I woke up on what seemed suspiciously like an operating table. I was back in the form of Steph, one I had only shed because Marian wasn’t around to annoy. However, I wasn’t exactly in the same body. While I had been consciously eating part of The Lady’s soul, the influx of power had caused my physical body to manifest ichor, which would have quickly consumed and replaced the corpse I had been using before. Normally, I would have to make a divine body when I came to the material world, but that had been rather infeasible.
An incorruptible body takes a lot of power, and a decent amount of time, to manifest. That’s why elohim don’t just instantly reappear when you kill us on earth. We can come back, but we have to wait for our power to recharge and take the time to reach into the physical world and use a lot of that power to manifest a body of condensed primordial light. It takes a lot of said primordial light, something I hadn’t had. So, I went with a slightly less… traditional solution.
However, that meant that I had been stuck in what was, at the core, a walking corpse. It was a very impressive walking corpse, if I do say so myself, but still handicapped by the limits of normal matter. A divine body worked quite differently and didn’t have to follow all of the classical laws of physics. I had expected it to take a while to have enough power to make one, but I had gotten pretty lucky. I really like being lucky.
I looked up at the sterilely bright light shining down on me, having already noticed that I was quite severely restrained. I rolled my head to the side, so I could face the man who was concerningly reminiscent of an unsanitary surgeon. “Hi, I’m Sam.” I said, deciding to go for the friendly approach. “You are?” He jumped slightly, clearly not expecting me to say that, or probably anything.
“You are conscious? Interesting.” He moved to my side, peering through his rather thick glasses. “You really shouldn’t be. Why is that?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You’re the one who thinks I shouldn’t be. Why are you asking me?” He shook his head.
“No, I mean, why are you awake?” I shrugged as much as I could.
“Fast metabolism?” He studied my eye, pulling it open and moving a hand in and out of the light to make my pupil dilate. I decided to fuck with him by making it do the reverse of the norm, shrinking in darkness and expanding in light. He frowned.
“What?” He pulled back, looking worried. Heck, it wasn’t like I had made my head do a 360, yet. He picked up a battered stethoscope, and I quickly started rearranging my internal organs. He put it on and placed the other end over my heart. I made my organs do my best impression of the lord’s prayer in Latin… played backwards.
His face gradually moved through confusion to curiosity to curious confusion to worried. He pulled the stethoscope away, looking distinctly concerned. “I need to get him.” He said more to himself than me, before leaving me there. He glanced back at me before closing and locking the door, as if to check I was still firmly strapped to the table. Once the door was locked, and he was clearly gone, I rolled my head around to scan the room. My eyes stopped on my other side, at the scarred and naked figure with eyes like bottomless voids.
“Hi Judas.” He blinked, and his eyes reappeared, revealing them to be a fairly normal brown.
“Hi Sam.” He walked around my table, making it a lot easier to see him. “I actually go by Will now.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Really?” He scratched the back of his head in feigned embarrassment.
“I had to help with a resurrection scam about two millennia back and was the fall guy. So, Judas and most of its derivatives are fairly unpopular, and don’t even get me started on Iscariot. It’s a lot like being called Adolf Hitler, but with a bit more time for the heat to cool.” I nodded.
“I wondered if that was you. What were you even doing?” He ignored my question, unsurprisingly.
“You’re lucky. You still have a few names that are pretty much in common use. I mean, Samuel isn’t exactly the same, but it’s certainly good enough. Although, you could have gone with Seth and had it be identical.” I shrugged.
“I didn’t really like the Egyptians. They couldn’t take a joke. I mean, it was raining frogs. Don’t they realize how ridiculous that looks?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t you move on to killing a bunch of their children after that?” I shrugged again.
“They weren’t being reasonable.” I sat up, shapeshifting around the restraints rather than bothering to break them.
“You were trying to crash their economy.” I hopped off the table.
“An economy based on slavery.” I stretched, feeling the internal perfection of my body.
“So, it had nothing to do with Lucifer being their patron deity?” I did a circle of the room, studying the rather unpleasant instruments.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Slavery is immoral and should be stopped at any chance.” I picked up a brand, studying its design.
“Didn’t all the slaves die in the desert once you got them out.” I turned to face him, finding that he had somehow put clothes on.
“They died as a free people, which made it all worth it.” I scolded.
A smile spread across my face a moment later. “And the fucking Egyptians had a massive recession that sent their supposedly unchangeable culture into upheaval.” He laughed.
“You know that myth is still told with freeing the slaves being your objective.” I nodded solemnly.
“Naturally.” I turned away, beginning the process of searching the door.
“Is there a reason this cult thinks they have you trapped in a cell right now?” I found a lot of Celestial Mark brands, which a human couldn’t create.
“Not really, I just wanted to have a good view of your dismantling the natural order. That, and this bodies previous occupant was very happy to give it over.” I looked over at him.
“What did you do with his soul?” He shrugged.
“I gave him the peace he asked for.” I was pretty sure that didn’t mean anything classically good, but it was hard to say for sure.
“Do you know what’s up with this place?” I studied one of the brands, noting the ever so slight imperfections.
“Yes.” I glanced at him.
“Will you tell me any of it?” He smiled.
“Nope.” I had figured that, but it was worth asking.
“You already know or suspect most of it, all you are missing is details.” I waved that comment away.
“Yes, but I can always be wrong or ignorant of a major factor.” I started rummaging through the closet, finding a rack of sanitized jumpsuits like the one the surgeon had been wearing.
“Will you help if I have to deal with an opponent over my current abilities?” I turned away from the closet and held my left hand out palm down.
“You know I’m not supposed to interfere like that.” The flesh on my palm bulged grotesquely, forming a silvery bubble covered in thin translucent skin.
“So, luring me into that trap wasn’t interfering?” He smiled.
“I said interfere like that, not interfere at all.” The blob of fleshy ichor separated, splatting to the ground.
“Is it really wise to split your power?” He asked, as the blob began to rapidly grow as I allocated a good chunk of my divinity to it.
“It’s a calculated risk. And, I’m not a big believer in having too few baskets for my eggs.” I waggled my eyebrows.
“And you know how many eggs I can have.” He gave me a deadpan look.
“Shub-Niggurath still has more.” I looked at him oddly.
“Who?” He crossed his arms.
“Did you not get the Cthulhu Mythos? Do you know who Cthulhu is?” I crossed my own arms in response.
“I am a god like being who has been in a sleeping death beyond space and time for millennia before finally returning to the world that cast me into that prison of dreaming death, how am I supposed to know who this Cthulhu is?” He narrowed his eyes.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“I seriously don’t know if you are fucking with me.” I narrowed mine back.
“And you may never.” The blob had continued growing as we talked and was now a rough humanoid. I split my awareness, leaving part of it in my previous body and moving the rest to the blob. I quickly reformed it, turning it into an exact copy of my preexisting body.
I could have formed clothes from magic, but that would have been a waste of power. Instead, I dressed my new body in the surgical uniform. “Is this just for the heck of it, or are you planning something?” He asked, looking between the original me and the new me, who was presently contemplating the shoe covers that went with the uniform.
“I want to see who the soul mutilation surgeon is bringing here, but I also don’t want to wait here.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Isn’t it kind of obvious who he is bringing?” I decided that I could do without the shoe covers, not having shoes.
“Well, it’s almost certainly the demon who is doing all the Celestial Markings around here. But, since someone won’t confirm that, I still want to check.” I hopped up on the table with my original copy and let my flesh flow back into the restraints.
“You know that it could be very bad if a demon managed to eat your soul, something they could do from either of your bodies.” The new body shrugged, growing into a larger male form to fit the uniform.
“It’s a calculated risk.” If I ran into Marian with my now male body, I would have to try to change back before she was given proof that I was, in fact, just fucking with her. I was pretty sure she suspected it, but I wasn’t going to give it away if I didn’t have to. “You aren’t going to tell me, but I’ll ask regardless. Did your side make the shifters?”
His smile turned amused. “I actually can answer that.”
I raised a mockingly surprised eyebrow. “Oh, will you?” My newer body leaned up against the table my older body was lying on, steepling my fingers before my mouth in wait.
“Of course, what do you take me for?” Will asked with offended shock. “Despite your unfair accuracies about my character, have I ever been anything but open and helpful?” I nodded in solum acknowledgment.
“Yes, you have.” I added, to insure the meaning of my nod got across.
“The shifters are a product of our side, although the event that created them hasn’t happened yet.” My pensive expression spread into an ecstatic smile.
“Do you mean they are the product of time travel?” I still had no idea how to travel through time, all of my most theoretically sound attempts having so far failed for often unknown reasons. However, I remained hopeful that there was some way to harness the unbelievable amount of potential irritation I could cause with full temporal mobility.
“No, of course not.” Will immediately dismissed my dreams of authentic cyborg therapsid. “Their manifestation over the last few millennia is just a side effect of events elsewhere in time. It is just peripheral ripples, like droplets landing on bystanders when a bucket is dumped on your head.” I sighed, resigning myself to having to settle for reverse engineered prehistoric proto-lizards.
“So, when is that happening.” He pulled a silver pocket watch out of his leather jacket, flipping it open.
“The culprit arrives in a few days, most of the time. It doesn’t often happen before the material world is destroyed, so it isn’t likely for at least a week. It might not happen at all.” I decided not to bother asking how something that didn’t happen could be causing the shapeshifters now. I partially knew the answer, in a half grasped way, and doubted highly misleading explanations would help me understand better.
Stepping away from the table, I started towards the door, and Will moved out of my way while pocketing his watch. “You going to follow me around?” I looked back at him, but he was simply gone.
I sighed. I guess I was in the unfortunate situation of not having anyone to talk to again. I left the room, finding a hall with a line of similar doors. I suspected this area hadn’t been intended for… medicine, but I couldn’t say what it had been meant for. I couldn’t see any sort of obvious cells, so it was clearly one of the many parts of a prison that existed to make the containment process actually work, but I didn’t know what part. I closed the door and started the process of checking each room.
Well, that one had what looked like a homeless man with the top of his head cut off, that one had a catatonic woman who was clearly set up for convenient rape, that one had a head on a blanket and… I stopped. That was Mr. Head. I pulled the door to that room the rest of the way open and walked in. Mr. Head had been placed on a folded blanket at the head of a table, pun intended. I walked over and looked down at his slack face.
Unlike before, when his face was just as responsive as a non-decapitated one, his face was now blank. I waved my hand in front of his eyes then poked one. No reaction. I picked him up. Yep, he was still warm and clearly alive. I dropped him onto the concrete floor and watched as he bounced very slightly. Still nothing. I spread out my divine sense, which seemed to have returned when I got an incorruptible body, and found that his soul was still the same as before. It did look less active than it had been, but it seemed otherwise unchanged.
Hmm, well, he didn’t seem to be conscious. Was this a byproduct of killing him in The Lady’s world? I didn’t think that should have had any effect, but I wasn’t exactly familiar with her magic yet. It was possible, but it didn’t look like his soul was damaged. Or, could it be that his mind was still trapped somewhere in the fake reality I had fixed up? It seemed possible, but I couldn’t really be sure until I went back there. For now, I figured I’d just bring him with me.
I picked up his heart from the table and pocketed it. It was placed about where it would be if his body regrew. I wondered if they hadn’t found the body yet and would have put it here if they had. I didn’t really know enough about shapeshifters to say, but it seemed possible. His soul seemed to stay connected to parts of him, even when they were separated, so it seemed likely that he would need things like his heart and brain to heal properly. Of course, if a child of perdition had created them, there was little I could predict about shapeshifters with any confidence.
I put him under my arm and was about to open the door when I heard footsteps on the other side. I carefully stepped away from the door, preparing a number of spells to hide my presence, but the footsteps didn’t stop at this door. That meant they were probably going to the room the other me was in. Sure enough, that body heard them stop at it’s own door. I craned that head, looking over as the surgeon and an inhumanly perfect humanoid entered. The surgeon looked quite stressed, but the demon looked exactly as calm as they always do.
And it definitely was a demon. His form was horribly exact, like he had designed it with a mathematical precision that produced what should have been a perfect human body, but ended up looking strangely plain. Many humans thought demon bodies were beautiful, but I had always thought they were one of the ugliest things I had ever seen. They weren’t alive, just constructs that mimicked it in the pursuit of making all like them.
A smile spread over my face. “So, you are the one who did this?” The thing looked at me, with no visible reaction. “I would ask why, but I kind of know that.” I added, watching the non-creature before me.
“I am the 19th duke of the 28,537th legion of Lucifer’s army. Who are you?” It finally said, in a voice just as perfect and lifeless as it’s appearance. I looked at it.
“What does that make you? Like, the local manager of the janitors or something?” It approached, studying me with empty silver eyes.
“Who are you?” Even its clothes seemed perfect, a suit so exact that it had probably been magically constructed to be molecularly symmetric.
“I am Sam.” There was a long moment in which I didn’t add any titles.
“What are you?” It finally asked.
I smiled. “Tell you what. I’ll tell you what I am after you answer a question of mine in a way I can hear and understand. If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have too. But, in that case, I won’t have to tell you what I am.” It watched me for a moment, while the surgeon stood to the side and looked worried.
“I will accept. What is your question?” I smiled with something indistinguishable from innocent curiosity.
“Who are the other demons in this building now or regularly?” It watched me for a moment before answering.
“There are no other demons. I manage this site solitarily.” I nodded.
“Okay, that answer is fair. I’ll tell you what I am.” A spear like wing exploded through its chest without warning, lifting it up off the ground. In the same moment, a silver flash split the surgeon in twain, which caused a quite impressive explosion of blood as he broke down the middle into two satisfyingly even halves. I sat up, the restraints bursting into silver flames, which was mostly to be dramatic.
As I stood, a massive construct of magic was slammed down on me. It was basically a bundle of kinetic force, one of the crudest things you can do with magic, that formed thousands of blades like a magic blender. My magically defenseless body was shredded instantly, turning me into a silvery mist and killing me.
The demon had likely expected to be released, but instead another four feathery spears drove into his body, forming a cage of their razor-sharp tips around its heart. A demon would die permanently if it’s heart was pierced, its power returning to Lucifer to become new demons who might do better. My other, and now only, body stepped into sight, turning the demon on my wings. “Now now, you don’t want to die just yet. I promised to tell you what I am.” I turned it to face me, as I drove another six of my wings into the floor and walls.
I lifted myself into the air with them, bringing me up to its level. I hung there like a monstrous spider, studying it. “You are an angel.” It said without any sign of distress. I laughed.
“You are completely right, but that seems to rather defeat the point of me telling you.” I smiled, my face splitting to reveal silvery teeth like knives. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a bit extra. You see, you aren’t important. In fact, you don’t matter at all. Not nearly enough for me to torture you or try to shame you for what you’ve done here. You are simply a disease, not a monster. Just something to be exterminated.” I spread my arms to the world as a whole. “I’m not even doing this speech for you. It’s just because it’s fun to grandstand.”
I pointed to myself. “I don’t care about you, but I’ll tell you who I am.” I lowered my voice, as if someone might overhear. “You see, I was once known as Samael.” There was no sign that my revelation meant anything to it, but I knew it was trying to figure out how to get that information back to its brethren. That was why I slashed its body apart in a blur of motion that ended with nothing but a heart speared on a wing. It was a silvery organ, slightly too large for the human it had looked like. I flicked the tip of my wing and sent the organ flying into my incredibly distended jaws.
This time, I had no trouble swallowing it in one bite. Divine bodies have to be good for something. I looked down at the shredded one dissolving into ichor below my feet. Interestingly, the ichor was flowing towards my wings, as if it had come from my body. Well, that was convenient. I lowered myself to the floor, pulling my wings out of the floor and walls. I focused, and they gradually flowed back into my body.
Rather than hide them entirely, I compressed them down and migrated them to the top of my head. I pulled them into two bundles of six near my temples, fusing and hardening my feathers into a solid shell. I twisted them together and let them arch back until they grew from in front of my temples and curved up and back before flowing up at the tips. I ran a hand over one of my horns, although it was technically six horns twisted together. Good, much better for laying on my back and going through doors. I would never understand the logic behind having wings on a humanoid.
I looked down at the last dregs of the demon who had done all this as they disappeared into my bare feet. I smirked. “Like I said.” My body burst into silver flames, burning away my clothes before the flames formed into a copy of the clothes I had been wearing while mimicking Steph. At the same time, I changed back into Steph. After all, I was going to have to go track down Marian. I walked to the door, but looked back to the place the demon had died before leaving. “You weren’t even important.”