MRS. ABERNATHY’S BASILISK POUNDED across the warm stones, lost in the clouds of steam that had arisen in the aftermath of the recent showers. There was an acrid smell in the air, the stink of flesh, and wood, and vegetation corroded and burned by the falling acid, yet already what passed for life in that place was recovering. Clumps of brown seared weeds became slightly less brown; stunted bushes, blackened and smoking, reassumed their usual dull hue; and assorted small demons who had not been quick enough to escape the downpour began growing back arms, legs, toes, and heads. Some of them even grew an extra limb or two while they were about it, just in case an additional appendage proved useful in the future. From holes in the ground and through gaps in the bushes, they watched Mrs. Abernathy pass, and they saw that her face was alive with triumph, and her eyes shone a deep, cold blue. Not all of them knew who she was, for there were parts of Hell where the Great Malevolence was little more than a rumored presence hidden deep in his mountain fastness, and his dukes and generals and legions could have been figures from old fables for all the impact they had on the existence of these primitive entities. Yet they sensed that this curious figure was immensely powerful, and should probably be avoided if at all possible.

And then she was gone and they instantly forgot about her, for they had more immediate concerns, such as when it might rain acid again, and what to do with that extra head they’d just grown.

Mrs. Abernathy didn’t even notice the movement around her. She sensed the conflict in which the Watcher was engaged far above her head, but she had never been less than certain of its capacity to annihilate any enemy that came within its reach. There had been a moment when she feared the Watcher might drop Samuel Johnson, an eventuality that might have put paid to her hopes of returning to the Great Malevolence’s favor. After all, there wouldn’t have been much to show of the boy if he’d been dropped from thousands of feet onto hard rock. True, his consciousness would have survived, but she wasn’t certain that she could reconstitute a human as easily as a demon, and a mulch of messy blood, bits of bone, and fragments of tissue lacked a certain immediate identifiability. She could, she supposed, have scraped him into a jar, stuck a label on it reading “Samuel Johnson (Most of Him),” and presented it to the Great Malevolence, but it wouldn’t have had quite the same impact as delivering the boy, weeping yet intact, to her master, and sharing in his revenge on the troublesome little human.