A smile crawled across Tzek's face, and with impressed approval he peered across the cold rain at Carly. She looked like something wild dragged feet-first out of a swamp. It was a good look for her.

His attention dropped to the furious demon gnashing and splashing in the puddles. Tzek ground a foot in her hair, fell to one knee, and clasped a firm rough hand around her throat. He leaned over her, curious and grinning and dark.

"You'll want to hold still, now," he said conversationally, even as he looked into those rows of putrid needle-teeth. "You come quietly, or he'll send the hounds next." He raised his chin while keeping his eyes on the demon bitch's face, and he waited for the realization to sink in: the horror of being torn limb from limb, fingers and feet twisted off by mongrel teeth, bones crushing and sinew breaking, over and over again into eternity. [i]Eternity[/i] was a long time, even by demon standards.

She could scratch and claw into him all she liked, but his fierce grip never slackened. He leaned on her throat as he leaned forward, his shark-mouth open wide, and he sucked the demon out of the human body. It was only a glimmer of thick black at first, trembling at the corner of bitch's lips -- but then she began to choke on herself, and Tzek sneered and doubled his efforts, his fingers crushing purple bruises into her neck.

A shadow bubbled up out of her throat, wet and somehow gaseous, and in an unbroken stream Tzek inhaled it. For half a minute the black greasy darkness retched upward, yanked out of her mouth and into his, until the tail of it slithered down his throat. He swallowed and loosened his fingers from the woman's throat.

The rain hissed all around them. Tzek rocked back on his heels and rose to his feet; he took a step back, his hands naturally finding their way to his jacket pockets, and he glanced over at Carly with a tip of his head. His human eyes were dull green. "You don't want to be here when she wakes up," he informed her naturally. "Questions are a nasty business." He gestured with his chin at the path that led on through the alley. "Go on home, Miss Carletta."