Nulls sat inside Faust's mouth, the serpent's jaws closed around him, the darkness absolute.
The creature's tongue pulsed beneath him with each heartbeat, slow and steady, and the warmth of its flesh seeped through his clothes.
He had time now. Time to think. Time to plan. Time to calculate the most efficient path to a billion souls.
Yog had not specified what kind of souls. The Codex had said one billion souls, killed with malice, their deaths horrifying, but it had not said human souls.
Animals had souls, or at least the local equivalent of whatever animating principle made a living thing different from a dead one. Bacteria had souls, if one considered their simple consciousness as sufficient for the contract's terms.
Farming a billion animals would take decades. He would need land, resources, time, and patience, none of which he possessed in sufficient quantity.
The humans would hunt him if he tried to establish a farm. The Morbus would be drawn to the concentrated Nexus. The whole enterprise would be a logistical nightmare.
Bacteria were different. A single grain of sand could harbor a hundred thousand individual organisms, each one alive, each one possessing the spark that Yog required. Ten thousand grains of sand would give him a billion souls. A handful. A moment's work.
He had tested the principle earlier when he threw a rock at the statue in the sunken city. The rock had stopped completely, its momentum absorbed by the barrier, because the rock contained bacteria on its surface.
His blood, sterile and pure, had passed through the barrier without resistance. The logic was sound. The loophole existed.
He told the serpent to descend. Faust's body angled downward, and the pressure in Nulls's ears began to change, the familiar weight of the deep ocean pressing against his eardrums.
They had traveled west for hours, then fought Aaliyah for more hours, then battled the Archon Morbus for what felt like an eternity.
The sun would be rising somewhere above the waves, but down here, in the abyss, there was only darkness and the slow pulse of the leviathan's heartbeat.
The serpent's jaws opened, and Nulls stepped onto the sandy sea floor.
The sediment was fine and white, the remains of crushed shells and coral ground to powder by millennia of currents.
He knelt and began to carve sigils with his claws, the lines precise and deliberate, the geometry identical to the ritual he had performed on the island.
The symbols flared with black flame as he completed each one, their heat palpable even through the cold water, and the sand around them began to glow.
One grain of sand could harbor a hundred thousand bacteria. Ten thousand grains would give him enough, he carved a circle large enough to encompass a hundred thousand grains, a margin of safety, a surplus to ensure the ritual's success.
He flicked the sigil, and the black flames spread across the circle.
The sand began to annihilate itself, grain by grain, the solid structure losing cohesion, the silica breaking down into its constituent elements.
The sea floor collapsed inward, turning into a glowing, bubbling soup of radioactive sludge, the heat of nuclear decay warming the water around it.
The sludge vaporized, becoming a heavy gas of isolated floating nuclei and electrons, and then that gas dispersed into the ocean, leaving nothing behind.
Nothing.
No flood of Nexus. No dark sea rising within him. No sense of Yog's satisfaction or hunger or anything at all.
He had wasted a tenth of his reserve to achieve nothing.
Of course. Yog would have patched that loophole centuries ago, would have anticipated that some clever wielder would try to cheat the contract with technicalities. The Codex had not specified human souls because it had not needed to.
The intent was clear. The offering had to matter. Bacteria did not matter. They could not scream. They could not suffer. They could not feel the horror of their own extinction.
"No bother. A billion humans were not that hard to find."
He climbed back inside Faust's mouth and commanded the serpent to surface.
"Find Aaliyah," he said. "There is something I need to ask her."
The leviathans turned and swam toward the island where the village had been, where the church still stood, where the woman who had tried to kill him was recovering from the entropy wound he had lifted from her flesh.
Faust's jaws opened on the shoreline, and Nulls stepped onto the sand. He summoned Marky, the entropy beast flowing into the shape of a horse, its smoky form solid beneath him, and he rode inland at a speed that would have killed any normal mount.
The jungle blurred past, the trees bending away from his passage, and the ruins of the village appeared on the horizon.
He unmanifested Marky as he reached the house, the beast dissolving, and walked up the steps to the door.
The house was empty. He could feel the absence of life inside, the cold stillness of rooms that had been abandoned hours ago.
The bed where Aaliyah had lain was stripped of its blankets, the sheets folded at the foot of the mattress. The old couple's clothes were gone from the closet, and the shotgun was missing from its place beside the nightstand.
They had fled. Or perhaps Aaliyah had teleported them away, had used the last of her recovered strength to move her parents somewhere safe, somewhere he could not find them.
The church was still there. He walked across the rubble of the village, stepping over debris and the ashes of the dead, and climbed the steps to the open doors. The interior was warm and golden, the candles on the altar still burning, the pews empty and silent.
As he crossed the threshold, he felt his power begin to drain. A slow leak, like water seeping through a crack in a dam, his Nexus reserves trickling away into the floor, into the walls, into the air of the sanctuary.
The church was old, built on ground that had been consecrated centuries ago, and something about that consecration rejected his presence.
If he were mortal, if he were human, the effect would be lethal. His body would decay, his mind would shatter, and his soul would be drawn into the light that filtered through the stained glass windows.
His body was made of Nexus. His mind was older than this religion and this planet. His soul belonged to Yog. The church could not kill him. It could only somewhag inconvenience him.
At the far end of the sanctuary, beside the altar, a black and white photograph hung on the wall. The old woman he had spoken to last night smiled out from the image, her kind eyes crinkled at the corners, her weathered hands folded in her lap.
A coffin stood beneath the photograph, surrounded by flowers that emmited the same scent he inhaled when he was in the garden. Not exactly one on one replica, but it was close enough. The lid was open revealing her corpse.
Nulls walked slowly down the aisle, his footsteps echoing off the stone floor, and looked inside.
The old woman lay in the coffin, her body still in good condition, her face was kind even in death as they were when she was alive, her hands clasped over her chest.
She had died last night, when the rift opened, when the Morbus had emerged. Shock, perhaps. Or a heart attack. Or simply the natural end of a life that had stretched as far as it could go.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned. A man in priest's attire walked down the side aisle, his gaze locked on the holy scripture in his hands, his lips moving in silent prayer.
He was young, perhaps thirty, with dark hair and a face that had not yet lost its boyish softness. His eyes were fixed on the book as if the Almighty had nailed them there, and he did not look up as he approached the altar.
"Be not afraid." Nulls said.
The priest's head snapped up, and his eyes went wide with terror. The book slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor, and he stumbled backward, his mouth opening and closing, no sound emerging.
"I will not kill you in this place," Nulls said. "I will not harm you in the house of your god."
The priest's fear did not abate. His hands shook, his breath came in short gasps, and his eyes darted from Nulls's antlers to his claws to his face with its four eyes and needle teeth.
Nulls reached into his own chest.
His claws pierced his skin, parted his flesh, and closed around his heart. The organ was warm and wet and beating with the rhythm of his Nexus reserves, and he pulled it free with a wet tearing sound that echoed off the stone walls.
Blood sprayed from the wound, dark and thick, and the hole in his chest began to close almost immediately, the flesh knitting together, the skin sealing over.
He held his heart out to the priest. The man stared at the organ, at the blood dripping from it onto the floor, at the way Nulls's chest was already healed as if nothing had happened.
"Take it," Nulls said.
The priest's hand trembled as he reached out and took the heart. It was warm and heavy in his palm, and he held it as if it might bite him.
"This is leverage," Nulls said. "If I act out of control, if I break my word and harm you, you can destroy my heart and kill me."
The priest nodded slowly, his eyes still wide, his breath still shallow.
What the man did not know was that the heart was meaningless. His organs were Nexus now, power given form, and destroying one of them would inconvenience him at most.
The priest could stab it, burn it, crush it, eat it, and Nulls would feel nothing more than a momentary drain on his reserves.
But the man would not know that. The man would believe he had power over the monster that had walked into his church, and that belief would keep him calm enough to talk.
Nulls sat in the front pew and patted the seat beside him.
The priest hesitated, then sat.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The candles burned on the altar, and the old woman's photograph smiled down at them, and the scent of flowers filled the air.
"Your religion," Nulls said. "Tell me about it."
The priest's voice cracked when he spoke. "We believe in the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, the father of all things. He made the world in seven days, and on the seventh day he rested. He made the first humans, Adam and Eve, and placed them in the Garden of Eden."
"And they ate from the tree," Nulls said. "They disobeyed. They were cast out."
"Yes."
"Because your god is merciful."
The priest flinched at the sarcasm in Nulls's voice. "He is. He gave them a chance to repent. He gave them clothing to cover their shame. He did not destroy them, though he had every right to."
Nulls stared at the altar, at the cross that hung above it, at the figure of the god's son nailed to the wood. "I was once religious. A priest, much like you. I believed in a god who saw everything, who knew everything, who loved everything. I prayed to him every day. I sacrificed to him every week. I devoted my entire existence to his service."
The priest said nothing.
"My god abandoned me." Nulls's voice was flat, emotionless, a recitation of facts rather than a confession. "He forsook me when I needed him most. He watched as everything I loved was destroyed, and he did nothing. He heard my prayers, and he did not answer. He saw my suffering, and he turned away."
He looked at the priest, his four eyes unblinking.
"So I did the same. I turned away from him. I stopped believing. I stopped praying. I stopped caring."
The priest's grip tightened on the heart in his hand. "What happened to you?"
"I became jealous." Nulls looked back at the altar. "My brother was favored by the god I served. He received blessings I was denied. He was given gifts I was never offered. He was loved in ways I could never be loved."
He paused.
"I took a stone and killed him."
The priest's breath caught in his throat.
"His blood was warm on my hands. His eyes were open, and they watched me as he died. He did not understand why I had done it. He had never done anything to hurt me. He had only been loved more than I was."
"And your god?"
"He cursed me." Nulls smiled, and the expression was terrible. "He made me live forever. He made me wander from world to world, never finding rest, never finding peace, never finding a place where I belonged. He made me a fugitive, hunted by the forces of creation itself, and he told me that I would never know death until I had became what I was meant to be."
The priest stared at him.
"I have not," Nulls said. "I do not think I ever will, the burden that god bestowed upon me is too great even for me."
The candles flickered, and the old woman's photograph smiled, and the flowers in the coffin filled the air with their sweet perfume.
The priest's hands trembled around the heart, his knuckles white where they gripped the wet organ.
Nulls watched the man's throat work as he swallowed, watched his eyes dart from the altar to the cross to the photograph of the dead woman, looking for something to anchor himself against the thing sitting beside him.
Nulls gestured at the walls. "Tell me about them."
The walls of the church were covered in paintings, scenes from the holy book rendered in vivid colors that had faded with age.
A mosaic of the Almighty divided light from darkness, his hand outstretched to a world that had not yet been born.
Saints in golden halos stared down from the ceiling, their eyes following the movement of anyone who walked beneath them.
Idols carved from wood and stone stood in niches between the windows, their faces worn smooth by the hands of generations of worshippers.
The priest followed his gaze. "They are our teachers. Our guides. They lived lives of virtue and sacrifice, and through them we see the path to salvation."
"What did they sacrifice?" Nulls asked.
"Their comfort and safety, sometimes even their lives."
"And what did they gain?"
The priest hesitated. "Eternal life with the Almighty."
Nulls turned to face him, his four eyes blinking in sequence. "So they traded something finite for something infinite. That is investment. A shrewd one, at that. The word you are looking for is greed not sacrifice."
The priest's mouth opened, then closed.
"Your scriptures," Nulls continued, looking up at a mosaic of a saint being stoned to death, her face rapturous even as the rocks struck her body. "I have some knowledge about them, but I have not read them fully. Tell me about the stories where the Almighty laid his wrath upon humanity."
"We do not speak of those."
"No. You do not. You bury them beneath ceremony and tradition and the comfortable weight of certainty."
Nulls stood and walked to a painting of the garden, of the serpent offering fruit to the woman, of the man watching from the shadows.
"Your god created Adam and Eve, placed them in paradise and told them not to eat from one specific tree. Then he let the serpent into the garden knowing what would happen if he did so, but he did it anyway. He set them up to fall, and then he punished them for falling."
The priest's voice was barely a whisper. "He gave them free will."
"He gave them a test they were designed to fail, and then he blamed them for failing it." Nulls touched the painting, his claw tracing the serpent's painted scales. "If a human did that to his children, we would call him a monster. But when your god does it, you call it mercy."
"The Almighty's ways are beyond our understanding."
"So is my god, and looked what his ways had done to me." Nulls turned from the painting and walked toward a statue of a saint holding a sword, the blade pointed toward the floor. "This one. What did he do?"
"He led an army against the forces of darkness. He killed countless demons in a single battle."
"And then?"
"He prayed for forgiveness. He had shed blood, even in the service of good, and he sought the Almighty's mercy."
Nulls laughed. The sound was dry and hollow, echoing off the stone walls. "He killed demons. Beings of evil. Creatures that threatened the innocent. And he asked forgiveness for that. How twisted must a morality be that it condemns the protection of the innocent?"
The priest had no answer.
"The other stories," Nulls said. "The one where your god drowns the entire world. The one where he turns a woman into salt for looking back at her home. The one where he sends bears to maul children for mocking a bald man. Tell me about those."
The priest shifted on the pew, his grip on the heart loosening. "Those are testaments to his judgment."
"His cruelty." Nulls returned to the pew and sat, his weight making the wood groan. "A parent who drowned his children for disobeying would be imprisoned. A king who destroyed his own cities for rebellion would be overthrown. But your god does these things, and you call him good. You have redefined the word to fit the being you worship."
"We have faith."
"Ah yes, faith." Nulls leaned back, his antlers scraping against the wall behind him. "I am curious. If your god appeared before you right now and commanded you to kill your family, would you do it?"
The priest went pale.
"Abraham was willing. He bound his son to the altar and raised the knife, and your god stopped him at the last moment. A test of faith, you call it. I call it psychological torture. What kind of being demands that kind of loyalty?"
"The Almighty's ways—"
"Are beyond your understanding. Yes, you said that already. It is a convenient phrase. It excuses everything and explains nothing."
They sat in silence for a long moment. The candles burned lower, and the old woman's photograph watched them from beside the coffin.
The priest was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, "There is a painting in the side chapel. Saint Sebastian, pierced by arrows. Do you know the story?"
"No."
"The saint was a soldier in the Roman army. He converted to Christianity, and when the emperor discovered his faith, he ordered him executed. The archers shot him full of arrows and left him for dead. A widow found him, nursed him back to health, and he recovered. He confronted the emperor and was beaten to death."
Nulls waited.
"The arrows did not kill him." The priest looked up at the cross above the altar. "He survived. He was given a second chance. And he used that chance to walk straight back into the arms of his enemies and die for what he believed."
"He was a fool."
"Perhaps." The priest's voice was steadier now. "But he was a fool who knew what he was dying for. He knew that his faith would not save his body. He knew that his god would not strike down his executioners. He knew that the only reward waiting for him was death and whatever came after. And he chose it anyway."
Nulls studied the painting on the far wall, the saint pierced by arrows, his face turned toward heaven, his expression one of peace rather than pain. "You admire him."
"I aspire to be like him."
The priest followed him, still clutching the heart. "You spoke of your god earlier. What was his name?"
Nulls stopped in front of a statue of the Madonna, the mother of the god's son, her face smooth and serene, her hands open in offering. "His name is nothing, it does not exist. Or perhaps he never existed at all. I have lived long enough to doubt everything I once believed."
"What do you believe now?"
"That the universe is indifferent. That suffering is meaningless. That the only justice is the justice we create for ourselves." Nulls touched the statue's cheek, his claw scraping against the marble. "And that your god is a fiction invented by primates who could not bear the thought of their own extinction."
The priest said nothing.
"Why are you here?" the priest asked. "You did not come to debate theology."
Nulls turned to look at him. "No. I came to ask about the Rapax Morsatra. Their bases. Their locations. You are one of their employees, are you not? You bury the bodies of those who die near Morbus incidents. You prepare the dead for funerals that no one attends."
The priest's face went slack with shock. "How did you—"
"The old woman," Nulls said. "Her body was prepared by someone who knew how to handle corpses contaminated by aetherion exposure. The flowers around her coffin are not local, from their look is not hard to deduce thag the condition in this region is not suitable for them. They were imported from a greenhouse that supplies the Rapax Morsatra's mortuary services. And you, Father, have the look of a man who has seen too many bodies and said too many funerals."
The priest said nothing.
"I need the locations of your bases. The ones where you keep your research, your containment facilities, your command centers. I have questions that only your leaders can answer, and I am tired of chasing shadows."
"You think I would betray my people to a monster?"
"I think you are holding my heart in your hands." Nulls gestured at the organ, still warm, still beating faintly. "You have power over me. And you are afraid of what will happen to the people in this continent if you refuse."
The priest looked down at the heart, then at Nulls, then at the photograph of the old woman who had died when the rift opened.
"Tri-Helios," he said. "It is in the mountains. I do not know the exact coordinates. They blindfold us when we are transported there."
"Others."
"The Solomon University. It is on the eastern continent. I have never been, but I have heard the researchers speak of it."
"More."
"Methuselah Genesis. It is underground. Somewhere beneath the osiris desert. That is all I know."
Nulls nodded slowly. "Thank you, Father. You have been more helpful than you know."
He stood and walked toward the door, then paused.
"Do you know where Aaliyah went?"
The priest hesitated, then shook his head. "She left. I do not know where. She did not tell me."
"Then you are of no use to me." Nulls walked toward the door, then stopped. "You asked the name of my god. The one who cursed me."
The priest nodded.
"One of his name was Aleph." Nulls looked back at the altar, at the cross, at the figure of the god's son nailed to the wood. "He was the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He created everything, and he destroyed everything, and he did not care which was which."
The priest said nothing
"The heart," he said. "Keep it. When I have done what I came to do, I will return for it. If I do not return, you may do with it as you wish."
"Do you really think you will succeed?" the priest asked.
Nulls looked back at him, at the man in the robe, at the heart in his hands, at the candles burning low on the altar.
"I always succeed," he said. "It is the aftermath that concerns me."
He stepped out into the light of the rising sun, and the doors of the church closed behind him.
The priest sat alone in the pew, holding a monster's heart, surrounded by the faces of saints who had never faced anything like the thing that had just walked out of their sanctuary.
Outside, Nulls summoned Marky and rode toward the shore, toward the serpent, toward the next stage of his journey.
He had names now had locations he could track. But in ret7rn he had questions that needed answers.
The Rapax Morsatra would not hide from him forever. None of them would. The world was too small, and he had too much time, the eschaton was approaching whether they were ready for it or not.