I stumbled through the Infernal Quarter bleeding more than just blood.

The constructed illusion I’d woven around myself was fading fast, getting pumped out at about the same rate as I actually bled.

I’d stopped to change the illusion to an Infernal man of above-average height and a green shade of skin, and to bandage my wounds as best I could in a few brief moments. Blood still dripped with each passing moment as I walked. The cloth I’d ripped off to bind them already soaked.

Just one foot in front of the other. It wouldn’t be far now. I stumbled, put my hand against the wall, and winced as bloodied and torn fingers brushed against the wood.

I’d gotten lucky with how the backlash had taken place, as ridiculous as that sounded. My tongue melting had seared the stump shut, so no bleeding there. The bag of skin one of my arms had been turned into hadn’t burst open, so instead it simply sent spikes of pain through me as disconnected pieces scraped against each other. Whatever had dissolved in my arm, it left my nerves alone.

Now the bullet in my leg and my missing fingers were the only bleeding wounds.

The last of the rat’s life force was going into blunting that pain otherwise I wouldn’t be able to walk. Even so, each step sent stabs of agony all across my body and dripped blood on the ground. The pain did help in drawing my mind away from something else.

Tssk, they’ve cleaned this district up far too much, the Imp said in my head. I remember when you needed boots to wade through these streets unless you wanted muck on your skin, when you couldn’t step ten feet without treading over a bum. What has happened to the Quarter? What foul entity has cleaned it up?

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t since the seared-off stump of my tongue was not conducive to talking. Instead, I limped on, thinking of what had emptied the alleys. Wars. Fuel for the empire’s expansion, which hadn’t ceased significantly since Her Majesty had ascended her throne. And we had paid for it all.

I shook my head, trying to clear those thoughts out. Not everything Versalicci had taught me was worthless or manipulation, but the truth made for the best manipulation of all.

I took a step and pain lanced through my legs as it gave out, sending me to the cobbles. The bullet in my thigh. I tried to move the leg, get the hoof back on the ground only for the pain to make my vision swim and my stomach twist. My chin went to the ground as I clutched at my thigh.

A small, round little hole leaked blood. Again, luck had been with me. The ball hadn’t hit an artery or bone, and somehow hadn’t blasted through my flesh either. My mind searched for an explanation and failed, although that might be because of the grey creeping in along the edges of my vision.

I put my good hand on the ground, pushing, and the pain helped a little to drive that grey away. Getting to my hooves was a painful process, but I eventually made it and continued my limping trek.

I stuck to alleys, and to my grudging gratefulness the efforts of the marchers meant the streets were still less populated than they should be, but it wouldn’t last.

Eventually, someone would notice me. I made an easy target, wounded and bleeding like I was.

The question was if I could make it to my last refuge.

I limped through an alley, a wary eye on another person. They were taking a dose of something probably hallucinatory in nature, so not a threat. I could only hope no one had moved into the abandoned building where I’d buried a last emergency stash five years ago. I’d never visited since burying everything.

I covered a hundred feet in five minutes, falling twice to the cobbles and taking an agonizing half minute to drag myself back up. Luckily for me, the alley’s other inhabitant was busy losing herself in another world.

I staggered to the building, a low building that could have once been a warehouse, or maybe a shop with the small front area with displays. I tried the back door, and it swung open, no lock or bar to hold it still. Just as it had been five years ago.

I limped inside, closing the door behind me and heading further inside. If anyone followed me, they’d find it easy to get inside. Although if anyone was following me, I was dead already.

My hidden store wasn’t anywhere near as sophisticated as the one in the Garretsville warehouse, just hidden under an empty open-topped crate that had been here when I’d made it.

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I pushed it, flesh protesting with every inch as blood dripped onto the stone floor beneath me. Eventually, I moved it off, revealing the stone underneath.

The carved lines in the stonework were wide enough to get fingers into, but even still lifting the slab of rock took over ten minutes. But I turned it over, the quarter inch of stone landing with a clatter.

When I left five years ago, I’d come here on my own and hidden everything I couldn’t carry. An emergency stockpile, but also things too specialized for regular use but illegal to have without a license, the items I couldn’t trust myself with and couldn’t justify as something for emergencies.

No one else knew these were here, and since I’d visited not a single time since leaving these here to begin with, no one besides me should know they were here.

The stash wasn’t large, two feet dug down, one foot across, two feet forward to back. I didn’t try to lift the chest nestled within, instead forcing the lid open. I grabbed a few items, a vial, a potion, and some sheets of paper.

I started writing instructions for the Imp, the written word the only way to communicate with it.

After all you’ve put me through, I want better, the Imp complained. The next meal will either be a full animal of tremendous size or the limb of a sentient while they are alive to feel and witness. I will accept nothing less.

That sounded less like a request and more like what it would need after exerting its own powers. I did owe it, so….I’d see how much a cow costs. Dead. I grabbed the potion next, checking the seal on the bottle.

It was similar to the one I’d had Golvar drink, a potion to close up wounds and begin the healing process, except much more powerful. If the seal had held, it might even repair whatever had been ripped out of my arm.

A minute of examination showed the seal to still be held, so it shouldn’t have lost any potency. Good, because I didn’t know how the hells I’d find any phoenix ashes.

I took the bandages off, wincing as the blood-soaked cloth dropped to the floor. Blood soaked all of them to the point I could wring several cups out of all of them.

Fresh air on my wounds added to my irritation, but I needed the cloth off of them before I used the potion or it might close with them inside. They wouldn’t survive letting the Biosculpting change me back, anyway.

The magic was intuitive but not the best for replacing eye or tongue, so I wrote instructions for the Imp to read. It took a quick second for it to confirm it could stop the healing magic at my neck with no cost; I prepared to use the potion.

The bullet would need to stay inside. Not the best solution, but my body would naturally surround it with scar tissue, and it would stay inert. Painful, but I could force it out once I had my Biosculpting tools back from Voltar. Right now, it was more important to staunch the bleeding.

I pulled the clothing back from all the cuts and holes and prepared a gag out of the bandages. Then I drank the potion and put the gag into place.

The edges of the exterior wounds itched.

The inside of my arm burned, and I went to the floor, and only the gag kept my screams from ringing out across the building.

Tears clouded my eyes, but I forced myself up as pain traced itself up and down my arm. How repairing the damage hurt more than having the connections between flesh and bone ripped away in the first place I didn’t know.

I needed to get to my feet, though. This wouldn’t be the worst of it.

I grabbed the vial and headed for a closet, one with not a thick door, but it would have to do. The biosculpting would need to be undone now, paying the piper for delaying it.

Things could never be easy. I’d used Diabolism to halt the natural progression of things, and even if Diabolism did not inflict its own prices, interfering with a natural process would never end well. Having one’s flesh shift in shape without the proper tools? Already agony.

I did not want to experience what it was like with diabolism mixed in. I eyed the vial.

There were spiders in the great forests across the sea to the east whose venom made the eyes of even the most attentive slump and close. I’d gained five entire vials of the mixture, to use as a sedative, and over the years I’d used four of them, a few drops at a time to dull pain, sometimes more to induce sleep. A deep sleep that was difficult to rouse from, the length increasing more and more for each additional drop.

I considered the half-full vial before me.

A few seconds left. Make your choice now.

Would imbibing too much cause me to never wake? Or to sleep for weeks? But if I used too little, would I awaken in the middle of the changes?

Enough hesitating then. I pulled the stopper and drank from the vial even as my finger bones pushed past flesh, bursting free as maggots of black crawled along the exposed bone.

***

I coughed, hacking through lungs as something lodged in my windpipe. Something came loose, small chunks of darkness that dissipated after hitting the floor.

I breathed deeply, then looked at my hand. It was colored a pale shade of blue now, not the deep crimson I’d been for several years. I felt my horns, gone from straight to curved. The changes back had taken. For the most part.

They’d been closed up but the stumps of missing fingers were still there, I did not have a tongue, and my eye was still missing. Problems for when I had biosculpting tools in hand.

The inside of the closet and my mind were quiet. Had the biosculpting somehow expelled the Imp?

Damnations, the Imp hissed in my ear. Since I know you’ll never willingly bite a human to eat it, two full cows, or I’ll consider this contract in violation.

Ah. Of course, I couldn’t be that lucky. Still, complaining about the contract would get it nowhere since I didn’t hold that. I needed it willing to help me though, and not trying to sabotage me.

My clothes clung to me tightly, pulled over a taller frame. I had a spare set in the stash, so it was time to fish them out and go meet my newest partners in this little escapade.

Assuming they weren’t rethinking after seeing a Duke of the Hells peering at them through a hole in reality. Their fault for leaving me only a Diabolism focus as my method of escape.

I didn’t think they’d see it that way.