Angela Diaboli and the Tower of Eden

At the pharmacy threshold, the Hag’s trembling satchel hangs heavy against her hip. The cracked wall beside her gives off a thin trickle of dust, and the bent door moans in the wind as Angela closes in.

She bows too quickly. Her free hand slips behind her back, not empty, not steady. Marek’s eyes narrow. Ben goes still.

The Hag flinches as the wall answers her fear with a dry crack. From behind her coat, a stubby detonator and a coil of wire flash into view, wired to the satchel’s guts.

The lie lands late, and hard. Her contingency is not for loyalty, it is for collapse, a deadman’s fail-safe meant to bring the lower support down if the tower gives way or Angela takes too long.

Angela points, and the boar answers at once. It surges from the ruined aisle, hooves hammering loose tile as the Hag jerks back from the threshold.

Marek lunges in from the side, but the Hag’s satchel swings wide, the wire snapping taut against her wrist. Dust sifts from the cracked support above.

The boar slams her square in the hip. She stumbles into the bent doorframe, and the detonator hand flies up, pinned uselessly against the frame by the impact.

Ben recoils from the sudden crash, then edges forward, eyes fixed on the satchel as the lower floors answer with a long, hollow groan.

The Hag digs her heels in, trapped between the charging beast and the broken doorway, the trigger still in her grasp and the whole pharmacy shivering around them.

Angela snatches the trigger from the Hag’s fist. The wire jerks once, then goes slack in her grip.

Her fingers close. The stubby detonator crumples, then grinds to powder against her palm, a thin gray spill over the broken tile.