Dr. Willem Hart. Psychiatrist.

The small stark white business card in my hand feels firm and I lose myself in the bland font gracing its surface. Psychiatrist. I’m not crazy. I think. But something tells me all the crazy people think that too. Frustrated, I toss the card to the small coffee table in front of me. It’s cheap, but it is both my dining table and office desk. The good news is it only adds to the dingy bachelor apartment I’m living in. The lights flicker when anyone flushes a toilet, the wind whistles through the walls and the paint has peeled back to reveal the bricks they had simply covered up. It’s not much; but it’s home.

My eyes stare blankly at the tiny card amid the chaos of dishes and scribbled notes atop the table. I need to talk to someone, but this Dr. Hart? Definitely don’t want to be committed to the asylum again. Almost didn’t make it out of there. My hand betrays me as it snatches the card from the table and also retrieves my wallet. As it opens, my driver’s licence catches my eye. It’s a fake and it has to be.

I stand from my worn leather couch and make my way to the bathroom. Staring into the picture, the world around me vanishes from my thoughts. My mind autopilots me to where I simultaneously want and don’t want to be, in front of the mirror.

The licence shows a girl with beautiful long curly hair, brown in color, she’s smiling and her dark brown eyes shimmer with life. The freckles on her face seemingly dance with joy as she poses for the camera. Who is this girl I wonder? She looks ever so familiar.

My eyes drift from my hands to the mirror before me. The face that reflects back shows no joy. I smile and my teeth don’t shine like the girl in the picture, admittedly it hurts a little. The dark bags beneath my eyes show how worn I feel, luckily my batteries are coffee and adrenaline. The long wavy frizz from my youth has now been traded for the easier to maintain pixie cut. It’s short, it’s manageable and I save a ton of time getting ready in the morning.

Still… the girl in the photo stares up at me, longing to return to the world. But it’s too late for that. I close my eyes and consider why I need to talk to a shrink. The faces of the damned are virtually burned into the underside of my eyelids, so in no time at all I am reminded of why I should make the call.

I return to the couch before I sense any regrets and shuffle around the dishes on the coffee table until the phone finds me. It shimmers like a beacon as its stainless steel glistens in the dim lighting of my apartment.

The lights in the apartment flicker as someone flushes their toilet. I can’t hear it, but I assume it. After making the call, my stomach churns with unease. My eyes wander aimlessly over the piles of clothing, ammo clips, crucifixes until eventually landing on the window. The phone keeps ringing, my stomach all the while doing back flips. The cloudy night sky blocks out the moonlight and the visible buildings from the window are mostly cast in darkness. Finally, a voice breaks the monotony of shrill ringing.

“Excuse me, but do you have any idea what time it is?” The disgruntled and congested sounding voice on the other end sounds none too pleased.

My hesitation coaxes me to look at the clock, which reads roughly quarter past four. “I-I’m sorry. I’ll call back another time.” Regret passes over me and my stomach knots immediately.

“Wait- who is this?” Concern reverberates through the phone.

“My name is Alex, we met on the train.” My voice shook, why was I so nervous about this?

After some brief shuffling, the doctor continues. “Oh yes, I remember. Yes, we should meet. Meet me at the address on the card?”

“Of course. See you then.” Tossing the phone aside my stomach finally begins to relax. He was awfully eager to meet up, I wonder if he could sense something was wrong with me from our first encounter?

I rise from the couch and head over to a pile of clothes, plucking a few choice ones out and smelling them. Fresh. Not so fresh. I hate doing laundry. Finally I settle on a collared sweater with alternating large horizontal black and grey stripes on it, teamed with a pair of dark blue jeans. They’re not skin tight, but lose enough to move in. Never understood why some people wear pants that are skin tight. I slip into the one pair of shoes I have, black lace up dress shoes. I may or nay not have picked them out of the bargain bin, and they may or may not be men’s shoes. I lean near the window and feel the cold seeping in. It’s jacket weather, so I grab one from the coat rack beside the door. It happens to be my favourite, leather and next to no pockets. I grab my keys and wallet and start off when something stops me dead in my tracks.

Do I bring a gun, or not?

Glancing back to the coffee table, the grip of my pistol peeks out from under some papers. It begs me to take it along for the ride and I decide what the hell. I check to ensure it is loaded and put it in the homemade holster built into this jacket.

The trip downtown is a rough thirty minute ride, but my mind is elsewhere. I sit in a car similar to the one where the doctor handed me his card. It flips between my nervous fingers as my mind considers what I could have said or done to have provoked his giving me the card. I remember sitting there and relaxing, then suddenly he turned and said if I ever needed anyone to talk to he was a call away. The card changed from his hands to mine and he vanished into the crowd at the next stop. I glance around the graffiti filled cabin and my mind fixates on a number, etched into the seat across from me.

Triple six. The number of the beast.

If I had been a fan of metal, I’m sure a number of songs would come to mind. Unfortunately, my mind goes elsewhere. It goes to the hour before I got on the train and met the doctor.

***

A terribly fake wooden door stood before me, the number thirty six in inch tall golden numbers and a peep hole were the only things of interest upon it. Knocking upon the door with my left hand, I readied myself. My right hand slid impatiently over the holstered pistol’s grip inside my jacket. The door swung wide, revealing a tall grey faced man with deep dark pits for eyes and teeth sharpened to a point. He spoke first, “Yes-” and then my bullet turned him onto his back. Two others rose from behind his smouldering corpse, a short blue skinned man with horns and red eyes and a taller red skinned man with eyes of fire. My next bullet flipped the shorter man backwards over his chair and the one after that ripped through the drywall beside the red skinned one.

Before I could pull the trigger again, he was upon me and was faster than I could have prepared for. His hand instinctively grabbed the gun, which was both hot from being fired and doused in holy water. He recoiled and my knee gathered the space to his jaw. He toppled backwards in shock and I grabbed the pistol, locking the hammer back. We sat frozen in that moment, he knew this was his end.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Do it!” The man’s voice was raspy and cold with genuine hatred.

“Why were you here? You escape purgatory and come live in this dump?” Admittedly, the apartment was nicer than mine which by comparison was purgatory.

“We… we wanted freedom. Hell is getting awfully crowded.” His burning eyes seemed almost sad. “Plus, I was there for killing someone in self defence! Wasn’t fair in the slightest!”

Considering his words, I locked onto his gaze, and lost myself in the fire. Demons would say anything to survive, so I wasn’t believing this for a second. Although I was told this by an angel, who may not be the least biased person in the universe. “I’m sorry.” My voice turned cold as if I were someone else entirely. “You were the hit.” The hammer falls and his body collapses into a smouldering heap like the other two.

The walk to the train station was cold and wet, with the rain pouring horizontally instead of coming down. I stopped beneath the shelter and shook with a chill. The rain clung to me, soaking through to my very soul and I began to question why the gods would send a man to hell for defending himself. Was he supposed to just die? In the many years I’d worked among angels and demons, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Angels had a very black and white sense of judgement whereas demons were the grey area in between. Suddenly my mind snaps out its deep thoughts and a man is handing me a card.

***

That must have been it. I was deep in thought about the demon’s final words. Questions kept rising and before I could get another answer, more questions popped up. My trust was waning in the angels, not that demons were gaining it. Suddenly the night sky is above me and I’m standing before a small office building. The card in my hand looks almost identical to the slightly weathered white sign with the doctor’s details on it. When did I get off the train? I shrug to myself and walk up to the door.

Before I have the chance to knock, the doctor greets me. His smile is warm beneath his stubbled chin and cheeks. “Come in Alex.” The black mess of hair atop his head is streaked with grey and barely moves in the early morning breeze. I feel myself hesitate but his calm blue eyes look inviting, albeit tired. I make my way past him as he closes and locks the door. It makes me uneasy, but at the same time I can’t overreact. I’m sure it’s nothing. He rushes past me as I stare at the beautiful images on the walls. One is an archway formed by trees in black and white, while another is a misty lake at sunrise. They are both strangely calming.

“Come Alex, this way please.” He motions into a room and I glance in with caution. The room is a calming light beige color and there is a very stereotypical lounge type couch in the room. A single cozy looking chair sits beside it, with a small table in between. “Well, shall we?” I advance towards the couch and sit on the edge, then slowly turn and lay back. Relaxation creeps up on me and I lose myself until I realize the doctor is sitting at my side.

“Are we comfortable?” He asks the question with such genuine concern I feel compelled to respond. “Yes, of course.”

He clears his throat and adjusts slightly in his chair. “You might be wondering why I gave you my card. Allow me to explain. In all my years as a psychologist, I have never seen anyone deeper in thought than you. I searched your face for some telling sign you needed to talk, but you seemed both torn and lost. Now that we’re past that, is there anywhere you’d like to start?”

His question bursts the dam holding back all the questions of my own. They all flood forth until finally, a single starting point becomes evident.

“I’m a demon hunter employed by the angels in exchange for postponing my death.”

Strangely his demeanour does not change. I suppose this isn’t the strangest thing he’s ever heard.

But this time, it’s true.