## Emil POV I stood in the shower—his shower—and stuck my head under the torrent of cold water. What was I doing here? The soreness in my back. It felt… suitably distracting. Almost reassuring. I didn’t dream of anything last night. No massacre in a hospital, no light snow falling over the fairgrounds. No hands or voices, no river of flame, no strange clicking sounds in an engine, no frail bones cracking under the tires. Only a presence. An swath of skin warmer than mine. A scent at once sweet and sulfurous. In the morning, I looked at him as he awoke, yawned, and smiled at me. Ran his fingers through my hair and leaned over to press his lips over my temple. I felt something stinging my eyes. Must be the shampoo. When I got out of the shower, he had already prepared breakfast. Bagels with jam and cheese. I took one, wrapped it in napkins, and went on my way; though not before kissing him goodbye, on his forehead—if only to return the gesture. On the way back to the diner, I took a bite out of the bagel at a red light. The jam was apricot preserves—quite an idiosyncratic choice. Do fruit trees grow in Hell? Do apricot trees blossom with those brilliant white and pinkish flowers, like they do here on Earth, in spring? An image flashed briefly across my mind: the devil as a young boy, at the age he appeared to be under dream magick, perhaps, walking under a row of flowering trees, with a casual air, a light gait, and hands in his pockets. It was a mere fabrication, but I had to swallow the mouthful of food against a lump forming in my throat. Out of all my one-time encounters and short-term arrangements, no one, absolutely no one, acted like they gave a fuck. Even with Dmitriy, the moments of tenderness felt like something hard-earned, and sometimes came with a snark or a bite hidden within. And that made sense to me. That was the kind of environment that made me. This—this does not make sense to me. Affection, doting, indulgence. Displays he doles out easy as breathing, as if they were nothing. But everything costs something. The red string he just saw connecting the two of us. I must be careful, because this will cost me. This will cost me dearly, indeed. Outside the diner, I found Isha waiting, with a bitter anger that seemed to have been stewing within her all night. I apologized; she begrudgingly acquiesced; we went back into the kitchen to make preparations for the day. But as we both knew, this was not over. She started talking about how, now that the terms of our contracts had changed, she thought the two of us would go outside together. Yet, before she took her first step out of the building, I had not only already made a thwarted attempt at investigating Green Haven, but also spent a night somewhere else—with Solomon, of all people. I stumbled through an apology once again, only for her to reply, in a voice that sounded too desolate to suit her, “It’s fine—it’s whatever. You’ve got your own *situation*; we are not *friends* or anything, we are just coworkers.” I was… stunned. *We are not friends or anything.* Was… that what she wanted me to be all along? A friend? Catching her own lapse in language, she turned away and changed her tone. “Yes, you are my servant,” she said, immensely displeased, “but maybe you’re not a very good servant, then.” I berated myself internally for my lack of perception. I had thought, as a reincarnation of an old god, she would look down on the base struggles of the rest of us from a bird’s eye view, with scorn and impunity; but I had gotten it all wrong. A friend. What do I know about being a friend? No one had ever demanded—expected—wanted that from me. But if I can’t even be her friend, then what use am I? I offered to her to go somewhere together. Anywhere that the food truck could reach; anything she wanted to do. She seemed immediately assuaged, much to my relief; she suggested testing out how far the food truck could drive away from the diner, and then go clothes shopping. A plan that I could see no fault in. As business died down, we prepared to head out, just in time to come across the delivery truck from Hell sputtering on the driveway and struggling along. I lent Mucky a hand in fixing the engine; he thanked me and commended my affinity with the vehicle. It sounded like his contract wouldn’t allow him to leave the cab. Perhaps demons don’t have it much better than sinners in Hellish society. As I was finishing the work on my hands, the car radio came alive, and started playing a static-laden Russian folk song. I sighed and expected it to just be the usual; until I listened more closely, and realized it wasn’t. It was a children’s choir singing a song about a hound and a raven—an Aesop-esque pair—hunting together, how the hound would lead the raven to feast on the corpses of his victims. A chill ran down my spine; I tightened the last screwcap and closed the engine cover shut. I waved goodbye to Mucky, only to be struck by a sensation that I had driven that specific truck before—been in that driver’s seat before. Even though that was entirely impossible. I hurried on my outing with Isha, reluctant to ponder over the implications. Our first objective turned out to be a bit of a bust—the municipal boundary of Marlowe was as far as we could drive before the engine started to smoke and a horrible pain seized us in our chests. Isha was utterly defeated by the discovery, and became reluctant to even go on the shopping trip. I didn’t know what else to say besides trying to console her with an account of my own misery, how I didn’t have the things that I wanted for most of my life, and when I finally did, I got murdered shortly after; explaining to her that my death during a racing event was orchestrated all along. She listened closely, and swore a brutal vengeance upon my killers. I smiled to myself as she demanded to go clothes shopping with renewed vigor. It was a fun outing. I admired the remarkably bland scenery of the American strip mall, while Isha browsed the shelves at various shops. Things only started going wrong at our very last stop, when a familiar looking blue sports car pulled up on the street outside, and I saw Dmitriy got out of the passenger’s seat, following the boy I recognized as Cherry’s overly enthusiastic boyfriend. I would have hidden behind that clothes rack forever, had Isha not come out of the fitting room, asked me what was going on, and decided a direct confrontation was the only way forward. I apologized profusely—as profusely as I could manage, anyhow—after Isha threatened him and Green Haven with certain annihilation. Luckily, the boy had disappeared into one of the stores, and it was just the three of us. He looked like he was sick of us already. And then he proceeded to ask me, in our mother tongue, where I was from. I straightened up my back and looked him in his eyes. Eyes as cold and merciless as the long winters of our hometown. I said, Saint Petersburg. Because that was the name that city went by now. A restoration of her old, historic name, that seemed to erase—without ill intention, or any intention, at all—the period of time in which we lived within that skyline, forever. He said he knew that he didn’t have all of his memory. He said that if we had known each other before yet he didn’t remember me anymore, it was for a good reason. I said, that was what I figured, too. And that was that. Isha suggested we key their car; I pulled her away and suggested that we conclude our shopping and be on our way. I almost wanted to text Sol about spending another night at his place. I almost wanted to throw my phone out of the car window at that thought. He forgot about me. Got rid of every trace of me in his mind. But, for me, everything was forever. The best I could hope for was to keep my past away temporarily. But even then, it would come at a cost. A gory, blood-red, cost. ## Solomon POV We woke up in my bed in a warm tangle. Emil was back to his usual self — gentle and reserved — what an endearing contrast from yesterday\! I found myself brushing his hair back, tucking it delicately behind his ear, and leaning in to leave a lingering kiss on his temple. I prepared breakfast while he showered. It was when he came into the kitchen that I first noticed it: a shimmering red string, connecting the two of us. This was new. It looked like Thatch’s string magic in all but color. Had I always been capable of this, or did I somehow acquire the ability recently? I reached out to pluck at the string between us, expecting to hear the roar of an engine, or maybe feel the adrenaline of racing low against the asphalt. Instead, I felt the many hands of the River of Wrath, pulling me — *him* — down. I startled back. I sometimes forget that Emil is not an alive human. He is already dead, and he had been condemned to hell for his previous line of work. He served time in one of hell’s machineries. It is strange to think that if he hadn’t broken out of those machines by a mix of near-superhuman resilience and sheer miracle, and then somehow found his way to employment here, *at the same time that I would somehow be here as well* — I might have eventually forgotten all about him. He would have suffered eternally and invisibly for some other devil’s power, the same way the faceless mass of souls in my old portfolio had powered my casino in Vegas. Hm. It is good then, for both of us, that there had been something unusual about his tenacity. I handed him the apricot-and-cheese bagel I toasted for him; he left with a kiss. I stalled a bit, tidying up the kitchen to give us time to arrive at the diner separately— and I began to feel a little silly, because, well, he *is* the diner’s cook. He can probably make himself a far nicer breakfast, more to his liking, as soon as he arrives at the diner’s better-equipped kitchen. I should ask him what he might like to have next time, and see if it’s anything I can keep around the apartment. I took a bite of my own bagel as I headed out the door, and hoped it was still nice to have something made for him for a change. —— Even though I did sign Leslie’s contract, I have to admit— I was still not too pleased about having to train him to spar. Putting all distrust aside, it just felt— well, rather *ill-mannered* to engage him in the sport. But, a contract was a contract\! And besides, he did make a good point that words and charm do not always work when dealing with other devils and demons. When we did begin training, I was pleasantly taken aback by his performance. He kept up with me well enough that the session did not feel distasteful; in fact, I would even say our time was rather fruitful\! He already had a surprisingly good base instinct and was only a little flighty and skittish at first — but over time, he began to watch me more steadily. It was quite flattering, really, the way he listened eagerly to all I had to say, his keen gaze following my every motion, his observations resulting in marked improvement. I have to say, I rather enjoyed it. And so I found myself reconsidering my original plan to immediately invoke an hour of subservience and interrogate Leslie on his past. The loyalty and deference implied by his contract, his conduct this session — couldn’t I consider these a good enough proof of his intentions? Wouldn’t my interrogation only introduce an unnecessarily adversarial element to a relationship with a mentee who, by all appearances, only wanted to blossom admirably under my guidance? I hesitated about what to do, and— —promptly fell flat on my face, tripped by Leslie’s tail. He dusted himself off as I got up. “Huh. I thought it would be harder than that.” ….nevermind. I smiled cordially at him — *well done, Leslie\!* — and made up my mind. —— I closed the door shut as he left, and then walked over to my balcony to light a smoke. Of his *ability* to lead this operation, I have less doubts now; or at least, I am willing to see how this heist plays out under his leadership and planning. He answered my little initial test question correctly, so he is able to pay attention to and infer what I might want without getting… distracted. He had been a smuggler before (*what a remarkably colorful life he had lived before meeting me\!*), so his past experience lines up well with the task ahead of us — even better than mine, I can grant\! And this contract in itself was bold, but in hindsight reasonably strategic — both of which are necessary characteristics I hadn’t been able to attribute to Leslie before, but perhaps can now. And just — the way he spoke with such certainty about wanting to live on the surface, and the drive with which he has pursued that goal — I *cannot* believe I am saying this, but it is so undeniably *familiar*. And I’d like to think that kind of determination can take you far. So, alright. Perhaps he can be capable of far more than I thought. Which unfortunately reminds me of the other pressing question: do I trust him? He had framed his *best friend and mentor* to get here*.* The only answer he could offer me to suggest that he wouldn’t do so again was that there will be nothing that he wants as badly as remaining on the surface. Which is not ironclad, and he must know this too. New, powerful desires can be provoked all the time. Our careers, the abilities etched into our *very being* — mine as a temptor, his as a seductress — rely on this fact, and this truth has only become more salient to me these days; my mind wandered back to the last few nights as I tapped cigarette ashes into a warm, glowing obsidian ashtray. And so — if he then wants to chase those new ambitions, whatever they are, and I or anyone else is in the way — what then? But— ah, I’m being rather silly again. What more could Leslie *possibly* say or do today that would completely guarantee the future and put myself at ease? He had already promised me another fourteen hours of his service, to hang over him as a threat or to undo whatever he might try. Leslie has seen firsthand how sharply I press forward any advantage I’m given. Out of everyone I’ve ever contracted something like this with, he probably knows best what he is getting himself into — and he still offered himself up, willingly. So on his end, he has done everything he possibly could to show that he has no intention of tricking me, at least not today; and now, I have finished analyzing all the reasons he might be believed and all the ways he might still eventually turn against me. Whether I truly accept him as an ally now, despite the uncertainties of the future, is simply a matter of my choice. I turned it over in my head, and found that — I simply *want* to believe him. I want to believe that this extreme bid for my mentorship means something, that there is something true here. I want to, *I want to* — and what would be the point of all my caution if I can’t indulge in what I want every once in a while? I took one last long drag from the cigarette, and watched its ember shrink down to a reddish glow. Well then\! We shall see how this strange trust we have woven with words and magic will fare.