Malik brought DeMain inside of his home, a strangely comfy place despite its less than proud exterior. A big, brown shag rug was on the ground, a few stains of blood blemishing its otherwise perfect look. Candlestands served as the only light in the makeshift home, with a large TV and VCR player combo standing on a rolling table in front of a torn up recliner.
The most striking part of the home was not the cask of wine bottles in the corner that looked more expensive than a college tuition, but the dozens of cages that hung from the ceiling. They were all fairly similar in style, some wrapped in sigiled talismans or sticky paper with markings that covered them completely. Some only had a few insignias carved into them, but their exterior makeup wasn't the interesting part. Inside of most of them there was a spirit. Ethel had been right, a lot of them looked familiar to him in concept. Goblins, bug-like fairies, even a few that resembled dolls from various time periods. The bigger they got, the more notable they looked, with the largest being a rather unimpressed-looking black cat. It bore a wide set of human teeth with fangs just overtop of them, and one single yellow eye that watched DeMain unblinking.
"Bagged that sucker back about eh… 15 years or so. Black Cat. Took a long ass time to whittle him down."
"He looks kind of small. I thought black cats were pretty… I dunno, uh… superstitious?"
"Oh, they sure are. You shoulda seen him at his peak. Bigger than a trailer and with more eyes than you could count. Well, 10 eyes, but they weren't pretty. I was lucky he didn't split off like some spirits do."
"Split off?"
"Sometimes when you kill 'em the left-behind parts become their own selves."
"I thought there couldn't be more than one of any spirit."
"Not usually, no. But basic, small spirits don't have the strength to start breakin' the usual rules. One of 'em uh… spirit around hair. Yeah. Took me years to clean up all of their small bits. Even found it crawling through a toilet once."
"Why isn't the Black Cat Spirit dead then?"
"I coulda killed him for good, at leas' for a while. Each time I managed to I got him down just oooone more life, he disappeared and I found him later a bit smaller 'n weaker than before. Eventually he got so small an' pathetic I just shoved him in a cage. Figured t'd be better than to kill him completely just for him to show up somewhere else years later."
"So you can't kill spirits for good?" DeMain asked, thinking mostly about Heressa and how much he never wanted to hear her voice in his ears again.
"Sometimes ya can. T's harder with concepts that've been around a long while. Black cats and bad luck, mirrors, the sun. But not all of em have to be kept away for good, neither. Sun Spirit has been pretty tame since everyone likes sunshine and warm days, but every couple decades somethin' like the Mirror Spirit will crop up and give everyone bad feels about their looks or somethin'."
"That doesn't sound that awful. Why not just kill the bad spirits anyway then?"
"We usually do, actually. Only prob'em is that killin' em just means a new one can sprout back up later. Ya gotta remember, each spirit is just a collection of a bunch of feelins' and energies. Ya don't kill those feelins' and energies by killin' the spirit, ya just stave off any consequences for lettin' em stick around for too long. S' why we capture em if we can. Maybe we just give it a bit of a trimmin' if we can't kill it."
"What about Witch Gods then? I'd love to get rid of one in particular."
Malik didn't react at all to DeMain's comment in the way he'd expected. Ethel had seemed genuinely concerned and maybe a little frightened, but Malik just gave a straight answer.
"Can't. At least not conventionally. You'd hafta kill every spirit they're made of."
"They did say they were using the Cigarette Spirit as a proxy. Is it like that?"
"Not quite the same, but sorta. Some spirits just offer themselves up to carry tha stronger ones past the Veil. Like when a lesser-known musician makes a song with a more pop'lar one and they both get richer. Kinda like that, they both get to spread their influence a bit. But no, a lot of spirits decide to eat one another ta gain their strength. Cannibalistic, yeah, but 'ts how New Witch Gods are born."
"Why the hell would they eat each other? Couldn't they like, work together?"
"They don't have tha same social drive we do. They're probably closer to uh…"
Malik stopped standing in the middle of the room and sat down in the chair with a heavy creak as it adjusted to his weight. DeMain also noticed his legs were tired, but only barely. Usually by now he'd have been tired from walking, jumping, and standing for so long, but he guessed the spirit world had less gravity or something.
"I guess lizards?" Malik continued, reclining in his cushy chair. "Somethin' like that. Most of 'em are born evil. Ya get a few who might have the smarts to make plans and allies, but it's pretty rare, usually the stronger breeds too."
There was a bit of a pause between them. DeMain didn't mind learning more about the world past the Veil, but he was really curious about how Malik knew his name. At least, knew his name well enough to go into shock hearing it.
"…so do you know any automotive mechani—"
"Man cut that shit out, I don't know none and I never have."
"Well where do you know my name from?! Your last name is Rich, mine is too. Spill."
"Shoulda just asked that to start with."
"I tried to!"
Malik popped open a wine bottle and poured himself a glass, slurping it like it was cold water on a hot day.
"Your dad had you pretty young, yeah?"
"—I… yeah, I guess? But that's pretty common for the area." DeMain said, blindsided a bit by the question.
"Yeah. So I woulda been… I'm forty-four now… he was nineteen–no, eighteen. Yeh… had you at eighteen, his girlfriend was sixteen If I recall."
"So? Who are you then?"
"I'm his brother. Well, half-brother, different mommas, I'm the older one."
"Okay… and?" DeMain begged for a continuation.
"I'm gettin there, hold your damn horses." Malik said, pouring a new glass of wine only to chug it all down with a swish. "Knew he named the kid DeMain, didn't get to stick around much longer. Had my Wakenin' about a year or so later, got it while I was tryin' a bunch of stuff with my friends from school at the time. They were busy gigglin' and busting ther' guts over some birds outside, but I was gettin' visions of places I'd never seen. 'Ventually they led me here, where I am now."
"So you just got up and left home one day?"
"Well, yeah. How else you gonna do it? I had my autonomy enough back then to know it was worth a shot and ta see if it wasn't crazy. How is your dad, by the way?"
"He's dead." DeMain snapped through gritted teeth. All this time and Malik didn't even know what was happening out in the real world. Malik paused his drink and rimmed the edge of the glass rather sadly with his finger.
"How'd he pass?"
"Shit, I dunno. I couldn't see past the guy who shot him."
"You kill the fucker who did it?"
"What? No. I'm sixteen, and he's a cop with the entire police force on his side."
"Okay… and?" Malik mirrored DeMain's own words. DeMain could only stare, dumbfounded.
"You can't just kill them."
"Why not? S'what they did to your dad, right?"
"They can make it look official and shit, I can't."
"Hm…"
Malik stroked his beard before sitting up out of his chair with a grunt, fishing around for something beneath it. He produced a pair of black sunglasses and a straw sunhat before putting them both on. DeMain watched as he quietly waddled over to his bed, a small single cot with an iron frame that looked like it was straight out of a prison. Malik tossed the mattress up, pulling a double-barrel shotgun from a strap on the bottom.
"That is not going to work, Malik. Oh my god…" DeMain exclaimed, throwing his hands up and rubbing them down his face in stressed disbelief.
"What? You dun' trust your uncle?" Malik said, squatting down and opening a small metal combination lockbox beneath the bed. He counted the shells and pocketed two, even though the box clearly had more. DeMain stood in front of the door.
"Dude. You are going to die. Even if you do kill him he's miles away and you'll get caught before you get back."
"What's his name?"
"I'm not telling you that!"
"DeMain. Trust me. I know what I'm doin'." Malik said confidently. DeMain couldn't really follow, looking his newfound uncle up and down. A big beer gut, jean shorts, cherry red sandals, a striped yellow shirt with stains all over it, designer sunglasses, and a straw hat. There was no way the police wouldn't catch him with a description like that.
"Nuh-uh. I'm not letting you die because you won't listen."
Malik lowered his sunglasses, staring at DeMain with the cool intensity of a glacier. His voice got lower, much colder than before.
"DeMain. Either ya tell me his name and I'm back in a few days, or ya don't and I'm back in a month once I find it out. Either way…" Malik shoved past him with surprising strength, grabbing DeMain's arm and ripping him away from the door. "I'm comin' back."
"So you're just going to walk in, kill him, and walk back out without any problems? You'll be caught and jailed if they don't just shoot on sight." DeMain expressed, flabbergasted at the old man's sheer will. Or sheer stupidity, rather.
"Pretty much. Minus bein' caught. If ya have any problems, ask Jo. You should start trainin' with some of the weaker spirits in the yard I have out back."
The door was shut in DeMain's face before he could protest, and when he opened the door he found Malik had disappeared entirely. He spent a few minutes scratching his head while he perused the town's paths for the hard-to-miss outfit, but found nothing even with his extended witchsight. DeMain even traveled back to the entrance of the Veil, but still couldn't see anybody waiting at the station. Relenting, he returned to Malik's house and scouted out back to see a wide square perimeter set up with some smaller spirit wards and rope. DeMain had never really fought a spirit before, but he could tell this was supposed to be a controlled space to practice in. He would ask about Jo later, he really hoped it wasn't a setup for a 'yo mama' joke. DeMain set the few things he'd brought with him inside his newfound uncle's house, setting Avery's leftover bag near the door just in case he ever came looking for it.
The spirits inside the cages on the ceiling were pretty easy to classify in levels of danger, although some looked oddly cute in a way he didn't feel like attacking. Namely a cornhusk doll spirit that trembled and covered itself when he reached for its cage. DeMain would need something that could actually put up a bit of a fight if he wanted to improve, he knew that. His eyes drifted around each of the cages, looking for something that was easy, but not a pushover. The goblin-looking one barely reacted to anything, the pixie flew much too fast to catch with his needles. He remembered very un-fondly Heressa's vessel spirit which had been impossible to nail.
DeMain's attention was drawn by one of the only spirits looking back at him as he made his choice, its single yellow eye had been locked on him since he first arrived. Cats were supposed to be agile, and they had claws, but they weren't impossible to catch.
"…You'll do, I guess."
DeMain found the cage was rather heavy, and he could simply pull it downwards to unclip it from a chain on the ceiling. The spirit inside didn't seem to mind being jostled around, though it did hiss when he nearly tripped and dropped the cage over a loose floorboard.
Setting the Black Cat Spirit down in the spirit ward square, DeMain found he could unlatch the glass and iron cage from afar with a length of string attached to the mechanism. He summoned a witch blade from the length of his forearm, yanking the thread and letting the spirit out. It was a small thing, taking on no different of a form than it had previously. Simply put, it was a thick black cat with one yellow eye in the center of its head. DeMain expected it to start attacking him, not for it to speak in a deeply-set voice with a rich upperclassman British accentuation.
"Oh I so am fond of the outdoors—though I suppose any persnickety pussy such as myself would be elated at the prospect." The cat spirit spoke, rolling its Rs in an almost fictitiously lengthy manner. "I suppose you think I'll be ripe for the taking, but no no my good knave, I am no pushover for the lame everyman, nor am I subject to the lesser desires of such a raucous soul."
"…What?" DeMain said. He could vaguely understand he was being insulted, but the cat was being so high and mighty about it that he wasn't even sure what it was upset about.
"I get it, you're an unintelligent babble unaccustomed to the unwinding of—MEOW!"
DeMain lurched forward and swung his blade right at the cat spirit's padded feet, causing it to jump straight up in fright. It wasn't happy about it, and it made it very clear when it landed, tail poofed up and mixed teeth bared.
"You dastardly devil! I wasn't done describing your decrepit, delirious soul before you nearly declawed me!"
Another swing of his witch blade and the cat jumped again, high enough this time to hit the invisible barrier of the warding square's roof. The spirit let out a yowl and landed again before jumping off to the side and back off the ward's wall. Its feet became a blur as it began bouncing from wall to wall, attempting to find an angle with which to strike DeMain. Or so he thought…
DeMain moved forward to strike again, but as the spirit darted across his path its eye glowed and its mouth became an exposed, predatory smile. He couldn't take another step forward before his ankle suddenly weakened, forcing him to the ground in an awkward fall he could barely catch himself from. The Black Cat Spirit found its opening, going for his back and beginning to claw and bite at his shirt. There were small nicks of pain, but it honestly sort of tickled with how dull the creature's claws and fangs were.
"I will tear you apart, limb from limb you precarious, porcelain-legged person!"
DeMain remained on the ground, not out of defeat, but laughter. He couldn't believe this thing had given Malik trouble at one point, it was essentially just a tricky cat with a loud mouth. He dismissed his witch blade and simply pried the creature from his back while it shook its tiny cat feet at him threateningly.
"UNHAND ME YOU VILE, VITRIOLIC SLICE OF VEAL!"
"You'd make an awesome thesaurus." DeMain smirked.
"I beg your pardon?! I am not a legible piece of literature, I am a grand spirit! A force of nature and one to be reckoned with! The Great Unluck! He Who Walks Across! The Black Pussy!"
The more the spirit spoke the more DeMain's face contorted as he held back booming laughter. If spirits were all like this then he doubted he'd ever be able to fight them properly, he'd die of laughter as soon as one of them introduced themselves as 'The Great Party Pooper'. He was starting to see the appeal to keeping them around, at least the funny ones. Maybe that's why Malik bothered in the first place.
Training had been unsuccessful, none of the spirits he took out posed a threat, at least not more than the Black Cat he stuffed back into its cage. The only spirit that had managed to get on his nerves was the pixie, which was apparently a Glitter Spirit. Thankfully the glitter disappeared as soon as he (accidentally) sliced it in two with his witch blade multiple times, but he had only done so because the pixie liked to blast him in the eyes with it.
DeMain gave up and placed the cages back on the ceiling, clipping them back into their hanging chains while the weight balanced them out automatically. Pretty handy system for keeping them in easy-access. He didn't really want to think about how often Malik might have been taking them out for practice, though.
Outside of Malik's home, he couldn't find any mention of a 'Jo', only confirming his suspicion that it was a very elaborate 'Joe mama' prank. Great.
Eventually, he came to Kaiyo, now desperate for anything that wasn't 'Yeah, I think I heard of him somewhere' or a 'Nope'. She didn't seem much wiser than the others on the subject.
"Have you seen a 'Jo' around? I've looked everywhere. Is it like a spirit I need to find?"
"No. Nobody in town is named Jo, but you could ask Yolanda, she keeps a ledger of who she heads out with and what spirits are about near town."
"Where is she?"
"She usually babysits the younger kids. I don't know where she is, but she has bright red hair. Hard to miss."
Oh. That girl. Great.
DeMain thanked Kaiyo and trudged off, taking back routes and hoping he could play his looking for her as an accidental meetup rather than an intentional tracking. She didn't look very friendly and he couldn't imagine her reacting well to him saying 'Hi! My uncle said I needed to talk to you about every problem I've had since my Awakening!'. He knew it wasn't what Malik had meant, but it sure felt burdensome to ask her to drop everything for him. Especially if she was babysitting.
Eventually, Yolanda found him instead. When DeMain had given up searching now that she was no longer looking after the kids, she decided to introduce herself rather gruffly with a pat to his shoulder.
"You got a problem?"
DeMain turned to see her fiery red hair and intense stare worth a thousand daggers pointed at him. She resembled very closely the kinds of girls who gutted guys like him. She was tall too, and she had a decent amount of muscle underneath the spiky, studded vest and torn jeans. 'Plain' could describe her face well, with features that weren't quite small or feminine enough to be 'pretty', but that didn't overshadow her entire face that it was all you could see when you looked at her. DeMain wished he could stand tall and ignore her attempts to intimidate him, but unfortunately he hadn't mastered the art that Avery had, somehow.
"Uh, well kinda? Not really. I mean, my uncle Malik told me to look for a 'Jo'-"
"Joe mama."
There it was.
"I'm just kidding." Yolanda continued, a little lightheartedness showing itself through her moody disposition. The intensity didn't leave her eyes with the tension in the room, though. "I told Malik my name was Yolanda, but I think he likes to call me Jo just to fuck with me. Actually, I'm not sure if he even remembers my real name… sorry if he wasted your time." She said, uncrossing her arms as she fixed herself to a more relaxed pose.
"Oh. Yeah he does seem very…"
Loose. Casual. Immoral? DeMain couldn't put the right word to it, but Yolanda gave it to him anyway after the pause in his thought agitated her enough to finish it on his behalf.
"I think you're looking for 'jerky', honestly."
"Is he that badly regarded around here?"
"Well he's not a total douche, no, but he's pretty old fashioned. I would say times have changed but there's no way to know that here. No internet, no streaming services. Best we can do is run into town to scrounge for DVDs and taped films, or try and find some newspapers that aren't too out of date."
"What? Can't make a deal with the Wifi spirit?" DeMain joked. His smile snuck off his face at Yolanda's still-serious expression glowering back.
"Oh we tried, trust me. Then it started asking for human sacrifices to 'pay' for it, so we had to chase it out of town. The week or so we had with connectivity was nice though, I got to play mobile games I hadn't touched in years."
"Oh. No chance you can just trap it in a cage and ask it to work for you?"
"I wish, but it'd probably just preach about people's search histories then. Nobody wants that." She said, her eyes darting back a bit. DeMain promised privately to himself not to let the Wifi Spirit back into town, his search history in his first week alone with Avery's computer hadn't been very couth.
"Anyway." Yolanda's eyes returned to DeMain. "What did you need?"
"Malik said to come for you to help like I said, but the only thing I think I need help with is training or… something. However you do that as a witch." DeMain said, scratching the back of his head. He expected her to laugh, but she just looked him up and down for a few seconds.
"Show me your soul."
"Uh… how do I do that?"
"It's like… meditation, I guess. Relax as much as you can and imagine yourself exiting your own body. Your body naturally hides your true form in the spirit world, since having it out might attract dangerous spirits who attempt to take advantage of you."
"…Can you show me how? It's hard to imagine that."
"No. My soul has a very uh, personal look to it, and I don't show it off to just anyone."
DeMain's hormone-addled brain conjured up a lot of images he'd never say to Yolanda's face, but he knew it wasn't what she meant. Even if he really, really wanted it to be.
"Here." Yolanda said, grasping his shoulder and pushing him down until he was cross-legged on the ground. She sat across from him, sitting the same way. "Just close your eyes and listen to my voice. I've taught a few of the others how to do this before, so I'm pretty seasoned at it. Some people get it first try, but don't worry if you don't. Everyone is different." She reassured. DeMain opened one eye, but he was met with her gaze before she flicked his forehead.
"No opening. Keep 'em closed, or no training with me."
"I don't think you're older than me enough to talk like that."
"I'm seventeen, plus like, twenty years from the trauma, so definitely older."
"Sure, sure." DeMain said, keeping his eyes closed regardless. He was curious about what she went through to end up here at the mention of trauma, but he bit his tongue.
"I want you to imagine a flower. Any kind. Just the first one you think of."
Yolanda's voice flowed into his ears, cool and calm. In DeMain's mind's eye, he could see a rose. It was wilted and dark in color, practically a cactus with lengthy thorns that dotted the entirety of its stem.
"I want you to look around you. Where are you?"
"What? I'm—"
Yolanda cut him off. "Not literally, and keep your answers to yourself unless I ask, okay? Just let the imagery come to you."
DeMain turned his eyes into his own mind again, his point of view shifted to that of the thorny flower. Around him was a vast expanse of desert, with some oasi a practically unreachable distance away. Lush, overgrown waterfalls, spreads of rich fruits, and birds of paradise which frolicked in the towering trees around them. He suddenly felt so sad, so alone as the sweltering sun bore down on his dried leaves.
"I'm… in a desert. It's too dry, and it's too hot. I feel like I'm going to die." He practically mumbled. Yolanda still heard.
"There's always water, enrichment. You simply need to reach deeper."
A cool finger touched his forehead, like a drop of rain. DeMain could feel himself sinking, pushing further into the hot sands until he could finally escape the relentless heat. Like cooling your feet on a summer night, his roots reached cool, untapped depths. He emerged from the sand, sprouting as himself on the underside of the desert. It was a new world, and he was awestruck by the brilliant night sky. What was once desert was now a shallow, perfectly reflective expanse of water. DeMain beheld the mirror image at his ankles, finding the same view as that from the motel. His own body, slightly shriveled and gray, with a perfect hole through his forehead.
"You are young, still growing—only the world has forced you to grow faster than you can muster." Yolanda's voice came, echoing from above as if cast by starlight. DeMain was brought back to his old home, watching from inside its dark interior as a vulture circled a helpless flower like himself in a shimmering, red wasteland of clay and dead earth. He ran to it, bearing the heat and the burns that formed on his skin as soon as he exited the safe confines of the doorframe. The vulture dove as the flower swayed in the wind, no thorns of its own to defend itself from what came next. The creature's beak penetrated its soft bloom, ripping from it everything it held dear.
DeMain arrived too late, still sending every ounce of force he had into his feet. The sun scarred him, unrelenting in its scorching torture as he flew towards the avian. With each inch closer, the bottom-feeder grew until its proportions were that of DeMain's own. The flower had long withered away and died.
"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? HOW COULD YOU TAKE HIM FROM ME?!" DeMain screamed, his back blistering as he slammed his fists into the ugly creature's body. The vulture laughed, its neck stretching and craning like a snake's even as DeMain tried to hold it in place. It continued to morph, shedding its feathered form and slithering out from its prison of cowardice and opportunism. A great beast of fangs and scales coiled around him, rearing at any opportunity to poison yet another life.
"What is it you really want? Change? Or power?"
DeMain felt his skin peeling away and boiling, every second more agonizing than the last. To stand out amidst an unforgivable crime while the sky looked down on him for daring to stand up to it. The reptilian beast lowered its head and exposed its fangs. DeMain realized then that he had always been in pain, but he'd tried to numb himself to it. To splash water on burnt flesh. The world became agony for a moment, and in that second DeMain felt something give way.
Thousands upon thousands of needles and thorns flew into the air, vines and roots strangling the beast helpless as its length was pincushioned over and over again. It lay twitching, DeMain's punches landing blow after blow against its cruelly smiling face. Blood seeped from its wounds, and tears from his eyes fell.
"It's okay to let yourself feel. We revel in 'strength' when our hearts don't even know what it is."
The demon finally lay dead, and DeMain stumbled to the dead flower to hold it close one last time. A last time he'd never see his father's face again, holding his cold body in the pool of stars. His own sorrow added to the body of water, his hands clutching on dearly to the remains of a life he'd never have. DeMain's fingers unlaced themselves one by one, and he watched as his father's body sank into the shallow water until it was gone forever. He stood alone in the endless sea of echoed lights, a familiar weight clinging to his arm as he stared skyward. A small garden snake was desperately wrapped around his wrist, hopelessly attempting to bite through his skin with miniscule teeth. DeMain grabbed the creature by its head and plucked it from his hand, bringing it closer to his eyes to watch it squirm and writhe like an unsightly worm.
"You asked for power. I asked for change."
He had nothing more to say to the pest, his revelations were for himself, not one such as this. With a swift clench of his palm, DeMain reduced the monster of his past to little more than ground dust. He emptied his hand, and with it, his fears.
One might consider having a soul a heavy burden to bear, but DeMain understood it was only his own weight which had been holding it down, burying it deep within himself. From the wound on his forehead, flowers and vines began to spread over his body until he was embraced and protected by the very thorns that had been keeping his heart in so much agony.
"Nobody should have to go it alone. But some of us don't get a choice, and that's okay. Sometimes, we need to help ourselves when no one else can."
DeMain came back to reality. His eyes stung as if he'd been crying for hours, but he felt inexplicably light. Fresh air came to his chest, no longer feeling as though he were being constricted. One last tear escaped his eye, and he opened them to see Yolanda sitting silently in front of him. She didn't show judgment, merely curling her lip in a second of a soothing smile.
"Do you feel any better?" She asked, leaning back as she uncrossed her legs. DeMain was still reeling from such an intense experience, his heart sore from the release and the catharsis.
"Yeah. I think I do."
"Good. You did very well for your first time."
"Did I? I… it was a lot. I don't know if I did anything right."
"I think you did. Now, do you want to try and show me your soul? It's a lot harder when you're cramming a bunch of stuff inside with it, but it should be easier now."
DeMain took a deep breath and let his soul flow out of his body, freed from its compact prison of held emotions and repressed pains. He felt the shape of his soul blossom as he accepted these things, the hole in his soul's forehead opening and spreading as a massive rosebloom emerged from the wound. With it, pale green vines spread over its body, melding with the skin pleasantly like roots and soil. Solid bark grew over its surface, remaking his soul's frail form into that of one who could defend itself. Small thorns coated its exterior, with more rose flowers blooming just above them. The new shape almost resembled a knight, a protector of a garden perhaps. It wasn't exactly the manliest form, but DeMain found he didn't care so much if it was or not anymore. Yolanda's eyes sparkled with some long-lost admiration rediscovered.
"It's beautiful. And not just the flowers."
Yolanda turned to him, smiling fully now.
"I think this has been good, and I think you might be more interesting than I first judged you for. Bring the Black Cat Spirit and meet me at the edge of town, by the spirit wards. Okay?"
Yolanda ran off rather giddily, and DeMain felt a grin creep up on his mouth.