Throughout the steel tower, the sounds of battle were beginning to wind down. Most of the small Kindle Kin attack force were either pinned or dead. Those few still free were swiftly being corralled by the enforcer’s superior numbers. Kalistra was not sure what Mickie had intended with the attack, but she was certain it was not this.

  Alongside Lucia, she had watched from a higher level as Belphegor stabbed the mortal through the heart. Ever since that moment the old woman had been moving as if possessed. Any demons she came across was either ignored or killed in her desperation to reach the mortal man.

  Kalistra followed close behind, unsure if their plan was still the same. She had seen the glint of runes on the blade before it entered Mickie, and knew there was more at play here. Lucia refused to answer a single one of her questions however, dead to anything but the path forward.

  They might have been moving swiftly, but the distance to Belphegor was considerable and more demons were taking note of their passage. On two occasions Kalistra was forced to channel her power to clear a path. It was a process that left her connection to her serpentine hair stressed and tenuous, not an ideal mode of affairs considering the fight ahead.

  When the duo finally broke into the open intersection of paths, they found Belphegor standing over Mickie, blade still driven into the mortal’s heart. Lucia stumbled to a stop, casting Kalistra a frantic look.

  ‘Kill Belphegor girl, do it now.’

  ‘What’s going on? Why are they just standing there?’

  Clearly, this was not the time for questions. Lucia snarled at the gorgon, her hand tightening about the grip of her gun.

  ‘Do your damned job.’

  Uncertain, Kalistra took a slow step forward. Neither Belphegor nor Mickie seemed to notice her presence. They were captured under some kind of spell, locked in time on the catwalk above the blood lake. From where she currently stood, the gorgon could only see Mickie’s face. His eyes were blank and lifeless, only a step healthier than her own empty sockets.

  The gorgon drew on her power as she approached, hesitating momentarily as she noticed something bright hanging from Mickie’s hand. Her serpent’s small eyes were having trouble discerning just what it was, though Kalistra assumed it was probably the orb lamp Mickie carried.

  ‘Hurry! Before they wake.’

  As if on cue, the statuesque duo began to move. The mortal’s eyes were suddenly shifting about in confused circles. Belphegor gave a slow shake of the head and said something, regarding Mickie with an expression the gorgon could not see. Kalistra reached a hand out, want to call to her friend, but unwilling to attract Belphegor’s attention. The old lord might have woken up, but it was not yet aware of her presence. The gorgon swallowed her confusion and fear. If she could build just a bit more power, she could do this.

  Out on the catwalk, Mickie tried to rise, but was kicked back to the ground. He seemed far weaker than normal, closer to a normal mortal than something demonically empowered. Kalistra took another step forward, just a bit more and she could kill Belphegor. A bit closer and she could save Mickie. The mortal looked at her then, and his eyes cleared. She saw in them that same emotion she had when they first fought. The anger and pain she knew all too well.

  Except, that was not all there was. Resolve danced in those depths too. The kind of resolve that scared her. Mickie shifted, and his glowing hand rose towards Belphegor. Kalistra realised then that he was not holding the orb lamp, but his gun.

  ‘Don’t!’

  She started forward, trying to reach him, to communicate that she could handle this. Too late. A small sun burst into existence between the mortal and the lord. Even meters away the force of it hit Kalistra like a overeager blood storm. She was flung backwards, tumbling into one of the intersecting halls in the room. Everything went dark as her focus slipped and she fell out of the link to her snakes.

  Rolling to a slow stop, the gorgon coughed and tried to force air into her lungs. The punch from the blast had winded her, and she could see flickering stars in the black of her mind. Battered, bruised, but with nothing broken, Kalistra got her breathing under control and scrambled to her feet. Gingerly, she reached along the connection to her snakes and the world flickered back to life.

  Mickie’s gunshot had blown her a couple dozen feet backwards. From the hall where she now stood, the gorgon could see a gradually dissipating cloud of dark smoke. It completely shrouded the opening to the catwalk. The sounds of battle had been replaced by a tinny warble, almost like the whole tower had paused their fighting in the aftermath of the explosion.

  ‘…irl, girl, Girl!’

  Incessant shouting was the first thing to reach her through the ringing in her ears. One of her serpentine eyes drifted in the direction of the sound. She found Lucia huddled in the shadow of a separate passage, haggard but still on her feet. Groggily, Kalistra turned in her direction.

  ‘Kill Belphegor! Do it now!’

  Lucia roared, and pointed frantically at the dissipating smoke cloud. Kill Belphegor? The gorgon frowned. Mickie had just shot that demon with a blast that would have atomised her. Surely that had to be enough to overcome the old lord’s defences.

  Kalistra stumbled in the direction of the smoke cloud, hoping she might find Mickie alive somewhere inside. She stopped dead as a figure emerged from its dissipating depths. Belphegor stepped into view. Torn, bleeding, but still very much alive. The demon’s right arm, the one which had held the knife, was gone. A ragged hole had been carved in its place; the snakeskin jacket shredded to reveal the white of bone underneath. Even Belphegor’s face was not spared. The cheek near the blast had been carved open to reveal jagged teeth, and the ear on that same side was a bloody stump.

  Slowly, the lord of sloth turned bloodshot eyes on the wreckage of its right side, considering the wounds like they were an unwanted invoice. Kalistra began to gather her power as the demon shifted its attention to her. A shudder ran through the gorgon as its eyes met hers. There was no malice there, no anger or pain. If anything, Belphegor seemed mildly annoyed that it had almost died.

  ‘You are not supposed to be here.’

  It said, flexing its one remaining hand. Then, with no further warning, the demon struck. Seemingly unimpeded by its wounds, Belphegor darted towards her, arm outstretched. Kalistra stepped in and past the blow, angling for the lord’s damaged side. While continuing to gather power, her claws raked across torn flesh.

  It should have been a painful blow, one that worsened an already grievous wound. Instead, the gorgon received a firsthand lesson in the reach of Belphegor’s technique. What should have been bloody and softened meat, was hard as stone. Fingers bent painfully against it, even as they were coated in fresh blood. Instead of staggering away, Belphegor stepped closer and snaked its arm out to snag her wrist. The demon had known its injury would lure her in and used that to its advantage.

  ‘So many years fighting, and still not enough.’

  The old lord commented, flexing its hand to snap her wrist. Kalistra hissed out a pained breath and wrapped her free hand about Belphegor’s. She tried to pull the limb free but no matter how she wrenched and twisted, the demon did not relinquish its hold.

  ‘Restrain it!’

  Lucia called out from somewhere behind the gorgon. Kalistra experienced a momentary flash of irritation at the order. Could the old woman not see she was otherwise occupied? The call did serve the unintentional purpose of drawing Belphegor’s attention from the gorgon. She used the lapse in concentration to shift her stance. Twisting to a new angle, Kalistra pulled for all she worth and managed to wrench her broken wrist free.

  Gasping with pain and staggering away, the gorgon resumed gathering her power. She expected Belphegor to move straight in for another attack and prepared to respond. Instead, the old lord seemed not to have noticed her escape. It stood staring at Lucia, arm still outstretched as if holding Kalistra’s wrist.

  ‘So, you have been lying to me? After all I did for you?’

  Belphegor asked, and for the first time in the fight anger coloured the old demon’s voice. Still partway in the shadow of another hall, the mortal woman straightened.

  ‘I command you. Restrain Belphegor.’

  Kalistra was about to tell the old bat to do it herself when a shape burst into the room. It boiled out of a side passage like a sentient bulldozer, all dark metal and sharp edges. The gorgon realised then, that she had not been the one to whom Lucia was issuing orders.

  ‘Stop.’

  Belphegor raised its hand, and the four-armed giant stumbled as if struck. Its body made a terrible, keening noise, and stuttered to a halt. Kalistra recognised it then as the machine that had chased her and Mickie through the stone pillar.

  ‘You would turn my own machine against me?’

  Now the old lord was properly angry. It glowered at Lucia, who rose to meet it with fury of her own.

  ‘Your machine? I built that beast; it was never yours.’

  Belphegor waved its arm at the groaning giant.

  ‘Kill that woman.’

  There was a weight to the words, something deeper than a simple command. The machine responded slowly, steel grinding against steel as it shifted slowly towards Lucia.

  ‘I rescued you. I elevated you. I let you speak for me. And this is how I am repaid? You hide the boy’s identity from me? Try to have my prisoner kill me?’

  The demon said over the groaning of the machine. It paused for a moment, thinking.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it? Who undid the stone bindings on the mortal.’

  Slowly, the machine heaved itself towards Lucia. The old woman did not so much as budge at its approach. Instead, a smile broke across her usually stoic features.

  ‘Of course it was me. You demons are all the same, always thinking power trumps all. Thinking that because you are strong, you can control us mortals.’

  She laughed.

  ‘It makes you almost comically easy to manipulate. Big bags of steaming desire. I stick a carrot in front of you and you are blind to anything else.’

  The smile dropped from Lucia’s face, and her voice fell flat.

  ‘I’ve met dogs with more guile.’

  With that, the mortal turned her attention to the machine.

  ‘Ex sanguine et vitibus natus.’

  Instantly the metal giant went slack. It slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, finally ending the cacophony of grinding. Belphegor’s anger cooled at the scene.

  ‘Very well. I can always find another second.’

  It started towards Lucia.

  ‘Restrain Belphegor.’

  ‘Kill the mortal.’

  Both commands rang out simultaneously. The machine jerked upright, and this time, did not hesitate. It disregarded Belphegor’s orders entirely, turning to meet the old demon as it approached. For all that Lucia might claim otherwise, Belphegor was no fool. It had guessed that something might have changed, and was not surprised when the machine attacked.

  Four arms reached for the fiend, and it attempted to duke sideways. A metal hand was caught in Belphegor’s own, one of the machine’s previously damaged appendages. The entire arm was soon a twisted and sparking length of scrap. Sacrificing the limb was not for naught though, the slight delay it put upon Belphegor let the three remaining arms come to bear.

  Claws wrapped about the demon’s body. Even then, it was not enough to stop Belphegor’s monstrous strength. Gears whined in protest as the slothful lord continued towards his unfaithful second.

  ‘Girl, I hope you’re ready.’

  Lucia yelled, as the machine heaved upon Belphegor. To the gorgon’s surprise, the demon was lifted straight off the ground. She had hit that brick wall of a fiend, and its weight was far greater than its slight frame suggested. The machine was straining, but still, it appeared to have finally pinned Belphegor.

  ‘Now girl! Do it now!’

  Even as Kalistra rushed the intertwined duo, she could see the metal limbs beginning to warp. Belphegor was simply too strong to hold for long. The gorgon brought forth the power she had gathered. Almost everything she had, held ready for a single strike. It hurt her head just keeping it together.

  The machine turned towards her, presenting the warrior with her target. For a moment, Kalistra came face to face with Belphegor and saw the surprise glimmering in his eyes. She pushed her power forth, flooding the bridges she had formed with her snakes. It roared out of her in a painful torrent. She felt the force crash against Belphegor’s barrier. There was a brief resistance, but like a building before a flood, she drowned it with a spear of intent.

  Kalistra screamed as the blow landed, half in pain, half in victory. One of Belphegor’s eyes greyed and morphed into flaky stone. The skin around it soon followed. She was doing it. Two of the links she had formed to her serpents abruptly shattered, unable to take the power forced through them. Kalistra felt something strange happen on her head, and a small serpent statue crumbled to the floor.

  If a few snakes were the price she had to pay, then so be it. The gorgon drove harder, forcing more power out. Another layer of eyesight went dark as a link crumbled, then another. Stone was crawling down Belphegor’s neck and across its face. Tendrils of grey reached for its remaining eye. Kalistra gritted her teeth in a savage snarl, pushing harder even as more of her snakes broke away.

  Suddenly, she felt the old lord’s demeanour shift. The barrier which she had overcome flared up, swimming forth to resist her attack. Kalistra grunted and pushed back, intending to overcome this blockade as well. Only Belphegor was not done. Its remaining eye was locked onto her, and pressure was building in the air.

  ‘Let it go.’

  The words were slurred through partially petrified lips, and they hit Kalistra like a hammer to the head. Exhaustion overcame her, a weariness so deep it was difficult to even think straight. The hold she had upon her power slipped and fell away. More of her links were shattered in the backlash, but Kalistra hardly noticed. She was having trouble focusing enough to see through even one of her remaining snakes.

  ‘Girl what are you doing!’

  An old woman called to her, and the gorgon tried to answer. All she managed was a sleepy hum. Before her a giant machine was being bent and broken. Belphegor had finally gotten a good hold on one of the machine’s limbs and was ripping its way to freedom. One metal arm had been completely removed, and a second was even now failing. Unable to support the lord’s weight with a single limb, the giant dropped Belphegor.

  Something tugged at the back of Kalistra’s mind when she saw the demon’s feet hit the floor. A spike of panic. She reached for it, but got lost in the fog of fatigue. Before her Belphegor had turned upon the metal giant in earnest. It tore plating away, digging into the machines chest like the pain eater had burrowed into her arm. There was a terrible rending of steel, and the lord emerged with a glowing orb in hand.

  Still half covered in metal and sparking cables, the parts exposed shone with the red light of runes. Belphegor turned, and pitched the orb, metal and all, out towards the blood lake. What remained of the machine was a lifeless husk, and the lord of sloth turned from it towards her. The half of the fiend’s face that was not a bloody ruin was now coated in stone. The grey layer ran down its cheek and neck to disappear beneath its jacket. In the lord’s remaining eye, Kalistra could see furious triumph.

  At the sight of her enemy, that same nagging feeling returned to the gorgon, and this time she managed to catch it. A flood of energising fear shuddered through her, and she finally shook off enough of the fatigue to stumble backwards. She tripped over the body of a demon and fell to the floor, still woozy and half dazed.

  ‘Close, but not quite.’

  Belphegor said, closing the distance between them in two long strides. The stone about its jaw had cracked, and blood oozed slowly from the spiderweb lines. Kalistra tried to rise, but her arms felt terribly weak. She forgot about her broken wrist, putting weight on the limb and wincing at the resulting pain.

  ‘I don’t know how you worked around losing your eyes, but colour me impressed.’

  A foot caught her in the side, and the gorgon felt something snap as she was sent tumbling across the floor.

  ‘And you, my dearest Lucia. I have nothing for you but disappoint.’

  The blow might have been bad, but it helped Kalistra shake off the persistent fatigue. She gasped for breath and attempted to rise, watching as Belphegor addressed his disloyal second.

  ‘So many decades of service squandered in a fit of hopeless greed.’

  Lucia glanced at Kalistra. The gorgon expected to see accusation or helplessness in the old woman’s eyes. Instead, there was only fierce determination.

  ‘Oh, and why would you think it was hopeless?’

  Belphegor laughed. It was a dry, empty sound.

  ‘Because you are a mortal. No matter how you schemed, you could never have succeeded. Not against me.’

  ‘So you say. Yet, here you stand, half a corpse before me.’

  ‘Half alive is still alive. All your pawns have fallen before me. All your plans have failed. You have nothing left that can harm me.’

  Kalistra smiled broadly at her old master.

  ‘Nothing but faith.’

  This time, Belphegor’s laugh was genuine.

  ‘Faith? You? Come now Lucia, you can’t be serious.’

  ‘Oh, but I am. I’m dead serious.’ The mortal said. ‘It just isn’t the kind of faith you think it is.’

  ‘Oh, and what but the divine could you believe would help you now?’

  Lucia glared at the demon.

  ‘My brother.’

  Them, as if in a reply of its own, the tower around them began to shake.

  For such a uniform concept, pain could be a diverse sensation. Since arriving in Hell, Mickie had been slashed, bashed, thrown, bludgeoned and choked. Being boiled alive though, that was a new one even for him. The skin on his body was sloughing away in sections that sent his nerves in hysterics. It might have made for an interesting sight, if not for the fact his eyes were in a similar condition.

  He had tried, and he had failed. It felt like more than the story of his life at this point, it was the story of his death. As steams of light danced before his failing eyes, faces flickered through his mind. They belonged to people he had done his utmost to forget, people who Belphegor freed from the cage in his mind. The ones he had killed.

  Perhaps this, all of this, had been his punishment for what he had done. An impossible task, set before him just so he could fail. Climbing back out of Hell had never been something he could achieve. It had simply been a path he could walk, something to keep him from becoming a purposeless husk.

  Well, now the path had run its course, and a painful death was all that awaited him at the end. Perhaps Mickie should have been angry, maybe even despairing. Instead, he felt nothing, nothing but the constant, ceaseless agony of the blood lake.

  The branded man opened himself to the pain, let it consume him, and waited for the end to come.

  Before Mickie the abyss yawned. An endless darkness, seemingly right before his eyes, yet simultaneously expansive as the deepest depths of space. Through this darkness, ribbons of light swam, curling and twisting together in mesmerising patterns. It hurt to look upon, yet Mickie seemed unable to look away. In fact, he was unable to move, to speak, or to scream. The branded man had become a passenger in the body of another, a fact he realised when a red hand was raised towards the yawning abyss.

  It was the clawed appendage of a demon, dainty in a cruel kind of way. The hand reached out to the impossible lines in the void and touched them. Mickie wailed at the sight, it should not be possible, it was not meant to be possible. Those arcs of colour were impossibly vast, yet the demon brushed against them like threads in a tapestry. If Mickie had a head with which to feel, he was sure it would be screaming in pain at that moment.

  ‘If you’re seeing this, then things have gone terribly wrong.’

  The Soul Lord said, and let its hand fall away from the abyss. Relief flooded Mickie, and the branded man was abruptly struck with the realisation that he could feel anything at all. Normally when he dreamt of Magareem, Mickie did not retain such an awareness of himself.

  ‘If all goes to plan, the only one to ever hear this should be the void.’

  The demon sighed.

  ‘Yet, nothing ever quite goes to plan, does it?’

  Mickie was unable to answer, and the abyss did not reply.

  ‘I think I’m going to die soon. Mizaraphel wasn’t very happy that I barred the gates, and it’s only a matter of time before they come for me.’

  The Soul Lord did not appear particularly bothered by the prospect of its own death. Mostly it just sounded resigned.

  ‘It’s a shame they caught on when they did. Just a little bit more time and I could have avoided all this hassle.’

  Mickie had no clue what the demon was talking about, and was unable to ask. All he could do was watch the twisting lines of the abyss and listen to Magareem speak.

  ‘Sadly, there’s little I can do to actually help you.’

  With a grunt the demon rose from its perch, and Mickie discovered they were in a cave. It was a simple, rocky formation that opened to the void beyond the ninth circle. The Soul Lord turned towards a shadowed corner of the cave, and Mickie discovered they were not alone in this memory. Huddled in the dark was a figure, a gaunt mortal dressed in little more than rags.

  ‘I simply thought I’d use this opportunity to impart a little advice. I imagine you’ll be pretty new to Hell, and there are some things you ought to know.’

  The Soul Lord approached the cave’s other occupant and squatted down to regard the mortal. Their skin was an unnatural shade of grey, eyes hollow and vacant.

  ‘This place is not like the world you came from, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. Hell functions off some additional rules, things that are a touch more esoteric than gravity or the conservation of mass.’

  A red hand reached out and cupped the mortal’s chin, tilting their head from side to side without so much as a wary glance in response. It dawned on Mickie that this person must be one of the Lost, those strange, empty people he had seen on the eighth circle.

  ‘Things here operate off emotion. In particular, desire. It’s what makes some of us demons so powerful. We aren’t born as a blank slate like you mortals. Instead, we are creature spawned from this very realm, beings whose very souls are shaped out of the fabric of Hell itself.’

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The Soul Lord released the lost mortal and straightened.

  ‘Some of us are spawned with more than others, whether it be desire, talent, or the simple raw capacity of our souls. We can use it to do some pretty wild things, things like me speaking to you as I am now.’

  There came a pause, and Magareem’s voice took on the authoritative lilt of a lecture.

  ‘Do not mistake me. I’m not saying desire is all there is to it. As I’m sure you have seen, there are far more factors at play down here than simple emotion. Powers of the soul are esoteric and tend to shift depending on the temperament of the individual. I’m sure your own abilities have manifested in their own, unique ways.’

  The Soul Lord turned momentarily and stretched out a hand. Something dark and sinister manifested in the demon’s hand. Mickie realised it was a blade, one with a hilt of carved bone and a curve so sharp it was almost a crescent. Magareem turned back to the lost mortal and brought the blade to their neck.

  ‘The point I’m trying to drive at here, is that desire is an underpinning of us demons. Personally, I think it’s the thing that distinguishes us from you fleshy sacks of emotion. More than horns or claws, it's desire that makes a demon. The more of it we have, the more we can do.’

  Mickie waited for the blade to slip into the throat of the vacant human. Instead, after a long deliberation, the Soul Lord dismissed its weapon.

  ‘So, knowing all that, my question to you is; what do you want, and how badly do you want it?’

  Instead of slicing the mortal’s head of Magareem reached a claw out and lifted the human to their feet. They rose as if operating on autopilot.

  ‘Because, unless you want to wind up dead or like this fellow here, then you’re going to need a little desire. I’ll have made sure you’ve got the power, all you need is the drive to use it.’

  The Soul Lord guided the mortal forward, towards the cave’s opening.

  ‘A bit weak as far as advice goes, I know, but there’s not much I can do about that. It’s not like I know which pile of shit you’ve managed to stand in.’

  They came to a stop right at the abyss’ yawning mouth. Magareem directed the mortal to stand where the rock opened up to the dark. Mickie felt something then, as he realised what the demon intended. A part of him screamed that what was about to happen was wrong. He tried to vocalise the feeling, to tell Magareem to kill them like it had originally intended.

  ‘You know, I actually found this chap down here, if you can believe it. Don’t know how he found his way to the abyss, but the lost can be like that sometimes. Always wandering places they shouldn’t go. Only just occurred to me he would make for a good demonstration, a final send off for you, as it were.’

  The Soul Lord pushed the gaunt figure into the abyss. Mickie could do nothing but watch as the mortal tumbled into the dark. For a moment, there was nothing. Then the lines of light recoiled as if struck, and the mortal began to scream. Their emaciated body was bent before Mickie’s eyes, both near and far, straight and twisted. It was wrong, so terribly wrong. The white lines throughout the abyss strobed as they writhed, crying out in a way all their own.

  ‘Just remember though.’

  Magareem muttered, examining the lost human as they were distorted beyond recognition.

  ‘There some things you can never have, no matter how much you might want them.’

  Mickie came back to himself at the bottom of the blood lake. His mind swam with the dream that was not, the advice given by the Soul Lord echoing with the screams of that mortal as they fell into the abyss. The return of the pain did nothing to alleviate his confusion. He should be dead, if not from the burning, then at the very least suffocation. Yet, Mickie continued to persist.

  The branded man realised that he was not dead, because he could not die. Not while he lay within the blood lake. His skin itched as much as it burned, the very same blood which hurt him also supercharging his healing. Even as his flesh sloughed away, new skin formed to take its place.

  It made him want to laugh. It made him want to scream. He could achieve neither. All Mickie could do was sink into the pain. Fall deeper and deeper into it, until all he knew was fire, and the voice of the Soul Lord asking him what he wanted.

  It was a question to which he had no ready answer. It should have been that he wanted to escape Hell, that was ostensibly his goal after all. Yet, it did not quite fit. There was nothing for him in the world of the living, no reason he should want to return. No, the climb was simply the job set before him, not the thing he wanted to do.

  Mickie sunk deeper still, back through the life he had so recently remembered. It was here, deep down within himself, that he found the loathing. It seethed and bubbled about the wreckage of the person he had once been, the boy that bent until he had broken. It spoke to him, in a voice that was all his own. The loathing said it had the answer for him, and as Mickie, driven forward by the pain, touched upon the seething form of his hate, it showed him.

  He saw Claudia telling him that his mother was dead. The three teens on the family grounds, breaking beneath his blows. The feeling of steel pressed to the back of his head. Then came the descent. His torture at the hands of the Mechanist. The fury and violence of the arena. Now this, his past dug from his own head by a demon, and a drop into a lake that burned and healed him in a cycle of constant agony.

  They did this to us.

  The loathing said, its voice a mirror of Mickie’s own.

  They used you, they broke you. They made me.

  The branded man heard it, and he understood. Whether human or demon, they had always wanted the same thing from him. They used him as a tool to break, until he was broken in turn. Just as they did to countless others. To Kalistra, who only wanted to help her tribe. To Aria, who died for the crime of helping another. To all the children who were shaped by the greed and ego of adults such as Claudia. The loathing did not need to tell Mickie what he desired, because he already knew. He had just hidden from it, scared of the feeling, afraid of what it would make him.

  Now though, at the bottom of the blood lake, with nothing but pain for company, Mickie opened himself to the truth. That what he wanted, above all else, was to do what he had been made to do. To rend, tear and break. To inflict the pain he felt upon those who had hurt him, who would hurt those he cared about.

  It was a desire born of the loathing that bubbled within him. Mickie knew it would not fix what had been done, would not repair that which had been broken. Right now though, he simply did not care. What was it the Soul Lord had said? That it was desire that made a demon. Well then, Mickie would show the fiends of Hell that he was more the demon than they were.

  He reached within himself, towards that hidden core of loathing, and began to hollow himself out. First to go was the distraction of pain, then the hesitation of fear, the uncertainty of hope, and the frustration of ineptitude. All of it was cast aside, pushed further away than it every had been before. Mickie emptied himself of everything but his desire, that and bubbling heat of his loathing, and the rage it stocked within him.

  The hollow man shifted at the bottom of the blood lake. He shifted muscle that melted even as it grew, flexed arms that trailed skin in their wake, and he began to swim. Not upwards, not towards the surface, but along the lakebed. For when he had distanced himself from the pain, Mickie allowed more subtle externalities to permeate his broken body. He had realised that he lay not on a sandy floor, but a smooth steel surface, hidden beneath the boiling blood. And somewhere, deeper into the lake, something called to him.

  A sensation closer to a whisper than a shout, it tickled the back of his mind, urging him to come, calling for the key. As Mickie swam, he recalled the table at the top of the tower, and the replica it had produced. There had been a flashing light, positioned on a tiny protrusion within the open interior. It was towards that spot Mickie now swam, heading for what had to be the tower’s controls.

  Blind in the blood, he followed the call. Followed it until his hands slapped against something emerging from the floor. It was a cylindrical object, a pedestal of sorts that had smooth, steel sides. Mickie reached out and placed a hand upon its top. The moment he made contact the world expanded around him. One moment, the hollow man was just a mortal, reaching out to control a tower. The next, he was the tower itself.

  Mickie felt the attention of something vast fall upon him. It assessed him with eyes that were not eyes, perceiving far more than just his physical body. The mortal started back, wondering just what this presence was. Before he could attain answers, the sensation disappeared, and the hollow man was left in command of something arcane and alien. It was like a limb which he never knew he had. The tower was as much a part of him now as his arm or leg, and like any restless muscle, he could feel its desire to move. So, Mickie told it to stretch out, and just like that, the tower began to change around him.

  When Miz-Mag found the Kindle Kin they were no longer amongst the dunes. Instead, the grey singers were moving at speed through the bone woods. A large force of metal hybrids was carrying their fleshy brethren, running right towards the tower. It was an advanced force, sent ahead of the larger group to arrive early and provide support.

  Stranger than the sight of the piggy backing Kin, was the way in which the bone woods reacted to their presence. Miz-Mag would have expected the acidic trees to be an obstacle for the large hybrids. Instead, it was as if the forest itself was opening the way for them. Before the Kindle Kin, bone trees were quivering and shifting, raising their branches out of their path. The result was a pace that the little demon found downright staggering. This entire group would arrive at the tower before very long, not that it would do those inside any good. The blood lake inhibited all access.

  It had been a challenge to find a spot in which the little fiend could park its flyer. Though when Miz-Mag found a space and tried, the trees themselves bent out of the way to let it land. It was then, parked up amongst the bleached boughs, that the demon felt the change to Mickie’s soul. Ice ran down Miz-Mag’s spine. Something foreign had invaded its partner, and had the mortal locked in a vice grip.

  The little fiend almost took off then and there, but managed to keep its claws off the joystick. Whatever had just happened to Mickie, that idiot was going to need back-up now more then ever. By the time the racing Kindle Kin reached Miz-Mag however, the little demon was just about spitting with anxiety. The moment its smaller and speedier new flyer was packed with singers, Miz-Mag took to the air.

  It was then, as the fiend raced back to the tower, that Mickie’s soul was suddenly freed. Rather than relief, the abrupt change left the little fiend with a deep sense of foreboding. It was not something it could put a claw on, but Miz-Mag was certain that something was still wrong with Mickie.

  Arriving at the tower, the fiend expected it would find Ziz hard at work on the defences. What it found instead had Miz-Mag pulling up short on the controls. Where there had once been a squat steel pyramid, a leaner, taller structure now stood. Not only that, but it was growing taller before the tiny pilot’s very eyes.

  Sections of the tower were splitting apart and shifting, reorienting atop one another to climb ever higher. The layered balconies were gradually folding back into the structure’s slimmer body. A sound from behind drew Miz-Mag’s attention to its passengers. One of the Kindle Kin was leant over the edge, pointing down towards the blood lake.

  The fiend followed its finger to the structure’s base, where it found catwalks stretching like spindly fingers. They reached outwards, creating a network that crossed the boiling blood to connect with the woods beyond. Miz-Mag thought back to the advanced force of Kindle Kin, their urgency suddenly seemed far less futile. Straightening its grip on the flyer’s joystick, Miz-Mag turned back to the shifting tower.

  ‘Now where in all the stinkin’ circles am I supposed to land?’

  At the edge of the churning blood lake, a group of enforcers were huddled together. They had their weapons ready, though more out of habit than anything else. No simple firearm would be able to impact the changes being wrought to the tower. Around them the walls and floor shifted and moved, carried on disturbing tethers of glistening dark sinew. The group gawped upwards as sections of catwalks split and retracted into the building, the open chamber closing in upon itself.

  They debated fleeing, yet there was nowhere to run. Not now the tower itself had decided it was time to come alive. From above there came a panicked screech. A careless demon came spinning through the open air. Its cries spiked when it hit the lake, then gurgled to a stop. Enthralled by the scene, the small group were paying little heed to their immediate surroundings.

  As a result, they failed to notice when a terrible, skinless hand burst from the churning blood. It was half dissolved, with bones and tendons exposed through ragged patches of meat. Yet, as the appendage swung and landed upon one of the steps leading out of the lake, it seemed to swell. The flesh that remained twisted and grew, reforming muscle and then skin.

  An eviscerated arm followed the hand out of the blood, then another. A head emerged, little more than a skull with scraps of skin attached. Just as the hands had however, flesh swiftly formed to encase the white of bone. The shrivelled scraps remaining in the eye sockets inflated like balloons as eyelids stitched themselves back together.

  By the time the figure had dragged itself from the lake, black hair was sprouting from the bare scalp. Soon, where there had once been a corpse, a mortal was hunched upon the steel steps. Had the group of Enforcers thought to turn away from the spectacle about them, then they might have noticed the human rise to his feet.

  The hollow man took a long pull of the heavy air and examined his naked body. Fresh, pinkish skin coated a healthy layer of muscle. Satisfied, he called forth his armour. Jeans materialised about his bare legs, a shirt and jacket forming around his chest and shoulders. It was then, as the mortal began to climb the stairs, that he noticed the small team of demons.

  Focusing inward, he called forth his weapon. The gun had been damaged when he fired it at Belphegor, and required a healthy dose of energy to reform. It came to him after a few extra moments, and as the hollow man felt the bone against his palm, he smiled. Starting towards the distracted demons, the mortal thought how pleasant it was to do as one desired.

  The room in which Kalistra fought Belphegor was splitting into pieces. Tiny seams on the floor and walls broadened, spilling out a multitude of black tendrils. Like Hell’s strangest centipede these glistening limbs carried away sections of the tower. The gorgon watched in dismay as Lucia was disconnected and pulled away, leaving her stuck with Belphegor. The old demon had not moved since the building came alive; its remaining eye fixed on their shifting surroundings. Trying to remain as still as possible, Kalistra started gathering what power remained to her.

  ‘You still wish to fight me? Even now?’

  Belphegor immediately took notice of her actions. The lord turned its attention from the tower and back to her. Its voice was partially slurred by petrification, yet its remaining eye was clear. The lord of sloth might have looked like a corpse, but it certainly did not act like one. Kalistra on the other hand, felt her body scream in protest as she struggled back to her feet. Only a few blows from this tank of a demon and she was next to dead.

  Belphegor approached in a dash and almost got a hand around her neck. The gorgon was saved, not by her own prowess, but by a sudden lurch in the floor beneath them. The section of room in which they stood abruptly began to move, causing Kalistra to tumble out of Belphegor’s path.

  She stopped at the open edge of their shifting section and was met with empty air. Before her the interior of the tower crawled with building blocks that had come alive. The black tendrils emerging from each portion of the structure created a dark sea upon which her room swam. All sounds of violence had ceased, but Kalistra could still faintly hear the few Kindle Kin which remained, calling to their brethren out in the desert. The music itself was not lonely, but that was the feeling it instilled within her. Such a small and isolated thing, alone in an ocean of enemies. Just like she was.

  ‘It’s a shame Lucia slipped away. I’ll have to track her down once I’m done here.’

  Belphegor spoke from almost right behind her. Kalistra rolled painfully out of the way, coming to stand just out of the demon’s reach.

  ‘Did you do this?’

  She asked, flicking her unbroken hand towards the tower’s interior. It was a question borne less of her curiosity, than a desperate need to keep the lord at bay. As Belphegor paused to consider her, the gorgon continued to pool the last of her power, gathering herself for one final strike.

  ‘Me? I assumed this was your doing, or perhaps even Lucia’s. A way to delay the inevitable.’

  The lord of sloth took a step towards her. Kalistra backed up, coming right up against the edge of their crawling room. Any further and she would join Mickie in the blood below. For once she hoped that Belphegor was right, and that Lucia had made the tower come alive. Then at least someone would have a plan.

  Kalistra tossed a glance over her shoulder, looking for something, anything that might buy her a few more moments. It was in that instant of distraction that Belphegor struck. The demon darted forward, hand outstretched to grasp her throat. Reacting swiftly, the gorgon still almost managed to duck aside, avoiding having her neck taken but offering up her arm in the process. She was ripped away from the edge and tossed into the centre of the moving room. Stars sparkled as her head cracked into the floor, and Kalistra almost lost the hold on her meagre power.

  ‘You are lucky I still wish to obtain Ziz. That bond is the only thing keeping you alive.’

  Before the gorgon could rise a foot was planted on her chest. Bones creaked, her whole sternum threatening to cave under the lord’s monstrous strength. Ignoring her broken wrist Kalistra clawed at the foot, desperate to shift it, move it just enough so she could roll aside.

  ‘Just because I need you, does not mean that I need you whole.’

  She would have to use the power, only, the gorgon knew it would not be enough. The barrier Belphegor maintained about its soul would not be overcome with the drags she had gathered. Maybe though, it might give her a chance to slip away.

  ‘I don’t know how you managed to see again, but that is not an issue. I doubt you will be capable of much without any limbs left to you.’

  Kalistra called upon the remaining bonds to her serpentine hair. A few, half broken layers of eyesight added to her current view. Through them she saw Belphegor bending over, reaching for one of her arms. She screamed in fury and fear, focusing upon the demon, condensing her power for the strike.

  Suddenly, their shifting room came to a stop. It shuddered with the change in momentum, slowing Belphegor for just an instant. There was a hiss and a click, like something had slotted into place. Wherever the tower had decided they needed to be, they had arrived.

  ‘Found you.’

  The voice came from behind her, in the direction of one of the room’s prior exits. It was followed by a roar and a concussive blast of air. Belphegor’s foot was suddenly lifted from the gorgon’s chest. Her assailant staggered backwards, black smoke billowing about its head. Instincts kicked in and Kalistra rolled to her feet.

  Even as she gained some distance from Belphegor a couple snakes were searching for the new arrival. Their room had come to interlock with a new section of the tower as it settled into shape. Standing in the newly constructed hall was a single mortal man. He turned and gave Kalistra a look.

  ‘Not dead yet?’

  The rush of hope Kalistra felt at seeing Mickie alive stuttered as her various snake eyes met his human ones. Something was wrong. It was like he was looking at her, but not really seeing her.

  ‘So, the enigma lives.’

  Belphegor said, emerging from the smoke as it faded into the heavy air.

  ‘Or perhaps I should call you Mickie? Honestly, I cannot believe I never saw it.’

  It was only when the mortal looked at Belphegor that Kalistra saw his face come alive. Not a flood of emotion, just an upwards twinge of the lips and narrowing of the eyes.

  ‘Saw what?’

  ‘Who you are, of course. Such a distinct familial resemblance.’

  Mickie’s eyes narrowed that little bit further.

  ‘You know my family?’

  ‘I do, I know who they are, and I know why you were dragged to Hell.’

  ‘Do you now?’

  Mickie’s hand tightened about his gun, and Kalistra noted the weapon seemed to be glowing ever so slightly. It was only then that she felt the power emanating from it.

  ‘Yes, I…’

  With a crack of thunder Mickie raised the gun and fired. There was a flash of golden light, and Belphegor had another chunk of flesh torn from its shoulder.

  ‘It’s a shame then, that I don’t particularly care.’

  Before the lord could recover, the mortal turned a dead eyed look upon Kalistra.

  ‘Prepare yourself to strike.’

  ‘Mickie, Belphegor’s power, you need to hit hard to hurt it.’

  The mortal paused for a moment, then gave her a curt nod. Kalistra could only hope he had puzzled out what she meant. In the next moment Mickie was gone, charging right at Belphegor. The demon had recovered quickly and was already swinging its clawed hand at the branded man. With a movement that seemed near effortless, the mortal spun past the attack. His gun clicked over, and even from a distance Kalistra could feel the torrent of power that poured into it. She gathered herself and followed Mickie into the fray.

  Belphegor had turn to strike at her ally, and Kalistra used the opportunity to hit the demon from behind. She knew her claws would be useless against its empowered body, so she acted to distract. As Belphegor stepped in Mickie’s direction she raked a hand across the fleshy part of its face, catching its single unpetrified eye. Her companion swerved away from a suddenly blind swipe and rotated to Belphegor’s armless side.

  The lord snarled and twisted towards her, but Kalistra was already putting on some distance. Before her adversary could do more, its head snapped back in a gout of flame. Mickie took a step back, lowering his weapon. The stony side of Belphegor’s face was now a jagged ruin. The shot had shattered the rock, exposing the meat and bone which lay beneath. Even so, the demon still stood, eyeing its enemies as they began to circle.

  ‘Like hyenas biting at a lion.’

  Their opponent rasped.

  ‘More like vultures tearing up carrion. You’re already two feet in the grave, Belphegor.’

  Kalistra shot back, hearing the telltale click of Mickie’s weapon. Across from her, the mortal began to charge his gun.

  ‘I am not so easily finished, serpent. Your attack has failed, soon my enforcers will come, and we shall return you to your cage.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

  Mickie said and tapped his ear with a finger. Taking a moment to listen, the rooms other occupants seemed to realise what he was saying at the exact same moment. They heard the fading song of the Kindle Kin, grow louder with each passing moment. Belphegor growled and swung at the mortal. Mickie danced aside and planted his weapon into the side of the lord’s knee. The resulting shot brough the demon to the floor. When Kalistra saw the look on her companion’s face as they returned to circling, she felt unease creep up her stomach. Something was definitely wrong with Mickie, something it was hard for her to pin down.

  ‘The Kin are stuck outside. They cannot access, the tower.’

  The mortal’s weapon clicked over, and he began channel power.

  ‘Maybe once, but no longer. I made sure to roll out the welcome mat.’

  ‘You did this?’

  Mickie grinned and ran at Belphegor. Kalistra saw the deep hunger in her friend’s eyes, and knew, with absolute certainty, their enemy had seen it too.

  ‘Stop!’

  She started forward, but it was two late. As Mickie raised his weapon to the demon’s head, Belphegor exploded upwards. The power which it had been subtlety gathering bubbled forward, and the lord spoke.

  ‘Slow down.’

  Kalistra saw the words land upon Mickie an instant before they hit her. Weaker, easier to shake off, but more than Belphegor required. The mortal man stumbled, and his adversary swerved out of the way of a gunshot. Even as her companion shook of the effects of the attack, the lord of sloth reached out, and grasped his face. With a sickening wrench and twist, Mickie’s head was turned away from them. Belphegor spun it around like a screw into a post. Bones snapped, skin pulled taut until it tore, and the body beneath went limp as a wet rag.

  The demon stopped when Mickie’s eyes were facing forward, having spun his head in a full, sickening circle. Kalistra screamed, arriving at the scene, but moments too late. She leapt for Belphegor’s eyes, looking to claw and tear, to do anything that would finish this accursed demon. Like it was tossing aside a piece of trash, Belphegor threw Mickie to the ground. It turned to Kalistra as she called up her power, and with lazy ease planted a foot in the gorgon’s stomach.

  She tumbled away, bouncing before slamming into a wall. Belphegor smiled through the bloody ruin of its face as she gasped for breath.

  ‘Close, closer than anyone has ever managed.’

  The lord walked towards her.

  ‘And still not enough.’

  Kalistra wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream, to cry, to tear Belphegor’s final eyes from its socket. Yet she had nothing. Nothing but her measly pool of gathered power, not even enough to turn a single finger to stone.

  A rasping, barking sound began to fill the room, and it took a moment for Kalistra to realise someone was laughing. The noise was as broken as the man from which it emerged. Across the room, where he had been discarded upon the floor, Mickie had started to laugh. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

  Then he began to move.

  The hollow man had known where he had to go. From the moment he had touched the tower’s controls he had known. After killing the small band of enforcers, he had wandered into the building’s interior and let it take him to Belphegor. The shifting sections had moved as he knew they would, just as he had willed them to when commanding the tower.

  It had been his desire that freed him from the blood lake, and his desire which delivered him to his enemy. Yet, right here, at the moment of satiation, he was denied. Even with all his desire, all his rage, the hollow man had not been enough. He lay broken on the floor, knowing his body was there, yet unable to feel it.

  The mortal’s neck had been more that just broken, it was almost torn apart. Yet, even now, even with a body incapable of violence, the hollow man hungered for more. He had been so close he could taste victory, and it had stoked his desire. The emotions which had slowly been crawling back upon him were forced away as he dug deeper, reaching for the loathing, for the rage. Searching for something which would get him what he wanted.

  Within his soul, the amorphous ball of power hung, shapeless and impotent. A stream fed it, his amulet resupplying what he had expended in the fight. The power in and of itself was useless, it needed direction. It needed to help him break.

  The hollow man touched upon the power he wanted. Its channels ran through his body, directing a trickle of his essence to heal the damage done to his neck. Ziz’s restoration was effective, but it was not enough. It would not let him do as he desired. Power gathered at the mortal’s command and was directed into the sluggish channels. Painful resistance met him and shifted into agony as he pushed harder against it.

  Pain though, was something he could handle. What was another fracture within him, if it let him do as he desired. The hollow man drove the power into the healing pathways, feeling them crack and tear. It burned, and he laughed at the pain. Then he laughed at the sound of his own voice. Laughed because it was working. The hollow man’s head slowly began to shift, twist back upon itself.

  Sensation returned to his limbs, and he began to move them, to push himself upright. Vertebrae popped as his insides burned and the mortal rose to his feet. His laughter subsided as his head clicked back into place and the ripped skin on his neck sealed. Belphegor and Kalistra were both staring at him in surprise. The hollow man grinned.

  ‘Not quite enough.’

  He said to Belphegor and called forth his weapon from where it lay on the ground. Regarding his bulky firearm, he wondered if it were truly suitable. The mortal had been hammering at the wall of Belphegor’s soul continuously, and yet the demon still stood. Perhaps he required something subtler, a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. The gun vanished from his hand as the hollow man thought back. To the moments he had spent behind the eyes of the Soul Lord, and the blade the demon had produced.

  The mortal held out his hand and called the weapon forth. There was no resistance, no sluggish reluctance from the power granted by his brand. Almost as if it had been waiting for this moment, the mark on his hand flared with heat, and a curved blade manifested in his palm. It was just as it had been in the vision, a thing of bone and dark steel, hooked and cruel.

  ‘That blade… where did you…’

  There was almost a flicker of fear in Belphegor’s voice as the hollow man brandished his new weapon. The old lord was staring at the sinister object like it was the ghost of an old enemy come back for revenge. Power flowed through the mortal, entering the blade just as it did his gun. The weapon’s edge began to glow with a subtle red light.

  ‘Get ready.’

  He called to Kalistra and ran at Belphegor. The old demon’s confusion morphed into a snarl, and it met his charge with swinging claw. In the moments before impact, something within the his soul resonated through his body. It rang through his connection to the blade, strumming along his muscles like a song he had never heard yet knew by heart.

  The hollow man’s body reacted all on it’s own. He spun past Belphegor’s hand, raking the blade up the demon’s arm as he went. It carved a line in its wake, a bloody string running from knuckle to shoulder. The mortal did not stop and pause after the attack, not with the weapon whispering in his ear. Instead, he twisted to Belphegor’s bad side and struck out in a string of slices.

  His weapon carved into the demon’s ragged flesh, wounding in a continuous stream, bleeding Belphegor dry. Where all but the strongest attacks had failed, the hooked blade succeeded. For all the lord’s barrier was powerful, it was not perfect. Every armour had its flaws, and the hollow man’s weapon knew it. The steel whispered them to him, guiding him to strike past Belphegor’s defences.

  As the mortal ducked and weaved about his opponent, something built within him. It was the culmination of his desire, the twisted shape of his power, the handprint of his will upon this accursed realm. The force sat at the back of his tongue, urging him to voice it, to shape the world about him in his image.

  ‘Stop.’

  Belphegor spoke the word, but it held little weight. The demon was finally beginning to tire, while the mortal had never felt more alive. The hollow pushed through the power of the command, hardly even slowing as he spun beyond Belphegor’s reach. His foe was left panting, hand outstretched, as the mortal slowed to a stop beside Kalistra. The gorgon had remained silent during the fight, watching him slice up their opponent with a mixture of hope and concern.

  ‘You think these cuts will be enough to finish me? All I need is one good hit, Mickie.’

  Belphegor spat the name like a curse. Looking more like a upright pile of eviscerated meat than anything alive, the demon’s body betrayed its claim. A word sat ready at the back of the hollow man’s throat, screaming to be let out. He could not speak without risking its escape. So, instead, he channelled his blade and charged.

  The lord of sloth tried to stop him, to grab him, but the blade sung its sweet song, and the mortal swerved past. Power pumped into the weapon as he twisted behind Belphegor. With a final driving lunge, he drove the weapon into the demon’s body. The point plunged into the space where his enemy’s heart would have been, sliding past Belphegor’s defences with a combination of precision and power.

  The demon gasped, and took two heavy steps forward, towards Kalistra’s crouched form. There was a silent moment, in which they all observed the bloody tip of the mortal’s blade. Then Belphegor released a wet, gurgling chuckle.

  ‘Not enough, never enough. When will you learn?’

  The demon’s remaining hand reached up to the blade, grasping the sharp edge as if it was the handle.

  ‘No simple blade strike can end me.’

  Only, the point of the attack had not been to kill. It had been to lodge the weapon in Belphegor, to provide a channel into the demon’s protective barrier. The hollow man’s foe had helped him remember who he was, reminded him that he was not only the broken, but the breaker itself. Within the blood lake he had embraced that, had emptied himself of everything but the desire to see his enemy fall.

  Within him the word bucked, sensing its moment had come. The mortal’s vision seemed to narrow for an instant, homing in on Belphegor, and then to a space within the demon. A soul, encased by an ethereal barrier of power.

  ‘Shatter.’

  The word exploded from him, ringing out towards Belphegor like cracking of a thousand glass sheets. It vibrated in the open air, through the hollow man himself, and into his blade. The intent travelled through his weapon, and into the demon’s soul. Belphegor’s defences crumbled like a sandcastle before a storm. The lord screamed and fell to its knees, dropping mere feet away from where a gorgon waited.

  Kalistra felt the moment her enemy’s walls collapsed, saw the opportunity, and struck. Broken and battered, she slid forward and caught Belphegor’s head in her hands. Her gathered power screamed along the channels to her serpentine hair, and through it, into the demon’s single, wide eye. The gorgon saw realisation dawn in the lord of sloth’s eyes as they met her empty sockets.

  Belphegor’s shifted to stone with a rapid, rolling pulse of Kalistra’s remaining power. The lords mouth worked for a moment, trying to form words that never came. Its hand locked about the blade in its chest as its insides went rigid and legs stiffened.

  When the last of the demon’s ragged flesh petrified, the hollow man dismissed his weapon. He walked about the statue of their enemy, coming to stand beside the gorgon as she straightened. The mortal called forth his gun and raised it to the demon’s head.

  ‘Not enough, huh?’

  He muttered, and pulled the trigger.