“And now for the surprise: I had to call in a few favors, but I’ve gotten you signed up for a week’s retreat at the Vatican!”

  Sozo cleaned some dried cultist blood from under his nails. “Harvey, I appreciate you doing this, but I really don’t think this is the solution to my problems.”

  Father Harvey continued to hold up the flyer for the retreat. “Well, neither is drinking yourself into a ditch every time something goes wrong at work. Sozo, you ought to have a vacation away from any mention of cultists and demons. Take a break to enjoy the historic sites and the masterwork art of centuries past. And the Imperatrix herself will be presiding over mass.”

  Sozo rubbed his forehead. “Harvey, as appealing as that sounds, I can’t just drop out of work for a week. There aren’t too many people with my training in dealing with demons, so what if something comes up and Carrington and Cassilda can’t take care of it themselves?”

  “And what if they can? Have you at least asked your boss if you can have a week to yourself?”

  “No, but I…” He frowned at Father Harvey’s expression. “Fine. I’ll at least ask him, but you know he’s going to refuse.” Almost as soon as he’d sent the message, Sozo’s phone beeped in reply. Shockingly, Carrington was assuring him that the realms could last a week without Sozo, and that he deserved the vacation. He just had one tiny favor to ask while Sozo was at the Vatican.

  Sozo sighed and put down his phone. “Well, it looks like has an errand for me there anyway. Apparently the Imperatrix found out about what happened with the Gardener cult and now she wants to see me.”

  Harvey’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s quite an honor.”

  “Yeah. That’s what scares me. I’m trying to avoid the attention of powerful entities, and I evidently haven’t been doing a good job of that.”

  Harvey patted his arm awkwardly. “Well, I still think you should go, if only to have the vacation. As your priest and your friend, it’s my job to look after your soul and sanity. And right now, I think you really need to take a break and let those recover.”

  Sozo gave another, longer sigh. “Fine. I give up. I’ll enjoy myself for a bit. Now I’d better head out before some of the cultists I’ve pissed off notice me talking to you and try to kidnap us or something.”

  Since Sozahauni’s trip to the airport and flight to the Vatican would take a while, an interlude should be taken to explain the important topic of theology in the multiverse.

  In the beginning, the Creator had made the realms without sin. It (although no pronoun could fully describe such a being beyond comprehension) had given their inhabitants life, logic, and free will, the last of which was both a gift and a grief, since the freedom of choice meant the freedom to do evil. Since nothing sinful could survive in the Creator’s presence and since It desired Its creations to love It out of their own free will, the Creator rarely intervened with them to avoid overwriting their freedom of choice. It was known that someday, when suffering had reached such a point that the multiverse could bear it no longer, the Creator would finally step in and fix things. On that day of judgement, sin and death would be erased and life as everyone knew it would be utterly changed. There would be nothing but unchanging bliss ad infinitum: a happy ending to the book of existence.

  For those who considered the Creator too distant to be their sole point of worship, there were a number of other entities that accepted prayers, and who offered more tangible rewards than eventual salvation. Countless demons, infinitely below the Creator in terms of power but still mighty enough to work miracles, took note of the Creator’s hands-off policy and decided to run things in Its place. Many of them gave humans as much thought as humans gave to harmless bacteria, but some of them had been able to bend their alien intelligences into a human mindset to entice people into servitude. The Gardener granted his followers bountiful harvests and the Sculptress blessed her worshippers with the power to shape their bodies as they desired, but all of them twisted their servants to work toward their own inscrutable ends.

  But by far the largest religious force in Sozahauni’s realm was centered on the Imperatrix. Centuries ago when Rome was still in power, a group of persecuted Christians had discovered the stars to be right and had summoned the angel Corona. No army could stop her, but rather than seize power for herself, Corona had declared herself a humble servant of the Creator and wished only to bring about Its vision of the world. Those who chose to live under her rule were protected, and those who did not were neither helped nor hindered. Although she encouraged the other nations to be peaceful, she respected their free will and did not interfere with their affairs.

  As soon as Sozo had left the airport and checked into his hotel outside the city proper, he saw that Carrington had left a few messages detailing when and where to meet the Imperatrix. That was for tomorrow. Finally feeling the day catching up with him, he sank into the bed and put down his phone. He yawned, wishing that the mattress was just a little more comfortable. The room was nice, but nothing beat home.

  After a good catnap, Sozo was back to feeling restless. He stood up, looked out the window, paced around for a bit, went to the sink and splashed some water on his face, and then flopped back onto the bed. If there had been a television in the room, he would have turned it on, but he instead opted for the next best thing and looked at his phone.

  Searching up the Imperatrix yielded a number of results. Although she adamantly refused to get into politics and therefore wasn’t popular with that side of the media, she still showed up in other interviews a few times every decade as long as she felt her advice could be used for the betterment of humanity. Sozo found an old clip of her and one of the leading scientists of the last century discussing the formation of the solar system. He skipped a little ways into the video.

  “…and thank you for taking the time to do this interview, Imperatrix Corona,” the scientist was saying. “I realize your expertise is more in theology than physics, but there aren’t many academics who’ve observed stellar formation firsthand. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “The honor is all mine, doctor,” the angel replied kindly. To all appearances, she looked perfectly human, except for the faint glow above her head.. She smiled brightly. “I am happy to provide whatever knowledge I can to assist this research.”

  Sozo stopped the video and sighed. By all accounts the Imperatrix was nice enough, but one could never be too careful around angels and demons. Especially ones powerful enough to wipe out a whole continent.

  He glanced at some of the other videos vying for his attention. Naturally, one of them was from a personal channel showing the Imperatrix’s reaction to seeing a smartphone for the first time, but several of the videos were covering a news story. It looked like a discount clothing store had recently burned down, revealing itself to be a front for the Rag Weaver’s cult. It was suspected that the Gardener’s followers had started the fire, so at least it looked like Sozo had succeeded at breaking up their friendship. Now, if they could just avoid starting a religious war with one another, things would be great.

  Putting down his phone, Sozo rummaged through his suitcase and found his card deck. After idly shuffling it for a bit, he decided to deal out a round of solitaire. It was a simple game of Klondike, turning over one card at a time rather than the usual three, since he wasn’t really in the mood for a challenge. Slowly the higher cards accumulated over the four starting Aces. First came the numbered cards, and soon they would be joined by the Jacks, Consorts, Monarchs, and Seraphs.

  His musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Coming,” called Sozo. “Who is it?”

  “Room service,” came the muffled reply.

  Putting his hand on the knob, Sozo suddenly paused. “I didn’t order room service.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then, rather gracelessly, the person on the other side of the door attempted to break it down. Sozo had just enough time to step out of the way before the door handle snapped down with a crunch. An unkempt man burst into the room, brandishing a dagger and yelling, “To the Gardener’s glory!”

  A few minutes later, things were once again quiet. The door chain had been securely locked (retrospectively, Sozo wished he’d done that in the beginning), while Sozo himself was gazing out the window at the twilight landscape and thinking about ordering some actual room service. The cultist had been disarmed and was securely bound and gagged. After a few minutes, Sozo got tired of the muffled cursing and looked down. “So,” he addressed the cultist, undoing the gag, “what’s this all about?”

  “Release me now, or you’ll find that the Gardener isn’t quick to hand out mercy!” the cultist snarled.

  Sozo sat down and crossed his legs in amusement. “I’m pretty sure the Gardener is already disinclined to spare me if we ever cross paths, so I don’t think letting one cultist go will put me significantly in his favor.” His eyes traced the route to the door. “Since the Gardener isn’t here but I am, I think that demand should be rephrased: tell me why you’re here, or you’ll find that I’m not so quick to hand out mercy. And if you want to bet that I can’t mess you up as horribly as any demon, I’m happy to take you up on that gamble.”

  The cultist’s eyes widened, and then he gulped. “It’s revenge, you know? They say you singlehandedly killed or hospitalized every member of that Gardener church. They say if you’d had more time, you would have flayed the chief priest and worn his skin as a cloak. Some even say that you’re a half-demon member of the Sartorial Guard, blessed by the Rag Weaver herself.”

  “Wait, you think I’m some sort of Rag Weaver worshipper?”

  “Yeah, the one who attacked that church.”

  Suddenly, it dawned on Sozo that his plan had worked too well. Realizing that he was now being mistaken for a crazed cultist who considered human skin to be fine-grain leather, he stood up with a heavy sigh. “Just out of curiosity, did you kill anyone to get here?”

  The cultist shrugged. “I dunno, maybe? That guy in the lobby seemed like he was breathing, but it’s not like I really checked.” His eyes narrowed cruelly. “Whatever god he worshipped was weak, or it would have saved him.”

  Sozo took a deep breath and counted to five, clenching his fists all the while. Finally, he looked at the cultist. “Just, don’t move, okay? I’ll be back in a minute, and it’ll end very badly for you if you try anything.”

  He left the room and took the stairs two at a time, dialing up the emergency hotline as he went. The clerk in the lobby was badly injured, but still alive. Sozo kept him conscious until an ambulance arrived, and then went up the stairs more slowly than he’d descended.

  The cultist was still successfully tied up in Sozo’s room, although it wasn’t from a lack of trying. “His skin didn’t meet your standards, I take it?” the cultist sneered. “In any case, I assure you that my flesh has already been offered to the Gardener, so I hope your false goddess chokes on a pin!”

  Sozo took another deep breath and counted to twenty. “Whatever. Whatever, whatever, whatever.”

  “My death will do nothing to diminish the Gardener’s glory. Where I fall, countless others will rise to his verdant calling! He will be summoned to this realm, and once he’s destroyed the fool Imperatrix and secured his hold over this world, you will beg for death beneath his lashing thorns!” the cultist raved.

  Sozo fixed the cultist with a long, hard look. “Look, I’m trying to salvage my vacation right now, so you can stop your martyr speech. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t give you mercy. But that’s not for me to judge, and since my mood hasn’t been completely ruined now that it looks like the clerk in the lobby will pull through, this is your lucky day.”

  The cultist blinked incredulously. “So…you’re just going to let me go?”

  “No, of course I’m not going to let you go,” Sozo replied, kneeling down to draw a ritual circle. “I’m going to set up a nice introduction between you and the Toymaker, one of the least evil demons I’ve had the displeasure of being acquainted with. In fact, he has no concept of evil, since I’m pretty sure that in his morality scale, the labels of Good and Evil have been replaced with Toys and Not Toys.”

  “You’re crazy!” the cultist gasped.

  “Yeah, my sanity’s not what it used to be, but at least I don’t sacrifice people to a demon flower. And seriously, the Toymaker isn’t that bad. He’s still a demon, but he usually won’t replace your insides with cotton until after you’ve expired naturally. Just don’t cause a fuss or he’ll try to fix you, which is a problem because you can’t fix a human in the same way you can fix a toy. And here we are,” he said, hauling the cultist through the finished portal.

  On the other side there was a craft shop—more accurately, it was a craft shop that had been designed by a madman who lacked a fundamental understanding of what a craft shop should be. Two of the Toymaker’s servants were playing some distance away. One of them was purely mechanical, a demon made of dozens of windup soldiers melted together. The other was a ball of yarn oozing a trail of glitter glue, its hundreds of googly eyes swinging without focus. It might have been cute if it hadn’t been the size of a bus.

  Much closer, a quaint table had been set up for tea. Most of the guests were oversized toys, but two of them were alive. A woman in a cage sat at her own tea table, picking at a crustless sandwich. When she heard the newcomers arrive, she stood up and rattled the colorful bars, making the bells chained to her wrists jingle merrily. The other guest looked like he could’ve gotten up and rushed through the portal, until Sozo noticed that his arms and legs had been amputated and replaced with china limbs.

  Sozo cringed as the captive cultist started screaming. “Well, maybe it’s not the best first impression, but I swear this is one of the nicer places in the multiverse. Seriously, just don’t make a fuss and things should be fine. Okay, bye!”

  With that, he left the cultist to his fate and then went back through the portal. Then he spent the remainder of the evening losing his sobriety.