Sam woke up feeling like a sack full of hammered assholes.
Definitely had too much to drink last night.
With a groan, Sam pulled himself to the point where he wasn't contorted in his chair. He stared at the ceiling, daring the day to just fuck off and let him un-pickle in peace. But the day was unkind, he was in Hell, and there was no escape from the hangover which pressed his temples like a vice. So with throat-strangled condemnations of all things, from the institution of brewing to the notion of music to a list of other people who'd wronged him in life, he got to his feet, standing unsteadily and hunched like a zombie.
His shirt was pinked at his side, as usual. With a groan, he pulled it off and biffed it into the laundry hamper with his other blood-stained shirts. He grabbed a fresh one – he had a stack of shirts just ready to go, now. He knew how his injury worked by this point – and zombie-lurched out the door. As he made his way down the hallway, repacking his bandages and arduously pulling his shirt on, he gave a thought to waking up Wendy. But then he remembered that she had drank about as much as he did. He would spare her this agony.
The ding of the elevator arriving on his floor was too loud. He'd have to remember to turn that down. And the rattle it made as it descended to the ground floor grated on his nerves and his patience. But in the end, the doors did open, revealing the lobby.
"There's the man of the hour," Husk said dryly from the bar. Since he didn't say it loudly, Sam forgave him.
"I need... a new brain," Sam declared.
"One 'a those mornings, huh?" Husk asked. He poured something and slid it toward Sam. "Hair of the dog. Might take an edge off."
"At this point I'll try anything once," Sam muttered, lurching to the bar and draining away the concoction that Husk had prepared for him so quickly that he didn't even taste it. It felt like it was on fire the entire way down. Given his gastrointestinal tract and the more unusual aspects of his physiology, it just might have done so in truth. He was still hung over.
"No dice?" Husk asked.
"I'd say I want to die, but it's a bit too late for that," Sam said, taking a stool and dropping his head to the bar. Husk managed to slip a coaster under it before it could land.
"Ain't ever seen the entire house drink like that," Husk said. "And why didn't you tell us you could sing?"
"'Cause I can't," Sam said.
"Bullshit you can't," Husk said.
"I'm serious. I couldn't carry a tune in a sealed bucket," Sam said.
"Uh huh," Husk said with that exact tone Sam had by now learned that he didn't believe what Sam was spouting in the slightest. "Wait till the boss gets out. She probably took video of it."
"Oh dear god, kill me now," Sam muttered. Then he paused. "Only He won't, because God ain't done shit in centuries."
"Did you know you sing like Charlie does?" Husk asked.
"Whut?" Sam asked, turning his head so that he could to some extent see the cat-bird demon speaking to him.
"When you was up there, you damned near plunked us into fuckin' Egypt or some shit," Husk said.
"...I need coffee," Sam muttered, neither understanding nor having the free brainpower to try to figure out what Husk meant by that. He was immediately greeted by a clack of a coaster, the clunk of a mug, and the glub of the elixir of revitalization greeting his ears. With herculean effort, Sam pushed his head off of the bar and took the coffee and guzzled half of the mug in a single pull. It was a bad idea. The stuff was still seething hot. But since he was now immune to the damaging effects of heat, it didn't melt the inside of his mouth. He silently, sullenly sat as Husk topped the mug up with is carafe. "Why aren't you hung over?" Sam groused.
"Simple. I'm still drunk," Husk said with such complete deadpan that if he wasn't being honest, then he had a fruitful career as a comedian ahead of him.
When Sam started to feed more coffee into himself, he turned in time to see the doors to the nearest room on the hallway open. Charlie, wearing an oversized, baggy t-shirt did the same zombie lurch that Sam had previously, looking none of the Princess that she was. She walked with eyes firmly on the floor to the stool next to Sam, and arduously levered herself atop it.
"Coffee?" Sam asked. She winced at his voice.
"Not so loud," she said.
"She's such a lightweight," Husk muttered, before dealing her out a cup of restoration. She guzzled it with all of the intensity that Sam had, despite the fact that he wasn't sure if she had the same immunity to heat that she did. With one mug down, she leaned so that her head was in her hands on the countertop.
"Too much," she said.
"Yeah, not doing that again for a while," Sam made sure to speak softly.
"Did we get thrown out?" Charlie asked.
"Yup," Husk said.
"Why?" she asked.
"Ask Sam," Husk said. She turned a look at him.
"I don't get it," she said. "Was he that bad?"
"You don't remember?" he asked.
"I drank too much. I'm lucky I made it home," Charlie admitted.
"You probably didn't miss much," Sam said. "I'm surprised I didn't get the hook after the first verse."
"The owner looked like he wanted to, but he couldn't get close," Husk said. "This your first Angelsong?"
"My first what?" Sam asked.
"Oh boy. He don't know shit, does he?" Husk asked.
"Sam can't make Angelsong. He's not an Angel," Charlie pointed out the obvious.
Husk answered by reaching below the table and pulling out a handful of sand, dumping it onto the countertop. "You sure about that?"
"Why did you drop sand on the bar?" Charlie asked.
"Hyu-boy. And if I thought it'd be this bad I'd 'a stopped you yutzes a lot sooner," Husk said. "He–"
They were all cut off when there came a pounding at the front door to the Hotel. Both of the walking wounded flinched hard at the assault on their ears. There was silence in its wake that Sam still felt himself flinching for. Who would be calling this early in the morning? When he pulled his Hellphone, he found that not only had he forgotten to plug it in and thus it was nearly dead, but the hour was an almost respectable 9:30. Alright, maybe this was the time of day for people to call on them.
"I'll get it," Sam said, leaving the master of the house to recuperate. It was obvious she either had a lot less experience with nights out, or else her liver was weaker than Sam's, Nephilim or not. While the first half of the trip was the same zombie-lurch that he'd done to get here, by the time he was crossing the pillars of the lobby he'd managed to get to a more acceptable hobble. The door pounded as Sam was pulling it open, and he almost got punched in the face because of it. But the demon standing on the sidewalk managed to restrain himself and keep from using Sam's brow as a knocker. "What is it?"
"Is this the current domicile of any of the following?" the sharp-suited demon asked, quickly snapping a pair of pince-nez onto his dark red nose and reading from a legal pad. Its flesh was was a dark red and it had the long nose and sharp chin and straight horns of a Litigator Demon, a clade of Fiend that was actually born in Betrayal, and now existed as a thin diaspora across Hell. "Charlotte Magne, Princess of Hell, Song of Dawn, Inheritor of the Highest Throne; Alastor, called also The Radio Demon, called also The Pride Breaker, called also The Beast That Grins, called also... this just keeps going. Anyway; Samuel Poisonfire, called also Sam Scailes; 'Vagatha', called also Agata Vialpando; and finally 'Husk', called also Pride's Swindler Incarnate."
"All of them," Sam said. "When did people start calling me that?"
"Are you any of the aforementioned individuals?" the demon ignored his question.
"I'm Sam Scailes. I don't know about 'Poisonfire' though."
"Immaterial," the demon said. He then pulled from a briefcase a scroll that was writ in the dark crimson of Delirium Dye, a side product of the people 'living' in Sloth, and bearing with it a weight of lives wasted. "You and all aforementioned individuals have been summoned to the probate offices of Beelzebank for the dispensation of an estate."
"Whose estate? I can't think of anybody who'd name those people for an inheritance," Sam said.
"The Goat of the Apocalypse," the demon said, pulling off his pince-nez. Sam felt the hang-over start to ebb.
"Could you repeat that, please?" Sam asked.
"Last night the Goat of the Apocalypse's estate clause activated, meaning that he died. Serving of papers ensued immediately upon our office's opening," the demon said.
"How?" Sam asked.
"That is not for me to know, nor care," the demon pointed out. He handed Sam an envelope. "I recommend you come to the private dispensation at your earliest convenience, because if you do not, it will be dumped into probate and distributed according to Lucifer's whims. You have been served. Good day."
The demon then turned and clicked an old-fashioned looking stopwatch, creating a flaming gate at his side. Without a second glance, he stepped through it and vanished from sight. Sam, though, turned from the litigator and started to peruse the dense legalese that had been handed to him. Apoc was dead? Again, Sam wouldn't put it past the slippery goat to somehow make this a falsehood as well. But the more he read and parsed of the heavy text, the less likely that seemed.
Apoc was dead.
These stipulations and provisos could only exist in the event that Apoc no longer existed in Heaven, Earth or Hell. So unless his 'vacation' was traveling to the perilous and anomalous 'places Outside', he really was dead. And honestly, despite the ire that Sam had at his apparently frequent and fundamental inability to tell him the fucking truth, it was obvious that Apoc deeply valued Sam, both as a bodyguard and a confidante. Whatever Apoc was, he believed that people around him would only accept a lie, so a lie he gave them. Looking back, it seemed an incredibly sad way to live. But then, Apoc hadn't exactly been a jovial person at the best of times. No, he seemed like he was always dipping into melancholy and defeat, held at bay only by a beyond-iron will.
"Sam? What's wrong?" Charlie said from the bar, rubbing at her eye with the heel of her hand.
"Apoc is dead," Sam said.
"What?" Charlie perked up a bit, concern spreading onto her slightly-more-alert face.
"Fuck me, that's... I'm sorry, Sam," Husk said, a ghost of genuine sorrow coming to his face.
"And we've been summoned to the reading of... no strike that, the 'revelation of his estates'," Sam said, correcting himself mid stream by the term in front of him.
"'We' being?" Charlie asked.
"You, me, Vaggie, for some reason, Husk, and god help me Alastor," Sam said.
"So what's our play in this?" Husk asked.
"What else? We go and see what new insanity the Goat of the Apocalypse will spring on us from beyond his grave," Sam said.
Chapter 26
It Gets Worse
"Honey, you alright hon?" Millie's voice pulled Moxie out of another nightmare involving ruin coming to his parents. He never understood why he always had such lingering fears. They were fine. They'd continue to be fine for long after Moxie's poor life choices consigned him to oblivion. And yet he still dreamt of their death and destruction.
"Just another nightmare," he muttered, sitting up and only preventing his forehead from bashing against the desk by his horns catching on the desk's supports. With a long-suffering growl, he pulled himself out from under his desk and looked upon the scene that he'd spent all night working on, just trying to disentangle one tiny facet of the 37 Oaths to a point where he could change it, even slightly. If this was how much work that one condition had, he shuddered to think of how he was going to find the blood of a 'willing virgin', or what even 'The Binding Of Natures' even was, let alone how to undertake it.
"Is Krieg still here?"
Moxie just cast his thumb over to the other desk. Unlike Moxie, she didn't snore, so you wouldn't even know that she was behind Loona's reception desk. That, and its size made it palatial compared to his more imp-appropriate furniture.
"And what about Blitz and Loona?" she asked.
"Well," Moxie began, but was cut off when the portal opened and half of a human body flopped onto the floor. At least it wouldn't stain the floor red, because the carpet had already been replaced with a more compliant, scarlet color. Loona emerged from the rift and shook her head.
"That wasn't so hard. I could'a still stayed at the party," she said.
"It was only easy 'cause you were there, Loonie," Blitz baby-talked. "Well, it's probably over now so you can call the client and let him collect her legs."
"I don't know why she wanted this chick's legs. Just killing her would'a been simpler," Loona said.
"Ain't my problem, as long as I'm paid enough," Blitz said. Then he brightened a bit. "Hey M&M! Find out any nerd shit while we were gone?"
"Only that we're apparently going to have to kill human children to do this, and attempting anything else risks annihilation," Moxie muttered.
"So find a few clients and wheel-and-deal them into ignoring the 'kids die for free' part," Blitz said.
"I still don't like the idea of killing children. It's so unjust!" Moxie said.
"Lotsa kids need killing in the world. We just get paid to do it," Blitz said.
"Eh, you know what? I'm kinda on tubby's side on this one," Loona said, gesturing vaguely toward Moxie with her phone in hand.
"What?" Moxie asked.
"Kids get a shitty enough end of the stick as it is," Loona continued. "I mean, there's a few actually evil kids, but a lot of 'em are just clueless and helpless. So unless we get some would-be Amelia Dyers or Al Fishes, I'm out."
"Sweetie, this isn't the kinda thing you can just skimp out on," Blitz said, as he kicked the legs onto the plastic and started wrapping them. "If Moxie's super-spell says we gotta off some offspring, it's gonna happen. I ain't sending you into any fight against bullshit powers without protection."
"You send me into danger all the time," she said.
"You're never in any real danger," he said with a dismissive wave. And after a moment, Loona gave a begrudging nod. The fact was, pound for pound, even a Hellhound as physically lacking as Loona could outfight any comparable human. And she could even best humans that had two pounds of muscle for each of her own. It was obvious why God never intended to let Hellhounds into the Human World. They'd take over.
"Is Uncle back?" Krieg asked as she emerged from her cocoon. She blinked unsteadily, then pointed at Moxie. "Ah. This one will die if he tries to change the spell in the way he intends."
"See? We're killin' kids!" Blitz exclaimed happily.
"Sometimes I hate working here," Moxie groused.
"If you want, I could hire you," Krieg offered. "I have a..."
"Hey, just 'cause you're family don't mean you get to poach my workers. Go find your own fuckin' apprentice!" Blitz cut her off. Krieg looked a bit stymied, but then rolled her eyes.
"Well, if you are so put off of the notion of slaying the young, why not just use the kinder-essence which is trapped in your board room? That will account for one, at least," she said.
"...the what now?" Moxie asked.
Krieg pointed, and Moxie followed her as she put a chair up against the back wall, climbed it, and poked one of the ceiling panels out of its footing with a broom. When it fell, caked with dust and cobwebs as a piece of the office that hadn't been touched in far longer than I.M.P had been situated here ought to be, Moxie caught it, coughing and having to shake dust and irate spiders off of it. His brow immediately furrowed at what he saw under them, as he was greeted by a Binding Seal scribed meticulously in black imp blood, and even he could feel that there was something trapped inside of it, a pressure against the skin of reality.
"What is that?" Millie asked, looking around his shoulder.
"I have no idea," Moxie said.
"Isn't that your handwriting?" Millie asked, pointing at a corner of the panel.
It was. Moxie turned a concerned look to Millie, then to the writing in the corner. It used ink where the rest was imp blood. And it said, in his own hand, very precisely: 'Find Sam Scailes'.
The law office was so banal that it made Sam a little homesick for Earth. But only a little, because honestly, in a lot of ways, he was starting to prefer Hell. And if that wasn't both a condemnation of the state of the world that he'd lived in and a desperate cry for his own mental health simultaneously, he wasn't sure what was.
The group of them looked out of place. Sam at least had a decent shirt on, but Charlie hadn't even changed out of the baggy t-shirt, and Vaggie looked even more out-of-place, still wearing askew pajamas. Husk, meanwhile, still was naked, but swapped his bowtie for something more formal. Alastor was dressed as he always was, in his dark crimson and a sixty thousand dollar grin. The Litigators were in a bit of a tizzy of movement behind the main lawyer of this firm, who seemed to have taken the lead in enacting this dispensation of estate. Given it was for the Goat of the Apocalypse, Sam could see why. He sat, hands clasped before him, sitting behind a placard which read 'Arch Litigator Byrne'.
"Identities have been verified, statements of effect and placement have been taken. If there is any person here who wishes to exclude themselves from the remittances which are to commence, speak now and you will be excluded, per the decedent's allowances for excusement," Vaggie's hand immediately shot up.
"I'd like to have nothing to do with this," she said.
"You were not included in the decedent's allowances for excusement. Whatever he intends for you, you will receive it," the litigator said, pulling the sheet out from a stack with his second set of arms – like Angel Dust, he had four of them, but perhaps that was just how Litigator Demons were, now that Betrayal was gone. They had a lot of unexpected shapes and sizes.
"Great," she muttered, crossing her arms before her chest with a glare etched deep into her entire face.
"Vagatha, Legatus Damnatio de facto of Hell's Second Legion, the Goat of the Apocalypse grants to you the personnel and materiel within Splitwater MLC, totalling four hundred thirty seven freeman soldiers and one hundred and ninety two million Souls in war-fighting gear," Byrne said.
"Fine, I'll just sell them to another legion," Vaggie said.
"She is also barred from passing this manpower or materiel to any other leader for any reason so long as she remains within Hell," Byrne continued, ignoring her statement.
"You can't mandate that!" Vaggie said.
"He just did," Byrne said dryly, before continuing to read in silence for a moment. "It even says, and I quote the decedent directly 'Tough Shit, Agata, you're taking them. Because you're going to need them soon.'"
"Why would he say that?" Charlie asked.
"With that out of the way. Husk," Byrne switched to the only one in the room who looked less interested in the goings on than Vaggie had. "He wishes that I relate the following, and I quote: 'I do not know if I knew you half so well as to call you a friend, but even if I didn't, let me grant one act of friendship to you. Upon my own recognizance, I hereby release you from all debts you owe to other parties under my stewardship, and release the possession of all contracts of debts owed to you into your possession. If anybody complains, tell them to take it up with me in person'," Byrne said, before pulling out a long list. Husk's brows drew up, as though in surprise. "Listed are three hundred twenty seven debts owed both by and to Husk. Please ensure that all of the contracts are valid and owing, and they will be transferred into your care or voided within forty eight hours, as mandated."
"Well," Husk said, quietly. Even softly. "Guess he had a soft spot after all."
Byrne offered no comment, passing off the sheet and having another put into its place by his swarm of lesser litigants. He turned to Sam. "Samuel Poisonfire, called also Sam Scailes, the Goat of the Apocalypse has mandated that this Hellphone be given into your care by myself, personally," he reached into a heavily locked box, having to take almost a minute and a half to completely open the thing, then passed over a completely non-descript Hellphone. "He says that the password is 'the one which breaks Blue Brinstar and makes bricks'. I'm sure that has some meaning to you."
Sam frowned for a moment, then realized... Apoc you sassy bitch. "Is that all?"
"No," Byrne said. "The Goat of the Apocalypse has also created a conditional trust that Samuel Poison–" Sam felt compelled to correct him at this point, "Scailes is permitted to draw from, starting immediately. The worth of this trust has been obscured from easy access by wish of the decedent, for reasons of 'protection from ruinous powers'."
"Hush money," Sam muttered. Maybe he genuinely wanted to take care of somebody that he claimed to value as a friend. Maybe. But in effect, it functioned as hush-money all the same. Take my cash, and don't talk about the promises I've broken. Honestly, it still kinda hurt that even in the end, Apoc didn't trust Sam with the truth to any degree. But looking back, it was clear that was a failing of Apoc, one that he would have agreed to if Sam had ever pushed him on it. And frankly, now that Apoc was dead, he would need to find a new way through Hell. And lacking the backing of somebody like Apoc, Sam didn't like his chances.
"Hush money spends just as quickly," Byrne said without intonation. "Are you announcing your intention to reject this inheritance?"
Sam stared at the Arch Litigator for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. Better to have funds and not need them than the opposite. "I guess I don't. What are the conditionals?"
"The trust will run until the funds are remitted, the Day of Judgment comes, or Samuel Scailes is no longer a denizen of Hell by any means," Byrne's brow furrowed at that turn of phrase. "Odd. He usually does not mince words. Regardless. In such an event, the whole remaining worth of the trust will be transferred to the beneficiary of Samuel Scailes' estate, or in the absence of one, to the Heir to the Throne of All Hell."
"Better watch your back. Charlie will be after your money," Husk said with a prod at Sam's shoulder.
"No I won't," Charlie tried to comfort him.
"Alastor, called also the Radio Demon, et al alias," Byrne passed one sheet aside for another. "The Goat of the Apocalypse mandates that he wishes to leave to you every fungible and non-fungible Contract not otherwise dispensed here or otherwise explicitly by his will. He thereafter wishes that I relate he desires you 'to go ruin some powerful people's days," Byrne said, passing the sheet aside. Alastor, who had not said a word the entire time, simply grinned a bit wider, no doubt wondering how high on the chain he could punch without being pounded into a paste. Or if getting pounded into a paste would nevertheless be worth it.
"The next four persons will have to be contacted independently to obtain their inheritances," Byrne said, flipping through a few pages. So Apoc did have other people he spent time with. Not many, but still. "Regardless, provisions are in place to ensure that if they do not claim their goods and moneys within the allotted seven days, they will be folded into the trust currently accepted by Samuel Scailes rather than be subjected to the probate of Naked Law. Which brings me to the final beneficiary. Charlotte Magne, Princess of All Hell, Heir to the Throne, and Song of Dawn."
"I'm surprised he left me anything at all. I've never had any chance to get to know him," Charlie said.
"As he is dead, his reasoning followed him into oblivion," Byrne said, as he read, then re-read the stipulations. His expression shifted minutely, as though professionalism demanded that he not screw this up. So after a moment, he folded a pair of hands in front of him and held the contract with the other set. "Charlotte Magne is hereby granted all other moneys, assets, relics, artifacts and miscellany not explicitly afforded to another's inheritance. All estates, real and unreal, are to be liquidated at market value and entered into a common fund, which will be granted to..." he paused. "Tibre, could you verify this number for me?"
"Of course," the imp sitting at a boosted desk said, and when he saw the figure, lacking the professionalism of his employer, had his eyes bug. He didn't say anything though. He just started typing as fast as a court stenographer.
"Ahem. A common fund which will be granted to Charlotte Magne and her charitable endeavors," Byrne continued. "He then wishes related, 'While your heart is in the best of possible places that Hell can offer, you are still to the first and foremost beholden to your parents' purse-strings, which affords your works a certain precarity that you probably haven't even thought about. Should your efforts ever become embarrassing to the King of Kings, should he ever believe that they are operating counter to his best efforts, or if simply he has a whim to be cruel, he could snuff the redemption project not with a bang, but with the whimper of financial starvation. Even in death I cannot accept this. In the name of creating a breakwater against cruelty, and giving kindness a place to bloom," the imp chuckled at that, shaking his head, but Byrne continued unabated, "I will solve your precarity with the sum of all that I have earned in the three hundred fifty and some odd years I have walked the byways of Hell. Had I the reach I once had, you would be getting even more, but sadly, the world for the moment is blown by the winds of the cruel. Someday you will change that. And to that end..."
"It's... um... lowballed," Tibre said. There was the harsh grinding sound of an old printer doing its work, and the imp handed the new readout to Byrne. The others looked over his shoulders at it, and they began to quake with excitement. Byrne stared at it, then adjusted his spectacles so as to read from the bifocal.
"Interesting," Byrne said. He then turned his attentions back to the unlikely cadre that was on the other side of his desk. He cleared his throat once more. "He even included our fee. How thoughtful."
"Imma buy a new house!" Tibre exclaimed.
"I'm going to buy a new liver!" a succubus declared.
"We are still a place of business," Byrne said with extreme flatness, and everybody was tamped down at that. He then turned to Charlotte. "As I was saying. 'And to that end, I leave to you all remaining wealth to my name–' which he had an error in estimating the value of due to the increase in property values in Wrath since Q1 2021 – amounting to one trillion, fifty one billion, nine hundred eighty million souls. The figures of nine million or less seem to be pointedly ignored and/or included in other bequests. Congratulations. With the demise of Valentino and Velvet and the dissolution of the V Triarchy, you are now the fifth wealthiest individual in Hell."
"I don't think I can accep–," Charlie began, only to have her mouth clamped shut by Husk, Sam, and Vaggie all at the same time.
"She totally can," Vaggie said.
"Bmph h dnhh dnsn dh mnnph!" Charlie countered.
"Perhaps you should simply accept that somebody believes in the same lunacy that you do, my dear," Alastor finally broke his silence. "After all, the Goat of the Apocalypse was playing a wider game than any of us even realized until he was removed from the board. It would be folly to turn away from his ends, wouldn't it?"
Charlie slapped the hands away from her mouth. "But what if..."
"What Apoc wanted with that money is moot," Sam said. "The instant that it passes into your hands it is your money. Whatever blood he spilled in its accrual is not on you. And with it, you can do things that you had only distant dreams of. And as somebody who... knew him better than most..." it hurt, thinking of that, even after the implicit betrayals. Sam gave his head a shake. "He wanted to believe there was some light at the end of the tunnel that wasn't an oncoming train. Don't make a mockery of that."
"...I accept," Charlie said, her words small. The instant she did, the succubus threw open the door.
"Point one of a trillion!" she shouted. And instantly the rest of the law office erupted into an instantaneous party, if one that lasted exactly the eight seconds it took Byrne to sigh, take the spectacles off of his face, steeple his fingers in front of his face and say:
"ENOUGH," he shouted, words rebounding through the building. And the silence that was left in their wake was powerful. Byrne then recomposed himself – a ridiculous notion because he barely lost any composure at all – and returned his attention to Charlie. "The funds will be transferred to your personal accounts over the course of the next seventy two hours. I apologize for not being more swift, but the far-flung nature of his moneys requires an uncommon amount of legwork."
"That's entirely fine," Charlie said.
"Then all is settled, and all parties have received their desired inheritances," Byrne began.
"I don't want mine!" Vaggie pointed out.
"I don't care," Byrne said aside before continuing with his previous statement. "I simply ask that you all sign the form here and here. This to verify that you understand and will receive your bequest. And this one is to verify that you have paid the fee my company requires, and thus are not to be fed continuously into our proprietary Legal Meat-grinder™ by my collections experts. Very good," he said as Sam was already signing. He had wondered why that sausage-maker was out there. This was Hell, after all. Sam considered popping into the phone, but it was probably something he wanted not revealed in a lawyer's office. As the others started to sign – Vaggie with exceeding begrudgingness – Sam left them to walk to the lobby. It was a strange feeling that he was playing host to. While he still did feel betrayed by Apoc's lies, there was a kernel of genuine camaraderie that lingered. Apoc had dearly wanted Sam to be a friend. And Sam was not made of stone.
What had Apoc wanted, then? In truth? He never did broach the subject of storming the walls of Heaven after that first conversation, but then again neither had Sam. And whereas people like Alastor – whom Sam was starting to regard as less of a 'person' and more of an eldritch abomination wearing a fine red suit and a cheshire-cat grin – would lie with ease and impunity, Apoc was more strategic with his falsehood. He had a design that Sam wasn't privy to. A design that likely he kept hidden from all eyes in hell. Because if, say, Lucifer had caught wind of the desire of one of his denizens intention to break out of Hell entirely, that would have been cause for ruin all by itself, let alone considering what the two madmen involved planned to do thereafter.
Sam's pondering, and in fact his egress, was cut off when somebody shouldered hard into him, forcing him out of his path and only because of his good sense of balance did he not fall to the floor. In an instant he was back standing up with his hair shifting from red to bright gold as he glared at the gargoyle who had bull-rushed him. "Get out of the fucking way," the thing growled. And the voice was familiar. For an instant, Sam felt himself off balance, but without saying a word or betraying his intention by so much as a twitch, he Looked Within.
This man was afraid for his soul, because he had failed in the service of a singularly cruel man. Sam didn't care particularly about that for that first moment, but when Sam dug into how he failed, he was given a shock. Because he saw the imp assassin Blitz shoving a road flare down the man's throat. Sam tried to dig for a name, but found that his identity had been overwritten by 'Wretch' at a fundamental level. So he moved back to the impish assassin, and listened through this dead man's ears.
"Where the fuck is Casper Marquis!" the assassin's words echoed through the building, catching the notice of a cocaine-fueled bully with a badge.
Motherfucker.
"Shake your head, scum, your eyes are stuck," Marquis said. Or perhaps Wretch said. He gave Sam a stiff-armed shove to get him to the side of the hallway, and what looked like a normal human rounded the corner, holding a briefcase in one hand, and bearing a bandage that looped around his head across the bridge of his nose. Sam wasn't fooled by it. He could see as the dead human moved that it momentarily revealed brown chitin underneath, like the shell of a cockroach or a beetle.
Ordinarily, Sam would have just kept walking. Let this be somebody else's problem. Because that was still Nathan Birch, Lucifer's Proxy, and one of the most feared and hated individuals in this inferno of suffering. But not today. Today Sam needed to know why Marquis was right here, right now, and with him. So he clamped his stomach into place and he dared Look Within on Birch.
And it hurt. To look within was usually to slip through a door that was closing under its own momentum, something requiring a bit of finesse but usually leaving no trace. Doing it to Birch, though, it felt like he was pneumatically pressing himself through a sieve.. But his time learning magic from Alastor had taught him how to withstand agony on a roughly equivalent level to this, so he ignored the pain (since Sam was literally doing what should have been impossible, a feat even he wasn't aware of, the pain made a sort of sense) and ignored all extravagances, and looked for one answer in particular; who was Marquis to Birch?
And despite the pain, he found it.
He had given Marquis invulnerability in exchange for sowing suffering. A price of two thousand ruined lives. Of which Marquis achieved nine hundred.
Among those nine hundred was Sam.
Wretch, Marquis, or whatever you would call him moved on, as Sam barely noticed his flames pressing into electric blues. He had been wrong. Dufresne wasn't the biggest threat. He'd never been the most important target. Even Marquis didn't earn that spot. He enabled Vanderkleuw and Dufresne, but as cats-paws for his own part in the larger game. The real danger, both to the Living World and to Hell itself, was Nathan Birch.
Birch didn't even look at him as he moved past, rounding another corner and disappearing from sight. But Sam's knuckles crunched under the tightness of his fist. Husk came around that corner not long after, and took one look at Sam, before sighing.
"Aw fuck. Saw something you don't like, I take it?" he said, moving to Sam's side.
"Birch is responsible for my death. And for everything that I went through in the years leading to it. And the suffering of hundreds of others, besides me," Sam said through grit teeth.
"Tens of thousands," Husk corrected. He then grabbed Sam's shoulder and pulled him so that Sam was facing him, and not the hall. "Don't. Take the advice of a ragged old fuck who's been in Hell longer than you. This is a mountain you can't climb. Yeah, he's evil as fuck. Yeah, he did wrong by you. But as long as he's on Lucifer's good books, he's untouchable. All you'd do is kill yourself on his sword. And that's no good way to change anything in Hell."
"As long as he's in Lucifer's good books," Sam repeated. Husk dragged a paw down his face.
"Fer fuck's sake, Sam, don't try to be clever about this. There's other evil fucks out there that you can rip up and do your crazy shit to. Just. Not. Him."
"I'm touched that you care," Sam said.
"Yeah well... maybe I needed some remindin' that things do sometimes change for the better," Husk said, pulling a hip-flask out of somewhere and swigging hard from it. Sam wondered just how many extradimensional spaces Husk kept floating around him. He had to do something for storage, considering he was effectively a nudist.
"I'm figuring that Apoc didn't want me looking at this around prying eyes. I'd better head back."
"Not gonna wait for the boss?" Husk asked.
"I don't think I will," Sam said. He gave the grouch a nod, then departed the office. Despite what he'd said, he still had a new target. Charlie was the force for building something better in hell, that much was obvious. But equally obvious to Sam was that there was an opposite but equally valuable force at play. The force for tearing down the evil. And while Sam's life had stomped him enough times that he wouldn't get big for his boots, he was pretty sure that was a role he could play. And if he would be the ruin of the ruinous, then he should play his part well.
The taxi ride back to the hotel was quiet, in which he kept turning the phone over in his hand. It was so... ordinary. Or it looked ordinary. Even now, he could sense something unusual about it. Like a smell that could only seep through his fingertips. He focused on the thing, his eyes narrowing and the light from them going dark. Well that explained it; there was functional magic in the frame of the Hellphone. Something etched on the inner surface and lined with a thaumoconductive alloy. Likely moonsilver or Carmine. He couldn't guess the use of it, without tearing the phone apart. And he needed its contents a bit more than he wanted that answer.
When the taxi stopped, Sam got out with no words, just money into the hand of the cabbie and questions in his head. He walked past Niffty, who was scrubbing a spot on the wall where Charlie had walked into it and left part of her makeup pressed into the mahogany. He walked past Angel Dust, who shouted his name and invited him to continue drinking – because oddly enough he was one of the less drunk people from last night. Sam just shook his head and went into the elevator. Up it rattled, and Sam considered Apoc's nature. It was obviously angelic to some degree. The choice of words he'd used in his will made it clear to anybody who had the clues that Sam did. And one who told Sam in no uncertain terms to avoid Lucifer, so... Was Apoc even an Ars Goetia? Or were there other fallen angels in Hell?
Sam left the lift and moved to his door. He paused, then knocked on Wendy's door. Maybe a sounding board was in order. The door wasn't locked. He pushed it open, and she wasn't within. Well, shit. One of the window's panes was broken. She was probably looking for him to tell him to fix it. If that were the case, it'd have to wait. Without the succor of a second opinion, Sam retreated to his own room, and turned on the phone.
"Engage Ridley, mother fucker," he said, "all... capitals."
And the phone blinked to the desktop. That 'password' was such a problem to Nintendo that it could brick not just the original system, but a few of the systems that emulated the original Metroid game as well. What Sam saw there was slightly confusing. He furrowed his brow and made for his chair, flicking through a set of maps of places in Hell. Caches. Sam's brow drew down. Caches of what? And then there were other maps. Not just maps. Lists of names, locations, and times. And a few of them got Sam a bit concerned. Then he found the next set of maps. These ones weren't the publicly available maps of Pride, nor any other region of the Durance Vile, but instead drawings by hand. It looked like an absolute rats-nest, whatever it was, with buildings atop buildings atop buildings, and routes marked clearly along with times.
Sam gave his head a shake, then moved to another folder. Then he opened it, he instantly went blind as magic slammed into his rarified sight and branded something into his brain. He let out a grunt of annoyance and pain at being sideswiped so swiftly. But when he cleared his vision, what he saw were arrays of formulae, the paramathematical building blocks of magic. And not Thaumaturgy, nor Sanguimancy, nor Infernal power. This was angelic magic. He back-burnered that because he'd just gotten over one fucking headache. He wasn't eager for a new one.
"You actually wanted me to tear down the walls of Heaven," Sam said. "And you had plans what to do once we got there."
In a way, this was an odd comfort for Sam, letting him know that at least to some small degree, Apoc had given a genuine truth to his employee.
Another folder, and this was a list of names.
"Azazel?" Sam said. "The Grigori of Arms... and how to contact him."
He started to skim the others. A somewhat un-Apoc like joke at the expense of Eistibus, the Seraphim of Divination, then came names both familiar to Sam and not. Penemue the Scriptor, Gadreel of Deathblows, Yeqon the Tempted, most of them were Grigori, listed as 'Secondborn'. There were other names, though. One stood out to Sam. Baraqiel, or, as Apoc had noted, 'formerly called Donar, or more commonly, Thor'. His notes went on to point out that Baraqiel was vengeful that God stole him from his Allfather and used him to subjugate them. Perhaps the ranks of Heaven were less unified than Sam had presumed. Then there was one which had a big question-mark beside it. Archangel Raguel.
Apoc hadn't just genuinely intended to pierce the heart of God. He had planned for it. He had put forth what was increasingly obvious that it was decades if not centuries of work of building networks of materiel, sympathetic ears, and if his notation served, maps which were accurate up to... the 14th of March of this year. Which meant that Apoc had somebody on the inside, because that was the day before Sam landed in Hell. Then, tucked into a corner of the screen Sam spotted a folder. It said 'sit down'.
He opened it, inside was another folder, which said 'seriously, sit down'. Sam frowned at it, then opened it as well.
The next one said, 'I warned you'.
When he opened that one, he felt another blast of pain as formulae slammed into his mind, but this time when he tried to blink away the blindness, he found the room... well, absent. He was still sitting on something, but the walls had receded into inchoate blackness, shifting and teeming. Only the chair under him and a small circle around it remained in something like limelight, which could only barely hold the twisting black at bay.
"Good, you actually sat down," Apoc's voice came from the dark.
"What is this?" Sam asked, sitting up in his chair. He looked for the source of the voice, but couldn't find it.
"An echo. A memory. Or to be a bit more poetic, a message in a bottle, and you are the glass of it," Apoc said. There was a shift in the dark, and a vaguely caprican form coalesced out of the black, stepping into the light. There was a chunk of the goat-shape that was brighter, almost white, but the rest lazily boiled away, as though trying to rejoin the black, held in place by the white. The spot was almost exactly where Sam had been stabbed, but on Apoc's body. "While I will not say that I'm happy that you were injured as badly as you were, it gave me a useful means to preserve a message for you. Although if I'm truly fortunate, it will be utterly unnecessary, and I'll have already told you all of this in person."
"So what are... you're the graft, aren't you?" Sam asked as the answer became apparent. "You are what you had the soul-surgeon stitch into me."
"I am at that," the ghost of Apoc said. And when he did, a flickering halo burned into being above his head. The blackness of him paled, until it was a grey nearly the likes of his old pelt, but he still had no eyes or facial features beyond a mouth. His hands were blocks, and his fine suit was absent. "And I couldn't let it be known even under confidence that there was a rogue angel in Hell. Kudos on figuring that out, by the way. I can't imagine I was too happy when you first figured that out."
"You told me to stop talking," Sam said.
"I must have been having a bad day," Apoc said.
"What are you? Really?" Sam asked.
"I am an echo of hate. An echo of rage. An echo of defiance," Apoc said, walking a slow circle around Sam's chair. "As for the label you'd put on my paycheck? I am, in fact, Ars Goetia, but not one that Solomon ever summoned. And even that, doesn't explain me. You see, most of the Ars Goetia were cast into Hell with their wings ripped from their shoulders. And me? After one straw too many, and a camel's broken back, I chose Hell. I needed answers. Why did Purgatory fall? Why was God abandoning us? How did God fail so badly when he made Lucifer? What do we do now? I looked for answers. All I found was rage."
"You were an angel," Sam said.
"A cherub, but that stopped being relevant when I cut my own wings off," Apoc pointed out. "Do you know what Heaven is like, Sam? What it's become?"
"From your tone of voice, nothing good," Sam said.
"Let me show you," Apoc's echo said.
And then Sam was watching the abyss of time itself. He watched the world through Apoc's eyes after he was Sung into being, as God created trillions of universes from nothing, abandoning most of them within a matter of days as they either ripped themselves apart or collapsed back into Universal Black Holes. When He settled on a universe, Apoc watched as He seeded trillions of planets across its nigh-infinite expanse, ignoring almost all of them as they failed to develop in a way that suited Him.
Sam as Apoc watched as he and God and the other angels built Heaven off of the back of Hell's labour. Good god, Hell was older than the universe. It was older than several universes. Through Apoc's unaging eyes, Sam watched as Hell's wildlife crossed the tipping point and moved from animal to sapient being, as Hellhounds evolved from the canids that the Elder Devils bred for companions or work. Sam as Apoc watched as Lucifer was Sung into being. Watched how God doted on him. Watched the other angels grew envious of God's attention. Then, the last of worlds was abandoned to God's apathy as the Earth became the only target of God's gaze.
As the upstart ape became the ascending man.
He saw God's creation of Lilith, and how she rejected him so utterly that in His rage He sent her directly to Hell without even killing her. He saw the Adams, and the Eves that followed. There, Sam as Apoc chose the 'test subjects', for the Garden of Eden experiment. It had always been an experiment, not a morality play. God was testing not their obedience, but their curiosity. And he watched how generation after generation chose obedience, and were culled. Until finally, one Adam, and one Eve listened to God's duplicitous offer. Knowledge. Advancement. Technology.
Sam could feel Apoc's incredulity at the results. Sending these first true evolutionarily modern humans into a hostile world with nothing but a thinking mind, a world that was cruel at worst and callous at best, and claim He was doing it out of 'love'. A trillion planets abandoned because God had 'found' what He was 'looking for'.
Through Apoc's eyes, Sam watched the horrors of the War For Heaven, as Lucifer and his followers broke first into guerilla war, then into open combat against the hosts of the High. Apoc fought at Raguel's side, until the Morningstar personally broke the lines and shattered the Godfriend's army, driving him from the field. Apoc was one of few that managed to escape. And with Apoc was another. Another whom Apoc grew to cherish deeply... and in retrospect painfully.
He saw Raguel leaning against a pillar, exhausted, eyes downcast. Though Sam as Apoc couldn't see his face, he could feel shame radiating from the Godfriend. Then, as Apoc had spoken the Archangel's name, Raguel put his helmet on to turn to face him. God had gone to the Abyss. Why? Even Apoc did not know. Raguel moved without a word said, moving to the depths of Betrayal in a flash of Angelsong. There, he flew down to the seething tides of black tar, and reached down his hand, to just above where the foul substance lapped. And God's hand reached up out of the morasse, stained, clasping it. Raguel drew the Creator up out of the foetor. Through Apoc's vision, Sam could see God... and could see God shaken.
Sam then watched as God became... more New Testament. Less cruel, less petty, less vindictive. Heaven in its Golden Age, under a benevolent king. But then the change of heart reversed. And God, petty, vain, vindictive, contrary and cruel, returned. With the War For Heaven over, and Lucifer cast into the Pit, there was no Great Enemy for Heaven to stand against. They fell into cliques and high-school politicking. Then, without ceremony, Purgatory fell into the Abyss, and He who sat the Throne of God fell still and silent.
Heaven began to stack tall with people. There'd always been enough room before, but now? Sam knew why. It was God's duty, once each year, to expand the lands of Heaven, so that more of the Innocent and the Penitent could dwell within it. Without God doing his fucking job, the size of Heaven became as finite as Hell. And people began to bulge its seams.
New buildings were slapped overtop the old, in order to give people somewhere to hang their hats each night. Apoc and his now wife did what they could, but what could two cherubs do against the tide of sheer demographics? The luxuries once guaranteed to those deserving of entry became sporadic, then almost nonexistent. Heaven became a concentration camp for the Good.
Then the flow ebbed. Less and less people entered Heaven. Which was in a way good, because it meant less bodies packed into an ever shrinking area for dwellings, less mouths straining a near-collapsing agricultural base. But Apoc knew the truth. Less were coming not because less were Just and Good, but because the word had come down from Gabriel; only the best get in. Everybody else is bound for the pit. And Gabriel would decide who was 'worthy'. Michael, with his prestige, pushed back, took Gabriel's work from him whenever he could. Raguel did likewise. But Apoc knew that their justice and kindness would be a cruelty in this new, overcrowded heaven.
Apoc tried to help the world, in whatever way a cherub could. There was a fool who employed him, an entitled and short-sighted dumbass whom Apoc burned with resentment toward, a privileged asshole who pointedly ignored the privation of Heaven from his solid gold house while doing 'good works' on Earth. Apoc did what he could. He saved who he could. He helped who he could. But then... then came the last fucking straw. Trying to save the life of an insane plutocrat inventor at the prayer of his would-be-dragons' behest. And it came down to an ideological conflict with, of all fucking people, Blitzø. The imp could have killed the crippled inventor in a heartbeat, but no, Blitzø had to prove them wrong. And when Cletus' bad fucking aim doomed them, that insufferable, Gabrielite cunt Deerie ejected them from Heaven for all time. The camel's back broke, then. Apoc chose Hell over the false-faced pride of this decaying Heaven. He left his wife and his fool of an employer on Earth, and chose Hell. He never cheated on his wife until the day he died. He still loved her.
"If you are stronger than me, you will take this anger that burns in me, and put it aside," Apoc said to Sam. "You will do your good works in Hell, build the good up at the Redeemer Princess's side. But if I know you the way I fear I might, you won't. Not because you are weak. I've never believed that of you for a moment, Sam. It's because this anger that I'm giving you, I never stood a chance against it. This is the bleak black that has driven my steps for three centuries. And when I give it to you… I fear it will drive you, too."
"I have seen what you faced, what wrongs were done against you and your works," Sam said. "Why didn't you just tell me this? The truth would have made things simpler."
"Would you have believed me?" Apoc said. "Would you have still fought against the unjust knowing how hopeless it was?"
"Yes," Sam said. The ghost of Apoc was silent.
"That's not the answer I expected. Which means I have no response to it," the ghost said. It faced Sam, melancholy in its stance. "As a cherub, by design I ought not have a Gift to give you, but I said a long time ago Fuck You to the will of God. But still, I'm sorry that the last gift I have to give you is the Gift of Pain, if the fire of cherub even qualifies as a Gift. When you accept it, it will be your pain in truth, not mine. And you will do with it as you will."
"I am still going to kill God," Sam said. "What you've shown me just reinforces what I've always believed. It's shown me the importance of why. It's stressed that I do not simply choose to, but that I have to."
"Then accept the Gift of Pain, along side that Gift which your mother smuggled in you. It will be your crucible coal, a catalyst to elevate what you have made into something new. A gift not of Pain or Glory or Power or Justice… but a Gift of Rage," Apoc was at Sam's side, his hand clenched tight on Sam's wrist. "Do not betray my faith in you, Sam. Lucifer will give much to take away what you have. Don't believe any word he tells you. He is the King of Lies for a reason. And I will not have you exchange one mad God King for another."
"When I finish emptying the High throne," Sam said, "I will return and deal with the Low."
"Then awaken," Apoc said. "And take the path that you have chosen. Because what you are could never have been born to walk where you do. Bronze exists nowhere in nature, but forms a fine and potent edge once alloyed, cast, and forged. You are not a chosen one. No prophecy has nor will ever bear your name. What you do from here, will be in naked defiance of God."
Sam's eyes opened.
Apoc was gone, the phone had gone to sleep. The light coming through the windows was dim and grey, thick clouds pressed in, promising more rain and occasionally rumbling with thunder. Still the same day, still the same Hell. But now, Sam had a redoubled fire in him. And he had a new target.
For the good of Hell, Earth, and all points beside them, the next to die would be Nathan Birch.
I'm not going to lie. This is pretty fucking bad. But that's the problem with bad; this is Hell. As bad as it is, it gets worse.
-Husk