One of the many problems with being human was the physical limitations of the body. Push it hard enough and for long enough, and it just gave up on you. Which was why I was gradually falling behind Toll, who burst into the forest a full ten seconds before me.

Another problem with being human was our plodding, soft feet. As soon as the trees were dense enough, the balaam used their clawed feet to grip the bark of a tree and launch upwards. From there, Toll leapt from branch to branch, using the height advantage for sight and to avoid running into digressers.

Meanwhile, I was getting more and more sluggish. I pounded into the underbrush, nearly tripping over a fern. Everything ached. The wound I’d taken on my leg sent out a spike of pain every time my feet impacted with the floor. My heeled dress shoes didn’t help with the situation.

Another scream sounded, and I pushed the pain aside. I couldn’t let Toll beat me to the punch. If I didn’t get there early enough, I wouldn’t be able to score something for myself.

After a run that felt like it went for an eternity, I finally saw it. Twenty or so digressers were surrounding a woman in a filmy white dress, who was trying to fend them off with a short staff. At least, she seemed like a woman, if you ignored the slender horn atop her head, adorned with jewels, that parted her long flowing hair. She was gorgeous for a demon, and that stuck out to me: someone who’d been fighting off digressers should not have looked so clean.

Despite having a huge lead on me, Toll was nowhere to be seen. The whole thing screamed “trap”, but also “opportunity”. Doubtless, Toll and this demon weren’t working together, so if I could prevent Toll from getting a clean kill on her with Briary, then my thought was that I could play these two off against each other. After all, there was no way a weak demon could just survive for several minutes on flat ground against this many digressers.

Panting heavily, I dived straight into the fray. The first digresser I took completely by surprise. When the demon caught sight of me, she beamed a gorgeous smile.

“Oh, thank you so much! I’m so glad you came.” She swung the twirled head of her staff down like a club and a digresser splatted into smoke.

I felt genuinely good about helping her. I figured I could have been overthinking it, that maybe she just had a terrible rabdos and really did need someone to pull her out of trouble. It spurred me on and allowed me to forget about the fact that I was doing a good deed for a demon.

Three digressers noticed there was another edible creature nearby. They faced their heads, if you could call them that, towards me then started slither-glitching.

No problem, or so I hoped. One dived at my chest. I sidestepped and slashed down, hacking the thing in half in one blow. It was a close one. My body just wasn’t moving as fast as it needed to. I circled to keep the remaining two in a line, reducing the angles they could attack from.

I prepared my knife for the next lunge, but just as the digresser coiled back, the beautiful demon yelled, “Behind you!”

I spun too late. A digresser was mid air and flying towards me. I tried to dive sideways but my body was too sluggish.

You know those moments when you can see disaster seconds away from striking but there’s no way to stop it? Like a giant wave is about to flip a boat, or a landslide is about to take out a whole village, and the destruction is so immense that running feels pointless? That. That’s what I felt at that moment.

For the millionth time that day, I thought I was done. Then a feathered demon blurred out from the trees and slapped the digresser down with the flat of their spear. Toll’s golden eyes met mine, considering me.

The first digresser was still leaping. Now that I was already falling out the way, it was heading straight for the balaam. Everything seemed to move so slowly, like I was suspended in time, that I caught every one of the balaam’s movements.

With their back hand, Toll swept up the butt of their spear and struck the leaping digresser’s head from beneath. There was no whack of wood striking flesh, but the impact was so sharp that the digresser exploded into an arc of smoke. Then in a single, smooth motion, Toll adjusted their front hand and raised the spear in a high grip. They lunged forward over my falling body and stabbed. The tip of the spear met the third digresser mid-leap and it impaled itself on the spear. Ash and smoke sprayed over Toll’s hands then evaporated.

I crashed onto the ground, dazed. Rolling onto my back, I blinked the stars out of my eyes. Toll walked up to me calmly and stared down with their head cocked to one side.

“Why did you do that, human?” they asked. “Were you aware of how little chance you had of surviving?”

The balaam had saved me, I knew. Or, more aptly, they saved their question generator. I picked myself up and ignored the question entirely. Then, gritting my teeth, I took a deep breath and went back into the fray.

I kept to the edge of the fight, trying to pick off one digresser at a time. Toll, on the other hand, was making incredible progress. Their spear whirled so quickly I could only see a blur, smoke flying in every direction as it connected with black ink. Toll was getting close to the demon-in-distress, and their eyes kept glancing over to her. As she fought, she glanced up at him, then positioned her front to Toll so that her staff was always between them.

I quickly realised that Toll was aiming for the erasure, to take the demon’s points. If that happened, I’d be stuck with the balaam. I didn’t trust the pretty demon just yet, but now I was convinced Toll was going to stick their spear in my back while I slept. There was no choice left: I had to stop the balaam.

Abandoning caution, I circled around to Toll’s position and followed in their wake. Digressers dived after me and I hacked them down midair. One of Toll’s eyes rolled around to look behind. When our eyes met, I grinned. They were in a pincer now. If they tried to fight the other demon, I’d stab them in the back.

For a moment I could have sworn Toll looked frustrated, though it was hard to tell amongst the chaos. But once I approached, they changed their tactics. Toll stopped cutting a path to the demon-in-distress and instead moved perpendicular to her, carving down the remaining digressers.

Between Toll and the demon-in-distress, the forest was quickly cleared out. Some more digressers poured into the clearing, mysteriously attracted to the smokeshedding, but they came in a trickle and it became a race between the two demons to see who could rack up the most points. I managed to get a few points as well, which was amazing given I only had that shitty knife.

Once it was over and Toll had scanned the surrounding area to confirm nothing else was approaching, I was left gasping for air by the end of it. I took a seat on a large, exposed root and tried not to die of a heart attack.

The female demon approached me then. When she looked down at me the sun was behind her, forming a halo around her head, the effect broken only by her bejewelled horn. My first impression of her was that she was trying too hard. She had that kind of plastic look about her: plush cherry-red lips, thick eyeliner, hair the colour of sand on a hot summer day, and tits so big and round that if she weren’t a demon I would have assumed they were silicone.

She had a predatory look in her eyes. My gaze shifted to her staff and my grip on the knife tightened. Toll was hovering nearby and one wrong move would give them the chance to attack. I wondered how rational she actually was, or if she truly believed she could take us both.

Suddenly, she dropped the staff and leaped onto me, giving me a hug. I was so shocked that I almost dropped my knife. Over the demon’s shoulder, I saw Toll poised with their spear held low, its point angled at the demon. I held a hand up to signal that everything was fine.

The demon planted kisses on my cheeks. In my fatigued state, I could feel my mind turning to mush. Could you blame me? Look, there was nothing fake about her. I knew that because I could feel everything under that thin dress. And that scent! Fresh cut grass with a hint of lavender; a lazy Sunday morning.

If it weren’t for the fact that I was still hopped up on adrenaline, I probably would have taken her there and then. Not only would she have allowed it, she would have encouraged it. That was the nature of her canto.

Enepsi: the arbiters of affection. Where a balaam trades in questions, enepsis deal in favours and affection. Above all else, they want your trust, your desire, and your love. They are one of the few demons who never directly ask for anything in return, instead letting their victims choose their method of reciprocation. The more demons and humans alike come to desire an enepsi’s company and attention, the more powerful the enepsi grows.

I’m sure you can guess how that works for humans, given the situation I was in. Humans enthralled by an enepsi desire nothing more than to be loved, respected, and validated by them. Those emotions are a chain around our necks that enepsis can use to control us.

But keep in mind that demons don’t feel love or desire. They are purpose driven. They don’t reproduce, meaning they have no need for sex, and their relationships are entirely transactional. Most demons don’t have sexual organs—enepsis being the obvious exception. Even the more feminine-appearing demons lack breasts, instead wearing a shapelier form and sporting higher pitched voices to match. It’s all imitation.

So though humans might feel affection for the demon, the demon feels nothing back. That arguably makes enepsis a human’s most dangerous predator.

The enepsi pried herself off me, barely. Her hands were still wrapped around my neck and she was blushing from ear to ear—a perfect mockery of human lust.

“Thank you so so so much,” she spoke softly, her voice light and airy. “I would have been in so much trouble if it weren’t for you. You’re an amazing human.”

Impressive. Two truths, and two massive coverups. True, she would have been in trouble if I hadn’t intervened, but only because Toll was aiming straight for her. She’d dealt with half the digressers on her own. She was strong. And yeah, I was amazing, for a human, by demonic standards. I mean, I hadn’t died yet, so that counted for something.

“Your name,” I breathed.

She pressed her forehead to mine and that predatory look returned. “Enzi,” she whispered just for me.

Then her lips moved towards mine. I turned away just in time and a kiss was planted on my cheek. “Oh, fuck!”

Enzi Lash. Two name demon, two million men bedded. Her reputation was as prevalent as her image. She was in billboards, films, music videos, advertisements, porn, and the beds of every man who somehow managed to make it big in this demon-centric world. This was a demon who thrived on one thing and one thing only: lust. She was open about it in her many interviews. She wanted everyone to want her.

The only reason I hadn’t recognised her was because she’d changed her appearance. Enepsis could do that at will, though it took some time for the changes to remain permanent.

But how did a demon like Enzi Lash land herself in the Culling? I’d missed out on a lot during the months I was locked up in a cell. I guess I could have asked her, but there was no guarantee she’d tell me. Besides, isn’t confiding in someone a form of affection? The last thing I needed was to get to know her better.

I put a hand on her shoulders and gently pushed Enzi off me. “Gently” being a terrible word given how much force I needed to use, because she was significantly stronger than me. She let go reluctantly then settled onto her knees, pouting at me.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “I was just returning a favour.”

“Not now,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.” Not ever, was what I really wanted to say, but like that I had given the impression that I desired her. Better to let her believe she was in charge.

She smiled then leaned forward, exposing a whole lot of cleavage. Not that her dress really covered it up to begin with. “What’s your name?” she asked. “You asked me my name and I answered. How about returning a demon a favour? You know we keep our promises; we can’t lie, after all.”

“His name is Algier,” Toll said.

Enzi turned to Toll and lowered her chin to her sternum. “You know, it’s rude to interrupt a woman when she’s speaking.”

“Where’s the woman?” Toll asked bluntly. There was no sting in their words, just a genuine question. But that was probably just a quirk of being a balaam. They never showed much emotion.

“So rude!” Enzi huffed, then turned back to me. “Has that balaam been giving you trouble, you poor thing?”

“Nope, none.” I lied. “In fact, we’re good friends, and we were wondering if you would like to join us.”

Enzi’s eyes lit up and she clasped my hands in hers. “Really? You’d let me? This lonely enepsi? I’d hate to try and survive the Culling on my own.”

“Of course,” I answered with a chuckle. “I’d hate to see something bad happen to you tonight.”

I glanced over at Toll. The balaam had perched themselves on a tree and watched me intently from on high. Their crest was standing up slightly. I wasn’t sure if that was the look a balaam had when they were pissed, but oh did it seem like it.

“And I would hate it if anyone took you,” the enepsi said affectionately. “Humans are so vulnerable at night. You need someone to watch over you.”

This was going well. Too well. She was just outright giving me all the cues I needed. Was she playing along in opposition to Toll? Or did she just want to possess me? Either way, it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and left me with zero choice.

“Would you like to protect me tonight?”

“I would love to,” she said, “and I would love it if you protected me during the Culling. You are such a remarkable human, after all.”

There it was. A favour for a favour. No demands made, nothing owed, but I had so little reason to refuse.

“Agreed,” I said.

Enzi beamed at me, then leaned in for another kiss. This time I leaned forward and pulled her head to my shoulder for a hug. I set my gaze on Toll. “About that question from earlier: I’m still waiting for an answer.”

Toll hesitated for a long while, and I was certain they just weren’t going to answer. The balaam’s gaze flicked between Enzi and I. Then reluctantly they said, “Yes, I will protect you tonight.”

As soon as the question was answered, I could feel the transaction being recorded, in a place so deep and cloistered that if you cut me open you’d never find it. If souls existed—this was still being debated in spite of the advent of demons conquering Earth—then Toll had just imprinted the terms of our contract on it. One question for another; no loopholes, no double-crosses, as sure as Hell.

Prying herself from my grip, Enzi flashed Toll a smile. “Oh, that’s wonderful! Unlike a balaam I can’t see very well at night. Having someone on watch would be such a great help and will make it easier to spot a night time ambush. I’ll be sure to pay you back in kind.”

“Speaking of ambushes,” I said, groaning as I pushed myself up. Hell, my legs felt like jelly! “It seems pretty strange that these digressers are all the same.”

“You’re right!” Enzi exclaimed. She leaned down to pick up her staff. “Digressers are all different, yet these not only look the same, they also behave the same.”

Smart girl. She caught on quick. Too quick. “Right. Which means there must be a source. A very powerful digresser.”

“A wonderful observation.”

“It’ll be good if we can find out what this source is, or where. We’d probably get extra points if we erased it.”

Enzi put a nail to her lip. “You’re right. If we can learn its weaknesses, we could defeat it easily.”

“Yes, but if others have come to the same conclusion and have formed a team with a balaam, we’ll need to act fast.”

“You’re right! But that’s where we have an advantage. We already have a balaam, who you say is your friend. How fortuitous!”

Great. I was trying to get her to ask Toll a question, but she wasn’t taking the bait, Worse, she was intentionally structuring her words as statements, not questions. Enzi’s bright eyes and big smile might as well have been a sneer.

Toll looked furious. They were gripping their claws into the tree they were perched in so hard that sap was running down its trunk. The balaam raised a stiff hand and spoke in deep tones. “I wish to clear up something. Though other teams might be asking balaams questions and learning of the source’s location, those answers will all be vague. When a balaam answers a demon’s question, they can only give approximate or hard-to-decipher answers. On the other horn, the knowledge that I may divine from a human’s questions will be far more accurate.”

“Oh, I didn’t realise,” I lied. “Actually, Toll, tell me something. Since when did you know about the source’s existence?”

Another stare off. This one didn’t last too long, however. Toll’s clawed feet flexed and the tree’s trunk was freed.

“August 6th, 2130, 10:47 a.m., after I erased my second digresser.”

It took everything I had not to let my face fall. I’d used that question to try and glean Toll’s intent. By being so up front, the balaam hadn’t just told me that they knew about the source and had been considering hunting it this whole time, but that I, a human, was a pawn in their game. Though more importantly, what it meant was that once Toll had got their points, I’d probably be done for.

But there was now another problem. I lowered my gaze and acted like I was deep in thought. Then I pulled up my stat screen. At the bottom, a new section had been added.

[Questions Owed]: (new)

Toll: 1 Mundane (was 0), 1 Inquisitive (was 0)

Well, at least I’d gained a promise of protection out of all that. It could have been worse.

Shrugging, I turned to Enzi. “Well, nothing to worry about. If other balaams can’t get full information on the source, then they probably won’t attack because it’s too risky. No rush.”

“A wise statement,” she observed.

“Yep. Time to go.” I spun stiff-legged then pushed east.

I figured that if I was the mouse and they were two cats fighting over me, then I’d just run and let them fight.