Guess we found the Kyubey.

…And I’m still wearing the damn schoolgirl outfit.

Bashekehi bolts out of his chair and takes a step away, eyes wide. “How the fuck did you get in here?” I follow to my feet more slowly, taking everything in with as much curiosity as caution.

The catgirl waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, y’know. Details, details. The important thing is that I can help Ms. Alice here with her little problem.” She puffs her chest proudly and says, “See, I’m a geist, AKA your friendly neighborhood incarnation of human will and want. I have the power to grant Ms. Alice’s wish and help her become first a demon and then, with a bit of elbow grease, an archdemon.” Cheshire grins. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”

I have a billion questions I want to ask this very obviously suspicious intruder, but I start with, “Do you really want to make me an archdemon? Why?”

Bashe glares at me and starts, “That is not the most important question–”

Cheshire cuts him off with a cheery, “Sure do!” She pushes off the sofa and comes to lean over the table, getting right up in my face. “I’ve been watching you, Ms. Alice, and I love what I’ve seen. The way you butchered that nightmare in the school, the way you bluffed a Huntsman, the way you carved through everything in your path with lies and violence? Simply delectable!” The catgirl hugs herself and squirms, grin seeming even wider. “You’re perfect, Alice. You would make a truly magnificent archdemon.”

I don’t know how to feel about that. A part of my brain is screaming that this is obviously the exact evil entity I was theorizing about and I should stay very far away from making any kind of deal with it, and yet… she says that I’m perfect. She says that she wants to give me what I want. And she could be lying, of course she could be lying, everyone has been lying to me since I got here so it’s practically certain that she’s lying to me. And yet.

I keep my persona calm and measured, almost detached. “A bold claim, and one I would love to interrogate further, but first: why do you have a name from the Zero Sphere?”

Cheshire claps her hands together and declares, “Because someone broke the rules.” She clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “Earth is off-limits, everybody knows that, but that rascal Katoptris–the Lady of Shards, as you know her–reached across the veil and plucked you right from your home to bring you here. That is a very serious breach of the Dreaming Edicts, I’ll have you know.”

Bashekehi is seeming more and more distraught with every exchange. “Hold on, are you seriously claiming that Alice really is from the Zero Sphere? That doesn’t happen! That’s not possible! Not even a god or archdemon could accomplish that. The only one who–” The incubus’ face pales as he bites off his own words.

Cheshire wiggles a hand noncommittally. “You’d be surprised what’s possible that you don’t know about. Regardless of what the poor deluded imp here thinks, the fact of the matter is that you, Maven Alice, were brought here from the Zero Sphere in violation of some very important laws, and someone had to even the scales. And so I was created.”

My attention sharpens. “Created?”

“Mhm! I was made to be your greatest asset, Alice. I was born with full knowledge of your life on Earth and all your interests, your desires, your fears, your beliefs. I like what you like, I hate what you hate, and I want what you want. I was made to adore you, to be obsessed with you, to devote my whole existence to helping you achieve your goals here in the Labyrinth.” Cheshire’s yellow-and-blue eyes light up with manic energy, her words dripping with frenzied passion. “You are the reason I exist. I love you for that.”

She’s still extremely close to me, close enough I can feel her breath on my skin, and my body chemistry is at war between attraction and discomfort. The catgirl is not wearing very much; she’s in a white tube top, a leather vest that barely covers more than the top, and a red skirt that stops well above the knees, plus high socks and leather boots. She looks like the kind of catgirl you’d see in an anime or a JRPG.

She is, in a word, a fantasy; she’s the living fulfillment of a wish.

How many nerds want a partner that shares their hobbies? How many mentally ill people want a partner that loves all of them, even the disturbing parts? How many fucking weebs want a catgirl girlfriend who will hang on their every word?

“I don’t believe you,” I let slip out. I swallow, committed now, and say, “I don’t trust you. Why? Why any of this? Why me?”

Cheshire leans back and adopts a wounded expression. “Why not? Don’t you think you deserve this? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted? To go on a grand adventure in another world, to have incredible magic powers, and to meet a girl who will love you just as obsessively as you love her?”

I clench my fists and snarl, “Of course I want that! But I don’t deserve that, and I don’t believe that after the hellish first day I’ve had it would just be dropped in my lap. So why are you really here? Why are you lying to me, and what the fuck do you get out of trying to manipulate me?”

For a moment it seems like Cheshire is about to cry, her eyes watering and nose sniffling, but then it all goes away and she’s grinning again, eyes twinkling. “I kind of figured that’d be your reaction, but I had to try. The prospect of luring you in with just a pretty face and an appeal to fantasy was too thrilling to resist.”

Vindication surges within me, but I’m right back to unease with her next few words.

“Now for the real pitch.” Cheshire winks at me and cracks her knuckles. “For the record, I wasn’t lying about being obsessed with you. You fascinate me, Alice. I want to strap you to a table and vivisect you, and the craziest part is that instead of being terrified by that you just became a little bit more attracted to me. Am I wrong?”

My face heats up and I protest, “That’s not- I mean, I don’t- shut up!”

Cheshire laughs, the sound rich and full, and she gives me a knowing smirk. “When I said I know all your desires, I meant it. I know exactly how to entice you, Alice. I know what makes you tick. You don’t really want a girlfriend who will hang on your every word and flutter her eyelashes at you; you want a girlfriend who will pick you apart like a science experiment. You want a girlfriend who would commit murder to keep you hers. And you want a girlfriend who would find it charming instead of disturbing that you would be willing to do the same for her.”

I feel naked in the face of her analysis, stripped of all persona and all my layers of protective insincerity. She knows me, and that is exactly as terrifying as it is appealing, and she knows that too. I struggle to find the words to respond, unsure how I even should respond, and she pounces on the opportunity to keep talking.

“I wasn’t lying about what I want, either; I really do think you’d make a glorious archdemon, and making that happen would be worth all the effort just for its own sake. I want to help you get all the things you want, and I know exactly how to do it: killing the Queen of Nightmares.”

Bashekehi has been watching nervously through this whole conversation, but as Cheshire unveils her latest twist he sucks in his breath and takes another step back. “That’s crazy,” he tells us. “That’s fucking crazy, and you’re crazy for even suggesting that.”

“I know,” murmurs Cheshire, mismatched eyes still alight with twisted enjoyment. “But the thing is, little imp, Alice likes crazy.”

Slowly, hesitantly, I find my words. “If I said yes… what would that mean?”

“I would make you a demon, of course,” she answers. “As a geist, I have the power to bind myself to a single soul and transform it. Through our connection you would become something inhuman, something more than human. You would have the power to create your own spells, to alter your appearance as you wish, and to grow ever stronger until you taste apotheosis and become something greater still: an archdemon, like only eight before you.”

The thought is immensely appealing, and I am damned curious to learn more, but before I can say anything else Bashekehi steps back into the conversation. The incubus turns to me and says, “Alice, don’t do this.”

I blink in surprise and look over at him. “Why? I get why I’m conflicted about this, but why do you care? If I say yes I’ll be out of your hair and you can get back to doing whatever you want.”

“Because you don’t know what it would mean to walk that path.” Bashekehi’s expression tightens and he says, “Listen to me, Alice: people are right to be suspicious of imps and to fear demons. And the archdemons? They’re the worst monsters of them all. The archdemon who made my kind, Indulgence, murdered thousands to get her Throne, and that is absolutely the norm for an archdemon. Cheshire told you that being demon means being more than human, but it also means being less than human; you lose a piece of yourself, lots of pieces of yourself, until you can’t even recognize the person you once were.

“There is a price to power, and I know that better than you might think. To be an imp, to be like me, means being driven not by any of my own wants but by the wants of an archdemon I’ve never even met.” He hesitates for a moment, looking almost pained, but continues, “Alice, an imp is made when a mortal gives up the core of their soul. When they sell it, for whatever price they think is worth it, to another imp. And imps are driven to convince people to take that deal, because there’s a whole lot that you can do with the core of someone’s soul. But the end result for the mortal is that they get a big hole inside them, and that hole in your very essence gets filled with the imprint of an archdemon, a crystallized echo of what makes them what they are. The core of your soul isn’t you anymore, it’s the instincts and desires of that archdemon.”

I’m shocked at the sudden verbosity of my incubus companion. I think this might be the most he’s ever talked without prompting, and I keep silent to let him continue even though I’m burning with further questions.

He takes a deep breath, exhales, and tells me, “The man whose name was Bairam Dara is dead. He sold his soul and now that soul is as likely to be a pair of fuzzy dice as it is to be a knife or a cloak or any other random object fashioned by the bastard that offered the bargain. I am the thing that took Bairam’s place, and I am ruled by the nature of the archdemon I trace lineage to. Bairam was a gambling addict, but he could still refuse to play a round of cards; an incubus cannot. When Bairam saw something that tempted him, be it wine or sex or some other luxury, it was just an idle thought easily dismissed; an incubus sees those things and the instinct to indulge is overwhelming.”

I frown and this time I have to interject. “But that’s not true. I’ve offered you a bunch of temptations and you rejected all but one.”

“And that,” he says sharply, “is because Bairam Dara had his own soul modified before becoming an imp. Bairam had a list of rules etched into his pleroma, a behavior modification anchored to his soul like the fear-killer was anchored to yours. The reason I can resist temptation is because those rules are etched into my soul, into my pleroma, and they govern me just as much as the instincts deeper down. I am the fusion of Bairam Dara’s rules and Indulgence’s instincts. Those rules keep me more human than most imps, but they are painful to follow and it is still exhausting to deny my impulses.”

His story has my interest, but I still have another objection. “That’s all well and good, Bashe, but you’re talking about becoming an imp. Exactly how applicable is that to what I am being offered?”

Bashe lets out a frustrated noise. “Becoming a demon is a different process from becoming an imp, yes, but it will still change you. It will force you to sharpen yourself and distort yourself in pursuit of power. To be a demon you must cut away pieces of yourself until all that’s left is a raw and bloody core of will and want. When you reach the end of that path, if you ever do, there might not be anything of the original ‘you’ left.”

I am silent, contemplating his words and the threat of ego death, so it is Cheshire who speaks next.

“You really don’t understand her, do you?” remarks the geist. “You must think she is vastly different than she truly is. But rest assured, little imp, I suffer no such delusion.”

Bashekehi glares at the catgirl. “If I can save her from you, I will.”

Cheshire doubles over with laughter and has to wipe a tear from her face. “Save her? Save her? Incubus, you don’t even understand what she needs saving from. Have you not at any point stopped to wonder why it is that Alice is so obsessed with the prospect of ascension? Why she hungers so greedily for power and immortality?”

Bashe opens his mouth to speak and the geist cuts him off. “It is because she is terrified, Bashekehi the Ever-Gleaming.”

I freeze. Does she mean–

Cheshire turns from Bashekehi back to me. She leans in close once more, but this time instead of being flirtatious it is menacing. “She is terrified,” Cheshire says, answering Bashe but pinning me with those beautiful yellow-and-blue eyes. “She is terrified, and the fear gets stronger every year. Every month. Every day. Isn’t that right, Maven Alice?”

I swallow, hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cheshire laughs in my face and it is a cruel and scornful melody. “Liar. Lovely little liar. I love the way you lie. But you can’t lie to me, Alice. I know you. I know that every year the fear gets stronger because you get older, and weaker, creeping ever closer to a final, terrible, inevitable end. You are dying.”

My nerves are fraying, my pulse speeding up. Shut up. Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop talking! But I can’t make my lips move to deny her. I can’t lie.

Cheshire traces a finger down my cheek, my neck, lingering there and tracing lines, her touch soft and warm and threatening. “You didn’t think you’d live to eighteen,” the monstrous thing says gently and cruelly. “You thought you’d slit your throat by nineteen. You tried at twenty, just in a different place, but you made the cut too shallow and when you saw that red line the all-consuming terror that followed broke your will to die.”

I remember. I remember the moment the fear swaddled me as I stared at the self-inflicted wound filling with blood. My hand is shaking. Both my hands are shaking. I can’t make them stop. I see the blood, and the wound, and the scalpel falling from my fingers. I feel the fear that held me down and drowned me.

“At twenty-one you looked around and realized the world had kept moving while you were standing still. And every year you ask the question: is this the year when you finally die?”

Is this the year I die? Is this the month I die? Is this the day I die? Is this the hour I die? Is this the moment I die? I see a thousand deaths sprawling before me: a car hits me as I’m walking down the street; a man with a gun comes into my school or my place of work and shoots me; a heart attack; cancer, like took my mother; the wrong pills; blood, so much blood; going to sleep and just never waking up. A thousand cruel, terrifying endings.

Cheshire is still smiling. “This is a truth of the world: Maven Alice is scared to die. Thanatophobia is the driving force behind at least half of everything you have ever done in your entire life, isn’t that right?” She pauses, giving me space to speak, but I don’t respond. I’m paralyzed. “Isn’t that right, Alice?” she asks again, voice just as soft but with a dangerous undercurrent.

I find my words just long enough to answer, “Yes,” in barely more than a whisper.

That awful smile grows wicked and vicious. “You are terrified of death, but what’s more is that you are selfish–self-obsessed–and cannot conceive of a world that you are not in. You think your death will render your life meaningless, because the meaning only matters if you’re the one experiencing it. You are the only person you really care about, in the end; you’re the only person you really think is real, and when you are gone the universe will be ash and dust because you will not be in it.”

In my mind I die a thousand times, and a thousand worlds spiral into darkness.

Cheshire pushes on my chest, softly, insistently, and I take a step back. Another. She pushes me against the wall and pins me there, and when she whispers into my ear her voice is softer, gentler, delicate. “You are dying, and you are scared, and he can’t save you from that. No one out there can save you. But I can.”

Please. I don’t want to die.

Cheshire hugs me, squeezing tight, and the comfort of her warmth almost breaks me. When was the last time anyone hugged me? When was the last time anyone cared?

I’m so alone. I’ve been alone for so long, and I’m going to die alone, I’ll die alone and–

Cheshire slowly releases me and takes a step back, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I’m still caught in her orbit, held by those eyes that gleam like one disc of gold and one disc of sapphire. “You are dying, Alice, but I can save you. I can help you. All you have to do is let me.”

“Don’t do this, Alice.” Out of the corner of my vision I see Bashe reach for me. He’s looking at me with a tangled mess of emotions that I don’t bother to unravel. I don’t care. “You’re making a mistake. You know she’s manipulating you. You know something’s not right about this, even if you believe every word she says.”

Yeah. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? I close my eyes–breathe in, breathe out–and when I open them again my voice is cold. “If you wanted to be my voice of reason, you had your chance.”

The incubus reels back as if struck, something approaching hurt blooming on his face, but I don’t care. All my attention is on Cheshire now. Smiling, smug, mirthful Cheshire. Loving, caring, lying Cheshire. Only Cheshire.

“Okay. What do you need from me?”

“Just say ‘yes.’”

I do.

END OF PART ONE