Chapter 28

~~David~~

“Caera?” he asked.

Caera smiled, leaned in again, and kissed him again, and she didn’t pull away this time. He did, and blinked at her a few times, but whatever was going through Caera’s mind, she didn’t feel like explaining it.

She picked him up.

“Whoa, hey. Caera?”

On her butt, she put her legs out in front of her, and put him on her lap, facing her. She might not have been Acelina big, but Caera was still eight feet tall, and muscular. He was only a feather to her.

“You’re right.”

“What?”

“You’re right about demons. We’re violent, bloodthirsty, and obsessed about it. Even Daoka, sweet and innocent as she seems, can give into the urge as easily as any other demon. But...” With her giant claws holding his waist, she kissed him again, and rubbed her horns against the top of his head. “You’re right that we’re closer to humans than not. A lot of us try to ignore that, like Acelina, and Zel, but some of us know better.”

“Oh. I mean, Jes told me some stuff about her life in the hatching pit, and Dao’s Dao. And you, I ... I mean, Mia and I have talked about psychology and social dynamics and stuff, and—”

She kissed him again, and this time didn’t let him pull away. She set a pair of claws behind his head and neck, and held him close, lips locked. Caera had a very short, cat-ish snout, and it made kissing her a unique experience. Not that he was some sort of expert on kissing.

“You really are delicious, you know that?” she said.

“Delicious?” Uh oh.

She laughed. “Demons fight. We kill each other over nothing. Even just an argument is enough. And you’ve figured that out by now, I’m sure.”

“Y-Yeah.”

“But you, you damn little nerd, just couldn’t let me stay out here and stew, could you? Which I was doing because I knew if I stuck around in that alcove, I’d get angrier and angrier, until a fight broke out. And that could get violent.”

Gulp.

“That violent?”

“Yes, that violent. It’s one reason Zel had that dueling law in place, to minimize needless deaths so she could bulk her army. And then the weak demons, usually culled by getting into fights with other demons, would get killed by Alessio and her demons from the Black Valley in another inevitable war.” Caera licked her fangs and ran her claws along his scalp and through his shaggy red hair. “Betrayers avoid demons who even so much as raise their voice. But not you, you persistent little nerd.”

“Hey I—”

She kissed him again and hugged him tight. Maybe a little too tight, as air suddenly became an issue. After a few awesome, uncomfortable seconds, she relaxed, and he sucked in a breath.

“You know,” he said, “on the surface, girls don’t normally—”

She rolled and lay on her side, bringing him with her, and she set her teeth on his neck. Full on big bite, on his neck, like she was going to bite down and rip out his jugular. A gazelle, under a lion’s mouth. He froze, but she didn’t clamp down, content with nuzzling her fangs and other teeth against his soft skin for a bit before letting go, and replacing teeth with her long tongue instead.

“Demons aren’t surface girls,” she said, and she half squashed him with her body as she snuggled into his side. “The way you keep just ... exposing yourself to me, while being all ... nice, and honest, makes me want to...” A deep rumble worked through her, a purr, and she licked his throat some more. “If you had a number, I’d make you a betrayer.”

“Umm...”

“But you don’t. Maybe that’s why I like you so much. You’re just so ... I don’t know. Something about you, the way you squirm, the way you talk so openly, it makes me want to eat you.”

“Umm!”

“But in a good way. Not even in a sexual way. I just want to ... I don’t know. Keep you. I understand why Daoka likes you so much.” She licked his cheek. “Even Kia and Marquez would have known to back off. They wouldn’t have wanted a fight, because they’d have known how bad it could get, when a demon gets ... bloodthirsty.” It almost sounded like a dirty, tainted word, the way she said it. “Not you. You just walk right into the path of danger. You did it for your sister. You’re doing it for me now.”

“Well, uh, I mean, right now, I’m trapped and can’t—ack!”

She bit his throat again, gentle enough to not hurt him, but it was a strange sensation, having his entire throat in her mouth, warm and wet and with a roaming tongue. Very vulnerable. Caera liked him vulnerable, apparently.

She let him go, licked him some more, kissed him some more, and sat up as she licked her chops. Slowly, she put a hand on his, and gently pinned it to the ground as she tested the size difference. So much bigger than his, and her huge claws highlighted her hand’s feminine features.

He wrapped his fingers around one of hers, and she chuckled.

“I’m going to stay out here for a while,” she said, “calm down, and watch and make sure remnants don’t start pouring down the tunnel.”

“You ... want me to stay?”

Her smile softened. “Yeah.”

He did his best soft smile, too. But even he knew he wasn’t good at soft expressions, and it made Caera laughed.

“Done,” he said, and he sat up with her.

She didn’t have to ask. He got around behind her, sat against the wall nice and close, and pulled her giant tail onto his lap. Most demons had thinner tails, but Caera’s tail was as thick as one of her thick legs. He got to work, dug his thumbs into the hard flesh and muscle, and massaged. Cleaned, too, wherever he found any small rocks, especially the ones in the scratch and bite marks.

“One of the remnants got me pretty bad,” she said, “with a sharp rock. They used it like a knife.”

“I can see that.” A nasty gash decorated her tail close to her back, and he carefully plucked some dirt from the wound. Despite his fingers grazing the wound, Caera didn’t flinch, and only occasionally made a hiss. “I’m surprised they know how to use rocks as a weapon. They’re zombies ... right?”

“Sort of. They’re shells of their former selves, but there’s still something left of the person they were. It wouldn’t make for a good punishment if they couldn’t realize they were being punished, right?”

He shivered. “I mean, I guess. I’d prefer to think this is just an ecosystem, without its own personal intent. But, I suppose that isn’t how Hell works, is it?”

“No. Hell exists to punish the wicked.”

“Biblical.”

She grinned over her shoulder at him and gently pressed her big tail into his chest.

“I’ll protect you.”

“Will you? ‘Cause according to Jes, demons are terrified of zombies. Which, I mean, is kinda funny, since you deal with remnants all the time.”

She nodded toward the tunnel path back the way they’d came.

“There’s a big difference between a few remnants growing out of the ground, and a few hundred remnants grabbing and biting and pulling.” She rubbed her tail against his stomach. “How are your wounds?”

He looked down at his body. Oh, right, he had a bunch of scratches and bite marks everywhere, some worse than Caera’s.

“The joys of soft skin.” He winced as he touched some of the torn skin on his wrist. And his calves. And his thighs. And his stomach. And, oh hey, his elbows, too. “Acelina spent a lot more time getting gnawed on than me.”

“But she has demon skin.” Caera pulled her tail off him, turned, and lay beside him, facing him. She set her big head on his lap, and closed her eyes. Oh god, it was like a literal Siberian tiger dinosaur monster covered in spikes with two horns had decided to take a nap on his lap.

Pet her?

Of course, pet her.

He set a hand on her head, and rubbed down hard against the top of her skull, where the black horns emerged from the dark red skin. Instant purrs from the tregeera.

“What do you think Greg is like?” she asked.

“No idea. If he’s unmarked, he might be perfectly normal? But ... probably not, if he’s hanging out with Cainites.”

“You said the portal to Hell scooped you off the stairs to Heaven, right?”

“Yeah.”

“It bypassed the gates of Hell. You get your mark at the gates, where it tells you ‘Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here’. You go through that, and then the portal sucks you up. But if the portal is just ... scooping you up from places it’s not supposed to reach, it might have done the same thing to other unmarked.”

“Which means someone can be a murdering asshole and not get marked.” He sucked in a harsh breath between his teeth. “And considering his Cainite buddies, he probably is. And considering he’s unmarked, he probably has auras and who knows what else going for him. And then there’s the whole cracking Hell in half problem, and—”

“Don’t worry about that. You just help me reach him, and I’ll kill him quick.” She lifted her head, licked him, and settled back on his lap. “I’m glad you came back.”

“Came back?”

“Back out here.”

“Well, I mean, I couldn’t leave you—”

She kissed him again, rubbed her forehead against him, and kissed him some more. Kiss turned into deep kiss, and her purr turned into a quiet growl.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

That sounded almost dangerously possessive. He shivered, and Caera grinned at him before settling her head on his lap again.

~~Mia~~

It wasn’t working.

“Nothing?” Yosepha asked.

“There’s something, but it just isn’t turning on! I can say it in my head, sign it, but when I do it latches a chain onto me, and I have to lift it. Potram is so light it pretty much floats, but batlam is killing me.”

The angel smiled. “I admire your determination.”

Mia tried to smile back, but it was hard, sweating and panting like she was. Who knew thinking about something could be so physically demanding.

“I ... I need a break.” She stumbled around in a circle for a few seconds before leaning against the cave wall. “I need some fucking carbs. And a whey shake.”

“You’re in the afterlife, Mia. You are essentially a ghost. You have no use for food.”

“Disagree! Give me some caffeine, bananas, protein, and I’d blast through this workout.” To prove her point, she flexed her arms, showing off her giant biceps. She did not have giant biceps, but still, she was fit and thin, and had the legs and butt to prove her history with the Olympic bar.

“That ... is an idea.”

“Eh?”

“Perhaps this is less an issue with the difficulty of the rune, and more the fact you are a soul. Or at least, a soul of some form. Angels and demons store the resonance we consume, convert it into essence, and essence is used to fuel everything, every breath, every moment, every action. For demons, it becomes sin. For angels, it becomes grace.”

“Sounds an awful lot like how human bodies use food.”

“Indeed. But souls cannot do this. Like demons and angels, they store some essence in the body, but unlike us, they cannot tap into their inner resonance to create more, or acquire more by ingesting it. They burn very little essence unless they become injured, and even then, require only a fraction of the essence demons and angels require in order to heal and function.”

Mia groaned. “Yeah. Hell wouldn’t be all that torturous if souls died too easily.”

Sighing, Yosepha patted her on the head with a wing.

“Regardless, perhaps the issue here is that, while using potram required very little of your essence to fuel and maintain, using batlam is simply a larger request than your body has essence to give.”

“I ... am getting pretty hungry.”

“I can imagine,” Yosepha said. “What I cannot imagine, is any soul having enough essence to use batlam, even on a full stomach. As you saw with Shir, when she no longer had the essence to hold onto batlam, it was lost, and she defaulted to potram; something that comes with training.” She gestured to Mia, who was naked because holy fuck using potram while trying to use batlam was not an extra challenge she needed. “Souls are meek, Mia. They cannot so much as resist the weakest of auras.”

Mia planted her ass against the wall and sank down to the ground.

“There’s a but coming, right?”

“But you are no ordinary soul. We should find you something to eat, and—”

“Can ... Can you make sure it’s a forbidden fruit, and not someone’s heart?”

Yosepha tilted her head. “Unlikely. Fruits are rare. Demons eat them or hide them for later.”

“I know, I just...” Mia pulled her knees up to her chest. With her forehead against her wrist, hopefully the angel wouldn’t see her eyes. “Please?”

“Mia, this cannot wait. I will leave before the morrow, and I would prefer to be here to learn if you can use this rune. It is important for more than just yourself, but knowledge for me when dealing with the other unmarked.”

“But, if you give me a heart...” Fuck it. “I’ll see the memories again.”

“What?”

“The memories.” After a deep breath, Mia forced her head up, and met eyes with the angel. “When I eat a heart, I see the memories. The bad memories. They fill my thoughts for a few seconds, and then get ... filed away, somewhere in the back of my mind, like some kind of library.”

Yosepha stared at her, drifting from surprised to angry. Uh oh.

“You only tell me this now?”

“I’m sorry! Every word out of my mouth could be my last, you know? What if I say the wrong thing, and you or Romakus decide I’m too dangerous to keep alive?”

Her point hit home, and Yosepha sighed as she walked over to her.

“I understand your concern, child. In fact, I suggest you do not speak of this to the others.”

“Vinicius knows.”

“I doubt the child of Belial will say anything he does not need to. He delights in being combative.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Yosepha stood over her and patted her with a wing again.

“I won’t kill you, unless you betray me, or are an immediate risk to the safety of Heaven or the Great Tower. And you said yourself, you would kill yourself if that were the case, correct?”

“I ... did.”

“Then you would want to know if you were such, correct?”

“I suppose...”

The angel squatted down in front of her and set a hand on her shoulder.

“It is easy to say brave words. It is a different thing entirely to enact them.”

Mia groaned and squirmed. Called out. She was a pussy.

“When I eat a demon heart, I get very ... tingly, and jazzed up. It makes me feel strong, but I also get these flashes in my mind showing me the worst things the demon has done. Violent stuff, you know?”

“And a human heart?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had one. And ... I think I’d prefer to keep it that way, if possible.”

“It won’t be possible. On this journey, you must eat when you can, and that may force some horrible choices upon you. And if you have eaten demon hearts and forbidden fruit, I can only assume you could eat a human heart without issue.”

“Unless that gives me bad memories, too.”

“Yes, that is ... unfortunate.” The angel stood up and gave her a heavy nod. “Stay here.”

Before Mia could say anything, Yosepha turned and left, using her wings to propel herself with pure elegance. She flew with the grace of a hummingbird, dodging and weaving around the cave walls with ease. She also didn’t go back to the potram rune, keeping her armor on instead.

It wasn’t long before she returned, sword and shield gone, and each hand holding a heart, blood included.

“That was fast.”

“Yes,” the angel said. “I can be quite persuasive.”

Mia raised a brow. Joke? The angel’s face was stern and hard, as usual. The ultimate straight man ... woman. No wonder Romakus loved teasing her.

“One’s bigger than the other,” Mia said, and gestured to the two hearts.

“Some demons were returning from a hunt. I ... alleviated them of their prize. One is a vratorin heart. The other is human.” Yosepha squatted in front of her again, wings out, and she handed both of the big muscle lumps to Mia. “Eat.”

“Ugh.” Groaning like waking up on a Saturday morning too early, she took the hearts. They were warmer than they should have been, as if the resonance and essence within kept them fresh and ... tasty. “You don’t want one?”

“I ... would prefer to not eat a demon’s heart. It can be problematic for angels. As for the human heart, I cannot gain resonance this way.”

“What?”

Yosepha smiled, but it was weak. Even a little sad?

“Angels cannot acquire the resonance of someone who did not offer it willingly.” She leaned in close enough to almost touch noses, and whispered. “Do not share that information.”

“Would be dangerous if demons found out?” It wasn’t easy to keep the eye connection considering how intense the angel’s dark eyes were, but Mia managed, somehow.

“No. I have told you nothing that you could use against us, but that does not mean I want demons gossiping about angels. They know little of our kind, and we would keep it that way.” She nudged Mia’s hands. “Eat, and describe to me what you see.”

Sighing, Mia took a bite of the demon heart. Sure enough, a swarm of memories hit her, some tiny, some large, all revolving around the vratorin committing heinous acts of violence. Killing, killing, and more killing. Did Adron do things like this? Yes, undoubtedly, but was he this bad?

It wasn’t long before the heart was gone. The tingling filled her, warmed her, made her aches and pains go away, and made her want to get up and go do something. Anything. Punch someone. Fuck someone. Life poured through her, out into her fingertips, and made her feel so damn good.

The human heart waited. Yosepha waited.

“Do you have the room for the second heart as well?” Yosepha asked.

“Room? You mean, do I feel full?”

“Yes. A vratorin heart is no small meal.”

“I mean, I don’t feel hungry anymore, but full? What’s it like to feel full on essence? Or ... Or resonance, if I’m somehow absorbing that, too.” Considering she was absorbing memories, the idea had been haunting her for a while. It was yet another nail in the not-human coffin.

“It is a difficult sensation to describe, but I suppose it is similar to how you would feel on the surface.”

“Then definitely not. How many hearts does that take?”

“I am not sure. You would have to ask a demon, or another soul. Regardless, eat the human heart.”

Mia winced and looked at the hunk of meat in her hand. For a second she wanted to throw it away, and maybe fake being full, but that ship had sailed, and this was too important to get squeamish about.

She ate the heart. It was just as delicious as the demon’s, and just like the demon’s, it flooded her mind with flashes.

A woman, spreading lies to get herself a promotion. Spreading lies to ruin someone else’s relationship. Whoever she was, she put some sort of cleaner in someone’s food, poisoning them. She lied and got someone else arrested for something she did. Frequent drunk driving; the memories of that were a messy blur. Just an all around horrible bitch, but probably with a low number. And her heart tasted fucking divine.

Mia stood back up, wiped the blood from her mouth and fingers as best she could, and did some quick stretches that were probably useless.

“Full?”

“Not yet.”

Yosepha frowned, but gestured to her.

“Regardless, best to try again now.”

“Okay.”

Yosepha backed away, and Mia signed the rune in her head once more. The fingers that plucked the strings traced the lines of the rune, and again, the weight of its existence crashed into her like a truck, a truck she had to also lift.

The energy tingling through her limbs grabbed the weight, and lifted, or at least stopped the weight from sending her to the ground. It latched onto her, pulled on her, tried to crush her, and Mia clenched her teeth together until a dentist would have screamed.

A gold glow enveloped her, and a new type of weight hit her, something physical and real, and hard. Armor? The weight pulling on her soul didn’t abate, though, and demanded she lift it more. It was like a deadlift, and she was stuck halfway. But she could keep going. She pulled, and pulled, and pulled, panting louder until her voice turned into a clenched groan.

The gold glow turned red.

The shift in color snapped her attention, demanded she notice the change. It felt different, less warm, and more ... visceral?

She let go of the weight. The glow vanished, and Mia collapsed to her ass again, sweat dripping down her skin.

“Almost,” Mia said. “Almost.”

“Indeed. It takes less essence to maintain a rune, once equipped, but equipping it takes the most effort.” Yosepha squatted down in front of her and patted her with a wing. “For a moment, I thought I would see you emerge, dressed as an angel. But—”

“Yeah, the color shifted. The feel of it shifted. It ... It’s different from yours.”

“I suppose that was inevitable. We know your potram creates a different result than an angel’s. Why wouldn’t batlam?” Sighing, Yosepha turned and headed for the exit. “I can delay no longer.”

“But—”

“If you continue to practice, you will eventually learn to use the rune. Each time you try, it will require less energy, and you will be able to summon it more readily to the mind. But you must be careful. We do not know what will happen, and whatever you do, you will garner attention. Stealth is your ally.”

“Stealth, right. Sneaking across the hellscape with a giant bodyguard, I’m not sure stealth will be an option all the time.”

“True. But ... please, be careful, if you would?”

Mia smiled. “I will, definitely. And thank you. Thank you so much. I’ve been terrified about this journey, and you’re the first person I’ve met that ... you know...”

The angel returned the smile, far warmer than the battle warrior probably did with others.

“You are welcome.”

“B-But, before you go, can I ask a favor?”

“Perhaps. What do you desire?”

“Since these runes seem to require touch to transfer into my head, they’ve got to be the same with David. I know I put these runes in his head when we touched when he rescued me. Touching you helped me make potram and batlam ‘click’, so I can try and use them. I ... don’t know if that’s the only way to make them click, but, if you, or some other angel could find David, and help him too? That’d be ... that’d be really nice.”

Yosepha’s smile faded.

“Mia—”

“Please? He’s my brother. He literally ran into the spire, on his own, in the middle of a battle, to try and get to me. If there’s anyone that’ll get to the Forgotten Place, it’s him. He’s stubborn, you know? Stubborn like you can’t imagine. You can trust him to make it.”

The angel looked away and down the path she faced, and silence fell on the two of them. Mia had just asked something big, bigger than she’d thought.

“I will ... see. I make no promises.”

“Thank you! Even if you can’t, thank you for trying.”

Yosepha smiled at her again, almost like she hadn’t expected Mia to say that.

“You’re welcome.”

~~Day 40~~

~~David~~

“Thank you.”

David froze, and looked back and up at the huge demoness. The rest of the group were ahead of them, and instead of the semi-brisk pace they’d been using since the angel attack, they’d slowed down. People needed to heal from their wounds, and the demons now took the time to clear out the bloodgrip enough for Acelina to get by, hence why she stayed in the rear with David. They also took the time to kill any remnants they found; no zombie ambushes again, thank you very much.

“I uh, what?”

“I would have died in that death pit. You risked your life saving mine when I did not ask.”

“Oh. That. I mean, I ... you’re welcome? I didn’t really think of it like that, you know? We’re in this together. I kinda just ... went.”

“Yes ... So I noticed.” The enormous demon sighed, and even with her wings hooked on her shoulders like a cloak, they drooped. “Don’t tell the others.”

“Tell them what?”

“That I ... said those words.”

He raised a brow and looked back at the demons ahead of them. The only reason they probably didn’t hear Acelina, was all their grunts of exertion from destroying bloodgrip, and the screams of dying remnants.

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” Demons had to keep up appearances, after all. And as much as that thought made him smile, it wasn’t exactly strange, even among humans. Maybe a little juvenile, like high schools students who couldn’t admit fault lest they damage their reputation, but it wasn’t so juvenile when doing so could get you killed.

She opened her mouth just barely wide enough to show him a tiny shark smile before hiding it again.

“You saved me too, ya know,” he said.

“You were within arm’s reach.”

“Yes, but...”

“And you are light and weak”—ow—”and easy to lift.”

“Yes, but...”

She hissed down at him and whipped his back with her tail. Double ow.

“Must you make this so difficult for me?”

He grinned back up at her. “Sorry.”

She growled, but it didn’t have any bite to it.

“You are an interesting creature, David.”

“You sure? I’m a dime a dozen on the surface.”

“Hardly. You are persistent to a fault, and open your mouth when any soul down here would know to shut it.”

“I ... Yeah, that’s true. I’m a complainer. I really have a tough time shutting up.”

She laughed. “How annoying.”

Smiling, he looked back to the path ahead. He didn’t need Mia to tell him Acelina was more comfortable being mean than sincere, and honestly, it was kinda fun. There were more similarities between her and Jes than they realized.

And it’d hadn’t been very long since the nine-foot-tall demoness with breasts nearly as big as his torso, had made him cum, several times. Her body coated in his cum, filled with it, and—

Acelina flicked him on the back of the head. Unlike a finger, claws hit hard.

“I can feel your aura. Stop that.”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

After another not-so-serious growl, Acelina fell back into silence, but when he glanced back at her, he could see she looked happier. Some pep in her step, maybe? Or just that her wings weren’t drooping as much?

“Mia was annoying as well.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “How much did you see her at the spire?”

“Only twice. She visited the hatching pit and immediately annoyed me. Quite full of herself, despite her obvious fear.”

“That ... kinda sounds like Mia, yeah. She can get kinda uppity when she’s put in a bad position, like a small dog. Sometimes she’ll stay quiet. Sometimes she’ll start yelling.”

“But not you?”

“I mean, sometimes? I prefer to shut up and calculate.”

“Calculate...”

“Told you he’s a nerd,” Jes said, looking back at them. “He—” She tripped over Laara, right over the mini gargoyle, and the two collapsed onto the ground. “You fucking little—”

Daoka hopped back, put a hand over her lover’s mouth, and shook her head frantically as she gestured down the path. Everyone had stopped, even Caera, and only when everyone had grown dead silent did she move ahead in a slow prowl, like a tiger sneaking through the brush.

There was movement ahead, flickering in the shadows of the curving tunnel walls. Stealth mode. The problem with that was they couldn’t get against the wall or hide behind any boulders; no boulders to be had, and bloodgrip was everywhere.

Caera held up a hand and gestured to the Las. The little ladies wasted no time, swarmed around David, and got his armor back on him. Daoka gave him back the huge dagger, and Jes picked up some dirt and rubbed it into his forehead. Etched it in, more like, with claws, and David clenched his fists as he bit down the urge to yelp and push her away. He needed a number if the disguise was going to work.

“Create an opening,” Caera whispered, “and I’ll be there.”

Create an opening, right. Chat up the Cainites like last time? He nearly died last time.

It didn’t matter. He was committed, and this was the path toward the temple anyway, along with Renato.

Fully geared and carrying a hundred pounds of metal, he dragged his ass to the next curve of the tunnel, and listened. No talking. He listened closer. Still no talking, but there were a few clicks, so quiet they might as well have been pebbles rolling down the beach.

He stepped out around the corner, and froze.

“Caera,” he said, “you can come out.”

“It’s not Cainites?”

He slowly shook his head, and waited for Caera to take lead again. And when she did, the inevitable followed.

“No!” She dashed forward into the next cavern, but there wasn’t anything to be done.

It was a massacre. A mess of bones littered the ground, demon and human, with a dozen meera weapons sticking out of the stone. Bits of armor lay about, but less than a battle scene like this should have had. The bodies had been picked clean, and weren’t bodies anymore. Skeletons.

A few creatures lifted their heads from the mess, and while they’d moved in David’s direction, the moment Caera came into view, they ran. Big spider-like creatures called fallo spiders ran off, each the size of a large dog. Terrifying, but skittish, like big tarantulas if tarantulas were red, black, and spiky. They’d caused the flickering shadows.