I was a little too dramatic, I can tell. Poor Caspar is hyperventilating. But as the reason his lungs still work, I think I’m owed at least one monologue. I pat his head. I believe fleshy beings like that sort of thing. He just sprawls out away from me.

“Okay.” I stand up. “You need time to digest this. Are you hungry? I am.”

I know he is. I feel it. He hasn’t eaten since this morning, when they came for him. My hunger isn’t something I can slake. Not yet. His I can do something about, once he comes off this existential dread.

“That’s where you go when you die?”

“That’s where you go when you die,” I say. “It’s really horrible, I know. You’re a healer and Heaven is exceedingly sick. I’ll help you fix it, but first, I need to upset you more. So maybe let’s do that on a full stomach, hmm? What’s your favorite food?”

It’s chicken parm, but I’m trying to be delicate with him.

“Chicken parmesan sandwiches,” he says. “Do you know what those are?”

I scoff. “Do I know what a chicken parm is. Honestly, Cartwright. I’m not that monstrous.” I help him to his feet. “Let me try making you one. You can tell me how I did.”

That’s one of the fabulous things about humans. From the dizzying heights of dread, you remember sandwiches exist, and suddenly your most prime thought is a hankering for one.

I lead Caspar further through the twisting gothic architecture of my insides. His shuffle slowly turns back into that stride of his, the one I’ve felt from the inside so often. Straight-legged, mechanical, head on a swivel. The walking-the-beat they taught him in basic. He’s been out of the militia for years, but he’s never shaken it; the cadence calms him.

I find myself emulating him, breaking out of my minxy stiletto strut. I subtly replace my heels with a pair of combat boots, adding an inch to my height to compensate; he’s not looking at my feet, anyway. He’s paying attention to his stomach, and the familiar smell wafting his way from my kitchens.

In the center of a hive of furnaces and ovens, a table waits under a checkerboard tartan, surrounded by swiveling stools. I took the tablecloth pattern from the pizzeria he clogged his arteries at as a child. A real greasy spoon kind of place. His sandwich is already waiting for us. The chewy bread, the crispy cutlets, the marinara piquant and on just the right side of too-hot.

He sits grimly before the chicken parm. He rests his forehead in a grubby hand. I sit across from him and watch, remembering to blink occasionally.

His finger stabs into the spongy roll. “Is this real?”

“Its own special kind of real,” I say. “It won’t sate your body on Diamante. On the plus side, you don’t have to worry about counting calories.”

He takes one half of the center-cut sandwich. He slides the plastic basket across the table to me and I take the other half. He’s looking to see if I eat, and what happens, whether the chicken is going to melt his esophagus or something. But there’s a bit of gentlemanliness in there too, and that’s what I choose to focus on as I extract my half and take a bite.

There’s nothing more satisfying than the first starving bite from the center of a stacked sandwich. Take it from me; I ate God. It didn’t come close. For this sensation alone, I’m choosing to work in your defense, humanity. He takes his own bite and sighs a gratified grunt. I wipe my mouth and grin at him.

Look, don’t think too hard about what exactly we’re eating and where exactly the meat came from. It’s a cute moment.

“So before you give me your answer,” I say, after bite #2, “some things to know.”

He focuses on his sandwich, like if he doesn’t look at me, he’ll be back on Diamante and today won’t have happened.

“You’ll need to kill people to get this job done,” I say. “No way around it. Starting with the men who just killed you.”

This gets his hazel eyes up and on me. “I don’t do that.”

“That’s why I’m telling you.” I lick some stray marinara off my thumb. “You’ll come back right where you dropped out, and they’ll see you’re back. Word can’t spread, so you’re going to have to end them. This is the trial run. If you can’t kill the guys who killed you, who can you kill, right?”

I affect a light tone. He doesn’t laugh.

“Look at it this way,” I try. “You’ve seen the afterlife. Guaranteed. Heaven is real, death is not the end.”

“Heaven is horrible.”

“Well, yes. But the way to make it not horrible necessitates sending a few mortals its way first. If you and I do our jobs right, their suffering will be brief. You bust me in and I make Paradise a paradise again.”

He frowns. “Even so. I don’t take lives. I’ve only done it once, and it damn near shook me apart.”

“I know. I know. But the first one’s the worst one. And I hate to bring this up, Caspar, but you’re realizing I have a point. I can tell.”

His face pales. “Can you hear my thoughts?”

“Afraid so.” I reach slowly across the table; he draws back. I settle for placing my palm in the center of the counter. “I’m not asking you to enjoy it. You’ll hate it, but I’ll make you very good at it. And you’ll derive a certain grim satisfaction, because that’s what you feel when you do something difficult but just. As for the toll it takes on your soul, well. Your new Goddess is a very forgiving deity.”

None of this is what Caspar wants to hear. He was born in a theocracy, the vessel of his spirit filled to its brim with love and fear of the Father. He’d be shattered by the heresy I’ve dripped into his ear, if he hadn’t already been shattered by the whole hanging thing.

But he’s seen the suffering. He’s seen the sickness of his reality. And that’s his downfall. Caspar’s got a heart. The deeds I require will hurt him, break him, maybe. We both know it. But it’s his pesky heart that dooms him.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He takes a pensive bite of his sandwich. He barely tastes it.

“Will I be bound to your will?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“So if I give you a yes, I can’t change my mind?”

“No,” I say.

“And if it’s no…”

“If it’s no, I put you back where I found you,” I say, “and you dangle. And then you go to Heaven. Such as it is. I would hate that, Caspar. If I could just deposit you safe in your bed, I would. But the only way you survive is with the power I grant you.”

He remembers the city of ash and gristle and lamentation. He sees the grim injustice of the choice I’ve given him.

I reach out again. He doesn’t pull away this time; he’s too paralyzed. My hand is warm on his; this surprises him. “It’s terrible,” I murmur. “This decision. But if you choose me, I’ll make you strong enough to bear it. I can’t exist in your reality—not directly. But you will be the conduit for my power. I’ll teach you to use it. When you sleep, you’ll return here. And I’ll feed you, I’ll comfort you, I’ll train you. My influence in this reality is unlimited. Whatever you would have from me, I will grant it gladly.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he asks. “You’re the Adversary. You deceive the minds and eyes of mortal men.”

“Well, Cas, it’s my word against theirs.” I wad up a napkin and toss it into the basket. “I, for one, would believe the one that didn’t hang you by the neck until dead, but you’re the guy with the human brain. You run the numbers.”

He takes the last crusty bite of his sandwich half. I subtly push the rest of mine back across the table to him, but he’s petrified that my saliva is going to mutate him or something.

(Which isn’t true, by the way, unless he wants it to be, in which case I’d happily give him an extra eye or two. That might be quite fetching.)

I watch the gears turn. And then he comes to a really annoying decision. Oh, Caspar. My pure heart. What are we going to do about you?

“Yes,” he says.

“Come on, Caspar. They tried to kill you.”

“What—I haven’t even asked yet.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay. Ask. But for the record, I think it’s silly.”

“You can’t be doing that,” he says firmly. “For humans, it’s very important how we phrase things. I don’t want you to reply to things I haven’t said until I figure out how to say them.”

“Sorry,” I say. “You’re my first human friend. I’m still working things out.”

Friend catches him off-guard, which gives me impish satisfaction. “I want you to keep them here,” he says. “The people I kill for you. I don’t want them stuck in that… place. You did that for me. Can you do that for them?”

I’d love to lie to him, but I can’t. Have I mentioned that? There can be no deception from a patron to its warlock. Nothing outright. Omission sometimes works, but he’s just straight-up asked me. I bet you were sitting there like ohhh, Irene’s an unreliable narrator. What, just because I have tentacles in places you don’t have places?

That’s humanity for you. Can’t live with them, can’t live etc.

“Fine,” I say. “I’d argue that a brief spiritual acid bath would do their blind-faith selves some good, but I’ll protect those dickheads from the Heaven they think they want. If that will remove your hesitation.”

“And you’ll fix them, like you fixed me?” His face brightens. And it takes the sting out of my gripe, the gratitude he feels. Mixed with more of that golden nectar, that intoxicating narcotic. Faith.

I can’t help but smile a little at this big golden retriever of a human I’ve plucked from the gallows. See, now he has me doing it, the dog thing. “I will,” I say. “That’s a frivolous use of my power, but I promised it was yours. The people you kill will be safe. As weird as that sounds.”

“Thank you,” he says, and then a sour flicker of distrust. “Will you let me see them next time I’m here?”

“Sheesh, Cas.” I flick a crumb at him. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you, y’know, giving you all the toys I’m about to give you. Let’s make it a two-way street, maybe?”

“You must understand my reluctance. If you’ve really been watching me like you say.”

"I do," I say. "And I accept your terms, with gratitude that you're giving me the chance to prove my word to you. We are going to do amazing things together, Caspar Cartwright. We're going to save several worlds. Now take your shirt off."

His brow furrows.

“I have to brand you, and I’d prefer to do it in a spot that people won’t see.” I channel heat into my palm. “You can take your pants off if you prefer, but right over the heart has a fun connotation to it, no?”

He shrugs off his raggedy chore coat. “Will it hurt?”

“More than a vaccination, less than getting executed.”

He exhales heavily through his nose and stands, lifting his shirt off and revealing the functional brawn and weather-kissed skin of a laborer beneath. No glamor muscles on Caspar Cartwright. That triangular torso is hard won from years of martial training and hauling lumber and stone.

I place my hand on his pectoral, feel the sweat and the grime and the dusting of his chest hair. “Swear yourself to me, Caspar. Swear to my service.”

“What do I say?”

“Anything. Just mean it.”

He swallows. His heartbeat increases, a fleet and fearful bird in the cage of his chest. “If your intention is true and if our mission is as just as you say, I will serve you.”

“I accept your service, my warlock.” My fingers brush his chin as I pull my hand away. “I grant you my strength.” I offer him my finger. “Bite down on this.”

“What?”

I waggle it at him. “This is gonna hurt. You don’t want to crack a tooth.”

He gives me a deer-in-the-headlights look. “Your finger?”

“It won’t hurt me.” I brush it against his lips. I could manifest a leather strap for him or something, but I want him distracted. And I sort of want to know what it feels like in there. Hesitantly, he opens his mouth, and I place my pointer along the row of his molars. His mouth is so humid and hot. Sometimes I forget how meaty and wet you people are inside.

I slam my other palm, the heated palm, into his chest, and he screams. His jaw locks around my finger. I feel the dull ache of his paltry pressure. Flesh fizzles. Don’t judge me when I tell you this, but he smells delicious.

He crumples as I remove my hand. “Father above,” he groans.

“Ah-ah.” I crouch to his level. “Irene above, my little warlock.”

His olive flesh shivers. Sweat carries the dirt down his forehead. “It’s done?”

I cradle his cheek, running my thumb along the conch of his ear. “It’s begun. You can put your stuff back on. It won’t sting.”

He brushes the place I branded him. The skin is already cool. Right above his heart, straying from pectoral to sternum, a black brand in the shape of my third eye. The conduit opens. I let my power flow through the firmament into my new servant, and relish the wonder on his face as he feels me.

“Good, right?” I help him to his feet. “It’s going to wear you out at first, every time you call upon it, so try not to overexert yourself. You’ll feel your limits. But the pathways will broaden with use.”

His grim task reestablishes itself in his mind. The men he must send to me. I catch his gaze, snare it to mine. The thin tracery of my pupils in their pools of gold, the smoldering darkness of my face. He’s examining me, trying to find the humanity within. There’s none, not in the way he’d define it, but I like how close we are. I smell the blood in him; I feel its heat. His soul a little flickering firefly in the darkness of this dimension, cupped in the palm of my hand. An impulse rises in me to close my fingers around it, to keep his light locked away within me. To keep him safe from the bruise spreading across existence.

But he has his task.

“Time works differently in my dimension,” I say. “You can stay awhile, if you’d like. If it would help.”

He shakes his head. “I’ll go. Best get it done quick.”

I can still feel his apprehension. His dread. I’m about to argue with him, offer him a rest, maybe manifest a hot tub for the poor guy or something.

And then I feel the air churn as the psychic echo of a city-sized entity breaks the horizon, a slowly widening roar. I witness the shrinking of his pupils as his face breaks into confusion. A trickle of blood drips from his right ear.

“Yes okay get outta here good luck Cas.” I hastily lay my kiss on his forehead and banish him from my realm. His gasp fractalizes and fades as he folds like origami into nothingness, his essence rocketing from me like a hocked loogie.

Just in time, too. If he’d stayed another instant, his sanity would have liquefied. My sister has arrived.