This time, however, Avery didn’t even seem to notice. His brown eyes sparked with feverish intensity, his mournful-handsome face animated and sharp despite the bruising spreading up his left cheek. A gurgling noise scraped across my nerves, and we came to a halt at the foot of the bed.

I studied the body thrashing against restraints for a few moments. Don’t ever, ever rush an exorcism in the beginning stages, no matter how pressed for time you think you are. That was the first thing Mikhail said when he began training me to rip Possessors out of people.

“Guy’s name is Emilio Ricardo. Thirty. Dishwasher. Not the usual victim.” Avery spoke softly, but his entire body quivered with leashed energy. I folded my arms. The carved ruby on its short silver chain at my throat sparked once, a bloody flash in the dimness. Silver moved uneasily in my hair. Saul stood near the door, leaning against the wall with his eyes half-closed.

The apartment was small, with none of the usual signs of possession. No hint that the victim was a shut-in, nothing covering the windows, no scribbles of demented writing in whatever substance was on hand on the walls or mirrors. No smell of rotting food. No foul slick of etheric bruising over every surface.

And Possessors aren’t that fond of poverty. They like to get their flabby little mental fingers in the middle and upper class. It’s almost enough to make you feel charitable, finding at least one thing that doesn’t prey on the poor.

There was a metal bed the victim was tied to, a chair and a table in the greasy kitchen, and an old heavy television balanced on a TV cart. The floor was linoleum, and the whole place was the size of a crackerbox.

No, definitely not the usual victim. But they are creatures of opportunity too, the Possessors.

The victim was male, another almost-oddity. Women get possessed more often, between the higher incidence of psychic talent and the constant cultural training to be a victim. But a man wasn’t unheard of. It’s about sixty-forty.