Food was great. It was… difficult to ponder over much else in a morose fashion when scarfing down the cooking Pearl had labored the table with. Part of it was my empty vessel of a body, regaining that warm energy that I had been recently scoured of. The other part was just me trying to avoid the glare of said demon.

“You’re not going to the Lowers now, Eric.” Her radiant eyes narrowed. It was amazing how they could go from dazzling beautiful to burning with incredulity so fast. Somehow, I didn’t think she would appreciate the compliment currently.

“Why not?” I placed the fork down gently - making a point that I wasn’t about to try to stab her with it. “I’m feeling pretty good now - no corruption on either side.”

“What could you even want to get into a fight so soon for?” Her arms were crossed, barring my excuses from entering her heart.

[There is a devil woman who may have given Eric’s location to the Cherub.]

Pearl looked between the bird-demon sitting beside me, then back to me. She seemed to be ruminating on something. She hadn’t liked the pale demon that had tried to jump me, in both ways. A clever interjection from my patron.

“Fine.” She sighed, exasperated. “But this is on you, Wight. If Eric comes back in less than pristine condition, I will be plucking those feathers and cooking you up next.”

I gave him a side-eye, and it looked as though his beak had deflated slightly. Eric Redd wasn’t known for being in pristine condition for very long - often far from it. The weight of the promise sunk in on Wight, but he also wanted to have a little fun in the Hells.

[Understood, the Pearl.]

Rodney pulled a face and tried to avoid being an active participant in the threats of the woman. At first, it seemed that staying still would be enough to become briefly invisible before Pearl turned to the side to glare at him.

“I won’t threaten you yet. You’ll be doing your best, though?”

“Of course!” He blurted out and slowly sunk away from her.

It may be a small act of kindness, due to the funeral tomorrow, that she hadn’t made the promise of removing his limbs or worse - but in fairness, there wasn’t much he could do to pull my feet from the fire.

“Uh.” I scratched at my short beard. “Should we check if the Org has tampered with your gear? Would you know?”

Rodney bit his tongue and exhaled through his nose, briefly glancing towards the daylight pooling in from the window. “I’ve had a look, and it seems fine. Are you thinking it will alert them that you’re active?”

“Well…” That was a difficult one. “I reckon they’ve got a bit of a hard-on for keeping an eye on me. They’ll no doubt be waiting to see if Pearl has killed me yet.”

“Or if you had killed me,” she added.

“We both know how that would have gone.” I gave her a warm smile and a wink.

Her annoyance melted away, and she rolled her eyes. “Smooth, Eric Redd.” She smiled and shook her head. “Still a dumbass, though.”

Guilty. It was perhaps my dense stubbornness that got me through some of the worst days. I should be resting, having a few days of being normal, and simmering in my anger at the Org. But we had only just started getting back into killing all demons, and I didn’t want to waste any more time. There were answers to dig up. I was an over-eager archaeologist trying to read history from skeletons still in use.

[I suggest we find the devil’s location while the day still runs from the night.]

“And not towards it.” Rodney tilted his head as if part of something forgotten had bobbed up from the surface.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I can lend some assistance for the tracking.” Pearl held her hands out across the table - one towards me and one to Rodney. “Then that’s it. I’m out, and you boys are on your own.”

[Thank you, the Pearl.]

Wight extended his small clawed hands, and the four of us formed a circle.

[That took much less time.]

I opened my eyes, and the daylight was still bright. We all relinquished our grips on each other's hands, although mine was slightly slower to let go of Pearl’s. She gave me a smile and stood from the table.

“Don’t die. Or even get remotely maimed. I have my own things to do other than nurse you from the brink day in and out.” She was serious, but the smile remained on her face - it was an open secret she liked to look after me.

“Tell me about your day later, then?” I raised an expectant eyebrow. It hadn’t been important enough to let me know so far, but I was still interested.

“Of course.” She tilted her head. “Perhaps that can be your treat for returning in one piece?”

I wasn’t able to say what I wanted in front of present company, but I narrowed my eyes and slowly nodded. “Sure.”

Rodney shriveled up like a lemon. “Cooool, so bye, Pearl. Should we get set up downstairs?”

She stuck her tongue out at the Blank and left the room - slightly surprising in that she started walking upstairs rather than teleporting somewhere. Maybe she needed sleep; I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with a stressful life.

“Yeah,” I said, shaking myself back into the current situation. “Let’s do that.”

It had been a while since we had a full team. Either Rodney had been kidnapped, or Wight had been… kidnapped as well, in a way. Making it down to the basement, I was intrigued to see my recliner down there beside Rodney’s chair. It hadn’t been there on any previous occasion.

“How did you…” Rodney began to ask before seeing the look on my face. “Never mind.”

[Seth’a is in an area known as-]

“Let me guess.” I turned to wave at my bird patron as he awkwardly walked down the stairs. “Nightclub?”

[…Yes.]

I held up my hand to high five, and he just grimaced at me. My ego would never recover. “I knew eventually we had to kill vampires at a nightclub.”

“Vampires?” Rodney raised an eyebrow.

“Demons, did I say vampires? Huh.” I rubbed my chin and watched the concerned Blank go to set the portal up. “I might be mixing my references up - you know, the-“

“The cliches. Yeah, I get it, Eric.” He pressed two buttons on the panel and then looked back up at me. “Just for the record, I kind of agree with Pearl. Don’t make me have to bury two people this week.”

My mouth opened and closed, suddenly feeling a little smaller and more selfish.

“Sorry.” He waved his hand, “I didn’t mean it like that. Just, things are never going back to how they were, huh?”

“No.” It was about all I could manage. There were no real reassurances I could provide - certainly nothing Eric Redd had done correctly at any point. My life had started off going downhill and continued into insanity - the only redeeming feature seemingly being that in Hell, downwards was just going up. Or… I think that was how it worked.

“Alright, the portal is done.” He stood and brushed his jeans off. “Let me get my tech up, and then the demonic oyster is all yours.”

I gave him a nod and turned to my patron, who had just been observing us interact impassively. “Everything okay, Wight?”

[I feel there is something… no, everything is okay, Eric.]

“No, I understand. There is something about to happen. I feel it too.” Whether it was a good thing or bad - no, who was I kidding? It was going to be something bad, for sure. Probably debilitating or insanity-inducing, as was tradition. My only hope was that Pearl didn’t find out when we invariably played a bit too rough and broke the lamp.

“Any other information on the location, Wight?” Rodney sat down in his chair and affixed a headset over one ear.

I had never questioned what gear he really had or what benefit it gave him. It wasn’t that I was a technophobe - technology just seemed to hate me. That reminded me to check for my phone. Nope, left it upstairs again.

[Has a bunch of demons in it, currently living.]

“Woo-eee.” I put my hands on my hips. “Best see what we can do to change that then, huh?”

[I know of a few ways we can correct the transgression, Eric.]

“Same. However - guns blazing might not be a great idea. Is it like the saloon where I can mingle a little until we upset someone and have to violence our way out?”

[ is not that precise.]

I nodded, but deflated slightly. Not really sure whether I wanted to have a moment of ordering a drink and dancing to the tunes before questioning Seth’a - or perhaps the building wouldn’t be structurally sound, and I could just level the place from the outside and call it a day.

That didn’t sound satisfying at all.

“All good to go.”

With one last deep breath, I turned to the luminant portal and stepped through, back into Hell again.

A brief moment of vertigo and then the usual overwhelming amber and heat of the Lowers, an expansive plain of dried stone before me.

I turned around. Apparently, my orientation was just fated to be opposite, to find myself at the back of a large stone building. Mostly without any interesting features, save for the red door of the rear entrance.

Oh, and five figures. Bipedal crocodiles wearing denim jackets emblazoned by some kind of skull-and-snake logo. One of them was urinating up against the wall. As my appearance drew their attention, they turned, jaws widening with rows of dozens upon dozens of teeth.

“Looks like lunch has arrived,” one with sunglasses on chuckled.