Lowgone sat. A pile of fleece jackets, sweatpants, and socks. No shoes. A shiver traveled up his body. Cold rainwater ran down the curve of his back. Cold hands, stiff fingers, bloodshot eyes, and still two more hours. The maple leaf coin pressed into his palm. A comfort and a memory.

Leafless trees swished in the wind. No snow, yet.

Inside the green and brown house, across a yellow and green lawn from the bush Lowgone hid behind, music thumped, people shouted, silhouettes danced, red, green, yellow, purple lights blinked and spun.

A police car, no lights, with two unhappy, wide, round officers, arrived, parked at the bottom of the driveway filled with expensive cars, most worth more than either officer made last year.

The male officer stomped straight to the door. The female officer used a flashlight to inspect each car as she followed.

Lowgone could hear the officer pound on the door. Long enough for the female officer to join him. He squeezed his left hand, could feel the ridges of the coin edge, the maple leaf in the center, by memory, as the thickness of his skin kept most feelings safely outside.

Green and yellow smoke spilled out of the front door. A young, pale face, large lips, styled hair, highlighted by a red overhead light, smiled, attached to a magazine model’s naked body, which stood, silhouetted in the white door frame. The green and yellow fog accented his firm chest, defined abs, and right, muscular leg, while it tantalized the officers with shadows.

The male police officer stepped backward, but the smoke surrounded him, held him. The young naked man leaped onto the female officer and dragged her inside. The male officer flailed, twisted, fought the smoke, but lost. The smoke pulled him into the house, and the front door shut with a bang.

The other five houses in the cul-de-sac remained dark.

Lowgone shifted in the mud. Legs numb. His toes throbbed. The new tattoo on his left shoulder itched. A swirled pattern that symbolized status and offered protection.

Minutes later, the officers left the house, not themselves anymore, obvious if you knew what to look for, as Lowgone did.

Silent, easy in the rain and the music, Lowgone crept to the house. Water dripped off the end of the axe head, red in the light from the window. The fleece jackets repelled the water, kept Lowgone warm, even as a trickle of water dripped off his chin and ran down his chest.

Around back, through the patio door, across the tiled kitchen floor, halfway, he slipped and landed on his elbow. Pain seared up his arm, but he did not scream. Would not scream. Nor did he drop the axe, black in the unlit kitchen, except for a sliver of bright silver along the sharp edge.

Too long, Lowgone fumbled with his triple pair of socks. He desired to curse, but silence took precedence. All three soaked muddy rags ended up in the corner, where the detectives would later find them and wonder about their significance.

Pruned feet gripped the floor better, and Lowgone moved like a cat, axe in front, wooden handle gripped tight, but not too tight, in cold hands that shook. His teeth chattered in opposition to his heart that pounded in his ears. Both so loud that the music sounded muffled. The tattoos on his shoulders, down his arm, around his legs, burned with heat, while the tattoos around his body, his chest, abdomen, and back burned with cold.

In the rank room, smoke billowed from a brazier in the center. White couches surrounded it, and the ten things, people by appearance only, stood naked, eyes closed, perfect bodies, ten different shades of skin. White teeth shone from between full lips. The incisors, larger than normal, but not vampire movie-sized. Not vampires. Not werewolves. Lowgone didn’t know what type of monster, just that his research, observations, and unique ability had led him here, to this house, to these things.

The smoke smelled of chemicals and drugs, and made his head spin. Two steps, three, four, axe up, and he swung. Blood, dark red, splashed the room, like a heavy rain. The things did not scream. They collapsed to the floor. Dead. Felled trees to Lowgone’s axe.

The smoke surrounded him, stung his eyes, constricted his throat, clawed at his skin, and tried to pull him into the brazier, but breath held, eyes mere slits, Lowgone’s special ability resisted the influence, gave him strength beyond a normal person. His fleece armor helped protect him.

The wet fleece, chosen for this reason, allowed him to run. The smoke grabbed at his feet, but panicked strength and his special ability allowed Lowgone to sprint across the kitchen, out the back patio, and into the rain-filled night. Into the safety of the forest.

Lowgone had risked everything and succeeded. Proved his worth. Confirmed his ability.

The next day.

Ramble sat and watched the house. A normal in the fight against the darkness, Ramble could only follow up and scout, but even such a lowly position held meaning and prestige in the organization.

Two weeks. Ramble watched before the police arrived to investigate the car-filled driveway. They found an empty house, furniture but no clothes, except the socks, and no food. Ramble, ignored by the officers, ignored by everyone, a bundle of clothes, watched, listened, and smiled at the results. Only the cold brazier, red, rusted, with ashes inside, strange, but the police had encountered stranger, and so busy, overworked, underfunded, they ignored it.

No one ever found the owner of the house nor the owners of the cars.

In an alley, between five-story buildings, with cardboard bins, the sweet smell of compost bins, and the acidic smell of household garbage. Three ignored lumps sat and absorbed the sunlight that streamed in and reflected off the upper windows.

“Lowgone,” the old man said and coughed. Sixty, an ancient in the fight against the things, had broncho-pulmonary disease. He ate little because he needed little. One blue eye and the other amber, both blood red, his teeth had nicotine stains, and he couldn’t straighten his fingers anymore. But he had killed thousands of those things. He called them demons. A hero to everyone with the sight, someone that the organization had to protect. Someone who it had protected for the first forty years of his life, until the demons infiltrated the organization and drove him and the others out onto the street.

Bundled in a ripped green army jacket, covered in a black garbage bag, the old man coughed until he spat out green and yellow phlegm and said, “You are the last. You must carry the fight back into the offices. You must attack where you can do the most good, in the halls of government, the offices of official agencies. You need to slay the demons that have infested our world at the source. Only you can close the hole to hell and open the way to heaven.”

Lowgone sat on a wooden crate, a moldy bun in his right hand and a vodka bottle of rainwater in his left. His mentor, his friend, known to Lowgone as Old Man, would die soon. Lowgone could see that. He could see the red tentacles of nature holding the man’s body. Nature had kept the man alive well past a normal person’s passing, but nature needed the man’s soul. So, soon, it would feed on it.

A pile of rags, with a dirty, young face in the middle, Ramble, sneezed and cried at Old Man’s descent into death. But Lowgone didn’t, because he could see the need of nature. The need for another strong soul to help protect it from the things, demons.

Old Man coughed for minutes, and blood leaked from the right corner of his mouth before he said, “You must shut the hole if this world is to have any chance. The demons must be stopped. Only you can see it, so only you can stop it.”

Heels clicked on the concrete, and a woman in a red dress under a black overcoat tossed change at Old Man, a thoughtful act. Lowgone watched her stride the dirty street. Her halo brightened his day. A demon watched her from a fancy car. Its tongue licked its lips while its decayed, manicured fingers held the steering wheel. The woman’s halo would protect her, but Lowgone still wanted to leave and destroy the demon. He squeezed his left hand hard, comforted by the maple leaf coin.

“Good luck,” Old Man said and closed his eyes. His body slumped. The green jacket collapsed on top of a pile of sweatpants and dirty clothing. A coin, golden-edged, with an eagle on one side and a lion’s head on the other, rolled from where Old Man’s left hand had held it. It bumped across the rough concrete and small rocks, till it bumped Lowgone’s right knee. The coin felt warm, and Lowgone added it to his pouch of other coins.