“WHEN ARE WE going back?”

“I’m not, princess. Just you.”

He kneeled. His giant head and spiraling horn towered above her. He looked down, white teeth reaching, thick gray tongue bobbing inside his mouth as he spoke. “Listen to me. I will tell you something not everyone knows. It is very hard to kill a unicorn. Almost impossible. Do you understand?”

Esther nodded, not understanding but desperately wanting to. She waited, eyes on his, attentive.

“Only a virgin can kill a unicorn,” he said, licking at his teeth and huffing out a great warm breath. He shook his mane and continued. “And when all the virgins become whores, nothing remains which can destroy the beast. Do you see?”

Esther knew she was still a virgin, despite her father’s nighttime visits. And she swore, right there, to remain that way forever.

And then she cried. Sobbed at her despair, her loss. All her mournful life crashed in on her, suffocated her in what could have been. Her feet were numb from standing on the black ice of Hell, and the massive unicorn looked down at her sadly, the flames from the lake of eternal damnation dancing in his mournful eyes, reflective as windows at midnight.

A WEEK PASSED. She did not see Hobbes, and her father made no late-night visits. She went through the motions of school, of being a normal girl. She cleaned the house on the weekend, and her father spent the day working on a nearby farm, making extra cash and, shockingly, staying out of bars. They didn’t say much to each other, but it wasn’t as strained as it was pregnant with possibilities. Potential future dangers.

Esther remained guarded. She was sad her new friend had disappeared. All that remained of him was the six-inch statuette hunkered on her nightstand, long spiraled horn puncturing the air, thrusting skyward.

The dreams also had ceased. She almost never heard the music anymore. She wondered if her visit to Hell had stolen that right away from her, if the symphony played for Lucifer had burned out the lingering tendrils of the song in her mind, left her devoid of beauty—be it raging or melancholic—and filled her instead with the tuneless every day, with the repetitive, identical note-plucks of normality.

The devil would have told her, had she asked, that only suffering is eternal, and bliss is almost always short-lived.

FATHER’S DRUNK AGAIN. He’s in the kitchen hollering for me, but there’s no WAY I’m going out there. I’ve got the dresser in front of the door and if I have to I’ll go out the window. I checked to make sure it wasn’t stuck like last time and left it open a couple inches just to be sure.

And what else? Hobbes came back! He’s laying at the foot of my bed as I write this. I can’t tell if he’s really asleep or just faking, but he’s all curled up in a big hairy ball. I have to keep my knees tucked up just to fit on my own bed because he’s huge. I hadn’t seen him for a week, but when I heard Father’s car pull up and him get out cussing, I knew he was drunk and ran for my room, and there was Hobbes, snoring and curled up like a pet dog instead of a demon bigger than two men.

Oh shit. Father. He’s at the door. Banging again. Damn it…

I kick Hobbes but he’s not waking up. Father’s yelling some crazy… he sounds out of control! DAMN IT! I hate this.

I’m scared.

Hobbes better wake up. The dresser’s not holding this time. I’m going out the window. I’ve got to run for it.

THE DOOR BURST open another foot, the dresser pushed against the resisting carpet as her father shouldered his weight into it again. She tucked her notebook back under her pillow and stared, petrified, at his pale, sweaty face, his arm reaching through, slapping the dresser.

“You think you can hide from me?” he said. “You’re my daughter, Esther, and you will do what I say or I will punish you!” His voice rose into a slurred squeal. “You hear me, princess? I’m coming in there and you and I… well, we’re going to have a little talk.”

He shouldered into the door, began to squeeze through the opening. Esther cried out, shook the giant sleeping at the foot of her bed.

“Hobbes!” she screamed. “Hobbes, wake up!”

Eyelids popped open, onyx shining. “I’m awake, princess.”

“Then do something!” she yelled.

Her father was almost through, his belt seemingly caught on the metal door handle. She leapt for the window, turned back as Hobbes stood, rolled off the bed, his hooves clumping to the floor, and stretched. His fingertips scraped the ceiling. He looked down at Esther, gave a toothy smile. “Not much I can do, princess. My boss won’t let you leave a second time, and I can’t hurt him without hurting you.” He shrugged, his face cragged, muscles writhing. “Such is my power.”

“Please!” she screamed, backing for the window.

Her father pushed through the half-open door and into her room. He circled around the bed toward her. “Beg all you want, but I’m done playing games with you,” he said, his mouth a twisted snarl. “Shit, I don’t even think you’re my daughter. Your mom used to cheat, did you know that? She had lovers, who knows how many! And when she died, I was glad.”

Esther shook her head, weeping, hands up in a useless warding gesture. “Please stop.”

“I was hap-hap-happy!” her father said, then giggled like a madman. “And you? You’re probably one of ‘their’ babies, someone else’s little girl that I gotta take care of, gotta feed and all that shit.”

“Daddy…”

He paused a moment, face softening. His blurry eyes roamed the room, as if confused as to how he arrived there. Then he smiled, and straightened.

“I’m done chasing you. Get over here.”

He pointed to the ground. Esther turned, sprang for the window. She grabbed the bottom of the window frame, tugged it upward. Before she could lift a leg he was there, arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her back, howling. She screamed out and he twisted and threw her across the room. She crashed hard against the side of her bed, the back of her head cracked into the nightstand, rocking it. The statuette wobbled, then steadied. She looked up in time to see him coming at her.

Her eyes found Hobbes standing silent in the corner. He studied her for a moment, sighed, then said, “Remember what I told you.” His voice sounded as if he were in her head and not across the room.

In the next heartbeat, Hobbes roared and sprang his full girth at her father. She felt a surge of exultation, of hope, as the giant demon crashed into him, slamming them both into the far wall. The room shook, the window rattled in its frame.

Esther stood, ready to run for the door, waiting to see if Father was conscious after such a blow, waiting to see what Hobbes would do next.

“No…” she said.

Hobbes’ body began to push itself into her father, the two of them morphing like liquid, becoming one. Her father’s eyes were open wide, staring at the ceiling. His mouth was a long, perfect ‘O’ of shock as Hobbes somehow, someway, forced every inch of himself into Father’s flesh, one long black fingernail slipping in last, disappearing in a wrinkle of the dingy white T-shirt her father wore above his jeans.

Hobbes was gone.

She waited, unsure of herself. Father was hardly moving. His head swayed side-to-side, eyes wide and unfocused; a string of drool dangled from the corner of his mouth. She took a step toward him.

“Dad?”

His mouth snapped shut. His chin dropped, and his eyes expanded to twice their size. Silky ink flooded from the distorted pupils like black blood, covering the whites and irises. He stood as if pulled up by a string. He was taller, broader. Esther took a step backward, not understanding. She studied his face as he dropped his new eyes to stare down at her. A black spiral opened in his forehead and widened, two inches across and funneling deep into his head. She saw the stars in his eyes, and the funnel howled like a killing wind.

“Hobbes?” she said weakly.