Verune’s sorrow would have lasted for hours had the hunger not made him stir.

He salivated against his will as his thoughts turned to his assailants’ succulent bodies. And to his horror, Verune found himself smacking his lips.

It would be so easy for him to strip the sweet flesh off their bodies.

Gasping, he gulped, swallowing hard.

The dead woman looked scrumptious. Even her children’s mutilated corpses were terribly tantalizing.

Verune didn’t understand why. He didn’t understand.

They’re victims! What had they done wrong?

But he forced the thoughts aside.

It is not my place to question.

He was one of the Blessèd. His charge was to keep the forces of Hell at bay while gathering the righteous in preparation for their journey to Paradise.

Verune focused on the thought—the journey to Paradise—repeating it like a Daiist mantra or a holy prayer. He filled his mind with the promise of salvation, even as he inched toward the rapist’s corpse. The black ooze that had been seeping from the cracks in the rapist’s pulverized skull had begun to dry. The desiccating fluids had formed a sweet-smelling crust that made Verune lick his lips with anticipation. With a shudder—closing his eyes—Verune reached for the body. Its lukewarmth was wet and kibbly against his fingers.

Squeezing the dead body, he pried off skin and muscle and fat, tugging at the shattered, extruding bones to peel the flesh loose. The man’s brains were lukewarm jelly in Verune’s palms. A part of Verune’s mind told him that the human body was made of firmer stuff than this, but the rapist’s corrupted flesh came apart like a meat long stewed.

Without looking, the Lassedite scooped it up and ate it, filling his mouth with the stuff that dreams were made of.

The pleasure was orgasmic. Flavor exploded on his tongue, dissolving in bubbly sweetness and nougat crunch. Verune moaned, as much in self-disgust as in pleasure.

He made the Bond-sign as he swallowed, and then again after he was done.

Before—many times before—when consuming the darkness’ flesh, Verune had felt movement within his body as the stuff of evil was transfigured into light. It was a crawling sensation, as if the evil he’d swallowed was trying to flee from being purified by the Angel’s might. He felt that same sensation here, only this time, it was stronger than ever before.

Something was crawling on his arm.

He fluttered his eyes as he opened to look.

Verune saw what he felt. A mustard yellow discoloration marched across the skin of his right arm, crawling out from underneath the hummingbird robe’s billowing, iridescent blue-green sleeve. His hand trembled uncontrollably as the discoloration zoomed down the back of his hand and up his middle finger. His finger spasmed for a moment, and then inflated like a rubber balloon, lengthening and swelling. The bones in his hand cracked and shuddered as the finger grew, spreading his other digits to the side to make room. In seconds, his finger had more than doubled in length and thickness.

It had even sprouted a claw.

Verune toppled onto his backside, recoiling in horror, only to wince and cry out as a part of him at the base of his spine that he hadn’t had before went flush with pain under the pressure of his body weight.

In a panic, Verune removed the robe’s golden cope, pulling it off the blue-green cassock. He tried to undo the buttons on the cassock, but the claw at the tip of his deformed finger ripped through the cassock and the pale undergarment beneath it.

He ran his hands over his chest as he looked down. The skin was no longer skin. It had no hair; its feel was altogether different. It was not skin; it was a mosaic, or a finely tiled floor. Even the shape of his torso had changed. His chest was deeper, his belly longer; his neck was far longer than it had been before.

Verune looked up at the ceiling and yelled. “Holy Angel, help me! I… I do not understand! What is happening to me?”

“H-Hello?” A muffled voice called out to him from somewhere out of sight. “Is there someone there?” it asked.

“Who are you?!” Verune flipped onto his belly and rose onto his knees. “Show yourself!” His gaze darted as he searched for the speaker.

“Are—are they gone?” It was a man’s voice, but a frail one. It was timorous. It trembled. “Are the looters gone?”

“Yes…” Verune swallowed hard. “I have dealt with them.”

“Praise the Angel!” the voice rejoiced. “I’ve been hiding in here since yesterday. I… I didn’t know what to do.”

Verune focused on his breaths, trying to calm himself.

In. Out. In. Out.

No matter what happened to him, he needed to remain a light—a light for the faithful. Whoever this stranger was, he was frightened, and clearly in need of aid.

Snorting, Verune wiped the fluids on his hands and face onto nearby objects—bottles and boxes and more. He flexed his fingers, noting that his clawed finger did not feel dead, unlike the rest of him.

Verune exhaled. “It is safe,” he said. “They are gone.”

“Why is the alarm still ringing?”

“I… do not know how to silence it.” Verune looked around, still searching for the source of the voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the back room.”

Verune traced the sound to a door in the wall by the counter.

He cleared his throat, swallowing the sweet, succulent slivers of man-flesh that clung to the roof of his mouth.

Pleasure tingled down his spine.

“There is no reason to be afraid,” he said. “I am a man of god. I have aided others. I would help you as well, if you would permit me.”

The man hesitated before replying. “I don’t know if I can be helped,” he said.

“Everyone can be helped, my friend. The Angel’s mercy is freely offered. We only need to accept His grace.”

“Wait, are you a priest?”

Verune nodded. “I was, yes.” Shivering, he shed a single tear. “Though, I suppose I am a bit more than that, now.” It wouldn’t be humble to boast of his status. His ego had already caused enough grief.

There was a long pause.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I don’t know what to do,” the voice said.

“At the very least, come out of there,” Verune said as he slowly rose to his feet. “Our faces were made to be seen. The Angel gave them to us, just as He gave His Face to become the Holy Sun.”

“Alright,” the voice said. There was a shuffling noise from behind the wall. “But, please… don’t scream.”

Before Verune could even ponder the man’s request, a door opened in the wall behind the counter by the entrance. A set of monstrous claws clasped around the door’s edge.

Verune recoiled. His breath got stuck in his throat. “Demon…” he muttered, hissing out the word.

Once, the creature emerging from the closet door would have been a man, but now, its body was being remade into a Norm’s unholy form. But none of the others Verune had seen had been as denuded of their humanity as this. Twin horns, shaped like black morels, grew from the back of its head. Shelf fungus erupted from the demon’s spine like the plates of a Burugi stoneback, ripping through the tattered remains of its shirt. A red apron covered its upper body, bearing the word Gilman’s in the same style as the glowing sign on the storefront.

The demon closed the door behind it by pushing off of it with one clawed hand, while lunging forward to grab the countertop with the other. It slid its claw along the counter, scraping the countertop, clenching and unclenching the counter’s rounded edge as it hobbled out from behind the counter, bringing its lower body into view.

Its pants stuck out beneath the red apron, shredded at the knees, hanging more like a loincloth than proper clothing. Everything below the knee was missing from the demon’s right leg. A putrid stump of bone jutted out from the rotting thigh-flesh, the edges of which flaked off as the demon moved, crumbling like ash. The demon’s left leg was little better: intact, but with its extremities blackened and shriveled, like the burnt end of a used match.

Verune’s legs trembled, weak and numb.

The demon had a tail; a long fungus-ridged tail that trailed out from behind him, wagging side to side, its minute scales softly brushing against the polished floor.

All of the demon’s scales were yellow, just like Verune’s, though a tad bit darker.

Then Verune saw the demon’s face, and his blood ran cold.

The Angel gave mankind faces, that human beings might see one another, and know that which their Creator had sacrificed to secure their redemption, cutting off His Face to birth the Sun. The human face was Angel’s finest masterpiece. The love, joy, and gratitude that radiated from the human face prefigured the Light—the essence of Divine Love—which would shine in holy sunlight.

Demons had no faces—not true ones. At best, theirs were parodies of the Angel’s handiwork; frustrated efforts to outdo the glory of God. And joy would never be theirs to have, for that which stood against God stood against Goodness itself.

That was why Verune’s dead blood ran cold. That was why his core was knocked off kilter.

The terror wasn’t in the appearance of the demon’s face—that of a Trenton man, albeit on the end of its—his?—thick, swan-curved neck. No. The impossible terror went deeper still, into its expression.

Verune was one of the Blessèd, chosen by the Angel to wage war against the armies of Hell.

This demon is my enemy!

So why was there a look of gratitude on its face?

Why was it hopeful?

The demon sank to its knees, curling its tail around its desiccated foot. The head of the exposed leg-bone cracked and split as it pressed onto the floor.

“By the Angel,” the demon said, “you're a clergyman, and—” The creature’s eyes widened as they spotted Verune’s corrupted finger. He gasped. “—You’re… you’re like me?” A single tear trickled down his cheek.

On his knees, Verune scooted back, knocking spilled goods across the floor. “What are you!?”

Confused, the demon tilted his head. “I—” but then his jaw went slack as his eyes trained onto the nearby corpses.

The rapist. The children. Their mother.

“—I’m so hungry!” The demon’s mouth watered.

The demon scrambled forward. Verune rushed off to the side, pressing himself up against the liquor-drenched shelves—the bottles clinking—as the demon threw himself onto the mother’s corpse and began to feast. His mouth opened impossibly wide. Tears ripped through his cheeks.

“No,” Verune whispered. “No no no…” He skittered back along the wall.

The demon stuffed the mother’s feet into his mouth, one after the other. Clasping his claws around her naked hips, he held her tight as he lowered himself onto his elongated belly and then shoved her legs down his throat. He pushed her in, deeper and deeper.

Verune’s hair stood on end as he realized what was happening. The woman’s body was being converted into fresh demon-flesh. The demon’s torso lengthened as her body sank deeper into his gullet. He wiggled left and right, snakelike, his spine creaking as it grew. His tail surged with growth as the woman’s body passed the halfway point. The growing tail doubled in length and thickness, pushing aside what remained of the demon’s legs, until its base had nearly merged with what had once been a human waist.

All the while, the demon’s eyes rolled in their sockets around, lost in fear and ecstasy. Verune watched transfixed, unable to do much more than make the Bond-sign again and again in terrified prayer.

Save me, O Holy Angel! Save me!

Suddenly, the serpent-man lifted the upper half of his body off the floor and lurched forward—mouth stretched wide—and wretched. Glop and melted flesh spilled out of his mouth, along with the upper third of the woman’s corpse. The demon recoiled from his meal, flailing his leg-stumps as he tried to slither away.

He scooted right toward Verune.

Stumbling back, the Lassedite crashed into one the liquor shelves and then tumbled backward. He yelled in pain as he slammed down on his fledgling tail, but that didn’t stop him from kicking his feet against the floor in a desperate effort to scuttle away from the monster.

But then, the demon screamed.

“Holy Angel!” His eyes were fixed on the dead woman’s face. “Help me!” he begged, weeping. “Help me!” He clasped his face in his claws. “I’m sorry I’m sorry! I… I was just—”

“What are you, creature?!” Verune stabbed a trembling finger. “Man? Demon? Answer me!” Verune wept. “Why do you show fear? Why do you weep? Answer me!” He howled. “Answer me!”

Not even the three-headed fox filled Verune with this much fear.

Had that creature truly been the Holy Beast? Or was it something else? A vision of his own damnation? Of mankind’s indelible sins?

From the moment the light of belief first lit up within him, Mordwell Verune’s faith had never flagged. Tried and tested, yes, but he powered through every obstacle that came his way—every doubt, every fear. But now, for the first time… Verune felt a doubt that he could not shake. The doubt was fire and glass in his heart. It was clawing nails and agony and oblivion, and it was trapped in his soul, with no chance of release.

Since the Church’s most ancient days, it had been taught that demons had no conscience. They had no remorse—and how could they? The Norms had no souls, and the lesser demons that served under them were mere constructs, built around a soul, yes, but not with one. The souls from which they were forged were trapped within them in endless suffering, and the demons themselves knew only evil, for evil was their nature, and no being could go against its own nature.

The demon’s words echoed through Verune’s mind.

You’re like me?

“It’s not possible,” Verune said, trembling.

Verune prostrated himself on the floor, sprawling his arms out at his sides. “I am lost, Holy One. I am lost. Guide me, please, guide me! I do not understand!”

Both Verune and the stranger had changed after eating the corrupted flesh. They were the same. The scales on his hand matched those on the stranger’s body, save for the slightest difference in hue color.

Am… am I?

No. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

Verune slammed his demon-hand onto the floor. “No! This can’t be true! It’s not possible! I am a man of God! I—”

“—Wh-What?” the stranger asked. “What are you saying?”

Verune looked up to see the serpent-man staring at him, tears still fresh on his human face.

“What are you?” Verune lowered his head. “What is happening to you? What…” his voice broke, “what is happening to me?”

“You didn’t see the footage?”

“I don’t know what that is!”

“Apparently, the Green Death doesn’t just kill people.” The stranger laughed. It was a twisted sound; a dying dog’s broken whimper. “Some of us…” he looked away and shuddered, “are turning into monsters. We’re…” his head hung low. “Angel’s Grace, who am I kidding? We’re turning into demons! Into… Norms…”

“No… that can’t be.” Verune sat back on folded legs. He could clearly feel the beginnings of a tail forming on his backside.

“I know, but,” the creature shook his head, “that doesn’t change the fact that this is real, and that it’s happening.”

“No, you do not understand. I…” Verune stared at his hands. “I am one of the Blessèd. I have seen the Hallowed Beast and have lived to tell the tale. I survived Its judgment. The Sword of the Angel was taken from me. I… I need to slay the wicked to make amends. The Last Days have come.”

The creature started to look worried. “Are you okay?”

Verune kept quiet for what felt like a long time.

It seemed even a Lassedite could have a crisis of faith.

Eventually, he found a question he felt brave enough to ask. “Tell me, stranger, what does the name Mordwell Verune mean to you?”

“He’s the missing Lassedite,” he said. “Disappeared when the Second Empire became the First Republic. No one knows where he went, though some people got some really crazy ideas about it.” He furrowed what remained of his eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I am Mordwell Verune.”

The creature—or, was it man?—chuckled nervously, shaking his head. “No. No. That… that’s impossible.”

“As you said, that does not change the fact that this is real.” Verune pointed at the glowing screen the man held in his transfigured hands. “That is one of those information screens, isn’t it? Find an image of me. See for yourself.”

Hesitantly, the man tapped his fingers on the screen. A moment later, he looked up at Verune, then back at the screen, then back at the Lassedite once more, and then the device in his hands clattered the floor as he breathed out a green-wisped gasp.