Until Carly was ready to go, Tzich lazed sideways across a waiting room seat, flipping through the pictures and credit cards of a wallet he'd happened to find in an old man's coat. At the devil-daughter's beckon, he hopped to his feet, crammed the cash in his jeans pocket and dropped the wallet on a chair.

He followed her easily outside into the cool dark, and he stretched and breathed in luxuriously. How could Carly be so miserable on a clear, after-rain night like this? She was no longer dying. She should be thrilled to be among the lucky ones.

At her question he drew in a hissing breath. His gum had long ago lost its flavor. "You need to know that Hell exists." He dropped his hands into his jacket pockets and stared up at the clouds beyond the hospital lights. "You need to know that the thing that attacked you is a demon, and so am I." A grin flashed across his thin face. "You need to know that you have a [i]powerful[/i] heritage and a terrible purpose." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, his face still turned toward the moon. "The demons are scared of you and fascinated by you," he breathed with a voice like wonder. "They'll clamor to get at you, just for a taste. You're the forbidden fruit." He snorted a small laugh. "But I'm not much for riddles. Your parents made a deal with Lucifer to conceive: they traded your adulthood for a child. Now that you're 21, you belong to him, according to contract." He shrugged. "Not a bad deal."