up.

I didn’t.

Jezebel was waiting outside, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I need proof.” I said immediately, pulling my hoodie up and my jacket tighter around my body.

“You want me to go all red again.” she grinned and pushed herself off of the wall, beginning to walk down the quiet hallway at a quick speed.

I followed, not exchanging her smile.

“No, I need proof that you’ve spoken to my dad.” I tried to catch her eyes, so that I could give her one of those ‘I mean business’ looks, but she was too busy looking everywhere other than me.

“Look. . .” She paused hesitantly, my eyes glued to her, searching for some sort of proof or plot- hole.

I was leaving DiDi. My best friend. Maybe even more than that. If I was forced to leave her without an explanation, I at least wanted to be sure that dad really knew.

“Jezebel.” I took a warning step closer to her and she sighed and began to search her pockets.

“Here.” She said at last as she handed me a little CD.

There was a picture of Frank Sinatra on the cover, smiling as if someone had shared a not so funny joke with him and he was trying to be polite.

I took the CD from her slowly and opened the box. And there it was; the little ‘From Gregor, to Lily’ inscription scribbled on the bottom corner in bulky, uneven handwriting.

“We usually only give the sentimental things once we get you to Paradiss so that you don’t feel the sudden urge to stay where you aren’t safe.” Jezebel explained, beginning to walk again.

I clamped the box shut and shoved it into my pockets, along with my hands.

“I’d also hate to see you start to cry, Blondy.” She snickered.

“Don’t worry; we don’t cry in my family. Listen. . . did my dad, um, did he say anything? About me? When you… saw him?” I could almost picture the scene. My dad, in his police uniform, sitting on the couch and trying to deflect the sas of this sarcastic demon- child. I had a feeling that even though Jezebel was clearly against everything father stood for when it came to her personality, he would rather like her. Dad likes tough people, and the swords and bruises make Jezebel look tough. My bruise just makes me look like an idiot who got punched in the face.

Jezebel searched through her brain as she led the way to the school gate. There was a guard there, I noticed. She noticed him too and hissed some slur in a different language under her breath, flattening her back against the wall. I did the same, using the shadow of building 2A to help the round man in the overly tight blue uniform miss me as his eyes scanned the school lazily.

“Well,” Jezebel said, signaling for me to follow her to the school’s unkept, mess of bushes that guarded the gate (probably better than the guard himself, because they had thorns and all he had was a burrito).

“He told me that. . . he wished you good luck.” She squatted down and pushed aside some bushes, crawling in between them like a rabbit amongst heads of lettuce; ignoring them and trying to get to the carrots on the far end of the garden.

“Of course he did. My mother’s a demon, I’m a half demon, I’m leaving forever and he said ‘good luck.’”

The bushes were thorny and I felt bits of wood piercing through my jeans and scraping my skin, but we were now completely out of sight, sheltered by a roof of cobwebs and thick dark leaves.

Jezebel pulled the two little oval magnets from her pocket, yanking them apart and allowing them to flicker into their glowing forms. She grinned a little when I jumped back.

“Hey,” she said. She was still smiling, but I felt a tang of regret in her tone. “You should be thankful you got a ‘good luck’. My mom didn’t even give me a ‘Luck’.”

“But didn’t he say anything else? At all?” I investigated, truly hoping that my dad was a little more creative than that.

“No. And he certainly didn’t tell me that he didn’t tell you about your mom. Wouldn’t have killed him to mention it.”

I didn’t understand how she could crawl on the nasty mud with such ease. I felt gross with cobwebs tangling in my hair and dirt nesting under my nails.

But she seemed all but comfortable, scuffling forward on her knees and using her knives like hiking sticks, lodging them in the ground to help her balance without having to actually touch the mud.

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked. There was a gate behind the bushes; what was she planning to do? Cut our way out?

“To Narnia.” she said. “Where do you think? We’re going to the gate.”

The gate was a web of tangled metal hairs that created diamond shaped holes for kids to poke their fingers through and taste a little bit of the outside freedom on the tips of their nails.

Jezebel pushed me back a little and, before I could be offended, she raised her knives and cut a swift line across the gate. So quickly, I barely saw her do it. Then another slice, and another.

“Step back.” She advised.

Step? More like half crawl- half barrel roll.

She scooted back a little as well, gathered some momentum and kicked the square shape she had cut from the gate down with the heel of her foot.

“Are you crazy?!” I whispered, crawling out after her.

“I thought we already established that I’m not crazy but that I’m not sure about you yet.”

She closed her knives and put them away. Quickly, she pulled me out by the hand and (letting go of me as soon as I was out and therefore scraping my shoulder from the rough cuts of the gate) ran aside.

I braced my eyes from the hot sun and followed after her jog, tripping over my feet.

She ran for a few seconds, looking around, before stopping behind the side of the building, where the shadows hid us from the road.

She relaxed her shoulders and sighed deeply, leaning her back against the cool wall.

“People are going to be looking for you.” she said, brushing dirt from her jeans and the leaves from out of her hair.

“You mean people are going to be looking for us.” I corrected.

“Why would anyone look for me?”

“Because you also go to this school and when you don’t show up to class someone’s gonna get suspicious.”

She looked up at me like I was an idiot.

“Ahh. Yes. I don’t actually attend High School. Let alone this dump. I just came here to pick you up.”

“What do you mean ‘you don’t attend high school’? Where the heck do you attend then?”

“Nowhere that you would know. If your dad had told you some stuff that should have been said, maybe you would recognise the name Paradiss. But clearly that word means nothing to you. So just follow me and keep silent, okay?”

I gave her a sour look and then nodded my head. I had the involuntary reaction to move my hand up to my black eye, as to make sure that she doesn't punch me again, but I suppressed it with great effort so that I wouldn’t look like a wuss.

Jezebel looked around carefully.

“Alright,” she whispered now. “Pull your hoodie over your head so no one sees that little signature I left on your face. Good. Now, follow me. We’re gonna keep close to the walls, behind the shadows, and make our way to the beach unseen. If someone sees us, the dangers can range from us getting caught by the police to us getting caught by. . . something worse.” I didn’t want to ask what worse things we could get caught by. I was still a little shaken by the massive- Juggernaut- clay man- Golem- monster dude.

So I pulled my hoodie over my head and followed after her.

Jezebel walked close to the walls, just as she promised, deep into the shadows. It was a little scary how good she was at that; at disappearing. The moment she heard the slightest murmur of a voice, she would melt into the shadows, absorbed by the darkness; just another part of the street.

Then I would have to wait until I felt her tug on my arm and hiss “Hurry up already, Blondy!” in order to find her again, because my eyes weren’t fit to see someone so well disguised.

We had been walking for a while by then; maybe thirty minutes? And she had refused to answer almost any of my questions.

Who's my mother? Can I turn red, too? Where are we going? Yes I understand that we’re going to Paradiss, but where the heck even is that? And how do we get there?

But to every question, the little Led Zeppelin girl had the same answer. “They’ll tell you when we arrive.”

Who cares? I’d honestly rather not know, I lied to myself.

I wondered what period it must have been by then at school. DiDi must have been in class, listening avidly, taking notes. Maybe write my name in a heart at the corner of her notebook. . .

I felt the skin grow hot on my face and, evidently, Jezebel felt it too. “Who was that DiDi girl you were talking about?” She asked me with a wink that made the scar on her nose twist to the right slightly.

“None of your business.”

“Oh, come on! Who was she? Did you kiss her?” She made a kissing motion with her lips and hugged herself as though she was kissing someone.

“Shut up.”

She sighed. “You’re no fun.”

The walk was rather quiet the rest of the way.

L.A. county has a nice feel to it in the late summer; the sun was sending down waves of golden heat, diluted by the soft, ghost of a wind that ruffles your hair but doesn't blow off your hoodie. The sky was clear of any clouds; a fierce baby blue frosted ceiling to the world.

And I recognised the walk to the beach. I didn’t visit Redondo beach often because I didn’t go many places without DiDi after school and I could never get her wheelchair over the sand.

But Jezebel was enjoying herself quite a bit. She moved like those of a stream of water; fluid (and loud), skipping over the rocks and yanking me into the shadows besides her every time someone saw us, right before they had the chance to give a second look.

She looked much more comfortable than I had expected, giving the way that I was feeling (which I’m not even going to describe; I assume you can imagine since I’d just my (girl?) friend in front of other people for the first time, and right beforehand I found out I was a half demon and my mother was a demon, and I saw a girl controlling water and fighting a Golem. I think it shouldn’t be too difficult to relate to that, right?)

Jezebel relaxed by the time we had reached the beach, because it was the end of school by then, meaning that us being on the beach wouldn’t look like a few kids who ran away from class.

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She stripped off her shoes and socks and sank her toes slowly into the hot, golden sand with her eyes closed. She gave a tired, half- conscious smile as the little grains of salt crawled between the fingers of her feet and warmed her up to her soul. The metallic brackets of her braces reflected the light of the lazy sun, slowly drooling down from the sky.

“Come on. We’re almost there.”

There were not many people around. In fact, I couldn’t see anyone along the length of the beach that was anywhere close to us other than a frail elderly couple walking their dog a good distance away.

Jezebel skidded along the oceanside, her feet sinking again and again into the foamy tips of the water. She would stop occasionally (to my great annoyance) and give the air a soft sniff or too. I don’t much like the smell of the ocean and she herself smelled (quite strongly) of rainwater, which was weird since it hadn’t rained in L.A. in months.

“Now can you please tell me where we’re going?” I whined, hoping that some conversation might help me take my mind off of DiDi and my dad and me being a half- demon.

“You see that little cottage over there?” She pointed her finger to the long bridge that stood wobbling over the waters. Underneath it, right where the sand ended and the ocean began, there was a little white cottage, hiding in its shadows.

“Yeah.”

“Good. If you didn’t see it then that would have meant that I had made a terrible mistake; you wouldn’t be a demon and I’d have to kill you probably. But no worries. Anyways, that’s the stairway.”

“The stairway?”

“Yup; the stairway. Takes us right to the front door of Paradiss; Semi- Demon Hotel and Living Spaces. I guess I should explain a few things before we get there-” She swatted hairs from her face.

“-We’re about to climb the- um- how should I put this lightly?- the sky. We’re about to climb the sky.”

She looked at me, waiting to see my reaction. But I wasn’t planning on giving her the pleasure, so I just rolled my eyes, as if to say; “Yeah. Whatever. I’ve done wilder things before” (the fact that they’ve all happened today doesn't make a difference).

“When we get to Paradiss,” She continued, shrugging my reaction off. “You will get a few days to kind of get used to the new order of things- living in heaven and all that. You’ll get all of your questions answered as well. Then you’ll get tested.”

“Tested?”

“Yes; to find out who your demonic parent is.”

“Sure. Makes total sense. Can’t believe I didn’t just guess that.” Jezebel walked heavily down a little slope in the sand and reached the cottage, standing in front of it with her feet planted in the floor and her hands on her hips.

The cottage was made of wood and painted with a few coats of rustic white; the kind that allows some of the wood’s natural pigment to come through and through which you can see the wood’s grain.

The cottage had a slight dome-ish shape, with a huge circle cut out from the top of the curved wood.

“Come on in.” Jezebel turned the little white door handle and pressed her full body weight into the door. It gave a loud creek, like it was about to snap in half, but then it swung open and Jezebel stumbled in, signaling for me to follow.

“Anyways,” she said, closing the door behind me. The moment the door was closed, that same wave of heat from before hit me and then that same familiar feeling of terror a person can only feel when the girl in front of them suddenly becomes red and grows horns and a tail. I tried not to react to the sudden change in her looks, attempting desperately to hold my fear deep inside, so that I wouldn’t come off as a wuss.

“One of two things can happen after you get tested; well, to begin with, you can get chosen as a Finder, like me. Your job will involve training profusely; combat, weapons, powers. You know. Then you’ll get sent to follow the signals created by the new young semi- demons and bring them, just like I am doing to you, to a safe haven and a place where their life isn’t at constant risk.”

I looked around a little. The room was intimate and cramped, too tight for true comfort. There was no furniture other than a bench against the wall and a little white coffee table.

There was a door to my left that stood slightly ajar, through which I saw what seemed to be a bedroom with a bathroom.

There was a spiraling staircase twisting right in the center of the room and exiting out of the bright, airy hole in the center of the roof. But the staircase ended right where the hole began; how we were supposed to ‘climb into the sky’ with a staircase that small was beyond me.

“What's the other thing that can happen?” I asked. “If I don’t get chosen as a “Finder”, I mean.” I ran my fingers gently over the metal railing of the stairs as I climbed after Jezebel. It was coated with a rough layer of white that felt bumpy against the tips of my fingers, like braille.

“The other option is that you get sent to the actual heaven. I mean, Paradiss is in heaven, but we can’t leave the hotel. If you don’t get chosen as a Finder, you get sent away to a little semi- demon town where you get to spend all the rest of your days (and perhaps after the rest of your days end as well) in utter bliss and complete comfort. Most people get chosen for that route. It's supposed to be amazing; you get to live in actual heaven and no one will ever want to hurt you again.”

“That just sounds like Paradiss.”

“No. In Paradiss you are protected, sure, but there are still things after you, waiting for you to take a step back into the human world so that they can rip you apart and feast on your flesh and drink your blood from your cracked skull like a goblet.”

I gulped. “Like the Golem?”

“Oh, much, much worse than the Golem, my friend.” She said with a short laugh.

We were officially above the roof and it was one of the most magnificent things I had even seen before. The stairs were. . . not really there; they only formed under each one of our steps, spiraling onward and onward. It felt like I was flying, looking down at the tiny beach below me. And the people who walked by didn’t even see us. It was like they were just pretending that there weren’t a few kids walking on invisible stairs in the middle of the sky.

The breeze was amazing, too. Jezebel kept stopping to smell it, her scar scrunching up as she wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air.

“What do the semi- demons who go away do? I mean; what happens to them?” I looked over at the afternoon sun’s pounding reflection over the green waves, using the wind (which was stronger up here) to help blow away the clay and leaves from my clothes.

Jezebel thought for a moment. There was a satisfying glimmer gliding over her horns and bouncing off of them childishly.

“I. . . I don’t know, actually.” Jezebel said simply, with a soft shrug.

Her night colored hair was tossed around, slapping her face and getting tangled and knotted, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“It’s a very important ritual and they don’t share that information with us. Once the semi- demons go, though, they are so happy that they never want to go back. I mean, imagine; heaven. And of course Paradiss is in heaven, but that's not the same.”

We climbed on.

In the far distance, I saw something peculiar. From lower below, it had looked like a cloud to me, but the higher we climbed, the more solid it seemed.

It was kind of like one of those clouds from cartoons; completely white and fluffy. It was dense and yet somehow still managed to have an airy looking texture.

“That's where we’re going.” Jezebel followed my gaze. “That’s my home. Soon It'll be yours, too.”

“What about all of my stuff?”

“What ‘stuff’?”

“All of my belongings.”

“Oh, yeah. You won't need them up there. Your dad gave you the CD and that's the only thing that's coming with you. We’ll provide everything else. By the way; why Sinatra of all musicians?”

The wind glided over my skin, rustling my hair and guiding my face away from her. I sighed and my breath carried out over my head and away behind me.

“My dad always said it was my mother's favorite. It was pretty much the only thing my dad had ever told me of her. Maybe the fact that she’s a demon just kind of escaped his mind.”

Jezebel scoffed. There were still leaves sewn into her hair and dirt over her hands and knees. She brushed through her tangled mane with her fingers, caught a small leaf, and held it between two of her fingers. Then she let it go and trailed it with her eyes as it spiraled up through the air and away.

“Not much of a Sinatra gal myself.” she admitted, taking another step forward as the stairs continued to reveal themselves at her feet and disappear behind her. “I like rock. I mean, sometimes I like other things too, but nothing too soft. And it has to be from at least the 60s all the way up to the early 90s.”

She noticed me looking at her Led Zeppelin shirt and gave me a proud smile.

“Zeppelin is my dad’s favorite. I got lucky with a really cool demon- dad. Not many demons do this, but he tried to always be in my life. That doesn't happen usually. For example, unlike everyone else, I never had to be tested for my demonic heritage. My dad showed up at my house about once a year and when I was six, he just gave me my K̄etos knives himself. He's a fun guy- not so much a man of responsibility though, given he gave a tiny child two knives.” Jezebel cracked her knuckles as she spoke. Not in the intimidating way- but just out of habit. The noise made my skin crawl.

“The K̄etos knives have a music feature, as you’ve surely noticed.” Her tail flicked out behind her in what I could only have assumed to be pride, and her glistening red hands touched her pocket where she kept the little oval magnets.

“They were stocked with all of dad’s favorite songs, so real quickly I knew how to sing along to all sorts of crazy old tunes.”

I wondered If I would even understand the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I figured I might as well just ask and see.

“Who is your dad? I mean, would I know him or something?”

She pulled up her shoulders and gave a small, proud head jerk. She even gave me a ‘wait ‘till you hear this’ smile.

“My dad,” she said, building the tension, “is Leviathan.”

There was a moment of silence as I tried to recall if I had ever heard that name before in my life even once. I hadn’t. So I just kind of shrugged at her with a blank expression. The blank expression annoyed her.

“I don’t think you heard me; my father is the great demon Leviathan.” She said it slowly, like she was hoping that it would sink in better that way and I would go ‘ohhh. Leviathan! Of course I know that guy! I saw him at yoga just last week! Classic Leviathan.’

I gave her another helpless shrug.

“Jeez- LE-VI- A-THAN- didn’t you hear? Wow. What do they even teach you in human school?”

I curled my lips at her. “We learn actually important stuff, like Chemistry and English and Algebra!” I spat back defensively.

I was shocked when she dared give me an over exaggerated fake yawn. “BO- RING. In Paradiss, I study Calculus, Physics, Latin, Mythology, and Demonology.”

I nodded my head mockingly, but felt kind of stupid inside.

“Pfft. Who is Leviathan anyways?” I asked.

“Oh, my dad is super cool- you have no idea. Dad is a Jewish demon (mom wouldn’t have fallen for him otherwise) and he’s a sea demon- well, he’s the sea demon. That's why I did those lame things with the water.”

The things she did with the water looked anything but lame to me, but she quieted down in embarrassment, brushing loose hairs behind her ears. The horns shrunk back into her skull and the tail was twisted thin until it was gone- the red color of her skin smeared away along with it. The wave of heat that had throbbed from her body was gone now as well, leaving me feeling a little cold.

I thought over all she had explained to me momentarily, letting her words sort of marinate as I looked towards the big cloud we were steadily approaching.

“Is he. . . bad?”

That was my fear. That was what bothered me most. If our parents are demons, are they bad? And if so, would that. . . would that make us bad too?

Jezebel gave me a disgusted sort of look. “No. And frankly, that's a little racist of you to assume. Demons aren’t bad, Blondy, they’re just doing their jobs; punish the humans that misbehave. Most of them aren’t ‘creatures of evil’ as everyone will have you believe, and even though they enjoy what they do to a certain extent, it's not like they crave human flesh or whatever. It's just their job; the reason for their existence, you know? You can think of it like. . . ah, like an executioner; they don’t necessarily enjoy killing people, but those people deserve it (most of the time) and someone has to get the job done.”

Her words gave me such relief that I almost sighed. I was scared of being evil. I mean, sure, I hadn’t always been the best at getting out of fights, and I’m rather quick to anger and even quicker to making enemies, but I thought that my good intentions had always redeemed me. Jezebel’s explanation gave me some comfort.

“We, on the other hand. . .” Oh, oh. There was another hand. “We need some guidance. . . we tend to sometimes do bad things. . . for no reason.”

Aaaand there goes my relief.

“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously. A few more minutes and we’ll reach the cloud.

“Well. . .” Jezebel seemed to struggle to find the words. There was a clearly uncomfortable look flashed over her face, but I wasn’t going to let this go; I needed to understand.

“You see,” it was like her tongue was metallic and the roof of her mouth was magnetic and she had to pause between each word to pull the two apart.

“Semi- demons aren’t really supposed to exist. I mean, okay, so. . . I know I said demons aren’t bad, but there is evil inside them. Obviously, they need something to drive them to torture human souls. So. . . they have evil inside them, but they only have it for one reason- I mean; there is a purpose for it. A place for them to direct it.”

“Where are you going with this?”

We were getting closer and closer to the cloud and I had the feeling that once we arrived, I wouldn’t have much time to ask questions. I need the answers now and then; I needed the comfort of the good news or the acceptance of the bad ones.

“I guess what I am trying to explain is that we have the same evil in us as our parents, except that we don’t have anything to do with it.” Jezebel explained tentatively. “So instead of being evil towards villainous human souls. . . we are evil towards everybody.”

I grimaced and froze. I hadn’t had time to live yet and I was already personally marked in the universe’s record book as a felon? I couldn’t even legally drink, and yet I was already hated by the entire human race?

“Come on, Alex.” Jezebel gave my sleeve a tug. I didn’t move.

“Ughhh. Don’t worry about it! Everyone gets a little scared when they hear this- but that's what Paradiss is for! It's a place that protects us from the monsters that want us and teach us to. . . teach us to be good.” She looked me over hesitantly and then looked down at her hands, picking her nails nonchalantly.

“Good boy.” Jezebel patted my shoulder when I finally took another step.

Now that we stood on the entrance of the cloud, it seemed even less like a cloud than it had before. It was more like an illusion of sorts, because the thing looked so fluffy and soft, but was completely solid and hard under our feet. It had the look of a regular ball of evaporated water, but the consistency of concrete, the size of a small country (Jezebel said).

I touched a floating chunk of cloud, timidly, smiling because it was so bizarre to see something soft but touch something solid.

Jezebel and I stood in front of the door. I was expecting to see a big, fancy golden gate with a bunch of naked babies with wings, but instead we saw one of those hotel spinning doors, attached to a wall made of marble, taking up the whole sky.

WELCOME TO PARADISS OF THE GUARDED ONES AND ANGELS. WHO COMES HERE AND IN WHAT WAY MAY I ASSIST YOU?

The voice startled me completely and I lost balance. It was strangely metallic, I thought as I fell backwards peacefully.

Before my head could shatter on the corner of the invisible stairs, Jezebel reached out a thin arm and yanked me back onto my feet.

“Hi.” she said, looking at the gate and not minding my fall at all. “It’s me; Jezebel Murphy, daughter of Leviathan. And I got the newbie; Alex Renard.” she looked so calm about this; hands in her jean pockets and back slouched.

I wiped a bead of cold sweat from my brow.

JEZEBEL MURPHY; PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF IF YOU COULD BE EVER SO KIND.

It was strange; the voice sounded robotic and yet still. . . alive. And why did it talk like that? Like the way I talk to my dad when I want something that I know he won't give me. It was almost as if a real person was talking to us then and there. But it didn’t really sound quite human either.

“Oh, yeah.” Jezebel pulled out her knives and let them flicker into their jagged, neon selves.

The longer I looked at Jezebel holding the knives, the more natural they seemed in her hands. They really fit her.

JEZEBEL MURPHY DAUGHTER OF LEVIATHAN, YOU HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED; THANK YOU SOOO MUCH. I REALLY APPRECIATE IT.

Then the voice changed completely, moving from being posh and robotic to all of the sudden sounding fun and fluent.

HEY, GIRL, HEEEEY! SOOO GLAD MADE IT BACK SAFELY. ANY COMPLECTIONS ON THE WAY, MY SWEET LITTLE APPLE PEEL? HMM? NO? GOOD, BABY, GOOD. WHOS THE NEW SEMI- DEMON YOU BROUGHT?

Jezebel looked so uncomfortable that all of the horrible information I had received in the past few hours was almost completely forgotten and I had to physically hold in a giggle.

Clearly, whoever was speaking was not a human and was probably not a demon either. I had a feeling it was some sort of computerized machine that was programmed to talk in a way that made people feel comfortable. It was doing pretty much the exact opposite for Jezebel.

She cleared her throat. “Thats-”

“I’m Alex. Alex Renard. I have no idea what is happening or who I’m talking to and I’m just very confused.”

GREAT! IDENTIFICATION.

The voice suddenly became robotic again, like someone had a switch and was flipping it back and forth as the voice was directed from Jezebel to me.

“Sorry,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck uncomfortably. “I don’t have the cool knives that- hey! Jezebel, what are you doing?!”

She pulled my hoodie down and, with her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration, was pulling on my head forcefully, hurting my neck.

“Work with me for a second.” She strained, placing her arm over my neck and giving me one final, violent pull.

“Ow!” hasn’t she hurt me enough already?

There was a sudden ticking sound in the air, like the clicking of a keyboard, and then a quick flash that blinded me nearly completely.

“What the-” I began, but the non- human voice cut me off.

IDENTIFICATION SUCCESSFUL. It spoke robotically and then immediately changed; OKAY BOO BOO. YOUR HORNS HAVE BEEN FOUND; YASSS.

“Horns?! What horns-?”

WELCOME TO PARADISS, MY SWEET EGGPLANT CHICKENS! MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE NEWLY INSTALLED SNACK BARS IN THE LOBBY!

Once again it changed and was robotic and even deep. It sounded a little scary for a moment as it said; ENJOY YOUR TIME/ LIFE IN PARADISS. THE ONLY PLACE WHERE YOU WOULD EVER BE SAFE.

There was an obnoxious ‘plock’ noise from the spinning doors and they began to move; slowly, at first, and then gathering some speed, making a gentle swishing sound as they spun.

Jezebel led me into the hotel. From all that I had already learned of Jezebel, I half expected her to get lost in the spinning doors, but she came out the other side with almost no difficulty.

The light inside the hotel was absurdly blinding, making my eyes flash white and sting. There was a smell around as well; I couldn’t direct it and it wasn’t really a smell that I had ever smelled before. Immediately I craved it though, tilting my head upwards to allow my nose to consume more of its deliciousness.

So, still running my hands through my hair to check and re- check for horns, I blindly stumbled after Jezebel into Paradiss; The Semi- Demon Hotel. Into Heaven. Into the only place where I would ever be safe.