It is morning/span>/span63F(17C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It’s raining. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Prospect/span>/spanThe rain patters steadily against the cobblestones as Mirabel, Tenzin, and Casey find themselves drawn into the narrow alley by the sound of voices. Through the mist, they can see two figures near the far end where a fire escape ladder dangles just within reach.

A disheveled woman in a wrinkled blazer stands close to a young man who has his back pressed against the brick wall. Her auburn hair hangs limp and unwashed, and when she speaks, her voice carries an odd resonance that seems to echo off the walls despite the open air above.

“Jamie, you know she’s waiting for you,” the woman says, her tone shifting between soothing and something else entirely. “The pain doesn’t have to last forever. Sarah understands now… she sees how much you’re suffering without her.“

The young man’s hands shake as he glances up at the fire escape ladder. “I… I can almost hear her voice sometimes. She sounds so sad, Dr. Vasquez. Like she’s lonely.“

“Because she is lonely, Jamie. But it doesn’t have to be that way.” The woman’s eyes flash with an amber gleam that cuts through the grey morning light. “Love means never letting go, doesn’t it? Real love means following through.“

The young man reaches up toward the ladder’s lowest rung, his movements jerky and uncertain, as if fighting against his own actions.

“Mirabel,” Mirabel calmly answers Casey and crooks a finger at her. “Come, you can stand under my umbrella. You’re hardly dressed to be soaked to the bone, young lady.”

Tenzin inclines his head respectfully as Mirabel follows the scent of trouble to them. “More likely a spiritual one, were the Night to be a faith,” he remarks back. Casey receives another. “So is K.C. What does it spell?”

The talking deeper in the alley catches his ear. “Excuse me,” he calls out to the couple, leading the approach. At his side hangs a silver morning star, ready for werewolves but not conversation.

Casey shuffles over beside someone at the invitation to share some of the coverage of that umbrella. She’s already thoroughly wet though and her attention is drawn to the pair in the alley. She doesn’t speak to interfere with what is said, at the moment she seems more than content to witness for now.

Casey shuffles over beside Mirabel at the invitation to share some of the coverage of that umbrella. She’s already thoroughly wet though and her attention is drawn to the pair in the alley. She doesn’t speak to interfere with what is said, at the moment she seems more than content to witness for now.

As Tenzin’s voice cuts through the rain, both figures turn toward the approaching group. The young man–Jamie–looks momentarily confused, as if waking from a trance. His hand drops from the fire escape ladder and he takes a shaky step forward.

“Help,” he whispers, his voice barely audible over the pattering rain. “I don’t… something’s wrong with me. I keep hearing–“

“Jamie, don’t listen to them.” Dr. Vasquez’s voice sharpens, and for a moment her professional composure reasserts itself. But then her head tilts at an unnatural angle, and when she speaks again, that harmonic undertone grows stronger. “These strangers don’t understand your pain. They haven’t lost what you’ve lost.“

Her brown eyes fix on the trio, and the amber gleam intensifies. “You can see it, can’t you?” she says, addressing them directly now. “The weight they all carry. The losses that follow them like shadows.“

The temperature in the alley seems to drop several degrees despite the mild morning, and the rain begins to fall in a more deliberate pattern–not quite straight down, but angling toward the group as if drawn by some invisible force.

Jamie stumbles backward, pressing himself against the wall again. “Dr. Vasquez, you’re scaring me. You don’t sound like yourself.“

“I sound exactly like myself,” she replies, but her voice now carries multiple tones, as if several people are speaking in unison. “I sound like someone who finally understands what grief really means.“

“Goodness gracious. I think that lady has something up her sleeve,” Mirabel whispers, squinting suspiciously at the exchange. With her umbrella held aloft in one hand, she slips the other into her handbag to rummage around. “If that young man goes with her, he’ll wish he hadn’t.”

Casey cocks her head, studying Dr Vasquez, she asserts, “Didn’t I meet you before?” its not a question she expects to be answered. She’s still trying to gather the details of the situation while sheltering under Mirabel’s umbrella.

“Vasquez is a familiar name, but I do not recall where I have heard it,” Tenzin admits to the women with him. He holds his morning star behind his back so he might move closer with a more nonchalant impression.

“Jamie,” he calls to the man, putting forward his attempt at a White Knight sabaton. “Is this woman bothering you?”

Jamie’s eyes dart between Tenzin and Dr. Vasquez, confusion and fear warring across his features. “She’s… she’s my grief counselor,” he says uncertainly. “But she’s been saying things… showing me things that can’t be real.“

Dr. Vasquez’s head snaps toward Casey, and for a moment her expression flickers with genuine recognition before the amber gleam returns. “Casey Morgan,” she says, her voice layering with that unnatural harmony. “You know about loss, don’t you? About the weight of carrying darkness inside you.“

As Tenzin approaches with his weapon concealed, the shadows in the alley seem to deepen despite the grey daylight. The rain begins to form small puddles that reflect not the overcast sky, but glimpses of faces–sorrowful, reaching, pleading.

“Your brother,” Dr. Vasquez continues, now addressing the group collectively while her gaze remains fixed on Casey. “Your parents. Your friends who didn’t understand. The loneliness that eats at you from the inside.” Her voice grows more confident, more predatory. “I can help you all understand what Jamie is learning. That sometimes the only way to stop the pain is to embrace it completely.“

Jamie presses himself harder against the brick wall. “Please,” he whispers to the approaching trio. “Something’s wrong with her. She keeps showing me Sarah, but it’s not really Sarah. It’s something else wearing her face.“

The wrought iron gate at the alley’s mouth creaks as it swings slightly in a wind that doesn’t seem to affect anything else.

Casey visibly flinches when she’s targeted by Dr. Vasquez. The words spoken seem to strike true as her expression falls from casual curiosity to an unhappy frown and a slump of her shoulders. “So? Who doesn’t have some loss in their life? What are you trying to achieve here?” she reaches up to wipe some rain from her eyes that ended up there before she sheltered with Mirabel

“I suspect it’s all a ruse to lure the young man away from any observers,” Mirabel whispers to Casey and Tenzin while palming something out of her handbag. “If I’m any judge, that woman isn’t what she appears to be.”

Even the stormy weather serves to add gravity to Dr. Vasquez’s venture. Tenzin, Casey, and Mirabel are one monk, one professor, and one singer closing in upon Jamie and Dr. Vasquez at a walk. The man falters subtly at talk of grief and what she sees.

He moves a guarded glance to Casey when she is specifically called out. The monk nods slightly to Mirabel in agreement. “Dr. Vasquez, it is obvious that your counselee does not wish to indulge in your… what I have heard the younger cityfolk call… delulu. Please cease and desist. Step away from him,” he warns, voice crisp.

Dr. Vasquez’s laugh carries multiple tones, creating an unsettling harmony that seems to resonate from the brick walls themselves. “Delulu?” The word drips with contempt. “Is that what we call understanding now? Is that what we call accepting the truth about loss?“

Her attention shifts to Mirabel, and the amber gleam in her eyes intensifies. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? With your little trinkets and preparations.” The shadows around her feet begin to writhe and reach outward like grasping fingers. “But grief isn’t something you can ward off with charms and prayers. It lives inside you, feeds on you, becomes you.“

Jamie suddenly gasps, his eyes widening in terror. “Sarah?” he whispers, staring at something only he can see. “Sarah, is that really you? You look… wrong.“

The puddles throughout the alley now clearly reflect faces of the deceased, their mouths moving in silent pleas. The temperature drops further, and frost begins to form along the edges of the metal fire escape despite the September warmth.

“You see?” Dr. Vasquez spreads her arms wide, and for a moment, multiple shadow-limbs seem to extend from her silhouette. “Jamie understands now. The dead don’t rest. They wait. They hunger. And the only way to feed them is to join them.“

The wrought iron gate slams shut with a resounding clang, trapping all five figures in the alley. The sound echoes unnaturally, as if bouncing off invisible walls high above them.

“Well thats bleak.” Casey laments. Some of what Vasquez said might have shook her, but amongst the faces there is no one directly connected to her. No close losses, her sadness is a loneliness of never making those relationships in the first place so she had no one to lose.

“We’ll all eventually join them, there is no reason to rush things. Whats stopping you?” Casey ask Dr. Vasquez with a hint of accusation in her voice, “You don’t buy what you are selling right?”

“It’s not his grief that I thought to dispel,” Mirabel informs Dr. Vasquez, narrowing her eyes a little. She lets out a huff and glances over her shoulder at the iron gate before bringing her attention forward again. “It’s the lie that you’ve shrouded yourself in. What are you really?”

“Jamie, snap out of it. Don’t give in to the illusion,” Tenzin barks at the gasping man. He eyes the puddles with apprehension; the man backs away at the slip of shadow-limbs, ready to defend with his spiked morning star. “Stay on your toes.”

Casey’s accusation hits its mark. Dr. Vasquez’s confident facade wavers, and for a moment her own voice breaks through, raw and desperate. “I… I can’t. Miguel, he’s…” But then the amber gleam flares brighter, and the harmonic undertone drowns out her words. “Silence! You know nothing of what I’ve sacrificed!“

The shadows writhing around her feet suddenly lash out toward Mirabel, sensing the threat she represents. “Clever little witch,” the layered voice hisses. “But your trinkets won’t save you from the truth. Everyone you’ve ever loved will die, and you’ll be left with nothing but the memory of their last breath.“

Jamie jerks back from whatever he’s seeing, Tenzin’s words cutting through the illusion. “It’s not her,” he gasps, pressing his palms against his eyes. “Sarah would never… she’d never want me to hurt myself.“

The possessed woman’s head snaps toward Jamie with inhuman speed. “Ungrateful child! After everything I’ve shown you, everything I’ve offered!” Her voice now carries no trace of Dr. Vasquez at all–only something ancient and hungry. “If you won’t come willingly, then I’ll drag you down myself!“

The brick walls begin to weep a dark substance that smells of copper and decay. The faces in the puddles grow more agitated, their silent screams becoming almost audible as whispers on the wind. The very air seems to thicken, making each breath feel labored.

“You want to know what I really am?” The thing wearing Dr. Vasquez’s face grins with too many teeth. “I am Vex’thara, and I feast on the exquisite agony of loss!“

“Vex’Thara” Casey repeats, trying to recall this name. Nothing comes up and she shakes her head subtly to herself. “You are a nobody demon, or I would’ve heard of you.” she glances to Mirabel to ask her, “Do you have anything to help us out here cause..I’m not very good if this becomes a fight of some kind.”

“Goodness. Well, I might have come better prepared if I’d known that *this* would be part of my day,” Mirabel murmurs, frowning tautly while she watches the demon. “We may have to resort to old-fashioned means,” she adds, glancing askance at Tenzin. “Monk, are you good at more than sweeping streets?”

With a fast-twitch reaction, Tenzin intercepts the shadows that seek out Mirabel. Dark brown eyes peek a glare at Dr. Vasquez atop his sliding knock-off aviators. He does not hesitate; the monk’s good arm pommels what solid mass he can find in the shadow-limbs. The morning star creates a lunar arc. His left arm is tucked useless in his robe. “I clean up quite well in other aspects, so to speak,” he grunts at Mirabel, keeping himself on the frontline.

Tenzin’s morning star connects with the shadow-limbs, and they recoil with a sound like tearing silk. Vex’thara shrieks through Dr. Vasquez’s throat, the harmonics becoming discordant and painful. “You dare strike at me, broken monk? I can smell the guilt on you–the lives you failed to save!“

The demon’s attention splits between rage at Tenzin and wounded pride at Casey’s dismissal. “Nobody? NOBODY?” The possessed woman’s form begins to blur at the edges, shadows bleeding from her outline. “I have fed on grief for centuries! I have built networks of despair across–“

“Across small neighborhoods,” Casey cuts in, and the demon’s fury intensifies.

Mirabel pulls a small cloth pouch from her handbag, its contents clinking softly. “Salt and iron filings,” she explains quickly to the others. “It won’t banish it, but it might weaken its hold enough for us to reach the real Dr. Vasquez.“

Jamie, emboldened by Tenzin’s protection, stumbles toward the group. “She’s still in there,” he gasps. “Sometimes I can see her fighting it. She keeps trying to say Miguel’s name, but it won’t let her.“

The weeping walls intensify, and the faces in the puddles begin to rise slightly from the water’s surface, becoming three-dimensional. Vex’thara raises both hands, and the temperature plummets further. “If I cannot have willing grief, then I’ll take it by force. Starting with the monk who thinks his broken body makes him a hero!“

Dark energy begins to coalesce around the demon’s hands, aimed directly at Tenzin.

“Help… me… please…“

The iron gate rattles violently, as if something is trying to break in from outside–or perhaps trying to break out.

Casey raises her hands in Tenzin’s direction while uttering something that sounds vaguely latin but butchered. An invisible thickening of the atmosphere around the man provides some small amount of protection towards the monk, its likely the best she can do. “I prefer demons that strike deals and have some sense to them. These mindless ones who only want one thing are just animals to be banished.”

Mirabel hurriedly prepares her spell components, and with a brisk flourish of her hands, she begins the incantation. “Keep her engaged! Don’t let her break into your minds!” she yells and flings her umbrella aside. “Be careful!”

While the world remains the right way up for Casey and Tenzin, they can’t know that Mirabel causes reality to flip upside-down for the demon who now has to fight in that manner, like watching a movie on a television that stands on its head.

“I have accepted my brokenness,” Tenzin speaks in a tone leveled and resolute. “I have accepted my blame.” Anger fuels the thrust of his morning star into Vex’thara’s solar plexus, to crush the wind out of her. “No more will I see it happen again, pest,” he snarls, taking his mace for a spin that draws momentum into a crushing blow across — seeking to take out Dr. Vasquez’s elbows. “There are no heroes here. Only survivors who have learned to bite back.”

“Miguel… I’m sorry… I couldn’t save you…” Tears stream down her face, cutting through the supernatural amber gleam in her eyes.

Jamie seizes the opportunity, his voice growing stronger. “Dr. Vasquez! You helped me understand that Sarah wouldn’t want me to hurt myself. You said grief isn’t about joining the dead–it’s about honoring them by living!“

The shadows around the demon’s feet begin to writhe more frantically, as if losing their grip. The faces in the puddles start to fade, and the weeping walls slow their dark discharge.

“No!” Vex’thara shrieks, fighting against both the illusion and the resurgent human consciousness. “She is mine! Her grief feeds me! I will not be denied!“

But the demon’s form is becoming less solid, more translucent, as Dr. Vasquez’s own will reasserts itself in the confusion.

The iron gate’s rattling intensifies, and cracks begin to appear in the brick walls.