It would be foolish to say that I was used to drowning, in the figurative sense. There were parts of my life where I had felt surrounded, breathless, or overwhelmed with pressure - sure. But that was all intangible and in my head when you got down to the brass tacks of it. Ego on the rise. It was hard to drown when you were at the top of the mountain.

Brief panic flooded my nerves as my lungs struggled against the liquid. It would be ridiculous to suggest I could breathe it, but I wasn’t drowning - somehow I could barely manage to function. As much as that described me most days, this was something quite new.

This was all the creation of a demon, anyway. Using my own demon energy to work my lungs might leave me slightly weaker, but I was also a lot less dead.

Claude bared down on me, his harpoon raised and ready to skewer.

I held the revolver up sluggishly. . It pierced the side of his thigh, inky blood clouding around the wound as the red beam vanished into darkness. Surprise and pain in his eyes took some of his momentum out, and his sharp harpoon jammed into my collar area much shallower than he’d hoped.

A flipper kicked away my hand so I couldn’t get a second shot off, and he pushed forward to grapple onto me. Just sinking into this unending sea was draining my strength, and he was soon overpowering me. I let that be the reason, and not that he was naturally in better shape or better trained in melee combat than I.

Maybe I should try to work out more than my noir muscle.

Wight rose above me and stabbed into his shoulder, causing another cloud of his blood to filter from the murk.

“You are a pest,” he growled, able to speak through his Domain.

He pushed me away, and I fought to keep my orientation instead of spinning around. I much preferred the solid ground of before. My patron assisted me so I could draw the gun up. Claude was much further away and seemed to be running? Or, swimming, I supposed.

[Eric, to the side.]

I turned my head and was now aware of why he was making the space between us. Shadowed at first, against the infinite gloom of the deep water, an impossibly large fish loomed into view. Illuminated from beams of green light, it appeared to be a building-sized piranha, and heading straight for us.

[Okay, slightly more impressive than mine.]

Sure, the theatrics were top-notch. All the fish things were on point and fully realizing his cliche. As an outside observer, this would be a jaw-dropping experience. Currently living it, I was a little concerned for my safety.

My arm moved slowly through the water as the enormous fish closed in quickly. A wide toothed maw opened, ready to consume us. The shadow of it plunged us into darkness as cool energy fluttered down my arm.

A flash of red illuminated the deep seas. I rent a hole through the fish. Not enough to escape all the way through, but plenty to ruin whatever it had for brains. Even the water wasn’t spared from the destructive beam and I was pulled forward into the aftermath of the shot as the sea filled the space erased. The piranha sank downward, the gap in its head placed perfectly for me to escape from as it angled away - and then it was below me and I was-

The harpoon pierced through my back and into my water-clogged lung.

“Just die already, you rat,” he hissed into my ear as he pushed the jagged tip further into my organs.

[You’ve shown me yours…]

Wight was behind him. I turned my pained glare to watch my patron place his clawed hand on the back of the diver.

[…now let me show you mine.]

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I remained floating, but a dark sphere now encircled me. Slowly it started to drain, as Claude withdrew in shock, and I floated up to the surface. I gasped and coughed up my lungfuls of water. And blood. Pain wracked my internal organs. But the cool atmosphere was heavenly to my aching throat.

Then I was lying on the hard surface of the corridor that was wet and waterlogged. With pained exhaustion, I turned over to look around. A sphere of the prior Hell now existed, and beyond the border of that was the infinite water. Cracks started forming along the apartment walls as tiny motes of it were being stripped off to nothing.

“What… is this?” Claude’s voice came from one end.

Against my rebelling body, I turned further to face him as he stared at the feathered winds on the outskirts of the void. His harpoon lay at his feet.

I fired a shot that hit one of the tanks on his back. With a short hiss, nothing happened.

He turned to grin at me. “They’re mostly for show. What did you expect, an explosi-“

Shoot first, ask questions later. Ten red beams scoured the space between us - striking his arms and legs. Joints and major muscle groups. He went to grab for his weapon, but it was too late as the shots pierced him all at once. Instead, he flopped to the floor - not unlike a fish.

His Domain faded away, and Wight dropped his too - returning to bird form and looking a little wet.

“How? You shouldn’t have such power,” Claude seethed toward me and I slowly approached.

“Where’s your patron now? Not coming out to your defense?”

He returned a scowl but said nothing, his dark eyes trying to read my face.

[Seems your patron doesn’t really like you, the Claude.]

“Not here to lecture you,” I added, briefly coughing up a handful of blood. “But you can gain more by befriending the demon. You do some of that already, right?”

“I’ll not give you anything,” he growled, and tried to wiggle away with unresponsive limbs. “You’re obviously corrupted, the Org will take my-“

“Org will take your head.” I tutted and sat on the floor. “You have Partridge as your trainer?”

“I… did.”

“You know he doesn’t abide by cozying up with the enemy, and they’re already tipped off about your little group. Gunther already tried to kill me.”

“He did…? Did you kill him too?”

[Not yet, he is on the run without his patron.]

Left his little helper at the Org, then. I was sure Wight would have been keeping tabs on that whenever he had the chance. Confronting the Org on the allegations was too risky for his personal safety, and they wouldn’t let him have the patron back without a frank conversation in person, no doubt.

“Man, I was having so much fun I forgot what I really wanted to ask you.” I shuffled myself up to one of the walls, suddenly rather tired. I breathed slowly through my nose. My regeneration needed to repair my lungs.

[Why the portals? Or what is the real plan?]

I snapped my fingers and pointed to the bird demon. “Righto. Wight, hand me the knife.”

He did so, and I holstered my gun to wield it in my main hand. I slid myself against the wall so that I was closer to the prone man. It didn’t look like he had demonic regeneration, so I wondered at what point he would cut his losses and see the Org as the safer option rather than sit here with me. Neither place would treat him kindly.

I placed the tip of the blade at the side of his cheek. “I’m not someone who believes in torture to get what they want - or even that it’s an effective method of getting truth. But I’m tired and corrupt and kind of want to wear your skull as a hat.”

[Are you bluffing, Eric? It would look unbecoming.]

“Don’t…” I looked up at him. “I think I could pull it off. Literally.” Bloodied water ran from my mouth and dripped to the floor.

[Perhaps this was a mistake.]

The diver wasn’t too sure about what to make of us. What fear I had attempted to leverage into him had now come undone as confusion spread across his face.

With a shaking hand, I pushed up my glasses and activated . “Your patron weapon is also your return artefact? Dangerous.” As I finished my sentence, Wight went around to remove the harpoon from the floor and took it down the hall. The monochrome faded away back to the normal colors of the apartments.

“If you don’t allow me any way of living, then I have no reason to tell you anything if death is- ahh!”

“Sorry, slipped.” Honestly, it had been an accident. Plus, it was only a shallow line across his face. He would recover. Well, I mean…

My body was shivering as if it was cold, but I felt fine. Well, tired and in pain - but otherwise pretty peachy. Too much corruption, but look at the prize we had won. A pretty useless one so far, but the day was young or something. Focus, Eric.

“Joxx’un gave us five names.” I sighed and rubbed at my beard. “I don’t want to go hunting a billion little assholes like you, so if you could tell me who is in charge, or what you’re really up to - that’d be neat.”

“Go fuck yourself!” He spat at me.

I blinked, slowly. Normally I’d consider myself empathetic, perhaps a little gung-ho and pragmatic - maybe even selfish. Currently, I felt empty. Angry, but also the reflection of the void had enveloped my soul.

“One last chance. This is the nice Eric talking.”

[You will much prefer the nice Eric.]

“I said, fuck you!” He growled and writhed on the floor. His patron didn’t care if he lived or died. Neither did I, but I at least had a job to do.

Stumbling, I got up to my aching feet. Why did everything have to ache? “With the power invested in me, I denounce you, Betrayer. Traitor to the mortal realm, I grant you no mercy or reprieve as I remove your stain from existence.”

I drew the revolver with no flourish and took aim towards his feet.