Angel cackled.

Her laughter blasted back his cloak, seared his skin, and splattered him with her steaming saliva. She beat her wings and rose higher, leaving a wake of fire. She stretched out her arms, letting him admire her nakedness, her loins like burning embers, her pulsing womb that ached for his seed.

"Serve you, King?" She spat out the last word as an insult. "Perhaps you would serve me in my pit. I will take you, copulate with you, and give you to my demons, so they might thrust into you, and you will feed us with your blood, and we will—"

"Silence!" he said, rising from his throne. "You are a queen of banishment, ruler of a prison cell. My forebears bound you to my dynasty. As is my right, I command you. You will rise. You will fight for me."

Angel beat her wings, drew near, and placed her claws upon his chest. They dug grooves through his armor and into his skin, and his blood spilled, and she licked his cheek and hissed into his ear.

"Your forebears never dared free me. If I fight, King, I will burn the world."

He reached into her flames. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back, not flinching even from her heat.

"You will burn only those I command you to. Weredragons infest my kingdom, diseased humans who can take dragon forms. They will be yours to slay. Raise your horde! Bring forth the creatures of the underworld. The demons of the Abyss will rise. You will live in the world once more, as you did in ancient days, and you will hunt weredragons."

Angel shrieked. Her cry cracked a column to her left. The tapestries burned all around, falling to the floor.

"For ten thousand years, we lingered in the darkness. You will free us?"

Raem shook his head. "No. I grant you no freedom. I grant you servitude in sunlight. Fight for me, Angel. You will feel the sunlight upon you. You will fly in open sky, covering my kingdom. But still you will be bound to me."

She tilted her head, snapped her teeth, and clawed at him. "I demand more! I demand . . ." She grinned, and smoke rose between her teeth to blind her. "I demand human wombs. Let my demons choose brides among your women. Let them breed with them. Let the seed of the Abyss infect mortal bellies, so that the daughters of Eteer may bear us children. Agree to this, mortal man, and I will slay your weredragons."

Raem stared at her in silence, eyes hard, lips tight.

He nodded.

Angel laughed.

She tossed back her head, stretched out her four arms, beat her wings, spread her flame, and her laughter rang and the ceiling rained dust.

"It will be so!"

She stamped down her feet, and cracks raced across the floor. Claws rose between them, widening the gaps, and mouths gaped, and tongues explored, and eyes peered, and smoke wafted. The mosaic shattered and they emerged: crawling, flying, slithering, seeping, dragging, scuttling, creatures of ooze, of fat, of scales, of horns, of dried flesh, of weeping sores. Large and small, they emerged into the hall of Eteer's king, freed, famished—the demons of the Abyss.