Twenty years ago...
Eliot Sanders is in a city in New Zealand, down in one of the suburbs. It's 10 pm local time—he's been here three days and he still tries to think of it as local time to downplay the inevitable jet lag he knows he'll get going back to the U.S. And despite the cold anticipatory dread that's built up in his stomach over the course of the stakeout, he's in a good mood. His partner, Ray Trissome, is off monitoring another house for one thing, leaving him alone with some quiet for the first time in several months of working together. And, better luck yet, he's managed to steal the car away from Ray for the night. The company's budget for operatives can be a little low depending on the expenditure, and the fact that the car rental is covered under both the 'transport' and 'accomodation' categories of their meager budget came as little surprise to either of them. So when the call came down the night before that there were now two targets to stake out, they flipped a coin for who'd get the car and who'd have to sit on a park bench in front of the other house pretending they were homeless.
And so Eliot is sitting in the driver's seat on the other side of the street from the target's house, legs up on the dash, re-reading the mission intel report out of boredom. He's smoking, too, a habit which bothers his partner. Ray always tells him that those things would kill him someday, but given that most things in their job would probably kill them someday Eliot doesn't see the logic there. The habit's comforting for him anyway, a little slice of normality he never found much of after he quit his job as a cop.
He's about halfway through the mission intel report for the third time of the night. The page he's currently on is marked 'HEZAZEL, AKA 'YELLOW-EYES''. There are pictures of various people, interwoven between the knots of text like flies in a web. There are only two similarities between the people that Eliot can see. The first is that every single person, either by trick of the light or some stranger reason, has irises of a sickly golden-yellow color, as of hot flame or the dried-out scales of certain snakes. The second is that, to the best of Eliot's knowledge, every single one is now dead.
The page he is currently reading has the headings 'POSSIBLE OBJECTIVES' and 'POTENTIAL TARGETS'. He is halfway down the page, making little notes in the margins about the more important points, when the northerly room on the second level of the house on the other side of the street explodes into flames.
Eliot knows his job. He only takes a second to feel for the gun and the canteen of water he's already made sure are in his coat before he's sprinting across the street towards the house. The door's locked, but it's the work of a second to blast off the lock and head in. He darts down the hallway, takes a right, and then shoots up the stairwell taking two steps at a time—he finished memorizing the house's design two nights ago. But he's careful to stay silent, and his caution is rewarded when he hears footsteps on the second level, from the northerly room. For a moment the fear freezes him entirely, and he stays still halfway up the stairs, utterly exposed.
Time seems to slow for a moment, and the whole situation sinks in. It's utterly clear that a nice family once lived here—Eliot ruthlessly slots in the past tense to keep himself from becoming too distracted at the devastation. Portraits of family members on the walls. Mom and Dad's wedding photos. His eye catches on the lovingly-framed picture of a newborn baby, with the title 'Irene' in flowery little letters beneath.
Even with his attempts at detachment he feels his pulse race a little, and the rising shock and nausea at what's been done here, and shuts it all down just in time. He can't afford to feel anything right now. Eliot Sanders, one-time cop and now something altogether stranger, restarts his sprint and gallops without further pause into the southerly room. The target is where two days' worth of stakeout has confirmed—little Irene is nestled still in her crib, blessedly still asleep. Thank God for small favors, Eliot thinks, and scoops up the child into his arms. She still does not stir, and for a moment the distant part of him that still feels knows only terror. Then her eyelids flutter a little, and Eliot calms.
The fire had grown more than a little while Eliot's back was turned, and the hallway is now a blazing inferno. But there is a soft lawn just twenty feet down, and a pane of glass large enough to fit through if he were to smash it. Eliot's had worse pain than the results of a landing like that. He glances around for a blunt object, grabs the crib, and smashes it against the glass until it spiders and shatters away, keeping little Irene covered and safe in his other arm. He is about to jump through when he hears a polite cough behind him.
The fire has grown more than a little while Eliot's back was turned, and the bedroom door is smoking charnel and flame. But there is a figure standing there, backlit by the light of the destruction. Eliot immediately ID's the mostly-intact face as that of the child's father. But the eyes... it could just be reflections of the color of the flames, but there's a sickly yellow that seems to spill out of them. And of course, there is the fact that nobody with second and third-degree burns all over their body can be expected to get up and walk around afterwards.
Hezazel turns the father's face into a carnivore's grin. "Oh, thank Heaven you found her," he says, stalking forward until he's only a couple feet away. "I was worried she'd been hurt in this awful blaze. Just pass my child back and we'll get out of here."
Eliot realizes with only a little relief that Hezazel seems to think he's a know-nothing hapless good Samaritan. He turns so that the arm holding Irene is facing Hezazel, but does not reach out to offer her over. He decides to play the role of 'heroic rescuer' to the hilt, and buy whatever time that offers. "Tell you what sir, I'll take her out of here safely. You look a little hurt."
Hezazel turns his head, regarding him carefully. "You know what, sport, I think that's a good idea." He nods, seemingly thinking it over. "Yeah, a very good idea at that. Who knows, I might not even make it out of here alive." He makes a little self-deprecating laugh, and suddenly Eliot realizes in one delirious moment that if he doesn't say or do anything too extreme Hezazel is going to just let him go. "Just promise me that if I die you'll take care of my child."
And then something inside Eliot snaps. "Not your child," he says, and lashes out with the arm that isn't holding Irene. He's already uncorked the top of the bottle in preparation, and the holy water bursts out and smashes into Hezazel's face. The water erupts into steam from the moment it hits, and Hezazel backs away clawing at his face and screaming. But Eliot is already flying, out through the window and slamming hard into the earth. He hits just the way he means to, and when he gets back up he feels the flaring line of pain down his left forearm and along his back that tells him he's done the roll right. Irene is unharmed.
Eliot gets up, expecting to see Hezazel bearing down in his stolen body, but the demon is only leaning out of the window, one hand on the frame as though scared of looks Eliot over for a few long seconds, tilting his head as though mystified. He finally settles for a polite smile, and then straightens his back with dignity and walks back into the inferno. Eliot knows that sometime soon there will be a cloud of oily black smoke adding to the smoke caused by the fire.
From there, it's a simple matter for Eliot. He waits until his heart has stopped trying to leap out of his chest and murder him, and then gets up. He walks to his car with the nonchalance of a man that knows two things: at this very moment there would be at least one person watching him walk away from a suspicious fire and into his car, and that every scrap of evidence that could tell investigators what he's been doing for the past three days will have evaporated by morning like fairy dust. He gets in and speeds away into the anonymous night.
Calls in a mission report from a parking lot a few kilometers down the road.
Fills in his partner about the mission results in a second call immediately afterward, and starts driving down the road to pick him up.
Somewhat more incongruous is the purchase about half an hour later in a 24-hour grocery store for diapers and baby food.