Jenny pulled herself up and sat in the water, leaning against a block of rubble, breathing hard. Blood and water ran down her face as she stared at the angel's half sunken body. It’s muscur leg y stretched across, right next to her. Blood spurted out of its neck, and its head floated beside it before the tide pulled it away, its empty eyes staring bnkly at her.

  She could picture herself summoning her hatchet back, and cutting into the angel's leg. There’d probably be another spsh of water. A spray of blood. And then, after peeling away the metallic armor with the edge of her hatchet, she could bite through the exposed skin and flesh... She shuddered, her back itching where her tentacles were desperate to escape from.

  But she would need her strength if she was going to get through this. And who knew what else was waiting? The scent of its blood spreading through the water was so strong... So good. So promising.

  And it would be delicious.

  Warm and juicy and tender and brimming with everything she'd ever wanted, even better than Yeshua's flesh. It would fill her insides with warmth and keep away the coldness of the water and she almost did it. Not caring that Iblis was inside her head. That Iblis would see her. His mind felt so distant, so far away... and then she heard spshing. Someone or something was moving toward her and she turned around, ready to strike - but it wasn't an angel. It was one of the souls, and Jenny recognized them.

  A thin, pale soul with long dark hair. A girl that stood there for a second, naked, a horrible expression on her face, a bizarre mixture of anger and fear and relief.

  Jenny almost choked. “Miriam?”

  The girl dashed across the water and barreled right into Jenny.

  Her ice-cold fist struck Jenny in the face. Jenny stumbled back, spshing in the water, shock and surprise flooding her thoughts. The dizzying mixture of spiking adrenaline, the scent of the angel's blood in her nose, and the look on Miriam's face.

  Miriam threw herself into Jenny, dropping Jenny ft onto her back as Miriam scrambled on top, pinning her down. Jenny could fight back, even though Jenny had gotten so much stronger than their previous fight, and Miriam was without armor or those creepy wings or anything. It was just a thin, naked girl barreling down on Jenny. The attacks didn’t really hurt. Not physically at least. Each punch was ice cold and knocked Jenny’s head back into the water, submerging her face while Miriam sat on Jenny’s chest. She kept punching. Over and over, a battering that Jenny almost didn’t want to stop.

  She deserved it.

  You deserve this.

  "What-are-you-fucking-doing-here?" screamed Miriam, highlighting each word with a punch. And each punched knocked Jenny's head against a wet chunk of wall underneath. Freezing cold water entered her ears. Her nose. She could taste the blood from the decapitated angel. She could taste her own. And she could feel Miriam's cold body - Miriam's soul, on top. The chill seeped through her armor and into her bones.

  Eventually Miriam stopped attacking. She just sat there, straddling Jenny's sides, her hands on Jenny's stinging face, crying. Miriam was crying, her shoulders shaking, her wet hair stuck to her bare chest. “I said I was sorry. And you didn't stop. You didn't stop. Why did you do that to me?”

  Jenny tried to speak but there was a lump in her throat. She didn't feel bad. She shouldn't feel bad. Miriam had done so much worse, and if Jenny hadn't killed her, the girl would've killed everyone else to win. Would've hurt Susan and Oliver and the rest of them. But Jenny didn't have to eat the girl alive. For that she felt deeply ashamed.

  Miriam kept shaking, and Jenny looked away, unable to look the girl in the eyes. She was trying to find the right words. How do you apologize for eating someone? She hadn't expected to run into Miriam here. She opened her mouth to respond, but Miriam knelt forward and pressed her lips to Jenny's.

  It was a kiss. A deep, terrible kiss with Miriam's fingers digging into Jenny's face and scalp, holding her underwater as though she was simultaneously trying to drown Jenny and resuscitate her with CPR. A wet, slobbering kiss that was a mash of lips and tongues and scraping teeth and water and blood as Jenny spshed and struggled to push the girl off.

  But Miriam held on, wrapping herself around Jenny, repositioning her legs. “You're so warm!” she moaned. In between kisses, in a feverish rant, she kept going as Jenny inhaled water and blood and felt like she was suffocating. “You're so hot. You owe me! I’m so cold here. So alone. And oh my god, Jenny you are so, so, so hot. Do you know how hot it was when you ate me? How horrible it was? You ate me, and now I have to have some of you. It's only fair. It's only fair! This was what I'd always wanted, someone to” - and then her teeth closed through Jenny's bottom lip. Miriam jerked her head away, tearing the skin down Jenny's jaw.

  With a terrible scream, Jenny swung her hatchet and buried it in Miriam’s throat.

  Defeated Soul (level 29)

  Energy + 800

  Miriam's hands wavered, her eyes bloodshot and wide as she gurgled. Blood ran down her chin, and slowly she looked down at the handle sticking out of her throat, blood spurting from the wound, covering her breasts, her stomach, dripping down her thighs. She shoved the girl off, Jenny's bottom lip hanging from her jaw, the stinging burning on her face so terribly that tears spilled from her eyes.

  “Valescent light,” she whispered, holding up a golden shining arm as blue and purple lights flickered around her fingers. She held her lip up, holding it in pce as she healed the stinging, burning wound. Shit. She should've used a potion or something - she had to save the valescent light to open another passage way.

  But she shuddered with relief as the stinging pain faded away, as she chewed gently on her bottom lip, making sure it was intact. Miriam y in the water, floating like the decapitated angel, the hatchet still in her throat as her lifeless eyes stared up at the red sky.

  Her blood smelled even more delicious than the angel's - familiar, nourishing, and Jenny's head spun again. She waded closer to Miriam, swallowing hard, as screaming echoed nearby. She looked back to see more souls running toward them, spshing and stumbling, trampling over one another as a hoard of tarnished angels came after them.

  Jenny reached down and grabbed her hatchet's handle, ready to yank it out, but Miriam's fingers closed around Jenny's arm. "Help me," she rasped, the hatchet in her throat making it difficult to speak. "I don't want to be here anymore."

  Golden lights sparkled around the edge of the hatchet. Blood swirled away in the water, and Miriam’s eyes were so wide and filled with desperation, Jenny didn’t know what to say. The tarnished angels were closing in. Souls spshed past them, and Jenny lifted the hatchet even as Miriam hung on, bringing the girl to her feet. Blood continued spilling down her front.

  When the hatchet slid out, bone crackling, Miriam stepped back, wheezing as she clutched her throat. But within a few moments, and with sparkling golden light, it was healed, and before Jenny could say anything, the group of tarnished angels leaped onto them.

  They moved quicker in this world. Their gleaming white eyes, empty and enraged, their gaunt face and bony bodies. It was so familiar to Jenny it was almost comforting. They swung at her, and she dodged with ease, lopping off an arm at the elbow, slicing through the palm of another, lodging her hatchet in a third one's hip with a crack. Notifications climbed through her thoughts. Energy from each attack, from each time she caused pain.

  Unlike the souls, the angels couldn't recover, and Miriam threw herself at these angels too. Punching and cwing, biting and screaming, and she was so thin that Jenny sometimes couldn't tell her apart from an angel.

  Standing back, Jenny watched as the angels chewed on Miriam's arms and sides, as Miriam bit them right back, pulling on their hair and punching them in the throat, and screaming at the top of her lungs. All the while, she was crying. Sobbing.

  Jenny made short work of the rest of the angels, and their mangled bodies floated in the water around them. More souls ran by, too frightened to stick around. Jenny thought about ditching Miriam. With instant acceleration, she could get away and search for Susan, but something held her rooted to the spot. Water spshed the scales on her thighs. She watched Miriam get up.

  Why wasn't Miriam like the other souls? Wasn't she supposed to be too frightened to think straight? The rest of them forgot everything almost right away, but Miriam was different.

  She watched the girl, sitting in the water so that it spshed against her healed neck. She was chewing on a severed, bony arm, and a limp tarnished angel floating beside her with its hair drifting. Miriam gred at Jenny and swallowed, blood running down her throat.

  "You know I don't have to poop anymore?"

  Jenny blinked. "What?"

  "Because I'm dead, I can just eat and eat. I don't have to throw it back up. I don't have to digest or anything. I don't even know where it goes. But there are no bathrooms here. Nothing."

  She got to her feet, swaying, letting go of the dead angel's arm. Another soul, a grown man ran by, tripping on the floating angel so that he fell into the water. He looked up at Miriam then at Jenny, as though waiting to be admonished, but Miriam only shot him a look of disdain, and Jenny didn't know what to say. He got up and ran, followed by several more souls, three elderly people and two children. One of them was calling for their mom. Another was looking for her husband. And another kept repeating somebody help me, somebody help me, please.

  Miriam pushed one of them. "I tried eating them too. They're like robots now. But...” She opened her mouth to show off her blood-stained teeth. "My teeth won't go through their skin or something."

  Jenny held her hatchet at the ready as Miriam approached again, but the girl didn't attack this time. Instead, she stood right in front of Jenny, looking almost shy.

  Her eyes, brown and sparkling, her breath as cold as winter. "Are you really here? Or am I imagining you?"

  Jenny didn't know how to respond, but she watched Miriam's eyes flick down. The girl was looking at Jenny's lips as though she wanted another blood kiss, and Jenny couldn't help but bite down on her bottom lip defensively. She did not want to feel that pain again of having her skin ripped off. She tapped Miriam on the chest and nudged her back.

  "I'm sorry for what I did to you, but I’m looking for someone."

  Miriam's face distorted. Her eyes bulged out. Her lips pulled back to show her teeth. "But you're not even fucking real!" she screeched, her voice breaking. She lunged for Jenny again, and this time, Jenny dodged. Miriam stumbled forward and fell face first into the water, spshing blood. She screamed again, spping the foaming waves. She spped the water again, and again, and again, screaming all the while as more souls ran by. One bumped into Jenny, but she hardly noticed.

  Miriam was crying. "Didn’t I tell you I was sorry?"

  Jenny knelt, her hatchet at the ready as she looked Miriam in the eyes. She remembered something Eve told her once - that everyone experienced suffering. She felt a wave of exhaustion, of pity and heartbreak and world weariness. "Yeah. You did. And I’m sorry too."