My place of comfort was gradually overlapping with impending doom. There was no desire for it, but just an expectation. It had managed to smooth out my complaints and now I accepted the inevitable blood and drama to come after every short break. Whether this was my destiny trying to ease me into the apocalypse to come, or just the slow descent into the void, I didn’t know. All I could do was survive to suffer the next day.

Standing in the bedroom, I towel-dried my hair. Wight’s insistence to labor me with the next portent of doom before even clearing up after the last one was a buzzkill. Not that I should be feeling particularly buzzed about killing a man in cold blood. Thankfully, the neighbors didn’t seem too bothered about the brief ruckus.

White undershirt. Black shirt. Black slacks. I needed a bit of a wardrobe refresh. Despite the belief that everything fixed itself around here, my leather jackets had decreased in number, and I had to withdraw my own clothes from the drawers. The horror.

I eventually slunk down the stairs after dressing myself. Whatever corruption playing about in my mind all but abated. Somehow I doubted that would last, and I felt awkward in looking forward to the next time spent swirling around in the mania. Perhaps just escapism.

Into the dining room and Rodney was sitting in the recliner, having turned it more toward the window to avoid looking at all the blood soaked into the floor. The table had a splintered hole through it, and was looking like it wanted a second opinion on being part of our family now.

“Rodney, could you help me with clothes shopping soon?”

He tilted his head away from the window to frown at me. “Why, because I’m-“

“Because you’re my only human friend, yeah.” I doubted Wight would be any good, and while Pearl’s choices had been fitting for my work attire, she was currently absent. I needed comfort.

“…okay.” He continued to narrow his eyes at me. “You know you can order everything online these days?”

I stared at him blankly, like a fossil. Some knowledge lurked back there, but I didn’t have the precise tools or the delicate touch to dig around those grooves. I could work a phone, what more could be asked of me?

“Shit, Eric. You’re only in your thirties. I’ll do it for you.” He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “What kind of clothes did you want?”

“Comfortable stuff. Tracksuits, T-shirts… shorts?” Weird how those things felt so alien to me. I clucked my tongue. “Anything else I’ll leave up to your judgement.”

“Joy.” He sunk further into the recliner.

With that crisis now successfully delegated, I turned my attention to the present problem. The bloodstains and murder scene. The clear trail of dark crimson ran from the pool beneath the chair all the way to the basement. Wouldn’t need my magical detective vision for that. I cupped my chin in thought. When was the last time I had to clean blood away?

“I already asked the Org the best way to clean up blood,” the Blank held his tablet up from his lap. “Don’t worry, I told them it was yours. Wight has gone to fetch the stuff from the kitchen.”

I grimaced toward the doorway. Not that I didn’t trust my patron to handle potentially dangerous chemicals, but… oh, it was that, actually. He had scorched the kitchen just making toast, so whatever he-

Wight walked through into the room, holding a chunky yellow jug in both his thin arms.

[This is almost as heavy as the burden of knowing we ended a man’s life here.]

“It’s not that deep, bud.” I reached out and took it from him with a scowl. “It’s rather shallow - like his grave.”

[Ha ha, Eric.]

He said ‘ha ha’ rather than actually laughing, but it struck me as an odd occasion. I tried to remember the last time he had shown amusement, but found nothing as overt as a laugh in my memories.

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“You’ll also need warm water and some scouring brushes. Gloves advised.” Rodney watched us impassively from the comfort of my recliner.

“I’m sure we must have three pairs,” I grinned. “Many hands to do the devil’s work.”

“That’s not…” he sighed and stood up. “You owe me for this, though.”

As much as we were in this mess together, it was solely my fault there was a mess in the house, so I was thankful for his assistance. We spent the better part of a few hours scrubbing and grumbling all the way. Not the best way to spend our time, but it was a team building event, or at least that’s how I tried to paint it.

It gave me plenty of time to think, at least. I certainly no longer trusted the Church, if that’s truly where Isaac had come from. That’s not to say I trusted the Org any more than before, either. Both seemed to want to casually use me for whatever their agendas were, without much respect for my continued existence. At least the Org gave me some power on occasion, although perhaps being already knee deep in their ploys had me trapped, anyway.

The jumbled puzzle pieces still weren’t completely aligned. I know had a better view of what the picture may be, but without the proper connections it was messy and blurred. Org and Church were both intertwined in whatever mess was befalling the mortal plane. Where I had gotten my divine powers from still eluded me, and that was one of the things Rat God said was important for me to know.

“Rodney.” I sat up and stretched my aching back out. “Where do you think our divine power comes from?”

He shrugged, looking too annoyed at the current task at hand to properly formulate any answer to my question.

[Hmm.]

I raised an eye toward Wight, who was now cupping at his beak in thought. There were definitely answers hiding away in the parts of him that were being held back. I could see how trying to claw them back into his brain, as if scraping away at the process would allow the grains of knowledge to filter through.

“Rat God said I need to find out. It will help me keep my balance.” I copied my patron by rubbing my chin in thought.

“What will happen if you don’t keep balance?” Rodney sat back and relaxed against the wall beside the basement stairs.

[Eric runs the risk of losing control to his demonic side.]

He hadn’t mentioned that before. “Oh, is that a thing?”

[Yes. Although the power is yours, it can overtake your humanity if you are too weak.]

Another potential horror to add to the collection, then. Would that mean I then became a demon? I didn’t want to ask in case the answer was yes. But, I’d also be disappointed if the answer was no.

The truth lay somewhere in the middle. I had noticed it, the effects of the second H-Mix, even if nothing untoward had immediately leaped forth. There was now a callousness to me, a cold and uncaring part of me when it came to death. Two humans in one day, and it barely moved my needle. I had watched Wight execute Isaac and then continued to eat my breakfast.

I need the divine to balance my soul out and retain my humanity.

But where would I even begin to look?

[Should we have thrown the Isaac’s jacket into Hell, too?]

Thank you, destiny. I narrowed my eyes at my patron, wondering if he had been reading my mind again - despite knowing that he could do no such thing. Or at least, he told me he could not. “You took it, right? Where did it go?”

[I wasn’t sure of the actual convention behind the act, so I put it inside the grandfather clock.]

I nodded. Flawless logic on both counts. The scene played out in my head - the confused bird-man standing in the hallway clutching at the removed jacket, and then stuffing it inside the small door of the clock. A beaked smile as he considered it a good job done. Such a shame I was busy in the kitchen reading the kill-notice from my detained demon girlfriend and didn't witness it firsthand. What a gathering of sentences.

“Let’s go check that out.” I smiled and rose to my feet, too many joints clicking and muscles stiff from the hard labor.

“We’re like ninety percent done, Eric.” Rodney looked ready for a long sleep. “Can’t we just finish up?”

[I will finish. This is actually rather therapeutic.]

Although I felt the demon had spent far too long with his beak way too close to the chemicals scrubbed into the floor, I wasn’t about to let a potential mystery go unsolved for a moment longer. The Blank considered staying to help Wight out, but being fed up eventually won out over any duty to finish the job.

The rubber gloves snapped off of my hands and I chucked them over to him. I approached the grandfather clock and gave it a brief nod in thanks for holding onto the garment for us. Time was kept, but in looking at it properly for the first time in weeks, it was also incorrect.

Far be it for me to be the one to judge. I instead opened up the door and the black jacket fell to the floor. I kneeled down beside it and immediately went for the inside breast pocket - that’s where all the important things usually went.

I felt around a thick folded piece of paper, almost bring it out straight away - before my fingers touched on something smooth and cold to the touch. Almost like a coin, but thicker.

Slowly, I withdrew the item and held it in the air. It was a disc, no bigger than an inch in diameter - gold, but with gemstones inlaid. On one side, a spiral of white and red alternating colors. On the other side, blue and black alternating stones in a similar spiral.

“Huh,” I said, as the coin began to feel warmer to the touch, and the colors shone more vibrantly.

Rodney took a couple of steps backward.