Momo swallowed. Did she say her final show?

Another eruption of white smoke, and Valerica disappeared. The music that proceeded was like nothing Momo had ever heard—haunting, electric, ear bleeding; her entire body vibrated. It was like getting shock therapy without the pain. Just the terrible, nerve-numbing sensation.

She wordlessly downed the shot that the bartender gave her, slamming the glass down on the bar. The liquid went down clean and easy, but the aftertaste was horrific. Her entire world spun for a moment, and she clung to the bartop, her head pounding.

On stage, the pigs had claimed the audience’s rapt attention. Roses trapped in their mouths, they twirled and fluttered like ballerinas, a flurry of limbs, their fluid motions appearing like a stop-motion film under the pulsating stage lights. Momo could no longer see Valerica, but she could hear her voice crawling out of every crevice. The metallic walls reeked of her, glasses shattered when exposed to her startling pitch. It was hell, it was heaven—it was… a nightclub.

“I love you, V!” the drunk elf from before shouted, his arms thrown upwards, his eyes blissed out and his body undulating amongst the packed crowd. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”

Momo nearly laughed at the irony of it; in many ways, Valerica was the best thing that had ever happened to her, too. She felt a twinge of superiority over that dupe in the crowd, as if he was only projecting—engaged in some parasocial, fantastical bullshit—while Momo, unlike him, really knew Valerica. But did she? Did she really? Secretly, below that cheap facade of superiority, she felt quite unsure. What did she really know about Valerica? The woman was about as transparent as a block of wood. Was she a mage, zealously committed to her leader, an apathetic narcissist solely obsessed with her self image, or, hells, was she just like Momo—a girl in way over her head?

She somehow doubted that last one.

As the pigs wrapped up their first dance number, Valerica materialized on stage again. Momo never saw her walk up to the mic stand; she would just appear there, as if by black magic—and knowing her, that was no way metaphorical. Bearing her perfect vampiric teeth, her eyes smudged with black eyeshadow, her mere presence cast a spell of complete silence over the crowd. Even the bartender shushed drink-hungry patrons, gesturing towards the stage.

“As many of you know,” Valerica began, leaning into the stand seductively. “I’ve been performing here for the last—oh, how long has it been—eighty four years? Two months? I still haven’t gotten my watches adjusted to Nether time.” She flung her pocket watch into the crowd, and the fans in the pit fought for it so ravenously that two people had to be escorted out on stretchers. “Gods, it’s just been such a pleasure headlining the Viper. You people are just my kind of people, you know? Boisterous. Risque. Impossibly fashionable. Murderous. Speaking of.”

Valerica raised her hands, palms up, and red mist sprouted from her veins, congealing into a shimmering hologram of a bloody dagger. The crowd marveled as it rotated mid-air.

What the hell is she up to? Momo thought. She knew Valerica was all about surprise and spectacle—but this performance was far more somber than her usual. It was almost like a funeral, somehow, a public mourning. A not-so-quiet admittance of defeat.

Valerica turned her head towards the back of the stage, beckoning something with her fingers. Bring it out, she mouthed. The pigs obliged, wheeling out something covered in a black tarp. This something was quite large, almost as tall as Valerica in her high-heels. It had a wooden base, but nothing else about its shape was obvious. A morbid curiosity overtook Momo. She knew Valerica loved her props, her set dressing; this had to be something good.

“I know the Viper is an escape for all of us. The one place left in this eternal twilight where we can just let go—let our hair down, shake out those post-mortal nerves. But unfortunately, even here, amongst our devilish peers, we are no longer safe. This place, too, has been compromised,” she said, her lips nearly pressed to the microphone. “So, I have decided to make this performance a tribute. A tribute to the woman at the center of all my woes. The woman I once called a lover, if you can believe that.”

Momo’s face turned pale. She hadn’t expected that. A lover?

“Sera, and I know you’re listening,” Valerica whispered into the mic. “This elaborate game of cat and mouse—this delicious revenge plot that has been elevated to the realm of deities—it’s truly the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. I’ve never felt more desired than now, when every single step I take feels like my last. The level of exhilaration I feel at my every breath, as if it might be taken from me, even in the afterlife… it’s positively arousing.”

Valerica looked to the side, signaling one of her backup dancers. A pig in a tutu brought out a red, bloody bass. It was all sharp edges. Valerica slung it over her shoulder wordlessly.

“And in an astonishing turn of events,” she continued breathlessly. “It seems that my last moment might really just be nearing. I can feel your ghost—your phantom—on the back of my neck. Just breathing there. So I thought, while I wait, I would play you a little song. A little romantic ballad. I think it just about summarizes my feelings towards you.”

The bass came in so loud that Momo thought her ear drums might have popped. It was a lion’s roar of an opening, and she was grateful for that shot she downed just before. The pigs yanked the tarp off, revealing a paper-mâché construction of a guillotine.

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Oh my god. Momo’s knuckles turned white as they gripped the counter.

The guillotine’s blade loomed over the faux-head of a paper Sera, her black, matted locks of paper hair drooping onto the floor. Valerica didn’t even flinch—grinning wide and insane as she pulled the release mechanism. Sera’s paper neck crunched and dropped to the floor, beheaded. The crowd went absolutely insane.

It occurred to Momo, then, just what Valerica was. What Valerica had always been. There was no facade. It was all quite obvious.

Valerica was crazy. And Momo loved her for it.

Enraptured as she was by the woman on the stage, Momo barely noticed as someone took a seat beside her. They lit a cigarette, the smoke billowing by her cheek.

“Hi, darling.”

Momo whipped her head around. It was Valerica’s voice, unmistakably. And looking back at her was none other than the woman herself—the same woman who was right now performing on stage. She looked back and forth between them stupidly, wondering if the alcohol was giving her hallucinations.

“The demoness look, it suits you,” Valerica said, taking another long drag before punting the cigarette to the floor and driving her heel through it. She was wearing the same outfit as she was on this stage, but at this proximity, Momo could see the imperfections in her makeup: her smudged eyeliner, the slight moist frizz in her hair. “Oh, stop it with that look. What’s a little cigarette from time to time for a goddess? I always loathed tobacco back on the mortal plane; I thought, why would you ever want to waste your death on something as ordinary as lung decay? I always knew, when I was to go out, it would be magnificently, by sword blade or incineration. But I thought now—I’m already dead, why not experiment?—turns out, you can get a nicotine addiction in the afterlife, too.” She laughed giddily. “So that’s been fun.”

Despite the abject ridiculousness of whatever just spilled out of Valerica’s lips, Momo couldn’t help but beam at her. Because, of course. Of course Valerica thought the most useful thing about godhood is it allowed you to smoke cigarettes without the added benefit of lung cancer.

“How are you here…?” Momo gestured from the stage to the barstool. The Valerica on stage was still belting the performance of a lifetime—and occasionally taking a moment to stomp on Sera’s paper-mâché head, much to the joy of the audience.

Valerica gave her a pitying look, squeezing her hand softly. “Oh darling, shifting planes of existence has really taken a toll on your memory. I’m using [Body Double].” She snapped her fingers. Two more Valerica’s appeared on the other barstools, waved, then promptly disappeared again with another snap. “I believe people from your planet call it multitasking.”

Right. Of course. Momo felt stupid. It was Valerica’s signature skill.

That alcohol really had been potent.

“Was all of that true?” Momo said, still caught in a daze from Valerica’s Shakesperian monologue. “About… you and Sera?”

“Of course. Why would I lie?” Valerica responded, raising an eyebrow. “No obsession runs deeper than a lover scorned. Like I said, I truly am flattered by Sera’s insistence, really, but there are better ways to win back a woman. Decimating and defaming one’s boss and putting a target on my dear protege’s head is a notably bad strategy.”

“You’re saying… she’s doing all of this… to win you back?”

“Not all,” she answered brusquely. “I’m not that much of a narcissist to think this is all about me. As I said to you before, she’s doing it for many reasons. But all of those reasons run right back to her ego. And anyone who stepped on that ego is enemy number uno. Morgana, me, I suppose Azrael is next…” She took a drag of her cigarette. “Her plan—scheming with all the other gods, using that dreaded box of hers to reclaim the mortals—is going off without a hitch, it seems, so it’s only a matter of time before…”

Valerica looked out the window, her sentence dying off. Momo looked out the window to try and follow her gaze, but saw nothing there. Just blinking streetlights. She took Valerica’s shoulder and shook it with an urgency.

“I need you,” she said, before realizing just how direct that was. Her cheeks immediately flushed as Valerica’s face lit up salaciously. “The Wraith Box, I have it with me. I was able to get it across to the Nether. Her plan isn’t going off without a hitch.”

Valerica’s eyes widened comically. Surprise—it wasn’t something Momo saw much on her features. Despite the woman’s penchant for chaos, it was most typically chaos planned in advance. “Wait, you did?” she remarked in disbelief. “But I told you it was impossible. That it would explode between realms.”

“It wasn’t. It didn’t.”

Valerica’s grin widened.

“It didn’t?”

“No,” Momo shook her head. “I suppose not, seeing as I’m still here.”

“Wow,” Valerica said, then grinned even wider. “You disobeyed me.”

“I realized—wait, what?”

Valerica laughed. She withdrew a package of Lucky Strikes from her coat pocket and threw them on the bartop. The snake bartender lit one of them for her, a lighter between his teeth.

“I said you disobeyed me,” she repeated.

“I mean—I didn’t mean to,” Momo said, her cheeks reddening. She felt suddenly embarrassed, like a child who had been caught drawing on the walls. “It was all very sudden, and I wasn’t thinking…”

“I’m so proud of you.”

Valerica was smiling radiantly at her. It was utterly full of admiration.

Momo stared at her, bewildered.

“You are?”

“Of course.” She put the cigarette to her lips again. “You know how I was reading a lot of books during my goddess onboarding? Like, a lot of books.”

“Yes,” Momo answered breathlessly. “I remember.”

“So, I happened to read a bunch of books on parenting. How to raise children through the different stages of life,” she hummed. “I thought it might improve my people management skills. Turns out, it did. Fabulously. There was this whole chapter on adolescence, and how the biggest breakthrough a child can have is to question authority—to form their own ideals and buck those of their beloved guardian. I never thought…”

Valerica looked out the window again. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steamy nightclub air like it was fresh from the Alps, smiling pleasantly.

“I thought my greatest joy in life would be earning my spot in the Circle of the Lich, in getting Morgana’s approval, in… outdoing Devola, if we’re being honest,” she said, smirking wildly. “As it turns out, that wasn’t quite true.” She opened her eyes, and looked at Momo, holding her gaze like a hostage with a gun pressed to their forehead. “My greatest joy, Momo, has been you. You—who came to me as lifeless as the dirt. Mentoring you, watching you grow. It’s been like raising life from the dead. You have been my greatest accomplishment in the field of necromancy.”

She cupped the side of Momo’s face, holding it as gently as a flower petal. There was an odd seriousness in her eyes.

“It’s funny, I used to see you as this thing I needed to take care of,” she whispered, her breath falling like cold death on Momo’s face. Valerica’s nose nudged at her cheek. “But now… I think you might have to take care of me, darling.”

She kissed Momo’s cheek softly, sacredly, and through the foggy nightclub window, Momo finally saw what Valerica had been looking at.