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useless.”
    Andrew is a firefighter. Almost all of the legal demons make themselves into ultra-useful members of society, using their powers for good, justice, etc. They know they have to do a lot of good deeds to make up for their occasional bad eggs, like the one I’d encountered in Topeka. Because demons can heal the bodies of their human hosts, they often take on really dangerous jobs. Andrew is always rescuing people from burning buildings. He’s a fucking hero.
    Okay, so maybe it’s not fair to be mad at him for being a hero. But, see, I’m not a hero, and I never will be. Sometimes that makes me feel small and selfish in comparison. I’m all for doing good deeds. Just not at the price Andy paid.
    “What do you want, Andrew? I’ve had a really shitty couple of days, and 28 / 226
    Jenna Black, The Devil Inside (2007)
    Morgan Kingsley #1
    I so don’t want any family drama right now.”
    He ran a hand through his hair—a very human gesture, but then if you just met him on the street you’d never know he wasn’t human. “It’s been two months since our, uh, problem. I thought maybe it was time we buried the hatchet.”
    Oh, yeah. This was a conversation I wanted to have right now. Personally, I’d have been just as happy if we never spoke to each other again.
    “Andrew—”
    “Morgan, we’re family, whether you want us to be or not.”
    This was somewhere along the lines of the conversation we’d had last time. I wondered if slamming the door in his face would be my best option right about now.
    “Andy’s my family! You’re just a parasite using his body, like a big, lethal tick sucking the life out of him.”
    He grimaced. “Lovely image. You’ve always had such a way with words.”
    I went for the door slam, but he stopped it with the flat of his hand. I was pissed enough that I tried to use my Taser like a stun gun, but he saw it coming and knocked the Taser out of my hand. He could have broken bones in the process, but somehow he hit just the right spot to make my fingers loosen without even hurting me.
    I cradled my hand to my body anyway, hating him, wishing it wasn’t illegal to exorcize a demon from a willing host. But it’s considered murder, and no matter how strongly I felt about Andrew’s demon, I wasn’t willing to go to prison or face execution.
    Andrew pushed past me into my house, shutting the door behind him. Anger glinted in his eyes, and there was a steely set to his jaw that Andy would never have been able to pull off.
    “Violence isn’t the answer to everything,” he said, sounding disgusted.
    “Stop acting like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum!”
    I glared at him. “I wasn’t the one who threw a punch the last time we argued.”
    He lost some of his righteous indignation, and his lips pursed like he’d tasted something sour. “I really am sorry about that, Morgan. The last time I walked the Mortal Plain, my host was an inherently violent man, a warrior. We may suppress our hosts’ personalities, but some of it does leak through, and a lifetime of it can affect our behavior. I am…embarrassed 29 / 226
    Jenna Black, The Devil Inside (2007)
    Morgan Kingsley #1
    that I allowed that to happen. It won’t happen again.”
    I cocked my head at him. “So you’re saying it wasn’t really you that hit me? That it was some remnant of your last host?”
    As an exorcist, I’m technically an expert on demons. And being raised by a Spirit Society family, I have a little bit of extra expertise from up-closeand-personal experience. But even us “experts” don’t really know all that much about them. We only know what they tell us, and I would bet my life that they’re not telling us everything. That’s one of the things that scares the shit out of me. What aren’t they telling us? And why?
    Andrew took my question as evidence that I was ready to have a lovely little heart-to-heart chat and invited himself into my living room. My house looks nothing like me. I look