Father Reginald’s young adept was a half-elven ss a few years youhan me, brown hair cut to a precise bob.

  From the other side of the room, watg, she’d been shivering since we’d entered, her fingers ed around a small metal lute while her eyes danced all over the room, frantically sing for any threat. When they passed over me there was a small involuntary flinch every time.

  As much as it pained me to admit, I couldn’t bme her for that. Not with what hung from the church’s altar.

  I’d settled in, far enough off to the side from the rest that she could safely ignore me, close enough to still hear the discussioween Voltar and the Priestess of Tildae who’d taken charge of the young adept.

  “Do not press her too much,” the Priestess of Tildae said sternly, eyes firm as she stared at Voltar. “She’s had a very bad shock, and I’ll not have my patient be uled by your questioning.”

  “I will only ask questions Miss Lionel is fortable with,” Voltar assured her.

  “Patients are not the best judge of their own limits,” she snapped, and Dawes gave a relut nod of agreement.

  “To your satisfa then.”

  How much of this was genuine , and how much was an effort to keep us from asking questions this group would find inve?

  “Still if you make that pirl so much as twi-“

  “Delih?” The adept said, voice a little shaky. “I want to help them.”

  Delih frowned, giving first me and then Voltar sc looks. “Cra, you don’t hese-”

  “I said I’m willing,” Cra said tiredly. “If I don’t want to answer a question of theirs, I won’t. Mr. Voltar?”

  Seemingly not wanting to risk anything causing Delih to cut this short, Voltar unched into the most important question first.

  “Miss Lionel, when you left Father Reginald st night, did you notiything out of the ordinary? Did he seem upset, distressed, or anything like that? Did you notiything when you left?”

  She shook her head, not looking Voltar in the eye, gaze focused on a patch of the floor.

  “Father Reginald seemed happy. People in this part of the city were finally beiive to us being here in addition to the Olgen, Halspus, and other temples ion. I left him that night, he was tent, and I walked home with not a thing I spotted out of sight.”

  “Would there have been someone who Father Reginald might have beeing that night?”

  “No!” she said vehemently, only to pause and then shake her head. “He’d open the church up for someone in need, someone he knew. But there’s been a string of robberies locally, he wouldn’t open it up for a stranger.”

  A string of robberies? Potentially worth looking into. It could have been someone practig their craft in preparation freater challenge. And even if it wasn’t the killer, thieves teo keep their ears low to the ground. Good odds they might know something useful.

  “The room you went to,” Voltar asked, and I did not miss the brief deepening of Delih’s disapproving frown, “the ohat remained sanctified even after what happened. What was that room, and how did it survive whatever removed the rest of the church’s blessing?”

  “Father Reginal’s safety pce. He always believed there should be a redoubt,” the adept said, eyes distant. “He said he’d lived through some bad days, and that he’d learned you always kept a pce you could be sure was safe. I thought he was foolish, it was Belton, nothing ever happens here.”

  Logic I could agree with. You learned fast to have a pce to flee to where you could be as safe as you could manage. If you didn’t have a bolthole, it left you out in the open, the worst pce to be.

  “I thought it was just foolish talk,” Lionel said, the shakes ing back worse than before. “But then I opehe doors…and that thing burst out! The only reason I survived is because it knocked me to the side and it started attag everyo punched off Miss Harver’s head and tore Mr. Malden’s head off and it just…I couldn’t think what to do so I ran inside and saw Father Reginald turned into that thing and I…I ran ihe office, wre open, and hid ihere till the Watch officers opehe door. I just…I should have fought!”

  “You’d be dead,” I replied, and everyone’s gaze turowards me, hers with another wince. “It ossessed statue made of solid stone. No offense, but you wouldn’t have done much to it. You just would have gotten yourself killed.”

  “I could have brought some of them ih me,” she tinued, not looking any of us in the face, staring at the floor.

  Dawes hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t shy away.

  “There are times where the choice we make is to save ourselves,” he said solemnly. “Asking ourselves if we could have done differently will never ge that, and it won’t help the dead. Letting it eat at you won’t help.”

  From there the versation turo safer questions. I’m sure Voltar could deduething from the assortment of details about Father Reginald's personal life and the affairs of this small church, I puzzled out very little.

  ***

  “That seems like a young woman with an awful lot to hide,” I noted once we were well out of the range of even enhanced hearing. Elves could still hear, but the chatter of the Watch around us and my low tone should help disguise my words.

  “Reizing a kindred spirit?” Voltar said in a simirly low tone as Dawes joined us, having tarried a while longer with the young adept.

  I snorted. “Perhaps, but no, so eager to help, only to just happen to ck the answers we need?”

  “It’s entirely possible the girl doesn’t know,” Dawes said. “She’s been through a tremendous shock. Or are you g she’s faking?”

  “No,” I replied. “But both be true.”

  “Both are true,” Voltar said. “She hid the key.”

  Both of us perked up at that, turning our attention to him as he ushered us over to a er.

  “That key was hidden by the apprentice, in a small hollowed brick down the corridor from the doorway. I talked with the first Wat the se, and she was still ihe chamber when they arrived. Followiracks and sulting on when she was being watched the least gave me approximate locations to try. My sed guess was the corree. She was slightly sloppy repg the bri the wall, while it all shares the same dry crumbly mortar, there is a differeween natural disiion and material hurriedly shoved bato cracks to fill them.”

  “So you removed the key?” I frowned. In terms of time, we didn’t lose much if we assumed they wouldn’t be able to check that britil tomorrow m. If they could check it beforehand, they would know, and depending on how much they wao protect what was i could get messy.

  “Not quite,” Voltar crified. “I made a mold of the key.”

  He reached inside his coat pocket, pulled out a small box, and ope. Inside a semi-solid substance filled the box, split along the seam that had. Embedded oher side was one of the two faces of the key.

  I looked at the mold, the iions of the key still firmly pressed into it, then looked back up to Voltar.

  “They’ll arrange for things to be removed as quickly as they , and the Watch are only here for tonight,” I said.

  “Then what luck that I know a good locksmith who doesn’t ask questions,” Voltar replied, smiling slightly. “Meet me back here in three hours, and I want you t something with you from my house.”

  ***

  Three hours had been pushing it, and even with the carriage both I and Tagashin had e in on still ready and waiting. I wished I had the kitsuh me and the driver to help load the cargo, but she was keeping an eye on the gaggle of clergy outside and ihe church keeping an eye on us.

  Hells, maybe they knew about her, and someone was keeping an eye on her. Either way, I’d have appreciated the extra hands as the carriage came to a stop outside the church, a few minutes past that three-hour mark.

  I scurried down from the driver’s benodding my thanks to the driver and leaving a small tip in her hands. I didn’t care if she was a long-time helper of Voltar, you always tipped those who worked under you.

  It kept them from selling you out for a song and a few s down the line. Basic, simple, everyday sense.

  “Hurry Miss Harrow, time is wasting,” Voltar said from the doorway, the ass. Dawes at least moved to help me. Who knew where Tagashin was and the Watch didn’t seem to care at all.

  “I am hurrying,” I hissed, reag ihe carriage for the first bulky box. “Do you want to help, or just grandstand up at the entrance?”

  I wish it was simply empty, or filled with something lighter thaual equipment. Unfortunately, a very valid point had been raised that our watchers might be able to discover what was inside. And some of them might even know what it was.

  Holy, Intelligence must have given this to Voltar. I couldn’t imagihey’d let him keep aire ritual apparatus to summon a dead soul if they knew.

  Voltar had ventured closer to help, a smug grin on his faot very characteristic of him, but he’d insisted on pying the part. I didn’t doubt his logic, but I felt it was an overly fmboyant embellishment to make the assorted clergy feel like they were getting one up on us.

  I suppose the other reason was to make it clear we had failed. No reason to panic the priests by making them suspect we had successfully raised up Father Reginald’s soul for a chat.

  Getting inside, Walston was gone, and the mutton-chopped sergea behind took some time to cajole into helping with the unpag.

  The device was several pre-cast ritual circles that were colpsible. Together, they provided the base shape for a spell to unicate with the dead, ohe ritual was read aloud and the proper sacrifices made. The Watch set about fitting those together and trying to fit them onto the cracked, uneven floor around the altar while Vestured for me to e closer.

  “As they say ien,” he said, produg a key from his pocket. “Voi.”

  His at was atrocious, but I let that detail pass without ent.

  “Your locksmith is a very fast worker,” I whispered, looking at the key.

  No visible imperfes pared to the mold, not even the slightest bit of excess material or slightly malformed tooth. Magework, more than likely.

  “Yes, and I did get a rept piece for the ritual set in case I was followed,” Voltar replied before raising his voice. “Unfortunately, the arra of the array o be precise since I was uo secure a neao aid us. You’ll have to bore holes in the floor.”

  The groans and moans of the Wat protest were entirely authentice they’d have to try digging through the rock.

  “I do want to protest trying this again,” I said, gesturing at the boxes. “This is probably going to end up pointless. The poor priest’s soul is probably already in Tarver’s realm, enjoying….what do they promise for that afterlife?”

  I’d udied it. Outside of my disi in the deities in general, no use looking into somepce I could never be allowed to enter.

  “Itea, a pusic, artistry, and an awful lot of partying. Not the kind Lord Montague hosts. But, and I may be corre surmising this, the poor Father Reginald, being transformed partially into a devil upoh, may find his soul being torween two pnes, and thus find himself stranded here. Or perhaps being fought over.”

  “Souls don’t tend to stay here when there’s much attention on them,” I tered as I preteo pull out some of the ritual equipment.

  My studies of neancy were ensive, as I’d aken to it like I had ical fields, and also the illegality. It was hard enough to study the pletely forbidden art of Diabolism safely, to find books and records and aveo research that weren’t likely to blow up in my face. Adding a sed oo study just a bit less illegal and inaccessible had been out of the question.

  That didn’t mean I knew nothing, and one was that most souls used in neancy were those without an important cim. Every soul had a tug, a pull on it after death based on their aplishments and who they had favored in life. Priests, favored of the various gods, even those innately reted to an outer pne like us Infernals, traveled fast to an afterlife. Others lingered, some taking years or even loo leave. With some, it ull and tug between anchors on the mortal pne and those in others, so some stuck around for decades, eveuries.

  A soul caught between pnes was definitely not one of those cases.

  “Should have got the priests to help with this,” I said, as we kept to the tral chamber for noere approag the time when we could slip off to the sealed, still sanctified chamber, but we o burn time a little longer.

  “Yes, and I am sure Bishop Derrick would have potentially lopped my head off for such a suggestion,” Voltar said. “I have no desire to irritate her and risk decapitation.”

  I cocked my head to the side. All priests of Zaviel despised the undead, the desecration of bones and souls well after their deserved rest. Still, nothing had indicated that the strangely aged bishop was any kind of threat with a bde.

  “She has a reputation then?” I asked.

  “She killed a lich,” Dawes said behione distant. “Before I met Voltar, I was on the campaign in the north, whee rebelled under Charlie Fawlkes for the sed time.”

  Charlie Fawlkes, of a dynasty before the current one. I khe name and about the two rebellions raised in the northern parts of Anglea in the highnds and mountains of Iltennd. The first had been a hard-fought bitter war that ended in a relut pead Fawlkes’ exile. The sed had sparked when promises to the Ilte for their help ihrowing Her Most Profane Majesty turo dust ohe Empress assumed her throhey’d beeive to ary when a Prince Charlie in his sixties returned from the mainnd for the first time in decades.

  Another long-fought war campaigned across Iltennd again. And the crushi that had led to the execution of the man onown as Shining Prince via onball through the stomao merciful mistake of exile at that time.

  “Lich?” I said. “A third party, or was the Shining Pri all legend says him to be?”

  Dawes smiled thinly. “A lot about that campaign goes unsaid. I’m not sure why the official story excludes it, it’s not as if Her Majesty has ever shown any favorability to Charlie Fawlkes before or after she had him tied in front of that on. Whatever idealism that man had the first time around, it was dead by the time of the sed rising. Bitterness and desperation, bined with age, I suppose. That was a campaign against mostly undead and old men and women unwilling to put down the old colors. A party of eight veo end the Lich himself. Bishop Derrick was the only survivor. Ieens back then, ing out with its decapitated head and a gleaming sword.”

  I whistled. “Lucky girl. And powerful too. The skin then, is that from the-?”

  Dawes grimaced. “I don’t know. What was left of us when that campaign was over. I try tet it. Especially ing back from up there. Just because the lich was destroyed, didn’t mean what it raised went with it. I hear occasionally they still find one roaming those old battlefields.”

  It sounded like a touchy subject. I wouldn’t pry anymore.

  Voltar preteo join me in looking over the ritual paper.

  “As for Bishop Galspie-”

  “I guess,” I said. “Age and attitude aloell me enough there. Silver spikes?”

  The punishment that used to be reserved for any Infernal found outside their city’s Quarter. Delivered by a Priest of Halpsus, a pair of silver spikes through the eyes to capture the soul and prevent it from going to the hells. Supposedly, there were vaults uheir main cathedral taining thousands of them.

  “Before you were born,” Voltar said. “He was noted as one of their best Diabolist hunters, and quite good at it.”

  Fun. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be adding my o his list of kills.

  “Do you wao pretend to read the ritual scroll? Before or after we head into the room?”

  “After. The Watch will take a while loo assemble it. Let’s make use of that time, then we fake our failed ritual.

  The precautions may seem a bit much, but this many religions presenting a united front so soon was troubling outside the personal capabilities of the two Bishops leading this group. The pantheon had been described to me as a big family, which meant a lot of them spent most of their time squabbling and fighting. Some of them were diametrically opposed to each other just because of what they were deities of.

  What might bring them all together was hopefully just a threat against a priest of the pantheon.

  ***

  The key worked, a us into a small, cozy room set up as a private office. A wooden ornate desk and a fortable chair were the terpieces, along with various drawers set around the room, but a few things stood out.

  The first is a metal door firmly locked on this side across from the room, thid strong and definitely not fitting the soft decor of the rest of the room.

  The sed, the floor was ringed with divine sigils f the wards, at least three rings of the silver and gold little tablet embedded in the ground. Various deity's symbols glowed in the dlelight, making my eyes hurt, and they’d do more than that to my flesh if I stepped on them. Even still, I didn’t miss the most important part of the room.

  In the brid mortar firepce, ashes and burnt pages of paper y among a dying fire, little embers floating in the air.

  I cursed, trying to not tread on any of the divine wards, but Dawes was already on it, stamping out what was left of the fire. Dawes was shortly behind him, and by the time I reached the firepce, the fmes were out.

  “Someone knew what they were doing,” I muttered as I sifted through the ashes and little scraps of paper. Nothi. There must be some outlet for the smoke, but no one had noticed during the chaos of the attack. It had probably dissipated shortly after.

  “The girl seemed to genuinely be suffering from battle fatigue,” Dawes ented. “But I’m not an expert in the ws of the mind.”

  “It is possible to both be traumatized and have enough wherewithal to cover up evidence,” Voltar noted, tinuing to check drawers in the desk. “Hrrm, only one drawer emptied. Iing. I’ll gh the rest of the desk then. Be careful with the rest of the furniture, I want them to think no one else made it inside for as long as possible.”

  Where would I hide things? The floor was always an obvious suspect for things you didn’t mind taking time to remove. Very secure, very easy to disguise as just part of the floor, and depending ohey were, easily upscaled to fit your ste needs.

  This, however, with divine warding all over the floors and leaving such a tight space? Say even moving part of the floor out caused one of them to be jostled even a little, creating a hole through whiething might enter or leave?

  No, it wouldn’t be the floor.

  Ihe furniture robably not a good idea to check either. Any easy to remove panels would either be hidden to the point I’d o break them to find anything, or too obvious to actually hide anything. The most well-hidden ones also had the issue of taking even loo get the tents than hidden ione floor.

  I turned my attention to the ey, sidering the brickwork.

  “It was a hollowed-out brick you retrieved the key frht?”

  “Hrrm?” Voltar turned his attention away from the papers he was going through. “You think they’d hide in a simir pce?”

  “I think it’s worth cheg,” I said as I went over to the firepce.

  Examinations proved my suspis correct, pulling out a hollowed-out brick. Ay ohe wo were empty as well, but ohird, I found something I definitely did not expect.

  The material was bck steel, a circle around an ied lute. Sptters of dried blood covered most of its surface while the artifact pulsed with a power I koo well, and ohat made my hand burn. I dropped it, holding on by the .

  “Shit,” I said mildly. “Diabolism focus.”

  On a hunch, I reached further ihe brid pulled out a sed one.

  “Diabolism foci,” I corrected myself.

  Doctor Dawes had frozen, eyes wide as I dropped the both of them on the ground, far away from any of the divine wards.

  Voltar kneeled down, taking a look at the two of them.

  “Could you move them? Not to be zy, but poking a diabolic artifact with my unprotected finger seems a bit unwise. Even with a glove perhaps a bit dangerous.”

  “It burned me too,” I said, eyeing them. “Let me check the astr-Fuck!”

  I closed my eyes, that brief bit of burning, indest light flooding them with tears. I tumbled backward, someone grabbing me and halting my fall.

  “Miss Harrow, are you alright?”

  Dawes. I bliears out of my eyes, realizing he’d caught me right before I nded on one of the lines of divine wards.

  “I..yes I’m fine,” I said, blinking more tears out of my eyes. “Those are divine in nature, and diabolic. The two types of magic mixed together. That or something close enough it nearly blinded me.”

  “Incredibly dangerous,” Voltar said, staring down at the pair of amulets.

  I ughed without any humor behind it. “Underselling, Voltar. It’s like putting a lit matd gunpht o each other. One slight mistake and the entire mixture goes up with enough force to kill if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, it sprays Diaboliergy right into your face. Divine as well although that’s less dangerous to have run through your body. Just a tad, mind you, it could still harm you quite badly without dire. No, these must be precisely made, or just trying to use them would backfire horribly.”

  “What would evehe advantage of it?” Dawes asked. “I’m not much of a mage, but these two kinds of magic are opposed, are they not?”

  “They’re opposed, but that doesn’t mean they are impossible to bine,” I said. “As for why to bihem? Maybe it was an experiment? A limiter? Who knows, but those are definitely Diabolism Foci.”

  “Why did she leave them?” Dawes asked, keeping a safe distance arobably the smartest option. “She had time to burn those papers, to remove things from those other hidden pces, why leave these?”

  I peered down, looking at the amulets, looking careful at the surfaces.

  “They look especially ,” I said and pulled my own out for parison, dispying it’s weathered surface to the both of them. “And I don’t mean diabolism leaves marks or anything, but more in the sense of physical. Probably haven’t been using their own as long as I have mine, but even in the safest enviros, you get some wear and tear. Some diabolists, especially those who make deals for power? They need a focus to cast. Symbol of the deal made, what their power els through. Without it? Powerless. So a smart precaution is to have two, maybe even three if you afford it.”

  “Ah,” Voltar said, straightening up. “I see what you mean. Backups she fot about?”

  “Depending on how long this has been running, it could have been months or even years sihey were put there,” I said, grabbing the pair by their s and moving them bato the little hollowed-out brick. “Dawes was right, she seemed genuinely shocked by what occurred, and I don’t think it was an act. She had the wherewithal to burn the most important dots, grab the things she could eaisly remember being there. These however she fot about and might not remember for a while. You wao put these back?”

  “Not yet. There’s a couple of possibilities,” Voltar said as we all looked down at the Fo the brick. “Priests going over the Hells is not unheard of, and this is as remote a posting as you manage in the capital. Perfect to practice away from most prying eyes. This chamber, and wherever those stairs lead, would work to hoheir craft i.”

  “Problem,” I said, pointing to the lines of divine wards. “These weren’t thrown up quickly, these are fed wards, created by someone probably beyond Father Reginald’s skill, and not by the same craftsmen. The styles ge too much, I’m guessing three or four people worked on these. Not cheap to make, not easy to shis many away with only a few notig. Either Tarver’s church is riddled with Diabolifiltrators, or this had church approval. And not just Tarver’s.”

  Some of this symbology I didn’t reize, and some of it I did as definitely not Tarver. Halspus, Zaviel, and Tildae were the most on, and an occasional one from another deity. One could argue that it was the result of our possibly renegade priests trying to get their hands on any ward they could. However there’d be cheaper ones, ones not as well crafted, defective ones mixed in. No, this was representative of something more.

  “Add in an assortment of priests showing up so suddenly,” I said. “Two possibilities.”

  “’t be aire group ue priests turned Diabolist,” Dawes said, face pale but tone firm. “A horrifying thought but there couldn’t be that many.”

  “I agree, but not because I doubt there would be that many priests who might pursue the arts,” Voltar said. “Rather that they would be nowhere near as open as they have been about things or as aodating as they’ve chosen to be. If this is a secret cabal of Diabolists being cracked open, they would not be this bold, they would be going to ground or attempting to flee the city. And that’s assuming they would hold together under tral leadership. And I have my doubts about some of those priests being involved, especially Galspie.”

  I shook my head slightly at that st point. Just because a man liked shoving silver spikes in the heads of Infernal didn’t make him less likely to fall. More likely, depending on the devil to try a him.

  “The other possibility then,” I said. “The variions of the pantheon have decided to support their priests training in Diabolism.”

  We all stood in silence, sidering the pair of foci below us as my statemeled.

  “We’ll o tread carefully,” Voltar said. “At least until I talk to my brother. Intelligeneeds to hear about this. Which means I will be taking one of these as evidence. Hopefully, we get firmation about their mixture of divine and diabolic magiight. Miss Harrow, you take the other?”

  “Hrrm?” I looked at Voltar curiously. “I , although why?”

  “Because,” he said somberly. “I want at least some evideo survive if they realize we were in here and make a choi how much they want this protected.”

  On that cheerful note, we looked at the st part of the sealed room. I sighed, gripping my own foci tightly.

  “Single file, behind me,” I said. “A's hope they weren’t trying to summon a devil. If they did, back up the stairs as fast as you , and we hope the wards hold it back.”

  There was a reason corruption could only make approximations of devils. The real things were too powerful to be emuted by the leftover traces of even the most powerful diabolic ws.

  As I took my first step down the dark stairway, I could only hope none y at the bottom.