Victory belonged to the Sheriff.

  Hayden collapsed forward onto the broken street, his palms hitting the concrete hard enough to scrape through his gloves. His entire body shook with exhaustion, muscles that had been locked in spasm slowly relaxing. Blood ran from his nose, and his vision swam, the world tilting at odd angles.

  Footsteps approached rapidly. Through his blurred vision, he saw Queenie's boots, then her knees as she dropped beside him. The business end of a flamethrower appeared in his field of view, pointed directly at his head. He could see her finger on the trigger, ready to incinerate him if the wrong consciousness looked back at her.

  "Sheriff?" Her voice was steady but tight with tension. "Is it you?"

  Hayden tried to speak, coughed up blood instead. His throat felt raw, abraded from the protoplasm's passage. He tried again, managing a single word.

  "Pozz."

  Then the exhaustion he'd been holding back crashed over him like a wave. His arms gave out, and he fell forward. The last thing he felt was Queenie catching him before his face hit the concrete, easily supporting his weight.

  The darkness that took him was his own, not Iagorth's. Just simple, human unconsciousness, his body finally giving in to the trauma of what he'd just survived.

  He let it take him.

  CHAPTER 31

  Hayden's consciousness swam upward through layers of darkness, each one thicker than the last. Pain threaded through his skull like barbed wire being pulled tight, a steady throb that matched his heartbeat. His throat felt raw, scraped from the inside out. Every muscle ached with the deep exhaustion that came from fighting a battle on multiple fronts—physical, mental, spiritual.

  The moiety sat in his chest like a lead weight. He could feel it there, foreign and wrong, a piece of Iagorth that would never truly belong to him no matter how thoroughly he'd dominated it. The power it promised felt diseased, tainted by the Ancient's malevolence. His stomach turned at the sensation, bile rising in his throat.

  Metal pressed against his wrists and ankles. The distinctive clink of chains when he tried to move. His eyes snapped open, taking in the familiar interior of the Faust's crew quarters. He was on one of the bunks, secured to the frame with heavy restraints. A helmet covered his head. Not his own combat helmet but something makeshift, to prevent him from breathing a moiety on anyone.

  Gant sat on the bunk opposite him. His dark eyes studied Hayden with an intensity that suggested he'd been watching for a while.

  "Sheriff?" Gant said, tilting his head slightly. "Is it you?"

  Hayden tested the restraints again. Solid work, no give at all. He met Gant's gaze through the helmet's visor. "How would you know if it wasn't? If Iagorth had control, he'd have access to all my memories. Could say anything I'd say, act exactly like me."

  Gant chittered in amusement. "Good enough for me."

  The furry alien hopped down from his perch, moving to the bunk. His claws made quick work of the restraints, the metal parting like tissue paper under those deadly natural weapons.

  Hayden sat up slowly as the chains fell away, his head spinning from the movement. The helmet came off next, Gant's claws carefully cutting the makeshift straps they'd used to secure it.

  "That's it? That's all it took for you to believe I'm me?" Hayden asked.

  Gant shrugged. "If you aren't really you, we're all dead regardless. Might as well believe you're you. Less stressful that way.”

  "I'm sorry about Olus," Hayden said quietly.

  Something flickered across Gant's features—there and gone so fast Hayden almost missed it. The alien turned away, busying himself with coiling the cut restraints.

  "He was old." Gant's voice carried forced casualness. "Dead weight, really. Always complaining about his joints, moving too slow. Probably did him a favor, going out in battle instead of dying in his sleep like some decrepit⁠—"

  "Gant."

  The alien stopped, his shoulders dropping slightly. When he turned back, Hayden saw the grief there, raw and barely contained behind those dark eyes.

  "He was a good man,” Gant said simply. "A good friend. He deserved better than being crushed by some protoplasmic nightmare."

  "They all deserve better. Every one of them we've lost."

  "Yeah, well." Gant's claws retracted with a soft snick. "Deserving and getting are two different things. You should know that better than anyone, Sheriff."

  Hayden stood carefully, one hand on the bunk for support as the room tilted slightly. His enhanced physiology was already working to repair the damage from his fight with Iagorth, but even accelerated healing took time.

  "How's Cal?"

  "Alive. Looks like someone worked him over with a crowbar, but he's moving around. Would have been worse if you'd lost. Much worse." Gant moved toward the ladder, pausing to look back. “You should have seen it. While you were doing your mental wrestling match with the Ancient, debris was flying everywhere. Like being inside a tornado made of concrete and rebar. Whatever you two were doing in there, it manifested out here. Building chunks orbiting around you, puppets getting thrown around like toys. Impressive show."

  "I don't remember any of that."

  "Probably for the best. Memory of taking on an Ancient consciousness might not be something you want to relive." Gant mounted the ladder. "We're at the portal. About to head back through. Queenie wanted you awake before we transited."

  Hayden nodded, fighting through another wave of dizziness as he moved toward the ladder. His legs felt unsteady, but he forced them to work properly. Each step came easier than the last, his body remembering how to move despite the alien presence in his chest.

  The ladder down to the main compartment took more effort than he wanted to admit. His hands shook slightly as he descended, muscles still recovering from the spasms Iagorth had inflicted. By the time his boots hit the deck, sweat beaded on his forehead despite the ship's climate control.

  The main compartment erupted in relieved voices the moment he appeared.

  "Sheriff!" Pik's enthusiasm filled the space, the massive Trover bounding over with enough force to shake the deck plates. "You're alive! And walking! And not possessed by an Ancient cosmic horror! At least, since you’re free I assume you aren’t. But if you are, that could be cool, too.”

  "Easy, Pik." Queenie's voice carried a note of warning, though Hayden caught the relief in her expression. "Give him some space."

  Pik backed off slightly, though his excitement remained undiminished. "That fight was too easy, though. I mean, sure, Olus died, which is very sad, but compared to fighting Shub'Nigu? That moon-sized brain with all the tentacles and the armies of demons? I liked the other fight better."

  "Too easy?" Benhil's voice dripped incredulous sarcasm from where he sat at the holotable. "We got thrown around by invisible forces, attacked by puppet people, and nearly dissolved by sentient goo. What part of that qualified as easy?"

  "The part where we won in less than an hour," Pik replied, as if this should be obvious. "With Shubbie, we fought for hours! Through caves and pits and chambers full of bones! That was a proper fight!"

  Hayden made his way to one of the seats, grateful when his legs held steady. The moiety pulsed in his chest, a constant reminder of what he now carried. The power felt immense.

  And it was under his control.

  "You actually did it," Benhil said, studying Hayden with something approaching respect. "Captured a level four moiety. That's impressive.”

  "The Relyeh enhancements gave me an edge."

  "Still." Benhil shook his head slowly. "Iagorth himself, even just a fragment of him, and you beat him back. That's something."

  "I'm sorry about Olus," Hayden said quietly.

  "So am I." The words came out heavy with genuine sorrow. Her jaw tightened slightly, the only sign of the grief she kept locked down. "But you did it, Sheriff. We're one step closer to ending this madness. That's what Olus would care about. The mission, not the cost."

  "Doesn't make the cost any easier to bear."

  "No. It doesn't."

  Movement from the corner caught Hayden's attention. Caleb sat slouched in one of the seats, looking like he'd been put through a mechanical thresher. Both eyes were blackened, purple-black bruises spreading down his cheeks. His hands trembled slightly where they rested on his thighs, and Hayden could see him fighting to keep them steady.

  "You okay, pardner?"

  Caleb managed a weak nod, though the movement clearly caused him pain. "Been better. That mental battle with Idhra...Iagorth would have had me if you'd lost. I could feel him trying to break through, to seize control. Like drowning in tar while something tries to crawl inside your skull." He met Hayden's eyes, and there was understanding there. "But you didn't lose. That's what matters."

  Through the forward viewport, Hayden could see the portal hanging in space, that familiar wound in reality that connected Yidra's pocket universe to the rest of existence. Bastion’s head suddenly blocked it, looking back at him.

  “Oh, hey Sheriff. I thought I heard your voice. Welcome back to the land of the lucky to be alive.” His attention shifted toward Queenie. “Does this mean we can go through the portal now?”

  “It does,” Queenie confirmed.

  “I’ll take it nice and slow for your sake, Sheriff,” Bastion said. “Just this once.”

  The Faust accelerated smoothly toward the portal and through. The transition hit Hayden's stomach harder than usual, the moiety reacting to the dimensional shift. For a moment, he felt Iagorth's attention, distant but unmistakable, like eyes watching from the far side of a dark room. Then they were through, back in the pocket universe that had become their base of operations.

  “Ruby, open a comms channel to Keesha,” Queenie ordered.

  “Channel open,” she replied.

  “Keesha, this is Faust, returning from a successful hunt,” Queenie said. “Requesting permission to land.”

  A few seconds passed. No reply.

  “Keesha, do you copy?” Queenie asked.

  Still no answer.

  “Keesha?” Hayden called out. “Are you there?”

  Nothing.

  “This is strange,” Caleb said. “Try hailing Obado.”

  They waited nearly twenty seconds.

  "No response from Obado,” Ruby reported.

  The atmosphere in the compartment shifted, tension replacing relief. Something was wrong. In all their previous returns, Keesha had answered immediately. She monitored everything that happened in the pocket universe, especially portal transits.

  "Try Caesar," Queenie ordered, her voice tight with her unease.

  "No response from Caesar,” Ruby said after another twenty seconds. “I’m unable to raise anyone on comms.”

  “Are you sure the comms are working?” Caleb asked.

  “I know this tub isn’t much, but I keep everything working,” Gant replied.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Nicholas said.

  “Wait, I’m getting an incoming hail,” Ruby said suddenly.

  Relief washed through the compartment, but Hayden couldn't shake the feeling that something was still wrong.

  The projector in the main compartment flickered to life, but instead of Keesha, Natalia appeared. Hayden's breath caught. His wife sat in what looked like Keesha Station's conference room, her expression serene in a way that sent ice through his veins.

  "Hello, my love.”

  The voice was Natalia's, but the greeting, the inflection, the slight tilt of her head, the way her eyes looked through the screen directly at him⁠—

  "Iagorth." The name came out as a growl.

  "Very good, Sheriff." Natalia's lips curved in a smile that belonged to something ancient and malevolent. "Though I suppose it wasn't hard to guess. Your wife would never look at you with such unquenchable disdain, would she? Though, I suppose I should be thanking you. For killing my sister. And for doing what I’d long considered impossible. You destroyed my brother. That deserves respect, whatever else I think of you.”

  "If you've hurt her⁠—"

  "Hurt her? Sheriff, I am her now. Or rather, she's me. The distinction hardly matters." Natalia's hands folded on the table, a gesture both familiar and wrong. “You probably never gave it a second thought, but the moiety you let in so you could claim it provided me with something far more valuable than control of that particular piece of my consciousness. All of your memories. Every plan, every secret, every person you care about. And, thanks to your visit to that particular Idhra timeline, the location of dear Yidra's pocket universe.”

  Movement in Hayden's peripheral vision as Nicholas drew his sidearm, quickly taking aim.

  "Nicholas!" Hayden shouted, but the pilot was already squeezing the trigger.

  The shot hit Benhil in his unarmored chest. The Reject looked down at the spreading red stain with an expression of genuine surprise, one hand coming up to touch the wound.

  Nicholas swung the weapon toward Queenie, his movements mechanical, controlled. Before he could fire again, Hayden reached out with the moiety. The power flowed through him like molten metal, burning channels through his consciousness as he directed it. He sensed the protoplasm in Nicholas' system, microscopic tendrils that had infiltrated during the Tokyo battle without any of them noticing, giving Iagorth access now that they were in the same dimension.

  Nicholas's hand froze. His entire body went rigid as two different consciousnesses fought for control—Iagorth's distant influence and Hayden's immediate presence. The pilot's face contorted, muscles spasming as the conflicting commands tore through his nervous system.

  With a final push of will that sent spikes of pain through Hayden's skull, he severed Iagorth's connection.

  The pistol clattered to the deck. Nicholas collapsed to his knees, gasping, his hands clutching his head as control returned to him.

  But it was too late for Benhil.

  The Reject had slumped forward, both hands pressed against the chest wound. Blood seeped between his fingers, too much, too fast. Queenie was beside him instantly, putting pressure on the wound, but they all knew it wouldn't be enough.

  "I guess..." Benhil's voice came out wet, punctuated by a cough that brought blood to his lips. "I guess the joke's on me."

  "Don't talk," Queenie ordered. "Save your strength."

  "For what?" Benhil managed something that might have been a laugh. "My stand-up career? Was never that funny anyway. Just...just the sarcastic one. Every team needs one, right?"

  "Ben—" Queenie started.

  "It's okay, boss." His hand found hers, gripped weakly. "Had a good run. Better than I deserved, probably. Got to be a Reject. Got to matter." His eyes found Hayden's across the compartment. "Sheriff...give them hell for me."

  Benhil's grip slackened. His eyes lost focus, staring at something beyond the compartment's ceiling. The cynical twist that had been a permanent feature of his expression finally relaxed.

  Joker was gone.

  On the screen, Natalia—Iagorth—watched with undisguised satisfaction.

  “You're here," Hayden had realized during the battle for Nicholas, his voice steady despite the rage building in his chest. "In the pocket universe."

  “In the flesh,” Iagorth replied. “The question is, whose flesh?” Natalia's head tilted in that not-quite-right way. “Your wife’s? General Haeri? Maybe one of the hundreds of Stacker clones Keesha so kindly provided before I disconnected her existence from the station’s power supply. You made a mistake trying to fight me, Sheriff. You made a mistake challenging Idhra. With the portal generator, I can spread moieties across every timeline simultaneously. No more random seeding, hoping they'll take root. I can place them precisely, in the most powerful beings in every reality. The entire stack will be mine within a century, probably less.”

  “Why do you keep yapping about it instead of trying to kill us?” Gant asked.

  “Sheriff Duke killed my two biggest rivals. The greatest Ancient killer of all time, in any timeline. In my estimation, you’ve earned a fighting chance.”

  The smile widened, showing too many teeth.

  “You want me, Sheriff? Come and get me.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Nicholas slumped in his seat. His hands trembled violently as he held his head, rocking back and forth as he sobbed.

  "I didn't—" his voice came out strangled, barely recognizable. His breathing hitched, caught somewhere between hyperventilation and complete shutdown. "I couldn't stop myself. My hand just moved. I was watching it happen, screaming inside my own head, but I couldn't—" He pressed both palms tighter against his temples, fingernails digging into his scalp. "I could see everything. Could feel my finger on the trigger. I tried to stop it, tried to turn the gun on myself instead, but my body wouldn't listen. I watched myself murder him. Watched myself⁠—"

  His voice broke completely and he fell still, too wracked with guilt to even cry about it.

  Queenie rose slowly from where she'd been kneeling beside Benhil. His blood covered her hands, dark and accusatory in the compartment's light. She stood there for a moment, looking down at Joker's still form. The perpetual smirk that had defined his features even in death had finally relaxed into something almost peaceful. Almost.

  When she spoke, her voice carried an edge sharp enough to cut glass. "Stow it, Shepherd.”

  Nicholas's head snapped up, tears tracking down his face. "What?"

  "The guilt. The self-recrimination. The whole tragic spiral you're about to go down." Queenie stepped over Benhil's body with deliberate care. "This isn't on you."

  "But I⁠—"

  "No." The word came out flat, absolute. Queenie moved closer to Nicholas. She grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to meet her eyes. "You didn't pull that trigger. Your hand did, your finger did, but you didn't. Iagorth killed Benhil. Same as he killed Olus." Her grip tightened until Nicholas winced. "You were just the weapon he used. Like a knife or a gun. Tools don't bear responsibility for how they're used."