Suzi watched in rigid silence as Kyle lingered in the corner, transfixed by Everett’s ancient armor and the relics. She exchanged a tense look with Bear, silently willing Kyle to leave already. Eventually, Bear and Suzi had to practically shove him toward the door, convincing him that a “civilian” hovering would interfere with their demon-snaring operation.
Once Kyle was gone, Bear guided Suzi toward the painstakingly arranged rice design on the floor—an absurdly meticulous symbol of order, the perfect bait for the chaos demon.
“You’ll sit in that chair,” Bear said, pointing to the circle’s center. “As soon as you’re ready, I’ll place the last few grains to complete the layout, then hide. After that, we wait.”
Suzi hesitated, swallowing the lump of nerves in her throat. “Uh—can I hold onto this?” She lifted the Miracle Globe containing Ellie, her hand shaking.
Bear inclined his head. “Yes. That’ll make you even more tempting bait. Just don’t let the demon take it. Can you absorb it?”
Suzi shook her head grimly. “No, I think it’s too powerful.”
Bear gave a small nod. “Then keep it out of demon hands. Stay in the circle, you’ll be fine.”
Her heart hammered painfully. She stepped carefully over the rice lines, claiming her seat in the stark, empty room. Judas’s presence thrummed in her muscles, coiling her reflexes as though they both expected an immediate fight.
From the relic room, Bear strode out naked—no robe, nothing. Suzi blinked, forcing herself not to stare. In his free palm lay four grains of rice. He placed them gently, finalizing the elaborate formation, and in the same breath, his form warped into that of a small mouse. The rodent scurried away.
She sat, scanning the dim, empty room. Everett, hidden somewhere in the shadows, made no sound. The only thing she heard was the thumping of a cars base outside, before realizing it was the pounding of her own pulse, thunder in her ears. She tried to focus, tried to breathe slower. Time dragged until the clang of church bells outside rang the arrival of midnight.
Midnight.
A new day.
Darcy’s last day.
That nightmare gnawed at her. What if this demon kills Darcy tonight? She grit her teeth. No, we’ll save her. We’ll save them both. From within Guillermo, Jo whimpered, and Suzi felt Annie and Suzanne comforting her. Focus, Suzi, she told herself.
Her butt went numb on that chair, the rice lines itching her peripheral vision, but the demon didn’t come. She considered standing—maybe pacing—then a crash behind her snapped her head around.
Darcy came hurtling backward, sliding across the floor in a bloody sprawl, stopping when she hit the wall. Blood smeared over the floor. She wasn’t dead—she moved. Relief flickered, then died at the sight of the demon stepping through a tear in reality. The Chaos Demon, no doubt.
Suzi stood in shock, breath seizing at the figure before her. It appeared human in shape—two arms, two legs—but it had no skin or flesh. Instead, it was a mechanical contraption, cabling and metal plating giving it a twisted resemblance of a skeleton. Instead of a face, a sleek, featureless plate covered its head. Blood dripped from its fist.
Judas rose inside Suzi’s consciousness, taking command. Instantly, the wooden chair Suzi had vacated flew across the room, smashing into the wall above Darcy, raining splinters. Before the pieces hit the ground, the android was in Suzi’s face, plowing through the careful rice designs. A mechanical backhand caught Suzi’s jaw, throwing her hard against the same wall, and the Miracle Globe went flying out of her grasp.
“Anno defastinas tasicno NAMI!” Bear’s voice boomed from the darkness. Suddenly, silver-blue fire raced over the room’s walls, igniting glyphs on the wall and hidden circle under the rice, forming a ring of ghostly flames that trapped the android within.
From the shadows, Dr. Everett rushed to help Darcy. Judas staggered up, spitting a thick glob of blood—along with one of Suzi’s teeth—onto the floor.
Everett grimaced. “Those glyphs should protect you, but at least it’ll hold the demon for a minute while we regroup.”
“It found my goddamn pocket, and I couldn’t sense it skipping.” Darcy clutched her ribs, forcing herself upright.
Judas spied the glass globe, stooped to pick it up. “We have it caged. Now what?”
Darcy’s eyes flicked to the demon. “What is it?” she gasped, wincing at the sharp pain in her side. “Demons require living hosts, not…this. It’s a fucking robot!”
Bear stepped closer, “In theory, we know demons can bind to inanimate objects. We know they can still commune and oppress to a certain degree. Perhaps someone has made technology that allows them to be bound but without limits.”
The android hammered against the shimmering fire, glaring with its faceless head.
Bear shook his own head. “But we can’t capture it while the field’s up, and it can’t skip out…yet.”
Dr. Everett eyed the boundaries. “Everyone get your gear. As soon as we drop the barrier, we need to strike.”
Judas opened her hand, and Miraleth’s Pellet appeared, never breaking eye contact with the automaton’s face plate.
“With no eyes, how will we be able to counter it’s will?” Suzi asked her collective.
An eerie silence was the response.
“I don’t think you are going to intimidate it, Suzi,” Darcy said as she tied a white, silken sash to her waist and slid the gauntlet onto her hand.
Bear grew physically larger as his muscle definition and size doubled and tripled, becoming a hulking mass of a man. He and the doctor both grasped the wicked-looking Chains of Foraii.
Everett withdrew a sword he whispered to before sheathing it through his leather armor at the hip.
Darcy handed Judas a black half-mask. “Here, the demon’s obviously after you. This’ll help your reflexes.”
Judas pulled the mask on, a strange surge of adrenaline coursing through Suzi’s body. The others formed a triangle around the flame pillar, Judas holding position. Bear gave a nod to Everett, who nodded to Darcy, who nodded back at Judas in unison.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Time to do this.
Bear stomped a line across the rice circle, breaking the seal. In a flash, the silver-blue column vanished. The mechanical monster lurched forward, fists slashing in a blur faster than Judas expected. She managed to dodge most blows, aided by the mask’s heightened senses, and the ones she couldn’t dodge slammed into ephemeral golden barriers Darcy summoned with her gauntlet. A few hits connected, though. They fucking hurt, but Judas gritted through it.
Behind it, Bear and Everett both lashed out with the barbed chains, but the demon twisted, letting them clank uselessly on its metallic joints. Finally, it spun and smashed Judas back against the wall again, causing her to drop the Miracle Globe.
Just as quickly, Judas was against the wall. She conjured the image of the creature's head and threw Miraleth’s Orb to the side as hard as she could. Unfortunately, this left her exposed to a brutal punch to the right side that broke at least two ribs.
Undeterred, Judas had to strike back; grasping the mechanoid’s left arm with her now free right hand, Judas smashed the Miracle Globe into the face plate as hard as she could. The globe did not give, but the droid’s face plate cracked. Judas drew back again to repeat, but the droid's arm wrapped around Judas’ left, bent up, snapping the radius and ulna of her forearm. The globe fell to the floor.
Miraleth’s Pellet soared in a wild arc around the room, growing in speed until it impacted the android’s face shield. The plate cracked, sparking wires, showering sparks over Judas and the floor. The demon roared—a jagged, mechanical screech.
Whipping Judas’ body like a rag doll, it collided Judas’ legs into Everett, knocking the doctor off his feet. Then it flung Judas into Bear, toppling them both to the floor in an agonizing tangle of limbs.
The droid turned from Judas and Bear, zeroing in on Darcy. Its first punch landed squarely in her midsection, but Darcy’s white silk sash instantly snared around its arm, shrinking tight like a living rope. The demon-possessed machine snarled, wrenching backward, practically dragging Darcy across the floor. It threw another punch, and that fist, too, became hopelessly entangled.
Darcy gave a strangled cry as the droid flung her like a rag doll. She crashed into Judas and Bear, who’d just managed to get back on their feet.
Dr. Everett seized the moment, ramming his sword into the mech’s abdomen. It managed one elbow strike to his face, followed by a brutal kick to his knee. The doctor stumbled, but the sword lodged firmly in the droid’s midsection.
Before it could yank the blade free, Darcy stepped—vanishing into a flicker of thin air—dragging part of the droid with her. Its metal frame clung to the edge of the rift, twisting, until Darcy reappeared twenty feet above in the rafters, momentum pulling the demon halfway into Limbo. Then she leapt, forcing it through fully, and both crashed back into reality with a thunderous impact. At the last second, a gold luminescence cushioned Darcy's fall. The droid, though, hit the ground hard, sparks flicking off broken metal.
“Now!” Bear barked, and he and the doctor lashed the Chains of Foraii around each of the droid’s arms.
Both men pressed their boots down, anchoring it, chanting “Tascintera conte dji!” in unison.
The chains glowed a vibrant blue, forcing the demon-animated machine to its knees, locked in a kneeling crucifixion.
Darcy danced her fingers across the sash, and it unraveled from the droid’s arms. Judas, meanwhile, ground her teeth as she reset her own broken arm. She snatched up Miraleth’s Pellet from the floor, alongside the Miracle Globe holding Ellie.
“You okay?” Bear asked, eyes flicking to Judas’s obviously maimed limb.
Judas just scowled and nodded. She could see the droid’s metal shoulders straining, crackling wires as it tried to rise despite the chains.
“What are we—” Darcy began, voice shaky.
A sickening pop reverberated through the room as the machine forcibly tore its right arm loose, snapping coils and wires. It staggered upright, one arm gone, still tethered by the chain on the other side.
Everett, sword still in the droid’s belly, lunged to reclaim it. But the demon was ready—an unforgiving sweep of its metal leg knocked him down. And as he fell, the creature’s foot hammered his skull between flesh and concrete. He went limp instantly. Another vicious kick to his midsection sent him sliding across the floor. The droid’s severed arm clattered. The chain’s glow flickered off, losing its hold, and the machine shrugged off the second loop.
It yanked the embedded sword free from its own abdomen, swinging it wildly at Judas. Judas tried shielding with the Miracle Globe. But with one abrupt blow, the blade skidded off the sphere’s smooth surface and sliced the middle fingers from her right hand. The globe fell again, clinking onto the ground.
Pain flared. The demon reared back to deliver a killing strike. A halo of golden light erupted, stopping the sword dead in midair, mere inches above Judas’s face. The droid spun, hurling the sword at Darcy. It sank into her chest, pinning her against the wall.
“NO!” Judas and Bear yelled as one.
Judas roared, lunging forward and clamping her one good arm around the droid’s shoulders. She twisted her body and slammed the mech’s entire weight into the ground. Bear sprinted to Darcy’s side.
Straddling the android, Judas scooped up the Miracle Globe and used it like a brutal cudgel, pounding its head plate until oil and hydraulics sprayed onto the concrete. The droid tossed her off, standing on its single remaining arm.
That’s when the door to the trap room banged open, and Kyle strode in, oblivious to the madness—and inadvertently broke the final protective barrier. The faint blue glow snuffed out instantly.
“What the—” Kyle froze, eyes darting at the carnage. Darcy pinned to the wall. Everett’s motionless body sprawled in blood. Judas panting, half her fingers missing. The battered robot was locked onto him now.
It charged. Bear, suddenly a towering rhinoceros, charged back, intercepting mid-lunge.
“Kyle, destroy the host!” Judas shouted.
Kyle snapped out of his shock. He whipped out his .50 Desert Eagle, unloading at the droid in a blast of thunderous shots. The rhino slammed into the mech at the same time. Metal chunks and sparks scattered across the floor.
A stray bullet clipped the globe in Judas’s grasp, smacking her with enough force to knock her off balance. The swirling crossfire ended as Bear shifted back to his human form, flinging away the final mangled scraps of the mechanical host. Kyle holstered his gun, breathing hard.
Judas scrambled over to Darcy, scooping up the Miracle Globe on the way, only to discover the sphere was now cracked, leaking arcs of odd, hazy energy. Heart pounding, she locked eyes with Bear, who just shook his head in wary confusion.
Then Kyle coughed—a guttural sound that devolved into a scream. He clutched his temples as if being burned from within. Before their horrified eyes, his muscles bulged impossibly, pushing him to twice Bear’s roided-out size. His eyes flared crimson as it stared down Judas.
Bear turned, backing away as he morphed into a massive grizzly to match Kyle’s insane strength. The two titans collided, grappling, each blow peeling flesh from Kyle’s mutated shoulders, cracking bones in Bear’s ribs.
Judas, kneeling near Darcy, tried not to panic. She slammed the sphere to the floor, again and again, trying to break it fully. She watched the bear begin to lose as the man wrapped its massive arms around the waist of the bear, and crush. Bear wailed in pain. Judas, as well as Suzi and all the alters, could hear the bones break in Bear’s spine.
Kyle dropped the grizzly as if it were a gum wrapper and sprinted toward Judas with mania in his eyes.
Darcy, pinned to the wall, ripped off her metallic bracelet and flung the hundreds of tiny metal beads across the space. Kyle lost traction, stumbling as he crashed into Judas. She used his momentum to flip him over her back, slamming him hard. One final smash of the globe in her hand cracked fully with one last bash.
Judas’ hand roamed the ball until she felt what she expected.
Kyle roused, the demon quickly getting its host to its feet.
As the orb fractured, energy erupted inside Judas, scorching her nerves. Then exhilaration flooded in—she felt Ellie’s Ascendant essence mingling with her will. All the alters in Guillermo shattered their walls and merged, becoming one unstoppable consciousness. She sensed Ellie and Jo on the sidelines, watchers in this swirl of cosmic force.
In the real world, Suzi’s body glowed bright silver-white, broken arm and mangled fingers regenerating, radiant wings sprouting from her back. Bracers clamped around her wrists, shaped from shimmering light. She didn’t pause to question the transformation.
She seized Kyle by the throat, lifting him with ease. Her other hand sank into his chest like a blade through water, yanking free the thrashing demon that had invaded him. Kyle’s limp body dropped away.
Holding the demon aloft—purple and scaled, eyes ablaze with panic—Judas met its gaze. A booming voice, her own yet layered with something far older and thunderous, erupted from her lips: “BEHOLD, RAVOK. I AM DEMON REAPER. SPEAK YOUR MASTER’S NAME, AND I SHALL SHOW YOU MERCY.”
“Mercy!” it babbled in the demonic tongue. “He is the Betrayer!”
With a thought, she manifested from the bracer on her arm, a wide, arched blade twice as long as her fingers. With a swift lunge and slice, the demon was rendered in twain, disintegrating before he hit the floor.