The throne at the center of the assembly was empty, the King of All Hell not even bothering to show up after declaring a new war for heaven. Then again, a few of the Deadly Sins weren't here either. Mammon wasn't, for one. Neither was Asmodeus, but Octavia knew that it was for a different reason. Unlike the absentees to this chamber, 'Uncle Ozzie' was missing because he was actually leading the vanguard of the invasion. That left the Ars Goetia making most of the Lower House as what ought to have been the most populous group. But it wasn't. Because there were a bunch of Sinners –apparently classified as 'Overlords', if that mattered in any meaningful way – who, in flagrant disregard for tradition, had been allowed into the chamber and formed a third, Least House which was appropriately enough standing-room only.
Octavia'd had to fight to be here. Mum remained in her seclusion, refusing to take part in what was going to be a massacre, to which Octavia was immensely grateful. And Dad? He didn't seem to grasp the gravity of what was going on. In fact, the only reason she was here was because she wheedled her way into coming in his stead, her father's own Proxy if not to such a title. Come to think of it, were there any Ars Goetia who had Proxies, save obviously Asmodeus? She would have to ask Ambrosius about that.
She was uncomfortable. Maybe even out of her league. She was wearing her Mom's Angel Satin dress, which had been hastily retailored so it wouldn't fall off of her. There certainly was nothing in Octavia's closet that was up to the task of showing face before the Deadly Sins. Well, whatever the case, she was here now. She was going to take part in the progress of Hell, one way or another. And as she slumped a bit in the chair that had been marked with the plaque of Stolas, Prince of Flowers, she realized there was a chance she might not see Ambrosius again. That he might not come back.
"Asmodeus isn't the obvious choice for this endeavor," Belphegor said, seated in his hover-seat that levitated a yard off of the floor. "Though he has done great works with the conquest in the time of the fall of the Old Kings, he has since left himself to wither on the vine. He should not be leading this adventure."
"And who should? You?" Beelzebub asked, then broke out into laughter. Her diamond-shining wings fluttered behind her for a moment as she regained her composure. Beelzebub was a strange thing, to even Octavia's sheltered eyes. She knew what Devourer Demons were supposed to look like, corpulent, or else mindless drones. She had the signifiers of the mindless drone, only expanded and given savage cunning such that one could be forgiven for not even recognizing the Princess of Gluttony as having once been a mere Fiend. Again a reminder that the ambitious, the clever, and the cruel, they could rise very, very, very far. "Please. You can't even shift your ass enough to take a piss without help."
"Of course, I don't speak of myself. Don't be a fool," Belphegor answered, breathing deep through his respirator. There were so many rumors about what was in that tank that he breathed from. And even more rumors about what Belphegor had been before betraying the entire leadership of the Ring of Sloth to ambush and massacre by Lucifer during the Invasion. "I speak of the much more... obvious... choice."
Eyes turned to the massive throne of Satan, who sat in subdued, blood red robes that were marked with three golden frogs. Satan's scowl could have turned milk into cheese in a heartbeat, and his following dry, unkind laugh would have castigated the dead and sent them back into their graves. "So thou could attempt to carve some tiny section of my Ring from me, Betrayer King? I think not," Satan said. "I will have no glory in this misadventure."
"You speak out of turn, Old King," Lilith said from the smaller throne that sat beside the empty throne of Lucifer. "You bent your knee to my husband, our King of All Hell. And you will do what is asked of you."
"And I shall not commit suicide by thine word, nor by his," Satan countered.
"Coward!" Leviathan snarled. He rose from his seat, his scales glinting in the sharp lighting of the room. "You...!"
Satan rose a finger, choosing not to even face Leviathan. "The glory, such that can be, from a new war with Heaven, will have to be laced upon the garlands and wreathes of others. I shall not die needless for thine armies. But I ask thee of this: What when Gabriel and Michael decide to counterattack? Thinkest thou that thou can break the will and might of Heaven with a single surge of troops? Or be thou more cogent to see that the reserves of Heaven are deep and vast, and the worst of them the equal to any troop of our own?" Satan shook his head, to the tinkling of the charms laced amongst his large, sharp horns.
"Our numbers will swamp them and crush them under our boots," Leviathan declared.
"And when they do not?" Satan asked. "What then, Mongrel King?"
"I have the blood of the greatest monsters that have ever lived in my veins! You will show respect!"
"I have the blood of the oldest beings in all existence in mine. And my blood is why your forefathers are extinct," Satan countered, levelling a very harsh glare at the smaller half-blood Deadly Sin.
"How dare you!" Leviathan demanded, surging from his seat.
"Please, let us be orderly in this court," the patriarch of the Von Eldritch family declared from his place near where Lilith watched the goings on with disinterest. Or... maybe not as much disinterest as feigned disinterest. Octavia's eyes narrowed at the Queen Consort of All Hell. She knew boredom very well. She'd shown enough of it over the last few years. And she'd seen her own lifetime of it in her parents. What Lilith was doing was not boredom. Her eyes kept sweeping along the various power-players too regularly for it to be that.
"Again, I shall seek no glory in this war," Satan said, retaking the initiative. "My forces will of course be open to volunteer to second under your leaders, and my peoples have been straining for a conflict to array themselves against for all their tiny lives. You shall have the fists and claws of Wrath behind you as you claim your prizes, if you are able to take them."
"And you will just sit there in your chair, being useless," Beelzebub tried to jab him, but Satan outright nodded at her statement.
"Indeed. Until such time as the angels inevitably press into the Pit. And with thine forces on thy great adventure into Heaven, or else scattered to the wind, I do what is inglorious but necessary. I will strive so that every inch of land that the angels deign to take from us is first painted yellow by their blood."
"So you can sweep in and claim our Rings when our forces are depleted?" the Princess of Gluttony said, leaning forward against her desk.
"No. Ï̶̗ ̴̯͐s̶̙͛ẇ̵̯ḛ̶̈́a̴̬̾r̶̳̓,̸̧͌ ̷̖͝u̶̫̿p̴̯͗ọ̶͌n̶̮̚ ̸̪͑m̸͈̕y̷̝͑ ̷̯̔ṅ̵̺a̸͍̓m̴̲̃e̷͒͜,̸͉͗ ̸̘̄ǘ̸̫p̶̪̍o̶̫͌n̴͖͝ ̷͇́m̴̮̔y̷̢̑ ̷̰̈t̷̯̏ḯ̸͈t̶̙͘l̸̯̅é̷͓s̷̖͘,̵̞̍ ̴͇̂a̷͙̐n̶̥̔d̸̙͐ ̸̳̓ú̷͕p̵̛̱ǫ̸̀n̷̎͜ ̷̘̊t̴̟̿h̸͙̃ȇ̶̩ ̷͈̔Á̴̭l̶͓͂t̵̗͠ä̶͙́r̸̻͐ ̶̞̅o̶̬̊f̸͙̄ ̶̼̈́W̵̝̓ő̴̻ȑ̷̬m̵̟͝s̸̺̐,̷̛͍" that got everybody to shut up. Even Lilith sat forward in her chair, abandoning disinterest for scrutiny, as the Vow was put to air, "t̴h̶a̵t̷ ̵W̶r̶a̵t̶h̷ ̶s̸h̶a̵l̵l̵ ̵n̸o̶t̸ ̵b̵y̸ ̶m̴y̶ ̴a̸c̶t̷i̵o̴n̶ ̴o̷r̷ ̶i̵n̷a̶c̶t̷i̶o̷n̸ ̸s̷w̸e̷l̵l̴ ̶i̸n̴ ̵t̵h̵i̵s̶ ̵c̵o̷n̸f̸l̶i̶c̴t̵,̵ ̵t̷h̵a̶t̶ ̸h̵e̵r̷ ̸b̵o̵r̸d̶e̸r̸s̷ ̴s̵h̵a̸l̷l̷ ̴r̵e̵m̷a̵i̴n̶ ̶a̷s̴ ̵t̶h̴e̵y̵ ̸h̵a̸v̵e̶ ̴b̶e̸e̵n̸ ̷s̵i̵n̷c̸e̴ ̸t̵h̴e̶ ̴d̴a̵y̸ ̶o̴f̵ ̷m̴y̴ ̵a̸s̷c̴e̷n̵s̴i̵o̸n̵ ̵t̶o̷ ̸t̵h̵e̷ ̷n̸o̵w̶ ̶l̷o̷s̷t̴ ̶T̶h̵r̵o̸n̵e̷ ̶o̷f̵ ̷B̶r̶o̵k̷e̴n̶ ̸L̴i̶v̴e̵s̴.̶ ̴T̷h̸e̸r̶e̷ ̸s̵h̴a̸l̴l̶ ̵b̷e̴ ̷n̴o̷ ̷t̷r̷e̵a̴s̷o̵n̴ ̴b̵y̴ ̵W̵r̴a̶t̴h̷ ̸i̴n̸ ̸t̶h̶i̶s̶,̵ ̸m̵a̶y̸ ̵t̸h̴e̴ ̷N̸a̴k̸e̶d̴ ̷L̶a̵w̵ ̷a̴n̸d̶ ̷m̵i̷n̵e̴ ̷o̴w̸n̶ ̸p̵o̶w̴e̸r̷ ̷s̸t̷r̶i̸k̵e̷ ̷m̸e̶ ̵d̵o̴w̴n̷ ̴i̴f̵ ̸I̵ ̷p̶u̶t̵ ̴i̷t̷ ̶t̸o̵ ̸l̴i̸e̶.̸"
There was silence in the wake of Satan's oath to good conduct. Octavia just stared at the Old King. How was he going to benefit from this? That was the one thing that got drilled into her head by every lesson that was ever taught; don't do something unless either you benefit from it, or somebody else loses. And by outright declaring that he refused to benefit... if their lessons were to be believed...
He expected everybody else to lose big by this.
"Lucifer Magne of the House of Morningstar accepts in absentia the vow of Satan, King of Wrath," Lilith said from her place, now again languidly sprawled across her seat. "You are tasked, now and until the day of his claiming of the Throne In Heaven, with the defense of the Realm. Every loss of Hell is now upon your feet."
"I shall not disappoint," Satan said, then sat back in his gargantuan throne.
There were games going on. Octavia could tell that. Games within games, plans within plans. And Satan obviously had a powerful one in play. But for now, it was all Octavia could do to simply sit in the chair that belonged to her father, and try to keep up, let alone catch up to where everybody was. It was like she was involved in a race, only everybody else had started running before she was born, and only now was she released to the starting line.
Octavia Goetia was in over her head. She just hoped she didn't drown before she learned to swim.
Chapter 4
The Road of Excess
Things were weird.
Weird was good, in this case, but still weird.
Maelstrom had lived a life in constant terror for so long that he could still feel it nipping at his tail every time somebody moved in just the wrong way. He found himself glancing at mirrors, around corners, behind him, all waiting for something to go terribly wrong, for a beast from out the Bleeding Pits to appear and rip him apart for having the audacity to not be in constant fear. The dapper little imp-man called that 'post traumatic stress', and Maelstrom had a hard time disagreeing with him. Birch may as well be entitled Trauma Incarnate. At least he was dead, if not something far worse than it.
"Carefully carefully! I took a week and a day to build that thing and I shan't have you breaking it!" Krieg said as he carefully pulled a strange construct of glass and stone sideways through the door to what used to apparently be his current employer's former armory. The damned thing wouldn't fit in any other way, so sideways it went. But still he was not above admitting that he was holding his breath as the delicate seeming glass brushed against the doorframe, and bent just slightly... before popping through and returning to its proper state. He did as the young she-imp demanded, and carefully maneuvered it into the corner of the room. "Fantastic. That is all I need of you. Now unless you wish to spend the next few hours breathing noxious chemicals or being set on fire, away with you!"
Maelstrom just raised up his hands in a warding gesture and let himself be forced out of the office by the she-imp's lack of attention to him. He puffed out a breath, and gave his head a shake. Moving things around for somebody who didn't care whether he lived or died was par for the course in his experience. Although he had a faint notion that Krieg's wasn't the same level of 'I will step over your corpse if you drop dead in front of me' callousness that Hell bred, more of a 'I have no immediate use for you nor enmity toward you, so go away'.
"You're still working over there?" Loona's voice came from the ajar door to the new office that they'd taken over.
"She's finally moved," he said, as he returned. And when he did, he found that Moxxie had long abandoned the meeting desk for a whiteboard that showed some sort of strange anatomy detailed on it. It seemed university level at the least, and considering that Maelstrom could barely read... well, it was out of his wheelhouse. Millie, conversely, was sitting contentedly in her chair, her back to what her husband was mulling over, with a pair of headphones on and bopping along to the music. That left Loona, who more or less unmoored any hope of this place having legitimacy as a 'place of business', by kicking her feet up on her desk, sitting at an awkward but possibly comfortable angle in her chair, and watching videos on her computer. "So... ah... what do I do now?"
"Whatever, dude. No clients and no book means we're earning for doing sweet FA," Loona said.
"Just... sitting around. Doing nothing. And getting paid for it," he tried to turn the idea over in his head. It just didn't work.
"With no clients, we're not getting paid at all," Moxxie said, staring at the bits of what looked like imp viscera that he'd drawn on the board.
"Like I said. It's a slow day. Kick your feet up," Loona said.
"Shouldn't we be doing something?" Maelstrom asked, unable to contain his fidgeting. The only time he was told to not do something was when he was told to get under the chain. He didn't know if he had it in him to go back, rip out that fucking spike with its fucking chain, and throw the both of them into the Abyss. Much as he'd like to say that he was bouncing back from the unending horrors of being owned by Nathan Birch... well, reality was not kind. "Even just cleaning?"
"Do you think we care about that here?" Loona asked.
"It's just... What do I even..." Maelstrom began, only to have a hole be torn in reality, lined with a ring of flame that somehow didn't set the carpet afire, which promptly disgorged one moderately battered looking imp. His new boss, as it turned out.
"Well, that's fuckin' done with. Now where were we? And who the fuck are you?" The imp said.
"You just hired me," Maelstrom said flatly.
"Don't worry about that. It took Dad three weeks to remember Tubby's first name," Loona said.
"I weigh less than Millie!" Moxxie snapped at her.
"And in her, it's all muscle weight, Tubby," Loona countered. Moxxie seethed for a moment, about to say something at her, but he was arrested when Millie, eyes still closed and unable to hear, reached out and grabbed his hand. The outrage that Moxxie was getting ready to salvo outright drained away from Moxxie at the first contact with his other half. After a moment, he gave her hand a squeeze, and turned away from the Hellhound who was only now tilting her chair into a more ordinary position. "So what was the big deal down in Greed?" she then asked. He continued to stare at Maelstrom, until Loona hurled a ball of paper at him, and got him to turn to her. "Turn on your ears, Blitz. Greed?"
"Oh that wasn't much of anything. Just had to shoot Mammon and tell him to stop dicking around with the Big Man's time. Easy, hour and a half in and out," Blitz said as he turned on his augmetic ears.
"So where you the other hour?" Millie asked, pulling her headphones off.
"...nowhere," he said. If he was back from Greed, why did he smell like a horse?
"Suuure you were," Loona could pick up the same thing, obviously. Pity for the imps that they had such underdeveloped senses of smell.
"Well, it's done, so I can get back to what's important. Like taking a new job!" he said, turning to the door beside Maelstrom. Maelstrom frowned at him, but then his ear perked as he could indeed hear the leather clap of wingtip shoes on stone that approached the office's entrance. Those were some good ears if they could better a Hound's. The door was opened, eliciting a recorded scream of pain and surprise as was apparently a custom for people related to Blitz Miller. And entering the room was a golem.
He was a Sinner, shorter than the Hounds but taller than the imps, whose skin looked like it was deep-cracked clay, with the word 'MET' carved burning into his forehead. He had no visible eyes, only pits that reached back into blackness. And he wore a very finely tailored vest, shirt, and slacks, opting not for a suit-jacket.
"Good evening, gentlemen," the golem said, words clipped, as though he were having to translate them to speak. Which was absurd, because this was Hell and there were effectively no such thing as different languages down here. "If you know who I am, this will be more swift."
"Mox? Who's this guy?" Millie asked of her man.
"Get a clue, guys. Even I know who this motherfucker is," Blitz said. "What are you doin' in my offices, Yakob?"
"Mind sharing with the class?" Loona asked.
"Yakob Maccabee," Blitz said, and Yakob just straightened his lapel.
"You're with the Jewish Mafia!" Moxxie said.
"Maybe I am," Yakob gave a shrug. "But you? Word's getting around of you, Blitzø Miller."
"All good, I hope?" Blitz said with a hacksaw grin.
"Some good. Some bad," Yakob said. He then tilted his head down at the imp. "Things like killing Nathan Birch."
"Yup, stapled his bitch-mouth shut and yote him into the Abyss," Blitz said with beaming pride.
"And you still take jobs. Killing for the dead, yes?" Yakob said.
"You need somebody offed still up topside?"
"Yes. There is a man. Johannes Bertholder. Bad man. Nasty man. Old man. Too old," Yakob reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope with pictures. He handed them to Moxxie, who began to look through them. Loona, seeing Maelstrom standing mute and still at the side of what was probably no business of his, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the scrum with them. And Maelstrom saw that the photographs were of a young man in a very sharp looking military uniform, albeit in black and white, the same old man looking ancient and decrepit, in color, followed by that young man again, in color, raising a glass of beer with a bunch of other old, decrepit, and grinning men.
"He de-aged himself," Moxxie said.
"Humans can't do that," Loona said.
"We know for a fact that they can," Moxxie said. "Loopty and Lyle?"
"Oh, fuuuck, I was trying to forget about those two morons," Loona muttered.
"Waitaminute waitaminute," Blitz said. "Is this guy a fuckin' Nazi or something?"
"Former Gestapo," Yakob gave a nod. He then tilted his head. "You have a reputation too, Blitzø, as a man who has killed Nazis. Zhukov's Demon, hrm?"
"Oh I killed a fuuuuuckload of 'em Nazi fucks," Blitz said proudly.
"And this is why we even offer this, from the Undzer Shtik to you," Yakob said with a smile pulling at his scar of a mouth, the movement of it raining down clay-dust as it did. "A man who Breaks the Arrow to kill our enemies is our friend."
Wait, what? Blitz was an Arrow Breaker? How was he still alive, then?
"Well, I had half a decade to kill, and a bunch of drunk Soviets to impress. What else was I gonna do?" Blitz said, buffing his claws on his jacket as he poorly feigned humility. "But enough tugging at my schmeckle, how much are you throwing at me to do this?"
"We will pay to kill him. We will pay more for... special treatment," Yakob said. There was a moment of confused silence, which even Maelstrom found himself compelled to end.
"Define 'special treatment'," he said cautiously.
"Many things are said of you, Blitzø," Yakob said. "Such as snatching a man from Earth to kill him here in Hell?"
"Oh, you wanna double kill him, do ya?" Blitz asked, a wide grin on his face. Yakob seemed confused by that. "One target, double killed, will put ya back eighteen thousand."
"...double killed?" Yakob asked.
"Brand a Lodestone rune on him before killing him," Moxxie said. "He'll land in hell exactly where you tell him to."
"You can do this?" Yakob seemed confounded.
"We done it before. I'm thinkin' of putting it up on the board as a 'special service' that we offer."
Yakob stared at them, his unseen eyes seeming to try to tell if he was outright lying or just being a madman. Even Maelstrom had a hard time figuring out which was true, and he had the nose of a Hound to help him. Finally, Yakob reached into his pocket, and pulled out a thick wad of bills. He quickly started to flick some out. When he was done, he put down a thick pile onto the nearby table, then a small wad still in between his fingers. "Two thousand more, if my cousin Moishe gets to kill him both times."
"Done," Blitz hopped up to snatch the money from Yakob's hand. "I'll have him ready for your boy to off him in what? Figure about four hours?"
"For one target? What are you gonna do with the other three hours?" Loona asked.
"Those look like important humans. He might be pretty well protected, by human standards," Moxxie said. "Four should be enough."
"See, just like that we're golden. You, dog boy, whatever the fuck your name is, you wanna help grab this guy or not?"
"He doesn't have a human disguise," Loona said.
"Well, you're shit outta luck, then," Blitz said. He pointed to Loona's desk. "You're sittin' this one out. So for fuck's sake get one'a them so you can actually start earning your keep!"
"Do you think we're gonna need any of the fancy weapons?" Millie asked.
"For one human? No. For one human protected by rich people... you might want to get both machetes," Moxxie answered. Yakob watched as the entire senior staff of I.M.P. then thoroughly ignored he and Maelstrom, heading first to the armory while discussing firepower, and then portalling directly to the human world.
"...First day?" Yakob asked Maelstrom when it was just the two of them left.
"Yup," he said.
"You'll get used to this," Yakob said. He then flicked his fingers and a card appeared between them. "If you ever want some good quinces and preserves, I run a stall. You'd like them, I think."
"...thanks," Maelstrom asked.
Weird was definitely the order of the day. Maelstrom had survived normal and terrible for more than long enough. Weird and kinda nice was a very, very, very pleasant change.
When Azazel opened the doors to his house, he knew that something was terribly wrong.
Unlike most Angels who were as renowned and important to the function of Heaven as he was, Azazel was not given a sprawling compound as a personal fief, but instead a tiny abode down on Five with the rest of his Grigori brethren. It had been calculated as an object lesson for him, a forever-living reminder that he had, indeed, indelibly fucked up in the eyes of God and Michael, and would never again rise above the status that he now was saddled with. A clear reminder, 'don't forget, you're here forever'.
The Simpsons had actually trailed reality on that one.
He too had defaced the plaque, and in an identical way, with the face of the daughter that Gabriel murdered.
"Hiding won't get you whatever it is you came here for," Azazel's voice was cool and calm. Though there was a hint of trepidation in his heart, he didn't let it appear on his face. That wouldn't do him any good, and likely would only result in gloating and more torment. The more sanctimonious of the Firstborn always found excuses to attempt to belittle him. And they always left disappointed when he gave them all of the response of a particularly gray and inert piece of rock.
Silence answered him, which gave him no peace. He turned a glance to the waters which ran out to the edge of Five, a false-ocean bounding this Cloud, smelling the faint waft of brine. Unlike most of his warrior brethren, Azazel was not a fighter by nature. He was a tool maker. And because of that, he knew that a physical conflict availed him not. So he rubbed at his forehead, killed the sigh in his throat, and closed the door behind him. Whatever unpleasantness his instincts told him was coming, was going to come despite any efforts on his part.
It was so incredibly sophomoric that Angels would lower themselves to bullying and such foolishness. He accounted it to them being the last dregs of an honor culture, while he and those of his mindset held to more dignity culture beliefs. Some things were to be endured, because to react to them was to give in to your most childish and feeble aspects. Besides, lashing out at people was a Firstborn's privilege.
The house was small, about what one angel actually physically needed. There was room for his wardrobe, room for him to cook his simple meals, a spot to eat them, and then a room for him to rest. Unlike most Firstborn and many Second, he slept regularly. Many of his elders gloated about the fatigue that they suffered while building Heaven. They gloated of discomfort lost so long ago that they could scarcely recall its sensation. Azazel ended every single day as tired as they had been in that forgotten past. He had a calling.
And when he slept, he sometimes dreamt of beautiful, brilliant Tauthe.
He could have lived in Hell itself, if he still had those fleeting, occasional glimpses of his daughter in her glory.
Azazel's quiet steps didn't so much as disturb the floorboards as he even checked the least-used room in the building, the toilet. Nothing. Nobody and nothing. And yet his instincts still screamed at him. That he was not alone.
Azazel frowned for a moment, then reached into his wardrobe, past the robes, the aprons and the vambraces to keep sprays of sparks and metal from scarring his forearms, and grabbed a ring off of the hook in the back. It was silver, like a halo made of metal. And when he looked through it, he could see that the entire house was warped.
A Power had its attention on his domicile.
He turned that ring until he found a portion of his home more warped than any other. Likely the point that he should address. "Why have you come to my dwelling, stranger?" Azazel asked of him, calmly but firmly.
There ignited a flame at the edge of Azazel's dining area, one that swelled white and pure and hotter than any forge he'd ever worked with, until there came a strange sensation of swelling, as that mighty presence forced itself to manifest into an Avatar here in Heaven. If Azazel were a less disciplined person, he would have gaped outright at the Plate of God that he saw this stranger wearing. And if he were a more foolish person, he would have mistaken it for actually being the Plate of God. But Azazel knew that armor better than most Grigori, despite having been Sung into being not long before it's destruction. This armor had more bands. And the Plate of God was golden, not silver.
"You are the Grigori of Arms," the stranger said, staring through a death's head mask held in the lion's jaws of his helm.
"I have been called that," Azazel said.
"You are also called by some The Gentleman," the stranger said.
"...I see," Azazel said, as he suddenly remembered a conversation he'd had a few years ago. So this was that little lamb's endgame. "And that would make you the Demiurge."
"I have been called that," the Demiurge answered him. "You may call me Samael. Or if you earn my confidence, even simply Sam."
"So what is it that brings you to my humble house on this fake ocean?" Azazel asked, not allowing any of his nerves to surface onto his expression. He had a lot of experience with that. He knew how to turn his face into a stone mask. And he was doing it now.
"There are two who have seen me before the time was right," the Demiurge said. "Two who would inform Gabriel of my appearance in Heaven before I am ready. I need you to stop them."
"You want me to kill my own angelic brethren?" Azazel asked. "I may have tarnished my honor with my past crimes, but I will not break my halo for you, stranger."
"I do not ask you to kill. I ask you to provide a directive," the Demiurge said, moving to the comfortable chair that Azazel kept meticulously clean despite never sitting in it. It was a simple thing, four legs and a cushion of thick linen stuffed with duck's down. He stared at it, then to Azazel, and Azazel again felt a violation of his privacy in a way he couldn't quantify. "What was her name?"
"I beg your pardon?" Azazel asked.
"The one who should be sitting here. What was her name?"
"Why do you presume it was a she?" he asked.
"Most Nephilim were women," the Demiurge said, which tightened Azazel's jaw. Only the Grigori and Gabriel knew that truth, that a child was three times as likely to be born a woman and a Nephilim, than to be born as a man and one. Even now, to this day long after their demise, Azazel didn't know the mechanism behind it. It wasn't simple genetics, or at least he didn't believe it was. Without any Nephilim around to test that new technology on, he would never be able to say. "And this does not have the carriage for a grown man."
"Perhaps an un-grown man, then?" Azazel posited.
"I could simply dredge the answer from you," the Demiurge interrupted the dance they were doing with the verbal equivalent of a sledge-hammer to the knee. "I am trying to be civil. So please; what was her name?"
Azazel had his dander up, to have somebody impose so on him, but just like his trepidation, he hid it behind his stone mask of a face. "Tauthe," he said. The Demiurge just nodded, as though sadly, staring through his faceplate at this little chair that had been built on the Human World more than a hundred centuries ago. "Why do you want to know her name? You can't save her. Nobody can."
"I know," the Demiurge said. "I am sorry for the pain that losing her has embedded into you. But pain was not her only gift to you. I can see that."
Azazel knew that this was going somewhere, but since one sledgehammer to the knee had already been deployed, he felt no inhibition against levying his own. "What you want is unlikely to be found here. Collin has been banished from Heaven. Nobody's willing to put their necks out for anybody, now that Deerie and her cohort run Blessings and Miracles."
"Collin. A name he destroyed," the Demiurge said. He turned to Azazel, and reached for his face. When he pulled the plate out, the whole helm dissolved away, showing a very human looking face. Oh. Oh of course. Of course the Demiurge had to be a Thirdborn. "I knew him as the Goat of the Apocalypse. A name he did not pick lightly."
"I presume not," Azazel said with perfect neutrality.
"What would you say Gabriel has wanted to do for a long time, but was not allowed to?" the Demiurge then changed topics so abruptly that Azazel's quick mind had to veer to keep up with it. If there was a segue in what he said, Azazel didn't see it.
"Is this germane?" Azazel asked. And the Demiurge let out a chuckle, an almost wistful look on his face as he stared out Azazel's window at the false ocean before him. "Do I amuse you somehow?"
"No. It is the path that I've walked that amuses me," the Demiurge said. "Yes. This is germane. I dread that it is terribly germane."
"If you claim... I would say that Gabriel's long-standing desire, the one that has gone unclaimed..." he paused, thinking through. He'd heard about the kerfuffle at Michael's Assembly, at the kangaroo court that Sahaquiel had been subjected to. There was doubly nothing he could have done for the Ingenuity of God. Both because he was a Grigori, and because it was not his place to speak. And when put in such terms, he finally connected dots that would have been obvious were he not being run so ragged by Michael. He would. He absolutely would. "I would say that Gabriel wishes to usurp the leadership of Exorcist Command and Control."
"So that he may enact the Final Purge," the Demiurge said, nodding slowly. Sadly? It wasn't clear. "So that he may send wave after wave of angel war-machines to burn all of Hell to the ground, and spill every drop of blood that rests within a vein, be it red, black, or otherwise. To break the peace that the Old Kings created."
"To render all of Hell as dust," Azazel confirmed. "There is little we can do about this."
"There is much we must do about this," the Demiurge turned to him, his blazing white eyes now set not with despair but bleak, black determination. "It is a fool that thinks there is no innocence in Hell. But how many live within that realm from birth to death with never a chance to see another realm? What has the child in school done to warrant oblivion?"
"The children of Hell are less innocent than you may think," Azazel pointed out.
"I do not think. I know. I have seen it. In the 1940's, every single Nazi who died in the Second World War landed in Hell. So too with the Japanese. And also true of the Americans, Chinese, British, French, Canadians, Russians, and Australians. And all of the victims of both sides. Nearly everybody who fought in that war, despite one side being obviously in the wrong, and the other a response to it, ended up in Hell. That is the definition of unjust. I will not stand for that. And I will not stand for this, either," the Demiurge said, his glare nailing Azazel to the floor.
Azazel didn't allow his face to shift, didn't allow a crack in the mask. He simply watched coolly as the Demiurge turned to the sea once more. "I have no authority or place to stop what Gabriel will do. Even as the Master of Arms, I am there only at their pleasure and patience."
"I am not asking you to stop the Final Purge. Nothing will stop it," the Demiurge said, and then turned a glance to the Grigori beside him. "I am asking you to deliver a message to two angels on the evening of the eleventh of November."
"That is... in the past," Azazel pointed out.
"And it is within angels' nature to move beyond the grasp of time."
"Not a Grigori. Not anymore," he said.
"By law, or by custom?" the Demiurge asked.
"I see your point," Azazel admitted. "Still, it will not go unremarked that a lowly Grigori took a Jaunt. And what is to stop me from inciting a paradox? You are a dangerous one, Samael, but I am not going to jump to my death for you just because you know where I live."
"Were you on the Intertram that evening?" the Demiurge asked.
"No, I was at the forge the entire day," Azazel said. Then he his brow lofted. "Are you saying that I was already there?"
"And now that you know, you are bound to it," The Demiurge said.
"I don't appreciate being manhandled like this. You might be the Demiurge, but I will not simply lick the boot of whatever strong arm is cast before me," Azazel said, his cold tones beginning to heat.
"I don't want your tongue on my boot, I want your brain. I want your cunning," the Demiurge said, turning away from the window and moving to the kitchen. He did what Azazel first thought impossible, pouring himself a cup of water, before Azazel remembered who this was. This was Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge. He broke the rules just by being. And now he was staring at that glass as though trying to remember how to drink for quite a while. Then, he turned, cup in hand. "There is going to be a Time Lock laid down. Soon. I can feel it approach. And when it is in place, there will be no more Jaunts, nor Breaking of the Arrow. You know what was occurring, last time a Time Lock was put over all of Heaven."
"So you do bring war with you. Are you working for the Morningstar?"
"I beat the Morningstar most of the way to death two weeks ago. I would finish the job but for his daughter," the Demiurge said. At that, Azazel felt a jolt in him, as he finally had something he had heard in the rumor mills confirmed. The Morningstar had had a child. Considering the only human that Lucifer had ever shown any patience for was God's first technically mortal creation, the Giantess Lilith, that meant...
Good God.
Another Nephilim.
The Demiurge immediately nodded. "Indeed, another Nephilim," he said.
"You can see within, as Raguel does, then," Azazel said, feeling a bead of sweat at his temple. It was a constant practice to avoid Raguel at all times if possible. For all the Grigori of Arms was a master at putting up social barricades, it did him no benefit against somebody who could simply bypass them as simply as a breeze slipping through a crack in the wall.
"Her name is Charlotte. She goes by Charlie," the Demiurge said, ignoring his observation. Possibly as either irrelevant, or so obvious as to not require comment.
"What is she like?" Azazel asked, his usually schooled tones growing slightly wistful. And the expression on the Demiurge's face grew sad, and distant.
"As kind as her father is foul," he finally drank of that cup. "And also as stubborn as a rock. Time will tell if that does her well or ill. Now, you are part of the conspiracy alongside Michael and Raguel. No word of her existence must reach Gabriel."
"Do you think me so terrible a father?" Azazel demanded. The Demiurge simply stared. He turned to the chair which she had sat on when he visited her and told her stories, which she sat on as she knitted or wove. That was splashed by her blood when Gabriel crushed her skull with his bare hands. "Their deaths are Time Locked. So that we may never go back and save them. A final cruelty, to crush any hope of happiness for her. That there was never any chance for her to have children of her own. And for what? The Nephilim were beautiful. They were brilliant. They were the best of both our races. Why? WHY?"
He barely noticed how his tone finally slipped his control, and the last word was a shout.
"Because God is not good," the Demiurge said. "Because He is vain, petty, greedy, proud and covetous."
"You speak words I've known for a long time. And little reason for me not to tell Gabriel about you."
"I can let you talk to her," he said. "Just once. The Time Lock, it is still in place, but information can escape where matter cannot."
"What are you saying?" Azazel asked, his mask shattered and confusion clear on his face.
"I cannot save Tauthe. But I can give you one final conversation with her. A chance to say goodbye. A chance to tell her that you love her," the Demiurge said. "And for that price, all I ask is that you delay two angels by eleven hours."
Azazel wanted to tell the Demiurge that there was no price that he could offer that could break Azazel's word of honor. At this point, that word was all that he had left. No. No, the Demiurge just had to find the one thing that he'd pay any price for. And then... offer it on the fucking cheap.
"I talk to her first," Azazel demanded.
"Always the intention," the Demiurge said.
As Azazel watched, the fabric of reality warped and twisted in his house, directions bending and time running backwards and sideways, as though the wooden joists of his cabin were now cogs and flywheels of a machine of monumental scale. And Azazel could feel the Real being made unreal, in a strange and almost blasphemous inversion of Angelsong. Light failed, rotted and died, until color by color, seemingly random by number, shapes appeared before Azazel.
A dusky, olive pink of skin.
A black edging into cobalt blue of hair.
Burnished gold of eyes.
Piece by piece, those random colors assembled, until it showed her the sight that Azazel's heart nearly stopped in his chest to see. Tauthe. Sitting on that chair, head turned toward the fire, as she stitched a frayed seam in a dress. She was utterly motionless, as though a sculpture. And in Azazel's mind's eye, he could sense the presence of an Archangel nearby, one who wasn't the Demiurge. No, this was the presence of Gabriel. Right outside the door, about to tear that door from its frame and storm in with crimson hands.
"Tauthe?" Azazel asked, unable to keep the quaver from his voice.
"Father?" a voice drifted to him. "Why can't I move?"
And just like that, the Demiurge had bought Azazel's service in a way that no other possibly could.
Charlie was interrupted in her conversation when there was a pounding at the doors to the lobby. She scowled as much as she was able to at it, but gave Vaggie's hand a squeeze, then moved toward the incessant pounding that was pulling her attention away from the things that mattered more. Surely, a few words and she'd send whoever was making calls of her on their way. And if they weren't that kind of caller, then they dovetailed neatly into that mentioned 'mattering more'.
When she opened the door, it was to a male Fury, who stood looking actually quite a bit like Sam once did, his hair living fire that crept out from around his modern military helm. Behind him, congesting the street to the point where it looked like they were almost barricading it, was an entire military unit. "What are you doing out there?" Charlie asked before the Fury had a chance to speak.
"We are forming a secure perimeter around our AO, Ma'am," the Fury said.
Charlie stared at him. "You're doing what now?"
"The word's come down that we're to mobilize. And because of our standing orders, that means we are to barricade the domicile of our Legatus Damnatio. Who I'm fairly certain lives in these premises," he nodded a bull's-horn toward the Happy Hotel.
"Oooh shit," Charlie muttered.
"Oh shit indeed, Ma'am," the Fury agreed. "Permission to enter?"
"Who the fuck is that?" Vaggie asked, approaching up the lobby. As soon as the Fury saw her, he tapped the radio velcroed to his shoulder.
"Eyes on the Legatus," he said.
"I think these are those soldiers you inherited," Charlie said.
"Really?" Vaggie asked. As soon as she was less than five paces from the Fury, he snapped to a salute.
"Colonel Obadiah Roth, reporting for duty, Legatus," he declared.
"Great. My orders are to fuck off," Vaggie said.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Legatus," Roth said.
"Well, those are my orders. Now follow my orders and fuck off!" Vaggie pointed down the road.
He was about to speak when there was a crash, of metal falling from the sky and burying itself into the roof of Charlie's limo. Even from here, Charlie could see that it was a soldier in The Lovers' Legions, wearing the finest of armor that Uncle Ozzie was willing to give to a simple soldier. The armor was partially molten, shattered in places... and the warrior within was reduced to ash and paste.
With the first falling corpse, the soldiers of Splitwater burst into action, quickly erecting a tent of spellweave over the entrance to the hotel, so that the other bodies that came down, one every other minute or so, would deflect off of the infused canvas instead of landing on valuable war-gear or unwary personnel.
"It's started," Charlie said, her throat tight and her chest heavy. "The New War For Heaven. It's started."
"And we're losing," Vaggie muttered.
"We'll finish deployment at once, Legatus. Do we have permission to use this buildings facilities?"
"No, you..."
"They do," Charlie overrode Vaggie. "...this is war now. Now these people need us to be kind, too."
Vaggie obviously didn't want to agree, but held her tongue. With the Legatus Damnatio overridden by the Heir to the Throne of All Hell, Colonel Roth went back to doing what soldiers do. Digging in. Preparing for the worst.
"I thought we'd win the first day.
I thought we'd win the second day, too. But by the third, I finally clued in and faced the music that the rest of my 'fellow rulers' refused to. I'm just putting it out there: Satan knew exactly what was about to go down, and never said a goddamned word about it. Clever old man. I should have guessed what that damned vow meant the moment it flew from his lips. And look at him now. Just look at him.
We were lazy. As much as we put Belphegor on blast for the shit it got up to and hers/his... well, you've seen that weirdo. Not natural to any degree, and everything they touch becomes as fuckin' alien as they were. You know, I'm starting to think it was kinda dumb to call Bel the 'Embodiment of Sloth' just 'cause we didn't see the moves Bel was making. I got fooled, flat. We all did. We all lost. Some more than others.
I dare say, out of everybody left down here, with FUCKING SATAN's exception... Belphegor? Belphegor actually managed to win."
- Beelzebub, Princess and Embodiment of Gluttony