The first thing Panacea did upon awakening was to check she still had her gun.
The second thing she did was take a breath for the first time in seven years.
Where the fuck am I? she thought. She did indeed still have her gun – it was a desert eagle with a barrel almost as long as her forearm, so, hard to misplace – but her sword was missing. Trash was piled up around her, and the moon was big and orange on the horizon.
The aforementioned thought bobbed around in her head, syrupy and semi-crystallised, like honey at the back of the cupboard.
Ugh, food metaphors. She was thinking like her brother.
Oh. Oh of course.
Suddenly she remembered exactly why this was her first lungful of air in seven years, and it made her mouth pucker like there was a slice of lemon—
No. No food metaphors. You’re thinking like a filthy fucking heterotroph.
Her mouth puckered wryly regardless. She wasn’t exactly angry at Alkahest, no; if anything she was almost proud of him. He could easily have kept her from being pulled into the the book, but he chose not to.
He’d finally learned her lesson.
Speaking of the book – her prison for seven years – it was sitting forlornly on the floor a few paces away, pages too heavy with sealed-up demons to flap in the breeze. Panacea had only vague recollections of her time inside it, but her final day in there had been fairly clear, what with Caravigg, the Infernomicon’s namesake, screaming and laughing and possessing some idiot Fae with such raucous glee it’d almost ended the world the book was in.
He’d been shoved back into said book, and the book had been dumped into a Well of Many Worlds to dilute its apocalyptic momentum. And that had worked, while simultaneously dropping it to open at Panacea’s particular page. She’d fallen out like a loose bookmark.
She eyed it. She could probably spring the other residents of its index and possibly even whip them into some sort of gang. Figure out what had been going on in her absence. See how badly her influence had waned.
Then again, that’d be a lot of work. That was the thing about ruling through fear; you had to keep making examples and by the time you’d gotten anywhere you’d already killed half your crew. Odds were good it’d be the more competent half, too.
She plucked the book up between her thumb and middle finger anyway. Panacea didn’t ignore things that could be useful.
Speaking of ignoring things, you never did answer that first question.
Right. Next she had to figure out where she was. Besides ‘in a junkyard’.
The Infernomicon of Caravigg took that moment to try and kill her, and take control of her body.
Nothing happened.
Panacea felt Caravigg’s influence swimming up her fingertips, ready to rip apart her soul and replace it with his own hellish fire, but it seemed he was unprepared for just how blinding she was on the inside. If she had a soul, it was bright and hot as the spark of the Big Bang.
‘No you fuckin’ don’t,’ she said, as Caravigg’s presence retreated from her consciousness in apparent terror. She put her game face on, jaws opening wide enough to supplant her face entirely, searing light spilling from them like a cloud.
Calmly, with delicate fingers, she opened the Infernomicon to Caravigg’s page. It was the very first one, even before the contents. She took her time tearing it out.
The single sheet of paper struggled to hold Caravigg without the wardings in the rest of the volume, but it’d hold for long enough. Panacea folded him into an origami crane.
‘Gotta make examples sometimes,’ she told him. ‘You know how it is.’
She popped the crane into the divine furnace that was her mouth. It burned away before she had to swallow, and thank god for that; as she’d already established, she wasn’t a fucking heterotroph.
There was a bit of an aftertaste. Brimstone and salt. A burning waste.
‘Hm,’ said Panacea, holding up the now fractionally-lighter book. She closed her mouth and stuck out her freshly-returned tongue, dragging it slowly up the spine of the Infernomicon Formerly of Caravigg with a thoughtful glint in her eye.
She and her brother technically had the same additional sense. He could taste when things – or people – were important, whereas she could taste if things – or people – had something important to them.
In practice, this meant that Alkahest could, say, walk into a library with a specific question and taste the air around the books to find ones with useful answers. Whereas Panacea could taste someone she’d tied to a chair and then follow the trail to that person’s loved ones. She always did have the sharper palate.
‘Oh, Caravigg,’ she said to the ghost of the devil she’d just… well, not consumed, but sampled. ‘I didn’t know you had descendants! Let’s pay them a visit.’
She didn’t know if Caravigg had any awareness left to him. She certainly hoped he did. It made her smile to think of him watching what she did to them.
The taste had been very faint, so she’d probably need to find a way of crossing worlds until she found her mark. She turned to exit the junkyard, and almost walked into a dragon.
He’d kept himself humanoid, and gone to great lengths not to reveal himself prematurely. He was a tall man, bald, with gold floral tattoos up the side of his head standing out against his deep brown skin. He was also smiling, but not with his eyes.
‘You know,’ he remarked. ‘There are some who think book-burning to be a more heinous crime than murder. Not sure how they’d feel to see someone committing both at once.’
Panacea missed her sword. Alkahest had taken it, the bastard. Bullets would be about as effective as raindrops against something like this. Her sword, though? She’d have his head off in under ten seconds.
The dragon was still smiling.
Maybe under thirty.
‘Who the fuck are you, then?’ asked Panacea. ‘I’m guessin’ you ain’t just out for a leisurely stroll among the garbage.’
The dragon spread his arms in a you-got-me gesture. ‘I admit I’m not here for my health, despite the lovely scenery. Though I wasn’t expecting company, either.’
His eyes drifted toward the book she held.
‘Oh,’ said Panacea, understanding as she followed his gaze. ‘What, so you’re the previous owner then?’
‘Something like that.’
If this were a movie – Panacea was more at home in the cinema than the kitchen, and her choice of analogies should reflect that, thank you – there’d have been an extreme closeup on the Dragon’s eyes as they narrowed. Followed by one on Panacea’s grip, tightening on the book.
All very western.
The Dragon shifted his weight, about to take a step and presumably lunge for her, unleashing a torrent of fire.
Before he could, though, Panacea held out the Infernomicon. ‘What?’ she asked, when the Dragon didn’t immediately take it. ‘I’ll keep it if you really don’t want it.’
‘What are you after in return?’
Panacea rolled her eyes, quite involuntarily. ‘Just take it, you fucking nerd. Christ.’
‘Oh no, I’m not owing you an open favour.’
‘What am I, the Queen of Air and Darkness? Take the book.’
The Dragon still didn’t move, and Panacea found her good will waning. ‘Look,’ she said, louder than she really meant to. ‘You’re literally standing in a garbage dump – in Gucci suit and loafers no less – because you want this book I just dragged my ass out of. Now I’m holding it out for you and you’re suddenly not so sure?’
Another beat. Then, the Dragon reached out and took the proffered tome. The movement might have been described as “gingerly” if not for the implacable expression on his face. ‘These are Church’s brogues,’ he said. ‘And my suit is Brioni.’
‘Oh yeah man, bet you’ve got vajazzle too, big spender like you. Shut the fuck up.’
The Dragon looked affronted, then cracked a smile. ‘Alright, you can drop the vulgarity. I’m suitably chastised. I just think getting something’s name right is important, be it tailor, cobbler, or Demonic escapee.’
‘Is this you trying to ask for my name? You always quite this convoluted?’
‘Oh no, not in any formal context. I don’t want your name, I just want to know what I should call you.’
‘That’s the same thing.’
‘Not for me it isn’t.’
Panacea blinked. ‘Wait. I’ve heard about you. You’re the True Name broker, aren’t you?’
Mr. Pyrite gave her a small bow. ‘And you are?’
‘…Azoth Panacea. Future Infernal King.’
Roll History 