“You… what?” Leona blinked. Words escaped her. “Are you trying to tell me you… physically entered the Ethereal Tides? And emerged unscathed?”

Raksha shrugged. “Yes.”

Leona massaged her aching temples. She must have repeated that act at least a dozen times over the last hour. Her analytical augmentations detected no trace of falsehood from Sadea and Raksha’s accounts, but what they were saying was impossible.

The Ethereal Tides were an immaterial realm, a dimension comprised of the psychic energy embodied by the souls of living things in the material realm. Or perhaps the causality ran the other way. It was an ongoing debate among the Hegemony’s theologians, one that Leona didn’t care to visit, not with a province in ruins, her army in tatters, and her head pounding with agonizing fatigue.

Over the millennia, Hegemonic researchers have conducted countless experiments in which they hurled living test subjects into the Ethereal Tides. Every single one they could retrieve ended up riddled with demonic possession. After a particularly notorious disaster known as the Lazentian crisis, the Church had outlawed all such research into the Ethereal Tides.

Yet here, these two, a transient warrior and a decommissioned Church asset, were telling her that they’d accomplished the impossible?

“They are free from demonic taint, Great Lady,” Stefka interjected. “Father Lucretius conducted the scans personally, and the results were then independently verified by Sister Beatrice from Father Diocletius’s staff.”

“I know that, Operative Stefka,” Leona growled. “I ordered those scans myself.”

She cast her regard past Raksha’s stoic, stone-faced features and Sadea’s poor attempt at concealing her anxiety with a rictus-like smile. Her gaze fell on Viktoria Stefka, perched on the edge of her stool at the corner of the room.

The necromancer kept her expression neutral, but the extra micron of sweat on her skin and the slight erratic nature of her pulse showed her concern for Sadea. Leona sighed inwardly. According to records both official and unofficial, the two had been friends for more than a decade and had fought side-by-side on many occasions. Of course Stefka would endeavor to minimize the effects of Sadea’s self-sabotaging tendencies.

“Fine. Let’s say that I believe you. How did you survive your journey through the Ethereal Tides?” Leona asked Sadea.

“In all honesty, I wasn’t sure that we would.” Sadea nudged Raksha with her elbow. “But the moron’s aegis made us untouchable by the lesser demons, and by the time the more powerful ones took notice, we’d already reemerged into the material realm.”

“What she said,” Raksha grunted. “I don’t really get it.”

“Eyewitness accounts indicate that you emerged from a dimensional rift in front of the mortuary gates, where a pitched battle had been going on.” Leona tapped a page of her notes with the back of her pen.

“That’s right! And we—“ Sadea began.

“Enough,” Leona cut her off. She looked up and met Stefka’s gaze. “Operative. I want to hear your testimonial regarding the events onward from this point in the timeline.”

The necromancer nodded. “By your will, Great Lady.”

**

Viktoria had named her flesh golems Vasil and Vuk, though she knew she wasn’t actually supposed to. In life, they’d been heretics, convicted and put to death as such. In death, their penance now took the form of unleashing God’s wrath on those deserving, under her direction, of course.

Vuk was at the forefront, sword flashing and shield flying as he cut down corpse after corpse. Wielding a drum-fed submachine gun in each fist, Vasil swept his brother’s flanks with hollow-point rounds, prioritizing the ghouls over the corpses.

The gates had broken down nearly forty minutes ago, and Viktoria had been fighting ever since, directing Vuk’s swordplay and filling Vasil’s optical shunt with targeting vectors.

But she didn’t fight alone. A mercenary warband fought alongside her, led by a craggy warrior who named Avitus Balbinus. They called themselves the Stammerers, a tongue-in-cheek play on their leader’s name, but they’d proven themselves more than competent, so far.

Avitus himself poured bursts of fire from a tripod-mounted machinegun, carefully controlling his sweep of bullets to corral and contain the tide of undead flesh pouring from the mortuary gates. All the while, he bellowed orders to his warriors over their own pre-established psy-comms link.

Another warrior fed Avitus’s weapon with bullet belts drawn from neatly stacked ammo boxes. Six others, one a sorcerer of some undefined Discipline, had paired up and established similar positions, all covering the mortuary gates. They didn’t have heavy weapons like Avitus, but they shot and reloaded in turns, keeping up a steady stream of fire.

One of them was a martial scientist. Clad in dull-brown leather armor, the pale and slender woman fought alongside Vuk, cleaving corpse and ghoul asunder with her sword.

The remaining member of the Stammerers was also a martial scientist, a lean gangly man whose frame was festooned with pouches and bandolier belts. He leaped, spun, and hurtled across the battlefield, grenades and stick-bombs cascading from his fingers to tear the undead apart.

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It wasn’t enough. The enemy’s sheer numbers had forced them to fall back thrice already. The corpse and ghouls were acquiring more and more of a foothold beyond the mortuary, and before long, they would be in amongst the town itself.

“Hey, lady!” Avitus called. “We’re running low on ammo. At this rate, we’ve got enough to hold for maybe another five minutes at most, and then we need to think about getting out.”

“I’ll take those five minutes!” Viktoria replied. She reached out once more to Sadea, hoping for an update. The twenty minutes she’d given them had passed a while ago.

To her horror, the psy-comms link had been severed. Not gone inert. Severed. That could mean only one thing. Sadea and Raksha had failed. And if Viktoria waited long enough, there was a chance she’d see them emerge from the mortuary as twisted, unliving parodies of themselves.

Viktoria turned to Avitus, ready to give him the order to withdraw, but the mercenary leader had already begun shouting something to her, while pointing toward the gates.

“What the hell is that? What are they doing?” he asked.

Viktoria looked where he pointed. A corpse emerging from the gates was holding a severed head aloft. The head’s empty eye-sockets blazed with black light. It took her less than a heartbeat to recognize the corpse-gray features.

“Chief Erban!” Viktoria gasped. The local chief’s head was being paraded amidst a sea of heaving carrion, and she didn’t understand why.

As ghouls and corpses moved to cluster around Erban’s head, its purpose became blindingly obvious. It was a metaphysical beacon with which the demon could bypass the mortuary’s wards.

“Destroy that thing!” she ordered. “Now!”

Vasil strafed Erban’s head with bullets, but his gunfire was absorbed by a wall of corpses that was now beginning to form in front of his target. Vuk was unable to advance, so embroiled in melee he was. Most of the Stammerers were in no position to obey, either, too preoccupied in holding back the swarm of undead.

Corpses swarmed before and under Erban’s skull. As Viktoria watched, their limbs twisted and wove together, fusing their decaying flesh into a single mass. That mass soon began to take on a more defined form.

First, a massive torso congealed into existence beneath Erban’s head.

Then, limbs sprouted from oversized shoulders.

Within moments, a gigantic construct of fused corpses rose to its feet, seven times taller than a full-grown man, its bulk making a dwarfish mockery of Erban’s severed head perched on its shoulders.

“Yeah, we’re screwed,” Avitus said, and Viktoria could only agree.

A dimensional rift opened above Erban’s brow, and a disembodied eye emerged from its seething depths. The sheer amount of unsanctioned necromantic energies radiating from the eye nearly bowled Viktoria over.

This could only be the demon that Sadea had mentioned. Avitus was right. They were screwed. The day was lost, and Viktoria didn’t even know if she could withdraw from battle safely.

To make matters worse, Vasil and Vuk suddenly stopped responding to her commands. The golems turned jerkily from the battle and looked at her with sewn-shut eye-sockets.

Her worst fears had unfolded. The demon had seized control of her flesh golems. Vasil pointed his submachine guns at her and pulled the triggers. The weapons clicked emptily. The golem ejected the magazines with mechanical precision and began reloading his guns. All the while, Vuk stalked toward her, sword raised, the corpses and ghouls having stopped attacking him some time ago.

Viktoria raised her pistol and shot Vasil in the head, but the small caliber round glanced harmlessly off the golem’s armored skull.

Vasil slid his magazines home, racked his guns, and raised them.

Sadea and Raksha burst from the dimensional rift behind the demon. A stream of lightning connected the martial scientist’s sword to the demon.

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The eye widened in shocked horror that was only too human. Raksha bisected it down its length. The demon loosed a psychic scream of pure agony that drove Viktoria to her knees and rendered the Stammerers’ sorcerer unconscious.

Cobalt lightning streamed from Sadea’s staff to disintegrate the demon’s halves.

And then many things happened very quickly.

The gigantic construct of fused corpses began falling apart. Carrion chunks cascaded to the ground.

The corpses and ghouls collapsed like puppets with cut strings, as did Vasil and Vuk.

With Sadea perched on his back, Raksha landed in front of Viktoria, sword out. The pair looked battered and exhausted, but triumphant.

“We did it, Vicky!” Sadea shouted, getting off Raksha and running forward. Before Viktoria could stop her, the sorceress swept her up in an embrace and futilely tried to spin her around, even though she was much shorter.

“Stop that! And don’t call me Vicky!” the necromancer demanded, pushing Sadea away. “What the hell happened down there?”

“Long story, but I’ll tell you if you buy me dinner. And pay for my room and board. And my laundry bill. Also, settle my drinks tab.”

“Absolutely not! I—“

A bloodcurdling shriek split the air. Viktoria’s gaze flew to its source, as did Sadea and Raksha.

It was the Stammerers’ sword-wielding martial scientist. She was holding her blade high. Her dark eyes blazed with fury.

And she was looking at Raksha.

“Raksha!” she shrieked. “I’ve finally found you! Today, I will slay you and regain my honor!”

Sadea looked quizzically at Raksha, but the martial scientist shrugged and shuffled his feet uneasily before turning to the woman.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “It’s you. How’s it going?”

“Ming Yu!” Avitus bellowed. “What are you doing? Put that sword away, right now!”

But the martial scientist named Ming Yu was already beyond reason. She charged, closing the distance faster than Viktoria’s eyes could follow. Her sword flashed.

Sadea hit Ming Yu with a tendril of lightning. The martial scientist screamed and convulsed. Her sword fell from her spasming grasp.

Raksha punched her across the jaw. The crisp sound of breaking bone rose into the air. Ming Yu fell, insensate, but Raksha caught her by the collar before she could bounce her skull off the ground.

He winced as he lowered her comatose form to the dirt. “Ah. Didn’t mean to hit her that hard. Oh well.”

“…a friend of yours, idiot?” Sadea asked.

“No.” Raksha shrugged again. “She tried to stab me in the spine, once. Then she tried to kill me two other times, at least, I think, not counting today.”

“Ooh, what’s up with that? She was screaming something about honor just now. What did you do to her?”

“Why are you assuming I did something to her? I—“

But Sadea wasn’t about to be deterred. “Did you lavish promises of love to her and then abandon her? Did you, oh my, do scandalous things to her that she could not resist? Maybe you—“

Hoofs hammered against the ground. A troop of heavy cavalry pulled into view. A woman rode in the lead. Her hair was golden, luxuriously curled. She wore a black stormcoat, adorned with medals and rank pins.

The woman cantered her horse to Viktoria, Sadea, and Raksha.

“Speak,” Leona of House Belisarius, interim governor of province #CEN-913 and Hegemonic Lord demanded.

“Ah, shit,” Raksha said.

“What?” Sadea demanded.

“I think we forgot something.”

The mortuary imploded, stone falling amidst rivers of molten steel.

“Arrest them,” Leona ordered.