If you'd told Father Patrick Murphy last week that he'd be running through the deserts of the Second Circle of Hell in the company of a demonic concubine with the head of a cat, the horns of a gazelle, and the wings of a moth, he would have said you were crazy. And yet here he was with Lucy Watkins (dubbed Pallaca by Princess Lamashtu), fleeing a mad cult dedicated to a force even WORSE than demons.
Of course, Lucy wasn't the kind of demon that Father Patrick hated. He had joined the Iron Knights to punish the kinds of demons that hurt people like Lucy. His niece had been stolen out of a convent by a demon, and he'd vowed to make sure no spawn of Hell could do that to another innocent soul. He'd cut down many demonic kidnappers, and (unlike some Iron Knights) he always made sure to keep the human alive while slaying the captor.
The run through the desert was grueling (Father Patrick had been 72 at the time of his death in the massacre of the Iron Knights), but the old priest knew that he could not stop for anything. He couldn't risk the cult recapturing him and Lucy. He knew the fate that awaited them in that evil cavern. After a while, Lucy opted to carry Father Patrick, carrying him faster on her moth wings than they could have ever run on foot.
After a while, they spotted a giant tree and went to investigate it. It resembled a colossal baobab tree with jet black bark and was perfectly hollow inside. "This will make a fine hut," Father Patrick smiled. He nimbly climbed the tree and broke off one of the thinner branches, sharpening it into a crude spear.
"You're quite spry for an old man," Lucy giggled.
"An Iron Knight has to be," Father Patrick shrugged. "Old farts with brittle bones and hard arteries aren't much use in a fight against a demonic bride-stealer."
Father Patrick suddenly realized that Lucy was completely naked. He hadn't quite noticed before due to a combination of stress and Lucy's fur, but he now knew what his first act in setting up this homestead should be. "I'll be right back," he said, respectfully averting his gaze from Lucy's bare breasts and exposed pussy.
The old priest gripped his spear as he prowled off into the desert. After half an hour of skulking around, her spotted a beast that looked like an elephant-sized hyena with the horns of a bull. He crept behind it and pounced onto its back. The beast nearly threw Father Patrick off of its back as it bucked, but he grabbed onto one of its horns and plunged the wooden spear into the beast's neck. The beast went stiff and fell to the sand, black blood oozing from its neck.
Father Patrick crawled out from under the beast. He was a bit bruised, but otherwise fine. Grabbing the beast by the horns, he slowly dragged it back to camp. He was glad he'd spent his life keeping up his strength or he likely wouldn't have managed. He was relieved to see the tree-home come back into view.
Lucy waved as she saw Father Patrick return. In his absence, she had found a beehive in a nearby tree as well as a nest of locusts (which were something of a delicacy in Hell). "I see you brought meat," she said. "The honey and locusts I gathered should go nicely with that."
"Honey and locusts," Father Patrick said with a smile. "It seems I've become the Saint John the Baptist of Hell."
"Did he eat honey and locusts?" asked Lucy.
"Yes, the Bible says so," Father Patrick answered. "He was a hermit in the desert like us. Didn't you know?"
"You don't get a very good Sunday school education in the London slums, father," said Lucy. "and you get a worse one in Hell."
"Ah, makes sense," Father Patrick nodded. "Could you find me a rock to sharpen? I need to skin this thing to make you some clothes from the hide. We'll also need some extra wood for a campfire. We may be here a while. If I recall my geography of the Second Circle from the Great Raid of 2012, we're near the center of the Sihr Desert, and the nearest population center is the town of Caprinia, which is nearly 2,000 miles from here."
"Got it," Lucy said, smiling happily. Life as a desert hermit sounded like hard work, but at least it was free. She honestly preferred it to life as a slave-wife in Lamashtu's perfumed harem. Her life was hers now, for the first time in her life. She didn't belong to the brothel madam, she didn't belong to Princess Lamashtu, and she CERTAINLY didn't belong to that bloodthirsty Chaos cult. She felt truly alive for the first time in her 191-year existence.