023.001

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Interlude

Adrael


The Endless Expanse truly lived up to its name. As far as could be perceived, crystal lattice formed into structures. From tall towers to smooth domes, the Expanse encompassed all. No matter for how long one traveled, they would never reach the end. Prismatic light of every hue glimmered off the pristine walls. It was a sight that no mortals had seen. Many sections couldn’t be seen by mortal eyes. Every so often, sections of the Expanse shifted out of existence, folding in on themselves as the landscape surrounding them unfolded. Any mortal caught within would be torn to pieces.

And that was hardly the only thing that a mortal would find hazardous. The overpowering brilliance from a million fractal compounds would surely blind human eyes. Blobs of shifting red and green light clung to the towers one moment, only to be replaced with yellows and a hint of octarine. Strange linear forms sprouted from the edges of the fractal surfaces, making the structures appear alive with motion despite being immobile.

For the inhabitants of the Endless Expanse, such a thing was as usual as a door.

The city, if it could be called as such, was filled with crystalline buildings. But, except in rare cases, the buildings were filled with nothing. There were no apartments. No homes. No couches. No tables. No beds. No one lived within a single structure within the Expanse, mortal or otherwise. Not even a single insect patrolled along the glassy faces of the scenery.

Although it encompassed the entirety of existence, only a few places saw any activity.

The Throne was the largest of those areas. As endless as the Expanse, it stood taller than any other structure. Although fit for a mortal of average height, it dwarfed everything with its presence. It was the main hub for meetings between the Spheres. Principalities arrived to deliver their collection of souls to the four-faced Cherubim. Virtues attended to the Infinite Library, going through the books one by one in their ceaseless task. Authorities observed the Ophanim, reporting on the great wheels’ movements to the Virtues.

And the Seraphim stood around the Throne itself, guarding it. Clad from toe to head in golden armor with a white cloth veil obstructing their faces, each one looked identical to the one next to it. Though few in number, each one had six great wings spread to their fullest. They filled the crystal chambers. Even they, the Throne’s ultimate guardians, were unable to project a more imposing presence than what they had been charged to protect.

Adrael turned away with a frown. Despite everything, despite creation itself going awry, they didn’t move. She had tried explaining. She had tried petitioning for them to take action. She had tried. And she had failed. With the veil over their faces, she couldn’t tell if they even flicked their eyes to her.

With a twitch of her wings, she drifted toward the Throne chamber’s grand arch. The exit. But she couldn’t stop herself from glancing back.

Her fists clenched. What would happen if I flew up and shoved one of them? Would they act then?

The answer, she knew, was… probably. But they wouldn’t act the way she wanted. If they did anything at all, they would view her actions as an attack. A spark of another rebellion. Before she could blink, she would be cut down and sent to the oblivion that awaited.

Eyes drifting to the Throne behind the Seraphim, Adrael sighed. Was it even worth protecting? Without anyone seated on it, the Throne became nothing more than a chair. No. Not even that. It was a mass of crystalline lattice, the same as any other segment of the Endless Expanse. Turning, she stared at the others in the chamber. The Virtues, the Authorities, the Cherubim, and the Principalities. They were the important ones here. They were carrying out their duties properly.

The Seraphim were… broken.

They weren’t the only ones, Adrael thought. She had… attacked a mortal. There was no point in mincing words. An attack on a mortal would see her obliterated. It was a secret that none of the other angels could ever know. But it had been for a good cause. A just cause. An attempt to stop the destruction of what had taken eternity to set into motion.

Exiting the Throne chamber, Adrael turned her eyes upward. There was no sky in the Expanse. Not as the mortals knew it, anyway. Just more Expanse. Outside the Throne’s immediate presence, Ophanim dominated the vista. They were the size of planets. As wheels were wont to do, they turned, keeping everything in motion. But there was something off about them. They were covered in eyes, but their eyes were hazy and unfocused. They hadn’t always been that way. Adrael had fond memories of gazing up on her rare visits to the Expanse and watching the Ophanim, wondering what they saw with so many eyes.

They didn’t see anything anymore. They just… turned.

Adrael tore away from the tallest spire as fast as she could fly. Being here had once been a comfort, a reprieve from all the horrors of the mortal plane. But now, it was just painful. So she flew.

No matter how far she went, the tall spire was always in view. A product of the twisted space of the Expanse. Yet it did grow smaller. By the time she reached her destination, her extended thumb at arm’s length was just enough to obscure the chamber of the Throne.

“Archangel Adrael. I was beginning to wonder if you would be joining us on this day.”

Adrael touched her feet to the surface of the dome, looking around the gathering of her fellow Archangels. Only nine of them, each representing a world gone wrong. To Adrael’s knowledge, none of them had gone quite as wrong as Nod, but that didn’t lessen their burden. She wouldn’t make light of their efforts and she was not envious of them for having far less work to undertake. There was honor in being tasked with repairing the most difficult world.

She sighed slightly, looking back to the one who had first spoken. Archangel Celestiel. Currently appearing as an older woman with two spiraling strands of dark hair coming out of either side of her head, she wore a black dress that was reminiscent of Tenebrael’s.

It made Adrael uncomfortable.

Averting her eyes—the Archangels did not have a leader, though Celestiel might disagree with that notion—Adrael addressed the gathering as a whole. “I apologize for my tardiness. I’ve just come from the Throne.”

“Aww. Was wittle Adwael whining to the Seraphim again? Praying for your burden to be delivered to another?” The youngest on the dome burst out into a chittering cackle, clutching the hem of her white apron with her tiny hands.

At least, she appeared to be the youngest. Why Archangel Kenziel chose the form of an eleven year old human was anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was a foolish attempt to make herself more palatable. Adrael had never met an angel with a more disgusting personality. Kenziel hadn’t always been that way, but… things had changed. Such a disarming appearance might work on a mortal. Adrael could see through her deception as easily as she could see through the crystal lattice they stood upon.

“I take it that you have had little success,” Celestiel said, turning her red eyes to the distant spire.

Little success would be an improvement over what I’ve had,” Adrael grumbled.

Kenziel covered her mouth but did nothing to hide her obnoxious snicker. “We can’t all be blessed with success. Incidentally!” she shouted, clasping her hands behind her back, “I’d like to report that the issues on Hazor have been resolved. There are a few outstanding errors, but I calculate that time will resolve them far more effectively than any intervention of my own. The land’s Dominion is now fully compliant.”

Celestiel glided over, placing a hand on the tiny angel’s shoulder. “Excellent work. The Dominion’s negligence caused Hazor to turn quite sour. I’m impressed you’ve repaired everything this quickly.”

The praise made Adrael press her lips together.

“Ah yes. If only all our problems were the result of simple negligence or sloth.”

She shouldn’t have said a word. She should have smiled and politely clapped her hands together as the other Archangels had done. But she couldn’t help it. The smug little grin on Kenziel’s face as she looked right in Adrael’s direction was too much. Something inside her snapped.

A familiar something. She had felt it when everything had been going wrong. In desperation, she had struck down a mortal. The others couldn’t know about it. It had only been a short time ago. She had to expend a mite of glory to rebuild her arm, but everything was back to normal.

Her fellow Archangels were all staring at her now. They couldn’t know… but their stares made Adrael uncomfortable.

She had explained the situation before, hoping that one of them might have an idea she could use. But they just didn’t get it. They didn’t understand how bad things had gotten. They couldn’t understand. “Relics walk hand in hand with humans. They even copulate,” she said with no hidden disgust. It was the most shocking thing she could think of saying, but even that only got them to glance between each other.

“The Dominion has done something to the process of procreation. Most of the copulations result in nothing, but a few produce offspring. Abominations that should never be. Every minute, the world is thrown off more and more. I need a flood or a cleansing fire, but the Seraphim won’t act. Even if they could, how could we possibly petition the Throne in its current state. The Seraphim would have to act manually. Even if we could flood the world right now, I fear even that wouldn’t be enough. Not so long as the Dominion has a modicum of sway. But if I can’t even get a little flood, what hope do I have of resolution?” Squeezing her eyes shut, Adrael clenched her teeth. “And now there is some mortal running around. Not only can she see angels, but I cannot calculate around her. Everything she interacts with gets knocked out of harmony. When she isn’t around, I can start getting accurate calculations, but the moment someone so much as thinks of her—”

Venting felt good. It was a release that she had needed for some time. And yet, Kenziel interrupted with another light giggle.

“A mortal? A puny mortal is ruining your machinations?”

Adrael’s hands formed tight fists. What was Kenziel still doing here. She had admitted that her responsibility was over with. This was a meeting for the Archangels still in the process of recovering worlds. And yet, she couldn’t just shoo the angel away. She was just speaking what all the others were thinking. Adrael could see it on their faces, the impassive humor hidden beneath their flat lips.

“A mortal can see me,” Adrael spoke slowly and clearly. “A mortal spoke to me. She didn’t pray like the prophets of old, she spoke to me and responded when I spoke back. She cannot be predicted. She tears apart miracles with her bare hands.” That got a minor reaction, mostly in the way of widening eyes. Celestiel actually gasped. But even that was too subdued. They couldn’t understand. “None of you have encountered anything similar. Have you?”

As angry as she was, she couldn’t help the hope from leaking through in her voice. If one of them had encountered such a thing before, then perhaps they could give tips. Pointers on how to deal with such a situation.

But none of them spoke up. Not even Kenziel. The diminutive little angel wasn’t even smiling anymore. She just had a finger to her chin as she thought to herself.

“I have not,” Celestiel eventually said. “Mortals speaking to angels has happened before through the medium of prayer and revelation, but never without preparation. And they have always followed prior calculations. Destroying miracles?” She shook her head slowly. “I have no experience with such a thing, nor have I heard of a situation like that from anyone else. But I don’t know everything. Might I suggest speaking with a Virtue? They will know of any similar prior incidents and how they were handled.”

Adrael jolted. A Virtue. Of course. The bookkeepers of the Throne would know. They had to. If they could provide no clues… then this was the first time in the entirety of creation that a mortal had interacted with the divine in such a manner.

“Thank you. I appreciate the insight.” Adrael glanced around at the other Archangels. These meetings occurred regularly. And they lasted for days. Every minute that passed created an exponential growth in the errors on Nod. She didn’t have time for Nietzael to give a full report. Her world wasn’t even that bad, but she went into every single little detail. And that was just one of them. Even with Kenziel out of the way, there were still seven more besides. Spreading her wings, Adrael glided backward. “I apologize for my premature departure, but it has become clear to me that none of you will be able to offer significant assistance toward resolving Nod and I am unable to concentrate on offering assistance to you while so distracted. If you need me, I will be at the Throne for the time being.”

Waiting just a moment to see if any had an objection and finding no one speaking against her, Adrael took off. The spire in the distance exploded in size as she sped toward it. She didn’t slow for anything, not even to apologize as she bumped into the lavender wings of a Principality.

Aside from Dominions, Adrael had never much interacted with the Second Sphere. An Archangel’s duty revolved around Dominions, their world, and the Third Sphere angels that assisted with the management and upkeep of the world. Which was one of the main reasons Nod was so problematic. Tenebrael had done something to all the Third Sphere angels that should have been assisting her. There were no Guardians or Principalities to be seen.

Except that one. Somehow, Tenebrael had recently converted one to her little rebellion. It was something she should have mentioned to the others, but too late now. It wasn’t their responsibility anyway.

But, because of her lack of interaction with the higher Spheres, she didn’t know any Virtues. There were a number of them around the throne, all stationed around the bookcases, either in the midst of reading or writing. Both, in some cases. Personalities varied greatly between Dominions, Principalities, and Archangels. Adrael could only assume that the same would be true of Virtues.

That meant that some of them would be more helpful than others, even if they all had access to the same information.

Adrael drifted toward one that had just closed a large tome. If she didn’t interrupt their reading, they might be more helpful and less annoyed. The Virtue wore a darker appearance, both in terms of skin and the long coat she wore over the skin. That alone almost put Adrael off, but plenty of angels wore black. It wasn’t just Tenebrael. She couldn’t assume that all of them were fallen angels. Surely the Seraphim would act if one paraded itself about in front of them.

As Adrael got closer, she heard the angel mumbling.

“One dash one four one mismatch. Error three five. Record alteration.” She reached up to the shelf and pulled out a thick tome. Holding her hand out, it floated there, flipping through its pages at a blinding speed. “Alteration error resolved. Context missing. Three. Two. Seven,” she said as she moved to one side. Another tome was floating there, already open. She pressed a finger to the page and dragged it across. In her finger’s wake, text formed. “One dash one four one mismatch resolved.”

Great, Adrael thought, she is doing something. Adrael didn’t want to interrupt, but, glancing around again, all of them were doing something.

Left with no choice but to interrupt one of them, Adrael cleared her throat. “Excuse me. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Four one seven. Expectation failed. Logging memory. Pausing process. Switching protocols: Personable.” The angel blinked twice, turning a set of golden eyes toward Adrael. “Good day, Archangel. How can I be of assistance?” Even as she spoke, her finger still ran across the blank tome, filling its pages with text.

“Oh. Uh… I’ve been having a problem involving restoring a world and wanted to know if you could help me.”

“Four zero zero. Bad request. Query vague. With what do you request assistance?”

This was it. Adrael glanced back at the Seraphim, but they hadn’t moved. “There is a human. A mortal. She can see me. She can hear me. She can touch me. I cannot calculate her and I have extreme difficulty calculating around her. I have witnessed her touching a binding miracle and destroying it with her bare hands. I… I don’t know what to do about it, so I thought that such a thing might have happened before and was hoping there might be information you could find that would give me guidance.”

“Query accepted,” the Virtue said. She finished running a finger to the end of the page before allowing the tome to gently close. It floated back up to one of the shelves on its own, disappearing in the mass of identical spines. The Virtue pulled a pair of gloves from within her heavy coat and donned them, doing up several buckles from her wrist to her elbow. “Follow, please.”

Her heavy boots made a clomping noise as they crossed the crystal lattice of the floor. It struck Adrael as a bit odd that she would walk. She clearly had wings—all angels had wings, even the massive Ophanim. But, since it seemed like she was getting help, Adrael wasn’t going to complain about some eccentricities.

No matter how far they walked—or flew, in Adrael’s case—the Throne stayed right where it was. The shelves moved by, as did the books. Even the angels standing around the room disappeared into the distance. But the Throne did not. Adrael was used to it, but it still felt a little surreal after having spent so much time on the mortal worlds.

Eventually, the Virtue came to a stop. The shelf she stopped in front of was no different to the one before it or the one after it. As far as Adrael was concerned, every shelf was completely identical, and she had a nearly perfect memory.

But the Virtue didn’t reach up to the shelf as Adrael expected her to. She just stopped. Adrael waited a moment, wondering just what was going on in that head. It wasn’t until she noticed the Virtue’s eyes that Adrael felt like something had gone wrong.

The faint golden glow was flickering.

“Virtue?”

The virtue jerked to the side, staring with wide eyes. “I— I am experiencing an e-e-error. Five o-one one. Authority Required. Att-Att-Atte-empting authentication. Four zero five. Method not-t-t-t-t-t allowed. Requesting support.”

“Support request received.”

Adrael threw her head to the side, finding a whole series of nearly identical Virtues lined up, all staring up at a shelf. Something was going wrong. Again. Everything to do with Nod had been cursed. Somehow or another, this had to be Tenebrael’s fault. Sabotage?

“Unprocessable Entity.”

“Request timeout.”

“Payload too large.”

“Lp-Zero.”

“Too many requests.”

“I’m a teapot.”

“Invalid operand. F-zero zero-F.”

“Forbidden.”

“Lockout.”

“Lockout.”

“Lockout.”

Three of the Virtues crumpled. They fell to the crystalline floor as if they were mortals who had perished. Seven more took their place, these ones weren’t identical to the long coat wearing Virtue. More and more were gathering around. And they weren’t the only ones. As the Virtues continued spouting errors, Adrael found herself crowded away by the gathering, pushed back into a gaggle of Guardians, Principalities, and a handful of Archangels who had all ceased their duties to watch.

Only the Seraphim and the Cherubim ignored the proceedings.

With every nonsensical error given, Adrael felt her hopes dampen. Something had seriously gone wrong. The original Virtue was still standing. Adrael could see her clearly enough thanks to the somewhat bulky coat. What was the first error? Authority required?

The library was the Virtues’ purpose. It existed because of them and they existed because of it. How could one of them possibly lack the authority to access whatever they had been trying to access?

The answer came with one final error code.

“Unauthorized by Order of the Throne.”

The gathering of Virtues fell silent. The entire room went silent. No more errors. No whispering of the spectators. Not even the rustle of a feather broke the utter quiet.

Until the original Virtue turned around, looked right at Adrael, and smiled. “Four zero six. Query not acceptable. Is there anything else I can assist you with, Archangel?”

She stared. The other Virtues started drifting away, acting like nothing had happened. The ones on the ground were left there. They didn’t move. Were they alright? Would they be alright? Why were the Virtues just leaving them there?

And the others. The Principalities, Archangels, and Guardians. They were just staring. Some at the shelves, some at the Virtues, and several at Adrael.

Which made her realize that the original Virtue was still waiting for a response.

“N-No,” Adrael said. “Thank you.”

“Good day. Reverting to previous duties. Switching protocols: Information validation.”

The Virtue walked away. Adrael said nothing more, just watching as she headed back the way they had walked. What else could she say? As much as she wanted to point and scream that Tenebrael had clearly broken the library or the Virtues, she couldn’t. The Throne itself had blocked access to whatever information was related to that mortal on Nod. Mortals only lived a hundred years if they were lucky. That one couldn’t be older than thirty.

Adrael glanced back to the throne, ignoring the Third Sphere that were still looking at her. The Throne. Its glorious presence dominated existence itself.

And it had been empty for thousands of years.


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022.008

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There and Back Again

Inventory Shuffle


Alyssa started with the pistols. Setting the food carefully on the ground, she picked up one of them and started turning it over. It really looked brand new. There wasn’t a ding or a scratch in the metal as far as she could see. She almost wondered if it had received the same treatment as her phone. She wasn’t about to try Annihilator on them, especially not without Tenebrael explicitly stating that she had done something to them. And not when trying to call one of them to her outstretched hand failed. Her phone appeared just like it should. The gun did not.

Pressing a button on the side dropped the weighty magazine into her hands. One by one, she used her thumb to drop the brass bullets to the table. She knew for a fact that the magazine hadn’t been fully filled before. It was now. And, pulling back the slide, she found one extra bullet already chambered. After quickly reloading and reassembling the pistol, she slid it into her holster. Right where it belonged. She then repeated the process on the other pistol, finding it fully loaded as well.

There was a small cloth set atop a box where the pistols’ barrels had been resting. Before taking the guns, it had made the barrels aim upward, displaying the two guns while also pointing them directly where Tenebrael had been. The angel had clearly never taken a firearm safety class in her life. Removing the cloth, Alyssa found one box of ammunition. Enough for four full magazines. Not much considering the rate Alyssa had been going through it, but more than what she had before, so she wasn’t going to complain. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room in the satchel with all the boxes of Chinese. For now, Alyssa swapped the food for the ammo, figuring that she could fill Izsha and Musca’s saddle bags with the food once they got out of their stasis.

Which should be soon, she thought glancing over at their still forms. Can’t come soon enough.

Alyssa was more than ready to get out of this place.

The phone went into her pocket. She barely glanced at it before sliding it in. It was too complex to look through for every little thing that Tenebrael might have done to it and, besides that, she doubted that Tenebrael would have done anything to it anyway. It was already souped-up.

Her cards went away much the same. They looked like they hadn’t been touched. A quick glance through didn’t reveal any new cards, so there was no point in investigating them more thoroughly. She left Irulon’s tome right where it was, intending to return it to the princess as soon as she was able.

The shotgun, like the pistols, looked cleaner than when she had pulled it out of her gun safe. Sliding her fingers along the barrel felt only like smooth hard metal. Not a single imperfection. Definitely no mark where the end had nearly been chopped off by the Taker’s sword. A quick check found it was fully loaded as well. The strap was different. Before, it had just been a belt that would work to sling it over her shoulder. Now it was filled with additional shells, each ready to be loaded at a moment’s notice. That combined with the fresh box sitting right in front of the gun, plus the spare shells she had left at Tzheitza’s shop, meant that she had quite the surplus of ammunition for the shotgun at the moment.

Which Alyssa wasn’t going to complain about in the slightest.

Slinging it over her shoulder, she found it nestling into place as if the strap had been adjusted perfectly.

Stupid angel, she thought with a smile. Her smile waned as her eyes moved to the final object on the table.

“I don’t like this.”

Alyssa jumped. Her heart hammered against her chest while her hand dropped to the grip of her pistol. She had it half out of its holster before her brain finally decided to recognize the voice. “Kasita,” she said, sighing in relief as she glanced over her shoulder.

The mimic stood at a surprising distance from everything, being almost back up against the building the hellhound and shadow assassin had been trapped against.

Which was a thought that sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t have any way of detecting them active. Kasita could see them and would presumably warn her, but as much as she trusted the mimic, seeing for herself couldn’t be beaten. At the very least, it would make aiming at them far easier.

Holstering her pistol again, Alyssa grabbed hold of her deck of cards. Unseen Sight didn’t reveal anything new around her. She wasn’t too surprised about that. It had been several hours. Enough for morning to come and for noon to be soon arriving. The shadow assassins and the hellhound were probably long gone by now.

“You don’t like this?” Alyssa finally said. “The staff?”

“Any of it. You do realize that there is nothing there, don’t you?”

Nothing here? Alyssa turned back. There was stuff here. A black cloth over a table. Some food placed on top. And a golden staff lying on its side. She grabbed the tablecloth between her fingers and rubbed back and forth. It was soft and velvety. Far too luxurious to leave in the desert. She would have to fold it up and take it with her. If nothing else, it would fetch a fair amount of coin from some noble… probably. Unless it only existed for Alyssa. “Can you not see all this?” Selling The Emperor’s New Clothes might be a more difficult task.

“Some of it,” Kasita said. “All the things you’ve had before are there like normal. The food as well. But there is nothing under that cloth. Except there is.” She shuddered.

Glancing back to the table, Alyssa knocked her fingers against the table. It didn’t make a sound. No hollow woody sound, no metallic clank, no stony thump. Stepping back, she lifted up the tablecloth and peeked underneath. The first thing she noticed was a lack of table legs. Looking up, she found no table top either. She could reach up and feel the soft velvet of the tablecloth and even press her hand upward into the cloth.

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Huh. And that… thing. Remember how I said that those feathers were strange?”

“You said you might die if you try to mimic them,” Alyssa said as she let the cloth drop back to its spot. There was a bit of a hand print where she had moved the cloth from the bottom. Running her hand over the top smoothed it back out. Weird, but hardly the weirdest thing that she had seen since meeting angels.

“Well, that thing is worse.”

Ignoring the mysteries of the table for a moment, Alyssa reached a hand out to the staff. She didn’t move quickly, but slowly and reluctantly. Despite having been hanging onto it for dear life earlier, the prospect of touching it was somehow unnerving now. Not just because of what Kasita had said, but just because she feared that the moment she touched it, it would smite her. Or Adrael would pop up. Or something else bad would happen.

But Tenebrael wouldn’t have given her something dangerous. Even if angels really could harm people as easily as Adrael had, Alyssa could at least believe that Tenebrael didn’t want to see her dead. She still didn’t think that Tenebrael would pop up to save her life unless another angel was the one endangering her. Mostly because interacting with the denizens of her world seemed troublesome for Tenebrael.

Biting her lip, she clasped her hands around the golden haft. The metal felt warm to the touch. Much warmer than she expected of metal. Or maybe much cooler than she would have expected for something that had been sitting out under the desert sun for a few minutes. But, other than the eerily warm sensation in her arm, Alyssa didn’t feel any other effects. No sign of any angel feathers either.

Regaining her confidence, she brought it over to her side of the table and rested the end against the ground. “Seems alright to me,” she said, looking up to the ruby orb.

“Just try not to swing it at me, alright?”

“Of course not.” It really wasn’t meant for swinging anyway. It wasn’t a bō staff. The ruby orb at the one side made that end far too heavy. Maybe it could be used as a club, but she doubted that was its intended purpose either. Even though Adrael had thrown it, it was probably more like a magic wand than a martial baton.

Now that she was thinking about its weight, Alyssa started frowning. Wasn’t gold supposed to be extremely heavy for its size? To the point where a small block was hard to pick up with one hand. For a staff like this to be made of gold, she would probably have to deadlift it just to get it off the ground. But she could lift it up and wave it around with a single hand. It didn’t cause so much as a mild strain.

Shaking her head, she chalked it up to magic and left it as that. Was it bad that she shrugged her shoulders at so much that would have made her gape in shock a month ago? If she were a scientist, she would say yes, but she wasn’t. Puzzling over the enigmas of the universe wasn’t her job. Things were the way they were regardless of her understanding.

“What is—” A thundering crash cascaded off the buildings, echoing over the village. Alyssa turned just in time to watch the peak of the cross topple forward, falling straight through the partially collapsed roof of the church. “What is that!” she shouted.

Someone else was still here, dismantling the building. The hellhound? Or… wait. What time is it? Pistol out and in one hand, staff back on the table, she pulled out her phone with the other. A tap on the glossy face brought up the clock. Twelve hours already? She didn’t know the exact time that Irulon had cast the spell, but she knew when she had showed Irulon pictures of Tenebrael. The two times hadn’t been far apart. Half an hour at most. Assuming that was correct, then the Fractal Lock that kept the fairies in their cages and the splitting spell from progressing had worn off.

Narrowing her eyes, Alyssa glanced around. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. “Am I a bad person for hoping that those fairies were crushed?” She really didn’t want to deal with them. Especially not while Irulon was in such a vulnerable state. The Fractal Lock on the fairies had only been ten to fifteen minutes before Alyssa’s Fractal Lock on the princess and the draken.

“I’m conflicted,” Kasita said after a moment of thought. “I feel bad for them, but I don’t want them near me either.”

“Yeah. Let’s just keep an eye out. We won’t have to be here for long. The stasis will be running out soon. As soon as it does, we can get out of this hellhole and get back to the cave.” They wouldn’t be totally safe there, but, with Irulon’s tome, she might be able to seal off the entrance until everyone had fully recovered. All she needed was for Musca and Izsha to be mobile. The princess didn’t even need to wake up right away.

“I’ll stick next to you. Don’t want to fall under their sway again and wake up finding myself being eaten.”

“Good idea… Wait, can you even be eaten?”

“If they make me want to bring my true self to them. I doubt they would, they would probably try to gnaw on my illusion. But it is possible.”

Alyssa turned her back to the table and the draken behind it, leaning against it. Only after she put her weight on the table did she remember that there wasn’t actually a table there. She didn’t fall, but the realization did flip her stomach as if she had just gone down a drop on a roller coaster. She didn’t like leaving her back open, but the church was the most likely direction for the fairies to come from if they headed toward her. With Kasita essentially having a full view of everything around, Alyssa would be counting on the mimic to watch her back.

“Do they try to eat absolutely everything,” Alyssa asked after a minute. “Fairies, that is.”

“They’re carnivores. I know that much. They use their powers to eat whatever falls under their sway. I think they usually stick to common animals, but I really don’t know. The first one I’ve ever seen was on the Brechen Overlook. Like I said, while I have lived among monsters, most of my life has been with humans.”

“Huh. Strange.”

“Strange?”

“It’s just that… we had fairies back home. Mythology, not reality. But from the stories, I would have assumed that they were nice. Like, they’re usually the hero of the story, or allied with the hero, as most main characters in fiction are human. They would offer support of the magical variety. A fairy godmother is a fairly common character.”

Just thinking about it made Alyssa want to find some books or plays from this world. Fictional ones. Plenty of historical fictions from Earth dealt with the slaying of monsters and fantastical journeys to strange lands. Magic as well. The Odyssey, Beowulf, and stories from King Arthur’s mythology to name a few off the top of her head. But here, where monsters were a real thing that real people went out and really slayed, a story like the Odyssey might well be true here. Maybe a little exaggerated, but she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

What would fiction look like in a world where her fiction was all reality? Did they dream of glass cities and people going to mundane jobs like janitors? The thought almost made her laugh.

“Strange,” Kasita eventually said, which did make Alyssa chuckle.

She almost asked what fiction the mimic knew of when she heard a noise at her back. All her good humor bled away to a nervous tension as she turned.

Irulon slumped forward. Already leaning toward one side, she promptly fell face-first into the dirt.

Holstering her pistol, Alyssa rushed over. Tenebrael had supposedly healed her completely. Alyssa couldn’t actually tell. Tenebrael had fixed everything that Adrael had done, including the damage to the black armor. With the top fitting much tighter on Irulon than on Alyssa, there wasn’t even a slight gap where the two sides connected. Taking care to be gentle, Alyssa flipped the princess over so that her back was against the ground.

Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. There was something… off. Alyssa shook her head and ignored the weird sensation in the back of her mind. Pressing fingers up against Irulon’s throat, Alyssa found a steady pulse. The princess was alive. Undoing just enough of her armor to get to her skin, Alyssa felt around the princess’ chest. It was a bit invasive, but it was all in the name of health. Where once there had been a gaping hole in her ribs, Alyssa’s fingers found a hard sternum.

Of course, even if she had found a hole, Alyssa wasn’t sure what she could have done. Another Fractal Lock, probably. She lacked the medical skills to mend more than a scratch. And something told her that burning the wound closed wouldn’t have helped as much on the heart and lungs as it had on Alyssa’s shoulder.

Just as she started considering slapping the princess—she knew from experience that trying to wake her with anything less was an exercise in futility—Alyssa felt warm and moist air against the back of her neck. Turning her head, she saw the orange and black tiger stripes of Musca in the corner of her eye. More importantly, she saw rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth.

Alyssa pulled her hands away from Irulon at a glacial pace. She tried her best to avoid any sudden movements. “Hi. Musca. You remember me, right?”

The only response she got was a blast of warm breath right in her face. It made her flinch, but Musca didn’t follow up with a chomp of those teeth. Instead, the draken moved to the side slightly, pressing its muzzle right up against Irulon’s face. It made Alyssa a little more nervous with how Musca had nipped at Irulon back at the palace, but this time, it just nudged and pulled away.

“I swear,” Alyssa said as soon as its eye turned to her, “I wasn’t doing anything other than checking that she was alright.”

A snarling snap made Musca look away, giving Alyssa a bit of breathing room. Izsha’s teeth chomped down on thin air. Having apparently expected something solid between those teeth, it immediately let out a deep growl as it whipped its head back and forth, searching for its target. Unable to find anything to attack, it settled on Alyssa, Musca, and Irulon, making what Alyssa would describe as a confused whine.

Carefully, still making no sudden movements, Alyssa closed up Irulon’s armor, stood, and took a step away from Musca. “Sorry,” she said. “A lot happened.” She was about to leave it at that. Both draken were looking right at her. They were clearly dissatisfied with that explanation. Alyssa didn’t know how she knew. It was something subtle with the way their eyes shifted or their nonexistent lips peeled back. As much as she knew that they were intelligent monsters capable of understanding human language, it actually took her a moment to remember that fact. They wanted more.

So Alyssa gave them a bit more. “Had to put you all in Fractal Lock until I could heal Musca and Irulon. We need to get out of this village. Then I’ll explain what happened if you want to know more.” As far as she was concerned, now that the fairies were free, it was imperative that they leave at once. Irulon hadn’t seemed concerned when Musca chomped down on the first fairy’s head, but Alyssa didn’t want to take the chance that a group of the little monsters would be able to overpower them and take control.

Or that they would take control of her, for that matter. She had thrown off one with only a little difficulty, but if a group could combine their powers, she might be in trouble.

And Irulon was still unconscious. What was wrong with her? Had Tenebrael not healed her properly?

The princess hadn’t slept at all the night before—or day before. Whenever. Was that it? She was so exhausted that her body was taking every scrap of sleep it could get? That was great for her body, but Alyssa wanted out. “Can you carry her?” Alyssa said, looking up to Musca. “Without letting her fall off your back? We don’t need to go far. Just to that cave we spent the day in.”

The draken made a noise. Alyssa wasn’t sure how to interpret it. It was a low trill from the back of the throat. Encouraging? Discouraging? Alyssa hadn’t a clue.

Musca snapped her teeth, not quite lunging at Alyssa. It did make her jump back again. Thankfully, Izsha came to her rescue, putting itself between Musca and Alyssa. They… talked? They made noises at each other, staring, glaring. They even paced around a bit as if they were trying to intimidate each other.

The whole display made Alyssa more and more nervous the longer it went on. What were they arguing about? What if Musca wanted to eat her? What if Musca convinced Izsha? Irulon’s tome was all the way back on the table. The spells she had on hand weren’t enough to fight off two draken. Not without resorting to Spectral Axe, which would kill them. She would if it came down to it, but that was a last resort. The draken were not enemies. They couldn’t be. Irulon trusted them. Brakkt trusted them. Even Alyssa trusted them. Or Izsha, at least.

Just as she was considering her chances at making it back to Irulon’s tome in time to Fractal Lock the two draken, their argument came to an end. Whatever dialog they had ended with Musca kneeling down next to Irulon. Izsha bent, opened its mouth, and clamped down on Irulon’s collar. The dragon scales didn’t tear, rend, or break as the draken partially lifted the princess. In a surprising feat of oral dexterity, Izsha gently placed Irulon over Musca’s back, face down. Her stomach was pressed up against the saddle.

At the sound of a clipped chirp from Izsha, Musca stood up again. Irulon stayed in place. And she stayed in place as Musca started walking. The draken probably shouldn’t do any running or jumping, but it seemed that they were mobile.

Musca’s slit pupils turned to Alyssa. It let out a slight huff through its nose before turning away.

Izsha, on the other hand, approached, coming right up next to Alyssa.

Unless they had learned to speak, Alyssa couldn’t even ask what they had been talking about. Which was not a bad thing. Alyssa wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Thanks,” was all she said.

“Aww, they like you. Ufu~”

Alyssa wasn’t sure she believed that, but she wasn’t going to argue right now. Whatever happened, it got results. Turning to the table, she considered shoving the food into Izsha’s saddle bags, then thought better of it. They could do that later. For the short trip out to the butte cave, she could carry it. Rolling everything up in the long table cloth, Alyssa slung it over her shoulder. Curious, she stretched a hand out and patted at the air. There was nothing there anymore. No invisible table. It had vanished when she took the black cloth.

Kasita disappeared as well during the process, so Alyssa didn’t even bother looking for the mimic as she clambered into Izsha’s saddle. It was an awkward affair with all the bulk, but they were off.

At a languid pace to keep Irulon from falling.

By the time they made it to the cave, Alyssa’s back was sore, her arms were straining, and she felt sweaty enough from the desert heat that cleaning her armor had probably been a pointless task. But they made it. And Irulon had only fallen off Musca once. She hadn’t woken up, but she had mumbled something about Tess when Izsha pulled her back onto Musca’s back. Alyssa was taking that as a positive sign. As long as they were safe in the cave, Alyssa was content to let the princess rest for a few more hours.

Although…

The butte, like most buttes, was a tall and fairly wide section of rock that jutted up above the relatively flat surrounding desert. Alyssa guessed that it was made of sandstone, but she wasn’t a geologist. The cave was up a little hill of brown dirt and it wasn’t a very wide opening. To get inside, Alyssa had to get off Izsha’s back lest she smack her head.

When her feet hit the ground, she noticed it. A few sharp gouges in the ground. Four shallow gashes, each about an inch apart. One stride forward and she found another set of marks.

It might have been there before. She hadn’t been paying all that much attention to the ground during their earlier visit. The only reason she noticed was because she had dropped a box of chicken strips.

Izsha bent down and sniffed. Not at the chicken, but at the marks. When the draken started growling, Alyssa knew that she couldn’t deny it anymore.

Something was in this cave. Something with sharp claws.

Setting the food down, she pulled out her shotgun. It felt good in her hands. Just knowing that it had some stopping power compared to her pistols was a comfort. Turning back to Musca, she held up a hand in what she hoped was a stay gesture. If the interior was dangerous, they could leave. There was some gear in there, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she couldn’t recover it. However, she was feeling a little confident with her refurbished armaments and her monstrous friends. She had a raptor on her side.

Glancing at Izsha and nodding her head, the draken bobbed its head right back.

They advanced into the cave slowly. It wasn’t a large cave, more of a U-shaped hole in the wall. They followed the tracks slowly. The more she looked at them, the more certain Alyssa was that they were aimed inside the cave. None were pointed in the opposite direction. Whatever made them was still inside.

Before she could peek around the corner to where she had spent the night, she heard it. A crunch. Loud and a bit wet, followed by smacking of a tongue.

That was enough for her. Whatever was in here could stay in here. There were surely other, less occupied caves around. She turned to leave, only for Izsha to bump into her.

She went sprawling across the ground. It took all her presence of mind to point her shotgun toward where the noise had come from while lying on her side.

Her backpack sat with some of Irulon’s supplies against the back wall. Its contents—the compass, a flashlight, a first aid kit, a thermos, sunscreen, a whistle, and plenty more—had been spilled all over the floor, dumped out from a brand new hole in the top of the pack. In the middle of all the garbage, a mound of black fur sat.

A huge paw shoved a protein bar into the gaping mouth, wrapper and all. It crunched down twice before realizing that it had company.

The burning eyes of a hellhound turned to face Alyssa.


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022.007

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There and Back Again

Conspiracy Theories


“Am I dead?”

Whatever Alyssa had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Having asked Tenebrael to hide Irulon and the draken to keep the shocks to a minimum, Alyssa tried to present herself as normally as possible. She hadn’t run to the bathroom to equip the armor despite wanting the added protection. She hadn’t left out three empty beer bottles for him to see. She had even asked Tenebrael to step out of the room for a few minutes, just in case he could see her, and had been mildly surprised when the angel complied without complaint.

So for his first words after blearily looking around the room to be questioning whether or not he had died, Alyssa had no words. Her expectations included yelling or maybe a fear that he had been kidnapped. Or maybe picked up by police. Or an ambulance that had been worried over his health.

What should she even say? Obviously, he wasn’t dead. But, at the same time, he kind of was. At least as far as people on Earth were concerned. By now, the police had probably figured out who he was if he had any kind of identification on him. An old military ID card or something similar. They might have to wait for dental comparisons, fingerprints, or a relative or old coworker to confirm, but they likely had an idea.

Alyssa felt a sudden pang of guilt, wondering how her own family was faring a month after her apparent demise. Her mother would have come home and found her body. Stabbed, if Tenebrael had prepared a body to match with how she was supposed to have died. She… hadn’t really thought about it. Initially, she had thought she wound up on Earth and wouldn’t have too much trouble at least getting a message to her parents to tell them that she was alright. Then, as time went on, she wound up increasingly distracted by all the nonsense in the other world, leaving relatively little time to actually think about her parents and her brother.

Right now, staring at a man who thought he was dead, she couldn’t get the image of her mother cradling her lifeless corpse out of her head. It was an image eerily similar to that of the elder thief clutching his deceased son.

What about this man? Did he have any family? Would they be missing him? Given his homeless status, he probably hadn’t had anyone close. No one who would give him a spare room in their house, or could give him one. That didn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t care for him.

He stiffened his back, black trash bag crinkling as he moved. “Naw,” he said, cracking his neck back and forth. “Hurts too much.”

“You aren’t dead.” Alyssa should have started with that immediately after he first spoke. The question had just come as a shock. “Though your life as you knew it is effectively over.” Maybe one day, once Alyssa figured out a way to stay on Earth without constantly being harassed by angels, he could come back with her. No sense getting his hopes up immediately over something that was probably a decent way off into the future. Especially when she hadn’t even explained about the other world yet. “I’m not entirely sure how to tell you—”

“You’re one of those government types they talk about in whispers,” he said, leaning forward.

Alyssa just blinked. What is he talking about? Her speechlessness before was nothing compared to now.

“You come, find someone with nothing left, and… turn me into an assassin? A spy? Or is this a suicide mission?” He chuckled, low and slow. “I knew you people wouldn’t leave me alone. Well? Go on. What’s the mission?”

“What are you— No. There’s no mission. I’m not whatever you think I am.”

“Of course you’re not. And of course there is no mission either.” He leaned a little further forward, winking with emphatic exaggeration. “The bathrobe is a nice touch. I’d never expect it. But I guess the movies have done the black suits and sunglasses too much to use in reality, eh?”

“Just… stop,” Alyssa said, pressing a hand to her forehead. Oh Tenebrael. That stupid angel was laughing at her right now. She could hear the melodic giggling coming from the hallway. And… was her pocket laughing too? “Look. You aren’t dead, but the world thinks you are—”

“Of course they do.”

“Stop winking! Ugh.”

Maybe it would be easier just to throw him to the wolves and let him fend for himself. Depending on how big a conspiracy theorist he was, and he was obviously a fairly large one, he would probably assume that moving to the other world was some technological advancement kept secret from the general population. Showing him the draken would just make him think that they were some secret government bioengineering project. If he was really hard set in this narrative he built for himself, Alyssa didn’t know what she could say that would convince him. Even plenty of magic might be explained away as technology by someone sufficiently set in their ways.

“Tenebrael!”

The angel took a moment, probably to compose herself from all her laughing, but eventually floated into the room. “You called?”

“First of all,” Alyssa said to the man—whose name she had intended to ask but hadn’t gotten around to thanks to his nonsense. “Do you see anything over there? In the hallway opening.”

He looked, thankfully silent. With narrowed eyes, he stood up and walked over. Alyssa watched him with a sinking feeling. A feeling that was confirmed when he stepped right through Tenebrael.

Alyssa sighed, followed closely by an almost simultaneous sigh from Tenebrael.

“I told you,” the angel said in a slightly dejected tone.

“Well,” Alyssa said, hoping to distract herself from the fact that the man was now inspecting the wall paint. “Can you give him a cell phone with my number in it? Drop him off in Lyria. He can—” The guy was staring at her now. Shifting slightly to address him directly, Alyssa continued. “You can call me when you get a clue.”

Tenebrael responded first with a slight sigh. “I suppose I could. But it isn’t going to be as full of features as yours.”

“So long as it can call my phone, that’s fine.”

As Tenebrael reached back into her feathers—did she come prepared to hand out cell phones?—Alyssa grabbed her satchel from the couch and started picking through it. She pulled out a few bars of money. Not much, but it would be enough to get a room in a cheap place and a dozen meals or so. Anything else and he would have to find a job. Or beg, but Alyssa wasn’t sure how well that would work in Lyria. Crossing the distance, she dropped the bar-shaped coins into his hands. “Money,” she said before quickly explaining that the gold ones were worth the most and the bronze ones were worth the least.

“Never seen money like this before. And I’ve been to all the shitholes of the world.”

“I bet,” Alyssa mumbled.

“What language are the little letters?”

Unable to answer, Alyssa glanced to the side.

“Enochian,” Tenebrael said as she dropped a phone into Alyssa’s hands. Not a smart phone. A small brick with one of those green and black displays. It looked more like a calculator than a phone. Except the calculators that she had used in high school geometry looked more advanced than this. Oh well. This must be what Tenebrael meant by a lack of features. It didn’t even have a camera on it.

He did not look impressed when she handed it over. “Budget cuts hit your department too?”

Alyssa didn’t respond, sadly shaking her head instead. “This is going to be a bit of a wakeup call for you, I think. You can consider it a chance at a new life. Or you could wind up in the streets again. It’s up to you. I saved your life, but I don’t have to babysit you. What you do is up to you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Word of advice: Avoid dark alleys. And here, take this.” She had meant to offer him one of the packaged hamburgers as comfort food while processing his situation. But things hadn’t gone as she had planned. So she just dropped the hamburger in his hands, still in its box. “It is probably the last one you’ll ever get.”

That made him tense, just a bit. “Last one?”

What was it that Tenebrael had said? “Prepare thine self, for this world is not long for thee.”

She immediately felt a nudge in her side.

“Excuse me? That’s my line.” Tenebrael had the biggest pout on her face. A fake pout, one clearly forced. Turning away, her eyes started glowing even brighter than before. Her fingernails mimicked her eyes as she thrust a hand upward. Four circles spiraled out, forming a triangle with lines of text flowing between three of the circles. The fourth rested in the center. “Chris Altrac. I claim thee… blah blah, you can’t even hear me. Target: Chris Altrac. Stochastic evasion routes calculated. Evasion impossible. Immediate space-world tether severed—”

As soon as she spoke that line, Tenebrael vanished. The man vanished with her. Aside from a slight rush of air from around Alyssa to fill their void, there was no evidence of either having stood before her only moments ago. It probably wouldn’t stay that way for long. Tenebrael would be back for her in minutes. Tops. Possibly within seconds.

“I better get things ready,” Alyssa said as she headed back to the bathroom, more for the benefit of the mimic in her pocket than for herself. “I’m sure she’s going to want to take me back immediately.”

Kasita didn’t respond, but Alyssa didn’t really expect her to. She was a rock.

Though she had been laughing earlier. With a lighthearted scowl, Alyssa tossed the robe to the floor and started getting back into the dragon armor. As soft and fluffy as the robe had been, she honestly felt much better with the thin but tough scales providing a barrier between herself and the rest of the world. Glancing in the mirror, she adjusted the suit. Maybe it didn’t look quite as bad as she thought it had back in the palace. It was still just a bit tight and had just a slight gap in the chest, but she projected a fairly imposing presence.

Her pistols were missing. The one under her arm and the one at her hip. She had never carried a gun in her everyday life on Earth. Except, obviously, the few times she had been dragged down to the range. But everyday carry? Never. And yet, despite all the dark scales covering her, she felt somewhat vulnerable without them. Especially because she didn’t even have spell cards for backup.

Tenebrael had better give them all back, Alyssa thought with a scowl. And that staff. Adrael’s staff. Alyssa wasn’t sure what to think about it. It was a weapon crafted by angels. Possibly one capable of harming other angels, given Adrael had pulled it out when Iosefael attacked. Angels couldn’t—or weren’t supposed to harm mortals, so there would be no need to have weapons to fight them. That just made Alyssa want it even more. An angelic weapon.

Although, she did have to admit that carrying it around wasn’t that practical. It was large and unwieldy. Awkwardly shaped as well. Angels could make them appear and disappear at will. That would be a nice trick to learn. Perhaps that would be the first thing Tenebrael would teach her. She didn’t know what those lessons would entail, but the thought was making her giddy.

To avoid the philosophical nonsense that came from too much staring in the mirror, Alyssa grabbed the robe and headed straight for the kitchen. She threw open the fridge and stared.

What to take… what to take?

Everything. Alyssa started with her satchel. She managed to cram in three boxes of Chinese, two submarine sandwiches, and two colas. Unable to fit anything more, she laid out the robe on the counter and started piling things on top. Everything, from beer to chicken nuggets. She piled up one thing after another. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich? She definitely wanted a few of those. Barbecue ribs? How had she missed those earlier? A whole pizza fit underneath everything else easily enough.

“Having fun?”

Alyssa jerked, dropping a bottle of mustard to the floor. The bottle was, luckily, plastic; it didn’t break and splatter everywhere. Without even looking at the angel at her back, she continued plundering the fridge. “I don’t suppose you’ll unfreeze Izsha and let me fill her saddle bags with food?”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah. I figured. You will let me take all this… right?”

“If you can carry it all.”

Glancing over her shoulder, Alyssa winced. She… might have to put a few things back. The bathrobe was long, running from shoulder to ankle, but she wasn’t sure that she would be able to fold the fabric over the mound of containers with it that high. Sighing, she started placing a few of the less appetizing foods back into the fridge. Poutine? What had she been thinking?

As she worked, she looked up to the angel. Tenebrael was looking too perfect, as usual. “How did he take being dropped into a whole new world?”

“I can’t be sure. There were an awful lot of vulgar words coming from his mouth. Take that as you will.”

“How about your book? Has it updated to include him in future events? Or is he another blank spot like me?”

“That was the first thing I checked,” she said, reaching behind her to pull the book from her feathery wings. Opening it to the page with the bookmark, she flipped forward a few pages. “Nothing in here yet, but it may still be calculating future possibilities. I’ll keep an eye on it.”

“It’s a long shot, but I don’t suppose you could provide me with an English copy of those books?” Being able to tell the future would go a long way toward avoiding troublesome situations. The Taker put a trap around the next corner? Too bad for him. Alyssa could simply go a different route.

“These were crafted by Virtues. I lack the requisite knowledge to create them.”

“But you would if you could?”

“I don’t think an English version would work either. A single character of Enochian conveys enough information to fill a few hundred books. To decompress my notebook into such an inefficient language as English… the book would have to be as big as a galaxy. Approximately.”

“Wow.” It felt like a lame response, but what else could she say? A single page would be impossible to use, let alone a whole book. She couldn’t properly visualize it even. It was just too big. Even if it were stored digitally… that would still be fairly large. Probably. Alyssa didn’t know much about data storage other than that she had several books on her phone, but they were probably not galaxy sized books in their natural state.

To avoid trying to wrap her head around something she couldn’t imagine imagining, Alyssa set to work wrapping up the food in the bathrobe. She had seen videos on the internet about turning clothing into carrying devices. Unfortunately, they had been the type of videos that she watched once, thought they were neat, and promptly forgot about. It took both hands gripping every corner and sleeve of the robe, but she managed to lift the food off the counter without spilling it everywhere.

“Ready?”

“I think so,” Alyssa said. She had the food, her armor, the satchel hanging from her shoulder, a wocket in her pocket, and… that was it. Tenebrael had taken everything else before they had arrived. “Yeah. Ready when you are.”

“Targets: Alyssa Meadows, Irulon, Izsha, Musca. Evasion calculations unnecessary; willing and immobilized targets. Immediate space-world tether severed. Confirming existence of multiple universes. Nod confirmed. Beginning narrow area Nod transference across Divine vector three-five-nine.” As she spoke, the triangular magical circle expanded from her outstretched hand. Still lacking her phone, Alyssa couldn’t do much other than try to memorize it. Unfortunately, this magic circle moved. The text, the angelic script that could hold more information than a book of English text, flowed between the circles. It didn’t seem like it was repeating either. Unless she took a video of the magic circle, she couldn’t think of a good way to recreate the effect. Simply drawing everything onto a piece of paper wouldn’t work.

Maybe that would be one of Tenebrael’s lessons. A way to cast magic using glowing lines drawn into the air like the angels used.

Enochian could be exactly why Tenebrael didn’t seem too worried about the prospect of teaching Alyssa her style of magic. If she couldn’t comprehend all the rapidly moving text, she probably wouldn’t be embarking on a solo trip to Earth. The smaller spells that some of the angels had used didn’t move. They were as static as the spell cards. If Alyssa could cast those without a card, it would still be worth it.

The apartment around Alyssa vanished into nothingness. The conditioned air went with it. Alyssa sucked in a breath as a bit of panic took root in her chest, worried that she wouldn’t be able to breathe at all. But fresh air filled her lungs. It was the crisp air of a wilderness without human population or pollution.

“Local destination: Three. One. One. One. Eight. Seven. Two. Nine. Five. Six.”

The cool air rushed away in a heavy gale. A stifling heat moved in to fill the void. Alyssa had to squint away from the bright light of the sun as it started beating down on her.

“Transit complete without incident. Welcome back, Alyssa Meadows, to my world.”

Ugh. I don’t suppose you could go adjust the desert’s thermostat.” It took a few blinks of her eyes for them to adjust to the sudden light. When she could finally see, she found herself standing almost exactly where she had left. Musca and Irulon were right where they had been impaled. Izsha was a bit to the side, near the toppled building. Time had clearly passed. It had been night during their attack. A flick of her eyes toward the sun had them watering, but the blinding light told her that it was late morning.

And her sunglasses were back at the cave with her backpack. Ugh.

“Your equipment,” Tenebrael said, which had Alyssa whipping her head back to the angel. “Your phone, pistols, spells, and a small gift.”

Everything was lying on a black cloth covered table between the angel and Alyssa. Her phone was propped up like it was on display at a shop. The pistols were both pointing away from Alyssa—and looked like they had been oiled and polished recently, all the dirt and grime was nowhere to be seen. In comparison, the deck of cards looked like it had been tossed on the table as an afterthought. Several of the spells were bent and it looked like they had been dragged through the dirt. Irulon’s tome was cleaner, sitting right next to the stolen deck, but it clearly retained some of its dirt from Alyssa dropping it.

The gift was covered by another cloth, one with white embroidery lining its edges. As soon as she was looking at it, Tenebrael reached forward and pulled the cloth straight up.

“My shotgun?”

It sat there, just as polished as the pistols, propped up so that she could see it properly. The barrel was whole once again. There wasn’t even a small scratch where the sword blade had nearly lopped off the end. She would have reached out to pick it up and fully inspect how fixed it was, but her hands were still full of a food-filled robe.

As happy as she was to see her shotgun in one piece and what looked like a few boxes of shells to the side, she couldn’t help but frown.

There was one thing missing from the table.

“Where’s the staff?”

The angel frowned. She opened her mouth, but hesitated in actually speaking. After letting out a small sigh, she held out a hand horizontally over the table. The golden spiral sprouted from either end of her hand, growing long and sharp at one end while stunted with a ruby orb at the other.

“I thought about not returning it,” she said slowly. “It is a holy artifact, after all, not meant for mortal hands. And, if it is in your possession, Adrael may try to retrieve it. I might not be around to stop her and Iosefael needs to return to Earth for a time to continue her duties there. Not that she did much good this time, but she did distract Adrael for a few minutes. Are you sure you want it?”

Alyssa pressed her lips together. Adrael coming back was a scary prospect. Maybe she would just sneak in while Alyssa was sleeping and take it back, but maybe not. The angel had already demonstrated a capacity for harming mortals. Putting herself in harm’s way simply to keep the staff might not be worth it.

At the same time, that staff was a major link to angels. A weapon used by angels against angels. If she let it slip through her fingers, she might never again come across one.

With that in mind, Alyssa nodded her head.

“Very well. I don’t know what you hope to do with it, but I won’t keep it from you. It isn’t even mine. And if Adrael didn’t want mortals to get their grimy hands on it, she shouldn’t have thrown it at one.” Using both hands, Tenebrael slowly lowered the staff down onto the table. With its length, it stretched behind all the other items, reaching from end to end as if it had always been intended to be displayed there.

Tenebrael took a step away. Or a float away? Either way, she stretched her wings wide. “I’d love to stay and chat some more, but I do need to find Iosefael. I need to track down Adrael if possible. I need to find a suitable soul for our excursion in seven days. Plus all my other duties. Busy busy. I’ll see you soon.”

Alyssa didn’t say a word. She didn’t trust herself not to ask Tenebrael to keep the staff. It really was dangerous to keep it. But the time to decide passed before she could think on it any further. Tenebrael’s black wings scattered through the air, obscuring sight of the angel just long enough for her to disappear.


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022.006

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There and Back Again

Alcohol


Alyssa was not an alcoholic. She really only drank on rare occasions. Her birthday. New Years. When she went to fancy sit-down restaurants. Things like that. There were a few reasons for that. Price was the big one. Alcohol was expensive. She couldn’t understand how people could throw away a significant percentage of their income on drinking a few beers a day, let alone on more pricey drinks. The taste wasn’t anything to write home about and she didn’t actually enjoy being any level of drunk either. The few times she had woken up with a hangover only served to hammer home that drinking was to be a social-only thing, not a casual thing.

She wasn’t about to disparage other people for enjoying that things they enjoyed, even if she secretly thought that they were foolish for doing so. However, tonight, she was grateful that Tenebrael had seen fit to stock the closet with several bottles of beer. It was cheap stuff, mostly, but Alyssa wasn’t going to complain. Especially not after tasting the vile mixture they called alcohol on Nod. That stuff could get her swearing off drinking permanently. Maybe modern tastes had ruined her palate, but she couldn’t see how anyone drank that stuff.

Yet they seemed to like it. Especially those people at the festival in Teneville. Even when it had been free, Alyssa had passed a mug up more often than not.

Ugh, thinking about beer was distracting. Or maybe it was the beer that was distracting her. Was there a difference? She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She hadn’t had nearly enough to be actually drunk. It was just that thinking about beer was less complicated than thinking about other things. More important things.

“So what do we do now?” Alyssa said, looking over the coffee table. Irulon, Izsha, and Musca were still pushed off to the side. They were now joined by the frozen form of the bearded man, who had been unceremoniously dumped on top of the pile. It was getting a little ridiculous.

She was once again wearing her fluffy bathrobe, which had been cleaned with a wave of Tenebrael’s hand. Tenebrael hadn’t noticed Kasita. Or, if she had, she hadn’t said anything about it. Alyssa was just glad that the mimic was still there. She had been a little worried that the mimic would slip away. But her trust had not been misplaced.

Take that Oz and Tzheitza.

As for the angel herself, she sat across from Alyssa with her wings obstructing the television—not that Alyssa believed that the news would be playing anything about the incident at this time of night. There hadn’t been a chair there before… there still wasn’t one there now. No matter how she figured it, Tenebrael was not sitting on a chair.

She sat on a throne.

A black marble throne made to look like it had been ripped from a Gothic cathedral. Maybe even her cathedral from Teneville. The back was narrow enough that it could fit between her wings, resting her back without getting in the way. Two tall spires jutted up on either side of her head. If Alyssa blurred her eyes a bit, it almost looked like the angel had horns. She sat with her legs crossed, leaning against one of the two open-mouthed lions that had been carved into armrests.

Upon first seeing it, Alyssa could only roll her eyes. The angel could float in the air without even beating her wings. Did she really need a throne?

“So what now… Tenebrael?” It wasn’t like the angel to be distracted. Was something wrong? Alyssa started, hand instinctively going for a gun at her hip that wasn’t there.

But Tenebrael just glanced over and shrugged. “Apologies. I was going over everything we did, making sure that I hadn’t forgotten anything. I think we should be fine.”

“Ah. Well, that’s good. So now? Back to Nod?”

“Soon. I don’t want for any of you to be here much longer than you already have been. But I will allow you some time to recuperate.”

“Enough time to get a night’s sleep?” As much as Alyssa didn’t think that she would be able to sleep well, a soft bed would go a long way to help.

Sadly, Tenebrael shook her head. “Not longer than an hour. Besides, your companions will be out of stasis soon. I want them back in my world before then.”

“Can I at least take some food with me?”

“As much as you can carry,” Tenebrael said with a smile.

“Damn,” Alyssa mumbled, wishing that she had her big backpack with her. Unfortunately, that was back at the cave outside the Society’s compound. “What about this robe, can I keep it too?” Maybe she could tie it into a makeshift bindle and increase her food carrying capacity.

“It has your name on it, doesn’t it?”

“Thanks!” Alyssa said. And she honestly meant it, though she did start frowning after thinking for an extra second. “I don’t suppose you could do something that would make it permanently clean, could you? Because I just know that it is going to get caked in dirt, sweat, and probably blood ten minutes after getting back.”

“Are you calling my beautiful world filthy?”

“Yes.”

Tenebrael’s lips turned to a pout. “You are a needy one.”

“I’ve missed modern amenities,” Alyssa said, entirely unashamed. Having just one garment that wouldn’t wind up ruined would be a godsend… An angelsend?

“I suppose there is no harm in it.”

That had Alyssa grinning, though it was something of a sour grin. Once again, she was on a roller coaster. A few hours ago, she had been hating Tenebrael. Now, she was back to actually liking her. Am I being bought with gifts? Though, maybe she should be happy that Tenebrael had taken a risk on Alyssa’s behalf in saving the homeless man. She could easily have said that the plan wouldn’t have worked, that Alyssa didn’t know enough about theoretical metaphysics, and insisted on killing him. But she hadn’t done so. She had listened to Alyssa’s plan, patiently shot down the parts that wouldn’t work, and tried it when Alyssa presented a solution.

For that, Alyssa could be happy with the angel. Now we just have to do it two more times. Ugh.

As for the man… Alyssa glanced over to the pile of frozen bodies. “What about him?”

“What about him? He can’t stay here. He must go to Nod. It is far too late to be having second thoughts about that. Unless you intend to kill him, in which case I can eat his soul and dispose of the body.”

“No. No. Definitely not. It’s just,” Alyssa paused, thinking. “If you put us back where you got us from, he’s going to wake up and probably panic. Maybe even fight against me, thinking I kidnapped him. Or something like that. Considering that we left a hostile stronghold in the middle of an expansive desert, that probably isn’t the best place for a fight.” Or rather, Irulon would kill him immediately if he tried anything. She could picture that scenario clearly enough in her head.

“There is a reason I dropped you off in Teneville. You’ve seen my world. It isn’t a safe place. I wanted to keep you alive while I decided what to do about you. Teneville was the best place for that, assuming you didn’t stay in your little home. Then you left Teneville and got caught up in all kinds of nonsense. So much for my efforts,” she added with a grin, cocking her head to one side.

Alyssa opened her mouth, about to ask for just that. Being dropped off in Teneville, or close enough to it that it wouldn’t matter much, would drastically outweigh any benefits of returning to the desert. Except for a one thing. Irulon had wanted to destroy the compound to prevent more of the Juno Federation from moving in. Hard to do that from Teneville. But… Did they really need to destroy it? If they got back to Lyria, it should be a simple matter to order some guards and mages to destroy it. Even if some political red tape bound her hands, Irulon could hire out people from the guild. Surely they had mages capable of destroying a small and very empty village.

Then again, they hadn’t spared anyone for Oz’s mission. He was supposed to be paid a bonus if he and his group managed to destroy the fairy commune. But instead of the guild supplying anyone, he had gone to Tzheitza. Alyssa had no doubt that the potion crafter could whip up something analogous to modern C4 or napalm, which would surely do the job—and she very well might have done just that judging by Oz’s comments about the potions he was carrying—but the guild hadn’t supplied anyone else even after she had rebuffed his request for her to join them. The whole reason he and his group had met at the potion shop before leaving had likely been for one last attempt at recruiting her. Or, if not recruit her, then to pick up the potions they wanted to use, but Oz had obviously wanted her to come with them.

So maybe they didn’t have anyone who could just stand outside the village and blast it with magic. Still, they should be able to get a small group of soldiers to raze the place, even if they had to do a bit more manual labor than magic should allow.

And if she couldn’t get a handful of men out to destroy the buildings of an empty village, what good was being a princess?

Of course, Teneville was two weeks away from Lyria. The desert was only a few days away. So maybe it would be best to return to the desert in the name of expedience.

How much would the draken reduce the travel time between Teneville and Lyria? Alyssa wanted to say that the desert was closer, but was it really? They could have crossed a huge amount of land with the help of horses and draken. It was hard to tell exactly how much while riding.

Either way would probably be a few days. From the desert was just a known amount of days.

Alyssa blinked, slapped her cheeks, and shook her head. “I’m so dumb.”

“If you insist, I won’t argue.”

Not bothering to respond to that, Alyssa moved on with what she had been going to say. “Can’t you drop us off in Lyria?” There were dangers there, true. The Taker in particular, but also the occasional attacks from the Society of the Burning Shadow. With so many of their members dead and their orb of mist destroyed, hopefully those would be on pause for at least a few weeks.

“I can put you in Lyria. I can put him in Lyria. The others must return to where I took them from.”

“What? Why?”

“I…” The white in her eyes cut off as she blinked. “I don’t know. But they must.”

Alyssa stood up. “This is that thing again,” she said, rounding the coffee table to get to the angel. She put a hand to Tenebrael’s shoulder. “You can do it if you try. Right? Just take us all to Lyria as if you were taking only me. Then don’t move them anywhere else. Simple.”

“If only it were. I’m running the calculations as we speak. I won’t say that there are no possibilities that will lead us all to Lyria, but I can’t see them. A black void has swallowed up the vectors and the equations.”

“Then teach me these calculations. I’ll do it for you.”

Tenebrael raised an eyebrow. “Teach you?”

“I… I took a math class in college,” Alyssa said, turning aside ever so slightly.

“You took Math in Modern Society. And passed, barely.” Tenebrael shook her head, sending her black hair flying for a moment until it settled perfectly around her shoulders. “I might be able to teach you a few simple things, but crossing between worlds—or even moving to a new location on the same world—requires mathematics that your society doesn’t have a word for yet, let alone a theory of.”

“Then let’s start with the small things! If I can’t cross worlds, then so be it, but neither of us will know until we try.” Alyssa took the opening for what it was: A way to get her foot in the door. It took a great deal of willpower to keep from shouting out. Learning magic from Irulon was one thing. Doing so would probably be useful no matter what, but Alyssa had little confidence in Irulon’s capacity for teaching based of her one experience of learning to draw out spell cards and several comments she had made since then. Alyssa had no reason to believe that Tenebrael would be a better teacher, but Tenebrael had been the one to move her between worlds. That was something that Irulon could not do.

Apparently because the math was too complicated.

Still, this is what she had been wanting since she started her journey to Lyria. That should excuse being overeager.

She waited with bated breath. Tenebrael was staring right at her. Considering teaching? Alyssa could only hope.

“You are an extraordinary person,” Tenebrael eventually said. “And I mean that in a very literal sense. An ordinary person would not be able to have a conversation with me. But to learn to create angelic miracles? I suppose there is no harm in testing.”

“So you’ll do it?” Alyssa said, unable to keep the grin from spreading across her face.

“Indeed. We’ll begin in seven days’ time.”

“Seven days? But…”

Apparently, Alyssa’s elation turning sour warranted some amount of chuckling. “You didn’t think you would be hopping between worlds tonight, did you?”

“Well, no. But—”

“In seven days, I will require your services for a similar event to what we undertook tonight. I will endeavor to set aside an amount of time to see if you have any capacity for miracles.”

Alyssa couldn’t help but sigh. At least there was a hard date this time. Seven days. It suddenly seemed so far away.

“For today, our time here is quickly coming to an end. So make your decision. Teneville? Lyria? The desert? Or perhaps you wish to see a new corner of my world? The ruins of what the humans call the First City are a sight—”

“I’ll stick with Irulon,” Alyssa said. She really didn’t need to think about it at all. Leaving Irulon undefended in the desert while she was sipping a martini in whatever passed for an island resort in Tenebrael’s world would leave a bad taste in her mouth. Would Irulon even be conscious when the stasis wore off? She hadn’t woken up while being healed, but Tenebrael might have done something to keep her that way.

“And what about him?” Tenebrael asked, looking to the bearded man. “Teneville? Lyria?”

Alyssa followed the angel’s gaze, biting the inside of her cheek. What to do about him? She had saved his life, but, at the same time, she didn’t really want to take responsibility for him. It seemed somehow wrong to think it but… he was a homeless bum who slept next to trash bins. Unless Tenebrael was going to take a personal interest in stopping time whenever trouble struck, Alyssa really couldn’t afford to have someone hanging off her shoulders, weighing her down.

Dropping him off in Teneville might be for the best. He had been a soldier, which meant that he had to have some strength and work ethic. Surely the town could use an extra hand on the fields or shearing the sheep. Maybe putting his soldiering skills to work by defending livestock from harpies. Or maybe he would prefer to go that route from the start. A man with training and the drive might prefer to work for the guild or as a soldier in the Lyrian guard.

No matter what, Alyssa did not want him waking up in the desert with monsters all around him.

At least not without explaining a few things first. Without turning away from him, Alyssa asked Tenebrael, “Could we unfreeze him? Explain what has happened, maybe give him a chance to shave and some fresh clothing if he wants. We can also test to see if he can see you.”

“I do not think that he can.” Glancing to Alyssa, Tenebrael shifted which leg was crossed over which. “In the alley, he could not perceive us. Were his and your positions reversed, I believe that you would have been able to see me.”

“Mhm…” So I am truly unique? Alyssa thought with a mild frown. That was still a puzzle that was bothering her. Except… not unique. One of a pair. The man who had seen Tenebrael and had spoken with her was another. There had to be some similarity between them, but without knowing more, Alyssa couldn’t begin to guess what that similarity was.

Maybe, over the course of their lessons, Alyssa would ask Tenebrael. The way she had stared off into space when talking about him… The way her voice hadn’t been quite as steady as it normally was… It had happened a long time ago, but something told her that it was still a bit of a tender topic with the angel.

“Still, the other reasons to unfreeze him still apply. If you can get him some clothes and a razor… And bring me my pistol. Just in case.” In coming back to the apartment, the revolver had vanished. Alyssa hadn’t asked, but presumed that Tenebrael had taken it to be placed wherever it was supposed to be in the plan’s version of events.

“All the work we went through to save him and you’re going to shoot him?”

“No. Of course not,” Alyssa said. She was fairly certain that Tenebrael was making a joke. The angel was looking at her with a smile. She still felt the need to rebuff her. “It is just in case he does turn out violent. Unless you’re planning on freezing him again before he can do anything to me.”

“I can. So long as you remain within this room. However, once we return to Nod, my ability to intervene will be… limited. I like you, Alyssa, but don’t think that I will be coming to your rescue if you find yourself in trouble.”

“Figured that one out already,” Alyssa mumbled, though she did appreciate being healed. So long as she didn’t die, she could recover. Whether that be through Tenebrael or magic and potions, she would survive. “Just unfreeze him and let’s see how this goes.”


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022.005

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There and Back Again

Bullet-to-Heart


“Oh come now Alyssa, be reasonable. We don’t have time to sit around and argue.”

Alyssa crossed her arms, shaking her head. “No.”

“Alyssa—”

The angel’s voice turned to a far less reasonable tone. Before she could get too angry, Alyssa interrupted her. “But! I have to ask: Does he actually need to die?”

Tenebrael pulled the small pistol back, frowning as she stared. “I’ve already explained quite clearly and in simple terms that yes, he does.” All hints of a good mood had vanished from Tenebrael’s words. Where they normally had an almost melodic tune to them, there was now nothing but ice. “Since you are asking, I assume that you’ve got something else to say.”

Alyssa nodded quickly, not wanting to raise more ire from the angel. Even with all she had done, all the insults she had thrown at the angel and all the complaints, she couldn’t remember Tenebrael being so… angry. Only killing the man who was supposed to kill Alyssa had stripped Tenebrael of her constant air of bemusement before. Even then, she hadn’t been angry. Worried, yes. And that only lasted until she had settled on her decision to kidnap Alyssa.

Speaking of… “Did I need to die?”

That got Tenebrael to blink. She was still frowning, but she did raise an eyebrow.

Alyssa took that as a cue to continue. “It’s quite simple. I would say that I’m surprised that you haven’t thought of it except you’ve already told me that you literally can’t consider some options. He doesn’t need to die to keep the timeline going, or whatever. Just do what you did to me. There were news reports after I got to your world that claimed I had died. You made a fake body, right? Do that now. Bring the guy back here while leaving his fake body in the alley, then send us all back to Nod.”

It was such a simple solution. The guy might not be too happy—Alyssa sure as hell hadn’t been—but it was better than being dead. Alyssa didn’t have to kill anyone innocent, which was a nice plus. The fake dead body could be found by police, thus preserving the future. A perfect plan, if she said so herself.

“Won’t work,” Tenebrael said, shaking her head. Reaching forward, she grabbed Alyssa’s hand, pressed the pistol into her palm, and closed her fingers around its grip. “Now, if you don’t mind…”

The stupid angel sure knew how to bring down her good mood. “Why not?”

“With you, I had possession of Iosefael’s book. She was the one in charge of collecting your soul, originally. The same isn’t the case here. Another Principality has authority over this death. If she shows up and finds a body with no soul, she is going to start investigating. I’ve already got problems with Iosefael and now Adrael. I can’t just go around tying up every angel that crosses my path.”

Alyssa glanced down at the pistol in her hand. It was her turn to scowl. “Can’t you?”

“No. Someday, I’ll have granted myself the autonomy and authority required to do something like that. But that day is not today. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want—”

“So this angel expects to find a soul with this body. You’re just missing a soul to give her?”

“You’ve made a valiant attempt to save this man’s life,” Tenebrael said. The ice in her voice had melted to something somber. Almost as if she were sad that things had to be this way. Alyssa honestly couldn’t tell if it were genuine or not. “I want to do away with these foolish books as much as you do. If we work together, maybe we can do it. But we won’t accomplish anything if the Astral Authority crashes down on us. There isn’t enough time to return to Nod, find a suitable soul, and return. If you had mentioned this earlier…”

“We can do it now. All you’re missing is a soul,” Alyssa said, getting a little excited. She started moving away from the angel. “I have one right here.”

Tenebrael’s eyes widened. Faster than Alyssa had seen her move before, the angel clasped her hands around Alyssa’s. Or, more specifically, the gun in Alyssa’s hand. “You fool. I’m not letting you kill yourself over this. I won’t be able to heal you if you shoot yourself in the head.”

Alyssa blinked, shook her head, and tried yanking her arm out of the angel’s grip.

It didn’t budge.

“I’m not suicidal.” Ugh. Stupid angel. “Give me my hand back and look.”

They were still in the bathroom. Neither had moved a step since Tenebrael appeared. But, in addition to dropping her armor, she had also dropped her satchel here. When, after hesitating a moment, Tenebrael let her go, Alyssa headed straight for the satchel. She set the gun on the ground, rummaging through it. Bits and bobs that she had collected went to the floor as she dug through it. Notebooks, pens, ink vials, a dagger, bullets, magazines, a protein bar that looked a lot flatter than it should have been.

“Here!” Grasping a misshapen gemstone, Alyssa got back to her feet. “Can’t you just shove this into a fake body.”

Shoving it into Tenebrael’s hands, the angel had no choice but to accept it. At first, she looked dismissive. Alyssa thought she caught her eyes rolling. It was hard to tell with the glow. But the dismissive attitude quickly vanished. She brought the crystal right up to her face, turning it over. It started floating above her fingertips, rotating in the air.

“Why—How do you have this? Did Iosefael… no, she couldn’t have.”

“Does it matter right now? You said we’re low on time. Can you use it or can’t you?”

“I… might be able to disguise it well enough.” Clenching her fist around the gem, she nodded her head. “Alright. We’ll try it your way. If the entirety of creation comes down on us, I will make sure you know it was your fault every second until our obliteration.”

“Just think of it as an experiment. We’re testing whether or not someone else introduced to your world can perceive you and how your book reacts to their presence.”

“There are safer ways to do that than muddling about with Earth.”

Alyssa could only shrug and smile. While she was glad that Tenebrael was listening to her, the smile was a nervous sort. Now that she was actually thinking about it, what if she did cause the Astral Authority to notice Tenebrael’s actions. It could be her fault that the entirety of Nod wound up destroyed.

“Grab the pistol. We’ll still need it.”

Glancing over to the mess on the floor, Alyssa hesitated, but eventually nodded. “Right.” If whatever Tenebrael had planned didn’t work… well, she might not have much choice then. If it came down to one person versus an entire planet, Alyssa couldn’t, in good conscience, not pull the trigger. Could she? Shuddering, Alyssa picked up the pistol, hoping that she wouldn’t have to find out.

Alyssa stiffened as a pair of arms and two pairs of black wings encircled her from behind. All light cut off, save for a faint white projecting on the inside of the wings. It had to be from Tenebrael’s glowing eyes. But the angel didn’t say a word. Neither did Alyssa.

She barely felt anything at all. The first thing she did feel was the air. The apartment had been a fairly average room temperature. Outdoors at night was a bit chilly, even through her thick bathrobe. As the wings parted, Alyssa saw the telltale sign of Tenebrael’s teleportation drifting to the ground around her. Each feather disappeared on contact with anything solid until all that was left was a dark alley with a flickering street lamp.

Blinking a few times to try to get her eyes back to normal after going through a sudden light change, Alyssa took a step away from Tenebrael.

And immediately regretted moving.

Ugh. I just took a bath.” The bottoms of her calloused feet were scraping against the wet alley asphalt. “Couldn’t you have let me put on some shoes first? I’m going to cut my feet on a broken beer bottle and die of dysentery.”

“You don’t get dysentery from stepping on broken glass. And we have other things to worry about at the moment.” Tenebrael waved her hand to a large garbage bin only a few steps away. “That is our target.”

At first, Alyssa thought the angel was joking around. Then she saw it. She had thought that a large bag of trash was leaning up against the bin, but no. There was definitely a man in there. Eyes better adjusted to the darkness, she could easily make out the thick beard, dripping with water. A bit of cardboard, pinned between the man’s head and the metal garbage bin, did little to keep the pouring rain from soaking the man.

Alyssa hadn’t even realized it was raining. None of it was touching her. Glancing up, she could barely see droplets splashing against an invisible shield. The water disappeared as it ran down, making her view completely unobstructed.

Looking back down, she couldn’t help the grimace on her face. Couldn’t the poor man find a bridge or an overpass to hide under, at the very least? Some overhang that would keep him dry as he slept? How could anyone even sleep like this? As of late, Alyssa had no trouble sleeping under the stars, but during a monsoon? No way would she be able to do so. And with two people talking right in front of her? She would be awake in an instant, though Tenebrael was probably invisible. She might have done something to turn Alyssa invisible too.

Yet, despite the rain, at least, he looked almost peaceful in his slumber. His face, rugged and weathered, was at peace. If she hadn’t known that he was supposed to be shot to death, she might have thought that he was already dead.

“Do you regret trying to save him now, after seeing what he looks like?”

“No.” He was pitiful. Tenebrael had said that he had once been in the military. Alyssa’s mother had been in the military as well. Had things been different, she could have wound up in his place. Of course, he stole and deserted. Her mother hadn’t. Alyssa wouldn’t be surprised to find that he had spent a while in prison, military or regular. It had clearly taken its toll on him. She couldn’t even begin to guess his age. Late fifties, maybe? He could just as easily be in his early thirties. “I feel sorry for him.”

“Oh? How many people at street corners holding up cardboard signs have you driven past on your way to work. How many have you stopped for? Have you ever handed out a dime to any of them? What makes this one so special that you’ve got to go out of your way to save him?”

Tearing her eyes from the trash bag and the human inside, Alyssa glared at the angel. She… didn’t want to answer that question. It brought up disconcerting feelings. “I’m not a good person, alright? I think all the… deaths… all the murders I’ve committed speak to that. But I’m not a psychopath. If you put someone in front of me like this, of course I’m going to feel sorry for them. I might have driven past a hundred homeless people in my life, always trying to avoid eye contact. That doesn’t mean my first instinct is to shoot them.”

Tenebrael didn’t say anything aside from a soft hum.

“Maybe Nod will be good for him. He clearly isn’t getting what he needs here.”

“If you haven’t changed your mind about killing him, I suppose we’ll find out.”

Alyssa almost shouted at the angel, but Tenebrael didn’t even look her way before she raised a hand.

“Partially severing target’s connection to this world.”

A rather familiar set of symbols rose up around Tenebrael’s outstretched hand. It wasn’t quite Fractal Lock, but there were definitely a few similarities. A few subtle movements around the man vanished as the miracle took effect. His breathing, which Alyssa had barely noticed before, stilled, as did the slight movement behind his closed eyelids. The water running from his form changed the way it flowed. His beard remained as stiff as stone, no longer pushed about by the currents. The ripples in the bag around his body stopped their minor fluctuations with his body’s movement and the weight of the rain.

“Matter generation,” Tenebrael said, pointing slightly to one side. “Water, carbon, ammonia, lime, phosphorous, salt…” she trailed off, sounding almost hesitant before finally finishing, “and the rest.”

“And the rest? That doesn’t sound very exact.”

“It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to hold a soul long enough for an angel to collect it, then remain in one piece until it is buried underground. Now stop distracting me.” The glow in the angel’s eyes cut off as she closed them. At the same time, the blackish white light around her fingernails brightened. “Weaving,” she said, simply.

In front of Alyssa’s eyes, a body started to form. The process started with a yellowish goop that quickly wound up surrounded by a white plaster, forming the shape of bones. She recognized the hips, femurs, spine, ribs, and skull. Soon enough, Alyssa was standing before something out of a high school science class’ closet.

Red started wrapping around the white bones next. Seeing the muscle and the organs in the torso had her feeling a little queasy, but what really made her turn away was the eyeballs. Dark brown eyes with no skin around them almost made her throw up. The noise didn’t help much either. The whole process produced one long, uninterrupted squelch. From then on, she couldn’t watch.

Turning to the alley’s entrance, Alyssa grimaced a little at the feeling under her feet as she walked a few steps away. The rain still didn’t fall on her, but whatever shield was around her didn’t stop the ground from being soaked.

The street outside the alley was more or less deserted. There were a lot of boarded up windows and faded shop signs. Never having been to Chicago, she couldn’t say where in the city she was, but it clearly wasn’t a well kept area. Sirens droned on in the distance. Remembering Tenebrael’s words about her would-be killer leading a manhunt, she wondered if they were for him. Then again, this was Chicago. There probably wasn’t a single time of the night without sirens.

Just about ready to turn back to see if Tenebrael had finished, Alyssa hesitated at seeing a shadow rushing toward the alley.

Lightning struck a building. For a single instant, she saw the face of the man from all those nights ago. A face that still haunted her dreams on occasion. The exact face that haunted her varied between three forms, the blank eyes of the dead body, the murderous rage of a man bent on killing her, and that of a father who had lost his son.

The face that flashed in the lightning was none of those. It looked alive, but Alyssa couldn’t detect a trace of emotion on the body’s face. Rather, it reminded Alyssa quite a lot of those toys that Irulon had made. Which, she supposed, might be closer to the truth than not. Whatever had become of him, Alyssa found herself detached. She had thought that she might feel something. Fear or anger, maybe regret. Without Tenebrael in the equation, him deciding to rob her house had started everything.

But she just looked at his lanky walk with dispassion. More interesting were the sirens. They sounded like they were getting louder.

It must be almost time. Alyssa could already see what was supposed to happen. Her killer would panic at seeing police, run down the alley. The victim might notice and try to stop him… or maybe just get in the way. The pistol currently in her hands could belong to either of them at this point, but it was clear who would wind up with its bullets embedded in their chest.

Flashing red and blue lights lit up the sides of the buildings. The lights were quickly followed by a pair of patrol cars. As soon as he saw them, he started sprinting straight toward Alyssa. Despite herself, she did feel her pulse jump at that. Just a little. Still, she ducked back into the alley, not wanting to be seen. She was fairly certain that nobody could see her even though she didn’t have shards of fractal magic swirling about, but just in case Tenebrael had forgotten, she didn’t take the chance.

“Are you done yet? The police are here.” They really were cutting it close.

It looked like Tenebrael was almost done. When Alyssa had turned away, the body looked like something from a horror movie. Now it looked like the twin of the man in stasis. Except… it wasn’t quite. Although she had likened him to a corpse earlier, the man in stasis was definitely alive. This thing was not. It slumped against the trash bin where the victim had been, eyes half-open with a vacant stare. This thing was a true corpse. A man whose soul had left… or rather, it had never possessed a soul in the first place.

Tenebrael had the soul crystal out, keeping it floating between her and the body. It was coming unraveled, turning from a lump of a gemstone into a smoky mist.

“When I put this soul into the body, I need you to shoot it twice. Once in the stomach and once in the left chest area. You need to be up close to leave muzzle burns on his body. So get over here.”

“Right.” Alyssa pulled out the pistol and moved right up next to Tenebrael. Holding the pistol in both hands, she checked it over, found the safety, and flicked it off.

Her would-be killer rounded the corner at the same time. Despite running like the devil was at his heels, his face still showed no expression whatsoever. Creepy, Alyssa thought with a frown. Even worse than the body in front of her because it was actually moving.

“Now!”

With the slight distraction of the walking corpse, Alyssa wasn’t as on the ball as she should have been. Tenebrael shoved the mist forward as if it were a solid object.

The body took a breath. Its eyes, formerly dead and vacant, lit up with life. There was a brief instant of confusion present on the bearded face.

Then it started screaming. A howl of pure despair. One that would give a shadow assassin nightmares. The eyes widened as it started clawing at its face. Fingernails dug into its skin, staining the falling rain red.

“Alyssa!”

Sucking in a breath, Alyssa aimed the pistol at his stomach and pulled the trigger. What should have been a loud noise in the narrow alley was a mere pop. Despite having a hole in his chest, the man did not stop screaming. Has he even taken a breath? Gritting her teeth, Alyssa aimed upward, right where his heart should be, and fired.

Alyssa blinked. The screams were gone. The body was gone. The alley was gone. All she could see were Tenebrael’s wings, which slowly parted to reveal… a rooftop? Black feathers drifted to the flat surface around her where she stood next to a frozen man. The real one. The one in stasis. Blinking her eyes a few times, she found Tenebrael standing at the roof’s edge, looking down.

“Wh-What the hell was that?”

“Quiet,” Tenebrael said. “We are hidden, but an angel might spot us if they look hard enough.”

Clamping her mouth shut, Alyssa slowly walked toward the edge. Her legs were shaking far more than they should be. Heights always got to her, but… those screams. She shuddered, feeling like she might throw up. But she had to see. Near the edge, she dropped to her knees, not caring at all that she was staining the fluffy robe with grime.

Two police cars had parked around the alley. Their occupants were out of the vehicles, walking around. Alyssa couldn’t see any sign of the killer, but he had probably run right past Alyssa while she had been shooting the corpse. And the corpse was there. She could see it clear as day, one arm stretching out toward the alley’s entrance as it lay face down.

One of the police officers ran up to it and flipped it over. He leaned down, putting an ear to the man’s mouth as he pressed a finger onto the throat. After a moment, and after shouting something to one of the other officers, he tore open the garbage bag, pressed something up against the two wounds—it was a little hard to see what from the angle, a bandage, perhaps—and started performing chest compressions. CPR? Did CPR help bullet wounds? Maybe if the heart hadn’t been hit, but Alyssa was pretty sure she had gotten it based purely off how much blood was visible despite the rain in the alley.

It wouldn’t matter anyway. He wouldn’t survive. Already, white feathers were filling the alley. Alyssa’s stomach clenched at seeing them, fearing that Adrael was going to appear. But she didn’t. In the middle of the alley, a shorter angel popped into being. One with wild and unruly blond hair, like she had just woken up after tossing and turning all night. Not the golden color that Iosefael sported, but an almost regular blond. If that wasn’t enough of a difference, the pink ombré down at the ends proved that this wasn’t an angel Alyssa had seen before. Her wings were smaller than Iosefael’s as well. Not to mention, she was wearing a… pink tracksuit? But only the jacket.

Shaking her head, Alyssa watched as the white wings brushed against the corpse. The soul crystallized. Properly, this time. It was no longer a cancerous lump, but a smooth gemstone that wouldn’t look out of place on a piece of jewelry. Throughout the entire process, the angel looked half-asleep. Eyes half-lidded, she actually yawned before grasping the soul and shoving it into her wings.

In the next instant, the alley was empty save for the police, the corpse, and a few fluttering feathers.

“Excellent,” Tenebrael said. “Congratulations. Your plan worked. There are still two more bodies to be had, but they won’t be for another few days. I assume you wish to do the same thing to them? Save them? As there will be some time, I can collect the souls myself from the dying in Nod, but I will need help killing them after we create false bodies.”

Alyssa didn’t respond right away. Her arms were shaking. Her legs were shaking. It took a bit of willpower to tear her eyes from the alley. When she finally did, she didn’t look at Tenebrael. Her eyes moved to the man she had saved. Had it been worth it? Almost certainly. The only reason it wasn’t an absolute certainty was because of a man who had already been dead.

She didn’t know whose soul that had been. One of the ones she had collected. A member of the Society of the Burning Shadow. Probably one that she had killed, but maybe one that Izsha had bit. It didn’t really matter, did it? He was dead.

Those screams though. She had seen and heard a decent amount of things during her time in Tenebrael’s world that would have a horror writer salivating. Yet, somehow, she didn’t think that she would be sleeping tonight. Even the gaunt and the noises it made as it ate that person weren’t so bad.

Had it been because he had died? Was death truly so horrible? Perhaps it had been Alyssa’s fault for turning his soul into that lump instead of a proper gem. Or maybe it was from being brought back to life. Perhaps it was life itself that was so horrible. Unless it had been because he had been brought back into a body that wasn’t his own. That option made a decent amount of sense. Tenebrael had said that leaving souls in dead bodies caused pain and anguish. A body that wasn’t his probably wasn’t a pleasant thing to wake up to.

Whatever the case, Alyssa just shook her head. He was dead now. His soul had been taken by a proper angel at that. Ironically enough, thanks to Tenebrael, he might be the only member of the Society of the Burning Shadow that she wouldn’t end up consuming—depending on where those taken by Iosefael and Adrael ended up. This one, at least, was guaranteed to stay out of her hands. He would go… to the Throne. Whatever that was.

It took another moment, and some shuffling to get well away from the edge of the building, but Alyssa got back to her feet. She looked Tenebrael in the eyes and nodded her head. “We should save them. Unless they’re criminals and murderers, I’m not going to shoot innocent people just because your plan says that they need to die. And, if I could make a request: The souls of the bodies that I do need to kill should all be murderers from your world.”

“If that will help your conscience,” Tenebrael said with a dismissive sigh.

“It will,” Alyssa said. Her stomach still felt like it had been tied into a knot. “But for now, can we just go back to the apartment? I need a drink.”


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022.004

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There and Back Again

Heart-to-Heart


Now that she was clean, well fed, and calmed down, sitting around the apartment felt awkward.

The initial shock of being back on Earth had worn off. It helped that she couldn’t actually leave the apartment. The fridge held a seemingly endless supply of anything she could want to eat, mostly fast food. Burgers from just about every chain restaurant in both chicken and beef varieties, chicken nuggets, Chinese takeout, pizza, submarine sandwiches, hot dogs, fries, sushi, tacos and nachos, and even doughnuts and pretzels. At first, Alyssa had felt a bit put-off at the thought of eating a burger from the fridge, but the second she had cracked open the cardboard container, a steamy aroma filled the air. It might as well have been fresh from the grill. There were some magical shenanigans going on.

If companies could use stasis magic to keep food permanently fresh, the world would change over night. A fridge that worked the same way as each of these containers, for example. Just thinking about how magic could revolutionize modern society was mind boggling. Food alone would change. There were always articles about how much food went to waste, especially in America. She couldn’t actually look any up at the moment thanks to her phone having been taken away, but she knew the numbers were staggering. Milk would never spoil, bread would never grow mold. Removing the waste would increase the distribution. The ability to permanently preserve food alone would end world hunger overnight.

There would be all kinds of side effects stemming off from a fridge that applied stasis to its contents upon being shut as well. It presumably wouldn’t use electricity. If the entire world stopped powering one refrigerator per household, how much electricity would be saved? Milk didn’t need to be kept cold to preserve it with a stasis spell, though people would probably still want to drink cold milk. Glasses with a chill spell could replace that. The rabbit hole just went deeper from there.

Electricity couldn’t be replaced entirely. Not until magic caught up in the communications department. The internet and even just texting and calling were far far too convenient compared to Message. Electric lights were better as well when compared to the light potion or equivalent spell. For local transportation, cars were superior to anything she had seen in Lyria, but they could probably be improved with magic. Longer distance could be revolutionized completely. She hadn’t seen any Stargate-like thing that could be used for moving mass amounts of product on Lyria, but magic could teleport things. A few years of research on that subject would probably put airlines and sea shipping out of business.

It was amazing how much Alyssa could think of just off the top of her head. Positing the question of how magic would impact the modern world to a bunch of high schoolers for an essay would probably result in a million possibilities that she would never think of.

Of course, the only reason Alyssa had thought of what she had was because of how much sitting around she was doing. Which was where the awkwardness came from. It wasn’t Kasita, though being watched so intently as she shoved spicy noodles down her throat did make Alyssa a little shifty. She had offered some to Kasita, but the mimic’s illusory body didn’t eat the same way people did.

Still, while awkward, that wasn’t the worst. It was just that, since being thrown into the other world, Alyssa felt like she hadn’t stopped moving for a second. First it was exploring outside her house, then getting to Lyria, then all the nonsense between the Society of the Burning Shadow and the Waters Street gang, then her traipse through the desert. Chatting with Kasita was nice, but sitting around and twiddling her thumbs while doing so? Alyssa felt like she needed to be walking somewhere at least.

But she couldn’t. There was nowhere to walk. The apartment only had six rooms and two of those were more or less the same room with just a counter separating the kitchen from the dining area.

Eyes flicking over to the clock on the wall, Alyssa sighed. Six hours? Was that what Tenebrael had said? It had only been two and a half and she was already stir-crazy. And almost an hour of that had been in the bath.

Shoving the takeout box and chopsticks aside, Alyssa looked back to Kasita. The mimic, sitting on the couch to Alyssa’s side, looked happy enough. They had been talking about a great many things so far. From differences between Alyssa’s world and Kasita’s world, Alyssa’s family, Kasita’s mischief as a mimic, to some of the less-than-pleasant happenings at the Waterhole and Kasita’s time being captured by humans.

There was some hate there. Real, unbridled hatred. She tried to keep her tone light, but it always took a slightly sour note when talking about the people who had her in chains. It was subtle and Alyssa could tell that she was trying to hide it, but she wasn’t doing a perfect job. Even her eyes held no small amount of hostility to them, which Alyssa found surprising given Kasita’s control over her superficial appearance.

It was a wonder she still decided to go among humans. Even if she didn’t want to be a bee, elves were human enough that she probably would get used to living with them relatively quick.

“You mentioned a hellhound you were friends with at the Waterhole?” Alyssa said, changing the subject from the humans to Kasita’s fellow monsters. That seemed a more comfortable topic in general. It was far from Alyssa’s intention to rile or upset her friend. At the same time, she still wanted to know about Kasita’s past.

“Selpa, or Selaphia, but I preferred the shorter version. She had a fire to her. A tenacity that the humans just couldn’t break. And did they ever try. I admired that about her. She and I had a plan to kill all the humans in the Waterhole. All we needed was the key to her chains. Svotty kept the keys well hidden because of me, but he wasn’t perfect. One day, Svotty slipped. I saw it, memorized the shape, and ran straight to Selpa. Only to walk in on the Taker wiping Selpa’s blood from his blade.”

Alyssa winced, feeling like she had just shoved her foot into her mouth. That was not how she wanted this conversation to go. Then again, what had she expected? The hellhound had obviously not been there when she freed the monsters. In a place like the Waterhole, nothing good could have come of someone missing.

Kasita continued on, not commenting on or not caring about Alyssa’s flinch, staring slightly off to one side with a hardness to her eyes that Alyssa recognized. “I don’t know if they found out about our plan or if they simply decided that she was too much of a liability—Selpa was popular for being so exotic and unusual, but frequently injured many of her… customers. Either way, she died. I still think that Svotty must have shown me that key on purpose, knowing what I would find.”

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said after a moment, not sure what else to say.

“Mhm. Ufu~ I was a bit upset with you at having stolen my revenge away, but that didn’t last for long. As a mimic, I knew that I wasn’t going to get anything satisfying out of it. Poison just doesn’t seem like it would be enough for the likes of him, which was my next plan. So I’m glad I saw the corpse. It looked like he died in pain.” Her eyes softened as they turned to Alyssa. “I suppose I should thank you, not just for allowing me some vicarious revenge, but… I had been worried that Rizk was going to end up the same way. I had avoided getting too close to her and I never suggested that we should kill the humans together, too worried that the Taker would find out. The only comfort I did offer her was turning into a member of her species after particularly rough days. And I still regret doing so little for her.”

Alyssa almost opened her big mouth again, telling Kasita that her actions with Rizk might have ended up saving the lizard’s life. The thing that stopped her was a fear that such a comment could be taken as definite blame that it had been Kasita’s fault that the hellhound had died. “I’m sure she appreciated what you did do,” she said instead, focusing on what Kasita did do. “Turning into a fellow salamander kept Rizk from strangling me, calming her down enough for that. That’s proof that she appreciated you.”

“I hope she’s recovered.”

“I’m sure she has. Just taking off her chains turned her from staring blankly ahead to… well, you saw her before she disappeared.”

“A flame salamander lives a long time. As long as she made it away from humans without too many incidents, I think she’ll recover.”

“Good,” Alyssa said, glad that there was some kind of happy ending to that conversation. “I met a hellhound,” she said after a lengthy lull. “It wasn’t quite what I had expected.”

“I know. That you met a hellhound, that is.”

“You know? Oh. Right. You were awake.”

Kasita shifted slightly, leaning over the coffee table to peek into the folded paper box. “Yeah,” she said. “What were you expecting?”

“I’m not sure, but it sure wasn’t for that hellhound to be so… helpful. And friendly? I mean, I thought she was going to hug me for a minute there.”

“She was imprinting, I think.”

“Uh. I hope that word means something different to you than it does to me.” At this point, Alyssa had nothing against the hellhound personally. She hadn’t tried to attack, which was a nice bonus. More than that, she had seemed reasonable, if highly suspicious, while talking with Irulon. But just because she had nothing against the hound didn’t mean that Alyssa wanted a human cross giant dog following her around calling her mother. She could already hear Tzheitza and Oz complaining, not to mention the looks she would get from people in the city.

As much as she didn’t want to consider it, Lyria needed a threat. A real one. Not those little skirmishes that they fought on occasion with the Juno Federation. They needed an existential yet defeatable threat that put both the humans and the monsters into a state of uncertainty. The threat needed to be great enough that the humans would have to ask for help from the elves and other monsters with the monsters willing to agree. Some singular threat so great that they had to unify and get over their stupid hate for one another. Alyssa was perfectly cognizant that not every monster would join or could be reasoned with, but there were enough that could that it was ridiculous that they kept whining about things like mimics and draken.

A war was about all she could think of that would cause that. The Juno Federation mind controlling monsters seemed like it would possibly work, but it would only increase enmity for monsters in practice. The only other big worries she had heard about were regarding demons and their plague. That seemed like it would kill a whole lot of people, however.

She shuddered at the mere thought that she had considered using a tragedy to further her agenda. Even if it would be good for the world in the long run, exposing innocent monsters and humans to a plague just to get them to unite was a horrid thought. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Literally, in this case.

“Alyssa?”

Blinking, Alyssa glanced up to Kasita. “Sorry? Got a bit distracted in my thoughts. You were saying?”

“Hellhounds like shows of strength. I imagine that she’s become a bit infatuated with both you and Irulon, and the draken too,” Kasita added. “Killing all those humans while she was stuck watching would have left an impression. And then destroying the building too.”

“The build—I was fighting Adrael.”

“I know that, but she wouldn’t.”

“Right,” Alyssa said, nodding. Of course the hellhound couldn’t have known. “So what is she going to do now? Follow us around?” Irulon, or her clone at least, had mentioned wanting to domesticate the gaunt to be a monster companion to her like the draken were to Brakkt. A hellhound seemed like a much better companion than a gaunt. And, if the hound wanted to follow Irulon around, that was one less thing for Alyssa to deal with.

Yes. That was a good plan. Let the princess deal with monsters in the city. Alyssa had her hands full with Kasita and Kasita wasn’t much trouble at all.

“I think it depends,” Kasita said. “She might follow you around, or she might decide that you being humans is just too much for her. With us missing from the town, however, she might leave on her own. I feel a little bad about it, poor girl didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Alyssa didn’t feel broken up about it in the slightest. The hellhound would probably be happier returning home or finding a new place to live that didn’t involve humans hating her presence every minute of the day. “I guess we’ll find out when we get back.”

As much as she had missed home, Alyssa was looking forward to returning to Lyria. Or maybe she was just missing freedom. She could hardly call it a vacation to Earth while stuck inside a tiny apartment. Glancing over at the wall clock to see how much time she had left in this admittedly well furnished prison, Alyssa started. More time had passed than she had thought. With good old fashioned electric lighting, she hadn’t even noticed the darkening of the sky outside the window.

Tenebrael had said six hours. Time was just about up. Unless she had been extremely precise in her estimate, she could show up any moment now. Alyssa expected to glance to the side to find feathers already filling the room. Instead, she stopped on Kasita.

And had a thought.

“I’m not sure that Tenebrael knows you’re here.” The angel was not omniscient. She could easily have missed Kasita being a rock. “Maybe it would be best if you turn back into a rock. Tenebrael probably won’t care, but I’d rather not take the chance that she gets upset and wipes your memory or something equally distasteful.”

“That… would be unpleasant, yes. Shall I just go back to being a rock then?”

“Probably for the best to keep as much unchanged as possible. I’m not sure how soon she’ll be here.”

“I understand. Just don’t leave me behind. Or… maybe—”

“Kasita. I wouldn’t have a problem with you roaming Earth, but I think angels would take an exception if they noticed you. And if there is some way to track you back to your world, they’ll probably find out about Tenebrael. The whole reason she brought me here is to keep the angels from finding out and destroying that world.” Alyssa leaned forward, grabbing Kasita’s hands. “I’m coming back to Earth one day. Under my own power and with some way to keep angels off my back. I promise that I’ll bring you with me if you want to come at that time, but please don’t do anything that will get Nod blown up with me on it… or at all, for that matter.”

“No. That wouldn’t be good, would it,” Kasita said, looking around with a sigh. “Seems a shame to come to a whole new world that no one has ever visited before and not see more than one room.”

“Can’t argue with that. I’m a bit upset too.”

“Shall I turn now?”

“Probably for the best. I’m just going to try to clean that dragon hide armor as much as I can before Tenebrael arrives. Nothing exciting.”

Kasita didn’t say another word, turning into a rock on the coffee table. Alyssa immediately picked it up and slid it into the pocket of her bathrobe before heading to the bathroom. The outfit was right where she had left it. She started out by picking it up with only two fingers, keeping it at arm’s length. She was clean and it wasn’t. But this had to be done. Getting it looking sleek and black again would be nice, but cleaning the inside was far more important.

To start with, Alyssa turned on the tub’s faucet again. There weren’t any washing machines inside the apartment, but even if there were, she wouldn’t toss it in. First of all, there probably wasn’t enough time. Secondly, while supposedly invulnerable to everything but angelic weapons, soap and detergent might ruin the lining. So she was only going to give it a rinsing. A thorough rinse, but a rinse nonetheless.

Really, she should have done this a long time ago, giving it a chance to dry out. Still, watching the tub basin turn brown with mud and dirt was satisfying in a way that Alyssa couldn’t quite put to words. Grabbing a wash cloth, she started doing a bit of a deep scrubbing. The exterior didn’t need anything other than water and a quick swipe of the cloth. Everything just ran off like it had been treated with water proofing chemicals. On the inside, she gave extra attention to the armpits and other ‘heavy sweat’ areas.

By the time Alyssa was satisfied, a whole hour had passed. With still no sign of Tenebrael, Alyssa was starting to get a little nervous. What if something had happened? What if some Seraphim showed up and killed Tenebrael? Angels were not omniscient, meaning that it was entirely possible she could be forgotten inside this tiny apartment for… ever, basically. The fridge had an endless supply of food, so she wouldn’t starve. Kasita was pleasant company. But this was still a tiny room.

Irulon and the draken would be free eventually. Maybe they could figure out a way outside. They would still run into the problem of angels. No matter what, staying here in the long term was just not a good idea.

Just as she started to get worried about spending potentially the rest of her life in a tiny room with two hungry dinosaurs, Alyssa saw it.

A black feather.

Alyssa turned to the bathroom door to find Tenebrael standing on the other side, holding out a snubnosed revolver by the barrel.

“I hope you’re ready to go. I meant to be back a bit earlier, but had to dance around a little Guardian.”

Turning her gaze from the revolver to Tenebrael’s glowing eyes without touching the gun, Alyssa put her hands to her hips. “I’m not shooting anyone. I’m not killing this man.”


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Alyssa’s Notes: I’ve managed to get a moment to update some of my notes. Both hellhounds and ants have been added to the bestiary. Spectral Axe is now a part of the Death section of the list of spells.

022.003

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There and Back Again

Toilet Talk


The first thing that hit Alyssa was the noise.

Tenebrael’s world was quiet. Nearly silent, in most parts. A deserted military compound in the middle of a desert had no noise at all. Even the city, filled with people, didn’t have much in the way of sound. People talked, of course. Carriages bumped as their wooden wheels rolled along the ground. The horses carrying the carriages whinnied and their hooves clopped.

But none of it could compare to the sounds of a jackhammer tearing up the roadwork outside an apartment window.

Just hearing the sound of cubes falling from the refrigerator icemaker into the dispenser sent a pang of nostalgia through Alyssa’s heart. In the distance, a siren from a police car could just barely be heard in the pauses of the road construction. Horns on cars joined the cacophony. The low hum of air conditioned air coming from the vents only served to keep the sparse moments of silence from being… silent.

In other words, quiet in Nod was quiet. Quiet on Earth was deafening.

The second thing that hit Alyssa was the air itself. Again, it was nostalgic. The smell had something to it that she couldn’t quite place. Pollution, probably, as much as she didn’t want to think that. As much as their politics were barbaric and the society was backwards, Lyria really had little in the way of pollution. She wasn’t sure what the city did with its waste—there were public outhouse-style facilities, yet no modern plumbing—but it wouldn’t surprise her to find out about a whole guild of low-ranked arcanists who used magic to keep everything clean. A janitorial guild.

Here and now? Alyssa drew in a deep breath through her nose. It might be pollution, but it was familiar. Air that she hadn’t breathed in months.

After breathing in, she immediately shivered. Not only was the air cool in general, but coming from a desert hot enough to still be sweltering even at nights, she felt like she had just entered a walk-in freezer. Alyssa grabbed both arms at the elbows, rubbing up and down.

Only then did she realize that she was missing the golden staff. Her hands were empty. No staff. No spell book.

“Here we are,” Tenebrael said, voice sounding as jovial as could be. “There is food in the kitchen, hot water, and even a soft bed, if you wanted to take a nap. Naturally, you cannot interact with anyone—or leave this room—until we’re—”

“Where is my stuff?”

“Stuff?” Tenebrael cocked her head to the side. “What stuff?”

“Don’t play dumb, you stupid angel. Where is the staff? Where are my and Irulon’s spell cards? My guns!”

“Everything I took from you is in a safe spot. I can’t afford to let you cast magic around here, so you’ll have to make do without for now.”

“Everything?” Alyssa said, looking down. She still had the dragon hide armor on and her satchel. Having left her backpack at the cave outside the military compound, that was all she had been carrying. That and her pistols. Which were gone. Scowling, she shot a glare at the angel.

“Don’t worry. This place is effectively sealed off. You won’t be leaving and no one will be entering. You won’t need your equipment.”

“What if some other angel wanders past and wonders why there’s an apartment room sealed off from the rest of… where are we, anyway?”

“Chicago.”

Alyssa blinked, frowning. “That’s a bit far from home.”

“Your murderer started quite the manhunt. He has evaded so far, but they’ll catch up to him eventually. And, speaking of, I do need to leave to make some preparations. I’ll be monitoring this area for any angelic presences, so don’t worry about that either. Should any angel discover you, I’ll be here to rescue you instantly.”

Alyssa couldn’t help but scoff. “Like Iosefael was supposed to keep us safe from Adrael?”

“If there is something that I cannot handle, then we’re both… screwed, as you humans say.” Waving a hand, Tenebrael turned slightly toward the window. “Anyway, I’ll be back in six hours. Eat some good food, take a nice long bath, and have—”

“Wait!” Tenebrael paused at Alyssa’s outburst, turning a head to her shoulder. Somehow, her wings didn’t get in the way of her stare. Alyssa started slowly, still trying to form a plan as she spoke. “Since… this apartment is cut off from everywhere… why not free Irulon from the Fractal Lock? She wanted to look around Earth anyway. It, uh, can’t hurt. Right?”

True to her word, Tenebrael had brought all three of the stasis victims. Irulon was still on Musca’s back, both unmoving. Izsha was to their side. Both were piled up on top of each other in the middle of the room. A coffee table and couch had been shoved aside to make room for them.

Was this an actual lived-in apartment? Or some construct of Tenebrael’s? If the former, wouldn’t the people notice their food going missing or tables being out of place? Where were the people anyway?

Vacation, maybe. And if Tenebrael put everything back to how it was, it was doubtful that anyone would notice.

Tenebrael let out a soft chuckle. “Free the woman who has half the Observatorium’s library memorized?” she said, shaking her head. “Earth would be in shambles by the time I got back.”

“But… she wouldn’t be that bad.”

“I brought her here on your request. You promised that you didn’t have anything planned.”

“I didn’t!”

“Then you’ll be fine on your own. See you soon!”

“But—”

Black feathers exploded out from the angel, filling the small apartment until they started disappearing. Alyssa brushed a hand back and forth in front of her face to get rid of a few that had clung to her. As she did so, she sighed. While it was true that she thought Irulon might be able to learn something, maybe even how to get here from the other world, it was also true that Irulon had wanted to see the sights of Earth. Maybe being trapped inside a single room with only a window to look out of wasn’t the best way to experience it, but, given her propensity for being skewered through the back, Alyssa was a little worried about her chances of ever being able to come here again.

Which was a very morbid thought to have. Shaking her head, Alyssa approached the windowed door of the balcony.

The apartment she was in was on the third floor of a building, looking out over a road that was under construction. While the door didn’t open even after unlocking it, there wasn’t much of a balcony to speak of anyway. No real reason to go outside. Sure, she could try shouting at the construction workers down below, but what would she say? Probably something that would not only get her locked up inside a sanatorium, but also something that would definitely irritate Tenebrael. Plus any other angels who wanted the plan to proceed without her distracting some construction workers.

Alyssa thought to take a picture of them. Irulon might be a little upset if she knew that she had been to Earth without being able to experience anything. A picture might alleviate that. Except… her phone didn’t appear in her hand when she called it. Patting down her satchel and the dragon hide pockets in a hurry, she started scowling. It’s gone! Presumably along with everything else that Tenebrael had taken from her. Had it even managed to record any of Tenebrael’s transferal spell?

“Damn that bitch.”

Her pockets were not completely empty, however. Alyssa pulled out a smooth stone. The red haze was gone, but hopefully that was because the spell had ended during the trip to Earth and not because something bad had happened to Kasita.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I completely forgot. As soon as Tenebrael gets back, I’ll ask her what went wrong with you. It will be the very first thing. No getting distracted with talk of killing people or of going to other worlds. The first thing.”

It felt a bit useless, talking to a rock. Anyone who saw her would think she was either crazy or crazy lonely. Possibly both. But, if some small part of Kasita could hear her deep within the stone, she wanted the mimic to know that she did care.

Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do now. Without even a single spell card, she couldn’t try testing anything. Not that she would test random spells on her friend.

Gently setting the rock on the coffee table next to Irulon and the draken, Alyssa turned to explore the rest of the apartment.

She didn’t bother with the front door. Unless Tenebrael was the biggest idiot in the entire cosmos, it wouldn’t open. The rest of the apartment wasn’t all that large. It had two bedrooms. One had clearly been inhabited by a young girl judging by the decor and toys lying about. The other, as Tenebrael had said, contained a bed that looked great. Alyssa didn’t dare touch it. Her armor had come through the transportation spell caked with just as much dust and blood as had been on it beforehand.

So she moved to the bathroom. A nice place with stylish tile floor and a sizable tub. The apartment’s rent must cost a fortune. Lying on the counter across from the tub was a bathrobe. It looked soft, fluffy, and even had her name embroidered on the black fabric.

Looking up, Alyssa flinched. Like most bathrooms, this one had a mirror. The fact that it took her a full second to realize that she was looking at herself… Alyssa shuddered. She looked like garbage. Her hair would double as a nest for rats. Her face was covered in dirt with small streaks of red here and there. She looked thinner yet more muscular at the same time. With working out on the regular being a favorite activity of hers, she had always been well built.

Peeling the dragon hide off wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. With how much she had sweat from all the fighting and the sneaking about, it was worse than any other time she had removed it. Leaving the priceless armor in a heap on the floor, Alyssa stared at herself again.

Her breasts had shrunk. At the same time, her biceps looked a little thicker. Her abs had a definition to them that hadn’t been there two months ago. Touching at her shoulder, she inspected what had once been a deep gash. There should be a scar there. A reminder of how foolish she had been in challenging the Taker like she had. But Tenebrael had taken away her mistake, replacing it with smooth skin. Every other injury was the same, from her burned hand to her broken leg.

Flicking her eyes to her face, Alyssa scowled. There was something there that hadn’t been there before. Or maybe something missing that had been there. It was hard to tell which. Either way, something changed. Something she hadn’t noticed until now, looking into a modern mirror with a modern bathroom reflected around her. A hardness to her eyes. A frown where one didn’t belong. Or maybe it was her who didn’t belong…

Or maybe it was just the dirt and grime. Shaking her head, Alyssa felt a bit ridiculous. A bit overly melodramatic.

Cranking the water handle, she got the shower going. As much as she wanted to just sit and soak, she needed a shower first. Wash off all the grime and then fill the tub. No plan sounded better at the moment. She didn’t even bother stopping by the kitchen to see what food Tenebrael had provided.

Actually stepping into the steaming stream of water, Alyssa almost started crying. It had been… so long. Not just during her excursion through the desert. The public baths in Lyria, while something, just couldn’t compare. Running her fingers through her hair sent what felt like ten pounds of grease running off her body and down the drain.

And then she noticed the shampoo. Pumping a bit more than necessary and not caring in the slightest, she dug her fingers into her scalp, letting the suds foam up until she had a halo of apple-scented soap continually running down her shoulders.

Eventually, she decided to switch to a bath. She wasn’t quite sure that she felt clean despite spending twenty minutes under the steaming water, but she was tired and wanted to give her legs a rest. After angling the shower head to try to get all the dirt sticking to the walls to run down the drain, she used her foot to put the stopper in the water.

Sitting down with her head propped up against a small headrest, she let the shower beat against her bare chest. It was a poor man’s massage, but it was wonderful. Pure bliss. Only when the water level reached her neck did she reach up with her foot and turn off the water.

Alyssa closed her eyes, let out a deep sigh, and let the water soak in.

She didn’t know how long she remained in the water. The bathroom lacked a clock and, after getting fully relaxed, she might have dozed off a bit. Without the constant worry that something would pop out of the woodworks and bite her head off, now was the most relaxed she had felt in months.

But it didn’t last forever.

The door made a sound. It wasn’t a creaking as the hinges were well oiled. It was the click of the knob not being turned fully before the door pressed open.

And it sent a jolt of fear through Alyssa. All her relaxation vanished in an instant. Someone else was here. The door wasn’t locked. She hadn’t intended to stay in the bathroom, but the mirror and the clean water distracted her enough that she had forgotten. Who was it? The homeowner? A home invader? Her stomach sank. Alyssa was literally naked. No weapons. She didn’t even have the armor on. There wasn’t anything she could use within reach either.

Maybe the shower rod?

Alyssa scrambled to her feet, fumbling a bit with standing in the water. It was making a lot of noise, but she wouldn’t have been able to hide anyway. Arms above her head, inches from the rod, she froze.

For a moment, she thought she was looking in the mirror again. But she wasn’t. There were no tattoos down her arm. The breasts were larger. The face was shaped slightly different. It was familiar, but not her.

“Kasita?”

“Ufu~ don’t get up on my account.”

Alyssa closed her eyes. Still knee-deep in water, she just about fell over. A handle in the shower wall saved her. “You scared me half to death,” Alyssa said after a moment. “But… I’m glad you’re alright. I was worried.”

The smile on Kasita’s face slipped as she glanced off to the side. “Yeah. I’ve actually been fine for a while now.”

“A while?”

“Since you and Irulon were freeing the monsters,” she all but mumbled. “Thought I’d force myself to make an appearance before Tenebrael told you that nothing was wrong with me.” Turning away, she ran a finger over the silver sink faucet. “So this is your world, is it? Everything is so smooth.”

“Kasita…”

“And those orbs,” she said, looking up at the vanity lighting. “They’ve got little bits of hot metal in them. I can tell that much, but they’re so bright just from that?”

“Kasita,” Alyssa said again. She stepped out of the tub, dripping wet. Water would get everywhere, but what did she care? It wasn’t like this was her house. More importantly… “Are you alright?”

The mimic didn’t look back, instead reaching out to the faucet. She started, jumping a little as she turned on the water. It wasn’t until Alyssa put a hand on her shoulder that she finally stopped paying attention to her surroundings. Kasita didn’t turn around, but Alyssa could see the way her face fell in the mirror. “I was useless.”

“I—”

“Don’t deny it. When you and Irulon asked if I would find as much information as I could, I was elated. It was something that I could do, that I was uniquely suited for, while you two went off to destroy buildings. I almost immediately found that basement, then… I don’t even know what happened. The next thing I knew, you had picked me up. Irulon was freeing the monsters. And you two killed everyone without me doing a single valuable thing. I might as well have not been there.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together. This wasn’t like Kasita. The mimic giggled and smiled and took everything with a lackadaisical attitude, finding amusement in everything. This… must really be bothering her. Tightening her grip on Kasita’s shoulder, Alyssa spun the mimic around, wrapped her arms around her, and pulled her in close. A hug. A hug hopefully more comforting than the one Tenebrael had offered earlier. Kasita did wiggle a bit, but Alyssa was cheating. The mimic lacked the strength to get away… although, if she truly wanted to escape, Alyssa had watched her phase through a metal fence.

But the wiggling only lasted a moment or two before they both fell still. With her head on Kasita’s shoulder, Alyssa couldn’t see her face. Not even through the mirror, which just showed Kasita’s back and Alyssa.

“Never think you’re useless,” Alyssa said. She wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say, but it felt right. “I am so grateful that I met you. And not just because you saved me from Rizk or from those guys on the Brechen Overlook or a hundred other things—which you did, by the way, all on your own. I think that I can be completely genuine when I say that you’ve become my best friend.

“My only friend, really,” Alyssa added after a moment. “I mean, I’d like to be friendlier with Irulon, but, between you and me, I don’t think she actually has friends. Or wants them. I think I might have burned some bridges with Oxart and Oz over that whole fairy thing, though I never really considered them friends to begin with. Tzheitza probably isn’t going to be too happy to see me after stealing her potions and then leaving her shop half destroyed, even if that latter bit was really Lumen’s fault… and… now I’m just depressing myself. I don’t have much to look forward to when we do get back to Lyria.” Not that there was anywhere else to go. “But,” she said quickly, realizing how what she had just said might have sounded, “don’t think I would trade you up for them. You’re my friend on your own merits. Never doubt that.”

Silence hung in the air for a long while. Alyssa was almost afraid to let go of Kasita, worried she might disappear. But eventually, Alyssa felt a pressure against her chest. Kasita pushing her away. There was another moment of hesitation, but Alyssa relented, not wanting to cling overly much. She almost expected to see a tear-streaked face when Kasita backed up enough. But there was nothing. Just a blank face without a trace of a smile. Which was sad enough on its own. Then again, Kasita probably didn’t cry at all. She could probably make herself look like she was crying, but her form, Alyssa had to remind herself, was illusory. A construct built up to project herself onto the world.

“Those are all people from our—from my world. Surely you have someone here that you want to see.”

That question made Alyssa wince. “Not really. My family, of course. My parents and my brother, even my grandparents and Uncle Earl… but that’s family. I have coworkers—or… had coworkers. I was friendly with them, but I’ve never once interacted with them outside working hours. There were a few people back in high school, but we’ve all grown our separate ways. I haven’t spoken with one of them in… a year at least. I usually keep to myself while at the gym and I attended community college while living at home, going to mostly night classes. Night classes have an overabundance of older people that I just never connected with… So no. I’ve got no one apart from my family.”

Something in what Alyssa had said put a small smile on Kasita’s face. She wasn’t sure exactly which point caused that smile, but she was just glad that something had. Crisis averted for the moment, Alyssa took her eyes off Kasita. A large part of her wanted to jump back into the warm water and just soak forever. Pretty much all of her, actually. But she was already out. Just standing there had gotten her at least partially dry. Might as well finish up. The kitchen was calling and, she had to admit, she felt just a little awkward about standing around completely naked while Kasita wore that dragon hide armor. Kasita didn’t look wet at all, but she was at least somewhat illusory, so that wasn’t surprising.

Grabbing the towel off the rack, and after getting over the mild surprise that the towels were quite warm to the touch, Alyssa set to drying herself off. “What about you?” she asked. “Any friends or family? I haven’t seen you speak with anyone really. Just those Waterhole monsters.”

“Mimics don’t have much in the way of family. We reproduce without a partner and the ‘child’ is fully formed on birth, so a parent doesn’t need to stick around. None of that crawling around all helpless like you humans do for half your lives.”

Alyssa didn’t bother commenting on that snipe. She was too busy trying to wring out her hair. There was probably a blow dryer somewhere around, but that would be noisy and obnoxious, so she made do with the towel alone.

“There was a human, once,” Kasita said, turning back to the mirror. “Lexar was his name. He didn’t know I was a mimic, but I suppose you could say that we were friends. At least, we were as long as he thought I was a human.” She paused, frowning at herself in the mirror before giving a snide chuckle. Not like her usual giggles. The sad sound of it made Alyssa pause in her efforts to dry off. “I was naive,” Kasita continued, taking no notice of Alyssa’s lack of movement. “Thought it wouldn’t matter, that we could be friends despite me being a monster. I told him. He betrayed me, tricked me into getting myself trapped. Captured. A few years later and a long story cut short, I wound up at the Waterhole.”

“That’s… horrible,” Alyssa said, feeling like she should hug Kasita again. She refrained. In high school, lots of the girls often gave each other hugs, but they had always felt a bit awkward to her. Right now, so soon after she had just let go of Kasita, she felt that another hug would be more awkward than comforting. So she said instead, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. A few years… couldn’t you have escaped? Slipped away?”

“Probably. But I was a bit upset with everything. Depressed that all my efforts to be kind to a human wound up… well. I didn’t see a good point to escaping. By the time I was in the right mindset to want to escape, I had grown somewhat attached to some of the other slaves. Pho and I were sold to the Waterhole together. I didn’t really want to leave at that point.”

Slipping on the robe bearing her name, Alyssa looked to Kasita. “Do you miss her? Pho?”

With a wan smile, Kasita shrugged. “There was an attachment there, but only a mild one. Free, she’ll return to her hive. Even if I had followed her, I wouldn’t belong. Not even if I disguised myself as a bee for the rest of my life. She’s with her people and I’m happy for her, but I wouldn’t be happy to be with her, pretending to be something I’m not.”

“That’s… What about right now?” Alyssa waved a hand up and down. “Are you happy pretending to be a human? I don’t mind if you want to be that spider thing. That is your true form, isn’t it? You don’t have to pretend around me. And I’m sure Irulon wouldn’t mind—”

Kasita held up a hand. “Let me stop you there. I don’t have a true form. It certainly isn’t that spider thing, as you put it. I might look like that naturally, but the amount of time I’ve spent in it is probably less than ten minutes. Over my whole life. No. I might not be one, but, maybe because I’ve spent so much time as one, I identify with being a human far more than any creature. Even if they scorn me when they find out what I am.”

“Not all of us. I don’t. I don’t think Irulon does either. And I bet we’re not the only ones. There is no such thing as a unified mindset. I bet there are millions of humans who don’t like the treatment that monsters get. Especially ones like you. I mean, wasn’t Irulon talking about a village that worshiped a gaunt? If a whole village can worship a gaunt, I’m sure plenty of people can at least be respectful toward you, if not friendly.”

“They sure do a good job of hiding it.”

“Yeah. And that’s just the state of the world. Maybe it will change eventually. In fact, it might have already started to change, with Irulon and the Second Prince.” Though that was a fairly large might. Irulon didn’t seem to care about much on an empathetic level, basing her cares on how useful things were to her. Brakkt, Alyssa knew less about, but even if he deeply cared for the draken, he didn’t seem like he was much of a policy maker. That job probably resided with his older brother.

But that was neither here nor there… or, it was there, but Alyssa was here at the moment. It was still worth thinking about. She wanted to do something for the people and monsters of Lyria, and she found herself in a unique position. There was a philosophy about leaving the world better than how one came into it, and that was more literal for her and Nod than anything else. With her more modern sensibilities, she felt like she was more enlightened than the rest of the people of Nod.

Then again, she would have to carefully look over everything she did. Thinking that she knew better than all the people with decades of experience in dealing with monsters was how she wound up ruining her relationships with practically everyone except Irulon and Kasita. If she ever found herself in a position to make policies, she needed—vitally required an adviser.

Like that will ever happen, she thought with a mental scoff. “Let’s get out of here and go sit down. This is exactly what I was talking about the other day, getting to know each other. Since we seem to be stuck here for a while, talking more is a great use of our time.” Besides that, the kitchen might contain modern food. That thought alone had her stomach yearning to switch rooms to see what she might find.

“I think I’d like that,” Kasita said, nodding her head after a moment. “And you can tell me all about this world while you’re at it. I wasn’t wholly feigning my interest in all the smooth surfaces.” Her smile grew wider and wider. “Imagine that. I’m the first monster to ever set foot on this world. The first person to experience it. What a wondrous happenstance.”

“It isn’t that great. And we can’t leave the apartment without Tenebrael.”

“There is more than enough to inspect around here! Like this, for instance.” Kasita took a few steps to the side. “What is this? It’s so smooth all around and full of water.”

Alyssa blinked before shaking her head with a chuckle. “That’s a toilet.”


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022.002

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There and Back Again

An Unrefusable Offer


“How would you like to return to Earth?”

Alyssa’s heart beat faster within her chest at hearing Tenebrael’s words. Earth? It had been so long. It felt like years even though it had really only been weeks. Returning was exactly what she wanted. To go home. To see her parents. And her brother. To reassure them that she was alright and not dead. She wanted nothing more than to open her mouth and shout that she would love to go.

Which was why she hesitated.

Standing in the desolate military compound with monsters roaming about and her friends frozen in a stasis field, Alyssa stared at the gentle smile on the angel’s face.

And she scowled. Her excitement at the mentions of Earth vanished with a single thought.

There had to be a catch.

Tenebrael wouldn’t just offer such a thing. In the first place, Alyssa had been brought to this crazy world to hide her from other angels. So why would she ever be allowed back? There was something fishy about all this. Tenebrael wanted something. And that something was probably not something that Alyssa wanted.

There was also the possibility that Tenebrael was yanking her chain. Just mentioning the possibility might be some psychological tactic. To what end, Alyssa wasn’t sure. Tenebrael was a jerk, but that much of a jerk? No. This had to be a genuine offer.

“Wouldn’t it be nice?” Tenebrael said, moving closer. “How long has it been since you’ve had a proper shower. Clean water with a nice hot towel waiting for you after. Maybe a chance to restock on your spent ammunition or collect some item that you think will aid you here.”

“Here,” Alyssa said flatly. “You’re offering a temporary journey then.”

“I can’t let you remain there on a permanent basis. You’ve seen Archangel Adrael’s deviant actions in the name of setting things right. If you remain for long, you’ll surely be noticed. You’ll draw the attentions of more Archangels. I doubt they would be so willing to correct you in such a direct manner, but they will be more than willing to offer Divine Inspiration to someone in the right state of mind to… be less than pleasant toward you. And there remains a distant but possible chance that a Seraphim might catch wind of you. Trust me. Neither of us wants that. So temporary, chaperoned trip only.”

There we go. That’s the catch. A temporary trip to Earth. She would probably be watched the entire time and, if she tried to contact her family and friends, Tenebrael would probably whisk her back away before she could get a single word out. But that didn’t answer the why of the trip. She didn’t stink so badly that Tenebrael wanted her to shower right away… did she?

Alyssa discretely sniffed only to find herself unable to smell anything distinct. Just a slight metallic scent in the air.

But the temporary nature of the trip was only part of the catch. Tenebrael wouldn’t just offer a vacation to Earth for a spa and manicure. Not even if Alyssa had just finished trudging through the Bog of Eternal Stench. If the angel truly felt offended by a smell, she would probably wave a hand and vanish it into thin air.

No. Tenebrael wanted something. Something that she couldn’t acquire for herself. “What is it? Just tell me and stop with all this roundabout nonsense. What do you want?”

“Must we get into all the dirty details now? You’ve been wearing that relic’s hide for a few days, only taking it off while sleeping. Wiping yourself down with a rag is no substitute for a nice long bath.”

“I’m not about to leave for a bath,” Alyssa said, scowl deepening. It did sound nice. Very nice. But… “I’m not just going to abandon Irulon and the draken in the middle of an enemy fortress. Even if this wasn’t a temporary trip, my conscience would have a lot of issues with just up and leaving.”

Tenebrael stuck a finger out, nudging Irulon with a finger. The stiff form of the princess rocked back and forth on the draken’s back. “They aren’t going anywhere. Not soon. You’ve got time for a bath and a quick trip down a dark alley.”

“Are you…” Alyssa’s fingers tightened around Adrael’s staff. She wasn’t quite sure how she had managed to use it against Adrael, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let Tenebrael attack her. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Kill you? Never.” In the blink of an eye, Tenebrael had crossed the short distance between them. Her arms wrapped around Alyssa’s shoulders in a gentle embrace. “Although you’ve caused no small amount of trouble, I cannot believe I managed as long as I had without you in my existence.”

Alyssa went utterly still, hardly even breathing with the angel’s chest pressed against hers. Several seconds went by before she realized what was going on. A hug. It was a hug. And it was weirding her out. Not just the physical contact, which she wasn’t really used to in general, but that strange warmth that angels exuded. Normally, it was hardly worth mentioning. Right now? With Tenebrael fully pressed up against her?

Maybe it wasn’t the angel’s glory. It might just be embarrassment forcing her into blushing.

“Speaking of that trouble you’ve caused…” Tenebrael said softly before Alyssa could ask more about her eyes. “There’s just one itsy bitsy little problem. Really a tiny thing. But something I need a small bit of help with.”

“Uh huh.” Alyssa, still a little stunned from the sudden hug, wasn’t sure what else to say.

“You remember that guy you weren’t supposed to kill? The one who was to stab you?”

“Every night.”

Well, do you remember what I said immediately after you killed him?”

Alyssa blinked. That had been a fairly hectic night. Lots had happened. Meeting an angel and being sent to some weird world among them. On a line-by-line basis, she couldn’t remember anything specific. So she shook her head.

“Originally, before you mucked things up, he was supposed to live for a few months before killing himself by hanging. Now, I’ve been dashing back and forth between here and Earth, puppeting him about, making his body interact with the important people he was supposed to interact with. But, in a few hours’ time, he runs across someone in a dark alley while fleeing from your law enforcement officers. That someone might get… a little hurt. And die. And I don’t think I can—”

“No.”

“Oh come now, Alyssa. Be reasonable.”

“You want me to go kill some random innocent person?” Alyssa said, pulling away from Tenebrael. Without a broken leg, she had all the maneuverability needed to put distance between herself and the angel. “Absolutely not. I can’t even believe that you would suggest that.”

“How many people have you killed today? What’s one more?”

“These people,” Alyssa said, waving the staff around, “were planning to use mind controlled ants to commit genocide. You’re asking me to… what? Kill some poor homeless man in an alley because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time? I can’t even—”

“Aren’t you creating selfish, arbitrary justifications for your own conscience?” Tenebrael took a step closer, smile still just as gentle as could be. “This murder was in self defense. This murder was because the person was bad. This murder was because he was planning something that you didn’t like. At the end of the day, someone is dead. Several someones in today’s case.”

Alyssa hesitated. It was different. Self defense was justifiable. In… mortal courts. For an angel… What did Tenebrael expect her to do? Just lie down and let the likes of the Taker send her to an early grave?

“All mortals do the same, so don’t feel bad, Alyssa.”

“And angels are different?” Alyssa shot back.

“Of course! An angel would nev… er…” Trailing off, Tenebrael glanced to the side, to where Irulon was still frozen in the stasis of Fractal Lock. After staring for a moment, she started laughing. “Amazing! Awe-inspiring. What a terrific and horrid occurrence. An angel harming a mortal?”

“So why not go do it yourself if it is so important.” The words tasted like ash on her tongue, but that didn’t stop her from saying them. “Clearly you can harm humans. Or you can lie, whichever one. Both, probably.”

“I… I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“What do you mean? You tried to get me to point my gun at Cid way back when. You have watched plenty of people kill other people. You clearly know—”

“I can’t.” The smile disappeared, replaced with a grinding of her teeth. Clenching her fists, Tenebrael looked away. “The moment I try to consider an action that would directly lead to me harming a mortal, it’s like… every thought I have turns to static. I don’t want to harm most humans, but there have been times where I just shut down completely until an event passes, unable to do anything but carry out my duties. I don’t have a choice.”

The angel blinked twice. A tremor in her wings ran from the tips to her spine. Her smile slowly returned, though it wasn’t quite as happy as it had been when she had hugged Alyssa.

“Which is why it needs to be you. Take solace in knowing that not a single soul has been judged before the Throne since… a long, long time ago. Which is another great reason why you shouldn’t feel bad about carrying out my little task. All you need to do is come up with a flimsy justification that will let you sleep at night.” The angel paused a moment, reaching back behind her to pull out another little black book. This one, instead of having a black bookmark, had a thin golden ribbon stuck between the pages. “Would it help if I offered excerpts from his history?” she said, opening the book. Not to the bookmarked page, but several pages prior to it. “He was a soldier in your government’s army. Noble of him, ah, but he stole and sold essential radio parts on the black market before eventually deserting, leaving three of his comrades to die in—”

“Stop. Just stop!” Alyssa shouted. “Why do you even need to kill him anyway? The books automatically update themselves. We learned that from your experiment with Irulon. Just ignore him and no one will know.”

“That is true… here. But look at this.” Tenebrael turned the book around and flipped forward to the golden bookmark.

Alyssa just shook her head, shoving it away from her. “I can’t read that.”

The light in Tenebrael’s eyes died momentarily as she blinked. “Right. Sorry. Well, the other day when I gave you the time of Irulon’s death, I was watching the book intently. At first, there were no changes. But as you started acting, killing monsters and those people and even contacting various people, the book started altering. Events changed until everything in the book aligned with the outcome. Even flipping back a few pages shows no sign that Irulon was ever supposed to die. You changed the book of this world.

“This book, Iosefael’s book, is different. Back to the page of that night, it still says that she is to collect and process your soul at the time you were supposed to die. It still says that the man I’ve been controlling like a puppet is alive. Nothing has changed.”

Alyssa sat down. Right in the dirt. It didn’t matter where. Even with her leg healed and the pain gone, she still felt exhausted. Talking with Tenebrael, talking about all this death, wasn’t helping. So she sat cross-legged and just sighed. The staff was too long to hold onto properly while sitting on the ground and she wasn’t about to let go of it in Tenebrael’s presence, so she had to rest it across her lap. After one more sigh, she looked up to the angel.

Tenebrael had moved as well, floating in the air as if lounging on an invisible fainting couch.

“What does that mean? Your book, the book that records events here, changes. But Earth’s book doesn’t?”

“Earth is mildly unique in that it was the first world that the Throne enacted its plan upon. Every other world, those granted to us Dominions, is generally designed in likeness to Earth. Each is different, but you might find common events occurring in the histories of them that mirror Earth’s history.”

Frowning, Alyssa glanced toward the frozen form of the draken.

“Indeed. Earth had its own Age of Legends. Dinosaur fossils are a remnant of the most ancient parts of it, but much of the various mythologies and religions stem from legends as well. That is why you have likely heard of many of the relics—the monsters—here.”

“Humans never interacted with living dinosaurs,” Alyssa said, wondering if she had been more correct in likening the draken to movie dinosaurs than she had originally thought. “And I’m pretty sure the same goes for harpies and gorgon as well, if they were ever real on Earth.”

“True. Which leaves us with a puzzle. Without going through you, I would never have been able to save Irulon that night. I… can’t heal her myself,” Tenebrael said, glancing to the side. “Not unless I am ordered to. Maybe I could have tried knocking down a building, but it would have turned out the same in the end. You, however, I can tell information to that will change the book. You, I can heal without hesitation. You can change the book all on your own without a word from me.

“And yet, your continued survival hasn’t changed Iosefael’s book in the slightest.”

“That’s nice and all,” Alyssa said after several seconds of silence, “but this is all the circumstances. None of it is the why or the how. Unless this is a long and roundabout way of saying that you don’t know.”

“Yes. We need more information. When I brought you here, you had no agency. I brought you here without regard toward your own will. All your actions that have changed my book were under your agency. I believe that is the primary difference. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to, we cannot use this as an opportunity to test whether or not you taking agency will result in alterations within Earth’s book. Here, there are no angels aside from myself… and Adrael, apparently. Earth is flooded with Principalities and other minor angels who will notice should something not go according to plan.”

Alyssa narrowed her eyes. Back to this topic again. “Argue all you want, I am not going to go kill some random guy.”

“But if the Seraphim find out, it won’t be good for either of us.”

“You told me that the Seraphim were vegetables. What were your exact words? I’d have a more engaging conversation with a wall?”

“I also told you that angels could not harm mortals.” She glanced over and stared at Irulon then to the staff resting in Alyssa’s lap. “I don’t know how that happened. I cannot even offer a theory. But, after all this unpleasant business is dealt with, I plan on tracking down Adrael and getting my answers.” Shifting her positing from the floating lounge to standing straight, Tenebrael looked down at Alyssa. “Shall we get going? It is a bit early, but I did promise a bath and ammunition.”

Gritting her teeth, Alyssa gripped the staff. She didn’t want to attack Tenebrael. Strange as it was, Tenebrael wound up being more of an ally than the enemy Alyssa had initially viewed her as. Annoying, yes, but at least she wasn’t hostile. Since she wanted to ruin whatever plan there was, she and maybe Iosefael were the only two angels who didn’t want Alyssa dead.

But this? She might have become a killer. Some might even call her a murderer. But she was not going to kill someone for happening across someone who was already dead. Although… maybe he could die.

“I have a few questions, first. Several, in fact. First: Why do Iosefael and Adrael think your world is messed up when you literally cannot change what is written in that little book of yours? Doesn’t that mean that keeping monsters around, making yourself into some kind of deity, and even winding up with a whole village named after you was all preordained within the book? And secondly: If you can’t take any actions that would result in the book producing errors, how could you tell me that Irulon was going to die? For that matter, how am I here? I clearly wasn’t in the plan yet you were able to bring me here.”

“The last one is easiest to answer. We were on Earth. I don’t believe that I am beholden to Iosefael’s book the way I am to mine, so I was able to take you. As for the previous question—and this might be related to how I was able to bring you to Nod—my book doesn’t predict you. You have no entries in the entire thing. Not even now. So, even though it did change what was written down, the book didn’t say that I couldn’t tell you. It didn’t think that speaking to you would change Irulon’s fate and allowed it.”

“Mhm. And the rest?”

“I’m… less certain about that. I can only assume that the way it is today is the way my world was always intended to be, though my fellow angels clearly disagree.”

“And what about Adrael? Was the Society of the Burning Shadow according to the book? Because from what I’ve seen, it looks like she created it.”

“I would say that it must have originally included everything that she has done, except for the little problem of her harming a mortal. With that in mind, we have to assume that she might be more like you than like a proper angel. I’d have to know exactly what she has done here and what she plans here and compare current events to the book. I haven’t noticed anything changing that didn’t involve you, but I also haven’t read ahead in… a very long time. After realizing the futility of it all, I decided that not knowing was better.”

“Perhaps it is time you start.”

“Indeed.”

Taking a deep breath, Alyssa planted the staff’s end into the ground. It didn’t weigh much, especially given the gold it was apparently made out of, but holding it out was still a strain after a while. Having the ground take off some of that strain was more than welcome.

“You ready?”

“One last thing.” Alyssa looked over to Irulon and to the draken. “I’m not just going to leave them out here for several hours. They might be decently protected within Fractal Lock, but all it would take is for someone to happen by and use Desecrate Spells. We already know that the Society of the Burning Shadow called for reinforcements.”

Pulling out the book with the black ribbon again, Tenebrael flipped through it, running a finger down each page before moving on to the next. Snapping the book shut, she flicked her glowing eyes back to Alyssa. “Nothing should happen to them within the few hours we’ll be gone.”

“We just discussed this! Your books either change or are outright wrong!” Alyssa sighed, shaking her head. “And if Adrael comes back, they could be in even more danger. She could manipulate someone into hurting them or just do it herself.”

Although her face didn’t change much, the tips of her wings twitched. “I… don’t deny the possibility. But I don’t know that I can do much for them. They aren’t going to die soon as far as I can tell and that’s all the book cares about.”

“You don’t have to. Let me do it. Teach me a spell. Magic. Or is it miracles?” Alyssa shook her head. To her, there was no distinction. Both were supernatural effects. “There has to be something that we can do together. Let’s drop them into a pocket dimension. Or make them utterly impervious to harm from any source, angel or mortal. Or… anything.” Alyssa almost said to simply free them from their stasis. With that gone, they could at least run away. But… could they run away if Adrael came back? Alyssa wasn’t so sure. “Or… Or why don’t we take them to Earth with us?”

“Earth! I—”

“They’re in stasis, so they’re not going to do anything. And if they aren’t supposed to have their stasis removed for several hours, then they wouldn’t interact with anything here. Which means that it doesn’t matter if they’re here or not here, so you should be able to do that yourself.”

“What are you planning, Alyssa Meadows?” Tenebrael asked with narrowed eyes.

“Nothing. I promise. I am just trying to keep them safe. I swear I won’t try to remove their stasis while we’re on Earth if you bring them with us.”

Alyssa wanted to learn magic and miracles. It was the key to getting home and getting rid of her feathery menaces. But she wanted Irulon and Izsha’s safety more than that.

It was somewhat upsetting how much the princess needed rescuing. A Rank Six arcanist, the pinnacle of humanity’s magic casters, shouldn’t be so vulnerable. Though, perhaps nothing was invulnerable when an angel was concerned.

The gaunt, Irulon had less of an excuse for. Sure, the species might resist magic, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t have used Loophole or even just Fractal Locked herself before being stabbed.

Initially, Alyssa had been focused on offensive spells and weapons. From her mundane pistols all the way up to Fireballs and Spectral Axes, she felt like that base was covered. Sure, it might not be the most expansive array of equipment, but it worked. Together with Irulon and the draken, she had depopulated a small village. Not a village. A military compound, she reminded herself. Yet, on the opposite end of the spectrum, she had nothing much at all.

It might be time to look into more defensive tools to add to her repertoire. Irulon had a few, mostly Fractal nonsense. Fractal Lock certainly worked. But it wasn’t very practical for most cases. Having a nice shield that she could hold up so that the Taker couldn’t fling throwing knives at her would change everything. And Irulon might need some too, if she wasn’t just being overly complicated or overly stingy.

But that would be a topic to broach when the princess got back to normal.

For now… Earth.

“Are you going to do it? Bring them with us?”

“I think I can. The fact that I can think about it at all is telling.”

“Good,” Alyssa said, turning away for a moment. She looked over the bodies and the destruction, mildly wondering if that hellhound had found any more. Had she done the right thing here? Killing all these people? Even if all her and Irulon’s assumptions about their intentions for the ant hive had been false, they were still holding monsters—people against their will. They had used that smoke to control fairies and manipulate them into warring against Lyria.

Did that justify killing them? Or was she making excuses like Tenebrael had said she was?

At least they wouldn’t be hurting anyone innocent now.

An innocent person on Earth, however, was another matter entirely. Alyssa was not going to kill him just because a book told her that he was supposed to die.

But going to Earth was worth letting Tenebrael think that she was.

Before turning back to the angel, Alyssa called her phone to her hand. She quickly turned on the video recorder, faced the camera upward, and kept it behind her back as she turned. Angels were not omniscient. That was a fact that she had to keep in mind.

Tenebrael’s gentle smile greeted her.

Alyssa felt her stomach clench. Did she know? No. She couldn’t. There was no way that Tenebrael would let her record the spell that transferred them between worlds. If Tenebrael knew, she would put a stop to it. Maybe even by taking the phone away entirely. That would be the worst scenario. But until such time, Alyssa tried to match the angel’s smile.

“Shall we go?”


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Author’s Note: There was a semi-major change to the previous chapter involving a short dialog between Alyssa and Tenebrael regarding glowing eyes. You can find the majority of the changed text in the comment section if you do not wish to reread the whole thing. Sorry about that!

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There and Back Again

A Deserted Conversation


“Undo. Cancel. Release. Be free…” Alyssa ticked her tongue in annoyance as she stared at Izsha’s unmoving form. Fractal Lock just wouldn’t come off. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what she was doing. She had canceled spells before. For instance, she had dismissed the Spectral Axe just a few minutes ago. But Fractal Lock was holding tight.

Alyssa looked to the side, frowning. Without Irulon around to explain magic, she could only speculate. Fractal Lock had to be a spell that directly affected the world. Similar to how Irulon had explained Loophole and why it worked on the magic-resisting gaunts. Since it locked a target off so completely that even an angelic weapon wouldn’t harm them, the spell would probably instantly cancel itself when used on the caster if it was a spell that had to be maintained. Irulon had used it on her self back in the palace, so that was obviously false. Which meant that it attached to the world without any lingering control on the caster’s part.

In other words, Alyssa had no control over when the Fractal Lock would end. Not without complications, anyway. A Desecrate Spells had worked before and it would probably work again. Suppress Magic might also work. However, Izsha was less than twenty steps away from Irulon and Musca. They would be caught in the spell as well. It was true that Fractal Magic didn’t lock a person in space, meaning that she could move Izsha far enough away that neither spell should hit Irulon if she really tried, but that didn’t seem likely with a broken leg.

Izsha wasn’t even injured. Alyssa wanted someone to talk to. Even if the draken couldn’t respond, at least it would be a comfort to have around. Someone to watch her back should those shadow assassins decide that they didn’t like her after all.

Sighing, Alyssa pulled a rock out of her pocket. A faint red haze surrounded the entire thing, indicating something unnatural about it. “And what about you? How long are you going to stay like this?”

The rock, naturally, did not respond. It was a rock. Until Kasita decided otherwise, she would stay a rock.

“I hope you’re alright,” Alyssa said softly, rubbing the stone with her thumb for a moment before wondering if that was somewhat weird. She wouldn’t just go up and start rubbing Kasita’s face. But this was a rock. It was a smooth stone. The kind one might find in a riverbed, not in a desert. “I also hope you’re really Kasita.” That would end up being a bit awkward if this rock were something else.

Like a rock.

But it had to be. Otherwise, where could Kasita have possibly gone?

Still, she sighed. Again. Having already gone through and taken a picture of every one of Irulon’s spells, she wasn’t sure what more she could do. The spell book might as well have been written in another language. Well, it was… technically the angelic text was another language. But Irulon offered no notes like Aziz’s book did. His book had detailed descriptions of the few spells he had written down. Irulon’s was only spells. No English at all.

Some of them, Alyssa could recognize as being a type of magic. Fractal magic, for example, tended to have an overabundance of complexity and triangles. So even though she didn’t know what a spell was, she knew that it most likely belonged to the Fractal branch of magic.

Trying to randomly use them would probably cause more harm than good. Accidentally using some reality splitting spell on Irulon in an attempt to heal her would be all too easy. If she became desperate, another Fractal Mirror might work. By its very nature, it would test out every possibility and every combination of spells. It might even get the angel’s staff to start healing if that was a thing that it could do.

Unfortunately, having gone through the book, she had found only two remaining Fractal Mirror spells. Either Irulon didn’t keep many of that spell or she hadn’t replenished her supply of them since the Observatorium. Given how useful the spell had been against Adrael, Alyssa was loath to waste them for fear that the angel might return. If time started getting low and she hadn’t found an alternative solution, she would use them. For now… Alyssa waited.

She had a secondary plan. She was just waiting for it to show up.

Alyssa glanced around the desolate village. It hadn’t ever been populated. In fact, most of the buildings probably weren’t living quarters, but rather storage sheds. The building she had inadvertently destroyed while attacking Adrael contained far more metal cuirasses than she had seen people. It just served to hammer home the fact that this was not a village, but a military staging outpost.

Other buildings probably had swords and shields and other weaponry. Maybe some had medical supplies. Finding another healing potion among the military supplies would be a miracle, but Alyssa wasn’t going to count on that. Not only could she not walk with any speed, but Annihilator had probably wound up destroying anything useful. With her luck, she was just glad that she hadn’t killed Irulon or Kasita with that initial cast.

Unless her luck was actually really good. After all, she was holding onto a staff that had harmed an angel. Indirectly, true, but still. It had practically fallen into her lap… or into Irulon’s back. Maybe her luck was better than she thought. Irulon’s luck, on the other hand. How does one get their back punctured twice in less than a week? Not just punctured, but badly enough that they were going to die without immediate medical attention.

Could modern medicine even save something like what Irulon had been through? If she had been stabbed by the gaunt in the middle of an operating theater, would the doctors have been able to save her? Possibly. The holes hadn’t been that large. What about the staff? Medicine could do some amazing things, but fix up an inch-wide circular hole in her chest?

Just thinking about it made her shudder.

Anytime now… Alyssa thought. She was mostly just killing time, letting her thoughts wander. Maybe the hellhound would be willing to search through the buildings for potions. She had certainly been willing to go find any other people. That could have been chalked up to the hellhound just wanting to hurt humans except for the fact that she had agreed well before Alyssa named the favor. Was that typical hellhound behavior?

If only Kasita would wake up, she could ask.

“I see your name does suit you well. Though I am disappointed in how many souls went uncollected. I had to go collect them myself. What was Iosefael doing, I wonder?”

Alyssa spun around—or tried to. Forgetting for a moment that her leg was broken, Alyssa tried putting weight on her foot. She didn’t get very far before letting out a cry of pain. Shoving a knuckle into her mouth, she bit down just hard enough to take her mind off the pain. “Do you have to appear behind me every time?” Alyssa said, carefully hopping around the pole. It was tough to do without jostling her leg. “I didn’t even see one of your stupid feathers this time.”

With how many were in the air, that was probably because her mind had been wandering rather than none of them passing through her field of vision.

“What took you so long?” she said with a heavy glower at the monochrome angel. “You hung up on me like a half hour ago.”

Tenebrael, hovering in the air ten feet away, dropped her arms to her sides and let off an exaggerated sigh. “I was puppeting around that man you weren’t supposed to have killed in a delicate operation that really couldn’t be disturbed. If you must know. Then tomorrow…” The angel trailed off, actually shuddering. It was such a slight tremble in her shoulders that it couldn’t have been on purpose… probably. “Never mind. I found Iosefael. The poor girl is inconsolable. And what have you done to yourself?”

“If you hadn’t hung up on me, I might have gotten around to telling you.”

“I’m here now,” she said, swooping in close. Tenebrael’s warm hands clamped onto the sides of Alyssa’s head as she leaned in. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. Alyssa tried to squirm away, but she might as well have gotten her head stuck in a vice. “Have you eaten anything strange, lately?”

“What?”

“You’ve been contaminated with angelic glory. No wonder Iosefael was a gibbering mess. If I didn’t know better, I would have walked past you at the Endless Expanse thinking you were one of my lesser kin—though I haven’t been back there in a few eternities.”

“A-Are you… My eyes?” It was the only thing Tenebrael could be talking about. And would explain her proximity and that eerie unblinking gaze. “They started glowing after I touched one of Adrael’s spells.”

“The eyes are the window to the soul and your soul is positively radiant. Though it is diminishing at a fairly rapid pace. Shame I didn’t arrive earlier.”

Something in Tenebrael’s voice put Alyssa on edge. She scowled as she said, “If you try to eat me, I’ll give you indigestion.”

Tenebrael chuckled and started to say something else, but Alyssa shoved her away. There were more important things to worry about at the moment than some harmless glowing eyes. The angel flew back the moment the staff touched her skin, nearly making Alyssa lose her balance.

“What is this?” she said in a low tone, apparently noticing the staff for the first time. “It isn’t part of my world, I can tell that much.”

Alyssa bit her lip, taking a moment to steady herself after being so close to the stupid angel. She wanted to blurt out that she had injured another angel. Just to see the look on Tenebrael’s face. But… she couldn’t discount the possibility that she would have to fight against Tenebrael to achieve her ultimate goal of returning home and staying there without angels trying to kill her constantly. Tenebrael would eventually find out. Surely. Alyssa was surprised that Tenebrael hadn’t recognized an angelic weapon.

Unless she had and was playing dumb. Narrowing her eyes, Alyssa scanned the face of the monochrome angel. From a proper distance this time. It was hard to get perspective when the angel had her face almost touching Alyssa’s. And Tenebrael looked… normal. Mostly. Her smile was amused, but the more Alyssa looked, the more she thought Tenebrael wasn’t smiling quite as much as she tended to. Her eyes had a hint of strain in their corners.

There was another reason for not mentioning it. At least not right away. If she mentioned that she had lopped off Adrael’s arm, Tenebrael might just rush off. For the moment, Tenebrael being around worked to her advantage… probably. “Do you mind healing my leg?” Alyssa started off with, not even faking her grimace as she accidentally moved her leg in mentioning it. If the stupid angel had to get up in her face, she could at least have had the decency to heal her. “I can barely think with the pain.”

Glowing eyes made it difficult to tell exactly where Tenebrael was looking, but a slight tilt of her head downward helped. She stepped forward from where she had drawn back and made her way around Musca’s still form without so much as a glance toward the monster or the human rider. Reaching a hand out, she rested it on Alyssa’s shoulder.

The pain died off instantly. Although she could no longer feel the burning sensation in her leg, she could feel it shift around. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation. Still, testing out a bit of weight on her leg felt perfectly normal. To be certain, she kicked forward and back. Her leg looked straight and didn’t flop about halfway through her shin.

“How’s that? Better?”

“Much.” After a moment of hesitation, Alyssa added a quick, “Thank you.”

“Mhm,” Tenebrael hummed, looking toward the large ruby orb attached to the staff. “Now, about this—”

“Wait.” No longer needing to lean on it for support, Alyssa drew the staff back, holding it away from the angel. “First, heal Irulon, if it isn’t too much trouble. And Musca.”

Tenebrael turned away, removing her hand from Alyssa’s shoulder in the process. She took a single step toward Musca before hesitating. “I don’t know that I can.”

“What do you mean? You just healed me with no problem.”

“Yes, but you aren’t mine… I’ve received no instructions to grant miracles to anyone on Nod. Miracles granted to mortals are not a common occurrence. I haven’t done any for three thousand years, aside from the occasional minor bout of Divine Inspiration. There are none scheduled for the remainder of eternity.”

Alyssa blinked, staring at the being. “What are you talking about? You’re the one who wants to break out of your plan or whatever. Just heal her and do it!”

“But I… I can’t.”

“Sure you can. I’ll even change my request. Instead of the notes on angels that you still haven’t sent me, heal Irulon.”

“But…”

Alyssa set Irulon’s tome down on the ground and stepped forward, taking hold of Tenebrael’s hand. “Here. I’ll help you. Just close your eyes and walk a closer. Pretend you’re healing me,” she said, dragging the reluctant angel along. It was more work than it sounded. Tenebrael took three distinct tugs before she took even a single step. “Come on. Isn’t this what you wanted? To disobey what the plan says?” Although… “Irulon and Musca aren’t supposed to die anyway. Look at your book. They clearly have life-threatening wounds, but they aren’t scheduled to die, are they?”

It was a gamble, but, after three more tugs and no further movement forward for Tenebrael, one she felt she had to take.

Reaching behind her with the hand Alyssa didn’t have a hold of, Tenebrael opened her book and started browsing through. She used a wing to flip pages in an amazing feat of avian dexterity. Despite forcing her to use her wings as extra hands, Alyssa didn’t let go, too worried that Tenebrael might disappear to avoid being pressured.

But this was her whole plan. If Tenebrael didn’t heal Irulon… she would just have to hope that the wound wasn’t lethal or that the Society of the Burning Shadow stocked up on healing potions.

“This can’t be right,” Tenebrael mumbled. She flipped forward three pages, back one, then forward another two. Even if Alyssa could read the incomprehensible text, Tenebrael didn’t stop on any one page long enough to read more than two or three of the characters.

Tenebrael took a few steps forward on her own, slipping out of Alyssa’s hand in the process. The angel didn’t actually touch Irulon or Musca. She just hovered about them, examining their injuries. Every so often, she would look back at her notebook.

It took three full revolutions around the two before Tenebrael stepped back to Alyssa’s side. “Dragons are the strongest creatures in my world. And her armor was lying in pieces beneath the relic,” she said, holding up to circular patches of dragon skin while waving casually toward Musca. Alyssa hadn’t seen her grab them, but she was beyond worrying over how angels actually did anything they did. “What caused their…” Her eyes flicked over to the staff in Alyssa’s hands, looking down toward the bottom half. All the blood had run off without leaving a mark on the gold, but Tenebrael clearly took note of something.

“That weapon was not crafted by mortal hands.”

Welp. She knew that it wouldn’t last forever, but she had been hoping for a little Irulon healing before Tenebrael darted off to find Adrael or Iosefael. “No,” she said, not bothering to try to hide it anymore. “This belonged to Adrael. I think she threw it at Irulon. It came in like a rocket from so far away that I couldn’t even see Adrael.”

Tenebrael remained silent for an uncomfortably long time. Her eyes remained locked on the staff, but she didn’t approach or try to touch it. Eventually, her gaze shifted to Alyssa. “An angel threw this? At a mortal?”

“Like a javelin. Unless she used magic to throw it. Either way, it pierced straight through Irulon and Musca. She tried to do the same with her shield against Izsha, but I used Fractal Lock to stop it from actually doing damage.”

“An angel threw a weapon with the intent to harm a mortal?”

“Did I stutter? That is what I said. She was trying to protect some old woman. Who I killed.”

“That’s…”

“Was I right? Irulon isn’t in your book, is she? Maybe you’re even supposed to perform a miracle to correct the damage done by the angel.”

Tenebrael looked down to her book, still held open with her thumb between the pages. It wasn’t at an angle where she would be able to read the pages. “How did you know?”

“A guess.” It was a logical conclusion to reach. Iosefael had been undoing everything that Adrael had done, not just because Tenebrael didn’t want her here, but because she was actively harming mortals with that soul separation smoke. So why not Irulon’s injuries? No matter what their plan was, if the angels weren’t supposed to interfere with mortals except in special miracle events, then Irulon should never have been injured in the first place. Unfortunately… if the book said to heal her and Tenebrael didn’t want to do that… “You are going to heal her, aren’t you?”

“The book doesn’t say to perform a miracle, just that she isn’t supposed to die soon.”

Closing her eyes, Alyssa took a deep breath. “Please. I don’t have any potions and we’re out in the middle of nowhere. If you don’t, I’m not sure what to do.”

The angel took a deep breath through her nose before smiling. “I… think I can manage in light of this new information.” With that said, she turned her back on Alyssa, walked right up to Irulon, and placed her hand on the princess’ shoulder. “Restarting halted processes to facilitate rejuvenation efforts.” Her fingernails glimmered for a moment as a relatively small magical circle revolved around her outstretched arm. Irulon jerked and slumped just a little farther, almost falling away from Tenebrael before the angel moved another hand to catch her. Even though she spoke words and created a magic circle to remove the stasis, Irulon’s wound started sealing without any additional comment or apparent magic from Tenebrael.

Something to mention to Irulon later, maybe. Seeing Irulon get healed was enough of a relief for now. She didn’t open her eyes and, as soon as Tenebrael removed her hand, Fractal Lock took hold again, freezing her in place. “Musca too, please.” Alyssa didn’t like that draken all that much, at least compared to Izsha, but… Irulon’s brother cared for them. More practically, getting back with only one draken would be irritating at best.

“Certainly,” Tenebrael said with a smile.

A smile that unnerved her. It reminded her of something Tenebrael had said not so long ago. Answering prayers breeds dependency.

Which just made Alyssa frown. Ugh. Back and forth. Back and forth. One moment, Alyssa hated the stupid angel. The next, she felt sorry for her. Tenebrael could have just healed them without the stupid smile and Alyssa would never have thought of that. It just put a sour note on what should have been a kind gesture. If she truly didn’t have to heal them according to the book. Tenebrael had said that angels didn’t lie, but… well… they didn’t hurt people either. As the hole in Musca’s neck started closing up, Alyssa focused on that particular topic. “How did Adrael hurt them? I thought angels weren’t supposed to do that.”

“We aren’t. Not even I harm mortals.”

Eating souls doesn’t count as harming us?

“I wonder if I am not as unique as I said I was originally. As a mere archangel, Adrael would be less beholden to her… programming, for lack of a better word, than I. Although she is still acting in accordance with her directives if she is trying to correct my world. Which… leads to me asking for a small bit of help.”

“Help. From me?”

“How would you like to return to Earth?”


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021.009

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Dismantling

Chop Suey


“You…”

Alyssa clung to the angel’s staff, using it to keep as much weight off her broken leg as possible. It wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to flop to the ground, clutching her leg. Maybe crawl away from the angel as that old woman had crawled away from Izsha. Nothing in Irulon’s spell tome would harm the angel, not even if she knew exactly what spells it contained. She had little doubt about that. Angels were on another level entirely. The only hope she had was that Spectral Chains would work.

But Alyssa held her ground without flinching.

It was all she could do. If she did crawl away, there would be no one standing between the Fractal Locked Irulon and the angry angel. Fractal Lock might make them impervious to nearly anything, including the angel’s weapons judging by how that shield bounced off Izsha, but a simple Desecrate Spells could tear down the stasis. Adrael surely had that ability, or something equivalent. Adrael wouldn’t even need to do anything else at that point. She had done enough as it was.

Then again, perhaps standing between the angel and her friends would only get them caught in whatever retaliation the angel had in mind. Adrael’s eyes were firmly locked on Alyssa. They hadn’t strayed once toward anyone else present. And why would she look at anyone else? Irulon, Musca, Izsha, the hellhound, the shadow assassin—none of them had killed the old woman who this angel had clearly been trying to protect.

Alyssa had.

Suppressing a groan, Alyssa took her eyes off the angel for a moment, dropping her sight to the horizon. Where is Iosefael? If that angel had been defeated, then Alyssa might truly be in trouble. Spectral Chains hadn’t worked on Tenebrael. Not for any length of time. Iosefael was supposed to be stronger as a Principality than an Archangel, but Tenebrael had said that an Archangel might have more effective power in reality.

And where the hell is Tenebrael?

This was her stupid world. Couldn’t she sense the deaths? Maybe the ones Alyssa had collected wouldn’t register on her death-sense, but no one had come to collect the old woman and the people Izsha had just eaten. Was she too busy with something on Earth? Had she been detained by that Astral Authority she had been so frightened of? Or was she just being lax, expecting Iosefael to handle everything?

Adrael was still approaching. She was slowing, but she would arrive eventually. The time Alyssa had left to decide what to do was rapidly running out.

The angel was the biggest question. What was she going to do? Attack? Angels weren’t supposed to harm mortals, but she sure hadn’t hesitated to skewer Irulon and Musca. And that shield surely would have decapitated Izsha had it not been for Fractal Lock.

“Identify yourself.”

The words resonated. Ripples formed in the pools of blood. Dirt trembled. Even the hellhound at Alyssa’s back whined and the shadow assassin let out a clipped shriek.

Alyssa kept steady. The tremor ran up her leg, but she didn’t fall. She was more confused by the command, having expected either an attack or to be ordered to relinquish the staff. But identifying herself? That was easy. And maybe, just maybe, Tenebrael or Iosefael would come to her rescue if she delayed long enough.

So she promptly ignored the command.

“You’ve been an evil angel, Archangel Adrael. What would the Astral Authority say if they saw the mortal blood dripping from your weapons? The blood staining your hands?”

The angel flinched back as if Alyssa had slapped her across the face.

Which is great, Alyssa thought, clamping her jaw to keep from showing any expression. Turn this around. Make it about the angel. The longer she could go without answering the angel, the more time Tenebrael and Iosefael would have to get their ass in gear and do their jobs.

“And what of you? You have taken the lives of twelve souls today. Some with small bits of metal. Some with those miracles the people of this world have corrupted. All done by your hands alone. We are both lost, but the Astral Authority would cast you to the flames of the Inferno long before I.”

That was Alyssa’s turn to flinch. Right. Angels were real. Demons were as well. Tenebrael hadn’t said to explicitly, but she had implied that there were higher powers on both ends. A god and a devil, presumably. Whether or not they were exactly as the various Earth religions portrayed them didn’t matter, not so long as they got the fundamentals correct. And if a Hell existed…

Death was an inevitability. One possibly quite close by if she kept getting into situations like today’s events. But even if it wasn’t for a thousand years, she couldn’t exactly take back what she had done.

Perhaps it would be better to be eaten by Tenebrael when the time came.

But until then…

“I was already going to Hell. If my actions spare the entire society of ants and the population of Lyria from being forced to kill each other, then I’ll gladly kill a few more. But you’re the one organizing these people. You’re leading them by whispering in Liadri’s ear, aren’t you? Giving them a little Divine Inspiration? Every death they’ve caused because of your whisperings—”

“An Archangel is forced to make decisions that you cannot imagine!” Adrael roared, swinging her empty hand to one side. “This world is on the brink of destruction.” Her hand swept back, grasping the red dress, wrinkling it at the chest. “I am trying to save it. To save the lost souls within. And you…” She glowered, face twisting into a snarl. “You could never understand. No one can, except the Seraphim. And you, insignificant Guardian, are as far from a Seraphim as they come.” Wings spreading fully, she dove, shooting straight down.

Alyssa flinched until she realized that the angel wasn’t aiming for her. She aimed to the side. Adrael’s wings glided over the fallen humans, brushing just the tips against them. Gems formed between her fingers, identical to the manner in which Iosefael had collected souls. One more gem than there were bodies… because the old woman no longer had a proper body. Sweeping the wings through the blood-infused air must have counted for the soul collection.

But Alyssa was more confused with what the angel had said than with the way souls worked if the bodies were gone. “Guardian?” she said, hopping on her good foot twice to turn to face the angel over the top of Irulon’s unmoving form. It took a moment for it to click, and when it did, she couldn’t help the laugh. “Guardian Angel. Ahaha. That’s funny.” Everyone seemed to think that she wasn’t human. Why not an angel too? Was it the glowing eyes? “Well, it’s better than reaper, at least,” she mumbled to herself.

Though reaper definitely fit far better after today’s events.

“There are so few on this world who possess that which is needed to hear my revelations,” Adrael said, actually stroking one of the gems. “So many have been killed. I have taken to more drastic methods of protecting them. With Virtue gone, that number drops to a mere two.”

Virtue. So the old woman wasn’t Liadri? Or was it some codeword that the angel had for her minions? With a name like Virtue, it wasn’t easy to tell.

“What am I supposed to do?” Adrael spoke softly, almost whispering to the crystals in her hand. “I require guidance, but there is no answer. I’m running out of options.” Her voice hardened, growing louder as she looked to Alyssa. “And you… You are the cause of everything turning out wrong. I had thought that Tenebrael learned of my presence, of my designs. But it was you all along, wasn’t it?”

Alyssa didn’t have a chance to answer. The gems in her hand disappeared, floating into her wings. At the same time, Adrael thrust an arm out.

The golden staff lurched. The top leaned toward the outstretched arm. The only reason it didn’t fly out to the angel was Alyssa’s firm grip of the haft. She grunted, wrenching it back to its upright position, managing to keep her balance at the same time.

“I’m using that,” Alyssa ground out.

Adrael’s red eyes flared. “How? You are a lowly Guardian. Not even a proper member of the Third Sphere. Identify yourself so that I may log which angel I am forced to strike from the Eternal Record.”

Alyssa’s stomach clenched. Somehow, she didn’t think she would be able to delay for much longer. Gritting her teeth, she forced a grin. “My dad called me his little angel when I was younger. I don’t think he meant it in the same way that you do. I’m lower than that and proud of it.” There would only be one chance before the angel would retaliate. If the angel thought that she wasn’t a human, that retaliation would probably be instantly lethal to her. Clutching Irulon’s tome to her chest, she thought of the only spell that might show her a path to victory.

Fractal Mirror.

Shards of glass exploded around her, obscuring the angel, Irulon, Musca, Izsha, the hellhound, the buildings, the bodies, and everything else around. Yet each shard formed an image of just those things.

Clutching the staff, Alyssa stared, trying to focus. It wasn’t easy. There were so very many possibilities. Infinite, in fact. The pressure was worse this time. Perhaps due to mental stress, both of having to cast a spell that she hated and of not knowing how the spell actually worked. Was time stopped while she was inside this shield of shards? Would the angel care even if it was? At any moment, the angel could reach an arm through and pull Alyssa’s heart from her chest.

She had to think that it worked. It was the only way this would save her.

The first thing Alyssa noted was the surprise on Adrael’s face. In a vast majority of the infinite shards, the first thing she did was to float back with wide eyes, raising her shield as if to block any immediate attack. From there, things started to change. In several shards, Alyssa did nothing but gain her own look of surprise. Without knowing her thoughts in those possibilities, she could only offer conjecture based on what she thought she might do. She had probably tried to cast spells only for no effects to manifest. She couldn’t say whether that lack of effect came from the angel nullifying the magic or simply because she had tried to cast spells that didn’t exist in Irulon’s tome.

If she got out of this alive, she would definitely be browsing through it, hoping for labels or maybe an index page. Not knowing everything really wasn’t helping.

In the shards where nothing happened—or where nothing useful happened, such as casting the Rank Zero Light spell—the angel struck back. Usually by flinging her shield. Alyssa could only assume that she perished in those events. The shards going dark and shattering helped in narrowing down possibilities. From that point onward, shards kept winking out of existence. Every few instants, a percentage would simply obliterate themselves. There were still an infinite number left, but, somehow, it was a smaller value.

Alyssa could feel herself getting distracted. Grip tightening on the staff, she tried to clear her mind of all the impossibilities associated with this spell. She needed to focus on the results, not the hows and whys.

Filtering the shards, she searched through ones where she actually managed to attack the angel.

One caught her eye. Split Reality. The spell that had diced a horse and a human with one cast. The same spell that Irulon had used to destroy the fairy cage before locking it all in stasis. It had a distinctive look of a glass shard flying from the tome. Alyssa almost tapped that shard right away. If anything could harm an angel, it would be something that severed reality itself.

But Alyssa watched the bolt of glass strike the angel’s ruby shield. Nothing more happened. The shield remained glossy and whole. The angel didn’t fall to pieces. A moment later, the shard destroyed itself as the angel rushed forward.

Keeping the staff in the nook of her arm, Alyssa clutched at her chest, feeling a weight of despair settle in. Anything that even mildly resembled a projectile met the same fate as Split Reality. Nothing, from fireballs to ghostly daggers, managed to so much as scuff the domed mineral. Even a Spectral Chains failed to bind the angel. For whatever reason, the spell wrapped around the shield only. A yank did remove it from Adrael’s grasp, but Alyssa couldn’t get the shield to her before the angel flew forward with white magic dancing between her fingers.

Failure after failure. More and more of the shards were winking out, only to be replaced with another possibility an instant later. An oblivion was slowly closing in, reducing her options further and further to lead to that conclusion.

There had to be something else. Some way. Just one among the infinite shards that wouldn’t turn to a void.

Alyssa’s head snapped to the side, focusing on a shard that she had already dismissed. A simple fireball splashed harmlessly against Adrael’s shield. As with so many others, Adrael swung her arm back to fling her shield forward.

But this time, Alyssa dropped Irulon’s tome, gripping the staff with both hands. Shaking, trembling, she glared at the angel, lips curling back into a snarl. It was all that angel’s fault. Beings beyond mortals. No human could hope to face one and come away victorious. Not even with all the magic available in this world. But Alyssa had something of the angel’s. A staff.

A weapon.

It had to do something. It had to be for more than just smacking people… or skewering them. All she needed to do was figure out what it took to activate it. Some thought. Some miracle.

A miracle was what she got.

Adrael flung the shield straight at Alyssa. It flew through the air, moving as if in slow motion yet at the speed of light. It struck the staff right between Alyssa’s hands.

Her arms didn’t crumple. Her bones didn’t break. The staff didn’t even get a single scratch on it. Alyssa grunted as she pushed back against the spinning buzz saw of a shield.

It seemed like forever, but the spinning died off. Whatever kept it pinned against the staff died with it and it fell to the ground. Alyssa grunted, gasping, wobbling. She was barely cognizant of having touched the shard of Fractal Mirror.

But it wasn’t over yet. Adrael still stood before her.

She stood without a shield.

“S-Spectral Chains!” Alyssa shouted. Irulon’s tome was at her feet, close enough to work. Lumen had cast spells with the cards a short distance away. Why couldn’t she?

It worked.

Ghostly bindings wrapped around the angel before she could do anything. Her eyes went wide as her arms were pinned to her sides. Long links wrapped around Alyssa’s extended hand, completing the spell.

Alyssa didn’t even get a chance to sigh in relief. The shield on the ground moved on its own, flying straight toward the bound angel.

A reflexive jerk of Alyssa’s arm made the angel drift forward just as the spinning shield tore through the chain.

The shield kept going, right toward Adrael. It didn’t change angles to adjust to her new position.

It flew straight through Adrael’s arm, slicing it off at the shoulder. There was no blood. A faint light emanated from her stump, but nothing more. The arm itself disappeared, turning to dust the second it fell away from her body.

Adrael stared down at herself with an open mouth. She didn’t look hurt. Just surprised. Her shield had flown off into the distance behind her, having crashed through the building the old woman had been near, but she wasn’t even looking toward it. When she looked up, she looked at Alyssa, gaping like a fish.

White wings wrapped around her. In an explosion of feathers, the angel vanished…

Just as the building behind her collapsed. The remaining three walls fell into a heap of debris.

Alyssa collapsed as well. She managed to avoid falling flat on her face thanks only to the staff. Her breaths came heavy, labored. Each sent a searing pain through her sides.

She stayed still, completely unmoving aside from her breathing, for several minutes. The angel didn’t come back. Or rather, the Archangel didn’t return.

“Iosefael,” Alyssa ground out, pivoting around the staff to stare at the approaching angel. She wanted to shout at the stupid, useless featherbrained idiot. Iosefael’s whole job had been to contain Adrael. And she had failed miserably.

But she couldn’t get the words out. It was clear that Iosefael had tried. The golden plates of her armor were scuffed and scratched. Her feathers, normally perfectly straight and glimmering with a golden light, were twisted and broken on the right side. The damage didn’t disrupt her movements in the slightest. She glided down toward Alyssa with the same floaty movements that she always had.

Except she didn’t look in Alyssa’s direction. Her eyes were locked on Irulon and Musca.

“Can you fix them? Heal them?” Alyssa asked through grit teeth as she watched the angel approach. If she saw even a hint that Iosefael was going to pull out their souls… well, she had a few Spectral Chains left. Leaving a soul in the body was supposedly torture, but they weren’t dead yet.

Instead of darting toward them to collect their souls, Iosefael flinched as if she had been struck. She put her hands to her cheeks and pressed in. “Th-they aren’t supposed to be injured. T-T-Tene’s book says… says that…” She jerked her head to the side, staring off to the north. “P-People are dying and Tene isn’t here. Tene isn’t here. She left me in charge, but she isn’t here. I don’t k-know what… Not Dominion Iosefael. I’m Principality Iosefael. I can’t—”

The longer she talked, the closer her wings pulled around her. She wrapped herself up in a tight bundle. Until it all exploded outward. Feathers flooded the area. More than Alyssa had ever seen at once.

And Iosefael wasn’t in the middle of it all anymore.

“You worthless bitch!” Alyssa ground her teeth, feeling like she was about to collapse. Had Iosefael just died? No. It couldn’t have been. That was a teleport. Her whole job had been to contain Adrael and undo things that affected mortals. So why not heal up Irulon and Musca?

And where the hell is Tenebrael. Iosefael was right about that, at least. This was that stupid angel’s world. Shouldn’t she be here to clean up her own messes?

Alyssa closed her eyes and tried to calm down. This wasn’t the end. Irulon and the draken were utterly still in their fractal lock. They were safe. No humans ran around the corners of the buildings to fling spells or attack with swords. For a few minutes, there was perfect quiet. A perfect chance to rest. Iosefael hadn’t ended up taking Irulon’s soul. There was still time to figure out a way to fix her. She just needed a moment to think.

Two heavy thumps in the dirt behind Alyssa had her breath hitching.

“You killed her.”

Alyssa curled her fingers around the staff, putting her weight on it to get back up. As she moved, she grabbed hold of Irulon’s tome. Getting back to a standing position wasn’t the easiest from kneeling. Just the thought of moving her leg so that her foot came off the ground hurt. Actually doing so? Alyssa grit her teeth and fought though it. She didn’t survive a rogue angel just to die to some monster.

Keeping the book clutched to her chest, she managed to turn around the staff. With Adrael gone, so too went her magic, apparently, for the hellhound stood just beneath where she had been caught up in the magical net. The red haze of the shadow assassin was still clinging to the wall of the building, but it was doing so under its own strength. The net around it had disappeared as well. If it wanted, it could easily jump forward and attack.

Alyssa kept her focus on the hellhound. She was the closer of the two. Hellhounds were the ones she knew less about. Their species was strong—or this particular one was, at least. Between how she had freed the monsters back in the prison and how she had tossed that man off into the gouge, there was no doubt that this monster had physical prowess. Defenses as well. A sword hadn’t managed to penetrate that thick fur on its arms and legs. With her luck, they would be another magic resistant species as well. The way the hellhound’s eyes burned with literal fire, she was probably immune to anything flame-based at the very least.

Despite Alyssa’s haggard state, she was considering using another Fractal Mirror just to ensure that she succeeded in taking the hellhound down before the reverse could occur.

“You killed the old woman!”

Alyssa raised the tome, only to hesitate in casting.

A smile was working its way across the hellhound’s face. She brought her hands together in front of her chest. “Did you see that? Just… pop!” Hands exploding apart, the hellhound doubled over in laughter. “Just—keheh—splattered the whole building in red.” She clutched at her stomach, still laughing. She even managed to snort.

Alyssa wasn’t laughing. Not even smiling. But she couldn’t help the relief she felt as she lowered Irulon’s tome. A monster didn’t want to fight her. That was… sublime. She was tired. It might have been using Fractal Mirror. It might have been having her leg broken. It might have been simply standing up to an angel. Whatever it was, Alyssa just wanted to flop over and lie still for three days straight. A nice and very long nap was well deserved. In her opinion, at least.

But such a rest would have to wait. Turning her head over her shoulder, she frowned. Irulon would hold for twelve hours, barring any strangeness because of how Alyssa interacted with magic. That meant that she had at most twelve hours to figure out how to keep Irulon from truly dying. Maybe she could cast a second stasis immediately after the first ended for an extension.

Sticking around in known enemy territory for too long would leave her worse off. Hadn’t one of those people she had overheard talked about reinforcements coming? There might still be people around at that. She could probably take one or two stragglers. Especially if the staff would protect her from magic the way it had kept Fractal Lock off Irulon and Musca. But did she want to? Or what if there were more than just a handful?

“I take it by the way you rode in here on the draken that you’re with the human over there? I knew I smelled another human around that one. You’re the one who set those humans on fire outside that prison, right? Nice touch. Not a pleasant smell though.”

Alyssa turned back. The hellhound had managed to get her laughter under control. It took her tired mind a moment to catch up to the words. In lieu of saying anything, she just gave a sluggish nod of her head.

“Hmm? Well. She’s the first human who’s done right by me—assuming she meant her words,” the hellhound added with a mumble to the side. Shaking her mane of a hairdo, she looked back up. “I’d consider letting you go just for that, but…” The burning eyes of the hellhound flicked to the side, proving that she could see the staff. After eying it for a moment, she tilted her head.

Alyssa turned to see what she was looking at just in time to watch some stacked rock from the building’s corner fall into a heap.

“You’re a little scary on your own, aren’t ya?”

Am I? Alyssa didn’t feel scary. Then again, considering what her battle with the angel must have looked like from an outsider’s perspective… It had probably looked like she had gone crazy, talking to the air, before deciding to blow up a building for no reason. “Right,” she said eventually, not really wanting to dissuade the hellhound of the notion while it was keeping her safe.

Apparently, her response had been humorous. Not to the point of doubling over with laughter, but the hellhound definitely gave an amused snort. Sparing a quick glance in the vague direction of the shadow assassin, the hellhound turned her back on Alyssa. “I’m just gonna leave. Killing the old hag was—”

“Wait,” Alyssa said, reaching out a hand. Realizing that she was now pointing Irulon’s tome at the hellhound, which might be seen as a threat, she quickly lowered her arm. “Would you mind doing something before you go? A favor for freeing you, you could call it.”

“I don’t mind at all!” the hellhound said, acting almost cheerful.

Alyssa hesitated in saying anything, half expecting to be ignored or argued with. A straight up agreement before even hearing what the favor might entail? Whatever. “Would you kindly run through this place, checking the buildings and streets for any humans other than myself and…” Alyssa glanced over her shoulder. Had Irulon mentioned her name? Did she want her name mentioned? Unable to remember precisely, she simply said, “her. Anyone left is almost certainly part of the group who captured you. And the one who trapped you up in the air is gone now, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that.”

The more Alyssa spoke, the more vigorously the hellhound’s fluffy tail whipped back and forth. “Is that all? Here I was worried you would have me do something unpleasant, but you just ask me to have fun!” Sniffing the air a few times, the hellhound… sneezed. “Got too much of the old hag up my nose,” she said, rubbing with a finger before taking another deep breath of air. “Smells good. Like revenge. But I guess I’ll just have to do this the funner way. I’ll be done soon. I promise.”

“Oh.” Deciding not to comment on most of what the hellhound said, Alyssa moved on. “Uh, thanks. I appreciate it.”

With a wave of her padded paw, the hellhound dashed off, running on all fours.

Alyssa wanted to turn back to Irulon, maybe to inspect the injury a little more. An angel had done the attack, so maybe it had managed to miss everything vital. Or so she hoped. However, one thing stopped her.

The shadow assassin hadn’t run off with the hound. Its red haze had hardly moved from its spot. Having it sit there, watching her, was more than a little creepy. Would it attack if she turned her back to it?

“We freed one of your fellows,” Alyssa tried, hoping it would listen. “We told it to get out of the valley here because we were going to blow up the town. But that’s on hold until I can get her moving again… If you wanted to find it, it’ll be somewhere outside here. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more about where it went. The other shadow assassin… died. Sorry. We didn’t get to it in time.”

The shadow assassin didn’t make a sound. Something which Alyssa was far more glad about than should be reasonably expected. The noises they made were horrid. She was also quite glad when it finally started crawling up and over the roof, out of sight.

As long as it didn’t come back.

Although she still wanted nothing more than to collapse where she stood, Alyssa turned and started hobbling toward Irulon. She was on her feet now. Might as well save the effort of having to get back up later. Climbing up onto the unmoving Musca, Alyssa grimaced as she actually looked into Irulon’s wound. The staff had punctured clean through the dragon hide. So much for strongest armor ever, she thought with a mild sigh. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell anything from the wound. Was it bad? Was it not? It looked bad. There was hole in her from back to front. She could see ribs, but everything else was just one big hunk of meat. For all Alyssa knew, it could have missed everything vital. It could have hit everything vital just as easily.

Closing her eyes, Alyssa leaned forward, using the frozen form of Irulon as something to lean against. Just a quick break. Thinking was difficult at the moment. Five minutes.

She would even set a timer on her phone.

Pulling it out, she hesitated with her thumb over the clock.

She changed her mind. Alyssa flipped to the contacts list. She scrolled down the few entries she had until she found the one number that she hadn’t entered.

Tenebrael.

It wouldn’t work, but no harm in trying once again.

Alyssa tapped the call button.

The selfie Tenebrael had taken popped up on her screen.


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