The casino went on forever. A loop of carpet and cheap lights and smoke. People stumbled, drunken, eyes burned out, jaws slack, but they were never in the way, never within arm’s reach, and as Bella ran herself ragged she wished someone might come and save her.
But she was in hell.
Oriz ran beside her, keeping pace, and throwing a glance over her shoulder. The creature that wore Bella's skin gibbered with delight as it closed in on them.
“Use,” Bella panted between each word. “Technique!”
“I can’t,” said Oriz as she easily matched Bellas fastest pace. “I still haven’t recovered from the dungeon. Use one of yours.”
“Dont. Have. One.”
Oriz arched a delicate eyebrow.
“Really? I could help with that. If we were in a better situation that is.”
“Shut! Up!”
“Fine, drink this.”
Oriz reached within her dress and pulled out a hexagonal vial. Black feathers swirled within like some corvid liqueur.
[Essence of the One-Eyed Crow: each vial contains a portion of the demon’s power. Should you drink it you will gain temporary access to a demonic technique and a slight permanent stat boost to Insight and Dexterity]
[Warning: handling, drinking, or crafting with demonic essence can alter the current physiology of your Skein and flesh]
Bella’s eyes widened at the prompt. Oriz must have snatched this from the car when they abandoned it after the fight with the mantis, but how did she carry them within her dress like that? The hellbound chest was the size of a footlocker.
But this wasn’t the time for questions.
She popped the cork and immediately a smell like licorice and chicken shit assaulted her nostrils. She gagged as she forced the drink down her throat. It evaporated as it struck her tongue, like breathing in the exhaust of a hot rod. She coughed and staggered, and exploded into crows.
The world divided as her vision multiplied and her flesh shredded into black feathers. Oriz rose beside her in the flapping mass of her own murder. They cried out, cawing, laughing at the sudden freedom.
She was flying!
And she soared straight up. Away from the carpet and slot machines to the… carpet and slot machines above. But at least they’d put distance between themselves and the horrible caricature of her flesh.
The dozen crows Bella wore settled on the slot machines. False cheerful lights glinted across midnight feathers as Bella looked up at the creature wearing her face. It stopped running, and haunched over on all fours, a too-long tongue draped out between its lips as it panted and grinned. The tongue wiggled like a serpent and continued to slither out from between the lips. Longer and longer, until a beak squeezed out from the lips. The Bella clone's face distorted and bulged as a hulking black feathered head birthed itself from the mouth. Bella croaked through the mouth of a dozen crows as sympathetic pain ached through her jaw. The sight below — above? — would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t look away. There was nowhere to run.
The black feathered head pushed further out of her mouth and looked up at her with one eye the size of a coffee plate. The beak split and cawed with joy.
“Oh, joyous occasion and happenstance! What wonderful prey you are. To think that I wore your skin to disconcert, but you — rather than being fazed — merely returned the favor and to much greater effect! How do you enjoy using my gifts against me? Truly, I am blessed at so soon a reunion with the greatest prey of the last two hundred years.”
One of the Oriz crows cocked its head at one of the Bella crows.
The Bella crow shrugged.
And beneath them, the One-Eyed Crow laughed.
“You must have grown bored with this hell, as we so often do, but fear not, there are spheres within spheres, all turning and burning, for countless is the Gambler’s wealth and thricefold is his ire! Onwards, my pretty prey, flee through the portal before you and know that I — in my everlasting grace and good manners — grant you ten seconds head start!”
A red portal slit across the open air, as though the skin of reality peeled back and a new hell oozed out. Heat singed Bella’s feathers. She didn’t want to go inside, but before she could flap her wings in the other direction the portal spun, and great red lines twisted through air, as a terrible suction pulled at her feathers.
She gripped the slot machines tightly, her talons clamping down, but the flaming suction grew too great. The portal ripped her from her perch and into the flames one crow after another.
###
The town came into view. It was a hodgepodge of concrete buildings and red brick, as though someone had stirred two towns together. A large cleared space separated the outer buildings — a motel with a frozen pool, a strip mall, and a gym — from the edge of the forest.
It felt surreal to be walking toward it after all this time in other dimensions. The same warm glow that had erupted inside her when she saw the gas station — civilization, at last! — but now the flame was tempered as though trapped inside a lantern of thick glass. She could not let herself be blinded to the dangers of the new world.
The town, though it seemed a beacon of safety at last, was as much a part of the world as she, and with all the things she had done in the past few weeks, she could hardly call herself safe, sane, or civilized.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
They stopped jogging as they drew nearer. Zoe’s midnight boots silently crushed snow as her pace slowed. Did she wish the town was further away, or closer? Three hundred yards, two hundred, she could count the bricks in the motel if she wanted to. One hundred yards.
But the road was not clear.
Cars and piled furniture blocked the road and the paths between the buildings. A truck loaded up with rubble dominated the middle between the motel on one side and the strip mall on the other. They might go around, but…
“Anton?” Zoe whispered.
Three of his eyes floated high above, lost amidst the hallucinogenic swirls of light, while four others skated low across the snowy ground until they could creep around the buildings and barricade.
“There’s people behind the barricaded. Five of them with spears. One man with a rifle on the motel roof.”
“Spears?”
“Barely anyone in the town had guns,” Jack commented.
“Why didn’t you stay and rule?”
He shrugged.
“I wasn’t thinking like that.”
Zoe activated her mirrored skin and gripped her club.
“Both of you get behind me,” she said. “If anyone comes for us, I will crush them.”
She was in no mood for a repeat of the gas station. Trinch’s arm twitched on her back, fingers moving lazily in the wind as she sent out a pulse of [Our Hearts Toll as One].
It was one thing to trust Anton, but she needed to sense them for herself. She felt five hearts behind the barricade resist her, one more noticeably than the others, but the heart atop the rooftop wavered. There were three more heartbeats inside the motel. She focused on the sniper, his heart felt within reach, if only she could —
Lightning split the sky and slammed into her forehead.
It coursed through her and wrapped around her heart. Blood bubbled. Flesh screamed. She fell to her knees as she floated from her toes, embraced by the system as it remolded her technique.
[You have sufficient essence to upgrade technique: Our Hearts Toll as One]
[Essence: sound, blood]
[Upgrade: Dark Sympathy: When applying your technique, the target hears whispers that sway them toward joining your party]
The world exploded into white, and then she staggered backward. Anton held her up.
“Are you alright?”
Zoe gritted her teeth. Flared her nostrils. Her skin wasn’t smoking, just smelled like it, but her hair was a mess. Did anyone see that? She wasn’t sure if it happened too fast, or if it only happened in her head.
“I’m fine.”
She sent out another pulse of her technique. This time it sighed as it expanded through the air. It wrapped around the hearts of the six men watching them. She felt three waver, and fall into her clutches. Two men behind the barricade whose heart rates climbed as they clutched their spears, and the man on the roof whose heart rate remained steady as he tracked her through the rifle. It didn’t feel good to hold their hearts in her hands, but it felt right.
After all, she was a surgeon.
“We know you’re watching!” she called out. “We’ve been stuck out in the forest since the system came and we want to enter your town.”
“They’re discussing it,” Anton said.
Blue light radiated from behind the barricade. Zoe gripped her club as an enormous man leaped over the truck and landed before her. Blue flames wrapped around his body in a ghostly suit of armor. He wore a large triangular shield of the same energy on his left arm. An aura of strength and power billowed out from him as he stood tall. He was over six feet, weighing probably 240 pounds. Flames hid his features, but dark brown eyes glared at her.
Zoe guessed he was intimidating her, but he was only around level 20.
She held her ground as he leveled his spear at them.
“You can enter, but you will need to stow your weapons and disable all techniques.”
Zoe kept her grip on her club as the other four spear carriers filed out from behind the barricade. She eyed them, one tired, one stone cold, and two pale and panicked and beating inside her control.
“Is your town safe enough for that? There’s a bunch of praying mantis out in the forest, and they’ve tried to eat us multiple times. Your barricade doesn’t even look like it would keep out most of them. And what about the fliers?”
He stiffened.
“Newtopia is safe, but if you don’t surrender, we’ll take you into custody by force.”
“About that…”
The stone-cold spear carrier stepped forward and pointed.
“That’s Jack! He left with Roman and the other demon worshippers.”
The man in the flaming armor stepped back into a ready stance. His spear outthrust. The other men hastily followed.
“We must take you all into custody,” said the flaming knight. “Drop your weapons and techniques, and come with us.”
Zoe grinned with her scarred lips. What was it like for them to stare at their reflections on her skin? She was enjoying this more than she thought. It had been a relief to see people, but if this was how they were going to behave…
“If you’re worried about Roman, I killed him and the rest of his crew.”
The flaming knight's mouth opened in surprise.
“I’m… still going to need to take you into custody.”
“Why?”
“We must take this man into custody to answer for his crimes. The rest of you must come and answer questions.”
“What crimes?” she said.
The leader studied her, as though unused to being questioned.
“When they fled, they killed two men.”
“They were trying to lock us up for nothing!” Jack said.
Zoe glanced back at Jack and Anton. She raised an eyebrow, and Anton shrugged.
“Alright,” Zoe said as she lazily looped her club. “We’ll come along and answer your questions.”
The flaming knight smiled.
“Good, then —”
“But we aren’t giving up our weapons.”
“I don’t think you understand the position you’re in.”
“No, I don’t think you understand.”
She flexed her Willpower and sent it crashing down upon the five men before her. They wobbled, faces pale as they fought to keep standing. The flaming knight resisted, his armor burning brighter to fend off the weight of her attribute.
But Zoe strode forward.
“What level are you?”
He gritted his teeth.
“I don’t need to answer you!”
“I’m level 31. I have 87 might. This club is the thigh bone of a level 100 monster. Do you know what will be left of your head after I smash it in? Nothing. Now, I could crush you all, but I’m a doctor, I can help your town. I want to help your town, and I think your town can help me, but that all depends on you letting me and my friends in and not being a complete ass about it. Can you do that?”
The knight sagged under the pressure. His blue flame spiked and his shield grew.
“Fire!” he shouted. “Shoot them!”