Sarah crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, watching Crackle.
When a demon is in possession of you, they see and hear everything that your thinking. The demon can't see the person's memories, but they can project dreams and suggestions on your mind to trick you into thinking about them.
Sarah waited a minute before deciding to break the silence. "Find anything?" She asked.
Crackle's eyes eerily darted towards Sarah, his head unmoving.
"The demon souls we found were not originally Crackle's. He stole them from other mortals." Crackle said, speaking with both his own voice and Endo's simultaneously.
"Did you find out where he got them or what he's doing with them?" Asked Sarah.
"I have. Months ago, He and his men intercepted the souls from a group of civilians transporting them into the city. Crackle recognized a couple of the civilians as past business associates of his father's. Believing his father to be covertly moving into the drug trade without him, Crackle mistook the souls to be a new street drug. He stole the souls from the civilians, named himself Crackle, and began selling the souls as Angst." Said Crackle and Endo.
"Why would Crackle go to the trouble of giving himself an alias and selling the drugs himself?" Asked Sarah.
"I don't know yet. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get him to focus. Before I found him, the mortal ingested a substantial quantity of MDMA. The effects of the drug are starting to influence his mind. His imagination is becoming difficult to control, it undermines the seriousness of the dreams I project." Endo and Crackle said with some frustration. "I'll need to push harder.".
A moment later, Crackle's face contorted in pain and a drop of blood trickled down one of his nostrils.
The human body is foreign to demons. When a demon possesses a living creature, it is almost never gentle.
People often take for granted the fact that they coordinate multiple sets of muscle fibers in unison to perform the simplest of tasks such as walking or eating. For demons, only the most intelligent and skilled of their kind can successfully pilot a human body. Even then, a person is often left bruised and permanently handicapped after a possession, as the demon tears muscles from bones and bends joints backwards attempting to pilot the body themselves.
Then there are emotions. Demons only understand self-preservation, and most can't fully comprehend or exhibit human emotions. If a demon isn't careful, the mental damage they inflict when projecting on someone's mind can often drive the person into madness or even kill them. Thankfully, Sarah is an exception to the average possession. Endo attempts to preserve Sarah's mental and physical health by allowing her to retain her free will, otherwise she would have been dead a long ago.
"Why sell Angst, why become Crackle?" Endo's voice whispered in the room from no obvious source.
Crackle's face contorted in anger and yelled "He wouldn't take me seriously, he looks at me as if I'm a mistake. The old man will never let me take over the empire, but once I learn how to make Angst, I won't need his empire. I'll build my own empire, overthrow my father, and rule this city myself!"
Sarah considered Crackle's answer. The man was a fool. If Crackle though he could overthrow even one of the seven crime empires in the city, he was in for a nasty surprise. Challenging a major crime faction with only a club, a handful of muscle, and a pile of drugs to his name was suicide. The guy probably didn't realize that he was already dead with the bounty placed over his head. If it wasn't Sarah, one of the other assassins in the city would make short work of him in a day or two.
"I want your name." whispered Endo's disembodied voice again.
Sarah suddenly tilted her head up, listening. She could feel the rolling of tires on asphalt, and the hum of muscle tension empowered with adrenaline. Multiple patrol cars and an armored van pulled up outside the club. Almost before the van finished coming to a stop, the van's rear door burst open allowing multiple people to jump out. Sarah could smell the Kevlar body armor and metal combat-rifles carried by the people exiting the van. The city's SWAT team was here. Someone from the street or a nearby apartment building must have reported the sound of gunfire coming from the club.
"Endo wrap it up, we're about to be interrupted." Said Sarah as she pushed herself off the wall and started looking around the office for the computer that was attached to all the security monitors.
"Take care of them, I need more time." said Crackle, again with both his own and Endo's voice.
"Not happening." Sarah snapped. "Even if most of the cops in this city are either lazy or corrupt, I'm not going to start killing them indiscriminately." She added while opening a cabinet against the wall containing a desktop computer.
Endo and Crackle simultaneously snarled in frustration.
"I SAID I WANT YOUR NAME!" Endo's voice boomed and reverberated inside the office.
The sudden outburst from Endo made Sarah tense her shoulders. She looked back towards Crackle, who's other nostril, and now his eyes were starting to bleed. At this rate, Endo would kill Crackle before he got what he wanted. Granted, she'd have to kill Crackle anyway to claim the contract, but she still felt slightly sorry for him. Almost any death is better than by possession.
Sarah felt the SWAT team outside move itself into a flanking position before the front entrance of the club and prepare to rush inside. The group of men exchanged hand signals, wordlessly planning on how to charge into the building.
Sarah pulled the computer out of the cabinet and tore the side panel off, revealing the hard drive.
"Vincent Ward is dead. I'm Crackle now, the spark that will grow into the inferno that claims this city!" Crackle yelled with his own voice.
Sarah smirked while grabbed the hard drive and tearing it out of the computer. She had an amusing hunch that Crackle probably recites that line to himself in front of the mirror every morning.
Sarah examined the hard drive, then smashed it over the desk in one hard strike. Chips of the golden wheel exploded out from within the metal box, scattering across the room. The evidence of her identity destroyed.
