Infernal Investigations

I didn’t have any time to think. My hand tossed the revolver to my tail.

Hooves dug into roof tiles as I ran, sprinting across the safe path of reinforced tiles we’d laid out before.

I didn’t pause to look, to glance, to pay attention to the gunshots below, or to try to lure the killer. The air behind me felt warm as I leapt to another roof.

The first one exploded. I screamed as the explosion blasted me forward. I punched at the roof, fist going through the weakened tiles, then ripped them off as I kept going.

It slowed me enough to latch onto the edge. Arms burning, I hung on.

Shite. There was a window below me, but I was not getting into a confined space with them.

Something flickered out of the corner of my eye. My tail tossed my revolver back to my hand, then grabbed a decorative statue for balance.

My snapshot blasted through the air, the fifth divine bullet I’d loaded. The killer froze again, shield burning brightly as white sparks shot out and a harp filled the air with melodic music. Definitely not matching the sounds of screams, gunshots, and growls. I added a sixth, watching as the shield sparked and flickered. Close to overloading.

I pulled myself up with a groan, getting onto the rooftop. I couldn’t imagine that normally happened when their shields triggered. Probably the sheer power of the bullet. Maybe the Muse hadn’t been boasting when he claimed a friend had forged them from his own flesh.

I gauged my jump to the next roof and decided not to risk it. I’d loaded this one with explosives, the next contingency.

Going down wasn’t an option. This place did have actual barrels of holy water. They couldn’t hurt them, but they would kill me.

The sound of the harp continued, and I moved over to the chimney, looking at the house they’d triggered the trap on.

The tarry black hellfire still burnt, but much less of it than expected. If they’d wanted, the Priestkiller could have avoided any subtlety at all and flooded half the street with hellfire, sending a spiraling column out like the one they’d fired into the sky.

Points to Voltar about that theory that this one was clearly holding back. If they weren’t, half this street would have been a sea of hellfire in seconds. They could have done that with that first rooftop and burned me and everything below.

No one on these streets, too. All they’d kill is Watch, me, and their own allies. And I got the inkling they didn’t care about the Black Flame. They actually cared about not spewing diabolism about without a care. Over property.

Down below, fighting raged on. Most of the hellfire-creatures had formed into wolves, bits of hellfire flying off them as they ran. Occasional Black Flame gang members were down there as well, most firing off firearms with the occasional bolt of hellfire from a diabolist.

The Watch had been moving in organized squads, groups of ten with attached mages or priests Captain Malstein had somehow neglected to mention. Doing quite well for themselves until dozens of beasts made of Infernal flame came down. The creatures were weak to the light, as a lance of holy light skewered one. It immediately vanished, winking out of existence. But they were numerous, and from the multiple corpses burning in the street, lethal.

By now, most of the Watch had retreated to the safety of the buildings. Which meant unless the Black Flame and hell creatures started laying siege to them, they’d focus their attention on me soon.

I was reloading regular bullets for now. I had more blessed ones inside my pouch, fourteen of them total including the ones I’d fired, because the Muse had wanted me to use some monstrous revolver that could carry seven at a time. Some present from an old adventuring friend.

I’d said no. No time to acclimate to a new gun’s recoil. And I’d kept the reloads safely tucked away where there was no chance they could touch my skin. Which meant eight left in the pouch and not easy to reach.

I hadn’t anticipated needing more than six.

The harp playing stopped as I’d finished loading the last regular bullet into the cylinder.

They shot up, hellish flames covering them in a protective shell. A hand raised, aimed at me, hellfire gathering.

Focusing on keeping control. Gave me time as the streak of hellfire formed to grab another vial of holy water from inside my coat.

Black flame met vial, and immediately vanished, the entire flame vanishing, the hand jerking back as if scalded.

“Tssk, bad move,” I said as I scrambled across the rooftop, nearing the chimney. “The hellfire pillar. Do you not have anything quieter in your arsenal?”

This much diabolism unleashed at once would draw people, and this wasn’t a prepared location. Nothing to hide the giant plume of diabolic energy unleashed. Every mage monitoring or just possessed of a certain innate level of magic had just had their attention pulled this way. And all clerics total.

Small comfort for me, of course. I’d be a burnt husk by the time they arrived.

They were still hesitating . Again. A mistake you made when you’d not been in many fights. The Kersovites had described them as fast-moving, ridiculously so during the fight. But he’d known their ground, they hadn’t set traps, and more importantly, Rebecca Calmer’s enchanted and blessed buckshot had only paused them briefly.

Had they imagined themselves invincible? Some striding, protected, immortal figure out dispensing righteous holy justice of some kind? Dirty work, that they tried to hold back from as much as possible, but something inevitable, a hand of justice? It doesn’t match with the Hellgate, but they would be far from the first heavy or blade I’d met fed delusions before being let out on a leash. High on their own power. Only to be confronted with a bullet from a muse and nearly have their protections completely collapse.

If the blessed bullets punched through the arcane shield, they’d easily dispel the diabolic armor. There was a difference between holy water blessed by a Halspus bishop and bullets made from the flesh of a divine servitor.

I smiled as the priest-killer raised a hand, hellfire forming.

They were afraid of actually being hurt. They’d been carried through by not getting hurt. And they were untrained. I could work with this.

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” I chided and then ducked as an arc of hellfire ripped through the air towards me.

It splashed against the chimney, bubbling as it ate at the brickwork, something inside screaming as it came into existence. Bits landed around me, the radiated heat warm on my skin as I turned around.

“Two chimneys down,” I said, then fired a trio of rounds from my revolver. “Can you actually kill something? If you’re this awful with me, I don’t rate your chances with the Mourner high."

That caution from earlier was gone now as they strode closer, bullets ricocheting off. They were relaxed now. Why? Oh.

“Did you think those six were the only blessed bullets I had?” I told them.

They froze briefly, then raised their hand again, hellfire forming.

I threw a vial, holy water splashing across their gauntlets. Armor hissed and hellfire dissipated, and the Priestkiller immediately switched to the other hand.

A bullet fired, they flinched, and before they aimed their hand at me, I had another vial flying.

Armor hissed on both hands now, diabolism fighting to keep them formed. A few seconds bought, not to run. Not while I had them unbalanced.

The worst dilemma. The moment I started reloading the gun with actually blessed rounds, they’d strike. The moment I used all the rounds on them, they’d strike. The moment I turned my back, they’d strike.

And the longer I waited, the more that little voice screaming that others could touch them, that others could hurt them, would fade and they would start thinking again. Or at the very least, realizing the chance of getting injured wasn’t as great as that voice said.

Incompetent, sloppy, clearly relying on sheer power. Most of the clerics, not being skilled fighters themselves, helped with that. An ambush predator, except even those knew damage could happen, that they needed to take risks. And this one had much more to risk than just the wound.

Being so powerful and so unskilled clearly filled someone’s agenda above them, but the Priestkiller was weak because of it.

“It’s not actually getting hurt that worries you, is it?” I said. “Well, with how much diabolism is probably pumping through you, I’m sure it wouldn’t be fun, but it would be survivable. No, it’s tomorrow when you have to face the world with some wound, hoping that no one notices your limp, that no one notices any scars. That no one notices the signs of magic healing, or additional magical healing. You have to purge, and putting excess magic on your body probably just worsens the signs.”

The armored figure shifted, helmet looking down below, then back to me. More screams and gunfire, mixed with crackles of lightning and other sounds more associated with spells than weapons. Something lit up the night; half a dozen orbs of holy light burning into existence down in the street below.

I didn’t make the same mistake as them and focus on it.

My gun fired, and they jerked, and the bullet ricocheted off harmlessly.

“One left,” I said. “Don’t take your eyes off me. It’s a rookie mistake I consider insulting.”

A little. You should keep aware of all your surroundings, but I had no allies in a suitable position to attack yet. But trying to focus on a wider conflict with me right here that insulted me.

“Now, you have to consider if I bluffed, or if I didn’t,” I told the Priestkiller. “Another mistake, your first one? No one gets down in the dirt without getting marked. No one. Although given the amount of diabolism you are channeling, you should already be.”

Was it Forcreek? Derrick and Gallaspie were experienced fighters. One of the other priests involved in this mess?

I could figure that out once they were dead. The Priestkiller took a step back, pausing as the roofing ominously creaked underfoot. Trying to make some distance?

Calmer’s friends and fellow Kersovites had mentioned a short blade augmented by hellfire. This one had kept entirely to hellfire so far after losing the element of surprise. Not even trying to venture close.

“Come on,” I taunted. “Come closer. Or have you seen my work before? Rot, fire, saber? Or is teeth you fear? Is that you under there, Forcreek? Remembering that ambush on us and Derrick when I bit through the front of someone’s face? Saw me spit up flesh, bone, tongue and eyes? Come on, you have armor now, my teeth can’t cut through that. Surely.”

They simply raised a hand, gauntlet still sputtering as bits of it melted off. Diabolism crawled forward, replacing them. Not long before they could throw hellfire again, and I couldn’t even see their fingers.

“Better question, whoever is lurking under the armor there,” I told them. “Why is there no carriage in the street below?”

When they’d tried to kill me, they would have had a minute before Mourner Kelson’s carriage came tearing through here. Assuming someone could intercept it? It would be in sight of here. Assuming it had tried to turn around. Not enough time without something attacking. Made it through? Unlikely.

Instead, as I already knew, the carriage wasn’t there at all.

“You picked your ambush site too well,” I told them, and I could see them tensing to leave me and take to the air. Perfect.

My ears twitched. A new sound nearby, beyond the chaos of down on the street below. Hooves ran across a nearby roof, and I moved on instinct, changing targets, my last bullet firing off at a too-large multi-limbed humanoid. It took the bullet, then collapsed, bursting into shards three rooftops away.

Both? Fine.

I’d already drawn my saber, ready, although nothing reformed out of glass right next to me.

“What are you doing/performing/failing at?” A discordant set of voices said as the Queen of Masks reformed on the rooftop, to me and the Priestkiller’s side.

The eight-foot devil had come with only four limbs, each of them on a saber, a tail that lashed across the roof, making a section collapse underneath it. The three faces today were mine in the middle, Malstein’s on the right, Kelson on the left.

I breathed out, mist forming in front of me in the frosty night air. It had come. Fine. It had been anticipated, but it wasn’t time to let feelings get in the way of the plan.

It helped that the plan involved making this very painful.

“Aw, you’re doing the breathing. You’re mad/angry/annoyed that I hurt your two lovers, didn’t you?”

That it knew of my lapses in judgment, I dismissed as unnecessary. There was no witness I cared about knowing, and it could say what it wanted. It wouldn’t last to reach any ears I actually cared about.

The Queen of Masks kept the Malstein face looking my way as the other two looked at the Priestkiller.

“Idiot/moron/stupid fool,” the Queen of Masks snapped at the Diabolist, taloned feet sinking into the rooftop as she landed. “They know we’re here, and worse, this is an obvious trap! Stop playing/messing/fucking around?”

Ouch, while they could easily dismiss my words as the banter of their opponent, I can’t imagine his supposed ally’s insults could be so easily ignored.

“I believe knowing you’re here isn’t hard when someone clearly struggles to manage power and the other can’t talk without sounding like nails on glass,” I commented.

“Our giggle sounds worse/horrifying/terrifying,” the Queen hissed maliciously.

“It is not,” I told her solemnly. “Everyone tells me it is quite delightful.”

“Go take care of that bait/trap/trick,” the Queen hissed at the Diabolist, another ball of hellfire heading my way. “I’ve got the bitch.”

“Rude,” I said, before ducking behind the chimney.

Heat from the other side made me sweat, the chimney smoking and melting. Bricks were popping free, things inside mewling as they pushed out of them like maggots through rotten flesh.

The diabolist ran for the edge of the roof, only to plummet through a weak section once again.

“Oh for fuck/hell/father’s sake-”

I was already leaping to the next roof as that one blew up.

No weak spots here, so I just dug in with hands and hooves and held on as the shockwave tried to tear me out. A roofing tile flew forward, and my shoulder burst into pain as I barely held on, waiting until it finished, and the next building was also a smouldering ruin.

Ow. I grabbed a round red bottle from inside my coat, popped the cork and drank. Yes, sometimes I kept to the same practices I mocked. I’d brought the most powerful regenerative mixtures I could make on my own with me. Which meant they would be slower to close wounds and internal damage would take longer. Having a little in me would at least get the process started when another blow landed.

Okay. The current arsenal wouldn’t work, and I still didn’t want to risk dragging the bullet pouch out. Instead, I’d go to older methods.

Using diabolism around this many diabolists and devils would be a risk. Unfortunately, everything tonight had decided to escalate beyond what I had planned. I stripped my right-hand glove off, leaving the skin bare and ready to rot or flame as needed.

For the second time tonight, hellfire lit the night sky.

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No hellfire creatures formed from it as it tore up through the sky. Hopefully, a sign that the Priestkiller had used some of their reserves twice.

The Priestkiller hovered, suspended, rotating to try to spot where the carriage had stopped.

Definitely not trained. If you aren’t sure of the conditions of the battlefield, don’t stay motionless.

With a shriek and a challenge cried at her target, Aunt Diwei launched herself from a roof far from the ambush street, a silver and blue streak as her clothes rippled in the night wind.

That scream alerted the Priestkiller, turning, hellfire already spewing out of their hands.

It left them open as the surface of the street exploded directly underneath him. The rocks and cobbles formed around Uncle Liu as he flew up, spear stabbing up. It glanced off where a gap in the armor should be underneath the shoulder with a scream of soul-formed metal.

The Priestkiller swung back, the hellfire blade forming now. Uncle Liu backed away, but the blade extended, soon an arc of hellfire twenty feet long and half as wide slicing down.

Knives flew from an unfamiliar figure on another roof, maybe a cousin I hadn’t seen in over a decade, the tiny daggers weaving through the air and intercepting the sword of hellfire. They burst into white light, consuming the diabolical flames with them.

More figures were engaging, but I paid them no mind. A shriek of rage tore across the sky as something tore out of the ruins nearby.

I dove forward as it came down towards me, the roof shuddering as the Queen landed behind me, parts of her flesh still burning. Rolling, I spun around, revolver at the ready, only to find her staring at the combat in the sky, faces expressing horror, disgust, and annoyance.

“You made up/forgave/got enslaved by them?” She asked venomously, six eyes glaring my way.

“Hardly,” I commented as the Priestkiller sent another barrage of hellfire fireballs flying up into the sky. “I just negotiated for some help.”

Most of the fireballs dissolved, knives from the unfamiliar Xang intercepting them. The family dove as a unit, splitting up into pairs or single people to keep the Priestkiller distracted between them all.

“Really, even with how delicious the bait was, this is poorly done,” I told the devil, pulling a bottle out of my coat. “Catch.”

It sneered, aiming a saber at the bottle, cutting through it.

I dropped to the ground as the bottle exploded, saber bursting apart. The Queen of Masks’ three faces briefly stared at the broken, bleeding, shattered stub of a sword.

“You changed the bottles, you bitch/snake/Malvia,” all three voices hissed, blood leaking out of the end of the sword.

“Of course I did,” I commented. “I said I fully believe you leeched my memories. Why would I possibly keep each bottle the same?”

And then she was on me. I drew my saber in the time given to me as she crossed the distance between us.

I didn’t bother going on the offensive. Instead, I spent the next few seconds desperately keeping any blade or tail from touching me.

“You are dedicated/determined/demanding that this be as irritating/annoying/frustrating as possible,” the Queen of Masks hissed after an exchange.

“I’ll have you know I’m good at this, although you should already know I am quite good at this,” I told the demoness as I deflected another blade and ducked under a second. Despite the reach and weight advantage, I was holding my own. “I am somewhat decent with a saber. And dodging.”

Because she was toying with me, and I knew it ever since she settled into a natural rhythm of blows with me, not taking advantage of her four limbs or teleportation. She was waiting to lull me into it, then break it for a coup de grâce.

“You only practice because you need to burn off/destroy/eliminate the waste of eating those pastries you treat yourself to,” the Queen of Mask hissed.

“Oh no, the devil knows about my sweet tooth,” I said sardonically, then let genuine anger mix into the next one. “How about we bite into something else?”

A blow delivered just a tad too fast and eagerly, and-

The Queen didn’t take the bait, letting me pull back suddenly without delivering a counter-stroke of her own. Instead she shattered into glass and-

I whirled around, meeting the saber stroke, hand reaching for her saber.

Casting diabolism on the diabolic differed from casting it on others. Diabolism composed devils, which you'd think would make it harder.

But diabolism was best used for one purpose. You could strengthen a body made of it as much as you managed; in the end, Diabolism was about breaking things apart. Still, devil. I was under no illusion that this would end her. I just needed her down long enough to arrange something more permanent.

Her blade and my hand neared each other, but another saber was coming for-

Half a dozen gunshots layered on top of each other, the Queen of Mask’s hands retracting as bullets tore through them. More hit her face, and I watched, waiting for her to turn into glass.

It was happening, but slowly, only the outsides beginning to flake away. I didn’t waste the chance. My ungloved hand went to her chest, and I channeled rot. Immediately the skin stopped flaking into glass, instead bubbling and collapsing as it began to turn black.

Someone darted by me, a red-haired human in a blue-coated Imperial army uniform, reloading a revolver. He reached the end of the roof and clicked his boot heels before launching himself into the sky.

Someone else had noticed what was going on, finally, but I focused on trying to kill the slow-moving Queen of Masks. Flesh turned black and oozing, spreading outward from my hand on its chest.

However, it wasn’t going deeper than the skin. Flesh resisted the rot going any deeper, pushing back. Worse, it was seizing the diabolism and taking it further inside. Damnations.

I took my hand off, shaking off some bits of rotten flesh that clung onto it. The Queen was still moving slowly, not quite frozen in place but close.

I’d need to dig out the blessed bullets and put some into her. As I reached for the pouch, I looked back at the sky where figures dove and weaved through the sky.

The darting figure in the Imperial army uniform was working with my relatives. Faster than them, and seconds before the Killer could scythe through Diwei with a blade of Hellfire, the diabolist slowed to a crawl.

Chronomancer? One actually existed. Definitely Intelligence. Horrifying, but something to worry about later. Even more worrying, they hadn’t landed a blow yet.

I considered my revolver. A long shot, and the damn Priestkiller had learned not to stay still. I’d need to communicate with them somehow, force them to hold the Priestkiller in place until I could fire enough blessed bullets to crack their armor.

Down on the street, most of the hellfire beasts were dying, flames burning themselves out, leaving only piles of ash as evidence of the short-lived creatures. I couldn’t see any Watch on the streets although fire continued to pour out from the buildings. Of the Black Flame, there were no signs.

Okay. Kill the Queen, let the Chronomancer and the Xangs murder or disable the Priestkiller, and this would succeed beyond my most optimistic expectations. I’d expected to fake Kelson’s death, maybe trap one of them. Both? We could get this entire mess cleaned up by tonight.

Then the air went still, everything went quiet, and five points on the street below burst into flame.

I cursed as hellfire traveled between the points, sketching out a pentagram in the ground glowing black-red, and then the surface of the street inside it vanished, replaced with blood-colored sand.

Something pressed against those sands, then burst through, toothy maw biting into empty air.

It pushed itself out of the portal in the ground, a giant maw with stubby legs and no other limbs. It didn’t need them with a mouth that could swallow buildings whole in a bite. It could barely fit in the street, a turn from ripping someone’s front porch off. Massive eyes that looked beady on its massive body stared at the sky where the Xangs, the chronomancer, and the Priestkiller fought.

It roared, and the street answered in turn, maws forming across brickwork and street as ropey tongues tasted the sky. From the buildings the Watch were in, nothing at all happened as I watched the street turn into a maze of toothy maws.

Those stubby legs bent; the creature eyed the sky, mouth opening to reveal rows of pointed teeth, multiple tongues probing the air. It let out a croaking cry and jumped.

It froze, held at the moment its feet left the ground. The chronomancer held position motionlessly in the air.

The Priestkiller dove at the chronomancer, hellfire billowing, but the same Xang as before threw her daggers. The other Xangs were forming a defensive shell around the chronomancer, keeping him protected from all angles.

I resisted the urge to scream in frustration. Freezing the massive devil was the right move by the chronomancer. The Xangs’ choosing to protect him instead of fighting the Priestkiller was also the right choice.

It also meant they would get away.

Who had done this?

The Queen was fighting me. The Priestkiller faced the Xangs and the chronomancer; the regular Black Flame diabolists weren’t skilled enough. They could combine their power in ritual, but there shouldn’t be one skilled enough to lead in this when the ones at the second circle capped out at the Queen.

Another player involved in this mess? I reached inside my belt, already quaffing something to cushion my fall when I leapt down from here. Finish the queen off, then go try to kill whoever had summoned that.

The rotting body of the Queen had gone still and suddenly shattered into glass.

I turned, but its tail whipped into me, sending me to the ground as I felt something inside me shift.

I coughed, and felt pain bloom in my chest. Damnations.

“You will not interfere with Father/creator/master’s plan,” the fake said, voice deadly serious.

I scoffed, chuckling shakily as I got to my feet, backing up towards the roof. “Please never call that thing my father again. I will be sick. Pretending to be me is one thing; pretending to be a daddy’s girl to that thing is an even more heinous insult.”

The Queen of Masks lunged, bladed bones pushing even further out of flesh, but I was already hurtling off the roof. I’d hurled the second bottle as she charged, but to my frustration, her form turned translucent, the glass bottle shattering against the glass queen. The holy water splashed across it uselessly.

I twisted, trying to aim for the cart down below. I was on target. Mostly.

My back hit the cart, wood shuddering as the impact drove the breath from my lungs, and then I slid off towards the cobbles of the street. That hurt like hells. If I hadn’t drunk the potion, my back would probably have snapped or worse.

My shoulder popped, then pain that made me grit my teeth. My tail wrapped around a post, helping to pull me up. Perhaps jumping off a roof hadn’t been the most intelligent idea. Neither was any of what was to follow.

A maw nearby giggled, a ropey tongue emerging. I threw a knife, impaling it and drawing a scream out. No other thing tried to grab hold of me.

I pulled a crimson flask from inside my coat, hurriedly pouring the contents into my mouth. It burned, but I forced my mouth shut. Right on cue, bits of the street turned crimson, flying together to form the Queen of Masks.

My revolver fired, only to hit glass. My tail jabbed behind me, dagger grasped tightly. A second half-formed copy turned to glass before even fully formed.

A third, right in front of me, and my dislocated arm weakly grasped for my saber. Her tail slammed into it, making my vision go grey as I grunted.

A hand seized my throat, lifting me off my hooves, bringing me eye to eye with the frozen, maniacal grin of the Queen.

“Got you/it/them-” she started, before pausing, seeing I still hadn’t swallowed the ‘healing potion’ from the red glass bottle.

Oh thank fuck, was the only thing I could think before I spat in her face.

Holy water landed right across the eyes on the center face, and she shrieked as her entire face began to smoke. Shrieking, she let me go, and I fell down. I landed on hands and hooves, desperately not swallowing until I spat the rest of the holy water onto the street.

I wanted to make a pithy remark, but well, my tongue was gone. And most of my gums. Half my teeth had gone out with the holy water; the rest were still rattling around inside. There might be an eaten-away chunk of jaw there as well. I’d probably been seconds from it eating through the bottom of my mouth entirely.

Worth it to give her a face full of the worst pain I could imagine.

Seriously. This thing could not be me. Far too cocky and possibly idiotic. Yes, clearly all of my similarly colored potion bottles did the exact same thing. At least this confirmed she could not duplicate and turn into glass while holding onto someone else.

Hrrm. The pain didn’t render me completely incapable of thought. It had probably destroyed my nerves. Future Malvia problems.

The Queen of Masks was rolling on the ground, hands clasped around her face as flesh bubbled and melted right off. Liquefied skin oozed out between her fingers. Spurts of blood and something pale white sprayed from in between them, an eye slowly sliding down her chin. Down below, holy water had splattered across her chest, melting flesh and baring ribs to the air.

Good. Now, to make this actually hurt. I pulled another vial out of my coat. Huzzah for padding this thing so much, even if it weighed over twice what it should. I uncorked the vial.

This was the Halspusian holy water, the vials blessed by a bishop. Much more powerful than the ones blessed by the Tarverite priests. Should have asked for some blessed by the Muse. No matter.

Ignoring the pain, I poured the bottle over the saber’s edge, careful to keep it far away from me. Drops still fell on me. Skin smoked. Something dribbled out. My grip was still good, so it didn’t matter.

By the time I’d coated the entire blade, the writhing Queen had pulled its hands away from its faces.

Its middle one hissed, a melted, twisted lump of flesh, while the faces of Malstein and Kelson were distorted and sagging, smiling expressions replaced by ones of rage. The holy water had melted its throat open, and I could see the muscles moving inside as it spoke.

“Flesh-shell, you malignant/vile/hateful piece o-”

I sliced with my saber up the side of its torso, and its scream began anew as flesh parted, bone offering a little more resistance than cloth would to shears.

Its arm lashed out as I finished, slamming into my stomach. I folded over, falling to the ground and coughing as my dinner tried to rise its way up. Everything burned. Face, stomach, throat.

I spat blood onto a hand covered in stretched skin that resembled a spiderweb. Blood was making my grip slick.

I managed to get a hand into my jacket, retrieving a potion.

Fine. Healing first, dismantling later.

Not wanting to waste a single drop, I jammed the neck of the bottle as far as it could go into my throat. Burnt, eaten-away flesh screamed, and my already teary eyes became blurry. Better than half of it probably falling out of the holes eaten in my chin.

The effects were immediate. My next breath tried to drag a scream up my throat. The only thing stopping it from happening was that my tongue, my teeth, my jaw, most of the mouth was gone, bits of skeleton bound in enough flesh to stop what was left from falling out.

So all that happened for a few seconds is my newly reformed nerves drove agony through me. They were not happy I’d melted them off along with half my face.

The Queen of Masks still writhed, and this time I picked my targets carefully. The saber cut through flesh and bone, and I worked on the chaotic limbs, severing them one at a time, cutting off each arm until the only two left were the ones grasping its face. I turned my attention to the bare ribs sticking out of its chest, scraps of skin holding onto them, and noted that they were missing less flesh than before.

Reforming. Damn it. My hoof lashed out, smashing through an exposed rib like a rotten board, pulling another scream from the writhing creature.

Something wrapped around my leg, pulling me to the ground. Two hooves kicked out. One of them slammed into my saber, snapping it in half. The second came inches from caving in my skull.

Its tail lashed out, ramming into my side as I scrambled back up. I stumbled to the side, hitting the wall, hand pressed against it. Nothing broke, but I was gasping for air through my damaged throat. Okay. No close-range cutting.

Diabolism would be too risky. This many diabolists right next to it, someone would come to the investigator, drawn like a moth. The Priestkiller, this third player, any of the Black Flame lesser diabolists, it wouldn’t matter which. On the roofs had been a risky gambit.

I pulled myself up, gasping. The writhing devil on the ground was changing, tendrils of melted flesh pushing out from its torso and snaking across the ground. Most of them headed towards me, weaving in and out of diabolic maws formed out of the ground.

I ran, putting distance between me and it, and to buy time to re-arm.

I pulled seven of the bullets out of the pack as I made it to the intersection. Okay. Anywhere to hide? Assuming the maws had formed inside, no. I didn’t want to try fighting them and the Queen in enclosed quarters.

I nearly fumbled two of the blessed bullets. Doing this with only my one gloved hand near the bullets took time. Better than holy bullets burning flesh. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

A tongue snakes across the ground, got stabbed by my tail wielding a knife, the thing shrieking in pain as it wriggled about. Damnations. Should have just run. Not wasted time on hoping I could finish this one off tonight.

Hiding spots were limited by the presence of the maws. Not helping was the fact that several were probably shut and waiting for someone to stumble within biting distance of them. Nor that the alleyway I’d stumbled into was disturbingly clean. Blasted districts that could actually afford to clean. Was it even an alleyway if there weren’t three collapsed walls and a scattering of conveniently waist-and chest-high crates and barrels?

No time. Someone had decided to plant a series of bushes around the entire outside of their house. It would have to do.

There was enough of a gap in the foliage to keep an eye out, and the Queen of Masks stumbled into view, two arms missing and half-formed tendrils of flesh and bone emerging from between the bare bones of its ribcage. Flesh and skin hung in tatters from the bare skull of her middle face.

A maw immediately lashed out, tongue trying to wrap around the Queen’s throat.

The Queen of Masks shattered, reappearing above, one saber idly stabbing at the closed maw. The thing shrieked and spat out bricks and an Infernal’s corpse as it messily died.

“Malvia/Lily/Katheryn, I’m going to be pissed if you let one of these things kill you,” it hissed, stalking across the ground.

The other maws closed, clearly not wanting to go the same way their fellow had.

“Really/truly/what are you thinking?” The Queen said as her ruined bone saber groaned, still bleeding ichor as that wound failed to close. “Some final/last/desperate stand?”

Something like that, as I aimed through the hedges.

She shattered into glass before I could even pull the trigger. I turned around, too damn slow from my earlier wounds, just in time for a fist to hit me in the cheek.

Disoriented, I tried to regain my bearings as the much taller devil took advantage.

Tendrils wrapped around my hooves, restrained my tail as the Queen grabbed the hand with my revolver in it.

“No last-second surprises/ploys/hopes from this,” the Queen said, forcing me to pull the trigger again and again until the revolver emptied. Then, for good measure, she twisted, and I screamed as my wrist bent, something snapping.

My other gloved hand tried to punch her, only for the broken saber to pierce my forearm, holding it at bay. I screamed again, but I could still feel my fingers.

“No rot or flame. The latter would tickle anyway. Enough toying/playing/messing around,” the Queen hissed, parts of her bare skull reforming flesh on top of it. “We are going to have a long needed/desired/planned chat about us, Malvia. Any last/final/ending words?”

I lunged forward, jaw opening. Her nearest hand instinctively moved to grab my throat.

The one holding the broken saber impaling my seemingly empty, gloved, left hand. I opened my fist, the seventh blessed bullet I’d pulled sliding to just between two of my fingers.

She was fast. Not fast enough as I punched. I rammed the tip of the blessed bullet into the side of her throat.

“Mistake,” I told her as her neck dissolved. “We both tried dragging this out..”

The Queen of Masks screamed, the right-most face cracking. Malstein’s frozen scream broke up rifts opening up in the skin. Hellfire and holy light poured out in equal measure, my eyes burning at the sight. It hurt to look at.

I moved out of her grasp, hand shaking, the other nearly frozen in its curled grip as I left the shattered saber buried in it. Better than bleeding out, but each second was agony as I slowly loaded the last holy bullet in the gun. Getting a glove onto my only functioning hand, loading the last bullet, all the while the Queen of Masks screamed, body dissolving, neck nothing but a column of bone by now.

Not enough time to matter, as she continued to writhe and scream. I pulled the trigger and the last blessed bullet shot into the left-most face.

It broke apart like an egg, shattering into bits of bone as ichor and gore sprayed out, black and foul-smelling. The body writhed more than the neck completely dissolved, more black sulfurous blood pouring out.

I watched emotionlessly, wondering if this wasn’t the end.

When devils died, they did not go gentle. I’d experienced that myself in my shop, when the death of the sloth devil had been.. dramatic. And that was with most of its power focused on finding a new host in me. Power had to go somewhere when the host died.

The Queen of Masks, whatever it was, diabolical doppelgänger or mind-thief, or something else, would not die this easily. More importantly, there would be more diabolic output than this. I suspected.

“If you’re still alive,” I told the melting skull. “You touch either of them again? I’ll make it hurt even more.”

Shuddering, I turned away and waited for it to finish dissolving.

The glass face dissolved, turning into smoke in my hands, outer edges turning into white smoke that went up into the sky. Other pieces dissolved, soon leaving just a solitary bullet and the masks of the two other faces. I watched them go mildly, not sure what I was feeling. Anger that it had escaped again? Relief I could give it an ending it should deserve? Relief I was alive?

Maybe all three. Maybe more.

I grabbed one of the two masks, a blank empty expression with no discerning features, a slit for a mouth, holes for eyes, nothing else. Weakened? Probably. It had daybed escaped but it couldn’t shrug off having two bullets made from celestial servant flesh forced into it.

By now the sound of fighting had faded. There were still gunshots, still screams. But every scream was inhuman, ears burning from being forced to hear their unnatural wails tearing through reality.

Clean-up was happening, as the maws on the street floor and walls of nearby houses began to seal up, trying to hide. Hoping they’d go unnoticed, or get one last careless meal before the Tildaen priests or others killed them.

The great devil-beast was probably frozen and soon to die. The Prieskiller, Kelson, Melissa, and Captain Malstein were all open questions.

I let out a breath, started walking on a path I’d charted out before the first of the maws had disappeared from sight. Time to see if any of this gambit had paid off.