Her elbow catches him in the ribs as she twists away, winds him: he backs off, the heel of his boot crunching on the broken glass of the lightbulb. One bulb remains, casting a too-stark pale glow over the room: now that the demon inside Daniel's playing nice for an audience, it's still, not flickering like it was a moment ago.

"I didn't do anything," Daniel whimpers to Joan, "I didn't, I didn't do anything, I was sick — "

He can't wrestle her off. She's got a knife and she's angry and she might even have slept in the past twenty-four hours. He needs to prepare for what will happen when those ropes finally break.

"Don't listen to him," he says quietly. "Don't have time to be nice, Joan. You don't have any idea what's going on here."

Rosary, grabbed from the floor and wrapped about his wrist. Bible reclaimed from where he dropped it to grab for Joan. "You ever seen pure evil, duck? Cos he has. Step back. It's weak enough, but there's a limit to what I can protect you from when that thing gets loose."

"What are you talking about," Daniel says, his voice scaling high and tight, a few tears streaking through grime on his face. Marcus crosses himself.

"I command you, unclean spirit, whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God..."