Mort was watching over James at the kindergarten. The atmosphere however was too quiet and solemn. It was as if everyone there was a funeral. No one spoke loudly and everyone felt a dreadful pressure upon them. Even Donny who was usually rambunctious was particularly quiet. No one knew why but everyone still spoke in a soft tone and afraid of raising their voice.

“Ms. Holly…grrr” James said while tugging on Ms. Holly and pointed towards the toy box.

Mort squinted his eyes and contemplated for a moment. Then tapped his cane lightly on the ground. Victor and Mars appeared beside him drenched in sweat and eyes confused. Victor kneed down in mental exhaustion while Mars was barely standing.

They both looked at Mort and then at themselves. They stayed quiet and un-moving and tried to pass themselves off as furniture in the room.

Mort looked at James for a while then took out a thin red book.

“I believe James might benefit from consuming more — nutritiously.” Mort said while gesturing to either Victor or Mars to take the book from his hand. Both were hesitant but Victor took it from Mort after the insistent looks from Mars. He protested in his mind, but held his tongue. The book felt heavy with burden in Victor’s hand as he faintly heard the whispers of souls. Victor thought it was par for the course. Almost all of Mort’s items were heavy and unwieldy.

“What’s this?” Victor asked inquisitively at Mars who just shrugged as he too never seen the red book.

“Off the record souls. Ones that could be missed.” Mort explained without taking his eyes of James. He seemed to see something far away then smiled a chilling smile. Both Mars and Victor shivered. The whole room went quiet for a few moments. “A word of advice. Start from the back.”

Mort disappeared with those words. The room felt a lot lighter.

Victor opened the book from the last page and put his finger on the entries. His eyes focused on somewhere far away and reflections of various locations was reflect.

“Too far.” Victor muttered as he dragged his fingers through the entries. “Too bothersome.” He muttered again. It wasn’t until he went through the book after flipping through three pages before landing on a suitable target. “Ah surprisingly close.” Victor smiled and looked at Mars. “Let’s go.”

Victor disappeared and Mars frowned as he left.

“The bastard left without James.” Mars grumbled as he circled out front to pick up James officially from the teachers and follow after Victor.

***

Claire was a store clerk who sat bored at the counter of a convince store. She thought about quitting this job because of the discomforting aura around her boss Bob. But beggars can’t be choosers. It can’t be helped freshly arrived demons with no money or ID had to take what they could get. It really was only the dumb kind ones that were easily manipulated. Though at the very least Bob never pushed the word of God, it was painfully obvious he was an devote believer with the christian ornaments and his quoting of scripture.

The town was at least quiet and Claire didn’t have to interact with too many humans. They were gross and disgusting things to Claire, although she was one of them at some point lost in time.

“Hey Claire can you help me with some of the shelves here?” Bob said from the storage room connected to the front counter.

“Sure Bob, be a sec.” Claire replied while taking a breath steadying herself for the inevitable suffocation of pious aura. As she got up she felt goosebumps. Three unfamiliar men. Well, two unfamiliar men and an walking small size corpse appeared in from of Claire. She felt fear and intimidation oozing from all of them.

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“How did I beat you to the punch?” Mars said while looking at Victor. Mars and James arrived a fraction of a second earlier than Victor.

Victor took a swig from a whisky bottle that appeared out of no where. “Missed being able to drink and took a detour.”

Mars shook his head lightly. Victor paid no attention to Mars as he reached across the counter and pick up Claire by the throat. She couldn’t even choke out any words as she was dragged across the counter sweeping the cash register to the floor.

Bob rushed out of the storage room as he heard the noise and shouted “wait a minute, let her —“ and was frozen in place and could only blink as he stood motionless. Victor made a shushing gesture at him.

Claire was grasping at the hand of Victor trying to pry it off. Not to breath, but out of the pain of having her neck crushed.

Victor put Claire in front of James who simply tilted his head at both of them confused.

“Food.” Victor said. “Eat.” Victor insisted by pushing Claire’s body at James.

James tilted his head again in confusion.

“Maybe you gotta cook it.” Mars suggested.

James thought for a moment and Claire’s body spontaneously combusted, Bob’s eyes looked terrified at the scene.

“Hahahaha. Did you just try to BBQ a demon?” Mars cackled with laughter as Claire’s true form was revealed it was a small and red adolescence sized humanoid that was extremely skinny with red wings. “An imp eh?” Mars pointed out while wiping away tears from his eyes.

Victor looked at Mars with annoyance and grumbled out “I didn’t know it’ll be a demon.”

“You know they got that distinct smell.” Mars shrugged. “Now what ya gonna do?”

Victor sighed and observed Bob for a moment. Then snapped his fingers.

“You go to church?” Victor inquired.

“Yess siir.” Bob stuttered fearful at the sight in front of him.

“Good christian?”

“Yes sir, I mean I hope so sir.” Bob replied again shakily.

“Start praying.” Victor said as he snapped and his fingers again and Bob’s legs bent in unnatural direction as Bob started screaming. “Pray.” Victor demanded. “Ask for a miracle.”

“Please, all heavens above, God. Please have mercy upon your humble servant. Bless this humble one with a - a.”

“Miracle of divine intervention.” Victor filled in impatiently.

“Miracle of divine intervention. Amen.” Bob groaned out in between sharp breaths of pain.

“This is an unnecessary cruelty.” A soft voice spoke and a brief light flashed from Bob. Bob now fainted and his legs restored to their natural positions while he laid on the floor. He breathed softly as he slept.

“Mars. You know better than this.” The angel regarded Mars. The angel had an androgynous beautiful face with long auburn hair.

“Wasn’t me. He’s the gung ho one.” Mars pointed at Victor and made an innocent face.

The angel then made an accusatory look toward Victor.

“I didn’t know he could summon angels.” Victor replied and raised his hands helplessly with an exaggerated motion.

“Well. I suppose you boys called for a reason.” The angel looked displeased. “Do try not to touch our flock next time.” The angel then made a threatening gaze.

Mars simply smiled at the gaze while Victor pretended to not see it.

“Can you burn this imp for us with divine flame?” Victor asked and lifted the imp towards the angel. The imp had fear in its eyes and tried to squeeze out words of mercy. But Victor simply squeezed the throat harder to prevent it from speaking.

The angel shook their head and waved their hand. The imp burned with white flame. Victor grimaced at the flame and dropped the imp on the ground as it burnt. Victor blew on his hand and protested “you could’ve warned me before doing it.”

The angel smiled radiantly at Victor. Victor bit his lips and was about to use his powers before Mars put a hand on his shoulder and sighed.

“Thanks.” Mars spoke evenly. “Can we snag some of the fire for later. I’m sure upstairs would be cheery with the volunteer scrubbing.”

The angel looked deep into Mars’ eyes and conjured up a pure white lighter. “I’ll have your word that you will not misuse this.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Mars smiled as he took it.

The angel sighed and flew beside Bob. They softly caressed Bob’s head as a mother would their child before leaving.

“That guy’s well liked by them.” Victor scoffed.

“They love em brown nosers.” Mars laughed.

*crunch* *crunch* *crunch*

Both Mars and Victor finally noticed James had already started going to town on the corpse of the imp. James chewed through bone like a knife through blood pudding.

It didn’t even take half a minute before the entire imp was devoured leaving not even a trace behind.

James drool dripped on the floor, clearly hunger for more.

Victor sighed and started browsing through the book again with his face complicated.

“Why is there so many ‘lost’ souls here?” Victor squinted as he re-traced through one of the pages.

“Where?”

“Here.” Victor pointed at a few entries on the book.

Mars point his fingers on them one by one with a smile. “Misery loves company.”