A long time ago:

“In God’s name, I deny you!” Horatius cried at the top of his voice, holding his crucifix out before him. “Back, fiend of the infernal! Back, creature of damnation! Back!”

Sadea was on her hands and knees, bleeding from her eyes, nose, and ears. The dirt floor of the cave lair they’d assaulted seemed to writhe and shimmer between her fingers, as if reality itself no longer knew what it was. Through her red-rimmed vision, she saw the man who’d raised and cared for her face off against what appeared to be a shimmering sphere of blue light.

A greater demon. Sadea groaned. The Selenean cultists they’d attacked had actually succeeded in conjuring a greater demon to the material realm. Whereupon the ethereal entity had drained all its devotees of their blood and cast their lifeless husks aside.

The demon chuckled, its feminine voice resonating directly in Sadea’s mind.

I see. A man of faith, and his little killers. Adorable, it said, reaching out toward Horatius. Its physical form stabilized slightly, coalescing into a vague humanoid mimicry suffused with blue luminescence.

The doctor stood his ground, keeping his crucifix as steady and level as his trembling arm would allow. The demon reached a glowing limb out to the cross of blessed silver, only to pull back with an annoyed hiss.

Pure, true faith. How rare it truly is. Oh, the wondrous torments I have in mind for you.

“Sadea, get Arjun, and run. Leave this place!” Horatius said. “Find Father Diocletius, and tell him what happened.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll hold this fiend in place.” Horatius grimaced, evidently feeling the brush of the demon’s mind against his. “Quickly! Go!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Sadea retrieved her war-staff and pushed herself to her feet. “Let me try again! I’ll kill it this time!”

You’re strong, little one, the demon said in a voice laden with grotesque, sultry silkiness, but not strong enough. You’d do well to take the advice of your mentor here. Pick up the boy, and give the good doctor and I some privacy.

Arjun groaned, behind her. He was climbing to his feet as well, his face bloody. They’d blasted the demon with fire and lightning, but their efforts had done nothing but seemingly annoy it. With a wave of its hand, the demon had pinched Arjun’s flames out of existence and reduced Sadea’s electricity into harmless static, sending the two of them reeling and bleeding from the psychic backlash.

Call me Luna, a sliver of Selene, Goddess of the Blood Moon.The demon stretched its arms languidly before the doctor. We will get to know each other so, so well, Horatius.

“Doctor!” Arjun gasped. Sadea could sense him trying to pull his flames from the Ethereal Tides, but like her, he was too badly hurt.

“Go, the both of you. Walk in God’s grace.” Horatius looked over his shoulder and smiled. “And know, that in this life and the next, I will always love you, my children.”

“No!” Sadea staggered forward. If she couldn’t call on her lightning, then she’d beat the demon to death with her war-staff.

“Sadea!” Arjun caught her by the waist and began pulling her back. Though they were equals in psychic might, he was roughly a foot taller than her and outweighed her by almost sixty pounds. “We… we have to obey the doctor! We… we have to go.”

Bye, little ones. When I’m done with Horatius, I’ve no doubt we’ll have some fun together too. The demon waved mockingly at them.

“Back!” Horatius demanded, placing himself and his crucifix squarely between them and the demon.

“No!” Sadea kicked and fought, but she couldn’t stop Arjun from dragging her out, out of the cave, through its winding tunnels, and away from Horatius. The last sight she had of him still alive was his final, backward glance, his time-weathered, kindly features aglow in the demon’s light.

She didn’t know how long Arjun dragged her through the darkness, whispering apologies with every labored breath. Sadea wept harder than she’d ever wept before, as if she would never stop.

And then she heard it. Arjun heard it, too.

Horatius screaming. His unthinkable agony. Echoing through the tunnels. Sadea didn’t even know that someone could hurt so badly.

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It was enough to make Arjun stop and his unfaltering obedience to Horatius waver, for the first time in his life.

And before she knew what she was doing, Sadea was running, back through the darkness, back toward the doctor. As she ran, she reached deep within her soul and found one last spark of lightning. She fed it, bringing it to life in her left fist.

Arjun followed her, and she could sense him struggling to bring his flames back to life. Fiery flickers danced at his fingertips, and when she glanced back over her shoulder at him, she saw his face locked into a rictus of pain, fear, and rage.

As they emerged into the cavern once more, the demon looked up. Sliding its fangs out from the doctor’s neck, it chuckled and tossed his desiccated corpse aside.

Couldn’t wait for your turn, little ones? No matter. Come, let’s play, it said. I shall show you such terrifying delights, such exquisite pain.

“Die, fiend!” Arjun roared, thrusting his war-staff forward. Flames poured from its diamond head, but they petered out and died before they reached the demon’s luminous form.

Didn’t I already tell you my name? It’s Luna. Don’t be rude, now. The demon waved a shimmering limb, and a massive, irresistible telekinetic wave swept Arjun off his feet and smashed him against a cave wall.

Blood burst from his mouth. Bones snapped within his body to the sound of crisp, brittle cracks and wet, ugly crunches. As his body peeled from its point of impact against a bed of jagged rock, Arjun slumped limply into a wheezing, broken pile.

Sadea screamed wordlessly as she charged. Lightning snaked out from the head of her war-staff, but none of it even touched the demon, coming no closer than several inches away from its glowing face. It laughed and seized her by the throat. Her flesh burned beneath its touch. Her cry of rage turned into one of pain as the demon pushed its way into her mind.

She didn’t know where the inspiration came from. Perhaps it was from something Horatius once mentioned, about how the unholy and the unclean feared the righteous and unwavering soul. Sadea had never considered herself particularly righteous, but at this moment, desperate to avenge the man who’d raised her and to defend the man who loved her, she could never be more unwavering.

Instead of drawing upon her connection to the Ethereal Tides, Sadea tore off a portion of her very soul and infused it into the sapphire atop Arjun’s wedding ring. A lance of incandescent blue-white lightning burst from her left fist.

She rammed it into the demon’s midriff. It shrieked, the first time it had shown even the slightest hint of distress. Then it hurled Sadea away.

She hit the dirt of the cave floor hard, feeling something break inside her. Gasping in pain and reeling from exhaustion, Sadea tried to pick herself up, but the best she could do was rise to her hands and knees, glaring up at the demon as it loomed over her.

A woman’s face emerged from the shimmering sphere of light that served as the demon’s head. Sadea blinked as she recognized its features: the round eyes, button nose, and thick, full lips. It was her face. The demon was now wearing her face.

I’m impressed. That actually hurt, you know? The demon grinned. Sadea, was it? I’ll remember your name. You’ve earned that much, at least.

The lance of lightning jutting from its body sank deeper, slowly melding into the demon before Sadea’s eyes. As it did so, the demon’s form became more pronounced and solid. Its limbs and torso, once comprised of vague blue light, solidified into naked, dusky brown flesh the same hue as Sadea’s complexion.

Still, I have you to thank for this. Anchoring me to the material realm with a piece of your soul? How generous of you. I won’t turn such a gift down. The demon’s voice became one of flesh. “Of course, in doing so, you’ve caused me a lot of pain and weakened me quite considerably, too. But the tradeoff is worth it, I’d say, being able to eat and drink…”

It waved, and aloft on telekinetic chains, Arjun’s broken body rose and drifted forward, coming to a hovering stop between Sadea and the demon.

“And to enjoy all the pleasures of the flesh…” it continued, trailing a finger down Arjun’s cheek, parting his skin and drawing blood as it did so. Arjun groaned in pain and struggled futilely against his invisible bindings.

“Let him go!” Sadea demanded.

“No, oh no.” The demon smiled with Sadea’s lips. “I don’t think I will.”

It gestured again, and Arjun’s wedding ring flew from Sadea’s finger and into its grasp. “Pretty. Not quite my style, though. Can’t say I like it very much.”

As Sadea watched, the demon held the ring in midair with its mind and began uncoiling the intricate threads of gold, platinum, and copper. It flung the copper dismissively at Sadea. “Ugh. Cheap, useless garbage.”

Then it fashioned the gold and platinum into twin needles, which it floated to either side of Arjun’s temples. Arjun gasped, his features pallid with pain and terror.

“No, no. Sadea. Help me,” he pleaded. “Don’t let it…”

The needles pierced his flesh. He shrieked in agony as they pushed slowly, inexorably through his skull. By the time they had to have reached his brain, he was convulsing and foaming at the mouth.

“Oh, hush,” the demon said, sneering at Sadea’s screams. “It’s for his own good. You’ll see.”

Arjun’s broken limbs righted themselves, and his flesh, rent apart by the jagged shards of his shattered bones, began to knit together. Within moments, Arjun’s body was whole once more, completely healed.

The demon released him from his telekinetic bonds, lowering him to stand before Sadea. She recoiled as he opened his eyes. The left was wholly gold, devoid of iris. The right was the same, only ablaze with a platinum gleam. He turned to the demon.

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“Who are you? Who am I?” he asked.

The demon chuckled. “I’m Luna. And you’re my champion and lover, Arjun.”

It kissed him with Sadea’s lips, and to her horror, Arjun returned the demon’s embrace. After many horrifying moments during which Sadea could only stare in silent helplessness, Arjun turned to her.

“What about this one? Should I kill it?”

“No, that’s not necessary, my love,” the demon said. “But I’d like you to hurt it, just a little bit, and then we can be on our way. So much to see, so much to do. Oh, how I love the material realm! It’s been thousands of years since my last visit!”

“Arjun?” Sadea whispered as he approached her. “I…”

The last thing she was his fist flying toward her face.