Five fingers curled around his chest. Kyoya stabbed Asura into the wrist, burying the sword halfway down the blade. This was one result of his training.
The stone statue spasmed. Kyoya put his shoulder into the thrust. A fissure ran up the arm, the stone shattering as Kyoya jumped down to the floor. The arm vanished. Kyoya glanced toward the pool.
“Mephisto! Look!”
The water in the pool had turned into a blood red tide, as had the water raining down on the plants and flowers. This strange phenomenon must be the consequence of absorbing Demon City’s dormant energies as fuel in the demoness’s reincarnation.
“Above you!” Mephisto called out.
Kyoya dodged to the side. A giant foot came stomping down. The earth shook.
“This freaking Gumby from hell!” Kyoya shouted, hardly the stuff of strict martial training.
He closed his eyes and focused on one particular spot. His eyes flew open. He swung Asura down from the jodan position. The air twisted around the tip of the sword like eddies in a stream. The space in front of him split apart, revealing the stone god.
“Leave the rest to me,” Mephisto said in his always calm, cool and collected tones.
“All yours!”
A sliver of silver light racing along above his head. No sooner had it wound around the arms and legs and neck of the giant, but in the blink of an eye the statue weighing hundreds of tons of stone lost its head and all its limbs.
The repeated reverberations shook the floor.
A simple wire had been transformed into a fearsome weapon that could sever stones—this was Doctor Mephisto’s wirework.
Kyoya squatted beside the red knight. “Hang in there,” he said, though the emptiness of such encouraging words was painfully obvious.
“Defeat is death. That is the law of Babylon. I appreciate being able to fight such a valiant warrior.”
“You’re Vian, right?”
“Yes.”
“You ever end up a wandering spirit, feel free to look me up. If a body is what you need, I’ll lend you mine.”
“Thank—you—”
The knight’s head fell back. Kyoya turned away and gazed at Mephisto, his face dark with melancholy. At some point, Mephisto had taken custody of Sayaka.
The mask touched Mephisto’s cape. The two of them were blown backwards, broke through the thick glass doors and fell onto the terrace. Beyond was a sea of blood.
Unleashing an inarticulate roar, Kyoya sprang forward, slashing straight down at the crown of the golden mask’s head.
The mask parried with his left hand. His hand shattered. Asura sank into his skull. This incarnation of evil suddenly crumbled. A moment later, his figure was colored by crimson flames. The entire side of the pool became a sea of fire.
Kyoya ran onto the terrace. Mephisto was standing there, Sayaka in front of him. Sayaka and another woman. Superimposed over that transfixing beauty was the figure of the woman submerged in the waters of the great subterranean temple.
Doctor Mephisto stood rooted there, transfixed.
Semiramis.
She showed none of the fleeting detachment from before. For the first time, her features revealed the full and vivid expression of evil. Freedom was finally in her grasp.
Then what would become of Sayaka?
“Hoh! Free at last! Behold!” Semiramis indicated another set of glass doors. The body of a woman appeared there. This was the body of Semiramis, preserved within the water now pouring off it. “Now it is mine to enter. And when I do, the world once again becomes the means of satisfying my taste for blood. Together with Demon City Babylon—”
She twisted her frame, threw her head back and laughed. A second later, that body was powerfully wrenched. Those wide eyes turned back toward Sayaka, the mouth contorted with hatred and surprise. “How dare you!”
She gasped, reaching out toward her own body. Bloody hands grasped her ankles. The hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the masked king. A mummified face peeked out from behind the broken mask. Like the mask, the hair hanging down from his head was fake as well. This is what became of a life lived for twenty-five hundred years.
“It is over, Semiramis. Our fate is sealed. Who knew that we would encounter Semulia and Faustus in this time and place?”
Semiramis fell atop the broken face like the last leaf of fall, and winked out of existence. And so the demoness met her all too brief end. At the same time, her physical body mutated into a lump of decayed flesh and splattered across the floor.
“When it’s over, it’s over,” said Kyoya.
“But why did Semiramis—?”
Mephisto said in answer to Sayaka’s question, “You are safe. She could not overpower you, and so her own karma delivered her to that inevitable end. The light overcame the dark. It seems the old warlock was not wrong after all.”
“You mean Doctor Faustus,” Sayaka said, looking up at the physician’s comely countenance. “And the warrior Semulia,” she added, turning her thankful and trusting eyes on Kyoya.
The earth shook.
From the terrace, Mephisto glanced down at the world below. “Look. The energy it sucked out of Demon City is shaking this palace apart.”
Kyoya had seen it coming as well. He could feel it in his whole body.
“When it comes to trifling with the powers of Demon City Shinjuku, Demon Palace Babylon turned out to be a small fish in a vast ocean.”
Mephisto’s normally impassive voice was touched with a strange note of feeling. Pride, perhaps. Because he was the Demon Physician.
Fissures ran beneath their feet. “A fifty foot drop, but looks like one of those out of the frying pan things,” Kyoya said casually. “The fire’s blocking the way out. I don’t think we can stave it off until the rescue helicopters arrive.”
Mephisto looked at Kyoya. “So how did you get here from the Himalayas?”
“Funny question coming from some old guy who goes floating around in the air and whatnot. Teleportation. One of the secret arts of the yogi.”
“How about one more time? And I’m not some old guy, if you please.”
“Sure. I’ll give it a shot.” Kyoya got to his feet as the flames encircled the three of them.
Sayaka asked, “And if that doesn’t work?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control.”
Sayaka smiled to herself. She had every confidence in him.
She wasn’t wrong.