I woke up tired, ag, and in a miserable mood, but alive.

  I’d probably have been in an even worse mood, but a warm bath did wonders, even with the effort o keep my splint out of there. Taking off the remnants of my poor dress aing modest had been my st efforts before colpsing into bed aing some mueeded sleep.

  I’d woken up paying for all of st night’s activities. The st pain-blog effects of the potions had faded, so my entire body was nothing but agony. There were parts of me that merely ached instead of burned as I moved down from the attic. It took nearly half an hour to get to the ground floor with the splint.

  The good news was I had somehow not mao kill off nerves or ize my own flesh when I’d used Diabolism to force my leg bato pce. There were some minor effects, nothing that wouldually heal on its own. The main thing would be letting it heal indepely, especially because trying to probe it with Biosculpting wouldn’t be wise. There might still be bits of DIabolism ihat my body would slowly process. Toug them with another form of magic was begging for something foul to occur.

  I had examined my right hand, the ourned a darker shade of crimson and found nothing wrong with it physically. Something for the imp, but first, I did o pay what was owed.

  So, instead, I ending my m focused on something that would improve my mood. Hot water boiled in a pot as I carefully picked out the correumber of tea leaves to add to the pot.

  Impatient waiting as the pot brewed till it was ready and at a drinkable temperature. Tiny little sips at regur intervals helped draw me out of the pain, and rger gulps when the pain spiked. It kept me somewhat capable of fog.

  To my detriment, sidering the neers in front of me. They’d been on the doorstep in the m, one from each of the city’s major neers.

  Infernal Gang attaoble Party at the estate of Lord Montague.

  Infernals and shapegers attaoble ball in the dead of night

  Disaster was barely averted as Infernals and bio-sculpted monsters attacked the family of Lord Montague.

  Shapegers make a return? A strange assault on noble’s ball.

  Attack at ret party lio Infernals, Shapegers, and Empire’s Greatest Detective

  The most on picture shared among them all was of the ballroom, still not ed up, scattered bodies of burnt Infernals and the flesh of Hawkiher Lord Montague had allowed that or somehow, a camera had been snu. Probably the former. He already had his spin to minimize the effects on his reputation.

  Reading the articles didn’t make me feel aer. The rep emphasized the attack of the Infernals sihat had caused the most deaths among guests. No headline he Bck Fme, but the articles themselves mentiohem several times, mostly in interviews with Malstein, Lord Montague, and even a few with ‘Voltar’ which at least seemed to be sane and rational. Various guests, some wat, Amna, and not Tommy. Family members. Maybe I should have stayed long enough for my exclusive and then even monizing pain in the m.

  Versalicci wouldn’t take this well. Some part of me wondered if it might be better to leave this in his hands, since he clearly had a lead ohis underground ir was. Then I sidered the idea of him with Shapegers.

  That could not be allowed.

  I was mentioned a few times, mostly as Danielle Waters, occasionally as Malvia Harrow by the two people I really wished had not. I supposed I couldn’t do much about Tagashin, but all Hells damnit Gregory!

  At least he had not let slip to reporters that I was also Katheryn Fara, which would bring a host of unfortable sequences. Lesser ones like Lord Montague trying to kill me. Greater ones like my family, possibly putting two and two together.

  Besides that, the lesser emphasis on the Shape gers….perhaps someone had quietly suggested to the neers to emphasize the part of the story less likely to drive everyoo paranoia in the ing months. They’d done a piss-poor job of it, sidering the pictures with the remnants of Hawkins strewn about, a sea of i legs and ks of white, blubbery flesh. And Lord Montageu’s entire speech id the bme at the feet of Voltar.

  This was all a mess. The temptation to just stay inside and heal up was mounting while the world outside went mad. At the bare minimum, I could have a day, couldn’t I?

  “ger in the front room!” Dawes shrieked o my ear

  Startled, I filed as my chair tipped backward. My splinted leg hit the bottom of the table, and all coherent thought left as fresh paihrough it.

  I colpsed onto the ground, holding onto my leg as agony rippled through it.

  Dawes stood above me, smiling uncharacteristically smugly with a tray in his hands.

  “Tagashin,” I growled, then tried to move into a sitting position.

  “Just making sure you were awake,” she said, looking at the table. “Ooh, you made tea?”

  “Hands. Off.” I said as I gripped the chair, pulling myself up. “Touch my tea, and I don’t care how precious you are to Intelligence. You’ll be a melted pile of charred and deg flesh.”

  “Pleasant,” she remarked, p herself a cup despite my warning. “And just when I made breakfast for you.”

  “I made breakfast,” the actual Dawes protested from the room over. “I thought we agreed that since Miss Harrow looked thhly out of it, to leave her alone?”

  He walked in, a sed tray in hand, frowning as he looked at me lying on the ground.

  “You did tell me I should let her off the leash a little,” Doctor Dawes said apologetically.

  “I didn’t say to let her off on me!” I hissed as I grabbed my chair, trying to pull myself up using it.

  “Well, it was ygestion, and...well, now you see why I don’t do it.”

  “It’s why you shouldn’t listen to her. She’s a pretty good font of bad ideas,” Tagashin said.

  “Peace. Miss Harrow, Tagashin, and I have our own tasks to pursue today. I’m assuming you’ll want at least one day to rest up?”

  I sighed. “I would prefer it, but no use letting time slip by. ’t afford to in some cases. Are either of you going to Lord Montague’s estate?”

  Tagashin raised her hand while grinning.

  “I o meet some of the Montague’s ter today,” I told her. “Elise, Harry, ory. Any of them that are avaible. Could you pass the message along?”

  Hopefully, she wouldn’t find Gregory. The worst case sario I envisioned was how she might phrase said invitation, especially if people were around to overhear.

  “Certainly, and if I have the time, I’ll bring them over myself.”

  “Good. Doctor Dawes, this will sound strange, but I need some…livestock.”

  ***

  Dawes delivered quickly on what I wanted, having them all ready for me within an hour inside one of the other houses Voltar owned oreet. I didn’t know how they’d ehe house, but they all waited for me in a rge room, just big enough to allow them some space from me as I entered.

  Walking across the room clued me in to that as hollow echoes followed the clop of my hooves on the wooden floor. Well, since he'd been niough to help put these in a pce where no one could see, I wouldn't question why they had an undergrourance rge enough for a cow.

  I’d dressed in a heavy butchering apron over some cheap clothes of mine as well as heavy boots and gloves. Necessary since I doubted any amount of ing would help with what was to e.

  In front of me, ten cows occupied the rge room, most of them seeming put off by the enclosed space they found themselves in. A few had gone over to a trough that had been dragged in filled with grasss, mung away. A few were drinking from a sed filled with water.

  “Moo,” one of them said pcidly, staring at me while chewing.

  Of course someone had gotten them grass. Make this as difficult as possible. Were these regur features of the room?

  You do eat beef, The Imp said in my head. This holy is not too much different. Closer to what your aors did than you do.

  “If you think that makes this easier, you are very much mistaken,” I said as I limped closer. “Do they have to be living? They’ll die after enough bites anyway, and I do not need my leg broken again.”

  The Imp audibly sighed. I suppose some allowances will have to be made. The taste is better when alive, decreasing from the moment the heart stops. So while I’d prefer you not kill all of them at once, I suppose to avoid you being stampeded, you do it like that. The taste of rotting flesh, however, is horrendous, so do not use Diabolism on them. And one of them live.

  “Wasn’t pnning on it,” I replied, moving over to the water trough.

  I produced a vial, and sidered the volume of water remaining. It should be enough. I poured the mixture in, theo a quarter to wait.

  One by ohe cows eventually took a drink over the hour till only one was left. It’s fellow surrounding it. They’d drifted off to sleep, ohey’d never wake up from.

  The remaining cow was nervous as I approached. Only to be expected, it was an animal but it could tell its fellows were not sleeping. It shied away as I approached, bag up and l its head. No horns, but I still wouldn’t want it ramming me.

  What the Hells ultimately are about is desire when you get down to it Child, The Imp said in my head.

  “Really?” I muttered as I took aep closer to the cow, which huffed out a breath.

  I will take every opportunity I to hammer knowledge into your skull since you’ve decided to be more receptive.

  I held a hand out towards the cow, hoping to lull it into a false sense of security. Instead, it mooed angrily and charged forward.

  I should have brought a gun.

  The cow rammed my midse, f the breath from my lungs as it tried to push me us hooves so it could trample me. I tched my jaws on the side of its face, biting deep into its snout as cow blood poured in.

  It’s a desire for something. Each of the seven yers is. And I don’t mean in the fanciful way Lust dresses itself up.

  Snarling, I bit harder, teeth pung through flesh. The cow shed out with a hoof, hitting my unsplinted knee. I fell back, teeth tearing skin away with me.

  Each is an expression of desire. More than just staying alive. Always more. A knowledge that you deserve better. Something where you know you should get more than others have, that you deserve it, that you want it.

  I went for the cow’s throat, jaws tg on and shredding skin as I forced them closed. Blood flooded my mouth, warm and sticky. The cow shed out with its hooves repeatedly, but I kept my jaws tched tight, ripping through muscle and into its windpipe before the cow's legs buckled.

  Releasing, I pulled myself back just before the cow colpsed onto its side.

  While it’s blood is still pumping out, take a bite, a drink, The Imp said in my head. Before the feeling of life fully leaves it.

  “Screw you,” I got out between choked breaths as I tried to get bay hooves, stumbling. My wasn’t broken, but it ached and just moving my knee sent jolts of paint traveling up and down my leg.

  The ooed pitifully o me, blood gushing from the hole I’d bitten in its throat. Its thrashing slowed as I approached.

  Your desires proved greater than theirs. It had failed to prove its right to life.

  I swallowed a retort to the Imp. Instead I leaned down, opening my jaws.

  The flesh was warm still as my teeth cut through skin, beginning to bite into the fat and muscle and ans. I tried not to think on what I was doing, keeping thiirely meical. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Move onto the part of the cow. I never felt like I was getting full, or even that the flesh was reag my stomach, until I stood up from the cow’s corpse.

  You did not e all of it the Imp groused.

  I looked over the leftovers. Iines. Brain. Bones. Hooves. Most of the skin. Eyes.

  “I agreed to eat cows, I didn’t specify how much.”

  Altering the spirit.

  “I’m ing that.”

  You aren’t, I am. And I’m even b to make the bits that make it pass me taste better for your unrefined palette.

  “Learn to temper your hunger,” I muttered, then turned my attention to the nine dead cows while the little devil shrieked inside my head about how insulting that was to a creature like him.

  The one was easier. Not having the oving, struggling, the fading warmth as my teeth sliced through cowhide into the flesh underh. Large bites take ks out, leaving ragged remnants behind as the stain of blood spreads further and further. I wahis over with as quickly as possible.

  It wasn’t. Cows were rge. They took time to chew through, f rge bits of flesh down my gullet to wherever the Imp moved it to devour.

  By the time I reached the final cow, I was exhausted. My jaw burned. My injured leg practically screamed. Even staying on the ground this has tired me out.

  I was also absolutely soaked in blood and viscera. The clothes were ruined, and the blood painted my skin, and ran through my hair, it would have gotten into my eyes.

  Still, almost done. I bit deep into it’s stomach, into by now cold flesh as stagnant blood filled my mouth.

  Then, someone opehe door behind me as I fihe bite.

  “Miss Harrow,” Tagashin as Voltar said. “I brought you the two guests you asked for earlier!”

  Horrht a rush of energy as I turned on the ground to see who had entered. Elise and Gregory, both of whom were staring in wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock at the se before them.

  I sat there, blood p down my , strips of meat hanging from my teeth as I swallowed.

  That fug kitsune.