Zoe huddled behind the gas station counter. The glow of screens above her. Weight of the register. Packets of gum, cigarettes, and small bottles of energy drinks. The chaos packed in of everything last little thing someone might need as they pay for fuel or chips. She cradled Oriz and tried to understand what Bella said about snipes and time travel, but it all seemed…

[Fools Rush In]

[How many times can fate slip through your fingers?]

[11/12 charges remaining]

The flames burned with the intensity of truth. What is more truth than the end of all things? How else can we face the inevitability of death without those flames burning brighter and brighter and brighter and…

Zoe looked away from her companions. The same woman whose scream bubbled away as her throat melted. The man who exploded from the chest out like some horror movie victim. And then the flames turned to her. Licked at her like desperate lovers. Ate her flesh for an eternity. Atom by atom sifting her soul until only memory remained as it bathed in the liquid flames of hell.

“You went back, didn’t you?” Bella whispered. “You saw…”

Zoe nodded. Her body wanted to puke from the animal fear, but she was too angry. Hunger coiled like a rattlesnake. Scarred lips snarled as she set Oriz to the side and stood behind the counter. Cigarettes surrounded her. Bottles of energy drink. Packs of gum.

Trivial nonsense.

[Self Reflects the World]

Mirror draped her body in the brightly lit and disposable world of the gas station. She vaulted the counter and faced the door. That was where the shots came from.

Did that mean there were two shooters? Or had the first shooter changed their position?

Flames everywhere…

She squinted at the dark world beyond the sliding doors. When had night swallowed the world?

It didn’t matter.

All she needed was for the bastard to fire, and the bullet would bounce right back to them. She only needed to wait but…

Flames…

“Anton,” she said over her shoulder. “Keep an eye out for wherever the shots come from and direct me.”

“What are you planning?”

“I’m gonna kill 'em.”

She charged the doors. They didn’t open in time, and Zoe crashed through the sliding glass. Splinters bounced off her mirrored skin like shrapnel. The cool outside air brushed upon her. A white land beyond underneath a hallucinogenic sky.

Then Zoe crashed into an invisible barrier. Hard as steel. All her momentum couldn’t push her an inch forward. Mirrored force shot her backward. She flew through ruined doors and slammed into the very counter she had just vaulted over.

“Zoe?” Bella called out. “What happened?”

Zoe groaned, shook her head, and sat up.

The warped frame of the doors slid closed, and beyond, through the shattered glass, Zoe saw a gleaming barrier slowly fade back to invisibility.

They were trapped.

A bullet fired and struck her stomach. She didn’t feel the pain, but her Skein dropped to accommodate the blow.

[Skein 120/246]

The mirrored force lanced out in retaliation and shot into the trees. Zoe staggered to her feet. She wouldn’t be able to take as many of those hits as she expected, but she still pulled herself to her feet.

And waited for the second shot with her head held high.

“Did you see the bastard?” she called out.

“No,” Anton said from behind the counter. “No muzzle flash or anything. The bullet passed by one of my eyes but I can’t… It’s too fast and I’m not a computer, I don’t know exactly where, but it looked like your reflection struck where the crows landed.”

“See any crows now?”

“Not there, but there are others in the trees. Strange they didn’t fly away when the gun fired…”

“They can watch all they want. I want us to get out of here and I don’t want us to use any more of those time loops.”

Bella poked her head out behind the counter. Even if the material wouldn’t stop a bullet, the light cover offered a semblance of safety that Zoe, with her mirrored skin, did not need.

“They’re terrifying right?”

“It’s not that,” Zoe said. “Something that can burn time? I wonder if I can…”

“Please don’t say what I think —”

“I’m going to cut them out. If I can find where they’re stored inside our Skein, then maybe we could incorporate them… or craft them into a weapon… ”

“But what about the Mirrorbell? Isn’t that the weapon you want?”

“It’s a part of it. We’re too low-level, Bella. Remember when we were choked? Remember when we drowned in madness and darkness inside the dungeon? The gods can see us, and kill us, even at a distance. If I want to take them out…”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She left the rest of the madness unsaid. Now was not the time, for Oriz was stirring, and Zoe rushed to her side.

Flames melting the flesh of her friends… Heat on her skin like reaching into an oven… Smell in her nostrils like she was cauterizing flesh, something she got used to after her first few days in a hospital, but now coming back to her…

Oriz looked up at her with eyes the color of corn.

“Where are we?” she croaked.

Zoe grinned with teeth of mirror.

“We’re in the belly of a demon.”

“What?”

“You told us that, but we’ve rewound time. This is the first time you’ve woken up.”

Oriz stared at her for a moment.

“Explain later. You need to find the demonic cores and destroy them.”

“What are those?”

“The demon’s… organs… for lack of a better word. They’ll be in the place of greatest filth and despair. This building is of your world, but it seems like a transient place. I would recommend you check the toilets.”

Zoe nodded and stood as the world rippled off her skin.

“Anton, keep an eye out on the surroundings. I’m going to investigate. We don’t know if there are other shooters, for now, you two stay here.”

Zoe walked away with a grin of rage and wrath and ruin upon her face as she headed for the restrooms.

###

Derek lay dying. Cocooned inside his technique. He couldn’t understand what happened. Too fast. One second he was looking at that mirrored monster of a woman and the next he was firing. Just like every other time he hunted. He could feel it. Rooted between himself and his shoulder and his finger was the rifle. His link to god. His divine hammer and lightning ready to bring the thunder and split apart his prey. When he couldn’t feel her aura, when he was swaddled in the heat of the One-Eyed Crow he knew he was untouchable and she was not. She was immensely touchable. Hot and vulnerable and tiny in his scope. Watching her charge through the doors was hilarious. Who did she think she was?

But then he fired, and it all fell apart.

The bullet sailed through the air in a split second, and then it came back. Lanced through his shoulder and knocked him from the tree. He screamed in his little pocket of space and the sound faded around him. Blood fell into the snow, steaming, dripping, and soaking like a snow cone, but his technique kept it hidden from all eyes. The rich, syrupy, smell drove him wild in the otherwise sterile air.

Because the demon beckoned, and Derek, bleeding, dying, weeping, refused to answer.

[The One-Eyed Crow calls for aid]

[Enter the gas station and kill the intruders]

[Intruders remaining: 4/4]

There was no option to accept or refuse. Simply a compulsion. Even as his blood flowed, as he clutched at the wound, he fought the urge to crawl through the snow toward the gas station. The others were moving now. He saw them. Five silhouettes marching across the snow toward the gas station, toward the demon, toward their fire-blooded mother…

No.

Those thoughts were not his. It was the sickness burning through his veins. Why had he agreed to sign up with the demon?

Power.

He was a fool.

He deserved this pain. Tears in his eyes as he tried to think of anything beyond the pain that filled him like —

Crows flapped their wings, closer, rasping feathers against air became the rasping of bones clicking, sliding, back into place as his boss formed in the snow not three feet from where he lay bleeding.

Roman stood, tall, proud under his mask of bone and surveyed.

“Where are you, Derek?” Roman’s voice hissed with demonic influence. “I know you’re here.”

Derek said nothing. He trusted his technique, but the less sound he made the less work his technique needed to do. His eyes bulged, staring up from the pocket of space, as Roman walked closer.

“What happened? You have the scope. You took the shot — I heard you take the shot. Did you miss? You’ve never missed before,” he shook his head, bones rattling. “She’s angry. We’re angry with you Derek.”

Derek said nothing.

“Did you run away?” Roman sniffed. “No, I smell her here. Even if you hide inside your hole like the worm you are you can’t hide your lust for power. Can’t hide your thirst for convenience. You have her fire running you Derek, and she will burn you out.”

Roman extended a hand.

[Hellfire Contract]

Something bubbled under his skin.

Under his soul.

His skein.

Like hot lead running through his marrow. He hissed, rolled in the snow, and bit down on a frozen mouthful of dirt. Anything to silence himself. For as bad as this pain that filled him, being caught was worse…

Just let me die in peace. Please, I’ll do anything, just make him leave.

Roman’s head snapped toward the gas station.

“I’ll return for you, coward. You cannot run, you cannot hide, not even a worm such as you can hide from the One-Eyed Crow.”

His body exploded into shadowy birds, and he raced toward the gas station.

Derek released a sigh, clouding hot breath up toward the swirling neon heavens. The pain continued, but at least he was alone. What happened to the world that he was so relieved to bleed out in the snow?

He recalled the mirrored rage on the woman’s face right before he shot her — before she shot him back — and he shuddered.

His friends — no — his coworkers were going in there to kill them. Those poor dumb bastards…

###

The women’s toilets were clean enough that Zoe didn’t investigate them. Instead, she moved to the men’s. Immediately the smell of stale urine and feces hit her. She gagged and smiled at the same time. This must be the place of filth that Oriz told her to seek.

She was glad for the mirror coating her skin as she stepped on the cracked tiles. It disgusted her she was barefoot in a place like this. Dirty aged tiles dark brown with grout between that could be anything. The doors to the stalls hung a little loose on their hinges. Graffiti scratched and scrawled marks years of travellers and slurs.

She poked her head into each stall and saw one that wasn’t flushed.

How long had that pile of paper and turd sat there?

She didn’t want to know.

But what was she supposed to do now?

Her aura pushed out. Willpower pushed over the surroundings, groping, feeling, and something dark pulsed like a splinter of acid against her mind. It came from the base of the toilet. She lashed it with her chain. Porcelain shattered. Foul water sloshed out. Crap and paper and brown water and Zoe leaped up, her fingers jabbed into the wall and held her there. Even with her mirrored skin, she had limits.

The gunk flowed into a drain on the floor. The puddle thinned, and a dark pearl rolled away from the toilet. Black, with a roiling core of crimson shadows. It watched her without eyes. Hated at her. Beseech her. Promised such fanciful things. Not whispers. Not words in her mind. But truth, from a black heart to a blackened soul, it knew what she wanted and it would do whatever it could to make such things happen. It knew what she wanted and it would eat her every scrap and soul.

Could she use this for herself? The answer was obvious. Why throw away such a powerful artifact? Such a powerful ally?

The dark pearl rolled toward her foot. She bent to examine it. Just a closer look…

Anton’s chrome eye buzzed into the room.

“Five men incoming. They’re armed with hatchets and guns, and they look mean.”

Zoe smiled at the demonic core and stood. Her muscles heaved against the compulsion of the dark gem as she pulled back her chain and struck with all her Might.