“We could hitchhike,” Aimée offered, for the hundredth time.

“No, stop asking,” Theo said, still intently concentrating on a rune he was etching into the ground with his own blood. “Don’t want your buddies killing anyone for helping me.” Then, to the blood-soaked ground, he snapped, “Freyja smite me with a fucking Valkyrie, open a fucking portal!” He slapped the ground in frustration, throwing shreds of bloody moss and undergrowth aside.

Aimée sighed. She could barely see the vampire lord in the darkness, though she knew he had continued tracing unholy lines in the earth and the air, muttering under his breath, each new iteration resulting in a dark, light-eating fizzle and pop, usually followed by a curse by the vampire. He’d been doing it for hours, all unsuccessfully, and she was thoroughly bored. Down along the ocean’s edge, the low thrum of car engines from the Seward Highway had been tantalizing her for the last twelve hours. If she could just get there, she might be able to get help…

Already, she could feel herself growing soft, almost friendly, with the unholy creature. She needed to end it before he could break his word and dose her again…or her barriers came down and she actually started to like this monster.

Her heart hardening at that thought, she said, “But if we could just find someone to drive us to Anchorage or let us borrow a phone—”

Theo cut her off with a sudden flash of silver-blue magic and a grunt of surprise, then a much louder shout of victory. He lunged to his feet, panting, as the bubble he had made with his life-energy began to expand, becoming a human-sized door cut into the fabric of Life, and opening into an eerie blackness crisscrossed with the energies of a thousand places across the globe.

Aimée stared at the tear in reality that Theo had cut into the air, eyes fixed on the sizzling, vibrant network of energy pathways in the darkness beyond. It had taken Theo two hours to make it, during which he had lost patience repeatedly, scrapping his progress and starting over, probably going through several pints of blood in the process, and Aimée had given up hope he would be able to complete it.

“What is that?” she asked, but she already knew. An unholy opening to the inner workings of the Realm, a gate to the Void. Like a man who tore back the drywall to expose the wiring of a house, Theo had revealed the energetic blueprint of the earth itself.

Aimée took a quick step backwards, hastily making the sign of the Cross. A portal into the Void—the place where magi went to travel great distances in mere moments—could take them anywhere on the globe in a matter of moments. He could take her to a forgotten island in Polynesia and the Order would never know what happened to her. She had heard of such things, in training, but never seen one. Most of the magi capable of making them had been killed a long time ago.

“I’m super rusty,” Theo said, oblivious to her sudden panic. He was wincing at the way the edges of the portal were sizzling. The pitch-black, crackling boundary of the rip in the natural world definitely seemed unstable, like reality was fighting against it, “And I was never very good to start. Not like that asswipe Buðlungr.” He turned away from the portal and grinned at her, displaying too-long teeth. “I’m more of a vampire jock, if you get my drift. I got enthralled young, and I was more interested in bashing heads together and sex. Blood magic and studying wasn’t really my forte.” The vampire almost looked…sheepish?

Aimée stared at him, stunned by how the gesture seemed so human.

But he was a demon, she reminded herself quickly, and Aimée knew that if she didn’t continue to make that distinction in her mind, she was on a slippery slope to unraveling everything the Holy Order of Angels had ever taught her about demonkin.

And she had seen enough demonkin in her life to know that, on the whole, they were evil.

Maybe he’s a good one, a stubborn part of her insisted. Like the selkie… Aimée viciously fought that back down, lifting her chin. He had enthralled her. She couldn’t be expected to think clearly, so she had to assume that any thought she had was compromised by his venom.

Seeing her spine go rigid, Theo’s grin faded as if it had never been, replaced with bitterness and exhaustion. “So I take it you’re back to trying to convince yourself I’m a monster that deserves a stake through the heart.” It wasn’t a question. Just…tired.

Just the thought of someone putting a stake through the vampire’s heart made Aimée physically ill. She managed to resist the compulsion to step towards him and feel his chest to make sure he was safe, however, and instead kept her distance. She had gotten better at managing the poison’s surges after the first few hours of fighting an internal struggle while sleeping on his chest. She still wanted to be near him, but at least she no longer wanted to climb on top of him just to make sure he didn’t walk away while she wasn’t paying attention.

Theo was watching her carefully. “You’re getting better at that,” he noted. “Faster than most. Pretty soon, you’ll be planning out ways to drive that stake in my heart yourself.”

The thought made her bowels twist in dread. “No,” she whispered.

“But you do want me dead, and you do want to be free of the Nótt Lagsmaðr’s curse.”

“Of course I do,” she blurted, even as the poison stabbed her with anxiety of being ‘free’ of Theo. Then she winced, realizing what she’d said. “I mean…”

Theo looked depressed. “It’s okay. I didn’t really expect much different from an Inquisitor.” He looked her over, his big greenish eyes sad in the darkness. “I thought maybe I could…” Then he stopped and shook his head. “You just get tired of being treated like a psychopathic monster, when that’s the last thing I am. Hell, when I find those types, I bash their heads in myself.”

“You were the one who killed the queen’s parents,” Aimée whispered. “We found them in a basement…that was you?!”

Instead of nodding, Theo’s eyes darkened as he scowled at her. “And that’s another thing. You’re fucking trespassing, murderous assholes who think absolutely nothing of sneaking into a guy’s home and snooping around, taking whatever you want, or killing anything that might be inside.”

“Because you’re dém—” At his sharp look, Aimée caught herself. “Most of the time, it’s warranted. We have resources and knowledge the government does not.”

“Uh huh. To murder people and destroy their lives, force them to uproot again and again and again. Hunt them?” He cocked his head at her. “Oh, and I forgot to mention use their energies to power your own weapons and spells and devices.”

“The Order does not use ‘spells’,” Aimée snorted. “That’s entirely the profane disciplines of the dark arts.”

“Okay,” Theo said, “so when you trap a person’s soul, then you put it into an object to, say, give you perpetual light in those handy little lightsticks you carry so you don’t have to run to Wal-Mart to grab batteries once a month, that’s all good to you.”

Aimée swallowed and glanced down at the lightstick on her belt, which she hadn’t activated since night had fallen because the first time she had, it had made Theo hiss and burn.

…just as it had been intended to do.

“Those are made from yatagarasus, right?” he went on, still watching her with that judging condemnation as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“And sanzuwu,” she muttered, starting to feel sick, despite herself. “A few fey.”

“My friend’s a yatagarasu,” Theo said. “One of the most straight-laced, decent guys I’ve ever met. Very honor-bound. An old samurai.” He was watching her way too carefully. “In fact, as far as I know, I’ve never heard of a bad yatagarasu. They’re generally pretty benign.”

“No démon is benig—” Aimée blurted on impulse, before she stopped herself, biting her lip and looking at the ground.

“So basically, because he could make his skin shine like the sun, you guys harvest his soul and turn it into a flashlight, and everything’s OK with the world. Doesn’t matter that the guy was honorable, or he had kids, or loved ones, or goals. He was different, so you harvest him and use his energy to find more.”

Shannon swallowed. When put under that lens, it sounded rather bad. What was worse, Shannon had never liked the fact that the Order used the souls of demons to power their weapons and artifacts. It seemed…wrong. And yet, the Holy Order of Angels had insisted that sacrifices were necessary in the pursuit of the purity of God. Her fingers automatically found the oyster shell in her pocket and she rubbed it, unable to respond.

“You’re just a bunch of brainwashed hypocrites,” the vampire lord said, his face twisting with disgust. “I’ll see you later.” He turned back to his portal.

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Seeing that he intended to leave her there, Aimée allowed herself a small concession of her morals on the rush of Nótt Lagsmaðr panic that followed.

“I…am struggling,” she admitted. “I’ve never met a démon who was…amicable…before.”

Theo hesitated, turning slowly back towards her as he once more put his back to the portal. “Oh?” Theo said, once again raising a masculine brow at her with that superior judging look. “Have you ever gotten to know any of these ‘demons’ before you killed them?”

Aimée flushed, remembering the selkie. “I’ve killed enough to know you and your yatagarasu friend are not in the majority.”

The vampire had the decency to wince. “Well, that’s true enough.” He glanced at the portal, which continued to flicker with unstable energy, seeming to consider. “So…whaddaya say? You wanna chance using it?” He didn’t sound very sure of himself. “I mean, I can’t guarantee we won’t both freeze to death. It’s been like two hundred years since I did one of these things, and I don’t remember it looking this jagged around the edges.” He squinted and poked at the edge. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it didn’t have that gold glow to the edge. Or sizzle. Why’s it sizzling? You know?” He squinted at it, poking it.

That definitely didn’t leave her feeling confident. “Inquisitors are banned from using the blasphemy of demons,” Aimée said.

“But you can harvest their souls,” he said distractedly. “That’s okay.” He was poking it with a stick, now. “That’s funny. You can actually push on it…” He demonstrated, making the portal squish to one side, then looked at her curiously. “You ever seen anything like that?”

It was not making her interested in testing its functionality. “Where does the portal come out?”

“Hypothetically?” He was still cocking his head at it like a puzzle. “I get to decide that when we get inside,” the vampire said. He glanced at the sizzling portal with a wariness that one might eye a wild snake. “If I can remember how before we both don’t succumb to the cold.”

Aimée was a bit bemused, watching the vampire deliberate. She had always thought that the demons’ unholy powers were innate, that they never had to struggle or hesitate when using them. But now, after observing the hours of frustration and cursing both Freyja and Odin trying to summon the portal, as well as the nervousness on Theo’s face as he now eyed his creation, she knew that definitely was not true. “We could hitchhike,” she offered again.

The vampire turned away from the portal to squint at her. “What, so you can alert your buddies that you were kidnapped by a vampire?”

“Do I look stupid to you, démon?” Aimée snapped.

Theo raised a single brown brow pointedly and waited.

“Theo,” she muttered, deflating. It had become habit, now. The moment he crooked his brow at her, she submitted and gave him what he wanted. The alternative—him talking about how he longed for death in some grotesque and creative fashion—was too horrifying to even consider.

“I generally don’t like bringing innocents into my affairs,” Theo said, watching her, his distrust clear in his pale green eyes.

Aimée agreed, having that exact same attitude, since it was so much easier to cut the demons from the weave if there were no loose ends to mop up later.

“…because people like you usually end up killing them in some misguided attempt to cleanse the world of anything interesting that could threaten your cult’s hold on the minds of Man.”

Aimée, who had been nodding, went still with shock and suddenly forgot to breathe. “Did you just…” She swallowed, hard. “Call the Church of God a…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Theo crossed his arms in challenge. “That’s exactly what it is.”

Aimée’s mouth fell open. “Merde,” she whispered. “La lumière de Dieu me donne la force,” she managed, making another sign of the Cross, for the thousandth time that night. “Le sang du Christ me preserve.”

But the vampire didn’t flinch at the name of the Lord. In fact, he snorted with derision. “How many times have you met your God, Aimée? Ten? Twenty?”

Aimée flushed. “The likes of Him do not waste His time with pitiful sinners like me.”

“Oh?” He wasn’t even attempting to hide the smugness in his face. “But you’re so devout. You would think a real god would show himself to his true believers.”

“We’ve seen his angels,” Aimée managed. “They show themselves to the Order, to make His wishes known.”

Theo snorted. “You mean a Fury?”

Aimée frowned. “No, not a—” She hesitated, realizing the mythologies were very similar…

Theo held out a hand, looking down at the palm curiously. “Let’s see here. I’ve met Odin, Freyja, Osirus, Psyche, Zeus, Thunderbird, Thor, Poseidon, Nimue, Hades—”

“All démons!” she snapped, the fire of her passion rising in indignant fury. “How dare you suggest—”

“You say they’re demons,” Theo said. “And yet, they’ve got the decency to make themselves known to those who follow them,” Theo said, dropping his hand with a flat stare.

“Because God doesn’t need to show Himself or grant favors like some common street-peddler to prove his existence. The devout know.”

“All I’m saying,” Theo said, “is you’ve never seen him.” He gave her a long look. “But I’ve looked Odin in the eyes and told him his breath stank.”

“You truly believe something holy would have stinking breath?” Aimée laughed.

“Oh, so you’re saying Jesus didn’t shit?” He made the most smug look and said, “’Cause I can attest to that personally.”

She flushed again and backtracked, knowing she couldn’t argue history with someone who had lived through it. “God doesn’t concern Himself with the desires of a few sinful mortals,” Aimée said. “He’s above that.”

“Precisely,” Theo said. “What has your ‘God’—” the demon had the audacity to raise his hands in an airquote, “—done for you, Inquisitor?”

Aimée stared at him, revilement once again taking hold of her core. “How…” she sputtered. “How dare…”

“When you figure it out,” Theo said, lowering his hands humorlessly, “let me know. Until then, try not to be a murderous cultist for a few minutes while I decide how to get us out of this mess, because whenever you open your mouth to spew that demon bullshit, what I’d like more than anything is to just leave you behind.”

As she was gasping with the horror of that thought, the vampire went back to evaluating the safety of the portal he had made, going so far as to stick a branch through it, watching nervously as the edges of the portal started to spark with the gesture. A moment later, when he pulled the stick back, it was covered with ice crystals and looked dehydrated, while at the same time the part closest to his hand was dripping with…liquid gold?

Theo sniffed it, yanked his head back with a grimace, then slapped the birch branch against a spruce trunk. Like something that had been dipped in liquid nitrogen, the stick shattered into a dozen pieces. “That stinks of Fólkvangr.”

“Well, you were cursing Freyja’s name enough in the middle of your incantations,” Aimée snapped. “Maybe she heard. Granted you a favor.” The idea that this demon so casually questioned the truth of God still rankled her.

He winced, then glanced at Aimée. “I’ll need some of your blood to build a barrier to the cold.”

“Absolutely not!” Aimée blurted, backing away. “Clearly you have no idea what you’re doing. The last thing I’m going to let you do is play with my blood.”

Theo sighed and threw the remnants of the stick aside. “So we’re back to Square One. We’re not going anywhere because I don’t want to hitchhike, and you don’t want to walk the Void.”

“Judging by the way that thing is fizzling, you don’t want to walk the Void, either,” Aimée growled.

“Fine, you know what? You’re right.” Theo cancelled the unholy spell by slapping at the outside edge. And, like a child’s soap bubble at a birthday party, the portal collapsed with a loud static sizzle in which gold coruscated upon the ground like ball lightning in all directions. Turning away from the failed experiment, he said, “We’ll do it your way. We’ll use the highway. But I swear to Odin’s underarms, if you get some trucker killed because you get your buddies involved, I will put you out of your misery.”

Demons were so disgusting in their quaint oaths and curses summoning their higher demon of choice. So…vulgar. It clearly demonstrated them as false idols in comparison with the purity and holiness of God. Aimée sniffed.

Theo was watching her carefully. “I’m serious. If you get someone killed because you call in your zealot pals after me, that’s it. I don’t care that you spent the day snoring on my chest. I’ll kill you, and it won’t bother me one bit.”

“The Order would never accept me again, knowing I’ve been compromised,” Aimée muttered.

Theo gave her a long look, seemingly searching for something. “Yeah,” he said eventually, “but that’s not gonna stop you from trying, is it?”

“I won’t involve civilians,” Aimée said. “This is between us, vampire.”

Theo narrowed his eyes. “See, that’s what you pricks don’t get. There is no ‘between us’. I’m not fighting you guys. I’m just minding my own business.” The blood-soaked ground behind him hadn’t stopped sizzling. In fact, the longer he ignored it, the brighter the crackling seemed to get. Theo went on, oblivious. “Just some poor schmuck that wanted some peace—wanted to find some place where he wasn’t going to get kidnapped and raped and forced to do abominable things to people—and gee, around the thirteen hundreds, you guys start—”

“Démon,” Aimée said softly, watching the energy of the ground behind him grow.

“—hunting my kind and using our souls to power your fucking flashlights don’t call me a demon, Inquisitor bitch.” Scowling at her, he crossed his arms and went on, “I’ve been a good fucking guy, helping people, saving the damsels in distress…hell, chasing down runaway cows and putting my back into barn-raisings when I have to. And what do I get for that?”

The gold energy was building, spreading outwards, making a black, eye-like hole in the blood-soaked ground as it pushed the boundaries outward.

“Theo,” she whispered, backing up.

“Better,” Theo said. “I get shit for it. Hunted. My house ransacked when I’m not at home, my stuff rifled through, my most prized possessions taken…”

“Theo,” she said, swallowing. Something was moving inside the hole. Something radiant.

“I had mementos of the Nightlands, stuff my father had given me before he died. It wasn’t powerful or even very valuable, but you know what you fuckwads did with it, the first time you ransacked my home?”

“Theo, I think you were right. There’s something there.”

“Damn right, I was right. I lived through it. You guys gathered it all up and burned it. Right along with my wife and best friend. Tied her to a stake and set her on fire, saying it was in her best interest, having fallen in love with a fucking vampire.” There was raw hatred and hurt in his eyes now, agony that he’d managed to hide until now. “You sadistic, soulless—”

“Theo, there is something coming out of the ground!” Aimée shrieked, pointing as it raised an arm and clawed its way into the mosses.

“Something coming out of the…” Theo blinked at her, frowned, then turned slowly to look.

Immediately, his eyes went wide and he stumbled backwards, coming abreast of her. “What. The. Fuck.”

“What did you do?” Aimée cried.

“Oh fuck.” Theo’s mouth was open, his unnaturally big eyes wide. “Fuck me, fuck me.”

The huge naked woman who was crawling out of the earth coughed, and smoke and sparks spun into the night on her breath. She dragged herself onto the mosses with obvious effort, then collapsed into a fetal position, shivering. She groaned and shook for several long breaths, spewing more smoke and fire into the air with every gasping exhale. Her pale skin seemed to have a strange golden shimmer to it, like a white shirt lit up with UV. Eventually, though, her lungs seemed to clear, and a few moments later, she lifted her head and started to look around. Her thick, braided hair was almost pure white, and her eyes were like glowing icicles in the night.