Blitz woke up to a sensation that he wished he could say he hadn't felt before; money being dropped into his lap. He snorted and kicked his legs out from under the blanket, spotting the newly officially rechristined Krieg standing over him with a smirk on her face. "Oh what the sweet fuck are you doin' this early in the morning?" he asked.
"Paying dues," she said. "I trust mother is still furious?"
"Oh she's so far beyond pissed that she left it behind three rings ago," Blitz said as he started to count the cash. "I'm shocked she ain't run back already, honestly..."
"I put the Umbilical Curse on her. She cannot cross the Pride Wall unless I am less than five feet from her. For the time being, she is Pride-locked," Krieg said with a note of overweening pride. Well, she probably earned it keeping Tilla from doing something Blitz was going to have to undo at his own expense a day later.
He waggled the money at her, "I didn't tell ya you needed to pay it this quick. Speakin' of which, how in the fuck did you get this much money so quickly? Did you start turning tricks? 'Cause nobody in this fucked up family of mine is gonna go the path of the hooker!"
"Seriously?" Krieg asked, disdain on her face. "After the lengths I went to to avoid impregnation you presume I would throw dice so carelessly again? No, I earned these through fair trade."
"And what trade is that, that you can do that don't involve getting horizontal?" Blitz said, finishing the count and confirming that yes, Krieg had paid all that Blitz had asked for the entire month within two days of coming to Pride.
"Do you forget that I am a wonder-worker?" Krieg asked, tweezing her face, as though depressing the three white spots that broke up her otherwise evenly red flesh. "I earned these funds by doing impossible things for money."
"What, like curing Fiends' impotence?" Blitz asked.
"...yes," she said with a shameful side-flit of her eyes.
"Well I'll be a human's uncle, you actually do stand a chance out here. Makes me wonder why you didn't run sooner," Blitz said. He moved to Loona's door and pressed his head against it, as imps didn't have external ears. Silence. Did she not come back last night? He had abandoned his room to Tilla and her sprats because she was his sister and she deserved a bit of comfort after living in that culty shithole.
"You know exactly why I didn't," Krieg said, and opened the fridge. She scowled as she beheld its contents. "Do you consume nothing but vodka and packaged meals? Are you a boy of my age, rather than old enough to be my father – if not grandfather?"
"Hey! I ain't that old!" Blitz said.
"You are twelve years older than your line in Hell describes," Krieg said.
"You can tell that at a glance?"
"At a smell, actually," she said, and pulled the long rancid, partially crumbled carton of milk from the fridge, plopping it down next to the Nibbles and Bits that Loona didn't like to admit she still ate. She flexed her hand up and down the carton like she was giving it a tug, and it firmed, the faded cardboard gaining definition and structure, the faded ink blooming with color. When she uncapped it and poured, it didn't reek and flowed without so much as a chunk. "You have spoken little of your little adventure, but I can tell it's dug deep into you. Deeper than your skin. There is anger there. Outrage and spite. This interests me."
"I ain't gonna tell you my life story. You're just a little shit who can do some magic," Blitz said, crossing his arms before his chest.
"I know that you have engaged in coitus with humans, Sinners, fiends, and fallen angels. Strange times follow you, Uncle," she said, beginning to eat. "You are right, though. Much as I am not prostituting myself in a traditional sense, I am in bad straits having to do street level magic for desperate, impoverished idiots. I need a more official space to do my work."
"If you're askin' to work for I.M.P. you can forget about it! I've already got enough people working for me and we're currently going up against Lucifer's chosen bitch-boy so I'm not going to rope you into that bullshit," Blitz said.
"How uncommonly thoughtful, that you would spare me from ruin," she said sardonically. "No. I don't wish to work for you. I am no assassin. I only know the workings of guns from television. I am a miracle-worker. Against such things as you fight, I will be of only occasional worth and thus not equal to the paycheck I call. I rather intend to start a business of my own. It has been long since Cruac plied their services up here in Pride. But I imagine there are some Sinners who are eager indeed to have their enablers to return."
"Uh huh. And what about the Radio Demon?" Blitz asked. Krieg flinched at that.
"He... ah... Well, I will simply avoid conflict with him."
"You say that like you even can. I mighta killed the guy when he was human, but lemme tell you, the Radio Demon is no fuckin' joke. If he catches wind that one of Clan Cruac is up here in pride, he's gonna rip you up, root and stem."
"You killed the Radio Demon. You," she demanded.
"Killin' him was easy. Surviving what happened next was the real bitch of it," Blitz said. She stared at him, as though not sure if he was lying, but then probably deciding that it wasn't worth her time. She sullenly ate some cereal, then glanced up at him.
"He did not come for you," Krieg pointed with her spoon.
"I never claimed to be part of that lunatic eugenics cult. If you do, he's gonna come for you," Blitz pointed out the obvious ends to her plans. She scowled into her bowl then sighed.
"Very well, I will simply be Krieg in this endeavor," she said. "What I lose in brand recognition, I will make up in longevity. Now there is something I will ask of you. Your office building? The one with the horns facing east and west?"
"Whattabout it?" he asked.
"Has it any small offices – no, not even that; has it any broom closets for rent? I require little space. Much of what I can do for these magic starved putzes needs only what I could carry in a purse," She said. She then spread her hands. "I would call it Krieg's Sorcery Unlimited! Because these fools wouldn't know real magic from the contents of my bowels."
"Aaaaww, you remind me of me," Blitz said, honestly a little touched. "You know, things the way they are right now, I can't just throw money at you. And space in my office don't exactly come cheap."
"Exorbitant rates, no doubt," Krieg said. Then she had a thought. "What about if you have a stake in my endeavor? A moneyed-partner. Would that assuage your reluctance?"
"...maybe?" Blitz said. He'd never invested before. It seemed like a dumb idea to have money and not use it for stuff. But then again, this kid was family. "But if we're doin' that, my name goes on the sign as well!"
"Very well. Blitz-Krieg Magical Solutions – for when real isn't good enough," she said and took his hand in a shake.
"Try not to get killed by the Radio Demon," he said.
"Try not to be murdered by Nathan Birch," she answered him.
"Who told you about Nathan Birch?" Blitz asked.
"The crude drawing with the many knives sticking out of it," she said, pointing at the perforated picture on the wall. "And for the record, what you intend to do is suicide with a zero chance of success. Which means that it would take a Cruac renegade to pull it off."
"Don't suck my dick, kiddo. The last time I fucked one of my outer family members I was fourteen, drunk as shit, and I got paid to do it. And I ain't walking that road again," he said.
"Gross. And also accurate. Still, this ring of Pride? It will never see either of us coming," she said with a grin very much like his own.
Chapter 21
Fear is safety. Hate is death.
"You're remarkably hard to find when you put your mind to it," Wendy's voice cut in on Sam's ruminations.
"I'd prefer to be alone right now," he said.
"Tough shit," she said, plopping herself down on the cot opposite his own, in the Weepstone citadel at the heart of the Happy Hotel. "Angel Dust is worried out of his mind. Said you cut your arm off. Which... doesn't seem true."
"Oh, that happened," Sam said.
"Doesn't it usually take days for your limbs to regrow?"
"Yup," he said.
"And not this time?"
"Nope," he said.
"Trying to drive me away with one word answers?" she asked, leaning forward to get into his sight-line.
"Maybe," he said.
"Well that's not going to work. As much of a pill as you can be sometimes, you're a friend, and if there's one thing I didn't lose coming to this cess-pit of infinite suffering, it was how to take care of my friends. So spill it. What's got you hiding in the dark like a cat wedged behind the fridge?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"It's got something to do with the Gift of Rage, doesn't it?" she asked.
"What?" he asked, actually looking up to face her square. How...?
"Remember the shower walls?" she asked. "You talk to yourself a lot more than you think you do."
Sam stared at her for a while, then sighed and hung his head. "Well. Since my secrets are getting unveiled to everybody – pointedly including me – you might as well hear this directly from the horse's mouth. I can leave Pride. I've been able to since I landed in Hell. And I think the reason is because I've got a stillborn angel in my guts."
She stared at him for a long moment. "Are you being serious?"
"Doesn't it sound fucking insane?" he asked. "The only reason I actually believe Alastor is because the only thing he'd enjoy more than a lie fucking with me, is the truth fucking with me more! Fuck..."
"Alright, not lying to me, I can buy that," she said. "You do realize that Alastor is a very bad person, right. Like, the kind of person whom Hell was specifically built to house. You shouldn't put so much weight on the things he says."
"Did you not hear a thing I just said?" Sam asked, glaring at her. "I thought Apoc was surgical with the truth, but he is a rank amateur compared to the master that is Alastor. Apoc tells lies – fucking important lies – but gives enough truth in them that you'll buy the whole pound without noticing it's an ounce short. Alastor, though... he opens your belly with a word, and laughs as you try to catch your tumbling guts."
"And still you care about what he says," Wendy pointed out.
"Because it's more likely true than not," Sam said. "Fuck. Why is it that the only people who know how to tell the truth are the ones with the least truth to tell?"
"This is Hell. It's by its nature not fair," she said. She then paused. "So my grandmother was actually on to something. There is somebody who can leave Pride."
"Not the only one, actually," Sam said. "Cherry Bomb found out about Celeste back in the 19th century, who could do the same thing I can. Which I'm now realizing is likely for the exact same reason. She probably had the same angel-bullshit going on with her as I do."
"And how exactly did you end up with angel bullshit?" Wendy asked.
"It's how they make new angels, ever since God shit the proverbial bed," Sam said. "As for how? I'm guessing just random."
"There's random, and then there's random random. Sam, I'm a scientist. I understand things like demographics," she said with a very teacherly look on her face. "If the Angels are doing what they're doing at a constant rate, there should have been many people like you, to the point where it wouldn't even be considered uncommon, back during the 1800's, and you being you alone now. And since that doesn't prove out..."
"You're making an invalid assumption," Sam said. Her brow furrowed over her eye. "You're presuming that the rate of angel creation is static, and not, as it probably is, ramping up in desperation."
"So... you're saying that there's more likely more like you out there... who just don't even realize it?"
"Or there will be in the coming months, years, and decades," Sam said. He sighed. "You know, it's been a long time since I was able to talk science with somebody. I almost forgot how fun it was."
"I'm the most fun you can have with your pants on," Wendy said with a shrug.
"And you're also a lot better at getting me to stop wallowing than you give yourself credit for," Sam admitted. He stood up, stretching his body to a cacophany of cracking joints until he settled his feet on the now dustless Weepstone that the Citadel was made of, walls, ceiling, and floor. "I need to tell some of the others the truth."
"Are you sure that's wise?" she asked.
"No. But if I've got to do something stupid, I'd might as well be smart about it. I'm not going to let Niffty know, for example."
"Why Niffty?" she asked, rising to join him as he started to amble out of the bunker.
"Because anything you tell her in the morning will be spread throughout the Ring by noon," Sam said. "She's a... well, I was going to say a sweet girl, but she's literally a deranged stalker and murderer. She's a decent housekeeper, I'll say, but I don't trust her within a lightyear of any information which can destroy me. The moment she knows anything, everybody in Pride will be hearing about it by the end of the day, if not the bottom of the hour."
"I guess that makes sense."
Sam paused, resting his back against the wall across from the now empty pantry door. "I did something unforgivable," he finally said.
"To who?"
"Angel Dust," he said. She had a look of stern disbelief at that. "I went into his... I guess his soul... and I changed it. I changed him, Wendy."
"And since when does your magic let you do that?" she asked, cocking a fist on her hip.
"Not my magic. This is pure elemental bullshit," Sam said. Then he flinched. "...maybe Angelic bullshit. Fuck me."
"So what did you do to him?" she asked, not even questioning that.
"I took that mindless terror he had at his abuser and turned it into anger," Sam said.
"Good on you," she said.
"What?" he asked.
"It sounds like you did Angel a favor and a half right there."
"I changed another person's nature against their will! That's the deepest rape that a person can endure!"
"Have you ever been raped, Sam?"
"...No," he said.
"I have," she said flatly. "There are far worse things than that. And I've suffered a few of those, too. As usual, you only see the worst in yourself, as I'm gathering is a lifelong practice for you. Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, you did something good for somebody else?"
"I did it without his consent," Sam said.
"I heard you through the wall, Sam. You said, with a voice that sounded like it was coming through the radiators, if Angel Dust 'accepted the Gift of Rage'. To which he responded, and I quote 'yeah, sure,' with a question mark. Whatever you did, you had his permission. For fuck's sake, Sam, get over yourself. You are not the only person in Hell who has agency. So get your shit together. That's my scientific recommendation for you. Get your poops in a group. Sort your feces by their species."
Despite himself, Sam found himself chuckling at that one. "You couldn't have come up with that one on the spot."
"I've been waiting to use it for thirty years," Wendy said.
"Well, congratulations on using it perfectly," Sam said. He puffed out a breath. "I figure I'm going to need to soften this a bit. Charlie needs to know, too."
"I'm surprised you told any of us at all," Wendy said.
"I told Husk first," Sam said.
"Safe bet. Why not Alastor?" she asked, following as he continued out of the bunker. As they reentered the Hotel proper, Sam could only roll his eyes as he saw 'For the love of Satan, don't let it out', having now been appended in small, crisp letters 'good riddance'. Likely Angel Dust's final fuck-you to the thing that ripped off his arms.
"Alastor was there when I got outed," Sam said.
"And you think he didn't tell anybody?"
"That man is like a camera crew on a reality show. He's only interested in what's interesting, either because it's funny, because it's pathetic, or because he can learn from it," Sam said. "Besides, he has no reason to blab to the people who'd hunt me down over it."
"Because you're such an enigma to him?" she asked.
"No, I think he's gotten the answer he was looking for out of me, so I'm no longer on his kid-gloves list. I'm just as doomed as the rest of you. Marginally more so, because of the guts-thing," Sam said, and began their descent.
"So what do you have planned? To 'soften the blow' of you being so vewy-vewy special?" she said while pinching his cheek.
He waved her off. "A little trip out into the country. To a spot I remember from a little while ago," Sam said.
"It wouldn't happen to be a 'retreat' south of Pentagram, would it?" she asked, her colors fading slightly. He pointedly did not Look Within to see what nightmares that conjured.
"North. Far north, actually," Sam said. "Near where the old crossing into Purgatory sits in ruin."
"Oh. Well, I imagine that's probably nice during the summer."
"How long do seasons last in Hell, by the way? Everything I read has a different answer," Sam said.
"As long as Lucifer wants them to," she said. Well that wasn't pleasant to think about.
The ground floor came quickly, and Sam paused, having a strange sensation. Sight without sight. He then turned and faced an unobtrusive spot near the lower landing. "Alastor?"
"Your eyes are getting better, Samuel," Alastor emerged from that spot as though a bubble of unreality was popping around him. Wendy flinched at his sudden appearance, as was probably the sane reaction to the Radio Demon's proximity.
"I bet they are. I'm going to be taking the people of the hotel on a day trip. And when we're gone, Valentino's goons are going to try sneaking in."
"I am not a guard dog, Samuel," Alastor crossed his hands atop his microphone cane.
"I'm not asking you to be. I'm asking you to showcase the unparalleled hospitality of the ahem... Hazbin Hotel to the witless fools who wander into its lobby. After all... I'm sure you can find their sort very entertaining," Sam said.
"Me oh my, you do know how to butter a fellow up," Alastor said. "If those jackanapes step into my territory... I'll have a little show set for them."
"I presumed you might," Sam said. Then he turned to Wendy. "Now let's see if I remember how to drive a standard."
"What? Why?" she asked.
"Because I've seen the inside of that limousine, it's not an automatic, and I'm the only person who knows where we're going," he said, ticking them off his fingers.
"It's like falling off a bike," she said. "Even I remember how to drive standard, and I haven't done it in fifty years."
"I'll hold you to that," Sam said as he emerged into the lobby. He spotted one of the people he needed. "Vaggie! Is Niffty around?"
"No, she's getting groceries since apparently Charlie can't right now," Vaggie said.
"Great. Buzz everybody and bring them to the lobby. I've got a day trip for the whole crew set up!"
Wendy and Vaggie shared a baffled look, but Wendy disarmed it with a 'what are you going to do?' shrug, and Vaggie went back into the office to inform her other half.
The trill of trumpets closing in told Lucifer that his appointment was arriving. The King of Secrets certainly had a strange way of being secretive, as it turned out. Lucifer simply waited, sitting behind his desk that still had two holes busted into it, his fingers tented under his nose as he stared.
There was a growl of a bear from the window as Purson's anachronistic choice of conveyance was tied to a post, and the Great King entered into the home of Lucifer. The King of All Hell watched as his underling cast aside a lion-hide cloak and his coiled viper whip onto an imp which was waiting for them, moving briskly through the halls of the Morningstar's palace. Lucifer watched how the petty king moved. Purposeful, but not hasty. As though he had a very specific schedule he would not be late, nor early for. Purson probably knew that Lucifer was watching him from outside his avatar's body. This particular Ars Goetia was not stupid.
Lucifer continued to watch as the King of Secrets approached the door, minutely adjusting the trails of the beard he wore right now. He likely wouldn't wear it tomorrow, because it was always a tossup whether the Purson you talked to was the Great King or the Great Queen, or just the Great Regent because they didn't want to bother with prick or crack that day.
When Purson finally opened the door, Lucifer hadn't moved a hair. He simply waited as Purson entered without a word, closing the door behind him, and standing before Lucifer's desk. There was a long, pregnant silence in the room for a while.
"What matter need you the lore of Purson, King of Kings?" Purson finally asked, looking not too uncomfortable. But then, Purson was one of the least 'human' of the Secondborn, far more like Matariel, who refused to appear as anything other than a cloud festooned with eyes, than the rest of his more 'normal' brothers and sisters.
"Punctual, as usual," Lucifer said dryly, glaring at the blue-black flesh of Purson. In fact, his entire body was various shades of black or blue that was nearly there, the light only creating dull highlights where it fell on him. "But there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Yes, King of Kings?" Purson asked.
"Not you," Lucifer said.
"...my liege?" Purson's head tilted slightly. Lucifer stood, straightening his black bowtie and straightening the crease of his shining white collar. He then rounded his desk so that he stood in front of Purson. Purson was taller in his current form, but Lucifer cared so little about such things that you would have to bribe him dearly for him to show any of it. After a moment of inspection, Lucifer clasped his hands before him, his index-fingertips pressed against his lips.
"I said," Lucifer repeated himself, "I'm not talking to you."
And then with a snarl and a thrust of his hand, Lucifer slammed his will into Purson and sent him catapulting back, cratering a foot-deep dent into the wall next to the door. But remaining exactly standing where Purson had been but a moment ago was another form, this one dainty, fine featured, with shining blond hair and parchment colored skin. She blinked in alarm, no longer concealed within the body of Purson, the last pulpy vestiges of him sliding off of her and plopping to the floor. Purson himself made to rise.
"YOU WILL STAY THE FUCK DOWN!" Lucifer roared at Purson. The Great King of Secrets paused. "I swear upon your oath to me that if your other knee rises from that floor I will turn her face inside out and feed you her legs. Am I being perfectly clear!"
Purson did not speak. Instead, he put his other knee on the floor.
"That's more like it," Lucifer said. He pulled his fury back in, and plastered a gentile smile on his face. "It's been a long time since I've seen your pretty face, Penemue. Aren't you supposed to be under house arrest right now?"
"There are many things which are supposed to be true which are not," Penemue said, her voice sounding vaguely like song. She glanced to a chair nearby. "May I sit?"
"I insist that you do," Lucifer said, his hot glare almost physically driving her into the seat and pressing it down into its overstuffed baby-soft leather. Contrary to popular opinion, baby-skin did not make for good upholstery; it was too thin and too frail, came apart with the passing of barely a half hundred asses. Despite cannibals howling to the opposite, humans just weren't very much use for anything. They tasted bad, their skin was useless, their organs bitter, and their bones without substance. No, this skin came from horses. When Penemue tried to settle herself, Lucifer placed a hand on her shoulder. Then, his other on the other shoulder, fingers tented in as though a moment away from strangling her. Which, honestly, he might be.
"I suppose you..."
"Shut the fuck up," Lucifer said. She turned a wary eye at him, its color the same as Penemue's flesh. "I've known that you have been sneaking out of Heaven to come down and fuck your bookworm fuck-buddy for quite a while now. That's so very against the rules. But you're unbelievably lucky that I find your little transgression a delicious wad of phlegm into the eye of Michael. So I'm not going to flay you where you sit and sent you degloved back to Heaven."
"It would earn little ire. I am Grigori. They would see it as my just due," Penemue said.
"You're new to Hell, so I'm going to do you an unprecedented favor, and remind you to NEVER FUCKING INTERRUPT ME," Lucifer howled into the back of her head. She flinched quite pleasantly under his auditory assault, her shoulders pulling in. Lucifer pressed one of his fingers deep into her flesh, popping capillaries and giving birth to a bruise. "Anything which exists in Hell without my knowledge, exists without my FUCKING CONSENT! And I did not CONSENT FOR YOU TO BE HERE!" He turned to Purson. "And you won't say one FUCKING WORD. This is between ME, and your BITCH, and you are going to STAY ON THE FLOOR WHERE YOU BELONG!"
"This is unnecessary. Please tell me what you want," Penemue said with remarkable calm.
"I will decide what is necessary and what isn't. You are in MY REALM NOW. You will follow MY ORDERS, or you will suffer the grisliest consequences I can imagine. And I guarantee to you that the only person in all Creation who is more imaginative than me, I suppose... is you," Lucifer ended in a sweet tone, rounding the chair and standing so that he forced her legs apart with his own. He had no intention of doing what was no doubt implied, but the implication had weight all its own. "So you are going to tell me something I want to know."
"Yaldabaoth," she said. Lucifer tipped his head. "You are no doubt about to ask about the identity of the Demiurge, the one Archangel who was absent the Sefirot. And it is a shame to admit that I do not have this knowledge."
"Then you've just proven to me that you're of no use to me," Lucifer said. He stepped out from between her legs. She closed and crossed them quickly, showing the cracks in her otherwise bulletproof facade. "And that means that you've just thrown yourself to my mercies despite having absolutely nothing to buy them with."
"Don't..." Purson said.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU DON'T GET TO TALK!" Lucifer roared at the Ars Goetia kneeling on the floor. He moved over to him, glaring down at the Great King of Secrets. "If you say another word that I don't specifically ask you for, I'm going to rip out your tongue and cauterize the wound so you'll talk with a lisp for the rest of your miserable existence. Am I being clear?"
Purson nodded, unable to even look Lucifer in the eye.
"Now as for you, you're a hard woman to crack. It's almost like you don't fear anything I could possibly do to you. Which is stupid, because you should," Lucifer said, reaching down and twisting Purson's ear, just to cement him into his place.
"I do not fear God. I do not fear you," she said.
"A bold claim for an angel which rolled onto her back the instant that Father sent Gabriel to slaughter your newborns in their cribs."
"I have had no mortal children," Penemue said. Lucifer gave a chuckle at that. And then he ripped, pulling Purson's ear off in a single deft tear. Purson let out a strangled grunt of pain, golden blood spilling out onto his blue-black flesh. "Please, stop this."
"No children?" Lucifer said. He held the ear up to his mouth. "Did you hear that, Purson? She had no children. Are you sure she's a Grigori?"
"What do you want?" Penemue asked, twisted in her seat so she could watch him.
"I want the name of the Demiurge. I want the name of a Sinner who's been breaking my laws. I want God's head served to me on a fucking platter. And I want my UNDERLINGS... to stop DISOBEYING ME!" he hurled that ear at Purson, striking him in the nose with it. Purson simply stared at the floor, almost still as a statue. Lucifer then nudged the ear so that it was in the spot that Purson was staring.
"He did not disobey you," Penemue said.
"That's for me to decide, darling little Watcher," he said, pulling a handkerchief from a pocket and wiping the angel blood off onto it.
"I have come to this place not in defiance of you but in defiance of God," Penemue said, eyes hard on Lucifer's own. "How many of your followers rebelled simply for the freedom to be female? To love? To enjoy the same freedoms that He would grant to his humans but not to us? I am here for Purson. Were you not King of All Hell, I would still be here for Purson. It is my greatest shame that I lacked the courage to follow Purson when you were cast from Heaven."
"Now this is delicious," Lucifer said, clapping his hands together crisply. "A love-affair amongst the Angels, imprisoned and fallen. I'll have to tell a certain box-headed Sinner down there to turn this into a tawdry television show. But you've just handed me the most deadly weapon you could have possibly possessed. You've told me how to kill your heart," Lucifer then manifested his flaming sword, holding it above Purson's neck.
"I told you truth that I do not know the name or the face that Yaldabaoth wears," Penemue spoke a bit more quickly, now that the chips were on the table and axe was swinging down. "But there is another who does. One who knows first hand the identity of the Demiurge."
"Talk quickly," Lucifer said, holding his blade steady.
"What is the Nature of Yaldabaoth? He is what does not know his nature. Yaldabaoth does not know that they are Yaldabaoth. The Demiurge is unaware they are Demiurge. But another has been looking for Yaldabaoth for centuries, another like us, looking in the one place that I could not. Here. In Hell."
"Yaldabaoth is in Hell," Lucifer said. He glared at Penemue. While she didn't show the typical features of panic, her stony face was starting to bead with sweat. For someone like her, that was probably just as good as weeping terror. He planted a smile on his face, and let his sword break away into motes. "Why thank you, Penemue, you've been a fantastic guest. Why, for this service, I think I'll even do you an added favor."
Penemue turned a concerned flick of her eyes to Purson, then back to Lucifer. "Which is?" she asked in wholly appropriate dread.
"By the power vested in me as the King of All Hell, and in blatant disdain for the stupidity of The Father, I now pronounce you husband and wife here within the lands of Hell," Lucifer said with a flourish, and let Naked Law do the rest of the work, binding a portion of her here for all time. "Now go take your man and fuck behind a dumpster like the rats you are."
Penemue didn't speak. She simply nodded, swallowed down nerves she didn't show on her face, and helped Purson to his feet. They didn't say a word as they left. Lucifer had nothing to say to either of them anyway. He tutted as they were about shut the door behind them, and pointed to Purson's ear, laying on the floor in a small pool of golden blood. Penemue returned, picked it up, slipped it into a pocket, and then departed.
Penemue probably thought that she'd palmed Lucifer off with dismissal and distraction, but she'd provided exactly the evidence he needed. He knew exactly who the 'hunter' was. And that meant that he was exactly one step away from finding Yaldabaoth. If he could find the Demiurge, then he wouldn't even need to worry about some pissant Sinner who could flout Lucifer's Laws. With the power of the Demiurge in his hand, he could do anything. He could even bring new war against the Throne of God.
"While I'll admit this is an unexpected pleasure, I have to question the venue," Charlie said, gesturing to the cabin that was butted up within stone's-throw of the Pride Wall.
"A day out of the city will clear a lot of heads," Sam said as he finished sweeping a cloud of grey ash out of the cabin's door. "We all need a breath of fresh air, and this air is fresher than most."
"I won't deny that, but still," she said, crossing her arms before her chest and looking out to the lake that traversed the Pride Wall, technically making it part of both Pride and Greed. Laid out on a blanket was Vaggie, and she was studiously ignoring Angel Dust and Husk, who were bickering about something or other. Wendy, though, she was still in the cabin. After a long drive, a toilet was a luxury not to be overlooked. "This is unlike you."
"Maybe it is," Sam said, putting the broom aside.
"Hrm. So... why was this place so dusty if you've been here before?" she asked.
"Oh that wasn't dust," Sam said.
"Really?" she asked, brow furrowing.
"That was Demon Bone Ash," Sam said. "When I got stuck, Apoc dragged me out here instead of to a hospital. I figure he hired a soul-surgeon, implanted something terrificly illegal into me, and then murdered the soul-surgeon who did it."
"What makes you say that?" she asked, her worried expression deepening.
"Recent revelations as to Apoc's nature paint that as the most likely line of events," Sam said.
"It still sounds like a lot of supposition," she said.
Sam just nudged the smudge of Demon Bone Ash with his shoe, then looked blankly at her. She then sighed and nodded. "I knew that Apoc was capable of being cold blooded from the moment I met him. I hadn't realized exactly how cold blooded," he said, starting to walk away from the cabin and toward the point where the sky changed color, where this far flung reach of Pride connected to an equally far flung reach of Greed because Purgatory was gone. "He has as much as admitted to me that he needs me for one very specific purpose. And he's paying a ridiculous amount of money, comparable to his type. Do you know how much he gives me for each job? Twenty five percent."
"That's... very very high," she said.
"Yup. Going rate for a top-tier bodyguard is four and a half," Sam said. He tapped the side of his head. "Everything Apoc did from the moment he met me was calculated to keep me from looking too deeply into things. And the moment he's not paying attention, I figure out why."
"Hey Sam! Would ya' mind answerin' a discussion for us?" Angel Dust asked, sauntering into their bubble as Sam continued to amble toward the Pride Wall.
"Sure thing. Just do me the favor and watch this," Sam said. He then cleared his mind, and called up the iconography and runes, the flow, the ebb and the shift of weight that came with Least Teleportation, also called Skipping. There was a snap as the air rushed into the spot that he'd left behind and a pop from where he appeared, and he felt momentarily light-headed. Charlie, though, immediately turned and spotted him, now a hundred yards away.
Standing right beside the Pride Wall.
"Sam get away from–" she said, a hand reaching toward him. Sam cleared his throat, and then took three long steps backward. The pressure of the Pride Wall was paltry, though stronger than in the places he usually penetrated it. Charlie let out a scream.
"Nooooooowhat?" she said.
"...Well fuck me... didn't think I'd see this today," Angel Dust said, face a portrait of confusion.
"Yeah," Sam said with an uncomfortable shrug. "I am the first brick in the downfall of Hell's status quo. I am a failed angel. I can walk the Rings of Hell."
"But... but Dad's Law..."
"Doesn't apply to Angels, hence the Ars Goetia," Sam said. Charlie hustled quickly to his side, passing the Pride Wall as though it weren't there at all. Angel Dust, though, stayed on the other side. "Don't come any closer, Angel. I can't bring you through. This is something that's apparently unique to me, as unfair as that is."
"I fuckin' knew it," Angel Dust said, a grin stretching across his face. "I knew you was special. So what, you say you're a fucked up angel? Well that makes two of us!" he then went into laughter.
"Charlie, what happened to..." Vaggie said, cresting the rolling hillock to find her other half and one of her clients in a spot where one of the two of them should be categorically denied from being. "What. How. Why is he over there?"
"I'm sorry, Angel. I can't get you out of Pride, away from Valentino. That was never in my power," Sam said. He raised a finger. "But I think I can offer you something just as good. Husk? Husk!"
"Quit your bitchin', I'm comin'," Husk said, rounding the edge of the hillock as though climbing it wasn't worth the effort. When he came into sight of Sam, he paused for a moment, his face blank as usual, then he shrugged and continued approaching. "So you weren't full of shit after all."
"Told you that I wasn't," Sam said. "Tell me something, Angel, if you care to. How many other people has Valentino broken? How many other people has he ground down into dust under his boot?"
"Under his dick, more like," Angel Dust muttered, a scowl on his face. "More than a few."
"And how many of them are suffering even now?"
"Probably all of 'em," Angel Dust said.
"Are you... going to liberate all of Valentino's victims?" Vaggie asked, tweezing the bridge of her nose. "He'd just come straight to the hotel and take them back. We can't protect everybody, Sam, no matter how much we'd want to."
"Protecting Valentino's victims from Valentino is going to be remarkably easy," Sam said. "Because Angel, his brother, Husk, and I are going to kill Valentino."
"What, you think you can just round my brudda' into this just like that?"
"Valentino set your brother on fire in an alley," Sam said.
"Now that you put it like that..." Angel gave a bemused shrug.
"And why am I getting roped into this?" Husk asked.
"Because I've discovered something about you. Do you know what people call you?" he asked. Husk just shrugged. "The Swindler Incarnate. I figure if there's one person who knows more about Pride Ring than you, I'll be hard pressed to find him."
"Still doesn't explain why I should even care," Husk said.
"I'll give you twenty gallons of moonshine fresh from the stills in Wrath," Sam said.
"Done," Husk said.
"Sam, you can't just go around starting wars with people," she said.
"I'm not starting a war. Valentino started the war by breaking Angel Dust's will, burning his brother, and shooting your front door off its hinges," Sam said. "I am finishing the war."
I have no concept of why people are so fixated on The Prince. It was my angriest, drunkest work, writ in a time when I was at my angriest and drunkest. Have none of you read The Discourses on Livy? Don't you realize that I spent the better part of my mortal life espousing the importance of Republic, of civic engagement? But no. They like my quips on how fear is safety, and hate is death. Never mind how hate inevitably – INEVITABLY – springs from fear! Be loved! Be respected! That is how you rule a nation, that is how you lead an army. That is how you save the realm of Heaven!
-Niccolo Machiavelli, Lieutenant of the Choral Auxiliary Defense Group