There are a number of things a demon might choose to look for in a host body. Some seeked attractiveness, some seeked strength, some seeked a close friend of a subject to gain their trust.

Some, such as the one currently searching, seeked a mind that would suffer in seeing what its body was doing.

It had gone through several bodies in this city, creating crime and fear from behind faces that would have shocked anyone, if they’d been given a chance to see. There was the teenage boy who couldn’t even shave, crying in his head to stop hurting people, and there was the elderly woman who had muttered ineffectual prayers to try and make it all end. The previously smiley dog walker, the baker with floury hands, they’d all gone to dust one way or another.

Running a crime empire was not without risks, after all. The bags of skin and bones had been shot, or stabbed, or drowned, and a new face was needed to hold up the urban legend, the whisper of Moriarty. The demon had chosen the name on a whim and it had snaked beautifully into the minds of the underworld, a word they were scared to say, only used as a last desperate attempt at living. It was never written down, and there was never a contact – if you needed Moriarty, Moriarty found you. That was what the legend said.

The chaos being something so shadowy and powerful was a drug, and more than that it kept the demon amused. What were the petty little lives of the ordinary people worth compared to enjoying themself?

The answer was nothing. The lives were just currency, money to put in the slot machine of chance, and the more it could use the longer it could keep those beautiful chaotic wheels spinning.

It finds its next suit of flesh by chance, as it swims through the dull little minds of the crowds and sees an image so clean, so pure, it feels the jolt of knowing. It has to have this one.

The image comes from the mind of a child, only seven years old, and a head of pigtails and freckles. It is only of a man, in nothing more than a t-shirt and cloth trousers, but his expression shows all it needs to, and the name lets the search through everyones’ thoughts begin.

Richard Brook, childrens storyteller, gives to charity, just the nicest man in person, always smiling.

A perfect soul to hear scream.

Brook doesn’t take long to find, perhaps the best part of a day, and when the demon finds him, he is unfortunately not alone. It tails him for an hour or two at his work, watching his saccirine delivery of stories to a camera, smiling and laughing at each mistake, thanking people for tea – an altogether sickly sweet attitude towards others. The inside of his head is no better, full of positive thoughts and sadness over shock-tactic adverts about famine and pets, and it removes any doubts about whether he will break when confronted with the evils it has planned.

It takes until he leaves work getting into, of course, an electric car, painted sky blue before it strikes, delving into his mind and taking control of the body. The mind, Brook, calls out in shock, unable to cope with the sudden loss of control, and the demon, who may as well be called Moriarty, stretches the limbs on the body with a slight smile, teeth showing in the reflection in the rear-view mirror.

“Oh. Oh, this is perfect. I’ll need to fix a few things, but you are, to put it as you will appreciate, just right.”

The hair will need taming, perhaps, but the giggly voice is just the kind of thing it can use, not to mention the smile. The trust me smile.

Brook keeps panicking in the back of his mind, but the demon ignores the whining and continues the action of fastening the seatbelt, figuring out how to get to the stash of cards so it can fix the body as it needs. A new car would be good as well, to replace this ridiculous plastic toy.

First, though, Moriarty wants to check the website it has become interested in as of late – The Science of Deduction.

Playing with Sherlock Holmes, the little angel of the underworld, would be fun.

(submission from inkorstardust )

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