““The day that man allows true love to appear, those things which are well made will fall into confusion and will overturn everything we believe to be right and true.” ”
Once more Triste was struck into an oblivion of thoughts. Amidst the fleeing crowds, the crying children, the bodies trampled underfoot, a familiar truth snaked through her bones and cradled her mind in adoring hands. It was with a mechanical sense of duty that she obliged a flicker of compassion, kneeling to help up an adolescent who had been knocked to the ground.
She mumbled at him and nudged him towards the gates.
Higher magick coloured the air. Flashes of protective barriers sprouted from Adene as she sheltered a family from a gang of ghosts. Triste’s black hair reflected it with a silver sheen. Hazel was cramming guests into her library, where the runes on the doors and walls were strong enough to keep out malevolent entities. Lester and Cecilia fought back the spectres with violent curses. Scarlet blazes showered the crowds.
A pack of imps hopped around Triste, awaiting instruction. Their scrawny faces and long, sagging ears bounced with a jittery excitement, as most creatures often do when welcomed into the mortal world. Each of their six pairs of black eyes stared with all the intensity and paranoid nature of demons with little intelligence.
An ache throbbed in the ends of the demonologist’s fingers from where the energy had left to call them into her service.
She knelt down and offered bits of raw meat to them as if she were feeding squirrels. Then she spoke in Old Gehennic with a poor Impish dialect and gave each of them a small black stone.
“Get the guests out of here. Scare them, help them, just lead them to the gates whatever you do. No funny business. Take this back to your master upon your return, and thank him.”
Rising just to the height of her knees, the minions scampered off. They chittered much like hyenas, only with deeper tones and much more saliva.
Sirens and bells from London brought Triste back to a sense urgency.
She bolted away. Her feet battered the ground. At first she was fighting upstream of the crowds. Then, steadily, she was moving with them. The closer she came to the spire, the more people were being drawn backwards, not towards the entrance.
In the distance to her left she could see Ivory summoning a peculiar flame from his wand at the chains of the Cloak Room. Kayn was far behind, stumbling towards him. Grey wisps trailed her hands. Triste’s nose crinkled at the smell of burnt bone, then turned her eyes towards the massive barricade. At first, she thought that Boo’s demon had conjured something to protect his waygate, but this was certainly a necromancer’s handiwork.
Even though Triste had known Kayn for some years, she balked at the spellwork keeping back the citizens under the entrancement of the spire.
The demonologist clambered through the untidy circle of people surrounding the boney barricade. She grasped the thorny spikes and gritted, pulling herself up and over. Scratches and blood dotted her forearms and hands by the time she reached the other side, but she could hardly think about that.
This experience was beyond the intoxication of dreams. Her initial panic had been felt largely on behalf of all those that the structure would terrorise. Then, for the loss of Nova. But now she couldn’t help but stare upon the tower of tormented souls with complete awe and appreciation, the way a priest would go silent upon seeing the Sistine Chapel for the first time.
Because this was Triste’s first time. She had called upon, spoken with, summoned, and sent back a multitude of entities, creatures, lords and demons from Gehenna, but she’d never been inside of it before. The place where they’d come from.
The place her soul wondered if it would ever call home.
She had mused about this meeting since she could remember.
Now, as she was taking off her clothes. Her skin buzzed against the energy exuding from the spire, shivered delightfully in the steaming up around her feet. The anticipation was enough to make her quiver.
Finally, she slipped off the mask that Rosehilde had delivered to her. She inhaled the thick aroma. It was primal heat, iron and the sweetness of a forest damp with fog. It was desires, screaming pleasure and the depths of sadism. Her vision contorted. The writhing body parts became stone with ornate, iron embellishments. Vines that had grown over its surface moved about with leafy arms.
Lester’s cry broke her from her reverie. Ectoplasmic splatter glued a clump of hair to the side of her face.
“Triste, get away from it!”
“This is the only way, high priestess,” she said.
“No it isn’t, damnit!” her voice cracked. “I can’t lose you, too.”
“We’re not losing anybody. I’m getting him back!” Like a stampeding beast come to tear down everything they’d built, the sirens grew louder. Triste felt a saccharine smile come to her lips. “Do you hear that, high priestess? That is the sound of the end of us. If the police find the gate when they arrive …”
“It’s not worth it! To Hell with the carnival if it means you sacrificing yourself.”
Triste laughed. “This is not a sacrifice.”
The demonologist climbed up the tower, kicking away the vines that swiped and grabbed at her. Lester’s protests followed her all the while. Before parting a final wave, Triste turned to the hole that had swallowed Boo.
A lantern in the shape of a bovine skull with horns glowed at her. Surrounding it was a spiral staircase.
Triste knew how horrific it must have looked to anyone watching. But this was the truth that so perplexed her. The confounding mystery that beat her heart. As she descended into Gehenna, the truth was no less enigmatic. It seemed just within reach, compelling her to step down further as the stairs grew steeper, more claustrophobic. The walls seemed to close in on her. Metallic hands holding torches pointed her forward, cast the shadow of her naked flesh along the wall.
And then the world behind her was no more.
As she descended further, her shadow changed. Her soft flesh thickened, sharpened upwards at the joints. Her vision morphed, making the staircase seem far wider and more spacious. In shape, in thickness, her skin transformed in the flickering light. A dark shell of armour grew out of and plated against her skin. It matched ever arch of muscle, limb and bone, and moved with her sinews. Her hair coiled itself into thick rolls, collecting into two sets of horns that curled inwards against her neck.
Triste reached out her clawed hands against the stone walls and felt the soft velvet of their texture against her new flesh. Smells of burnt autumn leaves and the sugary vanilla of aged books wafted from the open doorway at the bottom of the staircase. There were no protective circles, enchantments or precautionary measures.
Now she was the unwelcome guest.
And, as they often do, she invited herself in.
Her form within Gehenna felt as natural to her as the air was nostalgic. Overgrown with similar vines now boasting fall’s royal colors, the stretching plants wrapped around the entrance of the door and along the cathedral-like walls of the grandiose library she stepped into.
Open books floated about the air. Torn pages fluttered down, falling from bookshelves shedding old knowledge. These decaying leaflets decorated the checkered floor, what all at once stretched off into infinite, and yet to Triste felt small and cozy. Where the ceiling should have been was a starry sky, whose spotted clouds sprinkled ink instead of rain.
A humanoid figure, several heads taller than Triste, sat on a perfected throne of books. Ropes of torn, bloodless flesh hanged from them like a dress, turning pages as she read several dozen collections at once.
Triste approached with loud, noisy taps, not minding that they shattered a silence that was, perhaps, centuries old.
An ornate rug depicting the entirety of her life rolled out in front of her. The detailed embroidery and stitching was an unparalleled perfection that extended until the beginning of the Lord’s throne. One tiny section depicting the familiar chaos of that very evening jumped out at her. But that was as far as she let herself look.
At the foot of the throne, Odium lifted their gaze up from the books.
The form of the demon was in a perpetual state of transformation. Their face flashed between youth, age, death, but cycled frequently upon the most beautiful stages of human development, the peaks of one’s age, where maturity and grace more often resided. Breasts, firm abs, soft biceps, sharp, spindly, and button noses switched throughout their shadow countenance. An endless array of idyllic perfections, always ephemeral. Never enough.
The Lord of Envy fluttered down from her throne until their nose was an inch from Triste’s.
“You’ve taken something from me, Odium. Two things, to be precise. I want them back.” The demonologist held out her claw. “If you would be so kind,” she added without a smile.
“Your new flesh proceeds you here, Tristana. This is your rightful world. Doubtless, a throne awaits you upon that decadent demise of yours, yes, surely coming. But do you truly want it?” Odium wondered. The Lord circled her. Ropes of her skin reached out to caress her face and body.
Then Tristana was staring back at her own, human face. But there was undoubtedly something lacking in her eyes. A human shade. A missing complexity. Like a colourful painting forced into a black and white photograph.
“It looks better on me,” Tristana decided.
Odium laughed with a hundred voices. Tristana tried not to pride herself on the notable hint of real frustration that leaked out. “I could tear you to ribbons just to wear that exquisite arrogance right in front of you. But you knew that, or else you wouldn’t have come. Do you know what your sin is, Tristana?”
“Inform me.”
“You think knowledge protects you.” Odium clutched a book and put it between them and Triste. They gnashed with sharpened incisors behind it, wild red eyes laughing over the spine at the demonologist. “Your mortal world might have little hidey holes and delightful little shields. Oh, the armour of hesitation and caution. All of you positively fetishise it. ‘Surviving’ you call it.” Odium tsk’d. “One thing about our home you’re yet to understand, sweet child, is that we’re all beasts, here. This dance has no rhythm. Though confidence,” the Lorde flew back to their throne and gestured at Triste, “that’s a good place to start with me, but dance that dance with Wrath, now we’ll see just how long that lasts.”
Triste clutched a rather large tome hanging nearby and tucked it under her legs. She nestled into it until the book rose up, allowing her to meet Odium at eye level. “My lord, you haven’t the faintest idea how many nights I will dream of this evening. Of meeting you. Our past dealings are extensive, are they not? It feels as if we are old friends.”
“Friends,” Odium repeated thoughtfully, but not in agreement.
Triste continued before they could make up their mind. “The gate that you’ve opened into our world is wreaking havoc on countless lives.”
“Frankly—I don’t see the problem. Our ‘dealings’ were moving rather slow, were they not? In any case, how was I supposed to know?” Odium gestured out with dozens of fleshy ribbons innocently. “How was I to know one of my nobles snuck in through a hat? And that your oh-so-graceful high priestess opened up the front door and hollered ‘Come right on in!’. If we are being forthright, which I hope we are, sweetheart, I’d say that witch was due for a hard lesson.”
“A lesson that many innocent souls are learning for her.”
“Yes, I see.” Odium’s eyes flashed white. She stared at the ground. “Truthfully, the noble in your hat, Ieake, has been missing from my domain for some time now. Having him back is, well, a relief. Like a long lost son, I suppose. Or maybe a puppy. I don’t know the correct analogy, but do trust me when I tell you I’m trying to help you understand my relief.”
“Ieake,” Triste murmured. “So that’s the name of that damned hat.”
“Yes,” Odium chortled, “a hat did this. Let’s not forget. Oh! And let’s not also forget … Nova. That was her name, wasn’t it?” Odium squealed gleefully, taking on her face. “We wouldn’t want to forget that rotten mistake.”
Triste closed her eyes and looked away. “You’re getting your souls, Odium. The ghosts serving our carnival will be damned to your domain as soon as they are released from under our protection.”
“And … why would you ever do that?”
“Because they are hurting people. Innocent people. Guests.”
“Right,” Odium said, her confusion taking on Triste’s face again. “Compassion was always a tricky one for me, but I’ll pretend to understand.”
“Lastly, Boo. You have a jester here. We like our jester. We’d like him back.”
Their face took on black and white motley. “Ah, Boo. I like him. Why should he come with you?”
“Ieake took him. You didn’t have an eye on Boo’s soul. He was just along for the ride.”
“True,” Odium admitted. “Considering our relationship, Tristana, I’ll allow it. Boo’s spirit is a bit quiet for my tastes, in any case. He wouldn’t do well as one of my nobles.”
“And the hat. We’ll need the hat.”
“Hat? Fine, take his hat back. Take a thousand hats—”
“with Ieake inside.”
“Now … that is a proposition. Why?”
“An important ritual was interrupted. Ieake is needed for its completion.”
“Like a dinner date. His pressence is required. I see.” Odium brought several hands together. Unveiling their open palms with a flourish, Boo’s hat appeared. In that same instant, several books with claws brought an unconscious Boo through the starry ceiling and dropped him beside Triste. She only required one arm to pick him up. In her new body, he was like a child against her.
“You really do like him, don’t you?” Odium asked, the motley returning to their face.
Triste bent to snatch up the hat with her other arm, but it was three times the weight of Boo. She grunted, and struggled to heap it on top of him, who murmured in pain as it fell on his chest.
“The love of such cursed objects,” Odium observed thoughtfully. “They are bound together, you understand that, don’t you? When did it dawn on you? When you saw Boo clutching it to his chest while he slept? Or was it when you screamed so heroically as Ieake was tossed into the fire that invited him into your fragile world?”
“All I knew was that it had to do with. you,” Triste said, running her claws through Boo’s hair. “I smelled you on him the first day he arrived. In his hair. From the hat. From Ieake.”
“You love him like a sister. Maybe even a lover.”
“Yes,” Triste said, “in my own way.”
“That hat, my sweet child, that is like his brother.”
