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Amina felt such terrible melancholy when they left the bunker — left it behind, forever.

The cold stone hut was a poor excuse for a home, even a temporary one: the floor and walls were rough and grey, colourless and blank; every surface was rock hard, pitted, and scratchy; the air smelled of dust — not the clean dust of dry earth or fresh straw, but unnatural and heavy; the place was empty of anything except that little side-room full of corpses and rot. Amina decided she did not like concrete. It was a material fit only for building in hell.

But when the angel led the way out of the metal door, up the concrete ramp, and across the rotting black ribbon of the ancient road, Amina could not help but look back.

The bunker was like a little calcified stone wart, slick with slow-drying rain, sunk into the desiccated flesh of the world.

Amina understood that none of them were likely to ever see this place again.

They had left nothing behind except bloodstains and body heat; Pira had even wiped her diagram and map off the concrete wall, smearing the paint to illegibility with the cuff of her sleeve. While the others had gathered up their weapons and stuffed spare equipment into the backpacks and filled the two empty cannisters with water, Amina had felt a desire to scratch her name into the concrete wall. Low down, small, neat, where it might be seen in the future by another lost soul like herself. But she could not mark the concrete. Her nails were too soft. She would have to use the knife, but she did not wish to reveal her hidden claw.

Her demon’s whispers were very clear about that: keep the secret, for now.

The angel led them over the road and plunged into the buildings on the opposite side. Amina looked back, past Pira, who was acting as rearguard. She kept looking back until only a sliver of the bunker remained.

Amina offered a prayer — not to God, who was not here and did not care, and not to the angel, whose mind was on other desires, but to the bunker itself. An ugly little stone tumour, which had sheltered them in their hour of need.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Next to her, Ilyusha jerked round. Claws out, weapon bobbing, eyes up, her beautiful face framed by the dying brickwork of the buildings between which they slid. “Eh? Ami? Eh?”

“Nothing,” Amina whispered. “It’s nothing.”

She turned away from the bunker and concentrated on keeping her place in the group, keeping pace with Ilyusha, and keeping her head down.

Amina felt such terrible melancholy — but the fear was worse.

During the mad scramble for safety after the battle outside the tomb, Amina had not been able to absorb the details of the landscape through which they had fled; she had been too focused on the body of the angel in Pira’s arms, on Ilyusha’s clawed hand dragging at her own, at her pumping lungs and sweat-stained skin and the screaming fear in her belly. But now, as the group picked their way through the corpse-like ruins of eternity, the only thing she could do was observe.

After all, she was no use for anything else in this place.

Her demon disagreed. Her knife chafed against her ribs with every step.

The buildings were impossibly huge and impossibly rotten, an endless patchwork of crumbling brick, concrete stained and cracked, glass shattered and melted, steel twisted and warped and eaten by rust; some buildings were skeletal, empty, windblown corpses, while others were bloated with black rot and dark green growths, bulging and spreading into the streets and alleys. Corroded ribbons of metal hung in the air, swooping and dipping, leading off into the city. Strange humped metal creatures sat dead at intersections, like giant rust-caked caterpillars. Some of the structures were dizzyingly tall, the work of angels or demons or something else Amina could not imagine. She had to crane her neck all the way back to see their ragged tips scraping at the sky. On a few of those tallest fingers, giant bulbs of flesh stood out, fat and red, like parasitic plants soaking up non-existent sunlight.

Beyond those infected fingers, the sky was choked with motionless black. A faint red glow burned in one quarter, pretending to be the sun, trapped behind an infinity of smog. The light offered no heat, no comfort, but somehow Amina could still see well enough.

Her boots scuffed and dragged along paving slabs, on smooth black ‘asphalt’, fitted bricks, dull metal, shattered concrete, but only the occasional stretch of naked dirt, turned to mud by the night’s rain — and the dirt was not brown or black, but grey.

Even the soil was dead.

Horrible sounds echoed through the canyons formed by the buildings: far-off gunshots, the chatter of weapons, screams ripped away by the wind, feet tapping on dead ground, and worse noises, ones which Amina could not name or comprehend.

Amina’s only solace was in the other girls, in front and behind, in how close they moved, how tight their ‘formation’ — a word she had learned not from Ilyusha, but from the angel.

Elpida led from the front, as Amina thought was right; she used hand signals and hisses to call for halts, or to wave Ilyusha forward, or to resume their slow, stop-start progress through the ruptured capillaries of this corpse-city. The angel carried the big gun — the ‘coilgun’ she had taken from the tomb. It looked heavy and bulky, but the angel was unstoppable, and she left the piece that did the shooting locked to the backpack part, keeping her hands free for other tasks.

Atyle stayed very close to the angel, which made Amina’s demon flutter with wet-red jealousy.

But Atyle also had the task of carrying the severed arm-gun which she and Pira had brought back from their quest; Amina did not envy that. Atyle also had the task of sometimes pointing the arm-gun at things — things which strayed too close or wouldn’t go away, things which were interested in their little group, things which did not show enough fear of the angel’s coilgun or her threatening words. Amina never saw those things, because she was always hunkered down while it happened, cowering behind a snatch of wall or Ilyusha’s ballistic shield, her arms wrapped around her own head, trying not to sob or whine, because prey-like noise might attract more predatory attention.

Atyle didn’t care. She stood tall, as if nothing could touch her; Amina understood that the angel had chosen Atyle for that task because of her near-suicidal fearlessness.

That happened five times on the first day; three of those times, the angel and Pira did a lot of shouting — not at each other, for which Amina was thankful, but at the things they were pointing the guns at.

Vicky and Kagami came next. Vicky’s arm was still recovering from its reattachment, wrapped in a sling made from a spare t-shirt. But she was confident on her feet and strong enough to support Kagami. Often she would turn and whisper a few words of encouragement to Amina; Amina liked Vicky a lot. Vicky was kind, and good, and meant what she said. Vicky was not a liar giving lip service. Vicky was a good person; Amina made sure to repeat that in her head, hammering that fact into her demon. Vicky spent all her time helping Kagami to walk, or steadying Kagami whenever Kagami had to use her magic seeing-glass, or helping Amina get into cover when they had to stop quickly because something bad was nearby.

Amina could tell that Vicky was used to this — moving from place to place, helping a small group of friends, sticking together. Amina liked that.

Kagami struggled. She still could not walk properly; her magic metal legs were disobedient. She panted for breath often, relishing every little stop. She said a lot of harsh words, some which even made Ilyusha snort and giggle, and one which made Vicky angry in return. But sometimes Kagami saw things that the others couldn’t, before Elpida or Atyle could spot them. Why did Atyle not spot them first, with her magic eye? Amina did not understand that. Perhaps it was the stress of carrying the arm-gun and watching the angel’s back.

Whenever that happened, Kagami called out to Elpida. The terror in her voice made Amina want to curl up into a ball and stop moving.

Behind Vicky and Kagami came herself and Ilyusha. But Illy could not stay at her side all the time.

Ilyusha had to go forward often, whenever the angel hissed for her help in warding off something that would not go away. Sometimes Ilyusha went forward just because she felt like it, scrambling over broken concrete so she could bump her head on the angel’s shoulder or snap her teeth at the angel’s fingers. She went backward too, looping around the rear of the group, worming her way through parallel alleys and streets until she would burst from some unexpected broken vein of brick and steel to rejoin them again. Claws clicking on concrete, tail lashing the air, Illy was beautiful. Illy was meant to be here. Illy had let her demon reshape her body so she could thrive in hell.

Was that what Amina had to do? Give her demon what it wanted? Change, like Illy had?

Her demon was silent on this subject.

Whenever Ilyusha left her side, Amina’s demon whispered suggestions: it told her to wriggle her hand up inside her clothes and wrap her fingers around the hilt of her knife. But she needed both hands for balance. Walking was hard, and tiring, and the ground was often uneven, and she never knew when they would all have to suddenly stop and hide.

And Pira might see.

Pira brought up the rear of the group. The flame-haired warrior was still recovering from the gunshot wound in her side, her movements a fraction slower and more stiff than before. Pira was also angry; Amina could tell that Pira did not agree with this course of action, this trek across hell’s putrefied hide. But Pira had been out-argued by the angel’s desire. Pira could not resist the angel any more than Amina could; Amina’s demon burbled with quiet jealousy over that, too.

Amina tried to look back as little as possible; she did not want to draw Pira’s attention. But whenever Pira went forward, Amina found herself at the rear of the group, alone and exposed. Better to have Pira at her back than nothing at all.

Progress was slow torture. Amina was not used to travelling long distances, but even she could tell that they were not making good time. The city was a tangle of corpses piled atop each other, necessitating constant detours around impassable areas — craters of rubble, infested buildings bubbling with black rot, strange creatures and machines motionless amid the ruins.

And worst of all, other revenants.

Haunted voices called out from the ruins — not to Amina and her companions, but locked in unseen congress. Great and terrible damned slid away into the dark, or lumbered past the ends of streets, or stood and watched from silent vantage points. More than once, pot-shots rang out through the air, until warded off by the angel and Atyle waving their weapons.

But progress they did, one step at a time; they went north, toward the plume of smoke in the far distance, the thinning marker of the angel’s desire.

Other than that finger of smoke, the only constant landmark was the grey mountain range always to their left: the giant machine-worm, the ‘graveworm’.

Amina tried not to think about that creature. It was too big. A leviathan cast out of the world and into hell, where it belonged.

After the first few hours, Amina found her thoughts turning to nothing. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, until her feet blurred together, through stagnant puddles and sticky mud and solid rot. She concentrated on listening for the hiss of the angel’s voice calling for a halt, calling for them to duck, to scurry into cover like rats. She felt like a rat, or a mouse, or a rabbit diving for a hole.

Eventually, after many hours but few miles, the red smear in the sky grew dim. Amina and the others could still see easily enough — she did not understand how — but her body demanded rest.

That night there was no bunker, no thick walls, no one door in or out. They slept in a huge metal barn; Vicky and Ilyusha both called it a ‘hangar’.

The barn was full of strange dark rusting shapes, metal monsters of sharp angles and long blades and collapsed wheels. The dead monsters seemed to make Ilyusha sad; she stared at them for a long time and wouldn’t — or couldn’t — explain why. But exhaustion and sleep carried away any melancholy.

They bedded down wedged into a corner of the hangar, burrowing into coats and wrapping themselves in spare layers. The structure was set in the middle of a wide open space of blank concrete, with huge archways opening in two directions. The angel said something about ‘good lines of sight’. But Amina would have preferred to hide and build a fire. She felt very cold.

But there was nothing to burn. Only metal and concrete. Did concrete burn? Amina doubted that.

Another difference to the few days in the bunker: they did not all sleep at the same time.

The others took turns to sit up, stay awake, and watch the vast, dark entrances to the hangar, the wide flat concrete plain outdoors, and the jagged horizon beyond. Amina was not included in this process. Pira was offered an exemption, but refused. Ilyusha was passed over for responsibility.

But again, Amina could not sleep.

She was exhausted. Her legs ached. Her mind was stretched thin by the stop-start motion of the day, by the terror of cowering from things unseen, by the dizzying reality of this city in hell. She could not have prayed, even if she had been inclined to do so. She should have slipped into merciful sleep. But beneath a pile of coats, propped against the very corner of the hangar walls, with Ilyusha snuggled up and chewing on her arm, all Amina could do was grip her knife.

The corpse-city loomed outdoors. Full of dead things, hell-bound things, just like her.

A knife was safety. A knife was security. A knife was the demon’s way. And hell was full of demons.

Elpida had taken the first watch. She sat a little way out from the rest of the group, a little further out from the corner, facing toward the horizon, sitting on a metal box which she and Atyle had dragged over from beneath one of the ruined metal machines. Amina stared at Elpida’s back for a very long time, at her shoulders beneath the heavy coat, at the faint hint of her brilliant white hair silhouetted against the distant red horizon-glow.

The angel would protect her — but only until she revealed her demon.

Amina’s demon was already whispering a suggestion: get up, walk over, pull out the knife. The angel would hear her coming. Get it over with. Stop hiding what you are. Stop hiding. Stop.

But Amina was snuggled up with Ilyusha. Illy would wake up, and be grumpy. The others might hear her.

She wanted the angel, and only the angel, to do it.

So Amina watched.

And in the dark, with distant howling caught on the wind, Amina heard Elpida whisper a single word.

“Graveworm?”

Two or three hours later — she wasn’t sure, because she may have fallen asleep — Amina realised she wasn’t the only one watching the angel’s back.

Pira was awake, sitting up. Amina had not seen her move. She was staring at Elpida across the dark cavern of the hangar.

Pira’s watch was next, but she didn’t stand up or walk over to Elpida; she just watched — and listened, Amina assumed, because the angel was whispering her litany of names. Her private prayer of twenty four. Amina strained to memorise all those names — Ipeka, Kit, Third, Howl. Those names were important to the angel. The angel was praying to them, in a way that Amina understood. Perhaps they were the names of other angels, left behind, or betrayed, or loved? Perhaps Amina could pray to those names as well. Inside her chest, her demon retreated a little at that notion.

When the angel had finished whispering, Pira stood and walked over. Her hair was a smouldering ember of red in the dark.

She sat down on the other end of the metal box, as far from Elpida as she could get. Both of them were facing away from Amina, into the night.

Amina stayed very still. She held her breath.

“Pira,” the angel whispered. “Rest well? How are you holding up? How’s the wound feel?”

Pira answered in an even softer whisper. She didn’t look at Elpida. Amina had to strain to hear the words.

“Fine. You?”

Elpida said: “Doing good so far.”

Pira exhaled hard through her nose. “I know you’re still wounded. Can see it in how you move. Your whole stomach is seized up. Internal bleeding making your muscles and organs stiff. We should have waited another day.”

“Perhaps.”

Pira’s head turned toward the angel, just a little. “Having any regrets, yet?”

Elpida didn’t answer for a moment, then whispered: “We made it through one day.”

“We almost didn’t. Several times.” Pira sounded angry.

“But we did.”

“Blind luck.”

Elpida’s whisper was calm and collected, but there was something dead about her voice. “Those two in the powered armour, they ran from us when we showed them the coilgun. The revenant with the scythe, she only left when you shouted at her. Good job, Pira. The group with the … mirrors? They saw us, yes, that was risky. But they gave us a wide berth. We did it. We can do it again.”

Pira stared at Elpida for a few moments, then turned back to the horizon. “This group is half dead weight.”

Minutes passed. Amina didn’t understand why Elpida was still sitting there. It was Pira’s turn to watch. Elpida deserved sleep.

Then, Elpida whispered: “That large group we had to go around, the ones inside that fortress complex, there must have been two, maybe three dozen of them. And the noises, the … ”

“They were eating each other,” Pira supplied.

“Yes.” Elpida straightened up, her dark silhouette rising. “Was that normal?”

Pira’s lips clicked. She whispered, “Sometimes. Sometimes not. Revenants collaborate and split based on a million pressures and variations, but the smartest and least volatile will be bunkered down, waiting for the worm to move. The best spots will be occupied by the strongest, or the most well organized; they’ll hold those spots in case the worm isn’t moving for weeks, or months. The cannibal pack we saw were in the open. Exposed. Disorganised. The only ones moving around so openly are those who can’t do otherwise. The lost. The mad. Predators. Us.”

Elpida breathed a tiny laugh. “Point taken.”

But Pira carried on. “Other groups will be preying where they can. Others still will have agendas of their own, beliefs, creeds. It’s rare, but sometimes revenants from similar eras find each other, find commonality in their ideology. Those groups are often well-organized. Can be very dangerous.”

Pira trailed off. Elpida whispered: “Like the Death’s Heads?”

Pira glanced toward Elpida again. “The what?”

“The people back at the tomb, with the megaphone and the human-skin flag, with the skull painted on it. The one in powered armour who I killed with the coilgun, it — she, I suppose — had a black skull on her armour, too. And Serin, the sniper, she had black skulls crossed out on her arm. Kill counting. She called them ‘the death cult’, but when we were leaving the tomb, the trio we were with, they shouted ‘death’s head’, like a warning that we should recognise.” Elpida turned more fully to look at Pira, two dark outlines against the jagged horizon. “Back at the tomb, when that flag got ripped down, a cheer went up. I heard it. Other revenants, some who’d been fighting each other, they cheered. I haven’t forgotten that. Pira, who are those people?”

Pira sighed. She seemed to be thinking, but Amina couldn’t quite tell, not with Pira all in shadow.

Eventually, Pira whispered, “Groups like that appear from time to time. Omnicidal, aggressive, selective. Skulls crop up a lot in their symbolism. I’ve never had a personal close encounter with them though. I couldn’t tell you what they believe.”

“From time to time? The whole time you’ve been doing this?”

Pira shrugged. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve seen things like them before. That’s all.”

Pira was lying to the angel; Amina’s demon told her so. Her fingers creaked on the handle of her knife. She tried not to breathe.

Elpida was whispering: “Serin didn’t kill us. I know you think we let her go, but it’s the other way around: she let us go. She was unstable, and violent, and mistaken. But she let us go. Ilyusha and she shared some kind of allegiance, against the Death’s Heads. Isn’t that a start?”

Pira just said: “She’s following us.”

“Serin?”

“Yes.”

Elpida sighed a little. “I noticed.”

Pira glanced at her. “You did?”

Elpida nodded. “Mmhmm.”

Pira shook her head and looked away.

Elpida said, “She’s highly modified. Is she the kind of person you were talking about, when you mentioned revenants who can live beyond the graveworm line?”

“Not even close.”

Elpida and Pira sat side by side in the dark, watching the horizon. Amina’s demon stirred her heart with jealousy. But she could never speak to the angel in the manner which Pira did. She could never sit up there, side by side with divinity, with this demon in her chest.

Eventually, Elpida whispered: “Pira, where are you from? In life, where did you come from?”

Pira said nothing. She stared forward.

But Amina saw her shoulders tighten. Even as shadows, she recognised the temper of raw nerves.

Elpida waited a moment, then said, “I know it’s an intimate question, but all we have here is each other. You saved me. I trust you. I want to know more about you. If you don’t want to answer, that’s okay. But if you ever feel ready, please—”

“I hate you.”

Pira whispered it so softly, Amina almost didn’t catch the words.

Elpida waited.

“I hate you,” Pira repeated. She whispered to the dark skies beyond the hangar. “All of you. You did this. You. Them. All your shining cities — your Telokopolis, too, yes. All of you are descendants of the culture which murdered mine. You want to know where I come from?” Pira gestured out — at the corpse-city. “This. This is my life. What came before is barely a memory. The womb. Oblivion.”

A long time passed. Whole minutes in silence. Was Pira crying? Amina could not tell. Elpida did not touch her.

Then, eventually, Elpida said: “Why are you staying with us, then?”

“I don’t know.” Pira’s whisper was clear, her emotions shuttered once more. “Maybe you’ll lead us into the graveworm, and then out again, beyond. Or maybe we’ll all die tomorrow and I’ll wake up twelve years from now, and never see you again. I don’t know if it matters anymore.”

Elpida nodded. “I can’t promise much, Pira. I don’t even know what I’m doing. But—”

“Then don’t promise anything.”

“Can’t do that,” Elpida whispered. “I promise I won’t leave you behind, even if you hate me. Hate me as much as you want. I can take it.”

Elpida stood up. As she ended her watch, she reached for Pira’s shoulder. But Pira swatted her hand away. Amina flinched in the darkness, then wriggled down and pretended to be asleep.

Her demon’s hand was hot and sweaty on her knife. The angel was so forgiving, so perfect, so loving.

She knew what she had to do: use the knife, then ask forgiveness.

Tomorrow night.

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Walking the ashen city at the end of civilization isn’t as easy as it sounds, and it also doesn’t sound very easy. But Amina is good at keeping her head down and listening to other people’s conversations. I wonder how different this sequence would have seemed through Elpida’s eyes? We’ll all see, soon enough. 

If you want more Necroepilogos right away, there is a tier for it on my patreon:

Patreon!

Right now this only offers a single chapter ahead, about 4k words.  Please, do feel free to wait until there’s plenty more to read! I’m still trying to somehow put out more chapters ahead, maybe soon!

There’s also a TopWebFiction entry, for voting. Voting makes the story go up the rankings, which helps more people see it!

Thank you so much for reading my little story. I’m enjoying Necroepilogos a great deal, and I hope you are too! Next week might be the last chapter of this arc, or maybe second to last, depending on how quickly Elpida can move … 

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Amina could not tell day from night; the only window inside the bunker was shut tight.

And there was no true sunlight in hell. No warmth for the damned — except in each other.

After a long and exhausted sleep snuggled up with Ilyusha, with her hand wrapped around the sweaty hilt of her knife, Amina awoke to a clank-clank-clank echoing down into the bunker.

Atyle and Pira had returned from their quest.

Amina stayed out of the way: she did not know how to help, how to usefully insert herself among the others. The angel and Illy and Vicky all moved with confidence and certainty; Amina felt clumsy, slow, and small, swamped inside her clothes, outpaced by the older girls with their elegant legs and graceful hands.

But she also hoped to avoid attention. Of all the other hell-bound girls condemned alongside her, the most terrifying were Atyle and Pira.

When the knock on the door was followed by Pira’s shout, Amina hid deeper inside her bundle of coats. When Elpida and Ilyusha picked up guns and climbed the steps to unbar the door, Amina clamped her lips shut and held her breath. When Atyle and Pira clattered down the steps and rejoined them in the bunker, Amina did not welcome them home. When the questions started to fly back and forth, Amina tried not to listen.

She wanted to close her eyes and sink into her hidden nest. But she was very good at listening.

Atyle and Pira both looked terrible, but in different ways. Their clothes and hair were dirty from the gritty rain, stained from lying in ashes or stagnant water — or perhaps from splashes of blood. They were both exhausted — but exhaustion made Atyle glow.

Pira was wounded.

The terrifying Frankish warrior slumped against the wall, clutching her side. The angel – who was angelic to all, even demons — went to help her. Pira put up a token resistance, but Elpida was too deft, too firm. Wet clothing and pieces of armour fell to the floor. Pira stood, panting, half-stripped to reveal a bloody bullet wound chewed into her flank. Crimson was smeared across her pale flesh, over her ribcage and stomach. Her blue eyes were flat and hollow with pain. She pushed weakly at Elpida’s hand.

Pira hissed, “Off— I’m— it went through. Clean shot. I’ll heal. Get off.”

Elpida replied, “Stop. Pira, stop trying to hide the wound. Get the rest of your armour off, let’s at least plug it, or get some nanomachines in there. And well done, both of you. Well done. Atyle, put that with the coilgun for now. And sit down, you’ve earned a rest.”

But Atyle said: “It is a gift for you, warrior, and it shall not touch the ground before it touches your hands. My second gift for you. A feast for the eyes and the strongest arm.”

Amina was very glad that Atyle had eyes only for the angel. Atyle was a terror whose gaze left Amina paralysed.

The others were gathered around the tall, dark figure of Atyle. They examined the nightmare she had brought back from beyond. Ilyusha was grinning, flexing her claws like a carnivore before fresh meat, capering from foot to foot; that was beautiful, so Amina tried to focus on Illy, but there was too much going on. Vicky was nodding, looking serious, chewing her lip. Kagami was peering through her magic seeing-glass, muttering under her breath.

Atyle was carrying a limb, taken from the monster the angel had slain.

A few scraps of papery skin and dry flesh still clung to one end of the arm, penetrated by complicated pieces of metal. The limb bulged outward in the middle; Kagami was pointing and gesturing at that swelling of dead flesh, saying words Amina did not understand: “Self-replenishing manufactory; we feed it rocks and dirt, it’ll turn them into sabots. Fuck me, this is beautiful.”

Beyond that distended section was a collection of smooth metal tubes.

Death.

Amina had seen those tubes kill the angel; they had spat metal and torn Elpida apart. Ilyusha had explained what firearms were, but she must be wrong, or mistaken, or confused. Only magic of the most terrible kind could have felled the angel — or perhaps the terrible vengeance and anger of God.

Was the monster another kind of angel? Had Atyle and Pira broken off part of an angel?

Amina’s head swam with the implications. Cold sweat broke out on her face, her palms, and her back. Beneath her clothes her knuckles creaked on the hilt of her knife. She wanted the quiet to come back. She wanted the rainstorm. She wanted to close her eyes and stop thinking and—

Pira croaked: “Stop gawking. Put it down. Listen. We were followed.”

Kagami turned and spluttered, “What? How?! I thought you were good at this!”

The angel looked up from tending to Pira’s wound. Her attention sharpened. “You were followed?”

Pira nodded.

“Where? How many? Are they close?”

Pira said, “Two. Not far. They—”

But Atyle insisted: “Warrior. Accept my gift. I will not place it at your feet as tribute. From my hands to yours, or not at all.”

Amina could feel the tension like steam filling the air. She wanted to whimper and hide. But Elpida rose from Pira. She awkwardly accepted the horrifying trophy. Atyle smiled, then sat cross-legged on the floor, as if her part was over. Vicky scurried about to tend to Pira’s wound. Ilyusha kept bending over the weapon, poking at the metal parts with her extended claws, even when Elpida placed the horrible thing on the cold floor.

Amina had to look away when Vicky pulled a bullet out of Pira’s blood-slick side.

Vicky snorted. “All the way through? What’s this then?”

Pira didn’t answer that. “Followed, yes,” she said to Elpida, croaky and pale. “Not by the scavenger group we took the cyclic coilgun from. I made a mistake. We stopped to rest. Two — unnhh — two revenants. Crept up on us. Winged me. Followed us after. But they hung back when we got close to the bunker.”

Vicky hissed, “Shit. Don’t tell me this means we’re gonna have to move?”

Atyle said, eyes closed: “We are safe in here. We are many, and strong. We will not be assaulted.”

Kagami was peering at the walls with her magic glass. “Nobody’s out there, nobody within range. Nothing, just damp ground and those permanent clouds. You don’t think they were friends with the sniper bitch?”

Pira blinked. The mask of pain stiffened. “Sniper?”

Elpida nodded. “We were attacked. We dealt with it.”

That was when the argument started — a real one.

Amina knew the difference between a real argument and a fake one. She had learned the nuances from listening to her sisters and her parents a thousand times, hidden behind the turn of a wall or sitting with her head bowed, hoping not to get involved.

She saw it in the scrunch of Pira’s frown. She heard it in the quiet, controlled tone of the first few questions, even if she couldn’t follow the reasoning: “You confronted her?” “You killed her?” “You let her go?” “Why?” She felt it resonate in the angel’s posture, in the way Vicky drew up alongside her in support. She recognised Kagami’s detachment, the way she stood somewhat apart at first, then joined in — with Pira. And when Ilyusha stamped on the floor and spat insults, Amina flinched. Ilyusha’s tail lashed the air. Her claws flicked in and out. Amina shivered.

She couldn’t follow the meaning; the argument was too real. She wanted to clamp her hands over ears. She wanted to vanish.

Pira, cold: “You had a highly developed revenant at gunpoint and you let her go. You wasted—”

Ilyusha, spitting. “Not gonna fucking eat anybody you reptile cunt!”

Pira’s reply: “I am not advocating cannibalism. I am advocating self-preservation. And I told you not to leave this bunker.”

Vicky, too slow to make peace: “Woah, woah, this woman let Elpi and Illy go, from what I understand. Right? Elpi?”

Pira was unyielding. “She will return to her allies and try again. This is how it works. None of you will survive more than a few days if you don’t learn that.”

Ilyusha, bubbling over with rage: “Fuck you! She was like me! Like me! Fuck you, reptile, you cunts never fucking get it! You just run!”

The angel’s voice cut through the shouting, clear and calm: “We’re going to have to move regardless. Pira, this changes nothing.”

Amina offered her a silent prayer. If God would not listen, the angel would do. She prayed for the shouting to stop.

Pira came back sharp: “Move? This is a perfectly defensible position. Atyle is correct about that. You know that as well as I do. We should stay still until the graveworm moves. What are you suggesting?”

The angel had a plan.

“We’re going after the combat frame — the ‘fallen star’,” she said. “Now we have the cyclic coilgun, more firepower, we can move around. I want that combat frame.”

Amina heard something else in the angel’s voice, something she had not expected. She wondered if any of the others could hear it.

Desire.

Amina wished she had not prayed to the angel, had not offered what little strength she had to share, because Amina did not want to leave the bunker.

She knew this barren stone room was nothing more than a temporary refuge. She had just about managed to follow the conversation which had taken place after the angel had come back to life, about the giant metal worms and how they would eventually have to move on, and keep moving, like nomads, never stopping in one place for long. But Amina did not wish to live like that. She had spent her whole life in Qarya. Other than roaming the hills and valleys, and the occasional visit to neighbouring villages, she knew nowhere else. She did not wish to know hell.

Another punishment heaped upon her, for failure to resist her demon: no place to rest her head, no comfortable pillow, no soft bed.

Pira hissed: “You’re suicidal. I should never have helped you.”

The shouting got worse — not louder, but more angry, bitter, and aggressive. Ilyusha spat and raged, threatening with the spike on her tail, saying words she had not taught to Amina. Pira turned cold, like a corpse. The angel kept explaining why they had to move before the graveworm did, why she didn’t want to risk leaving the ‘combat frame’ behind, when the worm moved on. Amina did not understand why the angel wanted to find that giant; perhaps she was going to recruit it — but that didn’t explain the quiver of desire and need in the angel’s voice. Vicky sided with Elpida. Kagami sided with Pira at first — but then wavered, withdrew, and kept her own counsel. She watched Elpida carefully; Amina watched her watching.

Pira and Ilyusha snapped at each other.

“—should have killed her when you had the chance—”

“—should have torn your guts out when you woke up, shit eater!”

Elpida tried to keep the peace. “Ilyusha, back off. Right now. Pira, stop. What’s done is done.”

Pira’s voice was cold. “What’s done will come back to bite us. And I am not moving this group.”

Amina couldn’t take it; not because she couldn’t understand the information, but because she understood the tone and flow of an argument all too well. She had witnessed enough of them, stood on the sidelines or just out of sight, listening and understanding and wishing she didn’t. Now her companions in this dark place seemed on the verge of tearing each other apart. She was trapped, buffeted by their anger, trying to stay still and silent.

“Soft-headed—”

“Fuckface!”

“—out of control—”

“—your choice, warrior—”

“Everyone be quiet!”

Anger, hot and sharp, drew Amina’s demon from its dreamless sleep.

At first she didn’t realise it was still there, coiled inside her breast like a serpent in a garden. But as the argument finally burned out under the angel’s call for silence, Amina realised she had wormed one hand up inside her clothes and through the carefully wrapped bundle pressed against her front. She was gripping the hilt of the knife. But it was not her fault.

The demon was using her eyes, judging the other girls.

She felt the urge. Clear and clean.

Amina sobbed.

Vicky said, “Look, we’re upsetting Amina. Amina, sweetie, it’s okay. We’re all really tired and really stressed, but we don’t hate each other. Nobody’s going to fight. Everyone’s gonna calm down now, okay?”

The angel said: “I agree with Vicky. Everyone needs to calm down. We can talk this over.”

Ilyusha scoffed. Pira turned her head away. Amina had to put her hand over her lower face to smother another horrified sob; the demon writhed inside her chest, making demands. Ilyusha came over to her and wormed into the coats to hug her from behind. Ilyusha’s claws flicked back into her fingertips before she touched Amina. Amina wished those claws would rake her flesh in punishment.

Pira said: “What’s to discuss? We’re not moving this group, not before the worm moves.”

Elpida said, “Let’s get that wound plugged first. Then I’ll explain.”

The others continued their argument, slower now. Pira slid down to the floor and closed her eyes. Elpida made suggestions about giants and pilots and other words Amina could not fathom.

Amina negotiated with her demon.

Elpida was out of the question. Elpida was an angel. Elpida had returned to life once already, and she would do so again. Elpida’s skin would turn away Amina’s knife. Amina’s demon was a terrible thing, but she knew it was very small, not powerful enough to overcome such beauty and grace. Elpida would see her intent, fight her off, take away the knife — and then Elpida would be kind. She would understand. Beneath her angelic onslaught, the demon would wither.

The demon wanted Elpida, very badly. It wanted to kiss blood off Elpida’s lips and smear crimson into that perfect white hair. But the demon agreed: not Elpida.

“—not from your time,” Pira was saying, eyes screwed up in pain. “Whatever the orbital entry was, the chance of it being compatible with you is minuscule. It’s a fool’s errand. Give it up.”

The angel replied: “It’s a combat frame. If I can interface, we’d be invincible. It’s a worth an attempt.”

Pira said nothing.

Pira was too frightening. Even slumped against the wall, oozing blood from a bullet wound, grey in the face and cold with detachment, Pira was terrifying. Pira was a demon too, Amina knew this. She was strong and tough and clever and quick and cruel. Pira would take a dozen stab wounds and keep fighting. Pira would kill her.

But back in Qarya, Kazem had been strong and clever and cruel — so very cruel, the way he had beaten Amina’s eldest sister. But Amina’s demon had been smarter. The demon had helped her lead Kazem down to the river, down to a bend where nobody went, with promises of kisses and favours. The demon had plunged a stolen butcher’s knife into Kazem’s spine.

Auntie Ruwa had been tough and quick and cruel, and clever enough to conceal her infidelity with Amina’s father. But she had believed when Amina had lured her out into the woods, with a tale that her second-eldest sister had gotten her foot stuck in a tree root. Auntie Ruwa had crumpled well enough when Amina’s demon had pierced her lungs with an awl. Wolves had eaten her corpse; Amina had checked, a week later, just to be sure.

How about Atyle?

“A machine of the gods,” Atyle was saying. Her eyes were closed. “Among other machines of the gods. I do not see the value, warrior. But I will follow, if only to see how you see.”

Absolutely not. Amina knew that Atyle could see through more than walls. The sorcerer could see through flesh, thought, and souls. Amina told the demon no, never, do not even suggest such a thing. She framed specific words very carefully in her mind: Atyle, I will not harm you. I will not. I will not.

Atyle did not open her eyes or look round. Amina hoped the sorcerer would understand.

Vicky said: “Hey, I’m not gonna pretend to know shit about any of this stuff, but if Elpi says she can pilot a giant robot, I’m down for finding the giant robot.”

Vicky would make an easy target, especially with that useless arm, hanging all meaty and bloody. Amina told the demon no; Vicky was sweet, Vicky cared, Vicky had held her hand and tried to comfort her. Not Vicky. Not her. No.

Kagami snorted. “Agreed. I’m sure it’s no Republic biomechanoid, but if I saw one of those on the horizon, I’d be running to claim it, too. Metaphorically.”

Kagami?

Perhaps. The demon purred. Kagami was slow and vulnerable. Arrogant and rude and hateful. But also very clever. If it was to be Kagami, Amina would have to be very clever too, which meant she would need to listen to the demon. She didn’t like that.

The Frankish knight she’d killed had been arrogant and rude, too. In the final hours of Qarya’s destruction, with her sisters and parents already dead, Amina had pretended not to resist as one of the armoured figures had dragged her off. She knew why. She knew what was going to happen to her. But the knight didn’t know about the knife. He had discovered it when she’d used it to cut open his belly and drag his entrails out. That’s how the other knights had found their friend, and why they’d killed Amina outright.

But Kagami wasn’t a Frankish knight. She didn’t deserve that. And she was ugly. Amina repeated that, for the demon: Kagami was ugly. It would be a waste.

But Ilyusha was beautiful. Smeared with blood, she was even more beautiful.

“No!”

The others looked up from their debate. Vicky said something kind. Ilyusha cocked her head. Pira stared.

The angel said: “Amina, you disagree?”

Amina stared back, swallowed hard, and managed to say: “N-no. Sorry. No.”

Pira said, without malice, “She doesn’t even understand what we’re talking about.”

Kagami snorted. “Poor paleo. It’s sad, that’s what it is.”

The angel signalled for them to stop insulting her. She said, “It’s alright, Amina.” Amina tried not to sob. “If you have an objection, you can share it. I promise I’ll listen. I’ll try to explain anything you don’t understand. Kagami will help.”

Kagami said, “I’ll what?”

Amina shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

Vicky said, “She’s terrified. Elpi, just let her rest.”

“Alright,” Elpida said. “Amina, you don’t have to speak in front of everybody else. It’s okay. We can talk later, if you want.”

Amina kept her eyes screwed tight and waited for the others to resume their talking.

When they did, she concentrated on the demon inside her chest. She squeezed it with her soul, making it smaller and tighter, harder and harder, no matter the imprint it left on her. She crushed it down as small as it would go, into a tiny ball that she could trap and contain.

She uncurled her fingers from around her knife. Her knuckles ached.

She would not let the demon hurt her companions. Not Ilyusha, not Elpida, not Vicky, not Kagami. Not even Atyle or Pira, though they were both terrifying and maybe even deserved it. God was not watching, God was not in this place. They were already in hell, they did not need more pain.

Only the angel was watching. And the angel would not approve.

Amina’s hearing came back. A high pitched whine gave way to the angel’s voice.

“—not too many miles away. We can move quickly, if we stick together.”

Vicky said, “Today? I mean, if we can even measure time in days.”

“As soon as Pira’s recovered. We move.”

Amina slowly opened her eyes. The argument had finally died and been reborn as agreement. Elpida was sitting cross-legged and talking with Pira. Vicky and Kagami were listening. Ilyusha was watching with one eye open, snuggled into Amina’s flank.

And Atyle was staring at Amina. Her magic eye, green and dark, rolled inside the socket.

For almost a full minute, Amina stared back. Eventually Atyle tilted her head and smiled a secret smile.

She knew about the demon.

Amina wanted to close up and stop thinking — but she stared at Elpida instead, at her coppery skin and the faint bloodstains on her lips. Elpida’s skin would turn a blade. Elpida’s lips would kiss away the demon. The angel would save her. It was the only choice, if the sorcerer already knew.

Feed the demon inedible fare. Feed it something it could not swallow. Murder it with poison.

Amina would lead the demon to Elpida, and Elpida would murder it with kindness.

Amina wouldn’t mind dying at those perfect hands.

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Oh, Amina. You don’t understand this world, or where you are, or what you have become. But you do understand what it means to feel, and sin, and desire. And your angel has some desires of her own, doesn’t she? Keep a tight grip on that knife, my girl. You’re going to need it. Especially now it’s time to leave this temporary bolt hole and wander the wastes.

No patreon link this week! Why? Well, the end of the month is only a couple of days away, and if you subscribed now, you’d get charged twice in rapid succession. I don’t really like that. So feel free to wait until after the 1st, if you want to read another few thousand words early!

But there’s still a TopWebFiction entry, for voting. Voting makes the story go up the rankings, which helps more people see it!

Thank you so much for reading this story! I’m having a blast with Necroepilogos, and I have such sights to show you, in this ashen wonderland.

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Amina hadn’t told the other girls about the knife.

She took comfort in that while the fighting was going on — in the weight and pressure of the blade: six inches of smooth, unblemished black steel. Amina had never known a knife so beautiful. Perhaps blades like this belonged only in hell. She kept it contained inside the strange stiff sheath, wrapped in an extra shirt beneath her clothes, pressed against the bare skin of her ribs and belly. Her hidden claw.

She took comfort in the secret itself, too. The secret knife felt familiar — though her illicit lethality was hardly remarkable among all the other damned and demons and devils. If she told the others about the knife they would probably consider it a sensible precaution.

So why not tell them? Her own demon was gone, at long last. Since awakening in that metal coffin, Amina had not felt the urge, not once. In damnation, in hell, she was finally free.

But still, she hid the knife.

Amina focused on the sensation of the knife against her ribs as she cowered inside that dirty stone house, tucked deep down in the shadows, her body wrapped in that oversized coat. She was trying not to listen. Gunshots and explosions floated across the road outdoors, through the rainstorm, penetrating the walls of the concrete bunker; Ilyusha had taught her those words — ‘concrete’ and ‘bunker’ — along with dozens of others, like ‘firearm’, ‘bullet’, and ‘bitch’. Amina didn’t like any of those words, but she liked Ilyusha, so she had listened and learned, though she had struggled to understand. She knew that she lacked proper context, but that did not help. Amina had always thought of herself as quite clever; she read better than all five of her elder sisters, and father had encouraged her to write down her few attempts at poetry. But reading was not knowing. Hell was teaching her that.

Vicky and Kagami crouched in the doorway, up the little flight of stairs. Stinking rain pounded the concrete beyond the doorway. Vicky tried to offer some words of encouragement, because Vicky was very kind, but they were both quickly distracted by Kagami’s running commentary on the fight. Kagami’s magic seeing-glass allowed her to look through the walls. Amina didn’t understand most of the terminology — “Fucking mobile drone bombs!”, “Pincer movement, smart, smart, good, I agree,” “She’s right on top of you, look up! Look up! Argh!” — but she could follow the flow. She wished she could stop listening.

She wasn’t afraid for Ilyusha. She had been at first, when Illy had left the bunker to fight the revenant with the big gun. Without Illy, Amina would be alone. Illy was the only one similar to her. The only one with a demon. Amina could not take another death, not so soon. Not after her sisters. Not after the pile of corpses in Qarya’s central square.

But the angel was at Illy’s side. And the angel was invincible.

Amina didn’t want to listen — because Illy and the angel were about to make another corpse. Even without her demon, Amina wanted to see that corpse. She’d always thought that fascination belonged to the demon. But it was her own.

As the gunshots and explosions raged and Kagami hissed and winced, Amina pressed her hand to the knife beneath her clothes. She wormed her fingers in deep and held the strange smooth grip. Amina wasn’t sure if Kagami had seen the knife, but Kagami hadn’t said anything.

A couple of minutes of tense silence passed, filled only with rain, then Kagami snapped: “They’re letting her go!” Her voice echoed in the confined space of the bunker’s single room. “They’re letting her fucking go! What the hell do they think they’re doing?!”

Vicky was panting as she said: “But it’s over. It’s over, right? I’m sure Elpi had a good reason. Maybe this was all a mistake.”

Kagami was furious. “That little fucking borged-up weasel had the sniper literally on the floor! Gun in her face! And what, this is the one time she holds back?!”

Amina spoke up, surprising herself: “But nobody died? Nobody got … nobody died … ”

Kagami hissed between her teeth. She didn’t look at Amina. “Yes, yes. They’re both intact. A bit bruised, I expect, but nothing major. The sniper’s leaving — fuck me, but she’s fast. She’ll be out of range in a moment. Here they come, slinking back home. Pair of morons. I’m going to have some fucking questions for your little friend.”

When Ilyusha and the angel returned to the bunker, they were more than a ‘bit bruised’, in both body and soul.

They entered with rainwater streaming from their coats, laden down with equipment. Amina stayed back as the door was closed and barred; she would only get in the way if she tried to help — and she recognised the undirected anger in Ilyusha’s slumped shoulders. Undirected anger always made her afraid. As soon as the pair were down the steps and safe, Vicky and Kagami showered them with questions.

“Are you hurt? You got wounded, we saw—”

“What the hell did you think you were doing? You fucking moron—”

“Here, put your weapons down, get that coat—”

“That thing was threatening to murder us all, and you—”

“Elpi, slow, go slow, take it easy—”

But Ilyusha was sad and bitter. She shrugged off the words and her coats alike. Blood was drying all over her face and matted in the front of her blonde hair, sticky and hot and crimson. Her own blood. Smeared across her lips.

Illy, covered in her own blood. Amina’s heart strained at the beauty.

Amina tried very hard not to show how she felt as she hurried to Ilyusha’s side — those thoughts were demon thoughts, the same as the corpse-love. Ilyusha folded toward her, tucked into the soft meat of her body, none the wiser. Amina took her hand and inspected the cut on her scalp. She wished she had needle and thread, and something to use as antiseptic.

She whispered: “Illy. You’re wounded. You’re all bloody.”

But Ilyusha ignored her. Ilyusha was part of the argument. Amina wanted to slip away into the corner, but Ilyusha wanted her, so she stayed very still and very silent and prayed to go unnoticed.

“—on our side,” Ilyusha grunted.

Kagami snapped: “What do you mean, our ‘side’? What sides are there out here? There’s no sides left to fucking take, you moron!”

The angel spoke, firm and clear, despite the pain around her eyes: “Kagami, you’re not listening. It was a mistake. A bad one, but an honest one. As far as I can tell, Serin hunts the ‘death’s head’ people we saw back at the tomb. And Necromancers. She wasn’t really after us.”

Kagami scoffed. “Shooting you in the gut, blowing up this little idiot here, using a dozen explosive drones, and then blasting your skull with a gravitic weapon. What was all that, then? Flirting?”

“The gravitic weapon only works on Necromancers. And I’m fine. She was genuinely mistaken. I do not believe she was lying to us.”

Ilyusha hissed: “Fucking shit cunt bitch. Stupid fuck. Should’a shouted to me.”

Vicky laughed awkwardly, and said, “Sounds like she should have checked her targets.”

Kagami snapped at the angel, “And you bought that? You believed that? You let her go, because she sold you some grade-A bullshit.”

The angel shook her head. “I suspect we never actually had Serin at a disadvantage, even when Ilyusha had her pinned. She was heavily modified beneath her robes. Likely armoured. If she had truly wanted to kill us then, I believe she could have done so. She wasn’t even afraid of getting shot.”

Ilyusha hissed, sarcastic: “Immune to bullets. Fuck.”

The angel was wounded too, weary and in pain. She was tensed up around some kind of stomach wound. She kept spitting and drooling dark red venous blood. Her right index finger was purple and swollen. Vicky fussed over her, handing her a shirt to mop up the blood. The angel thanked her. Amina could barely look, the angel was too beautiful.

The angel raised her broken finger and said: “I’ve already snapped it back into place. I think there’s two distinct fractures, but I can’t be sure. I’m going to let it heal naturally. It’ll be fine.”

Kagami grumbled: “Oh, great, yes, we’ll just wait for our only competent shooter’s trigger finger to heal. Great plan.”

The angel said: “I would prefer to conserve our nanomachine supply.”

Vicky said, “Elpi, come on, you’ve got internal bleeding and you’ve got it bad. You’re ready to drop. You’re barely standing. Drink a mouthful of blue gunk. Just one swig. Please.”

Kagami said, “She could dunk her finger in the raw nanos. Maybe that would work. Who knows?”

Ilyusha snorted. The angel said, “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m considerably more robust than a baseline human being.”

Vicky sighed heavily; the sigh reminded Amina of her mother. She tried not to think about her mother. Vicky said: “Elpi, for fuck’s sake. Yeah you’re real big and strong, super-soldier girl, we all know that, but you’re not invincible. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

Amina knew better; the angel was both immortal and invincible.

Elpida was an angel. Amina had suspected this since before they’d escaped from the pyramid. The fight with the terrible monster had only reinforced her suspicions — what damned soul would throw herself at a demon of hell for others trapped in this place?

But when Elpida came back to life, suspicion became certainty. Amina had pretended to be asleep as Elpida had choked and spluttered and clawed her way back up from hell’s deeper reaches. The others — including Elpida herself — spoke about nanomachines and resurrection and heart muscles, about being animated by tiny invisible clockwork. Ilyusha had whispered to Amina about those things, but Amina knew the truth. Pira had helped by smearing the blue stuff inside Elpida’s wounds, which confused Amina because Pira was terrifying; perhaps Pira knew the truth as well, and wanted to keep the angel alongside them for her own ends.

Elpida was taller than any woman Amina had ever seen, irrespective of breeding or class or diet. Taller than any man, too. Taller even than the armoured Frankish knights who loomed so large in Amina’s waking nightmares of her own death. Elpida moved a little bit like those knights, frightening in her confidence and her economy of motion — but without the swagger and the aggression. Elpida led them where no other could find the right words. She was strong, muscled beneath her clothes like nothing Amina had ever imagined. She was clever, and kind, and impossibly beautiful; that long white hair was not natural, the angles of her face were too perfect to be human, and her voice was like a baited hook, dusky and smooth and honeyed. The angel was so beautiful that Amina could barely look at her without burning inside.

And now she was wounded, and bloodied, and aching — and all the more beautiful for it, just as she had been in death. When the angel had been laid out on the floor of the bunker, Amina had crept forward to touch her face while all the others were sleeping or distracted, just once.

Those were demon thoughts too. Amina had not expected them.

At first, Amina had assumed that Elpida must have done something very terrible to be cast into hell. Had she disobeyed God? Had she turned against other angels? Had she led a rebellion?

God must be wrong, God must be mad, to cast out such an angel.

Amina could not extend such charity to herself. She knew she was meant to be here, in hell, with all the other monsters.

As Vicky helped Elpida drink a small, carefully measured mouthful of the glowing blue magical potion, Amina realised: not all of the blood around Elpida’s lips was from her own internal bleeding. The crimson was smeared across her mouth like a kiss. Ilyusha’s lips and mouth were smeared in a similar fashion.

A blessing! The angel had blessed Ilyusha during combat, with a kiss, because Illy was worthy. Amina felt herself smile, felt her eyes grow moist with pleasure, but then—

A tremble of desire.

Where had the blood come from? Did the angel bite Illy? Did Illy bite the angel? Would Amina ever be worthy of a kiss like that? She doubted, but she wanted. Her lips trembled, her chest fluttered; she barely felt when Ilyusha detached herself from Amina’s side and clicked off toward the doorway to the rest of the bunker. She didn’t notice her own hand touching the knife beneath her clothes. Vicky happened to glance at her; that brought her back to herself. She let go of the knife.

She turned and whispered: “Illy?”

Elpida was peeling off her coat and lifting her shirt to inspect the massive bruise across her stomach. Vicky was helping, actually touching the angel’s ribs and stomach; Amina had to look away from that, or she would freeze up. Kagami was grumbling, pulling her magic seeing-glass off her head. And Ilyusha wanted to wash her face, in the other room with the cistern full of water. Amina fetched the one empty cannister, so as not to contaminate their drinking supply. She hurried to join Ilyusha in the relative privacy of the cistern room. Amina caught Ilyusha about to dunk her whole head and face into the trough of water.

“Illy!” she whispered. “Let me help. Please, Illy, Illy, let me … let me … ”

Ilyusha snorted. Amina knew it was not for her, but she flinched anyway. But then Ilyusha straightened up and stepped back, waiting.

Amina filled the cannister and gently washed Ilyusha’s face. She poured cold, clear water over the shallow head wound, cleaning out fragments of dry clot. She rinsed Ilyusha’s hair. She dabbed at the bloody mess of Ilyusha’s face with a spare shirt from their rapidly dwindling supply. Ilyusha endured the attention with folded arms, grey eyes turned away, her metal tail lashing the air.

Amina knew that her lethal friend was humiliated and frustrated somehow. She knew she should stay quiet, so as not to draw that anger down upon herself. But temptation danced on her tongue.

Every second alongside Ilyusha presented a paradox Amina had never felt in life: fear of anger was transmuted by the beauty of that red-spike tail-tip, by the shiver of Illy’s claws going shick-shick in and out of her fingertips, by the tip-tap of her metal feet on the concrete floor.

Amina thought it would be a beautiful thing to be pierced by those claws.

Which was why she said, in a tiny whisper: “Illy, please don’t be angry.”

touch me rake me penetrate my skin

“Mm?” Ilyusha turned those slate-grey eyes toward her. Amina shivered inside. She wiped a streak of blood from Ilyusha’s jawbone. She longed to suck on the bloodstained shirt. She forced herself to resist.

“Please don’t be angry,” she murmured. “I feel … complicated, when you’re angry. Clean anger is okay. But this … makes me … ”

Frightened? Aroused?

touch me touch me touch me touch me

“Ehhhh.” Ilyusha unfolded her arms and reached out to hold Amina’s flank with one hand, gentle and comforting. She looped her tail around Amina’s back, the sharp spike inches from Amina’s shoulder. Amina could barely breathe; she tried not to show it. “Not angry,” Ilyusha grunted. “Not with you, Ami. World’s a fuck.”

please God please merciful God tell her to open my belly and spill me upon the floor please God please

Amina waited, praying silently for those claws to cut into her flesh. But Ilyusha was gentle and God was not listening. Ilyusha was not God’s creature, after all.

“ … okay,” Amina whispered eventually. She resumed tending to her friend.

Was this what she was reduced to, without her demon?

Amina had been drawn to Ilyusha by urges she did not understand. She had justified it to herself with the fact that Ilyusha was short and young, like her. The others were all taller, older, and far more frightening.

But that wasn’t the truth; Ilyusha excited her in a way she’d never felt before. Ilyusha was like her. Ilyusha was sharp and vicious and violent — things Amina would never have loved in life. At first she had worried it was her demon, staying silent and unseen, guiding her to new perversions.

Amina had not told Ilyusha about the knife, but she was certain that Ilyusha knew. During all their time cuddled up beneath the spare coats over the last two days, Ilyusha must have felt the hard steel secret against Amina’s belly. Surely she knew.

Besides, Illy must know, because Illy had a demon too.

Ilyusha’s demon was on the outside, in her beautiful metal limbs and her impossible tail and her incredible violence. Or rather, Ilyusha was the demon, and the other girl who sometimes whispered to Amina, she was the host. Ilyusha’s demon was clever and strong and protective. Ilyusha had found a good use for her demon, had made friends with it, and given it free reign.

Amina had often wished she could do the same.

Over the following couple of hours, the others all managed to return to sleep, or at least to lie down and rest. Kagami had an argument with Elpida, using a lot of words and phrases which Amina didn’t understand — “strategic vulnerability”, “hoodwinked”, “trolling” — but Amina could tell that it wasn’t a real argument. The tones told the truth. Kagami was afraid and trying to hide it; she vented for a while, then lay down in a huff and dragged a coat over her head. Elpida and Vicky vanished into the other room for about twenty minutes, beyond Amina’s earshot. She was afraid Elpida would cry and scream again. The angel’s grief had been so terrible to overhear, full of rage and sorrow; Amina was certain she would be flayed alive and reduced to ash if she witnessed it up close. She wondered what Vicky was made of, to endure that pain at such close proximity. But there was no crying or screaming. Vicky and Elpida returned shortly. Vicky had to help Elpida lie down, even though she only had one working arm. Elpida’s stomach was obviously causing her a lot of pain, the muscles going stiff with deep bruises and organ damage.

It was beautiful to watch the angel struggle with her pain.

Ilyusha burrowed down inside their makeshift bed of coats, snuggling into Amina’s flank. Amina liked that. Her body was not pretty or slender or graceful, like her older sisters had been; she was pudgy and thick around the middle, clumsy with her footsteps and her fingers alike. But she was good for cuddling. Illy used her like a pillow.

The first time they had slept in the bunker was after they had fled from the terrible battle with the monster. Amina didn’t understand the city they’d fled through — the impossibly tall buildings, the smooth black surfaces of ancient roads, the fake stone and the black sky and the angel’s corpse in Pira’s arms. She’d understood even less when Pira had gone to work on the angel’s unbreathing meat. She’d retreated, buried herself, been ready to scream, taking comfort only in the knife.

But Ilyusha had spent a long time whispering to Amina beneath the nest of coats. Illy had taught her words, gossiped about the others, asked her questions about herself. Amina had told her all about Qarya and her five elder sisters, and her father, who was very smart and very clever with words and very quick with the merchants. She told Ilyusha about the beauty of her father’s olive groves, and shared one of the poems she had once written, one about the taste of olives in sunlight. It helped to focus on life before the end, before the Franks had built a pile of corpses in Qarya’s burned out remains.

This time, as they snuggled down for sleep, Ilyusha was too exhausted and too sore for much whispering.

Head beneath the covers, Amina murmured: “Illy?”

Ilyusha’s eyes were already closed, her warm metal limbs wrapped around Amina’s torso, her tail looped through Amina’s legs. She grunted. “Mm?”

“The … ‘sniper’, was she very strong and very terrible?”

Ilyusha was silent for a long moment. Amina thought her sharp friend had already fallen asleep. But then Illy said: “Big moron. Don’t worry. Safe with me, Ami. Safe.”

Illy fell asleep after that. Amina struggled to follow.

She didn’t mind sleeping on the floor. In her family house in Qarya she’d had a proper bed, though shared with two of her sisters. She didn’t mind the omnipresent sound of soft, shallow breathing which filled the bunker, nor the static drumming of the rainstorm on the concrete roof as it slowly trailed off. She didn’t even mind when the angel turned on her side to spit and cough blood into a spare shirt. She considered creeping out of her nest to touch that blood. The thought of tasting it made her quiver inside.

Demon thoughts. Bad thoughts. Who tasted blood? Not her. Not anymore.

Amina couldn’t sleep because she hadn’t prayed.

She hadn’t thought about prayer since she’d woken up inside that metal box. For the last few days — the days since her mortal death — she had not prayed even once. It was the first time in her life she had not prayed daily, since she was old enough to remember. True, she had offered up improvised pleas to God, begging really, but she had not sat and prayed, not properly. How could she? She didn’t even know which way to face; if what the others said about the shape of the world was true, then Mecca could be anywhere. If she was correct, if she was in hell, then what use were prayers?

God was great and God was merciful. But God was not here. God did not love Amina.

Her hand found the knife again, safe beneath her clothes. The knife was here. Ilyusha was here.

Amina had taken the knife from the room full of weapons inside the pyramid. She had slipped it inside her clothes when nobody was looking. Back then, she had not understood what ‘guns’ were, but she knew knives all too well. She had worried that the impulse to conceal the knife was the demon working through her, lurking inside her heart. But she had not felt it stirring. She had not felt the urge.

The others all had metal parts. Even Vicky did, hidden inside her body. If the metal parts were gifts from God, then perhaps the part of her which had played host to the demon was gone. Perhaps it had been replaced with metal.

In the shared darkness of the concrete bunker, in place of prayer, Amina cried a few silent tears of relief. The demon was dead. Her own end had robbed it of any more victims.

Ilyusha snuggled against her side. A single red claw pressed against Amina’s shoulder, twitching in and out. She shivered and gasped.

Maybe hell was not so bad after all, with a friend, and no demon.

In the shared darkness, she stared at the angel’s beauty, a few feet away on the floor. She stared at Elpida’s white hair curled around her neck, at her elegant muscles, at the secret wounds beneath her clothes. She saw in her mind’s eye the blood-smeared kiss on Elpida’s lips, from Illy to the angel — or the other way around?

Amina’s palm was clammy on her hidden knife. Her hand was shaking.

Her demon was gone. She did not feel the urge.

She did not feel the urge.

She did not feel-

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A knife for comfort, pressed to skin; a knife for a claw, ready to be bloodied. But on whom, or what?

Surprise! It’s a POV shift! And it’s Amina! And she’s probably not quite what you were expecting, yes? Turns out our quiet little revenant has got some deep currents below her surface, and some … difficult needs to feed. She’s also out of her depth, compared to those from more informed ages. But she’s doing her best. We may stay with her for a few chapters, or jump back and forth over the course of this arc. Depends on a few things about how it unfolds. Hope you’re all enjoying!

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And thank you so much for reading my story. I dearly hope you are enjoying it as much as I am. More next chapter! More Amina, for now.