Chapter 2: The Price of Eternity

From the direction the tendrils came, there’s a girl leaning against a pillar who wasn’t there a second ago. She’s got choppy white hair and golden eyes—like Momo’s eyes, but much meaner. She’s wearing a simple black and white dress with a big ribbon around the waist. Darkness writhes and bubbles around her feet.

“Stop meddling!” Momo yells at her. “Have you been waiting to interrupt us the whole time!? You awful, awful creature!” She stomps her feet and sticks her tongue out at the other girl, which would be adorable if I wasn’t suddenly worried about getting impaled with weird shadow tentacles.

“I had to wait for the most dramatic moment, of course,” the new girl says lazily. “I’m not going to botch my one and only chance at a first impression.”

Nyara clears her throat. “Momo, please introduce our latecomer.”

Momo pouts, but dips her head in Nyara’s direction and gestures at the girl by the pillar. “This wretched beast is Bitch-Princess—”

“Witch-Princess,” the other girl corrects with annoyance.

“—Alice Luden, the rebellious teenage daughter of Nyarlathotep.” Momo glares at Alice, who does not particularly look like a teenager, and I have so many more questions now.

Alice rolls her eyes. “I’ve burned more worlds than you’ve seen summers, you little—” She cuts herself off, hesitating, with a brief flick of her gaze toward me.

“You were going to call me a whore, weren’t you?” Momo accuses. “She loves to do that, it’s her absolute favorite word.”

“Nonsense,” Alice protests. “I have a great deal of respect for whores. They actually provide something of value to the world. You’re just a layabout too moonstruck over getting real magic and reuniting with your MMO crush to realize when the obviously evil goddess of pain and suffering is manipulating you for her own ends.” Her gaze flicks to me again. “Hey, you get what I mean, right? You’ve been in a room with Nyara for more than a minute, you have to know she’s fucking with you.”

Oh god, I have to participate in whatever the hell this is. Momo is looking at me with puppydog eyes again and Nyarlathotep looks like she’s holding back laughter. I side-eye the goddess and turn my attention to the princess. “Hi, I’m Cat. I’ve been dead for less than an hour, pretty sure, and I have no idea what’s going on. Can you not involve me in whatever weird feud you have with my girlfriend?”

Momo lets out a quiet little squeal at being called my girlfriend—I need her carnally—while Alice rolls her eyes again. The princess says, “Look, I get you’re all ‘in love’ or whatever, but your bride-to-be has been drinking the Lucid Circle’s generic brand fruit punch for months and her opinions vis-à-vis selling your goddamn soul are categorically untrustworthy.”

“Cool, sure, so what makes you trustworthy, random asshole I’ve never met?” I cross my arms and lean into Momo a bit more to signal my support.

Alice points at Nyarlathotep with her thumb. “That bitch? Mumsy. Mother. She birthed me from her mind-vagina and put me through an endless cycle of torment and death until I finally satisfied her wretched vanity. I know better than anyone in the infinite what it means to be Nyara’s favorite, and you don’t want to be it. She can present as charming and reasonable all she likes, but in her heart she’s nothing but a sadist.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Nyara grumbles from her throne. The princess hisses at the goddess. “Besides,” the demiurge adds, “I just want to laugh and cry like anyone else in the audience.”

Momo says, “Lady Nyara is granting us eternity together. You’re just jealous because you fumbled your own destined soulmate!” Her wings curl protectively around me.

“Soulmates aren’t real,” Alice says dismissively, though the twitch of her eye suggests that comment struck something. The princess directs her attention to me again and says, “She hasn’t even told you the nature of the ‘eternity’ she’s offering. Always read the fine print, newbie.”

My gaze flicks to Nyarlathotep. “What does she mean by that?”

Nyara poofs a pair of reading glasses into existence, then another copy of the contract. She squints at the scroll, holding it this way and that. “Hmm, yes, let’s see here. In the definitions section, ‘Eternity means a period during which the Grantee shall, upon Death, not pass on to that unknowable fate which lies beyond the domain of demiurges, and shall instead return to the Checkpoint most recently set by the Grantor.’ One line down, ‘Checkpoint is a location in space and period in time determined by the Grantor.’ The Grantor and Grantee are, of course, myself and yourself, respectively.”

I blink slowly. “Sorry, are you saying that I’d be put into a time loop?”

“That’s good actually!” Momo chirps at my side. “It’ll be like our otome project! Every time we hit a dead end, poof! Lady Nyara rewinds time so we can try again and get it right—so we can get it perfect. A perfect run for our perfect lives together.”

Alice makes a disgusted noise. “A time loop is a nightmare, especially with Nyara as your gamemaster. Give a character regeneration and you’ve signed them up for an endless succession of stabbings. Give someone a time loop and they’re going to die over and over and over again. Can you even comprehend what it would feel like to die that many times? To be continually introduced to new, gruesome ends?”

I shiver. “That… sounds unpleasant, yes. But as long as I get back up after, I mean, how bad can it really be?”

Her lips peel back in a snarl. “Let me show you.”

The writhing shadows at Alice’s feet erupt in a plume of darkness and surge toward me, enveloping me before I can react. Then I’m falling, falling, falling—

*

—into the snow, my blood seeping out and staining the pristine white field. I shiver in the cold. I crawl toward the treeline, desperate to escape, knowing my efforts are in vain.

Ribbons of darkness lance through my arms and legs, puncturing my flesh in a dozen different places, and just as quickly retreat to their master. More of my blood spills out. I can’t have much left, I almost laugh, but instead I spit up even more blood as I scream in pain.

“Please,” I beg, voice rasping, “end this. Kill me.”

Snow crunches beneath heavy footfalls. “No,” says my torturer, her voice eerily calm. “Not yet. You’re going to loop again, and die again, and when you do, I need to make sure that you’ve learned your lesson. You’ve chosen the path of suffering. I need to make you understand. I’m sorry, Cat. Trust me, I know the pain you’re experiencing right now. I’ve felt it. I wish there was another way.”

The black ribbons spear me again and lift me into the air, dangling me before my tormentor: Alice Luden, princess of the Lucid Circle. A hundred more tendrils of darkness writhe behind her, twirling and twining and darting to and fro. There’s no emotion on her face.

My limbs are mostly nonfunctional now, but I can still channel magic through them. I force my dangling hand a few inches to the left, fighting through waves of fresh agony, and wrack my pain-addled brain for anything that might work. In our last encounter, Alice shrugged off death bolts and soul lashes like they were nothing.

She doesn’t give me the chance to try. Ribbons wrap around my wrist and squeeze. Flesh is bruised, compressed, and tears under the pressure. Bone fractures into shards.

“Nothing you have can hurt me in a way that matters,” Alice says gently. “Save us both the illusion of struggle.”

Through wretched, hacking sobs, I cry out, “Nyara! NYARA!”

Alice laughs. “You really don’t understand, do you? This is exactly what she wants from you, Cat: endless, ever-changing suffering. That’s all she’s ever been capable of desiring for her favorites. So cry all you like; she won’t answer. Learn something from her silence.”

She pulls me apart. Her power seeps into every inch of my body and separates me. Finger by finger, limb by limb, tendons splitting and fat sloughing off, meat torn and shredded, until finally, finally, finally she releases me. In the snow, I am red pulp and hazy terror, suspended for a few seconds longer in heinous, agonizing—

—life drains out of me into the mouth of the vampire. I thought vampire bites were supposed to feel pleasant, but all I feel is the cold seeping in through all the emptiness she made in me. I’m dying. I’m dying here and it’s slow and awful, my heart slowing beat by beat until I—

—collapse on the hot ground, ash and charcoal clinging to my skin. The warlock hunting me unleashes another burst of hellfire and I try to scream but my lungs are scraped raw and full of smoke. I burn. The pain incinerates every mental process, every thought, every memory, every mote of consciousness. I am scoured clean and still I must scream with ruined lungs and a ruined throat. The fire claims me, consumes me, and then at last the shock takes me and I pass into the dark and die—

—and die—

—and die, again and again, until—

*

—I fall to my hands and knees on the heatless marble of a demiurge’s palace, dry heaving and shaking. My vision swims.

It felt so real and hurt so much, why, why, why?

I raise my head and stare up at the goddess on her throne. Nyara watches me with detached, amused curiosity, her head tilted like an animal trying to understand something.

“How dare you!?” Momo shrieks. I turn to look at her just in time to catch a pillar of stone being cut in half by the black scythe in Momo’s hands.

Alice rises from a puddle of shadow on the other side of the throne, arms crossed. “Oh, grow up. I’m trying to save your crush from an eternity of suffering and you get pissy over one little vision?”

Momo’s wings stretch wide as she points her scythe at Alice, rage in her eyes. “I’ll make you pay for hurting my beloved.”

Alice laughs and makes a “come at me” gesture. A dozen new tendrils sprout from the darkness below her. “As if you could. You’ve never won a spar yet, and you never will. You’re not cut out for the big leagues, birdbrain. Stick to fanfic.”

Nyara claps her hands together gently. The shadows at Alice’s feet and the scythe in Momo’s hands melt away. “Save the dick-measuring for later, children. Our guest is still recovering from what she’s seen. Refreshments are in order. Momo?”

Momo’s attention snaps away from Alice and onto me, alarm replacing rage as she finally registers my pitiful wobbling on the floor of the endless throne room. “At once, my lady,” she says to Nyara with a hurried bow.

“That won’t be necessary,” Alice says smugly. She snaps her fingers and a long table covered by a white tablecloth appears in front of the throne. A feast is laid out: bowls of fruit, platters of pastries, and a cat-shaped teapot with four cat-shaped cups.

Momo helps me to my feet and guides me into a chair, ignoring Alice. “Are you okay?” she asks. “I mean, obviously not, but… are you okay?”

I laugh weakly. “Well, I woke up this morning not knowing what death feels like, and now I’m intimately familiar, but aside from that… yeah, no, this is a lot.” I sip a bit of pomegranate tea and eye the cookie selection.

Momo glares at Alice again, then gives me another hug. “She’s wrong, you know. It won’t be an eternity of suffering. Nyara and I have been making plans for months, Cat. I have whole journals of scenarios I’ve written out for us to explore, and with Nyara’s help they can happen. I’ll show you one—or, well, I’ll ask Nyara—if you let me. Might be a good palate cleanser, after the nightmare you just went through?”

I’m hesitant to dive into another vision, but I need to get my deaths out of my mind. “Go for it.” I nod to Nyara, who waves her hand, and then—

*

“Are you still there, kitten?” purrs the half-familiar voice of the woman whose hand is running through my hair and scratching gently against my skull. Her touch feels sinfully good. I find myself leaning into her thoughtlessly, luxuriating in her attention without a care.

My eyes are half-lidded and the world beyond them is a blur of pale tones and red. I feel fuzzy and warm like a cat in a blanket. Questions of where I am and how I got here flee my brain as soon as they enter, driven out by an overwhelming desire to stay in this moment forever.

A hand grasps my face. It’s a calloused hand, though not so rough that I could ever find it unpleasant. A pair of fingers pull on the skin around my brow and cheekbone, forcing my right eye open. I stare into perfection.

Her mouth, curled in a perpetual smirk, reveals long, wicked fangs. Her white hair—usually kept tidy in a bun, now loose—falls around her elegant features in a way that only enhances the predator’s grace oozing from every facet of her expression. Languid. Feral. The monster in control.

My gaze is snared by hers, drawn into those deep, burning, beautiful crimson eyes. The red of her irises is fire and blood and an ocean I could drown in—that I am drowning in. The vicious hunger in her eyes captivates me and consumes me. I’ve never felt more like prey—like a wounded deer before the wolf.

She is also, my mind registers a second later, completely naked. So am I.

Her skin is pale in a way that nothing living is pale; it is the canvas of a dead woman, lovingly decorated with long-healed scars. Her body is a vision that I can touch, something firm and textured. Long legs with a runner’s toned musculature. Powerful shoulders, relaxed but never slouched. Full, soft breasts that squish so very comfortably where I’ve fallen into them. A distinct lack of body temperature.

Another woman shares my perfect pillow, cradled in the arm of the beauty who called me her kitten. This other woman is just as pale and red-eyed as the first, but a bit shorter and bulkier and far, far more scarred, especially around her throat. There’s a frenzy to her eyes that glints in her sharp-toothed smile. Her features are rougher, her hair dark and cut short, her hands bound in a length of silk rope that shimmers with a dull red glow. Fresh blood anoints her lips. My blood.

A third naked woman lies on the other side of the second, the first’s arm between their backs. She scribbles into a leatherbound journal, red eyes burning beneath round spectacles, sharp face intent on what she’s writing. Her form is completely unscarred, and from my position I get a perfect view of her slender breasts and soft curves—another fantasy to etch into my mind. Her lips are bloodied like the second woman.

I’m in bed with three beautiful, naked women. Oh my god, I’ve died and gone to lesbian atheist heaven. I sigh dreamily and let out a soft giggle.

“That’s adorable,” the woman holding my face chuckles wickedly. Her voice is mocking, lilting, and possessive. “Dazed and dreamy after only a few bites from my other pets. You couldn’t resist me like this even if you wanted to, could you?”

No, my queen, some part of me desperately wants to whimper. My lips twitch impotently. The vampire laughs again.

My addled brain kicks awake, neurons firing at random as connections are made. I’m in bed with three beautiful, naked vampires, and two of them have been drinking my blood. The blood loss is why I feel high—that and whatever vampire magic is in their fangs or saliva.

I don’t mind, of course; I don’t think I’m capable of minding after being bitten twice. Thrice, I correct as my distracted gaze slowly sweeps across the room I’m in and takes in all the little details that just weren’t important when I was processing the hot vampires in bed with me.

Silken sheets. A chandelier. Landscape paintings. A jewelry box. A cart, towels, tea, a sewing kit, bandages, and a bloody handkerchief neatly folded. A woman in a butler’s uniform, red-eyed and pale, her expression serene as she watches the carnal scene unfold on the bed.

My body aches with an unbearably pleasant pain. Shoulder, inner thigh, left breast. Not the neck, though. The neck is special. That one’s just for her.

The vampire’s eyes glint as I slowly tilt my head, baring my neck for her. I want to beg her to take a bite, but my mouth is full of cotton and my tongue is made of lead. My thoughts are scattered, but I plead with my eyes.

Bite me, please. Drain me. Make me like you.

Her smirk widens and she bares her fangs with ferocious glee, but she’s tender, almost gentle, as she leans down, pulls me in, and presses those gorgeous teeth to my vulnerable neck. Skin punctures, pain blossoms, and my world becomes a dreamy blur of limbs and teeth and blood.

Then everything goes blank.

*

I emerge from the second vision shivering for entirely different reasons than last time. I can feel myself blushing.

Momo giggles. “Queen Despona was always your favorite, right? I thought you’d like that one best.”

I bite into a peach and savor the taste, still thinking about fangs on my neck and the sensation of cool flesh. “It was wonderful. If that’s what’ll come of signing the contract, I have no complaints. Well, maybe one.” I eye Momo lasciviously. “Next time, you should join me.”

“You know this doesn’t work if you lie about it,” Alice interrupts, talking to Nyara. She’s moved to an arm of the throne, perched on it like a gargoyle while Nyara leans away from her in amusement. “You have to know that, which means you’ve just been waiting for me to explain, like an asshole.” She glances back over at us. “Quit flirting and listen up, Kitty Cat, because this is important. The point of signing this contract is that it puts narrative weight behind anything Nyara does to interfere with you—it gives her an access point to affect the story directly, rather than just nudging at pieces indirectly.”

I squint at her. “What do you mean, ‘narrative weight?’ Why does that matter?”

“The demiurges are gods of stories,” Alice says, hopping off the throne and grabbing a green apple from the banquet. Crunch. “They’re bard gods. Weavers of worlds, sure, but once the worlds are woven and their chosen have taken the stage, the hands of the gods are tied by rules of convention. The gods can descend from the machine at the right time, in the right context, but there’s always a risk of disrupting the integrity of what they’ve made. Thus, the importance of establishing a pretext.”

“And hence the contract,” I murmur. I glance at Momo. “Is that… does that line up with your understanding of them, Momo?”

Momo slowly nods. “More or less. But she still isn’t right about what Lady Nyara wants.”

“Perhaps it’s time I showed you what I want,” Nyara says, back to her relaxed chin-on-hand pose. “One last vision, and then our guest must decide her fate.”

With a wave of her hand—

*

Holy fire streaks through the air and splashes harmlessly against the dark that surrounds me. My laughter resonates through the veil of shadow, causing minute undulations in the black curtain that shields me from the dozens of faithful fools trying to kill me.

Gray brick. Lion-headed banners. Candles draped across every available surface and melting in sconces. Men and women in white robes and blue gambesons, carrying a mix of wooden staves and thin blades. A feast of souls.

“Is that the best you can do?” I ask my prey, scorn dripping from every word. “And here I was thinking I'd get some exercise out of killing you all.”

I’m bluffing, of course; this many zealots should be more than capable of overwhelming my barrier if I let them keep casting, and I can’t maintain the barrier and throw around offensive spells at the same time. I just need to put a little doubt in their minds before my next trick.

“Nyarlathotep,” I invoke, “your humble servant brings you a simple request: in this chamber of the pious, let there be no light.”

The laughter of a trickster goddess fills the sanctum and snuffs every candle, plunging the room into darkness. The voice of my patron whispers in my ear, “You have until your next breath. Make it count, Catherine.”

Oh, you bitch. I hastily choke off the breath I was about to inhale, dismiss my barrier, and dive into the melee.

The panicked cries of holy warriors unable to call on their light greet me as I carve through their ranks. Unlike them, I can see in the dark. My knife finds throats, armpits, eye sockets, and whatever else I can stick it in. Bolts of pure death energy—invisible in the dark—glide from my other hand to sink into unaware victims and break down their organs from within. They drop like puppets whose strings have been cut.

The pain in my chest builds as I twirl around flailing swords and separate major arteries. My brain screams for fresh oxygen, but there are still more to kill. The hand I’m using to cast with is rotting and peeling as I overexert my death bolt spell to catch every zealot in time.

Then, mercifully, there’s only one left. I gulp in air, my aching lungs thanking me, and take a moment to steady myself as all the candles in the chamber reignite. The last defender is younger than most—a recent recruit, maybe—and his hands are trembling around the hilt of his blade. I can almost taste his fear.

“I don’t suppose,” I get out before needing to take another breath, “you’d be willing… to break your oath… and go home?”

His hands tighten. “I’ll die before I submit to a monster like you.” His voice is scratchy, but full of resolve.

I sigh. “Fair enough. Momo, are you back yet?”

A black scythe cuts clean through the last man’s neck in answer, then vanishes again. “Mission complete!” Momo chirps, her voice echoing across the still and empty hall. “Really hot work there, babe,” she giggles.

I allow myself to enjoy her praise for only a moment before rolling my eyes. “If you were watching the fight, you could have jumped in earlier and saved me a few bolts.” I wring out my hand—the rot already receding as I drink in the death in the atmosphere—and flex my skinless fingers. “Less oxygen deprivation, too.”

Momo materializes next to me, pouting, and says, “Everyone gets to make you breathless but me. When’s it going to be my turn?”

She clearly wants attention, so I give it to her with a slow, deliberate once-over, ignoring what she said for a moment to admire my wonderful wife.

Momo blushes and drapes herself over me—an easy task, given she’s a full head taller. “I’m just saying,” she mumbles into my hair.

“Then I’ll let you fix that once we’re done here,” I flirt back. “If you’re a very good girl, I’ll even take you out for pastries after.”

My angel of death shoots her hands up, jumps an inch off the ground, and shouts, “Another win for Momo!”

*

The last vision fades away, bringing me back to the tea party at the center of infinity.

I take a moment to just breathe, then grab a cupcake to nibble on while I think. Three visions, three possible futures—and thanks to the nature of the “eternity” I’ve been promised, all three could happen in the coming days. So, how do I feel about that?

Momo’s vision was wonderful, obviously. Alice’s vision was a nightmare. Nyara’s vision suggested the reality would be a balance of fantasy and horror, put through trials but always triumphing in the end and enjoying my just rewards. And if that’s true… I think I can work with that. Hell, at least it’ll be more exciting than retail. And I’ll be with Momo.

I glance at Alice and raise an eyebrow. “You said she has to be honest for this to work. Does that mean her vision was accurate? That was the future she has planned for me?”

Alice clenches her fists and grimaces. “Technically? Yes. Right now, that’s her design for you. But that doesn’t mean it’ll always be her design. She gets worse. She always gets worse. There’s a sickness in her mind that infects everything she makes and rots it, stripping away good intentions until only the suffering is left. The only way out is if you never take her deal in the first place.”

Momo rests a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “That’s not true. Lady Nyara isn’t like that, Cat. Trust me.”

I squeeze her hand back, but keep my gaze focused on Alice. “I do. And I’m not going to abandon you and leave you here. Besides, the princess still hasn’t voiced an alternative to signing that contract. If you think I’m going to go into the light just because you don’t like your mother, you’re deranged.”

Alice rolls her eyes—for the third time this conversation, I note—and lets out an exasperated huff. “I’m obviously not telling you to just fuck off and die.” She takes another bite of her apple, grumbles, then sets it down and cracks her knuckles in a big stretch. “Okay, let’s try this again. You’ve heard Mumsy’s pitch, now hear mine.”

The princess stalks over to the nearest open space between marble pillars, pulls a knife out of her sleeve, and slashes the air. Where her blade cuts, reality tears. Static crackles and spreads into the shape of a tall rectangle, like a door to nowhere. Alice turns around to face us, plants her feet firmly, and flicks her hand through her hair dramatically.

“I am Alice Luden, the Witch of Wonderland, and one day I’m going to break the cycle of suffering that my mother exalts. Come with me, Cat. Your girlfriend’s been kidnapped and brainwashed by a dark god, and now she’s trying to convince you to make the same mistake as her. Don’t. Reject the Lucid Circle. Reject the path of torment. Join me, and together we can forge a future where yours and Momo’s souls are free of the grasp of any demiurge. Let’s make a better story than Nyara ever could.”

“I’m not brainwashed, you ass!!” Momo hisses. “Unlike you, I happen to appreciate what Lady Nyara has given us! I have magic because of her, and a chance to be with my soulmate! You’re just an ungrateful brat!”

Alice’s hand tightens around the knife. For a moment, hate flashes in her eyes, and the darkness begins to bubble around her feet again.

She doesn’t care about either of us, I realize. We’re just the means to an end. All that matters is satisfying whatever grudge she has against her mother.

“Nyara,” I call out. “Give me another quill. My soul for eternity.”

Alice swears, stomps her feet, and stalks off through the portal without another word. Nyarlathotep, gracious in victory, dips her head before conjuring a pen into my hand. Momo cheers and hugs me.

I do read the contract before I sign it; I’m not a complete moron. There are a few clauses I note as worth remembering, but ultimately… this is the only option that grants my wish. I sign.

The scroll bursts into flame as soon as I lift my quill. Nyara smiles down at me. “Enjoy your eternity, Catherine. I’ll be in touch. And welcome to Telvaria.”

And then the palace is gone, the starry sky is replaced with cold, black stone, and I find myself lying, arms crossed, in a lidless stone coffin.