We were a couple hours into the party, running a series of horror movies on the TV, when Jacob decided to point a house out to John. He seemed to believe that John's interest in the paranormal would make him interested in living in a place like that. John gave him a half-hearted "yeah, nice" and moved on. While we were out having a smoke later, I decided to poke at it a bit.

"So, you didn't like that house, huh?"

He snorted. "That's some white nonsense," he said, laughing.

"Which part?"

"You won't catch my black ass around anything demonic if I can help it."

"No? That too paranormal for you?" I asked, smiling and nudging him with my elbow.

"Yeah, that's it," he joked, nudging me back. "Nah, but, It's just, I deal with ghosts because I have to, you know? I can't not interact with them. And I've grown to find all that stuff interesting, so I'm cool with a bunch of spirits. But demons? True fae? Absolutely not. They're too dangerous. My dad made sure I knew the difference.

"Your dad deals with the paranormal?"

"To some degree. He has books, some of which were handed down, some he got. I don't know what he does with all of it, but I know he does enough that my mom left when she couldn't deal with it anymore." He took a drag from his cigarette and looked out at the alley for a moment. "He's always made sure I knew how dangerous some of this stuff was, and that I knew how to handle it. I could probably hold off a demon, if I needed to, but it's rarely worth it."

"What about gods?"

"There's something beyond the spiritual realm, where souls go and never return. I like to think there's a decent god over there."

"I meant more like, here. The gods."

"What, you mean like Greek and Egyptian and shit?" he asked. I nodded. He shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, they're probably around. Can't say I'd trust them, those stories were not flattering." I laughed. "Why, you know some gods?" he joked.

"Well, something like that, yeah." He shook his head. "I promise I'll be careful, okay?" I offered him my hand and he looked at it for a moment before shaking it.

"Deal. Can't lose all the good nymphs in this world."