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Finally before I go to bed, a short but sweet one by Symbalistic. Thank you so much for the review! This was one of the moments in the story that I’d been building up to for a long time, and it was a very emotional one for me too. I’m really glad it’s been going over so well with readers!

Next up is our jumbo-sized review from @JayDee! So, first, for those who may be a little puzzled by some of what’s in this review, like this: I sent JayDee a copy of the finale when it was just one chapter, so this is partly their reaction to both parts. I actually took their recommendation to break things up, for a reason I’ll get to when I reach Thundercloud’s review. Thanks! I had him transform more fully later in the fight, so I put in that little piece earlier, indicating a sort of partial transformation, a sort of visual representation for the thin veil of humanity that he wears, and how the veneer tends to crack and reveal the monster he really is. So, that’s partly your standard motive explanation by Hobbs, but it’s also written the way it is partly to ensure that anyone who is into snuff/guro/rape understands that I’m not saying they’re serial killers or anything, hence distinguishing between those who remember that this stuff is fantasy and those who actually do it. Yeah, the one thing I was never 100% able to get around was the fact that the connection between an apotheosis and Eparlegna allows the apotheosis some of his power, and that extends to his telepathy in WoH, as the two corrupted cops can sense Luzurial’s emotions. What I tried to imply was that Hobbs is a little distracted by his fantasy, and as a result he’s not using the telepathy to see exactly what Chloe’s thinking and doing. I mean, she’s just crawling aimlessly, a base animal response to pain and fear...right? The stuff for the violence here is, as I said in the author’s note, something I went back and forth on somewhat. It is toned down from its original form, but as this is a sequel to Whore of Heaven, some level of cringe-inducing brutality from the villains seemed appropriate. As for some specific moves...while I did come up with Hobbs punching Chloe so hard she vomits, the hip-breaking crotch punch was stolen from Deathstalker, though it was done by one of your characters. He’s had Gogedheh do that...I think twice (once with a knee to the crotch and once with a punch to the crotch), hitting a woman hard enough to shatter her pelvis. It was such a display of brutal masculine dominance (the rapist reminding a “strong, independent woman” exactly how weak she really is), that it really felt appropriate for these guys, who act and think pretty much the same way. Ooooof course, I kind of hate the stories I was drawing inspiration from (not the author’s fault! Just a fetish that upsets me), and as such this one is all leading up to my favorite Chloe moment of the entire story. And that’s why I left those explosives in the ceiling last chapter! When I was designing Hell magic traps, I knew at some point I wanted a cultist to get pushed or dropped into one, and when I was thinking through the Chloe vs. Hobbs fight, I started chuckling, because I suddenly knew how to do that exact thing. The capstone of the whole thing was “Any last words?” a reversal I love seeing in fiction, as it’s a great setup for a badass one-liner when the hero (or heroine, in this case) does something clever. The flashback was actually kind of a late addition, but because this chapter is the part most closely tied to WoH, I decided to bring back Luzurial’s PTSD and have her experience a flashback to WoH during the fight, with the whip strikes as the trigger. What Luzurial does to bring herself out of it, dragging her hands along the granite, is actually based on an technique called “grounding”, which is a way to cope with flashbacks. The idea is to use sensory stimulation to remind you of where and when you really are, with Luzurial using touch in this case. I remember when you and I were talking at one point about how Luzurial gets her sword back, and you jokingly mentioned one of the students lifting it off him while it was a pen. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I just remember thinking “No, it’s going to be so much more metal than that. She is going to catch that thing with her bare fucking hand and refuse to let go.” Also, fun fact: I often have music on while I write. I’ve never played League of Legends, but a friend of mine does, and courtesy of him, I’ve been introduced to a number of videos related to the game. I had this one playing in the background while writing that scene, with Senna’s theme kicking in at the moment Luzurial catches the whip. Luzurial’s “Because...you dropped something,” was the first of the three badass lines I mentioned that I came up with for the chapter. I wrote in Eparlegna destroying the machete specifically to set up Luzurial’s line after he drops her sword. As for the next bit with the explanation of the chains, in previous review responses I’ve mentioned that Cole had a moment that was unfortunately lost. This was where it was going to go, and Luzurial wouldn’t have caught what was going on with the chains (well, she would have, but off-page), but we would have cut downstairs where Callista, looking outside and up, would realize the pattern of the chains and recognize the design as a magnifying glyph, realizing that the entire building was a weapon. I’ll talk more about that in the response to Thundercloud’s review. I remember we brainstormed this via PM a year ago or something, talking about Luzurial’s motivation for the moment she gets her wings back, and how it had to be something bigger than just Kevin. I don’t think either one of us came up with what’s here in its entirety, but the idea ended up being a larger scale application of the thing Eparlegna does at the end of WoH, weaponized as the life force siphon. I knew there had to be a physical piece that was used to trigger the device, and then when you wrote Jude’s Tale, it took shape in the form of the Void Blade. Shared universes can be serious fun. As for the moment Luzurial gets her wings back, I had an outline of this finale, with each segment or moment listed off, and this one was literally just titled “Sometimes the Answer Is Yes”. I knew this was coming quite a ways back (not quite from the start, but some time after I wrote Part 3), and so took the “sometimes the answer is no” thing Luzurial says in Part 3 and repeated it one more time in Part 8, so that when it showed up for a third time here, I could reverse it. I kind of love that bit too. Just one more thing. Thank you again! So this is a follow-up on a suggestion that Thundercloud made back in his review of Part 6, saying that Eparlegna could threaten to use a body born of Luzurial’s womb to impregnate her again. It was originally going to be a full-on rant, but when I was writing on it, I actually wondered why Luzurial was letting him talk. I mean...no. Fuck this guy and fuck his villain speech. As always, thank you for the review, and I’ll see you again for the last chapter!

Ok! We have four reviews for The Woman in the Statue to reply to before I put the final chapter up on Monday. Since one of those is freaking huge, I’ll do three of them tonight, including the giant one. First up, one by @InvidiaRed. I hope you enjoy the scene in the next chapter. Eparlegna should really be careful about shit-talking Lucifer… I had three lines in this chapter all competing for the title of my favorite badass line, and you mentioned all of them! I legitimately can’t tell which of them is my favorite, I was...extremely happy when I came up with Chloe’s (and it is one of my favorite badass moments for her) but man, both of Luzurial’s are really dear to me, due to their significance. This is a moment I’ve had in my head for so long, and it felt so good to finally write it down. All of your takes are valid interpretations, but I think I came the closest to having 5 in mind when I was writing it. A sort of “I’ve always been proud of you.” moment. It was a pretty emotional thing to write. Thank you for the review!

Democracy in action is quite the sight. Don’t often get turnouts like that!

As a foreigner I think it will be nice to get read about something different in the news papers….the last week has really been an orgy of reporting of not yet final results from the US election. From another perspective I think it is great that US will finally try to become a new player in carbon free energy. The lasts years has IMHO given China far too much room to continue to gain geopolitical power from their clean energy investments. Europe and US need to get their act together and make sure that China does not control all the essential technology that will used for the next hundred years.

Ack, poop. My Bad! When I repurposed the commentary for the review I thought I’d snipped out the all the stuff about the second half and where it could be split, must have missed some. Sorry ‘bout that! “He’s some kind of monster in disguise...” Eparlegna: *Slides on MAGA hat* “I knew it!” ...what? They’re both fuckin’ terrible losers. Over on the Deathstalker forum: *Eyes narrow* “This guy’s all right…” It all works. I think that pelvis breaking crotch punch has been around for a long old time – there’s some where guys get pelvis breaking crotch kicks too. Just get their balls knocked up into their stomaches. Turned right into hobbling eunuchs. I’ll do the alternate scenes anthology! Kevin ignores the statue at the start! Kevin goes to the dark side at the lecture theatre! Abdul can’t think of a funny line! Calistia meets Cadence! Student steals pen, sells it on ebay! But, yeah, me being me aside, the way ya did it was awesome. Amazing. Just fucking great. You build on the discussed ideas and find the best way to do ‘em! Now that’s creative talent. Also, so glad at this point I didn’t keep the original Jude’s Tale title. I really did enjoy how you gave his “just being a dick” move at the end of WoH an actual power-move purpose. Coulda been worse. At least it wasn’t a villain song! Thanks! I am looking forward to reading it again in it’s final form

Amazing! <3

Alright, going to be replying to a few things tonight, so let’s start here! While it does take place on Christmas, I wasn’t sure if I should put Meaningful Gifts into the anthology, since I know everyone kind of reads everyone’s stuff, and I didn’t want to force anyone to read a sibling incest story if they didn’t want to. You’ve been at this a while, so I interpreted your entry here as an indicator that either people here aren’t that bothered by that sort of thing, or that I shouldn’t worry so much about what I enter into the party. Either way, thank you! Not quoting the other line, but I have to say that the phrase “wild gorilla sex” is hilarious. I understand, and hope I didn’t come across as overly critical. I know how it feels to have something fall through or just not be ready in time (it’s why Fury of the Storm will be next Halloween for me!). And vampire! Not sure if I’ll ever get around to that, but it would be cool to do it eventually. For those who don’t know, Alfred Hitchcock once explained the nature of suspense like this: if you have a scene of two people talking in a room, and then a bomb goes off, that’s surprising, but not suspenseful. If you show the audience the bomb under the table, and then have the scene of two people talking, all while the clock ticks toward the eventual explosion, now you have suspense. The same basic idea applies, I think, to the twist here. If the audience doesn’t figure it out, then you have a surprise at the end. If they do figure it out, then you get a rather suspenseful sequence, and in this case you know the metaphorical bomb will go off, but you don’t know precisely when.

Can’t say it bothers me either, let folks do what they want I always say! Fun ideas! I’m probably gonna be going back to my “assuming I’ll never finish anything again” mode shortly though

Would been a miracle if there had not been any errors considering I wrote most of the text between midnight and 2 in the morning for a number of nights. To be fair I do make plenty of mistakes with English even when rested...will need a decade or two more to perfect my English. Good that you could look past the language mistakes to enjoy the story. Thank you. I think the scene benefits from the limited viewpoint. It was the fun to write the scene in any case. Good, I worried a bit about it having James to notice it might make it too obvious. In the beginning I had the thought that the police could be viewing more than one video and I could leave it to reader to notice the difference in production...but that idea had me dragged into also visitingthe murder scenes too and that soon became a bit too much darkfic for a regular Halloween story. Yep, people is always looking for patterns. How much better the world would be if people working at the papers understood statistics better. A realistic slasher story...I take that as praise you only can get on AFF. Thank you for the encouraging review.

Practice makes perfect when writing stories. I got the intended meaning...but now you had me start laughing again. I thought about telling you but InBrigthestDay got there before me. I think these days the association would be more like “Dear god! A Feminist!” The weird thing is that from the circles where I move very few of the guys actually care about unshaven arms and legs, girls without mascara will most certainly be considered weird but the obsession with shaving seem totally out of proportion. It is a super hero from my G.S.P. story (that InBrightestDay has read) that pack a very heavy punch. Maybe you should do a story about lots of people that suddenly realize they have the same Shannon as contact in their phone….or a decameron story where all participants change the name of Shannon due to privacy reasons so they don’t get they are talking about the same person and suddenly she appear herself and wonder why they all tell stories about her without giving her name any credit...

Suggesting a werewolf with their superior sense of smell wearing a fake leather trenchcoat...probably only a good idea if you have a death wish. One of my prime motivations to write such things is to get them out of my head. When I know how the scene play out and get out the replay loop in my head that goes...what if...or it could be...even better if it...maybe go back to what if. On the other hand these ideas are not so sticky as others I have been stuck with. One possibility is actually to write a prequel that describe the killers earlier activities...but I am probably more inclined to go with the 4 more chapters for With the Mirror Came... Five years back is during my loooong break from AFF when I was busy writing on other sites (that does not exist anymore)

...wow. I guess I haven’t scrolled down that far for a while. It’s dusty down there. Got that story with the devil horse. Probably not gonna try and tie that one into the k-team stories. Thank you! Massively appreciate you pointing this out to me! Have keyed the evenhanded and Tommy looking at his own ass corrections :D

Yep, that detail was meant to be rather funny. I also think that the stress about the state of apartment give a plausible reason why James might not be at the top of the game so to say when they return at his home. It is part of slasher-movie rules of engagement that the killer is super efficient in every encounter with a super natural sense of opportunity for getting away with murder...at least until he tries to murder the lead character and cannot land even a single blow. *smiles* Trying to write something thrilling and getting a Hitchcock reference back feels good. Feel free to send me a PM about it. Good that you enjoyed the read.

To jump in a bit here for @Thundercloud, Tricked references about five other stories. The most obvious part is that it follows up on Death Always Wins, but there’s also Invidia’s holiday story from last year, Powdered Sugar (where Duncan was introduced), Temporary (where he went to Italy to reap souls from those killed by the pandemic), The Woman in the Statue (Van Dijk is mentioned, though this is obviously an alternate continuity, given that angels aren’t crazed zealots on the verge of extinction there, and that I have a scene with Lucifer coming up and he’s...rather different than he is here), and since Duncan has been asked by some of the kami (guardian spirits from Japan) to track down an errant spider yōkai, one Yua Hayashi, that would be a reference to either After Party, Parlor Games or both. Hel’s mother, “Ma”, is a reference to Angrboða, a jötunn from Norse mythology. After...uh...mating with Loki, the Prose Edda states that she gave birth to three monsters: Fenrir (hence all the wolves), the Midgard Serpent and Hel.

The level of rage when you’re writing in the zone and some fricking idiot on their phone smashes into a transformer and takes out the power of three blocks is just Now the powers out and the groove is gone.