KALI

THERE WAS NOTHING like the smell of rat shit in the morning. Or evening. Or for three solid days.

If Emrys and Mystia had waited another moment to make their escape, Kali would've severed the nose clean off her face. Even when she pushed through the creaky door of the shed behind the tavern, the odor lingered behind her, and she wondered if it would still be her best option.

Once, she had been the commander of her own army... and now? A demigod, hiding in a rodent's outhouse.

What had she been reduced to?

As she took her first step outside the shed, she stumbled over an object that flung itself into the grass. It was a thermos, once discarded in the woods, splattering coffee across the forest floor while its owner was carried off in the trunk of Mystia's disgusting abomination.

Kali had never seen one woman make such a joke of her craft, animating wasteful objects instead of the best preserved. Much like the little dismembered fox she claimed as a "pet."

Nonetheless, the walking tree had given her a much better lead. Even the discarded thermos, bearing the Elysian Lily's distinct floral and smoke sigil, brought her straight to her prey with hardly any legwork of her own. The tree had since vanished. To where, she hadn't the faintest idea, but as she surveyed the area on her way to the back entrance, she glanced at the patch of grass it had once occupied. Its resting place was empty, now only a circle of dried grass and roots.

It didn't matter. A glorified plant was the least of her worries.

Kali pressed her hand to the tavern's back door, listening for any sign of life. When she closed her eyes, allowing her most keen senses to wake, silence met her ears. The tavern was deathly still, save for Eva's anxious heart thrumming somewhere below ground. Not that she was surprised after the trio's assault on one of the Guild's most sought-after Visionaries. Opening for business would have been too foolish even for them.

Sanctums were fleeting—longtime myths said to house "innocents" fleeing a fate worse than death. Their owners would take in the wounded, nursing them back to health and supplying them with all they needed to escape Luxanima's soldiers. Most had been shut down, owners executed in public torture until nothing remained on the street but blood, bone, and mutilated flesh.

Except the Elysian Lily. One of the world's most widely-renowned pubs, hiding its best-kept secret in a filthy pantry.

If only its owner hadn't entrusted its secrets to a Phoenix. Emrys hadn't been on Earth long the first time he filled his soul's loneliness with the contents of a bottle, and the drink loosened his lips enough to spill any answer to his "trusted protector." Naivety at its finest.

Satisfied at the lack of life in the surrounding area, Kali slipped in the back door to meet the dim light of the kitchen.

"You... you better leave!"

Kali paused at the quivering voice. Unamused by empty threats, she turned to find a young moon elf backed into the corner, pointing a wooden spoon in her direction. It seemed impossible that anything could shake more violently than his words, but the quaking utensil in his grasp proved her wrong.

Scrawny like a twig, the child would have been easily broken by the lightest touch. Perhaps Emrys was less naive than this boy, who must've assumed that the rusted colander topping his head would protect him from a Celestial's daughter.

"And if I don't?" Kali leaned against the nearby counter, fingernails tracing across the linoleum.

The boy squirmed, attempting to squeeze a response from his flea-sized brain. It took longer for his voice to tumble out than it would have to slit his throat. "I'll fuck you up... with a spoon!"

"How adorable."

Kali thrust out her palm. The elf pressed his back tighter to the wall, as if he could disappear into it if he tried hard enough. Eyes wide with horror, he refused to look away from her fingers, which swished in playful back-and-forth motions. She had considered conjuring a few sparks to highlight the trauma on his face, but toying with him brought greater amusement than parlor tricks.

When seconds padded in safety, his hand weakened its grip on his spoon. He was comfortable with the sliver of hope he'd been given.

Kali flicked her wrist.

The subtle movement rocked the elf's body. Limbs flailed before falling limp; his neck snapped at a dramatic angle and cracked back to the opposing side. Even his fingers, so carefully holding his precious utensil, twisted and bent in such directions that they nearly severed themselves from his hand.

Splintering bones were music to her ears. An exquisite display of magic she couldn't perform on Earth without someone questioning its source.

It was good to be home.

Kali swiveled on her heel, a playful bounce to her step as she pushed off the counter to locate the Sanctum's warded entrance. It wasn't long, however, before a light shuffling emanated from the corner.

"What are you?"

She snapped around. Sure enough, though lying in a mangle of limb and poking bone, the little elf watched her with horror. Kali approached the vermin and knelt before him.

Powerless to move, the sack of decimated flesh could only wriggle at her approach. She snatched his twitching chin in her hand, squeezing his cheeks together in examination. The elf's skin was unnaturally cold, beady eyes yellowed at the perimeter. Dried, silver ichor flaked from beneath a swath of greasy, white-blonde hair. Peeling back the tufts revealed her final clue: a missing ear, with tattered skin and old stitches marring his flesh.

Kali huffed and dropped his chin, cracking his skull against the floor. The little rat was undead.

"Filthy mongrel," she spat. "They can't even reanimate well enough to keep you intact."

She stood, but the boy's whiny voice grated her ears before she could take her first breath.

"Mystia is a kind master! She rescued me from Hell!"

Kali scoffed and approached the counter once more, eyeing two glittering objects near its center: golden hard cheese knives that rested beside a fresh wedge of parmesan. Not the best tools at her disposal, but with enough force...

She snatched them from the plate they sat upon. Spilling the blood of someone with a heartbeat was much more satisfying, but there was enjoyment to be had in carving the undead.

"Hell seems like a punishment," she said, "until you've been banished to Earth."

Confusion flowered in the boy's eyes as she turned, swinging the utensils at her sides.

"What—what are you doing?"

"You see, necromancy and dismemberment go hand in hand. Both require finesse and..." She looked at the sharpened prongs with a wide smirk. "Excruciating patience."

Electricity snapped from her weapons, lighting the room in flashes of blue. The boy's expression contorted into sheer terror.

"No!" he wailed. "Get back! You—you can't do this! I have rights!"

In less than a second, his anguished cries became nothing more than a ring in Kali's ears, soon silenced by her first slice across his vocal chords.

__________