Strike Up the Music

Silver and golden light flickered. Ince Zangwill's eyes, their veins bulging, twitched as his mouth opened against his will. A hoarse, frenzied voice rose from deep in his throat:

"Looks like you have a shred of intelligence after all. You thought to summon that Great Serpent to stop Adam. But if you'd surrendered sooner and let me pray to the Lord, we could have prepared. Then we'd be hunting Adam instead of becoming his prey!"

As he spoke, a trace of confusion flashed through Ince Zangwill's other eye, dark blue verging on black. He seemed only now to understand what he faced. But apart from that eye, which watched the outside world, he could control no part of his body. Even the quill in his hand leaped up on its own and scratched words across his black robe:

"Furious and humiliated, Sauron Einhorn Medici began shifting the blame onto the Quill of Alzuhod. Unfortunately, those who had stopped him from praying to the True Creator were his own selves—the majority of the three evil spirits!

"Even so, Adam's scheme was not flawless. During his battle with Ouroboros, who had descended here, the two Kings of Angel accidentally struck a corner of the Corpse Cathedral. Their power blasted open a crack, just large enough for the unfortunate Ince Zangwill to leave!"

As the final exclamation mark was written, the wings that occupied half the cathedral's interior and the golden giant in the other half unleashed attacks they had long been gathering. A golden beam, seemingly alive with lightning, shot toward Ouroboros. The invisible river beside him caught it and sent it back along its path, but it missed the giant Adam by a hair and struck one of the cathedral's black pillars.

The full-force blow of a King of Angel blasted