Bethany sat by the kitchen sink, stockinged heels rocking against the cabinets. The cigarette in her hand burned down, and she tapped the ash into the drain before stubbing it out entirely on a plate. She pulled another- the last in the pack.
The butt and the empty wrapper got tossed into the wastebin on the far end of the kitchen. A half-dozen other butts already littered the floor around it, and she was inordinately pleased when this one actually went in.
Her impromptu victory cheer broke off when she tried to raise her hands in glory and banged one on a top cabinet. Cheering became swearing, and she was still grumbling when she pressed the final cig to her lips.
Unfiltered. She hated the way her fingers were shaking as she lifted them to touch the tip of the stick. Thumb and index, like she was snuffing a candle, only this time the cigarette tip flared cherry red, and she drew back fingers trailing wisps of smoke.
The first breath turned a full eighth of the cig to ash. She dragged deep, black heat filling her lungs, head swimming slightly.
Exhaling slowly, lips pursed like she was blowing a kiss, the plume of smoke sent out the open window behind the sink. She let it off until she was sighing, the last streamers coming out between bared teeth like dragon's breath.
Faintly, she heard the sound of keys before the lock scraped and the apartment door opened. Bethany turned to look.
"Put that out, please? It's not good for the kids."
Bethany directed a flat look at Lilith. The dark-skinned woman was already unbuttoning her blouse. The small swarm of imps and other minor demons that cavorted constantly around her ankles began surging, all of them chattering in their shrill child's voices.
"Mum!" "Me!" "Mama!" "Momomomomom!"
Lilith groped for a kitchen chair, hands waving in the right direction until one of the imps took the hint and looked directly at the table. Lilith smiled and found the chair at once.
"Thank you, Pazu."
She sat and pulled Pazu into her lap. Bethany looked away as Lilith finished opening her shirt, raising the imp to her breast.
"Bethany, please?" She sounded tired. Bethany couldn't blame her. They'd only been back for twelve seconds and she was already tired of the little goblins.
"Yeah." Her voice came out hoarse, lungs still full of smoke, her tongue thick from disuse.
"Are you alright?" Lilith asked.
"Didn't sleep." Bethany shifted on the counter so she could see Lilith again. "I dropped off for like an hour, but the dreams got me back up."
The witch had another incubus suckling from her now, holding both demons with one hand, tapping at her phone with the other. Bethany wondered for a moment how Lilith could see it, before she noticed the glittering eyes poking out of Lilith's mane of hair – a succubus was perched on her shoulder so that Lilith could use the demon's vision.
Bethany took a final drag of her cigarette. There was barely a third left anyway. She plucked it from her lips and held out her arm. Rings and spirals of cigarette burns drew lines there, like marks on a map.
She picked a spot.
Pressed down.
She hissed, biting her lip, toes curling in her socks. The cig wavered, but she didn't pull it away from her skin. The pain was flaring, low at first, growing worse as the heat touched her. She twisted the butt, grinding ash into the wound, and her hiss became a low groan. Time melted away for precious instants, lost in the starburst of heat blooming in her arm, her head, her belly.
Finally, the fire died away, and she let the butt fall into the sink before sliding off the counter. She was panting, her face hot. Lilith was looking at her- sort of. Two or three of the demons had turned to look, and Lilith's dark glasses were faced in her direction as well.
Bethany found herself suddenly, bizarrely embarrassed. She was sharing a kitchen with a woman breast-feeding two little antichrists, and she was the one getting weirded out.
"Thank you," Lilith said, smiling gently. She motioned to one of the other kitchen chairs.
Bethany took it.
"What's the situation?"
Lilith exchanged the current crop of imps for another set, letting them settle before replying. "Quiet. Eve should be back soon. We split up around Liberty Street, and she took the north side. I didn't see anything more than a few wayward cherubs, and I sent a couple demons to trail those."
"None of them?"
Lilith shook her head. "No. They're here though. Eve thought she saw Samson this morning, but it was during rush hour and she lost him in the crowds."
Bethany exhaled slowly, already missing her smokes. "Fucking Samson." Just thinking about him made her tired. Athletic bastard had always been a font of energy, and he'd only gotten worse since Ascending.
She rubbed her eyes. "No one else?"
Lilith was eyeing her again. "How much sleep have you had this week?"
Four hours, split up over seven days, not counting the split seconds where she kept dropping off, only to jerk awake again.
"Enough."
"Liar." Lilith's smile softened a bit more. "Jacob and Esau should be home in a day or two. You'll be okay then, right?"
Bethany gave her a jerky nod. It was the only way she could find sleep anymore, pressed between the two brothers, safe in their arms. They were her brothers as well, but that had always seemed so much lesser than their link as twins.
Another pair of incubi took their place with Lilith. The woman rubbed her free hand through her hair and sighed. "I don't like being split up like this either. Feels like we're incomplete."
"Yeah." Bethany found herself mimicking Lilith's gesture. Her hair felt greasy and smelt smoky. In the bad way. In the she hadn't bathed since her boys left kind of way. "Where's Az now?"
"South. Didn't you see the group text?" Lilith tapped the back of her phone. "He thought Eden had taken a piece of Mom down country to try and establish a new base."
"Ah." He had said something about that, hadn't he? Hard to remember when most of her texts were read half-buried in blankets, hovering on the border between insomnia and night-terrors. "Just Eden?"
"He-" Lilith's response was cut off in the sound of the front door opening. They both stiffened.
"I'm home!" Eve's voice was light and melodious, floating through the wall between them. Her heavy footsteps marked her progress through the living room before she rounded the corner into the kitchen.
"Evie," Lilith said, relaxing into her chair. "Glad to see you're safe." A note of accusation entered her voice. "You didn't text me back."
Eve stopped in her tracks, blinking owlishly behind her heavy mascara. Bethany waved to her. There was something funny in the way she lit up a room, despite wearing all black, combat boots, with a half-dozen raven feathers plaited into her hair.
"I… You texted?" Eve said. She pulled her phone from her pocket. "Ohh… So you did." She shrugged, rolling the shoulders of her bomber jacket. "I was a little distracted."
Bethany forced herself to sit up a little bit straighter. "You found them?"
"Yes and no." Eve leaned against the wall as she talked. "I was distracted because there's this band that's going to play down on 6th tonight, and I actually know the lead singer. Siren is-"
Lilith cleared her throat loudly, and Eve flushed, her pale cheeks glowing.
"I was gonna say she's single and satanic, but that's something for later. But I did pick up their trail." Eve tugged one of the feathers in her hair. "Some of my familiars spotted a certain bald-headed fuck disappearing into an abandoned factory complex over by the river."
"Judas," Lilith hissed.
"It's too big to search alone," Eve continued. "Some kind of huge shipping operation that was spread out over a couple blocks. But I wasn't noticed. Which means we can strike when ready."
The surge of heat in her chest and the grin growing on Bethany's face for once had little to do with fire. "If Eden's gone, and Lazarus is out west, then we'll outnumber them once the twins get back."
Across the table, Lilith's children were smiling, their red eyes all far off. "Finally," Lilith breathed. "The tide will turn."
XXX
The impromptu team meeting broke apart after that. Any further planning could wait until Jacob and Esau returned, and there was still more reconnaissance to be done. Lilith finished nursing her brood and announced that it was dinner time for the adults in the room.
Bethany staggered out of her chair and over to the fridge. Eve was working around her, opening cabinets and cupboards to take stock of what they had, moving with enough energy to leave Bethany feeling like she was in slow-motion.
"Rice. Spices. More spices. Bread is- no that's gone bad." Eve pitched it over her shoulder and into the trash without even looking. "Canned peaches. Canned yams. Baby food?"
"It was an experiment," Lilith supplied.
"Right." Eve returned to looking.
Bethany finally managed to tug open the fridge. The interior wasn't reassuring. She hadn't been paying attention to eating in the last couple days- burning gave enough energy to sustain herself, and she never felt hungry when she couldn't sleep.
So she hadn't been giving any mind to the state of their fridge. There was takeout from before the twins had left a week ago, something thick and gelatinous in a jar that reminded her unpleasantly of something Mom had horked out, and an entire bowl full of individual condiment packets. Any actual food was few and far between. The days where they'd eat actual trash were long behind them.
And… Oh fuck.
"We're out of milk." Bethany spoke with the slow, heavy tones of the damned.
Behind her, her sisters both stopped.
"What's the rule, Beth?" Eve said.
Beth sighed, pressing her forehead against the cool metal of the freezer door. "When I find that something is out, it's my responsibility to buy more. Thus be-eth the first of all our apartment rules."
It was also the only rule they could collectively agree on. The other dictums that they'd picked to reduce the odds of killing each other over stupid roommate stuff cycled in both number and topic. The only ones Beth really cared about were: "Don't touch my cigarettes" and "Hot water must be divided evenly."
She groaned slowly, letting her head slide down the door a bit. Buying milk meant leaving the apartment, and that meant walking to the store. She wanted Jacob and Esau back so she could get some goddamn sleep already. Errands shouldn't be this much effort.
Eve clumped over and patted her shoulder. "Cmon. I'll drive you."
XXX
Of all the vehicles they'd stolen, borrowed, and appropriated during their crusade against the other half of the family, Eve's hearse was in Bethany's top five favorites. The clunky old car was just so gauche with the way Eve had painted various signs and symbols all over the exterior, most of them relating to death, and a few just being borderline obscene art of pretty girls.
Bethany took shotgun, sinking gratefully into the seat with a huff. Their apartment was only two stories up, and she'd gotten winded just taking the steps down. Sleeplessness fucking sucked.
She patted her breast pocket for a smoke, only to remember that she'd just emptied the pack. A quick check of her other pockets returned nothing but a couple hair ties. She sighed and started putting her hair up as Eve got in.
Twintails were kind of a kiddy hairstyle, but they made her feel better. Mom had used to put her hair up like this before everything went to shit. Having them now made her feel just a tiny bit more put together, like she wasn't a tottering, insomniac zombie held together by tar and self-injury.
Eve started the car and shifted it into gear. The speed they left the parking garage at was one Bethany doubted hearses had ever- or were even supposed to achieve, but it ate up the street with pleasing ease.
"Where's the store again?" Eve murmured. She glanced over, and Eve caught a glimpse of the true Eve in the rearview, all coal black skin and infernal eyes, horns just missing digging furrows in the roof.
Bethany blinked and had to think for a moment. "Down… there? It's a cornerstore by the…" What was it? She hadn't left the apartment in days. Where the fuck did they even live? "Subway. You know which one I mean?"
Eve did. She cut through two lanes of traffic to make the turn. Bethany clutched the oh-shit-handle, heart thumping unpleasantly as Eve somehow managed to get the hearse to fishtail. They straightened out and merged into the flow of traffic.
From there, it was only a few minutes of staring blankly out the window, not really seeing anything, with Eve humming tunelessly in the background, before they arrived. Eve pulled into the parking lot, passing the Subway and pulling in to the minimart that served this area of town.
They came to a halt- Eve parked across two spaces to get the hearse to actually fit. "Just wave if you need anything." And then she slid her chair back and put her boots up on the dash, opening a dog-eared tome she'd left stowed in the console.
"You're a peach," Bethany drawled. She shoved her door open and dragged herself out of the car.
Two dozen plodding steps had her entering through the automatic doors into air-conditioning and muzak. The clerk, a strawberry-faced boy in an apron, raised a hand in greeting. Bethany managed a jerky head-nod in reply.
She turned down an aisle at random, the shopping list Lilith had written in her hand. Picking out the items took longer than it should have. She was moving glacially slow, and the little bit of charge she'd gotten from burning was only just propping her up. The labels on all the food kept blurring together, and she was losing her train of thought in between items on the list.
She wasn't really sure how long it took her to stagger through the rows, returning once to grab a basket, but it carried all the dreamlike slowness of the nightmares she was trying to avoid in the first place.
Being able to dump the food onto the counter and watch the clerk begin to ring them up was almost exhilarating. Bethany sagged and let the countertop hold her up, dropping a little lower with each boop of the scanner.
"Will that be all?"
Bethany jerked her head up. "Wha- yeah. Wait- no." She pointed shakily, ignoring the way he looked at her pockmarked skin. "Carton of the- can't read it. The blue ones."
The clerk stepped to the cigarette case and lifted one of the cartons in answer.
"Yeah, that one."
There was a faint crashing noise from outside, and the sound of breaking glass. They both turned to look. There was nothing that could be seen through the doors.
"What was that?" Bethany murmured, blinking unevenly, trying to get her eyes to focus through the doors.
The clerk returned to bagging without pause. "Probably just a fender bender. Happens a lot here. People take the right turn too fast coming around the pumps. I'll see if I need to call the cops in a minute."
"Ah." Bethany let herself slump back against the counter. Eve would raise holy hell if someone dinged her hearse, but it wasn't like a car accident could actually harm her.
"Your total comes to..."
The auto-doors opened, then closed. Bethany turned, still leaning on the counter. Eve had probably gotten impatient and come inside to see what the hold up was. Or had there really been an accident?
"We're almost done, Eve" Bethany was saying. The words were leaving her lips, only to die in midair as she saw who had just come in.
"Hey, Bethie," Maggie said.
Bethany's fatigue fell away like lead weights as the adrenaline rush hit her.
"Mags."
She was as tall as ever, golden hair in clean, elegant waves around her shoulders, and a beatific smile on her face. There were objects around her, flicking in and out of view as they brushed the material plane- a censer, numerous crosses, a white lotus. Maggie dropped her arms and let her bomber jacket fall to the floor, exposing her under-tank, drawn tight over a body like an olympic athlete.
The sprawling heart and rose tattoos on her biceps were as vivid as ever.
Her sister's smile hitched a tad. "It's Magdalene, now. Remember?"
Bethany was tapping her pockets again. Where was her lighter? Where was it?! "So I'm 'Bethie,' but you don't get to be Big Sis Mags?"
"Ma'am, are you ready to check out?" the clerk interrupted.
Bethany jerked- she'd forgotten he was there. "Get out of here, you stupid fuck!" He stared, all blank doe-eyes at her. Bethany snarled at him and let hellfire bloom in her palm. "This is a robbery, now run you fucking moron!"
The kid gaped, then turned to run. He was scrambling for the door into the employee's quarters when Bethany turned away.
Maggie was watching her, thumbs hooked into the straps of her top like suspenders. "I'm going to have to kill him," she said. "No witnesses, remember?"
"He won't remember. Muggles can't comprehend shit." She was back to patting herself down, trying to find her lighter. She needed to self-immolate, to burn herself with something. Magical flame didn't have the same effect- she couldn't power herself by burning herself with the thing she was powering.
And… she didn't have it. She'd left it in the car. Wait- the car. She wasn't here alone. Maggie was standing between her and the door, but that didn't mean much.
Bethany pointed and fired. A tiny fireball rocketed from her fingertip and shot through the glass of the front door. It hit the tarmac outside and burst, scattering sparks everywhere. She was hoping it'd start a fire out there, something mundane to fuel herself with, but it was no dice. It sputtered out, even as the last of the glass was falling.
"Looking for someone?" Maggie said calmly.
Another figure stepped into view in the doorframe. Red hair, cut short enough to expose the pale scalp beneath it. Gangly and incongruous in his button-down shirt and slacks, looking more like a budget Jehovah's Witness than anything.
Lazarus.
"How's it going?" he drawled, the twang in his voice more pronounced than in Maggie's. "Just runnin errands, Bethany?"
He stepped through the doors, coming more clearly into her sight. Blood poured from his eyes and followed in his wake like a slug-trail. A gash across his neck was spurting onto his shirt, slowly dyeing it red, even as the wound closed.
"Did you get her?" Maggie asked.
"Eve got away. Wounded her, but then she ran for it when I regenerated." He fingered his neck for a moment, probing the cut. It closed a bit more as Bethany watched.
Maggie shrugged. "We'll just get her afterward." She tilted her head to one side, then the other, cracking her neck.
"Anyone ever tell you two-on-one is bullshit?" Bethany said. She could hear muffled pounding from inside the office. The kid hadn't gotten out, which meant there was no exit there. There should be a fire door in back, but she hadn't seen one yet. Maybe by the bathrooms?
The bathrooms that were almost certainly down a dead-end hallway if there was no fire door.
Slowly, Bethany reached out and snagged the brown paper bag the clerk had been using to store her groceries. The carton of cigarettes he'd pulled was beside it. She grabbed that too, tearing it open one-handed.
Her siblings were beginning to fan out. Maggie was stalking toward her, taking her time. Lazarus was hovering in the background, poised to cut off any escape routes with his shots. Two-on-one was bullshit though. Solo, she'd be able to take either one of them, but together they could cover their weaknesses.
"So," Maggie was saying. "Lilith really needs to be more careful. She's very distinctive with all those brats of hers."
Bethany paused with a cigarette halfway to her lips, her blood running cold. They knew where the apartment was. Lilith was vulnerable. They'd waited until they'd split up and moved in.
She pressed a second cig in beside the first. Lit both.
She grinned around them, letting her fire grow for the first time in days. "You stay the fuck away from my sister." The tips of her twintails ignited, her hair rippling in the heat wave, her eyes suddenly full of hellfire.
The bag burst into flame in her hand, the carton burning a moment later. Their ignition was magical, but their incineration was purely mundane. Beth's grin grew wider as the fire burnt through the flesh of her palm, fingers closing convulsively around it as the tendons shrank.
Maggie charged. There were five yards between them. Maggie covered them in half a second, breaking tile with her footfalls, fists coming up.
Bethany cocked her fingers like a gun and fired. The firebolt cut the air between them. Maggie didn't even slow. The second before it would have struck her, Lazarus leapt in between. The bolt hit him dead-center in the face.
He went down screaming, his skull a melting ruin. Maggie leapt over him, flaring gold as her lotus activated. Bethany's second shot caught Maggie on her upraised arm, glancing off Maggie's aura, and then she had to roll away as Maggie's fist imploded the cash register.
She came up on her feet in the bread aisle, threw her hands to either side and let the flames gout over the shelves. Loaves and pastries went up in the heat, and Bethany basked in it.
There was nothing on the rush it gave her to fucking light something up.
Her internal gauges were rising, little will-o-wisps flaring into life around her like fireflies. She pointed and they fired, spraying shots over the store. Maggie had been nearly within striking distance again, but she threw herself to the side through a shelf to avoid Bethany's fire.
Bethany turned, turreting her flares to keep up the heat on Maggie. A stray shot winged the blonde in the shoulder and she stumbled. Bethany used the opportunity to machinegun shots into Maggie's chest. Maggie choked as a firebolt tore her throat open, her shirt igniting as more rounds ripped into her. Bethany pressed harder, focusing the attack and-
A flash of red on her periphery- she ducked just in time to avoid an arc of solidified blood that sliced cleanly through the donut case.
Lazarus was back up on his feet, face regenerated, stupid haircut and all. He gestured, and the tide of vitae that followed him whipped out, snapping and grabbing for Bethany.
She lit up like the sun, drawing on the flames now spreading across more and more of the store, her heat combusting the ceiling tiles overhead. Lazarus hissed with frustration as she evaporated the blood he flung at her.
Bethany sent him ducking for cover with her return fire, igniting the entire rack of cigarettes when she missed and loving every second of it. He popped up from behind the counter, shooting back, and she drew on her own regalia. A crown of candles bloomed on her brow, red, black, blue. The black one ignited, then flashed once.
Across the store, Lazarus howled as the curse seared his eyes. He staggered, and Bethany put a firebolt clean through his chest. Her brother dropped.
It wouldn't keep him down for long. His regeneration was the strongest of all of them.
Bethany turned and ran, repositioning herself at an intersection in the aisles, watching for Maggie's counterattack. She began spreading flames around her in a wall for the thug to hit.
Maggie surprised her. She leapt into the air on the other side of the store and drove both feet into a shelving unit. It rocketed towards Bethany, metal screeching on the floor, tearing through everything in its path.
Bethany dove to the side, but the shelf still clipped her. She yelped with pain as her ankle broke and she went spinning into a display of pulp novels. More fuel for the fire. The new bonfire gave her enough drive to get up. Her ankle wasn't healing anywhere nearly as fast as Laz or even Maggie, but the more she burned, the faster it would.
She jammed her entire arm into the fire, hissing as her skin seared and bubbled away. Her gauges were filling though, rising more and more with every bit of flesh that burned away. She was at nearly a full tank, half-delirious with pleasure and pain when she pulled away. Her arm was a charred ruin, but it would heal.
Smoke was beginning to fill the store, and her siblings were lost in the haze, flitting into view like jackals. Looked like the megamart had skimped on its fire alarms- normally she had to fight through the sprinklers by now.
She started firing at random, dozens of wisps generating from the inferno around her, adding their shots to her barrage. Every shot set a fire now, and she found herself laughing, her smile so wide it hurt. Getting to kill her siblings were all well and good, but this- fire was what got her motor running.
There was a crash on the far side of the store as one of the shelves toppled. A support tore its way loose from the ceiling and fell, destroying most of the bread section. The store was beginning to fall apart.
Beautiful.
Bethany was still puffing away merrily on her cigs, her lungs full of smoke, fit to burst like paper balloons, and the next time Lazarus emerged from the smokescreen, she exhaled. The ensuing fireball was more like a flamethrower, arcing from her mouth as dragon's breath.. He actually dodged it- his regen must be at its limit, and rolled away into the produce aisle.
Sweet smoke heralded her incineration of the fruit display, and she didn't let off with the flame until the whole section was a conflagration. Panting, she retreated, casting eyes about for Maggie. Her elder sister wasn't normally this indirect. She-
Bethany ducked, more on impulse than anything, only for a blood bullet to tear its way through her upper arm, cutting a runnel in flesh just beginning to heal from her self-burning. Her arm went limp, and she swore venomously as she had to fall back towards the wall full of drink fridges.
She came out of the aisle and Maggie was already there, barreling toward her.
There was no time.
She raised her good arm. Maggie hit her like a train. Fists like iron wrapped in flesh slammed her, a dozen a second. Bethany felt bones break, but couldn't tell which, only that there was pain beyond the flame. She fell back, feet tangling, and Maggie caught her shirt and lifted.
Bethany's feet left the ground. Maggie hurled her like a baseball. Bethany collided with the wall of drinks, and exploded through the glass and shelves. She hit a row of boxes in the storage space behind the freezers and dropped like a stone, too numb and exhausted to rise.
The boxes were beginning to burn around her, and whatever drinks had spilled on the floor were bubbling, but it wasn't fast enough. Her powers were as fleeting as fire itself- quick to burn, and quick to burn out. There wasn't enough to get her up before they were on her.
Glass crunched. Maggie was stepping through the remains of the freezer. She was no longer grinning. The sharp, cold look on her face was worse. She didn't look like Maggie. She looked like Magdalene.
"Any last words?"
Bethany laughed. She'd somehow not dropped one of her cigs in all the confusion. It was bent, but still smoldering between her lips. "You're a cunt."
Maggie's foot drove into her side. She could discern that it was her ribs that broke this time, and then Maggie followed through and punted her into the far wall of the cold storage. There were no soft boxes here. Her back hit cinderblock walls, her head following.
Bethany went face-first into the floor. Her vision swam in and out, the world around her sliding from clarity. Distantly, she was grinning. After all this time, now she was about to pass out. If only sleep was that easy at home.
A weight ground down on the side of her skull, pressing her into the thick rubber floor mats. Bethany groaned with pain, but the agony was forcing her back into reality, giving her something to focus on.
Maggie had her foot planted firmly against her head, and was leaning down to look at her, still all dispassion. "I'll ask again: Any final words, sister?"
She could hear footsteps, and feel vibration in the mats. A blurry shape was approaching from behind Maggie. Lazarus had joined them.
The fire continued to spread through the store. Bethany could feel it, but it all felt so far away now, so insignificant to the blaze she wanted it to be.
She glanced up as far as she was able to with the eye that wasn't swollen shut. Looked forward.
Probably no chance of Eve showing up to save her. Hopefully she'd at least gotten back to the apartment and rescued Lilith from whatever the fuck they'd come up with.
She blinked slowly. They were a few feet from the back of one of the drinks fridges. Rows of pearly milk stood neatly, as of yet untouched by the flames or the fighting. All this for some goddamn milk.
She sighed. They couldn't have thrown her through the liquor cabinet, could they? Then she would have lit this place up like a forest fire in hell. Where was the alcohol anyway?
Bethany strained her eye. What was that beyond the milk case? She'd seen it on the way in, but she'd been half-asleep then.
"Bethany," Maggie said. "I suggest you take this chance to repent."
Rows of white containers. Not milk. Cylindrical and squat. She blinked blood out of her eye, squinting. Maybe?
A slow smile bloomed on split lips.
This was gonna even better than a fucking liquor fire.
"Hey… Mags," she rasped.
The weight on her skull shifted, then left entirely as Maggie let off. She bent down. "I'm listening."
"Did you know… this store sells propane?"
Her unbroken arm was already aimed toward it. She just had to point. Maggie shrieked something, Lazarus was yelling, but it was too late.
Bethany fired.
There was a metallic shunk as the canister ruptured, and then white-heat consumed the world.
XXX
Her lungs came back first. They always did.
A gasping, choking breath filled her. She exhaled, puffing smoke and flame like a balrog. The smoke curled and twisted into the fire, both of them taking shape in the air. There was heat around her, inside her, every breath spreading it like bellows. She basked in the fire. She was the fire.
Another breath. In. Out.
Shape became form. Ribs formed around her lungs. A heart between them, a scarred rune in the center where the Devil had marked her.
In. Out.
And again.
And again.
She was nearly whole again when her eyes coalesced, vitreous fluids boiling briefly before settling.
Bethany blinked slowly, unevenly.
She sighed.
Apparently resurrecting didn't count as sleep. She was still fucking tired.
It took her a moment to find the energy to sit up, shoving wood and burnt metal aside, digging herself out of the wreckage. She rose, her skin just beginning to regenerate from the ash caked over her muscle.
The store was blazing around her. For once, her powers protected her from the heat, a reprieve while she recovered. They parted like water around her as she stumbled out of the fire still tearing apart the metal skeleton that remained of the Megamart. The ceiling had collapsed entirely now, and oily smoke plumed into an open sky.
The concrete walls were still intact in spots, but for the section where she'd set off the propane. That entire corner of the store was nothing but a blackened crater, too destroyed now to have anything left to burn.
Bethany navigated the fire, glancing around occasionally for her siblings. She could hear sirens in the distance, smirking a little at that. Too little, too late, firemen.
She made her way toward the propane corner, feet dragging little trails in the layer of ash carpeting the floor. A pile of mangled shelving marked all that was left of the drink freezer. She climbed over the top like a jungle gym.
She paused there.
"Ah."
A charred skeleton lay half-buried beneath a support beam. It had burnt to nothing more than bones, but Bethany had incinerated enough people to know male from female.
It was Lazarus.
She descended slowly, moving to stand beside his corpse. He had always had the strongest healing factor among them, and she'd thought she'd seen him die a dozen times just during their childhood. But… even he had limits. It looked like explosion had melted him, leaving him to be crushed by the support, and then probably finished off in the fire.
She crouched down and took his head in her hands. One or two stubborn strands of hair had somehow survived, clinging to the few fragments of skin left on his skull.
It took only a tug to separate his head from his body. She looked into the empty eyesockets. His eyes had been blue, earnest once upon a time. She remembered fear there as well. Always fear. But that hadn't stopped him sticking up for her as a kid. Taking lickings from Mom, or shielding her with his body in the basement.
The earnestness had disappeared at some point, but the fear had remained. All the better for Mom to pull the strings on him.
He'd been ill-used like all of them had. Had chosen his side.
Still her brother though. Lazarus, two years older. Red-haired, blue-eyed.
Dead for real this time.
"Goodnight, Laz."
Bethany pressed her lips to his forehead.
She rose, his skull under one arm, and padded out of the store.
The parking lot outside was deserted. A number of people stood by their cars on the side of the road, but none entered the lot. Eve's hearse sat to one side, windshield smashed, one door ajar. A long smear of blood was drying across the driver's side.
Bethany started walking toward it.
The people were yelling something at her. She remembered too late that she'd just resurrected and was bare-ass naked.
Dammit.
Jacob and Esau were going to laugh their tits off at her.
She tugged open the hearse's door. The keys were still in the ignition. Bethany swept broken glass off the seat and got in, stowing Lazarus' skull on the passenger's seat. She started it, the engine purring. It took her a moment, but she shoved the windshield until the safety glass detached from the frame and she was able to toss it aside.
Headlights on.
A shape lit up, crouching at the back of the store.
Bethany frowned.
Maggie stood. She was a patchwork of melted skin, raw muscle, and new flesh, all coated with a gray-black rime of ash. Blood was caked down her chin and chest, and her hands to the wrist.
A body lay at her feet. Bethany squinted. It was the store clerk. Maggie had torn his chest wide open. She had his heart in his hand. As Bethany stared, Maggie bit into it. She chewed, swallowed, and another section of her flesh regenerated.
Their eyes met. Maggie's were that same blue as Lazarus. Her hair was just beginning to sprout anew, blonde curls growing in fast-motion. Maggie took another bite of the clerk's heart. Another bit of her came back.
Bethany glanced to the side. Lazarus' skull looked up at her from the shotgun seat.
The Megamart was still burning. Bethany's tanks were nearly full, and it wouldn't take much to get going again.
If she wanted to, Maggie wouldn't be able to stop her. Her sister was all close-combat. A brawler. It wouldn't take much to burn her to ash.
She looked back at Maggie. Her sister was still watching her. She was nearly whole now, wiping the last of the clerk from her mouth.
Those blue eyes, set into a feral mask. Like someone had jammed Maggie's eyes into Magdalene's face.
Those blue eyes, that had once laughed at her over a birthday cake. Bethany's was only two weeks ahead of Maggie's, so they'd always celebrated together, even though Maggie was the elder by almost four years, and too old for some of the kid's stuff Bethany liked.
Bethany sighed.
She put the car into gear. Turned out of the parking lot.
She glimpsed Maggie watching her in the rearview mirror, just once, and then Bethany took a corner and her sister was gone.
Fire trucks came screaming past her after only a block down the boulevard, headed for the Megamart. Bethany pulled over with all the other drivers, waiting for them to pass.
She used to reprieve to fish her lighter out of the cup holder. A quick check of the visor yielded nothing, but the glovebox did. A backup pack. Her emergency stash of smokes.
She put one between her lips.
Far off in the distance, she could see smoke. Not from her fire, but from another. It was the direction the apartment was in.
She lit her cigarette and rolled up the window to let the smoke build.
Traffic began flowing again. She joined it.
It took her two blocks to get the hearse up to 70, and three before she began disregarding the laws of traffic entirely.
No rest for the wicked.