"So this is a way to get paid?"
I laugh, shaking my head. "If I cared about getting paid, I wouldn’t be in this field at all," I tell her. "No, my interest was more the people who fell through the cracks in the system. I wanted to help them. If they weren’t helped by the system, then the least I could do was, I don’t know, something."
She shook her head. "Okay, I guess that makes sense," she says. "I just…I can’t make the leap to demons. Social worker to demonhunter, that seems like a stretch."
"It’s not," I say. "Whether you believe in demons or not, these are people who have exhausted all their avenues. I’m not an expert in this, so I brought in experts."
"The priest and the psychiatrist?"
"Yes," I say. "And everything else—finding clients, trying to figure out if people are attempting to scam us, sorting through case files that references send me, that’s all on me."
"People send you case files?" she asks.
I shrug. "My skills are extremely specialized," I say. "I think some of the people that send me referrals think of them as medical necessities."
"But you believe in demons, right?" she asks, her eyes wide. "Like you wouldn’t do any of this if you didn’t believe in demons."
"Yes," I say. "I have good reason to believe. And honestly, Trine? So do you."