Gerard tapped his conch as he strode a tight gait, felt it heating up under his palm. When he spoke, his voice came out tight too.

“Fate,” he said. “I need you.”

“What is it?” To his credit Fate did not bother with the ‘why’? Or the ‘how’? He heard the urgency in Gerard’s voice. He knew something had gone very wrong indeed.

“Dorian has allowed himself to be captured. To make certain your plan succeeds.”

“What?!”

“He languishes in the dungeons of Ur as we speak.” Gerard measured out his surroundings with narrowed eyes. He stood in a lobby whose floor was one unbroken slab of rich crimson gemstone. Above hung an explosion of chandeliers, catapulting shafts of light to the floor and betwixt one another in a dizzying show. Conversation bubbled about, soft andtittering. The auctiongoers awaiting the main event. Too many ears, prying eyes… he hunched in, hoping he didn’t seem too out of place, and growled into his conch.

“I am preparing to plant a bomb in the palace itself. It should take down the wards proper. The moment I manage it I need you to send a strike team for the Royal Palace.”

His eyes flickered to the guards. They were everywhere, framing each doorway, and each one was an Empyrean—and one of quality at that. How many could he realistically take, out of practice as he was? Perhaps four? Five, at a time? A hotness in him, a hotness he kept under lock and key, liked to think he could take them all. Yet he was not that young recklessdemon anymore. And it was no longer only his life he risked if he failed to stay clear-eyed.

It was focus, and reason, and precise execution that would win the day now.

There was also the matter of the Godking of Ur. The Auctioneer, ranked top 50 in the Multiverse. Even at his peak Gerard would’ve had trouble with him. And they were on his territory, mired in his militia. To win now he would need timing, and subtlety, and a not insigificant amount of help.

“When can you arrive?”

Through the conch he heard a clattering, a panting, a flurry of shouts.

“Three hours?” came Fate’s voice. “Perhaps four?”

About when the auction finished, Gerard guessed. It would have to do.

“I’m coming, Gerard! Fast as I can, I swear it to you! Stay put!”

The line went cold.

Slowly he lowered the conch. Fate’s army was perhaps a day out now. They were poised to meet Jez’s forces on the morrow. It was no simple feat to rush out a strike force while the rest of the army was making last-second preparations.

But Fate knew, just as he did, that if this plan did not succeed…

All of their preparations would amount to nothing.

***

Gerard was not a high-strung man. He used to be, in his youth, but he liked to think he’d mellowed some in age. Only now he seemed to be unraveling. It started back at the city center. A hotness in him had leaked out, strained him at the seams, and it was proving devilishly hard to sew it back up again. He was itching. He was thirsty, and he would find no satisfaction here.

Now, swaying in the lobby and waiting for the auction’s start, hearing the tapping and scraping of heels, the clink-clinking of glasses, seeing all that light bounce about in infuriatingly random patterns, he felt a little unmoored.

When he was bumped he had to keep from transforming then and there.

He whirled around. A tiny figure stood there, looking up at him, a furry tail curled in a question mark.

“Hi!” said Sun. He forced his shoulders to sag.

“What’s up? Where’s Dorian?”

“There’s been a change of plans. Follow me.” He turned, made to stalk for the auction hall—

Another bump.

“Why are you doing that?” he said evenly.

“Um.” She scratched behind her ear sheepishly. “I’m trying to get your attention, mister Gerard. Last time I tried tugging on your sleeves but you weren’t such a big fan of that, so… bumping! …Is bumping okay? I can try tapping, but it’ll be a little hard to reach—”

“….Bumping is fine. Can’t you simply call for me?”

“It’s a little too distracting, isn’t it?” Sun leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m trying to be sneaky!”

He sighed. “Very well. What is it?”

“So where is he? Dorian, I mean.”

“I suspect he’s currently in the dungeons of this very palace. He’s gotten himself captured. On purpose.”

“Oh.”

There was a long pause.

“How screwed are we?”

“It is difficult to say. Best not to think about it, I imagine.”

“Okay,” said Sun. “Then I won’t! Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Follow along, then, and make no moves without my explicit permission. Let us head to the auction hall. The festivities are about to begin.”

And thank Heavens for it, too.

The lobby had gotten too hot for his liking. His senses were starting to laugh at him. The world drifted in warped and distended, as though caught in a heat wave, and he was suddenly intensely aware of the thicket of bodies about him. Their fleshiness, their softness. Each running hot with blood. There was something hateful about these bodies, something horribly restrictive. Like water welling behind a dam, begging to be let out. A well-placed slash and it would all gush… such satisfying release…

Gerard caught himself. Stilled. Frowned. He breathed in long and hard, and did not breathe out until he stoppered the feeling.

“Hells,” he whispered. He tightened his collar, white-knuckled.

Some demons you did not summon unless you could offer a sacrifice.

***

They found a booth near the back of the Royal Theater. Sun propped herself up on a seat, dangling her legs like a child on a swing, while Gerard sat bolt upright, hands clasped firmly, imagining just how horribly messy—not to mention embarrassing—it would be to lose control here. Sighing, he removed his glasses and set to polishing them with his handkerchief. It was important to keep his hands busy. That way he knew precisely where they were, and what they were doing.

It was not a large theater, but the density of important folk here was quite high. High enough that a small military milled about the premises.Royals, dignitaries, and other high-worth individuals were scattered about in booths ranged in semicircles below. All waiting breathless in the dim lighting.

Then a spotlight shone on the wooden floors of the main stage. A portly humanoid figure with a twirly mustache stood there, hands clasped behind his back, grinning wide, displaying a checkerboard of gold teeth amidst white. The Auctioneer. It had been some centuries since Gerard had seen the Godking, and he looked exactly the same. But Gerard knew the man, knew him for what he was. They were alike. Pristine exteriors. Yet prone to fits of violence.

If they were to make it out of this place they’d cross this man’s path sooner or later. He had never personally fought the Auctioneer but he did not relish the prospect—well—the sane compartment of his mind, at any rate. The Auctioneer trafficked in Laws of Metal—more specifically heavy metals. To be struck by this portly, unassuming-looking man was to take such a brutal force the soul was often shattered inside the body.

“Welcome!” boomed the Auctioneer. The word hushed the crowd. His big hands were clasped firm as he regarded them, letting the silence hang there, grow weightier. He was a showman, this one. Then he spoke.

“It is my joy, and honor, to host you fine fellows for this year’s Royal Auction!”

For a crowd made mostly of demons the response was strangely civil. It was all polite clapping. This crowd was not the rank-and-file blood-and-guts creatures that Hell was stocked full of. This crowd would stab you in the back, sure—but with class.

The bidding began.

“Lot One! Fang of the Earth Drake! A must-have ingredient in any poisoner’s brew. It’ll make a nice mantlepiece decoration, if that suits your fancy! Starting price is… twenty mid-grade stones! Do I hear any offers?”

…

…

“Lot Two!….”

“

…

….

The waiting was starting to unravel him, second by second. But it would not have him. He swore it. The test of a disciplined mind was its capacity to endure. It had become a matter of identity. Who am I?

I am Gerard. I do not spill wanton blood. Nor do I leave trails of wasteful destruction. I am precise. I take care in what I do, and I am proud for it.

Identity could withstand far more than willpower alone. And so Gerard tethered his defense there, for he knew willpower would not last out the hour. But it merely bought him time. Identity, placed under sufficient duress, would also crack…

He knew who he was.

But he also knew there would come a point when he did not.

What then?

…

…

He felt a bump. It shook him out of a stupor. Sun looked up at him.

“Yes?”

She nodded down at the stage.

“Lot Thirty-Three! Chiron’s ribs! Some claim the most tender ribs in the Nine Circles of Hell—a must-have item for any connoisseur of meats! Starting price….one hundred mid-grade stones!”

He threw in a bid and won it, to her delight. Then she curled up for a nap, as though her part of this whole ordeal was done.

….

…

Finally…

“Lot One Hundred and Twenty! This auction’s crowning items…. Godking Kinzo’s Millennium’s Elixirs!”