Finding four of the remaining seven FBC members turned out to be quite easy. Jason Hedgeley had left them in charge of the attack on the library. Kate had cornered Aiden and Ryan in the cafeteria while Apollyon had isoted two others in separate rooms further down the hallway. All of them were magically cut off from the outside world. No phones, no fire arms, nothing they could do to get help now.

  “You two are his closest ‘friends’… henchmen, right?” Kate circled them as they kept their guns pointed at her.

  “You-you're alive? What are you?” Aiden’s voice was shaking, as was his grip on the pistol.

  “A Nightmare. A mistress of the mind. You are an open book to me and, well, a puppet. Every memory you hold within your simply little mind is mine to take, every word you say is mine to twist, every movement mine to guide.”

  “I-I don’t believe you!”

  Kate stopped walking. “Point your guns at each other.”

  The two humans dutifully complied. Ryan desperate tried to drop his. “No… what…?”

  “The thing about taking what little you have in that adorable brain of yours is that the more I have to pry, the more damage I do. Wouldn’t want to turn you into a gibbering mess by popping a few too many blood vessels now, would we? Tell me, where are Hedgeley and the other two?”

  “Jason went home. E-eighty-two Pioneer Avenue. Can’t miss it…”

  “Good boy. Now the rest.”

  Ryan looked at Aiden with panic in his eyes. He didn’t know.

  Aiden guessed. “Might be home too. Logan lives two houses down from Jason and Connor-“ He took a moment to breathe. “Connor lives on Second Boulevard, the big house right by the park. I don’t know the number.”

  “How cooperative you are. Your colleagues could have learned something from you. Well, it’s too te for that now, I suppose. Thank you for your time boys, but I have pces to be. Now, kill each other.”

  The two shots rang through the building as one. Aiden and Ryan dropped dead to the floor. They had both been good shots, hitting each other perfectly in the centre of the lower forehead. Kate stepped over their bodies to reach the door.

  Ethan Parks was an aggressive man. Without any other way out, he decided to lunge at Kate the moment she had opened the door to the tiny office he had fled to. The young Nightmare impaled him on her liquimetal bde, propping him up by using it as a lever.

  “What a way to greet someone. You do this with your mum too?”

  Ethan coughed up blood. “Only monsters like you.”

  “Ooooh, that’s far better energy than the others showed. I’m almost sad you didn’t give yourself a proper chance. I’m not here for fun though, I have business to take care of. If you guys didn’t try to blow up my library and had just shot me, I would be far more inclined to py with you.” Kate paused. “Maybe I should py with you. Well, not you but the others who are still left. You know, like a cat pys with her prey. After all, we are predators and we made you to be hunted by us. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? A world returned to its given purpose. A world inhabited by mice and shaped by cats.”

  “You’re despicable. I hope you suffer in the end.” Poor Ethan wouldn’t st much longer with how much blood he was spilling over Kate’s sword.

  “Kinky. Not my style though. Anyway, I need to go py with your friends.” Kate dragged her bde up into his heart, finally ending his life.

  “Good morning! How are you?” Kate took a seat at the desk in this tiny office.

  “Uh… I’m okay? I guess you just killed my coworkers and will kill me in a moment too, right?” Brian Dougs was rather confused by the young demon’s entrance.

  “Yea, your termination is something we need to get to in a moment. You seem to know a few things though and also look like a reasonable person. I would love to talk a little.”

  “I guess between dying now and talking with you before dying, the tter is the better option. Sure. Why not.”

  “I told Ethan that I would py with you before the kill, like a cat. I didn’t honestly mean it that way. But his suicidal attack made me realize that I should take my time. There is much to be learned and understood about all of you. If I just quickly dispatch you, that chance will vanish.”

  “That makes sense, yes.”

  “So, I have some questions for you. And if you have questions for me, I guess there is no harm in answering them. This little dialog might be too little too te to change anything, but I would regret it if we didn’t have it at all.”

  “I didn’t expect you to answer some of what I want to know before I die, I already made peace with fate. If I valued my life, I would have left the moment Jason brought up the bombing idea.”

  “If you valued your life? That doesn’t sound good.”

  “You don’t need to care. That’s only fair, I don’t have anyone to care about either. My family is long gone and my friends will be gone by tomorrow as well.” He scoffed. “And what friends they turned out to be…”

  “You didn’t really like them.”

  “No. They were just the only people who tolerated me. Even if I survived this mess, I wouldn’t shed a tear for Jason and his cronies. I would like to know if he was right though.”

  “He wasn’t. God is long dead. Besides, he was never your creator in the first pce. Humans evolved naturally and were found by the angels and us. We guided you for a while. Eventually, you were capable enough to survive on your own and a difference in opinion between us and the angels about what to do with you caused us to at least agree on non-interference. That’s the short of it. Of course, there is so much history there, so much more nuance, wars, treaties, all the political fun.”

  “I see.”

  “You believe me?”

  “There is no point in lying to me and no point in not believing you. What you say goes against everything I was taught, but this wouldn’t be the first time humans got it wrong.”

  “True. Now a question for you: why attack the library? I took a wild guess that the intent was to force us into a war with God, but I want to hear the truth.”

  Brian sighed. “There was no need to start a war. In the eyes of those who believe like Jason and Ryan and the others, we are at war. We always have been. A war that can only end once we achieve everything needed for the rapture to happen. Then we leave this world to the sinners and live happy ever after in God’s embrace. I suppose that is all bullshit after what you told me. But no, this wasn’t a first strike in a war. It was a response to your perceived attack on us.”

  “That attack is the library, isn’t it?”

  “It’s mere existence. You know about the cold war like forty years ago?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Imagine being in Engnd, where your library is, and you’re in a cold war with the soviets. You haven’t seen or heard anything from them in years and suddenly, one random night, they make ndfall on your coast. Troops pour out of their boats and instead of fighting you, they build a school and tell you to properly educate your kids before leaving again. Just a few of them stay behind to make sure the school is in proper condition. That’s what it felt like to everyone here when we heard about you and your library.”

  “Fascinating. We built the library when humans hadn’t even settled what are now the British Isles. We made it to have a centralized hub to share our knowledge about this world with each other. It was a gesture of good faith to allow humans into our walls. You mentioned the cold war. Then high inquisitor Athena and the four riders stood by to stop nuclear war if anyone decided to start shooting. We might not agree with the angels on most things, but there is one thing we have in common: we want humanity to survive. There will be no rapture, no judgement day, no Ragnar?k.”

  “What will be the end then?”

  “We know from someone who can see snippets of the future that our current high inquisitor will be the end of humanity. We just don’t know how. She might wipe you out in rage, she might cradle the st human to comfort them. Everything is possible.”

  “That is strangely comforting. Will there be an afterlife once we have died? I guess since God is dead, there is no heaven or God’s kingdom or something. Will I just fade away?”

  Kate paused. “Funny, telling you will force me to kill you. Humans aren’t allowed to know and live. I’ll tell you, but you have to promise me a favour.”

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Once you arrive in the underworld, you will likely meet someone quite nice and comforting. Tell her I would like to talk to her again soon.”

  “Okay, yes, I think I can do that. So, I will go to the underworld and meet someone there. Why aren’t we allowed to know about that?”

  “Because every mortal species does something stupid with that knowledge. The one you will meet can tell you more.”

  Brian nodded. “Alright. You told me you could kill me in a way that doesn’t hurt, right?”

  “Yes. That is my intention unless you have a specific way you want to be killed.”

  “No, I will leave that up to you. I just want to ask if you could do something for me.”

  “That depends on what you want.”

  “Could you tell Jason that I know that he was the drunk driver who killed my family? And that I know that he only accepted me into his little group of bullies because he felt sorry but never had the balls to say anything. I hate him.”

  Kate nodded. “I will tell him. I also pnned to torment him before his end.”

  “I almost look forward to hearing him whine about that in the underworld. I’m ready now. Thank you for this little talk.”

  “I’m sorry our paths crossed like this.”

  “Don’t be. You are giving me more than I could have asked for if things had gone better. Goodbye, head librarian.”

  “The name’s Kate.”

  “Goodbye, Kate.”

  “Goodbye, Brian.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned back on this chair, his soul severed cleanly from this world. It was indeed quick and painless, just as Kate had promised.