It had been ages since Leah decked out Elysium to this extent.

Fresh blood flowed from fountains in the wall. Gargoyles stood ready. Hades’ old skull throne had been renovated anew for herself to sit atop. A chorus of workers buzzed about, prepping every inch of this chamber so her guest would see the strength wielded here. Nothing short of perfection would be enough for this display of unfettered power.

Father Abraham would soon arrive. He’d pass by Uriel’s impaled corpse along the way, with an army of soldiers lining the path so he could neither turn nor leave once inside. If the Beholders wanted to wrestle this space from Leah and her people, they would see just how strongly she’d cling to it.

All Leah had to do was wait.

The door opened with a creak, casting light into the candlelit chamber where Leah steepled her black-gloved fingers. Her guest walked through.

Hmm, smaller than I was expecting. The figurehead of her enemies was half a head smaller than her, with thinned brown hair over gaunt cheeks. Like the rest of the Beholders she’d seen, his skin was smoothed out to cover their rotting flesh, much as Leah and other wealthy rezzers chose to do. But the similarities ended there. His black dress shirt matched his trousers beneath, and a white collar wrapped around his neck. A wooden cross hung below, glinting in varnish. Closer still, Leah could make out a spattering of dirt across his shirt and legs, though the whiff made it apparent that…

“Did you come here covered in shit?” she snapped.

Father Abraham approached, cheeks relaxing into a grin. “Well, I was working the cattle until I heard about the kerfuffle down here and realized that I’d hardly been a great neighbor.” He held out a hand to shake. “It is good to finally meet you, Lady Leah.”

She watched his hand as though a blade might spring out. “I’m not going to touch your shit-stained fingers.”

“Lord have mercy. You make an excellent point there.” He chuckled and retracted his hand, sliding into a Southern charm. “Though perhaps we should at least stand head to head since I am hardly at an advantage with you all the way up on that throne of yours and me down here.”

Was this bumpkin seriously who the Beholders followed? Leah stood and walked down the throne, her feet tapping against stone steps. Abraham was as intimidating as a dreg, with the stature of a teenager. How the hell could he get so many people to listen to him?

But then she met Father Abraham in the eyes, and everything changed. A rezzer became most defined by the strength of their reservoir, and this phenomenon was projected through the color of their eyes. His irises were shrouded in a magenta gleam, burning with an intensity that trapped the air in her lungs. She had only seen this level of power in a handful before. Mother, Hades, herself. And now him. This schmuck from nowhere, but armed with a Rez built for a titan.

And beneath that, something else. A fury. A tempest. The sort of blazing inferno ready to consume all in its path. Leah stared deep and saw glimpses of enemies long vanquished yet perverted into a different beast. One more deadly than she’d seen before.

Abraham broke into another innocent smile, shattering the illusion. “Well, well. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were giving me some unholy eyes, Ms Huntress.”

Leah blinked. “Don’t know if you’ve figured out where you’re at, Abraham, but the whole leader bit ended the moment you crossed the Styx. In here, you’re no better than a dismembered hollow.”

“I’d like to think we’re all a little more than that.”

She folded her arms. “Not compared to me.”

He simply stood and stared for a moment, brow bent in concern. “Why is it that you’re so afraid of me?”

She narrowed her gaze. “What makes you think that I am?”

“I mean, my congregation is nothing but a poor group of farmers who came all this way from Louisiana with little more than the shirts on our backs. And yet, you treat us as though we are some invading force.” He looked around the room. “Are all these theatrics supposed to be for my benefit or yours?”

Touché. “Last I checked, you guys are packing enough weaponry to commit some low-key genocide.”

“Would it not have been a much shorter pilgrimage had we chosen otherwise?”

“So much for your god protecting you.”

Abraham laughed, deep and heavy. He wagged his finger as though they’d become good old friends. “I suppose you’ve gotten me there, young lady. While God protects those who protect themselves, sometimes you’ve just gotta be a little more careful.”

“That what happened to those Enclaves you wiped out along the way? They needed a little protecting against?”

His irises flashed with a glimmer of that more profound beast. “Sin is a threat to us all. I do what I must to protect the stability of my congregation, the same as you do for this city.” He smiled again, the furor disappearing as quickly as it had come. “But make no mistake. I do not inflict violence without cause. You have done nothing to harm me, so why would I do anything in return?”

“You miss the dangling body coming in? Because that guy might beg to differ.”

“And I think this is your burden to bear, not mine.” He sighed. “I loved Brother Uriel, as I do with all my children, but vengeance is the tool made for fools. Another foul temptation that I do not personally ascribe to.”

Is this guy kidding me? “Let’s skip all the faux friendship and roundabout gibberish, Abraham. I killed your Friar to prove that I can, you guys call me the Whore-of-fucking-Babylon because you despise me, and you only came all this way personally because I have something that you want. If you’d like to negotiate, you can start by admitting that a negotiation’s taking place.”

“You still don’t seem to understand, Leah. We came here to be in the presence of the Lord in the flesh. We don’t need anything else, certainly not through violence or ill tempers. Even though I find many of your actions reprehensible, it is the Lord’s will to only ever hate the Sin, not the sinner. You are no exception, though I can understand how you might take offense to some of our words.”

Leah contemplated it all. “Are you honestly trying to suggest that you’ve taken thousands of armed rezzers, marched all this way from fucking Louisiana, but you don’t have the slightest intention to claim the Fenix family by force?”

He guffawed. “That would make me quite the poor general. But no, there was no plan further than coming to where the Lord had beckoned us. I care for nothing more than to ensure that God’s final incarnation remains safe until the time is right. All that I could request is that I be able to help guide the Chosen One on the journey forth.”

“Liam’s not going to agree to be your messiah.”

“Did I say that I came for him?”

It took a second to catch his meaning. They had been under the impression that Liam was their target based on orders Evelyn overheard, but now that Leah could piece it together more succinctly, another possibility floated through her mind.

“You want the kid?”

He nodded. “Yes. Your namesake, Leah Fenix. She is the Lord brought down to this earth, sent to deliver us from the evils of this world by inflicting her divine fury. When she pours the seven bowls of judgment, the sinners will perish, and the Beholding will end, thus saving us all.”

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“And you ‘Beholders’ are mere servants to that end,” Leah considered.

“Correct. Don’t you find it interesting how finely the hands of fate have intertwined?”

“No. I think that you’re batshit insane.”

“Faith and insanity certainly are hard to distinguish for those blinded to the light. You would know. You may consider yourself as the matriarch of this land, but like many women who do not let the better sex lead them, your eyes are weak to that which the Lord has shown to you.”

She squinted, trying to suss out which part of that pissed her off most. “I’ll tell you what I see: an unarmed man covered in manure standing in the chamber of someone who has destroyed more enemies than she could ever remember. This is not a conversation of equals. You would do well to remember that.”

“You are correct in that we are not equals, but that is only because the Lord protects me and not you, Leah.”

She laughed. “You think I can’t purge you before you can blink? I’m sure Uriel thought the same. Where was your god then, and where will he be now?”

But Father Abraham merely crossed his arms behind his back and turned away. “If you tried to strike me down, the Lord would open the very earth where you stand and bury you beneath. That is His power.”

Oh, how Leah had half a mind to finish this guy off, right here and right fucking now. “Like I said. You’re batshit insane.”

“And you prove my point, sadly. The Lord has given you a brilliant mind, Leah, only for you to waste it so flippantly. Like the others who inhabit this city, you lose your souls by engaging in Sin, and then become slaves to it. Your lack of faith is the prison that withers your minds, and we offer nothing but freedom.”

Time for a change of tactics. “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but the Hollowing isn’t some magical force you can pray away. It was produced in a lab. I even knew the scientist who made it.”

“Do you think something as grand a scope as this plague could be tethered to the work of man?” Abraham asked. “Only God could inflict such a force when He rang the seven trumpets of pestilence.”

Leah grinned. “She was a woman, actually. Your supposed weaker sex. Dr Ava Sherman, inventing an artificial cell type to circumvent death called ‘HBRS-15.21’. I could show you the files if you want, but my guess is that your Rez would implode after absorbing too many contradicting facts at once.”

Abraham tilted his head with a smirk. “HBRS-15.21, you say? ‘For since by man came death, by man came the resurrection of the dead.’”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It is from the Holy Word, of course. Corinthians 15:21, to be precise.” He turned to face her in full. “Quite the coincidence, do you not agree? Perhaps this scientist of yours had more faith than you realize.”

There was no denying the eerie coincidence, especially with Abraham’s calm bravado as he recited his line. This guy’s more clever than he looks. Leah was starting to see why so many followed him. At a bare minimum, he no doubt had an infinite bag of one-liners like that to pull from.

“I didn’t bring you here to debate theology,” Leah deflected.

“What is life but an exercise in debate? Between our friends, our enemies, and even ourselves? If we keep our thoughts locked in the shadows, we gain nothing but a fog over our minds. Sin proliferates under those conditions, weakening your soul.”

“And I’d counter that so long as you believe in a single book, you’ll forever be trapped with a fog over your mind.”

“The Holy Word is no mere book. It opens your spirit to limitless growth.”

She gleamed. “You can say so, but they sure burned like regular books to me.”

A flash of hatred furrowed behind his magenta eyes, even as his face remained rigid. “That was a most grievance form of heresy. The death of the body is immaterial compared to that of the soul, and you have deprived many out there in search of seeking these higher forms.”

“If I didn’t know better, Abraham, I’d say you care more about the destruction of your book than the friend I murdered.”

“Indeed. Each copy of the Holy Word takes quite a lot of effort from my congregation to produce, from the paper to the ink to the leather binding itself. More than a dozen of my family work together with each issue, slaving away on our press to ensure there are no errors.” He took a step closer. “And yet, you threw all that toil down the drain with a mere snap of a finger.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Leah folded her arms again, unfazed. “Sounds to me that there are some lines you’d rather not see crossed. That where you’re going with this?”

He nodded. “If we are to be neighbors, then perhaps we can reach an agreement to our mutual benefit. One where we do not interfere with the actions of the other.”

Just when Leah was starting to think Father Abraham was no more than a machine built to spout misogyny and spiritual haikus, he proved to have a Rez. She began to stroll around the chamber, letting the sound of her steel-toed combat boots echo against the concrete floor. Her guest moved silently behind.

“I’ll tell you what, Abraham…” she began. “The way I figure it, you’ve come all this way to see a messiah who can’t even stand on her own two legs. No matter how much you try to guide her, she’s not going to pour any bowls for you, at least for the foreseeable future. So, for now, let’s let Leah Fenix enjoy some peace and quiet with her parents while our apocalypse rages on. If the Lord is as powerful as you claim, he’ll ensure nothing bad happens to her while we wait.

“And I, your resident Whore of Babylon, will continue to do my part in protecting her so long as you don’t make my life more difficult. That can only happen if I don’t have thousands of others breathing down my throat, asking about living humans that no one here has ever seen before. So the only way to help her is to help me by shutting the fuck up about them. Think you can do that?”

He rubbed his chin, “This seems to be a reasoned approach for us both.”

“Cool. We can agree to this starting condition which costs us both nothing. Additionally, however, I can’t have your people running around the streets telling everyone to stop working and read your book instead. You’re welcome to do what you want with your people, but only beyond the Styx.”

An aura of silence hung for a moment. “In a society as open as yours claims to be, is it really so difficult to allow a free exchange of thought?”

“In this case, yes. I’ve got a civilization to run, not a cult to placate. So long as workers are leaving their posts to listen to those sermons, they’re not working hard enough to keep everything else running.”

His thin lips curled upward, ever so slightly. “If that is your concern, then we can become better neighbors still. As you have noted, I have twenty-five hundred members in my congregation, and we are all willing to put in labor. Why not allow us to help you out, just as God would will.”

Leah scoffed. “I’m not going to feed thousands of extra mouths.”

“And you will not. Even if we do not agree with your ways, I can convince my Brothers and Sisters that your needs must be met. We are neighbors, after all. Aren’t we?”

“Why do I feel like there’s an extra string you want attached?”

“Because there is… If you wish to have more help to let this city continue with its sinful ways, then all I ask in exchange is one small favor.” He stopped, the light trapped in his thinned hair, casting a shadow over his unwrinkled face. “You must promise that the lessons of the Holy Word can be preached in your streets. Let any who wish to listen to what my congregation has to say, and whether they agree or disagree to be baptized in the light of the Lord, then that is their right, and you are not to interfere.”

“Your people will work without pay so long as you’re allowed to give away your books again and dip some workers in water without repercussion? That’s all you want?”

“Yes.” Father Abraham held out his hand again. “Do you agree to these terms?”

Leah ran her fingers across her scarf and considered the prospect. This wasn’t a bad idea, though not for the reasons that Abraham believed. Labor had slackened across Pandemonium, and with hollowing on the rise, she couldn’t afford to miss a win of this nature. Whether or not the Beholders could survive long-term off milk and faith alone matter little. Only that their free labor could be leveraged to solve her immediate problems.

It wasn’t lost on Leah that this was precisely the solution Sinclair had joked about at their last Council meeting. Unless someone can conjure up thousands of extra workers willing to do the labor for free… he’d said. Well, now here they were, with thousands falling out of the sky, ready to handle their needs. What were the handful of books and some more weirdos dressing up in white cloaks, when the alternative was the boost they needed?

Then there was the potential unrest to consider, were Leah to refuse. If that mob was any indication, treating Abraham by immediate force would only complicate matters further. Perhaps the best approach was to acquiesce for now while forming a more concrete strategy and getting more reinforcements. As he’d admitted, the Beholders had little more the sticks and books, while Leah commanded an entire armada. So what if Abraham’s preaching gave him some extra henchmen for a couple weeks? They’d all fall in line once she took him off the board. They could even fix some roads for her while she gathered reinforcements from El Dorado. A real deal with the Devil.

“Done,” Leah said, embracing his hand.

But the moment they locked eyes and she saw that burning passion anew, Leah could not help but wonder.

Which of the two was the Devil here?