Starken’s corpse struggled to its feet, the devil wearing it maneuvering bloated flesh with disgusting proficy. Legs wobbled as it took a step closer, mutated bone and musot able to stand if diabolic will didn’t drive it. The strange liquid poured from every pore now, and while her body had given off not a peep of diabolism when prodded with my focus, now the energy being pumped into the slime was so thick I could feel it through the air.

  “Ighe corpse,” I warned, falling back to where everyone else had gathered by the doors. “The liquid is the real threat, not the puppet.”

  That’s all Starken was now.

  Slime coalesced, f tentacles of ooze that lifted Starken’s corpse in the air as the ugh tinued. Her jaw wrenched open, snapping as the possessing devil stretched it beyond the breaking point. A fat, swollen tongue licked razor-sharp teeth covered in dry blood while the old human ones fell to the ground below.

  I rexed just a tad. If it was ag solely like an animal, it wouldn’t be too dangerous. Just don’t let it touyo me.

  Still, it had ughed, so capable of speech. I gnced down at the ground and spotted a thin tendril.

  A nce of light shregory’s hands, and the tip of it disied. The rest of it recoiled, sending a bench flying as it pulled back.

  Starken’s lifeless gaze turo stare at me, the guttural ughter turning into the nguage of the Hells.

  “An iing pany you keep, Daughter of a Duke. Surely your father’s daughter with your betrayal of family.”

  I’d learhis nguage mostly for the damn summonings. Rusty as I was, the only difficult part was the sound of words feeling like nails dragging along the insides of my ears. “Definitely intelligent,” I said in Anglish, before switg to Infernal. “I o father from your realm, ynant puppeteer. Piss off.”

  The Devil hissed a dry ugh as it’s puppet moved closer, tendrils snaking out of the puddle of leaked fluids.

  “Away, Foulhorn,” Galspie said dismissively. “Keep this thing’s tendrils from reag beyond the door.”

  “He is right,” Derrick added. “Leave the creature to us.”

  I was about to protest when Galspie exploded into white light. My eyes shut, tears already streaming as I cussed out the priest for deg to do that. My ski like sandpaper was rubbing on it.

  I forced open tear-filled eyes just in time to see Galspie lunge forward, a greatsword formed of that white light in his hands.

  Tendrils of slime rose to meet him, and in a pair of sshes, they fell apart, falling onto the ground below in a spsh.

  Derrick gestured, and the grouh Starken broke open, a pair of s shing around the corpse’s list. They pulled until they ripped the limbs off. Skin split, flesh parted, bones broke apart at the joints as the two arms fell to the ground.

  The devil shrieked and tried batting Galspie with aendril only for the old man to move his hands, that blinding sword appearing once again. I saw the tendril dissolve, white light rag up its liquid surface to Starken’s corpse before the white light forced my gaze away.

  The corpse-puppet luowards us when I looked back, only for Derrick to rush forward, hand closing around its neck. The corpse stopped, shrieking as a sickle formed in Derrick’s other hand.

  She plu right into the corpse’s forehead.

  “You are dead, Leliel,” Derrick said sorrowfully. “Let your body not be vioted beyond your passing.”

  The body was limp, the demon inside snarling and r from i it’s puppeterring of the corpse had ended. It could only yell defiance befalspie drove a bde of shining light right into the puppet’s face.

  It shrieked, the corpse-puppet glowing bright light out of every orifice.

  “I ’t hold it much longer Matthew,” Derrick warned.

  “I’m aware,” he said, letting go of the sword. “Back. Quickly.”

  The two of them backed away, Galspie kneeling down. I went to move forward, only for Voltar to grab my arm.

  “Might not be best,” he warned, and then the roof above the devil shuddered, then shattered as light poured in from above. Nothing but white, and now my eyes screamed as I stumbled backward.

  My hands reached through a potion while the devil’s shriek was like a knife in both ears.

  The soothiion of the potion beginning to work helped ease the dry riverbed my throat had bee. Even still, each gulp felt like swallowing sand. Damnable Light and its effects!

  Leliel’s corpse y half-buried by the rubble of the roof, hands futilely reag for an escape. The corpse was pletely motionless, frozen in pce. I heard just on the edge of what I could catch, a shriek e and despair.

  The devil, screaming out of frustration in its st moments on this pne as it was sent hurtling to its home.

  I stared at the corpse, then at the hole in the ceiling, then at Galspie standing over the body, an actual physical sword in his hand, not just one of light. It shined, and just looking at it made my still sore eyes ache.

  “Your tohreatens to leave its home, devil,” he told me irritably. “Did you think me simply a tired old man?”

  I shut my jaw with an audible cck. I tried to think of what to say, only to bnk. The frightening realization that if that sword was turned on me, I couldn’t stop it? That teo make any snappy remarks leave my head.

  Divine magic. Clearly more powerful than I’d expected. Although from the simirly shocked expression ory’s face, these two might be outliers.

  “A possessed devil,” Derrioted, looking down at the corpse with an expression of disgust. “It must have been summoned by the killer. Eliminate all traces of the corruption, leave no oo suspect the devil hiding within.”

  Possession was an old tool of devils, although typically it involved a willing host. Or one whose mind the Devils as certain could be shackled to its whims. A dead body was a case I had never heard of before now.

  “Clever trick,” Voltar noted, looking down at the top half of Starken protruding from the colpsed rubble. “Very clever.”

  Galspie snorted. “Clever? The creature died before it could aplish any havoot very clever at all.”

  “It died because it khe jig , my dear Bishop,” Voltar said. “I will admit to being at a little of a loss for why it thought produg so much of this slime was a good idea though.”

  “No experience,” I said, poking some of the i slime with my Diabolic focus. ion, but there hadn’t been any earlier. What was this?

  “Could you eborate, Miss Harrow?”

  “Just a theory,” I said. “Based on something Gregory said about the goal of the Diabolism program. Researg the hells because we know so little of what is going on there. The same goes in reverse. Powerful devils, they still scry. Lesser ones like this? If they haven’t been here for a while, why not think a trick that probably worked iuries past worked this time? Back then, people didn’t know the full array of tricks Devils pulled in pying dead or ting on all of their body parts being corruptive. This stuff isn’t though. Not anymore.”

  Galspie grunted. “It should all be burned anyway.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “It was definitely intelligent, and I wouldn’t expect the slime to be its only trick.”

  “Yes,” Bishop Derrick said, serenely walking over like she hadn’t just med Starken’s corpse into the ground. The hells was with these seemingly old people movier than most a third of their apparent age?

  Then again, my aunt was much the same. Magic.

  “If it isn’t too rude,” she tinued. “The devil appeared to be talking to you. If what it said was relevant, we’d appreciate knowing.”

  And with Galspie right behind her, a reminder of what might await me if I refused.

  “It wasn’t,” I said dismissively. “Devil had some choice opinions about my parentage is all.”

  “Really?” She asked with a slight frown. “Why would it have cause for that?”

  Did they not know? Well, I was hardly going to let them know it, especially-

  “She is the daughter of a duke of the hells,” Galspie said sfully. “Reted to the son who attempted to subvert this city, and his ally once upon a time.”

  “Before anyone judges me for not slitting his throat on the way out,” I said mildly. “I just want to say a whole lot of people also failed at that. And tio fail at that.”

  “Bishop Derrick, Bishop Galspie,” Voltar said, leaning down by what was left of Starken’s corpse. “Not to interrupt your attempted grilling of one of my aides, but since we have thhly smote the corpse, we attempt to get some of the rubble out of the way?”

  I took the ce to fall back, leaving them to the corpse of the devil. Although the temptation to add a sed corpse was growing. The imp had gone quiet after its little boast about not telling me about the other devil.

  I ended up near Gregory, mostly because being near Forcreek didn’t appeal, and Tagashin was nowhere in sight. Doctor Daith Voltar and the two bishops.

  “I think this case ends with me and that man trying to kill each other,” I whispered, looking at Galspie.

  “Surely you don’t mean to suggest that our fair Bishop Galspie, who has ht agreed with the killer’s motive, could possibly be the killer?” Gregory said lightly.

  “Perhaps I’m just biased,” I muttered back. “The man is so hateable. Also, it is iing that he thinks it impossible for anyone in the program to be murdering their fellow priests, yet also siders the mere act of using diabolism something that permaly corrupts the soul.”

  Gregory nodded, a wary eye out as if Galspie or his ckey were lurking around the er. “It does seem suspicious. I was told the Halspus clergy were involved entirely in a supervisory role, so none of them should have any Diabolist talents. And both of them decry the program as a barely necessary evil. But if anyone would be willing to damn their souls as they see it iurn for ending this?”

  “Possible,” I muttered. “We o test that somehow.”

  “Do you have a knife for it?”

  I ughed drily. “No. There should be methods. Or we just keep a wat both of them. And even if her one is the killer, it might be worth pig their brains for the killer’s mi.”

  “Besides, stig him with a knife might end in you losing an arm,” Gregory noted.

  I hissed between my teeth as I watched Galspie talk with Derriot even a hint of that bzing sword under his robe.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I think that would plicate things a fair bit. Maybe not too much.”

  “Really?” Gregory asked. “Plotting his murder already?”

  I scowled. “Look I don’t care for you insisting-”

  He held his hands up pgly. “It’s not a nation Malvia. Genuine. Especially when discussing the hypothetical of him being the killer.”

  I raised my eyebrow a little at that phrasing, implying even without the hypothetical of Galspie being the killer, discussing his death would be just fine.

  “Certainly not with Diabolism,” I said. “Between the sword, the deity, and everything else he’s practically desigo be immune. Holy? I expect that even if a blow had been nded, it wouldn’t have done much. The amount of divine power he used towards the end there? Just eling it through his body may have disied those tendrils on tao, I’d settle for two answers he doesn’t seem suited for.”

  “And what would those be?” Gregory murmured, eyes on the lookout for any watg.

  “Bullet and surprise,” I said. “He’s human. As far as we know. Humans fall remarkably quickly to either of those two.”

  “Could ye it?”

  I paused, looking in fusion at a deadly serious Gregory.

  “Excuse me?” I asked. “Could you repeat that?”

  “If we o, how quickly could ye it?” he repeated.

  I frowned. “Why do you want a specifi to kill him?”

  “It just seems prudent is all,” Gregory replied.

  Prudent? The man had been horrified by deaths he caused a month ago, had frozen up fighting Shapegers, and now was trying tanize a hit on a Halpusian bishop like it was no big thing?

  Where was my paralytic-coated knife when I ?

  “I’d need more information,” I said. “His patterns, his routines, and more importantly who are you and what have you doh Gregory Montague?”

  “Are you upset that I’m suggesting this?” He asked me quietly. “Listen, if he is the-“

  “Shhh,” I said, looking at where Galspie and Derrick were at the far end of the church, Forcreek alongside them. “Utter lunacy. You want to talk about killing someone who we don’t even know is the killer yet? Nonsehis versation is over.”

  Hopefully Gregory would pick up that this was a versation for a more private location. Both about what could be done, and why he suddenly was so murder-happy.

  ***

  By now, Voltar had given up oing the rubble away, and he and the bishops had wandered off, leaving only Forcreek by the body, sittio it, eyes closed, muttering under his breath.

  “Sad, isn’t it?” I remarked.

  My voice startled the aide out of his vigil, and he recoiled upon realizing I was near, one hand raised as he got to his feet. He nearly tripped on his robe putting distaween us, and ended up with only an additional foot, huffing and puffing as his hand poiowards me.

  “Sorry,” I said, holding my hands up pletely empty, hoping that he wasn’t fool enough to try bstih divine magic. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Khe victim well?”

  “What do you care?” he snapped, coughing as soon as he got those words out. “Aren’t you some kind of diabolist gang member?”

  “Ex-gang member,” I said, keeping my hands up as I walked a little to the side. His arm tried to follow me, shaking as it did so. “I’d like to state that her being a criminal or a diabolist necessarily means a defi moral character.”

  “All traffig with the Hells does,” he says, eyes narrowing.

  “Fair enough,” I said, shrugging slightly. “Still, doesn’t mean I ’t think something’s sad. No one deserves to die like this. Or to have their corpse used like this after death.”

  He eyed me suspiciously, and I was struck by how young he was. I wasn’t that old, but he looked youhan Melissa, the battered spectacles and blonde hair framing a boyish face still losing some of that baby fat. Strahat someone so young would be a Bishop’s personal aide.

  “That we agree on,” he said somberly. “A strange opinion ing from someone in a district full of ibals.”

  Galspie was close. Galspie was close. It wasn’t worth beating some seo this fool, who wouldn’t uand after, especially if it resulted in that sword being rammed right through my eye socket.

  “You ever been hungry, Mr. Forcreek?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Many times, and never did I choose to eat the flesh of my fellow man. Nor of any thinking being.”

  “Good for you,” I said sincerely. “Try being hungry when there’s no food, not even rats because there’s not even garbage for them to live in, and when charity gets brought in, it gets seized so it go to the actual worthy poor? Do you want to guess the symbol on the vestments of the priests whed that?”

  I didn’t even pay attention to his reply. I needed out.

  ***

  Outside the churow. Walston had stomped off to her picket line shortly after the devil’s death, apparently with some grievance against Voltar and the bishops. I didn’t care. It meant privae here oside with no one around.

  “You know,” Tagashin disguised as Barnes said as I suddenly became aware of leaning against the wall two feet to my right, “I thought it would be much quicker before you found yourself out here.”

  I’d thought too soon. An easy mistake. I let out a slow, tired breath.

  “Where were you?” I asked Tagashin quietly.

  “Up top,” she replied. “The thing in there? Lesser prey than even you would be, and the two bishops would have it handled before I could say boo. Besides, revealing myself to them and giving away Voltar has a kitsune in their pocket? Much less useful than what I did instead.”

  “And what would that be?” I murmured. These were thick walls of sea life and rock, but best not to take the ce of a Forcreek with his ear oher side of it.

  “Enjoying the m breeze,” she said. “It smells so pleasant ing off the Nover, I could smell every little piece of trash and refuse that everyone dumps in it, as well as the stench of the kind of river-dweller that eats on that garbage.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously.”

  “Oh, no fun,” she teased. “Fine. Keeping an eye on who would show up. Just in case your rather murderous twin decided to show up.”

  I frowned. We weren’t literal twins, but Versalicci would fit the bill, but even with his rather cavalier appearances above-ground he’d never e this far afield. And definitely not he watch. And how could Tagashin know about Melissa?

  “You mean the killer,” I said, cursing my mind for having taken that ta.

  “Of course, I meant the killer,” she said, curiosity blooming on her face. “Who did you think I meant?”

  I tried to think of a way out, then realized that throwing the kitsune something would be better than haviake an i iing out.

  “When you’re talking to someone like me, discussing an evil twin is not so distant a possibility,” I admitted.

  Her eyes practically sparkled at that thought. “Oh, an evil twin? What, would they be wearing ach.”

  “We are not having this discussion,” I said.

  “Ooh, she’d be in a bck fancy dress, and she’d need an even more evil name somehow. Tyrannia Barrow?”

  “Could you please stop talking nonsense?” I sempted to go have Voltar repeat whatever trick had sent her hurtling through a train wheried running away st time.

  “Oh, you’re just upset because you want to be the one in a fancy bck dress,” Tagashin teased.

  Damsune, could she not be accurate?

  “I am not dignifying that with a response,” I said as calmly as I could. A tirade about the budget limitations of shady Infernal alchemists was oip of my tongue, but I swallowed it. “Did you spot anything of actual i?”

  “A few things,” she admitted. “Not our killer I think. The people attracted seemed more worried than ied. And none of them seemed the diabolist. More like people w why a devil was suddenly iy.”

  “Still worth noting,” I said.

  “Of course, which is why I’ve got a way to keep track of them. For ter. But going off chasing one of them might missing a ter one. Speaking of, your special guest is still in our carriage.”

  Melissa. I raised an eyebrow. “She hasn’t made a run for it yet.”

  “Nope. And I haven’t been peaking, so if you wanna find out why, that’s on you.”

  I sidered it, then nodded. It seemed as good as anything else I could dht now.

  ***

  Melissa y on her ba the carriage, reading a book. I frowned as I read the title. The Case of the Maing House.

  “I don’t want to guess which of them keeps fial retellings of their own cases in here,” I said as I sat across from her. “Iing read?”

  “Yeah,” she said, thumbing to the page, not even gng my way. “Fictitious?”

  “Exaggerated or ged for the parts that ’t be made public,” I said. “Skeleton’s probably real, some of the fat’s been trimmed to keep it actually publishable without the gover ing down on them like a ton of bricks.”

  “And these are the people you work for now?” She said, looking up with a coy little grin.

  “They’re the people I’m stuck w with because Golvar decided t me into a mess that outed me to everyone,” I growled angrily. “I don’t knoisses me off more, that I ged into a swirling typhoon of chaos by him or that he didn’t live to experie himself.”

  The little bit of amuseme her face, repced by fury.

  “Do not talk about him like that,” she hissed. “He deserved more thah with only a traitor to witness it!”

  I eyed her warily, then slowly nodded. “Speaking out of line. I should have held my tongue.”

  Her eyes were on the verge of tears as she mao get out a simple “Do.”

  I sighed. Not going as pnned. “Book any good?”

  She eagerly went for a ce to discuss anything but Golvar. “It’s alright. A good way to waste time for now.”

  “You seem pretty eager to stay inside,” I said. “Thought you would have made a run for it by now.”

  She scoffed. “Yes, make a run for it. In front of two bishops, who knows how many Watch, and all of you, into a district reeling from a beloved figure of the unity who was killed with Diabolism. I ’t imagine why I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You had your shot,” I said. “When we were all iemple. Just a line of watch, citizens behind. Easy to make a run for it.”

  “You were right,” she snapped. “Was that so hard to hear? Hells below, the entire pantheon of those gutless hypocrites utilizing Diabolism. And they preach about the evils of doing so?”

  “Think that’s mostly the Halspusians,” I said. “The rest of that anti-diabolist se is more secur thaher religions chipping in. Remember who is the ’s patroy?”

  “Says the person w with a bishop of theirs,” Melissa said drily.

  “Like I have more of a choi that than I do with Voltar?” I asked. “Besides, defying that one….deadly man.”

  I had actually looked outside, to where Voltar and Galspie had finally exited the temple, when someone else caught my eye. Someone else I knew, and who was making a belline for the carriage. Dressed as any rant, he wasn’t drawing any attention as he neared.

  “Get out, now. Unless you wanna be ed alongside me,” I snapped, and eyes widening, Melissa opehe other side of the carriage and scampered out.

  I reposed myself. Okay, this was arguably iable, although roag me and why now was a bit of a puzzle. They should have been involved from the start.

  Samuel Voltar ehe carriage, looking at the door I’d shut after Melissa had left through it.

  “Disagreement of some kind?” He asked ily.

  I couldn’t hide Melissa being a diabolist, not with Gregory knowing as well. I’d dow as much as I could with Voltar, and could only hope he didn’t inform Intelligence. He didn’t seem particurly enamored with them. But there was no pretending someone hadn’t been in the couch or who they were.

  “A discussion of bishops,” I said. “A disagreement over them. Versalicci making his opinions know. Oopic of siblings, your brother isn’t in here.”

  “I know,” he said as he settled in the seat across from me. “You’ll have to go fetch him.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t argue such a mundane and minor point. “He’s in discussion with the bishops at the moment, do you wao fetch them as well?”

  “The bishops and their attendants will have to wait,” Samuel Voltar noted drily. “A third cleric is dead at the hands of diabolists.”

  Saithorthepyro