Telling someone like my mother that Hell is a real, physical place, somewhere you can travel to and from, would be like spray-painting the statue of Jesus hanging over the pulpit during mass. Better off telling her the Pope is gay.

Most people create a destiny of minutiae, of the mundane. They create their own limitations. When the moment comes for them to stretch and leap, they find themselves boxed in, locked down by their own fears.

We fight monsters and unholy creatures for a living here. Grotesque, evil, violent, dangerous; they’re certainly all these things. And yet, we somehow manage to go to sleep each night and wake up each morning. The terror wears off. What was horrific becomes mundane. We lose ourselves to a numbed normalcy after a while, a self-inflicted detachment. You forget how you got here, what it was like before. And then someone comes along, someone new, someone who sees it all with fresh eyes, and it snaps you out of your daily coma, reminding you of what you’ve forgotten. Of what you’ve become.

You want me to join your group of demon hunters," I can’t believe I just said that out loud, "because of a can of pepper spray and a boat load of luck? You’re insane.

Down every hall is a gruesome tangle of impossible creatures, and every one of them is split open or strung with barbs or dragging their insides after them, flailing along on shattered limbs or shredded wings or blasted stumps. I’ve got the pistol, half a can of spray and a handful of useless shotgun slugs.I’m dead.

You know I'd follow you anywhere. Even if it's straight to Hell.

Mario the Magnificent is Orange!" His eyes sparkle with eagerness as he winks at me.