[I want to know what you did to that man.]

"Well, I'm not going to tell you," says Glorificus, sitting back down and picking up her magazine.

[Why not?]

"Because you're annoying," she sniffs.

"Well, you did," she grumbles. "You should be very sorry."

[The bath lady's name is Glorificus, Glory for short; her alter ego is Ben, a perfectly ordinary human except for occasionally turning into her. She seems to derive power or sustenance from sucking... something... out of people's brains. Her past victims can be cured at a pentagon per, but I only did the most recent one. The rest are either dead or in mental hospitals.]

[Ballpark of two or three hundred so far. Ben knows a thing or two, and you might have more luck getting it out of him than out of her.]

[Can you tell what triggers the shapeshifting?]

[Mostly random, as far as I can tell.]

[How do the obsequious demons react to him if one's around when he shows up, then?]

[Obsequiously. But he doesn't like them.]

[I'll hang around and wait for him, then, unless she lines up another snack.]

[If you get impatient, you could always see what kind of coin it takes to force the change.]

[You don't think they'd notice, it's that random?]

[I don't think they would.]

Bella starts trying coins, but she's going to stop and reconsider if a pentagon won't do it.

A pentagon does it. Ben rubs his head, sighs, checks his watch, and gets up off the couch.

[Hey you.]

He yelps and looks around wildly.

[You can reply to me the same way,] she adds helpfully.

[Who are you? What do you want? How did you find me? What's going on?]

[I found your alter ego, first, and I want to find out why she's been brain-sucking several hundred people and put a stop to it.]

[That is not a complete answer!] he says, clutching his head in distress.