[38] Strangely Fluid and Polymorphous Beings

Day never ended. The sun came down even through the canopy. Jay's eyeballs ached. Even when he closed his eyes he saw the light.

They traveled without cease, without sleep. Through Flanz-le-Flore's forest, inert now that Flanz-le-Flore was no longer in it, neither joyous nor malicious. It came and went as Viviendre held his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. They didn't talk.

Then the forest disappeared and the horses trudged up the incline among the mountains. The monastery loomed with the daylight a halo around it. Emphasizing its ruin, its scorched sides, its missing roof. A gravestone.

Jay thought they might have to abandon the cart where the avalanche had buried the path, but in the two weeks since he left the nuns had cleared enough of it, which was good because he might've had difficulty with Viviendre otherwise. The real problem came at the gate. Three nuns stood there, waiting for him.

"No. You may not enter. Turn back now," said the foremost.

He recognized her. The praying mantis. He held the name on the tip of his tongue for several seconds as their cart clanked inexorably toward her then remembered: Theovora.

"We're not coming to hurt you or take anything," Jay said. Viviendre was barely awake and said nothing.

"Irrelevant," said Theovora. "This is a cloister against the outside world. It is where people divorce themselves from its ceaseless changing."

A paradise. "That's why we're here."

"No. No! You are change's agent. You are fundamentally incompatible—See what you wrought when last you came! As the steward of this monastery I cannot allow it. Let alone the fact that you are a man—"

"I'll speak to the archbishop then."

"He's dead."

Dead. The plant. What a racket he made, complaining about it. Was it really so stupid that one of these guys turned into a plant, when there were spiders and birds and deer? A fundamental rejection of this world at every possible point, and at the same time a rejection of himself. He was through rejecting, striving for some nonexistent greater purpose, a paradise that by definition could never exist. Peace—just give him peace.

But that voice, which he first started hearing after Viviendre used her eye on him at the inn, continued to whisper in his ear: I'm sorry. Don't kill me. I'm sorry.

Theovora bitched but she and the two nuns who remained with her could do nothing against him. He ordered the horses forward and they had no choice but to step aside. Theovora tromped off hissing to herself, but the other two—one with a fox tail, the other with scales and fins on her arm like a fish—were kind enough to prepare rooms for him and Viviendre. Separate rooms. Viviendre was asleep on her feet (foot) anyway, so Jay didn't complain.

Nothing happened the next day.

They woke up late. When they did, the fish nun showed Jay around the monastery and described the various chores that would be expected of him—physical labor mostly—while the fox nun took Viviendre to do some knitting. Viviendre made some witty comment or another but neither rejected the arrangement. It seemed natural that if they were to stay here they'd have to do something. And since the monastery had been depeopled there was a lot of useful things for Jay to do. Cleaning rooms, tending to the garden in the courtyard, moving heavy objects from one place to another, clearing out the rubble that still remained from the fire. Once he received the overview, the fish ran off to do kitchen work and left Jay alone.

As he worked outside under the endless sun, he glanced often at the black tower in the distance and lacked anything but his thoughts to keep him company. So this was who he was all along. A man seeking a cloister against the outside world. A kid playing video games in his room.

From nothing, nothing comes.

At the end of the day the five denizens of the monastery reconvened in the mess hall. The two nuns kept to a pair, Jay and Viviendre kept to a pair, and Theovora ate alone in the corner, slowly seizing her bread with her odd claws as her beady eyes stared into oblivion. Viviendre was animated, talking breathlessly about the blanket she'd started to knit, how this was exactly what she always wanted in life, everything felt so safe here, didn't it Jay? Didn't it?

She continued talking as they retired to sleep and instead of going to her room she followed him into his and kept talking. Safe. Safe, safe, safe. She kept saying that word.

On the bed together, as she kissed his cheek and neck and lips, she continued to babble. "Finally. After so many interruptions and silly things to get in the way. We're here, together, and nothing's to stop us."

"Nothing," Jay repeated.

Her tone turned shy. "There's only one thing... We mustn't do anything that'll, ah, you understand, nothing that'll make me... with child." The words "with child" actively caused him to cringe, though she had sunken into such a demure state she didn't seem to notice. "I—this is hopelessly murdering the mood I know, but I must say it—with my body the way it is..."

"It's fine."

"You're—you're certain? I'm not ignorant. I understand what men need. I don't want to make you upset. You're not upset are you?"

"I'm not upset."

"I'm glad. Oh, I'm so glad we've come here. We're safe here, Jay. We're safe."

Then, comical in its timing, the door burst open and Theovora shouted: "Oh no you don't! This is a monastery, a godly place, there will be no such sin on my watch!"

Jay threw up his hands. What the fuck did he expect at this point!

"And what will you do about it, huh?" said Viviendre. "How do you plan to stop us!"

"I'll sit right here," Theovora said, drawing a chair from the simple writing desk that constituted the sole piece of furniture in the room other than the bed. "I shall sit here all night if I have to. It is for your own good after all. Someone must protect you from the lustful sin you seek to inflict upon yourselves. The corruption of your bodies—"

"That's rich," said Jay. "Coming from the half-human, half-mantis hybrid."

Theovora physically recoiled, but did not lift from the chair. "My sins do not excuse yours. I shall do everything in my power to uphold the sanctity of this monastery and the people who reside within it. If you dislike it, you may leave!"

Some kind of strained throttling sound came out of Jay's throat. But what else could he say? The threat would be to call her bluff and go ahead even if she was there, but frankly this whole intimacy thing still made him uncomfortable even without a nannying voyeur. Let alone subjecting Viviendre to it, which given her body image issues would probably not fly either—

"Leave," Viviendre said, "or I use this on you. You're the former archbishop's niece, correct? Then you know what this is."

Her arm extended rigid out of the bed and levied equally rigid was the Staff of Solomon.

"Oh. I know what it is alright," said Theovora. "No surprise you'd threaten me with it. They say the people of California converted when John Coke conquered them, but we both know the truth, don't we? You've never changed your barbaric Pagan ways. Ha!"

"One word's all it takes, crone. I'll div—I'll split you straight down the middle. I almost said it on accident, fehfehfeh. You better not test my patience."

"Viviendre. Put the staff down," said Jay.

"See now, hero? This woman has bewitched you. Her inbred lineage is as mad in mind as deformed in body! For this you have come here, to visit devastation upon us? For this ragged little wench?"

Viviendre sat up, nearly toppled over, but somehow held her body steady as she waved the staff wildly only a few inches from Theovora's face. "If I'm as mad as you say you ought not to provoke me. I'll split you and your two friends if I have to. I'll carve for me and Jay a true cloister away from this world, I'll—"

"That's enough."

In an instant Jay wrenched the staff out of Viviendre's hand. Viviendre panicked, jittered like a malfunctioning machine, even reached to pry the staff away from him before she aborted the gesture and wrapped her arms around herself instead. Her breathing was heavy, ragged, possessed of that hollow whistling sound as though the air were seeping through a thousand tiny holes. "Jay. I—I didn't—"

"Get out of my room. Both of you. I'm keeping this for tonight." Jay waved the staff around and alternated between glaring at the girls and eyeing the relic suspiciously. Did he have to be careful not to say the word "Divide" while holding this?

"Jay. I'm sorry. I simply thought—"

"What? That you'd kill them, erase my memories, and pretend everything was hunky fucking dory?"

"No, of course not, I couldn't do that. How would I explain the mess?"

"Out."

One severe point toward the door was all the subsequent discussion he made. Viviendre sputtered, desperation in her eye, and even pleaded, but her voice grew raspier and raspier until she clutched her throat panting and finally gave up.

"I need it to walk," she gasped at last. "Please give me it back."

Instead he handed her his baseball bat. She glared at it, but accepted, and a bit more wobbly than usual made her way for the door. Only once her intention were clear did Theovora rise from her own seat.

"I'll be watching in the hallway. Do not attempt to repeat your rendezvous."

After the door slammed shut, he sagged back into his bed and knocked his knuckles against his forehead.

The next day he met Viviendre, contrite as a puppy, effusive with remorse, devoid of any hint of indignation. But she'd had the whole night to ponder what she'd say, so who knew. He exchanged the staff for his bat anyway.

"Do not use it on them. Got it? Do not."

"I was surprised, that's all. She caught me off guard, I said things I didn't mean. Of course I wouldn't kill them."

"Yeah, then how would you explain the mess?"

She had nothing to say to that, so instead she changed the subject: "What'll we do though, Jay? If Theovora insists on watching us every night—"

"She has to sleep eventually."

"Then she'll have her two minions do it."

"We'll figure something out." Honestly, he didn't think he was missing much. But he had to consider her feelings at least.

A bunch of stuff happened that day.

First, as he trundled a wheelbarrow full of shittily chopped firewood across the courtyard, Lalum appeared.

It shouldn't have surprised him. He doubted his commandment for her to leave would stick. Nonetheless, like in DeWint's bedroom, her manifestation caused him to stop midstep in shock. Instead of hiding behind some wall she stood brazenly in the dead center of the courtyard, under the endless sun, exposed to full view without a single obstruction fifty feet in any direction. Then he noticed something else: Her mouth was not stitched shut.

"Please do not come another step closer," Lalum said. Her voice like classical music, summery and soft, meant to be played at an outdoor fete where the stuffiest men and women of all time conversed in perfect politeness. "Please understand it is extraordinarily difficult for me to do even this. I am afflicted by a perpetual, ravenous hunger. Draw any nearer and my body may act divorced from the intention of my mind."

A practiced speech. Her tone wavered near the end. Her eight legs fidgeted restlessly.

"I told you not to follow me, Lalum."

"Your sister marches on Cleveland. More specifically, she seeks to take the black tower. Queen Mallory is—is—I apologize. It is more difficult than I imagined." She pressed her palms to her face as a raggedy breath wracked her. Her hands fell away, and the discomposure that had been creeping into her features returned to a mask of pleasantness marred only by the long fangs stretching out her mouth and the six small red eyes that blinked in a pattern around her main ones. "Queen Mallory accompanies her, as do the best of Whitecrosse's remaining forces."

"I don't care Lalum. Shannon can do what she wants."

"Your—your mother—"

"What about her."

"I hate to have to tell you this, hero. Please know this anguishes me. It is for this reason and one other I forced myself to remove my gag. It would not be right to tell you this in writing. At least not my half-educated scrawl. Your mother—Your mother is dead, Jay."

Your mother is dead. Those were the words, he understood them, but they lacked reality. He imagined his mother. She couldn't be dead, she was still in her forties.

"How do you possibly know that?"

"Shannon has a device. I do not quite understand it, but it sends and receives messages across great distances—"

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"A cell phone."

"P, perhaps. I do not know. I do not claim to know. I—ah excuse my difficulties please good sir—I only know she received a message on this device that told her your mother is dead. She reacted as though it were truth."

He stared at her, at a distance of fifteen feet. He shook his head. "Cell phones won't work here. They need satellites and stuff. If they worked here she'd have used hers weeks ago."

Lalum's upright posture deflated slowly, her head sagged toward her shoulder, her breathing became elevated. "I—I—I'm sorry. Tricia was there as well. She—"

"Who?"

"Oh, yes, you wouldn't—It doesn't matter. Whitecrosse has been pulled to Earth."

"No it hasn't. It's all Perfidia's stupid plot—"

"HERO YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME!" Her mouth stretched open like a black void as all her eyes flashed bright. Her fidgeting scuttling unceasing legs drew her a step closer. "You—I'm terribly sorry. I did not mean to yell. You must understand how difficult this is for me, how much I want to—I want to—nevermind that hero. Tricia explained it to your sister. She and the other nuns took the Mustard Seed or rather many Mustard Seeds from the vault and brought it to Princess Mayfair on Earth. She used the elf named Temporary to create a portal—"

"Mayfair? Temporary? What?"

"Hero please I cannot explain in detail please you must you must please oh, oh God please grant me—oh God." She swayed, her legs pulled her one way, then the other, zagging lazily closer to Jay until she stopped herself with another shout: "This is important! Devils from Hell are spilling out of the tower. They're killing the people of Cleveland and flooding into Whitecrosse. Devils from Hell! They've killed your mother, hero!"

The sweet summertime music was now both hands slamming hard against the keys of an organ and Lalum swayed closer, closer still, blinking and twitching her head and as Jay stood poleaxed trying to process this nonsense her mouth unhinged to the point of swallowing her whole face and she lunged at him.

He never went without his bat ever since Viviendre's fake assassination attempt but he'd left it buried in the wheelbarrow and he didn't have time to yank it out. Instead he seized the topmost log of firewood from the pile and crammed it into the endlessly large mouth, which snapped shut and gnashed the wood to splinters. His other hand uppercut directly into her stomach.

Lalum lurched back, shrieking: "Oh God forgive me, oh God I couldn't help it!" This gave Jay the time he needed to pull out his bat, which he held ready to strike if need be. But Lalum retreated, continued to howl. Strands of web enveloped her entire head.

"You're the hero! You must follow your destiny...!"

That was the last thing she said before her face was swaddled entirely in white silk, and blind her eight legs carried her at a scuttling sprint for the monastery's front gate.

She disappeared before the other nuns started streaming from the main building, demanding to know what happened. He told them the truth, that Lalum had attacked him, and they expressed bewilderment at this news since they hadn't even known Lalum was still alive, and Theovora lent him a suspicious eye like she didn't fully believe it.

Viviendre came later, slower, and pressed him far more severely. Jay regretted having told the truth, because now she wanted to stay beside him and protect him, and Jay had to tell her a million times not to use her staff on Lalum under any circumstances, that he could handle it, and so forth. It took hours to get the message through her skull and by the end of it Jay wanted to be alone with his wheelbarrow again.

When they finally left him to it, and he could actually think about what Lalum told him—about Mother—immediately the next crazy thing of the day happened.

Theovora, who had only disappeared moments before, came tromping back up to him from the direction of the front gate. She clearly had something to say so Jay sighed and waited for her to say it. Some lecture about this or that. Instead, as soon as she entered earshot, she shouted:

"Now look! More strange visitors are approaching. This is your doing no doubt. You've brought them here like gnats to a flame. Do something about it!"

"Do what?"

"Make them leave."

"It's just Lalum, you know her as well as I do—"

"Not Lalum. Come to the gate and look!"

Alright. He left the wheelbarrow to sit unattended in the center of the courtyard and followed Theovora's agitated strides to the front gate. The road curved down along the side of the mountain, twisted and switched back the other direction, buoyed on sides by other peaks including one that held the ruined remains of the fallen cross, but most of it was visible from the cliff they stood upon, or at least what remained of it after half the monastery's wall crumbled. Theovora whisked her praying mantis arm at a point down the road where a lone figure slowly ascended.

"And who is it?" Theovora said. "Hm? One of your friends? Perhaps worse yet, an enemy. Calamity! We only want to live in peace. We've given up it all so we might live in peace. Who is this?"

The figure remained far enough away that under ordinary circumstances identification would've been impossible. This figure was different. This figure had red skin and horns.

Devils from Hell spilling out the tower... Fuck.

A twinge hit the nape of his neck and for some reason he thought about that melted corpse by the inn saying I'm sorry. Viviendre told him she didn't know what it was. Maybe. But Jay certainly had. Even if he was dying, he would've told her to relay information like that to him after she used her eye—right?

"I'll handle it," Jay said. "Wait here."

He proceeded down the path, bat on his shoulder. By the time he'd rounded the first bend the devil approaching had become clearer and he thought he recognized her as Perfidia Bal Berith. Maybe. He'd only ever seen one devil before—at least that he remembered. Subsequent steps eliminated all doubt, though. He sighed and moved less guardedly. Hadn't he wanted to meet her anyway? To negotiate Viviendre's safety. Hm.

"Heya there Jay," Perfidia said. "In five days and five nights Lucifer shall defeat the angels. Then he shall be true God of this world. Praise his name."

"Huh."

"Sorry, I'm—It's weird, don't worry about it. How ya been Jay?"

"Why are you here."

"So maybe you've noticed the big black tower in the distance—"

"Yeah. Devils are coming out of it, Mayfair brought Whitecrosse to Earth, and my mother's dead."

The last few words struck him and he thought: So it's real, huh. She's dead. He'd never been close to her, but still—Well, he couldn't show weakness in front of Perfidia. She wanted something from him, obviously. He needed to remain sharp.

"Great. You're all caught up. Now see here's the thing. You're a to-the-point kinda guy so I'll hit you with it right up front." (Jay thought, as she paused and glanced nervously over her shoulder at the sky like she expected someone watching her, You already haven't done that.) "There's only one possible way to fix all this and to do it I need you."

Yeah. Right. Him. Sure. "So this is your new plot for me after all. I actually thought it might be real for a second. You overplayed your hand—"

"Plot? Jay, what are you talking about?"

"To satisfy me. You're worried I won't be satisfied so you've cobbled together some new plot to make me feel like the hero. It's obvious. Exactly like the elves attacking the castle."

Perfidia looked around. She was panting heavily, and her white button-up shirt seeped sweat from every obvious location and many less obvious. She maintained a jagged salesman smile. "Jay. You realize I lost complete control of the situation the second your bitch sister knocked on my door right? Anything that's happened since then has been Mayfair's doing. I don't have any control over the world, I don't even know what's been happening in it for the past two weeks. I've had a real fucking time and I could bore you with a long and complicated story, but suffice to say—"

"Alright. Fine. Answer one question then: Why me. What possible need could you have of me specifically, compared to any other human in the world."

"I could explain but it'd take forever. We only have five days and it takes two to walk to the tower from here—"

"And how did you know I was here if you don't know what's happening in this world?"

Perfidia tossed up her hands. "I shoulda known this would be obnoxious. Here I naively believed Jay Waringcrane, whose one wish was to become a Napoleonic hero and create paradise, would jump at the opportunity to finally, actually be the world's savior, but no. Too optimistic. Questions, questions, fucking questions!"

"How did you know."

"That succubus you left at the inn. She told me where ya went. Well, her voice did, since you annihilated everything else. The real trouble was I almost ran straight into Queen Mallory in all her regalia and I think she woulda chopped me apart if I wasn't lucky enough to see her before she saw me. Hid while she and her goon squad went past. Your sister was with em. Seemed to be heading to Cleveland—Yeah you don't care I can tell."

He didn't care. But he did keep hearing that voice, so maybe she was telling the truth. Jay knew from experience Perfidia wasn't an exceptional liar. He should've seen some tell by now.

"The succubus mentioned you went with a lady friend too." Perfidia leaned conspiratorially, and Jay stepped back. "Who is it? I populated this world with plenty of women. All shapes and sizes. Flanz-le-Flore? She was the first one I threw at you, didn't quite get to see how all that unfolded. Not Mayfair. Not Mallory. Maybe Mayfair made someone for you—"

"God you are so chatty."

"Yeah! I am! It's been a rough two weeks okay? Cut me some fucking slack I am only barely holding it together."

If she wasn't lying it put Jay in a good position to bargain. "Can you explain what you actually need from me?"

"Sure. Correct. At the top of that big black tower over there—that's Pandaemonium by the way—there is a gigantic agglomeration of Humanity. You remember Humanity right? The essence of—"

"Yes."

"Fuck I dunno you never seem to give a shit about anything so maybe you forgot! Anyway remember how I said it'd take an insane amount of Humanity to make any alterations to fundamental laws of the universe? Well that's how much there is, collected by devils over a span of millennia. It's called Divinity. The head honcho devil—I'm not gonna say his name in case it calls his attention to me—is currently using its power to fight the angels and overthrow God. Short of it is—I wanna steal that Divinity."

"And you need me."

"Devils can only get Humanity if a human gives it to them via contract. But it's natural for humans to have Humanity, obviously. And Humanity isn't supposed to be loose like that. If it can, it'll go into any human that comes across it. Our head honcho has some kinda device to keep the Divinity isolated so he can use it without the overwhelming power annihilating his non-divine body. That means we can yoink it."

"And if I 'yoink' it, this overwhelming power will annihilate my body."

"That's where the contract comes in. We time it just right, all your Humanity is ceded to me instants after you absorb the Divinity, then it's out of your body and you don't gotta worry about a thing."

"So get some other guy to do it. It can be any human right?"

Perfidia's grin went wolfish and she wagged an overeager finger as though he just blundered right into her trap. "The head honcho knew about this weakness in his plan. He's suspended the ability of any devil to make a new contract with a human. He didn't suspend existing contracts, though. Remember how you kicked my ass when we negotiated? That stupid satisfaction-guaranteed-clause shit? Only an idiot devil like me would do something so dumb. Which means you might very well be the single human in the entire world who could pull this off. Really! Not a 'plot' I came up with to make you feel important. This is really it! It's even thanks to your own intelligence and ingenuity, since you had to outwit a devil to put yourself in this position in the first place. Isn't that great? It's exactly what you always wanted!"

Was it? Was it what he always wanted?

Maybe it was.

"You can save the entire world. You'll be a hero. A true hero. It won't be easy of course. Waltzing into Pandaemonium's no walk in the fucking park I can tell ya. All the big boys will be defending it. Beelzebub, Moloch, the works. We'll have to figure something out. You're a smart guy though. Maybe you'll see something I don't."

Buttering him up. He stared over her shoulder at Pandaemonium. Fuck. And he even had an angle of revenge for Mother. God fucking dammit.

When he glanced back at Perfidia she was glancing over his shoulder. "Oh is that her? Your mystery friend? Don't fucking tell me that's—Viviendre de Califerne? Wow! Woulda never been my first guess—but I respect it more than you know. You'll have to be patient with her, she's got a kinda crazy streak—"

On the ledge outside the front gate, beside Theovora and the other two nuns, Viviendre stood slouched. He imagined her wheezing from the exertion of crossing the courtyard. She didn't need to worry so much about him. It was gonna make her collapse sooner or later—

Viviendre extended her arm with the Staff of Solomon.

In a split second Jay realized what she was doing. He'd backed away from Perfidia every time she tried to get chummy with him which was a lot of times and so he stood a decent few paces away from her. Now he hurtled forward at a sprint, skidding in front of Perfidia and shooting his arms at his sides. Kind of an insane thing to do if he thought about it longer than he did, but in the next few seconds nothing happened. Viviendre's arm fell.

Then she started to descend the path toward them. Her peg leg skidded, she slipped instantly, and she flopped onto her side and rolled. The nuns gasped and gave chase.

"Get out of here," Jay hissed at Perfidia, who stood there with a doltish expression on her face. "Don't you understand she's trying to kill you?"

"What? Why? Sure she's technically Christian. But she's not the kinda person who'd instantly kill a devil if she saw one—"

"It's not about you idiot, it's about me," Jay said as he ran up the path to the rolling and rolling Viviendre.

He made it to the next bend when Viviendre flipped onto her back and regained control of her descent. As she slid along on her bottom she held out the Staff of Solomon, but Jay's words finally got through to Perfidia and she'd made herself scarce behind some rock or crag.

"Shit. Fuck!" Viviendre howled as Jay dropped to a knee and caught her before she went tumbling off an embankment. "What the fuck are you even doing?"

"What the fuck are you doing?" Jay steadied her, kept glancing over his shoulder wondering whether Perfidia would be stupid enough to poke her head out, and grabbed at the Staff of Solomon. Viviendre drew it to herself and clamped both arms around it. He could probably still wrest it away from her, but not without... The feeling of Flanz-le-Flore's fingers snapping in his grasp returned to him and he turned his face aside.

"You're gonna leave. I know it. Addjjjhhh I'm fucking it all up, you're fucking it all up, why can't we just be happy Jay? Why? We're here. There's no need to leave. Why—"

"Why'd you erase my memories of the devil at the inn."

"I told you. You were hurt—"

"Liar."

She said nothing. He lifted her and helped her return to a standing position. He had to hold her to keep her from slipping on the uneven terrain, which made dusting off her layers of fabric difficult. Rips and tears covered the folds. Scrapes on her hands and face. He brushed her hair aside and winced at a thick line of blood that ran down her chin.

"Let's get you back and clean this up." In a medieval world without antibiotics, even a scratch could get infected. Jay doubted Viviendre had the most powerful immune system in the world. Maybe he should ask her to lend him the eye so he could fix her up. Given her present attitude he doubted compliance.

"I'm sorry... Oh, I'm the worst. I simply cannot stop myself. I simply cannot."

With a sigh he turned her around and steered her the right way, moving slowly, accounting for her limp. He glanced back once more, didn't see Perfidia, but did see the black tower—Pandaemonium—and Cleveland too.

"You'll leave me. I know. You don't need to tell me otherwise. It'll happen. Why wouldn't you? Look at me. And you'll get killed. Doing whatever they want you to do. You'll die and I'll be alone again."

"I won't leave," Jay said.

"I don't believe you."

Jay didn't know what to believe about himself.

—

Perfidia crouched behind her boulder. Had to quell any curiosity to peek. As long as she remained out of sight she was safe.

Of everyone it could be. Viviendre de Califerne. Equipped with the Staff of Solomon and the Eye of Ecclesiastes. Made her formidable to even approach despite her nonexistent physical attributes. How was she the one Jay fell for? What exactly formed the basis of attraction? Jay Waringcrane, as always, remained an enigma. Was he truly an individual aberration or merely part of a new class of psychopath, born out of the internet age? Regardless of all other advantages, devils adapted slowly to new technology.

Her position put her on a cliff face peering down a fifty meter plunge into a ravine where sunlight glinted off something metal she eventually recognized as the half-buried remains of Dalt Swaino's Land Rover. She sat listening to the muted conversation of Jay and Viviendre as they ascended the incline—painfully slow, she might add—and her glance eventually turned down the road to where it met Flanz-le-Flore's forest. A few figures were emerging out of it, still tiny from this vantage. Devils, though. Red skin and horns like her. Did they follow her or were devils simply so choked everywhere else they had to come this way eventually? Five total—

HELLO.

The spiderweb spread right before her eyes and startled her into a yelp and a little hop that fortunately didn't carry her above the top of her cover, though she suspected at this point Viviendre was not staring in wait.

"Hello," Perfidia said back, then searched her rattled brain for the proper name and appended: "Lalum."

If the spider existed somewhere Perfidia couldn't see her. Frankly it surprised her that Lalum was still alive, given her condition when Shannon and the goon squad encountered her in the forest.

YOU WANTE TO FREE THE HERO FROM HER?

Perfidia's eyes went from the words, pale in the sunlight, to the five devils slowly ascending. No longer did she hear Jay and Viviendre.

(She noted she didn't need to declare the head honcho's self-proclamation to Lalum. Because she didn't see her? Or because Lalum didn't count as human, devil, or anything recognized by God old or new?)

What did she know about Lalum. Former noblewoman. Widowed, disgraced. Shy. Like nearly every woman in this world possessed of an innate inclination toward the hero. Jealousy. Instantly Perfidia knew how to play it.

"I can tell he wants to be free," Perfidia said. "This isn't the life he wants. Not really, nope. He's hooked. I can tell."

Lalum might ordinarily be religious enough to hold innate suspicion of a devil. Then again most humans were, and she'd always known how to spin them. Viviendre was the devil she already knew; Perfidia the devil she didn't. Besides, anyone folded when you showed them what they truly wanted, what they didn't even fully know they wanted. The surprise that you knew them better than they knew themselves. That sealed it for them. Far better than giving them exactly what they knew they wanted, because then they thought it was too good to be true. Call it traditional human shame and self-loathing. They didn't deserve what they thought they wanted—like little Viv herself.

"He wants heroism," she continued. "He wants to be above all others. I can give him that. I simply need to get close to him. But with Viviendre near..."

The web changed. Beyond it neared the five devils. She recognized the foremost: that fucking shitbag. Well, he'd make the perfect distraction. When the new words came into focus her concealed smile manifested. Finally some fucking luck.

I SHALL REMOUVE THE PAGAN WHORE.