Rubber met fog. Gemstone howled in steam. Bodies quivered in the storm.

  And Lorelai accelerated.

  —Marshal holding her waist.

  She would’ve screamed if she could, but no one can hear you in the void.

  She clung tighter to the frame as the bike spokes spun through the choking dark. Windless. Soundless. An oiled bearing with no resistance. A mechanical tune that clicked in the vast space below. There was nothing out here. Even the air hated this place. An endless pit. A hollow cut in the bedrock. But they didn’t fall, they floated, drowning in chromic dust, slipping, sinking, submerging under its girth.

  Her whole body shone like a mirror. Her fingers danced between solid, liquid and gas. The air itself started to phase; the taste of chunks of ice was where oxygen once flowed. The pressure of the vacuum pressing in, squeezing her like an atom clawing at its electrons.

  But no matter what she tried, her mind couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t fathom it.

  The fundamentals of her cells, acids, and protein bonds that made up her flesh—she didn’t exist in this space. Whatever it was, it was tearing her apart, pruning all that made her alive, a demon, a woman… Lorelai.

  But here she was, a stray existence on the edge of matter, a lost shard riding a wave too deep to swim over.

  Her mind, her thoughts, the matrix of her being?

  Did particles even have a soul?

  She reached up, clawed towards the fading light. The realm she once knew was now a spec on the horizon, the people she had yet to meet a grain of dust.

  She was merely an ant crawling in a box, mingling with others of her kind, dancing in the entertainment of something larger.

  Something like a god, yet something mortal, Ancient.

  She wondered if this was what death felt like: no memories, no breath, just nothing.

  Many had said that demons had no afterlife; others have told that, like creatures of the void, demons will return to their place, join the world of fragments and spirits, and become one with their creator.

  But if such a grand and all-knowing being existed, they must have forsaken the world long ago. There was no god, no god that would help her. No prayer that could grant a miracle.

  So she pointed at the hell below, to the place dark gods were supposed to dwell, and, daring any that looked back, she screamed at them. Cursed her last breath.

  They had let her fall once, so what was falling again?

  And in a howl;

  She wished death to whatever god existed.

  Wished for them to die the same fate as her.

  Wished for a sense of justice in an unjust world.

  But the words she spoke said otherwise.

  “Help Me.” She cried. “Please…”

  .

  .

  “I don’t want to die.”

  But only silence spoke back, only the fall and the frosted air that laced her skin; it was all she could feel now. A numbness washed over her, her eyes closing, her hope thin.

  She whispered, wet breath in an endless void, a spark lingering in her heart, eyes as hot as crimson.

  “I didn’t even take my throne back.” She said, “I’m sorry, Father.”

  Then—

  A voice.

  Not her’s. Not Marshal’s.

  Soft. Warm. Sweet like candy. Like whispers dipped in honey.

  First one, then many, a force like an army, a touch that could have been millions.

  “Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.” They said. “More. More. More. It is not complete. Not complete. Complete. Complete.”

  Lore spun her sight around, the sound like a thousand tongues, the whispers, shouts, from child to adult, to something that couldn’t be a demon. Yet anytime she thought she saw something, it vanished, the curls of smoke, shadows, a lone figure. A woman, pale as snow. Eyes as if infinite.

  “There is still more to do… little one.” It said, “I can only do this once.”

  “What!” Lore shouted, “What do you mean?”

  However, before her cells could blink, the bike lurched. Not down, but sideways. No thrusters fired. No wind resistance. Just motion. Deliberate. Planned, like a chess piece, moved with pinpoint precision.

  Like some hand was playing a game she couldn’t see—bishop to rook, knight to stalemate. The army of arms, limbs and shadow pulled her like she weighed nothing. Marched like Daemons off to war.

  Lore darted her sight to the figure, and for a flicker, a fragment of a second. Its face twisted, and the man’s lips smiled.

  “Good luck, princess.”

  “Father!” Lore shouted.

  But above, the fog split. And only a whisper remained, only a millisecond was allowed.

  Her tail, her bike, her passed-out companion; together, they rose, ascended the void, pierced the world of the living; Breath bringing life to her skin, moisture to her mortal eyes.

  And a ship appeared.

  They landed with a crunch, a wet slam of gemstone against timber and steel. The shock bounced up her lashes open. Lore hissed, burning to the touch, baked under the crystalline sun once again.

  She turned—

  Snapping toward the source of that sweet breath.

  And blinked.

  In the fog, in the swirling voidium behind them, something… receded. A claw—tiny, like a smudge of nothingness that distorted everything around it, sank back into the mist, vanished like a ripple in oil. Gone.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Or maybe… it was never there to begin with.

  Just an edge in the bottomless pit.

  A sound that plucked at her brainstem.

  A memory not meant to be kept.

  Not by her.

  No time to think.

  She patted herself down. Her skin hissed—steaming fingers knitting themselves whole.

  Was she surging Hemarite? When did she get a reserve of that?

  But to her horror, the ooze of chromatic voidium flowed between her flesh, the weaving glitter making her blood sparkle.

  They were alive, but at what cost?

  The wood beneath her feet held.

  The bike hummed like it hadn’t just pulled them from an endless abyss.

  She felt something hazy, like fingers in her mind, tendrils of silk and a whisper of something else, almost like a voice.

  What was she thinking about again?

  “Hey!” snapped a rough voice.

  Guns cocked.

  Her head jerked up.

  They were surrounded.

  She was unarmed.

  And she didn’t know why.

  Around her crystaline barrels of all colours hummed. Their musky faces, smoothed in soot so thick she could mistake it for skin. But the most shocking of them all was the pinch of youth that hinted back. Eyes brighter than most rotting adults, expressions too hopeful.

  She hated kids. Teens more.

  One Thalin rat stepped forward, gun half-raised, “Are ya deaf, woman?”

  She side-eyed the garbage, his skinless tail slopping deck slime like a mop. Her gag reflex sputtered, the wet end like a finger tangled in a hairy drain.

  “Well, if she were deaf, she wouldn’t hear you, would she?” sighed a stumpy Batrakin.

  “Nahbody likes a smart-ass, Matthi…ASS,” muttered a six armed, Durg.

  Matthi-ass raised his gun, pointing it at his fellow, “Matthias! Mah-THAY-ahS! Get it right!”

  “Hehe, whatever ya say, My-Tight-ass. Just dump that noble and take the bike, already.”

  Matthias fumed, his spectacles fogging up, as the six-armed beetle smiled down at a bull-horned Centaur. His finger itched to pull that trigger.

  Moments waited, sweat drooled down the barrel until—

  “CAN. YOU. EAR. US!” the first Ratman said.

  And not in the mood for this shit, Lore snarled at the boy.

  “yes I can fucking hear!”

  She stood up, her figure tall against the welp, her crimson eyes burning a hole in his puny rat of a brain.

  “And keep waving that barrel at me, and I’ll tear your bloody throat out. You got me!”

  And then… every barrel pointed her way—hot, steaming and primed.

  “Leave Mutt alone, ee’s stupid but better than a filth-fy noble.” The Durg said.

  “Agreed,” Matthias said, “now hand over the bike, lady, and you won’t have to get hurt.”

  Annoyed her tail ready to snap Mutt’s neck, she peered at the Batrakin brat. In a rough guess, she assumed he had to be in his early hundreds, a few centuries too late to poke her with hot sticks.

  He wore a dumb brown coat too big for his short frame. His fleshy horns had more hardened skin than bone. His thick bull-like skin stretched over his muscular legs.

  But worse, she plucked her nose, the fume of his breath now hitting her.

  “Oh hell,” she groaned, wafting the stank, “Too many Eden apples, do you eat anything else?”

  “W-what, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Matthias snapped, his flushing horns telling her otherwise.

  “What’s an Eden apple?” asked Mutt.

  “Ya should try one,” The beetle said.

  “Shut it, Beaumont!” Matthias snapped. “You’re not giving him any!”

  Lore watched, eyebrow raised, as Matthias fumbled to give any excuse for his sexual fruit consumption. Beaumont snickering as he attempted to hide his smile behind his mandables and rifle.

  Ah, to be innocent, huh? Oh, hell, younglings never change, do they?

  But Lore smiled. They called her lady, a noble, and the way Mutt looked at her. It was clear. She brushed her hair back and puckered her lips.

  She could use this to her advantage.

  So, facing the big, bad shorty with a compensatingly long shotgun, she chewed her lip.

  “Sounds like someone is a little shy,” she cooed.

  The barrel of the captain’s gun pointed at her face.

  “Shut up! Shut up! No more talking,” he shouted. “Just hand over all you have. Now!”

  Lore’s tail swished as she sat, the bike’s engine going cold under her. She wasn’t about to be mugged by a child. Surrounded or not.

  She pressed her lips into a half kiss, watching the youthful gazes follow her every action. They would either shoot her or wish to dismantle her belt. Never had she been glad for her skimpy attire.

  And trusting her instincts, she stood; the decks creaked from the weight shift. The giggling crew fell silent. Guns hot. The hesitation, sweating down the barrels.

  “What are you doing?” Snapped Matthias, “You’re outnumbered one click from a corpse.”

  She tilted her head. “Sure about that?”

  Her shadow cast a tower over the short demon, like a beast one swing from cutting him in two, a hungry predator one bite from a meal.

  Should she dig in or play?

  Choices.

  Choices.

  CHOICES!

  What should she pick?

  Then, having to look up to her, Matthias snarled, his shotgun warming up in preparation, her grin stretching along her fangs.

  “Do it.” She whispered. “Let me show you what happens.”