The truth comes out. Friends don’t let friends torture each other. Ghosts and peaches. A fistful of spells. Accepting help.

Sal still had the Fear Blade, and he thought about pulling it from its sheath. It would be a dramatic gesture. It also might frighten Dergle away, but probably not. What were the ethics of killing your own personal hellspawn? Sal was so close to Level 3 that he didn’t really want to find out.

He did have any number of questions. He started what he hoped would turn out to be an easy one. “Mr. Driptongue, I find all of these pools of blood both surprising and troubling. Might you enlighten me on their exact nature?”

Dergle leapt from the fountain and landed in front of Sal.

Betty emerged from his pocket. “Easy now, Dergle. If you kill our friend here, I can’t abuse myself on his chocolate-chip cookies, and there’s a good chance you’ll be sent back to the Abyssmuck.”

“Kill him?” Dergle slurped, laughed, and slurped some more. “I would never kill my beloved master, my dearest lord who haunts my dreams nightly. Nay. And remember, Mouse, those cookies were mine. I found the recipe. I baked them. But the entire task was tiresome and unnecessary. I know the truth, master. You are done with world domination. Now, all you care about is diner domination.”

Sal kept his hand on the Fear Blade. “You are not wrong, Mr. Driptongue. I told you my focus is on the diner. Where did this blood come from?”

Dergle’s mouth dropped open into an ashy, spitty smile. “I shall not simply go from one inane task to another. I long to serve you in the most critical way possible. And that means getting this fountain working and this square finished. The churchly oldsters were not working to their potential. I took over construction. Some disagreed with my actions, and I simply defended myself. It was self-defense. A few lost skin over the matter. No one was slaughtered.”

The demon was eying him, to see his reaction.

Sal figured that if his minion had murdered anyone, there would’ve been messages from his Mysterious Benefactor. “I did not tell you to do that, Mr. Driptongue. You have displeased me.”

Sal was mostly displeased. Mostly. A working fountain did help him, and Dergle had done an amazing job. Had the ash demon taken exterior design classes?

The demon called him out by roaring, “Liar! This solves your biggest problem! Your wretched diner can now get traffic unimpeded. You have been cruel to me, your best and most loyal minion, giving me busy work to do. Busy work! I should be murdering for you daily. I should be enslaving customers, forcing them to eat at your diner upon pain of death! We would be rich by now, and then, I could kill the governor, and you could rule over the entire city, then all of Torment Island, and then the world! What is the meaning of this, Salvanguish! Why are you not bathing in the blood of the innocent?”

Sal smiled. “It is a fair question. I have changed, Mr. Driptongue.”

“Then I will change you back. I will torture you until you are properly evil again!” Dergle leapt at him, and Sal might’ve been impaled on his claws, if he didn’t leap to the side.

“Dergle!” Betty wailed. “You’re not being a good minion!”

“Maybe not a good minion but the best of demons!” Dergle slashed at Sal, who ducked and dodged the claws, the snapping jaws, and the prehensile tongue, and then turned and ran. He found himself running for the doors to his café. But they were closed. Were they locked? There would be no way for him to grab his key and get inside before his minion tore off most of his skin.

The rules were fuzzy when it came to torture as far as the master/minion relationship. Dergle couldn’t kill him, no, because that would server their connection and the demon would wind up back in the Abyssmuck. However, a little torture probably wouldn’t damage their bond too much. The old Sal had all the power he needed to expel Dergle out of the world. The new Sal, though, could only cook bacon, which at the moment, wasn’t any kind of help.

Shivaun threw open the doors just when Sal needed her to. He sped inside, and tried to get the doors closed, but Dergle burst in. The demon grabbed Sal and tossed him over a table into more chairs, and then the demon breathed fire at him.

Another table caught fire for a second, but only a second, because a hurricane chill wind came sweeping over them. That was the banshee, making sure the demon didn’t burn down the place.

Sal went from sweating to freezing. He got to his feet, whipped out the sword, and thrust it in the face of the ash demon. “Be gone, Minion. Go back to the Abyssmuck!”

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Dergle only laughed. “You do not have the power you once did, my master, my joy, my everything. That is why I think I can torture you back to being evil. By the way, your little toy blade is not fearsome to me, though I can feel the magic emanating from its enchanted metal.”

The ash demon grabbed the blade and plucked it out of Sal’s hands. He then tossed it over his shoulder. Dergle opened his mouth wide, and his prehensile tongue lashed out to latch onto Sal. That would’ve hurt because Dergle’s spit was basically liquid hellfire.

Suddenly, Shivaun was there, between them. The banshee caught the tongue in a pale fist. She shrieked into his face, and the demon yelped, and managed to shove her aside.

Shivaun went spinning away, and abruptly she vanished. She’d most likely exhausted the energy fueling her.

Dergle’s tongue was frozen, and he tried to get it back into his mouth, but it had been damaged. It lolled out of his mouth.

“That hurt!” the demon said in a strangled voice. He snatched up a table and tried to bash Sal with it. The former Dark Lord ran to another table, which the demon smashed, and more chairs were turned into kindling under the feet of the demon.

Sal’s diner was being destroyed!

Dergle swept up his wind and his ash and sent it all right into Sal’s face, and Sal couldn’t dodge a hot, ashy cloud. All that stuff went right into his eyes. He staggered back, tripped on a broken chair, and fell against the wall.

Shivaun wasn’t there to save him, and Betty couldn’t do anything except plead for their lives. “Dergle, come on, you can’t be serious about this torture stuff, buddy. You have to know that torture isn’t good for friendships.”

Dergle only roared with his frozen tongue hanging out of his mouth. He drove his claws into Sal’s shoulder, and the pain was bright, and he knew that his resurrection was most likely over. He’d done some good, and his diner would’ve been a big hit, now that the fountain was fixed, and he had his Bacon Buffs. Too bad, it wasn’t meant to be.

A terrible smell flooded through the restaurant, so strong, that Dergle turned and even withdrew his claws from Sal’s mangled shoulder to clutch his nose. “What is that delightful odor?” Dergle sniffed, tears brimming in his eyes. “It reminds me home.”

Tony Belly was helping out, this time, by using his stench for good rather than evil.

Then a peach came flying through the air and hit the demon right on his toady snout.

It gave Sal enough time to scurry back and get to his feet. He raised his fists. Tears streamed down from his cheeks from Tony Belly’s stink, though the former Dark Lord was grateful for the ghost’s help. “Dergle, I do not want to fight you. I would like your aid in making my café a success.”

Dergle ducked another peach. “I gave you help. I finished the fountain. And you did not care, master. I have given you the best years of my life, and you do not care!”

“I care!” Sal protested. “Dergle, I love that Champion Plaza has a working fountain. And you added the lanterns. It was exceptional work. I can tell you took time to find the perfect lanterns, for they match décor so delightfully. It really was excellent work, though I am displeased that you flayed the elderly Templars.”

Dergle softened. “As I have said, my master and my meaning, they attacked me while I worked. I merely defended myself.”

Movement out of the corner of his eye showed Kaixo there, and she wasn’t alone. Theovanni had come to join the party as well, with Sparky on his shoulder, looking exhausted. The dragon still had wounds from his time fighting armored chickens in the tower.

Shadows swirled around Kaixo’s fists, and the darkness itself collected around her shoulders and became like a second cloak for her. Shivaun had vanished, and yet, the temperature in the place had dropped several degrees.

Then Kaixo’s eyes flashed with crackling lighting. They sparked off the Skycrack Wand in her fist. She looked very daunting, and right then, Sal knew that Shivaun would let the Yaniri sorceress have the wand for keeps.

All in all, Sal was impressed. She had Shade Fist ready, along with Bleak Armor, and then there was that cool lightning eyes spell that was working well with the wand. She couldn’t have had that much power, since she’d only been resting a short time, and yet, she was making a good show of it.

“Demon!” Sal thundered. “I do believe you should make a hasty retreat. Return only when your desire is to serve me and this diner righteously and obediently.”

Dergle glanced over at the newcomers, took one look at Kaixo, and vanished.

Sal collapsed to the floor. A peach rolled over to him and he picked it up. “Thank you, specters. And thank you, my friends.”

But he realized the extent of the damage. His little café had been reduced to kindling.

The lightning left Kaixo’s eyes, as did the shadows covering her fists and the bleakness around her shoulders. The place was warm again.

“What was that thing?” Kaixo asked.

Sparky flew over, whining, as it landed on Sal and licked his face. The tongue was surprisingly soft, and yet, very warm and wet, completely disgusting. Why was this dragon licking him?

“It was a demon,” Sal said. “But he is gone. He didn’t believe in the grand cause of my café. He did help me with the fountain, however, and for that, I will be forever grateful.”

Theovanni blinked. “You had a demon working for you?”

Sal niffed the air. Tony Belly had dropped his stench, though a foul fragrance remained. “The demon was foisted on me, and I had to use him. Not to shock you, but I have several ghosts aiding me. It is a very long story, and perhaps, someday, we can all share our secrets.”

Kaixo huffed in a laugh. “Yeah. Maybe. Someday. You wanna come clean about your past, kid?”

Theo winced. “Not any time soon, mister.”

Sal was glad to hear that they were all on the same page.

Kaixo strode in and picked up one of the few chairs that wasn’t broken. “I’m thinking you ‘re going to need a cut of our treasure to buy new furniture.”

Sal went to argue. He couldn’t.

The upside was that he would get Karma points for accepting help. His Mysterious Benefactor had been clear on that point. Accepting help was as important as offering help, and the reality was, Sal needed all the help he could get.

Dergle was gone for the moment, but the demon was bound to return.

Kaixo left the café with the Skycrack Wand in a special sheath on her belt.