CHAPTER 114

"What's a Word of Creation?" Beth closed the book and got ready to open it again, but Lily leapt across the room to stop her.

"Don't. Not from the book." Her face was serious, and flames had sprouted in the corners of her eyes.

"Why not?" Beth let go of the book, and Lily set it on the table.

"Words of Creation are whispered about by demons of the highest order. You know that whole 'in the beginning' bullshit?"

"Let there be light?"

"A single Word of Creation was used to create everything. Everything. It's the magic of the true gods, shit that has existed since before our reality. The hard code of the universe, the thing that holds atoms together. You definitely aren't ready to look at them, much less contemplate their meaning."

Beth frowned. "That sounds more like science than magic."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I know you've heard that one before. Creation level magic is terrifying, the last non-gods I knew of who could command it were the upper djinn. You have to be painfully specific with them, otherwise, the results are catastrophic. One Word created everything, but it took lots of Words and billions of years to get everything in any sort of order that made sense."

"Kind of like a legal document? You know, I'm quite good at saying very little with a ton of words." If what Lily said was true, a few Words of Creation could easily solve all their problems. Besides, what was the harm in knowing a couple?

"No." Lily put her hands on the table and stood, her horns appearing. "Do you know why they are called Words? Because your simple mind can't handle what they actually are. They are concepts, raw and powerful. If you taught yourself the Word for Destroy, you may utter it in an attempt to blow up an angel, only to destroy all of them, or maybe to disintegrate the air between you, or maybe even generate a giant, cosmic ripple that incinerates everything."

That didn't sound possible. "You're saying I could destroy everything with a random sound? That doesn't even make sense. This sounds like the magical equivalent of a conspiracy theory."

"Not sounds. Words. Shit, I forgot that you can't actually hear what I'm saying. This is geas level magic here, but I need you to understand that when I say Words of Creation, I am not saying words of creation." Lily snatched the book off the table and sat down. "You'd better fucking appreciate this."

Beth watched in fascination as Lily closed one eye and squinted the other, then cracked open the book. There was a flash of golden light and Lily let out a roar. Golden light streamed from her mouth and eyes as she tilted her head back, scorching the ceiling of the room with the beams. She fell to the ground and twitched, the book falling out of her hands.

"Lily!" Beth knelt down by the succubus, horrified. "What did you do?!?"

The succubus moaned, revealing that her tongue had been burnt out of her mouth. She held up a hand and mimed writing, then opened her eyes to reveal that they had been scorched out as well. Dark ash marks lined her temples, making her look like a cartoon that had smoked an exploding cigar.

Beth brought Lily a pen and paper. Smoke continued to pour out of Lily's face as she started writing.

Looked one up, she wrote in tiny letters. Knew this was the only way to convince you.

"You know one of these...Words now?"

Nope. Looked at from the corner of my eye. Forbidden knowledge. Protected.

"Wow." Beth shook her head in disbelief. If these Words could kill, then how had the author learned them?

Be honest, Lily continued. How do I look?

"Like someone plugged a hotdog into an electrical outlet." She helped Lily rise, and the succubus scribbled a big word on her sheet of paper and held it up.

Cunt.

Death appeared in the doorway, his bony features scowling at an empty mug. When he looked up, he tilted his head to one side in curiosity.

"I am unfamiliar with this word," he informed them.

"And it will stay that way," Beth replied, snatching the paper out of Lily's hands. Dark ash flowed from around the room, filling in her sockets and allowing her eyes to regenerate. She sat down in Beth's chair and grunted throughout the process.

When Beth picked up the Grimoire, it felt like holding a loaded gun but she didn't know what direction to point it or how to pull the trigger. "So we can't use this against the angel," she said. "But what about the horsemen? Could we seal them off in their own dimension? Expel them?"

"That is a good question." Death sat in a chair by the wall and adjusted the hem of his robes to cover his bony knees. "It would be possible, but I do not think the angel would be very happy with you. He would likely just call them back. So about that word..."

Beth ignored the Reaper. If she couldn't fight the horsemen, and she couldn't compromise with them, what did that leave? The running joke for a long time was that Mike either got lucky or fucked his way out of his problems, but she knew there was more to him than that.

What strategy would he apply? How would he approach the problem differently than she did? She sat in silence, the gears turning in her mind. He would probably do something unexpected, but what? She couldn't risk antagonizing either the angel or the horsemen, so whatever she did would have to catch them off guard while also being by the book.

"Aaaaaaagh." Lily stuck out her tongue, which was too large for her mouth. "Whath tha fackk?