Janet was always on the look out for something bad to happen to her. Nothing ever did, but some day it might. She had to be especially careful now, two people had died last week in this building. The police had claimed that they were unrelated, but she knew better. The cops just didn’t know what it was that killed them, they even said that the first one was an accident. People’s beds just don’t accidentally get set on fire while they’re asleep.

Janet’s apartment was nice, it had one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen that had a swinging door. The bathroom was on the left of the living room, the bedroom on the far side from the front door, and the kitchen was on her right. She flopped right onto the couch when she walked in, didn’t even bother to take off her shoes. She just locked the door and sat down.

About an hour later she notices that the door to her bedroom is ajar. Janet hadn’t noticed that before, she looked at it with her head tilted to the side slightly. She got up and walked towards the door. It moved in towards the bedroom an inch, creaking as it did. Janet stopped, she stood and looked at it carefully, trying to look into the room beyond it. All she could see was darkness. She took another step closer, she reached out for the door. She opened it with her left hand while turning on the light switch with her right, she did this all at once, moving into the room fast making her long brown hair fly around her head.

The room was empty. There was only her bed, nightstand, and dresser. It was just the way she had left it. She shrugged and went back into the living room. She sat down and not five minutes later found the bathroom door to be slightly open. She shook her head and turned back to the TV. But the door just kept nagging at the corner of her eye, she couldn’t explain why it bugged her, but it did just the same.

This time she walked quickly over to it and just shut it with out looking. When she turned back towards the living room, the kitchen door was swinging. Now Janet was scared. She walked over to it slowly. She caught it as it swung towards her and looked into the room. She screamed.

********************************************

Mitch woke up and looked at his alarm clock. Ten a.m. he should probably get up and do some work, even though he didn’t have any work at the moment. Mitch got down onto the floor to do his push ups. He had to bring his arm back up to snuff. It had been in a cast for two months and was weaker than his left at the present moment. He did fifty and then stopped, no sense in hurting his arm while trying to mend it.

Mitch walked into his kitchen to look for breakfast. The fridge was almost empty, his $10,000 had run out a while ago. It didn’t get as much as Mitch had originally hoped. He settled for some left over Chinese food from the night before. Mitch Williams, chef extraordinaire, with the microwave and some left overs that is, he thought making fun of himself the way he normally does. While that nuked he checked messages. Nothing important.

He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. As usual there was nothing on, even at ten in the morning. He decided to watch a movie, though which one to watch could cause a problem. He had so many to choose from and only so much time to watch them all. He settled on Blade, it amused him to watch movies about hunters like him, and to realize that its nothing like that. The rest of his day passed much the same, he ordered a pizza at four as a late lunch and early supper, and watched the news at ten that night.

One story struck him as odd. There was another killing in an apartment building near the river. This time some one had fallen from the top floor. That was the third killing in two weeks at that building. It seemed out of sorts to Mitch. Mitch knew that something was up, he just couldn’t tell what.

He went to bed thinking that he should write a book, A Day In The Life Of A Demon Hunter: Watching Bad Television. No, that wouldn’t do. Oh well. As he walked groggily down the hallway his phone rang. He turned around to face it. To answer, or not to answer, that is the question, Mitch thought to himself as he reached out for it.

“Hello?” He asked trying not to sound too tired.

“Hi I’m sorry it’s so late, but it’s an emergency.” The voice sounded male, kind of rough, possibly an older person.

“Who is this?” Mitch has such a way with people.

“This is Rick Taylor. I’m the owner of several apartment buildings along the river. I have a problem that I’m told you can help me with.” This must be about the killings on the news, Mitch thought.

“What exactly would that be?” Mitch had to let the costumer feel like they did some of the work.

“There have been several deaths in one building that I own, and I’m not entirely satisfied with the police’s explanation for them.” He sounded as if Mitch was supposed to know exactly why he was calling. He knew in general, but nothing specific.

“Oh yes, I’ve seen those on the news. Are you sure you want to hire me?”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure, money doesn’t matter, just so long as you can fix it.” Now, it sounded to Mitch, like Taylor was hiring a plumber and not a demon hunter. Mitch wasn’t sure what the difference was, but he’d find it.

“I’ll be there to look things over first thing tomorrow.” Mitch was tired and wanted to go to bed, not work.

“Fine, I’ll see you at 8:30 sharp.” And Taylor hung up. Mitch didn’t remember saying 8:30, but he had nothing else to do. He turned and went off to his bed.

********************************************

At 8:25 a.m. the next day Mitch was sitting out side the apartment building in his truck. It was late February and hadn’t warmed up yet. At exactly 8:30 the manager showed up. Mitch got out of his truck and walked over to him. Taylor looked about fifty with the top of his head bald and the hair on the sides all gray, it was combed down and shiny. He was about 5’10” and a little heavy set. He wore a black shirt under his blue winter jacket. He had on dark blue, ironed jeans and nice black shoes.

“Hello Mr. Taylor.” Mitch smiled warmly, attempting to seem friendly. Apparently Taylor wasn’t looking for friendly, he frowned in return as he looked Mitch up and down.

“What do you want to see first?” Taylor asked. He looked around as he talked. It had warmed up for a while so all the snow melted, now it was cold again so everything just looked dead.

“Lets start with the first victims place.” It was important to be methodical, Mitch knew this. If a pattern were to emerge, it’s best to catch it at it’s beginning.

“Follow me please.” Taylor turned towards the front door of the building and took out a key. He unlocked the front door and walked in, he let the door swing back behind him and Mitch almost didn’t catch it in time. The first victim lived on the third floor in apartment 3D. The door opened into the living room and all other rooms seemed to connect directly from it. The bathroom was on the left as Mitch walked in, the bedroom straight across from him, and a swinging door on the right led to the kitchen. The carpet was a beige color and the walls were white. The doors were white to match the wall.

“It happened in through that door.” Taylor pointed at the bedroom door. Mitch knew it was the bedroom door because he could see the toilet in the room to the left and nobody would put a swinging door in their bedroom. Mitch walked in and looked around at the room. It opened to the right and in the far corner where the bed must have been was a large burnt square shaped object. Mitch assumed that it was the bed. He also noticed that the walls around the bed and the nightstand were seemingly unharmed by the flames. Not even the curtains hanging on the window next to the burnt bed had any trace of flame or smoke damage. The lamp on the nightstand was perfectly intact and upright, so it couldn’t have caused the fire. There weren’t any candles in the whole room that Mitch could see, or any matches or lighters, not even cigarettes.

Taylor was standing impatiently by the door and was swinging his arms back and forth at his sides. He was also whistling but Mitch couldn’t make out the tune.

“I’ve seen all I need to see here, lets move on shall we?” Taylor looked up at him startled a little by the suddenness of Mitch’s movements.

“Yes of course. This way.” Taylor went out the door into the living room and without hesitation went for the front door. Mitch made sure that he went out last so that he could leave the door unlocked, he needed to go back later and now he could say that the manager had let him in if he was asked about it.

The second victim lived on the fourth and top floor in 4C. The apartment had the same layout but had some very different decoration. The living room walls were plastered with posters of various movies, bands, models, and vehicles. None of them were straight and many of them overlapped at the corners.

“This one happened in here.” Taylor held out both arms as he stood in the middle of the living room. Mitch noticed that at neither scene so far had there been any blood. He didn’t know how the people were killed yet, but would find out later when he hacked into the police files. There were stacks of movies, most where in rental boxes, next to a smaller old TV that sat on a bad coffee table against the far wall. Aside from the over all mess there seemed to be nothing turned over or knocked around, no sign of a struggle. The couch was torn and the cushions were flat from use. The kitchen door was missing and the room beyond was a mess. The person that lived here obviously couldn’t cook very well, neither could Mitch.

“You can take me to the third apartment now.” Mitch looked at Taylor who had stayed in the doorway and looked around as well. Mitch made sure to do the same trick with the door that he’d done earlier.

“Okay, it’s down on the ground floor.” Taylor took him down the hall to the stairs. The third and last victim to date lived on the bottom floor in 1A. The apartment’s layout was the same as the first two and was much cleaner. It smelled of some blend of air fresheners, or one of those that has more than one scent in it. The TV was a brand new flat plasma screen. The couch was leather and also looked brand new. The decorations definitely seemed to be beyond the price range of the apartment.

“I don’t know why you want to look in here, the attack in question couldn’t have happened in here.” Taylor was trying to play cop.

“And what makes you say that?” Mitch asked, normally the building owners don’t know very much that’s actually useful, but it couldn’t hurt to see what he thought he knew.

“The police said that she had to have fallen from the fourth floor, she was too broken to have fallen out her own window.” Taylor looked at Mitch as if to say ‘Everybody knows that, where have you been.’

“Thank you for letting me in. I’m through here, you’ve been a big help.” Taylor didn’t look like he believed Mitch. Mitch still tried to be nice.

“You’re welcome.” With that Taylor turned and walked out the door, Mitch followed careful to keep the door unlocked and walked out side with Taylor. Neither of them said a word as they both went to their vehicles. Mitch waited until Taylor started his little Saturn and left before he got out and headed back into the building to do more searching.

The search was only semi productive. In the first apartment he found an address book, in the second one he found nothing but more mess, and in the third apartment he found a day planner in the victims purse. All the apartments did have one thing in common though, the presence of sulfur. Sulfur is a tell tale sign of a demonic presence. It was mostly in the bedroom on the pillow and window, though it was hard to tell for the first victim. Mitch now was going to go home and get the reports from the police computer system.

Three slices of pizza and a half an hour later Mitch had all three reports printed off. The first victim was male, age 25, was about Mitch’s size, and worked at McDonalds as a day shift manager. Name was Nick Slake. Cause of death was third degree burns on 100% of the body, ruled as accidental. Apparently his bed caught fire and he never woke up. Had no family living with him, but his parents lived in Jefferson City.

The second victim was also male, age 29, was approximately 5’10” and weighed 150. His name was Tom Keith, had no current job, and was a drug addict. His cause of death was suffocation, also ruled as accidental. The ME found nothing blocking his air way and no visible marks on his neck. He had no known family.

The third victim was a female, age 26, height 5’6”, weight 135. Name was Janet Wilcox and had an office job. Cause of death for her was broken neck, along with multiple other bones leading to the conclusion that she fell from a great distance landing perfectly below her open bedroom window, yet again, ruled as accidental.

Mitch knew that something wasn’t right with all of these reports. They may have all the facts right, but they had no idea what had killed these people. Mitch knew it was a demon, he just couldn’t figure out which one. There seemed to be no pattern in the kills. They all happened late at night, but that was it. They had nothing else in common, other than being in the same building.

Mitch began leafing through Nick Slake’s address book for someone to call. He found his parents and called them. Some one answered right after the first ring.

“Hello?” It must have been his mother, the voice was defiantly female and very, very shaky.

“Hi, my name is Kevin Rogan, I’m with the St. Louis police department. I was wondering if I could ask you or your husband a few questions about your son.” Mitch did his best to sound nice and sincere. It must have worked.

“Sure, what do you want to know?” She seemed to be trying very hard to hold it together.

“Ma’am, if you’d be more comfortable letting your husband handle this I can call back when he’s available.” Mitch guessed that Nick’s dad wasn’t home by the fact that his mother wouldn’t have answered the phone in her state unless she was the only one home.

“No, I can do it. It’s just so horrible that he had to die like that.”

“How so?” She might have just meant that it’s horrible to die in a fire, but there might be more to it than that and Mitch wanted to know.

“Nick was horribly afraid of fires.” Mitch now remembered seeing at least one fire extinguisher in every room of Nick’s apartment, he didn’t think much of it at the time, but now it made a lot more sense.

“Thank you Mrs. Slake, you’ve been very helpful.” Mitch hung up rather abruptly. That was interesting. He died in the way he feared most. Mitch would have to check with the third victim’s friends and relatives, but he may just have his pattern.

He flipped through Janet’s day planner and sure enough in the back was an address book. Mitch found Janet’s parents and called them up. This time the father answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, I’m Ronald Kelly from your daughters insurance company, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.” Mitch never used the same fake identity twice when calling for information on the same case.

“Of course you can, don’t you people normally do this in person though?” he seemed very confused, his daughter had died only yesterday.

“Well normally yes we do, but today we’re rather busy and I can’t.” Mitch also very rarely made house calls to non-clients, he didn’t want to be recognized, although it was harder to read people over the phone. “Anyway, do you know any reason why Janet would have been on the fourth floor?”

“No, I have no idea why she was up there. Her boy friend lives in a different part of town, and she didn’t know her neighbors very well.” He paused a lot, and sounded very confused, not so much as to why Mitch was asking these questions, but at finding the answers to them.

“What, may I ask, was Janet most afraid of?” Mitch wasn’t getting the answers he wanted.

“That’s been bothering me lately, you see, she was very afraid of heights.” Her father sounded like he was having a revelation.

“That’s so sad that she had to die like she did then. No one should have to die in the way they fear most.” Mitch needed to sound like he really cared in a fake kind of way, the way insurance companies care. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.” Mitch hung up, again rather abruptly.

Now he had a pattern. The victim always died in the way they feared most. The demon was a Narenth. A Narenth was a close relative to a Nazat, it would come to its next victim for several nights in advance and read their dreams and thoughts to learn what they were most afraid of. Once it learned that it would return to kill the person, they always had to be alone, and it was always at night. Unlike its smaller cousin, the Narenth will kill its victims while they’re awake, being big enough and strong enough to face a waking opponent.

Mitch would have to stake out the building. Mitch knew it would attack in the same place again, Narenth are very territorial and will feed off of one building until it no longer will supply them. Then they will move on to the neighboring buildings until they also, will no longer satisfy their hunger for pain and fear. That is what the Narenth feed off of, pain and fear. That’s why their victims must be awake, with out consciousness, there can be no fear of what’s happening.

He had no way of knowing, however, who or when it would strike again. It always climbed through the window while leaving no marks on the window or building. He would have to watch the whole building, that could be tricky.

Mitch looked again at the police reports sitting on the couch next to him. He saw the crime scene photos, the coroners reports, everything, and he still didn’t have a pattern to follow on why it picked who it did. Mitch stood up and walked back into his study. He turned on the computer and began searching the Internet for building plans. He finally found them on the construction company’s mainframe, he had to do a little hacking, which was only slightly illegal, but he found it.

He looked over the apartments that had been hit, 3D, 4C, and 1A. All seemingly random, not even anything repeated. Mitch stood up quickly knocking over his chair. The building only had four floors and only four apartments on each. All but one of each had been hit. The only combination left was 2B. That’s where it was going to hit. The Narenth are also much smarter than the Nazat, who actually do attack at random. The Narenth always have a pattern of some kind, whether it’s mathematical or not is always up for grabs, but there’s always a pattern.

Mitch grabbed his crossbow, sword, wrist-mounted crossbow, knife, and jacket and headed out the door. It was almost nightfall as Mitch climbed into his truck to head back to the apartment building. It only took about fifteen minutes to get there, Mitch parked across the street. He pulled the print out of the building plans and arranged them so that they lined up with where Mitch was facing. Apartments A and D are on the left hand side as you walk in the door, B and C are on the right. Mitch pulled out of his parking space and found another one facing the right hand side of the building and waited.

It was only eight o’clock and Mitch knew the Narenth wouldn’t come until later, so he pulled out to go find food. The first food he found was a McDonalds, he could always find a McDonalds when your hungry, and even if you weren’t. They seem to be everywhere. Mitch returned to his spot ten minutes later surprised to find it still available, well, not really, St. Louis isn’t that busy at eight.

Two double cheeseburgers, one large fry, and one large coke later Mitch felt full, bored and slightly nauseous, which was not a good thing when demon hunting. He had to be on his toes, the Narenth are cunning and swift. It was now almost nine o’clock and the Narenth wasn’t going to come for at least an hour.

Sure enough one hour later the Narenth came crawling to the building side from the river. It must live there during the day. It was about nine feet tall with a wide head and slightly protruding snout, it had no horns but two long pointed ears. It’s overly long arms and legs were disproportional to its torso. All of it was muscular, lanky, but muscular. Mitch got out quietly and grabbed all of his gear. The demon crouched to leap while Mitch took careful aim over the hood of his truck. Mitch fired twice, the first time at the Narenth and the second time above its head, thinking that it might jump at the sound of the first shot. Instead it crouched lower, ducking and turned to face Mitch.

It had red oval eyes matched the shape of its face. Its skin was dark and oily. Both bolts clattered against the brick building. The demon lunged forward at Mitch, ready to eat the thing that stood between it and it’s prey. Mitch was about twenty yards away , which was an easy distance for the Narenth to cover. Mitch only had time to fire once before it would be on him, he fired at its heart while it was in midair. The bolt hit it in the stomach, not even phasing it. It landed on the hood of Mitch’s truck and swiped down at his head.

Mitch ducked and the claws passed harmlessly over his head sticking in the side of the truck. Mitch pulled his knife, he couldn’t draw the sword as easily in a crouch so close to the truck, and stuck it in the demons arm as it pulled its claws out of the truck. It yowled in pain, its head up, pointed at the sky. Mitch stepped back and drew his sword. He held it in front of him at an angle, keeping it between him and the Narenth.

It jumped high up in the air to come down on Mitch, he stepped back and brought his sword to his side. As the demon came down where Mitch was supposed to be Mitch cut sideways. It deftly jumped backwards out of range and leapt forward again grabbing for Mitch’s throat. Mitch sidestepped and cut upwards severing its right arm from the elbow down. The Narenth pivoted sweeping across with its remaining arm catching Mitch on the right side. The claws would have cut him if not for his leather jacket. While not being able to cut him it still broke at least two ribs.

Mitch winced, he shifted his weight on to his right foot as he turned sharply back toward the demon cutting side ways again. The Narenth jumped the cut coming in at below its waist height. It brought its fist down on Mitch’s head causing him to see stars and stumble backwards. It dove for him, it was completely parallel to the ground at about Mitch’s neck level. Mitch rolled under it cutting up at the same time. He felt no resistance and knew that he hadn’t hit anything. He came out of the roll right next to his truck, and his crossbow. He grabbed it and turned instantly to fire. The bolt missed soaring just over the head of the Narenth as it landed from its leap.

Mitch fired again aiming lower this time. The bolt struck its mark hitting the demon right in the heart. It yowled again, this time even louder. Mitch reloaded and fired once more. This one hit too, on the other side of the demons chest. It reached up with its remaining left hand and pulled both bolts out of its chest.

It growled angrily at Mitch and threw the bolts back at him, one hit the truck chipping the paint and the other hit Mitch in the left calf muscle. There was searing pain, Mitch had no idea that a Narenth could throw with enough force and accuracy to penetrate denim and human flesh with a crossbow bolt. Apparently it could. Mitch stood up, limping slightly, and held his sword in front of him. The Narenth just stared at him, it jumped high in the air and came crashing down on the hood of the truck behind him for the second time, this time coming down with enough force to dent it in. Mitch rolled forward and turned in time to see it lunge down at him from the hood. This time Mitch stepped to the right bringing the sword up, dull end up, to knock the demon backwards.

He hit it full in the face causing it to flip backwards in midair and land on its back. He brought the sword the rest of the way above his head preparing to cut off its head. It rolled away just as Mitch brought his sword down. The Narenth stood up and jumped over Mitch, turning over as it did so that it landed facing him from the other side. It picked him up by his jacket and threw him towards his truck. Mitch landed on the roof and fell of into the bed. Both landings knocked the wind out of him, he felt instant pain coming from his broken ribs.

Mitch looked up just in time to see it come down on the roof just above him. The Narenth slashed down at him cutting him across the right cheek. Mitch rolled backwards to the end of the long bed and stood up. His left leg gave out and he fell over backwards out of the truck bed, landing flat on his back. Mitch stood up and realized that he had dropped his sword in the truck bed. The Narenth jumped toward Mitch, its left and only claw fully extended towards him, ready to rip out his throat.

In mid-jump the Narenth fell sideways, Mitch noticed a long arrow sticking out of its thin neck. He looked over to his left where the shot had come from. He saw a man of about 6’4”, easily weighing over 200 lbs., most of it muscle. He had a short dark beard that matched his hair. The man stood there reloading his bow with an arrow from the quiver on his back and took careful aim. He moved with grace unlike any man Mitch had ever seen, while still resonating power. Mitch knew him well, it was Ryan Lorn, the only other hunter within at least 300 miles of St. Louis.

Mitch sprang up taking his moment of opportunity. He grabbed his sword out of the bed and ran over to the demon. Ryan shot it again as Mitch arrived. Mitch brought up his sword, then brought it down again, severing the Narenth’s head from its body.

“Glad to see me Mitch?” Ryan asked arrogantly.

“I’m always glad to see you Ryan.” Mitch was being sarcastic and Ryan knew it. They had never really gotten along, but their work often brought them together.

“Never could fight anything that didn’t use a sword, could you?” Ryan said rather than asked. “I heard that you took care of a werewolf two months back.”

“Ya, broke my arm though, so I’ve been out of work ever since.” They talked while they drug the Narenth down towards the river to burn it, Ryan had to do most of the work. Mitch pulled a matchbook out of his coat. He struck a match and threw it on the body of the demon. Ryan pointed out over the river to the other side.

“Look, I showed up just in time.” Mitch looked over and noticed the rising sun on the horizon.

“You’re right, another two minutes and I’d have won with out you.” Mitch found some trash to throw on the small fire to help it along.

“Get real Mitch, you were seconds away from death.” Ryan threw another match on from his own matchbook. Now the fire was really going. The heat was enough that Mitch had to open his jacket. Ryan had his already open. His was a black leather jacket, the kind Ghost Rider wears, as opposed to Mitch’s which is more like the kind Indiana Jones wears.

Ryan had a European broad sword strapped to his back along side his arrow quiver. His bow was a long bow, about to his chin height. They both stood there staring into the blaze in front of them, neither would move until they were both sure that the Narenth was consumed entirely by it.