OLD FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
by Hydraa
The tunnel reeked of old sex and decay. A few feet behind Rosette, hunched over so that the ammo chest he carried on his back wouldn't bang against the ceiling, Chrno tried not to inhale. He wasn't terribly successful and his lips curled back from his teeth in disgust. The way was dark, the tunnel dug through bare, damp earth, and things he didn't want to identify squelched beneath his boots as he followed his lover, Remington following him in turn.
With everything in him, he didn't want to be here, but he couldn't stay away. A Sister of the Order was missing, presumably kidnapped by some kind of demon none of them were able to identify. They couldn't just forget about her.
It was the way they'd known to look for her here that he couldn't stop thinking about though. Remington had been dying as his Legions grew malignantly, no longer controllable with the astral generator destroyed. Desperate, he'd called in the Elder, thinking he was only disobeying the edict that the scientist no longer set foot on the grounds. He'd been banished after all, for sexual deviances that grew worse over the years to the point of attack. Remington had no way of knowing that the Elder was supposed to have been dead for more than two years. Chrno knew that, for he'd killed the old man himself, after learning accidentally that the Elder's deviances went much deeper than anyone suspected. Chrno had nearly been destroyed himself by guilt over that event, and still regretted it, but it was a fact. The Elder was dead, except, when Remington called him, he'd come, bringing with him a new astral generator that only he knew how to make, and he saved Remington's life.
And Sister Helen had been gone in the morning, with demon slime left in her room.
What had he left in that filthy old tenement? Chrno wondered with a shiver. He'd torn the Elder apart, that was obvious. He still had nightmares sometimes about the bloody chunks of him spread out across the floor of his apartment, soaking into the sick photographs that had been his death warrant. No human could come back from that, though a demon might. Still, that made no sense. Chrno had lived with the Elder for years, sleeping in his pantry while Rosette was in training with the Order, before she was turned into a demon to save her life. The Elder had never smelled of demon to Chrno in all that time. Rosette did; Chrno never told her, but the high class Legions inside her carried a scent to him, one he'd always revelled in. She'd smell the same way to any other demon they encountered. The way she was now, she was more than half demon, though still so fundamentally human that she still had a soul and holy items used against demons were far less effective on her. She'd never be a complete demon and they were both glad of it.
Behind him, Remington stumbled, his breath catching for a moment as he fought to keep his balance. Chrno's eyes narrowed. Remington didn't smell like a demon at all, despite the crude Legions that infused his tissues and bone. Chrno never would have known about them if he hadn't seen the man before when they were out of control. Rosette still didn't know he had them. But so far as Chrno was concerned, Remington was entirely human, with just a little splash extra.
So, he thought uncertainly, could the Elder have been like Remington? Somehow he doubted it. Whatever it was that came through Sister Helen's window, it was something different.
"It opens up ahead," Rosette whispered. They'd been making their way along a hand dug tunnel that was barely wide enough for them to pass, steadily heading downwards for several hundred feet. A moment later, she stepped out of the tunnel's end and Chrno followed her into a huge area that looked to be part of an old abandoned subway station. Even with demon eyes, Chrno would have had trouble seeing anything, but someone had strung hundreds of lights that lit the place almost like twilight. It was cold and empty, the ground strewn with old, wet garbage, and it stank.
"Why does this whole mission have to smell?" Rosette grumbled, holding her nose as she glared around. Chrno just shrugged. Widespread as the stench was, he couldn't track through it.
Remington seemed to guess that. "I'll check this side," he told them and strode off into the darkness, his sword glowing at his side. Chrno watched him go, unsure about splitting up so much, and then looked straight ahead, wondering if he should search that way himself.
"Don't even think of it," Rosette growled, grabbing one of the straps that held the box he carried. "I'm not letting you out of my sight." She then proceeded to drag him with her in the opposite direction.
"Don't you think we should warn Father Remington about the Elder?" he asked her in an undertone. The priest thought it was the Elder who'd been tracked by a demon and that Sister Helen just got unlucky. He thought they were rescuing the old man as much as the nun.
Her grip tightened on the strap. "I can't think of any way to tell him that without him finding out what happened. I don't want him to know."
Chrno bit his lip. God had given him absolution for his sin, but he didn't know if Remington would. He didn't want the kind man to see him like just any other murderous demon. He nodded and followed after Rosette. A few moments later, they reached a stairwell leading down into a deeper section of the station and both of them stared at the skulls they saw scattered on the floor below.
---000---
Remington walked carefully but quickly though the old station, watching in all directions for danger. There were hundreds of tunnels under the city and he was neither claustrophobic nor afraid of the dark, but he didn't like it down here. It was cold and dank, perfect for a demon lair.
Or a scientist's lab, he thought a moment later as he came to a wide archway and looked into another room. It was very large, the ceiling reaching close to thirty feet above them, and the same sort of lights that had been used outside were strung up in here as well. On almost every foot of available floor space were tables and machinery, whirring and humming. There were microscopes and petri dishes on the tables, notebooks scattered everywhere, and machinery was dumped on every surface, as well asthe floor. It looked a thousand times more cluttered than Shader's lab and she was hardly neat.
In the centre of the room, his back to the door, an old man in a lab coat was writing in a notebook, whistling to himself contentedly under his breath.
Remington felt a great deal of tension that he'd been carrying for hours let go. Sister Helen was still in danger, but at least they got here in time to protect the Elder.
"Patrick?" he called.
The old man jumped with a yelp of surprise, his lab coat flying open for a moment before he turned, his hand pressed to his chest as he peered at his visitor. He still had the odd, opaque goggles he'd always worn. Other than looking older and more wrinkled, he was just as Remington remembered.
"Ewan?" the old man gasped, one hand gripping the edge of the table he leaned against as he clutched his chest. "You scared me to death! What are you doing here? How did you find me?"
Worried that he'd hurt the old man, Remington turned off his astral sword, tucking the hilt into the back of his belt as he hurried forward. The Elder let him lead him away from the table and over to a battered couch covered with paperwork and wires. Ewan quickly cleared him a seat and helped him sit down. The skin on his hand felt clammier than Ewan would have liked, but his colour was good. He smelled quite bad, but Ewan was used to the scientist forgetting to shower for days on end.
"I tracked your phone number and found a tunnel in the basement of your house that led down here," the priest told him and saw his frown. "I wouldn't have disturbed you, but the morning after you helped me, we found demon spoor on the grounds and one of the nuns was missing. We think a demon took her and is tracking you." He smiled. "It's good to see you safe."
The Elder grinned at him. "I'm jake," he said. "Or whatever term it is they use these days." He patted Ewan's hand. "It's good of you to come. You're a real friend to me."
"Always," Remington promised.
---000---
Joshua and Azmaria lost the demon they'd been tracking in the tunnels below the house. The passageway they'd found behind the tapestry led to an old spiral staircase made out of metal. It looked like a corkscrew dug into the cork of the earth and it rattled fearfully as they clattered down it. They expected another attack at any time, but the demon was gone by the time they reached the bottom, as was with Sister Lucille. Holding her crosses ready, Azmaria hurried after Joshua with his guns as he ran panting down the corridor they'd found. Already, his use of his powers was making him sick. She'd have to ostracise herself for a time as well, and engage in prayers and purifications to keep the bad luck she got after using her own from harming someone else. Those were the prices they paid for their gifts, since a world in balance didn't give something for nothing.
The passageway slanted downward, taking them under the house and probably away from it as well. Azmaria just prayed they would catch up in time, until they rounded a corner dimly lit by strung lights and found an intersection of corridors, all looking the same.
"Oh no," Joshua gasped. "It's a maze."
Azmaria felt a lump in her throat. "I read someone used chalk to find their way out of a maze," she babbled, "or bread crumbs."
Joshua looked back at her in exasperation. "We don't exactly have either," he pointed out.
Just then, Azmaria heard a giggle, coming from down one of the other corridors. Almost in the intersection, Joshua was in a better position to see what it was, and she saw his expression change to one of almost comical horror as he turned fully to face it and started to raise his gun.
A slim form leaped out of the corridor, tackling Joshua and sending his gun flying as he landed on his back on the wet floor, his breath woofing out of him as filthy water sprayed outward, soaking the bottom of Azmaria's dress.
She didn't notice, gaping for a moment in shock. It was a woman sitting straddled on Joshua, her hips pumping up and down on his even as she worked to his belt undone and start unbuttoning his trousers. After a moment of his own shock, Joshua started to fight her, howling. She just grinned a rictus grin, her long hair straggling filthily around her face. She was dressed in what must have once been a fashionable dress, though now it was tattered and black with sewage. She smelled and she had demonic horn ridges on her cheeks, like massive scabs.
"Get off!" Joshua shouted.
"I want some," she moaned. "Give me some." She managed to get her hands into his pants and Joshua bucked, his eyes bulging. "I want it," she said and her hands moved, bringing out a part of Joshua that Azmaria had never expected to see.
His wail of fright shocked her out of her paralysis. As the woman, or demon, or whatever she was started to adjust her clothing, still holding the frightened man, Azmaria ran forward and pressed her cross against the creature's face. Until that point, the woman had been ignoring her. The instant the six inch, gilded cross touched her skin though, she shrieked and threw herself back, her skin smoking.
Joshua scrambled to his feet, quickly buckling himself back up while he sobbed from reaction. "Are you alright?" Azmaria asked him, backing away at his side, the cross held outstretched. The woman cowered at the foot of the wall, holding her burned face while she hissed at them.
"No," Joshua gasped, but Azmaria didn't dare look at him. The woman's face was twisted with hate and only the cross held her back.
"More..."
The moan came from farther up the corridor the woman had come down. Up it, a dozen more women were stumbling towards them, arms reaching forward in desperate lust.
Joshua and Azmaria looked at each other, and without a word, they turned and ran.
---000---
Chrno and Rosette stared for a long moment at the bodies they could see on the lower subway floor. They were men, some skeletal, others still rotting as they lay there. Looking down at them, Rosette felt a sudden, terrible compassion. They wore ordinary clothes, nothing special, and none of them had anything near them that could be construed as a weapon.
"Those poor people," she whispered.
"They died in agony," Chrno murmured, using some sort of demonic sensitivity she still didn't share. He looked at her with horrified certainty. "They died the way Pandemonium's mates do."
She gaped at him. "You're kidding. What did this?"
He shook his head. "I don't know, but their souls have been sucked out of them and destroyed."
She shuddered at that, horrified at what it meant. No heaven, no salvation, no nothing. They were gone. Chrno started down the stairs ahead of her, leading the way with blades in either hand and her weapons box on his back. The lower floor was being used as a midden heap, garbage thrown everywhere as carelessly as the dead men had been. Chrno knelt down by the nearest body, holding his hand open over the corpse and closing his eyes. His hand glowed faintly pink. Rosette watched silently. It wasn't often that Chrno used magic. He was self-professed not to be very good at it and it used a lot of astral. He would always have to husband his reserves carefully. Sometimes though, it was the best way to get answers.
"They have Legions in them," he said at last, letting his hand drop back by his side again as he stood. "All low-class, all dead. Fortunately." He looked down at the shredded, filthy clothing. The man had been stripped from chest to knees. "His attacker raped him, tried to make him into a demon, or maybe to impregnate themselves, but just killed him in the process." He looked into the distance. "I hope."
"So the demon is female," Rosette concluded, stepping carefully over to his side with her weapons at the ready, "and it's trying to become another Pandemonium." The thought of some kind of egg-laying mother demon in the subways of New York was beyond horrifying. They had to find and kill it as fast as they could.
"I think so," he said slowly. "It can't though, not with such low-class Legions. It'll only kill its victims."
She glanced at him. "You keep talking about low-class and high-class Legions. What's the difference?"
Chrno scratched his chin. "Um, lemme think. My Legions are what's called high-class. They're smaller and finer, without any self-awareness. They can hold more astral and are more powerful. All the strongest, most human-looking demons we've encountered have been high-class. We're also rarer. Low-class Legions are larger and cruder; they also have varying degrees of self-awareness."
"What does that mean?"
"That means they're always fighting the demon for who's going to be in charge and will take advantage of any weakness. When I got sick before, my Legions did nothing. If they'd been low-class, I probably would have turned into something else, some other kind of demon. Probably even my shape would have been different."
Rosette stared at him in horror and Chrno leaned forward to kiss her gently on the lips. "It didn't happen," he whispered. "Anyway," he added, straightening, "low-class Legions will keep fighting, changing the form as a whole as control shifts. That's why a lot of those lesser demons we fought kept turning into something else right when we were winning."
"Yeah," she muttered. "I always hated that."
"So being a high-class demon means you have complete control over yourself. Essentially, you can be trusted. No low-class demon can be because they're always changing and they're too stupid to do more than hate."
He looked back at the bodies. "Anyway, low-class demons are too crude to make life. They're essentially neuter. Pandemonium never touched them."
Rosette holstered one weapon and put her hand on her hip. "So what you're saying is we've got a female demon here who's low-class but still trying to make with the babies. Still sucks for these guys."
"Yeah, it does."
A moan sounded from the other side of the floor. Immediately, both of them were hunched to the floor, balanced on the balls of their feet and ready to move in any direction. Rosette strained her eyes to see anything to shoot at, but saw nothing. With a glance at Chrno to tell him to stay behind her, she started forward, making her way through the bodies towards the back wall of the room.
A woman huddled there in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself as she rocked endlessly, staring at the floor. Rosette aimed her weapon at her, ready for everything, but then she holstered it and ran forward.
"Rosette!" Chrno shouted.
"It's Helen!" she shouted back.
Rosette dropped to one knee by the missing nun, reaching out to touch her shoulder. Helen shrank away and moaned again.
"Helen," Rosette whispered. "It's us. We've come to save you."
Slowly, Helen lifted her head to peer at her, her eyes filled with some kind of horror. "Rosette?" she whispered.
"That's right. We're here to rescue you."
Helen shook her head and her eyes filled with tears. "You're too late. Oh, God! Please, kill me!"
Rosette stared at her. "What?"
Helen looked past her, seeing Chrno standing a few feet away. Suddenly, her eyes glazed silver and she lunged past Rosette, hands outstretched, for Chrno.
Rosette's every emotion changed. In an instant, Helen went from a kidnapped friend in need of salvation to a female after the male Rosette had long since claimed as her own. Her own Legions shifted her to demon in an instant and she caught Helen by the back of her dress, slamming her to the ground with one hand while she lifted the other, claws bared.
"ROSETTE!" Chrno shouted.
Rosette looked at him. His face was damp with sweat, but he met her gaze, his red eyes heavily slitted.
"It's not her fault, Rosette," Chrno told her. "I'd never let her have me. I'm yours, always yours. I'll have no one else." He let the weapons box drop to the ground with a heavy crash and unbuttoned his shirt, showing his lean, muscled chest. He held his arms open to her. "I belong to you."
Rosette didn't know how she moved, but suddenly she was in his arms, her palms flat against his bare skin and her head filled with his musky scent. His arms came around her. "I love you," he whispered.
Rosette shuddered, coming back to herself with the smell of him. "What happened?"
He hugged her. "Demons are possessive. I think she was about to do to me what was done to those men. You weren't ready to let her."
Rosette gaped at him. On the ground, Helen whined, staring at Chrno with huge eyes. She lunged again, coming off the ground at him, and his arm snapped out. He caught her around the throat and held her away from him, his other arm around Rosette.
"I said no," he told her.
"Oh God," Helen wailed, writhing. "I told you! Kill me!"
Rosette shook her head in bafflement. "What's going on?"
"I was wrong," Chrno said slowly, studying Helen. "It's not a female demon we're dealing with. It's a male demon. A low-class male." He swallowed. "He's raping women and turning them into demons. They're then killing the men."
"But why?"
Helen shuddered. "I need it... It burns. I need it so badly." Tears flooded her eyes. "Please kill me, please."
"Her Legions are fighting her for control," Chrno said softly. "Humans have no way to resist that."
Rosette blinked. "But I have Legions."
"You have high-class Legions. They'll never fight you. That's why you can stay so human."
Rosette looked at Helen and stepped away from Chrno, putting her arms around the woman and drawing her away from the demon. Helen let her, but Rosette could feel how tense she was and it actually took a considerable amount of her demonic strength to hold her. Chrno let his arm drop and started to button his shirt again while Helen watched him hungrily.
"What happened to you?" Rosette asked her.
Helen started to cry again, shaking in her arms. "That horrible monster took me and brought me here, and he raped me. God help me, it felt so good. I'm damned, damned to Hell! The smell of men drives me mad. I want to force them like I was forced and I know they'll die if I do. But I ache!"
"You're not damned!" Rosette told her, though she felt sick. "All these bodies, they've been here a while. You haven't hurt anyone."
"I tried to hurt him," Helen whimpered, looking at Chrno.
"You can't hurt Chrno," Rosette said smugly. "We'll take you home and we'll cure you. You're human. Legions die in a human body unless they're made for it special. Right, Chrno?"
"Right. Legions won't last in a human unless they're replenished and we're going to kill your monster before it gets the chance." He extended a hand towards her, concentrating, and Helen panted, staring at it with her tongue against the top of her lip. Chrno blinked and looked at Rosette again, shaken. "They're not dying. They're like Remington's. They won't die!"
"Remington has Legions?" Rosette gaped.
Chrno winced. "That wasn't my secret to tell, but yes. He almost died years ago and the Elder used Legions to save his life. Only he changed them somehow, removed the fail-safe that prevents them from existing in a foreign environment."
"The Elder," Rosette growled, holding onto Helen so tightly that the woman whimpered. "How does Remington stay in control of them?"
"Regular infusions from the astral generator."
"Then that's what we'll do for you," Rosette told Helen cheerfully. "Chrno, go find Father Remington. We're getting out of here. We'll come back once Sister Helen is cared for." He nodded and ran for the stairs, leaving the weapons box behind.
Rosette stayed behind, holding onto Helen as the woman convulsively tried to follow him. They'd definitely come back. There was a demon to be dealt with and all of the dead men made her wonder just how many more infected women there were wandering around this place.
---000---
Azmaria and Joshua ran through the maze of tunnels, gasping for breath and lost. Every few turns, Joshua would turn and fire down the way they'd come, but it was dark and hard for him to tell if he'd hit anything, plus they were getting low on ammunition.
Behind them, women tumbled squealing and giggling down the corridor, slowed down only because they kept fighting each other. Azmaria had no idea what they would do to her, but it was obvious what they wanted with Joshua and he was still pale from the experience. It was probably his hand shaking that had made him miss them most of the time.
"Look!" she gasped suddenly, pointing forward. Ahead of them, the circular shape of a manhole cover could be seen against the ceiling, street lights shining faintly through the holes. Joshua ran for the ladder up to it, but Azmaria had a pretty good idea of how heavy those things were.
She stopped and knelt, slamming a heavy cross base down against the floor. The point dug in and it stuck there. A second one went into the wall to her left and a third to her right. Hoping they'd be enough since she wasn't tall enough to put one in the ceiling, she uttered the incantation that would activate them.
The three crosses glowed brightly, creating a wall of energy between them. A dozen slavering demon women ran into it and stopped, clawing at the light that held them back, and Azmaria looked nervously at the lines of strain it was already showing. Backing up a few paces, she knelt again and set up a second wall. That was all she had room for and she turned to pass Joshua, setting up a third and fourth wall on the other side of the ladder, just in case the women knew a way to get around.
Joshua was at the manhole, trying to push the cover up. "Help me," he gasped, and though she knew she wasn't even as strong as he was, Azmaria managed to get up the ladder beside him and started to push as well.
---000---
It was good to be back with the Elder again. The man had always been fun to talk to and really, Patrick was the only one who knew how old Ewan was, or how the long, strange turns of his life had been. It felt a little like being with family, seldom seen but always missed.
Patrick was showing him one of his latest inventions, some sort of box that could do mathematical calculations faster than the smartest man but was no larger than a suitcase. Ewan hadn't figured out what it was good for yet when Chrno ran in.
The young-seeming man, only obvious as a demon due to his purple hair, the points at the tips of his otherwise round ears, and his red eyes, stopped. Eyes that could be as round as any man's turned to slits and then went back to being round again.
"I thought you were dead," he said, to Ewan's deep surprise.
Patrick, who'd been gaping at the demon, closed his mouth. "I'm not. You weren't nearly as effective as you thought you were."
Chrno's fist clenched. "I know exactly how effective I was. You'd already infused yourself with Legions, hadn't you? That's why you lived."
Patrick's frown deepened. Ewan gaped between them both, feeling like he'd suddenly walked into the middle of a conversation where he had no idea what was going on. "Legions? Lived? What are you talking about? The Elder doesn't have any Legions."
Patrick smiled at him calmly. "Do you think in a million years that I'd ever try a treatment on you without testing it on myself first?"
Chrno took a step forward and Patrick turned back to him stiffly. "Going to try and finish what you started?"
Chrno hesitated and then seemed to shrink into himself. "No, I can't. I never forgave myself for attacking you. I'm so sorry."
A little of the tension flowed out of the Elder. "Apology accepted then, since I'm not dead. I guess if situations had been reversed, I would have done the same thing. I never hurt any of them though."
"What are you talking about?" Remington thundered.
Patrick grinned at his old friend impishly. "When you sent the boy to get the astral generator from me last time, he saw some pictures he disapproved of and ripped me apart. Lucky for me, my Legions pulled me back together. Good news for you as well, if the same happens to you. I wouldn't recommend it though."
Remington gaped at Chrno, horrified and half ready to draw his sword if he hadn't just seen the demon apologize, and remembered how horrified by something the poor man had been after that episode. Ewan had had no idea this had been why. Now the truth made him sick.
"God forgave me, Father," Chrno whispered. "Before anyone else, He forgave me."
Ewan shut his mouth, remembering Chrno in the church taking the sacraments as well. Even now he wore the ebony cross Kate had given him around his neck.
The three men stared at each other, one a demon, one a priest, and one no one was sure what. "Elder," Chrno said at last. "There's a demon here, one raping human women and turning them into monsters. We need to find it."
Patrick shrugged. "So Ewan here said. "You can stop looking at me. I don't rape women."
"You sure don't mind touching them or taking pictures they don't want."
"That's nothing but harmless fun and you know it."
Remington raised his hands before Chrno could flare up again. "Stop it, we don't need to fight each other. Patrick, have you seen any demons down here?"
"I think I'd have noticed. No."
"What about women?" Chrno asked.
"Women like to visit me," Patrick shrugged. "Nothing odd about them."
"What about women turned into succubi?" Chrno asked.
Remington gaped at him again. "What?"
"How do you stay in control of your Legions, Elder?" the demon pressed. "Whenever the Father is sick, his start mutating like giant growths. They want to take control. How do you keep yours from fighting you?"
"It's never been a problem," Patrick assured him.
Chrno looked dubious. For himself, Remington clearly remembered Patrick coming to his aide when he needed him. No demon would do that, excepting Chrno as the exception he'd always been. Even Shader wasn't reliable that way without her master's orders. "Have faith, Chrno. Please." Chrno looked at him and nodded.
"So," Patrick smirked, rubbing his hands together. "I haven't gone demon hunting in decades. I can almost believe there is one down here. This place is huge. Cheapest lab space I've ever seen though."
"Chrno?" Rosette called, appearing in the doorway with Helen in tow. "Did you find him?"
A moment after they appeared, it looked like all Hell had broken loose.
---000---
They were breaking through the walls, forcing them down through sheer weight of numbers. Like Azmaria had feared, some had found their way around through the tunnels and were coming at the wall on the other side as well. One wall was down and the women were clawing madly at the remaining three, drooling and screaming their desire.
"Joshua!" she wailed, not knowing what she was trying to say. They were both pushing as hard as they could, tendons standing out on their necks, and the cover was moving, but neither of them could push it up far enough to get it out of its groove and let them out.
"Don't give up," he gasped.
Suddenly, the manhole cover lifted away on one end, screaming out of the hole. As if in counterpoint, the last wall on one side gave way and the women stumbled forward, keening and rubbing themselves. Azmaria and Joshua looked up, afraid to see more of the women above, but it was Brothers Matthew, Neil, William, Richard, and Daniel, along with Sister Agatha. Seeing the men, the women howled, scrabbling up the ladder towards the two people on it.
"Come on!" Neil shouted and hands grabbed them, pulling Azmaria and Joshua to the surface. Daniel and Matthew tried to push the cover back over, but the women were already crawling out and Neil howled in horror as one of them grabbed his leg, pulling him over, and started to try and rip his trousers off. A moment later, one of Agatha's bullets silenced her.
Neil scrambled away and the militia members opened fire, pouring Sacreds into the possessed women. Azmaria watched, sobbing, for the women kept crawling out, even as they were shot, pushing each other's bodies out of their ways as they hurried to their deaths. Finally she had to turn and press her face against Joshua's chest, not able to look anymore.
---000---
The Elder saw Rosette and Chrno realized what had happened to him. When Chrno tore him apart and his Legions put him back together again, for whatever reason, they'd only taken control in a certain situation. The Elder himself probably wasn't even aware of it, though if he was, he deserved an eternity in Hell for it.
Chrno and Remington were safe, and would probably always be safe, just as they always had. After all, there was only a certain breed of human that the Elder didn't think deserved to be treated with respect.
The Elder saw the two women standing in the doorway and went mad. His eyes glazed, his mouth dropping open loosely, and his arms hung at his sides. His lab coat however flew open, and Chrno saw a flash of a warp space in place of his loins, an interdimensional rip created by a demon's power. A woman hung in there, her habit and nun's dress torn, something huge and pulsing thrust up between her legs. Both Remington and Chrno gaped in shock, recognizing Sister Lucille as she tumbled limply out and the thing that had been raping her lashed forward.
The two men jumped back instinctively, flesh thicker then either of them racing past, spraying slime everywhere as it did. "ROSETTE!" Chrno screamed. She already had her weapons out, firing but having to let go of Helen as she did so. Incredibly, the woman ran forward, wailing in desire and despair. The tentacle – penis – Chrno didn't want to know what it was – jerked back, wounded, and then came forward again, the closed lids at the end of it opening and sending forth dozens of smaller tentacles just like it. They wrapped around Helen, forcing themselves into every opening she had, and she screamed even as she relaxed.
"Rosette!" Chrno shouted again. She just stood there, staring at the slime that had sprayed onto her bare arm above her glove.
"I feel warm," she murmured.
No wonder the Elder didn't think he was raping anyone if they were drugged into enjoying it. Chrno growled, going to demon as he turned on the old man. Remington was already there, grabbing the man and shaking him, screaming for him to stop it. The Elder ignored him, his face still slack, and Remington yanked off the goggles he was always wearing.
Both men froze. The Elder didn't have two eyes. He had a dozen tiny eyeballs squeezed into each eye socket, staring out wetly at the world. How long? Chrno wondered sickly. How long had he been like that? He'd never seen the man without the goggles on.
"You're not Chrno!" Rosette shouted suddenly. Chrno turned again, frantic for her, to see that while the Elder was mostly engaged with Helen, one of his tentacles – Chrno refused to call it anything else – had swayed over and tried to work its way under Rosette's dress. Her face still flushed with the drug, she grabbed it and yanked with all her strength, ripping it right out at the root.
The Elder reacted just like Chrno would have if Rosette had done that to him. He screamed, high-pitched and agonized, and retreated, leaping fifteen feet backwards in an instant. Helen was still in the grasp of the rest of his tentacles though, the great length of him wrapped around her limp body, and Chrno barely managed to grab her before she was dragged past him. Even so, the tentacle almost pulled her out of his grasp anyway. She stared up at him silently, only her eyes able to plead for salvation.
Remington brought it. He swung his great sword around, the blade appearing in a flash of astral, and chopped the last six feet of the Elder's member off. There was another horrible scream and it whipped away into the darkness on the far side of the lab before it was gone. The part wrapped around Helen vaporized to dust, the Legions self-destructing. Together, both men lowered her to the ground next to Lucille.
Rosette came up to Chrno's side and he quickly stood to hold her. "Hi, gorgeous," she slurred, grinning. "What say we have some fun?"
"Right," Remington sighed, standing beside them. Rosette barely acknowledged him, but to Chrno, he looked to have aged fifty years. "We got them back at least."
"Did we win?" Chrno asked while Rosette started to kiss his neck. He wasn't sure whether to be unnerved or aroused, though arousal was winning.
Remington turned away. "I have no idea," he said. "Get them out of here." Turning, he ran into the darkness after the Elder.
---000---
There was a corridor on the other side of the lab, hidden in the shadows. Remington ran down it, hurdling old crates and slipping on the ichor that Patrick had left behind. His mind reeled at what just happened. Patrick was a demon, he'd raped women, he'd gone insane. He had Legions. He was a demon!
Only if he was a demon, then what was Remington? Patrick had dozens of little wet eyes and a nightmare under his coat to show his status, but Remington had lines over his body and a spine that had a chitinous exoskeletal shield to show the same. Neither of them were fully human and Ewan certainly couldn't control his Legions. How could he expect the Elder to do the same?
He ran into a chamber at the other end of the corridor, his astral sword lighting his way and half expecting a huge battle with his oldest friend. Instead he found Patrick huddled in a corner, tears of agony streaking his face as he clutched the wounded part of himself. He looked up at Ewan as he came in and there was no fight left in him.
Would there be if a woman walked into the room? Ewan wondered.
"You crippled me," Patrick gasped. "How could you do that?"
Ewan went to kneel by his side, the sword held low but still ready, just in case. "I didn't have any choice. I think, after you've had some treatments, you'll be able to see why." He hoped so, in fact he prayed so. Patrick would never walk free again though, Ewan already knew that, but he couldn't find it in himself to kill him, not even now.
"Come on," he said. "Come with me."
---000---
"What happened to Sisters Helen and Lucille?" Joshua coughed, sitting up in bed with a dozen hankies and books on the covers around him.
Seated by his bed, Rosette sighed. "Well, we found the plans to the astral machine in the lab, so we can keep their Legions under control, but just to be safe, they've both been sent to a strict convent. No men allowed. They'll be okay, I guess. If you can ever get over something like that."
"What about you?" her brother asked. "I hear you got dunked with that slime stuff too."
"Yeah, but I never got – you know." She grinned at Chrno. "And I have other ways to work off the effects."
Chrno blushed.
"I heard the Elder is here," Joshua said to change the subject, blushing himself. "He's in the demon jails?"
"Yeah, and he's not getting out of there if I have any say in it." She looked determined.
"I wonder if it's really his fault," Chrno said slowly. The siblings stared at him. "I mean, he took on the Legions with the best of intentions. He just wanted to make sure he wasn't about to kill Father Remington. That's very noble."
"Yeah, well there's all sorts of things they say about Hell and good intentions," Rosette sniffed. "I doubt those things were in control while he lived here and he still grabbed my ass. The potential was always inside him."
"I guess," Chrno mourned. "I guess it's there in all of us."
"No it's not," she snapped. "He wanted to be that way. You know all about that, Mr I'm-a-good-demon."
Chrno flushed again and ducked his head. "Right. Good point."
"I should hope so," she sniffed. She looked at her brother appraisingly. "How much longer do you think you're going to be sick?"
He shrugged. "A few more days? I'm feeling a lot better."
"Good." When he was deemed healthy again, Azmaria would be allowed out of seclusion. Rosette smiled at him. "It'll be good to have everyone back together again. We can go to the lake for a picnic." Both men perked up at the thought. Chrno especially hadn't been there since before his collapse. It was done, Rosette decided. They'd been through a lot and they deserved a break. No more demons for a while, not until her trigger finger started to get itchy again.
Until then, it was time for a vacation.
THE END