Apollyon had seen this city grow. From the safety of the ancient demonic library, she saw humans form a small settlement, Romans conquer it and grow it into a city. She had seen the growth of the university here, the introduction of the car, and even the train station she was sitting in right now. Trains were a weird thing to demons. On the one hand, they were less destructive than cars and humans needed a way to travel long distances somehow, and on the other, they still were intrusive metal snakes carving up the countryside. Mochi, a cat from Hell who found this whole concept rather bizarre, sat beside the old demon, waiting with her for a specific metal snake to arrive. Which it did, just five minutes later than scheduled.

In the middle of the crowd exiting the train were the people the two had waited for: Kate, Evelyn and Lizzy.

Before she would agree to be turned into a demon, Evelyn had made a short list of human experiences that she wanted to have. Travelling the human way was the last of them. Her choice of companions on that vacation was not random either, Kate and Lizzy were the only two demons with human paperwork and thus able to travel to Australia with their friend.

“Of course you arrived before us.” Evelyn crouched down to pick up Mochi.

“Arrived?” Apollyon raised an eyebrow as she took some of the luggage from the group.

“Whenever we left the hotel, she was always there to follow us around.”

Mochi purred affirmatively and rubbed against Evelyn.

“Sounds like you had a good time.”

“It was great!”

“I would love a more detailed retelling, but I think that is something the others want as well. Let us all have dinner together tomorrow.”

“That sounds great.”

“It will be.”

With that, the group began their walk back to the library. It was agreed upon that human travel starts and ends at the door to Hell.

Evelyn and Lizzy had begun chatting and spoiling Mochi with pets and snuggles while Kate caught up to Apollyon for more conversation.

“So, anything I missed while we were gone?”

“Not a lot, but a few important things. Anahit confirmed that Monica can fluently read Atlantean runes out loud, even if she doesn’t fully understand the words yet. Nanshe and the team from the Academiae Infernalis have begun setting up in the isolation chamber under the ruins as we had discussed before you left. And finally, Adelina has managed small magical feats.”

“Wait, small magical feats?”

“Yes, apparently her slow transformation has progressed far enough to allow her minor telekinetic abilities. She pulled a pen from across the desk last week.”

“That is awesome. The progress on the magic pulse is awesome too.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

Apollyon shook her head. “Not currently. Oh, there is leftover curry from last night.”

“Perfect.”

 

After teleporting her luggage home, Kate got back to what she loved most about library work: putting back misplaced books.

“Hey Eisheth.”

The succubus didn’t even need to say anything to be noticed by a fellow demon. “Hey. How was your trip?”

“Quite fun. Didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. When I was a child, my parents always took me on their work trips when I didn’t have school and that always sort of sucked. But this was great.”

“I’m glad and a little sad I couldn’t join you.”

Kate chuckled. “Yea, that lack of human papers might come up very rarely but when it does, it sucks.”

“It does. Still, you three had fun and that counts.”

“Speaking of fun, have you talked to Evelyn about who should turn her?”

“I haven’t, why?”

“Because I think you should volunteer. She’s your only human contact who doesn’t get turned on by you and you became close friends because of that. All three of us young demons… humans… formerly humans have a primary demon we have contact with. I have Apollyon, she turned me, Adelina has Nirrti, whose solution to the vampirism is indirectly turning her, and Evelyn has you. It’s only right that you are the one to turn her.”

“Hm… and interesting thought and I agree, I would love to be the one. It’s her choice in the end, but I will talk to her.”

“Good.” A quick glance at the Eisheth’s thoughts made it clear that she needed some sort of distraction and had been pacing around the library for hours now. Having a team of demons downstairs working on freeing her sister and not being able to properly help them, actually being in the way, felt miserable. Adding to that unease was the upcoming visit of Naamah, her other sister. The two had been estranged ever since they lost Lilith.

Kate sighed. “Care to assist me? The kids today left a bit of a mess.”

“Happily. I don’t think I need to tell you where my mind is.”

“I got the basics. Will you be alright with Naamah here? I can still tell her to wait outside.”

Eisheth let out an awkward chuckle. “I appreciate the sentiment, but we have to do this sooner or later. And while everything leading to the rescue… hopefully leading to it comes from my associates, it was me who moved on and gave up.”

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. There is so much else to talk about anyway.”

“No, it’s only right to sort my thoughts before she is here.”

“Alright, but don’t forget that we can stop whenever you want.”

“I appreciate it. I can only imagine how much it must sting to not achieve any progress while we just stumbled into the solution. Naamah spent the last twelve thousand years hunting down humans who could read Atlantean and a way to find the needles.”

“The defence rings here are way older than that, why did no one think of using them?”

“Because it leaves this place defenceless for a while. She discarded that idea from the start. We didn’t have Azazel back then, any threat to the library was far more serious than it is now. Naamah was always someone who wanted to solve things herself and that Jolene has her fingers in this… she will hate it. She hates the idea that someone like Jolene can even exist at all.”

“I… don’t know what to think about Jolene. I like her, just as a person, as much as she is one. But the way she meddles in things spooks me. This will all lead to something good at least.”

Eisheth nodded. “It will, one way or another.” She put back another book. “You know, it was quite weird to not have you here for a full month.”

“I wasn’t here for forty thousand years.”

The succubus scoffed playfully. “You know what I mean. A year with you as head librarian was enough to get used to your black badge and deferring to you when I’m, uhm, too lazy for humans.”

Kate laughed. “That’s why the last months of dealing with the schools fell to me.”

“Obviously.”

“At least the teachers are generally good people.”

“And I try to not throw any of the annoying ones in your direction.”

“Well, thank you. How were the others while I was gone?”

“Nirrti and Adelina got in over their heads with the new first graders, Ama was… well, Ama, you know her. She did want to put in a request for a telescope on the balcony in the back with you once you came back.”

“Really?”

“Yea, don’t know if she has the list of what she wants done yet or not.”

“I’ll talk to her about it when I run into her.”

“Good. And lastly, Apollyon has been a bit stir crazy. She has gone over our entire selection of what we display up here at least twice and you know how much shelf space we have.”

“So lonely without me?”

Eisheth nodded. “I think she was itching to come join you on your vacation but Evelyn’s ‘no demon assistance’ rule made it impossible for her to travel there.”

“N’aww, now I really need to think of something to make it up to her.”

“A good dinner and a day or two for just the two of you would do the trick.”

“That’s the plan. Maybe with a few more details sorted out, but a few days just for her.”

“I hope you have a minute to spare for me as well.” That voice was not Eisheth but Nanshe, who had come up from the isolation cell into the library proper.

“Of course, what is it?”

“I am happy to report that we are done. We can fire the pulse whenever we want.”

Kate looked suitably impressed. “I expect this to take a few more days, good work.”

“We were quite motivated not to fuck around. I would like to show you what we did.”

“And I would love to see it. Eisheth, want to join us?”

The succubus nodded. “Sure. Should be interesting.”

Nanshe smiled proudly. “Let’s head downstairs then.”