"Skeletal"

In the tower is a corpse.

Its skin has long run dry, withering back to expose the loose teeth between its jaws. Its eyes are long gone, nothing left but the plots where they once lived. Even the cloth draped over the figure is nothing but strings. Ribs stick out to taste the stale air.

Alex chuckles. "She looks just like you, Olga!"

"Quiet," the nun orders.

Alex rolls her eyes; an action Olga's been quickly getting used to. As lightly as Alex takes things, Olga wants to admonish as little and effectively as possible. Another peep would mean a thrashing; a promise Alex hasn't tried to test. Given a day, though, Olga will probably have to beat the new companion anyways. The new elite is as impulsive as she is disrespectful.

"It's a dead end," Drusa says, entering from the adjacent storage room, "Whatever the beasts were doing in here, it looks like they left it behind."

"Not a hypothesis I feel like testing," Alex comments. Olga's glad to be in agreement with Alex about this at least.

"We'll retreat and survey the area," Olga orders, "Watch yourselves on the way out."

Her companions nod, still clutching their weapons. Not a single one of them has lifted a finger from the handles no matter how few demons they came across. That alone, Olga knows, should be evidence enough for the presence of satan's army. They're here, between the floorboards and inside the furniture. The question - whose answer Olga hates to discover - is what they're about to do.

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