Rebirth of the Nephilim

“Alex. Alex, calm down.”

Jay slowly reached out towards her lover, putting a hand on her shoulder. Alex was still obviously enraged, her expression truly demonic. She held the soul-linked sphere in one tentacle, and all of her intense fury was focused on the small object. Jadis didn’t think she had ever seen her lover so angry before.

“Alex?”

It took a few moments, but eventually Alex reacted to Jay’s touch and insistent calls. Deliberately shifting up into a standing position away from the mutilated corpse, Alex’s demeanor calmed as her expression flattened. With deliberate care, Jay took the small metal sphere from her tentacle.

“Are you… Well…?”

“I’m fine,” Jay said as she passed the sphere off to her Dys self so she could focus fully on Alex. “How about you? Are you okay?”

“I am… Injured…”

Jadis could see that well enough without Alex’s admission. While her demonic paladin had hit Demon Prince Desire hard, literally tearing her stolen flesh into pieces, the hostile Demon had obviously fought back. Alex’s clothes were torn and bloody, and she had wounds on both sets of arms, some of her tentacles, and a particularly nasty set of claw marks on her thigh.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Jay said as she guided Alex away from the carnage splattered on the temple floor. “Eir will check you over and heal you.”

“Yes…”

Jadis had seen Alex fight many times before. Her little Demon had always shown a ruthless efficiency in battle that saw a quick end to her opponents. However, the anger that Alex had shown towards Desire was not something that Jadis was used to seeing on her lovable blue-eyed squid.

Lifting her into her arms, Jay carried her blood-spattered lover out of the temple to where Aila and Eir were waiting for them. No one else had arrived yet, but Jadis assumed that more of her lovers and companions would be showing up soon. So much had happened so fast that it was hard to believe that only a few minutes had passed since she reached the temple.

As her Jay self cradled Alex, her Dys self stared intently at the almost innocent-looking metal sphere that had been pulled out of Sybil’s corpse. It didn’t look like an object that could murder at least ten people, yet that was exactly what it had done. Holding the steel orb in her hand, Dys saw nothing about it that looked unusual. It was just a blank metal ball made from two hemispheres that looked like they had been attached to each other with tiny screws along the edges. The sphere was heavy, but not as heavy as a solid ball of steel would have been, Jadis thought. If she had seen it sitting on top of a desk, she wouldn’t have given it much thought.

However, now that the metallic object was in her hand, Jadis could see with her enhanced vision the magic that was roiling just above the surface of the sphere. It was a blue aura, darker than Alex’s neon blue, but still vibrant. Much like Alex’s own magic aura, the glow that surrounded the sphere seemed to boil with constant movement, churning endlessly as the ambient magic in the air was drawn towards it.

“You’re still in there, aren’t you?” Dys said as she glared at the orb. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m going to assume that you can. So, I promise you, Desire. I am going to find you. And I am going to make you regret ever even thinking about coming after me and mine. You. Are. Fucked.”

Jadis was tempted to crush the orb in her fist right then and there, but she resisted the urge. There was likely a lot that could be learned about the enchantment and rituals that were used to create such a bizarre and destructive device if the orb was analyzed properly. So, instead of destroying it, Dys carefully secured the sphere inside of one of her belt pouches, then made sure to leave the temple and stay far away from everyone else, just in case the soul-linked item actually had the ability to listen in on nearby conversations.

Her Syd self stayed inside of the temple. As horrible as the deaths of so many were, there were practical concerns that needed to be addressed. Desire had been in control of the temple all on her own for potentially hours. There was no telling what she might have done to the interior. There may have even been cultists waiting for her signal to enter with enchantments or poisons or just about anything. So, while she waited for more to arrive, Syd started the process of checking over the entirety of the main temple hall for any sign of sabotage, unknown magical auras, or anything else that looked out of place. She wouldn’t go further than the main hall, not until she had more backup, but she could start the process at least.

“Alex, you lost more than half your health!” Eir said as her hands pulsed with healing light. “You must be more careful, especially when you are not wearing your armor!”

“I will… Try…” the Demon said in way that reminded Jadis very much of herself when she didn’t want to make a promise she knew she wouldn’t keep.

Eir gazed at Alex with dismay clear on her face. She was no more fooled by the statement than Jadis was. Still, she didn’t chide the Demon further. Instead, she continued to heal Alex while also taking care to check her for any other health issues. The two didn’t talk much, otherwise, as most of their combined attention was on the conversation between Jay and Aila.

“She was testing you?”

“I think so, yes,” Jay nodded, her brow creased with concern. “The way she was using her spells felt systematic. There was no earnest effort to kill me, just a persistent series of attacks. It felt like I was being probed for weaknesses, while she was also testing to see what her spells could do against me.”

Aila’s normally cool demeanor was replaced with disturbed worry. An understandable reaction, in Jadis’ opinion, since she felt the same way. She’d given her favorite redhead a quick rundown on what had happened after she had entered the temple, and while there was a lot to discuss, the Demon Prince’s strange behavior was a focal point of concern.

“Are you sure this wasn’t some sort of… I don’t know, ploy that the Playwright is playing around with? He could have been the one casting the spells.”

“I don’t think so,” Jay shook her head as her eyes turned to where her other self stood on the distant side of the temple garden. “The Fetch said that it was a ‘soul-link’ enchantment. I doubt more than one soul could be attached to it. But I guess anything’s possible. Sabina will need to check that thing out as soon as possible.

“Anyway, I didn’t get the feeling that this was just some show that the Playwright was putting on. That Demon didn’t give me the same vibes as him. She felt… wrong. It’s hard to explain, but she made me feel like she was trying to… I don’t know. Possess me. Not like, you know, demonic possession. I mean, she wanted me.”

“You mean… in a sexual way?” Aila asked with a frown.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Jay shook her head again. “It wasn’t lust. It was more obsessive. Almost… fuck, romantic isn’t the right word. Definitely emotional, though. She wanted me, possessively. Like I belonged to her, and no one else.”

“You belong… To us… Not her…”

Jay and Aila broke off their conversation to look over at Alex, who was staring at them with a piercing intensity. Eir looked taken aback by the Demon’s abrupt shift in attitude, and the glow of her Divine healing had ceased. Taking a step closer, Jay addressed her lover directly.

“What do you mean by that, Alex?”

“I am bonded… To you… As you… Are bonded… To me… We belong… To each other… Just as Aila… Belongs… And Eir… Belongs…”

As she spoke, Alex’s tentacles reached out and encircled Aila and Eir’s shoulders, giving them gentle squeezes, like a hug of reassurance. However, when she turned her gaze towards Dys, Alex’s demeanor of care and affection shifted to pure loathing. She motioned with two right hands in an accusatory point that made it clear she was looking at the pouch on Dys’ belt.

“That one… Is a Thief… She wants… To steal you… I tasted her… And she… Would take you… All for herself…”

Turning back to look up at Jay, Alex’s expression became deadly serious.

“She will kill… Everything… To have you…”

After a potent beat of silence, Eir leaned forward with a concerned expression.

“You understood all of that from her taste?”

“Yes…” Alex confirmed, her demeanor relaxing slightly. “I tasted… Her feelings…”

“That actually does line up with the vibe I was getting from her, too,” Jay said as she shifted in place uncomfortably. “I think… I think Desire might be a yandere…”

“…what in the gods names is a yandere?”

It took a few minutes for Jadis to explain first the concept of a yandere, then anime stereotypes, then anime in general. She had to silently thank D when several more of her companions showed up, thus cutting off the increasingly awkward explanation. The questions Eir was asking were going to inevitably lead to hentai, and Jadis wasn’t sure she was ready to have that conversation with any of her lovers, much less her most closeted pervert.

It was Sorcha, Thea, and Meli who arrived first, with the two riding on top of the Dryad’s back. Meli was shockingly fast in her spider form, and her size was large enough that both of the other women could easily fit on top. It was a relief to see them safe, which was clearly a feeling that they shared upon seeing Jadis and the others standing together, uninjured, in the temple garden. Only a few moments behind them came Tegwyn in his ram form, with two versions of Cora and also Amarantha riding on his back. Since there was only one Cora, it was easy to guess that Maeve was the extra, though Jadis had to admit that she was having a hard time picking out which was which at that moment.

As soon as they were all there, Jadis repeated the details of her encounter with the Demon Prince Desire. Before she had even finished recounting her tale, Cora had rushed inside of the temple, her face white as a sheet.

“I will go in with her,” Eir said as she watched the priestess rush through the door. “We will need to see to the bodies of the fallen. There are rites to be performed for their souls.”

“I will go with you,” Thea stated in a calm, quiet voice.

As the two left to join Cora and Syd inside the building, Jay turned her attention onto the others.

“What about the Fetch? And the other cultists?”

“We have seventeen cultists secured,” Amarantha answered. “Tiernan and Meli made sure that they’re all bound up, and a few of my more expensive potions have made sure that none of the mages will be able to cast magic anytime soon. The boys are still chasing after the Fetch, though.”

“The boys?”

“Willy, Halvor, and that old dog, too. No idea if they caught him yet.”

“I doubt that they will,” Maeve said, still in the guise of Cora and sitting on top of Tegwyn’s back. “An old Fetch is a force to be feared. If he’s the level Sorcha said he was, he’s going to be damn near impossible to find.”

“Do you know who he is?” Jay asked, turning her attention to the shapeshifter. “There can’t be many of your kind around who are that powerful.”

“I have an idea, yeah,” Maeve nodded slowly. “Well, a few, actually. None of them should be here in Volto, though. And one of them should be dead. But that’s always hard to know for sure when it comes to us. Faking deaths is practically a guarantee with Fetch.”

“Well, we’ll go over the options soon,” Jay told Maeve with a tired sigh. Turning to look at Amarantha, she nodded in appreciation to the Lares. “Do you think your team will be able to handle the majority of the interrogations?”

“I don’t see why not,” the fiery witch shrugged, which was an interesting feat for a small cat. “Why? Don’t you want to get in on the knives and hot coals?”

“You’re joking, right?” Sorcha laughed nervously.

Amarantha shrugged again, purposefully showing her sharp teeth in a grin as she looked at the goblin.

“Murderous cultists don’t get a lot of sympathy from me.”

“Yes, I do want to help with that,” Jay answered Amarantha’s question before Sorcha could grow more uncomfortable. “But we’ve got our own interrogation to focus on.”

“What would that be?”

Jay pointed towards her other self, and Dys raised the pouch with Desire’s soul-linked orb high into the air.

“Meli, do you think you can get Sabina back here? She’s going to want to crack this bitch open as soon as possible.”