Say whatever you will about Coldhold: he never once screamed in fear as Szabo's monstrous form worked him over. He screamed in pain at the cross' touch, and cursed the strigoi in disgust, but received only laughs and comments in a conversional tone.

'Thank you for screaming! If you stayed silent while I touched you, I'd have felt like I was with Csilla again. And trust me, you're way too skinny to remind me of my wife...'

'Do you know sign language? It's for the interrogation, see? I'm meeting my great-grandbrats this Chrismas, and I want to give them your ears! I've been bringing body parts home for years, and I hope we'll get enough to build something soon...'

'No, no, stay on your side. The writhing looks better this way...'

'David, want to get in on this?' Szabo smiled at me without turning, instead forming a mouth on something I supposed was his shoulder.

'No thanks. You seem to have things well in...under control,' I said, trying to ignore the voice in my head screaming for the Fae's torture. My strigoi side was being pretty insistent, too.

'Oh, brother...' Szabo was now looking humanoid enough again for me to tell he was shaking his head. 'You have literally nothing to lose.'

'Yeah, well..' I winced, getting to my feet with a creak. Damn, but I actually sounded my age. My broken bones still sent stabs of pain through me with every move, but I noticed that, for example, brushing the ground with my broken arm neither exacerbated nor lessened the pain. My flesh was still numb to sensation, besides the parts the Count had shattered with his gauntlets.

'Maybe I'd get over there if twitching didn't make my brain riot,' I told Szabo, looking at the bruises mottling my grey skin with dismay. In the last eight years, only a couple things had managed to leave their mark on my body. The noose I used to hang myself, for one. Chernobog's slap, which had knocked out fangs, for another.

Well...the second one had come with a silver lining, I suppose. Mia had once claimed she could give me a French kiss without me parting my teeth, before showing how flexible her tongue was.

But, now? Now I was not only as ugly as my worse half, I was also half a cripple, and you could have flown a paper plane through my mouth.

What a great Christmas gift for everyone. I was sure they'd love to see me getting fucked up permanently like this.

'What, is this the first time you've been truly wounded?' Szabo asked, now back to his human shape. 'I'm baffled, with how insufferable you are.'

I gave him the most deadpan look I could manage with my messed-up face, receiving only a steady stare and slight raise of his eyebrows in response.

'The cause is the cure, David,' Szabo said after a few moments, rubbing his belly. If not for everything else about him, his round gut, covered in wiry grey hair, would have looked comical.

'The hell? Are you saying this bitch's gear had a healing function? The gear you shattered?'

Szabo looked at me once more, then at Coldhold, receiving a cold, hateful glare. Thankfully, the Fae now looked as bad as I did. Then, he pursed his lips, clasping his hands in front of himself.

'I will pretend he knocked your brain loose, brother.'

'The fuck's that supposed to mean!? Szabo!' I called after him, walking closer, broken arm swining limply at my side. 'Don't you dare pull that cryptic bullshit on me again,' I growled, putting a hand on his round shoulder. Szabo held my gaze, worrying his lower lip with his fangs. Was he keeping his anger under control? Or his laughter?

'You know what happened the last time people withheld something important for me,' I continued.

'When you learned who your real daddy is? I think I want to hear that story again.'

There was no point to trying to wipe the smile off his face. Even on my best day, and this was turning out to be one of the worse ones.

'Yes, it's almost as funny as living through it. I meant when you, Reem, and every damn god out there looked at Chernobog coiling up inside me and did jackshit.'

'Well said, every damn god. I'm glad you're starting to damn yours, too.' Szabo's smile widened when I staggered back, claws digging through my palms s I clenched my fists.

'That's not...you know fucking well I wasn't including Him-'

'Why?'

I searched for words a few times, trying to say anything that wasn't chockfull of invective.

'God doesn't intervene in the lives of His people because He values free will.' Look at me, deftly ignoring his question.

Szabo nodded. 'Ah, right. The fact the Headhunt resulted in a rather ardent worshipper of his gaining Mimir's perception was just a happy little accident, as Ross would've said.'

'Are you scared He'll ask me to use it on you?' I taunted, trying not to sound angry.

'Terrified. But tell me, if he is all-knowing, all -powerful  and all-loving, how come there is suffering?'

'I told you, free will-'

'Hmm? He knows the pain everyone will go through and does nothing? Even I could respect that callousness. Or maybe he's just strong enough to seem almighty, but only knows so much? Are you happy praying to an overpowered idiot?'

'You have children, right?' I asked.

'They died long ago. Though not because I stood by and watched when I could have done literally anything to help.'

'But you were a father. If you saw your child about to make a mistake you knew would hurt, would you stop them, or let them learn a lesson?'

Coldhold, who seemed to have grown bored while we debated the Problem of Evil, opened his mouth, only for Szabo to stomp down on it without looking.

'Your example does not work. And you know why? Because it's insane to punish a child for something you knew they'd do and which you could have prevented. Go find Adam's soul and ask him, or ring up old Scratch. He's got his eye on you.'

'These examples don't work either. God-'

'Sends people to Hell because they commit sins he knows about, can prevent, and condemns, sins which, allegedly, only became possible because of something he also knew would happen and could have prevented.'

'We're going in circles,' I shook my head. Maybe, on another day, I-shit! 'Szabo, were the Unseelie dead or incapacitated when you left Earth?'

'My stars, David! You finally remembered you're supposed to protect your world and colleagues after you stopped being offended at your god's hypocrisy being pointed out!' Szabo clapped thrice, slowly, but I slapped his hand down when he began to crookedly cross himself. There was only so much blasphemy I could take.

'Don't make me find out what these eyes can really do,' I warned him, gripping his wrist. He didn't stop smiling.

'Using a false, pagan god's power to crush Christianity's enemy? Ah, the beauty of religious appropriation...'

***

Szabo, I learned, needed just over three minutes to fly from Earth to Venus. He gripped Coldhold by the throat as we flew, and me by my healthy hand, because I was far too slow to keep up with him.

I bet I was more embarrassed than the Fae. And not just because of how much Szabo had rattled me, again, without actually doing anything horrifying.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Was my faith that weak? Or was I a moron for thinking enough faith left no room for doubt?

But God  had intervened, in the end. He had...had offered to send me to the afterlife. Was I special in His eyes, for some unfathomable reason? Did every dead Christian get a second chance at life? And if not, why was I more deserving?

The thought made me feel almost as guilty as the one that maybe it wasn't so bad if God had influence over the user of Mimir's power, rather than another deity or pantheon.

I...I'd have to talk to Aya Reem. She had experience balancing work and faith.

After Szabo dropped me off at the remains Omu base-the Unseelie had been killed or driven off, but only Thundertail, drooling bloody froth, and a wild-eyed weredeer had survived. The rest lay in twisted poses, impaled by silver blades or spikes, or crushed under silver bludgeons. The necromancers and their servants had been torn apart, never to rise again.

'Take him to a Mobius cell in another base, balaur,' Szabo said, tossing Coldhold to Thundertail, who snapped up the Fae with a vengeful look.

Mobius cells simulated the dimensionless Outer Void, and became more harder to break out of the more a prisoner tried. There was nothing to strike or warp, and teleportation and portals simply failed. It was rumoured Fixer used them as brainstorming rooms, because mundane reality was too malleable for him.

I could believe that. The Fixer spent most of his time outside the multiverse, because he could turn it into an eldritch nightmare, or nothing, with a stray thought.

'Szabo?' I asked after he blurred back into my line of sight, in a new set of leathers over an ARC shirt. I had to wonder if he had gone to Hungary to get dressed, since Omu base had been destroyed, the mountain cracked open like a rotten tooth. 'Is there anything I can help with?'

'Yes,' He adjusted his coat's collar. 'Grit your teeth, brother, or find a way to heal those wounds. We're doing cleanup.'

'Where? All of Ilfov?'

'The world, David.'

***

The Happy Cemetery, the dust of the dead remade as golems to tear apart their families.

The Redeemer, reshaped into a fiendish monstrosity that destroyed half the churches in Brazil, before a joint effort by ARC and the Circle Bizarre had stopped and returned it to its proper state.

The Great Wall, cracked open to let out the vengeful echoes of the walled-in, sacrificed builders.

Krampus and his counterparts, manifesting to rampage.

And so, so much more...so much worse...Aokigahara appearing over east Asia again, the things under the pyramids rising up in the desert, in the jungle, under the sea...

By the time I got home while the higher-ups tried to get their act together, I could almost fool myself into thinking I was physically tired. I didn't have to fake mental exhaustion, though.

Mia looked worse than I felt, which was saying something.

My zmeu's temporary work for ARC had turned into a job, though I'd be hard pressed to say if she was in for the thrill or to help people.

Not that I dared press her at the moment.

Mia had learned harnessing the magical power inherent to zmei to create constructs and powers by drawing shapes on air. I guess she hadn't found time to heal herself, though.

'Hey,' Mia croaked, leaning down to kiss me with a mangled mouth. Her single eye gazed at me with worry, nerves growing in the other, empty socket as I watched.

'Don't worry,' she grinned, all fangs, because there was nothing else. 'You should have seen the other bitch.'

'Are you sure you weren't poisoned, or cursed? Or-'

Sigh. 'They checked me, David, before sending me home. Didn't they do the same to you?'

'Even so...'

'I'm fine,'  she insisted, lips beginning to grow back. "As you so often tell me. Healthy, too."

'As I so often tell you,' I joked lamely. 'The Drake base...how did you manage? Are you allowed to say?' I added, just as she shook her head, then sighed, shoulders sagging. 'You're alive. That's enough for me.'

'She just gotta be female, preferably alive,' Mia grunted in a mock-dudebro voice, her contralto lending itself to imitating men. Her voice went from simply deep to "motorbike", depending on her excitement, as my neighbours and I had learned.

'I mean, I wouldn't mind if you were undead, either...'

'Reaaaaly. What kind?'

'Hmm. Not a braineater. I don't have one around you, anyway.'

'One head is sometimes enough, David,' Mia smiled, putting a hand on my hip. It didn't stay there long.

'Why, thank you...um. I'm really happy to see you-'

'I can tell~'

'-but...is there something wrong with your power? Why not speed up the healing?'

'I'd rather try to heal you, darling.'

I wasn't sure she could. That time she had sewed my head back on had been, well...a miracle. Both God and the Devil had been involved. Mia had essentially dropped out of college, though her ARC training made up for both her studies and lost job. I wasn't sure about her salary, but mine was well over a dozen times bigger than when I was a teacher, not counting the hazard pay for certain missions.

Lucas would have happily let her remain an employee and check in when she could, if not pay like she was working full-time, but Mia had refused, not wanting to get tangled up in too many things.

'Well,' I smirked. 'I've got this swelling that needs hands-on care. Anything you wanna watch before you play doctor?'

'You, stripping.'

***

'Merry late Christmas, love,' I muttered, standing up to stretch. The cleanup had taken up all of Christmas Eve, Christmas, and most of the following day, so that it was midnight by the time we got home.

Mia, lying on her back with her muscular arms crossed under her head, didn't reply, instead spitting a fireball that reshaped itself into a heart near the ceiling, briefly lighting up the dark room before being snuffed out by her will.

'Merry Christmas, David,' her smile quickly became sardonic. 'As merry as I can feel sitting here like a moron while you limp around like a gimp.'

'Mia...'

'Oh, shut up. What's my excuse for not being able to pull it off twice?'

'Not having God's help?'

Mia looked like she was about to say something very biting, before looking away. 'What will you do while waiting for orders?'

'You, preferably...' I leaned to one side while I winked, dodging the thrown pillow. 'I'll have to make up to my friends for missing Christmas. Pops, too.'

'I wanted to meet Lucas before this clusterfuck.' As good a word for it as any. We weren't sure how many millions had died in the Fright Before Christmas, as it was quickly becoming known, except several, probably in the double digits.

'I think he and his brothers will be together. They celebrated with their parents, remember? Maybe when I go to Lucian and Bianca, he'll also be present. I'll pass your thoughts along, if you're too tired.'

'No. I want to come.'

It took me a few moments to realise she wasn't just talking about the visit, and by then, I was on my back. Again.

If only all my problems were like this...