Chapter 3

“Oh, fire and brimstone! I did it again!” The demon peeked between her fingers at Sophia. “And you saw me, too.” The priestess squeaked a little. “Ugh. I’m so bad at this.” She hid back inside her palms and shook her head.

“Err…” Nothing had quite prepared Sophia to see a nine-foot-tall invincible killing machine repeatedly hit her forehead against her knees while calling herself stupid. “I won’t… tell anyone?” That seemed like a safe thing to say. Please don’t kill me to get rid of the only witness to whatever it is you don’t want people to see? Sophia did not say that last part out loud. It was implicitly implied.

“Oh! Thank you. Thank you so much!” Massive hands suddenly pulled the startled priestess into a bear hug against a hot and muscular chest. And it was hot in a very literal sense. The demon’s skin almost singed to the touch. Eyes wide in fear, Sophia tried not to make any abrupt motions or startling noises, even as her bones begged for mercy.

She was thankfully quickly released and swayed on her feet, trying to catch her breath.

“Alright, focus Samael, focus,” the demon was muttering to herself now. Then Sophia watched, amazed, as she began to change.

Her massive body shrunk noticeably, stopping at a still imposing seven feet tall—still easily towering above the petite priestess. Her bulging muscles, too, regressed to less inhuman proportions. An average human would need hours of weekly training to maintain a similar physique, but at least the demon did not look at risk of bursting out of her own skin anymore.

With the shrinking, her damaged shirt slid further down her shoulders, blocked in its descent only by the demon’s thick biceps and the swell of her breasts. The amount of cleavage this resulted in brought a blush to Sophia’s cheeks, but the priestess was hardly about to start lecturing a demon on common decency—not when her survival instincts were already on the verge of a stroke.

The shift ended with the demon’s horns retreating into her skull and her tail crawling back inside her pants. Now she looked almost convincingly human—a scarily muscled, uncommonly tall, impossibly dark-skinned, bright-red-haired human. People would still stare, but they would sooner see her as an odd half-breed and stick to being rudely intolerant instead of running away screaming.

At the very least, it helped Sophia feel less like she was the next item on today’s menu.

“I’m Sam, by the way. What’s your name?” A hand was all but shoved into Sophia’s face. Blinking rapidly, her eyes went cross, and she probably stared for too long, because the now human-ish-looking demon slowly lowered her hand, looking a little embarrassed. “Ah… is this not how you normally greet people? Aunt Gabby said it was…”

“Ah. No… No– I mean, yes… It’s correct.” Hesitantly, daintily, Sophia put her small hand in the larger one, watching it get swallowed. She was briefly surprised by how carefully gentle the demon’s grip was. She could feel its strength, but the other seemed to make a conscious effort not to crush her fingers. Sophia could not decide whether she found that reassuring or not.

The demon shook her hand lightly, treating her as if she were made of glass. By reflex, Sophia added a little curtsy to the handshake. “I am Sister Sophia Lehtinen, Assistant High Priestess of Rachiel of the Fair Isle. Err… Nice to… meet you?”

The joyful grin she received in return for her stiff introduction might have been the brightest, happiest smile Sophia had ever seen. That it came from a terrifying monster in human shape was preventing her brain from fully catching up with the recent events. A beat too late, she wondered if introducing herself as a priestess to a powerful demon was such a good idea. Well it’s too late for that, isn’t it? Besides, there was no way the creature had missed her unmistakable clerical robes. Or did she? She seems fairly simple-minded.

“Hey, Sophialehtinen. Are you going to eat that?”

“Just Sophia’s fine,” she replied out of habit, distracted by the abrupt subject shift. She looked confusedly at the demon, who nodded towards the dead bodies strewn around the wagon. It took a few seconds for the realisation to dawn on her. “What… What?! NO!!”

“Oh, okay. More for me then.”

The priestess opened her mouth to protest but then closed it, scared to say something that might set off the currently peaceful demon. Yet, desecrating corpses in such an appalling way went against everything the priestess believed in, even if these corpses belonged to sinful murderers. After gathering her courage, she eventually decided to compromise. “Could you… not eat my guards… please?”

“Uh? Whom?”

“The ones with this symbol on their clothes.” She showed the pendant hanging around her neck. It was a stylised representation of two hands holding up an island underneath what could either be seen as a rising sun or a protective dome, the symbol of the goddess of Fair Isle.

“Why? Do you want them, after all?”

Sophia resisted the urge to scream in frustration. Whether it was intentional or not, this demon’s childish behaviour was rapidly eroding her fears. She wondered if maybe she was going into delayed shock.

“No, I don’t want to eat them,” she enunciated slowly. “I need to bring them back to the temple to give them a proper funeral.” The demon’s face reflected her incomprehension, but she still shrugged in the end, which Sophia took as good enough of an agreement.

The demon walked to the first bandit body—what was left of it—and Sophia stood there awkwardly for a moment, fidgeting and nervous about letting the creature out of her line of sight. But she quickly gave up, reasoning that if “Sam” meant any harm, having eyes on the demon or not would make no difference. It still felt wrong to just turn her back to a demon eating a fellow human being, but she needed to prioritise.

She forced herself to ignore the sounds of breaking bones and tearing flesh, and she climbed into the wagon. Crates occupied most of it. The objective of this bi-monthly trip was primarily to supply the Temple with goods the attendants and priestesses could not make or grow themselves, among which were forged items, fish, rare ingredients and all kinds of small luxury items from the mainland. The Temple also used this opportunity to provide the small fishing town of Fair Isle Landing with healing salves, herbal tea, some vegetables and spices the locals could ordinarily only acquire from foreign merchants at exorbitant costs. A priestess always made the trip to offer healing to the townsfolk. In summer, the convoy would be enlarged to accommodate pilgrims, but right now, it was only this one carriage.

Groaning and huffing, Sophia pushed the heavy crates around, trying to create a space large enough to set all the corpses in. She could have taken the carriage horse and rushed to the Temple to bring back help, but these men had died to protect her. She felt she owed it to them not to leave their bodies on the roadside to be picked off by scavengers.

Also, her riding skills were pretty lacklustre. The horse looked already unsettled by all the blood. Sophia would not last a mile on its back, not even considering the lack of a saddle. Let’s not risk a broken neck right now, shall we? She sighed and kept pushing.

As exhausting as it was, the manual labour helped keep her mind steady and focused. She still struggled to accept how the lives of twelve men she had known for years had been snuffed out in one single instant of pointless violence. She had not been very close to them, but enough that she knew each one by name and had a similar acquaintance with their wives and children.

And now they were gone.

In a flash, a few men’s greed had led to the pointless death of three dozen people. Where was the justice in this? Where was the greater Meaning she so often read about in the Temple’s meditative scriptures? What could be the purpose of a man’s life, his hopes and dreams, when it could all end so abruptly and for no reason?

She jumped off the wagon and approached the closest body. The man laid awkwardly, his face twisted in agony, dirt strewn over his clothes. A red flower was blooming over his stomach around a tear in his shirt. His name was Christian. Sophia vaguely recalled him laughing at another man’s joke just before the bandits ambushed them.

Acrid bile suddenly rushed up to her throat. She hurried away and emptied her meagre breakfast onto the roadside. When the retching finally subsided, she took a shuddering breath, then another. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she steeled her nerves and returned to the dead man.

She pushed his limp torso off the ground and slid her arms under his armpits. With effort, she managed to drag the large fit body all the way to the wagon, but then she struggled to push him into the vehicle. After several failed attempts, another miss saw the dead man slip from her grasp and collapse on the ground in a disgraceful heap. Sophia scrunched her eyes tight and sighed heavily. She too slid down in the dirt. Her face dropped into her hand, and she took a shuddering breath on the cusp of turning into a sob.

Approaching footsteps caused her to look up. The demon stood before her, towering, blood specks contouring her mouth. She slowly looked from Sophia to the dead body and, finally, the wagon, before turning back to the priestess. She rubbed her forehead in a surprisingly human gesture. “Err… Do you need help with that?”

Too tired to be wary, Sophia just nodded. “Yes. Please.”

“Un.” With one hand, Sam pulled the dead body off the ground and unceremoniously dumped it in the wagon. She moved on to the next man without needing to be asked. Sophia watched her work. She felt dubious about treating the deceased with the same care as potato sacks, but she kept her reservations to herself. Instead, she climbed into the carriage and tried to arrange the bodies in somewhat more dignified postures.

After the fourth man was laid in the wagon bed, the demon paused and stared at Sophia struggling to push this particularly large man against the side of the wagon. To make matters worse, this one was wearing a heavy reinforced gambeson—which unfortunately had not saved him from taking a knife to the face.

“You’re pretty weak.”

Sophia did not know if it was way the demon said it so matter-of-factly, but the comment finally made her snap. “I’m a healer, not a fighter!” That her words sounded like a lousy rhyme in a corny love ballade only served to incense her further. “Not everyone can be a big vicious brute like you!”

She immediately blanched after realising what she had just said. Oh, goddess. Sophia, you stupid, stupid fool! Who mouths off to the flesh-eating mountain of muscles from Hell who could snap you in half like a twig?! She was already mentally preparing herself to pass onto the afterlife, so she half missed Sam’s next words.

“What’s a healer?”

“…uh, what?” Sophia blinked, surprised to be alive. Meeting the demon’s gaze, she saw nothing but honest curiosity. Either the other did not understand her words, or she did not care—or this was a very roundabout way to mess with Sophia’s head. Who knows, with demons?

“What’s a healer?” the demon repeated helpfully.

“Err… it’s someone who heals people?” Sophia found herself at a loss, trying to explain something she had always regarded as basic common knowledge. Why am I the one who feels stupid in this situation? This bloody man-eater is the one asking the dumb questions! She could feel the first signs of a budding headache. “We treat injuries and get rid of sickness?” she tried elaborating a bit, still a bit unsure.

“So you mean some people can’t do it themselves?”

“Yes! I mean, no– I mean… People heal by themselves, yes, but sometimes the injury or the sickness is too much at once, and they can die. I mean…” At her wits’ end, Sophia frustratingly gestured to the dead bodies still scattered all around them.

Understanding dawned on the demon’s face. “Ohhh! I get it now. Yes, that makes sense. I just didn’t realise it could happen to people too…” She looked around and scratched the back of her head awkwardly. “I guess I’m pretty slow. Hahahahaha!”

Almost against herself, Sophia felt the corner of her lips tug up. “Wait, so you’ve never been injured?”

“Oh, no. I have… a lot. But it just heals pretty fast.”

“Anything?”

“Yeah… well… I’ve never lost my head, so I don’t know about that one… I guess that would be a problem.” Sophia fought the urge to facepalm. “I never really thought about it. But one time I had to cut off my legs to—”

“Alright! That’s enough. I get it. No sickness either?”

“…I’ve been poisoned several times. Does that count?”

The priestess sighed. “Forget I asked.”

“I can do that.” The demon smiled. In this form, Sam’s teeth had lost their pointed shape, making her dumb, shit-eating grin appear much less threatening. “So… can you heal them then?” She looked at the bodies in the back of the wagon.

“What? No. I can’t heal the dead.” Sophia’s voice turned into a sad whisper at the end.

The demon pointed at another guard still lying on the ground on the far side of where the fight took place. “What about him?”

“I told you! I can’t heal–”

“He’s not dead.”

Sophia’s brain stumbled. “…what?”

“I can hear his breathing. It’s not very stro–”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO EARLIER?!” The priestess jumped off the wagon and raced towards the prone man. She dropped to her knees, hands already glowing, and ran them over the unconscious guard. The demon was right. The man was close to death, but he had yet to cross over.

The demon arrived, looking somewhere between confused, contrite and annoyed. “I didn’t think it was important.”

“OF COURSE IT’S– No.” Sophia took a deep calming breath. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have shouted. It’s my fault too. I should have checked all the bodies right away.” In her shock, she had just assumed the bandits finished off all the guards and had promptly forgotten all her training. As a healer, she felt gut-wrenching shame to for such a huge oversight. “Are there any others still alive?”

“Ah, no. Just this one.” Sam crouched next to her and stared with interest at the priestess’ hands wrapped in holy magic. “What are you doing?” Sophia ignored her, too focused she was on dragging the man back from the gates of death. Eventually, the demon must have gotten bored, because she stood and walked away, probably to finish off her bandit buffet.

Sophia lost track of time, her entire focus with her patient. It seemed at first glance like a simple matter of healing the nasty stab wound in his chest. The blade had miraculously only nicked his heart instead of slicing it in two. But the man still suffered from severe internal bleeding, and several of his organs had started failing. The healer priestess had to fix all that damage, while simultaneously keeping up the blood flow to his brain steady, and also—of course—heal the gaping hole in his chest. This was a little like holding a dozen conversations at once, each of which was of crucial importance.

The sun had initiated its descent when Sophia finally leaned back, satisfied the man would survive. She let out a shuddering breath and brushed tears from the corner of her eyes. “There, Francis. All fixed. Don’t scare me like that again, alright? What would I say to Elora?” Her small chuckle sounded hollow. Sighing, she ran a hand through her damp hair and wiped the sweat off her face.

Liked a comatose patient waking up, she blinked slowly and looked around her, reacquainting herself with the outside world. She was surprised to find the area clean of bodies. Pushing herself to her feet, she walked up to the wagon, avoiding the patches of drying blood in the dirt, and discovered every one of the dead guards neatly arranged in the same way she had set up the first three. An unexpected swell of gratitude grew in her chest. She got around the carriage and stared at the large demon woman sleeping soundly, propped against a wheel.

A small trickled of drool hung from the corner of Sam’s mouth as she softly snored. The blood had been washed off her face, and she had changed into a clean shirt roughly identical to the one she had before—only less burnt and bloody. She slept wrapped in a thick fur coat. A colossal backpack sat beside her. Where it had come from, Sophia was too tired to wonder. She did feel puzzled by the donkey sleeping with its head on Sam’s leg, but she also decided not to question it.

The demon roused from her nap when Sophia walked between her and the sun. A tired smile hooked her lips. “Hey… You’ve finished?” She caught herself yawning and stretched languorously. The movements did things to her tight shirt in the chest area that a blushing priestess forced herself to ignore.

“Yes. He’ll live,” she stated soberly.

“Well, that’s good,” the demon dropped indifferently as she cracked her neck.

“Yes, it is.” Sophia decided not to take offence with the demon’s disregard for Francis’ life. Instead, she leaned down slightly, bringing their gaze level. Now that she paid closer attention, those blood-red eyes she was sure would forever haunt her nightmares had lost their snake pupils. Their colour had lightened to a rich and warm amber, which reminded Sophia of the sweet honey the Temple attendants produced. “And… Sam?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

The dazzling white smile returned to the demon’s face. “You’re welcome.”

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