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Bela arrives, moving a little more slowly than usual, but with her familiar smirk. It's been an interesting day. In the end it was a quite profitable one, even if she's paid for it in bruises.

Ghosts can be so pesky when you try to take their treasures.

Tiny tag: Bela Talbot, Cal Chandler

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"Oh, it's nothing," she says, waving her hand dismissively. "Spirits led me to a talisman of some significance. The ghost that was still haunting the house it was hidden in, and it decided to bust the place up a bit as I was locating the talisman. Just a few scrapes and bruises."

And floors giving way. Bela knows how to fall very well.

She nods, listening.

With idle curiosity: "What kind of talisman?"

"A protective one. It wards against certain types of hexes and curses. A client of mine is having a little trouble with the neighborhood sorcerer."

"Awkward," she acknowledges, and nods. "That sounds useful. So -- that's like your job?"

"Yes. I procure items for a select clientèle of buyers. Mostly occult items, but sometimes more traditional antiquities and artworks. It's quite a lucrative business."

She nods, thoughtful, and takes a slurp of smoothie.

"I guess it would be. Occult books are worse than textbooks."

"Well, they are if you have to read them. If you get to sell them, then they translate into Ferragamo pumps."

A look of pain crosses Buffy's face.

"I got the wrong calling," she says plaintively.

"You really ought to start charging, at least some of the time. If you do special favors for people. I mean, I know it's good to save lives and all, but what's in it for you?"

She blinks.

There's a pause.

"Their...lives?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I know. That's very important. And you should save lives. It's nice. But let's say a wealthy person needs your protection from something. Wouldn't it be good to charge them for your time?"

It's such an easy concept, really.

Not for Buffy, to judge by her expression.

"That's not how it works," she says slowly. "I mean, how would it even...you can't bill somebody for staking a vampire that was about to eat them."

"Right. That would be awkward indeed."

Wow. This is a battle Bela's not going to win. She just feels sorry for these women, risking their lives for people with no monetary reward.

"Would you mind if I asked you about the demons on your world? You mentioned you could kill them."

She shakes her head, like she's shaking away the previous subject.

"Oh, sure -- what's your question?"

"Do they possess people when they leave hell?"

Buffy blinks.

"Umm..."

It takes her a moment to formulate her answer. "Which...hell?"

After another moment: "There's a whole lot of different kinds. Of demons."

"...You have more than one?"

Bela doesn't even want to think about multiple hells.

"And the demons don't all take the form of black, oily smoke when you exorcise them?"

"Oh, yeah. I was in this one that was only, like, the size of a factory." She considers. "I think."

"...And yeah, no, they take a lot of different forms. Sometimes," she adds, irrelevantly, "they don't have mouths! I don't really do a whole lot of exorcising of demons, though -- I think the last possession I came across was ghosts, not demons. Demons mostly..." She gestures, vaguely. "Do demon stuff."

"I'm trying to find a way to kill demons. It's proving to be quite difficult. There are stories about mythical weapons - a Colt and a knife - but I don't think they really exist. You can exorcise them out of their human vessels, but then they simply go back to hell. They aren't destroyed."

Buffy blinks her way out of demon reverie, and looks at her.

"Why are you trying to find a way to kill demons?"

"A long-time client of mine made a deal with one. He'll lose his life and his soul in a little over two years, unless I can help him find a way out. If you kill the demon that holds your contract, you can get out of the deal."

This ruse gets easier to explain every time she does so.

Now she's frowning. The lumpy kind that try to eat you might actually be preferable.

"I'll help if I can," she says, after a moment's hesitation. "What was the deal?"

"It was made out of desperation, as these kinds of things tend to be. His wife was dying of ovarian cancer. In his distraught state, he sought out a crossroads demon, and sold himself for her health and ten whole years with her."

The lie comes so easily that Bela hasn't the time to feel guilty about telling it. Not that she would, necessarily. But lying to people here is somewhat different than lying to people back home, she is realizing.

In his distraught state is a weird thing to hear out of somebody's mouth.

She nods, though. "And -- black oily smoke? Not a punchable thing, I'm guessing?"

She shakes her head. "Not at all. Plus they're fast in that form, and can pretty much go where they please."

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