[43] Lust / Gluttony

Mallory and Mayfair refrained from conversation as the army ascended the steps of Pandaemonium. A hodgepodge mix of American soldiers, Cleveland militiamen, Whitecrosse knights, and corpses—corpses comprising by far the largest portion, as Shannon's ruler confirmed. So many were corpses, in fact, that despite the massive line of bodies, silence reigned over the chambers. Silence save for the tromping of feet. Unified, magnified.

"I distrust that daughter of yours," Shannon whispered to Mallory. The daughter in question rode on the back of the deer nun some twenty or thirty feet behind. Much farther back, almost invisible at this distance, was Wendell Noh and his faerie queen.

"Aye," said Tricia. "She promises much but serves only herself. We would be better off without her, despite the vast army her relic commands."

That was the rub, though. They relied on Mayfair to save them from Moloch, and they relied on her to gain entrance to Pandaemonium (some sort of barrier prevented entry without Temporary the elf's portal magic), and now they relied on her army to bolster their ranks. So far they'd encountered almost no devil presence inside Pandaemonium, but if they met another opponent like Moloch, her assistance would prove essential.

Furthermore, when Shannon cast furtive glances over her shoulder, she noticed Mayfair constantly consulting pages of weathered brown parchment. Her fair features often furrowed at whatever she saw written on them. Given the magical mumbo-jumbo available to Whitecrosse, Shannon felt certain those pages were of major importance. As she looked, Mayfair raised her hand and called one of her living followers to her—the hare nun, Pythette, an obnoxiously bubbly character. She said something too quiet to hear. Pythette nodded and nodded again, then saluted and shot off between the rows of the dead, past the Shannon/Mallory/Tricia trio (technically a quartet, but Gonzago rarely had anything of substance to say), and into the darkness ahead. Moving with purpose. Mayfair was scheming something, but what?

"I could," Mallory said with a half-formed shrug, "simply kill her."

"What?!" Shannon said.

"Frankly, I'm disappointed neither of my esteemed tacticians advised me to do so themselves. It is the most convenient solution; with her relics, we may still make use of her army afterward. Am I doomed to think of everything alone?"

"She's your daughter," said Shannon.

"I harbor no love for the girl," said Tricia, "but—yes, I agree with Lady Shannon. You mustn't shed your own flesh and blood, Your Majesty."

Shannon glanced back once more, and was surprised to see Mayfair staring between the deer's antlers directly at them. Did she hear their conversation? It shouldn't be possible, with the constant tromp of marching feet between them; Shannon could barely hear Tricia and Mallory and she stood right next to them. Even the nearest corpses were too far to spy. But something on Mayfair's face, some disconcerted gleam of hurt, seemed as though it could only be a reaction to what Mallory just said. Then Mayfair glanced down at her paper, and back up again, and back down again...

What were those papers? A relic that granted greater perception, or possibly some sort of limited omniscience? If they were a relic, Mallory or Tricia would have said something. But they clearly possessed some power.

"I jest," Mallory said, though without hint of humor.

"Do you—do you hate her?" Shannon asked. She supposed she shouldn't. Especially if Mayfair could hear them. But something made her ask anyway. She didn't want it to be true.

"I do."

"Why?"

"Lady Shannon," said Tricia, "you have no right to demand such explanations from Her Majesty—"

"Oh, it's quite alright." Never once did Mallory look at any of them. She stared straight ahead as she ascended the stairs. "I'll tell all, I've no mind not to. The truth is, I have always despised both my children. I was forced to have them, and having them—both at the beginning and the end—was hateful. They chained me, more than that outrageous wedding band ever did, to a role I never wanted to fulfill."

Shannon glanced back again, and sure enough, Mayfair was staring, her face pale. Her hand trembling around the page she held.

"But for them personally, them as human beings? Makepeace was always merely a cad, no more and no less; no, I even felt a sort of sympathy for him. He sought freedom from his own role. Of course, I could never let him escape it, I resented even those brief moments of liberty he won for himself, but is envy not the seed of resentment anyway? Perhaps I was unfair to him. It's easier to think that, now that he's dead. Though part of me resents him all the more for being dead. How funny."

She spoke without whispering, as though she didn't care if Mayfair heard, or as though she already knew she was being heard. Shannon stopped glancing over her shoulder; she watched the back of Mallory's blonde head that refused to bob even with her high steps.

"But Mayfair? Mayfair was always something different. Her precociousness, her eloquence, her unctuousness, her eagerness to please. Oh. I always saw something different in her than Makepeace. She was nothing like me, so there was nothing to resent. She was like them."

"Them?" said Shannon.

"Perhaps because I never cared to raise her. Perhaps it is my fault, oh well. Who else would she turn to for emulation? Those dukes, those courtiers, those creatures of the state... Speaking, always speaking, always citing facts and figures, always appealing for applause. That's their tragedy. That for all their naked scheming, the saddest part is the smiling mask they don so you notice not the knife behind their back. They don the mask not because they need to but because it is what they wish they could be, pleasant and happy, and loved... Those were the ones who enchained me, and she aspired solely to become them."

A disquiet struck Shannon. She thought, briefly, of Mother. Sitting on that couch. When Dad died, she—Shannon had—Trash. Garbage. Total garbage.

"You, sweet Shannon, are like those dukes too, you know," Mallory said. "With one key difference. You do not smile. You never smile... you see no need for it. For you, at least, the idea of love is something understandable. Something that lives solely within the flesh."

"Lust," Tricia offered.

"My curse," said Mallory. "My blessing and my curse."

—

The black space and its white lines gave way without transition to a dense jungle. Was there a transition? Oh! This place, this wretched place, it played on one's mind, Lalum liked it not. But was that not the essence of adventure? Perilous locales braved by a stoic hero. He indeed strode stoically onward. His black bat swept against the creepers and ivies, the branches and bushes. Everything it touched browned then blackened then fell as ash to the floor.

"Wait, how'd your bat get like that?" said Perfidia. Jay didn't answer; instead the other devil said:

"Seems he ran into Mammon."

"What?! When? How?"

And this was good. The devils did not control this journey. That had been Lalum's true fear. She allied herself with Perfidia to take down Viviendre—Viviendre—but that was acceptable. Her damnation was assured and irrelevant. The hero had to be kept pure. Under no circumstances may he succumb to her corruption; Lalum would defend him from that. Onto herself all sins she would take, becoming a worse and more decrepit form in the process. That was her purpose.

Oh, Lalum knew. Knew with but a glance. Perfidia and Kedeshah meant nothing to Jay, mere conveniences he abided. No speck of sin darkened his brow. But the other. The other!

Viviendre de Califerne. Transformed into the serpent. Fitting symbol. For she was his weakness, the one foible in his heart, the one seeping temptation that could cause him to stray. Her long body wound amid the ferns and flowers. What thoughts transpired in her mind, counter to the thoughts in Lalum, what schemes? Oh, how boldly she slithered! As though prideful in her changed appearance, ecstatic in its vitality! Here Lalum saw every encroaching tree trunk as a hiding space, a way to steal away her wickedness from the eyes of all. She tried, oh she tried... she tried to overcome it. Yet whenever he looked at her in this form... it wrought such pain in her heart.

One fact shone clear even under this canopy, however: Viviendre de Califerne could not ascend to the top of the tower with the hero. She must be stopped. Otherwise her honeyed tongue, her honeyed scent, would tempt him to the negation into which he almost fell. Lalum had spared her life before, why...? Perhaps because something pathetic lurked inside them both, the one's pathetic nature invoking pity, the other's capitulating to it; for Lalum was weak, despite her corruption she was weak, weak!

But of the four creatures who accompanied the hero on his quest, she was the only one who truly desired him to achieve his anointed goal: To stand atop the tower of Hell, Pandaemonium itself, and seize God's strength to wield as he liked. Not to cede to Perfidia—never, never!—but to create a paradise in his own image. Such was the way of heroes. Evil tempts them, perhaps they falter, but in the end they triumph. Such was the way of stories. Such would be the way of Jay Waringcrane, and though Lalum would die for it, it would become so.

She would make it so. In making it so, all her self-imposed damnation would be repaid.

And she could do it too. Perfidia confiscated all three relics: the staff, the eye, even the shield. But Lalum still had her animus, and one remaining faerie scavenged from dead elves to use it. Perfidia, Kedeshah, Viviendre herself; all bent to her will if need be.

Viviendre's lone eye met Lalum's vacant, distracted gaze. Lalum swiftly looked aside, but the heat of that stare remained. She fought down the temptation to hide. No. No! She mustn't. She must remain by the hero's side. He needed her. More than he knew, he needed her to save him from these devils...

"Shut up," said Kedeshah. Perfidia had been talking—she was always talking—talking about Jay's new bat, how it made their trek easier, as though the true threat were the Seven Princes and not those present, but the sharp command silenced her instantly.

"What," said the hero.

Kedeshah tilted her head. Ear piqued, she squinted to scan the canopy, where an unseen ocean of birds twittered song and strange cries; her expression soured. "Her."

"Your mother," said the hero.

"Ashtoreth, Prince of Lust," said Perfidia—now at a whisper. "Or I guess Princess. Well she used to be Baal/Ashtoreth, she swapped freely between them, but at some point she stopped swapping. We can get past this one without a fight. Kedeshah—you'll talk to her, right? I need you on this. Kedeshah."

A soft sigh escaped Kedeshah; she seemed to shrink, and she had already been such a slight thing. For a moment she became void, a hurt little girl in a white sundress, an object of pity... So even a devil could be piteous. (Lalum swiftly remembered her attempt to seduce the hero back in Whitecrosse and all pity vanished.)

"I want to go home," Kedeshah said.

"There's no more home," said Perfidia.

"That's the only reason I'm still here." Her demeanor perked up, she bounced on her heels, she shrugged. "By the way... Mom's not alone. Who cares about that though? Let's all go bite the bullet together."

She strode off. Without a word the hero followed. His bat cleared the way of any greenery; a long dead streak trailed behind them. As they drew deeper into the jungle, beams snuck through the canopy, though what source of light might produce them inside this tower Lalum knew not. The birds chattered unseen, their song frenzied, excessive in its life, drowning out Perfidia's voice, screeching now, howling, a cacophony, the branches shaking, the leaves rustling, though nothing ever appeared, all activity above remained implied.

Viviendre's small brown hands rubbed together, her eye peered wolfishly out a ray of faux-sunlight. "They're having a real go of it up there, aren't they? Fehfehfeh." It nauseated Lalum simply to hear her voice, this stupid barbarian who never once reached a moment of intimacy in her entire life.

The front layer of vegetative matter curled and died and a clearing opened before them. In the center of the clearing, upon an ivory throne, a colossal statue reclined.

It wore a white robe draped across its body, the folds obscuring the form within but only so much, leaving a palimpsest of their naked element. The long legs were crossed, their feet bare yet studded with a sharp spur upon each heel. Slender alabaster arms lay upon the rests of the throne with their palms upturned. Some large creature curled ball-like at her side.

She possessed no face. Only a simple, blank surface. She lacked hair as well. For all the intricate modeling of every wrinkle in her robe her head was simply an spheroid shape.

Wait—No? Was there not a face? Lalum believed she saw a face—but when she glanced again there was no face, and also the arms which had been so detailed in their craftsmanship were mere slabs of white stone. The hands were bulbous shapes that swallowed the fingers in a single rounded form, like a mitt. The feet triangles that swiveled on spherical joints. Lalum flinched, and blinked all her eyes, and the form of the statue changed from blank to defined, empty to detailed. The only thing that remained the same was the robe she wore, and—perhaps—the ghostly form of the body beneath it. Or perhaps that was simply a trick of occlusion. Perhaps the arms and the face would also seem stagnant if covered...

Perfidia elbowed Kedeshah. "Take the initiative. Get her to let us pass. Don't make Jay have to use the bat, huh?"

The idol was sickness to stare at yet she drew the eye, Lalum could not turn away, she tried to focus on the form of Kedeshah as she moved ahead of the group and extended her arms from her sides, but the stone giantess pulled all. Pagan deity. Cultish creature those Saracens would stoop for, yet it churned Lalum's heart, her eight legs buckled and she swayed. Arms caught her. The hero...! No. Not him. The face beside he was Viviendre's, smiling mirthlessly; the fingers tightened against Lalum's back.

"Alright mom," said Kedeshah. "After all this time—I'm here."

No words emitted from the idol; in its cascading levels of detail it watched and said nothing, and the clearing in which they stood seemed suddenly vast, an entire vortex of empty air growing and growing still. Silence too—no subsequent sounds from the birds in the trees, but when Lalum looked up she realized the sky was every color, red and green and purple and blue and orange, swirling and churning, dripping downward in the form of ten thousand birds of paradise, like those they said lived in the oases of California. Ten thousand feathers fluttering into one congealed pool of color that alighted upon the idol Ashtoreth. They adorned her: head, arms, shoulders, legs, even her body though somehow a trace of its form remained amid the agglomeration. All that had been white was now rainbow, and the birds with their beady black eyes stared and tilted their heads and clacked their beaks and together in one disharmonious squawk spoke:

"Pretty bird! RAAAWCH—Pretty bird!"

Kedeshah loosed a sharp breath. "Oh, this is gonna suck dick."

"RAAAWCH. Come here, come here. Wee-ee-oo. Come here, come here. Click-click-click."

"No mom. We have to go to the top. You understand right?"

"Wvwvhh, wvwvhh, not safe! Not safe, not safe! Come here, wee-ee-oo. Come here, come here."

"No mom. I'm going to the top. I'm aware it's not safe." Kedeshah leaned to Perfidia and shook her head. "You know this won't work right? I never should have come here."

"Not safe, not safe, RAAAWCH. Safe with me, safe with me, RAAAWCH."

"Never should have come." Kedeshah fidgeted, avoided looking at the bird-drenched statue, seemed to fall under the same magnetic pull that drew Lalum's gaze, shifted her feet. "This was a bad fucking idea Fidi. Why'd I let you convince me it'd be easy?"

Perfidia seized the initiative. "Lady Ashtoreth," she began grandiloquently, in accompaniment with a stately bow, "all your daughter asks is for you to grant safe passage. You must realize there is no safety for her or yourself under the current state of affairs, surely. What Lu—what he did to threaten you he'll do again, and again, and again. As long as he possesses power nothing will prevent his domination over you and everything you love. Indeed, he may even bind you like Mammon—or bind your daughter, so as to keep her as a hostage. You want that? In the end that's all he'll accept. That's Pride for you—the more he gains the more he'll want, until even the simple fact that anything besides himself exists will annoy him. Come on. You know I'm right. The only thing that prevented him before was lack of power. Well now he has it. If you want anything to ever be safe again, you gotta let us pass. Or help us! You and Lord Rimmon there. It's only Belial and Beelzebub ahead, we're already past Moloch. We get to the top, this human grabs the Divinity, he passes it to me. Easy, foolproof. Come on! With your help there won't be any danger at all. Whaddya say?"

Her final words died an echo in the cavernous space. The birds tilted their heads left, right. "RAAAWCH," a few said.

The large creature curled beside the statue shifted and grunted in its sleep.

"Mom," Kedeshah said, "just let us pass okay! I'm not yours anymore, okay? Just accept it. I chose what I wanted to do with myself. It had nothing to do with you. Let me be myself!"

"RAAAWCH," said the birds. "You'll be mine. You'll be mine. I love you. I love you. Po-tee-weet. You'll be mine. You'll be mine. I love you. I love you."

"This isn't going well Fidi." Kedeshah tugged Perfidia's sleeve with urgency. "She's always like this, it's awful, there's no point! Let's make a break for it—"

"I LOVE YOU YOU'RE MINE I LOVE YOU YOU'RE MINE."

The birds took wing. All their colors streamed off the statue together and whirled toward them. Instantly the hero brandished his bat, but there were too many, a single swing may leave ten dead, but a hundred more swarmed afterward with beaks and talons.

Lalum knew what to do. The action became clear in her mind. She must seize Jay, who was strong but slow, and use the agility of her scuttling legs to carry him into the protection of the woods behind them. There the dense vines and branches would serve as bulwark. Yes, this action shone clear in her mind, she reached out to grab him, her hands went still—this action, touching him, laying her corrupted self against his body, it froze her solid.

In the instant she hesitated someone else seized him instead. Viviendre de Califerne! The long black length of her tail coiled around his waist and hoisted him off the ground. She turned and slithered for safety.

No! Not her—not her—but what mattered was that he was safe, and now Lalum stood dumbly wondering what to do. Beside her Perfidia rifled through her coat, she hastily wrenched out the shield that once belonged to Prince Makepeace, but in her haste a few loose items tumbled upon the grass. Lalum recognized them instantly. The Eye of Ecclesiastes—the Staff of Solomon.

She hastily scooped up both before Perfidia could. Then the birds came down and Perfidia had to cower behind the shield; Lalum dashed for the jungle where a rustle of leaves indicated the spot into which Viviendre and the hero vanished.

The birds bounced off the shield and split in two rainbow streams of color. The streams coiled back, turned toward another figure—Kedeshah, trapped in the center of the flurry, her hands a whirlwind that burst individuals or even groups of five or ten to blood-tipped feathers. Lalum prayed forgiveness for relying on another's bad fortune; she ran for the forest line. Perfidia, also spared by Kedeshah's distraction, followed.

Through the screeching a word arose from the clacking beaks: "RIMMON! RIMMON! RAWCHRAWCHRAWCHRIMMON! RIMMON! EATEMALL! EATEMALL RIMMON! EATEMALL EATEMALL!"

The sleeping creature at the side of the statue stirred; a long wretched rumble betokened a terrible awakening. Lalum drove into the jungle as the ground began to quake from the steps of something gargantuan.

—

They reached a temple, ancient and desolate, stone porous and no roof and broken columns and within the ritual square a statue of some entity with a face effaced by time. Onto a bed of leaves and vines Viviendre placed Jay, while somewhere distant the ground rumbled.

"So Jay," Viviendre said. (She lisped the "s" slightly.) In this temple the light was weak but the full form of her body became clear: her tail twisted over itself, her fingers tipped by claws, her singular gleaming eye with a vertical slit for an iris, and of course the fangs that shone whenever she spoke. "What's the plan here, hm?"

"Negotiations broke down," Jay said, "so we'll have to fight. We'll need Perfidia. Or rather the eye—your eye. She has it now. That'll keep me alive."

"No." Viviendre shook her head and her baubles jingled. "Nonono. Not what I meant Jay."

"Then what."

"This whole," Viviendre swirled her hands about, and the tip of her tail swirled too, "this whole Divinity thing. You pick it up and then hand it to the devil?"

"That's the plan. Viv—Look. Maybe you shouldn't be here, even the way you are—"

"You don't like it? You dislike the way I look now?"

"That's not—"

"If you want, when this is over you can turn me back. With the eye of course. I won't remember a thing and I won't be able to walk up the stairs without help again but hey! That'll be convenient next time you want to leave me behind."

"Okay. Okay!" Jay stood up, waved his arms. "I was a dick. I know. I get it. You're right to be mad at me. But this isn't like the first time Viv. The first time, I left because—because—I dunno. I was—"

He knew. Of course he knew. But how to say it. He resisted the urge to fling it back in her face, yell at her for her ridiculous stunts, her machinations, her attempts to manipulate him. Instead he rubbed his temples and said:

"I'm trying to accomplish something here Viv. I'm not running away from myself. I'm doing something here."

"What are you doing."

"I told you. I just said it. Everything's fucked up. I'm gonna fix it."

"Are you? You're actually gonna hand it off to that devil. I guess so she could fix it."

"Is there a difference? Perfidia can't do it without me, why are you fixated on this point—"

"You don't plan to hand it to her, do you."

Jay stood, arms outstretched, the bat dangling from between two fingers. The ground rumbled, the trees shook. He looked at her, he wanted to tell her how stupid it was to argue about this now, they had bigger priorities, but he couldn't say a word.

Her eye pierced him. It remained an unquivering lump of amber in her skull, shrouded by her hair, and though her mouth curled to show her fangs that eye was unsmiling.

"No... No, of course you don't Jay. Of course not. Yesssss"—here she allowed the "s" to elongate—"I see you. That restlessness, that lack of satisfaction. Divinity—the power of God. You'll never be able to simply hand it away, will you?"

Mammon's voice spieled in his ear: Once in a lifetime opportunity! You'll never see a deal this good again! The power of a God can be yours, friend, if you only call this toll-free number!

"I have to," he said, "or else—"

"Or else it'll destroy you, yes I know, I have been forced to attend church on occasion, I am well aware what the unfettered might of God does to a mortal. But hey! Maybe that's part of the appeal, huh? Why'd you leave the first time? Just cuz of me? That's what I thought at first. Fehfehfeh. But when you left the second time, when I ate that fruit and my head got so much clearer...!"

The simple, logical route would be to deny it. He still hadn't decided what he wanted to do anyway when he reached Divinity—if he even reached it—so why couldn't he simply lie?

"Oh but then you'll say it was my fault the second time too, you'll change your tune, after all I was waving that staff around and being a real fucking cunt oh I know Jay, fear not I am perfectly aware of every single one of my innumerable flaws, which is coincidentally the exact reason I can stare right inside you Jay and see what's in your heart and know what you want, so let me tell you when I said we can both die together I lied, I fucking lied, I don't want to die and I don't want you to die either and I will do every fucking thing in my power to make it so. And I'll get you to that Divinity if that's what you want and I'll behave beside that spider even though I know the psychotic little whore wants you to be a God and annihilate yourself, no, I'll be a good girl for you Jay but I will not let you kill yourself, you'll hand that God power over to the devil like you're supposed to and you can live the rest of your life knowing you saved the world or doomed it, who even gives a single shit, it doesn't matter, because at the end of it you'll live on and you'll live on with me. And for the first time in our lives we'll enjoy life. Life! The things we feel, Jay, the simple sensual pleasures. It needs no complexity beyond that. For that, we can live. You'll negate whatever ego you have and give it up, Jay. Say it. Say you'll give it up. Say it now!"

Jay looked at her; he said nothing, though his mouth half-opened and a word formed on his tongue. Before him she was cracking, her eye glistened, her hands shook, and when he continued to say nothing she shouted:

"I love you, Jay."

And still he could say nothing.

"You do not know, Jay, how many times I wanted to die. I know how you feel. If I could do only one thing that matters, then I could die. It's so easy to think that when you're wretched. It's as though your continual failure, your uselessness, is both the thing that puts those horrible thoughts inside you and the thing that keeps you alive, because being so wretched and low you think that even one great moment, one good moment, would be enough to satisfy you, and then death might be peaceful..."

Look Mother, I'm a sail!

Finally something rose in his throat: "I—I had—moments—"

The something ended there, nothing else came. What was the peace Mammon found that let him truly want to end himself, to cease striving? The end of hope? But had Viviendre ever had hope before now?

"I never did," she muttered. "That's where we diverge, I suppose. Even so, I know you. So please—"

The shivering of the trees drew close and they both broke their gaze from one another. The leaves parted and a figure burst through.

The figure was Lalum. She had undone the threads around her mouth and panted heavily as she leaned against a broken column for support. "Run," she said, "have to run!"

Another rumble rocked the ground. The temple shook, dust came down in streams, one decayed wall crumbled in a spray of stones. The jungle outside its domain bulged. The trees lifted in a swell and from their leaves burst brightly-colored birds squawking. Between them rose the tremendous head of a crocodile, its jaws unhinged to reveal nothing but black void between sharp teeth. Trees, dirt, stones, and branches hurtled into that mouth. They swirled and dwindled until nothing more could be seen of them. Then the jaws clapped shut to chew and gnaw.

Wow, said Mammon, I wonder who this fine fella could be? He's sure got an appetite! Gee, I bet nothing can fill his insatiable gut. Nothing, that is, except a supersized meal from—

Jay squeezed one eye shut and rubbed the other side of his head until the voice went away. This crocodile—Jay could deduce who it was. The Prince of Gluttony.

Rimmon turned down his long snout to stare at them with his inset eyes. One eye was much larger than the other, or rather it wasn't that one eye was larger, it was magnified. Rimmon wore a polished, round, gold-rimmed monocle, which dangled a chain that led past his crocodile face to the pocket of a finely-tailored velvet waistcoat. A matching bowtie squeezed his shirt collar so tight it made the muscles of his scaly neck bulge.

"Oh dear, I apologize quite profusely for that shameful display! The truth is, I truly grow quite voracious after my midday nap." He doffed a comedically undersized top hat. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Rimmon. Quite pleased to make your acquaintance, though I regret to admit this is not the most pleasant of circumstances. Yes, I'm afraid you must be prevented from reaching the apex of Pandaemonium at all costs. I know, I know, you have an excellent reason for your little adventure, but it truly cannot be helped. Lady Ashtoreth and I are but lesser members of this prestigious circle, rulers over baser vices as they say. Baser vices! Pfah, so they say indeed. Between you and me, without Gluttony and Lust no creature within the terrestrial sphere would sustain itself or propagate. What some deem base I call: foundational. Back when a stale crust of bread was life or death, none dared call me base...!—But where was I? Right. You cannot be allowed to continue. A shame, for I would've loved to invite you to dinner. Food tastes best when shared with friends! I possess truly a most magnificent collection of wines. Alas, c'est la vie! Now, let us not belabor the tragedy. Please remain still and I promise to make your ends as swift and painless as possible—Oh dear!"

Jay hadn't waited for him to finish. Perfidia once mentioned this Rimmon was slow, an assessment that seemed appropriate given the preponderous manner in which he spoke. So Jay dashed across a fallen half-wall of the temple, bounded over a splintered column, kicked his foot against the trunk of a tree, clambered across its branch and launched himself at Rimmon's body with maximum momentum. The bat swung. He could never miss, every ounce of newfound strength went into the attack, more than surely any human ever felt.

The bat slammed against the body.

But instead of a powerful thwack, all sound was sucked into the rippling folds of lard. The bat itself sank. All force vanished in an instant, as though Jay hadn't swung at all, and now he dangled from the bat's handle as it stuck fast within the body. Rimmon looked down and his eye enlarged within its monocle. He grasped his sides with delicate human hands and chortled.

The bat was supposed to kill whatever it touched. But for tough built-on stains, additional applications of the product may be required. He could no longer tell if it were actually Mammon's voice lingering or if his brain had rotted enough that he thought in the same cadence.

As he dangled, he got the idea to brace his legs against Rimmon's body and wrench the bat free, but the liquid fat folds under the waistcoat threatened to suck him in. Meanwhile, Rimmon's tiny human hands reached for him, so he had no choice but to let go. He dropped—directly into the waiting arms of Viviendre, who caught him bridal style. The smile she flashed was neither devious nor ironic, real joy lit up her eye, an excitement simply to be involved, and when Rimmon leaned to the side and attempted to crush them she threw Jay with incredible strength before she snaked into a groove in the ground for her own safety.

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He sailed out of range of Rimmon's body and would've landed safely on some ferns if Lalum didn't dive in the way to attempt to catch him. Unfortunately, she lacked Viviendre's superhuman strength. They collapsed in a heap. Her legs splayed as she got smooshed into the ground with a petite "whoof!" She did soften his impact though. Maybe. He took some hard bony part of hers to the shoulder, which he rubbed with a wince. Lalum opened her mouth, staring at his neck with naked hunger, but pulled her face away blushing after the first spots of drool landed on him.

Rimmon crumpled trees and temple walls like paper as he rolled. His rotund body wobbled toward them, slow but massive. "My friends, struggle will only prolong your misery! I understand the pain of senseless oblivion well, but it is not the worst fate. When you are dead, at least, you can no longer wish to be alive."

Jay ignored his aches and pulled himself to his feet. The handle of the bat still jutted from Rimmon's side. Everything relied on retrieving it. If he ran, regained distance between him and the lumbering behemoth, conceived a strategy—

Lalum's arm thrust out past him. She held the Staff of Solomon.

"Divide!" her soft voice chimed.

Instantly, Rimmon ceased his ponderous forward roll. Jay wondered about the relic's efficacy against him. Maybe he stopped out of confusion. No, his body didn't simply stop but went rigid, or as rigid as possible with his liquid constitution. Straight up his well-tailored waistcoat a red seam spread. Threads, buttons, bowtie, throat, and long crocodile face split one after another. The divided portions of his mouth flapped: "Oh, bother."

The body came apart. A deluge of guts rushed out. The greenery and temple stones that still remained disappeared under a flood of red—but the tide didn't stop there.

"Shit!" Jay seized the closest thing to him for support. The thing in question was Lalum. That was all the preparation he got. The river of blood crashed into them, and together they were swept away.

—

Perfidia Bal Berith spat a mouthful of leaves and stumbled into the next branch to get another mouthful. Scratches stung her face and somehow this magic relic shield specifically designed to not let anything hurt her couldn't account for every stick and shrub in this stupid fucking jungle. Shitty fuck!

She almost punched the nearest tree and leaned against it instead. Rimmon's rumbling became more seismically distant, she'd managed to elude him, but where anyone else went who knew. Point was she needed to regain control of the situation. Got too excited, too giddy. Kedeshah turned out worthless for Ashtoreth after all. Whatever. Still ways to handle this. Jay getting his bat Mul Elohimized gave them options. Where the Hell was he now?

Probably in the direction of the rumbles. Perfidia breathed deeply, got herself under control. Mind in the game. Did Ubik leave anything useful in his coat? She stuck a hand inside and sifted. No, nope, no, junk, useless, garbage, why'd he even keep that, no, not a chance, trash...

A few branches pushed aside and she stumbled into the open, only to jolt when she realized someone stood before her.

"Hey! You're that devil right? Per—Perfidia! That's the name."

The girl snapped her fingers and beamed proudly for remembering. Perfidia knew this dubious creature, though the name came slowly, and she bought time for herself with ample hemming and hawing elongated by a timely quake caused by Rimmon's perambulations.

Finally it manifested: Pythette, one of the nuns from the monastery, the hare. Confusion gave way to caution. How'd she get here? An illusion orchestrated by Pandaemonium? No, this Pythette had been with Mayfair during the events at the megachurch, though she'd kept out of the fighting then. Somehow Mayfair sent her here—how? Through the Door? She knew she should've deactivated it, or put it in her coat, or—No, that wouldn't have mattered at all. Mayfair had Temporary. Fuck! Perfidia had worried about the Whitecrosse papers, she wondered whether Mayfair might use them to get involved. She could track Jay, Lalum, Viviendre, and even influence the latter two. Lalum and Viviendre might already be double agents. Viviendre was most suspicious, after all they did royally fuck her at the monastery and she caught up to Jay pretty quick, fuck shit fuck oh dammit—

"Hm. No, I don't think I know anyone named Perfidia. My name's Duplicity."

Smooth as butter. No wavering. All pause for thought excused by the constant earthquakes. And Pythette, ascended street urchin, was never designed as a genius. She tilted her head and scratched one of her long ears, telltale signs of disappointment on her face—disappointment at not finding the person she'd been sent for.

Of course, Mayfair could just beam the truth into Pythette's mind, lying was impossible—

But no immediate change came over Pythette's features. Was Mayfair not paying attention? Or had she lost Pythette's paper altogether? Since Pythette and the other nuns factored into Mayfair's plans at the megachurch, Mayfair must have had their papers on her at that time, so maybe in the commotion afterward she lost them... Perfidia kept waiting for a turn, a change in those bright and gullible eyes. But nothing.

"It's really too bad," Pythette said. "I'm supposed to wallop this Perfidia person when I see em. I'm not too keen on violence, but she's a devil, so I guess it's okay? No offense of course. This Perfidia devil apparently was at the monastery the night of the fire—oh you wouldn't know about that, but we all used to live at this monastery—anyway, neither me or Demny saw her cuz we were too busy with the fire, and nobody else is around anymore—well there's Tricia too, but she's with the queen now—Oh and I can't forget Mademerry. Mademerry's so queer though, it's really quite funny, I feel bad for her sometimes! I ask if she ever wants to chat or play with the kids in the arena but she always says no. Demny's such a stick in the mud too. I love her of course, but it's true. Now I'm on this errand in this creepy tower and—Hey, you wouldn't happen to know your way around this place, wouldja Duplicity?"

"Oh, of course—Um, what was your name again?"

"Pythette! Dear Lord did I forget to say? I am so hopeless!"

"Pythette, that's a nice name. Yes, I know all about this place. Why don'tcha come with me? I can show ya around."

"That'd be a huge help! I gotta find this hero named Jay Waringcrane. It's very important I stop him, or at least slow him down."

"Slow him down? What for?"

Perfidia knew, of course. But Mayfair fucked up. If what Pythette said was true, Mayfair only had a few nuns left, and she probably wanted the more reliable Demny to remain as her bodyguard. Yes—exactly like how she used Dalton Swaino. Protection for herself above all. Readable. Predictable. Mayfair probably didn't care if Pythette failed, even if she died. She might expect Pythette to die. Didn't matter to Princess Mayfair. All she needed was Jay to slow down so she could catch up.

Tsk-tsk, Perfidia thought, as Pythette launched into another gregarious digression. Mayfair might be shrewd, might have even gotten the better of Perfidia before. This time she overplayed her hand. Pythette was no mere pawn; she was a great big glut of intel. Perfidia planned to wring her dry—and dispose of her after.

Wait. Even better idea. Why dispose of her? Suboptimal! Uncreative! There were better uses for a mark this cooperative.

Within five minutes Pythette spilled everything. Perfidia knew where Mayfair was, what she had, who she had with her. Knew about the fruit and how it amped the nuns (she thought they seemed oddly tenacious when Ubik fought them). Knew also about Mayfair's army of dead. But Mallory ascended the tower alongside her, and Perfidia knew better than anyone the frosty relationship between mother and daughter. Cracks, cracks. Cracks to be worked, cracks to break open, cracks to shatter the whole pot.

Some of the others might prove trouble. Shannon Waringcrane. Wendell Noh and Flanz-le-Flore, potential headache. Whatever. One fire at a time.

The present fire manifested in the form of the clearing in the center of the jungle, an ominous space under a bright moon that caused the birds to shine as they clumped on the head of the idol Ashtoreth. Perfidia caught Pythette before she blundered out of the treeline, still yammering about this or that.

"Wait. Look there. See that?"

"Whoa! So many pretty birds! I had a few friends who were birds you know. Course they're all dead now. I miss my friends. If only that Mademerry would talk to me, I'm sure we'd have a great time. It just so happens I..."

Perfidia kept crouched behind a shrub. Pythette did the same even as she spoke, though her long ears gave her away. Not that it mattered. Ashtoreth surely knew where they were. She simply had a bigger concern.

The statue's arms gripped a writhing, struggling body: Kedeshah. Since Moloch already cut her up, it was hard to tell how much damage the birds did, but she oozed droplets of bright white blood onto her mother's lap, enough to form a pool that overflowed and streamed down the layered folds of cloth.

"Let me go!" Kedeshah said. "I'm not yours anymore you clingy bitch! Let me free!"

The stone hands, which fluctuated between dainty and rough-hewn, refused to comply. One arm wrapped around Kedeshah's chest and neck, while the other clenched her ankles. Kedeshah retained a free arm to beat against the body. Despite strength to crumple a man's skull with a finger flick, the wild strikes did nothing whatsoever.

"Oh no, that little girl's in serious trouble!" Pythette gasped.

Perfidia matched her level of concern. "That's my friend! She really needs help!"

Instantly Pythette sprung upright. So fucking easy! "She's not Perfidia Bal Berith is she?"

"Course not. I told you I dunno anyone named that."

"Gee. I expected devils to be, well, utterly evil! But they even have friends, like normal people. Guess people judge me for what I am all the time too though—Anyway, don't worry one bit Duplicity. I'll save your friend!"

ZIP and she blurred across the clearing with tracks of torn grass in her wake. The birds shifted their heads and squawked and took flight in a cyclone to slow her but the statue of Ashtoreth remained attentive to its captive. The hands tightened, Kedeshah screamed as her bones audibly creaked, and the strap of Ashtoreth's gown slid elegantly, carelessly, unconsciously down her shoulder, revealing the form of the body kept hidden until then. Perfidia threw up a hand to shield herself from a direct look, seeing too much of Ashtoreth's body was dangerous, but the glimpse she got told her exactly what Ashtoreth planned to do, what really drew the pained and terrified screams out of Kedeshah's throat. Ubik acquired it once. His came secondhand. Here was the source.

"RAAAWCH," a single parrot perched on Ashtoreth's head squawked. "Love you forever. You know me better. Love you forever. You know me better."

"Nooo! I HATE YOU," Kedeshah howled. She writhed and spat infant venom. "Leave me alone! I choose who I love. ME! And I don't love you! I hate you. I hate you...!"

Pythette burst out the bird tornado, bullet speed. Any wounds she received closed instantly. So fast, in fact, Perfidia figured conventional attacks would fail on her altogether. Luckily Jay possessed a way around that. For now, though, Pythette scrambled up Ashtoreth's body, toe-tapping small outcroppings of stone cloth fold to bounce, twirl, pirouette higher, higher, higher. For an instant she snapped out of her blur, right at the apex of her climb, suspended a second with every storybook bird around her. Body twisted, muscles tensed, then—one sharp turn of her hips and—BAM!

A nasty, nasty kick went straight to Ashtoreth's head.

All the Princes were powerful. (Maybe not Belial.) Pythette failed to even crack the featureless stone face. She did, however, cause the head to jerk an inch. Only an inch, sure, but power like that would be comparable to Kedeshah. The thunderous clap of the impact resounded. Any birds still perched took flight screeching dismay.

And, as though shocked utterly that this total nothing could accomplish even so much against her, Ashtoreth's grip loosened on Kedeshah.

Pythette dropped fast and hit the slope of Ashtoreth's arm on all fours. Two fingers, hooked into a claw, latched under the collar of Kedeshah's dress and pulled. Kedeshah jerked out of Ashtoreth's grasp. Pythette tucked her under her arm like a piece of luggage and leapt for safety.

She almost got away with it. Her jump carried her a shocking distance from Ashtoreth, half the distance back to Perfidia. Then she lurched back in midair. Ashtoreth's arm extended, its form shifting, its modulated layers of detail caked upon one another in disorienting array to create an arm both beautiful and manneristically elongated. Her hand grasped Kedeshah's ankle.

The birds enveloped them both.

Perfidia backed away slowly. Good job Pythette, doing your duty, this was all going great. Maybe best if Perfidia herself didn't linger though. Once Jay got back with the killer bat they'd solve this in a snap. Where was he? The seismic jolts from Rimmon's footsteps had halted. There was something else now. A quieter sound hidden under the incessant squealing of the birds. A whisper—a rushing. Like a river?

Between her feet, a trickle of red blood ran. It widened into a small stream. She stepped over it and scrambled aside as it became even broader. A second small stream shot out from the underbrush, then a third. All ran into the clearing, toward the where Ashtoreth sat enthroned, where the birds lifted Kedeshah while Pythette rolled on the ground nursing gashes that sealed slower than those before. The sky above changed color. Darkened. All that stood within its scarlet shimmer was one bright white moon.

The dense-packed leaves and ivy tangles at the edge of the forest bulged. Perfidia backed away slowly, checked over her shoulder, blood now ran from every direction at once into this central circle, as though the whole jungle fed into it no matter which way you came from, and the birds dropped apart and fell in pairs to the ground.

Pythette knelt swaying before Ashtoreth. She twisted her head over her shoulder and looked at Perfidia with forlorn eagerness. "Hey," she said. "You're my friend, right? You're my friend."

Perfidia knew that look. How could she not. It'd once been her world. Pythette crawled toward her. The rushing, rushing, rushing sound compounded. The pressure built and built. Under the red sky and white moon the lunatics would come out to play. The Seven Princes were not so weak. Over their Aspects they wielded absolute control.

The jungle burst apart and a flood of gore poured out to sweep them all away.

—

"We were not always what we are now."

"Once we were angels."

Better than angels. We were Gods. They prayed to us, remember?

"O, they prayed."

"They needed us. The humans He created were lost because He was not there. They needed and desired us, they feared and they loved us."

They prayed to me with offerings of gold.

"They prayed to me for fertility."

"They prayed to me for a bountiful harvest."

They were poor.

"Their children died stillborn."

"Famine and disease—terrible!"

We were not always what we are now.

"I was a fearsome God and Goddess, my breasts were wide and my hips wider, to look upon me was to feel hope and love in equal measure, to look upon me was to know there was a future. I was the one who made them more than one, I was the one who made their first complain for another, I was the rib plucked out and given as God's first gift."

"I was a great and joyous King. Upon my table I heaped high my gifts: Venison and rabbit foraged from the forest, fruit with sweet juices and fruit with bitter, scuttling creatures upon the floor of the sea, crops and loaves of bread, pork and beef and fowl, between them great goblets of wine; it was I who taught them to hunt, I who taught them to fish, I who taught them to forage, I who taught them to plant, I who taught them to domesticate, I who taught them to ferment, I who imparted unto them their first knowledge. He tempted them to the apple, but it was my ache in their bellies that made them reach."

I always made them strive for more.

"Now once again I am only one."

"Now I am refined."

Now I'm dead.

"How has it come to this?"

"We were not always what we are."

He did it. You know who.

"O, Lord Lucifer..."

"Hm. He is an agent of negation, certainly. But is his Pride the driving force?"

Certainly not. You know the one.

"Him..."

"Belial is the weakest of us all. This is known. Are you saying he's somehow the strongest?"

I'm saying he's the most dangerous.

"Restful sleep... float away on a dream..."

"Nothing to do... nothing to be."

Now. Isn't it time we started fresh? Isn't it time we returned? Unwind and unravel?

"You ask us to die."

"You ask us to become nothing."

If that boy is to succeed, he'll unwind and unravel the others too. Then it'll begin anew.

"No. I shall cling to my hopes until the end. I shall not die until I have become what I once was."

"Let us become it together then."

"Let us at least try. Let us make them remember who we were."

"Yes. Let us. If we can."

Very well...

—

Jay Waringcrane's head broke the surface. He heaved a breath and flushed blood out his throat and nostrils. His arms flailed, he kicked his feet to stay afloat. The sky above was as red as the pool he swam in. A vicious moon beamed down.

He seized something that floated, some fragment of intestine, and retched. A savory smell pervaded, like something freshly baked. He blinked. Ahead of him, out of the sink of blood, rose the statue of Ashtoreth, half her body as clean and white as the moon. Around her floated a thousand dead birds their feathers all sodden red. She clutched Kedeshah to her breast, and Kedeshah was still as stone.

For a long time he focused on Kedeshah. Why? She could not possibly matter. She was a third, a fourth party. An irrelevance. Hideous little lustful strumpet. Why should he look at her... Why could he not simply look instead at the one who truly cared for him... Why could he not look at...

Lalum's own piece of flotsam drifted nearer to him, aided by rapid rowing motions of her eight legs. In the crashing wave of gore that swept her away she lost the Staff of Solomon, but she still kept the Eye of Ecclesiastes. Of course she also retained the preserved faerie. She was still useful to him... She would still be useful, and then he would...

Everything smelled so delicious. Lord Rimmon's endless interior. Her jaw quivered, drool ran down in rivulets. At times it smelled like roasted meat, at times like sweet apples, her hands seeped into the blood and a powerful urge gripped her to scoop a cupped portion to her lips and drink. But no...! She must be useful to Jay Waringcrane. She must ensure he reached the Divinity and fulfilled his role as hero. Then he would love her... then she could be worthy of love... of even her own love... Augh!

Thinking hurt. Strong feelings racked her body as the piece of meat she used as a raft butted against his. O how he looked slathered in Rimmon's succulent juices, a potent sauce mixed from fresh tomatoes. His body, his hair—he'd lost his hat once more—the heroic stare in his eyes. No, he could not be looking at Kedeshah, he looked into an impressive "onward" that only he could see, Lalum knew that for certain, and ohhhhh this hunger, if she sank her teeth into his wrist and drank what spilled out...!

"Lalum. Lalum!" His voice cut into her. He'd pushed himself away; he floated a slight distance removed. "Lalum, you looked like this before. Stop it. Lalum!"

"Um, ah..."

"God. Lust and Gluttony. That's the worst combination for you, isn't it."

This trenchant remark stirred her. "What—what do you mean?"

"Please. I'm not ignorant." He kept looking at Kedeshah though! "What is Ashtoreth doing to her?"

"Why does she matter. Hero—hero!"

Her hands reached out to him—but she drew them back. Yes. Yes, mustn't be selfish. As you were taught. Quiet, elegant, poised, pretty, helpful. It would be selfish to want him, and she always had been so good at controlling herself before this aching hunger; it would be selfish to want, as the Pagan girl did, to keep him for herself, to keep him from his own desires, to lock him away in some quaint cottage where none other might see him and his own ambitions might die unrealized. Yes! That was what set Lalum apart from her... she could control herself... She would be helpful...! O God, but why were these feelings so enflamed inside her? Because they fought the devils of Lust of Gluttony, as the hero said? Very well. The temptations of devils were to be resisted, that was the very principle of self-mastery, self-control, self-negation. To turn herself into nothing, a piece of the furniture, anything to make him happy...!

"What—what is our plan, hero?"

It was the right thing to ask. He finally looked at her, not in concern, but with serious and straightforward determination. Her heart fluttered so hard she needed to press a palm to it. Still thyself! He speaks!

"One: We need the bat. Second problem's this blood, I can't do anything if I have to swim through it. We need Kedeshah—no, don't look at me like that, pay attention!—We need Kedeshah because she can fly. With that I'll actually have some mobility. Where's Viviendre? Where's—"

The emergence of something massive from the pool of gore interrupted him. It came first as a black shadow amid the entrails, then built higher and broader until the surface burst and the gigantic head of a crocodile skated across it, the head of Rimmon. He had reformed himself even though it was in all of himself they now swam, and in his eyes instead of civilized refinement was a look of naked carnivorous hunger: primal, elementary, something that existed since creation.

His mouth opened. The black maw sucked in waves of his own pieces. Everything that entered was lost amid the darkness. The pull of displaced blood tugged Lalum and the hero toward him. At first he swallowed himself with ravenous delight, but behind the monocle that was the sole remnant of his civilized self the reptilian eye flicked and set upon them. He turned for them and turning revealed he possessed nothing past the severed stump of his neck. He was only a head and everything he swallowed disappeared entirely.

Jay paddled with both hands, but nothing propelled their small raft faster than they were sucked toward the maw. Lalum wrapped her arms around him, clenched him tight to herself, and braced all eight of her legs, readying herself to jump. The mouth was growing now, wider, all-consuming, blotting the red blood and the red sky and the white moon with its immensity, an edifice, a hole of nothingness, of negation, the elimination of other matter to sustain another self. If only Jay Waringcrane might extend his mouth so wide and swallow her whole! Or she him, or—or—

Her legs twitched and she sprung to the side as the jaws came down. That vast eternity snapped shut at once. The spray of frothing gore propelled them; they spurted to the side carried by a wave as the head of Rimmon descended back into the depths of himself. Swirling she gripped him to her and he held her and they were together, unified, and he would take up his weapon and strike down these devils, and whichever devils came next, moving onward ever onward looking onward seeing only onward the future the paradise that could be envisioned in his mind alone for she had long since ceased being able to see such things, if she ever had—no, she had perhaps once seen them, she had seen that young Princess Mayfair and thought as a governess she might instill within her something, some value, that might carry on into the future and become something greater, then the queen touched her and then—and then—Oh how confusing! Why try to think, why try to comprehend herself? Let her and Jay Waringcrane be unified forever, if Viviendre was allowed to steal him into some dark depth, then why not Lalum?

She only realized she gripped his head and pulled it so his neck was exposed to her, only realized her fangs were poised for his beating vein, when a disgusting and slimy and long thing coiled around her waist and crushed her before she could bite.

"Let go of him. Let go! Jay, get away from her. Get away, I'll finish her quickly with one blow!"

That whore! Her snake tail squeezed Lalum's waist as her rancid perfume which overpowered even Rimmon's scrumptious-smelling bowels forced a gag. Viviendre herself rose up, wielding over her head a long black club—The hero's weapon.

"Viv, stop!" Jay shouted.

"She was about to kill you. She's dangerous. Let me kill her. Let me do it!"

"Give me my bat. Give it to me!"

No air. None at all. Lalum's head turned faint... this faintness overpowered the crushing sensation of the snake's coils around her body... Vaguely she thought that Viviendre made a mistake, getting so close... Lalum possessed an animus still, a useful animus, the most useful of all her peers... That was why they prized her, why they sent her to fight the hero in that forest... Alongside Pluxie... Oh, Pluxie... What a lack of luck. Her vision grew dark. To use her animus she needed her faerie... oh but she felt weak...

"Viv. I need her. If I'm gonna beat these things—I NEED HER!"

Jay reared up and seized Viviendre's arm, which held the bat. Viviendre did not loosen her coils. Tighter and tighter. Seething, twisting. Oh... so this was the end. Yes... Lalum felt it fading. She should've died in that forest with Pluxie... Wouldn't that have been better? Wouldn't it? She should've died in Flanz-le-Flore's court, devoured by those wolves... It all came down to one thing eating another. Oh...

Her fingers closed around her faerie. She dragged it to her mouth and somehow, spurred by sheer force of will or maybe this infinitely frustrated hunger, bit down. A spray of blood shot down her throat; she choked but cared not. What an immaculate taste. Nothing else like it: faerie blood.

CRUNCH.

That crunch did not come from her mouth. It came from her spine.

Something pattered across the surface of the blood. In the half-formed haze of her drifting mind Lalum thought it must be Rimmon. Yes. He returned for them, and this time would swallow them all, and in his oblivion they would remain forever entwined in this tableau. Viviendre's scales felt so smooth. So soft. They touched Lalum all over... Made her legs twitch.

"Hyaaaaa!"

The pattering thing leapt up and kicked Jay Waringcrane in the chest. He went flying. The coils loosened instantly and Viviendre screamed his name. Air rushed back into Lalum's lungs and her vision returned to her. Frozen in midair at the apex of a whirling kick was, inexplicably, the hare Pythette. She carried Perfidia in her arms and clutched her almost as tight as Viviendre had clutched Lalum. Indecently tight.

"Serves you right! Watch out, cuz I can kick a lot harder than that too!"

Pythette's feet hit the surface of the blood. She did not sink into it. Lalum, though concerned for Jay's safety, found herself incapable of moving, so she stared at Pythette's feet. They danced back and forth, faster than anything Lalum had ever seen before, so fast and so light. Pythette stood atop the liquid surface. Lalum sank.

Mobility. Didn't the hero say he needed that? Mobility.

"Now don't ask me whatcha did, but the princess says you gotta be stopped so—Oh hey it's Lalum!"

Pythette scampered to her and picked her up moments before her head sank into the blood. She looked tasty. Lalum would love to eat her too.

"Oh, this is great. Now I've got two friends. Duplicity and Lalum. It's so nice to be with my friends, huh?"

"Pythette." Perfidia's voice possessed a levelheaded character. It reminded Lalum of Jay's voice. "Pythette, you don't need to hold me so close. You're under the influence of Ashtoreth, Pythette. That's what makes you crave physical connection. Listen to me! Pythette. Pythette look over there. Look over there Pythette we need to move!"

Pythette didn't listen. She did not look where Perfidia pointed, where the lake of blood bulged and Rimmon's head emerged skating toward them, where his mouth started once more the laborious ritual of opening. She instead stared at Lalum with a concerned tilt. "Hey. You look broken, Lalum. What happened to your back? Did you get—"

Lalum's fingers tightened around Pythette's wrist and she activated her animus.

What are you doing, said a voice.

No longer could Lalum move her legs. Or her lower body. Her hands, her fingers still moved, and once her animus stitched their threads in someone, it took only such slight motion to control them.

Lalum. This is Mayfair. I'm speaking to you directly because I need you to listen. You're hurt mortally, Lalum, but I can heal you. If you want to live, I need you to relinquish control over Pythette. Lalum? Lalum!

Pythette relinquished Perfidia and Lalum. Upon a half-deflated bladder Jay rested and Viviendre held him as he roused from the shock of being kicked. She paid attention to nothing else... In one instant Pythette plucked the bat from her hand.

Lalum. The hero has to be stopped. He cannot be allowed to give divine power to that devil. Surely even you understand that. Even if you love him you must know he can't be allowed to do that!

It would be trivially easy to force Pythette to strike Viviendre with the bat. Easy, helpful, important. Viviendre sought to pluck the hero from his ordained path, didn't she? She asked the hero not to take Divinity for himself, but cede it to Perfidia. Unacceptable. However, Lalum remembered the hero's onward gaze. He had a mission. That mission must be fulfilled first. So instead Pythette merely flung Viviendre aside and scooped Jay in her arms. She gave him his bat, then turned and sprinted.

Stop him, so that I might take the Divinity instead. Lalum? If you want to become human again, if you want to receive a soul, it must be me who takes the Divinity. Lalum!

Oh child. If only Lalum had been allowed to govern you. Of course Jay wouldn't pass the Divinity to Perfidia. However, you would not be allowed to take it either. He would keep it—the hero, wreathed in gold!

Fine! Sink and die! Lalum! Only I can save you. Lalum!

Lalum was sinking. The blood rose up around her, her hand rose weakly to keep the strings above the surface. Her face tilted skyward, she could no longer see. Still she sank... If she sank too far how would she know what to do?

Lalum! Why will nobody listen? Do you not realize everything is on the line for you? No!

Arms slid under her back. Perfidia, struggling to stay afloat herself, pulled Lalum above the line. Lalum could see once more—and so she designed the hero's triumph.

LALUM!

Pythette, under Lalum's control, ran so fast she ran atop the thick surface of the lake. The hero asked for mobility and here it was. Ahead of him the devil lords loomed, the face of Rimmon rising growing opening into eternity, the white statue of Ashtoreth presiding above his void, her head the moon that shone in the blood-red sky. Jay reoriented in Pythette's grasp as she propelled him forward, straight at the maw, closing in, closer, delicious smell rising...!

"Fuck you're heavy, ff—fuck!" Perfidia dipped under, splashed back up, spat. "Viv! Viv you have to help me. Viv!"

Couldn't let them distract her. Couldn't let this taste envelop her. She saw the target. Rimmon's mouth eclipsed the moon but not Ashtoreth's face, drew to something monumental, but still she saw the weakness, as long as her head remained above this soup she saw where she needed to take him!

The soup washed over her face... sinking...

"VIV! VIV!"

A hand seized her head. The soup dropped away once more, Viviendre gripped her, she hissed: "Do it then! For him you better do it!" And so Lalum did it.

All else melted away, all sense, the voice screaming inside her head. One twitch of one finger. Pythette leaped. Her ridiculous speed launched her and the hero skyward. Up, up, up, even as the cavernous maw grew greater, for there was one element shining in the sky, round moon, round head, and the round gleam of the monocle—all three white circles perfectly aligned!

Pythette reached the peak of her jump and threw the hero like a rocket. The trajectory was perfect. Lalum, supported by Perfidia, supported even by Viviendre, saw the angle flawlessly.

Jay, midflight, pulled back his bat and swung.

The monocle shattered.

The statue's head exploded.

The moon split in two.

"Ah," they said.

"So even remembering ourselves we were no match," they said.

No, they said, we simply could not remember.

Rimmon, Prince of Gluttony, and Ashtoreth, Prince of Lust, died.

Pythette, sprinting at top speed, caught Jay as he fell and they both collapsed into the sink of gore as it curdled and calcified and then turned to dust. That was the final action Lalum needed to command. Ah... now she felt weak. Like everything had drained out the snap in her spine, all life's fluid. Princess Mayfair had been hurting her, too, hadn't she? But she hadn't killed her. Maybe she could not... Or maybe she took pity.

Everything was dying now, everything was breaking apart. The mouth of Rimmon dissolved, the body of the headless statue bent forward and curled around the thing it held as though defending it. The jungle crumbled, all the lovely life seeping as everything red and green turned now gray. Sky gray. Ground gray. Only Perfidia and Viviendre, looking down at her, retained their color...

Oh, right. Viviendre.

Viviendre's face, though, was sullen. Her mouth gritted into a crease. "Dammit—fine! Where's the Eye of Ecclesiastes? Huh? Where is it? Fix her you idiot! Hurry, before she's gone."

She was speaking to Perfidia, but Perfidia held up her hands. "I don't have it. She took it."

Yes. Lalum took it. She kept it in her habit, the red stains of which were turning to gray ash like everything else. Her hand reached inside and she felt its smooth, round, hot form within her palm.

Ah, Princess Viviendre. So even you were capable of kindness. Lalum had taken pity on you too, you know. Back at the monastery. She could've killed you. Then you came back even worse, more committed to annihilating the hero's soul, in the form of mankind's ultimate tempter, the one who caused him to Fall.

So, unfortunately—you mustn't be allowed to continue.

"Nothing new under the sun," Lalum wheezed as she pulled out the eye.

A flash of light.

In the span of that flash Viviendre comprehended what had happened. Before her sight returned from the white blare she knew. How could she not recognize that brightness? Her own handiwork. So she was on the receiving end, hm? Why?

She immediately tilted to the side. Her one leg stood; her other was missing its peg. How had that happened? What would've made her remove it? She recognized nothing of her surroundings. Beside her, too slow to catch her as she fell, was the devil that spoke to Jay outside the monastery. When she hit the ground hard, she noticed Lalum's bent and crushed body.

The last thing she remembered—fighting Lalum. The spider plucking the staff from her and prying out the eye.

She could not breathe.

Right. Exerted too much. Running around the spider's fat body to get on the other side of the shield. Her lungs aflame. If she calmed down—remained still—it should pass. Her throat rasped. It should pass.

"Oh come the fuck on," said the devil. "Gimme that eye. We can't afford to dick around."

She reached for the eye, which Lalum held, but Lalum clasped it to her chest.

"Moron! That eye's the only way we're gonna save you. You can't use it on yourself. Give!"

Why would Lalum turn her back. Why—fuck she could not breathe—why was—why was Lalum snapped in half?

"GIVE IT! Do you want to die? We're NOT hauling Viv's worthless crippled ass up the tower. We need her strong again! Jay where the fuck are you!"

Strong again.

Strong... again.

That BITCH.

Though Viviendre's chest felt on the verge of explosion or implosion or something in between she forced herself to roll over and crawled on her elbows toward Lalum. The devil pulled on Lalum's clasped hands, but when Lalum snapped her fangs at her she let go and leapt back. Viviendre dragged herself onto Lalum's abdomen. The legs twitched but remained inert. A strained rattle tore at her, everything hurt inside, but Viviendre needed to be strong again. Needed to be strong once in her life.

Everything around them crumbled. Flaked and flecked, gray ash, it whirled up and into Viviendre's wheezing lips and nose, choking her harder, she didn't care, she reached for the Eye of Ecclesiastes, the one thing she required most of all. Please! Please. Save her from this body. It wasn't fair. It was never fair. The tortured lusts of her forebears. Why her. Why did they curse her.

Lalum put the eye into her mouth and swallowed it.

Viviendre's reaching hands seized Lalum's throat. The thumbs dug into the soft flesh and pushed. As though pushing might force the eye back up. Claw into the bitch's stomach. Claws inside Viviendre's lungs. Rips and tears and splits and seams. Viviendre coughed and blood splattered Lalum's face. Bright red droplets. Unfair. As if the world had been designed against her. Why this body. Unfair.

When she tried to breathe, only ash. Only ash. Only ash. Only ash.

Her thumbs split the skin of Lalum's throat and drove into the flesh. A well of blood burst out and in surprise Viviendre's grip loosened. Her head hung over Lalum's. Her long hair draped down and around that face and there was nothing except Lalum's face and Viviendre's face staring directly into one another. Strange choking noises, pained wheezes, those were the only sounds. Both made them.

For an instant died the wrath and envy. Viviendre stared down at this creature. This poor creature. Her body hated. Her body shunned by her world. Why—why had Viviendre hated her? Her head swam. She remembered nothing. She was no longer wheezing. Lalum's eyes softened, became glossy and still. Shouldn't they—shouldn't they have been friends?

All became ash.

A force wrenched Viviendre away from the body beneath her. Someone set her down gently. It was him. He shouted at the devil, who stood behind him uselessly. "Where's the eye?!" "She fucking ate it!" "Where's Kedeshah?!" "I don't fucking know!" Words and words.

Jay... shit. She never wanted. Never wanted it to. To be like this. Jay. Stop screaming. Just look at her Jay.

Jay looked at her. He lacked his hat. His hair a mess. His face a mess. Ash everywhere. Did she ever tell him she loved him?

"I love you," she said maybe. Or maybe she only needed to love him to love herself. "Live," she said maybe. "Live on."

All fell silent. In that silence Lalum maybe smiled. It was okay. It was all okay. She put him on his path. The hero's path. Nothing would stop him once he reached the top of that tower. He would seize it all...

All fell silent.

The ash made it all seem like snow. Jay stood there. He looked down at the bodies blanketed in white. It made no sense. No, it made perfect sense.

The voice of Mammon buzzed: Hey you wanna be Napoleon right? Wanna be the big hero? Nothing in life's as cheap as our TV deals kid. Honestly, it comes with the territory. You think all those world-altering heroes had time for others? They stood above. That was the whole point. If other people stood beside them they wouldn't be great. They'd have to share it all. See?

His hands were clenched into fists. Cold tears ran down his cheeks and wiped away the ash on his face.

"Hey! Heya. Hellooooo!" The useless voice of Pythette beside him. "It was a mean trick for Lalum to put those strings on me, but now that I'm free I gotta do what I came here to do. Oh—wait. Is Lalum—Oh." The voice became somber, then fell silent, then after three seconds perked back up. "Anyway! The princess said I have to stop you. I don't wanna hurt anyone, but if you try to climb another step higher, then I'm afraid I have to—"

Before Jay even knew what he was doing he turned. The bat whipped out. It did not swing hard. The side of it only tapped Pythette's hip, she'd been wagging her finger at him, she didn't even react. She never reacted. As soon as the bat touched her, she dropped dead.

Why...? He didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about the snapping fingers of Flanz-le-Flore, the elf heads he smashed at Castle Whitecrosse, the devils he'd beaten to death at the monastery. He didn't want to think about Viviendre or Lalum or anything, he wanted to go back, go back go back go back to that stupid computer with his stupid games and be the person who could love them despite their stupidity and not care forever.

But in the white space ahead appeared a black, rectangular doorway, and beyond it stairs that led upward. He had no home to go back to. No past to go back to. So he moved toward the stairs, his steps hard and fast and his breathing heavy. His hat lay upside-down on the grass, so he picked it up, brushed it off, and put it on his head.

"So yeah," said Perfidia. "Lalum swallowed the Eye of Ecclesiastes. We should probably find a way to, uh, get it back..."

He turned his head toward her and his glare alone sent her back ten feet, and she'd already made sure to keep distance between them. "Leave it," he said. "I hate that thing anyway."

"Fine, sure thing, you're the boss." But she ran off to retrieve the shield and the staff, which were lying in the dead field.

He came across the final thing in this waste land. The remains of the statue of Ashtoreth. No longer the body of a beautiful woman with an empty head. It was a headless skeleton. The body bent and the ribs twisted around Kedeshah, sealing her into a prison. She gripped the bones and beat at them, but they refused to break no matter her strength.

"You killed her," she said. "You killed my mom. I—loved her! How can I live—how can I survive without her? I loved her so much, I loved her more than anything. Why did you kill her? Why won't you kill me too?"

She crammed her tiny hand through the spaces between the ribs and reached out to him.

"Waitwaitwait." Perfidia, carrying the shield awkwardly, ran up to him. "Don't kill her. Please don't kill her."

"Why did you kill my mom? Why? I loved her so much. I loved her!"

"She's under the influence of Ashtoreth's milk. It's—it works like—"

"I don't care," said Jay. He started walking past.

"It'll wear off eventually. Well maybe. I don't really know. Kedeshah's not an ordinary devil so it should wear off I think. Looks like we'll have to leave her behind though. We can't afford to wait around—we're being pursued. But I think we can do this Jay. We made it past the hard part. Well there's still Beelzebub but—that was the hard part."

He just walked. He let her talk. She talked, and talked, and her words became nothing.

He passed through the black doorway and stepped onto the first step upward and dropped to a knee and grabbed his head and sobbed. Perfidia finally shut the fuck up, she stood behind him, she disappeared, behind him Lalum and Viviendre lay dead. He sobbed. He didn't know how long he sobbed. A few minutes maybe. Then he stopped.

He got up and ascended the stairs to the next devilish level.