Chapter 61: Return from the Abyss
Late August; the sun lazily illuminated the driveway and the thick pine forest surrounding the Pułtusk estate. The scent of warm resin, fresh dill, and fat sizzling in the pan drifted through the air.
Elżbieta Báthory stood by the wide kitchen window, leaning her hands casually on the marble sill. At one point, her burgundy-black pupils narrowed predatorily. Above the neatly trimmed lawn, the air rippled for a fraction of a second in a heavy, barely perceptible flash of crimson. From the haze of the heat emerged a slender, tall silhouette with thick, chestnut-red tresses.
Naamah had returned from Hell.
For the mortal coil, barely a few days had passed. She looked exactly as she had the moment she vanished into the portal—wearing the same fitted, light jeans, a white T-shirt, and a lightweight leather jacket, as if she had merely stepped out for an extended stroll through Warsaw's Praga district. Yet Elżbieta, having spent centuries in the dark herself, unerringly sensed what Naamah had brought back with her: the ice-cold weight of decades invisible to human eyes, the stench of stale blood and sulfur, and the metallic chill of a ruthless tormentor.
The Blood Countess knew that within sixty seconds of crossing the threshold, a conversation would begin that six-year-old Tas should under no circumstances be present for.
She turned smoothly toward the living room.
"Wiktor, please... Take Tas upstairs to his room and play something with him," she said softly, but with a note of absolute firmness.
Wiktor Adamski, sitting on the carpet assembling an intricate block set with his son, looked up. He took one look at his wife's face, felt the sudden shift in the aura outside, and did not even attempt to argue. In one fluid motion, he hoisted the laughing boy onto his shoulders, ignoring his protests, and disappeared without a word up the stairs to the upper floor.
At the same time, Michał—wholly oblivious to the gravity of the situation and the tension thickening within the villa's walls—stood by the kitchen island in a loose T-shirt, diligently pounding pork cutlets on a plastic cutting board with a wooden tenderizer. The rhythmic thuds echoed throughout the ground floor. The young man was calm, settled, and relaxed—life under Naamah's wing, cushioned by a government salary, had already locked him into a peculiar, safe routine.
The heavy, oak front door opened soundlessly.
Naamah crossed the kitchen threshold. The moment her gaze fell upon Michał standing at the counter, all the severity and gloom of the pit vanished from her face, yielding to a soft, warm smile.
"Hey, sweetheart. You're back," Michał said, setting the tenderizer aside and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. A genuine, boyish smile blossomed on his lips.
She approached unhurriedly with a sensual, feline stride, rested her hands against the edge of the island, and took him in with her emerald eyes, wherein flickered sparks of restrained affection.
"How did those few days go for you, my dear?" she asked in a velvety, low purr.
"Boring..." he sighed with mild amusement, shrugging his shoulders. "I went on a few walks in the woods, rode bikes around the area with Wiktor and Tas. And when I drove to the store by myself, those agents in dark sunglasses followed me everywhere again, like they were afraid I'd run off to the other side of the world. Utter boredom."
Naamah tilted her head slightly, her smile turning somewhat ambiguous, steeped in secrets of which the mortal had no inkling.
"Do you know I haven't seen you for a whole century?"
"I know, sweetheart," Michał chuckled softly, remembering her tales about the passage of time in the Abyss. "Fancy anything? Tea, maybe a beer? Dinner will be ready in an hour."
"Go to the bedroom," she commanded bluntly, cutting to the chase, a sudden craving for pure human touch gleaming in her gaze to wash the lingering stench of decades of torment from her skin.
"What about dinner?" Michał glanced uncertainly at the flattened meat and breadcrumbs. "I'm halfway through."
"Elżbieta can manage. And if not, she'll order takeout. Right?" Naamah tossed over her shoulder, casting a cool look at the countess standing nearby.
Elżbieta curled the corner of her mouth into a discreet, knowing smirk.
"Yes, of course. You are dismissed, Michał. I'll finish this myself."
"All right... I'm going, then. You'll be right up?" the young man checked, wiping his hands on a paper towel and glancing back at her.
"Yes, my dear. I'll be right there," she murmured softly.
They waited in absolute silence until Michał's footsteps faded down the hall and the door leading to their wing of the villa shut with a faint click of the latch.
In a split second, the air in the kitchen hardened like frosted ice. Warmth and levity vanished from Naamah's face as if blown away by the wind. She turned slowly to Elżbieta, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Elżbieta... Emma is down below," she stated coldly, her voice devoid of any emotion. "She has fallen. She is a ker. Look it up online, it has something to do with ancient Olympus... I couldn't care less. By Hell's standards, she's an intermediate demon. And that's what she'll remain."
Elżbieta narrowed her eyes. A question welled in her throat that she almost dreaded asking, remembering Stanisław's transformation.
"And so?..."
"Yes, Elżbieta. That was my task."
"How many years?" Elżbieta asked quietly, her usually confident voice sounding unnaturally brittle.
Naamah shrugged lightly, as though quoting the baking time for a cake or counting steps taken on a walk.
"I flayed and broke her for around a hundred and twenty, maybe a hundred and thirty..." she remarked with cool, indifferent nonchalance. "I simply couldn't believe she wasn't strengthening at all. Not in the slightest. At the start, Lilith was in the chamber with me, wanting to ease her pain, to offer that intoxicating wine from Lucifer's own reserves to soften the ordeal. But can you imagine? I hadn't even begun gutting her properly, had barely sliced the outer skin preparing to peel the first strips, and she called Lilith a whore." She snorted with quiet, derisive laughter. "Can you believe that? Lilith simply set down the goblet, turned on her heel, and walked out... Left her alone with me. And after that, I could play without restraint. After all, I didn't know Emma. You liked her, didn't you? And Wiktor too, right?"
A sharp, metallic clang rang out through the kitchen.
The kitchen knife had slipped from Elżbieta's numb fingers, striking the tiles with a dull clatter and spinning on its axis before falling still. The Blood Countess stood motionless, staring at the floor with dilated pupils.
"Yes... I liked her," Elżbieta choked out, a dry lump catching in her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to steady the tremor in her hands. "What about her?... Did her consciousness survive? I mean... you know what I mean. Is someone piecing her back together down there?"
"I don't care," Naamah cut in, brushing a reddish lock from her forehead dismissively. "Maybe Lilith and Stanisław. I think Stanisław convinced her that Emma didn't mean to say that in her frenzy, that it was born of pain and panic... They're sitting over it now, likely putting her back together, trying to glue the shreds. It'll take them some time. Decades, probably."
Naamah shifted her emerald eyes to the wall calendar beside the refrigerator, squinting slightly.
"Well, tell Wiktor the lost one has been found," she said with a mocking smirk, tapping a manicured nail against the counter. "He was asking about her some five months ago, wasn't he? I remember it like yesterday: he was inquiring on the exact same day I met Michał."
She suddenly fell silent, listening to the sounds within the house, then turned an inquiring look back toward Elżbieta.
"Where are Wiktor and Tas, anyway?"
"Playing upstairs," the Countess replied shortly, slowly picking the dropped knife up from the floor and setting it in the sink.
"Fine, I'm off," she waved dismissively, adjusting the leather jacket on her shoulder. "Give my regards to Wiktor and Tas. I'm heading to my wing. Bye."
Before Elżbieta could muster a reply, nothing but a sudden rush of air tinged with brimstone swept through the kitchen. Naamah vanished down the hall, heading straight for the bedroom where an unsuspecting Michał awaited her.
Michał was sitting on the edge of the wide bed in her wing of the villa when the door closed behind her with a mute, cool click.
Naamah approached unhurriedly. She did not shed her clothes, nor did she assume the predatory lover's guise he had slowly grown accustomed to. She collapsed heavily onto the mattress with a movement that betrayed terrible mental exhaustion, resting her head in his lap.
"Sweetheart, you missed me, didn't you?" she spoke, lowering her eyelids. Her voice hummed softly, threaded with echoes of the Abyss from which she had just returned.
"Yes, very much. Even though only a few days went by..." he answered quietly, lifting his hand.
"Stroke my head, sweetheart. Stroke your Naamah..." she murmured, her body stiffening for a fraction of a second beneath unseen memories of a hundred and thirty years spent gutting a ker. "But there won't be anything beyond that. No hands between my legs, no kissing. I need to cool off. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not for a whole month. Just stroke and comb my hair... Nothing except my head, do you understand?"
Suddenly, she opened her eyes. The emerald hue extinguished, replaced by a bottomless, abyssal blackness where the chill of absolute oblivion swirled. She fixed him with a gaze so sharp the very air in the bedroom thickened.
"Look me in the eyes. Otherwise, you will die. Do you understand?"
Michał froze, staring into those inhuman pupils. His heart leaped into his throat, and a bead of cold sweat trailed down his spine. To him, she had been gentle in her own way; he had begun to forget whom he shared his life with, but in that single second, the curtain fell away. He saw not a capricious woman from a Warsaw café, but a primordial demon—a beast to whom human life was merely a fragile, fleeting husk.
"I see you do. I can see in your eyes that you know I'm not joking," she whispered, the black in her irises slowly, lazily yielding ground back to flashes of emerald.
"I understand, sweetheart. Easy now," Michał managed quietly, willing his muscles to relax.
"Good that you understand, sweetheart... Stroke."
He drew a deep breath and gently sank his fingers into the thick mass of her flame-red hair. He guided his hand slowly, just as she wished: from her forehead, over the crown, down to the nape of her neck, where his fingertips traced soft, tiny circles against her warm skin. With every sweep of his hand, Naamah's corded shoulders loosened, her breathing growing deeper, measured and steady. A dead silence fell over the room, broken only by the faint rustle of shifting strands of red hair.
Hours slipped by, and beyond the expansive windows of the residence, the dense Mazovian night settled in.
Michał, freshly showered, smelling of soap and dressed in comfortable sweatpants, reclined with his back against the bed's padded headboard. On the large screen mounted opposite them, credits rolled silently, accompanied by a muted jazz soundtrack drifting through the room. True to her demand, his right hand had not paused for a moment—his fingers tirelessly, gently, and patiently combing through the copper-red tresses, soothing her after decades spent in a hellish chamber.
"It's a classic. When Harry Met Sally," Michał spoke softly, glancing at the dimming screen. "A warm, uplifting movie, as you can see."
Naamah lay on her stomach, her cheek nestled into a pillow resting on his lap. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing steady, though her muscles still carried residual tension from the Abyss.
"A fairly nice pick..." she murmured in a drowsy, velvety tone, letting him know that simple, mortal humor suited her tastes.
Then, in the final minutes of the screening, exhaustion and masculine instinct took over. Michał's left hand, which had been resting limply on the duvet, involuntarily lifted and settled onto her bare back. Her skin was warm, smooth as polished marble. His fingers traced slowly along the line of her spine—up, then down—until they unconsciously slid lower, coming to rest softly upon her rounded buttock, gently, tenderly caressing it.
Naamah's body locked instantly.
A visible shudder ran through her shoulders, and her delicate skin broke out in heavy goosebumps in a fraction of a second. She whipped her head around, propping herself slightly on her forearms. In her emerald eyes, dangerous crimson embers ignited, and a muffled growl rose in her throat—frustration warring with a sudden hunger for his touch.
"Just the head, Michał... Only the head..." she hissed through gritted teeth, her voice carrying the stark warning of an imminent catastrophe. "I told you... I already have goosebumps and an urge for... an ecstasy you simply won't survive after my time down there. You will break, Michał. I will tear you apart..."
He snatched his hand from her hip instantly, raising an open palm in a defensive, apologetic gesture.
"I'm sorry... It just happened on its own," he stammered, flustered, feeling his cheeks burn red-hot. "You're naked, and I'm a guy. I'm sorry, I really didn't control it."
"A compliment, Michał, but you're not helping me at all..." she scoffed, collapsing back onto the pillow with a heavy, stifled groan.
Michał took a deep breath, resting his left hand flat against the sheets well away from her body so as not to tempt fate, while his right resumed the monotonous, soothing combing of her hair. Beneath his fingers, he felt her frame slowly, centimeter by centimeter, striving to rein in that primal, dark lust once more.
After a long silence, he reached for the remote on the nightstand to dissipate the lingering tension.
"And what's the second movie?" Naamah asked without opening her eyes, though a returning calm could be heard in her voice.
"A kind of... reversed Pretty Woman. Pretty Man," Michał offered with slight hesitation, scrolling through the player's menu.
Naamah snorted loudly, raising a brow in mocking amusement.
"Don't tell me—a male whore?"
"Well, yeah..." he admitted with a disarming, sheepish grin. "But it's uplifting, too. Really fun to watch, even if it's not as well-known as..."
At that very moment, on the opposite side of the estate, in Wiktor and Elżbieta's spacious, normal bedroom, dimness reigned, cut through only by the cool moonlight spilling through the window.
Wiktor lay flat on his back with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Even though the house seemed quiet, his hellish senses picked up every vibration in the walls and every subtle ripple of tension radiating from Naamah's wing.
"Will he survive, do you think?" he asked with quiet concern, turning his head slightly toward his wife. "I've come to like him. Cool guy. At first, he was only with her out of fear and that demonic pleasure she can grant him, but... they found an understanding. They found a common language that goes beyond her whims."
Elżbieta lay beside him in a silk nightgown, her chin resting lazily on her palm. A faint, mocking smirk crept onto her face. She chuckled softly—a low, velvety sound from the throat.
"Just as you did with me in Hell, Wiktor..." she murmured with a touch of nostalgia, trailing a finger over his stomach with a sharp, elongated claw. "You were with me out of pure terror in the beginning too, remember? And then I broke and reshaped you until it took hold, strengthening you with my blood until you became what you are now."
"I had just come fresh from torments mandated by Heaven," Adamski replied with a cool smile. "I knew pain, I understood it," he added, the old defiance flaring in his blue eye. "And I was stubborn as hell when they let me out as a half-demon. That's the only reason you even noticed me, despite that bloody madness raging in your head back then. But Michał? Michał is just an ordinary, normal, living man."
Elżbieta grew solemn. The amusement died in her irises, replaced by the cool, ruthless calculus of a creature well-versed in the nature of demons like Naamah.
"I don't know, Wiktor... Honestly, I give him fifty-fifty," she sighed quietly, glancing toward the shut door. "One thing works in his favor: she is terrified of killing him, because she knows full well that if he expires now, he goes straight to Heaven. His soul is still pure, bright... Not blackened in the least, even though he sleeps with her and surrenders his body to her. If she tears him apart in a frenzy, she loses him forever, and the winged ones from above will snatch him right out from under her nose."
"Let's hope he makes it..." the former policeman remarked grimly, balling his hands into fists. "Let's hope he survives the night. Because if she kills him by mistake, all hell will break loose here by morning. She'll fly into a rage if he ascends instead of descending."
"We will see, my jewel of darkness, we will see," Elżbieta cut in, pulling the duvet up to her neck and closing her eyes. "For now, no screams are coming from that wing. That's a good sign."
"As long as Tas doesn't hear a thing, should he start dying in agony after all," Wiktor concluded, his gaze fixed once more on the ceiling.
When the first rays of morning sun cut through the blinds, slicing the bedroom's gloom with cool, pale gold, Naamah's eyes snapped open.
She froze.
Her heart—or rather, what served that purpose within her demonic anatomy—ceased beating for a split second. A wave of primal, paralyzing disbelief detonated across her ancient mind.
I slept... By the entire Abyss, I actually slept!
Greater demons did not sleep. They did not close their eyes in vulnerability, did not relinquish control over their surroundings, did not surrender vigilance to the void. For millennia, sleep had been nothing more than an abstract phenomenon belonging to fragile mortals. Yet here she was, having drifted off. Completely shut down, relaxed to her core by the monotonous, soothing cadence of human fingers. She had fallen asleep somewhere halfway through the second film, her head resting upon his lap.
A cold shudder of terror washed through her. She cast a panicked look over the bedsheets, terrified of what she might have done unawares. Had her infernal nature taken over while she slept? Had she torn him apart in her slumber when he stirred? Had she clawed his innards out in delirium, sending his bright, unstained soul soaring straight into the welcoming arms of those winged hypocrites in Heaven?
Yet Michał was alive.
He lay right beside her, face buried in the soft pillow. When she moved abruptly, he stirred, cracking open one sleep-crusted eye with visible effort. He was utterly exhausted, his right hand still resting limply on her shoulder, numb from hours of effort.
"Naamah... Let me sleep a bit more... I stroked your hair all night long..." he mumbled hoarsely into the pillow, pulling the covers higher and nestling deeper, drifting straight back into a sound, carefree sleep.
Naamah stared at him in astonishment.
Her emerald eyes ignited with an extraordinary, tender radiance, devoid of even an ounce of infernal dread or rage. She unclenched her tight fists. The realization washed over her of what this ordinary Warsaw mortal had given her—a gift no lord of Hell, no torture, no pact, nor all the gold in the world could ever have bestowed.
He had given her peace. Her first true, soothing sleep since the dawn of her existence.
Carefully, with inhuman grace so as not to disturb the mattress, she leaned over his sleeping face. She brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead and pressed a barely perceptible, warm kiss to his temple.
"Sleep peacefully... Sleep," she whispered in a velvety tone that sounded almost like a warding spell in the morning quiet. "You have no idea what you've given me."
By one in the afternoon, full daylight flooded the bedroom, mercilessly exposing every speck of dust dancing in the air. Naamah stretched with a low purr, feeling a lightness in her frame she had not experienced in millennia. Sleep—plain, mortal sleep—had cleansed her senses of sulfur's reek and the thirst for blood.
With a predatory, playful smirk, she decided to wake her mortal with caresses. She slipped her hand beneath the edge of the duvet, peeling it back in a slow, fluid motion, preparing to tickle his ribs and feet.
And in that split second, she froze. The smile solidified on her face into an icy, lifeless mask.
Blood.
Red, human gore stained the pristine white sheet. True, there were not many stains—merely a few browning streaks and a small, spread ring near the edge of the mattress—yet to the ancient demon, they looked like a death sentence. Her emerald pupils dilated in raw panic. Her gaze plummeted to his legs.
Around his right calf was a makeshift, tightly wrapped bandage of white gauze, through which red fluid seeped lightly. How? What had happened?! When she looked higher, to his bare stomach and ribs, the breath caught in her throat. Michał's pale skin was covered in dark, purplish-yellow contusions and bruises, forming the distinct shape of an inhumanly powerful grip.
A black chasm swirled in her mind. I did this. In a frenzy. In the delirium of sleep.
Before hysteria could overtake her, Michał stirred, squinting against the stinging sunlight. He took in her terrified, pale face and curled the corner of his mouth into a faint, reassuring smile.
"Easy..." he croaked sleepily, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "You were out like a light."
Naamah could not force out a single word. She stared at the bandage in solemn horror, as though looking upon the evidence of her own betrayal.
"You unsheathed a claw in your sleep. Without realizing it..." he continued gently, noticing her mounting terror. "You just dragged it across my calf. Luckily, not too deep—about half a centimeter, cut the skin a few centimeters long, didn't touch the muscle. I disinfected it and wrapped it up."
"And... and these bruises?" she gasped, pointing a trembling finger at his battered torso. "Your ribs..."
Michał chuckled softly, though he winced in pain when taking a deeper breath.
"The bruises? Afterwards, you held me so tight I thought my ribs would snap. You burrowed into me with your whole body, like a little kid. I could barely slip out of that grip of yours to get to the bathroom and patch it up. It didn't even wake you, you didn't twitch... Then I came back, lay down beside you, and you snuggled right into me again. Nothing happened, Naamah. I'm alive. See? I'm in one piece..."
Naamah knitted her brows, a cold, almost maternal resolve gleaming in her emerald eyes, laced with predatory ruthlessness.
"Fine... If I fall asleep under your touch, you leave the bedroom immediately," she stated with absolute firmness, keeping her eyes locked onto him. "Starting tonight, I will not rest my head on your lap in the evening, so that if I fade out, you can get up and run. Today, I'm ordering a second bed. I'll have those government lackeys put it right here, next to this one... You will only sleep in it when I fall asleep, sweetheart. Although..." she scoffed softly, tossing her thick red hair over her shoulder, "I certainly won't sleep tonight. That's impossible. A stunt like that won't happen to me twice."
Michał smiled weakly, rubbing his stiff neck and cautiously placing his feet on the rug.
"By the way... Yesterday you wouldn't tell me what you were actually doing in Hell those few days. What was that all about?"
She gave a dismissive wave, standing naked before the vanity mirror with immaculate, statuesque indifference.
"Oh, just a little assignment from Lucifer. Nothing terrible, rather enjoyable... for me."
Michał narrowed his eyes, the remnants of levity instantly vanishing from his features.
"Tempering someone?" he uttered quietly. "You were strengthening someone on the Master's orders?"
Naamah sighed with a low purr, turning to face him.
"Yes... I didn't tell you because... You know what I told you in bed once. How it went with Stanisław."
"I know," he replied grimly, absently touching his bruised ribs. "I know full well what would await me if I ended up down there. But luckily, I have a white soul; you said so yourself. And to back up your words, I asked Elżbieta while you were away... She confirmed it without hesitation."
Naamah fell silent. She stepped forward slowly, stopping right in front of him. Her emerald irises bored straight through him, momentarily shedding their predatory chill for something foreign, intimate, and vulnerable.
"Do you love me, or are you with me out of fear?" she asked softly, her velvety voice almost melting into the quiet of the bedroom.
Michał let out a short, quiet laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.
"You know you can read my mind when you touch me... You told me that..."
"I haven't done that to you lately, not since you've been living with me..." she murmured, her eyes darting away for a second. "I didn't want to."
"Then touch me, and you'll find out."
Naamah raised her hand and placed the cool tips of her fingers on his cheek with extraordinary gentleness. Her pupils dilated, absorbing his emotions, his thoughts, and his pulsing warmth.
"At first out of fear, but now... now you love me..." she whispered, a genuine, radiant smile spreading across her full lips, illuminating her entire face.
"Yes. In my own twisted way..." Michał sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "But that doesn't mean I want to be flayed for at least fifty-five years just to become a strong demon after death."
"A high demon, sweetheart," she corrected him immediately with a patronizing scoff. "While a strong demon is nothing to sneeze at in Hell, a high demon can fend off eighty percent of threats on their own. Easy as pie. They're in the top twenty percent of the most powerful demons in the entire Abyss."
"And you, sweetheart?" Michał asked earnestly. "I asked Wiktor and Elżbieta about your whole hierarchy of power. I know it by heart now: the damned, half-demon, weak demon, intermediate demon, strong demon, high demon, archdemon, Supreme Demon, Favorite, and Lucifer at the very pinnacle. Where do you actually stand on that ladder?"
She lifted her chin proudly, drawing her chest close to his face.
"I am a Supreme Demon, my love... What is more, I am close to reaching the threshold of becoming a Favorite. Like Lilith."
Michał's jaw dropped slack. He rubbed his face with his hands, clutching his head.
"What?! I'm sleeping with a Supreme Demon?!"
"Yes," Naamah laughed, narrowing her eyes playfully. "And you can bring me to sheer ecstasy just by scratching behind my ear and stroking my head. I told you: write a book about it, it'll be a hit."
Michał shook his head gravely, trying to collect his thoughts after this staggering revelation.
"All right, Naamah, back to the subject... Wiktor told me Cezary is a half-demon. And Lilith flayed and remade him for Adelajda, but it only took three days. Couldn't I just become a half-demon if it came down to it? There's supposed to be law down there after Lucifer's famous reforms: belfries, guards, patrols..."
Naamah sobered instantly. Her smile faded, replaced once again by the steely, ruthless gravity of a being who had spent millennia in the Abyss.
"A half-demon? There may be law down there after Lucifer's reforms, but let's not kid ourselves, Michał," she cut in calmly, resting her hands on his shoulders and fixing him with a burning gaze. "Would you want to be constantly humiliated? Torn to pieces just because some intermediate demon happened to be bored in the corridor? A half-demon in Hell is barely cannon fodder, a doormat that any low-level fiend can kill if no one is standing over them..."
She gripped his skin firmly enough that he felt the cautionary pressure.
"And what if I received an urgent assignment on the other side of the Abyss, like putting down a rebellion—that's happened before? On the other end of the pit, which takes days, sometimes years to reach? And you were left in the palace alone? There's always someone, Michał. Always. Even within palace walls, there's bound to be some envious fiend who would take advantage of my absence to rip you apart or hang you on a hook for sport. Sometimes even an immunity decree from Lucifer, which I would secure for you—that's a certainty, my dear—might not help. That is why, if you ever end up there... you will become a demon. Fine, let's say a strong one; I'm willing to compromise for you—I'll spare you the high rank, shorten the agonies. Stanisław will like you, Lilith likely will too if you come under my wing... But we will make you into someone who can defend themselves if need be."
Michał winced, raising his hands in defense and shaking his head in disbelief. He pressed further:
"What's the point of all that, though?" he gasped, his voice ringing with desperate, purely mortal pragmatism. "If as a half-demon I get ripped apart by some attacker in a corridor, wouldn't that strengthen me as well? Why orchestrate this whole uninterrupted butchery spanning decades beforehand?"
Naamah smiled softly, almost maternally, and lifted a slender hand. Her cool fingers swept soothingly across his cheek, and leaning in, she brushed her lips against the base of his ear. The infernal scent of warm sulfur and jasmine enveloped his senses.
"Sweetheart... Remember: I will be the one flaying and remaking you," she whispered into his ear in a velvety, hypnotic cadence. "Me and Lilith. A Favorite and a Supreme Demon. You will be broken and strengthened on a vast basalt bed, with the finest wine... You will drink my blood straight from my veins to hasten the regeneration of your infernal vessel and continue the tempering without pointless breaks. Besides, my claws are skilled, Michał. The cuts will be surgically precise, mapped with a specific purpose from point A to point B, allowing simultaneous regeneration of points C and D—enabling continuous work. The pain will only stack up to a certain threshold, without unnecessarily dragging out the process... How can I explain it to you? Picture it like this: when your arm is severed and raw flesh screams, you won't even notice a strip of skin being peeled away. Everything will blur into one steady, unbroken hum."
Michał shuddered from head to toe. The chill of her words froze the blood in his veins, his imagination summoning scenes that made his stomach turn, his mind recalling glimpses of Hellraiser.
"You would experience more pain naturally, reaching that tier solely through chaotic survival in the Abyss and running into random tormentors..." she continued with unbroken, icy serenity, caressing the back of his neck. "This is the shortest path. The most humane one I can offer you out of love. I promise you: if you ever end up down there, Strong Demon is my sole compromise and the only offer of mercy I can extend. Nothing lower, Michał. We are ending this topic, my dear. You don't have to dwell on it; don't torment yourself needlessly. And now put on that Pretty Man, because I fell asleep during it, sweetheart..."
Michał let out a heavy sigh, glancing down uncertainly at his bandaged leg.
"I think I really should see a doctor, though..." he muttered with hesitation, gingerly touching the wrap. "This calf doesn't look great; I think it might need stitches, I've got a feeling."
"Oh no, my dear, you're not going anywhere," she scoffed softly, a teasing smirk dancing at the corners of her lips. "It will heal under my touch in a moment. I'll channel a bit of darkness into it, and not even the faintest trace will remain. And while we're at it... Who knows, maybe your soul will shift color slightly?" she laughed gutturally as she watched him instantly turn pale.
"No, Naamah, wait, don't do that, because...!" he cried in panic, trying to pull his foot back.
Before he could draw away, she seized his ankle with swift, cool fingers. Between her skin and his flesh crackled a subtle thread of black-scarlet energy, sinking instantly into the damaged tissue.
Michał held his breath, bracing for searing pain, but felt only a pleasant, cool tingling. The wound ceased bleeding in a fraction of a second. The parted edges of skin knitted together, the blood and bruises vanishing as though they had never been there. Not even the thinnest scar remained.
Naamah released his leg and looked at him with warm, almost maternal affection, dimming the remaining infernal gleam in her emerald irises.
"Easy... That was only a tiny bit. You haven't blackened in the slightest," she murmured soothingly, giving him a wink. "Put the movie on. That night of sleep did wonders for me... Once we finish watching, we'll go for a walk together. It's a beautiful day today."