I numbly watched a pair of corpses being eaten.

The devil was chewing its way through the Watchman’s guts, not caring for their contents as its teeth sliced through intestines. The two other heads continued to shriek in Infernalspeak, blabbering nonsense that felt like a knife in each ear.

It wasn’t even language, just the devil Bersand acting on what it knew. This one was more animal than individual, capable of speech only to trick people into getting close. If it was capable of having a conversation, it deliberately chose not to. That keening sound that made me want to clamp my hands over my ears? Might just be a way to distract and incapacitate prey.

At least it had learned to tone it down some. I did manage to restore Kanes’ healing after, but only with a week of experimenting.

I was comforting myself with memories. It kept me distracted. I hadn’t been close with Maria and Morder, but that didn’t make death with them sting less. One dead because of their treachery, the second directly because of that. Damnations Morder, I thought looking down at the corpse. Was it so unbearable it made the Watch palatable?

There’s been hints, one I’d ignored for his sake while I talked him out of outright leaving. I thought I had convinced him. Apparently not.

Pain dulled when it was from the same spot so many times. This would be the fourth time I watched someone close to me die for dealing with the Watch.

As Bersand ate away at Morder’s mashed face, I forced myself not to care. It was easier. His stupidity had cost more than his own life. Even as teeth bit and pulled, slurping up the beaten-up face like skin off a chicken.

It was all flesh in the end.

***

I waited in the chambers underneath the pit for a while, knowing my brother would be soon to arrive.

In some flights of fancy I’d imagined myself his closest confidant, for him to so often turn to me for advice. I knew better now. Just one voice among many. Don’t overreach, cause a hand the reaches for the sun often finds it’s flesh burnt by the heat.

I’d passed by learning that lesson far too many times in the Flame. Only brother’s patience had given me the chance to finally let it sit without a slit throat along the way.

“An awful night,” Gio opined as he entered the room. “One safehouse destroyed, one of our new recruits dead, Maria dead, and Morder turned traitor. And Devel’s turned down my offer this evening. This won’t help.”

That caught my attention as I prepared the second saw. “He turned you down? He give any hints why?”

Devel and the One-horns were…an interesting gang based in the outskirts of the Quarter. Fond of a signature that was far too close to mutilation commonly done to our people for my tastes. They mostly dealt in goods being smuggled into the Quarter in return for smuggled out goods of an illicit nature desperate Infernals were willing to provide.

Desperate Infernals meant people perfectly suited to make deals incentivized to do so, just for a bit of power and a way to claw something back. Usually not very powerful, they didn’t make for good bargainers or usually lived very long, but enough to keep trade up.

“Plenty,” Gio said. “Mostly relating to not respecting us, our position, or our strength. So in return, I want to use that delightful little mixture you brewed up on them.”

I paused, recalling the conversation. We’d gone through a few options, depending on how hostile Gio wanted to be. The upper limit was something I hadn’t intended to actually be considered.

“I’d advise against using it,” I said. “It’s hard to control, and it’s going to attract attention.”

“The army uses it,” Gio replied.

“That makes it more dangerous to use, not less,” I told him. “They’ll think you robbed their stocks.”

“Let them,” he said. “I want them thinking that. I want Voltar chasing that. I want the Watch busy keeping guard of every army armory in the city, and out of this district. I want every little two-bit gang in this Quarter afraid of even thinking of crossing us!”

His tone grew increasingly irate, and I kept my thoughts to myself and my tongue still. When Gio focused, it was very unwise to annoy him. He was never cruel, but still, best to let him just work it out as he continued to list out his complaints involving Devel.

Besides, I needed to clean and prepare my tools for what was to come next.

When he came to a new subject though, I wish he had stuck to complaining about Devel.

“You were close to Morder, weren’t you?” Gio said, putting the law book from earlier back in its place, having forgotten he was still holding it in his claws.

I wouldn’t hesitate long for an answer. Deny something anyone could tell him in an attempt at distancing, or admit it and brush it off? Not much of a choice. Worse case, he tested me with X’kk’rrt. I’d endured that before. I could do it again.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

I wouldn’t abandon the dream.

“You could say that,” I said. “We talked often. He was having second thoughts about this. I still say we’re pushing it too fast.”

Gio gave me a sad little smile. “Talking often is putting it mildly, the way some are talking. Same with Maria.”

“Don’t trust everything out of Malachti’s mouth,” I replied swiftly. “Besides, you avoid the point. This wouldn’t be an issue if you slowed things down some.”

“Am I the one avoiding a point?” Gio asked me. “Still, Malvia, slowing down will only increase the chances of it being discovered. It already will move like molasses, and no matter what countermeasures we devise to discredit those who turn, eventually they will take it seriously. This is the fifth to actually make it to the Watch. Many more, and they’ll start really prying. I have enough to deal with when Voltar gets involved.”

“You’ve evaded him so far,” I pointed out. “And the other safeguards are sufficient. They investigate the people we’ve told the traitors are ours, they end up being clean, and the Watch buys into you being a boastful braggart exaggerating your reach to be a slightly more effective kingpin.”

“Yes, thank you Malvia, I’m aware of my own plan,” he said, voice light. “But that reaches a point where that’s the impression I give off to people we want inside the organization. And the Quarter at large. Which may very well be why Devel has decided he can brush me off. And why I want that nipped in the bud before it became a problem.”

The insistence on using the chemicals made more sense.

“I’d still advise against it. Those are a weapon we can use effectively once before they realize we have it. The moment we do every Watch officer who has even the slightest chance of crossing our paths is going to have a filter mask ready on their belts.”

"Perhaps," he said, grabbing an apple from a bowl in the room. His voice had a tone that made it clear that line of discussion was over.

“Skall can hear the Imp,” I told him, rolling up the bundle containing my tools.

He paused, fangs halfway closed around the apple. “You’re certain?”

“Unless she was informed ahead of time and chose to make a random comment about it at precisely the right moment? Yes.”

“Well, then tonight wasn’t a complete disaster,” he noted. “She has no existing skills?”

“If she did, I doubt she would have needed my help,” I said, holding up one of my hands.

I’d washed them of course, but he’d already heard a report from me and Golvar. I’d never tried going for the eyes like that before. More effective than I initially thought.

"You could have told me then,” Gio said, a lazy grin coming onto his face as he leaned back. “Still nursing that grudge against Golvar aren’t you?”

“It’s not a grudge,” I denied flatly. “He doesn’t need to know yet. He doesn’t need to know ever, if you want to play this safe. Besides, he’s vindictive.”

“Like you aren’t,” Versalicci replied. “No matter your opinions on his methods, and whatever personal animosity has developed between you two, he has as much right to know every Diabolist in our ranks as you.”

Blatantly false. Golvar couldn’t cast, couldn’t tech casting, mostly only benefitted by kicking Daver into gear. Mostly he tried convincing young novices, few that we had, into doing his dirty work for him. Then again, Skall hardly seemed intimidated by Golvar.

“Him and Daver?” I asked.

“Would you suggest anyone else to teach her?” Versalicci asked me.

I had a few ideas.

***

I had Maria’s corpse on the table, what was left of it. Face smashed-in, head rendered to a pulp, the rest of her body was intact though.

“What are you doing?” Skall asked, sitting down on the stool, craning for a better look.

It was probably rude to note that even sitting on it, she still had to strain to see what was going on. To be fair, the tables were ridiculously high. Apparently the only tables thick enough to support the occasional ogre corpse were ones built for ogres.

Well, the only ones we could get our hands on.

“Maria has departed,” I said mechanically. “Her soul already on it’s way down to the Hells, there to be reborn. What’s left up here is just meat, and something we can put to use for the same struggle she fought in life.”

“Yer carving her up for components.”

I sighed. “Crudely put, but yes, I am. Your watching because you’ll be expected to do it as well, once you get taught. Just be grateful your lessons aren’t as painful as mine were.”

From her expression, she probably thought physical pain. Hrrm, did she even have anyone she would have cared about sawing open?

That had lost it’s horror for me soon after. Only so many times you could carve through flesh before it became just another thing you did.

You learned not to care quickly, not when life was cheap

For a better world, I thought, beginning to saw at Maria’s arm.

***

I jolted awake in my bed, a cry on my lips I immediately silenced.

The intense urge to get up, to get out of these covers that had been comfortable but now felt like hands restraining me.

I practically tore my way out of my sheets, stumbling through the dark as I felt something rising up from my gut. I made it to the sink just in time for what little I’d eaten the day before to come back up.

I gasped, and panted, a few last little remnants forcing their way up.

I pumped water from the sink, splashing it cold right into my face. My stomach wrenched once again and I nearly puked again straight into the draining water.

Nightmares. I wished. Memories are just as bad as nightmares. Between Tyler’s lair and Skall’s re-emergence, that particular set of memories haunting my dreams wasn’t too strange.

I’d been such an idiot back then. Such a good little soldier for my brother. Such a good little fool.

That feeling of sawing through Maria’s neck….I wasn’t squeamish, hadn’t been for a while, and in the end that corpse had just been meat, but the feeling…I shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

My hand felt a twinge of pain. That wasn’t the leftover sign of my fight with Hawkins though, just another memory. Alice’s reaction to me asking if she was part dwarf had been…well, at least she hadn’t gone for my throat.

The sun was rising, providing a welcome distraction from my thoughts. Not yet to the point where beams of sunlight were coming in through my window, but I could see its glow even behind the buildings across the street. Daylight soon.

I breathed out slowly. I’d mostly settled, and the urgent panic that woke me up dissipated. Hopefully, any more trips down memory lane went with it. Getting lost in memories of the past was just a distraction, and I couldn’t afford any of those.

Abducting those two last night, part of that had been worries about something sparking a fight, the other trying to wrest some way of determining the factors at play. And to avoid a knife in my back. Gregory, he wouldn't kill me, but if some fool notion of capturing me had ventured inside his head, I did not want to be tied up anywhere near Bishop Gallaspie. And Melissa? Hells, she probably still nursed a grudge from the embarrassment of being rebuked for beating me up. But there was another reason.

Versalicci and the religions of the empire were both mixed up in the same mess and with us fumbling blind. I'd been hasty making that decision, but since it was made, I might as well take advantage of it.

I headed to my counter, grabbing a “Closed” sign to hang up outside. Business would have to wait. I had two prisoners to interrogate first.