"Damn it, Carlos! Again!?" Ian yells from the bathroom of the small cabin we'd rented for the night.

We'd crossed from Canada into Alaska the day before, after almost two weeks on the road, during which time I'd come to regret my decision to give Carlos a chance.

He hadn't lied about anything, but it was one of those situations where the reality didn't quite match the promise—like the difference between ads for fast food, and actual fast food.

Sure, he could probably have fixed Ian's truck when it started leaking coolant—if he'd had the right tools; he could probably hustle pool like a pro—if we'd found a place with people willing to gamble more than five bucks on a game; and technically he could cook—as long as frying eggs and making sandwiches counts as 'cooking.'

He was also really high maintenance.

"Sam!" Ian yells again.

I roll my eyes. "Just jiggle the handle. It'll go down."

"Sam—just get in here!"

"Fine."

I've been lying in bed, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep before we hit the road again, and now I have to get up and save Carlos from whatever crawled up his ass this time.

When I join Ian, I see the problem.

Carlos is in the corner of the ceiling, horror movie style, his head canted weirdly to the side and a bizarre, rictus grin stretching his face.

I can see the thing possessing him almost like an overlay, it's hollow eyes filling the sockets of Carlos's skull like black oil.

It's not a demon though; it's a human soul, but dark and twisted almost beyond recognition, probably trapped here by some awful deed—hopefully one that occurred long before this place was being rented out to guests.

I reach for it almost lazily. Somehow they never see it coming—never expect someone with the ability to physically grasp the nonphysical. It probably thinks I'm going to try a ritual or say a prayer or something, like a normal exorcist would. Instead, I just grab it by its face and yank hard.

Carlos's body drops from the ceiling in a limp bundle. Ian catches him with his good arm, wincing as the effort jostles the sling immobilizing the other.

Fortunately, the break in his collarbone had been clean, and it hadn't required more than painkillers and a sling, but it won't be fully healed for at least another two weeks.

Meanwhile, The spirit writhes in my grasp, hissing and spitting like an angry cat.

Ian can't see it, but he can see me struggling with something as it tries to claw at me with shadowy hands.

"Sam—get rid of it!" he says.

"I'm trying, Ian," I retort.

Truth is, I'm not sure what to do with this one. Once exorcised, a demon will naturally return to its native realm, or to the person who controls it. Human spirits are different. They might return to a particular location, or an object, or even a person. They might move on to wherever they were supposed to go when the died. Or, they might just wander away, free to roam.

Usually, I don't consider it my responsibility to figure out which option they pick, but this thing is nasty, and I don't want it on the loose.

"Hey—get me Carlos's blessing salts, quick," I tell Ian.

He lets Carlos slide to the floor and steps past me, returning with the box of salts. I take a pinch and toss it in the toilet, hold the spirit over it, and flush. As the bowl empties, I let the sucker go and he disappears down the drain in the rush of holy water.

Not the most elegant of sacred vessels, but it gets the job done. The blessed water should act as a vehicle, carrying the spirit to wherever it's supposed to go. If not, the septic tank will hold it.

"Did you just...flush a demon down the toilet?" Ian asks, staring at me.

"No. Just a human soul," I assure him.

He looks a little ill.

"A bad one," I add with a shrug. "It deserved it. Probably."

Meanwhile, Carlos has regained his senses and pushed himself to his feet.

"What did I miss?" he asks, glancing between me and Ian. "Why are we all in the bathroom together?"

"Why do you think?" I ask, returning to the main room with Ian and Carlos in tow. It's the fifth time he's gotten possessed in as many days, and I wonder if Toni was glad to find him gone when she woke up. "Didn't Toni have a trick or something to keep things out of you?"

"Not really," he shrugs, then goes on. "Well, I mean, she used to ward the room where I slept, and I have talisman I can wear that works against most things, and I used to drink a cup of blessed water every day, but that's it."

"Carlos...are those things you could have been doing all along?" I ask carefully.

"Well, yeah," he shrugs. "But I wanted to help you guys catch demons 'n' things."

Ian rubs a hand over his mouth to hide a smile. I don't know how he can laugh. Personally, I feel ready to strangle Carlos and leave him in a ditch somewhere.

"This talisman thing," I ask, keeping my voice even with an effort. "Do you still have it?"

He nods and pulls it from his pocket. It looks like a sigil of some kind inside a circle.

"Great. Put that on, and then go and get us some breakfast. I'm starving."

Carlos looks at Ian. For some reason he defers to him, but ignores me.

Ian nods. "I think you should put it on for now, Carlos."

He nods, slips the talisman over his head and then grabs his wallet and disappears out the door.

I drop to the edge of the bed with a sigh. On the one hand, Carlos has helped us rid a bunch of hotels and one restaurant of troublesome entities; on the other, it takes a lot out of me, and it's a whole lot of hassle we might have done without.

"Don't worry," Ian says, coming to stand in front of me. "We'll be in Rockbridge by tomorrow. Then we'll have time to settle down, think things through. If Carlos knows how to cast wards, maybe he can help protect you, too—keep you hidden from Karin's spies."

He has a point, but I'd still rather trade Carlos for some alone-time with Ian. We've hardly had a moment to ourselves for the past ten days.

And I'd been making such good progress, too.

We have a moment now, and I intend to use it. I need Ian's help to regain my human form, after all.

I've been waking up every morning as a hulking gold-skinned horror, and only satisfying the urges of my incubus nature has worked to turn me back. Unfortunately, with Carlos breathing down our necks, I've had to make do with kisses, and even those have been pretty chaste.

Samasa wouldn't have hesitated to stick his tongue down Ian's throat at the first opportunity, but Asato had been kind of a sheltered prude. I'm a mix, I guess.

Sometimes I want to strip Ian's clothes off and show him all the things Samasa learned to do with his mouth over several millennia, and I don't care if Carlos wants to watch. Whenever he's nearby, though, I discover that I'm too shy to do to more than taste Ian's lips and enjoy the solid contact of his body pressed to mine.

It hasn't helped that Carlos and I have nothing, and Ian didn't plan on traveling with three people.

To save money, we only take one room. We've gotten strange looks from hotel clerks more than once—three guys booking a single bed—and it doesn't help when Ian tries to reassure them by saying 'we take turns.'

He means with the bed—that we sleep in shifts—but I'm pretty sure that's not how it comes across.

Now Ian's looking down at me—he seems to like me in this form, for some reason—and it seems like our minds are going in the same direction.

He brushes the back of his hand along my jaw. "I guess we need to take care of this before we leave, huh?" he says.

I nod.

He pulls me to my feet and meets me with a light kiss, the kind of self-conscious touch of lips that we've been restricted to for days. I close my eyes and savor the delight flooding me like wine. After a moment he pulls away and frowns.

I know I haven't changed. I don't want the tasting portion; today I want the whole bottle.

His eyes go wide at whatever he sees in my face, and I pull him into a deeper kiss. I turn him so his back is to the bed, and push him down. Then I climb on top of him, breath ragged with unleashed lust, and start to work at his belt.

"Sam, wait," he says.

I keep going, sliding one hand up the ridges of his abs as I get his belt undone and pop the button on his jeans.

"Sam! I said wait." He pushes me away, not roughly, but firmly. I look down at him and I know I must look wild and maybe frightening—demonic, even. I don't see fear in his face, but it's clear that his response isn't matching mine.

I could use my influence on him. Force him to want me. Paralyze him with my touch and then take what I need.

It's what Samasa would have done. It's what Karin no doubt expected me to do if anyone showed me even the slightest hint of affection.

It's not what I want to do.

I want Ian to want every second of it. I want him to love it. More than that, I want him to love—

Before I can quite form the thought, the door of the cabin bursts open and Carlos returns, a bag and a drink carrier laden with coffee cups in hand.

"Lucky me—no line," he says, distracted with the task of setting his burden on the table. "I got a chocolate croissant, a bear-claw—that's for you, Ian—a couple a' bagels, a cherry turnover, and a piece of coffee cake. Not exactly carb-free, but I figure it'll get us going until—"

He cuts off, having registered that I'm still demon-formed, and that I'm straddling Ian and obviously trying hard to get in his pants.

"Uh...I could always go back and...get some...sugar packs or something," he stammers. "I think I forgot those. And the little coffee stirring sticks. Those, too."

He starts to back away towards the door, but Ian sits up and slips his arms around my back.

"Don't bother," he says. "We're almost done."

Then he kisses me, taking control like he hasn't so far, his mouth devouring mine and his hands sliding up my back as I arch against him. He has me, all of me, here in his arms, and all I can do is surrender.

As soon as I do, I know that I've regained my human form.

He lets me go and I feel like crying.

Because it seems like as soon as I'm myself—as soon as I'm 'just Sam' and not 'demon Sam,' he loses interest. He touches me—kisses me—when he knows it will help me. But otherwise, he treats me like...a kid he rescued from the side of the road.

Tomorrow, once we reach our—his—destination, things will change. I hope that then we'll have the time to get to know each other better. I hope I can show him that I'm more than just a lost boy in need of rescuing; that this is a two-way street, after all.

Karin might think he owns me, but I never belonged to him.

I belong to Ian. I just hope that once he understands what that means, he'll still want me by his side.