He felt her nails cut through his bone, straight through the forest that was his nervous system, the veins, the sprawling web of that jolted him with the visceral feeling: electricity, a hot shock up his arm and through his body. Blood slid down, dripping from his elbow He kicked her away, the wound worsened as her arm released and squirted out onto the cold snow. He felt the heat rise up his nose. Across, having hit a statue of the Virgin Mary, she waited, low and prone, with smoke exhuming from her crazed smile-driven mouth. She was half naked, half exposed, her garments ripped from one side of her breast to another.

"Please, come closer," she said. "Don’t play hard to get"

He couldn't understand her in German. He was thankful he couldn't. Behind him, the man was wheezing but he could not turn his head. His eyes were transfixed on her.

"You fucked him and then tried killing him, I'm guessing," She looked around, her eyes a nice yellow sheen. Her head was crooked. Her movements were sporadic, strange, like a walking seizure.

"You know, a part of me still wasn’t sure what you were all about. But seeing you like this, well that just confirms it." He looked at his arm, where the blood rushed out. He walked around her. Droplets of red marked the circle tread. The steam from his regenerative cells had already begun, a few seconds later he was done, his arm restored saved for a stubborn scar.

"What demon do you serve?" He said in Latin.

"Leave, heart-eater." It responded back, in what he understood to be well-spoken Latin. So it knew the mother tongue, he thought. That’s a good sign for a possession.

He smirked. He didn't know why perhaps it was the secondary entity inside of him. The residual form of that monster, Astyanax. And in a way, it was proper. To have two subjugated hosts of two different uncontrollable monsters go at it.

But maybe it wasn’t Astyanax. Maybe it was Apollo, happy now, that he had an answer to the brief mystery.

He walked forward, he was not ready for a fight, not dressed for one, but he welcomed it still. Dressed like a tramp or not, he flexed his legs.

His arm extended forward as if to lunge.

"You’re very lucky.." He smiled. “I can’t kill you.” His toes pulled him inches closer to her.

She smiled at him. Screamed. Her voice a kind of morphed, blaring siren as it went forward. He dug his feet into the floor, his heel into cement. She felt on him. He was pushed back, the rock shot out from underneath his foot.

He grunted. Spun, threw her. Her body shot towards a tombstone. The gravesite, ruined. The rock laid halved and spinning in the air before it stabbed into the snow floor. He felt sad for whoever had died there, in that spot now resembling a meteor crater. He breathed heavily. The snow screen cleared up, and for a short time, he thought sincerely, that he had won.

She shot out.

Faster than he expected, he tried ducking but she managed to rip a piece of his flesh off, his shoulder. She turned, faster than he could recover. Her arms wrapped around him, her legs and thighs squeezed his head. She meant to choke him. He tried to pry himself open. She kept twisting, crushing. He felt his throat compress, the interior walls collapsing and it felt like two fights. One against the very real python now twisting his top. The other, more argumentative, the fight to stop himself from killing her. He thought about stabbing his arm through her stomach. The image, enticing. The enticement, disgusting. No, he told himself. “No.” He screamed. He got low, Apollo looked around, his eyes almost popped out from their sockets. He searched fdor the nearest object: a wall, the ferns of bonnie plants pocketed about. He ran towards it, screaming, feeling the blood leak from his eyes and nose.

He slammed her into the wall, and himself. His head rattled, she weakened with each blow against the wall. He continued, on and on, until he almost went into it. By then, she had let go, her shoulder crushed. He slowly rose, watching her crawl away.

"I understand, you're putting up a great fight," Apollo said. “But there’s no hope in this realm for you, take your punishment with stride. Why make things more difficult?”

He walked up to her (it, rather).

"Kill me then," The creature said in Latin. "Try it, kill me." It laughed. It grabbed its shoulder and snapped the bone back into place, without any care for the woman it controlled.

A lack of pain receptors, Apollo thought.

It grabbed its limp hand. Apollo thought nothing of it, a gesture from a losing foe, nothing more. Until it pointed it towards its own neck.

His eyes widened. He ran toward her (it). He threw out his arm, a kind of shield. She had tried slitting her own throat. He felt his skin shredded through, the monster biting him, stabbing him all at once.

“You really don’t care, do you?”

“The girl wants it too.” It said, with pride too. Joyous pride.

He wrapped his arm around her as she bit. He grabbed her through the snow, leaving the crooked trail from her flailing legs.

He was close, he could see Dion some tombstones away, past a frozen, pale road.

"Come on, pretty boy." She screamed. “Make this fun. Fuck me, fuck me.”

Her voice, somewhat sad, somewhat authentic. Perhaps it was both speaking now.

"Why won't you fuck me, come on." Her voice becoming lighter, sweeter even. "What'd I do wrong, please. How’d I mess up this time?."

She slipped in German.

"Don’t worry, we’re getting rid of whatever you have," He said. "So please, try to be polite and still.."

The demon began to puncture its own face, Claudia's. Apollo had to wrap his arm around her to make her stop. He lifted her. The legs kicking, stepping down on Apollo, crushing his toe nails. He felt his shin almost collapse inward. He kept marching. Dion’s face appeared beyond a little hump of neat, blocky, shrubs. He looked studious, busy, as he fixed the totem. Apollo approached, mad woman in hand. A little circle of flower petals was made, a small sheet of glass-textured holy water was frozen at the center. A bible in his hands (the ruined one, the only one he had). He began to lick through pages.

"Are you done?" Apollo screamed.

"Bring her to the center," Dion screamed back.

"That’s a little hard." Apollo took two steps. He felt an elbow hit his face. His nose broke. The bone shards stabbed him and he took a moment to blow out the blood from his nose. A moment she took, to hit him in the back of the head, as he was leaned away.

She head butted him from behind. Apollo waddled back, holding his face. The demon reached for Dion, who clung to his bible, who read steadily without a drop of a word. Apollo grabbed her by the hips, brought up and above his head, and slammed her down behind him. A suplex, straight into the dirty snow, into white mist. Apollo felt his head rattled, he stood, wiping the snow from his hair.

“Don’t tell me I killed her?” He looked around for the woman, who in the smoke and mist of snow, had disappeared.

He wished he had killed her.

“I thought church boys were supposed to be nice." It spoke. In a voice contorted, but oddly feminine. "Sympathetic."

He couldn't tell what direction it came from. Snow and mist covered his vision, it grew thicker. He saw footsteps on the floor. He turned. The image was gone, from his right he felt a blow against his head. He stuttered.

"What do you know of my pain though? What do you know about killing? About killing the people you love?" He looked again to the direction. From behind, another blow to the head.

His eyes felt pushed out of his skull, she had a strength of the inhuman kind. He could feel his legs go weak. Dion paused just to spectate, then, worried, kept going at his book.

"What do you know about living a life that you don't deserve? To lose everything and to sell yourself, the little that remains."

Again, from below, his chin vibrated from the sharp pain of an uppercut. He tried reaching for the arm of the girl who leapt back into the veil of mist, he barely caught a finger, a finger that dislocated as it went back into the cover.

"Do you know what I was worth? Hmm? Ten bucks a man, baby.” She said. “I just fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It’s all I know, it’s all I’m worth don’t you see? My sister knew it. Grandma knew it…that’s what they hated about me. That’s what pushed me.”

More taunting, more sinister. The voice changed, once again, to something grossly raspy. A voice, deep, without that sweet timbre of womanhood.

His head shook, searching. The voice kept going, laughing. And after a while, he stopped trusting it all together. Closing his eyes, letting his breath ease into calm. He trusted nothing, not the footsteps on the floor, not the sound of movement. He trusted nothing but the feeling of cold and the feeling of air pushing in and out, of air cutting from the wide swing of the woman. He snapped. He turned to face the feeling of the woman. He made himself small, at the center of the storm of mist, with nothing to him but the vain feeling of danger. He waited. Dion kept chanting. He heard footsteps but did not turn. The echoing laughter rang out, but he did not listen. He felt death upon his neck, the cold winter breath, but did not think.

He turned. Immediately, behind him. Towards Dion, the fingers of the girl reached for his neck. He jumped. The snow pushed behind his footsteps and he clutched her by the hand, twisting her wrist. He pushed her leg in and used her momentum, flipping her again, over his shoulder, straight into the grave plot of her grandmother. Straight through the center of the lillies and the cold stain of holy water. She looked up them, surprised almost, afraid even. Her face was mutilated, her eyes red and bleeding from a near self inflicted gauging. And this terribly disgusting creature, cracked skin and diseased colored, screamed. She screamed and threw her arms in fear and wondered, in amazement, at wht did it all. Her skin began to boil on her nude back and the more she tried to roll the burning sensation away. There were no flames though, it was more like acid and the more she rolled, the more it entrenched upon her flesh. Burning her red, a scar tissue red. Boils formed on her, bubbles of protein filled liquid that popped and added to the ruinous scene.

"Are you sure this is okay?" Dion put his hand in front of his mouth. He looked away.

"No," Apollo said. "But I don't think she'll be free otherwise. Come on."

Apollo put his knee down her neck and held one of her arms down. The other flayed, it dug into his leg and he winced. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from screaming. The fingers played with his muscles, out of sheer resentment and fear. The demon screamed, incomprehensible, some mix of English and Latin and German.

"Please," He heard the whisper of Claudia, the human. "Please, kill me."

Dion looked away.

"We're hurting her.."

"You’re damn right we are. And for good reason." Apollo said. "Keep your prayer up, don’t just stare!”

He did so, talking of Michael the Archangel. Talking about the holy sword and this and that.

"It hurts so much, please. I'm sorry," It continued, bearing that somber face. Apollo pressed harder, digging her face, muffling it into the snow.

"We're killing her!" Dion screamed.

"Do you trust me?" Apollo screamed. Dion looked up for an answer that would never come. He had to bite his lips, to close his eyes, to stop his breathing before he could continue.

“Say the fucking prayer!” Apollo screamed.

He began. One after another, from Mary to Michael to Gabriel. To Peter, to Matthew, to Mark. Of all holy saints, and all heavenly fathers.

“And bless us, Jesus Christ, bless us and from all evil, deliver this girl.”

Apollo winced. “Deliver us, O’ Lord.” He repeated.

“I am a minister of God who comes here, bearing a warning. Your name is signed for death, demon. The holy sword is coming, free yourself from this woman so that you may find salvation yet. Obey the Lord, obey!”

Dion swallowed his. Claudia squirmed. Overpowered Apollo, he had to rebind her. But he kept going, both of them did. Apollo felt his leg bruised and stabbed and eventually he lost all feeling to them. He moved his nub and moved his arm and wished he had both. Especially as the chant continued and her condition worsened and the black mist came around them and spiraled. He laid there, staring as it approached him. Like a black hole was forming, from the woman, into the woman. It was a rift. A bleeding entity, coming out of her ruined flesh, a goop or molasses of the soul. It came out of her shoulder, above her breast. Quite literally, a demon was coming out. He stuck his arm inside, into what seemed like a chasm.

She really screamed then. Both of them did. He felt her nails dig deep into his arm as he pulled, his muscles straining with the strength of his grip.

His forehead began to sweat. He found footing and pushed. Pulling, feeling his wrist bones yank away in their dislocation. Feeling his bones pop out, he kept pulling.

"Fuck." He screamed. Dion came in and tugged him. Now both pulled. “Fuck” Apollo screamed louder. He felt a pop, heard it too. The mist exploded, into a swarm of darkness that colored them, a radius of ten yards, all stuck in complete lightlessness. They did not let up. Even as the screaming continued and the condition of the land worsened.

With one final hurrah, Dion yanked at Apollo, Apollo yanked at the girl. Something split. Exploded, rather, with a sound loud and ear-shattering. The car alarms from miles off screamed out in response. The floor was filled with small instances of static electricity, coming in and out as miniature white lightning.

A small gem, the size of a marble popped out. Around it, thick coating of black, dripping off Apollo’s hand. What must have been grease or black blood? A mouth formed in the pool of this goop. It seemed to sigh or to moan. It seemed alive.

So Apollo crushed it, the stone and all.

The voice faded to obscurity, the dust of the small Philosophers stone blew out of his limp arm. He laid down, falling on his ass as Dion went forward to look over the girl.

Apollo could see, vaguely, the deformities. The scarred flesh surrounding her front and back like zebra stripes. It hadn't gotten her face at least. But he had a feeling it would always mark her body, evidence for life, of her loss of control, of her weakness.

Dion put his coat over her body and lifted her. He passed by Dion, and perhaps only by virtue that he was recovering from the battle and pain, that he did not complain or berate him much. He sighed, hesitated to thank him, and left all in such a quick move that he couldn't even tell if it was gratitude or resentment.

Apollo struggled to stan. He found the man bleeding in the bush, still breathing, now propped against a wall. He picked through his pockets, found a cell phone and called the police.

When the sirens were audible and his senses and wounds somewhat healed, he dug the phone into the floor and did his routine; jumping from roof to roof with the moon against his back, with the red eyes a sort of dragging blur against the black landscape. Like two, dancing stars fading through the night.