Home for Horny Monsters

Beth stepped out of the secret tunnel into the center of the Labyrinth, her shoe catching a rock and sending it skittering across the cold stone.

Up above, a large gemstone shone like a tiny star, warming the entire room to a comfortable temperature. Large tables were covered in different magical items in various states of disrepair, and rats moved around in the shadows, carrying what looked like rocks of different sizes.

Ratu was leaning over a stack of books, her kimono hanging open and revealing a patch of scales that traveled along the inner curve of her breast. Her kimono had a phoenix on it that flew in circles and occasionally leapt off of the silken fabric to cross over bare skin and then dove back in.

Across from her was Sofia, who was mumbling to herself while tucking bookmarks into a book. She set it aside and then picked up a new one, an assortment of bookmarks held between the fingers of her free hand.

“Hmm?” The cyclops looked up at Beth, who was followed in by Asterion. “Oh, hey. More news from above?”

“That, and a delivery. Wait, where’s Yuki?”

“The fox is helping the rats.” Ratu sat back and adjusted her kimono. “You see, when the earthquake hit, it apparently fractured large areas of the Labyrinth and they are now being flooded out by the river. One of the only reasons we aren’t underwater right now is because of her ability to freeze large bodies of water with her magic. So tell me about this delivery of yours?”

Asterion stepped forward and lowered his bundle.

“Oh, you have my full attention now.” Ratu abandoned her books and stepped around the table. “Who do we have here?”

Sofia closed the book she had been looking through, her eye wide with interest.

“No idea. We think she was in the new part of the house.” Beth knelt down over the woman on the floor.

 Her hands and feet had been bound, but she was still unconscious. Her frizzy hair was caramel colored, with a pair of ears sticking out of them, and she had a human face with just a slight cleft lip. Patches of black hair started around her neck, and her entire torso was covered in a thin layer of fur. Her belly was white, however, and a matching spot was also on the end of her tail.

“Fascinating.” Ratu knelt down over the woman, her tongue flitting in and out of her lips. “Her facial features suggest post-adolescent reconstruction, and she smells of… wood polish and dust. And what’s this?” She traced her finger along a patch of the woman’s skin that transitioned into fur. “Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Beth, genuinely curious, took a seat nearby.

“Oh, the skin beneath her fur is different than her exposed skin. Like, on a cellular level.” Ratu pulled out a magnifying glass from her sleeve, her green snake-eye magnified through its lens. “Human hair follicles here, but the fur of a cat elsewhere.” She licked her lips, her tongue elongating and hovering over the cat girl’s slumbering form for a second before disappearing. “So she’s human, or was, anyway.”

“Someone made her like this?”

“Oh yes. There are many artifacts across the world that can affect such a transformation. Not much different than that time you were turned to stone, only in this situation, the results were more organic.” Ratu tucked away the magnifying glass.

“Wow. Is there any way to undo it?”

“Experimentally? Perhaps. Without knowledge of the method of her transformation, I’m afraid that anything we did would be extremely risky. Besides, I think we should probably talk to her first. Maybe she’s this way on purpose.”

“I guess.” Beth rubbed her arms. There was a chill in the air. “Other than the flooding, any other problems?”

“Some rocks fell in here.” Sofia pointed to the rats. “They were nice enough to help us clean up this area. And we might have news.” She patted the stack of books next to her. All of them had multiple bookmarks inserted into their pages. “We think we know how to get Mike to the faerie realm.”

“I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic. Will probably drop everything to do it.”

Sofia sighed. “Yeah, I bet he will. You’re still planning to go with him… right?”

“I am.”

Sofia and Ratu exchanged a look.

“Then we need to address the issue of your spiritual hitchhiker first,” Ratu said. “The last thing we need is to discover that Oliver has been biding his time until he can get you alone with Mike. Going to a strange realm would be the perfect time and place for such a move.”

Beth frowned. “So what are we going to do?”

“I have everything ready for that, actually.” Ratu pointed at the woman on the floor. “Asterion, can you please take our guest to the pagoda? Put the irons on her—they’re enchanted to prevent her from leaving—but give her a nice room. Beth, is Jenny with you?”

Beth laughed. “Always.” She turned around to reveal the doll sitting in a handmade pouch that Tink had knitted for her. Jenny dangled her arms over the side and did a slow clap.

“Good. We’ll need her help. I’ll need your help as well, Sofia.” She looked over at Sofia. “And Yuki’s. That should be enough.”

“That’s a lot of hands.” Sofia closed the book she was working on. “But I could use the distraction. I’ll get these put away for safekeeping, and then come join you once I find the fox.”

“Thank you, Sofia. Walk with me, Beth.” 

Ratu walked toward the pagoda, which looked like it had been stolen from a miniature golf course. It was only fifteen feet tall and was decorated in silken flags.  Asterion was ahead of them, and he ducked down to step through the silken folds hanging over the entryway.

Beth stepped through and gazed up. The pagoda was far bigger on the inside, stretching several stories high. She had only been inside a couple of times, but never long enough to explore it properly.

Asterion took the cat girl into one of the rooms on the first floor, but Ratu continued up the ramp that spiraled toward the top. 

Beth followed the naga, pausing to look in one of the rooms on the way. Inside was a lone table with a sphere of water hovering above a marble bowl. Inside the sphere was a necklace with a blue crystal pendant. She had seen it once before.

“What’s that about?” Beth asked.

“Oh. That’s an interesting story I don’t have time for right now. Let’s just say it’s a research project. This way.” Ratu gestured for Beth to follow her, and they climbed the spiral, moving even higher. 

Beth often wondered what would happen if she were to drill a hole in the wall and look outside of it. Would she only be seven feet off the ground? Or would the pagoda burst like a giant balloon, spilling its contents everywhere? If they climbed all the way to the top, would they become tiny?

“In here, please.” 

Ratu pointed to a room with an unusually large entryway, and she realized that they were at the top of the spiral. When she walked in, she expected to find a throne room, or maybe a giant bed for the naga to sleep in while in snake form, but neither of these was the case.

Glowing runes lined the floor and walls, but in the center of the room were a pair of large glass chambers stacked one on top of the other, and both were suspended within a wooden and wire frame. The magical device was an impressive eight feet tall.

Beth stared. “Is that… an hourglass?”

“Sort of. The premise is the same. What goes up top will fall into the bottom. However, this one has been built to allow the flowing of souls from one place to the other.”

Beth’s stomach tightened. “That sounds super dangerous.”

“Oh, it is.” Ratu regarded the device. “Soul magic always is. However, your current situation is potentially worse. Think of it like cancer. For now, that remnant is benign, but it could start to grow, and consume your immortal soul to become something else.”

“Shit. So, what, you’re going to pull my soul out and stick it in that… thing?”

“Ah, that’s where Jenny comes in.” Ratu walked up to the device. “The larger the device, the more chances for error. It’s actually a thought I had the other day. Jenny will inhabit your body and you will be inside the doll. When I put you, as the doll, inside of here and turn it on, your soul will pass to the bottom of the chamber, carrying along the soul shard itself. I’ve designed a filter that will allow your soul to return to the doll and trap the demon soul in this.” She pulled a crystalline container from beneath the hourglass. “I got the idea for this material very recently. It’s capable of holding a human soul indefinitely and should be able to ensure that your parasitic passenger is isolated and contained. Then we put you back in the doll and take you out.”

“So what happens if my soul doesn’t go back into the doll?”

“Jenny’s an expert. She’ll get you back where you need to be, no problem.” Ratu winked. “Worst case scenario, this fails and Jenny gets a body.”

“Ha ha.” Beth examined the equipment again. “How long will it take?”

“Once the device is ready, about twenty minutes. I would like the others here to assist me first, so we should probably make ourselves comfortable.” Ratu looked around the room. “There’s a sitting room just below us that is far more comfortable. We should wait there. Would you like some tea?”

Beth nodded. “Do you have something for frazzled nerves?”

Ratu smiled, then pulled a tin from her sleeves. “I have just the thing.”

“What else do you have in there? I’ve seen you pull stuff out before. Is that a magic kimono? I would kill to have pockets like yours.”

“Oh, I have all sorts of things in here.” Ratu walked toward the door, and Beth followed. “Yes, the kimono is magical. It’s something I made to keep the important things on hand.”

“Like tea?”

“Like tea.” 

Ratu stopped outside of a doorway and gestured inside. Beth walked in and found a small sitting room with a serving table and some comfortable chairs.

“This is lovely.” Beth took a seat and watched the naga put some loose leaf tea inside of a metal ball, then lay it in a teacup.

“Thank you. This pagoda has been my home for many centuries, and it has served me well.”

“Wow, centuries? Do you just take it with you?”

“Oh yes. It takes some doing, but the whole thing comes down much like a tent, and can be rebuilt at a later time. It has been convenient being able to move about without leaving all my research behind.”

“Have you moved often?”

“Indeed.” Ratu pulled a pot of water off of its serving dish and held it in the palms of her hands. Her palms glowed with heat, and a trickle of vapor squeezed out of the opening. “It was actually a stroke of good fortune that Emily found me when she did.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I found myself in a bad situation with little hope of a favourable outcome.” The vapor from the pot was already turning to steam. “Are you familiar with the naga?”

“No, I’m not.”

Ratu smiled demurely. “Once, there were many of us. It was our job to guard the sacred waterways and treasures of the mortal world. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was known to get rather curious about the treasures I was guarding. I was seen as a bit of a troublemaker in this respect. The naga migrated across Asia from our home in the mountains, seeking out new waterways to guard, or even mortals to watch.”

“So what happened? To the other naga?”

“You would know it as the Industrial Revolution. Rivers being poisoned and drying up sickened the naga, and many of them fell prey to mortals or other magical beings. Naga rely on their connection with the earth to maintain their health, both mental and physical. I was one of the lucky ones. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to relocate to the Philippines, and had spent many decades hiding among them from one of my own kind. I avoided some of the unnecessary wars and pollution of the mainland, and was able to lie low when trouble came about.”

“Interesting. So you came from the Philippines?”

Ratu nodded, then poured the water into the cups. “Let that steep first. Yes, I lived there for a very long time. It’s why I look the way I do. Most naga would appear as Indian to you, but we prefer to say that Indian people look like the naga.”

“So you can change your human form?”

“Only during a proper shedding.” Ratu smirked. “During my next shedding, I could choose to look like you if I wished. But then I would be locked into that form for quite some time, and you would come to resent me as you grew old and your own beauty faded.”

“I doubt I’d resent you. I would totally rock my old lady bod.”

Ratu laughed. “I have no doubt. Anyway, while living in the Philippines, I chose to change my facial features to minimize detection, but otherwise remained in this general form. I even lived as a human a few times. It was not hard to find a home in the mountains by my river, and I even partook in human culture, though rarely for long stretches of time.”

“So I could run into a naga almost anywhere?”

“Not quite. They need to live in an underground space with an ample water source, much like the Labyrinth. We like to be connected to the world in this manner. Many of them rarely venture out, but I’ve always been a bit more… curious.”

“If naga can change their shapes, how do you find other naga?”

“We always know. Think of it like true-seeing. Though I may change my face a hundred times, my identity would be known immediately.” Her face darkened, and she looked down at her tea. “That is a story I do not wish to discuss.”

“I won’t ask. I’m just curious about your people is all.” Beth lifted the tea to her lips and paused. She could feel the heat on her lips from the liquid, and assumed she would burn her mouth. “So there are male nagas out there?”

“Indeed. Finer men you will likely never see, but such is the gift of the divine.”

“Do all naga have the patterns like you do?” Beth pointed at her own neck for emphasis.

“Only if they choose. I do it as a reminder that I am more than just this human form.”

Beth sat in silence for a few moments, but had to know. “Are those patterns everywhere?”

Ratu laughed. “You are a rare individual. Yes, those patterns are everywhere, and yes, it does feel different from regular skin.”

A wave of heat filled Beth’s cheeks, and she sipped her tea to hide her embarrassment, promptly burning her tongue. The two of them chatted for awhile about nothing in particular, and it occurred to Beth that she had never really had a chance to get to know the naga on a personal level. Ratu preferred the solitude of the Labyrinth, away from the others, and now Beth wondered why that was.

Eventually, Sofia returned with Yuki, who wore a look of concern on her face.

“Is Mike okay?” she asked upon seeing Beth. “Sofia said there was an attack.”

“He’s fine, though his ego might be a little bruised. He did get beat up by someone half his size.” Beth had just finished her second cup of peppermint tea, and she was feeling much better about what was to come.

“I should have been there.” The kitsune’s eyes glowed for a moment, and then she let out an exasperated sigh. “It really doesn’t matter, though. He finds trouble no matter what he’s doing.”

“He’s like a magnet for it.” Beth set down her cup. “Are we ready?”

“I think so. Come.” Ratu set her cup down as well, and led the group back up to the room with the magical hourglass. Once inside, she had Beth wait by the device, then spoke in low tones with the others.

Beth craned her neck, trying to catch any additional info, but all she caught was bits of magical jargon she didn’t understand, and a level of seriousness from all three of them that made her nervous. She pulled Jenny out of her sling and held her tight against her chest.

“You wouldn’t let anything happen to me, would you?”

The doll’s head rotated a hundred and eighty degrees to look Beth in the face, then winked.

“Okay, remember the ‘do fewer creepy things’ talk? This is a creepy thing.”

Jenny’s head swiveled forward, and Beth shivered.

“Okay, we’re ready.” Ratu walked up to Beth, then looked down at Jenny. “Yuki is going to help me regulate the flow of magic into the device. I estimate that her assistance will triple the chances of success. Sofia’s unique ability to tap into the future will be used to prevent the device from overloading, which eliminates almost every other potentially bad outcome.”

“I get to stand next to the device and yell at them if it’s about to explode,” the cyclops grumbled.

Ratu waved a hand dismissively. “Any questions before we begin?”

“No.” Beth handed Jenny to Ratu. “But this is the fucking weirdest girl’s night ever.”

“It isn’t night time, but we’re getting close.” Ratu took the doll. “I’m not certain what you may experience while in spirit form, but do your best to hang on.”

“Let’s just get it over with.” Beth looked at the doll. “That’s your cue.”

Jenny’s eyes glowed, and the world became a gray mist until all that was left was Jenny and Beth.

A shadow stretched itself out of the doll, and Jenny stepped free, her long hair obscuring her face. She took a few lurching steps toward Beth, then rolled her head to one side to reveal a macabre grin. Jenny lifted her arm and poked Beth in the shoulder.

“Tag. You’re it.” Though her voice was just a whisper, the whole world imploded, and then went dark.

---

“We’re sure this is the room she came from?” Mike stood in the second floor hallway, his eyes on the door in front of him. The hallway used to be L-shaped, but with the appearance of the latest addition, it now split at the end.

“Quite sure, Lord Mike.” Reggie stood farther back, a rat guard on each side. “Her scent trail comes to this room.”

“Oh boy.” He put his hand on the door, then looked at Tink. “You sure about this?”

The goblin’s goggles were over her eyes, but he knew that they were both bloodshot from the fight earlier. He had practically dragged Tink to the centaur village for some quick medical care, and she had dragged him back after they declared her ornery, but fine.

She now wore fierce grin and held a crossbow aimed at the door.

“Tink ready.”

He pushed open the door and stepped aside, allowing Tink to rush in. The rats followed, and he and Reggie brought up the rear.

“Huh.” The room was practically empty. Tink was surveying the perimeter, but unless there was a secret door hidden away, there wasn’t anything to be seen. A broken harp had been tipped over in the corner, and the floors were made of wood. “What is this place?”

“Empty. Room good for music and dance.” Tink pushed her goggles up. “Tink remember, Emily play music box in here.”

“What music box?”

“Tink no see.” The goblin touched the walls, then looked out the window. “No place for sneaky cat bitch to hide.”

“Do you suppose she was trapped?” He looked around the room, then turned at the sound of footsteps.

Dana stepped around the corner carrying a small toolbox.

“There you are. So far, nothing major to report. Some roof damage and you need new windows. There was a temporary clog in the fountain, but Naia and I fixed it.” She paused and surveyed the room, then looked at the harp. “So this is where she came from?”

“Yeah. I didn’t get the sense that she was after me or anything. It was more like she was trying to run away.”

“Makes sense. Maybe she got locked away in here and wanted her freedom.” Dana set the toolbox down. “I took a peek in the room downstairs. Didn’t see anything lurking about, but you should probably come down and check it out with me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s full of all sorts of things. Easier for you to just come see it.” Dana took a look around. “Far more interesting than this room. This place looks like it’s been cleaned out.”

He nodded, then headed for the door. Tink looked up from the harp, then set it down to follow. Reggie stopped at the stairs, then looked up.

With a series of grunts and squeaks, he sent the rat soldiers up the stairs.

“If anybody comes out of the third floor, we will know.” He adjusted his plastic glasses and followed them down the stairs, holding Tink’s hand to walk on his back legs.

At the bottom, they turned into the office and Mike saw Death standing outside the new room, bony fingers stroking his chin and a cup of tea in the other.

“Ah, Mike Radley, you have found a most interesting space. I have been waiting for you to join me, and—” Death’s fiery orbs looked beyond Mike. “Is that a magical toolbox?”

“What?” He looked at the toolbox Dana was holding. “Why do you think it’s magical?”

Death pushed Mike aside and knelt down to inspect it. “What sort of magic makes it float like this? And it seems to be following you, Mike Radley.”

Dana  frowned. “He has a weird sense of humor, doesn’t he?”

“You can see him?” Mike asked.

“Of course, but we’ve never talked or anything.” She pointed at herself. “I did technically die, so I thought that explained why I could see him. But whenever I tried to talk with him, he just kept looking at his maps. I figured maybe he was pissed that I got away or something, so I’ve just been leaving him alone.”

“Mike Radley, who are you talking to?” Death was looking near where Dana stood, his bony brow furrowed.

“I’m talking to Dana. You… can you not see her?”

“I am capable of seeing anything with a soul, yet I only see you, the goblin, and His Majesty, the Rat King. Are you saying there is somebody else here?” Death held out a bony hand. “You may call me Death. I am pleased to meet you.”

“Oh, I still have my soul. That’s the problem.” Dana reached out for his hand, but her hand passed through it. “I can’t touch him, apparently.”

“Her hand went through yours,” Mike explained.

“Fascinating.” Death stood up and swallowed some more tea. “You have brought me a better room to conduct my studies in, and an intriguing mystery. Today has been a wonderful day for me.”

Mike shook his head in disbelief. “I’m happy for you, Death. Really.”

Death let out a chuckle and stepped away from Dana. “I am learning so much in your home.”

“Yeah, so am I.” He shook his head with a grin, then turned to look in the new room. 

It was well decorated, and had several bookshelves covered with a variety of items. On one wall was a large collection of pictures and some devices that looked like goggles with sticks on them, and the other wall had a large phonograph machine. Covering the walls was a bewildering assortment of artifacts that looked like they came straight out of a museum, and in the middle of the room was a large, ebony table with a stack of records on it.

“See what I mean?” Dana walked over to the phonograph. “Now that you’re here, I can try this out and see if it works.”

“Why do I have to be here?” he asked.

“In case it doesn’t. Didn’t want to take the blame.” She smirked, and picked up a record and put in on the phonograph. Mike watched her mess with the device until the scratchy tones of an old record filled the room with soft music.

“Sounds like it works.”

“Yeah. The record isn’t labeled though, and I didn’t take enough liberal arts classes to tell you what song it is.”

“Tink like phonograph.” The goblin moved toward the device, then took a step back. “But Tink no touch. Break too many times.”

“Break it as much as you like,” Mike told her. “I’ll just have you fix it.”

Tink grinned, and Dana handed her a record. While the two of them messed with the phonograph, he circled the room. What looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs had been carved into the sides of the shelves, and several of the pictures were printed in duplicate.

“Weird.” He held up a picture of a dig site. The pictures seemed old, but the clarity of the image was amazing. In the one he held, a large statue was being excavated. “Why are there two of every copy?”

“Oh, neat.” Dana picked up one of the goggles and held it to her face. “These are stereoscopes. Here.” She took the picture from him and set it in the frame, then fiddled with a knob at the top. “Now look.”

When he held it to his eyes, he saw the world of the picture extend into three-dimensions. “That is pretty cool.”

“Right, Mike Radley?” Death’s voice came from over his shoulder, and he nearly dropped the stereoscope. Death had found a stereoscope of his own and was looking at a picture of a pyramid. “This is way more interesting than a map.”

“I’m sure.” He looked around, then spotted a large statue tucked in an alcove clutching a scepter. “Is that Anubis?”

Dana looked up at the statue. “It might be. Certainly looks straight out of the movies, doesn’t it?”

“Wasn’t he a death god or something? Shit.” He set his stereoscope down. “Let’s leave for now. I feel like we’re just going to end up cursed or something if we go digging through all this stuff without the necessary precautions. Last thing I need is to unleash the mummy’s wrath or something.”

A loud screech filled the room, causing him to jump. Everyone turned to look at Tink, who had lifted up a panel on the phonograph, causing the record to pop off. The goblin blushed, then lowered the panel.

“May I continue to use this room, Mike Radley?”  the Grim Reaper asked.

“Yes, but no fighting with Anubis.” He pointed at the statue. “There’s plenty of room in my heart for both of you.”

“You are a good soul, Mike Radley.” Death held the stereoscope to his face.

“So… upstairs?” He looked at Tink and Reggie. The goblin and the Rat King nodded, and they left Death behind to enjoy the pictures in the room.

---

“Hello?”

Beth hovered in the void, her eyes on a shape in the distance. There were no stars, no ground, just blackness, save for something that looked suspiciously like an antique lamp post. She tried to kick or swim through the void, but was unable to discern any sort of movement.

From all around her came a low pitched buzzing sound that turned on and off intermittently. She wondered if she was hearing voices from the real world, or if this was some dumb version of purgatory.

Typically, when she and Jenny exchanged places, she was unconscious for all of it. She wondered now if her soul was already inside of the device, slowly being extracted into the lower chamber.

She would have shivered at the thought, if she had a proper body.

The light from the lamp post flickered, and she realized that she was moving closer to it. She let out a sigh, relieved to see something other than a yawning void around her.

Her limbs were transparent until she stepped into the light of the lamp. The lamp post stood on a round patch of cobblestone roughly ten feet in diameter. Curious, she crouched down and looked at the edge of the island she was on. The ground flickered and expanded with the light of the torch, and she tried to feel the edges of the ground with her fingers, only for her hands to vanish once they were outside of the light.

“Light equals matter. Okay.” She walked around the edge of the island, but learned nothing new, then turned her attention toward the lamp.

It was ornate, and roughly ten feet tall. The flame inside was far too bright to look at directly, so she focused on the wrought iron structure beneath. Intricate patterns shifted along the length of the lamp, and the flickering light above cast twisted shadows down its length.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

The voice startled her, and she spun on one foot, her back slamming against the lamp.

“You!” she hissed.

“Me.” Oliver stepped out of the darkness, wearing a white button down shirt and dress pants. His red skin was paler than usual, and his tie had been undone, hanging limply over his shoulders. “Or, at least as much me as I ever remember being.”

“So you survived.” She stepped around the lamp, putting it between her and the demon. Mike and Yuki had rescued her from an eternal damnation with the demon by putting a dagger through his head and then popping the dimension he was trapped in, like bursting a bubble. With nowhere to go, it was assumed that Oliver had simply ceased to exist.

“And you’d be right, in a manner of speaking.” Oliver grinned, without a hint of malice. “Of course I can hear your thoughts. You are literally just a soul right now. It’s like reading a book for me.”

“How are you here?”

“I’m that little part of me that Oliver left on you. Maybe, in a way, I’m technically just an offshoot of the original, or what’s left of him.” He held up his hands to reveal that, despite the light’s presence, they were semi-transparent. “I’m afraid that something like this is beyond my own knowledge, at least, until you ask me about it. Upon your destruction of my dimension, the universe hung on a coin toss involving the fate of the demon you knew as Oliver. Should he be freed and dumped back into the material plane? Or was his place in eternal destruction? His opinion could hardly be asked, as that cursed blade kept him from waking.”

“So he is gone.”

“He is, but he isn’t. The Void is funny like that. By nature, non-existence is a paradox. I can have an empty box, or a full box, but the Void itself cannot be an empty box, because that would imply that something exists in the first place. I guess you could say that he went to the same place that your dreams do when you’re awake.”

“You mean like the Dreamscape?”

He laughed. “Hardly. I mean your ordinary, run of the mill dreams. When you meet a stranger inside of them, where have they come from, and where do they go? Did they truly live full lives until you chanced upon them, and have they died upon your awakening?”

“This sounds suspiciously like an effort to get me to discuss philosophy with you.”

“Or maybe it’s an attempt to get you to ask the right question so that I may decide what my fate is to be.” He circled to the left, but Beth moved, keeping the lamp between them. “You see, I’m not sure what I am. I’m a ghost of a shadow of a memory at best. In fact, I have no true memory of a time before this moment. I am still everything that Oliver was, but everything I know, I know from your memories. Now I wonder if I’m simply a figment of your imagination.”

“Then I guess you want to know what comes next?”

He nodded. “When you wake, do I die? Will I persist again? Is my eternity conscripted to this all too brief and bleak existence, or is there some hope of salvation?”

“Sounds like you’re wrestling with the same shit people do every day.” Beth leaned against the lamp post, pressing her cheek against the cool metal. “Until I met everyone at the house, I wondered those same things. Is there life after death? What happens to people when they die? All that fun stuff. Those questions account for a majority of mankind’s decisions, in my opinion.”

“Oh?” Oliver sat down, as if on a chair, but none was visible. “You have my curiosity.”

“Do we have souls? What’s the meaning of life? If I do this, do I get into heaven? All those things. You can either live in existential terror over every decision, or simply accept that you just don’t know. Approach death in the same way that you approached birth.” She arched an eyebrow. “Welcome to being a fucking human being.”

“And what would you have of me? Should I not know what will happen when you leave this place? I’m not even sure what this place is.” He looked over his shoulder into the darkness. “Nor am I sure how we are here.”

A loud buzzing sound filled the space, loud enough that they both covered their ears until it was over.

“What the fuck was that?” Beth growled.

Oliver’s yellow eyes flashed. “Magical dissonance. Whatever is holding us here is struggling to contain us. We are hearing a physical manifestation of a magical ripple effect.”

“Oh.” She realized she hadn’t meant to ask the question. “So you don’t know what’s causing it?”

“No. You asked what that noise was, and that’s all I got.” He stood from his imaginary chair. “And you remember that I cannot lie.”

“That I do.” But what if the rules had changed?

“You would have no way of knowing.” He grinned, his teeth on display. “I’ve decided that I want to play a game.”

“And what if I refuse?”

“Well, such a refusal would indeed be your choice, but consider this; I have no idea what will happen to me when you leave this place, if I will live or die, but now I wonder what would happen to me if I were to find a way to dispose of you instead. Perhaps my fate would be the same, or maybe I would be allowed to go free in your stead.”

“You have no idea how much I fucking hate you.”

“I have some idea. While I don’t remember existing before this moment, I do have access to those shared memories.” He licked his lips. “It’s a weird thought, isn’t it? If not for my memories, perhaps I would be a different creature, yet here I am, ready to make the same mistakes all over again.”

“So what’s the game you wish to play?”

“Hide and seek.”

“There’s nowhere to hide. We’re surrounded by darkness.”

“Then I think I will let you hide first. If I find you, you have to ask me the question of my choosing.”

“What’s the question?”

“How do I get out of here? We could skip the game and you could simply help me.”

Beth swallowed the lump in her throat. There was no way she could let him out. “And if I refuse?”

Oliver fanned out his fingers, revealing long talons. “I spend whatever time I have left shredding your skin off your body, or maybe even bite pieces of you off until I’m full. Maybe find a way to curse you to the same fate I suffered.”

“Why even give me a choice?”

His eyes shone. “Because we are tied together. And you know how much I love my games.”

Shit, shit, shit. Beth backed away from the lamp post. “I’m not going to agree to anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to count to twenty to give you a fair shot.” He winked. “And when I catch you, we’ll see who comes out on top. This time, you don’t have your friends to bail you out. It’s just you and me here, and whatever lies in the darkness.”

“But I—”

“One.” Oliver covered his eyes with his hands, then let out a scary laugh. His fingers were now triple their original length, with inch-long talons. The scene was almost comical because his head disappeared in his over-sized palms. “Two.”

Beth bolted out into the darkness, her body disappearing. The little island receded behind her, and she chanced a look back. Oliver stood beneath the light, but she could no longer hear him.

Realizing that she could move backwards just as fast, she turned to keep an eye on him, then drifted sideways a bit. It would be no good traveling in a straight line, especially if he could move faster than she did.

The island was tiny now, and the universe buzzed again.

The demon lowered his hands and leapt toward where she had been, slapping the light out of the lamp post. Flames scattered into the darkness, creating a weird pattern of visions to emerge as unseen objects caught on fire. Her mind twisted about in an effort to understand what she was seeing. The entire world briefly looked like a crystalline lattice, then exploded with light.

“Oof!” She had fallen hard onto the ground, rolling on a patch of grass.

“Beth!” A voice from her past called out to her, and she looked up to see that she was lying on a soccer field. She now wore a jersey and a pair of gym shorts. Scanning the area, she stood and brushed herself off.

“What are you doing over there?” The voice asked again, and she rolled her eyes. It was Janine Lucillo, her best friend from middle school. Her family had moved away the summer before freshman year, and Beth had been devastated.

She turned around to see the plucky brunette running toward her, arms waving in the air. Beth surveyed the area. Yep, it was her former middle school. However, from where she stood, the middle school looked like it had been painted on the wall, and even the clouds above were suspect.

It was like a giant soundstage. Anything farther than a hundred feet away was clumsily made or just painted on the background.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you.” Janine grabbed her by the hand. “I needed to talk to you about something.”

Janine looked so small.

“What is this place? Why are you here?”

Janine frowned. “Um, so, like, my dad found a new job.”

“Uh huh.” Was this some sort of trick? She didn’t see anybody else nearby, but needed to keep moving.

“It means my family has to move.” Janine’s eyes were watering up now, and Beth looked at her again.

“Oh.” This was a memory. In fact, this was the day that Janine told her she was going to have to move. The two of them had cried all afternoon, then ridden their bikes to the mall for ice cream. But why this memory?

Janine was crying now, having the other half of a conversation that Beth wasn’t participating in. She wandered away, leaving the distraught teen behind her. The school was the only building that was nearby, but it had been painted onto the horizon. She wondered if the door to the building might work. If so, the school would have plenty of places to hide.

The whole world rumbled again, and Beth looked at the sky. Other than the birds that had been painted over the clouds, everything seemed fine.

She broke into a jog, and immediately noticed that the definition of the building changed as she grew closer. The building painted onto the wall appeared to stretch and distort toward her, suddenly becoming real. Beth looked back over her shoulder to see Janine and a younger version of herself painted on the soccer field. Both of them were crying and holding each other.

It was like the island, only now she was the light. Was it the same way for Oliver? Was he running toward a picture of her right now, just waiting for it to become three-dimensional?

The middle school was built of brick with large glass windows. She couldn’t quite see through the glass, but the interior looked like it was painted on as well.

Pulling on the door, she stepped inside and froze. There were dozens of versions of herself running around, all of them different ages.

Curious, she picked one to follow. It was the sixth grade version of her, and she was running to her locker with her hand over her mouth. Once Beth drew close, the little girl disappeared and Beth now wore her outfit.

Something was in her hand. It was a piece of paper, and she lifted it to reveal that the writing was obscure, but the large red F on the page was not.

“Oh.” She remembered this. It had been a book report, and while everyone else had chosen things like The Babysitter Club, she had written a full report on a book she had found under her mother’s bed. The title was long lost to her, but she remembered getting in trouble for writing a report on smut.

In-school detention, followed by a meeting with her parents, she thought her life had been over. 

Moving through the halls, she tried to dig up some more memories of her childhood to confirm her theory. She turned the corner of the hallway and saw another version of herself in a white dress walking sideways toward the front door, the wall to her back while Janine ran ahead to open the door.

“Awesome.” These weren’t just regular memories, but were some of her most intense ones. Janine had helped her get home without the rest of the school knowing she had bled through her dress.

Home. 

How many memories did she have there? Could Oliver see all of her memories? Maybe it made sense to surround herself with copies of herself, but she would need to find some that were a bit older in order to make that happen.

She caught up to Janine, and her outfit changed into a school appropriate white dress. When they ran outside, there was a large perspective shift. Instead of the two mile walk to her house, it had been shortened to a couple hundred feet, the entire walk squished down onto a pair of distant panels. If she moved toward the wall, the world expanded just a bit. Were her memories being compressed? On some level, it made sense,.

Upon reaching her house, she came to a stop. Janine vanished into the cacophony of Beths of various ages that spiraled around the house. She had grown up in only one house, and it was strange to see hundreds of versions of her parents standing nearby.

“I need the older ones,” she said, moving across the front yard. 

Her outfit shifted several dozens of times as she overlapped and became the different versions of herself. Each Beth was printed on a transparent film, and the more she focused, the more of them flipped away like pages in a book, vanishing from view. Little Beths no longer rode their bikes, or tried to skateboard for the first (and last) time, and several memories of Janine vanished as well.

“C’mon, c’mon.” Here was a teenage version of herself screaming at her mother. An older teen holding a college acceptance letter. Her dad chewing out a boy on the front porch for bringing her home late while she cowered behind the door.

The home held so many memories, and she tried to concentrate on specific ones. Visits from college, or beyond. When was the last time she had gone to see her parents? She was always working these days, and now she wondered how much they missed her.

Once inside the house, she took a quick look around the living room. Sleepovers, baking cookies with mom, doing math homework with Dad. Seeing her parents when they were young tugged at her heartstrings, and she got caught up watching her parents chase a seven year old Beth around the living room couch.

“Focus,” she growled through her teeth, and several of the phantoms vanished. She wandered through the house, wondering if she should try and find a more recent memory to hide inside of. But where? She had followed herself here, maybe she could follow an older version out?

The world buzzed, and she looked out the front window of the house. On the painted wall in the distance was a dark splotch that was slowly growing wider.

Of course. Nobody in the world knew her better than Oliver had. The demon had been inside her head, watching and waiting. Undoubtedly, he would look for her where she was most likely to hide, and it wouldn’t be long before he was here.

Could Oliver predict her next moves? He had been able to read her mind, after all. Could he still read it, even now?

“Shit!” If he could, it didn’t matter where she went. Then again, wouldn’t he have caught her much sooner?

She needed to make an unpredictable move. He knew she would try to hide in one of her own memories if he drew near, but which one?

Out front, she saw herself get into a car loaded with boxes and back down the driveway with her dad at the wheel. That was moving day. They had stopped for lunch at a barbecue place, and he had reminded her that college could be fun and amazing, but to never lose sight of what was important.

Another car backed out of the driveway, a fifteen year old Beth clutching the wheel nervously. It was her first driving lesson, and her mom was already frazzled because Beth had already pulled forward into the trash cans on accident.

Several other cars were leaving all at once, superimposed over each other. It would make the most sense to hop in one of them and go, thus leaving the demon behind.

It made the most sense, so she needed to do the opposite. Focusing again on the older versions of herself, she caught sight of a twenty year old Beth sneaking onto the front porch, her eyes looking up and down the street. A brown package had been placed on the doorstep, and she grabbed it and took it into the house.

Beth watched herself run up to her bedroom and heard the door click shut. She knew exactly what was about to happen, and ran up the stairs. She pushed open the door to her room to see herself slowly opening the box, a look of hungry anticipation on her face.

Her first couple of years in college had involved sharing a room with Julianna Price, one of the biggest prudes she had ever met. Beth had ordered a dildo online called the Devil’s Knot, and had it delivered to her parents house over winter break. She had been afraid her parents would see the package, and had watched out her bedroom window for the delivery truck for almost ten hours to make sure she grabbed it.

This was it, the memory she needed. Oliver was expecting her to hide, but she was going to do it in plain sight. Everything about what she was going to do seemed absolutely insane, which made it the perfect choice. It was a lateral move, and she hoped the demon couldn’t predict it.

She stepped into the memory, and her clothing changed to a pair of flannel pajamas with bears wearing scarves on them. The Devil’s Knot was clutched tightly in her hands, and she marveled at how thick it felt. In the middle of the large red dildo was a knot roughly the size of her fist, a knot that had gotten her off almost every time she came home for a visit until she got her first apartment.

It had been the first in her collection, but she had parted with it long ago when it had developed some cracks in the rubber. It had been an early lesson in dildo maintenance, and a costly one for a college student who was usually short on spending money.

A chill settled over the house, and the world buzzed again. Downstairs, the front door slammed open.

“Lucy, I’m home!” Oliver’s voice resonated through the house.

Beth cleared her mind, letting the memory carry her away. She had used cash that she had saved on the side to buy a gift card to purchase the Devil’s Knot. She had first seen it in an article about unusual sex toys, and had quickly become the sole focus of her attention. Back in her dorm room, she had three different vibrators hidden away, but they could no longer touch the itch that the Knot had created for her.

It had a suction cup, but she worried that the wooden floor would become stained by the amount of lube she would pour over it. The last thing she needed was to explain the magic sex circle that would inevitable appear in her room, so she carried it into the bathroom and searched for a suitable place to put it.

She considered the bathroom counter, but imagined what would happen if she slipped and fell. Which one of her parents would bust into her bathroom to find her ass in the air and the Knot dangling from her pussy? Would she clench up, causing the Knot to become fixed in place, thus requiring an emergency room trip?

Nope. Not the counter. Her bathtub had a wide rim, and the floor would probably work. However, the floor was very cold, and she was more than a little scared of the Knot itself. She wanted to have more control over the situation, to take it one step at a time.

Below, she heard furniture being tossed about, and Oliver growled.

She decided on mounting it vertically on the rim of the tub. With a little squirt of water, she stuck it on the porcelain surface and appraised it with a grin.

“Ah, fuck.” She had forgotten to wash it first. Pulling it off was difficult, but once she did, a little bit of soap and water put her mind at ease, and she reattached it, then grabbed the free sample of lube that had come with it.

The process was clinical, but she covered the whole thing in lube, her hands expanding around the thick part, causing her stomach to tighten. This was really going to happen; she was actually going to try to fit this thing inside of her.

Should she go completely naked? Or would it make more sense to keep something on in case her parents came to check on her? There were so many ways this could go wrong, and each one ended in some form of abject humiliation.

A door below her squeaked, and she recognized it as the door to the basement. Growing up, she had been convinced that some form of evil lived down there, but when she was older, she learned that most of her monsters were just the old furnace kicking on and breathing life into the house.

The basement was somewhere she never would have hidden, and the fact that she could hear Oliver clomping down the stairs while monologuing meant that he was trying to outguess her. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but could hear him scratching at the walls as he descended.

She kept her shirt on. For some reason, she felt embarrassed getting completely naked, and that extra layer of clothing meant the difference between moving forward or cleaning off her toy and waiting until her parents weren’t home.

“Okay, so…” Playtime was typically relegated to an ‘under the blanket and pretend I’m napping if Julianna comes home early’ affair, and the freedom of having the whole room to herself left her with some options. Did she want to take her time and get in the mood first? Or did she want to get off and clean up before anybody found out?

The Devil’s Knot demanded a certain level of respect, and she knew that trying to get off in a hurry wasn’t going to be easy. She made a quick trip to her bedroom and grabbed a pocket vibrator from her underwear drawer, then came back to the bathroom and spread her towel out on the floor to keep her legs from getting chilly.

She turned on the vibrator and touched it to her clit. A jolt went through her pelvis, and she sighed in approval. It had been a few days, a deliberate decision on her part. The first time with the Devil’s Knot needed to be special, but she also wanted to be properly excited for it. Julianna’s Bible group met every Tuesday and Thursday evening, and Beth had practiced stretching herself out with hairbrush handles, Sharpie markers—whatever she could find that was in her desk.

The wait had been long, but now it felt like Christmas, only she knew that the biggest package under the tree was for her.

“Ho, ho, ho, little girl,” she mumbled in her best Santa voice, scooting toward the dildo. “You’ve been very good this year.”

“Oh, I certainly have, Santa.” She spoke in falsetto this time, letting out a grunt while she teased the opening of her snatch with the vibrator. “I get good grades, live with a bitchy prude, and all I want is a little monster dick for Christmas.”

“How about a big monster dick—” she said with a laugh, unable to keep a straight face any longer. Roleplaying while masturbating seemed like something that would be forever beyond her.

She closed her eyes and let images of monster porn run through her mind. If there was one thing the internet was good for, it was giving her plenty of material for the spank bank, a term she had overheard in one of her classes.

She scooped some of the lube off of the Knot and teased herself, pushing one finger inside. The sensation was incredible, but even better was how wet she was once she got past her labia.

Fingering herself helped, and she kept stroking her clit with the vibrator while she added a second finger, and then a third, getting good and properly ready. Her eyes were locked onto the top of the Devil’s Knot now. The tip looked largely like a regular cock, but tapered to a point with a split down the middle.

The buzz resonated through the house, temporarily breaking her out of the memory.

Crashing noises from below were followed by the sound of low growls, and then the sound of Oliver traipsing up the stairs. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she let herself slip back into the memory.

There was nothing seductive about the way she stood and positioned herself over the rubber cock, and she nearly lost her nerve when she saw her reflection in the mirror. She sat down with the cock between her legs, the thick knot resting against her lower belly.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, giving the cock a flick. The tip bounced against her belly. Was it even going to fit?

The thought flooded her with heat, and she took a deep breath and stood up.

Oliver shoved his way into her room, dark smoke drifting from his scalp and forming a cape on his back. He squinted, his eyes on a version of her trying on dresses for the prom.

“I know you’re in here,” he hissed, then crossed her room and vanished. Her closet door opened. “Which one are you?” he muttered.

He can’t filter them out. Was that because these were her memories? How many hundreds of versions of her did he see right now?

Oliver froze, his head turning toward the bathroom.

She stood up and placed the tip of the Devil’s Knot between her labia, then lowered herself a couple of inches, her eyes closing as she savored the sensation of her vaginal canal filling up with medical grade rubber.

“Unf.” I just need to turn the keys and drive off, he’ll never be able to find me. When she opened her eyes, she could see the demon regarding her from the door of the bathroom.

“There you are.” He opened his claws wide and moved forward, but Beth kept her gaze unfocused, looking past him.

Wait, is this the time I head out to college? Dad drove me, shit. No, wait, here we go, that road trip down to Florida. Yeah, there we go.

Oliver swung at something she couldn’t see. The thick knot of the dildo was now pressing against her labia, and she paused to add a bit more lube. She used the vibrator on her clit again, humming along with the little toy as she did a series of small bounces against the thick rubber invader.

“Mmh, yeah, that’s… yes…” Oliver was looking directly at her now, and he took a step forward and raised his claws.

In her mind’s eye, she pictured turning the keys in the ignition, and the stereo blaring to life. She always left it turned way up, and the speakers pumped Christina Aquilera’s Genie in a Bottle throughout the car.

“Fuck.” Oliver turned around and bolted, and she heard his heavy footsteps slam down the stairs. Beth kept her mind on the song, playing it at full volume while she bounced on the knot.

“Oh… fuck…” The knot was slowly making headway as she loosened up, and she pushed herself onto it, feeling that thick bulge work its way inside of her. The Devil’s Knot was no joke, and she wondered if she would ever be able to make it fit the rest of the way.

“Fuck it.” She poured a liberal amount of lube all over her lap and forced herself down onto the cock. A small bulge formed above her pubic hair as the knot was shoved inside of her, and she clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.

The world buzzed again, and the room shook. She fell sideways off the tub, and the Devil’s Knot slid with her, then popped free of the porcelain surface of the bathtub’s rim. When she hit the ground, the dildo popped free of her and smacked the side of the tub with a loud splat, scattering lube all over.

“Ow, shit!” This wasn’t what had happened before, and the sound of footsteps coming through the house and up the stairs filled her with dread.

“Sneaky little bitch,” the demon said as he stepped into her bedroom, his eyes on her prone form. Beth used the bathroom counter to stand, and picked up the towel to cover her nakedness. “Looks like I found you.”

He charged at her, but slipped on the lube and crashed into her legs instead. Beth scrambled over him, but he grabbed her leg with one hand and pulled her down.

“Ask me the question,” he demanded, flames crackling around his eyes. “Ask me before this place falls apart!”

“Eat a dick.” She grabbed the base of the Devil’s Knot and smacked him across the face with it, covering him in lube and blinding him. He snarled and scooped lube out of his eyes, and Beth pulled herself into the bedroom, her outfit changing into a pair of overalls with paint on them.

The time mom helped me paint my room. It had been when she was fifteen, and her mother had declared that it was time for Beth’s room to look like a grown-up’s. The two of them had spent all weekend doing it.

That also meant that the floor was now covered in tarps and paint cans, and she stumbled over the ladder her mom had used to paint the ceiling. Oliver stepped out of the bathroom, goo dripping off his face, then grabbed Beth by her overalls and picked her up.

The world buzzed and shook so hard that the floor creaked beneath them. Oliver tossed her across the room and onto her bed, her outfit changing in midair into her red sequined prom dress, then a pair of pajamas. He showed her the razor sharp teeth in his mouth and held his arms out wide to reveal his distorted, demonic hands.

“You’re almost out of time,” he growled. The whole world buzzed again, and this time, cracks formed along the floor and ceiling. The painted sky out her window had giant cracks in it as well, and Beth let out a yelp of terror, then gritted her teeth.

“Never going to happen.” She flipped him the bird and threw herself backward into her bedroom window. The glass didn’t shatter, but split and stretched like old cellophane. She fell into her front yard, the breath knocked from her body, but she managed to get to her feet anyway. This place wasn’t real, and she didn’t need to breathe. All she needed to do was run, and she was now wearing a jogging outfit.

Her memories were cracking like glass and shattering all around her, and the buzzing now played nonstop. Everything tilted left, and she lost her footing and tumbled into her neighbor’s yard. The trees and bushes were little more than painted pieces of particle board, and she bounced off the oak tree only to tip over the nearby hedge. Suddenly dizzy, she fell down a few feet later, her hands clutching at the grass to keep from sliding back into the street. Everything tilted until she was almost vertical lying on the ground.

“Do it now, Beth!” Oliver was digging his claws into the soil to crawl his way over to her, his crimson eyes blazing with anger. His skin was burning, bits of it falling away as ash. “Ask me how to escape!”

“I’d rather die than let you out.” she told him, then let go of the grass.

She fell, her feet punching holes in the side of the house. That infernal buzzing was now shaking the world apart, and she tried to free herself to get away. Oliver slammed into the siding, the skin of his face splitting down the middle to reveal the scaly skin beneath.

“Then that’s what will happen.” He grabbed her by the throat and pulled her free, a large grin on his face. The whole sky now had a crack across it, and Beth could now hear angry shouting fill her world.

She met Oliver’s gaze and spat in his face. “Looks like it’s gonna be a tie, asshole.”

The demon opened his mouth wide, and pulled her face into his jaws. She closed her eyes, trying to avoid the scream that had built up in her chest.

Olivers’ teeth slammed together, just missing her face. Beth was yanked from his grasp, bouncing along the side of the house and coming to a stop at a pair of pale, bare feet. She looked up in awe at the dark and mottled spirit standing over her.

Jenny regarded the demon before her with curiosity, then looked down at Beth.

“You did thirst for blood, and with blood I fill you.” Jenny’s lips didn’t move, her voice coming from everywhere.

“Oh, I know who you are. You don’t frighten me, you—” the siding on the house exploded, turning into dozens of sharp, wooden spears that punctured the demon and held him in place. He made little gasping sounds, his limbs twitching in place.

Jenny grabbed Beth’s hand, then pulled her to her feet.

“Do you…” Beth looked at Oliver. “Get me out of here, please.”

The ghost let out an eerie laugh, then pulled Beth to the side of the house. Behind them, the wood was already crackling as Oliver ripped it apart. When Jenny tossed herself over the side of the house, Beth followed.

They were falling through the sky, moving toward the crack in it. The buzzing sound was loud enough that she could hear nothing else. While tumbling, she looked back over her shoulder to see that Oliver was now behind them, looking like he lost a fight with a mutant porcupine.

She shouted to Jenny, who was ahead of her, but the ghost didn’t look back. Drawing closer to the crack, the world dimmed and then turned black as it had before. Light poured through the opening, and she was almost there when a clawed hand grabbed onto her foot.

“No!” she cried as Oliver pulled her back into the void. A clammy hand clamped onto her wrist, and she looked up to see Jenny grabbing the edge of the crack with one hand while holding Beth with the other.

Stuck in a tug of war between the two, Beth lashed out, kicking at Oliver with her feet. His body was now breaking apart and crumbling into nothingness, his mouth open wide in agony. She missed him the first few times, but her final kick hit him in the jaw, and his face exploded into a cloud of ash. His grip now gone, she rocketed through the gap and into the light. She screamed in rage, pain, and fear. The world tilted again, but this time, a pair of hands caught her.

“Seal it!” Ratu shouted, and there was a loud pop as the device was shut off. Ratu helped Beth into a sitting position, where she held her stomach and sobbed uncontrollably.

Minutes went by, and Ratu stroked Beth’s head while she cried. 

Through her tears, Beth saw that the top of the device had been blown apart, and Jenny was held in place by a busted wire. The bottom half of the device was cracked in multiple places, and beneath it was the crystalline container Ratu had showed her. Inside the chamber was a black ooze that bubbled like hot mud as it gradually became clearer.

“Is… is he gone?” Beth finally asked.

“Is that what happened in there? Did the demon make an appearance?”

Beth nodded. “He was inside there with me.”

“I didn’t account for that level of sentience. It may be a result of extinguishing the original host, but no matter. Your soul got caught up in the filter with his, and he wasn’t letting go of you. The device kept overheating, and when the top broke off, Jenny rushed in to help you. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, frankly. Jenny risked her own soul to save yours.”

“Is Jenny okay?” Beth wiped the tears from her eyes.

The doll waved to her from the harness, then spun her head around a single time.

Beth laughed, then let out a long sigh. “Is that black stuff him?”

“It was.” Yuki said this, and she was examining the substance in the crystal. “Ratu, you should come check this out.”

“Excuse me.” Ratu moved away from Beth and pulled the container free of the device. 

Beth waited for someone to say something, but Yuki and Ratu consulted each other in whispered tones while Sofia pulled Jenny out of her harness.

“Well?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“See for yourself.” Ratu came over to her with the container. The black sludge inside was gone, replaced with what looked like a large amount of snot.

“What am I looking at?”

“It’s complicated, but I’ll tell you what you need to know. The demon you knew as Oliver has been completely wiped from this plane of existence, and can never return. You are finally free of him.”

Beth wiped one final tear from her eye, then smiled with satisfaction.

“Good.”

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