The Brood Mother shrieked as Jenny used Instant Acceleration to escape. She dashed forward, deeper into the tunnel, into the dark space, and ran head first into what felt like a wall.

  With a crash, she slumped down, everything ringing inside her head. The impact had hurt, not so much that it damaged her, but enough that it knocked the air from her lungs and left her dizzy.

  The tunnel swerved upward sharpy. She'd accelerated right into those rge stones, and behind her, she could hear the shrill cries of the Brood Mother and the fp of her wings. Jenny groaned internally, realizing she'd have to climb again, and this time in the dark. No light shone up ahead. She needed wings. Could she make wings?

  She could grow tentacles though. Would that work? Her mind raced and within a moment, the Brood Mother closed the distance. Her translucent hair seemed to glow in the dark, a shimmer of light around her menacing face, as her talons closed in. Jenny threw herself to the side, the cwing, scraping sounds cutting sharply through her ears as sparks erupted from the stones near where Jenny had been standing.

  "HUMAN!" screamed the Brood Mother, fpping up to gain altitude, her shrill voice echoing in the tunnel. “WHY ARE YOU TRESPASSING ON MY GARDEN?”

  "I'm just trying to find my friend!" said Jenny, staying low to the ground, keeping her eye on those talons. They fshed in what little light came through the archway. As soon as the Brood Mother dove again, she'd cut them just as she'd cut the other harpy’s. She was out matched in raw strength, but the harpies couldn’t maneuver in tight spaces, and Jenny had the advantage in the tunnel.

  "A living human has no right to be here," spat the Brood Mother, fpping overhead. "No right. You are creatures of sin and suffering. This is holy nd."

  Jenny held her breath. Sin and suffering? Why did the harpies hate humans so much? "How the fuck is this holy nd?" she shot back. "All you do is torture people. Everything is horrible. Who the fuck do you think you are?"

  "Who do you think YOU are?" screamed the harpy as she tucked her wings and dove again, talons out stretched.

  Jenny swung her hatchet, but her weapon bounced off the talons, and the sharp, pointed ends scrapped Jenny's chest.

  Searing pain burned through. Jenny stepped back with Instant Acceleration, crashing against the wall behind her. She clutched her chest, breathing hard, coughing. Something wet and hot ran down her armor, and she groaned. Those talons were too wickedly sharp; if she hadn’t moved backward, that would’ve been it for her.

  She coughed up blood, her every breath stinging now as she lowered her hand from her chest. The Brood Mother was far stronger than Iblis’ harpy had been, and she was agile and quick, able to maneuver better despite her size.

  Jenny summoned her hatchet back. With a quick bit of valescent light, her hand shining brightly in the dark tunnel, she healed her chest. She’d wanted to save the light for ter, but making a potion and drinking it would give the harpy too much of an opening.

  But what did the harpy even want? Why was it so against Jenny being there?

  It was almost like a guard dog, protecting something.

  "What's up there?" asked Jenny, breathing hard. "Why are you stopping us?”

  The harpy fpped again, but she leaned forward midair, so that Jenny could see the sneer. "It is of no concern to you. When I kill you now and your soul emerges from the blood, maybe then you'll understand humility."

  Jenny huffed, trying to steady herself, then she threw her hatchet normally. She knew it wasn't fast enough to register as a threat to the harpy, but that was what she was banking on.

  The Brood Mother dodged with a mocking ugh. Jenny used instant swap.

  Again, it felt as though she was tearing in half, stretching like a rubber band before snapping back into pce, but in the next instant, she was on top of the harpy. The Brood Mother’s eyes widened with arm. She closed her wings, turning midair to try diving out of reach, but there wasn't enough space. Jenny summoned her hatchet back with a fsh of light and swung as hard as she could, grasping the handle with both hands.

  The edge sliced through one of the wings, cutting away feathers and tearing the skin and snapping through bone. The Brood Mother plummeted through the dark and nded in a pile, screaming in pain, her other wing fpping maddeningly. Jenny fell too, rolling away from the harpy’s talons.

  A bit of torn wing fluttered down like an enormous feather. The breeze blew it around, and the harpy cried. From pain or anguish, Jenny didn't know, but the harpy started swearing, her voice changing from singing to screaming and back.

  Jenny got to her feet, holding her hatchet, half wanting to charge the creature and cut it down to pieces and end its onsught once and for all. To find out what happened to Iblis, to avenge him if she had to, but the Brood Mother, shaking as she was, got to her talons, hunched over, her face strained with agony. Blood spurted out of her injured wing. The other one fpped fiercely, but the harpy teetered from side to side as though she couldn't maintain her bance.

  "Look," said Jenny, raising her arm, trying to show that she wouldn't attack while the harpy was so weakened. "You're not an angel. You're not a monster. Please. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to-"

  For a second, the Brood Mother's face seemed sad, like she would start pleading, but then her lips curled into a snarl, and her brows furrowed in anger or pain or something in between, and she leaped into the air. She fpped her one wing, tilting her body to keep somewhat steady, her face a mask of pure hatred, and dove, without any of the speed of her previous attacks, talons out stretched.

  It was a desperate attempt - it was futile and just as Jenny was about to answer with her own rage, a fire breath of ignite, something shot in through the tunnel, a streak of blue fmes, and smmed into the old harpy.

  A talon sliced through her cheek. Another through her ribs, and with an eruption of blood and feathers and fire, the Brood Mother was smmed against the tunnel wall that Jenny had crashed into earlier.

  It was Iblis, pinning her against the wall. His burning wings spread wide as though he was a hawk who'd just caught his prey.

  "Enough!" he shouted, no pretense of melody in his voice. "The harpies are on the wrong side of this war. Stop this madness now!"

  The Brood Mother cried weakly, her one wing fpping weakly against Iblis's body. "I kept my children safe," she squawked. “I protected them. I...”

  "You sentenced them to a life of servitude," said Iblis in a dangerous voice. “You stripped them of free will. You succumbed to the angels.” He fpped both wings powerfully, lifting him and the Brood Mother up, dragging her body along the stone. "Now relent or I will end you."

  "Please," she begged, her voice heavy, a wail stuck in her throat. Blood ran down her chin. One of Iblis's talons had pierced right through her cheek, through the other side, and into the wall. Two others were lodged into her sides, and one more was wrapped around her throat.

  "I do not wish to kill you," said Iblis, and finally, the Brood Mother went limp. He flew off her with a beat of his wings, sliding his talons out of her body.

  He nded near Jenny, squatting down as he huffed for breath. Blood stained the feathers of his face and his body. His wings were stained and torn in several pces, and an ugly gash went across his stomach. Intestines hung low, glistening in an ugly way. It must've been a brutal battle with the other harpies, but Jenny was relieved to see him.

  The Brood Mother slumped down to the ground, shaking. She wrapped her one wing around her torso and stared down at the floor. Blood spurted out of the holes in her face and ran down the outside of her wing, staining the feathers. Jenny could see her tongue moving in her mouth.

  She almost wanted to heal the old harpy. But she reasoned it would make more sense to heal her on the way back, and she had to reserve valescent light and her energy as much as she could. Besides, she didn't know if the Brood Mother would continue to attack them or not.

  "What now?" asked Jenny. She couldn't look away from the trembling old harpy, thinking back to her own mother. In her mind she kept repying Iblis bursting out of the darkness, talons outstretched. She kept thinking about how she'd wanted to roast the harpy alive.

  Iblis flicked the blood off his feathers. A bunch floated away, crumbling into ashes, and Jenny saw that most of that body looked charred. I will take her body and we will continue.

  The Brood Mother didn't react. She stayed on the ground, looking dejected and forlorn.

  Fmes spurted as Iblis left the first harpy. It slumped to the ground, looking up, its beautiful face twisted in shock and pain and despair. It looked at Jenny, its lips moving. Then its eyes rolled to the back of its head and the harpy fell forward, disintegrating just as it hit the floor.

  The older harpy slowly lifted her beautiful, wrinkled face, the torn holes of her cheeks glistening grotesquely in Iblis’ blue light as his sparkling form shot into her.