Hello again, reader. Thank you for bearing with me. If you’ve skipped to this chapter, welcome back. The abridged version is that Caspar and I admitted our love for each other and then went at it like rabbits. Humanity has really struck gold on this whole lovemaking thing. That was just fabulous. All the dimensions I've visited, and yours is the first where orgasms feel like that. I totally get it now, your preoccupation with sex. Kudos to you for having the restraint to take long enough breaks to discover math, et cetera.

  My warlock's hand lays possessively on the nape of my neck. I draw little circles on his chest with the tip of a claw.

  “You’ll be my consort, Caspar,” I say. “When my sisters and I rule creation. You’ll stay by my side. You’ll have my power, and you’ll keep me good. You’ll be my kindness. And we’ll spend every day rebuilding Heaven. And every night like this.”

  “I never had much use as a carpenter,” Caspar says. “Mostly just held the heavy stuff up.”

  “You’re gonna be a demigod, doofus.” I blow into his ear. “We’re not gonna need carpentry.”

  “Beg pardon, Miss Irene, but it can’t be heaven without a barn raising party or two.”

  “Oh, the barn raisings.” I giggle. “I remember watching those. What a hoot.”

  “Yep.” His eyes shine at the memory. “Sweat and shirtsleeves and getting a tough old thing done with your neighbors and friends. And then when it’s up and smelling like fresh pine and you all hustle inside for the dancing and the drinking and the…” He gazes out into the dusky dark. “The community.”

  There’s that sorrow that returns whenever he remembers his outcast life. How the neighbors he loved so much turned on him.

  “You’ll have it back,” I murmur. “All those people you lost. The brotherhood. I promise in our heaven you’ll have it back.”

  “I know I will.” His fingers play with my hair tendrils. They play back. “Once they find out the real you, they’ll love you like I do.”

  “Mr. Cartwright.” I clap my hand to his chest. “I don’t think either of us would prefer them to love me quite like you do.”

  He grins. “True. I mean…” His head turns. His profile gleams in the sunset. “I hope it’s not too much to ask. I know you’re not—there’s a lot going on up there.” He kisses my forehead. “A lot I can’t understand. And we could have that conversation if that’s not how Old Ones do it, if monogamy ain’t a thing in this dimension…”

  “Caspar Cartwright. Are you accusing me of being a loose woman?”

  “I just—” He pales. “I just didn’t want to assume. How you are.”

  He’s so distraught I can’t help but crack up and lose the faux outrage. “I’m fucking with you, my warlock. That was a thoughtfully put question.” I snuggle further into his warmth as he relaxes. “And the answer is no. You’re mine and I’m yours and that’s all.” I bend my leg. His initials on my thigh glitter in the light. “Remember this?”

  “But you’re a lot more than just this body, right?” He strokes the mark in question. “You’re all of this. The whole autumn landscape out there is you.”

  Clever warlock. I’ve never outright told him.

  “Even so,” I say. “I’ve found my lover. I don’t need another. More worshippers? Sure. Love that. I’ll take ‘em. But none of them can give me what you have. None have believed in me like you do. Maybe some day they will, but to them I say: too slow, suckers. Consort Caspar got dibs.” My claws slide down his back and stray across the curve of his rear. “And I bet none of them’ll have an ass like this.”

  “All of humanity? That’s a lot of contenders, ass-wise.”

  I shake my head. “None of them.”

  His rumbling chuckle is heavenly manna.

  “I’ve carved you off this bit because you’re the sort of guy who’s happy with one little wifey,” I say. “But if I’m getting all of you, you’re entitled to just as much of me. If you’re ever looking for something different, maybe a few extra Irenes to play with, you let me know.”

  Whenever Caspar blushes, his ears turn red. I only found that out once I got out from behind his eyes and saw him in person. I treasure it. “I really am happy with just you,” he says.

  “You say that now, but we’ve got forever, boy.” I poke his nose. “And it’s all me. I don’t imagine you’re trying to wander into my woods and stick your pecker in an oak tree—”

  “Baby you are so damn weird sometimes.”

  “—you have options. That’s all I’m saying.” I blink. “Baby?”

  His touch tenses on me. “Is that okay?”

  There’s a pressure behind my eyes. He called me baby. “That’s okay,” I say. “That’s really, really okay. I mean, I’m like ten thousand times your age. But uh.” A sweet ache gathers at my tear ducts. “I like baby.”

  He caresses the small of my back. “Okay, baby.”

  I fall upon him like the starving beast I am.

  Let’s fast forward. I don’t imagine you need round two described. Caspar is wrung out in its wake, vigor spent, ears ringing, vision fuzzy, lungs blown beyond the point of pillow talk. All he can do is pant like a billows, and hold me.

  Mere days ago, bumping in the trunk of his executioners’ car, he thought of himself as the most damned and unfortunate soul on Diamante. Now he holds a goddess in his arms and a contentment in his heart so complete he can’t imagine its equal. His spirit is full to bursting. He wants to say that to me, but—well, he doesn’t have to, does he? I can hear him. Hi there, Miss Irene, he thinks, tranquil and love-drunk.

  “Hi, Caspar,” I whisper.

  His returning gaze is open and loving. I examine those eyes and think about how much he’s been changing me as I’ve been changing him. I tally up the scorecard. He’s grown chitin and claws and he spits acid and shrugs off bullets. And I’ve fallen in love with him and had my first (and second and third) orgasm. The exchange doesn’t cast me in a sympathetic light, does it?

  Whatever. I like where we’re headed. We’re meeting somewhere in the middle.

  “Do you know how cold the void between the stars is?” My tentacles curl around him as I wait for him to find his breath. “Do you know how long I’ve craved a warmth like yours, without even realizing what was missing?”

  He wraps an arm around my back and draws me in, his big, calloused hand encompassing the span of my shoulder blades. His touch a hosanna. His faith a fireplace. His eyes a silent petition I answer with a kiss.

  I really don’t know how you mortals get anything done when a kiss feels like this. I’d waste centuries on this.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “You are mine forever, Caspar Cartwright.” I trace his cheekbone with an errant tendril of hair. My mouth is busy; this voice issues from the dark all around us. “Forever. You think you know what that word means, but you don’t. Not yet. Nothing will free you from me. Not death. Not infinity. Your time as a being apart from me is finished. You will never be alone again. In immeasurable eons, when time congeals into frozen amber, and your world is dust, you will still be mine. The stars will flicker out and you’ll still be mine. In the infinite dark, in the graveyard of dead galaxies. I’ll keep you close and you’ll be mine and you’ll warm me. Like this.” I pull out of our kiss to stroke a claw along his chest and feel the tremulous thunder of his heart. “You’ll be my little light when all the others have gone out. And I’ll steal you from this empty dimension and into the void with me. Still mine. You will never escape me.” I cup his face and whisper into his ear: “Never.”

  “Good,” he whispers back, and kisses me again. With a sigh and a shift, he begins to ease himself out of me.

  “Nuh-uh.” My legs and tentacles bind him in place. “That’s staying right where it is, Mr. Cartwright.”

  “I gotta be up and at ‘em at some point, Miss Irene. And we have to talk about Adaire. Shoot, what time is it?” He shifts onto his elbows. “This was supposed to be a quick nap.”

  I give him a light whack on the pec. “Cas, c’mon. Did I or did I not just give you the whole never escape me speech? I told you. Time works differently here. In the span of a Diamante catnap, you could spend whole nights in my demesne.” I ease him onto his back again, savoring the taste of his skin. “And from now on, you will.”

  “Well.” A rising tide of relief in his reply. “How’s a fellow supposed to turn that down?” His hands engulf me again. It’s all I can do not to purr like a kitten. Baby. He called me baby.

  There will be time to discuss the Adaire thing and the Salome thing and the Ganea thing. To forge in him the next terrible task. But here, now, I press my lips to the firm line of his clavicle. “Take the rest you deserve, lover. Take it in your goddess. She’ll stay right here.”

  Soon I feel his breathing turn slow and deep as he slips into the strange phantasmagorical colors of his dream within a dream. And in the midst of his slumber, when he stirs and hardens inside me, I rock myself to another fascinating climax around him. He groans and half-awakens to his goddess shaking and whimpering through the pleasure she’s taken from him. His hand settles on my arching back. I kiss him to sleep again.

  I don’t sleep. That’s okay. I don’t need to. Secreted away the lightless hollow of my goliath form, drifting silently through his broken afterlife, Caspar slumbers. I lie on his chest as it rises and falls, watching him, and holding him, as I will for the vast, still eternities to come.

  ???????????

  “You can go ahead and put that away.” Caspar shrugs into his flight jacket as he returns to the cabin. “Got word from upstairs. Adaire is part of the team.”

  “Okey-doke.” Jordan Darius flips the safety and lowers the autogun across her lap. “Welcome aboard, Adaire. Even if you’re a dirty Tucker liker.”

  “I don’t like Tucker.” Adaire sits up, legs tightly crossed. Both her blonde bob and her slinky mistress mien are re-affixed. “I just take him over Calvin.”

  “Hey now.” Jordan stands up and stretches a kink out of her back. “They said spare you. They said nothing about winging you.”

  Adaire takes a look at her reflection in a window to the tempered-steel evening and adjusts her wig. “Shall we reintroduce me to Tilly? I’d like some setup time with the man before we land.”

  “And now that we don’t need that thick-ass door, let’s get him outta that armory and into the bunks,” Jordan says. “Half day till we land and I don’t want him near them knives and guns anymore.”

  Adaire gives this a silky laugh. “I hardly think we need to worry about the fellow. But I suppose we might move him just to keep him from soiling himself.”

  Caspar opens the door out of the cabin and stands aside. “After you, Miss Corinne.”

  “Such a gentleman.” Adaire gives him a tap on the shoulder as she passes. “I really am looking forward to working with you two. How refreshing to have colleagues.”

  Jordan follows the two of them, her safetied rifle leveled at Adaire. “Sorry about this,” she says.

  “Oh, no. Think nothing of it.” Adaire strolls down the corridor toward the armory. “Jab that barrel into my back a couple times, if you please. Get me into the mindset.”

  Caspar feels like a serial villain as Jordan complies. Adaire’s shoulders hunch. By the time they’re at the armory door her face is blotchy with tears. She takes a tremulous sniffling inhale. “Okay. Action.”

  Caspar swings the armory hatch in and shoves Adaire inside. “Please,” she wails. “Please, I don’t know anything. I’m nobody.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Jordan points the gun past her. “You. We’re moving you. Any fast shit and her blood is on your hands.”

  “Tilly.” Adaire turns her weeping face to the Archbishop. “Tell them. Tell them I’m nobody. I want to go home.”

  “This is an innocent woman.” Tilliam’s face is dark with rage. “A daughter of the Father. I insist you let her go. You may have some quarrel with me, sir, but you have no reason to mistreat her.”

  “True enough, long as you do what you’re told.” Caspar cuts Tilliam free from the armory shelf.

  “Keeping her here won’t make me more cooperative,” Tilliam snarls, rubbing his wrists. “I’m already doing what I’m told. You’re causing needless suffering. You’re furthering the machinations of the Adversary. And your deer keeps shitting.” The aforementioned fawn strains against her tether.

  “Well, it’s your turn to hit the head, Archbishop.” Caspar’s handgun presses into Tilliam’s side as they escort him from the armory and over to the bathroom at the rear of the interceptor. “In. Take more than five minutes and I break this door open.”

  Tilliam scowls. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been holding it?”

  “Don’t care.” Caspar opens the bathroom door and shoves Tilliam inside.

  They move the Archbishop and his warlock paramour to the bunk room and return to the cabin. Caspar takes a seat in the squeaky black leather of the pilot’s chair and takes a moment to feel like a flyboy. He imagines the life he never ended up living. Caspar the Aeronaut. His hands rest on the flight stick. His thumb brushes the .50 cal trigger. Pshew, he mouths to himself.

  He checks over his shoulder to make sure Jordan isn’t watching. Then he remembers I am. Fine by him. Anyone who can make him feel how I did is allowed to laugh all they want at him. The spectre of my attention has been a nagging anxiety to him, a recurrent intrusive thought that straightened his back and bounded his thoughts. Now it feels like a lover, padding up behind him and embracing him unexpectedly. A honeyed breath tousling the hairs on the back of his neck.

  A sly grin pulls at his lips. He wonders if he can fluster me. He takes a minute to remember my body, remember how I looked under his hands, the sounds I made. He remembers the adorable way I covered my face with my claws when he called me beautiful, and wonders if I’m doing it again (yes).

  It’s a good thing I keep my Irene manifestation to myself these days. If Bina saw the way I’m kicking my little feet right now, I’d never hear the end of it.

  “So how was it?” Jordan’s voice calling from the cabin snaps him from his reverie. “Your planning session.”

  “Jordy, I swear to the Sisters.” Caspar swivels his seat around. “Give it a rest. You ain’t an inquisitor anymore.”

  “Okay, okay. Damn.” Jordan chuckles. “Blame a girl for asking a simple question. But you reckon you’re going steady?

  Caspar heaves a sigh and throws her a bone. “Yes,” he says. “I reckon we are.”

  “Caspar Cartwright screwed an Old One! Holy shit!” Jordan punches the air. “Proud of you, man.”

  Caspar lays his head on the dashboard. “How about you say it into the intercom so we know everyone heard?”

  “Was she normal down there?”

  “We’re not having this conversation.” Caspar points out the window into the gathering evening. “Check it out. Eleven o’clock low.”

  Jordan leans forward. “What am I looking for?”

  “Seagulls,” Caspar says. “We’re near land.”

  Jordan’s mouth tightens. “Can you land this thing outside a dock?”

  “Think so,” Caspar says. “Not smooth and not in a way that’ll get it airborn again, but I reckon I can get us touched down without breaking our necks.”

  “All right then. Good deal, brother.” Jordan slaps his back. “No bringing the stolen interceptor into Relic City. With any luck, it’s dark by the time we’re over land. We fly until we see some exurb lights and set down a few klicks from them. Let your guilt-trip pet deer out into the woods, hike to civilization, and I boost us a ride for the rest of the way. And then…” She shrugs. “Adaire’s in charge of and then. What do you think?”

  “Think that’s about right.” Caspar looks back toward the bunkroom. “Wish we could hear from her.”

  “Safest thing is to meet her in the dream dimension,” Jordan says. “Make our plans there. Actual plans, not the innuendo kind.” She nudges Caspar in the ribs. “If your goddess will let you outta her freaky tentacle love nest for long enough.”

  Caspar shakes his head in exasperation as his partner chuckles and returns to the cabin, taking up her rifle. As he checks the altimeter and adjusts their heading, he remembers what awaits him next time he lays down for the night. Though I can only feel and not see it from his perspective, I can readily picture the sunrise smile that breaks across his face.

  He resigns himself to Inspector Darius’s continued needling. On reflection, it’s a small price to pay.

  Out in the approaching night awaits Pastornos, the Relic City. Its apex peak is the Basilica Pastornica, the home of the Suzerain and the Key to Heaven. Within its golden shadow dwell five million souls. Somewhere among them is Ganea’s warlock, his passage carved with such razor sharpness that the pain isn’t registered until the blood can’t be stopped. The Iron Butcher. The deadliest mortal in creation. Caspar and Jordan’s next target, God help them.

  No, not God. God can't help him anymore. But I can.

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