Letting my strigoi side channel Mimir's power to keep our mind, body and soul stable, I turned my attention outwards. It couldn't spend all of this...fight, I supposed, talking to myself, for all that time didn't pass in our mindscape. It had  offered to, but I had a feeling it had been overestimating itself.

So, instead, I focused on my body, which was healing as fast as it fell apart. It was hard to tell if I was withering anymore, what with the Blackness erasing fist-sized chunks of flesh everywhere it pressed against me, so I tried to put that out of my mind. The constant cycle of soul-searing pain, followed by something like a combination of relaxation and being doused in cold water-the healing, I thought-almost made me dizzy. I morbidly wondered what would happen if I lost part of my head to the blackness. Had my strigoi side become skilled enough to save us from that before we died.

Also...

Why does the Blackness hide our hunger from us? I asked it.

You imply it is intentional. I can't believe I'm saying this, but don't assume the worst.

So, it's not trying to?

David, the Blackness would be stupid if it could even think. It's a part of Chernobog, but not his brain. Right now, it's doing the equivalent of a sleeping human's hand trying to slap a fly down.

Then its sheer power must have been filling our mind, because I couldn't feel my hunger.

How long until Chernobog arrives, or otherwise intervenes?

Hard to...nmfh...tell. I daren't turn my eyes to the future. It's all I can do to focus on the present. Haven't hurt like this in...

It, understandably, trailed off, unable to make a good comparison. I didn't remember ever hurting so much, either, but that was good.

Pain meant I wasn't dead. Pain meant my mind was mine.

Well, I thought. Let's get his attention, then.

You want that?

We both know it's going to happen, sooner or later. Might as well rip off the band-aid.

Feh...impatient, aren't we? What are you planning, David?

I'll tell you if you answer me this: why did you always call me 'human' up to this point, and what made you change your mind right now?

Maybe I just don't want to die without doing it at least a few times, it replied cheekily. As for why I 'used to' call you human...you think that's over if we survive this? Because you act human, and are the sum of our human traits, just as I am our strigoi side manifested. There is no mystery there.

Fair enough. Now...I smiled. Chernobog has taken enough from us. Don't you think it's time  we took something from him?

My worse half listened intently as I described my plan, its disbelieving chuckles building up to uproarious laughter.

***

Constantin walked away from the huddle-he could not find a worthier name for it, not that he found it in himself to try much. At least he wasn't feeling as inclined to criticise as last time.

The promises that the gods believed the end times were possibly going to come soon, but they'd do their best to avert them, had not managed to reassure anyone. Quite the opposite. And so, he had left to get some fresh air before the fights became literal, in which case he would have to return.

After that, rather than the open discussion he had prayed for, people had gathered in groups if like-minded worshippers, resulting in the usual cliques: the Orthodox Patriarchs, with a few scattered Matriarchs, the Pope and some of his closest Cardinals. And that was just on the Christian side.

Constantin swallowed a sigh as he felt a large man catching up to him, not needing to look to know Angus was smiling.

'It's only natural, Costi. You know none of us can stand pagans, and they can't stand non-believers either.'

'Speak for yourself. None of my and my son's best friends are Christian.'

'And that bothers neither of ye?' Angus looked at him askance, but Constantin could tell he was holding back a smile. 'Says a lot about yer and yer "son's" "faith", don't it?'

Constantin opened his mouth, then closed it and his eyes, filling his lungs with the knife-sharp air. His faithcraft meant he could breathe anywhere with no problem, or even not at all, which let him appreciate the harshness of some environments.

'Do all the women you sleep with believe in God?' Constantin asked with a smile. 'Do you check if they follow the Commandments before, after or during? Or is it from start to finish?'

'Aww, don't be blue just 'cause your balls are!' Angus laughed. 'Are you calling me a hypocrite, Costi?'

'Can you stop calling me that? We're not friends.'

The Irishman's smile thinned, but didn't disappear. 'No...I suppose we ain't. Do you know what's the difference between my flings and the gaggle of agnostics you and yer corpse surround yourselves with?'

'I haven't slept with any of them? David has with one, but, in his defence, they're a couple.'

'Aye, you haven't. But my women aren't a part of my life, so I ain't taintin' myself by association, unlike you.'

Constantin shrugged, still smiling blandly, knowing how much it annoyed the other priest. 'What were you saying earlier about me being starved for sex?'

'What, you think I can't tell? Yer dead angel,' Angus shook his head sadly. 'A shame, really...that you thought it could work, let alone that it would.'

'Benedict XVII is a Nephilim. I think it does work.'

'Yes, but his mother wasn't a presumptuous idiot like you were.' The Irishman frowned harshly. 'You thought chasing after your teacher and protector and impressing her with your deeds would make her jump into your bed? Really? Men come to angels, not the other way around.'

'Forgive me for being young and brash.'

'You would be forgiven if you didn't compound it with more heresy!'

'Befriending agnostics is hardly heretical, Angus.'

'It is, if yer not trying to convert them. And don't try to fool me.'

'You can be sure I barely sleep, with how scared I am of excommunication,' Constantin drawled.

'Are you fighting again? I slipped away to avoid that,' a deep female voice spoke.

'Suzi,' Constantin squeezed the weresheep's extended hand. 'Got tired too, sister?'

'Yes. Discussion turned to raising an 'army of God' in case of disaster. There have been proposals to have every woman of God impregnated, artificially or traditionally, but there are obviously some problems with that,' she said, tone dripping with sarcasm.

'Bloody...that's exactly the nonsense the Quiverfull were spouting before we buried them!' Constantin said, shocked. 'Do they want God to smite them all? Nobody told me "ironic mass suicide" is on our Apocalypse preparation list.'

Angus snorted. 'If anybody's gonna kills us, it's gonna be us! Who else do you expect to do the job, Ball and Gag?' He gestured at the Islamic gathering, or rather, at the bald, respectively taciturn Sunni and Shia leaders.

'Please do not call them that,' Constantin insisted. Then, to Suzana, 'What about married women? Or infertile ones, married or not? Surely they don't plan to make them fertile with faithcraft?'

'I left before they got there,' the weresheep admitted. 'But I sure as...I certainly wouldn't agree to bear anyone's child.'

'Oh, get off it, Suzi. No man's gonna try his luck with you,' Angus scoffed. 'As Costi said, that's a smitin'. 'Sides, God would just bless mothers with more children if She thought there was reason for it.'

'Sometimes,' the weresheep said thoughtfully. 'It's hard to remember you're a converted druid, and not an Ariana Grande fanboy.'

'That song slaps!' Angus protested. 'Anyway...I don't know why you see Her as male. Shouldn't Her marriage to Mary be an inspiration to you?'

'Depends. Do you have any arguments, besides "I changed religions but still cling to the idea of an Earth Mother"?'

'God is male the same way lamps are female in Spanish,' Constantin intervened before it could turn ugly. 'No language-human or otherwise-is adequate for describing the Creator.'

'Darn straight!' a bass voice boomed. 'In fact...' The newcomer landed a few steps away from the three, no snow touching his black and white surplice. The Protestant's dark-skinned features were split by a broad, shining grin surrounded by a grey beard. He scratched the back of his head before speaking again. 'Apologies. Pastor Tyrone Smith, from Pennsylvania. You might have noticed we're starting to break up the huddle?' He pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. 'It's like a lil' schism over there, let me tell you.'

'Like in your aggressive handball games, right? You break up the huddle before you start smackin' each other on the head.'

'Football, but yeah,' Tyrone said with an annoyed look.

'Now, let's see the new cliques form. Ooh, I wonder what table we're going to sit at!' Suzana rubbed her hands with a conspiratorial grin.

'I think I'm gonna stand. Anyhow...' Tyrone scratched his beard. 'I heard you guys were talking about the Lord's shape and form, right?' He raised a hand before Angus could say anything. 'I'm using "Lord" in a metaphorical sense there, brother. Creator-caretaker-guide-ruler just doesn't roll off the tongue, you know?'

'Because only men can be leaders, right?' Angus asked in a droll tone.

'I was just gettin' there, if you don't mind?' The pastor frowned. 'God made us in His image, and I don't mean just us men. But you can argue He has many masculine attributes, and Jesus  does call Him Father.'

'Jesus is the only aspect of God that can be argued to be male, and that's only because of the form He assumed on Earth,' Angus retorted. 'I assume you use "Father" metaphorically, too?'

'Yes? The leader of the household that is existence. But the Old Testament doesn't use explicitly male pronouns to refer to Him all the time, and the Holy Spirit is female if you go by some translations. And God talks about holding mankind close to His bosom and nurturing us in...Her womb.' Tyrone rubbed his right eye, raising a finger at Angus' smug look. 'It feels weird to say "He" when talking about that passage.'

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

'Who knows, pastor? Perhaps we're all wrong, and the Lord is a seahorse,' an amused voice said. The new arrival was another Catholic priest, in his late thirties or early forties, with pale, fine features, eyes as black as his wavy locks, and a faint French accent.

'Don't mock, brother...' Angus warned.

'Pierre. Have you considered, perhaps, that the parting of the waters and the filling of existence with the Lord's Light can be likened to impregnation?'

'It certainly can, if yer daft enough and see the waters as a thing, as opposed to the absence of something. You just have to forget life comes from women first, though.'

'Asexual reproduction...?'

'You know what I mean. Ask the pastor here about metaphors.'

'Hey, now. Would a woman really put all other women through periods and pregnancies?' Tyrone said jokingly, with a brief look at Suzana, who looked unimpressed.

'Maybe. I doubt anyone but a woman would be crazy enough to dream up our existence,' Pierre chimed in.

'I hope yer a worshipper of the Outer Gods in disguise, so I can whoop yer arse,' Angus smiled. 'Been a while since we've had one tryin' to infiltrate the convention.'

'If they got in, would it still be an infiltration  attempt?' Pierre raised an eyebrow.

'Keep talkin' that way. I'm still smokin' the ashes of the last bloke who did.'

'Do not joke about such morbid things, Angus,' Constantin said coldly.

'Ach, fine, fine. I finished them long ago. But...'

Constantin inwardly sighed in relief. This was infinitely more harmless than other subjects they could have started discussing. As long as Angus didn't get drunk, again, and started talking about the Once Virgin Mary.

Again.

But, before that...

'Brother,' he said, turning to Pierre. 'Did you also happen to overhear our discussion, like pastor Smith?'

'Your tone implies your group is closed, brother. Is not everyone who wants to talk about the Lord welcome?'

'That depends,' Constantin answered cheerfully. 'Who is this Lord whose name you refuse to say, Pierre?'

***

Yahweh Cluster, Heaven, 2031

Rising as far above the sky and the aether as the latter stood beyond matter, space and time, a circular, nine-tiered structure floated on a sea of pure potential, clear as crystal and colourless.

And, sitting on a Throne in the centre of the structure as a threefold, featureless silhouette blazing with glory, while also floating above it as an infinitely small, infinitely bright point that resembled singularities the way stars resembled candles, a Creator addressed a creator.

'FEELING GUILT FOR NECESSARY DEEDS IS ADMIRABLE, OUR GRANDSON. BUT IT WILL NOT ERASE THEM, NOR THE EFFECTS, NOR THE WAY OTHERS PERCEIVE YOU.'

'Thank You, Lord.' Vyrt bowed his head before the enthroned being while clasping his hands in front of the point of light. 'It does not make anything easier, no. David Silva is a good man, as vile a creature as he is. It is heartbreaking that he will never be able to join us here.'

'Speak for yourself,' Uriel, red-haired and red-winged, with eyes like molten emeralds and armour that shone like a red star's core, scoffed. The Archangel was unarmed, unlike his selves guarding the Tree of Knowledge and the Gates, as he stood amongst his kindred of the Second Sphere. Every angel knew he and the other Cardinal Archangels were technically below most of their kin-but only technically. As such, no one was surprised when Uriel floated up, the seraphim parting before him. 'Father? You know I can't stand it when You break Your own rules. It's too...human,' he spat. 'You would have let the suicide into Heaven, even after he turned in his grave-wouldn't You?'

'THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO EVERYTHING, OUR SON. USUALLY, YOUR ABILITY TO SEE THINGS IN BLACK AND WHITE PAIRS PERFECTLY WITH YOUR CERTAINTY.'

Uriel crossed his arms at the unspoken reprimand, but said nothing.

'YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS.'

'Let us start with a simple one.' He turned to Vyrt, putting a gauntleted hand through his nephew's grey pauldron and shoulder. A corpus more durable than any galaxy's contents combined parted like air under the Archangel's fingers as he sought Vyrt's core and grasped it. 'What is the halfbreed doing, standing amongst the Ninth Host, before Your Throne?'

'I was called here, uncle. You know. You let me in at the Gates-'

A twitch of Uriel's hand obliterated the Nephilim, mind and essence removed from creation. Vyrt then remade himself, looking at the Archangel with a resigned expression.

'I did not ask you,' Uriel said. 'Is he too good to stand below the First Host as he speaks, Father?'

'HE IS A SERAPH, IN A WAY.'

'And I'm a feathered bulldog, in a way.'

'YOUR DISLIKE OF MANKIND IS SHOWING, URIEL.'

'I have never hidden it. Should have removed them the moment they went against You.'

'THEY WILL INHERIT OUR KINGDOM, AND YOU WILL HAVE TO LIVE ALONGSIDE THEM.'

'Provided all goes well, and they, somehow, make me forgive them? Gladly.' Uriel returned to the second tier, among the archangels.

'You ask for forgiveness, Vyrt,' Metatron spoke from the first step of the Throne, his silver armour, eyes, plaits, wings and skin catching and storing, rather than reflecting, the Light from above. 'But what you really want is some sort of balm that will erase your feeling of guilt for what you did.'

'He is still half-human, brother,' Sandalphon said from his left. At over ten million kilometres tall and looking like he was made of gold, the angel could have been mistaken for a star, from a distance. His mouth did not move to say those words, for only mankind's prayers passed through it, to be relayed to God. His hands moulded ivory false matter as he forged another crown for the Creator. 'The Nephilim have not reached their potential yet. They might, when Man comes into his own...but until then, be patient with them.'

'Never thought Enoch and Elijah could speak sense...'

'Uriel...' Raphael said to his brother in an admonishing tone, his eyes dark green as opposed to gemstone-like. His wings unfurled behind him, swaying like leaves in the wind. 'They are not even human anymore, not that it would matter if they were. Will you still act like this once mankind becomes greater than angels?'

'As things are now, I'm more likely to be unmade in battle against the things from the outside, brother.'

'I have never felt so harrowed when carrying out Your will before, Lord,' Vyrt said, not listening to the Archangels below. 'I almost feel like I've shamed You, or...'

'VYRT.' A gesture downwards. 'YOUR FATHER IS WATCHING. IT WOULD BE A FEAT, EVEN FOR YOU, TO DISAPPOINT ALL OF US.'

'That is what concerns me, Lord. His interest, and not in his child with a woman from a race long since dust.' He drew his wings around himself. 'Still, I shall fight alongside humanity, despite whatever I might feel. They are the Last Men, after all. What chance is there, if they fail, too?'

'HELL IS NOT ETERNAL, VYRT. NOR DO WE EVER ABANDON OUR CREATIONS, WHATEVER THEY MIGHT THINK. THEY  ARE THE LAST MEN, AND NONE WILL FOLLOW THEM-FOR THERE WILL BE NO NEED. FOR NOW...LET US WATCH. AZRAEL...'

'He teases me so, Lord,' the Angel of Death whistled through teeth as white as his features. 'One death, two deaths, yet he knows me not, though he has felt my touch. What if he dies now?'

'DAVID SILVA HAS CHOSEN TO RETURN TO EARTH. THOUGH HE KNOWS NOT YET, HE SHALL NEVER SEE ANY AFTERLIFE, EXCEPT FROM AFAR, IN PASSING. HIS SOUL DID NOT LEAVE HIS BODY UPON HIS FIRST DEATH, NOR DID IT APPROACH THE GATES OF EBONY OR IVORY UPON THE SECOND.'

'But we are talking about everything going off without a hitch,' Azrael whispered, grey robes billowing in a nonexistent wind. 'Of course  he will never see Heaven or Hell except in passing-but David Silva is not him yet, is he? What if he dies now? Assuming Chernobog just kills him, shall I bring him here? Shall I take him down below, to the one he unknowingly dealt with?'

'DAVID SILVA IS A STUBBORN, FASTIDIOUS MAN. HE WOULD BE DEVASTATED IF HE WAS KILLED BY ANYONE BUT HIS LOVER. WE,' a smile, mirrored by the woman on the smaller throne to the left. 'UNDERSTAND THAT.'

'Everyone is so optimistic...' Azrael stretched his wings and arms. 'And here I am, wondering if I will have to bear away all of us, and myself, in the end.'

***

Yahweh Cluster, Hell, 2031

'Feeling nostalgic, brother?' Beelzebub asked with a fanged grin, black compound eyes shining. The buzzing of the flies that formed a halo around his bald, hairless head seemed mocking."

'Beelz,' Lucifer said lazily, head tilted back and eyes closed. 'Just for calling me "brother" in that tone, I'll bury you under Hell and build Belphegor a throne atop your tomb.'

The bloated, black-furred Prince of Sloth snored, as if in reply, stirring on his padded throne.

'Unfair,' Leviathan hissed, body going from crocodilian to serpentine as he wrapped around the ridged orichalcum pillar besides his throne. "'I want to do that.'

'You always want to be the one to do everything,' Mammon growled, a metallic fang scraping his lower lip as he glared at his brother with one red eye, the other hidden by a bladed mane. 'Leave some for the rest of us.'

'You mean for you?' Asmodeus asked, a sly smile splitting his chalk-white face from ear to pierced ear. 'Mhmm~ you want everything. I recognise that look from my own eyes.' The Prince of Lust twirled one of her scarlet, ram-like horns as if it were a strand of hair, shuddering as one of her hands descended below her waist. 'Greedy, greedy~' he moaned.

'Do you truly not care about him?' Mammon asked Lucifer in disbelief, pointedly ignoring his lustful brother, except to slap away her clawed hands every time he moved too close. 'Let me rephrase: are you not interested?'

'Of course I'm interested,' Satan thundered, crimson skin thickening as his wavy black hair became a bristling mane, running into his newly-appeared beard. Horns and fangs thickening, he stood up, pointed tail twitching. 'I would not have had him otherwise. Even then, I could tell humans would not amount to much. The final version is certainly not impressing anyone so far...but hybrids? Oh, you can make so much from them. And Vyrt is the best thing I've made before the rebellion. Gowther and the rest certainly haven't been as entertaining.'

'Perhaps you are losing your touch?' Asmodeus pouted, smiling quickly when the Beast turned his yellow eyes to her. Even as his glare obliterated half her torso and turned the ground for a trillion light years beyond and ten billion deep to atoms, he batted his eyes. 'Mind me not, brother. I know all about disappointing children.' She sighed, laying a slim arm across her forehead. 'Sklaresia is  so gentle with her human! The lust is there, yes, but you know what they need-?'

'No!' Mammon snapped, holding up a clawed finger. 'Nor do I want to learn.'

'Prude~'

'Idiots,' Satan said, leaving the other Princes to wonder if he was talking about Asmodeus and Mammon, or all of them. 'Let Vyrt plead and scrape, it won't erase his sins. I am rather more invested in someone closer to us.'

'Ahhh~' Beelzebub chuckled. 'Yes...there have been enough reeds bending in the wind! I want to see this twig  break! It's already a husk!'

'So quick to think of metaphors,' Lucifer said, amused, as he sat down. 'Is that what you expect from the Beast? No...let Vyrt walk Heaven's halls, for his cousin walks ours. Merlin is familiar with all great traitors of human history, but this one?  This one, he knows like his own grandchild.' The Morningstar closed his blazing eyes, chuckling. 'One shall remain with us, whatever happens. Let us see if one leaves...or if Hell swallows another.'

***

English Channel, 2031

'The Unseelie?' Paladin asked, crossing six pairs of arms, the other tense at their sides. 'Again?'

'It is different this time,' Loric Szabo answered the being, hands in the pockets of his dragonskin jacket, the left clenched around his basilisk mask. 'Did you not say they are not attacking anything?'

'Aye,' Paladin replied, featureless helm tilting to one side in wary confusion. 'They are just...standing there. Something clouds our sight...but no, they are not attacking any ships. They are...preparing? Debating?'

Paladin's voice switched from Roland's to Oliver's in frustration, causing Szabo to reach up and pat the armoured undead's shin. The Knights of Charlemagne took took a deep breath to steady themselves, flash-freezing the Channel down to the bedrock, walls of ice taller and tougher than any mountain rising at the edges of France and Britain. 'An arena,' they explained. 'We think it will be needed.'

Szabo shook his head, smiling. 'You just want a dramatic setting to kill the Fae.'

'You are hardly in a position to accuse anyone of flamboyance, Loric,' Paladin replied. 'Besides, we believe they might have had a hand in the fall of our emperor uncle's realm.'

'And if they didn't?'

Paladin shrugged, pulling out a broadsword from one of the many sheaths at their sides. The force shook the planet, causing buildings to tremble and windows to shatter from Spain to Korea. Telephone poles swayed from Australia to Canada, people barely managing to break their fall. None could keep their feet.

The unnatural ice created with a breath sustained no damage from this, nor the subsequent ten unsheathings, each more violent than the last, to the point many countries wards' activated, raising buildings and inhabitants alike above the shaking, splitting ground.

And yet, the first step Paladin took forward cracked the ice like cheap glass, making the frozen Channel shiver.

Across the ice that would have frozen any human's body, mind and soul, Cloudshade smiled.

'Skinthief! Did you put on the good leathers just for me~?'

***

Faerie, 2031

'Dammit,' Sam cursed as he turned from the spot where David had been standing an instant ago to the Blackness. The tendril had outmatched even his reflexes. 'Could you have stopped that?'

'Yes,' Oberon replied, slowly being pushed back. 'But it would have taken me instead.'

'Tch...' Ying rolled his pipe between his fangs. 'Everything is telling me to leave him there, but my heart.'

Gaol John groaned. 'What?'

Ying turned to him with a fierce look, whiskers flaring. 'I protect everything of our world, or I wouldn't live on it.'

'Wait,' Tamar said, putting a hand on the ghost gestalt's shoulder. 'I can sense movement in the Blackness. Something...is going to emerge.'

'Silva?' Sam asked, flesh roiling as he prepared for combat.

'Doubt it'll still be him,' John said grimly.

Tamar shook his head. 'No, it is certainly not him. Something...smaller? I...'

'Knew it,' John whispered, chains emerging around him as he bound his power to Faerie's, letting the realm's endless mana flow into him.

The thing that flew out of the Blackness might have been mistaken for human, at first glance. But then, one saw the pale skin, the gaunt body, the eyes deeper and darker than any's human, and the truth became clear.

As the Fae left the Blackness' dull roar behind, his scream became clear, too, as did his trajectory.

'...' Oberon said nothing as he picked his ragged subject up by the thighs, removing the Fae's rear from his faceplate and throwing him over the shoulder.

Ying's pipe broke in half as his laughter boomed through the land and skies, shaking an area that dwarfed the mundane universe. 'No, John! That's definitely Silva!'

***

Do you see me, Chernobog? I am still myself. I will not be changed, not by you, who builds nothing, who only twists and breaks and sickens.

You have taken so much...not just my peace of mind, but the joy and lives of so many millions, since their countries were just a twinkle in their ancestors' eyes...no more.

This stops here. I will not let you break me, nor will I let you torment these Fae anymore. Let them hate and fear me, if they want. I'll give my life, if it means theirs last long enough for that. I will  not let you take anything or anyone else. I will steal your victims back from you, and snuff out your blight. This, I swear.

May Hell eat my soul if I break this oath.

***

...Is that so, little David?