“I tried,” said the Four-Hearted Wasp. “But the Hells are drifting, and my knowledge is old. The Angel is here, I know you feel the life in this place. Free me, and I shall guide you to it, after all, the deal I made with your lover still stands.”

Bella glanced at Oriz. The alien woman had crouched beside Zoe, tending to her with a mixed expression of worried care and frustration. What was going through her mind?

“Ok,” Bella said.

Skidmark looked up from where she was dry-heaving into the shallow water.

“Are we sure that’s a good idea?”

“I keep my word.”

With a flick of her wrist, Bella cut through the webbing. The demon stretched out its arms, each joint clicking and popping horribly as it contorted with glee.

“One cannot appreciate freedom without imprisonment.”

Oriz nodded idly.

“How far is the Angel?”

“Oh, not far,” said the demon.

“Can I slice our way there?” Bella asked.

The demon tapped its chin as it popped its neck.

“I recommend a boat.”

Bella gazed at the muddy islet. There were no trees, only the pale glassy blue reeds growing to one side. In the distance, on other islands, she saw the outline of pale dead trees. Did the demon mean for them to cut down one of those? She could probably carve out a canoe with her blade, though it would be awkward.

“I’m all for avoiding the water,” Skidmark said for all of them as she gazed at the murky waters with distrust. “But how do we get a boat?”

Something slapped the water in the distance. A heavy, sloshing sound, and ripples spread toward them out of the mist.

“Don’t worry,” said the demon. “It looks like a boat has found us.”

The ripples grew larger, waves in miniature breaking against the muddy slope of the islet. A shadow appeared in the mists. It whispered, and Bella pointed her glowing blade in its direction.

“What is that?”

“Good thing you’re so eager to fight,” the demon chittered. “For I believe this boat has a crew.”

Bella, Oriz, and Skidmark formed a defensive wall between the unconscious bodies of Zoe and Anton and the approaching boat. A deep, rhythmic sloshing sound marked the passage of oars as the silhouette grew larger in the steaming fog. No voices came from the vessel, only the creak and groan of wood tilting in water.

“Is this a boat?” Skidmark asked. “I can’t help feeling this will be another trick.”

The demon sat behind them, running its hand through the mud like a toddler.

“It’s only a boat,” it said. “Honestly, I have been nothing but truthful with you thus far. To suspect trickery is, frankly, insulting.”

The silhouette grew distinct as the boat approached. A tall mast swayed with each splash of the oars. The silhouette turned and they could see the 30-foot length. A single mast, and nine oars on each side. Above the smacking of wood on water, came the grunting of the rowers. A snuffling, guttural sound.

Bella knew they weren’t human, couldn’t be human, nevertheless, she shouted:

“We don’t want to fight, whoever you are. All we ask is passage through the swamp.”

An authoritative squeal rose from the boat, and the rowing ceased. Oars retracted as the boat slid forward out of the steam. The wooden hull was rotten and green with moss. Plates of bright orange fungus sprouted along the sides. It was a mystery how it stayed afloat. Affixed to a knotted figurehead was a cage, and inside the cage lay small humanoid skeletons. It looked like three children had been left to die. Humans? Aliens? Demons? Bella couldn’t know, but she felt hateful bile rise in her throat.

The boat was close enough now she could see the crew. If she wanted to, she could throw her sword and pierce one of their hearts, and her runeblade insisted such was the path to follow. The crew wore heavy cloaks with ragged edges, and the leader swaggered toward the figurehead. He stared down at Bella from the dark confines of his hood. The boat nudged the mud.

The leader gripped his hood with hairy hands and threw it back. His face was long and dark grey and piggish. A snout with two small tusks protruding from his lower jaw, and two curved tusks emerged from above his nose to curl toward his eyes. He stared through these ivory loops and snorted with derision.

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“You have the misfortune of coming across the Seven-Handed Babirussa. Give us your valuables and he shall leave you on this island with the pitiful things you call your lives.”

Bella raised an eyebrow.

“You can tell your captain —”

“I am he!”

“Oh… well, you, we don’t have any valuables.”

He pointed a stubby finger at her, no, at her sword.

“The Seven-Handed Babirussa demands the runeblade,” he stroked his thin goatee. “Give up the sword and his ship shall take you where you need to go.”

The Four-Hearted Wasp cocked its head.

“You said you would abandon them. Is this a robbery or a barter?”

“Do not question the great Seven-Handed Babirussa lest you receive his Sevenfold Slap!” the ship bound demon gestured with a blunt hand. “State your answer to his fine offering.”

Bella leaned over to Oriz.

“What do you think?”

“They’re really cocky or really stupid.”

“The steam has rotted their brains,” the Four-Hearted Wasp murmured to them. “Demons shouldn’t live in such proximity to pure life for so long.”

Bella frowned.

“I’m very confused right now.”

Skidmark stepped forward.

“Oi, you, pig!” she pointed at the captain.

“You dare address the Seven-Handed —”

“Yeah! Get off my boat or I’ll cook the lot of you!”

The demon squealed.

“You dare —”

Lightning arced out from Skidmark’s fingers. The bright white bolt struck the snarling demon at the figurehead and danced through its body.

“Take this you bastard!” shouted Skidmark. “This is for making us wait here in the mud and being a prick after all the crap we dealt with in the game and the hourglass and Hell sucks! It sucks! I hate it and all you stupid nasty demons can sit on a fork and shove it up a god damned socket!”

The lightning doubled and snaked and filled the demon until its eyes popped and glowed a brilliant white. Its piglike body shuddered like a manic puppet as a bubbling squeal exited its mouth. Brilliant electricity arced into the bodies of its crew. They clacked their teeth and shuddered. Smoke curled from the blackened flesh of Seven-Handed Babirussa.

Skidmark lowered her hands, panting.

The body of the demonic captain fell smoking to the deck. The rest of his crew squealed and dove over the side of the boat. The frantic splashing of their exits grew fainter as they vanished into the swamp. After a few minutes, the only sound was Skidmark’s heavy breathing and the occasional creak of the boat.

Bella walked up to the Scottish woman.

“Feeling better?”

Skidmark rubbed her fingertips against her shorts.

“Yeah. That was kind of embarrassing.”

“Nah, it was awesome.”

Skidmark beamed.

“Thanks,” she said as she hugged Bella. “I just haven’t felt myself since Zoe, well..”

Bella frowned.

“Since what?”

“She touched me… no, I mean like she touched my soul and I’ve been feeling all…. Argh, I don’t know. Hell sucks. I just hate it, you know?”

“We know,” said Oriz as she scooped up the unconscious bodies of Anton and Zoe. “Let’s get moving”

They climbed up onto the rotten boat. There were benches, and they lay Zoe and Anton down on separate ones. Both seemed asleep, and there was little else they could do to wake them.

Steam and smoke curled from the corpse of the demon.

“I hate that this is making me hungry,” Skidmark said.

“Have you been to Indonesia?” Bella said. “They have this dish called Babi Guling…” she wiped her mouth. “I’m not even hungry and I want a bite.”

Oriz smirked and turned to the demon as it climbed on board.

“How long until we reach the Angel?”

The demon glanced around the boat.

“You’re familiar with boats?”

“Familiar enough.”

It licked the air.

“The steam makes it difficult, but I’d wager if you head in this direction,” it pointed back the way the boat had come. “It will take you a day by your reckoning, of course there —”

“There is no time in Hell, yes, we understand.”

“Excellent,” the demon said. “I do not wish to be exposed to this steam more than need be, so I will retire.”

It crawled across the deck to a hatch, lifted the trapdoor, and lowered itself into the darkness of the hold. As the door slammed shut, there was a stir from the benches.

Anton sat up.

“Why are we in a sauna?”

Bella laughed, but there was a hint of nervousness as she glanced at the unconscious Zoe.

“Because we made it, mate, and we’re getting closer. You know how to sail a boat?”

He rubbed his chest.

“Not at all.”

“Well, you’re going to learn. Oriz, get us moving pretty please? Don’t be afraid to whip Anton if he’s too slow, I’m sure a boat like this has a Cat-o'-nine-tails lying around somewhere.”

Anton scowled.

“What are you doing then?”

Bella grinned and sunk her sword into the perfectly cooked loin of the Seven-Handed Babirussa.

“I’m on kitchen duty.”

###

The air aboard the ship was festive, melancholic, and damp. Festive, for they were making progress, and fast, toward the Angel and resolving the [Epiphany of the Flesh].

Melancholic, for despite the roasted pig demon and the bottles of demonic elixir to wash down the somehow perfectly seasoned flesh, Zoe remained unconscious.

Damp, because the steam grew thicker and thicker as they reached their destination until even Oriz found it difficult to breathe. As the steam grew into a blanket of pure white such that they couldn’t see the water when they leaned overboard, the humans retired to the captain's cabin for some semblance of clearer air.

Oriz held the wheel, but in reality, she did very little. The boat was as much a fungus as it was a craft of wooden planks. She felt an affinity to the living thing through the Grass in her Skein and knew it was traveling for them. Something pulled the boat deeper into the steam.

She could only hope it was the Angel and that the coming meeting would somehow solve all their problems — the Epiphanies, her missing Skein, and Zoe’s problematic coma. But… the stories of Angels were mysterious. Agents of the Smith, arbiters of creation itself, bringers of death or life, but always judgment.

Unlike demons, their power came with no strings except those of Skein itself. The Gambler’s minions sought rules in everything, sought to make things a game, but the Angels simply were, as the hammer strike upon the anvil is both heat and silence and the throbbing of a heart.

The boat steered ever deeper, and she felt cleansing sweat leak from the pores in her grey skin. What a life she had lived to be in purgatory and now Hell. Would she ever make it to her home?

She adjusted the wheel.

What even was a home to one such as her, after all this time wandering?