The words were barely out of the snake-man's mouth when an invisible force swept through Forty Feet Under like a great wind, exploding outward in every direction. Three of the infection-demons were instantly torn apart, their bodies splitting apart at the joints. Tables and stools toppled, sharding porcelain and sending silverware clattering to the floor. The jar-lights over the bar swung wildly, clinking like chimes. Many shattered from the impact, raining shards of glass onto the bar, the floor, the stools and the high tables. The naked LEDs at the ends of the chords whipped around like hair in the wind.

The infection-demons’ shrieks fell silent. Margaret stared, wide-eyed as the screaming continued.

It took her a moment to realize it was her companions.

Margaret’s ears still rang from the bullet fire as she pushed herself off the overturned wheelchair and hobbled out of the kitchen. She muttered in horror at what she saw.

“Sword stab me!” Steyphan yelled, slithering forward. “What the hell is happening to them?”

Eyvan’s bodyguard lay on the floor in the doorway between the kitchen and the bar floor, twitching uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth. He had two of those demons on him. They’d bitten his arms and chest. They’d stuffed their rotting fingers into his mouth and nose.

Moonlight!

The demon’s flesh pierced through his. The demons’ bodies withered slightly as their mass and vitality flowed into him.

Margaret gasped.

The infected bodies were fusing with him, amalgamating into something unholy.

Bones crunched. Tendons snapped.

The three bodies moved along the floor as one—a slow, slug-like creature.

Margaret didn’t know what the hell it was. It didn’t seem to have the least bit of interest in her, though, and that was all that mattered right now.

The doorway Steyphan had broken down had gore splattered everywhere. The door must have crushed one of the demons when Steyphan had blasted the door off its hinges.

“Somebody help me!” Rufus screamed. “Get this fucking demon off me!”

Staggering through the doorway, Margaret screamed when she got a good look at the others. “Holy shit!”

Though it looked more to her like unholy shit.

Lizzie’s right arm was fusing with one of the infection-demons, starting with where her claws had made contact with its back, plunging into the plague-ravaged flesh. It was like with Eyvan’s bodyguard, but with one difference: where the bodyguard’s body had been overtaken by the demons—incorporated into their flesh—the exact opposite was happening to Lizzie: she was converting it.

She let out eerie organ moans as the demon’s body deformed. Its limbs lost their definition. Bones broke as the corpse’s legs wrapped around her arm. Mass flowed from the demon into Lizzie, lengthening and thickening her neck and torso, sucking the mass out of the demon’s body. The body’s facial features melted away, and, with a sickening snap that flicked fluid everywhere—the skull split into three pieces. The pieces lengthened rapidly, developing joints.

Turning into fingers.

Margaret was almost relieved when trails of dark red scales rippled over the mutilated body, covering up the horror. In less than twenty seconds, a dead human man had become Lizzie’s right arm. Beneath the scaly covering, the leftover biomass smoothed out, distributing across the limb just as claws burst from the three, newly formed fingertips. Lizzie’s man-sized arm flexed with its first motion.

“Huh,” Steyphan said. “It happened again.”

Margaret looked up at the snake-man beside her. He towered over her like a tree trunk.

“By the Godhead,” Rufus screamed, “help me! Help me!” But then he gasped and his yell got a second wind.

Margaret saw something metallic get raised.

Eyvan? Margaret thought.

What was he doing?

“Wait,” Rufus yelled, “no! What are you—”

The metallic something glinted as it struck down—and Eyvan screamed.

Margaret’s legs trembled as she walked around the bar’s countertop. Eyvan came into view just in time for Margaret to see him bring a steak knife in his hand down onto his left arm. Everyone screamed as Eyvan cut off his own limb.

“By the Godhead…” Margaret muttered.

Eyvan sat on the floor, wrapping a tablecloth around his arm to cover the wound; he’d amputated himself just below the elbow. A severed head still clung to Eyvan’s equally severed left arm, having bitten into his wrist. Red blood blossomed on the white tablecloth.

Eyvan looked up at Margaret, his eyes twitching. “That was a close one, wasn’t it, Marge?”

He must have grabbed the steak knife from one of the overturned tables.

“For Angel’s sake,” Rufus screamed, “don’t just stand there, do something!”

Rufus had also been bitten, though far more extensively than Eyvan.

Rufus looked up at Margaret from where he lay supine on the floor. “Just get it off me already!” he demanded.

A dead woman held him in a lover’s embrace. A one-armed lover; the explosion had ripped off the corpse’s other arm.

Before succumbing to her death, the demonic woman that had flung herself onto the Archluminer had bitten into Rufus’ neck just below the jaw. Her arm wrapped around the side of his head, to jam one of her fingers into his ear.

Margaret continued to stare.

“Wha—what is it?” Rufus yelled. “What is it?” His voice filled with terror. He tried to push or roll the corpse off, but to no avail.

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Margaret’s legs felt weak. “Uh…” She shook her head. “You’re not, uh, looking too good there, Rufus.”

As she spoke, Margaret saw a network of fungal roots spreading beneath Rufus’ skin, growing out from where the woman’s other fingers touched his head.

At that moment, Margaret found herself getting very hungry, and not for the first time since awakening as a dead woman earlier that afternoon. And to her horror, the unholy things around her looked unreasonably appetizing.

With a groan—trying to push the corpse off himself, not realizing that it was fusing with him—Rufus managed to reach around the corpse and bring his hand to his head, where his fingers trembled as they felt out the contours of the fungal veins slowly crawling through his flesh.

If the Archluminer had been screaming before, he was in full hysterics now. He flailed and shrieked, flopping on the floor, digging his fingernails into the nearly naked corpse, desperately trying to claw it off. Bits of his fingertips’ skin ripped off wherever he touched the fungus corrupted cadaver, drawing blood that splattered in small droplets all over the floor. As he writhed, Rufus knocked into Eyvan’s severed arm. Suddenly, the severed arm flexed on its own, bouncing off the floor and onto Rufus’ torn shirt, where it reached and touched him. Fungal roots grew out from its palms and plunged into him. Rufus screamed as he tried to pull it off, only to scream again as his hand fused with Eyvan’s limb.

Everyone was so horrified by the sight that they failed to notice the flesh-slug—Eyvan’s former bodyguard—slither out from between two stools and flow onto him like wandering lava. Rufus’ screams petered out as the flesh-slug subsumed him. There were barbaric snaps as the dying Archluminer’s arms popped free from their sockets and flowed along the flesh-slug’s flank. Rufus’ arms twitched and flexed as they settled into position on either side of the flesh-slug. Rufus’ legs faced the same fate moments later.

In less than a minute, the flesh-slug had gained four limbs of its own. It flexed them in an ineffectual effort to move itself.

“M-Marge,” Eyvan muttered, “you’re drooling.”

Margaret brought her fingers to her lips.

Oh God…

Drool was trickling down her neck.

“You seem hungry,” Steyphan said.

For a moment, Margaret did nothing, too confused,and afraid to make up her mind.

So her hunger made her decision for her.

Seconds later, she was on her knees, suckling at the flesh-slug like it was her mother’s teat, devouring it, bite by bite.

And it was the best damn dinner she’d ever had.

— — —

Time passed while Margaret fed. She felt like hours had passed, but, somehow, she just knew it had only been about six minutes. Six glorious minutes. As a woman of simple pleasures, Margaret would never deny the truth of what felt good. Feeding her hunger felt like an orgasm that wouldn’t end. The pleasure Margaret felt during and after her meal was the best lover she’d ever bedded. It was rapture and bliss—and power, power overwhelming. She hadn’t moved while she fed, but she felt like she’d soared into the clouds—though you couldn’t tell by looking at her.

She’d eaten every last bit of the flesh-slug, and her stomach had grown to accommodate the extra mass. The amalgam of four dead human beings now lay comfortably in her belly, and it showed. Margaret’s stomach and chest were now a soft mattress the size of two and a half men, maybe more, cushioning her underside as she lay flat on the floor. The edges of her gargantuan stomach went past her feet, though it was getting difficult to tell—she seemed to be losing feeling in her lower extremities. She couldn’t tell where her knees ended and her stomach began.

Yet her stomach wasn’t static. She could feel her changes advancing. Warmth, life, and feeling was percolating into her stomach’s contents. Her body was growing something that felt like roots, and, even now, she could feel those roots infiltrating her meal, converting it into a part of her body.

But then she heard the elevator doors open, and the sound jolted her back to the present.

“Your Holiness!” Eyvan said.

“By the Godhead, what happened here?!” Verune yelled.

Margaret couldn’t see the Lassedite, but she recognized his voice. Wanting to be involved, she tried to push herself up off the floor, but her bloated body weighed her down. She didn’t have enough strength in her arms.

So she settled for yelling.

“What’s going on?!” she demanded. “I can’t see what’s happening!”

Then a patch of the floor below her about an inch or so in front of her face rippled and transformed into Rufus’ face.

“What have you done!?” the Archluminer screamed. “What happened to me?!”

Margaret screamed. She tried to get away from him, only to wobble helplessly on her body, and then she screamed again as she felt a force wrap around her and lifted her off the floor. Her inner ear did a somersault as she flipped over, turning belly up mid-air.

“Margaret,” Verune said, “please stop yelling.”

She stared at the Lassedite, at first not understanding, but then realizing that he was the one making her levitate.

“Okay,” she said. Margaret tried her best to sound calm. “Okay. No more yelling.”

Verune nodded graciously and lowered his outstretched hand. Margaret felt the floor gently press up against her back as the Lassedite set her down. Her shirt fell limply to the floor on either side of her, having been ripped down the middle by her growing belly.

Angel, I really have let myself go, haven’t I?

Her stomach was a giant, pitch black jellybean, stippled in scales. Bands of thick, dark gray scutes spanned it in horizontal bands like the grippy parts of a rubber tire. Margaret could still hear—though not feel—Rufus’ face screaming, muted though he was.

She wondered if Rufus was now haunting her. She wouldn’t have put it past him. The man was needy as hell, always requesting more money.

Gradually, the reality of her situation dawned on Margaret, and she screamed.

“I see you have, hmm… finished your dinner,” Verune said, with a bob of his head.

Margaret flailed her limbs as she looked up at him. “What the hell is happening to me!?”

“Exactly what I said would happen, Margaret.” He pointed a claw at her. “You are one of us. Your transition into your new form has begun. Soon, you will be a divine beast—an agent of God.”

Margaret followed the Lassedite’s gaze as it wandered over to the corner of the room. Steyphan sat in the corner, coiled like a cobra. His head bumped against the ceiling as he moved. There was hunger in his eyes and drool on his lips. Lizzie lay against his serpentine flank. Her arm was nearly as—if not bigger—than she was. The snake-man’s massive lower body made for an excellent arm-rest for her man-sized arm.

Margaret glanced back and forth between Steyphan and Verune. “What did I miss?”

“Steyphan was informing me of what transpired here,” the Lassedite explained. “It must have been a hellish scene.” He turned to Steyphan. “Where is Archluminer Umberrige?”

Lizzie said something with those noises of hers, and, curiously, this time, Margaret could almost imagine she was hearing honest-to-Angel words in the sounds—well, not in the sounds themselves, but, in her mind, as if Lizzie’s speech came with subtitles.

Lizzie said something about her having eaten poor Rufus.

“I see.”

“But, please, your Holiness,” Steyphan said, “let me continue.”

Verune nodded.

“It happened again—what happened to Lizzie back at Lct. Stoneway’s-at-the-Rousas,” Steyphan said, “both to Lizzie and to Margaret. It’s just like you said: our bodies absorb the evil.”

“What urgency is there in telling me what I already know?” Verune asked.

Steyphan slithered forward slightly. Some of his hair fell off his head, rubbed off by contact with the ceiling. “It also goes the other way,” he explained. “The demons can absorb the infected or one another, much like how we can absorb them.”

“Truly?” Verune asked.

Lizzie raised her head, and made more of those noises of hers.

This time, it was something about assembling monsters from the bodies of the dead.

Verune made the Bond-Sign. “It is worse than I feared. The horrors of Hell are truly a terror to behold.” He shook his head. “It is imperative that we move forward with our plans. We must devour the Green Death before Hell uses it to build a monstrous army.” Verune glanced at Eyvan before turning back to Steyphan. “What about Margaret’s compound?”

Eyvan raised his voice. Until now, he’d been sitting quietly atop a stool by one of the tables. “That’s why we called you down.” He glanced at Margaret. “While Margaret was eating, we decided it would be best if we brought you here first, your Holiness.” His gaze turned to his amputated limb and then wandered over to the kitchen doorway. “We haven’t gone in yet. We don’t know what we’ll find.”

Margaret didn’t quite agree with that. As Verune lumbered over to the doorway, Margaret bent forward as best as she could. “Now, wait a minute!” she snapped, looking at Eyvan. “There had to be, what, eight of them, at most?”

Verune turned to face her.

“Last time I checked,” she said, “Errol had a good twenty souls down here. So where are the rest of them?”

Eyvan shook his head. “It’s safest to assume they changed into demons like the others.”

The Lassedite nodded. “We shall find out together.”