Shawn approached Tara with slow, cautious steps, pretending to wipe down the counter with a dry rag. He was not a great actor. Once he was just a foot away, he finally spoke. “Ava mentioned that she… told you.”

“Mmhmm,” Tara responded. It was the first sound she had made vocally in almost twenty-four hours.

He took it as a confirmation to continue. “She said you seemed to go into shock and… stopped talking.”

It was true. After her girlfriend of a single month, whom she had only known for around nine weeks, announced she was a mythical being, Tara had found herself struggling to digest the announcement and comment on it. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed it. But Ava was not the type to make silly or childish jokes. And the way she said the word ‘demon’, it was paralysing. In fact, she had felt paralysed inside of her own mind since she found out. Her girlfriend is a demon. A biblical creature. A monstrous entity from another realm.

Again, Tara could only hum in answer. “Mmm.”

“She said she carried you home, dropped you off, and you went inside without saying goodbye.”

Also true. Having attempted a few times to encourage Tara to speak or stand on her trembling legs, Ava had admitted defeat, gathered the smaller woman in her arms carefully and held her against her firm chest. She had then carried her out, locking the door to Jessi’s Java behind her, and walked steadily to Tara’s apartment building. Every movement felt slow and calculated, it gave Tara the suspicion that Ava was deliberately doing her best not to spook her further. With a quiet tone she advised that she would let Shawn know he needed to start his shift early, then placed Tara on her feet at the building’s front door. Tara nodded gratefully, although did not turn her head to look Ava in the face, and let herself in with fumbling fingers.

“Mmhmm.”

“And that you didn’t respond to any of her messages all night.”

“Mmm.”

“And I can’t help but notice you haven’t said a word all morning.”

“Mmhmm.”

Silence filled the empty cafe for a few minutes. Neither of them moved. They must have looked like a pair of mannequins, stood immaculately still at the counter and facing the front door.

“And… you’re scaring me a little,” Shawn said with an awkward humour layered over his words. Something about them flicked a switch in Tara’s mind, it triggered a spark of frustration and annoyance within her.

“What do you have to be scared of?” she said far too sharply. “You’re one too, right?”

He considered his answer momentarily, his mouth twisted with indecision, before replying with his own question. “Did she tell you that?”

Tara murmured, “no.” She had been hoping he would deny it.

“Well, even demons feel fear, Tara.”

Hearing the word spoken so casually was still grating to her ears, she wasn’t adjusted to this reality yet. This foreign world in which she was dating… a demon. Tara was still debating whether or not she could simply pretend she had never heard what Ava said the previous day, play dumb for the duration of their relationship. But how long would that be?

“How much longer will the silent treatment be going on for? I may have to turn the radio up.”

Tara let out a sigh that was bordering on a groan before grumbling, “it’s not the silent treatment, I’m thinking.”

“In that case, do you want to ask anything? You probably have lots you want to know.”

“I’m still processing the word ‘demon,” Tara admitted, unable to look at him when she said the word that now felt like an expletive. “I haven’t really progressed beyond that.”

“Understandable.”

A few more minutes of silence passed. Shawn managed to busy himself with their cutlery divider, rearranging delicate teaspoons meticulously. Tara did not move.

“Off the top of my head, though…” she said tentatively, unsure of whether she wanted to finish her own sentence. If she began asking questions or searching for clarification, then she would have to admit to knowing what she was still trying to pretend she didn’t know. Perhaps it was already too late, though. “Ava mentioned me being in danger by association because of… what she is - how does that work?”

“Well, we don’t exactly… belong here.”

“Here being?”

“This layer of life-forms. What humans can perceive is a mid-level layer of the worlds that exist. Anything that a human can see with their naked eye we class as ‘Earth’ even though it’s all layers of the same cake, if you get my meaning.”

“It’s always food analogies with you,” she huffed with a restrained smile. She was glad for it, though. He seemed more and more to be the same Shawn she had known, even if now she knew so much more than she had ever expected to.

“Anyway, so humans are native to this layer and demons are native to a layer that is a couple of levels below, a fun little place called ‘Hell’. Angels are native to the upper levels, of which there are a lot more. The problem is, Hell is small and cramped and designed to be generally unpleasant in order to ward off badly-behaved angels and humans. However, the more fallen angels and human souls that end up there, the worse it gets. We don’t have the luxury of space that Heaven does in that they have far more layers to occupy, and demons don’t tend to get promoted up to their land. Ever. Once you fall, there’s no getting back up. So, a lot of us sneak our way into Earth, the middle ground.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“Angels are the problem. They created this structure in order to uphold their beliefs and laws. Contrary to what many realise, angels have an enormous hand in the politics of Hell because it is essentially their prison to punish their people for crimes they dictate. They effectively own the place but have demons as the face of the operation. So, when demons escape into Earth for a laid-back life and some breathing room, they not only send demon enforcers to drag you back and restore order on their side but Heaven also sends angel enforcers who are ‘protecting Earth’ by throwing you back into the sweaty armpit that is Hell.”

“If they’re so determined to maintain order, how did you and Ava escape?”

“There are a couple of underground organisations that aid demons that want out. Ava and I came through the same one but at different times so I can’t speak for her entire ordeal but mine was rough and I would assume hers was too. We were put in contact by the organisation as part of a buddy-system they use to ensure we have support in the human world. Imogen was part of her group and they stuck together after arrival. I think they lost a lot of people along the way so it made sense for them to continue as a pair.”

“Lost?”

“When you get caught by an enforcer… it’s not pretty. You’ve already been looking a little pale all morning so I don’t think it would be healthy for me to get too far into the specifics.”

It was a tad too late as Tara was already feeling queasy making her own assumptions about what happened if you were caught by an enforcer, but she still said, “I appreciate that.”

Shawn quickly changed the subject to their shift rota and a new weekend worker that would be starting soon, much to Tara’s relief. She needed time to breakdown what she had learned so far before she asked any more.

Ava was waiting for her at the end of her shift. Hovering outside the back door in the alleyway that leads onto the main road. Tara froze momentarily in the doorway when she saw her. As she stepped out into the crisp evening air, she tugged the sleeves of her chunky-knit pastel yellow jumper over her hands awkwardly. Although it wasn’t that cold, goosebumps rose on the stripe of bare thigh that peeked out between her blue denim pinafore dress and white thigh high socks.

“Hey,” Ava said softly.

Tara watched her for a moment, her brain still slowly morphing the Ava that she knew into this new Ava. This forbidden creature who was showing an interest in her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, just as softly as her greeting.

“I will be.”

“Shawn said-”

“I would really appreciate it if the pair of you could stop the running commentary of the conversations you have together. I already had Shawn relaying everything you had said about my reaction today.” Tara was all too aware that she was letting her anxiety and shock at the situation escape her in the form of irritation and barbed words. She was not angry at either of them, she knew that, she simply felt flustered and unsure of how she was supposed to react.

“I’m sorry, I told him out of concern for you. I wanted him to check in, make you sure were-”

“I’m fine,” Tara said firmly. She didn’t want to talk about herself or try to come up with a way to describe how she felt because in all honesty, she did not know yet.

“Understood.”

Tara pushed the back door to Jessi’s Java closed behind her and stood directly under Ava’s nose. “Let’s go back to yours, I’m ready to talk.”

A visible glaze of relief slid over Ava’s face and she even smiled, albeit slightly tensely.

“Can I carry you again?”

Tara stared into the black eyes that had entrapped her in this insane situation, they were alight with a mischievous excitement.“Sure,” she agreed. She could do with a bit of physical affection after a night of no sleep and a day of jumbled thoughts.

Ava swooped her up by the shoulders and the crook of her knees in a movement so fast it shook Tara’s brain inside of her skull. That was not how she had cradled her in her arms the previous day. She suddenly had a maniacal grin spread across her face that unsettled Tara.

“You are far too excited,” Tara scolded her with a weak smile. “It’s making me nervous.”

“You should be, Tiara.”

Tara’s eyes blurred. The street lights turned to horizontal white stripes and her stomach shot into her throat. She had been on rollercoasters with less g-force than she was experiencing tucked against Ava’s chest. Before she could recalibrate her equilibrium, her feet were being lowered tentatively to the pavement outside of Ava’s front door.

Tara’s knees buckled at the minute impact of her shoes brushing the ground, refusing to hold her up in their shock of her relocation at what had to have been more than eighty miles per hour. She hung limply from Ava’s arms, her thoughts playing catch-up.

“You’re gonna tear my shirt,” was all Ava offered in compensation for the whirlwind Tara had just experienced. She was clearly enjoying Tara’s reaction. Tara glanced up at her hands, curled into claws in the soft material of Ava’s white tee. Her nails were not long enough to tear anything but she loosened her grip just a little.

“That was… intense,” she breathed shakily.

“I can’t wait to show you the full strength of my powers,” Ava growled into her ear. There was a playful but threatening edge to her words and Tara’s thighs clamped together instinctively. She had been struggling to keep up with Ava in her ‘human-mode’, demon Ava may just obliterate her. It took her a little longer to ease herself back onto her own feet and hold her own weight again. Once, she could put one foot in front of the other without stumbling, Ava let them in.