Dinner at the Miller family mansion was awkward that night. And that was putting it mildly.

It wasn't exactly Simon's fault. He still behaved like a perfect gentleman, never showed any of the behavior that former inmates usually show when they had just come out of prison. It surprised Lauren a bit. After four years in Malthorn State Prison, with all its rules and hierarchies and unwritten laws, Simon not only remembered the rules of decent interaction with people, but also followed them to a tee. He was full of praise when Lauren put a large homemade pizza on the dinner table and served salad with it.  When David offered him some red wine with it, he politely refused, and Lauren was glad about that. Neither of them liked the idea of Simon drinking alcohol, with Angela still present.

Speaking of Angela, she didn't seem to really have recovered from her first encounter with Simon. She sat at the table opposite to him - both on the long end, so the distance between them was as long as possible. She quietly ate her pizza, didn't say one word, but kept staring at this man. Lauren gave her a slight nudge to remind her that this was impolite, but her daughter apparently couldn't help it. From her looks Lauren could tell that she tried to figure this man out that she was facing, but she wouldn't dare to talk. Even when David asked her if she wanted a second helping, she just nodded silently and handed him her plate.

Lauren couldn't even remember when Angela had ever been so quiet.

"David said something about you being his new partner," she then started a conversation with Simon who was immensely enjoying the pizza and salad and wouldn't be bothered by the curious and coy stares from the other end of the dinner table. Simon nodded, swallowed some pizza and took a sip from his orange juice before he answered: "Well, in a manner of speaking. We both think that I can contribute to this case of his, so he made it possible for me to get a short leave of absence."

David nodded, although Lauren could clearly see that he was hiding something from her. She had a feeling what that could be. Releasing a prisoner like this to help in a police investigation, especially since the nature of this investigation was such a strange one, couldn't really be by the book. "So how did you do it?" she addressed the elephant in the room.

David shrugged. "I had them release him in my custody for a short period of time, filled out some forms and had them also tell Captain Faulkner that I had found myself a partner. I hadn't told him who that was, and since both of us have a lot to do lately, this should give me a day or two until he wants to know more. Maybe I'll have cracked the case by then."

And if not? Lauren didn't ask this aloud, cause she knew the answer. And it wasn't a good one. "Well, I wish the two of you the best of luck on this one. You got any clues already?"

Simon looked back at Angela, feeling uncomfortable to discuss any of this in front of the child. "Some. I guess." He turned to David. "Maybe we should look deeper into this book that you've got. Even I might find something in it that I'm not aware of at the moment. After all, I'm really not an expert."

David agreed by nodding silently, and they went back to just enjoying the meal. There was a peach pie for dessert which made Simon utter more compliments, and Lauren felt that she started to warm up to him a bit. She was always happy when someone new came to like her cooking. And even though Simon was understandably enthusiastic about the change from the usual prison food, his praise was still well-worded and obviously heartfelt, and not just an attempt to get on her good side. He definitely gained points in her book for that. He was full of surprises, that much was certain.

The dinner was finished, the dishes were done. Lauren had decided to do them for a change, so David would be able to entertain their guest. Still Simon was a gentleman, offering his help with the dishes, and Lauren declined politely. David could clearly see why, or at least he could guess. Sitting in a room with him to interview him was one thing. But standing right next to him while he was handling sharp objects that could be turned into a weapon... Not appealing.

It was a good thing though, cause David and Simon had a lot to discuss and work through. They sat down in the living room with the book from Father Bennett. David had already taken a first glimpse at the content, but it was hard reading through this old-fashioned language and the writing style of almost a millenium ago. Simon on the other hand didn't seem to have this problem. He picked up the book, read out a few paragraphs. David had the feeling that Simon felt more at home with that such a thing. He appeared to be more of an intellectual person. Some would even go as far as to call him a "nerd".

"You think it can tell us something?" David asked after a long while, having given Simon enough time to get into this book.

Simon looked up from the pages, nodding slowly. "Well... I do think it's legit enough. Some things in here sound like the ramblings of a madman, but for the rest he knew what he was writing about."

He leaned over to David who was sitting a bit further away from Simon on the sofa and pointed at a paragraph. David noticed that not only the language was old, but so was the writing itself. It had this fancy, medieval vibe to it, the style of handwriting that had been altered and developed over centuries into what people were using these days. No wonder he had problems understanding any of it. Simon had less trouble, he could decipher those texts with relative ease. He read out loud the content of this paragraph and then explained its meaning to David, for which David was grateful:

"Basically he says that every human being is combined with a demonic presence, from birth to death, and this demon grows with the human in power. With children the demon is small and weak, it can influence the child only to a certain degree. But with the child growing up, so does the demon. And here, it says that the upbringing of a child is important, for it must learn to fight back the temptations of demons by its own means."

"How does this help us in our case?" David asked.

Simon shrugged. "It helps in so far as he knows things about demons that I know, too. So this is more than a theory... this is common lore. And some of those things must be known to your killer as well."

That got David's attention. He leaned forward from his seat, putting his hands on his upper legs. "Does it say anything about how those... demons are found out? How our killer would choose his victims, if it is the goal to just end the demons inside them?"

"I think it does..." Simon turned a few pages, read into another paragraph, turned a few more... "A demon can only be known by its deeds. According to the book, there is no physical way to identify it. People used to believe that those possessed by demons were talking in tongues, but that was just superstition. The only way a demon could be found out is to see its human do something inhuman, something demonic."

David thought of Father Bennett's words back in the church. "Something purely evil. That would give the person no benefit, no reward, nothing. Just for the sake of being evil."

Simon nodded grimly. "Like pushing a nice old lady in front of a train. Beating up people who were only lending you a helping hand. Senseless acts of cruelty." David was surprised, but it looked like Simon shivered while thinking about this. He saw that the prisoner stared forward, with almost an empty glance, with suddenly turned into a frown. Just like someone was talking to him...

"There is another way we might consider though," Simon suddenly stated. "Although I don't think it's really worth our time here. But... demons cannot be found out by humans. At least not by alive ones. The dead however..."

David sighed. "Simon, this is not..." He stopped in the middle of this sentence. Lauren had told him one thing about Simon. He wouldn't believe it, even though Lauren had seen proof of it. But now he was aware that he had just witnessed it. "Wait! Your dad?"

As he nodded with a mixture of relief and embarrassment, Simon turned back to the spot where he was looking before. "May I speak freely now?" he asked into the middle of the room. "He knows so much already." David wondered how this worked or what this dad of his looked like... or how this was even possible. Or if he, David, was losing his mind, just like Simon apparently had lost his years ago. "OK then," was Simon's next reaction to words that David could not hear. And he turned back to David.

"Dad said that the spirits of the ones we loved have the ability to see not only the humans, but also the demons inside them. They can see their strength and influence on the human they inhabit, and in very few cases they might be able to identify the name of one demon."

"You mean the symbol that represents him?" David got a hunch where this was going. "Simon, does your father have an alibi?"

Simon smiled, but became dead serious in the next moment. David could only guess that his father was speaking to him then. It was a bit like seeing someone on the phone without hearing the other side of the conversation. But Simon got back to him again: "He was with me all the time. He cannot go anywhere else... well, not very far at least. We had a few years in prison to try that out. It greatly helped me get along with the other prisoners." As if this was possible, his demeanour grew even more serious. "Besides that, only I can see my dad, because there is a connection between the two of us. And I was in prison for the last four years. I can't be your killer."

"But so far you're the only one who can actually see the spirit of a loved one. At least that's what Lauren told me."

"I thought so, too," Simon admitted gloomily. "But I could have been wrong. Dad came to me because I was needed. Because the connection between us was the only thing on this planet that could stop..." He interrupted himself, looking at David. "Maybe another time. My point is: Those were special circumstances back then. That still doesn't mean that I can be the only one seeing a passed on loved one."

David leaned back, tried to relax again. "Tell me, did your father die a violent death?"

"No." Simon shook his head. "Lung cancer. He slept away peacefully."

"Oh." David didn't really know what to say. He looked over to the fireplace. It wasn't a real fireplace though, just an electric illusion in something like a small cupboard, but with some framed pictures on it. Lauren's and his family had found a place on this thing on which Lauren had insisted to purchase for their home together. "My father died, too. Ten years ago. He was a worker on an oil rig. A pretty simple man, but he kept the family together."

Simon gave him a side glance. "My condolences," he mumbled. "I guess his work got the best of him one day? Work accident?"

"Not really." David felt how the memory came back up inside him, made him feel the anger and sadness and powerlessness he had felt back then. "You remember the Krafton Rig terrorist attack?"

Apparently he did. He looked at David in shock. "Oh, damn! I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, me, too," David whispered. The pain inside of him felt still fresh like it happened yesterday. "We were told that there had been no survivors. My dad was one of the few bodies they could actually recover after the explosion, so we had the chance to give him a proper funeral. Afterwards we were offered therapy. My mum and my brother refused, but I was so devastated by his death that I took the chance to see a therapist and talk things through."

"Did it help?" Simon asked. To which David smiled.

"In more than one way. It was Lauren."

And with this memory, David's pain turned into a heartwarming pleasure as he remembered those days. "She was as beautiful as she is today, and she was so smart and understanding. When our therapy sessions had ended, I felt like a completely new man. She taught me how to turn the memory of my dad into a strength, how to accept his fate as given and that my life was a way to honor him, too. Actually, it might have been something completely different she had wanted to teach me, but... I still fell in love with her. And she did with me, too."

Simon listened to this story, a fascinated smile on his lips. So David felt free to continue: "It wasn't easy though. She was very professional about her working ethics, and it was unthinkable for her to date a patient. So I had to go out of my way to convince her. Hell, I paid about two thousand dollars to another shrink, so that he would take me on as a patient and later on declared that he had cured my issues. Just so that I would be free to be with her."

"And it worked," Simon assumed.

David laughed. "Hell, no! She still refused. But one day I caught her walking down the corridors of the university and sneaking into a lesson. That got me thinking. A bit of research later I found out that she was actually only a student of psychology. This therrapy session was just something like a field exercise for her, but nobody had told me about this. So I confronted her about it, threatened to expose her unless she went on a date with me, and... here we are," he concluded with his arms wide open, in a gesture to include each and everything surrounding them.

Simon looked at him sceptically. "No, you didn't."

David grinned. "No, I didn't. I didn't blackmail her into a relationship. The part with the other shrink was true, though, and it was enough for Lauren to be convinced. After all, she was attracted to me, too."

He stood up from the couch and went over to the liquor cabinet to return with two small glasses of whisky. This time Simon didn't refuse. The glasses clanked as they toasted each other.

"To our dads," David said. "And the change they brought to our lives."