The demon is crouched in the corner, between the Cheetos and the onion dip. It's a small one, only about four feet tall; a low-level creeper. I flick my eyes over the area like I don't see it--like a normal person would--and open the cooler door to get a Coke.

I watch the cashier behind me in the refection of the security mirror as he finishes ringing up a customer. He studies me intently, his one hand under the counter, probably gripping the butt of a shotgun or a bat he's got hidden there.

The bell on the door rings as the customer leaves.

The cashier looks over my ratty hoodie, my scruffy jaw, his gaze pausing on my tattooed hand that's clutching the cooler handle. He's probably looking for gang symbols, but he won't find them. This isn't a mark easily recognized. Even I'm not sure what it means, exactly.

But I'm the least of this guy's worries.

That demon in the corner is waiting for something and it isn't me. Its over-large, white eyes are trained on the cashier, wrinkled pale forehead frowning in focus. Its misshaped wings twitch and knock at the shelf with the ticking of the clock, and the leg muscles tense, like it's ready to pounce. The clawed feet seep black ash and sulfur as they dig into the linoleum floor, but there isn't any evidence of the mess anywhere else in the store that I can see, which means the thing's arrived recently.

I walk past, hoping it doesn't feel my awareness, and move to the counter, setting the can of Coke down and tossing a Snickers up there too--dinner of champions.

"Hey," I say in greeting. The chill of being too close to the demon crawls over me like ice beetles, but I clench my jaw and ignore it.

The cashier nods back, ringing up the soda. "Two, fifty." He eyes my face, like he's trying to memorize it, getting his description ready for the cops, just in case: 5'8", sixteen-year-old mixed-race male, brown hair, brown eyes, homeless junkie.

He'd be right about everything but the junkie part.

I pull my change out and it clangs onto the counter, cluttered with an old stick of gum, some lint, a rubber band. And a Star of David.

Damn. Forgot I had that in there.

The gold medallion catches the light before I can slip it into my pocket again and the chill of that demon stings at the back of my legs as it comes alert to me. "You know, forget it. I'm good," I mumble to the cashier. The medallion was blessed by a rabbi a few weeks back and is supposed to keep me from seeing things. Doesn't work, obviously. Except for apparently alerting the things to my awareness. I meant to ditch it, but...well, damnit, I have some lame inability to ditch anything.

I'll be pawning it tomorrow.

I move to the side, heading for the exit, leaving my meal and the change--even though it took me two days digging in dumpsters to collect the cans to recycle for the money to buy that Snickers and Coke.

I almost make it to the door before I hear the growl and the smell of sulfur fills my nostrils. It's right behind me. I can't see its reflection in the glass door but I feel it like worms under my skin.

It's right there.

"I wouldn't, if I were you," I say to it. I'm not trying to warn it away so much as not wanting to deal with this shit tonight.

The cashier looks up from his study of the pile on the counter, probably thinking I was talking to him. "What'd you say? Don't want no trouble here."

I ignore the guy and turn to face the demon, my eyes scanning the shelves for salt or rye (Not much rye at a Circle K). My stomach rises when it's in full view; the sight, the smells, smother me--making the old terrors fill my head.

...Mom bleeding on the floor, eyes wide to another world. My sister, Ava, screaming in her crib as the claws reach out, digging into her tiny shoulder...

I whisper the prayer of the archangel Michael under my breath in latin and the demon hisses at me, backing away a little. "I'm telling you. Just leave me be."

Saliva drips from its teeth and it makes a garbled noise in its throat, like words, but all backwards and upside down. I pull the medallion from my pocket again and dangle it in front of the demon's hole of a nose.

"You want this?" I ask. It seems more interested in the tattoo on my hand, though, hesitating at the sight of it.

"Out! Out!" the cashier yells, "I'm callin' the cops!" He pounds on the counter and waves the phone around.

But I don't look away from my new admirer. "I've had a rough night," I say to it. "And you can see I'm not scared of your sick mug, so you know this game isn't new to me. Just do your job, or whatever, and leave me alone." I wave to the spot it was standing in before and it follows my motioning, its head bobbing up and down, like a cat following a string.

Then it lunges and sinks its teeth into my tattooed hand.

Fire shoots up my arm and into my head. I fall back, banging into the glass door.

I scream and kick the thing but it doesn't do any good. Its jaw is locked tight, its white eyes starting to burn yellow, then orange. When it gets to red I'm screwed--it won't just be me against an underling. It'll be me against the underling and five or six of his big brothers.

I breathe through the pain and fumble in my jacket pocket. Somewhere I have a pouch of sacred dirt, I've got to. Old habits die hard. But it's been too long since I've fought, so long since I've been this stupid and let them see me. I'm a newb all over again.

My fingers find the pouch and grab hold. I pull it out and shove it into the demon's eye socket, relief washing over me, mingling with the adrenalin like a bi-polar cocktail in my blood.

The demon's flesh sizzles and pops blisters. It lets off my hand, stumbling back, screeching so loud I feel like my ears are going to start bleeding.

I try to get my head straight. I snatch up the Star of David again and start reciting Zachariah 3:2 in Hebrew, "The Lord rebuke you, O Accuser--"

I'm hit in the back of the shoulder, the wind knocked from my lungs.

"Out!" the cashier's screaming, "Get out, crazy bastard!" He swings at me again with a bat.

I try to shield myself from the blow, not wanting to hurt him, but it hits my arm with a painful thud, rocking my bones, and then I'm pissed and I'm catching the bat on the next swing, tight in my fist.

The guy pulls back, but I just grip harder and yank, pulling it out of his hands.

"Enough!" I hiss. I toss the bat across the store. "You're in danger, Moron. You need to go home to your family. Right now!" My eyes dart to the demon--it's still sizzling and whimpering on the floor, it's pale skin getting more pale, until it's almost blending into the linoleum. Disappearing. It'll be gone any second, heading back home to tell its big brothers about the guy in the Circle K that could see it. With my blood, like a fingerprint, on its teeth.

Can't let that happen.

"Go home!" I scream in the cashier's face, hoping I'm scaring the shit out of him. He better be scared. This demon was waiting here cause something was about to go down. A robbery, maybe. Or a shooting. Events that happen daily in this part of town. His days are likely numbered.

The guy stumbles back and fumbles for his cell phone. Drops it.

I grab the closest thing off the shelf I see--a can of bean dip--and hit him square in the jaw as hard as I can, knocking him to the floor next to his cell phone. Out cold.

The can of bean dip slips from my hand and I realize I'm bleeding where the demon chewed on me. Blood's dripping onto the linoleum and smeared on the shelf. The smell of it permeates the air like raw meat.

This really isn't my day.

I drag the cashier's limp body into the alley behind the store and go over the Rite in my head, trying to recall everything, make sure my rusty defenses aren't going to be the death of everything I've worked for all this time. I start reciting Zachariah 3:2 again aloud, and go find the salt on the shelf.

I pop the top off the shaker and make a circle of the white flakes around the demon. It takes another three shakers to complete the prison walls.

The twisted body flickers out for a second, disappearing into the linoleum, then comes back full-bodied and louder than ever, green smoke rising from around it in the circle, as it squeals and screeches like I'm stabbing it with a hot poker.

I finish the verse for the third time and stand over my little prisoner. "I warned you. Now you're gonna be stuck in this altar-to-the-carb-gods for the rest of eternity. Hope you're happy."

I don't have a spirit bowl to lock it up, so I'll have to do the best I can with what I've got and hope it holds. I go behind the counter and find a Sharpie.

The bell rings on the door, announcing a new customer. An older woman.

"We're closed," I bark, and she doesn't even question, she just turns and goes back out. Hopefully she doesn't call the cops. Better hurry, just in case.

I focus back on my task and kneel at the edge of the salt circle. Then I scribble the words on the floor, just on the outside of the prison, following the same line. I start with Zachariah 3:2 again and end with a bit of Psalm 91--both in Hebrew. I write big, so the symbols wrap around the circle two and a half times; should be plenty. But I need to be sure. I can't have this little bastard getting free to snitch. I'll have to burn the verses in.

I find the lighter fluid and start in the center of the circle, squirting it over the squirming demon, then out and out, until I've covered eighty percent of the store and the smell of it is making me feel light-headed. The wall of booze will take care of the rest once it catches the flames. Hope the owner's got insurance.

I go behind the counter and grab the digital video recorder, yanking the wires free and tucking it under my arm, then I pick up a lighter.

I move to the back door, wave goodbye to my new friend, and flick the lighter to life, then hold it to the floor where there's a little pool of fluid.

It catches with a whoosh, pushing into the room, consuming Cheerios, Milky Way, and Little Debbie's, like a hungry monster. I watch for a second to make sure it burns the symbols into the floor good, the smoke rising up to sear the air with it, trapping the demon for good. I watch the flames lick up my blood, leaving no evidence of myself behind, and then I back into the alley. I stare down at the cashier and tear a strip off the bottom of my shirt to wrap my hand.

I should wake him up and tell him he needs to get his shit together--get right with his Maker--before something really bad happens to him. But I know the words'll just fall on deaf ears. They always do.

So, I step over his body and find my path in the shadows, as the sound of approaching sirens fills the night air.