Suisei froze. The hoarse, whispering voice—a man's voice—had come from the darkness.

After ten heartbeats, seeing that nothing had killed him, Suisei finally dared to reply.

"Yes."

He stepped closer, only to hear someone shuffling about somewhere in the dark dead-end up ahead.

The voice hissed a demand. "What are you doing?"

"—If we talk, we should be closer," Suisei said. "Otherwise, that thing might notice us."

"F-fine."

There was one more shuffle, then silence.

Suisei stepped closer, and then sat down on the floor, cross-legged, with his back against the wall. "Were you one of the guests?" he asked.

"N-no."

"Then one of Zaina's men?"

The voice inhaled sharply. "I've tried to establish contact. Sent message after message till the damn battery dried up. But no response."

Somewhere, something made a soft thunk.

There was a pause. "What's going on out there?" the voice asked.

"What do you mean?"

The voice whispered frantically, like a ghost. "What do you mean what do I mean!? It's been days. I've only made it by scrounging dry food from the kitchen."

Suisei took another deep breath. "…days?"

At this point, he decided there was no point trying to comprehend the incomprehensible."What happened here?"

"We came through the elevator, spread out, and then, it…"—a sharp inhalation—"I ran here with my mouth covered, too scared to breathe." He drew in air over his tongue. "The… noises died quickly."

"Have you tried to escape?" Suisei asked.

The voice burbled. "I don't want to die. I don't want to die."

Suisei heard sobs.

The man inhaled. "Nothing works against it. I heard it all: fire, gravity, electrostatics, kinesis, antikinesis. We even had a fucking ion gun. And yeah," he added, bitterly, "they tried shooting it, too."

"I'd like to help you," Suisei said.

"You'll die, just like the rest."

Suisei frowned. "It's my business to be exceptionally difficult to kill."

"Fine, whatcha got in mind?" the man said. "It's not like I've got anything better to do."

Raising his arm, Suisei pointed through the darkness. "The…" he breathed in deep. "The Sword of the Angel is in that room."

"God and the devil. Two sides of the same coin. Y-You Lassedile?"

"Yes," Suisei answered.

"Great…" The darkness chuckled. "Just great."

There was a pause, and then sobs. "Would you ask your god to fix this mess, 'cause I'm pretty damn sure that fuckin' thing caused it? I've tried everyone—the pantheon of pantheons," the voice added, in caustic sing-song. "But no luck. No luck."

Suisei leaned in close. He reached out with his hands, pressing down gently on where he thought the man's shoulder might be. Through his gloves, Suisei felt sleek, form-fitting body armor. He was feverish to the touch, and shivered with cold-sweats.

"The Sword will help us," Suisei said.

He clung to deepest convictions. The only answer that made any sense to him was that this was some sort of divine punishment. Suisei had seen much wickedness in his time, but even they paled to some of the tales he'd heard of Zaina's excesses. Greed and hubris layered this place even more thickly than all the spilt blood.

What could this be, other than a comeuppance? The arc of sin always ended with a fall.

But Suisei had faith that, with the Angel's grace, he could make a difference.

"Why should I trust you?" the man asked.

"Because you have nothing to lose that you haven't already lost."

There was a pause.

"What's the plan?"

"Whatever the creature is," Suisei said, "I think it feeds on pataphysics. Weave something to get its attention long enough for me to get hold of the Sword. If I were you, I'd try a simulacrum."

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"Why don't you do it?"

Suisei shook his head. "I'm not sure if the creature would follow me or my double, and I don't much care for fifty-fifty odds, nor am I keen on wasting that much power."

"…why's it gotta be me?"

"I…"

"Wait, I know," the voice said. "It's because you… believe, right?"

In the darkness, Suisei hung his head, for he had no better answer to give.

"Well… let's get goin'." The voice chuckled. "I'm late for dinner, you know."

The two men helped each other to their feet, and made their surreal march down the hall to go face down the nightmare in their midst. They stopped once the mirror came into view. They pressed up against the wall, waiting.

"Are you ready?" Suisei whispered.

"No, but fuck it."

Pulsing, pataphysical embers whirled around the stranger like a coiling wind.

Around the corner, the beast stirred.

And then they charged.

As Suisei rounded the corner, he noticed the flesh-woven monster wasn't held together as tightly as he'd first thought. Gaps riddled the creature's beastly form. Chains of rainbow fire encircled its limbs, softly undulating in the air. Dozens of masked faces encrusted the central mass.

Beside the beast lay the Sword. The rip in the air had grown into rifts thicker than a man. Color sparked inside them, along with sounds like shattering glass.

The stranger ran. His field-lines red-shifted in Suisei's perspective, woven in front of him like a fibrous cocoon.

The many faces turned toward the stranger.

The beast had taken the bait!

Suisei whipped out a field and hurled it at the Sword, to lasso it tight, just as the beast began to—

—It moved like a clock-hand turned, away from the Sword and toward the stranger. And for a moment, its body was at each and every place in the sweep of the turn simultaneously.

The field Suisei had flung landed on Sword's hilt.

The stranger tried to skid to a stop and turn around. The creature didn't so much as touch him.

Suisei let his power thrill through the field. The Sword flew toward him, along the glistening air.

In between heartbeats, the stranger gazed at the beast's many faces. And then, he broke, sieved apart in every direction, down to the last molecule, forming a cloud of particulates that spread out and flowed around the creature, pulling into it like a collapsing nebula, and growing the creature a bit thicker.

Suisei knew right then and there that if this thing wasn't stopped here and now, it might wipe out half the planet before it was brought to heel.

As soon as the Sword was in reach, Suisei clasped his hand around its hilt as the Sword of the Angel came to a gentle rest right in reach. It was warm to the touch, smooth, and as light as a sunbeam. Holding it was like grabbing lightning by the bolt. He felt jets of imaginary sand tear through his veins. With a mere thought, Suisei unfurled a great scroll of a field from the sacred blade. The veil filled the room with its brilliance. The harmonies were alien to him; they might as well have come from another world. He could hardly tell what it would do, though, whatever they did do, he was sure of one thing: it was gonna be damn impressive.

He prayed it would be enough.

Dr. Suisei Horosha raised the Sword of the Angel at the unbegotten beast and yelled:

"In the name of the Beast, the Queen, and the Holy Angel, I strike you down!"

And then he let the power flow.

A thunderous crash tore the air asunder. The rift opened wide and blasted out liquid shadow in torrents that exploded in every direction as brightness flared all around him, blinding his senses.

Then a sea of shadow swallowed him whole.

— — —

I paused the memory for a second time. Obviously, I wanted nothing more than to keep watching, but—

"—Is something wrong?" Suisei asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I… I just need a minute to digest all this."

Suisei nodded. "I told you it would be a lot to take in."

I ran my fingers through my hair and mumbled. "You can say that again."

It took me a second to get my thoughts in order. I couldn't think about that creature without shuddering.

"You know what the worst part was?" he asked me.

"No, what?"

Suisei lowered his head. He squeezed his seat's armrest. "I don't know if it worked. Did I destroy that evil thing? I'll never know."

I dug my fingers into my own, plush armrest as a bolt of realization struck me.

"Fudge…" I cursed. "That creature… it's like the one from the Lobby." With a wave of my hand, I conjured my memory of the event, bringing into view the corrupted seeing-eye drake that had attacked me.

"Yes." Suisei nodded. "The same phenomenon is at work in both. That much is obvious."

"I knew you were going to say that," I said. Despite my successful prediction, my expression turned downcast.

"What's wrong?" Suisei asked. "You still have a chance to save your world."

I pursed my lips. "I'm trying to relate these monsters to everything else that I know about the fungus. Most importantly, I'm trying to understand how one of these creatures managed to appear in your world, despite the apparent absence of any signs of the Green Death."

"Shit," Suisei said, drawing out the sibilant. He nodded gravely. "Yes, I see it, too. The plague hadn't reached my world, so—"

"—The darkness and its creatures shouldn't have been there, either."

"And yet, they were," he said. "And, as you'll see, not only there."

It was perplexing. According to the germ theory of disease—which everyone and their uncle knew to be correct—an infectious disease's symptoms only appeared when the pathogen responsible for the sickness was present in the victim. No unholy fungal plague should have meant no creatures of distilled essence of pure evil.

"Wait a minute," I mumbled. A chill ran down my spine.

"What is it?"

I turned to face him. "What if we're looking at this the wrong way?"

"Yes?"

"Right now, we're thinking that the fungus is what leads to the evil essence monsters. But what if it's the reverse?"

It certainly seemed reasonable enough.

Suisei's eyes flashed with insight. "Wait, you're suggesting that the fungus isn't the—"

I nodded vigorously.

"—Yes, yes. Exactly," I said. "The fungus isn't the pathogen, it's a symptom. This darkness—Hell's essence, if you will—is the true contagion."

"And its arrival is both a presentiment of and a precondition for the outbreak of the plague," Suisei said.

The chill returned with a vengeance. It was like someone scraping a needle along back of my scalp.

Again, I rose from my seat. "That's why Kléothag wants us to leave," I said, in a terrified whisper. "The darkness is going to use His power to spread the fungus to other worlds and timelines!"

"We can't let that happen," Suisei said.

"But how am I supposed to stop it?!" I stomped my foot. "This…" Shuddering, I sat back down. "My God, it's…" but I couldn't finish my sentence. I shook my leg, vibrating my thigh.

Disaster was hurtling toward the worlds beyond the Night, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

"All this death…" I turned to face Suisei. "What if it's just the beginning? I…" I shuddered again. "I feel like I'm drowning."

Suisei placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't let yourself fall into despair, Genneth. There's still more to my story. There is a light at the end of this tunnel."

"I hope so, Suisei," I said. "I really, really hope so."

I let Suisei's memories play on.

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