For an instant, time stood still after the devil's hissed threat. Then, the Coinbearer silently slid his right foot back, shifting into a balanced stance. With a flourish, he reached into his cloak and produced the only other weapon at his disposal: the silver coin itself, snatching it up from where it stood. As his fingers closed around it, he felt a jolt like touching a live wire, residual energy from fate's fracture. Ignoring the sting, he held the coin between index and middle finger, its edge gleaming.
A coin against a hellfire spear, any other observer might have laughed at the mismatch. But the devil knew the relic in the Coinbearer's hand was no ordinary coin. It was a direct conduit of fate's power, however disrupted it might be at present.
"Back down," the Coinbearer warned softly. Behind the mask, cold determination set in his eyes.
The devil answered with a furious howl and hurled the spear of flame. It hurtled through the air, aiming straight for the Coinbearer's heart. At the same instant, the devil lunged low, claws poised to rip the woman's soul from her body in one last try, even if her flesh had to be torn asunder.
Time seemed to slow. The cloak surged forward, expanding impossibly to shield both the Coinbearer and the woman like a dark curtain. The flaming spear struck the spread cloak and exploded in a shower of sparks. The impact sent a tremor through the cloak's form, eliciting a pained grunt from the sentient fabric. But it held.
Simultaneously, the Coinbearer flicked his wrist. With uncanny precision, he threw the silver coin not upward this time, but directly at the onrushing devil. The coin whistled through the air, trailing a tail of shimmering light. It struck the devil square in the center of his forehead.
"Gah!" The devil recoiled as if hit by a slingshot. The coin, imbued with the raw, unstable energy of fate, discharged upon impact. A burst of pale light erupted, knocking the horned fiend back and sending him sprawling onto the ground.
The coin ricocheted off into the darkness. Immediately, the Coinbearer felt its absence like a limb lost. He clenched his jaw, he would have to retrieve it, but first things first.
The devil was down, momentarily stunned by the blast of concentrated fate magic. Wisps of smoke rose from a charred mark on his forehead where the coin hit. He wasn't dead, far from it, but he was disoriented.
"Now!" the cloak urged, its edges frantically tugging at the Coinbearer's arms. "We need to go, now!"
The Coinbearer didn't waste a second. He swiftly bent and gathered the wounded woman into his arms. She was limp and feverishly cold, but alive, caught in some purgatorial state. The cloak encircled the two of them, forming a cocoon of shadow.
As the devil on the ground shook off his daze, he saw the Coinbearer lifting the woman. "No!" he roared, scrambling up. His form blazed with renewed fury, casting an infernal glow across the clearing. "You will not escape me!"
He raised his hands to summon another volley of hellfire but the Coinbearer and the girl were already vanishing. The cloak contracted and billowed simultaneously, conjuring a shroud of darkness that snuffed out the devil's light. For a split second, the clearing went utterly black, as if the stars themselves had winked out.
When the darkness lifted an instant later, the Coinbearer and the girl were gone.
The devil's fireball scorched through empty air and exploded against a tree, setting it ablaze. The horned fiend let out a furious, frustrated screech that rattled the night birds from their roosts. He slashed his claws at the empty space where his quarry had stood, then bellowed a stream of curses in the ancient tongue of Hell.
Far away, emerging from a patch of deeper shadow at the forest's edge, the Coinbearer reappeared with the woman in his arms and his cloak swirling around them. He had not gone far teleportation was not truly his forte, except for these short shadow-steps, and carrying a living soul made it more precarious. But it was enough to throw off the devil for now.
Behind him, through the trees, a pillar of angry fire flared as the devil vented his rage. The Coinbearer did not linger to watch. Holding the woman securely, he turned and disappeared into the night-shrouded woods, his cloak sweeping behind like the wing of a great bat.
He moved swiftly and silently, putting as much distance as possible between them and the clearing. Only when the smells of sulfur and smoke had faded and the only sounds were the crickets and the ragged beating of his own heart did the Coinbearer slow his pace.
In a moonlit glade far from the site of the confrontation, he finally halted. Gently, he laid the woman down on a soft patch of moss beneath an ancient willow. Her face was slack and ghostly pale, but she was breathing... Faint, shallow breaths that misted in the cool night air.
The Coinbearer retrieved his silver coin from where it had fallen nearby after the fight fortunately the cloak had kept track of its trajectory. He slid it back into an inner pocket, relief washing over him as the familiar weight returned.
For a long moment, he stood over the unconscious woman, masked face unreadable. The cloak hovered beside him, its frayed edges twitching with residual anxiety.
"Well… that escalated," the cloak remarked shakily, attempting to return to its sardonic tone but not quite hiding the tremor. "You just assaulted an Overseer devil and ran off with a soul. We've really done it now."
The Coinbearer knelt next to the woman, carefully inspecting her wound. The makeshift bandage she had tied was soaked through with blood. Though his duty was to reap souls, not mend bodies, he felt compelled to do something, anything, to stabilize her. He pressed his hand over the gashes on her abdomen. Warm blood oozed around his glove. She was still bleeding. Too much.
"Coinbearer," the cloak said in a low, urgent tone. "We need a plan. When that devil reports back, Hell will send more than one next time. Likely something far worse."
The Coinbearer's jaw tightened. He knew the cloak spoke truth. He had crossed a line tonight. The bureaucracy of Hell would brand him defective at best, traitorous at worst. He had few allies in the mortal world, almost none, really. But perhaps…
He glanced down at the woman's unconscious face. In the slivers of moonlight, she looked eerily peaceful, despite the blood and pallor. Something about her tugged at his memory and emotions, a familiarity beyond that childhood encounter. The way her soul had resisted the devil's claim, the way the coin could not judge her… There was more to her than a simple mortal, that was clear.
His options were limited. Hell would be after them both. Heaven, if it even noticed this event, was an unknown. No angelic help would be forthcoming to someone like him, certainly. But there were other forces in the world, ancient and neutral, that understood the Loom of fate.
"The witches…" the Coinbearer murmured, almost to himself.
The cloak's hood twisted toward him. "Oh no. Nononono, you're not thinking..."
"Who else?" he replied quietly. "They know the old ways, the threads of destiny. If anyone can explain this," He nodded toward the woman and the coin "it's the Witches of the Mirror Flame."
The cloak fluttered indignantly. "They'll boil you alive before they help you. You're a servant of Hell, remember? The witches hate your kind, our kind."
"I only serve the coin... I'm not sure what 'kind' I am after tonight," the Coinbearer said with a hint of grim humor. "Regardless, they are our best hope."
He gently lifted the woman again, mindful of her injuries. Her head lolled against his chest. The cloak sighed, resigning itself with a ripple. "This is utterly mad," it muttered. "Defying Hell, seeking out hedgewitches… what's next, tea with angels?"
The Coinbearer rose to his feet, the woman held securely in his arms. "We leave before dawn," he said, ignoring the cloak's complaints. "The sooner we find the Mirror Flame, the better."
He took one last look in the direction they had come. Only darkness and distant trees met his gaze. But he knew far behind them lay a scorched clearing and a furious devil already on their trail.
The Coinbearer's grip on the woman tightened slightly, protectively. "Heads or talis, the coin must fall true in the end," he whispered, recalling the broken law of fate that had led to this chaos. In that moment, he silently swore to see this anomaly through, to find answers, and perhaps to preserve the life fate had refused to take.
With the cloak drifting by his side, the Coinbearer stepped into the depths of the forest. The night wrapped around them, and the trio, mythic collector, the cloak, and a woman caught between life and death, began their furtive journey toward the enigmatic Witches of the Mirror Flame.