FSE

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“There’s a ribbon in the willow and a tire swing rope

“Oh, and a briar patch of berries takin’ over the slope

“The cat’ll sleep in the mailbox and we’ll never go to town

“Till we bury every dream in the cold, cold ground.”

--Tom Waits, Cold Cold Ground

---

“What do you think it is?”

Mongrel shrugged in the noncommittal way children somehow always seemed to master, tossing another pebble toward the roiling waves. It spun in midair, fluttering like a bird with a broken wing before it connected with the oncoming wave and utterly failed to skip across the surface of the churning sea. Again.

“Always thought it was like … a dagger?” the homeless girl offered timidly, her sharp brown eyes darting this way and that like an apex predator seeking prey. She was used to snatching any scrap of food from a rickety windowsill or unwatched basket she could find before anyone noticed her. No pebble could hope to escape her grasp. “Like a giant became angry and pierced the sky.” She glanced in Willow’s direction, intending to cut off her best friend’s inevitable incoming jape before it reached her lips.

She failed in this as well. The blonde girl was laughing almost before the waif had finished her thought. “Maybe he was hungry. The giant.”

“Maybe.” The orphan shrugged her thin shoulders. She wasn’t as skinny as she had been when Willow had first met her, but that wasn’t saying much. There was never enough food to go around, particularly for someone living under a broken awning with no family and likely no future. “Everybody else is starving. Why shouldn’t sky-giants be starving, too?”

“Does that mean there’s a fork sticking through the sky somewhere? Giants have manners, they need big cuttleryware, too.” Willow was vaguely sure that was the right word as she passed another rock to the orphan. “Here, this one’s a little flatter. Try to spin it more. Y’know … so it’ll give you a bit more hope of skipping along the water before it sinks to the bottom. Just like the one before. Or the one before that.”

“Thanks, I’ll try that,” Mongrel answered as she took the stone, teeth displayed in mock-politeness like a rabid dog. “And also, fuck you.”

This set both girls giggling. The word was a joy to use. Rapture. Ellation. An ecstasy no religious fervor could ever hope to match. There was nothing half as wondrous to a child of twelve winters than learning a new curse word--and this one most of all. The king. The emperor. The one curse above all others. Even referring to the word by its first letter was in itself taboo, so ineffable was its ethereal obscenity. Willow had heard her father mutter it under his breath a few days ago when he seemed unable to undo a knot he himself had tied. Hearing the word, it was like a dam suddenly collapsing after too much rain--or so Willow assumed. She’d never actually seen a dam, and rain was a semi-monthly event. Still, the word had been unleashed from a hidden vault of language’s most guarded secrets, and now her world was changed forever.

“What do you think it is?” The rock slipped from Mongrel’s fingers, spinning, spinning, spinning before, with a disappointing and prognosticated plunk, it too failed to entertain the bored spectators. “Fuck.” Another shared giggle. Perhaps they’d be better off just practicing the word rather than feeding rocks to the uncooperative sea.

“I think it’s a wound,” Willow finally answered. This caused Mongrel to arch one of her fuzzy eyebrows. Willow adored those fuzzy eyebrows. “Like a scar that healed the wrong way.” Her father had a scar on his left ankle that he showed off whenever the opportunity arose. He claimed it was from a wound he had received while trying to reel in the biggest fish anyone in the world had ever seen. More than likely it was just from a rope rubbing against his leg too quickly after he tossed an anker overboard.

“Soooo like the sky is made of … skin?” Mongrel smirked, her eyes darting rapidly as if she were trying to find the most appropriate place to insert her new favorite word into the conversation. “That’s fuck gross.” Neither girl was entirely sure of the present tense of the word, but it was only a matter of time. It would not elude them for long. The curse’s foul intricacies were too precious a tool to not master its every facet.

Willow cut her off before she could ponder its proper usage further. “Maybe.”

“That’s pretty gross, right?” The orphan girl stuck out her tongue. For a moment, Willow found herself infinitely fascinated with the wriggling red muscle, though she wasn’t sure why. “I don’t wanna think about the sky being skin. What would the scar be from, though?”

“Hmm.” Willow pondered the question before answering, “Maybe a bird tried to break it’s way out of--”

“A dragon!”

Willow sighed and smiled. “Sure. A dragon then.” Mongrel loved dragons. But then so did every child of twelve winters. “Maybe a dragon tried to break its way out of …” The thought trailed away suddenly, and a look passed her dark features as though she were struggling to wake from a dream. “Here.”

“Here?”

Willow blinked. For a brief moment she wasn’t sure what the pair were even discussing. Another wave crashed against the makeshift dock, a small ruined ship from a time when sailing wasn’t so uncommon. Her parents would be home from the sea soon, and their conversations would cease as her father would chase her friend away. Until tomorrow, anyway. And the day after. Willow gestured towards the sea, the sand, the dead brown grass and hard red earth that yielded less and less food with every passing year. “Here. The world.” Her stomach grumbled. She pressed a hand against her belly as if to placate it. As hungry as she was, she knew Mongrel was likely famished. “Maybe it was trying to escape. I would. If I were a dragon.”

“I hope she made it.” Mongrel looked around for another stone, but sighed as she turned her attention to picking a flea from her tangled black hair. “The dragon. I hope she’s somewhere nice.”

“Yeah.” Willow smiled. “What about you? What do you think it is?”

A look of confusion came over Mongrel’s face before her chapped lips spread into an unsure grin. “I … already told you? A giant’s dinner knife. Don’t you remember?”

Now it was Willow’s turn to be confused. She blinked rapidly, a rush of dizziness flowing through her head before she felt a sharp pain from her temples. “Remember what?”

“The … thing … in the …” Mongrel looked to the sky. Willow followed her gaze, but if her friend was staring at something Willow couldn’t make out what it was. The sky was gray as wool covering a dead sheep, the thick smog covering the sun just as it always did. “Huh. That’s weird. What were we talking about again?” She brought a hand to her forehead, massaging her temples as if she were experiencing a sudden familiar discomfort.

It was one that Willow felt as well. A sharp headache stabbed between her ears, although it gradually faded as it always did. Like a dream forgotten as soon as the dreamer awoke. Like a viper darting away into the brush. Like a vast celestial wound sealing away after sixty long years, vanishing from the grateful sky and from memory itself.

Willow shook her head. The struggle to remember what they were just discussing seemed no longer worth the effort. She pointed towards the sea. The waves seemed rougher now, more restless, as if somewhere far away a mountain had been dropped into it. “Did … Did I ever show you how to skip rocks across the water?”

A look of astonishment came over Mongrel’s face, just as it had an hour ago when the same conversation had taken place, a conversation neither remembered happening. “You can skip rocks?!”

“It’s easier if the water is calm … but yeah!” Willow lifted a pebble in her hand before carefully rising to her feet on the rickety dock. She absolutely loved showing her best friend something new. “Like this! Watch!”

---

“For a moment there I was starting to think you weren’t insane. Not totally. Not completely. Not the laying-in-your-own-filth-and-screaming-at-pigeons sort of insane, at any rate.”

Lura raised a brow as she reached into the campfire, moving the kindling around with her ebony hand. The burning log didn’t seem to cause her any discomfort. If it did, then she seemed as concerned about the pain inflicted upon her as she did on the pain she inflicted upon the rest of the world. In fact, it was plain to see she was trying her best not to smile. Good. Willow hated it when she smiled. Sharp yellow teeth held behind sneering lips that had never said a pleasant word.

“But you got me,” Willow continued.

“Us,” Mongrel corrected.

“Sorry, love.” Willow linked her fingers with her partner’s. As long as they could hold onto each other they could outlast any horror. Even the one before them. Especially the one before them. “You got us. Well done. I hope you have a good chuckle about it when the fucking shadow winks us out of exis--”

“I wasn’t joking,” Lura interrupted. “Why would I? I want to kill it. And so should you.”

“That wasn’t the crazy part.” Willow nodded slightly towards their tormentor, acknowledging something that had just occurred to her. “That’s actually the most logical thing I’ve ever heard you say. I want it dead. You want it dead. Mongrel wants it dead. Everything that’s ever been unlucky enough to know about it wants it dead. That’s completely, utterly understandable.”

“So I’m crazy because …?” Lura waited patiently for the condemnation to be clarified.

“You’re crazy because it could be listening. Right? Don’t you know that better than anyone?” Gods, she was tired. Willow stifled a yawn as she gestured out into the darkness outside the mouth of the small cave. One day. It had been one day since they’d been held captive by the madwoman. It felt like a thousand. “Now that you’ve said it aloud, it must have heard you.”

The smile finally appeared. Willow wanted to kill this woman. She wanted to kill her more than she wanted her next breath or to see the sun rise. More than food, water, sleep, shelter. She wanted her dead, unburied, left for the carrion if they would deign to feast upon her. “Ohhhh. Right!” The words were mocking. “However didn’t I think of that? Me. The woman that’s worked for the damned thing for over half a fucking century. Gee, you’re very smart!” Lura shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Even if it heard me, I’m too valuable to it. So are you and your dog. Way too valuable to just whisk us away into the nine hells.” She raised her arms above her head, stretching and yawning loudly. “Besides, even if it did it would probably forget about it before morning.” She eyed the few bones Mongrel hadn’t yet devoured as if she were perhaps more hungry than she had let on. “Soooo … what do you say? Want to help me kill a god?”

Willow and her partner exchanged a look. The reserved, hopeless hope in Mongrel’s eyes told Willow everything she needed to know.

“How?” the she-wolf hesitantly asked. “I mean … just how? Do we … find a magic sword or something?”

The devil chuckled. “Don’t think it works that way.”

“Some kind of spellbook or something?” This was a pointless conversation, and the three of them knew it. Willow was having to push her rational mind aside in order to even participate. “Something from the old world? Something that’ll send it to the hells? You know, the ones that apparently don’t exist.”

“Feed it to the … the Blind Things?” Mongrel slid closer to the fire, rubbing her furry arms before placing them around Willow.

“Blind Ones,” Lura corrected.

“Whatever.”

“Oh! I know! How about we ask them for help?” With no other alternative, Willow resorted to sarcastic dismissiveness. The best way to deal with the absurd was to point out its absurdity. “Maybe we can bribe them with cooked rabbits and … M, do you remember those baked squash my mom used to make?”

“Stop!” Mongrel smiled, her long fangs almost shining in the light of the flame. “I’m still hungry. I miss those.”

“Are you two finished?” Lura’s eyes were beginning to droop. It had been a long day. Mass murderers needed their sleep as much as anyone it seemed. “Just … think about it, okay?”

“No.” Willow rose to her feet. “No, I don’t think we will. Ready, M?”

“The fuck do you think you’re going?”

“Away.” She gestured at the moonless night air that surrounded the small cave. “We are going away. You said we were free to go. So we’re going.” Willow placed a hand on the hilt of her silver sword. It was a pointless gesture, but one she felt obligated to make. “It was very nice to meet you! Best of luck with the next life you decide to ruin. Have fun being horrible.”

And then the words Willow feared were finally spoken. Her mate said simply, “I’m staying.”

Willow cursed loudly as she sank back to her bedroll. “Of course you’re staying. Of course, of course, of course you’re fucking staying.”

“You could still go,” Lura offered. “I mean, you are the functionally useless one. I’m a walking cataclysm and she’s …” She gestured in Mongrel’s direction, searching for either a compliment or a petty insult, whichever suited her most in the moment. “She can fetch breakfast when I’m hungover.” She yawned. Why was it that her teeth were always threatening, regardless of whatever form she was in? “If you’re still here when I wake up I’ll assume you’re down for the whole killing-a-god thing. Night-night.” With that, she slumped onto her side and slid a bit closer to the still burning campfire.

It wasn’t often Willow prayed to the gods. She had always hated them, now more than ever. But still she was considering asking them if they wouldn’t mind making sure the bitch didn’t wake up. She was trying to remember the name of the sea god her father would sometimes pray to when she felt a soft hand on her shoulder.

“Okay?”

With a sigh Willow nodded as her mate sat next to her, putting her head on Willow’s shoulder. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“I’d ask what you’re thinking about, but that would be a silly question.” Her inhuman hands picked an errant twig from her mate’s hair.

Willow was silent as she watched Lura. Her breathing became more and more regular until Willow was reasonably sure she was asleep. But at this point, she didn’t really care if she was or not. Let her hear. Let the bitch hear. “I spent ten years wanting to kill her. Ten years.” Mongrel’s claws began softly scratching at Willow’s back in an attempt to comfort her. It wasn’t working. “I barely thought of anything else. Every meal I ate. Every time I looked to the sky. Every time I did anything at all. She was behind every tree, inside every abandoned home, around every alley corner. She was the last thought I’d have before I fell asleep and the first one every morning. I spent ten years--ten fucking years--trying to find her and kill her.” She looked at her partner, searching for answers in her half-feral face that she knew she’d never find. “And now here I am helping her. Sleeping next to her. Sharing my fucking meals with her. I hate this.”

“Maybe …” Mongrel paused as her gold-flecked eyes glanced for a moment at the monster in question. “Maybe things aren’t as simple as they were when we were eighteen winters old. Maybe it’s more complicated.” As if to lend credence to her point she flexed her hands, slender fingers capped with claws capable of rending flesh and bone yet never able to hold her mate’s hand in public for fear she’d be attacked as a monster.

The cave was silent save for the flickering of the meager campfire. Willow finally broke that silence with a simple, “I don’t want it to be.” She rubbed the back of her nose as she continued to glare at the beast, the murderer, the horror. And yet still a victim of a broken world and the dark god holding it hostage. “I just want to kill her and go home. Wherever that is.” She finally turned her eyes from the person she hated most in the world to the one person that made the suffering bearable. “But I can’t do that. Can I?”

Mongrel slowly shook her head. The motion caused one of her pointy ears to slip past her thick mane. It caused Willow to smile, as it always did. As it always would. “No,” she finally answered. “I don’t think we can. I think we’re supposed to do this.”

Slowly Willow turned back to look at Lura. “I hate her. I hate her so much.”

---

Dawn came far more early than it ever should have, the sun struggling as it always did to pierce the thick veil of smog that enveloped the world. Mongrel was absent, awake already and likely hunting nearby for something to eat. A rat perhaps, or a crow if she were lucky.

Willow rose to a sitting position and reached towards her boots. She’d left them close to the fire, hoping they’d still be warm come morning. Her hand stopped as she saw Lura, still snoring loudly. For some strange reason, she’d almost forgotten she was there with them.

Once she’d slipped her blistered feet into her shoes, Willow rose and kicked the ashes carefully, trying to spark some life out of the fire. She sighed as she rubbed her hands. It was a cold morning. The perfect morning to hide under the blankets in a warm bedroom, moving closer to the woman she loved, abandoning the worries and concerns of the coming day for a few precious moments. It was the kind of morning one did anything they could to avoid. A morning for dark thoughts. And dark deeds.

The knife was in Willow’s hand before she realized it. She’d grown accustomed to sleeping with it under her arm or tucked inside her sleeve. Even traveling with a woman capable of changing into a large beast, there was always the danger of being mugged or attacked in the night. Willow couldn’t hope to remember the number of times she’d awoken to find some stranger digging through her backpack. Or, worse, inside her pants.

Her grip tightened as she stepped closer. Lura was still snoring. Still asleep. Two days ago she’d almost managed to kill the bitch while she was sleeping. Maybe she’d have more luck the second time around. Maybe she’d be free of all of this, the wandering and the fear and the--

“Do you remember what happened the last time you stabbed me in my sleep?”

Willow cursed. She’d been awake. Fake-snoring. Doing anything she could to dangle hope in front of her for a few fleeting moments before snatching it away again. Just another game to play. Willow turned to her pack, pretending to search for something contained inside. “Yeah, I do. I dropped a building on you and set you on fire.” Frustrated at not finding the nonexistent object she wasn’t even looking for, she tossed the bag aside and plopped down next to the still smoking ashes. “I do remember that. That was nice.”

The madwoman rose to her feet, scratching the back of her head through her thick brown hair with the nails she’d used to slice her mother’s throat. “And it didn’t work. I still beat you. So let’s try to be a little more civil, hmm? We’re all in this insane endeavor together, so we might as well be nice to each other.” She smiled before adding, “You wretched cunt.”

“Bitch,” came the automatic response.

“Absolutely true.” The smile widened. The fangs seemed longer than they had a moment ago. “Werewolf fucker.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Lura held the laughter back for a moment longer before erupting into a mad cackle. Willow smiled, and hated herself for it. The giant crossed her arms, leaning back against the sandy cave wall as she observed her captive. “Something on your mind?”

This was the first time Willow and Lura had ever really talked one-on-one since Willow and her mate had been taken prisoner and pulled into a world they wanted nothing to do with. A world of attacking innocent forest-witches. A world of being slaves to a horror that should not exist. A world of sleeping next to the woman who had murdered her parents. “When you … When you first saw Mongrel. After we attacked you? You called her something.”

“Oh?” The madwoman seemed genuinely surprised. “What did I call her? Bitch, cur, stinky, something like that?”

“Mother.” Willow was making sure she didn’t make eye contact with the monster. Even still, she could tell the feral grin had left her face. “You called her ‘mother.’”

A glance at the madwoman’s face revealed an expression Willow would have never expected to see. She was sad. Shocked. Embarrassed. Maybe even a little afraid. Almost human. “I don’t remember that,” she lied.

“You did. Was your mother gahreer? Didn’t think you reproduced like … y’know. Other people.”

Lura uncrossed her arms, resting her dirty hands on her knees as she leaned over the embers. “My mom wasn’t. But … my mother was.” Willow started to ask what that meant before Lura suddenly stood and walked away. It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about this--whatever it was. Still, she hesitated just outside the mouth of the cave. “I wasn’t always … like this. Maybe someday we can …” She suddenly stood straighter, head cocked to the side like a dog. “Fuck. It’s here.”

“What? What’s here?”

“The boss.”

Again, Shade appeared without fanfare, a ridiculous black silhouette standing in contrast to both the bone-white sand of the dried riverbed and to reality itself. It became less menacing every time Willow saw it--less malevolent, less threatening. That is until Willow remembered the feel of her partner’s warm blood upon her face, her pretty hair sliding down the wall, her shattered bones piercing Willow’s skin. Every demon out of the old tales always grinned through teeth like swords, eyes red as burning coal, steaming drool pouring from a mouth with a voice like an earthquake. Shade had none of those features--indeed barely any features at all--but was far, far worse than any spirit from the old stories. Willow’s breath slipped past her lips in the form of vapor. Her teeth were chattering.

Mongrel was at her side in an instant, dropping from a craggy overlook above the cave and scrambling on all fours to Willow’s side. It reminded her of a dog protecting its master from a threat, and Willow chided herself for the thought. The she-wolf let slip a low growl, her eyes reflecting the dim morning light as they fixed upon the shadow as if they could pierce its dark nothingness. Willow resisted the urge to place her hand upon the hilt of her silver sword, not for fear it would alarm the demon but because their insane leader would deride her for the action later.

The only movement from Lura herself was to shake her head, no doubt driving the last remnants of her fitful dreams from her mind. She didn’t even attempt to stifle the yawn. “What now?”

Shade’s response was devoid of emotion, like a man on the street asking the price of stale bread. “Ronae.”

Willow blinked. The name belonged to a city. She’d heard it mentioned countless times before, but had never been there herself. From what she had heard, there was no reason to. Long ago it had befallen some calamity that had left it a ghost town despite its immense size. Fire, some said. War, said others. Both were probably involved in some way. They usually were. The truth would probably never be known, though it almost certainly had nothing to do with the second extinction event that Lura spoke of. The city had still been populated until a few decades ago, Willow was sure of that. Something else must have caused the mass exodus. Dread certainty slowly filled Willow as she realized that her parents’ murderer was probably involved in some way.

“Fucking why?” The name of the town seemed to have awakened Lura completely. “It’s abandoned, remember? I made sure of that.”

“Not within the city,” the darkness replied. “Outside of it. You will--”

‘Have you reconsidered?’

The voice startled Willow. Now her hand had indeed moved to the hilt of her sword. She felt a tug at the leg of her pants. Mongrel had noticed the motion and stared up at her partner in concern, though she glanced occasionally at the still-speaking aberration.

‘Have you reconsidered?’ it repeated. Willow realized that Shade was taking part in two conversations at once, just as it had on the day of her parents’ deaths. Lura continued belittling her master, though the sound of her voice seemed muffled as if Willow were underwater. She realized that the second conversation was reserved entirely for Willow herself.

Reconsider what, Willow silently inquired.

‘Usefulness.’

Lura turned to ask Willow something, though she stopped halfway. Both of her companions were once again frozen, unmoving until Shade decided to release them.

“Please don’t,” Willow whispered as she dropped to her knees and wrapped her tired arms around her love’s motionless body as if she could shield her. “Not again.” She couldn’t watch her be torn to shreds again. Never again.

‘I do not intend to. Today is … a busy day. Answer.’

Willow’s first instinct was to respond with a simple, “Fuck off,” though she thankfully restrained herself. “I am still not prepared to become … one of them. No.”

‘You continue to surprise.’

What was so hard for the monster to understand? She remembered an innocent comment months ago, telling Mongrel that one day she’d gladly run through the woods alongside her as a werewolf. And yet whenever the offer was made to her, she had recoiled from it. Willow didn’t want to become like the creature who had torn her father to pieces. Her decision had driven a wedge between her mate and herself that Willow hoped could one day be mended.

“Thanks,” Willow finally replied, an automatic answer to a compliment rather than an honest acknowledgement of the shadow’s praise. “Can you please … stop what you’re doing. Please?”

Its response was felt as Mongrel squirmed, suddenly finding herself enveloped in her lover’s embrace, her arms wrapped around her while from her perspective she had been standing over her just a moment ago. Mongrel was free again, unaware that any time had passed. Perhaps it hadn’t. “Okay?” she whispered to her mate.

Willow smiled and nodded. “Okay. Everything’s okay.”

“So a large camp outside of Ronae,” Lura yawned. Boredom must have once again set in. How many years of doing this did it take before the impossible became dull? Willow hoped she would never find out. “Should be easy to slip in then. Lots of ruined buildings to hide in. So who is the target?”

“The leader of a large cult.”

“Oh! Heeeeey!” Lura spun on her bare heel, a fanged grin plastered across her infuriatingly pleasant face as she smiled at the others. “A cult leader! Those are fun to kill! And about as black and white as it gets. Everybody loves killing cult leaders. No pesky moral dilemmas, just good old fashioned despot assassination.” She giggled, arms outstretched, her eyes becoming unfocused as she lost herself in some happy memory Willow would not want to be made aware of. “And the people only remember for like ten minutes before they move on to some other cult. It’s a public service, really.”

“But who is the target?” There was a tone of fear in Mongrel’s voice.

“I do not know.”

Those words, casually spoken from a creature with no mouth, caused Lura’s arms to drop to her sides.

It didn’t know? It was ordering them to kill someone and it wasn’t even sure who?

Lura covered her face with a groan. “I should be hungover. I should be hungover right now for this shit.” She removed her dirty hands from her face, put on her best sardonic smile, and turned again to face the horror. “Shade, we have to know who we’re murdering if we’re murdering someone. That’s part of murdering. The most important part, in my experience.”

“His name itself isn’t very well known. It’s intentionally kept secret, I believe.” Its glowing white orbs turned to the west, toward the distant, hollow city as if trying to remember who it was they would be seeking out. “I could discern his name. It wouldn’t take long. But the name itself isn’t as important as the title.”

“Okay,” Lura muttered. “And the title is?”

“He is known as the Vicar. I will speak to you when it is finished.” And then as suddenly as it appeared, the shadow was gone.

Willow’s heart dropped to the insides of her boots. Trembling, she lost her balance and slid from a crouch to slump completely to the ground. A simple, “No,” escaped her lips.

Lura was laughing, cackling, bent over and clutching her stomach as it was no doubt wracked with exertion from the sheer absurdity of the revelation.

“Willow?” Warm, furry arms wrapped around her shoulders as Mongrel leaned towards her. “I don’t understand. What’s a Vicar?”

Of course she didn’t know. How could she? She had lived in the woods, blissfully unaware and protected from the reality of the horrid world surrounding her dead trees and brackish streams. She wouldn’t have heard the tales. Massacres. Genocide. Torture and fire and blood, all in the name of an invisible god created before men knew how to mill grain or boil water to avoid sickness.

Lura paused her cackling just long enough to belittle the other gahreer. “How in the gods’ flaccid cocks do you not know who the Vicar is?”

“I’ve lived in a forest for ten years!” Mongrel protested. “I just learned what almonds were two days ago. What’s a Vicar?”

Willow shivered, although the temperature surrounding them seemed warmer than it had a moment ago. She hadn’t realized just how cold the air had been until Shade had vanished. She felt disappointed in herself. The effect that an otherworldly godlike being had on the world around her was becoming less and less noticeable. What a sad, silly life.

“Not a vicar,” Lura answered for her. “THE Vicar. The-fucking-Vicar.”

“That didn’t help,” the she-wolf muttered.

“It’s like a priest.” Willow pulled her lover closer and gently pushed her head onto her shoulder. “But … I dunno, more? More important. Higher up the ranks. Closer to whatever god is popular this year.”

“Okay,” she returned. “Now who is THE Vicar?’”

Willow struggled for half a heartbeat with how to answer the question. It was all the time Lura needed to interject. “As close to a king as one can get. On this continent, at least.” She dropped to the ground next to them, crossing her legs as she sat. For a moment she leaned towards Willow as if she were going to place her head on her other shoulder. A low growl from Mongrel caused her to lean away, although it was probably more because the joke was finished than a response to the threat. “Has thousands of followers. Tens of thousands. Maybe more. Lots of soldiers. A network of sheep from sea to sea.”

“There’s more than one sea?”

“There’s more than one sea.”

“Sorry,” Mongrel whined. “I was only aware of the one.”

“It’s fine.” The sincerity in Lura’s voice earned her a cold stare from Willow. “The things he’s supposed to have done? You think I’m a monster?”

“Yes,” Willow whispered softly.

“Point taken. But compared to him? Compared to what he’s done to people that didn’t want to join his little book club?”

“He’s set fires to cities,” Willow explained. “Entire cities. Enslaved those that lived there. Spread diseases intentionally. Taken slaves. So many slaves”

“One of the families that lorded over Sailor’s Piss for a while?” Lura made a snipping motion with two fingers, her sharp nails slicing through the dusty air in a way Willow would rather not dwell on. “Castration. Said it was to prevent the birth of future generations of the feebleminded. The unwanted. Nonbelievers, especially those who happen to have a different skin color than he apparently prefers. That and people that ask too many questions.”

Mongrel rubbed her elbows, hugging herself slightly before Willow wrapped her arms around her. “That’s horrible. But … Nonbelievers of what? Who do they worship? Or what?”

“Doesn’t matter, not really. Maybe Lura’s sky-nasties,” Willow muttered. She still hadn’t bought into the whole monsters-beyond-the-stars nonsense that Lura had spewed. Not even the sight of the shadow that claimed to be a part of them could cement that impossibility.

“Someone named Kamos. Kamol?” Lura shrugged as she began to dig the dirt from beneath her nails. “Maybe both. They like to merge multiple imaginary friends into one these days. One of the more fashionable ones before the last apocalypse.” She squinted, her eyes unfocused as she tried to search through some distant memory from back when the world made more sense. “Maybe the first one. It’s hard to keep track of which was which anymore. The god is less relevant than the people following it. And we’re going to have to … Gods below I’m going to overthrow another kingdom, aren’t I?” She sighed as she almost hopped into the air in order to face the others, arms outstretched as if to draw attention to herself. It was a childlike posture, one that Willow remembered Mongrel was fond of displaying not that long ago. “Well! Shall we go kill a prophet?”

And with that, it was time. The familiar objection would begin again. The one that Willow felt she was obligated to offer. The one she seemed to have to repeat every single day since they had become involved in this madness.

“No.” She’d begin this one simply. The three of them all knew what she was referring to anyway. Better a blunt refusal than an elaborate explanation where one wasn’t needed. “We’re not getting involved. Not in this one.”

“Willow …”

“No, M!” In all the time they had known each other, Willow had never felt the need to raise her voice in anger against the woman she loved. Not until these past few days of following a madwoman at the behest of a god. “I’m not going to have that … thing do to you what it did to her.” She nodded towards the monster among monsters, who seemed as tired of hearing this conversation as Willow was in starting it. “I won’t have it make you cold. Evil. I won’t watch you cease to be a person in order to stay sane. You’re too good for that.”

“Okay, listen.” The giant dropped to her knees, preparing to attempt to rationalize chaos. Willow felt like she wanted to cry. She hated this. She hated this. “If anyone knows how to kill …” Lura stopped, her eyes darting rapidly as if suddenly afraid to say the monster’s “name” in this context. Willow felt no pity for the murderer. She couldn’t. But if she could it would have been out of her spending so many years working for it, being molded so specifically into its own personal weapon that it didn’t leave any room for the person she must have one day been. Was she a child once? Did she have her own room, her favorite toy, a mother’s lap to sit on? Did she cry the first time she’d scraped her knee, smiled the first time she tasted something sweet, gasped when she caught the eye of her first crush? Willow had a hard time believing any of that. Maybe she just didn’t want to.

“If anyone knows how to kill Shade,” Lura continued, “it’s going to be the Vicar. He has more magical bullshit in his closet than we’d find anywhere else in the world. Some scroll or grimoire or-or a spirit in a bottle. Something. Anything. We’re more likely to find a solution on this job than on any other. I don’t think we’ll ever get a better chance.”

“What’s a grimoire?” Mongrel glanced between the other two, hoping for an answer. “Really fucking tired of asking what words mean.”

“You want us--wait.” Willow closed her eyes and took a deep breath. What a stupid, silly life this was. “You want us to dig through the curio cabinet of the most powerful person--”

“Second most powerful person,” the bitch corrected. “You’re sitting in front of the first most--”

“Second most powerful person on the continent. Maybe the world. With hordes and hordes of minions that follow him as their living prophet.”

“Right.”

“Who practically worship the man as their connection with the divine, a prophet whom they’d happily sacrifice their own lives for.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So that we can sort of, just maybe, perhaps find a fucking magical scroll--”

“More or less.”

“To kill something that’s technically not even alive.”

“I’m happy you were paying attention! This is good! Good good good.”

“I hope it’s a dragon,” Mongrel added hopefully. “It sounds like a dragon’s name. ‘Grim-wah.’”

“We’re not going,” Willow firmly repeated, even though she knew that they most certainly were. They were too deep in now. Too far embroiled in a life Willow didn’t want to believe was possible, let alone involve the love of her life in. Still, despite knowing they didn’t have a choice in the matter, she still felt she had to offer objections, no matter how lacking they were.

In response, Lura casually leaned to the side and slid her hand underneath the large boulder she had sat on two nights ago. It must have weighed more than the three of them combined, but still she lifted it as casually as if it were a dinner plate. She seemed to think about tossing it aside, either as a display of power or out of ennui born out of the recurring debate. After apparently deciding she’d rather have a place to sit again should she revisit this location, she merely sat the boulder down and rose to her bare feet before casually dusting off her tattered breeches. Willow expected another threat, but instead she just patiently watched the pair as if she hadn’t heard Willow’s rejection.

“Okay, what are you doing now? What is this?” Willow glanced at her partner, upset that she almost seemed eager to follow the maniac. “Are we fighting each other again now? Should I get my sword or--”

And then suddenly she was standing, Lura’s strong arms hooked under her armpit and forcing her to her feet. Her other arm was wrapped around Mongrel for just a moment before she casually deposited her to the ground where she let out a tiny squeak of surprise. Willow found new ways of hating Lura every hour. She had lifted the both of them as if she considered them no more than uncooperative kittens. In truth, that was probably exactly how she viewed them.

“Look at us, we’re like sisters! Come on. There’s a crossway northwest of here. Can be there before nightfall if we keep a good pace. Used to be an inn there before either of you were born. Still a spot that travelers camp. Should be a good spot to listen to a few rumors, maybe get an idea of current events in Ronae. Always good to be prepared where deicide is concerned.” She glanced into the heavens with a subtle frown. “Especially since Shade isn’t in a talkative mood today.” Willow felt a gentle but firm hand press on her back as Lura released her, ushering her forward. “I’ll get the bag. Hope you two know some good traveling songs.”

Mongrel started to crawl away on all fours before glancing at her love. “Willow?”

Willow clenched the hilt of her sword so hard that her fingernails threatened to pierce her palms, then forced one foot in front of the other. She wanted to be in the lead. It would be a long walk, and she’d prefer not to have to spend it staring at the back of the woman who had ruined her life.

---

They passed through the barren hills and dried streams one footstep at a time. The going was mostly easy--gentle slopes and soft underfoot. Willow thanked the gods of her fathers that Lura hadn’t followed through on her threat of singing. Occasionally Mongrel would ask a question about the direction, but Willow remained silent. She was upset at her partner, though she knew she had no reason to be. It was unfair, but so was everything else in her life at the moment.

One of the problems with Willow remaining human made its presence known every time her foot touched the hot earth. It wasn’t that Willow wasn’t used to traveling long distances. She had tracked the monster walking just a few steps behind her for a third of her life. Every inn, hovel, and ditch had hosted her as its guest at one point or another. In truth, she had probably traveled further across the land than anyone save their captor.

Rather, it was the pace. Lura kept walking behind her, her footsteps eerily silent except when she must have felt Willow was starting to slow. The two werewolves--gahreer, whatever--were walking barefoot across countless miles far easier than she could in a worn yet tested pair of old boots. In Mongrel’s case, she was crawling on all fours, stuck in her half-human feral prison by the two most horrible beings the world had ever known. Any cuts or bruises her traveling companions suffered would mend themselves almost immediately, while Willow’s own feet screamed for her to stop and rest with every step.

And she couldn’t take it any more. She had to stop. At this point she didn’t care if the bitch tore out her windpipe. If she were dead then at least she’d be able to lie down.

Just before she could offer her vital organs to the demon behind her, she felt her loathsome hand on her shoulder. “Almost there. Five minutes at most and we can rest for the night. Then I’ll go find food and--” She released her soft grip, fingers spread wide in a disarming gesture as she saw the fury in Willow’s eyes at being touched by her. “Okay, right, ‘don’t fucking touch me.’ Sorry.” A sad smile crossed her lips, quickly replaced by a sarcastic sneer. “Want me to carry you? Does my little sis wanna piggyback ride?”

Willow prepared to deliver her customary “I hate you” before Lura suddenly frowned.

“Ah, shit.” She walked past the pair, suddenly taking the lead. “Hang back a minute.”

“What are you--?”

“Someone ahead,” Mongrel whispered, sniffing the air. “Several someones. But one in the lead. The rest standing some distance away. Seems suspicious.”

Lura hesitated, spinning around comically to face the pair. “Very good! Your nose is almost as good as mine. Just way uglier. Notice anything else?”

“Something …” The she-wolf frowned. “Strong. Sour, almost bitter.”

The giant nodded. “Oil. For weapons. Meaning they’re almost certainly bandits. And that’s from the ones standing behind. Which means?”

“Trap,” Willow offered, although she had to cough to get the word out. She soon felt Mongrel’s claws against her leg as her partner tried to comfort her. She needed water. Now.

“Trap,” Lura confirmed before smiling, her yellow fangs as unnerving today as the first time they’d met. “Which means I’ll probably get to kill a few. Oh! Do either of you have any apprehension about eating people?”

The pair shared a look, but it was Willow who answered. “I … can’t believe that’s a question I had to hear. Yes, I would say that we have apprehensions about eating other people. Yes.”

Lura shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask. They’ll probably have some food anyway. And water. We can help ourselves after I--”

“Don’t kill them.” There was a forcefulness, a confidence behind Mongrel’s words that Willow didn’t often hear. “Not unless we have to. Okay?”

The madwoman turned to look at Willow. “Is she serious? Hells, she’s serious, isn’t she? That’s actually adorable. You should marry this one. She’s a keeper.”

“She is,” Willow whispered, running her fingers through her mate’s thick brown hair. It had been too long since they had been alone together.

“Put your dog’s rags back on. Don’t want to give the game up just yet.” Mongrel whined like her namesake. She didn’t want to slip back into her disguise, dirty robes hiding a form that would arouse suspicion or fear. Lura turned back towards the upcoming confrontation. “Just let me do the talking. Whether or not I create any more orphans today is entirely up to them.”

Willow closed her eyes as she felt buried memories claw into her gut like a stab wound. “I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate this.”

---

It was well past midnight when they arrived. Behind the dark silhouette of a man stood a ruined inn. Or at least Willow assumed that’s what it was. The empty doorway was twice as wide as the one leading to her childhood home. It would’ve been made to allow people to pass by each other as they entered and left. Time had been as cruel to it as it had to most buildings built before Lura’s “second apocalypse.” It had been their goal, a quiet place to rest for the night. Now it was likely going to be host to the deaths of a half dozen thieves and slavers.

Willow just wanted to sit down.

The wizened man that greeted them had a smile that was too wide and a belly that was too large. Whatever lie was about to slither past his sun-chapped lips couldn’t hide that he was neither a farmer who had lost his way nor a beggar in need of bread. He was a killer. One who wasn’t good at killing. He was merely the con artist of his band, luring the unwary in while his friends would carry out the attack itself. Willow wondered how many people like this existed in the world--eager to kill to take what he wanted, but with no real talent for the task. At least, not anymore. He had seen seventy winters at the least, twenty more than most saw these days. Perhaps he had been a more accomplished cutthroat in his youth, but was now relegated to a simple showman. A mummer. A jester. His clothes were tattered, wretched things. Intentionally so. Easier to draw people in this way. What harm could he be? The poor thing. The wretch. The poor, poor thing.

An altogether worse kind of murderer looked over her shoulder at Willow and her mate and whispered like a child: “Just follow my lead. You know, have fun with it.” Her definition of fun was about what Willow would have expected.

“Good evening, ladies,” the old man spoke with a wince. A fake grimace of arthritic pain appeared at the corner of his lips for just a moment as he leaned more heavily on his walking stick with one hand as the other slid behind his back. Perhaps her estimation of his age was wrong. Perhaps he just had the appearance of an older man. In either case, Willow didn’t need the senses of a werewolf to know he was hiding a dagger. Poorly. “An odd sight, three women walking alone across the sands, especially in these dark times. But I’m glad for the company nonetheless. You … are alone?”

Lura made a snorting sound of amusement before clearing her throat, then answered with a voice like a dragon pretending to be a shrew. “We are, sir. Just three weary women traveling all alone on the way to Ronae. Might you have any news from the city? We’ve a bit of water and bread to share. And if you have any of your own, perhaps we can buy some of it off of you?” She smiled, a bit of drool threatening to slip from the corner of her mouth before she said in a voice that dripped with malice: “We have plenty of coin to buy it with.”

The man ran his hand through his shaggy hair. There was as much white in it as black. “That’s … a very generous offer. Yes, I think we could work something out. You’ll be staying here for the night? I was gathering tinder when I saw the three of you approaching. There, behind the inn.” He gestured to where his companions waited, hidden for the moment yet prepared to strike at the word of the bandit before them. “Is there something wrong with your friend’s legs?”

Mongrel whined again as she leaned heavily on Willow’s shoulder.

“Oh, yes, m’lord. Something very wrong with them. Her legs. Back. Face.” Lura stuck her tongue out at Mongrel as if they were old friends sharing a friendly jape. “She’s hopelessly crippled and so deformed that she’s painful to look upon. Oh, and her breath is just awful. Like a butcher’s offal pile. But we keep her around anyway. Like a dog so ugly that she’s cute.” She sniffed the air, glanced between Willow and her mate, then spoke rather loudly so that the man could hear her. “Some elixir. Alchemical mix. I’ve seen it put large men to sleep in a few heartbeats. It’s not cheap. I’m surprised they have anything that hard to find.” She touched the back of her black hand to her brow, head tossed back in mock despair. “It’s the life of a sex slave for us, ladies. Cruel are the gods that watch over these lands! Woe and alack.”

“Beg … pardon?” A spark of realization was threatening to appear in the man’s beady eyes, though it had yet to fully ignite.

The demon was trying not to laugh now. “Those two don’t like boys. They’ll be rather bad investments.” She leaned to one side, hands on her tits, ass thrust as if she were on display in a brothel. “As for me though, I’m as close to a perfect fuck as anyone could ever hope for. My cunt will make your buyers a fortune. And no one can suck a prick half as good as me, so long as the customers don’t mind having their cocks bitten off.” She pursed her cruel lips in a silly pout before licking them in a way that Willow hoped she didn’t propose was sultry. “Say, you lot don’t happen to have any whiskey on you, do you?”

The old bandit was slowly starting to suspect this would not be a normal job. He glanced nervously behind the ruined inn, no doubt hoping his companions would come forth to investigate. “I’m afraid there might be some misunderstanding. But please step right this way.” The last four words--step right this way--were said slightly louder. Likely a signal to the men behind the inn to prepare to attack. “If you’ll just step behind the--”

“Gods-fucking-below.” Lura turned her back to him fully now, a blatant display of how little she regarded the bandit as a threat. “Is he stupid? He can’t tell something is up with me? I’m ten spans tall, for fuck’s sake.”

At last they filed out from behind the ruined inn, two to one side, three to another. Axes, clubs, knives. One man was lucky enough to have an actual spear, although it was probably cobbled together from some farming instrument. Their beards hung low, likely infested with lice. They had probably been living here for weeks, killing any man who happened upon the shack, kidnapping any woman. Or child. Willow wondered how many bodies were buried behind the inn, or if they even bothered burying them at all. She cast a glance to the dreary skies, but no buzzards seemed to be circling.

A low growl slipped from Mongrel’s black lips as she dropped to all fours, her back already pulsing as her spine pressed against her skin, sharp fingernails lengthening as she shifted. Willow started to slide her sword from its sheath, earning her a hiss of disapproval from Lura as she waved her hand dismissively. “This’ll go faster if you just leave it to me. Hello, gentlemen! There you are!”

“The big bitch is crazy,” the older bandit grumbled. “And probably like to cause trouble. Or the one with the sword. Jzark will like her pretty hair. The other’s a cripple. Don’t know if she’s worth bothering with, unless any of the rest of you fancy finding out if anything below her waist still works.”

“Would you mind stepping away from the building please?” Lura couldn’t hide her glee now, like a cat toying with a mole until, driven by its own inevitable boredom, it would end its playing in the only way it knew how. She practically bounced from one bare foot to another, giddy to bring more violence into the world. “There might be some dry, shady spots inside and I’d rather not knock the building over on my way to your entrails.”

“You said you wouldn’t kill them,” whispered Mongrel.

“No I didn’t.” She paused, eyes looking at nothing in particular as if she were unsure of her words. Finally she simply shrugged. “And if I did, I lied. Obviously. Sure you don’t fancy a rib or two?”

Mongrel looked up at her mate, apprehension held just behind her gold-flecked irises. “She said she wouldn’t--”

“Do it,” interrupted Willow. She pretended not to hear her partner stop breathing, just for a moment. “I’m tired and they’re killers. So do it and let’s get inside. My fucking feet hurt.”

The look Mongrel gave her hurt more than any wound she’d ever felt. The woman she loved looked at her as if she were a stranger, as if they hadn’t grown up alongside each other. “You’re … You’re not supposed to agree with her.” The she-wolf turned away. “Never with her.”

“Mongrel, I … They’re …” Her mate was a good person. Far too innocent for a world like this one. But what about Willow herself? Her first response to dealing with the threat was the same as their captor. They deserved it. Even if they weren’t a serious threat to any of them with Lura by their side, they still deserved it. She thought again of the mugger lying dead in the alley as she dug through his pockets for anything valuable.

The half-wolf turned to Lura, purposefully avoiding Willow’s eyes. “There has to be a … jail or something. In Ronae. Somewhere we can take them instead of just …”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Lura was slowly walking away from the pair, backwards, as concerned about the advancing marauders as she would be a cloud of gnats. “Gods, what’s it like? Having pity? Seems unnecessarily complicated.” She glanced between the pair, neither of which seemed able to meet one another’s eyes. “Fine,” Lura whined. “They live. But just because it will piss off your cunt girlfriend. Who sliced off my fucking jaw.” Finally she turned to address the men, eyeing them as if they were fish in a market. “This is going to be annoying. I’ll have to leave a few of them conscious to drag the others away.”

“Come along then, dearie.” The man at the front of the group was the tallest, though still a head shorter than Lura. “Be easier if you come peaceful-like. You’re a proper gentlewoman, aren’t you?” He glanced at the rest of the men. “Gods below, she’s a big one. Might take a man on each arm to hold her down. After that, there’s gotta be a lord out there gets his fancy from a woman as big as th--”

And then he was on the ground, screaming, blood pouring from his nose. Willow wondered if perhaps Mongrel’s predatory eyes allowed her to follow Lura’s movements better than her own. Somehow, she doubted it. The blood dripping from her hand—her unburnt hand—was the only indication that she’d struck him at all.

“You get to stay awake.” Lura popped a string of black jerky past her lips, a wet smacking noise emanating from her mouth as she spoke around the piece of dried meat. “You called me a gentlewoman. That was sweet.” Willow knew for a fact that she hadn’t had the dried meat earlier, so she must have pickpocketed the thug as she was breaking his nose. “Six total, so I guess I just need to leave three awake to drag the others away? You lot don’t have horses, right? Of course you don’t. Grandpa gets his shuteye, obviously.”

She was gone, as was the elderly bandit they’d first encountered. Willow looked about, trying to discern where she had gone, but it was Mongrel who spotted her first. She pointed a long, hairy finger to the roof of the inn, where Lura had the man’s neck wrapped in the crook of her elbow. It didn’t take long for him to pass out, whether due to his age or some technique for causing unconsciousness that Lura had picked up in some back alley. “One,” she happily chanted.

The men had a few moments to scream, sounding their alarm before two more were suddenly on the ground, her dirty hands wrapped around their throats. “Two?” She seemed unsure.

The man with the spear was swinging it down, its tip aimed for the small of the monster’s back. Of course she was gone in the half a second it took to bring the weapon down. Willow casually looked back to the roof, where Lura perched yet again, this time dangling both of her playthings like unruly kittens. “Two. And ...” She brought their heads together, an almost wet knocking noise ringing from their skulls. “Three.” She released the bodies, where they fell to the sand alongside the old man. “Hey, this is actually more fun than I thought it would be. Kinda novel to leave them alive. Do you think this means I’m turning over a new leaf? It’s the straight and narrow for me now, ladies! No more murder for me. Maybe I’ll ask the Vicar if he knows of a good convent I can sign up for. Or at least—sir, no.” She shook her head as another bandit stooped to pick up a stone. “No, sir, you do not want to throw that--”

The rock bounced off of her forehead, though she barely seemed to feel it. Another blink of the eye and Lura was now standing before the man who had thrown the stone, one hand tilting his chin up towards her face, the other grasping his ass. Willow could only watch in shock as she brought her lips to his in a display of mock passion. For a moment she thought—hoped--that the rock had injured the monster’s brain in some way, although the thought was soon pushed aside as Lura pulled her lips away from his … along with the man’s tongue. What was once a streetwise thug became a squealing, bleeding pig as he fell to the ground, wailing and clasping his filthy hands to his mouth. “What?” Lura muttered around a mouthful of tongue as she chewed. “He’ll live. Probably.”

“Hett!” The man with the broken nose had made it to his feet and picked up the fallen spear with a fervor that seemed borne from more than general camaraderie amongst his fellow thieves. Perhaps the tongueless man, “Hett,” was his brother. There seemed some vague familial resemblance, though it was becoming hard to tell with the blood covering both of their faces. It was possible that the spear itself may have been some cherished family possession, although it wasn’t destined to remain as such as Lura casually snapped it in two. The man’s warcry ended as pitifully as it had begun as the bitch lifted him and slammed his head through the nearly-rotten wall of the ruined inn. She paused, a look of concern on her face as if she may have misjudged something.

“Ah, fuck,” the bitch whispered.

“Four,” Willow offered. “The next number is four. The number of unconscious men is now four. Not three. Four. How are two going to drag away four? Especially when one of them is somewhat preoccupied.”

The bandit in question continued to writhe from side to side, screaming and clasping his hands to his bleeding mouth.

“She ate his tongue,” Mongrel whispered in disgusted awe. “His whole fucking tongue. It’s in her stomach now. His tongue is in her stomach now.”

Lura’s only answer was another simple “Fuck.”

“There’s a mule!”

The trio turned in surprise to the last standing thief. He was the youngest of the band. Perhaps the smartest. “W-We have a mule! With a cart. That we use to ...” His voice trailed away, afraid of what he had almost said.

“That you use to cart slaves back to the city,” Lura finished for him. The look she gave Mongrel was tired, weary. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t want me to just ... No, of course you don’t.”

“Maybe he’ll see the error of his ways?” Mongrel offered hopefully, though Willow knew she didn’t believe her own words. “He’s young, he can still be a good person. Maybe he’ll become a farmer or-or a priest or--”

“Yes!” The sole standing bandit answered. “That’s a good idea. I-I’ll do that, then. If your ladyship were to spare my mates and I.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Lura seemed actually giddy herself now, although Willow knew it was all a show. “We DID something here today, ladies! We’ve completely redeemed them! We made the world a better place!” She wiped blood off of her lips as she addressed the bandit. “Now go drag your friends into your wagon before I decide you don’t need both ears. I’m still hungry.”

---

Willow sank to the dusty floor like a dirty rag. Finally, after what seemed a lifetime of marching, she was at last able to rest her weary feet. She kicked one foot against the other in an effort to dislodge her boots, though she immediately wished she hadn’t. Just how bad were her blisters? Sensing the dilemma, Mongrel reached towards the offending footwear. “I can do it,” Willow grumbled.

The she-wolf simply shook her head. “Hush.”

“I can do it,” she repeated, although she knew she’d already lost the war. She felt like she needn’t have been babied, but was too tired to put up any further objection. Once one boot and then the other was removed, Mongrel attempted to tug both of her socks off simultaneously. There was the hint of a playful smile on her black lips, as if she were teasing Willow. The smile ended when the socks refused to budge. The dirty white wool was stained brown in several places, like a puddle of stagnant water barely covered by a film of soggy dirt. With a hiss and a curse, Willow pulled them off herself and began rubbing the sores on the soles of her feet, wincing in pain as several had become open wounds. This had been the longest walk of her life, and she had another to look forward to tomorrow.

Outside the thin wooden walls of the ruined inn came the heavy clop of hooves upon sandy earth as the youngest bandit drove his mates away. Willow frowned. They should have kept the cart for themselves. And the mule. And killed its owners.

The pair jumped slightly as a large sack fell down next to them. Lura strode into the makeshift shelter stretching her arms above her head and yawning loudly. “Dig in, ladies.”

Mongrel sprang upon the bag, forcing it open and pulling forth a wineskin--that hopefully wasn’t filled with wine. She pulled off the stopper and poured the clear water down her throat, pausing only long enough to cough violently before passing her mate another skin. The bag also contained a few more strips of jerky. Enough to keep the group going, at least for the next few days.

“You’re welcome,” quipped their gaoler in a chipper tone before she suddenly spun back towards the door on one foot. “Well! I’m sure the doggie-girl is happy that six bandits will live to murder another day. At least I got to steal their stuff. I’m going to go try to scrounge us up something a bit fresher. Smelled a few rabbits maybe a mile ago. I’ll try not to eat them all, but you two know what my word is worth.”

There was nothing Willow wanted more than for the bitch to leave the room, but she hesitated by the opened doorway. “I ... meant what I said. Last night.” Lura started to look over her shoulder at the pair, but soon faced the door again. Perhaps she was having trouble meeting their eyes. “If you want to leave, you can leave. Just ...” She sighed, her broad shoulders drooping as if connected to a heavy weight she had born for too long. “I hope you don’t.” With that she was gone, seemingly blinking out of existence as she sped into the wastes.

Mongrel had two pieces of jerky in her mouth as she passed a piece to her mate. “Hungrrry?”

Willow nodded and took the offered strip of what she hoped was horse meat but feared to know for sure. “Thanks.”

The next several minutes were spent silently, the smacking sound of a ravenous she-wolf and an only slightly less-ravenous human forcing dried meat into their stomach, choking down the dry flesh with hot water. “Not all of it,” Willow warned. “It’s at least a week to Ronae and we don’t know what the water situation will be when we get there.”

The she-wolf reluctantly tossed her skin into the bag alongside Willow’s, then pulled the string to close it. Her long tongue lolled from her mouth, lapping at her fingers a bit before turning to Willow’s own pack. “Tent?”

“Just the bedroll,” Willow answered. “It’s too hot and it seems dry enough.” What was left of the ceiling didn’t have any noticeable signs of mold.

Mongrel nodded and unrolled the bed, though her long claws caught the threads of the rough fabric. As they always did.

“Here, goof.” Willow pulled the bag from her mate, loosening the cloth straps that held it in place at the bottom of the pack. “I got it. You’re going to scratch a hole in--”

“You wanted to be one before,” Mongrel suddenly blurted out.

Willow had no idea what she was talking about. ”A … sack? What do you--”

“Not a sack.” Her gold-and-orange flecked eyes were trembling now, searching for the words her weary mind was having trouble forming. “Not a gods-damned sack, Willow. A werewolf. A gahreer.”

“Oh.” It seemed the conversation had been put off as long as it could have been. Willow had dreaded it ever since she had screamed at the nightmare not to transform her. This was the first time they’d been both awake and away from Lura for any length of time. “Mongrel, I … It’s hard for me. Y’know?”

“I know, I get it. It’s because of her.”

‘Daddy won’t be home for dinner.’

“I can’t blame you for that, gods know I don’t blame you for carrying that weight for all these years.”

‘Girls. The boat. Now.’

“I …”

“But before, back in the forest, that first morning we were together again … you said …”

‘This will be easier without you in the way, mommy.’

“Mongrel …”

“You said we’d be monsters together.” Her bottom lip was trembling now.

Please don’t cry, Willow thought. Not you. You don’t deserve to feel sad. You’ve never, ever done anything wrong in your life. Please don’t cry. “It was … different. Seeing her again. Especially when she transformed right before the bug lady. Mongrel, I--”

“You said we’d spend a lifetime running around naked in the woods. But that was before we knew what … what a lifetime was for me. For my kind.”

Lura had said that gahreer never grew old. It was part of their healing process, whatever magic kept their bodies from ripping themselves to shreds every time they changed. It also healed aging, kept them as timeless and healthy as the world needed them to be. Willow only believed half of anything the bitch said, but she seemed to be telling the truth about that.

“When this is over … when we go home. Wherever that is?” Mongrel looked at the palms of her hands, the only part of them that wasn’t covered in thick black hair. “When we get away from Lura and-and that thing she works for. What’s going to happen then?”

“Are you saying you don’t want to be with me when I’m wrinkly and my tits hang to my belly?” Willow hoped a joke would bring her mate out of her dark thoughts. Anything to avoid them, to put them off, even for a day longer.

“I’m saying ...” The trembling had stopped now. Mongrel’s mismatched eyes tore into Willow’s heart in a way the Shade never could. “I’ll watch you fumble with a cane. Watch you curse and groan in pain every morning when you climb out of bed--the bed that we’ll share. I’ll watch you lose your teeth and I’ll mash up eggs for your breakfast and corn meal for your dinner. But … Willow, I won’t watch you die. I can’t do that.”

Somewhere in the distance came the wail of a fox, like a young girl being stabbed in the dark.

“Maybe …” Willow coughed. Mongrel reached for the sack again, preparing to dig out the wineskin before Willow waved her concern away. “When this is all over. We’ll …”

She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say it. Just lie, Mongrel’s eyes said. Just lie and tell me we’ll be happy and together until the world tears itself apart and the blind idiot gods devour our flesh. We’ll be in each other’s arms, and it won’t matter. We’ll run naked and feral through the dead world, laughing at its silly, fruitless attempts to pull us apart. We’ll hunt our prey, howl at the moon, and fuck like animals in every corner of the forest, behind every tree, beside every log, underneath every canopy. And we’ll do it forever.

Just lie to me.

But she couldn’t.

And the trembling had returned. Mongrel rose to her hands and feet and started to slink away. “Maybe I’ll see if the maniac needs help finding the r--”

“Come here. Please?”

She didn’t expect her partner to hesitate, but she did, her feral slit pointed toward her, a sign that she was less than human despite being so much more.

“Can we just take some time, now that she’s gone to just … be us?” Willow wrapped her arms around herself. “I feel like it’s been a long time since we haven’t had her leering above us and I’d really appreciate being held by the woman I love right now.”

Mongrel’s head drooped as she shook her waist-length hair. Willow was afraid she was going to slip away again, but she turned towards the unrolled sleeping mat and crawled towards her, a sad smile on her black lips as she pretended the conversation hadn’t happened. Willow held her arms open, pulling her entire reason for being down to the dirty mat with her. She smelled of old sweat, dead pine needles, and dried meat. Neither of them realized how badly they needed to be in each other’s arms until they were.

“I love you.” The whisper came from each of them, sending them both into a fit of innocent giggling, like the ones they had shared as the children they had been not so long ago. Ten years ago; ten lifetimes ago.

“Even if I don’t want to become a monster?”

“Even if you don’t want to become a monster,” answered the she-wolf.

“It’s just that--”

“I know.”

“And with her here and--”

“I know.”

Silence hung over the ruined inn, broken only by the soft scratching of Mongrel’s thick nails on Willow’s jerkin. “Besides,” Willow offered, “we’ll almost certainly be dead in a few days anyway.”

“That’s true,” Mongrel agreed. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.”

“Either from the Vicar or the rabbit-hunting cunt or the big scary lighthouse monster.”

“It still looks more like a trash bin to me.” Mongrel leaned her forehead against her partner’s. “I think we should take all the opportunities we can get then. To … y’know.”

“I agree.” Their dry, chapped lips met, innocently at first, almost chaste before Willow felt her lover’s long tongue slip past her teeth.

After a few moments more, Mongrel pulled away slightly. “Was afraid you’d say no.”

“What?” Willow was surprised. “I think the only time I’ve ever said no to you was when we were both falling asleep.”

Mongrel looked away shyly. The gesture drove Willow wild, and her partner knew it. “It’s just been a while.”

“It’s been like two days!”

“Two days is a while! I’m in heat.”

“You’re always in heat.”

“Shut up … I mean, you’re not wrong, but shut up.”

Willow shifted, attempting to lay her leg on top of her lover’s before recoiling with a pained hiss. “Gods damn it.” The pain in her feet wasn’t going away any time soon.

“Want me to lick them?” offered her lupine partner.

“Ew!” Willow laughed, but the look on Mongrel’s face soon made her pause. “Wait, you’re being serious.”

“Kind of,” Mongrel softly admitted.

“I’m in love with a gross dog girl.”

Her reply was a quiet mock-bark that had them both laughing again. “Get this off.” Mongrel tugged at Willow’s shirt as if the garment offended her on a spiritual level.

Willow slid the shirt over her head, blushing slightly as her mate’s smile grew wider. “Let me wash up a bit.” She gasped as the she-wolf’s hands slid over her breasts.

“No.” Mongrel leaned into Willow, sniffing for a moment. “We need the water, and you smell good like this.” She kissed her neck, careful as always not to place her sharp fangs too close to her skin.

“You’re weird,” Willow replied.

“I know-OH!” The she-wolf jumped slightly as she felt Willow’s fingers slip between the tri-fold slit of her canine sex. She continued sniffing at her mate, though she was panting now, her thick tongue lapping occasionally at Willow’s chest. “Gods, I want you so bad.”

“Good thing I’m right here then.” Willow pulled the creature on top of her, trailing her hands across her strong back, fingers slipping between the thick black hairs. Mongrel was drooling now, her eyes unfocused, tongue hanging from her mouth. “You weren’t joking. You’re really close, aren’t you.”

A slight nod. “Being on all fours like this. Next to you. Always does it.” She was breathing faster now, her breasts heavy against Willow’s bare skin.

“Oh?” Willow gave a cruel smile. “Crawl off of me for a second.” At Mongrel’s piteous whine, she added, “Just a second. I want to do the thing you like.” Willow slid from under her mate, who seemed intent on remaining still. She wiggled out of her breeches, wincing at the cuts and bruises along her legs. She needed a rest, sleep, and a long bath, but she would happily settle for what she was about to do. Coming up behind her mate on her hands and knees, she lowered her head, hands softly grasping at her thick thighs as she brought her tongue closer and closer until …

Mongrel howled, a clear wetness slipping from her spade-like sex. She was trembling, yet leaning back on her haunches, eager to get her lower half closer to her partner. “There!” she hissed. “There. Please! There.”

Willow gave a soft chuckle as she pressed her face against the swelling slit. It seemed that she was already transforming. Her scent was strongest here, a thick musk halfway between beast and human. She howled again as her orgasm continued, one leading into another as Willow found it easier to slide her tongue inside of her mate. Her hand reached for her own sex, fingers slipping between her folds. In truth, she needed this just as much as her partner. Alone with her, without the monster leading them, just the way it should be.

A wet crack came from Mongrel’s back as her spine pressed against her skin, muscles swelling slightly as her form began to grow. “Love you,” she panted. “Love you, love you, GODS below love you.” Willow paused her attentions just long enough to nuzzle at her mate’s forming tail, barely a nub at the moment, but it wouldn’t be long before she’d be able to run her fingers through the thick, warm fur. A sharp bark came from her mate as she shook her hairy ass, demanding she return her mouth to where it belonged. The floorboards were creaking as Willow gave into her partner’s wish, deep furrows being dug out of the ancient wood as Mongrel’s feet stretched, tendons snapping as her clawed toenails grew even longer, rounding at the tips of her toes until they became claws in earnest, her large toe shifting higher before it would form into a dewclaw. Willow’s hands were slick from her partner’s sweat, her scent even thicker now as she continued to change. Mongrel raised her ass higher into the air now, feet continuing to shift so that she could stand on the balls of her padded paws. “Pull it? Please?”

Willow laughed as her partner inched closer. She had to raise up to her knees now as Mongrel continued to grow larger, her dripping spade swelling, her tail just long enough now for Willow to wrap her hand around it and give a sharp tug. A howl shook the bare walls as the she-beast came again. Willow brought her thumb to the tip of her spade, the wetness between her folds allowing her to slip inside and brush against her lupine clit, swirling in circles as her mate buried her face in her hands and howled and howled and howled. Willow dug her own hand into her pants; she was exhausted but knew her partner would object to her being the only one being tended to tonight.

The she-beast’s whines grew lower, shifting into a growl as her mouth stretched into a snout. Willow slid her hands from her pants and ran it along the monster’s sweat-slick torso, feeling for her lowermost set of teats which she knew would be filling out into breasts. It was important being the lover of a large sapient predator in knowing just where to touch and when. With a practiced hand she lightly twisted the swelling teat between her wet fingers, earning another low-pitched whine of approval. The gahreer’s tail was fully grown now, wagging back and forth and spreading her scent around the tiny ruin. Willow smiled. It had likely been quite a while since the inn had seen this particular activity, and never from a couple as odd as it now hosted.

Rising again to her fore- and hind-paws, Mongrel drooled into the sandy floorboards as her muzzle stretched longer, ears rising to daggerlike points, feral eyes glowing orange and yellow in the dim pre-dawn light. With one final howl of ecstasy that sent her four pairs of furry breasts quivering she came again, gasping in a very human voice as Willow swirled her thumb around her clit, pistoning her four fingers inside her, all in an effort to satisfy the beast.

Evidently pleased for the moment, Mongrel turned toward her mate, padding on paws the size of Willow’s face to straddle her. With a doglike whine she nuzzled into her chest, her nose turning cold and black as she tried to nudge Willow to the floor. The beast lightly nuzzled the space between Willow’s thighs, trying her best to get her black nose in between her partner’s legs.

Willow shook her head. “One is enough for me tonight, dear heart.” A lie. She hadn’t felt any release of her own, but she was barely keeping her eyes open as it was.

The beast shook her head and gave a growl that would’ve been menacing were her mismatched eyes not staring longingly into Willow’s soul. There wasn’t a battle to be lost. Mongrel wouldn’t be happy until her mate felt some small part of the pleasure she felt. Until her snout was buried between her legs. Until her cold nose was pressed into Willow’s blonde mound. Until that impossibly long tongue had reached the depths inside of her that no one else ever would.

Until she was hers.

Willow hadn’t realized how wet she was until she felt the she-wolf’s humid breath on her thighs, hotter than the desert winds. She spread her legs slowly, as seductively as she knew how before plopping them dramatically onto the creature’s shoulders. The rumbling growls that came from Mongrel’s chest were the closest thing to laughter she could manage in this form, and the sound never failed to make Willow giggle like a drunk. Mongrel slid her paws underneath Willow’s ass, the rough pads feeling simultaneously abrasive and comfortable on her cheeks as she felt the creature lift her slightly. Her tongue was hanging between her daggerlike teeth, tantalizingly close to her slit but not close enough.

Another growl. This one would be barely recognizable as speech by any normal, sane person, but of course Willow was anything but. “I love you, too,” she answered. “For …” She stopped herself before she could say “forever.” That word meant something completely different than it had a few days ago and she didn’t want her mate to have to think about what it meant to the both of them now. Willow didn't want her upset or angry or sad; she just wanted that long, flat tongue inside of her.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Willow cried out like a virgin as it entered her, her secret place, her temple, a holy place so wonderfully defiled by the terrible monster. Her monster. It didn’t take long until there were two howling animals in the tired old inn.

---

“Come here.” She tried her best to wrap her arms around her lover’s furry shoulders when they were both satisfied, to drag a creature at least three times her size on top of her. Mongrel growled but acquiesced, slipping to the mat beside her partner, although she hesitated to drape her strong arm across her body.

“Too hot?” The question came in a harsh half-growl.

It was warm and the sun had begun to peak above the horizon, but that was hardly of any concern. Dawn meant they’d have to march again soon, whenever the madwoman returned. Willow just wanted what little sleep she could get. “Don’t care.” She pressed closer, burying her nose in her lover’s slick chest fur, breathing in the familiar scent she adored more than any other. “Need your arms wrapped around me. Can’t sleep without it.” Another soft, affectionate growl, then a long tongue slipped past Mongrel’s black lips. “Don’t you fucking dare. No licking.”

A disappointed sigh blew through Mongrel’s slick nose. “When … you think … she’ll be back?”

Contented joy met its end, swiftly and violently, at the mention of the horrid bitch. “Maybe she got lost. Or eaten.”

“By rabbits?”

“By rabbits.” Willow squeaked slightly as she pressed into Mongrel’s broad chest. Already she was starting to slip away from the world, its harsh deserts and its fallen kingdoms and its empty promises. “Maybe one of the rabbits finally got the drop on her and the world doesn’t have to be burdened by her anymore.” The silence that filled the inn’s dead hearth lingered like a specter of some childhood nightmare until Willow broke it. “You’re going to say something I don’t want to hear. Aren’t you?”

“She stood up for you,” answered the beast. “Against Shade. And the bandits. Brrrrought us food.” Willow looked into those shimmering eyes, which suddenly seemed unable to make contact with her own. “And let us go. Maybe she’s not as bad as …”

“Don’t,” Willow warned. “Don’t even think it. You saw what was left of my father when she was finished with him. You saw what she did to my mother. She’s not your friend, she’s not a broken soul for you to mend. You can’t see the good in her. There isn't any. You can’t rehabilitate a forest fire.”

“Maybe she’s not really a demon straight out of the nine hells,” Mongrel slowly growled. “Maybe everything is more complicated than we know--than we could ever know. Maybe the world … needs people … like her.”

Willow hated herself for entertaining the possibility that her partner was right. “Maybe. But we don’t. We just need each other. The rest of the world can go to the hells.” Willow placed her forehead back against her mate’s fur. “I still hate her. Nothing will ever make me not hate her.”

“I hate her too,” Mongrel answered. “But maybe …”

“Sleep now,” Willow begged. “Moral quandaries later. Please?”

Mongrel sighed again, a rumbling growl that Willow felt deep in her bones and that caused goosebumps to raise along her arms. And then, whether due to reflex or spite, the werewolf began lapping at Willow’s forehead.

“No!” Willow dug her forehead into her mate’s chest fur in an attempt to escape her tongue, giggling all the while. “I will kill you.” Yet another growl, this time slightly annoyed at not being able to lap at her mate’s face. “I’ll do it, too. You big … fuzzy …” And then she was gone, drifting into deathlike sleep, pressed against the only thing that still made sense in a senseless world.

---

When she awoke it was nighttime, the crickets were chirping, and Lura’s hands were wrapped around Mongrel’s neck.

Willow sprang to her feet, earning her a quick backhand that sent her slamming into the cave wall. She rolled to her feet, sword in hand, her lover’s name on her lips. Mongrel was dangling above the ground, back in her less feral form. Her feet were kicking, desperately trying to reach the ground, face nearly blue from lack of air.

Again.

What had set her off? What had made her change her mind about needing them, wanting them to help her in her impossible quest to rid the world of something that didn’t exist? It hardly mattered as she swung her sword in a sideways arc, though the blade seemed to miss her target. She looked around, searching for anything that would help. The cave’s interior was as barren as it ever was. She vaguely remembered being somewhere else, falling asleep next to her partner as they lay in a ramshackle abandoned inn.

Another swipe. Another miss. Mongrel was dying. Lura was laughing. This was awful, her worst fears come to light, it was a nightmare.

It was a nightmare.

Suddenly Lura and Mongrel were sitting on the ground, cross-legged. Mongrel was dropping rocks on the ground and trying to snatch them before they dropped to the ruined floorboards. Lura was laughing, a childish giggle devoid of malice. Perhaps there had been a time when she had really sounded like this, happy and playful as children were meant to be. Children like the ones she had slaughtered.

And then they were gone.

But the shadow was there.

Shade solidified into being, a patch of darkness growing larger until it fixed its white orbs upon her. It always seemed so cold whenever it appeared. Even in a dream. Its greeting was not what Willow expected.

“Have you grown taller?”

The others had vanished, fading back into whatever translucent, absurd world that was reserved for the simulacra of dreams. The sword still remained in Willow’s hand, for all the good it would do. She tossed it aside and held her hands out. “No. And can we please get to the part where I wake up screaming? I’m starting to miss my old, reliable nightmares. When do you disappear?”

“When I wish to.”

Willow raised a brow. “Oh.” She took a seat on one of the Sparrow’s comfortable chairs, one that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “You’re … really here, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” The same monotone voice, unimpressive given its source, as bored as it ever sounded.

“You’re altering my nightmares now?”

“I am not,” it answered. “This one is of your own making. Not mine. I just took the opportunity to observe.”

“An opportunity. Of course,” Willow returned, as if this made any sort of sense whatsoever. “So you’re inside my dream.”

“I am inside everyone’s dreams,” it answered calmly. “In one fashion or another.”

Willow rubbed her eyes. “This is exhausting. It’s exhausting, and I should know: I’m asleep. Was there …” She waved her hand in a circle, searching for the words. “Did you observe anything interesting in your … observations?”

The orbs were looking at her now, peering through her as though she didn’t exist, dissecting her, invading her, violating her, peeling away her flesh as it tried to find whatever the darkness was looking for. Willow held its gaze for a few seconds, but had to look away. Better to let it finish whatever it’s doing. Better than fighting against it. But were these her thoughts or Shade’s? Finally it answered simply: “Yes.”

When Willow opened her eyes, it was gone, though she knew its presence still remained.

“Walk with me,” it offered as if it were a father preparing to offer advice to a child.

Willow shrugged, rose to her feet, and stepped out of the mouth of the cave. It was night now, and for some reason she was able to see the stars. It was a rare event in the waking world, to be able to view them in all their splendor, unobscured by the dreary mist that enveloped the heavens. She very much wished it happened more often, that there were more times in her life when she could just observe them. Shade was waiting for her of course, its eyes lifted to the heavens as if it were capable of appreciating the aesthetic beauty of a clear night sky.

“You defended her,” it stated plainly. “Again. Against my agent. Against the strongest being of flesh and blood in the entire world. A phantom of her, of course, but you didn’t know that at the time.” Its gaze left the heavens and turned to her. “I do not understand.”

“No,” Willow answered, not unkindly. “No, you don’t.”

“You are one of the most interesting individuals I’ve encountered in this world,” the darkness confessed. “And I’ve encountered them all. Humans. Gahreer. Other beings you will likely never meet. And even …” It paused. “What is the word? Ah. Animals, you call them? Some of them are more interesting than your species. The ants especially. But you …” Again it turned what passed for its eyes to the stars. “Do you know, I came here--to your dream--to offer you the choice again. Power, strength, all of that. You have many miles yet to travel and you are causing your companions to lag behind. And at the end of your road lies a great challenge. Even the other …” Had it forgotten her name? “Even the other will have trouble with this endeavor.”

Before Willow could interject, the shadow continued. “But of course you’ll turn me down. Even if I tore your partner to shreds every night, you wouldn’t accept. Very curious. It is exceedingly rare to find one of you little fools that doesn’t want power.”

It had nothing to do with that. It wasn’t that Willow didn’t want power, the ability to destroy any who would threaten to hurt her or her love, the ability to keep them both safe in a world filled with so much danger. She just didn’t want to be like the creature that had killed her parents. But for one reason or another, Willow didn’t feel the need to correct the shadow. She just wanted it gone. “If you did that … If you killed her every night … I’d still refuse.” It was a lie, but she prayed it wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care. If the demon threatened to tear her mate apart again, Willow would agree to whatever it wanted. But if the shadow made incorrect assumptions about her actions then perhaps it would come in useful later. Willow suddenly found herself laughing, which caused Shade’s false-eyes to fall upon her again. “If you’re going to torture me every night, well … I guess I’ll just have to get used to napping during the day.”

“So curious. Your partner jumped at the opportunity. She said she didn’t care if it cost her soul, she just wanted to tear the other one apart.” There it was again. It had called Lura “the other one.” As if it couldn’t recall the name of the only person it had really interacted with for the past sixty years. The bitch was right, it was becoming more detached from reality by the day. “I won’t bother to ask you again,” it finally added.

“I … appreciate that, Shade,” she said. “Thank you. Maybe … Maybe it’s a human thing. It wouldn’t make much sense to a being from beyond the stars.”

She got the feeling it was being inquisitive again, though she wasn’t sure why she got that impression from its emotionless lack of a face. “From beyond the stars. Do you want to see what’s beyond the stars?”

And then Shade was no longer Shade. It wasn’t a demon or a monster or a mockery of life given form from the formless. It was a door. Still solid, as solid as it could be. Still a void, the pure absence of light and life. But she could somehow see through it, just a bit but it was growing easier to make out more and more. It was like the living, unliving shadow was fading just enough until she felt that another few moments she’d see right through it. Right through it into …

It was the screaming that she heard first. Then the gnawing. Gnashing of teeth, slime dripping from thousands, millions of mouths that could never exist and yet were existence itself. Eyes--so many eyes!--that blindly watched everything with the dull, unblinking interest of the fish that her father used to catch. Writhing masses of tentacles, flesh undulating like leprous lovers, and a bottomless hunger that permeated the horrors as they stretched on for endless expanses of absurd nothingness.

But mostly it was the screaming.

Willow turned away. She hadn’t witnessed the true forms of the divine, she hadn’t seen their eyes or mouths or teeth. Not really. But she somehow knew that they were there, and the vision in her mind was more than enough. Lura was right. There were beasties beyond the stars. And so she praised the gods of her father that she hadn’t stared into the door another second longer. “No,” she finally answered. Her voice was hoarse, as if she hadn’t used it in years. “I don’t want to see what’s beyond the stars. Or what’s under the bed. Or the thing in the closet or the noise outside the door or any of the other silly nonsense I stopped being afraid of when I had seen fourteen winters. I just …” Willow turned back towards the cave, but it was gone now, replaced with even more stars. “I just want to live in a world where monsters like you don’t exist. I want to live in a world that you aren’t a part of.”

“Interesting.” It didn’t seem upset or insulted when she turned back towards it. It merely stared, as it always did, from orbs that never blinked. “I had intended to erase you, should you refuse my offer again. You are confusing, and may introduce randomness into my plans to prolong this plane of existence. It would be better to cause your evaporation.” Again, the eyes pierced her. For a moment she felt as though her heart were pinned to the ground several miles away, but feeling passed as it gradually looked away. “But you’ve given me something new to ponder. Continue to do so.”

And then it was gone. But its voice lingered a moment longer.

“Let’s do this again soon.”

---

A sudden cough just outside the door frame woke the pair. She had returned. Willow had traded one monster for another. She shut her eyes tightly, enjoying a few brief seconds before she again would have to look upon the woman who had ruined her life. The dim light of a foggy morning fought to slip past her eyelids, but was as yet unsuccessful. How long had she been asleep? An hour? Two?

Lura stepped into the room, paused, and then immediately stepped out of it again. “Oh for fuck’s hells-spawned sake.” She made a retching noise. “Thank the idiot, shitting gods I wasn’t around to witness whatever gods-rejected filth the two of you got up to last night.”

It brought Willow no small amount of satisfaction that she had made Lura uncomfortable at finding the pair of them laying naked together. Unfortunately the urge to gloat made Willow open her eyes slightly. She cursed as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. How could she be more tired now than when she fell asleep?

Through the haze of interrupted sleep, Willow could just barely make out the maniac sinking to the floor like a child, rubbing her belly absentmindedly as she yawned and stretched. “Shit, I uh …” She smiled somewhat sheepishly. “That may have come across in the wrong way. I hope you two don’t think that I’m disgusted because of you two being … you know, intimate. I’m a murderer, not a bigot. It’s not because of that at all, it’s just that I hate you both and want to watch the crows eat your eyes.”

“What an apology,” Willow mumbled. She was happy that Mongrel was still in her more feral form. She was better to snuggle against like this. “Thanks for the clarification.”

“Okay. You’re welcome,” she added unironically. “Just don’t want you two getting the wrong idea about me. I care a lot about what people think of me.”

“Clearly.” Willow raised her head off the mat just enough to verify that the monster wasn’t about to tear her throat out, then curled closer to her mate. “You’ve got something in the corner of your mouth.”

Lura wiped a string of blood away just before it fell from her chin.

Mongrel sniffed and finally opened her eyes. There was a look of concern on her lupine face, but Willow wasn’t sure why she was bothered. “You … caught … rabbits?”

“Mm-hm,” Lura answered innocently. A few drops of blood slipped from her fingers as she grinned. “Big ones. Six of them.”

Willow shut her eyes tight again. The worst thing in the world was sitting ten feet away from them. Better to keep her eyes closed. Better to pretend she wasn’t there.

Maybe she’s not as bad as we thought, her lover had said. Maybe she’s not a demon. Maybe she can learn to be a good person again.

Or maybe they were fools and one day she would kill them both.

---

She wasn’t sure when she had fallen asleep again, but the world made just as little sense when she opened her eyes. It was dusk. Had she really slept all day?

“Tiiiiime to wake the fuck up,” the creature’s singsong voice echoed against the shack’s walls like the wail of some dying animal. “Let’s go, kiddos.”

Willow bolted upright, only to find that Mongrel was crouched just outside the door, sniffing the night winds like her namesake. She was still in her werewolf form.

“Shit,” Willow hissed. “I slept the whole day?”

“We all did,” Lura answered reassuringly.

“But now we have to wait till tomorrow to set off again.”

The madwoman shook her head. “Nope. It’s better to move about during the night and rest during the day. Especially as we get closer to Ronae. Easier to slink around, slit throats, that sort of thing. Besides, you really, really needed the sleep. Didn’t even make you take a turn keeping watch. And people say I’m mean.”

“Thank you,” Willow answered automatically, though she immediately regretted the words. Lura seemed surprised at being thanked. “But now I’m going to be stumbling around all night. I can’t exactly see in the dark like the two of you.”

“We’ll travel in gahreer form. Cover a lot more ground that way. Here.” She extended her hand to help Willow up.The human woman considered stabbing it with her knife but thought better of it. No god, living or dead, blind or with a billion eyes, could make her take that hand.

Instead, Willow rose to her feet, pulled on her breeches, and slipped her shirt over her naked torso, “So what am I supposed to do?”

Lura shrugged. “I’ll just carry you.”

The laughter spilled from Willow’s lips like an avalanche. “The fuck you will.”

“I’ll carry her,” Mongrel growled from outside the door.

“I’m bigger,” Lura offered. “Less of a burden for me. Are you sure?”

“There’s no way in the nine bloody hells I’m riding on top of you all night.”

The monster laughed. “I’m hurt. You ride on top of her all night, and I’m prettier.”

“I’ll carry her,” Mongrel repeated. There was a sardonic ire in her feral eyes, a warning from one predator to another. Stay away from her, the look said. She’s mine.

Lura merely shrugged. “Okay. Have it your way. Let me put my clothes in your sack.” Without hesitation, she pulled her shirt above her head and stepped out of her pants, standing naked before the pair of them. Even in her human form, thick hair covered her arms, legs, and places Willow would rather not think about. Not like the hair that covered Mongrel’s body, but noticeable nonetheless. “Stop staring,” she mumbled sarcastically. “You’ll make me blush.” She tossed the dirt- and blood-stained garments toward Willow, who caught them with a look of disgust.

“I’m not carrying them in my mouth all night long, so shove them in your fucking sack and let’s go.” Lura turned towards the door, hopping into the air on one foot. When she landed outside of the shack it was on the legs of a monster nearly twice Willow’s size, towering even above the other gahreer. It was unnerving how quickly Lura was able to shapeshift, like it was more effort to take off her shirt than to transform her body utterly into another form.

“Well?” The creature bowed, motioning with an ungainly paw for Willow to follow. “Are we going to kill a prophet or not?”

---

Eight nights. Eight days. Endless running, padding along on paws the size of a dinner plate over land that seemed to never know the touch of rain. The trail of dust behind them was as thick as a thundercloud, as two bushy tails waved like the pinions of some long-dead empire as they sped along. Occasionally the gahreer in the lead would disappear, scouting ahead even as the smaller one raced along behind her. When they were without their mad guide, Mongrel continued to travel along some instinctive path that Willow would never understand. When she was present, Lura seemed to be slowly pacing herself, despite the breathtaking speed of the smaller gahreer. How much faster, Willow wondered, would the maniac have reached Ronae without having to wait for the others?

The nights were cold, so cold that Mongrel whined as Willow tried to press her freezing hands further into Mongrel’s mismatched fur. Eventually Mongrel had to cradle her mate in one arm in an attempt to keep her warm, lumbering along as quickly as she could on three limbs. This slowed their progress tremendously, which of course brought a growl of annoyance from Lura and a one of rebuttal from Mongrel. Not for the first time did Willow wish she didn’t have as many misgivings about accepting the change, though she was happy that neither her mate nor the monster leading them brought up the offer again.

The days were only slightly better, frigid cold giving way to blistering heat. Lura knew the area as well as she seemed to know everywhere else in the world, always leading them to shelter before dawn. A ruined barn. A torched hovel. A cave. A ditch. The abandoned house they had slept in on the last day of their journey was enough to cause Willow to almost weep. She’d never slept in a feather bed, but she couldn’t imagine it being half as comfortable.as the moth-eaten rug upon which she slept, safe under the arm of her lover while under the protective eye of a maniac. As the sun began to set she almost asked the demon if they could stay another day longer, but knew better.

Running. Clinging. Freezing. Blistering. Fitful sleep and reluctant awakening. The monster scavenged food for them, hunting during the day while Willow and Mongrel slept. They would awaken to cooked pheasant, rabbit, or desert fox. But never fish. Water was scarce, brackish, and stagnant. Willow had to boil the water she consumed, whereas the two gahreer could drink it without any worry of becoming sick. Lura again spoke of the little beasties that lived in the water, causing dysentery, malaria, and other maladies Willow had scarcely heard of. And again Willow scoffed at the absurdity.

Despite all the travails, Lura was infuriatingly cheerful. “This takes me back.” The sole remaining chair in the house creaked as she sat in it, stretching innocently as the last rays of sunlight fell below the scorched horizon. She casually snatched a faded painting off of the wall and began absentmindedly tearing it into shreds. As she finished tying her sleeping mat to her pack, Willow wondered how many times the cabin’s previous occupants had stared lovingly at the painting. It was probably passed down from generation to generation, a cherished heirloom from a time when the world was still whole. Now it was just something for a monster to fidget with, thin paper to shred while she rambled on about nothing. “Once I spent three days jogging across a desert with four other--”

“No one cares,” Willow said automatically as she scrunched up alongside her mate’s furry bosom. “No one present, or anyone living, or anyone who has passed on to a better world gives a fuck.”

For her part, Mongrel gave a small grunt, an indication that she concurred with the analysis.

“Oh, fuck off!” Lura whined. “I’m trying to be friendly. I’m not very good at it.” She always shifted back into her human form the instant they stopped to rest. Willow wasn’t sure if she just preferred that body or if this was due to another reason altogether.

The bitch had said that usually when a gahreer spends too much time in their bestial form there are problems. It apparently becomes harder and harder for them to shift back, as if their lupine nature became reluctant to return their form from wolf to human. It wasn’t so much that it became physically harder, just that the lure of eternal hunting, pouncing, devouring became more and more appealing. Mongrel had been in her wolf form for over a week, never once returning to her human body. She should be a slavering monstrosity by now.

Instead, she was Mongrel.

Their leader was astounded. She had never seen anything like it. Even the meekest, the calmest gahreer she’d ever claimed to have met would show signs of turning feral after a few days. It could usually only be kept in check under the watchful gaze of an “alpha”--some sort of leader for a group of gahreer. And even then, there were momentary slips of concentration, snapping at one another, gnashing of teeth, growling, and probably acts Willow didn’t want to think about. The fact that Mongrel displayed absolutely none of these symptoms was, according to the mad giant, utterly impossible.

And Willow wasn’t surprised at all. It was not in her love’s nature to be angry, let alone a rabid animal. Not even magical-werewolf-nonsense could change that.

“We should be there at dawn,” Lura added as she rose to her feet, turning her neck this way and that in an attempt to work out a kink that had formed as she slept on the floor. “We’ll decide exactly what the course of action should be when we get there and have a better lay of the land. I imagine there will be some sort of festival, ceremony, whatever they’re called. Lots of praying and fasting and cutting off parts of their penises, all in an effort to relieve their sinful natures, or whatever it is these people usually do. But, we should still have a rough plan of what to do when we get there.”

Mongrel pulled Willow into a sitting position, leaning her against the swell of her eight breasts and resting her snout on her shoulder. “Isn’t there … a way … we--”

“Don’t.” Lura pointed at the lesser werewolf, a scowl of annoyance on her brow as she sniffed the air outside the cabin. There was a hesitant look on her face, an almost cautious stare. “Don’t start with the benevolent shit. We’re not here to hold hands and jerk off our fellow travelers in the journey of life. We get in and get the job done. And in the bargain, work on our little ‘side-project.’” She nodded towards Willow in mock respect. “The two of you will search for anything that can be of use. Mongrel is gahreer, so she’ll be able to sniff out any magical-whatever. Don’t be concerned with what it is, just find something small enough for you to carry that has the ability to … you know, kill a god.”

Willow was too tired to object to the insane notion, content merely to hide her face in her hands.

“How will … I know?” Mongrel swallowed. Despite being in this form for so long, it was still fairly difficult to form words.

“You’ll know. If you come across anything that can possibly do it, you’ll know when you see it. Smell it.” She shrugged. “Look for something that glows. Usually if it’s some dangerous doomsday artifact of unimaginable destructive power it will glow. Try to find one that glows blue. Those are my favorite.”

A calming lick at her cheek stopped Willow from screaming in frustration.

“In the meantime, I’ll do what I do. His Worship will likely have a million guards defending him--Tree-Cunt, a ‘million’ is a word that means ‘big.’ I’ll try to do things quietly, but I’m sure one of us will slip up and raise an alarm. Probably the two of you. Dog-Girl, if you have to choose between the magic glowing box that will save the world or the annoying human bitch that follows you around, well, you know what you’ll have to do. Dump her corpse in a cistern and be done with it.” She added under her breath, “You could do so much better than her anyway.”

The insulting nicknames barely even registered to the pair anymore. Just more pointless, snide remarks from a person whose opinion would never matter to Willow. The monster had come up with the titles on the road, probably bored and upset at not having any lives to ruin.

Lura rose to her feet and leaned against the wall. “Of course, first we have to deal with whoever this is. What do you think, doggie? Apricots?”

Mongrel shook her head. “No … it … smells like fruit.”

Lura blinked. “An apricot … is a fruit.” The madwoman shook her head. “Gods below, I thought I grew up in a small village.”

The sound of hooves nearing the shack soon banished Willow’s confusion at what the she-wolves were talking about. There came a clopping from outside, slowly, deliberately, as if giving those inside the cabin time to take notice. Someone was approaching from the dark, someone with the luxury of owning an animal to ride and unwilling to start an altercation. Willow accepted her mate’s offered paw, rising to her feet and drawing her sword in one hand, her knife in another. “How do we play this?” She felt disgusted at defaulting to the leadership of someone who should have been confined to the deepest of all the hells.

Lura simply shrugged. “Ask her. She’s the one with morals. And change back. Quickly.” She sniffed again. “Something weird about this one. Not a bandit, not a farmer. Smells like someone important. But not a prince, and too young to be a bishop.”

Mongrel fell to all fours, groaning as she forced her body to shrink, tanned skin peaking through thick mismatched fur, claws receding into fingers, ears shrinking into thick, matted hair. Willow loomed over her, ready to wrap her mate in her disguise robes as soon as she was human enough to fit in them.

“Hello?” The call was pleasant, which made it somehow entirely unpleasant. The voice of a young man, cautious and even toned. “I’m a simple traveler, just looking for a place to rest for the night. I have nothing worth stealing, and a few things worth sharing. May I enter?”

“Who is with you?” Lura would know there was no one else, and must have been fishing for any sort of lie.

“Just me,” came an almost eager response, as if the stranger were happy to find that he wasn’t about to be killed. At least not immediately. ”Oh! And Miso. But she’s a horse, and doesn’t have much to steal or share.”

“Are you armed?” It was Willow who asked the question, although it seemed to be on the lips of Lura as well. The madwoman gave a small nod of approval, which earned her a sneer and a spit from the human woman.

“Isn’t everyone?” It was a fair point. “These days, not carrying a sword is like not wearing shoes in the desert. I can leave mine outside, if that would make you feel more at ease.”

Lura snickered. It was like a mite promising not to harm the sun. “Do you have any whiskey?”

“N-No,” came the answer slowly. “But I do have a few pieces of chocolate.”

“What’s chocolate?” asked Mongrel as she began to near the end of her transformation. Willow began to wrap the dirty robe around her.

“It’s something you don’t want to eat,” Lura replied in a whisper. “It’s poison to our kind. Unfortunately not so for Tree-Cunt or I’d be shoveling it down her throat by the handful. Come in and sit down,” she called to the voice. “Leave the sword. And the chocolate.”

The man paused as if considering the strange command, but seemed to comply as Willow heard the thud of hard steel hitting the dirt, followed by the softer sound of a traveler’s pack being left alongside it.

He stepped into the ruined cabin just as Mongrel rose to her feet, leaning on Willow while careful to keep her misshapen body covered.

The stranger was not at all what Willow had expected. He had seen fewer winters than Willow, probably twenty-five at the most to her twenty-eight. His eyes were friendly, his nails trimmed, his clothes worn and dirty but not so much that they didn’t indicate their owner spent most of his time indoors. He had an altogether pleasant air, a smile on his lips, his long dark hair washed more often than Willow’s ever had been. It was possible the young man was some sort of nobility, though nothing as impressive as a magistrate. Perhaps the fourth son of a fourth son to some wealthy family. He wore no ring upon his finger nor chain upon his neck, though that would’ve been foolish with thieves and bandits about. But there was something about him that said this was far from a normal traveler. This was a young man who was accustomed to giving orders and having them immediately obeyed. Ronae had no standing army nor militia that Willow had ever heard of, which could only mean he was involved in the clergy in some way. Willow hoped her group wouldn’t linger long enough to find out how. The sooner they set off the better.

The smile faltered almost as soon as he crossed the ruined threshold. His eyes fell first upon Lura, of course. The woman stood nearly two heads taller than he did. The grin reappeared as he forced his gaze upon Willow, offering a friendly nod towards her and the shrouded form of Mongrel.

“Good evening,” he greeted them. Willow didn’t know that teeth could be so white. “Thank you for not stabbing me, I’m very grateful whenever my innards can stay where the true god put them.” A neighing sigh from outside signaled his horse was laying down for the night. He hadn’t tied her to a fencepost, which must have meant she was trained to stay by her owner. “Miso says thanks as well. May I sit?”

“You may,” answered Lura. “Although not in the one good chair. That’s mine.”

“O-Of course.” He took a spot on the cold hearth, casually opening his robe a bit to release some of the heat of a long day’s ride. “I meant what I said, I’ve got some rations for the road and am more than happy to share. Bread and water. These days meat is rare this close to the city, I’m afraid. I mean … rare as in scarce, not rare as in … rare meat or, um … We were on the same page about not killing each other, I hope?”

Willow fought to keep from smiling. She knew that under her facial covering, Mongrel was doing enough of that for the both of them. “We are,” Willow answered as she helped Mongrel to a seat on the floor, careful to keep her clawed feet tucked beneath her ass. “Believe it or not, we’re not killers.” It was plain to see that their guest did not believe the lie. His nervous glances towards the ever-grinning barefoot demon returning to her chair made that plain. Claiming that Lura wasn’t a killer was like promising the sea wasn’t very deep. “At least, two of us aren’t. My sister is sick with the pox and we hoped to seek the … true god’s blessings to heal her.” Another lie, but Willow hoped this one would be overshadowed by the first. “You’re riding from Ronae?”

He nodded. “Away from. And then towards. The Day of Want approaches, and that usually brings folk from far and wide. There are often stragglers on the roads who have survived the bandits and the heat. My order is tasked with helping those in need at all times, but particularly travelers. Is that what brings you here? You are, um … of the faith?”

“Not even a little bit,” answered Lura. “Our god is a spooky, googly-eyed prick that pops up when it’s least wanted.”

“Ah,” came the reply. Willow was surprised that a look of disappointment hadn’t crossed his face at hearing they weren’t believers. In her experience, this was not the usual response to meeting heathens. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with … that particular sect of worship, but the true god welcomes all under his roof. As does my order. Even in Ronae, where the roofs are in good need of repair.”

“That’s very good of him,” Willow added. “And very good of you as well, mister …?”

“Dyst. Oh! Father Dyst, actually. Although I’m not really a fan of the title.” He smiled again and fidgeted with a necklace held underneath his shirt, probably the symbol of his order. “Still feels strange to say that, even after I took my vows.” Dyst coughed into his hand, a conspiratorial look flickering upon his eyes for half a heartbeat. “These days, even with the faith growing by the day, people tend to frown upon the honorific.”

“Really?” A feral grin spread across Lura’s face, causing the other three to shudder as if a chill had passed through the room. Willow wondered if perhaps she hadn’t learned this trick from her master. “I can’t imagine why. What with the murder and the torture and the genocide and the … What’s the thing? Where you make the foolish pay for their dead grandpa’s soul to get a better seat at the table in the next happier world that does not exist?”

“Indulgences--” Dyst offered.

“Indulgences!” The demoness cut him off. “And people say I’m a monster.”

“--are an abomination.” The priest finished his statement, then hung his head as if ashamed.

“You … agree?” Mongrel’s voice seemed almost hopeful, as if the handsome man wasn’t entirely as monstrous as his faith.

“Not very pious of you, Father,” Willow piped in. “I didn’t know it was proper for a priest to disagree with official doctrine.”

“It isn’t,” he whispered. “But faith-sponsored abominations are abominations nonetheless. Indeed, all the more so.” Dyst held his hands palm up, as if to show he wasn’t holding a dagger. “There are those who follow the true god that disagree with the current Vicar’s positions. Some more than others. I … apologize. It’s not often I can discuss my … misgivings so readily.”

“Or immediately.” Willow wasn’t sure if she trusted the man more or less at his admission. “Usually people don’t go around announcing their blasphemies.”

He offered a small laugh noise, though his face seemed pained for a moment. “Blasphemies. I suppose that’s what most would call them. I can think of a few other labels. After what I’ve seen, perhaps labels are better than descriptions.”

“What you’ve seen?” Mongrel started to stand and only sat back down when Willow pressed on her shoulder.

“You know what happened to Ronae.” Willow didn’t, not for sure, but the way Dyst glanced at Lura made her feel as if he were speaking directly to her. “So many refugees, and the faith was more than willing to aid them. Well, in every way other than what mattered. A large congregation requires a bread and water in order to keep them faithful, otherwise they’d tend to leave in droves. The Vicar pointed to a … less-than-savory portion of scripture that advocated attacking Nartor to the north. As you can imagine, this led to a falling out between some of the more traditionalist sects of the clergy and those that were more … lenient in the literal translations of the text. The traditionalists always seem to have a knack for whipping up a fervor, and within a fortnight there was no real opposition to his rule to speak of. What followed in Nartor … well, you can imagine.”

“I have a poor imagination,” Lura chided. “Why don’t you help me understand? What was it you did to Nartor, exactly?” She looked at Mongrel, as if to say, “Here’s why it’s better off to just kill them and be done with it.”

“What usually happens when a city is sacked.” For a moment, Dyst seemed angry, his dark features slipping from sad to accusatory, though the look soon passed. “Burning, raping, killing. And that was the least of it, in truth. Then came the torture. Confessions given after the removal of fingers, teeth, genitals--whether it was the person being tortured or perhaps a member of their family. Anything to get the prisoners to confess to cavorting with the god-down-below. The Vicar’s little war had to be justified, of course. Otherwise, well … we’d be committing a sin, and surely that couldn’t be the case.”

“But surely you didn’t kill off the whole city.” Mongrel reached for Willow’s hand, but Willow swatted it away less their guest see her mate’s claws.

“No, of course not. Rebuilding a city takes slaves, and Ronae was where the true god first appeared to his children eons ago, back before …” Here he rubbed his head as the familiar headache must have inflicted itself upon him, though the others felt no such pain. “Before … the event.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, bringing this up is old news and it wouldn’t do to talk about the Vicar’s justice as if it weren’t given to him by the true god.”

“No, of course not,” Lura muttered. “That’d be fucking stupid, to assume he was lying and wanted to make a power grab.”

“Yes,” Dyst slowly stated, though there was the hint of a grin at the corner of his lips. “That would be quite fucking stupid indeed. Especially for a member of the clergy. After all, ours is supposed to be a faith of peace and growth, not the usual atrocities humans visit upon ourselves.” He emphasized the word “humans,” as if he wanted to draw attention to it.

Lura made a show of rising to her feet, slapping her knees and nodding towards the open door. “Sun’s down. Past down. We should’ve left before now.” She turned to Dyst and performed what Willow assumed was some sort of curtsy. Or at least, what the madwoman thought a curtsy would look like. “It was very nice meeting you, Mister-Father but we have to be moving on now. You’re welcome to the chair.”

“You’re traveling at night?” There was a strange tone in his voice, not that he was surprised, more like the bitch had confirmed some suspicion he had held. “I had assumed you were preparing to camp here for the night. I was going to ask to be allowed to share your roof.”

“You assumed wrong.” Lura seemed uncertain about something. Perhaps she felt odd at the prospect of leaving a stranger alive. It was probably a new experience for her. “Although you’ve given us some lovely theological proposals to muse over for our trip.”

Willow rose, shouldered her pack and helped Mongrel to a standing position. She’d need to hobble outside until they were concealed in the darkness and she could drop to all fours.

“I suppose it was silly of me to think you wouldn’t travel easier in the darkness,” Dyst quickly interjected. “I suppose your kind wants to go as unnoticed as possible.”

Willow and her mate halted immediately at the words. Lura’s ears seemed to perk up. Perhaps she’d get to kill the priest after all.

The monster held a look of fake surprise on her face. “Our kind? Do you mean women? Foreigners?” She seemed to be giving him an out, a way to escape the conversation they seemed destined to have.

Yet with two syllables, the priest lunged headlong into an almost certain conflict. “No, my lady. I was referring to your being werewolves.”

“Fuck,” Willow whispered. She held her mate’s hand tighter as a low growl slipped from beneath her mask.

“See?” Lura gestured to the stranger, though her eyes remained locked on Mongrel’s. “This is what comes from not killing them immediately. Now I have to wait for him to receive his last rights before I tear out his--”

“I’m very happy to have gotten the chance to meet you,” Dyst added quickly. “It’s not every day a humble servant of the faith has the opportunity to be disembowled by one of the true god’s most truly astounding creations. If I may trouble you to keep my entrails contained to my person for just a moment longer, I thought we might discuss an opportunity that we both might benefit from.”

“That … wasn’t what I expected to hear,” Mongrel admitted, dropping to a crouch. The deception was revealed, and there was little point in her continuing to uncomfortably stand on two limbs.

“What gave it away?” Willow asked as her hand drifted again to the hilt of her sword.

Dyst’s first response was a slight chuckle, though he halted it immediately, seeming to want to offer no offense. “I’ve seen enough of the true god’s children inflicted with the pox that I know your ‘sister’ very much isn’t. Also your--partner, am I right?--smells like my old cur after a hot day in the field.” This earned him a sad whine from Mongrel. “Oh, blast. That came out all wrong. I didn’t mean it as an insult, quite the contrary. It reminds me of much happier times. I’m so, so sorry. Um …”

Quickly changing the subject, he nodded towards Lura. “She’s taller by far than any man I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard the rumors of a she-demon who was there when Kaipo’s castle was supposedly thrown into the sun. And who was at the wedding of the prince and princess of Breel, the one where they both ended up at the bottom of a well. And at the fire that ruined Ilgaia.”

“Fuck, I don’t even remember that one,” Lura muttered.

“I don’t mean to insist you three are liars, but your friend here most definitely is a killer.”

“We’re not friends,” came the response from all three of them.

“I have to admit, there was no indication from you, my lady.” He nodded towards Willow. “Are you also …?”

“Nope,” Lura answered before adding pettily, “She’s more like a pet. We’re special, she’s not.”

“I see,” said the priest before clearing his throat. “Now if I could ask a few more moments of your time before your friend--associate--eats my heart?”

Lura shrugged. “You may. But only because this is slightly more entertaining than listening to Tree-Cunt freezing to death. I suggest you continue to be interesting.”

The priest nodded, satisfied that for the moment he wasn’t about to be torn apart. “Two gahreer and a woman armed to the teeth traveling alone. One of which has claimed more lives than the god-down-below himself. At night. In order to avoid suspicion, no doubt. Heading towards the ruins of the largest city on the continent at the time of one of the most important festivals of the faith. A festival at which the leader of said faith will be presiding. I never claimed to be a wise man, but it doesn’t take much to discern the reason for your visit. Am I correct?”

The demoness was walking towards him now, slowly, cracking her knuckles casually. Willow had the feeling that when she reached the spot where Dyst sat, the priest would no longer be a factor in their lives. “Why don’t you say the words, Father-Daddy? What divine revelation has been gifted unto you?”

“You’re here to kill the Vicar,” Dyst answered plainly. “To kill the voice of the faithful and the first among servants to the true god.”

Mongrel was crawling towards Lura now, trying to get between her and the stranger. This wasn’t going to end happily.

Despite his imminent death, the priest’s grin was steadily growing. “Like I said, I’m very happy I stumbled upon the three of you tonight.”

“Because you’re going to stop us?” Lura paused her stride. Perhaps she was more amused with this than she had admitted to.

Dyst’s response was simple, clear, and wholly unexpected. “My lady, why in all the nine hells would I want to stop you?”