Literature / Between Two Fires

Between Two Fires is a Dark/Historical Fantasy novel by Christopher Buehlman set during the Black Plague. It is 1348, and Medieval France is reeling under the effects of the plague and their defeat by the English at Crécy two years earlier. Society has virtually collapsed and everyone is struggling to survive as the bodies of plague victims pile up. Thomas, a disgraced knight-turned-bandit, saves a young orphan girl from his former comrades, and the two journey together, following directions the girl says she receives from angels. They soon meet Mathieu, an alcoholic priest whose congregation has all died, and he joins them as they follow the girl's visions...and quickly learn that there is something far more terrible than the plague working against mankind.

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This book provides examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Delphine doesn't like Thomas' bad attitude or vulgar mouth, but even she can't help but crack a smile at some of his more humorous remarks.
  "You'll never get a wife being so mean."
  "I already had one."
  "What happened to her?"
  "I killed her for talking."
  The girl giggled at that.
• Ambiguously Human: Everyone notes that there is something off about Delphine, even though she's just a little girl by all appearances. Thomas and Matthieu can't tell if she's a prophet, a saint, or a witch, and even the demons they encounter can't put their finger on what she really is either. As it turns out, she is the Host to God.
• Ambition Is Evil: Chretien has his sights set for the French crown, and to achieve it, he's willing to commit many foul deeds, such as seizing lands neighboring those already granted to him and bribing corrupt church officials into excommunicating knights who committed no crimes to legitimize his rule over said seized lands. It's these actions, combined with his seduction of Marguerite, that earns Chretien Thomas' enmity.
• Animalistic Abomination:
  • The demon in the river by Mathieu's village, a gigantic eel covered in spine-like appendages with a human hand at the end of its tail.
  • The jellyfish demon in the Rhône. It's a gelatinous mass of something armed with many stinging tentacles that can form its own minions by severing the heads of the dead. It's also implied to be sentient to a degree, as it expresses fear of being punished by its master should it fail its task.
  • Bel-Phegor's true form is a vaguely humanoid lion with huge black wings.
• Anti-Hero: Thomas is a cynical, foul-mouthed ex-bandit who trusts almost no one and has no qualms about killing anyone who gets in his way. Somewhat justified given his surroundings. He becomes more noble over the course of the story.
• The Alcoholic: Pere Mathieu is a constant wine-drinker and suffers significant withdrawals if he goes without.
• Arc Words:
  • "And the Lord made no answer." Stated every time the Legions of Hell strike a blow against God and/or humanity, which always fails to rouse His wrath.
  • "A fucking hand!" This thought, originally expressed by Thomas when he fights the eel monster, is repeated in the text every time a demon appears, particularly whenever they reveal a similar hand, which is often described as so white it's nearly translucent.
• The Armies of Heaven: Fighting a losing battle against The Legions of Hell.
• The Atoner: While he hides it behind an angry attitude and biting sense of humor, Thomas is stricken with a lot of guilt and self-loathing for the crimes he committed or allowed during his time as an outlaw. Implicitly, the reason why he helps Delphine on her pilgrimage and perform other acts of heroism is to regain his honor as a knight.
• Attempted Rape:
  • Godefroy expresses an interest in raping Delphine in the first chapter, but Thomas puts the kibash on that by putting a sword through his head.
  • A demon at one point seemingly possesses Thomas and tries to goad him into raping Delphine, presenting her in his dream as a ripe and juicy pear. He gets as far as stripping both her and himself naked, but ultimately resists and expels the abomination from his body.
• Awaken the Sleeping Giant: The Black Plague is an effort by the armies of Hell to avoid this — in the book's opening, Lucifer wishes to overthrow Heaven before Judgment Day but without incurring God's wrath, so he antagonizes humanity to see if God retaliates, believing that if He remains silent then the throne of Heaven is empty and vulnerable. It turns out God was just acting more subtly than Lucifer expected, and sure enough, once He and the Heavenly Host manifest then the forces of Hell are instantly routed and Lucifer himself is slain.
• Badass and Child Duo: Thomas and Delphine respectively. Thomas is a skilled knight who finds himself as the not entirely willing protector of a child embarking on a holy mission she doesn't fully understand.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: The English routiers who sacked assorted villages in France, show up just when Chretien's men are about to deal a killing blow to Thomas, and slay them in turn, not only saving the knight's life, but ensuring he doesn't actually kill his enemies.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: When she first sees him, Delphine notes that Thomas is fairly handsome despite his scars and notes that his gruff demeanor is more akin to a stern father than a remorseless bandit, which makes her like and trust him more than the brigands he is with. She's proven correct when he turns against them to save her from being raped.
  • Whenever an angel arrives, witnesses are left astounded and comforted by their ethereal appearance.
  • Subverted when Thomas notes the beauty of Lucifer, who was once the most beautiful angel, as his lieutenants bring his battered body back to hell.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Thomas at one point catches some English routiers, who he promised to "give God's justice" to, naked and helpless in a bathhouse. He almost kills them, but remembers Delphine asked him not to kill anyone and leaves instead. When they attack after Thomas gets knocked out during his duel with Chretien, the leader remembers and orders him spared.
• Beelzebub: The Lord of the Flies himself is impersonating the pope.
• Berserk Button: Making light of the Battle of Crécy and insulting the men who fought and died in it is a good way to earn the ire of Thomas.
• The Black Death: The setting, and where much of the horror comes from. It was at its height in Europe during this time, and much of the book is spent describing its awful effects and virulent spread.
• Book Ends: The book opens with Thomas and three others coming across a homestead with only a girl and a donkey still alive. It ends much the same way, only this time Thomas's companions are farmers, not bandits, and the girl is Delphine resurrected with no memory of the previous year.
• Break the Cutie: Unsurprisingly happens to the pure-hearted Delphine. The death of Mathieu is what nearly sends her over the edge. Fearing that her very presence puts everyone she cares about in danger, she splits off from Thomas and attempts to go to Avignon by herself.
• Breather Episode: Chapter 13 is a mostly humorous segment where the protagonists pass the time by telling stories. Hilarity Ensues when Delphine tries to finish a tale Mathieu didn't know the ending of, and grows increasingly more exasperated with Thomas when he keeps interrupting her with sarcastic quips. It brings a bit of levity to the story among all the tragic and horrific events its nestled between.
• Brick Joke: Near the end of chapter 16, Delphine amuses herself by pretending to cook a stew consisting of cabbages, real pepper, mushrooms, turnips, and pork belly. Hearing this grates on Thomas, who's absolutely starving, and makes him bitterly add "And shit. Don't forget the shit." One chapter later, the trio are then treated to a stew consisting of cabbage, turnips, mushrooms, pork belly, and a few pinches of real pepper. And then a bird promptly poops in Thomas' bowl.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Delphine urinates herself in terror when she comes face to face with a living statue of the Virgin Mary that is anything but holy and protective.
• Call to Agriculture: When everything is said and done, Thomas puts down his sword, refuses to take up any employment that would require one, and instead takes to the fields, which have long been short on workers due to the plague. He becomes a farmer from there on out.
• The Chessmaster: God. The whole plot is implied to have been a ploy for God's forces to crush Lucifer's army, invade Hell, and pull as many damned souls out of it.
• Crapsack World: Lords hide in their castles while bandits prowl the countryside, looting, raping and killing whatever they can. Food is so scarce that everyone is used to eating grass, and some have resorted to cannibalism. Meanwhile, people from all levels of society are dying in droves from the plague. Oh, and demons walk the earth, toying with humanity every step of the way.
  • Slightly subverted at the market in Paris full of foreign merchants, which reminds Delphine that there are other parts of the world where things are less terrible.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • It happens offscreen, but it's evident Thomas had no problems when he fought and killed both Godefroy and the fat brigand in the barn, despite being outnumbered.
  • When the angels appear in full force in Avignon, Lucifer's most powerful demons and their servants fall to them swiftly and are left with no choice but to flee back to Hell. The Fallen Angel's long war against Heaven pretty much ends right then and there.
• Deadpan Snarker: Thomas copes with his dark past and the sheer hopelessness of everything around him with a dry and bitter sense of gallows humor.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: The main antagonists of the story are Bel-Phegor, Ra'um and Baal'Zebuth, each Princes of Hell tasked by Lucifer to conquer the earth in his name.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: It is medieval France, after all. Misogyny, homophobia and antisemitism are rampant.
• Devil, but No God: The sections describing the war in heaven indicate that again and again the demons make headway on Earth while "God gave no answer". Until the very end, anyway.
• Doom Magnet: As more and more of Delphine's strange nature comes to the fore, the harder the fallen angels try to eliminate her, leading them to send servants to try and kill her outright or manipulate her two companions into doing it for them.
• The Dung Ages: Nearly everyone is absolutely filthy. Justified, as given the sheer number of people dying of the plague, there isn't anybody to do the cleaning. Pere Mathieu's wine-stained robes "testify to the death of the town laundress".
• Dysfunction Junction: The three main characters have all had their share of hardships that have left marks on them. Thomas is a Shell-Shocked Veteran who lost everything he had in the Battle of Crécy and its aftermath, which caused him to turn from being a noble knight to a bitter and cynical bandit. Mathieu is a gay priest who believes his vices damned his congregation and constantly drowns his sorrows in wine. Delphine is an orphan and the Sole Survivor of her village who is frequently visited by angels and visions she doesn't always fully understand. And all three of them are trapped in a world that's decaying all around as the plague kills everyone.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Thomas and Delphine are both brutally slain by the Princes of Hell during the climax, and Thomas actually goes to Hell where his soul is tormented for what seems like years. Eventually, Delphine's divine aspect reaches him there, and with the implication that Heaven is finally winning the war she resurrects him only a day after he was killed. Delphine's mortal aspect, meanwhile, wakes up in her dead parents' farm exactly a year after she first met Thomas with no memory of prior events. The two eventually reconnect and Thomas raises her as his daughter, and they both live more or less Happily Ever After as a monk and nun respectively. Thomas's son inherits his lands and his wife lives peacefully to old age, although she never stops missing Thomas. They reconcile but can't be together.
• Eldritch Abomination: Some of the demons and their minions are just alien in appearance and methodology. One is described as looking like a seemingly liquid thing that could shift into a mass of writhing tentacles. It takes possession of Thomas and attempts to have him violate Delphine.
• Emissary from the Divine: Delphine has visions of angels and saints throughout the story that help her fight against the demons the characters encounter. The demons themselves are unsure exactly what she is. The ending implies that her divine aspect is the second coming of Christ.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While the brigands Thomas allied with before the book begins are remorseless thieves and murderers, they don't approve of their leader, Godefroy's penchant for raping children. Godefroy's attempt on Delphine is what prompts Thomas to turn against and kill him, along with the rest of his cohorts.
  • The leader of the English routiers vehemently lectures his men after discovering they shot a young page in their latest raid, promising to kill anyone who harms women or children while they're looting.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": For the first hundred-odd pages, Delphine is just referred to as "the girl". It's only when the wood-carver's wife asks her name that Thomas and Mathieu both ashamedly realize they never bothered to ask, despite spending weeks with her at that point.
• Evil Is Sterile: While the fallen angels are willing and able to make crude mockeries of God's creation in Hell, they cannot engender life. Only God can do that. The most they can do is corrupt animals to make monsters and weave corpses together with damned souls to form undead servants, and leave both to walk the earth and terrorize the populace.
• Exact Words:
  • When Thomas wraps everything up in Martin-le-Preux, he asks Mathieu if he would like to go to Paris with he and Delphine. Mathieu says no. So then Thomas asks if he's staying home, to which Mathieu says he isn't. Mathieu then clarifies by saying that he is going to Paris with them; not because he wants to, but because he believes he has to.
  • Thomas swears that Chretien will die in the mud by a brigand's hand. Chretien indeed dies at the hand of a brigand. Not Thomas' hand, as the knight intended just before he turned to brigandry, but a group of English routiers, who seized an opportune moment to riddle him with arrows and loot his corpse.
• Fan Disservice: The stags in the Pope's feast, who are all voluptuous young women wearing nothing but stag masks. They're undead and rotting from the inside, with maggots crawling in their genitals.
• Faux Affably Evil: The demons who hound the protagonists mostly try to act friendly when tempting or tricking them, but their predatory natures and viciously short tempers always give them away.
• Foreshadowing: Before participating in the night tourney, the armorers refuse to touch Thomas' sword because of something it's covered in. Thomas believes they're repulsed by the blood of the eel monster he slew recently, but this ends up making little sense when one realizes that the denizens of the castle are minions of the Fallen Angel. It's later revealed that the thing that repulsed them was not the blood of the demon on the sword, but the blood of Delphine when she accidentally cut herself and bled on it.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Chretien, the man who stole Thomas's lands (and slept with/coerced his wife), to his party. They all dance attendance on him because he's next in line for the throne of Navarre, but none of them respect him because they know he's the kind of person to buy somebody's excommunication so he can take their stuff.
• God Is Good: Their methods notwithstanding, God and the Host are always portrayed benevolently, and their least manifestation grants relief from the filth and death that's choking France. Near the end of the book, He descends to Hell personally in the shape of Delphine to save Thomas.
• God Is Inept: The crux of the story is that God, for whatever reason, does not respond to the the fallen angels, even as they unleash their numerous calamities upon humanity and wage open war on Heaven. Ultimately averted. As it turns out, God isn't inept; He's just playing a longer game.
• God Was My Copilot: Almost literally. As it turns out, Delphine, the girl Thomas traveled across the countryside of France with, very much is an incarnation of Jesus and by extension, God.
• Good Counterpart: Thomas' companions at the end of the book serve as a positive reflection to the people he was traveling with at the beginning. Rather than bandits, they're farmers. One of them is referred to as the "plump one" in contrast to the more sinister "fat one" from before. And when they are approached by Delphine, their immediate response is to bury her father like she asks and share food with her before taking her with them without any intention to rape her at all.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Delphine's hair is blonde and she is by far the kindest and most saintly character in the book.
• Have a Gay Old Time: The term "gay" is used to denote cheeriness, not homosexuality. Homosexual men are instead referred to as "buggers."
• Have You Seen My God?: God has disappeared from Heaven and not even the angels know where He has gone. This gives Lucifer the impetus to reignite his war and rain hell upon humanity.
• The Heavy: Bel-phegor, Ra'um, and Baal-Zebuth raise Hell on Earth and attack the protagonists numerous times while their master, Lucifer, leads the charge on Heaven.
• Heel–Face Turn: Blink and you'll miss it, but during the final battle, two angels wrestle a demon into the river, desperately shouting in its ears. Three angels come out of the river.
• Heroic Bastard: Thomas's father wasn't married to his mother. His wife pointed out to him that he's almost certainly the Comte de Givras's son, but the Comte never said anything.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Delphine only survives the stinging jellyfish-corpse monster in the river because Mathieu is carrying her and shields her with his body.
• Hey, You!: Thomas typically refers to Delphine and Mathieu as "girl" and "priest" respectively. He never even bothered to ask former what her name actually was and it's never revealed to the reader until about a hundred pages in.
• Historical Domain Character: Pope Clement VI, depicted as far more ruthless than he was in real life. This is revealed to be due to the real Pope being replaced by a demonic doppelganger, who the protagonists must face in the final act.
• Hope Spot: Hell turns out to run on these. When the damned grow numb to their tortures, the devils either come up with one even worse, or grant the damned just enough relief or hope of rescue to make the pain start all over again.
• Humanoid Abomination: Numerous people the characters encounter are implied to be demons trying to tempt them off their path or just hinder them otherwise. They appear perfectly human, but they always give away some sign of their demonic nature, such as changing their coat of arms or suddenly disappearing the moment no one is watching.
• Hunk: Thomas is described as tall, muscular, and handsome. Of note was Marguerite's reaction to him. She was initially disappointed to be wed to a man of low birth and education, but the moment she saw how brawny he was, she became "dressed for the oven."
• I Love the Dead: During his feast, the Pope invites his guests to partake in a "hunt" for some "stags" inside a forest of gold and silver trees, with the stags being women wearing nothing but horned masks that the hunters are free to have sex with. The women are actually undead, with many measures taken to hide the coldness and decay in their bodies.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The city of Nemours, which has isolated itself and refuses to let anyone enter or leave it, is largely getting by by having the living eat the dead.
• I Warned You: This is more or less Delphine's reaction when Thomas escapes from the seemingly prosperous castle that she refused to go into on account of being a gathering of demons. When he awakens, she gives him a curt "Are you ready to go to Paris now?" To which he responds with "Yes."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite Thomas' angry, nihilistic demeanor and constant insults, he genuinely cares for his traveling companions and will defend them at all costs.
• Karmic Death: It's very common for wicked people who steal or refuse to come to the aid of others to catch the plague and die from it, often as a result of their own actions. Of note is the lord's herald of St. Martin-le-Preux, who refused to help Thomas slay the demon in the river. He has the lord of the castle send all his men to Mathieu's house to apprehend Thomas for the crime of insulting him, and when they find the place is empty, they help themselves to whatever valuables are available. They all catch the plague that Thomas was afflicted with, which they spread to the castle. Within four days, everyone inside it is dead.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Despite Thomas' anger and cynicism, he can't shake off doing altruistic things still befitting of a virtuous knight, such as saving a girl from being raped, burying her father even if it puts him at risk of catching the plague, trying to find her a home, slaying a demon that's terrorizing a village, and so on.
• The Legions of Hell: In all shapes and sizes.
• Little Miss Snarker: Delphine sometimes responds to Thomas' snark with some snark of her own. This often results in funny bits of Snark-to-Snark Combat between the two.
  Delphine: Maybe God would be more generous if you swore less.
  Thomas: God starves babies sometimes, and they don't swear at all.
  Delphine: Babies go straight to Heaven.
  Thomas: Bad ones don't.
  Delphine: There are no bad babies. They don't know any better.
  Thomas: Sounds like you've never met a baby. Many of them are awful. I knew one in Picardy who stole his father's money and crawled down the road to the whorehouse.
  Delphine: It was you. The only bad baby ever was you.
• Living Statue: The "ones who knock by night" as they are referred to in Paris are revealed to be statues of holy figures that come to life when the sun goes down and proceed to wander the city and murder all people they come across. The one that attacks the protagonists comes in the form of the Virgin Mary.
• Maniac Monkeys: The monkeys that appear at the Night Tourney. While they don't do anything harmful, they nevertheless do some disturbing things, namely feasting upon whatever people get slain in the tourny. They're also cooked and served in the feast prior to the tourney, with the lord in particular favoring their brains. Considering the nature of that castle, it's ambiguous if they're actually monkeys, demons, monkeys corrupted by demons, or if they were ever real in the first place.
• Meaningful Name: Crossed with Ironic Name: Chretien d'Evreux's first and last names mean "follower of Christ" and "brave strong boar" respectively, when he's a cowardly usurper who leveraged the Church's rites to depose of a more virtuous rival. More appropriately, his first name is also the origin of the derogatory term "cretin."
• Messianic Archetype: Delphine. Not only does she ultimately die to save humanity from the ravages of the plague and Hell's machinations, but she's strongly implied to functionally be Christ.
• Morality Pet: Delphine and to a lesser extent, Mathieu serve as this for Thomas. Their presence helps him calm his anger and encourage him to become a more heroic figure after he spent a long time committing thievery and murder and tolerating rape while in the company of bandits. He even makes a point to avoid killing people simply because Delphine doesn't want him to.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Ra'um's true form has six arms, and several other demons produce extra limbs at will.
• No Periods, Period: Averted. Delphine wakes up one morning with blood on her clothes. It's initially feared that she was raped, but it turns out to both her relief and amusement, that she just experienced her first bleeding.
• Nuns Are Spooky: Namely nuns that look an awful lot like those that had recently died within an abbey. Delphine encounters one such in a church, which attempts to take the Spear of Longinus from her. Said nun is revealed to be a scarecrow bearing the skull of one of the dead sisters.
• Oh, Crap!: Hell's reaction when they sense that Delphine is about to resurrect the true Pope.
  THAT CUNT FROM PARIS IS IN THE CELLAR WITH HIM
• Ominous Knocking: The Ones Who Knock by Night are thusly named because they always announce their presence by knocking on doors and killing whoever answers them. As residents grew savvy enough to not open their doors, they start employing other methods to trick people into opening up, such as pretending to be a woman screaming for someone to help save her crying baby.
• Our Angels Are Different: Described as humans neither male nor female, but more beautiful than either.
• Our Demons Are Different: Each monstrous in their own way, and capable of mimicking or possessing people, and raising the dead.
• Papa Wolf: While he's initially blunt with her, Thomas does become more genuinely caring of Delphine, and in turn, becomes more fiercely protective of her as if she was his own daughter. Many people even mistake her for being his daughter, and he eventually just rolls with it as his cover story. By the end of the book, he adopts her as his daughter.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Thomas and Marguerite's marriage ended up being this, at least for a while (although the "arranged" part is downplayed, because he asked her father and she agreed to the suit almost immediately once she saw him).
• Perpetual Poverty: Thomas, Mathieu, and Delphine are usually on the brink of starvation as they travel, with no choice but to eat whatever meager scraps they can forage in the wild. Justified in that they're living during the time of the Black Death; food is scarce and what little is available comes at a hefty price, assuming it's on sale at all, and they in general have to stay away from major population centers anyway.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Thomas notes that Mathieu carrying Delphine out of the river after their boat is sunk by the monster looks a lot like the Virgin bearing Jesus. Since Delphine sort of is Jesus, this makes a lot of sense.
• The Plague: Yep. Directly from Hell itself in this case.
• The Power of Blood: Delphine's holy blood can do more pain to demons than any human tool could ever hope to achieve. By coating Thomas' sword in it, she's able to turn it into a weapon that can hurt even Lucifer's generals.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: The "S" sound in Thomas' name is not silent like it typically would be in French. His half-Spanish mother insisted that it be pronounced.
• Public Domain Artifact: The Spear(head) of Longinus, depicted here as a Roman pilum.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The demon in charge of judging Thomas's soul in Hell, itself a damned soul whose punishment is to condemn the undeserving to eternal torment. Thomas tries to reason with it, and though the demon is agreeable, it says it is far more afraid of its masters than Thomas can understand, and devours him anyway.
• Questionable Consent: Thomas's wife Marguerite goes to bed with Chretien, which everyone (given the times) treats as her straightforwardly deciding to cuckold her husband with a younger, handsomer man. But considering Chretien showed up to her house with a bunch of armed men, and the extremely Shame If Something Happened situation of Chretien being the "regent" for her and Thomas's son, how much of a choice does she really have? Thomas eventually comes to see it as her making a sacrifice to ensure their son's safety, and forgives her.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: While he was a part of Godefroy's merry band, Thomas was willing to help them rob, ransack, and murder others, but rape was the one line he refused to cross and only tolerated with great reluctance. Godefroy making an attempt on Delphine was the last straw that prompted him to betray them.
• Religious Horror: The premise of the book is that the Black Plague comes directly from Lucifer to taunt God, and his servants have risen up from Hell to further torment humanity.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Thomas' target of vengeance is Chretien. The Norman seized Thomas' lands even after he had been given the holdings of the deceased Comte de Givras, forced Thomas' wife, Marguerite, to bed him, and had the knight excommunicated. For that, Thomas swore that the greedy lord would die in the mud of a brigand's hand, and joined up with a band of thieves in the hope he would take his revenge on Chretien someday.
• Rugged Scar: Thomas has a very noticeable one on his cheek where he took an arrow to the face at Crécy.
• Schmuck Bait: Sure, this beautiful castle full of inexplicably healthy people throwing a huge feast is definitely a safe place to spend the night, even if the Oracular Urchin in the party refuses to go inside, right? Of course not. It's all an illusion designed to entrap and torment travelers.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Thomas frequently has flashbacks to his doomed charge at Crécy and his painful recovery. When he meets Guillaume, another survivor on the French side, the two say little about their experience but appreciate their shared trauma.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: To Delphine's chagrin, Thomas curses very liberally, to the point where "cunting" and "whoring" are his favorite adjectives for everything. For added bonus, he even is a knight (or at least an excommunicated one), making the Sir title more appropriate.
• Sore Loser: The forces of Hell are seldom graceful in defeat. When the Host banishes them from Avignon, they respond by damning all the souls they can grab, guilty or innocent, which includes Thomas.
• Stupid Evil: Some of the lesser demons the trio encounter fail to serve as competent arbiters of temptation because they make their evil natures too obvious. Of special note is the group of supposed crusaders who offer to let Thomas accompany them to Avignon at the cost of leaving his companions behind. The slightest amount of hesitation is enough to turn them hostile.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: When they attend the Pope's council, Delphine dons the disguise of a page. She cuts her hair short and binds up her now developing breasts, but nevertheless runs into a little trouble keeping up appearances when her bladder gets full.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: After Thomas kills his companions to protect Delphine in the opening, she commands him to "never kill anyone ever again". Though he makes no promises, he does avoid killing humans for the most part afterward. When he does kill people, there are usually consequences for doing so.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Thomas turned to brigandry as a result of being excommunicated purely so that a rival could seize his lands and holdings. The way he saw it, since this act robbed him of everything he had, doomed him to Hell, and God by all appearances allowed it to happen, then he would earn his damnation by working with thieves, murderers, and rapists just to make his quest for revenge against the man who wronged him.
• Throat Light: Ra'um in its true form has a mouth described as "an O of fire".
• Title Drop: The Pope holds audiences sitting "between two fires" as a precaution against the plague.
• Token Good Teammate: Guillaume is this for the small crew of river men affiliated with the pirate guild of Simon Peter. Notably, when the captain decides he's going to kill the protagonists once he finds out how much money they're holding, Guillaume is the only one to turn on him due to feeling a greater sense of kinship with Thomas, who like him fought in the Battle of Crécy.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Jehan and Annette, the kind couple who offered the protagonists shelter and food in Paris and looked very willing to adopt Delphine, are horrifically killed by a demon taking the shape of a statue of the Virgin Mary.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Thomas starts off as an angry and nihilistic man who lives only for survival and revenge, and displays an uncaring attitude towards others, particularly Delphine. He softens up over the course of the story, displays more camaraderie toward his companions, and more devoted to Delphine's seemingly holy mission. By the end of the story, he becomes a full-fledged Good Shepherd.
• Undying Loyalty: Thomas lived his whole life devoted to the Comte de Givras, and still retains love and respect for him even after his death.
• Waif Prophet: Delphine is a small child, but she seems to have premonitions she doesn't fully understand and displays an ability to foretell the future without realizing she's doing so in the first place. Then there are the angels she claims to speak with.
• Wham Line: The fifth and final section of the book is prefaced by one single line: "And the Lord made answer."
• World Half Full: Though everything seems hopeless for most of the book, the end makes it clear that after Hell is driven back, the world is beginning to heal. The plague is fading, France is rebuilding, the Pope is calling for recovery, and crops are growing again.
• Undead Abomination:
  • The Body of Bodies that appears in Avignon during the climax.
  • Possibly the jellyfish demon in the Rhône's offspring as well, as they each form around the severed head of a corpse.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Thomas is tortured in Hell for what feels like years, but when Delphine saves him and brings him back to Earth, only a day has passed.
• You Are Worth Hell: When Delphine's divine aspect comes to pull Thomas' soul from out of Hell, she gives him the choice to either remember her, the journey they took together, and all the hardship they experienced including the torture he suffered in Hell, or to forget it all and be free of the aforementioned torment. Thomas chooses the former, retaining his memories, both the good and bad, purely out of his love for Delphine.