“For the Rag Weaver!” Sozahauni shouted before knocking out yet another cultist. He dashed back through the door and, upon ensuring that the room was still empty, pulled off his patchwork mask and took a few deep breaths. So far, things had been going smoothly enough with his plan sneak into the Gardner sanctuary and wreak some havoc in the Rag Weaver’s name. Cultists were typically suspicious of outsiders and reluctant to team up with other groups, so if the Gardner’s followers thought that they’d been betrayed by their Rag Weaver allies, it would only be a matter of time before they’d be fighting one another as usual.

  The next door he opened led to a courtyard with a small garden. It would have been idyllic, had there not been a severed head nailed to the central tree. A pair of cultists was praying to a wooden altar in front of the tree, and as Sozo watched, one of the cultists stood up. She knelt beside the tree and began collecting the blood into a watering can.

  Now, Sozo wasn’t much of a fan of pomp and ceremony, especially when it came to murderous cults. He cocked his gun and shot the kneeling cultist in the forearm.

  “Anya!” the other cultist screamed. He wheeled around to face Sozo and suddenly, the courtyard came to life. Trees grew in front of Sozo at unnatural speed, their trunks blocking his next shot. He leapt in front of a rapidly-rising thicket and fought his way through a tangle of creepers. As he struggled to escape, out of the corner of one eye he noticed the cultist he had shot drag herself to her feet and stumble into the altar. The air above it began to glow with a sickly green light as a portal shaped itself.

  The injured cultist’s expression of pain was tinted with surprise as she was pulled into the light. Her friend, caught off guard, fumbled another spell when he too was yanked off his feet. “Oh come on, you had to bleed all over the unholy altar,” Sozo had time to complain before he was dragged after them.

  Unlike with the portal at Nico’s wedding, transportation wasn’t immediate. Since this altar was consecrated to both the Rag Weaver and the Gardner, rather than being deposited in one realm or another, Sozo felt the influence of both demons tugging at him like children fighting over the same toy. Briefly he caught a glimpse of the Rag Weaver’s realm and one of its servants—to his human eyes, it looked like a living tornado of colorful scarves—before he was yanked back into a reality. The wills of the two cultists, stuck with him in the in-between space, had thrown their weight into the cosmic tug-of-war and shifted it to favor their master.

  Sozahauni found himself in a verdant paradise. Lush green grass carpeted the ground, the cloying scent of flowers permeated the air, and picturesque trees lined the edges of the clearing.

  All these observations were rudely interrupted by a punch from the male cultist. Sozo’s fall was cushioned by the lush carpet of grass, and then further padded by the vines that wrapped themselves around his body, pinning him to the ground.

  While he struggled to free himself, the cultist moved to attend to his injured companion. “Anya,” he began, steadying her against one of the trees.

  “Please Stefan, I can’t feel…” Her head swayed and she leaned forward to vomit. Mixed in with the bile were splotches of blood and rose petals.

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  Stefan fumbled through his pockets urgently. “Anya, you can hold on. I’m going to get us home.” Anya took his hand, but her strength was fading. Already, the vines had started to wrap themselves around her ankles.

  And Sozo? Well, Sozo really couldn’t have cared less about the tragic moment between two murderous cultists. He was busy trying to cut himself free. His speed had increased since he had begun to feel the vines trying to bore into his skin.

  “Don’t leave, Stefan. Please.” Anya’s head drooped again and she wretched up yet more petals and blood. “Don’t…”

  Her voice trailed off in a whimper. Lips moving silently, she tried to keep speaking, but as strained with the effort to continue, a delicate flower pushed its way out of her mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then her head drooped, motionless except for the vines that were entwining around it. She was still breathing steadily.

  “Anya!” Stefan cried. He wheeled around just as Sozo had finished freeing himself. “Murderous wretch!” he spat. “I should make you into fertilizer for what you did to her.”

  “Oh, get off your soap box. You just cut off a guy’s head and sacrificed him to a weed.” A vine caressed his leg, and he took a small step backward to avoid it. “Honestly, though, if this is your version of heaven, it kind of sucks. The Rag Weaver’s is way better.”

  Stefan clearly didn’t agree, however, because he took that moment to charge at Sozo. At least, he would have charged, had a root not taken that moment to stretch in front of his path. When the vines rose up to seize him, Sozo saw his chance and bolted. He figured Stefan would most likely escape and have a breakup with the Rag Weaver cultists, but if he died here that wouldn’t be a bad solution either.

  He didn’t know where he was running, so long as it was away from Stefan. When he had covered a reasonable distance, he paused to catch his breath. He was in another clearing, this one even more picturesque than the last.

  Wait, he was in the same clearing. There was Anya, still strapped to the tree where she’d been left. Stefan, at least, was nowhere to be found.

  Out of a morbid curiosity, Sozo moved over to Anya and looked her over. Even more vines were covering her, and a pair of roses had pushed their way out through her eye sockets, covering her face like a strange pair of glasses. She was still breathing steadily, and at this point, Sozo doubted that she would stop.

  He couldn’t leave her like this. She may have been a crazy cultist, but nobody deserved to feel plants growing out of their skin until the Creator decided to fix the multiverse. With a heavy sigh, Sozo put his knife up to Anya’s throat. It would be a mercy, really, he told himself. It had to be.

  As he made the cut, his hand slipped against one of the rose thorns—or had the thorn deliberately moved to prick him? Regardless of the cause, he glanced down at the tiny wound on his finger. “Oh. Hey. Would you look at that?” he murmured.

  Perturbed, Sozo decided that he’d overstayed his welcome and that it was about time to call it a day, head home, and get blackout drunk like a slightly more hands-on detective in a cosmic horror story. He put his red crayon on the nearest tree and began drawing a ritual circle to his home realm. It was slow work, since he couldn’t stand still without the vines trying to grow over his feet. And he was starting to get a not-so-good feeling from his pricked finger.

  He paused to cough, and a spattering of young green leaves came out with it. That was his sign to move faster. His eyes watered, blurring his sight of the scribbled runes. Under most circumstances, he would have stopped to double check his work, but he was feeling like something inside his skin wanted to push its way out so he felt it was more important to finish as soon as possible, mistakes be damned.

  Finally, the ritual circle was finished. Was it his best work? Not by a long shot. Was it good enough? He sure hoped, since he was betting his bacon on it. As he prepared to step through the ritual circle, a root poked up in his path and he tripped, falling headfirst into the portal.

  It was not his most graceful exit.