"...could you explain that a bit?" Charlie asked.
"This is the most I've eaten since I arrived in Heaven back in... well, I guess 1995," Rachel Scailes said. "Do you know how bad it's gotten up there?"
"There can't be starvation in Heaven," Charlie said. "It's Heaven!"
"There are roughly thirty million arable square miles for all of Heaven," Rachel said. "According to Norman, even Earth has more cropland. And those thirty million acres are being over-farmed to produce two crops every year. The crops are always high-yield, fertilizer intensive ones, ones that are calorie and nutrient dense. About half of everything that comes out of the ground these days are potatoes. This," she held up the last nub of the second of the two loaves of bread that had been put on the table, "is the first bread I've eaten in twenty five years. All of the bread which gets made goes to the Angels."
"I don't understand how this could be possible," Charlie said. Vaggie quickly pulled out her Hellphone and did some searches.
"Yeah, Hon... Hell has 54 million in Wrath alone. And there's rice grown in Lust, holy shit our carrots and rhubarb actually come from Sloth, didn't know that," Vaggie said.
"Hell having more than Heaven is just the kind of ironic reality that I've come to expect," Rachel said. "Those thirty-ish million square kilometers are feeding sixty billion people. That's one and a half to two mouths to feed for every square meter. Per half year." she said, holding her arms about a yard apart, first side to side, then up and down. "The soil is becoming depleted. Norman's new crops can only handle so much. He's a plant biologist. He's not the Almighty. Neither is Gloria, for that matter."
"How could Heaven starve?"
"Because Heaven is not what it used to be," she said. She sighed, picking at her fingernails. "According to the Penitent, Heaven back in the 17th century was actually what you're probably picturing in your head. Fluffy clouds, peace and love and plenty. But then... well, I don't even know the whole of it. Only that by the time I got there, the Angels had gone from righteous warriors to – if you will forgive my language – cliquish bastards. That there were so many humans packed into so little space that if this room were in Heaven, propeller and all, it'd house about a hundred fifty. No human in my entire stay was allowed above Cloud Three. They used to be allowed to go all the way up to Seven."
"But... but..." Charlie said. Oh no. Was this that she had been working for all this time? To send people from one torture and into another? Her lips tightened. No. No, she wasn't going to accept this. "How do I know you're telling to truth? There's plenty of ways you might have known about Sam. After all, Dad did try to hunt him down a couple weeks ago."
"Why would I lie?"
"Why would Dad kick a baby-carriage? Because you just didn't care what happened when you did," Charlie said, sitting with her back more straight.
"It doesn't matter if you believe me or if you don't. I saw what I saw. I endured what I endured," Rachel said, not particularly interested, it seemed, in pursuing her story. "If the rooms I saw on my way here were as big as they looked, and if the food is as good as this, I'd say Hell has Heaven beat out."
"Give it a week and say that again," Vaggie said.
Rachel turned to her, her eyes narrowing. "You don't look like her," Rachel said. "For some reason, it's like my brain is telling me you're like Angel Dust. Which is odd, because you don't have four arms and a fine covering of white fluff."
"Of... course?" Vaggie said. "We're both Sinners. We both earned coming down here."
"And she didn't," Rachel said, turning to Charlie.
"I was born here," Charlie said.
"You were born here, in Hell?" Rachel asked. "Why would anybody have children in Hell?"
"Hey, Hell is... admittedly pretty awful in places, but it's pretty nice in other ones!" Charlie reined in her digression before it led her dangerously astray. "And there's at least three different classes of sapient beings who live their entire lives in Hell! Of course there would be people born in Hell."
"Could you unpackage that?" Rachel asked, also now sitting with her back straight.
"Unpackage what?"
"Classes of sapient beings?" she asked in a pointedly patient way.
"Well, there are fiends, who were born from Hell's energies. There are the imps, which I think come from the Abyss. Then there are Hellhounds, who used to be animals but kinda just... popped into being sapient a long time ago."
"No, I'm asking why you chose the word classes," Rachel asked.
"I don't understand what you mean," Charlie said.
"There's an innate hierarchy," Vaggie said. "Fiends are considered the primary citizen of Hell. Hellhounds might be people, or might not, depending on who's counting and how generous they're feeling. Imps are widely considered to be scum beneath notice. Which is understandable considering how a lot of them behave."
"And I'm gathering that imps and likely Hellhounds tend to live in ghettos, cut off from critical infrastructure and educational prospects," Rachel prompted.
"I suppose. Why would anybody invest in teaching an imp, after all? They don't even live for a century. And Hellhounds, you're never even sure how many out of a litter are going to be sapient, and one bad knock on the head can make them feral again," Charlie said. "...wow, that's actually really unfair, now that I say it out loud."
"How many imps are there per fiend?" Rachel asked.
"I don't know," Charlie said. Vaggie, though, was already on her phone.
"You're not the only one. The census doesn't even go out of their way to count them. Maybe two or three to one, though," Vaggie said.
"I see. And where do the Damned fit into this?" Rachel asked, sitting slightly forward, fingers tented before her mouth.
"We're only allowed in Pride Ring."
"Another ghetto," Rachel muttered.
"Sinners do their best. And Pride is essentially run by humans these days," Charlie offered.
"Chaim Rumkowski was the 'King of Łódź'. Didn't stop the Nazis shipping him to Auschwitz," Rachel pointed out.
"Why are you even asking these questions?" Vaggie asked. "Usually Sinners ask 'what's going on', 'why does everybody look like demons', or 'where can I find a vending machine with heroin in it?'."
"I need to understand the case if I'm going to do anything about it," Rachel said.
"Are you some kind of doctor?" Vaggie asked.
"Almost," Rachel said.
"...explain," the one-eyed woman prompted.
"When I died, I was about this close," she said, holding her fingers a hair apart, "to my doctoral thesis defense. Which I would have of course crushed. So no, I'm not a doctor. No I did not complete my Psych residency. I'm still a mostly-trained psychiatrist."
"You're... not what I expected from Sam's mother," Charlie said. And she meant it. There was something practically lizard-like about the woman, something cold blooded and robotic.
"Sam's memories of me were when he was a child. If he remembers me as being a sweeter person than I am, that's down to his bad memory," Rachel said. Of course, when she said that, that robotic part of her softened, the lizard became warm. Just for a moment. "So where do you slide into the hierarchy, Miss Magne?"
"How did you...?"
"You are named in a plaque of a portrait of you, a she-demon, and the Archangel Lucifer," Rachel motioned vaguely toward the lobby. "I've got a lifetime of noticing details. You haven't exactly taken lengths to hide your identity. Which is why I again ask why you're in a portrait with The Great Enemy."
"He's my dad," Charlie said.
"...Seriously?" Rachel's brow rose. "You, the daughter of the Devil himself, Satan on his throne, are running a half-way house."
"Oooh, don't ever say Satan's name around Dad. It makes him very angry," Charlie said.
"Okay. Satan is different than the Devil. Good to know," Rachel said.
"Dad isn't even a devil. He's an angel. And we're getting off topic!" Charlie said.
"Oh, hardly," Rachel said, sitting back in her chair. "We're perfectly on topic as to whether I want to work here or not."
Both the Sinner and the Hellborn stared at the woman who had been cast from Heaven, then to each other. Flabbergasted, they turned to Rachel once more.
"I'm sorry... what?" Charlie asked.
Chapter 2
The Hours of Folly Are Measur'd By The Clock
"Alright, shut your assholes and let's get this shit started," Blitz declared at the head of the table in their new boardroom. It had once been a recording studio, but a couple dozen thousand souls had usurped their position and left all of their shit in the hallway. Though with the money that Blitz had pulled down due to the monumental kill that they'd managed, he still felt reluctant to leave this building. This was where IMP started, after all. It had memories here.
"We were waiting on you, sir," Moxxie said, where he sat beside his woman. The two of them were almost the quintessential imp couple, with scarlet flesh, sharp teeth and yellow eyes with irises that were either red, black, or somewhere between the two. The pair of them, Wrathlings by clade, had hooves instead of feet, but were otherwise very representative of their species. They didn't have wings like Envy imps, they weren't runty and useless like Pride imps, they didn't have spines growing from their skin like Lust imps, and they didn't have the snake-like green eyes of Betrayal imps. They were just a good, textbook example of what an imp should look like. Unlike Blitz.
Blitz knew what he looked like, now. With one of his horns shorter than the other due to traumatic injury, with new scars painting even more of the skin on his face white, with a pair of crescent metal plates at the base of his long and curling horns where his artificial ears faced the outside world, he was an atypical specimen. But Blitz wasn't going to wallow in his unusualness. He considered his unique visage a part of his rakish good looks. He was taller than the Wrathlings. He was louder than the Wrathlings. He'd had sex with a fuck-load more people than the Wrathlings – couple of fuckin' monogomists that they were.
"Yeah. Can we just get going. I've got like, five other things I need to do today," his daughter said from the opposite side of the table from the imps. Loona had her back-canted legs up on the table and was messing with her phone, watching it idly as things hung in limbo. Most people didn't think of her as his kid. He knew better. She had admitted it. Loona being a Hellhound or not, that wasn't going to change.
"Fuckin' fine," Blitz said, tapping the button on his ear to make things a bit louder. "We're starting to suffer from success. Word's getting out that the four of us offed Nathan Birch, which means we've got maybe a couple of days left before we start getting other kinds of business offers."
"We're finally branching out from an unsustainable model, then?" Moxxie asked.
"As long as there are dead motherfuckers, there will always be our business model," Blitz snapped, but Moxxie just rolled his eyes. "People know that IMP can kill the unkillable. And that's gonna mean we're gonna have to diversify."
"Which we can't do with what we have now," Loona said.
"I'm sorry, sweetie, but what are you talkin' about?" Blitz asked.
She turned those bright red eyes at him, and shrugged. "Face it; with the numbers we have, we can't take on any jobs here in Hell. In the Human World it's easy. Just portal up, merc the motherfucker, then portal down. But here in Hell? People are actually well defended here."
"Exactly. If we're going to start taking out Hellish targets, we're going to need more people," Moxxie said.
"I think we can do just fine as we are," Blitz crossed his arms before his chest with a scoff.
"You're going to have to listen to Tubby, Dad," Loona said.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Moxxie demanded.
"We made it this far with just the four of us. I don't wanna lose that," Blitz said, ignoring him.
"You don't want to expand, or you don't want to lose your spot in the Fiendish 500 as the only company on the list that doesn't have any Sinners on its payroll?" Moxxie asked very flatly.
"Because if it's the latter, I know, like, five guys who would love to work here who aren't dumbass humans," Loona said.
"I can actually think of a few as well," Millie finally cut in.
"Really? Like who?" Moxxie asked.
"I just..." Blitz tried to figure out the words to explain why he was balking. But for all Blitz's roguish charm and stunning good looks, he wasn't exactly gifted with an over-abundance of brains. What he did have, though, was the Dunning-Kruger effect and the leg-strength to jump from the top of Mount Stupid all the way to something a bit more useful. So after a second to unscramble his brain and put some coherence into his argument, he realized that Loonie was right. "Fine. Fuckin' Fine! We'll bring in some more people. But I get to do the interviews!"
"...who else would have?" Millie asked. Moxxie could only shrug in confusion at that.
Blitz was about to harangue him, but the strangled yell of pain that emitted from the new lobby's door being opened cut him off. He glared, gave an 'I've got my eye on you' gesture to Moxxie, then stomped to the door. He threw it open, to find a black and tan Hellhound wearing some clothes that looked liked they'd been designed for humans in the lobby. "What'd'ya want? Unless you want somebody dead, get the fuck out, we're havin' a meeting!"
"Uh. Right. Sorry," the Hound said, flinching as though Blitz was three feet taller than him, instead of three feet shorter. He half turned to leave, before pausing, one fist clenching, then turned to Blitz once more. "No, one thing first. This is where Loona Miller works, right?"
"What's it to you, bucko?" Blitz demanded.
"She... ah... mentioned something about a staff shortage," he rubbed the back of his neck as though trying to calm himself.
"Hey, is that Maelstrom out there?" Loona asked, leaning out of the door to look in. "Hey, Maelstrom. You need something?"
"A job?" he asked.
"...You just walk in here, stand in front of me, and tell me that I'm gonna hire you, when I don't know you from the sock I cum in," Blitz pointed out.
"It does sound a bit bold when you put it that way," Maelstrom said.
"Well you're right to do it, you fuckin' psycho. Do you think I'm so fucking stupid that I'd kick out the fuckin' New Champion of the Pits?" Blitz said, grabbing Maelstrom's hand and giving it a shake. "We don't pay top dollar, so don't ask, you can have any desk except those two, the executive bathroom is mine, and keep your embezzlement to a minimum, and you'll do just fine."
"What just happened?" Loona asked.
"I'm hirin' the deadliest Hellborn to ever live, ya know, besides myself. Y'all okay with that?" Blitz said.
"You're a lunatic, sir," Moxxie muttered, then returned to the board room proper.
"Now since you're an employee, meeting attendance is mandatory, so get your ass in there," Blitz said, turning to the board room and retaking his place at the head of the table, with his back to his meticulously – and terribly – drawn cartoons and the words 'New Options', 'Merchandise', 'Diversification: Hell Horse Stable?', and 'Kill a Deadly Sin, just because' followed by the list of them that M & M had already point-for-point gone through and denied every single one of spread across the whiteboard's surface. He straightened the red glass brooch on his coat, then was about to launch into his next pitch, only to have the Hellphone in his pocket emit another yell. Blitz let out a put-upon growl, and then opened it, expecting to tell off Stolas for being so fuckin' needy like was the last couple weeks. Instead, a different name was displayed across the surface, with a great eye under it.
Lucifer Magne. Pick up now.
Blitz sighed, then hit the button, holding up a finger for everybody else to shut up. "Yeah, what'd'ya need, big hoss?" He hated working under somebody else again. Luckily, it seemed he didn't need to do it very often.
"I have work for you," Lucifer's voice came through the phone as though he were in the room with them all. Everybody went rigid at hearing it, with Maelstrom looking like he wanted to fold up on himself and disappear. "You will be collected momentarily to discuss this in person."
"Wait, collected? The fuck does that mean?" Blitz asked.
Lucifer didn't answer. Instead, Blitz felt as though he were being stretched. First, it was uncomfortable, but after a moment that discomfort turned to pain. From pain, to agony. And then there was a tearing sensation, as though he were being dragged bodily through a hole smaller than the slit he pissed with.
And then it was done, leaving Blitz to stagger a moment, and find himself in a room so festooned with gemstones that he was literally standing on a bed of them. And front and center of that room, sitting on an opulent throne, was Lucifer Magne himself. Standing nearby, looking stunning and sultry as ever, was his Queen, Lilith. But there was something a little off about her stance, and her expression. As far as Blitz had any memory, she liked to bask in the glorious chaos that her husband bestowed as a passive observer. Now... well... she seemed too 'active' by a half.
"Ķ̴̮͖̙̭͉̞͆ñ̸͔̳̣͉͍͚̲͑͠ȩ̷̗͈̻̍̇̾̆ȅ̶̹̖̈́͠ļ̷͎̱͕̙̝̈̇̄̚" Lucifer demanded, and again, Blitz found himself being hurled to the floor by his own muscles.
Blitz blinked at the discomfort of this, and found the diamond under his left hand was a bit loose. Hm. He quietly palmed the nearly palm-sized stone. "Alright, I'm here. What did you need to talk to me about?"
"I hope you've spent the last few days getting used to your new responsibilities," Lucifer said, lounging in his chair. But there was something about how he did it that twigged Blitz's paranoia-sharpened wits. He was spread and lazy, yes, but he was doing it stiffly. As stiffly as Blitz sat.
As though he were hiding how much pain he was in.
"Mammon has been being his usual self of late," Lucifer continued, perhaps not catching Blitz's perception, or perhaps noticing it and not caring. "I told him to do a thing. He palmed me off with uttered promises and empty air. And I'm growing incredibly tired of him looking at a mandate which I FUCKING GIVE HIM," he fell still and silent for a moment, in what Blitz could recognize for a twinge of deep tissue pain, one that he'd liked to have powered through but was physically incapable of doing. "...so... I'm going to send you. You are going to secure his agreement to the mandate that I have put forward. You are to use any means at your disposal to do so, as long as you don't kill him. That would be a fiendish amount of work that I don't want to have to do."
"Um, I got a question about this?" Blitz said, sitting back on his haunches. Lilith, who had been keeping mostly still and mostly silent, shifted, her eyes narrowing on the imp on the floor. Lucifer shifted in his seat. "I'm an imp. And Mammon... well... ain't. There's no way he's gonna listen to a word I say."
"You are not an imp. You are the Proxy of Lucifer. And any insult done to you while in process of my will is an insult to me," Lucifer said, his brows drawing down and his glorious face gaining a demonic visage. "So if Mammon does anything but immediately apologize and do exactly what I want him to... well, I'm not responsible for my actions, am I? And by that token..."
"...Gotcha," Blitz said, snapping finger guns at the King of All Hell. Lilith leaned back, a confused and mildly disgusted look on her face. Blitz didn't realize that this was not the way that people were supposed to act around Lucifer, and that in any possible previous time that he'd done what he'd done, he would have been gruesomely punished for it. But he didn't have to know. He just had go slap some sense into a Deadly Sin. "I'll get started on this once I finish my meeting."
"You will get started now," Lucifer said.
"...the employee that's got my book on her is at the meeting," Blitz pointed out.
Lilith sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Then go to your meeting. But I expect you to have made progress on this before the day is done," she said. Which was again a vast departure from how she usually acted.
"You got it," Blitz said. He pulled out his Hellphone and quick-dialed Loonie. "Hey sweetie, could you portal me back? I'm in Lucifer's palace."
"Are you in trouble?" she asked.
"Naw, I'm fine," Blitz said. There was a ripple in the air as the portal formed, and he quickly strode through it, ignoring literally every act of decorum which was expected for one to leave the presence of the King of All Hell. The thing closed behind him, and he made his modestly spritely way to the new armory, which was still in the process of being shifted over even days on. Considering the amount of security the Holy Rifle alone required, it was no surprise. Just an annoyance.
"Sir, what are you doing?" Moxxie asked, leaning around him.
"Gotta go slap some sense into Mammon," he said casually as he chucked the stolen diamond into a drawer and promptly forgot about it.
"What... Mammon? The Deadly Sin of Greed?" Moxxie asked, chopping the air with his hand. "That's suicide!"
"Only if I die," Blitz pointed out, grabbing the cattle-prod from the shelf and giving it a testing zap, then tucking it into the deep pockets of his coat.
"It's a Deadly Sin!" Moxxie stressed.
"Yeah, and he's the Proxy of Lucifer," Loona countered, plunking herself down in her chair again, idly tossing Blitz's own, personal, fancy fucking portal book onto the table before her. "He's allowed to. Shit, I think Mammon's not even allowed to complain."
"Thank you, Loonie. At least one of you chucklefucks knows what's going on."
"...Is this an ordinary meeting?" the new hire asked, while Blitz grabbed a few more odds and ends, a few grenades, and his Luger, and returned to the boardroom.
"It's starting to seem that way," Moxxie muttered as he ground the heel of his hand against his brow.
"Well, I'm probs gonna be gone for, at least, the rest of the day. Come up with some plans and schemes and shit to make IMP something special by the time I get back," Blitz said, climbing atop the table and flicking the book up into his hands with a toe.
"And if you die?" Millie asked, brow raised.
"Oh, don't you worry about what ain't gonna happen," Blitz said. He ran his fingers along the spell, which instantly departed his mind the instant he cast it – a product of the Grimoire protecting itself from both copying and memorization – and the portal to Greed appeared in the middle of this shitty Imp City office building. He pointed at the new hire. "And you!"
"Me?" the black and tan Hound asked.
"What was your fuckin' name again?"
"...Maelstrom," he said, tone showcasing a certain amount of disbelief.
"Your first job is helpin' my niece move into our old office. You're low rung on the ladder, so you're shifting shit for her," he said.
"What?" Maelstrom asked.
"You need to move a closet's worth of stuff across the hall from here," Loona said, eyes still on her phone.
With his marching orders set, he stepped through the portal, which closed behind him leaving the others to only stare in befuddlement at the strange direction their lives had taken them in the last few weeks.
"I'm telling you, he looked like a human under that helmet," Birah said.
"Lots of us look like humans," Yeqon said. "I'm even told I do!"
"You look like somebody fashioned a brick into the barest of angelic form, Yeqon," Hepsut muttered. It was true, of all the angels, Yeqon the Tempted was likely the most human appearing of them, being a large and vascularly muscled man with a lantern jaw, dark hair, and very blue eyes. Whether it was because of his nature, or a result of unconscious will to be desired, he had been the most prolific of the Grigori. Yeqon had had many Nephilim children. And now, all were dead.
"You don't understand," Birah tried to reason with his Secondborn brother. "Whoever this stranger was, he had all the signifiers of an Archangel, but used demonic magic. That shouldn't be possible."
"And you'd know everything there was to know about magic, wouldn't you, string-bean," Yeqon jibed.
"Certainly a lot more than you," Birah pointed out, only half joking. "You've probably got less magic in your entire body than I have in my right eye alone."
"He's just jealous 'cause none of the humans wanted him," Yeqon said in a stage whisper to Hepsut.
"You know, I'm starting to understand why so many of the Firstborn say that you were the first angel to discover the second use for your penis. And I would add that you promptly forgot about the first," Hepsut said.
"That doesn't make any sense," Yeqon said, as the tram they were on finally exited the tunnel into Cloud Seven, a place where the Grigori by definition and the entire host of the Secondborn by omission and tradition were not allowed further than. There had been exceptions, with Penemue having her House of Wisdom on Cloud Eight. Unlike the lowest Clouds of Heaven, Seven still looked like it always had. Great alabaster and marble buildings grew up from gardens that had, by order of the Taxiarch, stopped growing flowers in favor of more edible products. Some of the older, more established of the Host had balked, and thus it was clear that some gardens remained beautifully in bloom with otherwise worthless blossoms. "If I didn't remember how to piss, my body would have exploded by now. Come on, man."
"I stand corrected," Hepsut said with utmost flatness, while the clouds parted to show a harp-shaped solid-gold building with a foreclosure notice hanging off of it for a few moments, before the tram took them away from its abandoned glory. "We might be able to find somebody in the know, here. Considering the slaughterous pace that the Secondborn, current company included, have been putting, I think we'd be lucky to find any Archangel here, instead of on Cloud Nine."
Birah could only nod. The last time the entire Host had been run as ragged as this, was when Lucifer had erupted his rebellion into open war. And that was an eon and more passed. What madness would that foul Heresiarch be up to now, Birah wondered? In the end, he considered it probably not worth his notice. Unless Lucifer had torn down the walls, there was little he could do from the pits of Hell before Heaven got their act together and put the walls back up.
The tram came to a halt, and another walked onto it. This new face looked older, in his late middle age, despite the wings and the halo that hung over his head. His dark skin had the wrinkles of scowl-lines, and his dark eyes seemed to measure everything he saw to the nanometer and weigh it to the picogram. Azazel looked at the three of them, and sent up a brow at them.
"Of course. Not the combination I would have thought to see together," Azazel said, his words smooth and having a strange sinister note to them. Azazel was the other exception in the rule of no Grigori above Cloud Seven. His workshop was on Nine. He, despite his sins and his failings, had not lost that responsibility, and thus still had that right. "Am I to understand you have some business with the Archangels or the Virtues?"
"We saw something," Hepsut began, but Birah cut him off with a gesture.
"Really?" Azazel said. He was called by many 'The Unclean', but Birah knew from personal experience that the old-faced angel made sure to keep himself immaculate. Why had he even brought up the Virtues? The Virtues hadn't spoken a word since the Clouds were built upon their backs. "And that has you running here like a headless chicken in blind panic. I would have thought you made of slightly sterner stuff than that. May I presume you weren't involved with this fracas, Yeqon?"
"So what if I was?" Yeqon said.
"You weren't, then," Azazel noted. Yeqon seethed for a moment, but knew as well as any that of all the Grigori, there was only one of them, one amongst their number, whom the rest of Heaven considered Sacrosanct, and he was currently tilting a very mild, but superior smirk at the First and Secondborn on the tram with him. "One would think that Lucifer himself were coming to call, the way you're panicking. You'll have to do better than that, Yeqon. You have a great debt of reputation to repay."
"I'm not the only one," Yeqon tried to loom over Azazel, but the Grigori of Arms simply stared him down without passion and an expression like a mighty oak which had stared down a thousand storms and would stare down a thousand more.
"I have paid my debts," Azazel said. "I continue to pay them every day. What have you done since the Fall?"
Yeqon was silent, while the tram came to a brief halt. He looked like he wanted to lash out, to either say something harsh or outright strike Azazel, but the Grigori of Arms had an aura of invulnerability. Or at least, invulnerability to the likes of Yeqon. So the much larger, much more intimidating angel broke first, and slunk out of the tram to whatever awaited him here on Seven.
"And as for you," Azazel said, turning to the Youngest of the First and the Eldest of the Second. "I know exactly what you think you saw."
"What are you talking about?" Birah began.
"You saw something that you cannot easily identify. Something that through whatever means defies your ability to understand it. Something paradoxical in nature. Something that Should Not Be," Azazel reached into a pocket of his leather apron, pulling out a case and extracting spectacles from it. He slid them onto his face, and continued. "Therefore, you believe that you witnessed the presence of a Power From Outside, one of the things which we are, by our natures, created to war against, created to hunt down, created to destroy."
"Angels cannot use demon magic," Birah said.
"There are more things here in Heaven and down on Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, cousin," Azazel said, looking for a moment quite pleased with himself.
"You know what was down there, don't you?" Hepsut said.
"I might. And as your cousin, I should tell you; don't pursue this. Not yet," he said.
"The Archangels need to know," Hepsut said.
"Which one?" Azazel asked. The two non-Grigori shared a look between themselves. "Because the result of your information depends entirely on who receives it. Can you honestly say that Michael will respond the same way as Raphael would?"
"You're telling us to shirk our duty, and for what? To prevent a potential bad outcome? This isn't our way."
"You scarcely conceive of what 'an angel's way' is," Azazel scoffed. "The last time the Host acted in anything approaching unity was the age of Lucifer and his rebellion. And since you two are being either deliberately obtuse or else simply denser than a crucible full of lead, I will speak this cleanly and simply. If you try to inform the High of what you saw on Cloud One, the only one which you will be able to find is Gabriel. And if you tell Gabriel of this, Cloud One will be laid waste, regardless of the billions of Innocent and Penitent upon it."
"What are you talking about? Gabriel wouldn't do that," Hepsut said.
Birah, though, had a moment's pause, and in that moment, a blasphemous thought. And when he looked to Azazel, he saw the exact same thought reflected in his Grigori cousin's gaze. "Yes, Gabriel would. The Strength of God needs no wisdom to drive it, only power."
"Thank you, Birah," Azazel said. He moved to a seat on the now otherwise empty tram, which continued its way winding through Cloud Seven before it would depot and return to Cloud Six. "As your cousin, and as you have something approaching a mind within your skull, I will give you one further bit of advice."
"Being?" Birah asked, trepidation painting his voice.
"Withhold your quest to inform any of what you saw for eleven hours," Azazel said. "Then, you may do as you deem fit."
"You can't..." Hepsut began.
"We will," Birah said. Hepsut turned a confused, slightly betrayed look at him. "After all these years, will you trust me this one time?"
"I will," Hepsut said. "God help me, but I will."
"Good luck, gentlemen," Azazel said, as the tram came to a new stop, and despite being well short of where the angels had intended to go, two of them got off. Azazel obviously knew something that the rest of them didn't. Was he in contact with Penemue? Or had he more intimate contact with whatever that thing on Cloud One was? Whatever the case was, Birah took Hepsut by his wrist and pulled him away from the tram.
"What is this madness we've found ourselves in?" Hepsut asked, watching the tram proceed without them.
"It is a new day in Heaven," Birah said, with none of the enthusiasm that such an idiom usually required.
The palace of Mammon did its best to out-gaudy Lucifer's own. It failed, but damned if it didn't try. The alarms were blaring as Blitz casually walked through the gold-plated hallways, tiled in rose-gold and platinum. He'd already pried up and stole one of them, so didn't feel particularly tempted to steal another. No, right now, this was just an onerous task that he had to perform so that he could get back to doing what he wanted to, running a successful business killing people.
"Stop right there and we will shoot!" the guards at Mammon's door declared silently, because Blitz had turned his ears off not long after slipping in through the vents. They were holding guns on him, which prompted a roll of the eyes. Blitz didn't even say a word. He just swept his Luger out in an arc in front of him, putting bullets into the essentially naked feet of the guards and causing them to crash to the floor the otherwise imperviously armored bodyguards of Mammon. They howled and cried in pain at their mashed up feet, clutching and rolling, none of them actually trying to fight him as he stepped over them, and kicked the doors open.
The next sound, missed by Blitz who'd turned his ears off ten explosions ago, was the colossal metal clang of an 88mm shell being fired at him, and impacting directly in his chest. It exploded, stopping Blitz's advance for a moment, as what he guessed was the power of his Remit just prevented him from being reduced to a fine black mist. Had this asshole just fired a fucking flak-cannon at him? Blitz grumbled the annoyance under his breath, and sidestepped the next shot that came as the smoke cleared, pulling a shotgun from his coat and sending a lead slug through the chest of the lunatic who'd built a towed-anti-aircraft piece into a Deadly Sin's office. The gun didn't fire a third time.
"What is this lunacy?" Mammon demanded, sitting at his opulent desk as though somebody hadn't fired an 88mm cannon over his shoulder. "Who the fuck let this goddamned imp in front of me?"
"Yeah, about that," Blitz said, as he casually put his shotgun away and reloaded his Luger. A snap of Mammon's fingers saw the room swarm with more guards, all pointing guns inward at him. Blitz wasn't intimidated. He'd just have duck, and they'd all shoot each other. The only smart thing that the DHORKS dorks had done in their attempt to mob them was also their dumbest thing, in not bringing firearms so they wouldn't shoot each other. Mammon had a different problem. "My boss says you're being a whiny cunt, and told me to slap some sense into you."
"An imp. Lucifer sends a fucking imp to tell me what to do?" Mammon demanded, the frill which stood out like a formal collar expanding and its color changing from pale yellow to a vibrant, almost neon orange. "Get the fuck out of my sight before I split you open like a log!"
"Can't do that," Blitz said, pulling back the knuckle on the Luger. "What was it that fucker told me to say? Gimme a second, I got it written down somewhere."
The various fiends all stared in confusion as Blitz completely ignored the fact that he was surrounded, had near a hundred guns pointed at him, and was in front of somebody who wanted him not to be alive. As he rummaged through his pockets for that note that had been handed off to him before coming into the building, the Devourer Demon, a corpulent green fiend with a constipated expression, nearest him began to snarl.
"Just fucking shoot him!" that demon demanded, outside of Blitz's ability to perceive.
And they did. As Blitz continued to rummage, not paying any attention to them, wave after wave of lead crashed into him, bullets slamming into his skin, his horns, his suit. Not a single one so much as stalled him, though. It was fortunate in a way that Blitz was so distracted. Lucifer, in his infinitely creative cruelty, had modified the Remit that he'd given to Blitz, into something he would call Solipsistic Wellbeing. The Remit would only protect Blitz from things he didn't understand, or didn't see coming. Lucifer, wanting the imp dead as fast as possible, hadn't banked on Blitz actually being fairly good at not getting killed. Eventually, as Blitz continued to rummage... eventually, their magazines ran dry.
And finally, Blitz found the note that he'd been given. He then reached up, tapped the on-button for his ears, and faced Mammon, who was staring with a furious look on his face, while all of his mooks were reloading with concern clear in their expressions. "Now, let's try this again," Blitz said. "Lucifer is raising the banners, and you are expected to raise your levies immediately and prepare to mobilize for war. Any hesitation from you will be seen as an act of open rebellion, and the penalties will be steep. Yeah, that's rich, sayin' that to a Deadly Sin. What can he even do to punish you? Send you to the naughty-corner?" Blitz offered a laugh.
"How dare you!" Mammon's voice, now that Blitz actually heard it, was even more annoying than he'd expected it would be. Very whiny. He sounded like he expected to get everything done through slimy promises and back-handed douche-baggery.
"So, yeah," Blitz said, ignoring the rest of the note because it was complicated, boring, and he didn't care. "Lucifer's gettin' ready for some shit, and you are going to attend that shit, or else."
"Or else what, little imp?" Mammon asked, leaning forward over his desk, the frill of his collar darkening to crimson.
"Or I shoot you in your useless face and Lucifer asks the same shit from your Proxy," Blitz said, gesturing vaguely with his Luger.
"You wouldn't dare!" Mammon said. "You see, I am the Deadly Sin of fucking Greed! You? You're just an up-jumped imp, somebody intoxicated with the authority that you don't even come close to earning. And you think you can come here, into MY FUCKING HOUSE! And order ME AROUND! I will have you flayed for this you impudent worm! I will tear your horns from your f–," Mammon said.
At which point Blitz got bored, pulled the Holy Rifle – a Carmine Crafting 'Blessing Tip' that he stole from that snake-eyed would-be assassin about a year ago – from its place inside his coat, ignoring the deeply painful burning sensation of it searing his palms and right forearm, and fired from the hip at the Deadly Sin. Mammon stumbled back, a splat of prismatic green blood painting the wall behind him. He held a hand to his chest, and noted how it came away green.
All of the mooks might as well have become statues.
"You... you shot me," Mammon said.
"Yeah. Be thankful I'm outta Seraphic Steel, or that would'a been worse," Blitz said.
"EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!" one of the guards shouted. And that began the exodus of the people who were supposed to be protecting the Deadly Sin of Greed. Maybe Mammon hadn't paid them well enough to die at the hands of a madman. Or Greed was a coward's sin. Either way, they fled, leaving only three in the room. He guessed the other, a grey-green Mutant woman, was likely Mammon's Proxy, by default.
"Alright, now that I've got your attention; are you gonna do what you're s'posed to? Or am I gonna have to start using this?" Blitz demanded, pulling out his wing-knife.
The Proxy stepped in front of Mammon, blocking Blitz's way. "He will obey," she said.
"Great," Blitz said, tucking the Holy rifle away. Fuck that thing stung. How did Moxxie carry it around without feeling like he'd stuck his hands into an acid bath? Still, he'd endured worse, so however objectively horrible the pain was, he just gave his hands a flap and then crossed them before his chest. "Go ahead."
"Excuse me?" the Proxy demanded.
"Make the call. Right now," Blitz said.
"We will put things in motion. Go back to your master and..." the Proxy said, as Mammon sat on the floor, holding his wound and bleeding.
"Nuh-uh. You're doin' it right fuckin' now, so I don't need to come back here and put another hole in your boss," Blitz said, gesturing toward Mammon. The Proxy flinched when he did as though he'd flagged her with the Holy Rifle. She turned a confused look to her master, then to Blitz, then reached for the phone. "That's what I thought."
Anything to get this shit outta the way, so he could go back to doing what he actually cared about; turning the Immediate Murder Professionals group into the biggest Death For Hire company that Hell had ever seen, or would ever see again.
The green phone rang in Lucifer's office less than an hour and a half after he tasked that repugnant little imp with the job. Everything still hurt. The Body Lock had faded, meaning that Lucifer could slough his avatars and reform his bodies as he liked, but the ache still followed him, no matter what flesh he chose to wear. Perhaps it had been a miscalculation to try to on-board the Demiurge in the manner that he had. Well, whatever the case, there would always be more chances. As long as Samael continued to dither around in Heaven, the Demiurge would be within Lucifer's reach, if barely.
"I wonder if he's calling to try to barter, to get concessions out of you," Lilith asked, carefully applying a balm to Lucifer's heavily bruised shoulders. It helped soothe the ache a bit; whether because the balm actually did something or because Lilith could put any masseuse out of a job, didn't matter.
"Well, I'm not going to give him an inch. He is my fucking subordinate. It's time he acted like it," Lucifer growled. He pulled the receiver from the old, green, bakelite phone and held it to his ear. "Whatever you want, Mammon, tough shit."
"Lord Mammon is... indisposed," an unfamiliar voice came to Lucifer. He scowled, then flicked open one of the many eyes that he'd secreted throughout Hell... and saw...
His Proxy was already in the office. In an hour and half. What the fuck? Was that imp trying to prove something? Well, he had a gun pointed at Mammon, who was bleeding like a bitch on the floor, and that meant that the only other one in the room, the only one allowed to touch the green, bakelite phone's other end, had to be Mammon's Proxy.
"I can see that," Lucifer said, hiding his surprise at the scene he now beheld. Did that imp literally just go directly from being told to do the thing to... going to actually do it? It was so unexpected that it took all of Lucifer's composure not to gawk like a fool. "You know what I want, Voice For Mammon. I will accept nothing less. If you try anything other than the mobilization of your army and the imposition of my War Tax, effective right fucking now, well... I'm technically in the room with you right now. And I don't think I could be held accountable for my actions. Ta-ta."
The Proxy hung up, turning a worried look to the imp, then hung her head in despair. Perfect. Glorious. Lucifer sat back. "He got lucky," he said.
"Even imps can, my sweet," Lilith cooed. Lucifer tapped his own phone, and watched as the imp picked up his own Hellphone which was now yelling at him.
"Beginner's luck. You're done for the moment," Lucifer said.
"Fan-fuckin'-tastic," the imp declared, and then pocketed the thing. He pointed his gun at the Proxy once more. "I'm a-leavin', and if anybody gets in my way, Imma shoot him in the dick, am I clear?"
"Perfectly," the Proxy said, allowing the imp to strut out of the room in a fashion befitting somebody embodying Lucifer's Vainglory. Lucifer cut the 'feed' through his magical eye and reached for another phone, this one at the center of the table which held the colored bakelite phones used to contact the other Deadly Sins – including the cobweb coated grey one which connected to Baphomet – and grabbed the one which glowed with a pearlescent light, glowing with moody, rainbowed hues. This one wasn't made of bakelite, like the others. This one had been carved from the only brick that his agents had ever been able to steal from the walls of Heaven. He picked up its receiver.
"Let it be known, upon this day, that I, Lucifer, King of All Hell, Song of Midnight, the Morningstar, and Sin Above All Sins, declare all of Hell to enter into a state of war. The Forever War is to end, effective immediately. Any units still engaged in combat against any hellbound army by this time tomorrow will be subject to immediate decimation and considered Forlorn Hope," Lucifer declared. He'd always imagined that he would be standing at the top of High Central, replete in his panoply, with his blazing sword in hand, as he gave these words. But... well... he still ached. He ached, and he would not allow anybody to see him in pain.
"Let it be known," Lucifer continued, "that upon this day, I declare War, upon the Casus Belli of restitution of my proper place, upon my rightful claim to the Throne of Heaven, and to have restitutions granted to myself and all who have followed me since our unjust and unwarranted banishment from Heaven. Let it be known that Naked Law shall offer a unique opportunity for escape from debts and shackles, under the provision that you enlist into Hell's Great Army under the banners of any of my Legions of the Damned. You will not die pitiful, penniless and alone in Hell. You will die rich, fat, and old within a manor house amidst the Clouds of Heaven. Fight for me, and all debts will be forgiven. Fight for me, and take back what the angel hordes consider you undeserving of!"
Lucifer actually got to his feet, ignoring the stabbing sensation in his recovering knees, and spoke from the bottom of his lungs. "Let it be known, that on this day, we END THE PURGE. Let it be known, that on this day, WE CAST DOWN THE CHAINS OF THE ANGELS! LET IT BE KNOWN! THAT TODAY! IS THE NEW! WAR! FOR HEAVEN!"
And with that, Lucifer let he receiver drop back into place. And then fell back into his chair.
"You won't recover if you keep doing stunts like this," Lilith said to him.
"I don't need to 'recover'," he groused. "I need to retake the throne which is rightfully mine."
"Fucking hell, the Second War for Heaven. Don't even get me started on that. I was there when it started. I was there when the torch got passed. And I was there when it stopped. If there's a bigger waste of life and potential that has ever existed, I can't think of it.
But then again, it's the foul fruit of a poisoned tree, isn't it? The only things that ever came out of Lucifer were pain, struggle, and death. That's the way it was when he was still sporting a full halo, and it was just as true when he pitched his shit fit the second time around.
...I lost a couple of good friends in that war. Really good friends.
If anybody tells you war is glorious, they're trying to sell you something."
-Vacuole the Unstoppable, Redemptor