Disclaimers in part one.

A/N I began this before the episode "Norman," so I didn't know the chalice, the dagger and the book had any importance.

The next morning Coreen called in, not sick, but not-coming-in-today. She was still out of sorts with Vicki and was just as glad she got the machine when she called. As she brooded at the kitchen table over her bowl of Frosted Lucky Charms, two of her four roommates breezed in. She shared a three bedroom townhouse with four other college students. She was no longer a student herself, but she hadn't told her parents that yet. She was almost out of her money for the semester.

"Mornin'," said Deb as she pulled a bag of potato chips down from atop the refrigerator.

"Hi," Coreen said, though it was almost not morning anymore. Which meant . . . "Don't you guys have class today?"

Renee stuck a bag of popcorn in the microwave and turned it on. "Deb and I are going to have a Depp-fest. I need it after yesterday." She held up three videostore DVDs. "Care to join us?" She grinned.

Coreen rolled her eyes, but noticed one of the movies was Edward Scissorhands. She actually liked Edward Scissorhands, the tragic tale of an outcast freak and his doomed love. A dark reality living beside banal artificial suburbia.

"I suppose you have to work," Deb said, opening the refrigerator for dip.

"Nope," Coreen said, "If we can watch Edward Scissorhands first, I'm in."

"Most excellent," said Renee. "I'll go get my lover." She left to bring down her life-sized cardboard poster cutout of Jack Sparrow.

"I'll dish the ice cream," Coreen said.

Vicki closed the case. She found the runaway husband and had the unenviable task of telling her client that her husband had not run off with a girlfriend, but had in fact returned to his first wife and their kids. She watched the shock on the young woman's face as she realized she was the "other woman." Vicki took off her glasses to rub her eyes, and the woman blurred into strange glowing colors. Vicki frowned and put her glasses back on. Her vision seemed to be getting worse and in peculiar ways. She clamped hard on the panic that threatened whenever she considered being truly blind.

But the woman paid, and her check cleared. Feeling celebratory, Vicki wished for someone to take to lunch. Coreen had left a snippy phone message. If only Henry were available during the day. That left Mike. She considered whether she wanted to socialize with him in that way. It would be like saying he was forgiven for betraying Henry to Mendoza. Ah, she really needed some more friends.

She hopped transit heading for the police station, her thoughts on Henry. She looked at the bandages on her wrists and was suddenly struck by how it looked like she had tried to slit her wrists. She took the bandages off. She had only to flex her hands to remember the intense pain/pleasure of Henry's massage. And that memory sent warmth to all sorts of other places.

She leaned her head against the window. The greatest pleasure you've ever known. She didn't doubt it. If only she hadn't been so tired. The incubus, besides scaring her out of a year of her life, had left her unsatisfied, to say the least. She found herself counting the hours until sunset when she could see Henry again.

She snuck up on Mike at his desk, where he was talking on the phone. She nodded to Dave and slid around in front of Mike. Mike gave her a wry smile and finished his call. "To what do I owe this honor?" he asked.

"You free for lunch? I'm buying."

"You're buying? You must have had a payday."

"Hey, I can't just take an old friend to lunch?"

"Huh." Mike indicated a hamburger wrapper on his desk. "I took my lunch. What are your other plans for your windfall?"

"My windfall," she snorted. "Pay bills, rent, start a fund to buy some equipment."

"Hope you weren't planning to pay Coreen yet."

Vicki frowned. "Coreen? I need to have more regular income before I can afford to commit to a paycheck."

"Good. 'Cause the way I see it, she blackmailed you into giving her the job. You're just paying her hush money. You should get Fitzroy to pay her salary. It's his secret she's keeping."

Vicki was puzzled. "What's this about Coreen? And I'm not getting someone else to pay her salary; she's my employee."

Mike nodded. "Okay, but does she do any work for you? I don't get it. I tried calling your office; she's not even in today."

"I think she's entitled to a day off now and then," Vicki huffed. "And, hello? Silver bullets? Saved all our asses, and that's just to start with."

Mike put up his hands. "Okay, okay. It's none of my business anyway."

"No, it's not. She earns her salary, and I'm gonna pay it." That was right. The equipment fund could wait.

Mike nodded, smiling, and reached for a folder. "I'm glad you came by. I want to show you something." He produced a photograph of a symbol in a circle. Involuntarily, Vicki turned up her tattoos. Mike frowned at the redness around the edges but said nothing. The photo didn't match them.

"Crime scene photographer happened to catch this. It's right by the body, pretty small, but it's burned into the wood, not cut. I've just got a bad feeling about it."

Vicki smirked at him. "A bad feeling? Since when are you the one thinking magic or demons or something? Isn't that my job? You're supposed to be all skeptical."

"I'm a homicide detective trying to do my job," he said. Vicki winced a little. She wasn't a homicide detective any more. She chased down polygamous husbands.

She looked at the symbol thoughtfully. It did look familiar. "Body drained of blood or anything?"

"Not this time. Mean anything to you?"

"Actually, yeah." Vicki set the photo back on Mike's desk. "Henry has this book. You remember the one he was reading from when . . ." She glanced around to make sure no one was overhearing. "When we fought the demon?"

Mike shut his eyes and kept them closed a little too long before opening them again. "Yeah?"

"It has some writing in it. It's like demon language, and a lot of things are written inside circles like this." Mike looked at her wrists then back at her. "No, we looked it up. He hasn't got these." She wiggled a hand. "But a lot of what the book has is names and you can bet we looked up how you write Astaroth."

"No shit," he breathed.

"I'm pretty sure," she said somberly. "You sure you're not free for lunch?"

Coreen and Renee plopped down on the old sofa; Deb sat on the floor hogging the chips for herself. Renee lifted the remote control and pressed "play."

The menu screen appeared on the TV, offering the options of "play movie," "scene selection" "setup" and "special features." Coreen suddenly remembered something.

"Renee, did you turn the page on my calendar?" she asked.

Renee looked at her with a guilty expression. "Well, it's already the third and you still had it on last month."

"I've told you before, I want to turn the page. It's my damn calendar!" she yelled. Coreen had a calendar of beautiful pictures of "Dungeons of Europe and the Middle East." All month she would study the striking pictures and imagine visiting the location someday. She never looked ahead, and when it came time to turn the page, she made a small ceremony out of it, anticipating excitedly what the next month would show. Renee had the annoying habit of turning it for her.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, all right? Can we watch the movie?" She chose "play movie" and the opening scenes of Edward Scissorhands began.

"Hey!" Deb said. "Who's that?" She pointed at the window.

Coreen didn't look. She was growing more furious. "And another thing, I want to know," she yelled, getting to her feet. "Who loaded the new toilet paper roll? How many times do I have to tell you guys? The paper is supposed to hang down the back, not the front! So? Who did it? Renee, was that you?"

Deb stood and went to the sliding glass door. "Coreen, chill, would you? Who's this guy out here? He's cute." She opened the door and a blast of frigid late autumn air blew in.

"I can't believe you're getting bent out of shape over how I hang the toilet paper, Coreen," Renee said. "Deb, close the door! It's freezing."

So it was Renee. It was Renee who did everything wrong. Coreen went to the fireplace and without hesitation picked up the poker. She turned to Renee, just as Renee stood and faced the door. A guy in an inadequate leather jacket and long black hair that hung in his face came in the door, his hands in his pockets. Deb shut the door behind him just as Coreen raised the poker to slam its hooked "thumb" into Renee's skull.

Before she could, the newcomer drew out his hand, palm forward, and a beam of light shot from his palm into Renee's chest. Renee flew back, almost into Coreen, blood spurting from her chest. She fell dead on the hearth, at Coreen's feet. When Coreen looked back at him the boy held a gun and the sound of the gunshot echoed in Coreen's ears.

Deb screamed and ran out the door. After a moment's shock as she looked at the dull expression on the boy's face, Coreen dropped the poker and ran into the kitchen and out the door.

Vicki bought lunch at Happy Garden on North York. Normally they would have lunched at a deli, but solving mysteries required Chinese food. Mike felt almost nostalgic.

"So," she asked, "were there other murders like this?"

"I don't know," Mike said. "It was chance that the symbol happened to be in the picture. Shoot, it was luck that I saw it. If those little symbols are at other murder scenes, maybe no one would know to care. The thing is, Vicki, the case is solved; we have the murderer and the boyfriend even confessed. If that's happened at other murder scenes, who would even notice the little symbols? Case closed."

"You think that's happening?"

Mike waited a long time before answering, struggling with the weirdness of the theory he was building. It had been like this ever since Vicki had met Henry Fitzroy. Weird. "Okay, I know you're going to laugh, but I've been trying to think like a demon."

Vicki raised her eyebrows but didn't laugh. "Go on."

"The last time this thing tried to get to our . . . earth, we beat it. So if it wants to try again, it has to be sneakier. But I'm thinking, it still has to follow some rules, right? So what are the rules? Do you know?"

Vicki chewed slowly and swallowed. "Last time, there was a human who called up the demon's servant. I got the impression that a human has to start this thing off."

"Norman Bridewell."

"Yeah. The servant committed murders and Bridewell got stuff in return for doing the summonings."

"Stuff?"

"Whatever he wanted most, I guess. Cars, clothes, money, Coreen."

"And the murders were in certain locations, right? Drawing a pentagram on the city?"

"That's right. And there were some mysterious symbols, but I'm not sure if they were at every crime. Did you check your symbol against those?"

"Not yet. I hadn't really thought all this through." God, it was just like old times, bouncing ideas off of Vicki.

"So somewhere some human is getting something in return for . . . what? Summoning a servant? Sending a demonic greeting card? And is he making a pentagram again?"

Mike finished his moo goo gai pan and started on the bamboo shoots and snow peas. "See, that's the hell of it. The city has a lot of murders. Every day. If they are solved, if there's an obvious perp, then they won't stand out. How would we know if something was being drawn? We wouldn't even know how far along it is already."

Vicki nodded. "If the symbol is somewhere at the scene of every crime, we could look for that."

"You could sit down in Records and go through every solved case in the last month, but see, the symbol was small. It might not have been noticed." Mike finished his drink.

"What about the M.O.? What did the kid have to say for himself?"

Mike nodded. "He does sound kind of possessed. No history of violence and all of a sudden he takes an axe to his girlfriend's mother because she found them doing the dirty in her house. He seems sane enough now, and I gotta say, he seems completely devastated."

"But we've seen that kind of thing before. Insanity, good acting . . ."

"Uh huh."

"Still, we could look for solved murders where the perp just lost it and has a kind of fishy motive."

"Yeah. But here's the other thing." Mike took her wrist, slowly, so Vicki would let him, turning up the tattoo. "Bridewell's final sacrifice? I was there for that. It was something special, right? With a special person and a pentagram and all that?"

Vicki fidgeted. Mike knew she'd be uncomfortable accepting that she could be a particular target. "You know, none of this might be happening," she said. "We're spinning this tale on the strength of a symbol carved into some furniture at the site of a solved murder."

"Burned, Vicki. The name of the demon. And you've got his mark on you."

to be continued