Jonny spies Katie off in the distance, having not seen her before.

Jonny smiled as he looked about at the chaos he had wrought. Brown the big man lay dead in a heap on the ground, and the collective mass of the crowd was either running for their lives—perhaps afraid of some other gunman—or surging forward to ensure the safety of the mayor or tend to one of the injured victims, some of whom were much more than injured. In any event, it was chaos, all right. As Jonny looked about at his handiwork, he spied a familiar face in the distance. He gazed upon Katie, whose dark hair, deep blue eyes, and red dress he could identify anywhere at this point, especially all attached to a spectacular body. Katie waived from across the way, and Jonny waived back through the throngs of screaming and crying people. Figuring that he could go unnoticed in the carnage, Jonny disappeared in a puff of grey-red smoke and instantly reappeared right in front of Katie, who smiled to see him. “How’s it going?” she asked pleasantly. “Oh we’ve got some exciting projects in the offing,” Jonny said as he motioned to the mob, “just decided to shake up management a little bit,” he explained as he sat down on a beer cooler that held refreshments for the evening.

“So this is your doing?” Katie said as she sat next to him. “A bit, yeah,” Jonny answered. Katie paused for a minute. “Yeah, I thought I saw a flash of red in that cop’s eyes before he went ape-shit . . . figured that might have been you,” she said. “Yup,” Jonny answered. “So how’s the restaurant going?” Jonny asked. “Good,” Katie answered, “got my powers now too—I control the seven deadly sins . . . gluttony and lust and greed are my biggest profit centers, so that’s handy.” Katie looked Jonny over. “I see you’re making good use of my old body,” she said with a smile. Jonny chuckled, “Yeah, and if all goes well I’ll be getting some ass in it tonight, or at least pretty soon, though the attempted ****-suicide may have killed the mood,” Jonny mused. “Which one is yours?” Katie asked. “Ummm,” Jonny said as he searched the crowd, “that one over there, the one trying frantically to control the mob and boss the cops around,” he said as he motioned to Selina. Katie admired her. “Nice ass . . . boobs are good too,” she said.

“Crap,” Jonny said as he spied Selina making her way through the throngs of people to where he had stood, “gotta keep up appearances,” he said, as he disappeared in another puff of smoke only to reappear where he had stood only a few minutes before. In the midst of all the screams, Jonny looked about himself. His host’s eyes glowed red for a moment and, across his forehead, there appeared an ugly gash, and blood ran down from it to his face. Jonny ripped open his shirt and tore a couple buttons off his nice jacket, and he lay down on the ground and began to moan.

Jonny lay on the ground for a few second before Selina frantically ran up to him, kneeling on the ground with tears in her eyes. “Oh my God, Jonny, are you all right?! What happened?!” Jonny moaned for another minute or so. “Um—ah—ow—I . . . I think one of the waiters knocked me over when he ran, and one of his glasses fell on my head,” Jonny said he held his hand to the cut in his head. “Let me see,” she said as she examined the wound. “That looks painful . . . we need to get you to a hospital!” she said as she helped Jonny to his feet and rushed him of the roof the skyscraper and into an elevator. Jonny stood in the elevator and leaned against the wall to steady himself. As he looked at Selina, he could tell she was nervous . . . her lips were quivering, and she was holding back tears. Jonny and Selina reached the ground floor and headed quickly to the car, Selina helping Jonny the whole way. Selina put her date in the car and sped off.

The sun was beginning to set now, though there was still light in the sky. “Does it still hurt so much?” Selina said as she looked over at Jonny but tried to focus adequately on the road too. “Well it’s really not that bad,” Jonny answered, “I’ve been cut by stuff before . . . doesn’t feel great, but it doesn’t kill me,” he said, trying to calm her. “Lisa’s gonna kill me if I let anything happen to you!” she said, obviously worried, “I’m a grown woman, and I’m a cop. It was my job to protect you tonight!” she yelled, clearly distraught. The car slowed as Selina began to pull of the road to fiddle with her GPS; she needed to find the nearest hospital. With the car at a stop, Jonny saw an opportunity. He placed his hand on Selina’s, and his eyes glowed a familiar red; hers followed. “Selina, the cut hurts, but it won’t kill me. Try to be calm,” Jonny said, and he released her. She shook her head a couple times. “I at least need to get you a bandage,” she said as she hurriedly stepped out of the car and ran in to a gas station where they had stopped. Gas stations were really just little convenience stores now anyway—got a bit of everything.

Jonny chuckled to himself, surprised at the doting nature of Selina. He’d worked a bit of magic on her before in order to get himself invited to this thing, but the rest was all her . . . it was impressive. He waited for a couple minutes and then heard a strange, vibrating sound. He searched around for a minute until her found its source—Selina’s phone. He picked it up and saw a picture of the beautiful red-haired Lisa on it. “She’s probably calling because she’s heard about the shooting,” Jonny said, “show time,” he announced to himself as his eyes glowed red again, and he picked up the phone.

“Hello?” he said, only this time it was Selina’s womanly voice that escaped his lips. “Selina, oh my god I saw on the television! Are you all right? Where’s Jonny? Is he hurt? Did my Jonny get hurt? Where is he? Is he still with you?” she demanded in rapid-fire succession. “Lisa, Jonny is all right . . . got a little bit banged up as people ran, but he’s going to be fine. He’s resting right now, and I am going to take him home with me ‘cause I’ve got some stuff at the house that will help a headache he has,” Jonny said in the voice of his date. “Wel . . . all—all right,” Lisa said, calmer now, “just . . . just make sure you take care of him, will you?” “Of course I will,” Jonny said, “in fact, he’s going to be with me for a bit while I try to manage this crisis. He told me he wants to major in public administration, so this will be a good bit of hands-on experience for the kid. I initially thought it was a bad idea, but he convinced me. He’s very persuasive,” Jonny said. Lisa chuckled, assuming that Jonny had mind-controlled Selina into the deal. “Well yes he is,” she said, “enough so that you may be waiting on him hand and foot by the time it’s over,” she said. Jonny laughed back. “Well we’ll see about that,” he said, “gotta go honey, he’s waking up,” Jonny said, and quickly hung up.

The real Selina hurried back seconds after the phone call was over. She bore bandages and rubbing ****. “These should help,” she said reassuringly. She dabbed about the wound with the rubbing ****, causing Jonny to cringe a bit. It stung. “Sorry sorry,” she said gingerly. She then drew a bandage from the box and applied it slowly to the cut. “There,” she said with a smile, “is that better?” “Um, yeah, it does feel a bit better,” Jonny said.

“Has Lisa or anybody called?” she asked. “No,” Jonny lied, “she usually goes to bed pretty early, so I’ll be back at the house by tomorrow when she figures out what happened,” Jonny said. Selina paused for a minute. “All right,” she said, as she looked about the fairly empty road. She paused, seeming a couple times to want to say something but remaining silent. She looked at Jonny. “What?” Jonny asked. Selina paused again. “Well,” she began, “well, you know . . . there’s the beach not far from here, and it’s really nice, and it’d be beautiful at night, and—uh—well . . .” she stammered. “Say what you want to say,” Jonny said. “I would like it very much if you would go to dinner with me,” she said as she stared straight into his eyes, “tonight didn’t go like I planned, and I’ve got deputies all over the city looking for whoever did this, and I will have to be in the office all day tomorrow, but tonight I want to take you out for a real nice dinner by the ocean. Would—would you like that?” she asked pensively.

Jonny paused for a minute. He smiled. “Yes, yes I’d like that very much,” he said. Lisa beamed. She put the car in gear and headed off toward the beach for the remainder of the evening.