I managed to hit some more sleep in between Wight and true morning. By this time, they considered I had recovered well enough from whatever corruption might still linger within me. Getting out of those straps was a welcome relief, even though I was sure that in due course I would wish to still have that amount of restraint and safety holding me together.

The mood in the kitchen was… tense.

I stood, leaning against the counter with a hot coffee in my hand, just letting the steam cloud up my glasses. A sip of it was divine, then I went back to just existing for a moment longer.

Pearl still held some annoyance at what I had gotten up to, or perhaps just apprehension for the future with how violently I shunted us along the timeline. Rodney and David sat side by side, looking as pale and withdrawn as each other - although if it was a competition, then the Church guy would be winning. I was somewhat surprised he had taken the spare room, but perhaps after what he had seen… and seen me do… this was the safest place to sleep.

Out of all of us, Wight seemed the most normal. Which was saying a lot. A stoic calmness to him, although I could tell he was a little run down after yesterday as well. Just the way his feathers were preened, and how slowly his eyes went over the newspaper. Plus, the fact that he was pretending to read the newspaper.

“Alright.” I sighed and placed the mug down at the side. “I know we’re all feeling like shit today, so we’ll put it to a vote. We going to Hell today, or just living on our own?”

I was met with a chorus of grumbles, although Pearl seemed to have something worth saying at a decent volume.

“We’re at the stage where we need to burn the candle from both ends. I can get us performance drugs, if that is what it takes.”

While I… My eyes narrowed. “What kind are we talking?”

“Eric.” Rodney scowled at me. “No, I am fine to go this morning. Maybe the Org can pay for me to get a therapist before we kill them all.”

“Or they kill us,” David murmured. He raised his head and caught my look. “Ah. I’ll stick around. Despite how horrifying yesterday was, I feel as though I have purpose here.”

I smiled. “Better than shuffling dusty paperwork back at the Church?”

“I wouldn’t say better. More impactful, maybe.” He flared out his nostrils and deflated.

Not even a coffee could fix these sad faces. For some reason, seeing them miserable just gave me more energy - now I felt even more ready for the day ahead. I turned to my patron and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re ready for anything, right?”

[I cannot wait.]

Perfect. He delivered the line too flat to read into any potential sarcasm, so I took it at face value. “Let’s reconvene in, say… half an hour? Get this show on the road?” My wide grin didn’t seem to perk them up.

“Fine.” Rodney sighed. “Could do with a shower. David, you can borrow a change of clothes if you didn’t bring spares? You look like you’d fit.”

“Sure. Sounds better than soaking in the same stink for another day.”

I’d say this - whatever emotional exhaustion the last day had brought had erased any nerves the pair had when communicating with each other. Something about me tearing demons apart seemed to bring people together.

The pair left the table, too tired to do more than murmur at the rest of us.

[While the divine pair refresh themselves, I will go polish my shotgun.]

I narrowed my eyes at the bird-demon as he stood from the table and padded off into the hallway. Before I had the chance to make a comment about his unintended use of language, Pearl was right before me. She leaned in for a hug, pressing herself against me.

“I was hard on the others, but are you okay? We can take things easy if you need it.”

My arms wrapped around her, and I relaxed. “I feel calm. A little emotionally empty, perhaps, and my body aches. But I’ve had plenty worse.”

“Don’t need more time in the safe room?”

I grunted, appalled at the thought. “Let’s strap you down and see how you like it.”

The demon moved away slightly to look me in the face. Her radiant eyes narrowed as she bit her lip. “Our first day working together officially. Focus on the job and impress me in the field, then we’ll talk… bedroom activities.”

“Oh, the way you said that. So salacious.” We exchanged a slow kiss. “You have some kind of power suppression, correct?”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Her hug slid away, and she took a step back, eyebrow raised. “That’s correct. It’s one of the abilities an Executioner has. It will be useful for us. I’m not sure if they know I am tied to you as the Lantern now, but they won’t be able to track me to find you.”

I nodded. “If you didn’t have the suppression?”

“You would probably have been a melted pile of flesh by the third time we met.” She shrugged. “No option to resist my charms or build the rapport that we did.”

In a way, we were the perfect match for one another. She was able to mask herself to my level, and I was able to power myself up to hers. We still both wavered in the middle until I could catch up to her peak.

“I hope one day I can endure you at your fullest.”

She gave me a soft smile. “If anyone can, it’ll be you, Eric. Assuming we don’t die in the near future, I can see it happening.”

It was a big thing to assume. For a while, I had been operating with the understanding that whatever destiny had in store for me would also be my demise. I was a tool for a specific purpose, and the Lantern would be snuffed out once the daytime rolled around. Still, I wasn’t dead yet, and I’d grab hold of any joy in my living state that I could. Speaking of which…

“Shower?”

Pearl didn’t respond, but her smile continued. She held my hand and led me toward the stairs.

----------------------------------------

I sat on the bed in my underwear. Clean and mostly dry. A pain vibrated through my arm and I willed it to stop. It was stubborn and didn’t care about my view on things.

Pearl was kneeling on the floor in front of me, also in her underwear. While it was usually a situation that would be full to the brim with playful looks and wandering hands, there was nothing but clinical concern on her face, and annoyance over my injury on my own. That said, I still got an eyeful between glaring at the sight of my wound.

“Helfire blade. Green ones are fuckers,” she murmured to herself, as her narrowed glare inspected me.

“Like, necrosis or poison?”

“Yeah. Destroys things like a cancer. If your regeneration was any weaker, you’d have lost the arm, permanently. Bringing such a weapon to the Lowers is…” she tutted and shook her head.

“There are rules against that kind of thing?” I gasped as she prodded the dark wound with a finger.

“Not exactly. It’s like… you already know Higher demons don’t mess with the Mids, so the Lowers are even more beneath them. It’s like if you went to a daycare and started punching infants.”

“Ah, I see.” Perhaps for the tournament, it was akin to a professional player going and dunking on the little leagues. They couldn’t exactly turn him away with the power he held.

Pearl sighed and stood up, putting her hands on her hips. “Hubris is the downfall of many. Beckett will be lucky to have gotten away with a banishment.”

Death or some other worse punishment sounded likely to me. Not only had he been caught with his pants down meddling in the filth in the Lowers, but giving away important secrets would be enough to earn the ire of even the most patient of demons.

I watched her walk away from me to go get dressed. “Wight said we were safe in the house?”

“I pulled some strings.” She looked over her shoulder at me, her silver-white hair falling across her back like a tidal wave. “Increased security, made us essentially undetectable to demons.”

“No Higher goons dropping in for an impromptu chat over coffee then?” She needn’t say it, but I assumed she went to Frank for these boons. Their relationship seemed to be cordial enough, even if demons weren’t usually close to family. Helping her despite her banishment was something not done lightly either.

“Very few have the power to just walk in here uncontested. In that instance, you’d see even me shaking in my boots.” She shook her head and pulled on a white shirt.

I supposed I should get ready too.

----------------------------------------

It wasn’t too long before we were all gathered in the basement. Under strict instruction to take it easy with my arm, I couldn’t wait to completely ruin myself in opposition to the advice. Natural order of things.

David looked a little odd in some of the Blank’s attire. He was slightly taller and slimmer, but he seemed thankful enough to have a wash and clean outfit. Rodney himself had a calm demeanor about him, seen too much already for my bad times to still affect him. Turning into a demon was something a little out there - I could admit that. But even the cautious Church man hadn’t given me so much as a side-eye to see if I was still evil.

Now in her full battle gear with sword at her side, Pearl had opted to wear the matching cowboy hat. While it had looked like nothing more than a playful jab on our visit to the prison, now it was something that comforted me. We were a pair in more ways than one. My belt now sported three of the holy candles, which I couldn’t wait to use. Wight had his shotgun, and we both had our knives each.

“Alright, Rods.” I tried to keep composed and not grin at the prospect… we were going to the Mids. “Brief us. Some monster hunting by the rim, right?”

He shook his head as his device illuminated his face in light blue. “Surprisingly not. They want you in for something with more nuance.”

I grimaced at that. Nuance usually meant some kind of bullshit test. My nerves were already on edge about what the Mids might bring… having something more finicky than blowing holes in some kind of abomination was testing my limits.

“A warehouse district,” he continued. “There’s a group of demons who are running a possession ring, and the Org wants it stopped.”

Pearl caught our confused looks. “Some rituals can allow a Mids demon to possess someone on the mortal plane. Although there are several ways of freeing the individual on this side, destroying the group responsible will prevent more from happening.”

“How much subtlety do we need to use?” I idly tapped on my holster, only a brief amount of pain radiating in my arm.

Rodney exhaled through his nose. “They don’t want anyone to escape. Read into that how you wish.”

Kill them quick, or get the jump on them. “Will we be watched?”

“No. Which is… surprising.”

I raised an eyebrow at Pearl, and she shrugged.

[They will require reports as soon as we have completed the Quest. As long as we get results, they will not pry.]

With so few Hunters in the Mids, I expected them to keep a close eye on us all. I’d given up thinking there was anything normal or consistent with their actions. Knowing where they were added fuel to my indifference. The question of whether they were complicit or in danger didn’t seem to budge the dial.

We were all so eager to breach into this new world as a team that we didn’t stop to consider what our next action should really be. The tangled lines of our investigation into the bigger picture of what the demons were planning, or what was truly going on inside the walls of the Org.

But for today, it wouldn’t matter.

Our first portal to the Mids spooled up, painting the basement in an odd greenish hue.

With little more than a nod to my companions, I stepped forth into a new Hell.