Like the tide coming to meet the shore, new power always found a way to reach me. Whether or not I wanted it to, it had become an inevitability that I had to get used to. Rather than having to strive and suffer under the thumb of the Org for scraps of potential increase, I was now awash with things greater than my imagining. Didn’t mean I suffered any less, but at least the scope of what kind of suffering I could get myself into had increased. Didn’t matter if I could punch above my weight if I had impact explosives strapped to my fists.

Rodney screwed up his face. “I’m not sure you should be-“

A golden flash illuminated the hallway, scouring shadows away with radiant light. I tried to blink away the blinding blur, and gradually, reality filtered back into my view.

[I did not appreciate that.]

“Yeah.” I squinted down at the odd coin, which now seemed inert. “I am unsure what that did, hopefully nothing terrible.”

“It was divine energy.” The Blank shivered. “I also have no idea what it did, though.”

Other than work as a flash-bang grenade, which could have some uses in Hell, I imagined. There must be more to it than that, however. Rather than invoke any further ire from the object, I placed it carefully on the floor beside the jacket, and this time removed the pieces of paper from the pocket.

With a sigh, I sat on the floor, barely managing to cross my legs. You’d think with all this power it’d make me limber enough that I could keep up with the younger Hunters. Or at least not click so much when I tried to walk about. I unfolded the first one.

“What does it say?” Rodney sat on the floor too, and even Wight began to pad over to us, having been disturbed by the light.

“It’s a letter from Pearl. It says that the first letter to kill Isaac was just a decoy should the envelope become compromised, and to trust him fully. He is paramount to fighting back Hell and saving the world.” I slowly looked up from the page to the pair.

Rodney paled and couldn’t get any words out. Wight looked less impressed.

[Do not play with our emotions, Eric.]

“You’re right." I grinned and pushed my glasses up, inadvertently activating Detect. “Just bullshitting you both.”

The Blank deflated and held his face. Hopefully to hide his smile and not because his brain threatened to burst out from his eye sockets.

“It’s just my name and our address, says I’m what the Church types are looking for - it’s from Pearl but in normal-people ink.” So, just pen, then. I shuffled that part of information onto the jacket to look at the next.

This one was a little more interesting, and I furrowed my brow as my eyes scanned across it. “Well, what do you know? Handy for the Church to put their whole script down in writing. Perhaps they didn’t trust Isaac to go with his gut?”

They both eyed me up as if I was about to play another trick on them - I suppose I shouldn’t cry wolf. I waved my hand to brush their frowns away, to show them I was being serious.

“The coin here is a minor artefact and is said to react to certain divine energy in a person. It is supposed to glow…” I tilted my head and picked the golden thing back up, before flipping it towards the Blank.

He caught it, briefly surprised to have it catapulted his way - but as he held it, it almost immediately glowed a radiant light - before fading after a few seconds.

“It didn’t explode for me,” the Blank murmured, before flipping it back.

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“Maybe it’s just tired. I obviously just used all the power in it.” I grinned and held it up to observe it again. It was remarkably pretty and well made-

A golden flash illuminated the hallway again.

[That is unpleasant.]

“Yeah,” I said, trying to blink away the blindness again. “Let’s put that away for now. They wanted to test that I wasn’t lying about the whole Lantern thing, I suppose. Knowing I have that power doesn’t make it any more accessible, though.”

“Anything else less damaging to our retinas?”

“Hotel and fuel receipts, perhaps this trip was a claimable expense for him.” I went around the other pockets to find little of use - other than in a small hidden pocket on the inside lining that my errant Detect had picked up. Saving the best for last.

I retrieved the object, the other two recoiling away from whatever I was about to assail them with. “It’s a key,” I said, holding out a key. The top was blue and had a pale stone set into it, but other than the slight aesthetic improvement, it looked relatively basic.

[You can use it to open something.]

“That is generally how keys work.” I frowned at my patron. We had been spending a lot of time not getting beaten up in Hell and it was wearing on me. “But we need to know what it goes to.”

[It goes to a door.]

I stared at Wight blankly. “There’s a lot of those around.” It was hard to tell if he was doing a bit or was having a moment of abstraction where he didn’t understand basic things.

[No, it is what the Church use instead of portals.]

The key rotated in my fingers as I tried to gauge how likely that was. More importantly, how did he know this? I raised an eyebrow at Rodney to get his take on the matter.

“Uh, based on what you said, their plans would be… my assumption would be that after confirming you were the Lantern, they would want to take you to their… shrine, as soon as possible.”

“So, we have a teleport for a Church stronghold, basically.” I grasped it and stowed it away in my pocket. Not somewhere I was keen to be, especially if they were looking for a way to sacrifice me.

[A place we would not be very welcome.]

I nodded. “Tell you where would be a nice holiday, though - the Lowers!” With a groan, I survived the journey to getting back onto my feet. Battles hard fought were always the ones you savored. “Let’s take your patron out for a spin and see what the dangerous three-point-five can do.”

[Am I the point five?]

“No, Wight.” I frowned and helped Rodney off the floor. “Passage is, as they are new and only Rods can hear him.”

[What does he sound like, the Rodney?]

“Just like… a demon, I guess.” He wrinkled up his face. “Kinda evil, but not as impassive as you.”

Wight nodded, but didn’t prod any further, apparently satisfied enough with the vague answer. I was just glad I didn’t have to hear the voice of the new demon in my head. Insanity was only a short jump away some days.

After Rodney gathered his tech and I affixed my weapons, I put on my hat and jacket. We headed down into the basement, our cleaning almost complete enough that we could ignore the final parts of it.

I stood, spinning the revolver, while my patron mimicked me with his knife. The Blank got everything in place and then tapped his runic earring. It glowed a bright blue and remained slightly pulsing with light.

“Alright,” he eventually nodded to us, “ready for the brief?”

We both nodded back, and I gestured for him to continue, slightly amused at the whole process now that he had a voice in his head too. Although my voice was the only one currently in my head… I counted my teeth with my tongue.

Rodney cleared his throat. “It’s a simple search and destroy mission. There’s a demon holed up that the Org wants dead. There will be plenty of hostiles, so we will have to confirm we actually get the target.”

“That’s where the new guy helps out?”

“Correct. Passage is able to recognize demons known to the Org.”

I nodded and smile at Wight. Although I had been a grouch about it at first, his decision to have the Org give me a Blank for fighting the pigmen has worked out pretty well in the long run. My smile faded as I tried to remember why the pigs had tried to assassinate me, or rather, how they even managed to teleport to my location - and only sent a handful to kill me.

The portal spooled up, illuminating the basement in a dull red. Perhaps water far below the bridge now. I shouldn’t be stepping on the toes of the past when the future had plenty of space for me to stomp about in.

“What kind of demons are they?”

“Just devils, so nothing that should put a scratch on you.” He smiled at me, the look in his eyes telling me that he was fully prepared for me to come sliding back out on a wave of my own blood and broken bones. Perhaps I was projecting.

“And the target?”

“Goes by the name Dreba. Scar across his left eye, braided goatee, seems to like the color yellow.”

I clicked my fingers. “Perfect. Anything else I need to know?”

“Org has deemed it open house, so any collateral is fine as long as the target is deceased by the end.”

A wide grin spread across my face. Perfection.

“They see this as far below you, so if the target escapes or you fail… it will set you back.” He raised an eyebrow, as if knowing this may tempt fate to deal something untoward my way.

In fact, it was now all but guaranteed.