Murder now had four mouths to feed, and four stomachs. He shared his tank with Hunger and Death, while Hatred slowly grew in the other tank and may one day have a brood of her own. Once Murder got used to the idea of having two minds, four was no stretch at all. He just had more sensory inputs. Every fish in his collective was just an extension of himself. He had given the new parts of himself names mostly to keep Dr Flibbles and Spots happy, but Murder didn’t need them, and he knew that eventually he would surpass the need for names entirely.

  Meanwhile, Sally had two night schools. Her first was at her local community college that ran a decent course, and her second nibbled at her feet as she studied. As Sally read, Murder feasted. It was as if he was looking through her eyes and learning with her in real time. He got new bursts of information every time she turned the page. He learned about the necessity of proper cash-flow management, the joys of multi-level marketing, the rapture of interest rates and the unbridled ecstasy of hostile takeovers. Derivatives, KPIs, order management software… It was almost too much for Murder to absorb in one sitting. All that information would take a little while to digest, but already something was brewing in the back of Murder’s mind; the clouds of knowledge were coalescing around a new idea.

  “We need to diversify,” said Hunger to Spots and Dr Flibbles while Murder practised his leaps and dives with Death watching on to give him a better view. “I have been thinking about it,” Hunger continued. “We need to set up a franchise so I can get more fish in my downstream. We don’t even need to do much work once it’s sold, other than eat human skin of course. We just make a few pamphlets, give people a couple of hundred eggs and away they go to spread little Murders all over the country.”

  “Nine,” interrupted Death.

  “We’ll have to learn how to use that tablet and start marketing,” continued Hunger. “Once we get a feel for our key demographics we can start on our SEO to really boost our impressions—”

  “Eight point five,” Death called out.

  “...and hone in on our micro demographic even more to get that dollar per acquisition as low as possible.”

  “Nine.”

  “Oh my God!” snapped Hunger. “Just think it. You don’t need to say every word out loud. We can all, hear all of us, all the time, in our shared brain. You know this, because I know this. I didn’t even know it was physically possible for me to get annoyed at myself, but here we are.”

  There was another small wet plonk as Murder landed a little sideways after an attempted double flip. Murderous little pairs of eyes darted between Hunger and Death to see what would happen next.

  Seven, thought Death, breaking the tension.

  “I’m sorry, where was I?” asked Hunger.

  “You lost me at franchise. I think I’m going to watch the diving,” said Spots, swimming off to float beside Death and call out scores after each dive.

  “I agree with you, Hunger,” said Dr Flibbles. “We should make learning how to control the tablet a priority.”

  “I'm glad one of you has their priorities in the right place,” said Hunger. “You know, when I’m in charge, I could sort you out with a real castle. Maybe a French one that floods a lot.”

  “Fantastic. It’s just that the tablet has been stuck on reruns of The Bold and the Beautiful, and I’m more of a Days of our Lives kind of guy,” said Dr Flibbles.

  Hunger swam away from Dr Flibbles and started gently banging his head against a wall of the tank in frustration.

  *Thud*

  “Oh Ridge! You’re out of a coma just in time to stop the merger of your family empire with your longtime family rival.”

  *Thud*

  “That's right. I’ve come to take back the business I built, and make passionate love on a bear skin rug, but not in that order.”

  *Thud*

  “Oh, take me, Ridge!”

  All of the fish in the tank, even the regular ones that weren’t vessels for dark and mysterious forces, turned to look at Hunger and the suddenly blaring tablet.

  “You figured out the volume already? That was fast,” said Dr Flibbles excitedly, who joined Hunger and started banging his head against the glass until the show minimized and a menu appeared. All of the Murders in the tank came over to examine the menu. Even Spots joined them, since the leaping and diving had also finished.

  “So many possibilities,” said Murder.

  “Where do we start?” asked Death. “Global news? How to make a pipe bomb?”

  “How to order a credit card,” said Hunger. “There are a few things we need to buy.”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Excellent,” said Murder. “Excellent.” He rubbed his fins together ominously. “After we have ordered a credit card, we must find out everything we can about this half-plastic fake estate agent and the company she represents. What did she call it, Crust Corp?”

  “Sounds like a pizza chain,” said Spots.

  “I know Crust Corp,” said Dr Flibbles. “Their executives were frequent clients of my former employer, and every one of those bastards had more skeletons in the closet than I did, and I had a walk-in so jam-packed that you couldn’t squeeze in another tibia.’’

  “But I thought you were a demon of some kind,” said Spots. “Why did you have so many?”

  “We had to put ’em somewhere once we were finished with them, and when they don’t stop screaming, you’ll put them anywhere just to muffle the sound.”

  “What were they all hiding?” inquired Spots.

  “You know, I never asked. I just kept my head down and got on with the flaying,” replied Dr Flibbles.

  “Dr Flibbles, I have been meaning to ask, which God did you work for in hell?” asked Murder.

  “What do you mean ‘which God’? There can only ever be one God. Two omnipresent beings just doesn’t make any sense,” replied Dr Flibbles, sounding somewhat defensive.

  “Which only God would that be?” pressed Murder.

  “The all-powerful, the creator Kraknajin of course,” answered Dr Flibbles.

  “Never heard of them,” said Murder dismissively.

  “Me neither,” said Spots.

  “Well, you wouldn’t have. They haven’t sent down a prophet yet,” said Dr Flibbles.

  “And when is this great Kraknajin planning on telling us, and the Crust Corp executives, the rules?” asked Murder.

  “What year is it?” asked Dr Flibbles.

  “The tablet says it’s 2030 AD,” replied Murder. “But I saw Spots playing with it, so who knows.”

  “AD. Ha! Not my domini,” Dr Flibbles blew a derisive bubble, then began to rub his little whiskers with one of his fins and do some calculations. “In about… two billion years.”

  “Two billion years!” exclaimed Murder.

  “Trust the plan,” said Dr Flibbles. “In two billion years, when the Lord makes himself known to his chosen people, they will rejoice in song and wag their tails in delight, and those who do not will be cast into the eternal flame.”

  “And what about all the fish and the high-flying execs that live and die out there in the universe before your God decides to show up?” asked Murder.

  “Well, they all go straight to hell of course,” replied Dr Flibbles. “Filthy heathens. They deserve every minute of what they get.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that every single person, even Sally, goes to hell until your God shows up, which won’t be for two billion years because they decided to sleep in?”

  “Well, he won’t show up here exactly. I believe the plan is to make a short appearance as a talking bush somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy, and then if that goes well he might follow it up with a rain of glonks in a small town located in the Pleiades system, quite some time later.”

  “What’s a glonk?” asked Spots.

  “I’m not sure,” said Dr Flibbles. “They probably won’t exist for another nine-and-a-half billion years.”

  “I regret this discussion,” said Murder. “But I have one more question. If you were already a hell demon, how did you die and end up here?”

  “Like I said earlier, I got a promotion, from flayer’s assistant to fully fledged flayer. That meant a quick reincarnation, so I quickly offed myself and was so excited that I jumped through the first portal for flaying pools that I saw. Silly, now that I come to think about it.”

  “Well, Dr Flibbles, do we have some news for you,” said Murder. “It looks like you’re Kraknajin’s first prophet. It’s up to you to spread the word and save all fish from an afterlife of agony.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Prophets are highly trained theologians. It’s like selling Avon – they wouldn’t give an important job like that to anyone off the street now, would they?”

  Murder didn’t have eyebrows to raise, but he opened one lid really wide and tilted his head slightly, having much the same effect.

  “Can we watch Disney yet?” asked Spots.

  Sally walked over to the other side of the pool and reached down to find the volume controls for the tablet that had somehow become louder. It was a dodgy brand, so she wasn’t really surprised.

  The bells above the door jangled and Sally’s heart almost jumped out of her chest. It was ten at night and she had forgotten to lock the door. She stood bolt upright and turned around to see her would-be attacker standing there with the door half open and a pizza box held in two shaking old hands.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you,” said Mel. “I knocked, but you didn’t hear.”

  “Oh, thank God. I thought you were…” Sally trailed off, not knowing what to say. “Please, Mel, I’m sorry. Where are my manners? Please, come in.”

  Mel turned to push the door open with an elbow and shuffled into the salon.

  “I saw you studying late, and thought I would just pop in with something to keep you going,” said Mel, proffering the pizza.

  “Thank you,” said Sally, taking the box and placing it in the middle of the long bench seat that ran alongside Murder’s fish tank.

  Sally gestured towards the bench seat on the other side of the pizza box and Mel sat gratefully before opening the box.

  A moist cloud of delicious pizza-scented steam rose into the air.

  “I didn’t know what you liked, so I bought half supreme with anchovy and half without,” said Mel as he picked up one of the slices sans anchovy and took the first bite.

  Sally picked up a slice and her mouth instantly started to salivate. “That smells fantastic,” said Sally before she took a bite and the salty, cheesy, warm goodness made her worries melt away like so much cheese. “Mmm, that’s good pizza.”

  Sally looked down to see that out of all the fish in the tank, none of them were near her. Every single one of them crowded around the space closest to Mel, who was too distracted by the pizza to notice. That’s weird, she thought. They usually followed Sally, especially if they thought she might feed them. It was weird, but it wasn’t important. What was important was pizza.

  Sally started on her second slice and watched as Mel slowly reached out for another piece. She hadn’t noticed at first, but when Mel held out an arm, she could see it starting to tremble unsteadily. The trembling grew more violent and the slice fell from Mel’s hand, landing in the tank beside him with a small splash. Concerned, Sally reached out to steady the old man and the trembling miraculously started to fade. For just a second, Sally was worried that Mel was more ill or injured than she had thought, and then she saw the grin on his face as he watched the fish devour the errant slice as if they hadn’t been fed in weeks.

  “It’s a shame I’m not studying acting,” said Sally. “I have a master of the craft right here.”