Angel had been unable to sleep the night before, all through out the darkness he laid awake in bed with his eyes wide open, on guard for any potential danger. And when morning came he was too scared to leave his room. Too scared of what could possibly be waiting for him on the other side of that door. Too scared of who or what he could run into when going down that hallway. He knew what he encountered last night was no nightmare or hallucination. It was real and him afraid. Very, very afraid.

He just sat there on the bed, shaking as if death was coming for him. He didn't get up to eat if he was hungry nor did he get up to take a whizz if he felt the urge. He did not move from that exact spot all morning and even into the midday. When the afternoon came around, someone finally decided to check up on him.

Knock-knock!

He couldn't answer. All he could do was hold his breath and internally pray that what was on the other side wouldn't harm him.

"Angel? Are you still asleep?"

When he heard Vaggie's voice he released his breath and regained his ability to speak.

"No I'm awake." He said. "I've been awake for hours."

"Then why haven't you left your room?"

"It's a long story. What do you want?"

"Well for one thing I wanted to make sure that you were still alive since I hadn't seen you all day, and second, I wanted to talk to you."

"About what?"

"About yesterday."

"If it's about how you don't believe me and think that I'm crazy, I don't want to hear it."

"Angel I don't want to hurt you, I'm trying to help you."

"You wanna help me? Stop talking to me like I'm a mental basket case and listen to me for once!"

He heard Vaggie sigh.

"I'm going into town to get some fresh air and do a little shopping. Would you like to come?"

"No! I'm not going out there unless it's in a car to an airplane that'll bring us home!"

"Suit yourself."

She slid something underneath the door. It was his rosary beads.

"Take those with you!" Angel insisted.

"Why?"

"To protect you."

"I don't need protection. I'm a professional boxer, remember?"

"Boxing skills won't protect you from supernatural evil."

"Goodbye Angel!"

"Vaggie please!" He picked up the beads and finally opened the door. "For your own sake, take them with you!"

"No. I'm not going to do anything that will feed that delusion of yours. There is nothing supernatural out there. It's all in your head."

"But..." He trailed off, realizing that his efforts were futile.

"We'll try this again when I come back." She decided. "Hopefully you'll be open to having a conversation with logic and reason."

Angel wanted to protest further but then thought, "What's the point?"

Vaggie was a headstrong and logical woman with a mind of her own. He recalled her aunt once saying that only God himself would be able to get her niece to change her mind about anything.

"She's ridiculously stubborn and thinks that she knows everything." Her aunt had commented. "Just like her mother. I only hope that she doesn't have to learn everything the hard way like her mother did."

In that moment Angel had the same hope.

"If I'm lucky, she'll scare off anything supernatural with that temper of hers." He muttered to himself once she was well out of an earshot.

He started to go back in his room but that's when Charlie appeared. Vaggie had asked her to come shopping too but Charlie kindly refused using the excuse of needing to finish working on her book, which was technically true but she had also wanted to talk to Angel about the whole paranormal matter. She meant to talk to him about this morning but speaking with Alastor and then Rosie caused her to forget. However Angel wouldn't hold it against her, and he had more important worries than that. He wanted to tell her about the demon he had met last night. The one that insisted they couldn't leave until after the Harvest Moon, problem was though, if he said one word he would probably be dead and he didn't know if that demon was listening or not.

"We need to call an expert." He told her.

"An expert?" Charlie asked.

"You know, a necromancer or an exorcist, someone with experience in this stuff."

"Do you know any experts?"

"Only Uncle Salvador but he's away on business in the old country."

"The old country?"

"Italy."

"Ah. Well then what about a priest or a reverend? This town has like three churches. We're bound to find one willing to help."

"But they're no good to us if they're not trained in exorcism."

"Maybe we should talk to Alastor and Rosie about this? I mean I kind of already told her-"

"You what?!"

"Calm down, she didn't think we were crazy."

"Does she believe us?"

"I don't know, but she suggested maybe giving our concerns to Alastor. I mean he does own the house after all. He has to know something."

"But how do you know that he can be trusted? In cases like these, someone like him is either an ally or an enemy. And until we know which is which, we have to act like we don't know anything. If he finds out we know too much, we may find ourselves, as my old man would say, sleeping with the fishes."

"I don't think Alastor would hurt us."

"You don't know him well enough to know what he'd do to us. That's why we have to be careful. Play dumb, until we know who we can trust, and far be it from me to agree with Vaggie on anything her paranoid mind comes up with, but I think she's right to suspect that we weren't brought here for some book editing."

"Well what other reason is there?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yeah. Maybe they wanted you, not the book."

"That's crazy. What would they want me for?"

"Well apart from the fact that you're hot and come from a rich family, the people here have a painting of a woman who looks just like you and you mailed them photo of yourself. They saw the resemblance and decided to bring you here. Now for what reason, I don't know yet but it can't be good."

"But that woman in the painting didn't look like me."

"That wasn't the painting I saw. It was a different one."

"Rosie swore to me that photo I sent her was the only picture she has of anything resembling me."

"Oh yeah? What about Smiles? Or the staff? Or anyone else in this house? She's not the only one who lives here you know."

"But it doesn't make any sense. I've never met these people before in my life. How could they possibly have a picture of me or know anything about me before I sent that letter? I live all the way in Chicago for God's sake."

"I don't know but I'm willing to bet everything I own on the hunch that they want you for something."

"Angel I really want to believe you on this but it just doesn't add up. I'm trying to believe you but you have to understand how this sounds."

That's when Angel went silent. Charlie had a point. This was very hard to swallow and ninety-five percent of the world's population would react the same way. Well maybe not exactly the same way, at least Charlie was making an effort to believe him. But she was right, his words alone weren't good enough for her. He needed proof. Something that would make it impossible for her to deny what he was telling her. But what?

Then as if the lord himself decided to send Angel a miracle, he glanced at the window and spotted a familiar face heading toward the cemetary. In a flash, repressed memories came back and he recognized that person as Cherri, the woman he met on the boardwalk. And a possible witness to the attack he suffered in the alleyway.

"Charlie I think I've just found my evidence." He declared.

"What do you mean?" Charlie asked.

"See that girl down there?" He pointed outward. "I know her. Sort of, we met that night on the boardwalk. The night I was attacked. I don't know if she saw anything but I think we should ask her some questions."

"What is she doing in a cemetary?" Charlie asked.

"Only one way to find out."

"But it'll be dark soon and it's not safe to be out after dark. Not in this area."

"The cemetary is only a few spaces from the house. I seriously doubt alligators and bears are going to show up."

"What do I tell Rosie?"

"Don't tell her anything. She's not your mother, you don't have to tell her where you're going. Now we better move quick or we'll lose her."

Placing his beads and cellphone in his pocket, Angel quitely led Charlie outside and toward the graveyard. It was sunset by the time they arrived and it made Charlie nervous, but drawing closer to the cemetary made her suddenly want to find answers as much as Angel did. She suggested calling out to Cherri but Angel thought it best to silently follow her until they knew she was going. Lucky for them, she was halfway across the yard and had not noticed them in the slightest.

She walked past all the headstones and then stopped at what appeared to be crypt. However the odd thing was that the crypt wasn't marked. No family names, no symbols, nothing. It was completely blank. Or was it? Cherri carefully traced her fingers over something, as if she was putting in a combination or making a secret form of knock. The cold, stone door opened slowly for her and she proceeded to descend down the stairway leading underground.

When Charlie and Angel made it there, they were puzzled at what to do next. They wanted answers but was it wise to go down into a crypt? Especially so close to nightfall?

"Downstairs." Angel said nervously. "Why does it always have to be downstairs?"

The door was starting to close. Neither one of them knew how to open it so they decided to take a leap of faith and just slide through the cracks before it was too late.

No turning back now...