Are you telling me that someone summoned the wrong goddess, the wrong demon and used a faulty spell, and you still ended up like this?
—
The first thing Garrick noticed was that the altar was fake.
Not fake in the comforting sense. Not painted wood or something he could kick apart and then make a heroic escape from while Milo said something unbearable and Noel apologized to the furniture. No, the stone slab was real enough, dark enough, and stained enough that Garrick did not want to think too carefully about what had happened on it before.
But the carved runes around it were nonsense.
That was what bothered him.
If a cult was going to chain three adventurers in a candlelit underground shrine, dress in black robes, and chant about eternal night, they could at least have the decency to be competent.
“Left wrist chain’s iron,” Milo whispered from beside him. “Right one’s cheaper. If I had a lockpick, I'd give myself two minutes.”
“You do not have a lockpick,” Garrick muttered.
“I know. I’m sharing emotionally.”
On Garrick’s other side, Noel was staring at the vast ritual circle painted across the floor. His face had gone pale in a way Garrick recognized. It was the expression Noel wore whenever magic was either about to explode, turn inside out, or do both while insisting it had meant to.
“That circle is wrong,” Noel whispered.
Milo glanced down. “Wrong as in harmless?”
“No.”
“Wrong as in very dangerous?” Garrick asked.
“No. Worse.”
Garrick slowly turned his head. “Worse than very dangerous?”
Noel swallowed. “Wrong as in it should be harmless, except I somehow can feel mana flowing through it. Meaning it does work, although I really can not even begin to describe on what principle it is working.”
Before Garrick could ask the extremely important follow-up question of what exactly someone had accidentally written, a bell rang from the far end of the chamber.
The cult went silent.
There were perhaps forty of them, all wearing black robes trimmed in silver thread. They stood in a ring around the ritual circle, their faces hidden by deep hoods. Their leader stood before the altar with his arms lifted high, a tall man with a sharp beard, a dramatic widow’s peak, and the sort of confidence usually found in kings, prophets, and men who had never been corrected early enough in life.
“Brothers! Sisters! Assorted shadow-blessed acquaintances!” cried the leader. “Tonight, our faith is rewarded!”
Milo leaned toward Garrick. “Assorted acquaintances?”
“Quiet,” Garrick said.
“For years,” the cult leader continued, “we have served the will of Nyx, Dark Mother of Sin, Queen of the Starless Abyss, She-Who-Devours-The-Moon-And-Also-Sometimes-The-Sun-Depending-On-The-Calendar!”
Noel winced. “Is that a divine title or a divine weather problem?”
“And tonight,” the leader thundered, “we offer the bodies of three adventurers who dared oppose us! Three brave fools! Three vessels! Three sacrifices whose mortal forms shall be consumed so that the glorious demoness may descend!”
The cultists raised their hands.
“Azmodea!” they chanted.
The leader’s eyes shone. “Azmodea! Archdemon General of the evil goddess Nyx!”
“... I... am not familiar with that one,” Noel whispered.
“You know every demon?” Milo asked.
“No. But I feel like I should know enough about archdemon generals of a major evil goddess to at least recognize names. This one doesn't ring a bell at all. Something doesn't seem right.”
Garrick pulled hard against his chains. The iron bit his wrists. “Can we solve the scholarship problem after we are done being no longer sacrificed?”
The leader swept toward them, robes flaring magnificently. “Behold them! The warrior, the rogue, and the mage. Body, charm, and mind. All shall be offered. All shall be remade. All shall become the doorway through which Azmodea enters this realm!”
Milo blinked. “Charm? I'm flattered.”
“Milo.”
“What? If these are my last moments, I deserve to be flattered adequately."
The leader pointed a ceremonial dagger at them. It was curved, black, and covered in so many decorative spikes that Garrick doubted it could cut bread without getting tangled in the loaf.
“I, Andrew the Night-Voiced, chosen prophet of Nyx, call upon the darkness beyond darkness!”
Noel’s head snapped up. “Andrew?”
The leader faltered. “What?”
“Your name is Andrew?” Milo said.
The cult went very still.
Andrew drew himself taller. “Names given at birth are chains. I have transcended mine.”
“But you just used it,” Milo said.
Garrick muttered, “Can we please not antagonize the cult leader holding the dagger?”
Andrew whirled back to the circle. “Silence! The age of mockery ends! Nyx shall accept these offerings, and Azmodea shall rise!”
The chanting resumed. Louder this time. Candles bent inward as though the air had begun to breathe. Shadows lengthened across the floor, crawling over the painted lines of the circle. The nonsense runes remained nonsense, but the symbols in the center, the ones Noel had noticed, started to glow.
Noel’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper. “Oh. Oh no! Don't tell me... This really is a working divine summoning chant?”
“What does that mean?” Garrick asked.
The circle flashed black.
Not dark. Black. A color so complete it made the chamber seem pale around it. The shadows folded upward, gathering above the altar in the shape of a woman. She was tall, vague around the edges, crowned in drifting darkness. Stars glittered where her eyes should have been.
The cult dropped to its knees.
Andrew spread his arms, trembling with triumph.
“Nyx!” he cried. “Dark Mother! Evil goddess of the eternal abyss! Accept these bodies and send us your general!”
The shadowy woman stared at him.
A long silence passed.
Then she sighed.
It was not the sigh of an evil goddess. It was the sigh of a woman who had opened her front door to find the same drunk man trying to sell her haunted turnips for the fifth time that month, and had finally decided it was less exhausting to let him finish the pitch.
Andrew waited, trembling, for divine judgment.
The shadowy woman looked at him.
Then, in a voice as flat as old bathwater, she said, “Here we are again.”
Andrew’s smile widened. “Nyx! Thank you for gracing us with your divine presence. We are not worthy of your patience!”
The goddess’ eyes drifted toward the ceiling. “I guess so.”
“The Dark Mother has answered!” Andrew cried. "Now comes the time of reckoning"
“Dark mother? What a title,” The goddess murmured.
“Her humility is infinite!”
“You got that right, Andrew.”
Every cultist gasped as if they had just heard scripture being invented in real time.
"Stare and awe!" Andrew staggered forward, overcome. “The goddess Nyx is real and she has chosen me as her representative. She even knows my mortal name!”
The entire army of cultists gasped.
The goddess pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes. Unfortunately.”
Garrick, Milo, and Noel exchanged a look.
The goddess turned toward them. Her expression softened slightly. “Hello. I am Nagisa, goddess of darkness. Not Nyx. Neither am I the evil goddess. As well as not being especially fond of human sacrifice before dinner.”
Milo raised one chained hand as far as he could. “Lovely to meet you. I happen to be a big fan of the not-killing-us part.”
Nagisa gave him a faint, tired smile. “You are welcome.”
Andrew staggered forward, both arms flung wide. “The hour is upon us! Nyx has come to claim the sacrifices and bring forth Azmodea!”
The cult roared.
“Claim them!” someone screamed.
“Take their souls!” cried another.
“Summon the demoness!”
Nagisa looked at Andrew. Andrew was not looking back at her. He had turned to his followers, basking in their rising frenzy as if applause were a form of evidence.
Nagisa opened her mouth, considered the room, then closed it again.
“Right,” she murmured. “Not listening today either it seems.”
“There is no Azmodea,” she said anyway, mostly toward the three captives. “There is no archdemon general. No starless abyssal hierarchy. No moon-devouring calendar clause abiding evil goddess. Andrew made all of that up.”
Andrew lifted both fists. “Hear how the goddess veils her truth in mystery!”
The cult cheered louder.
“She denies herself to test us!”
“Her secrets are infinite!”
“Take the adventurers!”
Nagisa stared at the crowd for one long, tired moment.
Then she looked at the three captives.
“See?” she said. “This is why I stopped correcting him.”
Noel made a faint noise. “Understandable.”
“Yeah, it makes sense.” Milo whispered.
“I feel that too.”
Nagisa gestured vaguely at Andrew, who had begun leading the cult in another chant of “Azmodea! Azmodea!” while not hearing a single word anyone else said. “He keeps drawing circles at random, and through a combination of luck, stubbornness, and what I can only describe as theological vandalism, he occasionally writes enough divine summoning grammar that I cannot fully ignore him.”
She briefly looks back at the chanting mass who all seem to be even more fired up than before.
Nagisa closed her eyes and sighed again. “I feel like I am going to scream into a pillow later.”
Garrick cleared his throat. “Lady Nagisa. If you are not evil, and you do not want a sacrifice, may we go?”
The cult immediately mistook this for pleading.
“Yes!” Andrew cried. “Beg before Nyx! Beg as your souls are weighed!”
“Claim them!” the cult thundered.
“Summon Azmodea!”
Nagisa ignored the chanting with the practiced numbness of a goddess who had endured far too many basements full of theatrically wrong people. She looked instead at the circle. The dark glow still pulsed in its lines. Her expression shifted from weary to thoughtful, then to mischievous.
“Well...,” she said. “I wish I could, but there is a problem.”
Noel stiffened. “What problem?”
“If this magic circle was just random nonsense, I would have no problem letting you guys go and leaving without doing anything.” Nagisa drifted lower, one shadowy finger tracing the circle’s central script. “But unfortunately, it says, in a very crudely written way mind you, ‘make a demoness appear.’. And there lies the problem. Divine script is one of the few things where gods are supposed to help humans.”
Milo looked between her and the circle. “And you cannot ignore that?”
“I mean... I could. It's not like anything is forcing me to do something.” Nagisa’s eyes gleamed like distant stars. “But where would be the fun in that?”
Garrick felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. “What does that mean...?”
Nagisa smiled.
“Well,” she said, lifting one hand, “the circle asks for a demoness to appear. It does not specify that she has to exist beforehand.”
Noel whispered, “...what?”
Andrew threw his dagger toward the ceiling in triumph. It stuck there somehow, which everyone wisely ignored.
“Nyx bring forth your most trusted demon general!” he bellowed.
"I guess I shall do just that." Nagisa giggled.
The cult screamed until the chamber shook.
Nagisa snapped her fingers.
The circle blazed.
The first sensation was warmth.
Not fire or pain. Warmth, velvet-dark and strangely intimate, spilling upward from the ritual circle and wrapping around Garrick’s boots, Milo’s ankles, Noel’s knees. It climbed them like liquid shadow, sliding beneath torn cloth and dented armor, tracing every bruise left by their capture with almost insulting gentleness.
Garrick braced himself for agony.
Instead, the chains around his wrists softened.
Iron sagged like candle wax. The manacles did not fall away so much as melt into ribbons of black light that curled lovingly around his arms. Beside him, Milo gave a startled laugh as his own restraints loosened. Noel gasped when the collar at his throat dissolved into sparks.
“We’re free?,” Milo said.
“No...,” Noel said, voice shaking. “I wouldn't exactly call this... free.”
That was when Garrick’s body began to change.
His shoulders narrowed first, not weakening, but refining. The hard, squared lines of muscle that years of sword work had carved into him flowed into something smoother and more elegant. His chest tightened, then swelled outward with a deep, soft pressure that made his breath catch. His tunic split at the seams as new curves pushed against it, fuller and heavier than anything he had ever expected to carry.
He stared down.
“Oh,” he said, with the calm of a man whose mind had briefly left the room.
Milo, meanwhile, was looking at his own hands. His fingers had lengthened, nails sharpening into glossy black claws. His wrists slimmed. His arms became sleek and graceful, the muscle still there but wrapped in a seductive softness. His waist drew inward as if invisible hands were sculpting him, and then his hips rolled wider with such sudden certainty that he stumbled against the altar.
“Huh,” Milo said.
Garrick glared at him. “That is your reaction?”
“I am processing.”
“You are posing.”
“I can do both. Ever heard of someone being scareoused?”
Noel made a strangled sound. His robes fluttered around him as his body reshaped underneath. His face softened, cheeks smoothing, lips growing fuller, eyes widening beneath lengthening lashes. His pale hair spilled down past his shoulders in a silvery cascade. Then he looked down at himself, squeaked, and clutched at his chest.
“Oh no. Oh no, these feel so good. Ah~”
Milo glanced over. “Please don't say it like that ever again.”
“I'm sorry. I guess I am also feeling scaroused.” Noel admitted.
Milo nodded approvingly.
Across the chamber, the cult watched in rapturous awe. Some had clasped their hands. Others were weeping. Andrew had both arms lifted, his eyes shining with unbearable vindication.
“Behold!” he cried. “The vessels are prepared!”
“We are not vessels!” Garrick snapped.
His voice came out smoother, lower than he expected yet unmistakably feminine, rich with a dark resonance that made several cultists shiver.
Milo turned his head slowly. “Garrick.”
“What?”
“Say something else.”
“No.”
“I feel like it's not the right time for it, but honestly...” Milo paused for a moment. "Your voice is kinda sexy now."
Garrick ignored him, mostly because the warmth had reached his face. His jaw softened. His lips parted as his features rearranged themselves, not erasing him, but translating him through some infernal ideal of beauty. His dark hair lengthened, spilling past his neck, then down his back. Horns pushed from his brow, curving upward in polished black arcs.
He reached up with shaking hands and touched them.
Nagisa watched from above the circle, chin resting on one hand, looking far too entertained.
“Could you perhaps,” Garrick said carefully, “stop this?”
“I could,” Nagisa said.
Hope flashed through him.
“But then Andrew might remain unsatisfied, and when he tries again, who knows? Next time he may accidentally try to turn you into a Jellyfish Hydra Beast.”
Noel whipped toward her. “A what?”
“Hypothetical.”
“That did not sound hypothetical!”
The black light surged.
All three of them gasped at once.
The floor beneath their feet softened into shadow. Their boots dissolved, then reformed into elegant dark coverings that climbed their calves and thighs. Their legs lengthened, muscles stretching, skin smoothing into a warm, dusky shade kissed with violet. Garrick tried to step away, but his feet no longer quite obeyed. Milo’s hip bumped his. Noel’s shoulder pressed into Garrick’s other side.
“Too close,” Garrick said.
“I’m not doing it,” Milo said.
“I don't think any of us are doing it,” Noel gasped. “I think the magic is pulling our auras into alignment.”
“Can our auras align from slightly farther apart?”
“I wish they could! Agh~”
Their bodies drifted together.
The first contact should have been a collision. Instead it was a sinking, seamless and slow felling. Garrick felt Milo’s warmth against his left side and Noel’s trembling breath against his right. Their altered bodies pressed close, curves meeting curves, ribs and shoulders and hips finding impossible places to overlap. The dark magic hummed through them with an almost musical vibration.
Milo looked down between them. “This is about to get very personal.”
“Milo,” Garrick said.
“I am handling terror through commentary.”
Noel’s voice rose. “Is it just me, or are the boundaries between our bodies becoming less like rules and more like polite suggestions by the second?”
“That would be even worse!”
Their legs began to merge first.
Garrick felt his right thigh draw toward Milo’s left, then Noel’s left toward his right, the three of them pulled into a tightening formation. The magic did not crush or break anything. Instead it rather melted the idea of three separate stances into one. Knees brushed, calves overlapped, ankles slid through shadow, and then sensation bloomed wider, stranger, shared.
Garrick gasped as his balance shifted.
He could still feel legs.
But they were not his legs.
Their legs.
A single powerful pair formed beneath them, tall and shapely, thighs thick with elegant strength, calves long and sure. The new feet flexed against the circle, clawed toes spreading as if testing the world. All three adventurers swayed, suddenly supported by one lower body none of them fully controlled.
“Who has the left leg?” Milo asked.
“I think we all do,” Noel said, horrified. “This is such a weird feeling.”
“I feel more scareoused by the moment,” Milo admitted.
"Shut it, Milo!" Garrick growled, but the sound came out as a sultry rumble that echoed through the chamber.
The cultists moaned in reverent fear.
“Do not react to that,” Garrick barked.
They just cheered harder.
Then they felt a bubbling sensation in their hips.
The three altered waists drew inward, then flowed together above the newly unified legs. The pressure was immense but not painful, a deep reshaping that made the air leave all three throats. Their separate pelvises dissolved into one grand, sweeping structure, wide and lush, built with an exaggerated elegance that made the cultists stare and Milo make a small, involuntary noise.
Garrick turned his head toward him.
“Milo.”
“I said nothing. I just... Ahn~”
The new hips got one last sizable boost, then settled with a heavy, confident sway. Behind them, a tail pushed free.
All three yelped.
The tail was long, dark, and sinuous, sliding from just above the curve of their newly shared backside. It lashed once, then split at the end into three spaded tips. One tip curled defensively toward Garrick. One flicked with nervous energy near Noel. The third made a slow, pleased little heart shape behind Milo.
Garrick stared at it.
Milo stared at it.
Noel stared at it.
“Milo,” Garrick said.
“I am not taking responsibility for the tail.”
“It made a heart.”
“...Oh, would you look at that? I didn't even noti-Ahn~”
The fusion climbed higher.
Their torsos pressed together, three chests and three waists melting into a single powerful body. The sensation was dizzying: ribs expanding, lungs deepening, heartbeats overlapping until they struck one rhythm. Their separate stomachs vanished into one smooth, strong abdomen. Their chests joined into a dramatic, full-breasted torso, heavy and regal, framed by black and silver garments that assembled themselves from smoke.
The clothing probably did not cover as much as it would need to to be appropriate. A dark bodice clasped their new figure, elegant and scandalously confident, with silver filigree curling like moonlit vines. Flowing panels of fabric draped from their hips, slit high over the long legs. Jewels glimmered at their throat... no, throats... and along their six wrists.
Six wrists.
Garrick looked down.
Their arms had not merged.
All three pairs remained, attached in graceful tiers along the sides of the single torso. Garrick’s pair occupied the upper position, strong and steady. Milo’s rested below, already flexing with experimental flair. Noel’s lower pair clutched anxiously at their shared midsection.
“This is a bit much, no?” Garrick asked.
Milo lifted one hand, then another, then another. “I think this can be very useful.”
“No, this is just excessive.”
“Imagine how many drinks we can carry now.”
Noel covered his face with two hands and used the other four to gesture helplessly. “I don't think talking about drinks is the right thing to do when our bodies are at the border of merging completely?”
The shoulders widened beneath them, forming a broad, elegant platform. Their necks stretched upward, not into one, but three. Garrick felt himself lifted and shifted left. Noel settled into the center, eyes huge behind his lashes. Milo drifted to the right, still somehow managing to look fascinated and alarmed in equal measure.
Three heads on one body.
Garrick turned and found Noel beside him, close enough that their horns nearly touched. Milo leaned around Noel from the other side.
“Well,” Milo said. “This sure is something.”
Noel swallowed. All three felt it.
That was when the wings erupted.
They burst from their back in a sweep of black flame and velvet membrane, enormous batlike wings unfurling across the chamber. Candles guttered. Cultists threw themselves flat. The air filled with sparks shaped like tiny crescent moons, which made Nagisa snort softly.
The wings spread wider and wider until their shadows covered the altar, the cult, Andrew, and the walls. Azmodea, because what else could this body be called now?
The chamber seemed suddenly too small.
The new body stood nearly twice the height of a man, with long powerful legs, sweeping hips, a regal torso, six elegant arms, three beautiful demonic faces, and a tail that could not decide whether to threaten, flirt, or hide behind itself. With red skin, demonic horns on every head and a chest size that would make any man go staring for a while, she sure was an inhuman beauty like no other.
All three adventurers breathed together.
The sound came out as a layered, velvety chorus.
The cult was silent.
Andrew, trembling, stepped forward.
“There she is,” he whispered.
Garrick’s upper hands clenched. “What...?”
Andrew’s voice rose to a shout.
“There she is! Behold! The legendary demoness Azmodea!”
The word struck them like a bell.
Azmodea.
The name poured into the new body, wrapping around them like a cloak sewn from Andrew’s expectations and Nagisa’s mischief. Their spine straightened. Their wings lifted. Their six hands arranged themselves in an impossibly elegant pose. Their tail curled behind them in three perfect arcs.
Noel’s eyes widened. “Something is happening.”
Garrick tried to speak.
“We are not—”
The sentence died.
All three mouths opened at once.
Their voices joined in perfect, dreadful harmony.
“We are Azmodea, Archdemon General of the evil goddess Nyx. Which foolish mortal dares summon us into the mortal realm?”
The words rolled across the chamber like velvet over thunder.
The cult erupted.
Some screamed. Some sobbed. Some kissed the floor. One fainted so dramatically that two others looked annoyed they had not thought of it first.
Inside their shared body, the three adventurers stared at one another.
Garrick’s thoughts were rigid with horror.
Milo’s were not much better, though tinged with an extremely inconvenient appreciation for how good that had sounded.
Noel’s thoughts were racing in tiny magical circles.
Then Milo thought, very carefully, So. We may have a branding issue.
Garrick turned all the fury of his left head upon him.
Nagisa floated nearby, wearing the expression of someone who had just watched a prank exceed expectations.
“No, what is this?!” Garrick said, or tried to.
What emerged was, “Mortal tongues quiver before our truth.”
Noel choked.
Milo’s head slowly turned towards Nagisa. “Would you mind undoing this?”
The body instead purred, “Who among you seeks our mercy, that we may deny it?”
Andrew crawled forward on hands and knees, ecstatic tears on his face. “Great Azmodea! We are your servants! We knew you would come!”
Nagisa drifted closer to the three heads.
“Little note,” she said softly, for them alone. “This is far too interesting for me to just force clear up this misunderstanding. So unfortunately for you, you will have to play along.”
Noel’s center head stared at her. “Play along...?”
“You can be yourselves as much as you want when no one of the cult is around.” Nagisa winked. "But if they are around, I expect amazing theatrical flare~"
“Theatrical flare!?” Garrick hissed.
Nagisa smiled wider. “Theatrical flare! See you girls again, whenever this idiot decides to summon 'Nyx' again. Bye bye~”
"Wait! You can't just...!"
With that, the goddess of darkness vanished, leaving only a drift of black sparks and the lingering sound of her laughter.
Azmodea stood in the center of the ruined shrine.
Three adventurers.
One demoness.
Forty worshippers.
One Andrew.
Andrew rose, face shining.
“My lady Azmodea,” he said, “what is your first command?”
All three heads tried to say, “Let us go.”
Azmodea’s eyes glowed.
Their chorus filled the chamber.
“On your knees mortals! And prove your loyalty to goddess nyx first and foremost!”
The cult obeyed instantly, oohing and awwing in utter reverence.
"Of course, lady Azmodea!" Andrew spoke, also kneeling. "We shall prove it at once!"
...
“So that,” Azmodea said, sinking deeper into the hot spring, “is how we became the nonexistent archdemon general of a nonexistent evil goddess.”
Moonlight silvered the surface of the water. Steam curled around black rocks and pale lilies, softening the night into something dreamlike. The spring itself lay hidden high in the mountains, far from Andrew, far from the shrine, and very far from anyone who might kneel and ask for commandments about municipal infrastructure.
Azmodea occupied most of the central pool.
That was one of the many practical inconveniences of being nearly twice the height of a normal person and built like a sculptor had been told to make temptation capable of lifting a wagon. Their wings folded awkwardly against the stones. Their three-tipped tail floated behind them like a lazy serpent that could not agree with itself. Their six arms rested along the pool’s edge, in the water, over their shared stomach, and in one case covering Milo’s face because Garrick had put it there.
Across from them sat the three-headed angel girl, with the names Ginoya, Dexia and Ingrid. She did not have a combined name, which Azmodea still found fascinating.
Their shared angelic body was radiant compared to Azmodea’s demonically red skin. They had pale skin, graceful shoulders, luminous wings folded behind her, and three separate halos hovering above the three heads like rings of captured dawn.
Ginoya blinked slowly. “So the cult believes you are evil.”
“Yes,” said Garrick’s left head.
Dexia leaned forward. “But you are not evil.”
“No,” said Noel’s center head.
Ingrid tilted her head. “But when they speak to you as if you are evil, you must answer as if you are.”
Milo’s right head lifted one hand from his face. “In an extremely compelling voice in total unison, yes.”
Garrick used the same hand to cover him again.
Dexia’s eyes brightened. “Fascinating. At the beginning it felt like a very similar thing than what happened to us. But we never got something like a speech curse.”
Noel pointed at her with two lower hands. “I mean, you also didn't run into a mischievous goddess of darkness.”
“And Andrew’s stupidity field,” Garrick added.
“That too,” Ingrid nodded.
Azmodea stared at her.
Milo uncovered his face. “I like her.”
Ginoya smiled. “And you can only refer to yourself as Azmodea?”
“In public, yes,” Noel said. “Around cultists, definitely. Around anyone repeating their doctrine, usually. Alone, we can say our names.”
“Garrick,” said Garrick.
“Milo,” declared Milo.
“Noel,” added Noel.
All three sighed with relief, as if proving they still could.
The angel girl considered this. Her halos turned slowly above her heads.
Dexia said, “Perhaps we should have a combined name as well.”
Ginoya looked thoughtful. “It might be convenient.”
Ingrid said, “It might also be ominous.”
Milo immediately perked up. “Ominous can be good.”
“I am only saying, if you three ever want to enter a room dramatically—”
“No.”
Dexia tapped her chin. “Ginodexgrid?”
Ginoya frowned. “That sounds like a medicinal paste.”
“Ingrinoya?” Ingrid suggested.
Milo nodded solemnly. “I think there is a really rare mountain fungus with exactly that name.”
Noel laughed before he could stop himself. The laugh came through all three of Azmodea’s mouths, softer than the infernal chorus, and for once not cursed into anything grand. It simply rippled over the spring water.
Ginoya smiled warmly.
For a little while, there was peace.
No cultists. No Andrew. No compulsions or grandeur. No one asking whether soup kitchens counted as abyssal infiltration. Just steam, moonlight, and the strange comfort of speaking to someone else who understood the logistics of three heads and one body.
Then Dexia said, “Perhaps I should take a look at that cult.”
Azmodea went still.
The tail stopped floating.
All three heads turned slowly toward her.
“What?” Garrick said.
Milo said, “You plan to check it out?”
Noel added, “Do not tell us you want to join.”
The word landed.
Join.
Azmodea’s body rose from the water.
One moment they were lounging in the spring. The next, they stood waist-deep amid swirling steam, wings unfurling in a black, magnificent arc. Water streamed down their crimson skin. Six arms arranged themselves with perfect, theatrical elegance. Their tail lifted behind them, all three spades curling like punctuation marks at the end of a terrible idea.
Garrick, Milo, and Noel all thought the same thing.
Whyyyyy?!?
Their mouths opened.
“Ohohoho~”
The laugh rang across the pool, rich, condescending, and so flawlessly villainous that a lesser mountain might have considered kneeling.
Azmodea lifted one hand beneath Ginoya’s chin, another toward Dexia, another toward Ingrid, while the remaining three posed because apparently six arms required choreography.
“A new recruit, are you? Oh, what a delightful thing to hear.”
The angel girl stared up at them.
Azmodea’s wings flared wider.
“By all means, sweet little lightbound thing, sell your soul to us, and our goddess Nyx shall bestow upon you infinite power. Kneel, pledge, surrender, and be remade beneath our glorious shadow. Ohohoho!”
Steam drifted.
Water dripped.
The halos continued their slow, gentle rotation.
Then Ingrid said, “I see.”
Dexia added, “No, we were not planning to join.”
Ginoya finished, “We really only wanted to inspect the situation and check out how dumb this cult really is.”
Silence.
Azmodea remained standing for one dreadful second, six arms frozen in a magnificent recruitment pose, three faces burning with three varieties of humiliation.
Then they dropped back into the spring with a tremendous splash.
Water surged over the rocks. Lilies bobbed wildly. One of Azmodea’s wings flopped over their heads like a soaked curtain.
From beneath it came Garrick’s, Milo's and Noel's muffled voices, in perfect unison despite not being under the curse anymore.
“Kill us now.”
Across the spring, Ginoya, Dexia, and Ingrid exchanged a long look.
Then all three angel heads began to laugh.
Azmodea sank lower into the water until only three pairs of eyes, three sets of horns, and one furiously twitching tail tip remained visible.
Somewhere in the distance, perhaps only in their imagination, Nagisa was laughing too.