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Father Vincent Castillo could feel curious eyes following him as he departed the Greyhound bus terminal, shoulders hunched against the cold and wet. A clerical collar and a bruised jaw were an unusual combination – he would probably have stared, too. Still, he could have done without the extra attention.

"It's a sensitive business, this," Aadavan had informed him over the phone, two days before his arrival in Seattle, "Biblical, she says."

As always, Vincent had his doubts. The world was teeming with diabolical forces, after all, and the unacquainted were often eager to assign disproportionate gravity to lesser beings. Nevertheless, his assignment as the clerical delegate suggested his brethren suspected there may be some weight behind the apothecary's claims – enough weight to bypass established protocol and assign a demonologist to her case, anyway.

The cafe was, mercifully, only a few blocks from the bus terminal. Despite his itinerate lifestyle, Vincent's Mediterranean heritage made him ill-disposed to colder climates, and he loathed the damp and gloom of Pacific Northwest autumns. Besides this, his vow of poverty offered his wardrobe little in the way of versatility, and so he had donned the same stiff black shirt and slacks, scuffed dress shoes, and heavy wool coat he had worn while attending to an exorcism in Montreal days earlier. The coat was already saturated, absorbing the humidity in the air like a sponge despite the flimsy umbrella the priest had acquired at a kiosk in Vancouver International, and one of his shoes had become a fishbowl for his foot after a misstep landed it in a puddle.

Yes, it would be a welcome reprieve to escape the outdoors as quickly as possible.

Waiting at the crosswalk, he had a clear view of the cafe's glass facade nestled beneath a squat office tower. The woman caught his eye immediately, perched at her table just inside the floor-to-ceiling windows, her delicate features still and impassive as though poised for a Renaissance portrait.

He identified her at once as the apothecary, although he had never laid eyes on her before. She was younger than he and quite striking–

"The light, Padre." A meek child's voice at his side, a small hand tugging sheepishly at Vincent's coat sleeve.

Startled from his thoughts and embarrassed to have been caught gawking at the opposite sex – by a child, of all people! – Vincent feigned an apologetic smile and turned to thank the youth as he was swept up in the impatient sea of pedestrians propelling him forwards across the street.

His blood ran cold.

The diminutive creature that grinned back at him from where it remained on the edge of the sidewalk was no child, its black eyes unblinking from a pale, round face framed by filthy blonde braids. It's head was cocked, one tiny hand raised in an offensive gesture.

Are you devil or omen?

Vincent collided with someone ahead of him, eliciting a snarled, "Watch where you're going, dumbass," and the disruption was all it took for the being to vanish from sight.

Reorienting himself on the sidewalk, he found cover against the brick building adjoining the cafe, where he took a moment to steady his breathing and fight with the closure on his umbrella. An imp, nothing more, he reassured himself, tapping the tip of the now mangled umbrella against the concrete to shake away any excess moisture before tucking it beneath his arm.

He crossed himself before entering the cafe, an olfactory wall of roasted Arabica and baked goods triggering a salivary response he had to swallow back. It had been a mistake to skip breakfast. Tearing his attention from the exorbitantly priced menu board, he nodded at the apothecary and approached her table, bending to place his leather valise on the floor beside the empty chair across from her before shedding his coat – oh, what sweet relief that was. – and draping it over the back.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said, sitting down, "Father Vincent Castillo. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss–?"

He drew a blank, hand frozen in extended greeting toward her. Who had Aadavan told him the letter was addressed from? Had he told him? He felt himself flush with embarrassment but did not withdraw his proffered handshake, hoping this woman had the grace to take his social faux pas in stride.