[https://i.imgur.com/6yHWXwi.png]

The crow girl’s name was Kyara. Silver rings, bracelets, and bangles coiled all over her. What ran down her back was part hair, part feather. It ran straight down her back, but stayed messy around her face. As with all the crow demons, there were tinges of midnight purple and blue about her.

She took Dodd aside to the corner of the bar. On her way, she asked the bartender for a shot of abyssul. A hazy figure, hard to make out in this darkness, put out a sapphire cup no larger than a thimble. They filled it with a nearly transparent, greenish brew. Not that they could see it well...it only gave the slightest twinkle. Kyara repaid the bartender by sliding them one of her silver bangles.

Kyara took the cup between her finger and thumb. Then she kicked Dodd from behind and said, “That table, straight ahead.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“’Kyara’ is fine.”

So to the corner they went. With her free hand, Kyara fiddled with her vest pockets and pulled out a tiny vial. The claw of her thumb popped off the cork and let it fall. Then she whirled the vial around like she was spreading perfume. In a weird way, she was. That vial released the enchantment-miasma that would make their conversation sound, to outsiders, like so many whispers.

When she was done, Kyara tossed the vial over her shoulder and threw back half of her shot. She sighed deeply, contentedly. She jiggled the glass and squinted to make sure there was any left. Then she grabbed Dodd by the back of the head and, lightning-quick, jammed the glass against her lips.

Dodd choked it down. Emerald clouds entered her mind. She felt refreshed, relaxed, even freed. Abyssul had this effect on people—in larger quantities, it actually opened the mind. To share spirits in the underworld’s twelve hells was the same as sharing trust.

“So what’s this about Lord Nightfall?” said Kyara.

“Lord Nightfall is...” Dodd coughed—still getting used to the feel of abyssul again. “I work for them.”

“That can’t be their real name.”

“...I guess not. But perhaps you know of a Nightfall Castle?”

“Yes, actually. I do. And it’s supposed to be gone by now. Destroyed. Y’see,” said Kyara, shifting in place, “Lord Nightfall’s a shapeshifter.”

“I knew that,” said Dodd.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Hey. Watch it, imp. Who asked who? Who’s the informant here?”

Dodd’s knowledge of the underworld around her was limited—beyond Hellfloes, it may as well have been radio static. But she had known, on sight, that all these demicrows were informants from the Crow’s Perch, a prominent place in the Shadowdepths. They’d fly through the underworld and around Earth gathering intel for their bosses. Famous for it. A little shifty with their methods, but what demon wasn’t?

“Where was I?” said Kyara. “Oh yeah—Lord Nightfall actually has a reputation. They’re pretty well-known in the shadow territories. Darkworld District’s where they got their legs.”

Dodd’s mouth hung open for a second. “...So they’re not a human,” she said.

A smile curled on Kyara’s lips. “Determine that for yourself,” she said.

“Oh, no,” said Dodd. “No, that doesn’t sound right.”

“No, I said what I said. It happens, believe it or not. It’s just...this particular case is unprecedented.”

Dodd was still in disbelief, wondering if she’d heard right. “You mean they were turned?”

“Yes!” said Kyara, throwing her arms out gleefully. “And we all thought they were dead!”

It’s not that mortals becoming demons was unheard of. It’s just that every case of a human getting “turned” had a very bad ending. There were as many stories of mortals-turned-demons as there were stars in the sky. Succubi and incubi seducing their lovers with the promise of power, then watching them flail like beached fish when they couldn’t cope with the trials of demon life. Mortals striking Faustian bargains, handing their eternal souls over to eternal torture. The failed experiments of scientific demons who saw planet Gaia as their guinea pig. A collection of these stories could fill ten libraries.

“But that’s not the end of it,” said Kyara. Now she was giggling, getting excited. “Because this so-called Lord Nightfall’s not even from Gaia. They came from another planet entirely.”

“So...so they don’t play arcade games in Arkadia?” said Dodd.

“What the hells is an arcade game?”

“It’s, uh, something Lord Nightfall has in their basement...it looked like some impressive technology. It must have come from Earth.”

Kyara stroked her chin. “I don’t know about that. If any objects came from Earth, they would’ve had to have come on their person. You know, like clothes.”

Dodd blinked.

Kyara laughed into her palm. “Oh, you don’t know any of that story, do you?”

Dodd shook her head.

“Then strap in, my friend. It’s a long one.”

“Uhh, don’t you...?”

Kyara knew what Dodd was getting at. She looked across the room at the gang of birds and salamanders. Still over there plotting their moves in a soon-to-come Hellfloes skirmish—the type of battle that made an archlord yawn and an upstart pump their fist.

Kyara shrugged. “There’s time enough.”