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.

[My name is Bella, if that actually helps.]

[Look, what I really want to know right now is whether or not you're about to do something horrible to me,] he says. [...And how you know anything about my alter ego.]

[I do not have any plans to do anything horrible to you. And I am very, very magical.]

[I just need to know what it is she's up to, so I can see about handling her myself. Why do you turn into her?]

["Handling" her? Just how magical are you?]

[Very, very.]

[Why not?] Bella asks. [What can she do? Besides kill or hospitalize a few hundred people. Which needs to stop.]

[She's a hell goddess who was kicked out of her home dimension for being too nasty,] he says. [At least, I think that's it. I've never heard the story straight out. They bound her to a mortal vessel - me - to limit her power.]

[How attached are the two of you? How much do I have to worry about you when I'm addressing her?]

[...Uh... what?]

[I mean, if she's that much of a package of bad news, are you in trouble if things turn violent, should I try to split you up first, tell me how this works, you appear to be an innocent bystander.]

[Split us up? Could you even do that? How?]

[I don't know if I can 'till I try. And: magic.]

[Stop saying 'magic' like it's an explanation,] he says flatly. [It's not. As far as I can tell, the things you're talking about doing should be impossible no matter how powerful a witch you are. I'm not going to help you if you can't tell me where you're getting all this.]

[I'm not a witch. I'm some other stuff,] says Bella cheerfully. [Glory's from far away? My magic's from farther away. It's a really, really long story.]

[There is nothing I want more than to get rid of her,] he says. [But it's just not possible.]

[If there's nothing more you want than to get rid of her, you should be all over the possibilities I am offering via fancy offworld magic. Look, how much do you know about demons and so on besides the obsequious kind that do her shopping?]

[Not a lot. And you know, I would be all over it if I had any reason to believe you.]