Jason jumped up from his chair. Something felt wrong, it was the middle of the day and it was getting too dark in his house. The lights were on and it was getting dark, almost too dark to see more than vague shapes. This could only mean one thing.

  “Hello Jason.” A voice echoed through his mind.

  “Show yourself! Coward!”

  “Show myself? No… after all, you didn’t show yourself either when you decided to bomb my library.”

  “You should never have come to our world.”

  “Let me tell you a story, Jason.”

  “Not like I can stop you.”

  “Well. In a kingdom long gone, lord Aken was sent to the lower pins where the king’s power didn’t reach.”

  Jason stumbled his way out of his office. “You have to be somewhere here. You aren’t that powerful.”

  “Aken saw the people squabble over their dry nd. Their harvests had been bad for years.”

  “Come out!”

  “The rest of the kingdom flourished but not the lower pins. In their own greed, their petty spite that their neighbour had bigger crops, more nourishing soil, they had burned their neighbour’s fields. Once their field had been burned, they turned against the neighbour who did so as that neighbour now had the bigger crops and nourishing soil. One by one, the people of the lower pins had burned every field, every inch of fertile soil of the lower pins. Aken saw the ashes as he travelled from town to town.”

  “Where are you?!” He nearly knocked over a small cupboard as he stumbled into the living room and right past Kate and Apollyon sitting on the couch.

  “Aken asked the people why their fields were burned and they told of their neighbours, each of whom was hoarding the greatest crops despite not deserving them. Aken didn’t understand, so the people told him that their neighbours did nothing to deserve the better crops but they did everything. They were better than their neighbours.”

  Jason stumbled into the kitchen, clearly disoriented. This wasn’t just the darkness affecting him. This Nightmare was messing with his mind.

  “So, Aken spoke to them. ‘You sought wickedness among your neighbours, but it had always found purchase in your own home.’ The people hated him for that.”

  “So, I sought wickedness in your library, but it is me who is wicked and now you are punishing me? What a pathetic attempt.”

  “Aken did not care what the people thought of him. He made his entourage build a fort for him and sent some of them back to the capital city to return with food for the people of the lower pins. He gave the people the food for free, but he also invited them to listen and learn how to grow bigger crops than their neighbour. He spoke to them about learning from your neighbour, observing how they cared for their crops and fields. But the people did not listen. And so, Aken brought more food and told the people again. And again. And again. Eventually, lord Aken died and his son brought food to the people of the lower pins and told them of how to grow bigger and better crops.”

  “And the people didn’t listen, yes. Get to the point!”

  “But people listened. You see, Jason, the people who were jealous had died as they were as old as Aken had been. Their children never saw bigger crops on their neighbours’ fields. They only knew the ashes of their fathers’ making.”

  “Our fathers were right. We didn’t forget what you did to our world. What happens to people who follow your sinful ways.”

  “One day, Aken’s son walked the nds outside his father’s fort and saw flourishing fields and happy people. The people of the lower pins had overcome jealousy and discovered pride. Pride in their crops, the rgest in the kingdom. Instead of burning the fields of those who did better, the people instead were motivated, spurned into action to do better themselves.”

  Jason kept stumbling around his own home like headless chicken. “Why… where are you?!”

  “We came to this world, seeking cattle to feed on but we realized that you were capable of more. You forgot what we taught you and began to seek wickedness among each other. Wickedness you could not accept to be of your own making, so you bmed us. We offered you our help, our knowledge, our guidance and you rejected us. But we will not die. Aken’s son never knew the rejection his father faced. We remember. Still, we offer you knowledge freely. What do you think Aken would have done if the people of the lower pins had tried to burn his fort down?”

  Jason stopped wandering. “He would have forgiven them…” Somehow, that gave him pause.

  “Lord Aken was better than we are.”

  “What was the point of all this then?”

  For the first time since invading his home, Kate spoke with her voice and not her mind. “To show you that we tried to teach you to be better than we are. To flourish more than we do. Aken’s story is from a book far older than you imagine human civilization to be. Just like today, it fell on deaf ears. You are right about us. About me. I am violent, horrifying, a monster. I will kill you. We strived to be lord Aken but we fell short on this day. Maybe that is our great failing… we remember.”

  “And we do too.” Jason tried to turn to Kate, who wasn’t there when he looked at the couch.

  Kate suddenly stood before him. “We have learned what humans are like. I was born one. But now, I am more. But still…” Kate couldn’t help but grin. “Hath not a demon eyes? Hath not a demon hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a human is?” She leaned closer and gently caressed his face. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not ugh? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

  “What?”

  “Shakespeare, paraphrased to be fair. I thought you were educated.”

  “I… I was never one for the cssics.” He tried to pull away from the demon, who foiled his attempt by gripping his face.

  “How sad. I guess reading was never your strong suit anyway. You would have realized the importance of our treaty otherwise. Not that any of that matters anymore. Do you know the card game Heroes of Sword and Sorcery?”

  “Who doesn’t.”

  “Good. I end my turn.” Kate let go of Jason.

  He instantly scrambled for a gun in a nearby drawer. Kate didn’t stop him. She didn’t even stop him from firing it. She simply let the bullet harmlessly bounce off her magical shield.

  “Oh Jason… Such a waste of a turn. I block your attack.”

  “You bitch!”

  “My turn. I draw.” Kate conjured a Heroes card and flip it around between her fingers to show it to Jason. “Would you look at that. Disarm. Destroy a piece of equipment of my choice.” Jason’s gun sprang apart into pieces.

  “Why can’t you just kill me?! Why are you this cruel?!”

  “Because I promised Brian I would torment you.”

  That caught him off guard. “What?”

  “I spoke to Brian before I killed him. He seemed like an underappreciated guy. I promised that I would tell you that he knew that you were the one to kill his family. That he hates you. You took everything from him and how did you repay him? By making him part of a war that could have never ended well? You disgust me. More than any of the others did, more then the guy who tried to drug me when I was human, more than the angel who tried to kill me. Remarkably, even more than the archangels who ck the ability to care about anything at all, the very antithesis to what I am. In this moment, you have managed to make me hate you more than anything that exists in the three worlds. Congratutions.”

  Jason was already digging around the cupboards and shelves for another gun. “Just for defending our world?”

  “No, actually. For blowing up my favourite desk.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yea. Your bomb destroyed my favourite desk. That’s why you and your friends are being hunted down.”

  “Over a fucking desk?!”

  “One singur desk. And some repceable random furniture that really doesn’t matter. That’s all you managed to do. You blew up a desk. Good job.”

  That was the right thing to break him. Jason simply stared at Kate for a while. “That’s it? That’s all we did?”

  “Yea, that’s it. We put shielding spells in pce just a few days ago, in case you tried something like this.”

  “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

  “You didn’t realize that when two heavily armed demons came to talk to you a few days ago?”

  “No… I thought we could at least hurt you. Make you reconsider…”

  “You made us reconsider, but not in the way you wanted. We don’t have a military, we aren’t prepared to fight all of humanity in a way that humans would understand. But you made us reconsider our need for something you can grasp as powerful. You managed to make us prepare to fight humans.”

  “I just wanted to do the right thing…”

  “And you failed to find the right thing in the first pce. Now, you will have to exist in the afterlife knowing what you have done. The least I can do is kill you with the fruits of your bour: magic to kill humans.” Kate pointed at him, her finger aimed at his head like a gun, and unleashed a streak of bck and white light. Jason dropped dead to the floor, his skull now adorned by a hole straight through it. This wasn’t a new spell, at least not fundamentally. This was the magic designed for the chariot’s weapons, freshly adapted for personal use.

  “Impressive.” Apollyon had gotten up from the couch to approach Kate.

  “What? The spell?”

  “In part. I actually meant everything you did to him.”

  “I almost wanted to do more, but this felt like the right time to kill him. For some reason knowing that he didn’t manage to physically harm us was the thing that got him the most. I couldn’t do anything worse to him, outside of torture for days on end.”

  “I agree, this was the right moment.”

  “What now?”

  “Now, we go home. The others wait for us at the library. I am sure they are worried.”

  “Let’s not keep them waiting. What about the bodies though?”

  “I will ask Azazel. She will be at the library by now.”

  “Good, thank you. Well… let’s go home.”