Michael was exhausted, as was becoming usual for him. Ordinarily, he emerged from fights like the one which had transpired renewed and afire with purpose. Now he was just drained. He saw the way his brothers, his sisters and his cousins looked at him. They looked at him no longer with respect and deference, but alarm and fear.
Something was wrong with him.
They could see it. He could feel it.
Now, though, he just felt as though more of himself were being pincered away with each passing week. And now he had to deal with somebody who was delivering beatings to Angels in broad daylight.
The scene before Michael was fairly typical of the Rat Towers of Cloud One, a hideous malignant overgrowth of buildings piled atop each other in a desperate bid for more living space. Humans had done this before, on the Living World of all places. Kowloon City was not a kind place to live on Earth, and its Heavenly equivalent was somehow all the worse. At least on Earth, the Walled City was a result of expected desperation, fear, and vice. What excuse did anybody, humans included, have for replicating it here in what ought to be paradise?
Michael knew the answer to that. He knew that it was the failure of his Father that gave birth to this depraved ecumenopolis. There were no crime lords or robber barons to leave people afraid and in despair. Just hunger, boredom, and the crushing realization that a life's good works led to this.
All currencies died before the need for food. And here in Heaven, you could not starve to death.
How long had it been since Michael had last eaten? Weeks? Months?
He tapped his nail-file against his teeth, and dragged himself out of his solipsism. It would do no good for either his angelic brethren nor his human charges for him to emulate Metatron. There was a problem that needed solving that was likely within Michael's guile. So he had best solve it.
The building had been ransacked, the internal walls, floors and ceiling ripped up. Gabriel's people no doubt looking for some clue as to what happened here. But Michael had a notion. SEFIROT 16. Samael. It certainly explained why two Firstborn, who had been party to both the Expulsion of The Leviathans and the Fall of Lucifer were beaten so brutally and so one-sidedly. While there was little physical trace for Michael to actually look at, he didn't need to actually have the room in a pristine state to view it.
Because as the Taxiarch, one of his roles was the Watchmaker's Guardian.
He turned his perceptions backward, and the entire building was put together by Gabriel's cadre. Then Michael watched as others of the cadre came and deposited Malik and Atheed on the ground, whence they writhed in pain for some time. But when Michael tried to rewind his sight through time to the point where both were actually struck, his sight fled him.
Again.
This was the third time he'd tried, and just like the previous two attempts, it resulted in nothing but confusion and frustration. Whoever was doing this was adept with Angelic Magic, specifically the Time Lock. The presence or proximity to time-locked events wreaked merry-hell with Postcognition. And from the level of interference, there had to be at least four Time Locks in this tiny area.
There was a flutter, as though a dove were coming in to land. And then with a muted flash of light, there appeared Raguel, armor still scorched, scratched, and pitted by the weapons from the Pit. "I came as soon as word reached me," Raguel said.
"You could have come this time yesterday and had the same result. There is time magic here. Time magic on so small a scale and with such precision that I can only stare agog," Michael said, as he tucked his nail file into a pocket.
"You will have to elaborate. I have heard only that Angels were brutalized amidst the Rat Towers, far from the Unhallow and far from the front," Raguel turned his gaze up and down the pathway amidst the claustrophobic construction that they stood in. "Do you think there is truly a fifth column involved?"
"I don't know what I believe," Michael said, an admission that physically hurt to voice, but needed to be said. "What I know, is that the victims refused to speak on their assailant, or were rendered by injury incapable of it. And there is not a scrap of evidence as to what spilt their blood."
"Do you think it might be one of the Traitor Angels' Outsider beings?" Raguel asked, as he stooped down before the spot where golden blood had been wiped away, under where Malik had landed with his jaw shattered. Raguel reached down and picked up a tooth that had been overlooked. Grim indeed.
"They are required by law to kill all things from Outside, just as we are," Michael said. "And that seems to be the one Law that Lucifer actually adheres to."
"I don't doubt that Lucifer kills the majority of the gibbering madness that floods into his realm. But I also do not doubt that those who gibber less and put credence in guile more will be swayed by his offerings. Not all things from the Realms Outside are mindless horrors; some would be what we could rightly call soldiers or exiles," Raguel said.
"You know more of the Things Outside than you have been letting on," Michael said.
"Your attention was dragged too wide, I sought to ease your burden in an area you were..." Raguel began.
"Shamefully neglecting," Michael finished for him.
"...too busy to handle," Raguel nevertheless ended his own sentence. He palmed the tooth. "This was not done by Beings Outside. Their powers over time are more subtle, stranger to our senses. There is not a Being From Outside that can enact what we would call a Time Lock. This was done by something with knowledge and power of Angelic magic."
"A traitor?" Michael prompted, to see Raguel's reaction. He did not, but that was to be expected with Raguel. "A new traitor, bribed by the Pit? Penemue, perhaps?" Again no reaction. Please don't be that.
Raguel stared for a moment, and Michael finally caught a moment of hesitation in those blazing white eyes.
"You know what did this, Brother. Say so," Michael said, laying a hand on Raguel's pauldron.
"I know who. But I do not know why," Raguel said.
"Why does 'why' even matter?" Michael said. "Speak the name, Brother."
"Why makes all of the difference in Creation," Raguel said resolutely. Michael leaned back. If Raguel wouldn't say it, Michael would.
"Samael," he finally admitted aloud. "This was Samael's work. But why? Have you learned something of his nature?"
"I fear I have. And I would not speak it here, with ears that could hear," Raguel said. Michael stared at him for a moment, then waved his hand. When he did, the area they stood slowly grew more dim, and more red, as the Time Locked light redshifted from outside and for as far as causality was concerned they were separated from the rest of reality. "That will suffice."
"I thought it might," Michael said.
"Samael is not an Archangel. Or rather, is an Archangel, but not one of the Father's."
"Samael is Thirdborn?" Michael asked, face bunched in confusion. "That's impossible. None of the Thirdborn has ever been born with the Second Set. Who was he in life?"
"He was one of yours," Raguel said, taking a step to the edge of the Time Lock and staring at the scene beyond red shifting into blackness. "I have asked what people I can reach, and those who are willing to speak to me. He was a Gifted that you judged to be unworthy, and sent him to the Pit."
"What? Impossible. I've never..." Michael began, but then he paused. He thought, and he remembered. He remembered a shift at the Gates with Peter. Of a man who died in a pool of his own blood after living a paltry and meagre life. When he looked up to Raguel, he could see the quiet reproach in his blazing white eyes. "Father help me... I created him."
"We both did, in our way," Raguel said. "And in so doing, we have birthed the Demiurge."
"Yaldabaoth is a myth," Michael said.
"Yaldabaoth was at our walls only days ago, unearthing the Innocent to interrogate them," Raguel said. "Whatever he gleaned for them, is lost to us, because the Innocent are missing from Heaven."
"Foul beast. Destroying the Innocent..." Michael began, but Raguel shook his head.
"Not destroyed, I believe. But certainly removed," he said. "And shortly after they imparted their words to him, he comes to this place, and is set upon by Forfax, Atheed, and Malik. Of those, the latter two are broken and left writhing on the floor."
"There is a fifth column in Heaven, and its name is Sam," Michael muttered.
"Again, I doubt that is his intention," Raguel said.
"Then what is his intention?" Michael asked of him.
"I cannot say. I do not know," Raguel said.
"Then we are left in a position where the only safe assumption is to presume he is on Lucifer's side," Michael muttered. He leaned against the wall beside him, feeling it creak oddly as it was to an extent cut off from the rest of reality surrounding it. "The War for Heaven was bad enough when a third of the Myriad rallied behind a single Archangel. What will they do now that they have two?"
"Again, you stack intention upon assumption," Raguel said. "He is no mere Archangel."
"There is no such thing as a 'Mere' Archangel. There are a quarter hundred of us in all Creation. Twenty six now with him added. Thirty if we remember the downcast and the dead!"
"If he were merely an Archangel, with the powers on a level that can equal our own, but limited to those things which are within our sight, I would be concerned, but not alarmed," Raguel said, as he scrutinized the tooth in his palm, then set it on the ground again. "He is not. He is the Demiurge. His soul is not the cold flame of the Angel, but the unknown hot flame of Man, Ascended."
"What are you talking about?" Michael asked.
"Did you never wonder why God expended so much effort to create the human soul in the form and sort that it was? It is an alien thing to the Angels or the Devils or the creatures that this realm created from its flesh. Even the Cherubim Undivided in their terrifying guises pale before the might in the meagerest human soul. And it is powerful in a way that Archangels could only wish to be," Raguel said.
"You begin to sound like Yeqon, Brother. I hope you haven't begun to gain too close a tie with the mortals," Michael said.
"Do not impugn my intentions in this. I speak of something you know but do not speak on," Raguel said. By now, they were standing in a tiny pocket of alleyway in a black abyss of nothing, one that was lit only by the white of their halos. "God related to me in confidence, one that I must break now, to say that He considered the construction of the Human Soul to be His Magnum Opus. That His fury at Lilith for taking the gift that He created and spurning Him shook Him, almost as badly as His transit of the Abyss, and what He saw within it. Imagine, now, what a being with a power that even God Almighty considered His finest creation could wield, with that tool refined to its finished, highest state."
"...The Demiurge is God's true son," Michael hazarded.
"Worse," Raguel said. "The Demiurge is the answer to the question God asked three and a half centuries ago."
"What question is that?" Michael asked. "I did not hear the Last Words of God."
Raguel rubbed at the side of his helm, as though considering taking it off but deciding against it. He finally turned to Michael, his blazing eyes now sad.
"He said... 'Did it even matter?'," Raguel said. "And to that, Samael the Poison of God is answering 'yes... but you didn't'."
Chapter 6
The Most Sublime Act
The portal flaring to life in front of them revealed exactly what Blitz had expected, two members of the Jewish Mafia standing in the mostly empty parking lot of I.M.P.'s tower. Blitz wasted no time heaving the heavily shackled human through ahead of him, allowing his Human Disguise to crack when he stepped back into his home plane. His was a pretty grotesque one, a short sparkplug of a man with spiky grey hair and a burn across most of his face. Well, it stood to reason he'd have to pick a hideous disguise to hide his roguish charm. Otherwise, he'd be spending all of his time Topside putting his dick into things.
"Yeah, sorry 'bout the wait. You'd be surprised how fuckin' hard it is to get your hands on a well-connected Nazi these days," Blitz said.
"This is him, Moishe?" Yakob asked, not seeming to be annoyed to any measure by the length of time it took to get this fucker down here.
"It is, it is," Moishe said. He stooped down to the bound and gagged, artificially youthened National Socialist. "I don't suppose you recognize me, time being what it was. You wouldn't admit my kind had names anyway. Just vermin, you said. The kind to be crushed under a hobnail the instant that they're found. Time changes things."
"Oh fuck me he's got a speech prepared," Blitz muttered, as Moxxie and Millie emerged and shed their own Human Disguises, revealing how they were covered in gore and Millie's clothing was practically tatters from the fact that she'd took a shotgun blast to the chest and didn't even bleed from it. Moxxie, though, took a moment to lean against a car and rub his hand down his face.
"Three days, sir. Three days in the Human World."
"We got the job done, Mox. All's well in Hell," Blitz said.
"And there aren't even many of your kind down here. Mine's made sure of that. Just wanted you to know that. Your kind has failed. It has failed and your Thousand Year Reich didn't make it a fucking decade," Moishe continued, whereas Moxxie let out a groan and began to draw the lodestone rune on the ground nearby. "I'd say I'd see you in Hell. But I'm pretty sure I'll see you even sooner than that. Goodbye, vermin."
He then pulled out a long, Seraphic Steel knife that was etched with the words 'Covenant Kept' in Yiddish, which he proceded to drive through the man's eye and out the back of his head. Moishe ripped the blade out the side of his head, popping the skull open as he did. He then turned to Blitz.
"How long until he shows up again?" Moishe asked.
"I think that's him," Moxxie said, pointing directly up. Well that was quick. Guess Heaven had even less patience for Nazis than the Jewish Mafia did. The Nazi wasted no time, streaking at a fairly pronounced angle toward the ground, such that he actually slammed through the facade of a nearby building, and dumping him, somewhat mangled, onto the marking Moxxie had placed on the surface of the parking lot. Even as he lay there, his body warped and shifted, trying to give him the features of a squid.
"Wie.. what?" Bertholder said, as his brain suddenly lost the limitation of having 'first' and 'subsequent' languages. Moishe just stared at the mangled Nazi on the ground for a moment, shaking his head lightly, as though he hadn't expected, after all this time, for such a thing as this to be possible. Well, news-flash, matzo-ball, Blitz was actually really fucking good at his job. Bertholder only had time enough to flail his one intact limb once before Moishe thrust past it and buried that blade straight through the dome of his now blubbery head, twisted, and ripped it out the side just as he had with the mortal body, which was sitting a mere six feet away. The wound, Purified by the weapon that cut it, dissolved Damned flesh into thick grey Demon Bone Ash, and Bertholder got to spend even less time in Hell than the weasel man who'd invented this 'double feature'.
"You're as good as your word. Pay him," Moishe said, tucking the knife into his overcoat and walking toward the security car that was parked on the sidewalk. Yakob nodded, then pulled out his money.
"Ten again, as promised," Yakob said. "And if we find any more of this filth, thirty and ten again."
"I ain't gonna complain for a payday like that," Blitz said, starting to wipe the blood of greedy old human fucks off of him. He even got an idea while doing it. He knew how vengeful Loopty Goopty and Lyle Lipton were. They'd probably be rightly pissed that somebody was using the invention that literally killed them to make themselves rich. If there was one lesson that Birch had taught him – in fact the first lesson that anybody taught him on the matter – was that it was fucking profitable to be proactive. "I'mma go deal with the money shit. You three go have a bit of fun," he said.
"I think I've got to..." Loona pointed up at the office, but Blitz tutted.
"You been workin' for three fuckin' days straight. I know you're not used to that shit, while I am. Go get some rest. Tomorrow we're back on the horse!" Blitz said brightly. It was so strange to think that he'd been so worried about Loona leaving him. It seemed like it'd been a bad dream.
Going up into the building saw him pass by his niece's office, now with its shitty sign hung proudly over the door, and he kicked the doors open to his own. Doing so smashed them into the face of somebody who was on the way out, knocking them to the floor in a daze. "Who the fuck are you!" Blitz demanded, instantly pulling his Luger from its holster.
"Umm, that's a client," that hound... uh... Maelstrom! Maelstrom was his name! Yeah, that hound said.
"Uh huh, since when?"
"Since you left Hell for three days," Maelstrom said. He then moved to the board room and wheeled out the white board, which was now festooned with names, targets, time-frames, and price points. "And you've gotten thirteen clients since then."
"So you've been doing what? Taking down names and numbers? What the fuck do you think I pay you for?" Blitz asked.
"I don't have a human disguise, have no money to buy one, and got hired over the length of a handshake. I have no idea what you pay me for," Maelstrom said.
"Ow. Wha'the'fug habben?" the rodent-like Sinner muttered as he slowly came back into coherence.
"Shut your asshole, buddy, you're lucky to even be here," Blitz said. He looked at the list of targets, and rolled his eyes. "Nix those two, they're bein' cheap as fuck. And why doesn't that one have a location? Were you not payin' attention or some shit?"
"No, that one is a... particular case," Maelstrom said.
"Talk fast, I've got some slightly rancid food to chow down on," Blitz said as he made for the fridge.
"Yeah, I threw that out," Maelstrom said.
"HOW FUCKIN' DARE YOU!" Blitz shouted at him. Maelstrom shrunk back as though he weren't twice as tall and eighty times as deadly as your typical imp.
"I got you Szechuan? To replace it?" Maelstrom indicated, and lo and behold there was indeed a takeout container that was still bound in the etched tin wire that prevented it from going bad, effectively indefinitely.
"Oh. Well. Ya done good on that one," Blitz admitted. He opened it up and tore in. Despite the fact that it'd been in the refrigerator for an unknown duration, the contents were still piping hot.
"What the hell is going on?" the rat-faced client asked.
"Just roll with it," Maelstrom groaned.
"So what's with that fucky job at the end?" Blitz asked while eating like the uncultured swine that he was.
"Yeah, that's not a job for you and your people. I think that's a job specifically for me," Maelstrom said.
"How?"
"They want me to kill Helmut Helmet Helmitt," Maelstrom said. Blitz just gave an oblivious shrug. "The Champion of House Von Brutte?"
"Yeah, I don't keep up with that aristocratic bullshit," Blitz said.
"Well, I thought you might, because of the price," he said. Twenty five K? Not bad.
"So why not just go fuckin' do it?" he asked.
"I thought you might be pissed and think I was trying to cheat you out of money," Maelstrom said.
"Which was right, but ya' didn't, so I give you my blessing to turn that guy into his namesake."
"I'm not going to wear Helmitt as a helmet," Maelstrom said. The rat client just pointed at the door and began to sidle away from the madness that had encircled him.
"Be a lot cooler if ya did," Blitz teased, but Maelstrom lacked the sense of humor to react properly to it. "Go nuts, remember that any money you bring in through that door gets spread even, 25% per head."
"There's five of us, now," Maelstrom said.
"I'm just gonna... leave... now..." the rodent-Sinner said, before slipping out the door.
"Yeah, that means you get 25%, I get 25%, Loonie gets 25%, Moxx and Mills both get 25% each, what's the problem?"
"...basic math?" Maelstrom asked. Then he gave his head a bit of a shake. "I'll do it for five."
"Well shit, never thought I was that good of a negotiator," Blitz muttered to himself. "Now go get out there and kill an idiot. Might as well stop moochin' off whoever the fuck you're moochin' off of and get you working!"
"Great," Maelstrom said, and departed the office. It wasn't until the other Hound was likely in the elevator that Blitz finally caught up to his own math error.
"Mother fucker. He's got five percent on all the rest of us now!"
He said, getting the math wrong in the other direction now.
Still, he was cut off from his clerical duties as the President of the Immediate Murder Professionals Group (Consolidated 2022 with financial primacy over Blitz-Krieg Magical Solutions and partnership with LAST CHANCE Foreign Medicinals) when his Hellphone screamed in pain at his hip. And when he gave it a glance, the caller-ID said 'Stola'. Blitz grumbled for a moment, then hit the button.
"Wha'd'ya want now, Stolas? I've just got back from a long fuckin' job," Blitz asked.
"You're finally back! I was getting a little worried, honestly," the bird on the other end of the line said.
"Yeah, well, sometimes the job runs long. Why are you calling me now?" Blitz asked.
"I've been calling you for the last two days. Do you remember what time of the month we just missed? Hmm?"
Oh fuck me, Blitz thought, he'd just done a job over the Full Moon. And then he remembered; wait a fucking minute, that agreement is in ashes just like the book that Blitz had stolen to enact it! "Well that seems like a bit of a you problem, Stolas," Blitz said.
"Well, I still have responsibilities. And I need access to a Grimoire like yours to do it. So how about we talk about a price. I'm... amenable to many things."
"Yeah, I bet you are," Blitz said, his mind going naughty places. It was strange to think of how desperately he resented fucking that owl when he was first doing the nasty. Now it was a good time all around, and only felt degrading when he was having one of his morbid thoughts. Since thoughts in general and morbid thoughts in particular were a rarity in Blitz's mind, they didn't come around too often. "How 'bout you come bring me a coffee and we'll hash out the deets."
"Coffee? Deets?" Stolas asked.
"You know where I work. I'm groggy and I need some coffee to perk me up. So pick me up some," he said.
"I... ah... have a bit of difficulty travelling right now," Stolas said.
"Why?" Blitz asked, genuinely confused as to why that would be, despite holding the reason in his other hand.
"...It would take me an hour to get there. You'd be asleep by then," Stolas said.
"Fucking hell. They really clipped your wings that bad, huh? Fine. I'll get coffee and we'll do this at your place," Blitz said, and then hung up before Stolas could offer another word in his defense. He flipped the book to the spell of True Teleportation, running his hand down the page and feeling how it didn't glob up like Stellar Portals did, but instead left him feeling stretched thin. When he thought of the coffee-barn a couple streets over, he then heard a loud, metal snap, and he found himself standing, still covered somewhat in gore, in the employee section of that coffee house. A bunch of imps turned to him, took a look at the tall, bloody Lust Imp who held a Goetia Grimoire in his hand, and pomptly went back to whatever they were doing. "Hey you! Coffee, black as my blood, strong as my dick, on the double. And somethin' with cinnamon and hazelnuts, and just a tiny bit of vanilla, with a big fuckin' S on the cup."
They didn't even bother charging him. They simply put the coffee in his hands as fast as they could manage, so that he would leave before whatever was chasing him because he held something that no imp should by any sane stretch of imagination have in his possession. He swiped the True Teleportation again, and with another loud metal snap, he was standing in Stolas' bedroom, with a coffee holder in his teeth. Stolas was pacing, looking a bit worried about something. Probably not important. "Hey, got ya coffee."
"What do I need to do to get access to that book, just for a few hours?" Stolas immediately said, taking the coffee offered to him but keeping it at his hip.
"Whoa, I just arrived. You want the dick you're gonna have to give me a bit of foreplay first," Blitz teased.
"I... Well, if that's what you want," Stolas said, and despite the fact that Stolas was an eleven foot tall owl demon, and the fifth person to throw their lot in with Lucifer, ever, he looked so nakedly desperate that Blitz had to think that something fucky was going on.
"Look, to be honest, I'm tired as fuck. And as much as I hate to admit it, I'm getting old, which means that my dick is like an old diesel generator. If you want some action out of it, you're gonna have to yank on it a bit," Blitz admitted. It sucked being middle aged. "So drink your coffee and make your case."
"You were... just being metaphorical, then?" Stolas asked, pausing with confusion.
"Yeah, what did you think I meant?" Blitz asked.
"I thought you were being literal. As you always are when you talk about The Beast Below."
"Hey, keep calling it that and you might make me blush," Blitz said, sucking down the seething hot coffee. It didn't hurt him because mere heat could not to an imp bring harm, and was about as rejuvenating as he feared, which was less than he'd hoped.
"So what was so–" Stolas began, but immediately gave a jolt, as though somebody shoved a fist up his butt. Then he cleared his throat and started again. "You usually get your jobs done in a matter of hours. Why did this one take so long?"
"Oh, just had to scythe through a bunch of rich old fucks to find a de-aged old fuck so that the Jewish Mafia could kill him twice," Blitz said. And Stolas just stared at him, a confounded look on his face.
"You... kill him twice?" he asked.
"Yeah, turns out some pretty basic magic lets ya' kill a motherfucker twice in a row if you do the first one here in Hell," Blitz said.
"That has to be against the rules... somehow," Stolas said.
"Nope. I checked. Mammon imports, like, a thousand humans a year for Lust to fuck, Greed to enslave, and Gluttony to eat," Blitz rattled off.
"Oh, well, as long as you're not putting yourself in any danger over it," Stolas said, taking a sip of his drink. He then straightened his back. "You remembered my drink!"
"Uh, yeah? Why wouldn't I?" Blitz asked. "You know how many rich old bastards keep an ungodly amount of Nazi shit in their closets? A lot more than I fuckin' thought! Most of those fucks weren't even alive when I was merc'ing their idiot 'heroes'."
"The call to authoritarianism is loudest to those in positions of high hierarchy," Stolas noted.
"That is exactly what Moxxie said. So anyway, I think we killed like, a sixth of the American government and at least one Canadian. Lucky we don't just do jobs in that dumb bitch of a hemisphere, 'Cause I think I managed to annoy 'em."
"You didn't happen to kill Hester McKinley, did you?" Stolas asked.
"One eye'd old bitch with no teeth? Think I backed over her on the way out," Blitz said. Stolas snapped his fingers in annoyance. "One a' yours?"
"Well drat. But I suppose there will always be more plutocrats looking for powers over their lessers," Stolas said.
"So what 'cha need that book for?" Blitz asked.
"I thought you required more 'foreplay'?" Stolas asked, leaning in on him.
"I'm plenty tickled now, let's get to the dicking," he said, then plunked the thing on the table. "Since shit's different now, and now its MY book that YOU're borrowing, I think I need to know what the fuck it is you actually do with it every month."
"I'm sure you won't find it interesting," Stolas demurred.
"Stolas," Blitz said, with a disapproving tone that he was usually on the receiving end of. It was so weird having that turned around him!
"It's arcane magical theory. I don't think you'd..." Stolas began, but Blitz's flat look silenced him.
"Don't think I'd understand," He said. "'Cause I'm just a pretty face with an empty head."
"No! No, no that's not what I mean," Stolas said, gesticulating wildly.
"Really? 'Cause it seems to me like you never did actually think I was even worth the time of night once I tickled your prostate enough. What makes this any different?" Blitz demanded of him. Stolas sighed, rubbing his face in his hands.
"You don't understand, I don't..." he began.
"Well fuckin' explain it then. Explain what you need my book for. And I might just let ya' do it instead of havin' to beg from one a' your uppity bird friends," Blitz said, crossing his arms across his chest.
"There are actually only a few birds amongst the – THAT IS NOT THE POINT!" Stolas snapped, his second set of smaller eyes flaring wide as he involuntarily pushed his wife's social circle out of his head. That cadre was anguish distilled. "I'm trying to say that..." he reached for Blitz, only to have the imp take a step back. "I don't know what I'm doing," he finally said.
"Funny. I thought you knew that book inside and out," Blitz said.
"No! Not the book, I use that to harden the walls of reality so Hell doesn't get more Bleeding Pits than the ones we have. No, I'm talking about... about... us," he said.
"What'd'ya mean 'us'?" Blitz asked.
"This is going to sound like a bit of a tangent, but please, listen," Stolas said, slumping in his chair. "I have never been the pursuer in my relationships. With Stella, she swept me off my feet with her power and audacity during the War for Heaven. And you... well... you know exactly what you did."
"Yeah, I'm actually proud I got that to work," He said. Getting into Stolas' bed the first time was an operation that he'd only bettered with his Status Jihad and killing of Nathan Birch.
"I'm not used to have to be the one to actually reach out. Be the one left in the wind. And it is so very..." he fidgeted for a moment. "vulnerable."
"No fuckin' kidding. For once you get where I've been for the last two fuckin' years," Stolas looked genuinely sad at that. "The fact that you're not a complete fuck-head don't negate that you held me by my dick over the fuckin' Abyss all that time. That shit don't go away just 'cause you're feeling a bit exposed. Talk to me about exposed when you're sittin' with your dick out in front of Stella Goetia and tellin' her that you just fucked... wait where was I goin' with this one?" Blitz trailed off.
"I think we're both very confused right now," Stolas said. He then clapped his hands together with a more positive look on his face. "How about we go do something you'll enjoy?"
"I'm listening," Blitz said.
"How about you come along as I do my job this time?" Stolas asked.
"Why the fuck would I wanna do that?" Blitz asked.
"You'll get to push around people who used to treat you like scum~," Stolas teased in a most provocative tone. Blitz didn't even need to think very hard on that.
"You know, you're really fuckin' good at foreplay, Stolas," Blitz said.
"I have to be to keep up with you," Stolas said, taking Blitz's hand. Blitz, though, dragged that hand past him and levered Stolas' body down so that his head was on a level with Blitz's own.
"Just remember who's gonna be holdin' the riding crop when we're finished with your bullshit job," Blitz said with a wide, hungry grin.
"Ohhhhh yes," Stolas said, practically popping off on the spot. Good to know that Blitz still had the touch.
"Well?" Rachel asked, standing at the door of the bunker's 'pantry' which had been converted into a secure operating theatre of sorts. Much of the rest of the bunker was noisy with the actions of Splitwater in general and Roth in particular. Here, though, because of the odd, sound dampening properties of Weepstone, there was relative quiet.
"It has been a day. I said no less than two. Why do you rush me so?" the young imp said, continuing to hold her fingers just above O'Daire's right eyebrow. The imp's eyes were closed like O'Daire's were, and she sat on a little stool with one foot pressed to the back wall. If Rachel knew the posture well, she was keeping herself that way so that if she ever needed to flee, she could push off the back wall for maximum acceleration. Rachel had sat like that once, a very long time ago.
"I presume your art isn't well known for having milestones, then," Rachel said.
"None that you, unmagical lump that you are, could recognize. Now be silent else break my focus," Krieg said. Getting the Dragon through an MRI machine turned out to be more elementary than Rachel had presumed. Instead of having to undergo some sort of caper in the world of the living, which Rachel was fairly certain she was barred from entering, Charlie just demanded a spot and a time at Our Lady of Unreasonable Violence Hospital, and got O'Daire in first thing that morning.
"Well?" Charlie then asked from the hallway.
"Apparently things are proceeding apace," Rachel said, leaving the imp to her magic. "But we're going to have another problem with the patient."
"How so?" Charlie asked.
"Remember how I said that there might be something physically wrong with O'Daire?"
"You did," Charlie said with a nod.
"There is," she said. She gestured past the soldiers who continued to carefully set up wires and cabling to the barracks that took up most of the space of this bunker. Along the wall, hanging in a spot which was more flat than the surrounding, curved walls was a flat-screened television, a recent invention that Rachel had apparently missed. On that screen, to a click of a remote, she showed the scans that had been taken from the Dragon in the pantry.
And those showed that even if former-Irish-nun-turned-Black-Sea-pirate Fiona O'Daire hadn't died drunk and covered head to foot in Greek Fire, she would have perished from a stroke or a cranial infarction. There was a tumor the size of Rachel's fist in the center of O'Daire's brain. While Rachel made no claims of being a trained neurosurgeon, she did know the rudiments of how different parts of the brain had different uses. And the pressure of that tumor had literally crushed and necrotized a portion of O'Daire's prefrontal cortex.
She spent the last fifteen years of her mortal life physically incapable of moderating her impulses.
And given the history that Rachel dredged up, that same wild lack of impulse control had followed her into death. O'Daire was a vastly powerful woman, one who took the might of righteousness and turned it to vice, which meant she hit Hell stronger than most newly fallen. But still, despite her vast power, which was said to be equal to a now long-dead Sinner called 'Jingo', she was only Overlord of a small and rapidly fluctuating domain that swelled and ebbed as her passions flared and waned.
In the time of the Pride War, she was seen as at best a blunt instrument, something to be unleashed on your enemy while you stood the hell back, and at worst a rabid animal.
If it was a physical problem, it would yield to a physical solution.
It was so fortunate that Rachel required no sleep, ever since she came to Hell. There was just so much that needed doing down here. And research, both in her life before and her afterlife thereafter, took up no small amount of time.
"I don't know much about brains, but that doesn't look right," Charlie said, looking at the obvious tumor.
"You don't need to be an expert helicopter pilot to know something's gone wrong when one is upside down in a tree," Rachel said. "That needs to come out of her if there's going to be any chance at recovery. Which means it's lucky she's a Sinner and thus pretty unlikely to die on the table; brain-surgery is very dangerous where I come from."
"That she's a Sinner is a bigger problem than that," Charlie said.
"How so?"
"She'll Regenerate the tumor," Charlie said.
"That sounds like bullshit," Rachel said, allowing herself an admittedly uncommon profanity.
"I'm not lying," Charlie said.
"No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the rules saying that the part of you that is crippling you is the part you're not allowed to live without is bullshit," Rachel said. She rubbed at her head for a moment, giving a bit of thought to this. "Do you have Angel Steel in the building?"
"Vaggie's harpoon?" Charlie gestured vaguely downward.
"Something more handy than that," Rachel said flatly.
"Why?"
"Because apparently Purified wounds don't heal. And a Purified tumor can't regrow itself," Rachel said.
"Well, there are other options, actually. None of them are good, but they exist," Charlie said. "Intoxination by Stygium keeps 'wounds' from Regenerating, and incineration by Infernal Talc destroys them retroactively, so they there's nothing there for the body to Regenerate."
"And from the sound of them, that is either applying a poison or napalm to a brain. Not the most discerning of implements," Rachel said.
"Maybe there's a magic that can help?"
"We're already putting the woman under one battery of mind-shaping magic," Rachel said, and then had to step back so that a trio of soldiers could move past the two women, unspooling cable as they went.
"Exactly. What's a penny in after a pound?" Charlie asked.
"I can't find fault in that logic," Rachel admitted. "Give me a minute."
Charlie said something, but Rachel ignored it as she returned to the pantry, reentering the imp's domain. The she-imp was still sitting very still atop her stool with her legs curled under her, one hand with fingers pressed against O'Daire's forehead where her scales were almost invisibly small. Eventually, Rachel cleared her throat, and Krieg slid jaundiced red eye open to look at her.
"I am busy. Speak or leave," Krieg said.
"Thaumaturgical surgery," Rachel said.
"What of it?" Kreig asked.
"Can you give a rudimentary explanation of its workings while still doing your work?" Rachel asked.
"Of course I can. I am no fool of a Brickker. I could do this while unicycling and juggling chainsaws with one hand!" she said.
"So. What is the difference between Miracle Surgery and Thaumaturgical Surgery?" Rachel asked. Charlie had taken a spot behind Rachel, her questions now obviously being ignored so she let the she-imp have the floor.
"The former is what I do now, a thing of healing intangibles with ease but for their time. Though Miracle Surgery can restore flesh – some say even flesh lost to Purification – I have never seen it done, and I cannot see how the theory would apply to the practice," Krieg said, sliding her eyes closed again. "The limits of Thaumaturgical Surgery, though? Those are much more unclear."
"Why so?" Rachel asked.
"Because Moxxie Rough invented the entire discipline last month and has had little chance to explore its extent," Kreig said.
"So how does it differ in practice?"
"Were you not listening? Where Miracle Surgery handles intangible things, Rough's Practice handles the material. It uses the power of the Black Blood of Imps to Unchange what was ruined to a state where it was not."
"Rewinding an injury, then?" she asked.
"To put it colloquially? Yes," Krieg said.
"What would it do for syndromes that were endemic to the victim?"
"A congenital defect? It would pull them back to a point before the defect became terrible, but it could not erase it entirely," Krieg said.
"How long would it take if you were to, say, rewind a massive tumor in a Sinner's brain for that tumor to return?" Rachel asked.
"Is this why our now-pink dragon friend was so bellicose toward me? Hm," Krieg gave a moment's thought, chin on her fist. "I am of two minds. Perhaps it is true that the Damned stop growing, that the tumor shall not return. Perhaps it is more likely that the tumor will be reverted to its earliest state, and regrow over the course of years if not decades."
"It will be the latter," Charlie finally piped up from Rachel's back.
"Why do you say that?" Rachel asked.
"Wendy got out," Charlie looked so very happy at that. But then again, there was nobody here who had anything bad to say about this Wendy character. Either because they seldom interacted with her, or outright envied her, her lingering echoes were positive.
"A decade, with a problem we know will be coming, is more than enough time to come up with a more permanent solution," Rachel said.
"A decade is a blink in the face of eternity," Krieg pointed out.
"So is an imp's entire lifetime. Or a human's," Rachel said. "Doesn't make it any less the case. Can you do the work yourself? We will of course pay you for the service."
"Um, Rachel? When did we agree that you could spend my money?" Charlie asked, although with a far gentler tone than most would have expected from a denizen of Hell.
"Are you going to tell me not to spend money directly and demonstrably on your client's wellbeing?" Rachel asked her.
"Well, no, but..."
"So the issue is a desire to micromanage, rather than penny-pinch," Rachel said.
"I do not micromanage!" Charlie said.
"You kinda do, Ma'am!" A soldier shouted down the hall.
"Nobody asked you, Barry!" Charlie shouted at him. With her dander now up, Charlie forced herself to puff out a calming breath, and had the red retreat from overtaking the whole surface of her eyes to merely being the color of her irises once more. "I would appreciate it if you involve me on expenditures relating to the services of the hotel. I've dealt with embezzlement before and I don't want to be surprised with my money vanishing into the Cain: King of the Pit Fanclub or the Creatures From Outside Rehabilitation Committee."
"I presume those have stories behind them?" Rachel asked. Charlie just gave her a very flat look.
"If you to are done hissing at each other, no, I cannot do that work by myself. I will need to bring in assistance, which, yes, will cost, although less than for this by a heady margin," Krieg said. "I cannot heal the mind and heal the brain simultaneously. And I will not risk having this woman awaken with a still-broken brain."
"I thought you were the only Thaumaturge in Pride Ring," Rachel asked.
"Not anymore, since Moxxie Rough implanted that strange gland into himself," Krieg said. "He invented Rough's Practice, hence its name. He would understand its nuances even more deeply than I."
"So how do we contact this 'Moxxie Rough'?" Rachel asked.
"My satchel, hence," She snapped the fingers of her other hand and pointed to the satchel she'd brought with her. She'd actually brought an imp-appropriate piece of luggage as well, which showed she honestly believed she'd be here for several days. But the satchel in question was here, so Rachel handed it over. The she-imp dug through it for a moment, then pulled out a bright red business card, handing it over.
Rachel read it, about to hand it back to Charlie, but her mind registered what was actually on it before she did. "I think you handed me the wrong card," Rachel said.
"No, I did not," Krieg said. Rachel looked down at the card, which had the emblem of three imps – two male and one female – in silhouette above the words Immediate Murder Professionals. "Moxxie Rough is a subordinate to my Uncle, Blitzø Miller," she said.
"The assassin?" Charlie asked, dismay clear in her voice.
"We don't need him to be an assassin, we need him for being a healer," Rachel said.
"He's still an assassin!" Charlie pressed.
"Have you ever killed somebody?" Rachel asked.
"Have you?" Charlie asked, crossing her arms before her chest.
"I asked you first. But to answer your question, no. I have not. I have let people put themselves in positions where they would die, but I didn't kill them."
"That doesn't sound like something Heaven would allow," Charlie said.
"And you?" Rachel asked. Charlie shifted, uncomfortably. "So yes, then. Does that make me morally your superior because you have spilled blood where I have not? Or is reality more nuanced and more complicated than that?"
"You know it's the latter," Charlie said, defensiveness clear in her words.
"Exactly. So if we hire this admitted assassin to do a healer's work, we are lowering the net amount of assassins doing assassin work in Hell, even temporarily," Rachel said.
"You would have made a terrifying lawyer," Charlie noted.
"Lawyers are tolerated at best and despised at worst, and being one is only useful if you're trying to become a judge, which loops back to being respected," Rachel said. Truthfully she had considered law as an option, and had taken quite a few courses in her undergraduate time. But with the system rigged against people like her – poor and of indigenous heritage – she knew that the fastest and surest path to societal prestige was through social work. NWA sang Fuck Tha Police. Nobody alive sang Fuck Tha Fire Department.
Well, actually, that was a song down here in Hell, but that was because the Fire Department here was divided into those who put out fires... and those who start them.
"Very well. Rachel, could we have a minute?" Charlie said, her tones sweet but clearly to some degree annoyed.
"Hah, you're in trouble," Krieg said from her stool. Rachel followed the Heir to the Low Throne all the way out of the bunker, to one of the rooms in the hotel proper which had been emptied of furniture and was being used as a server room, if only to keep the bunker from becoming an oven.
"I take it you're not impressed by my methods," Rachel said, standing in the chill of the room, against the droning of the industrial-scale heat sinks and air conditioners.
"I can't be seen doing business with assassins," she said.
"And yet you have a mafioso and a former Overlord as clients," Rachel said. "You can have it one way or the other but not both. Either you willingly associate with dangerous people, believing that good can come of them, or you eschew them entirely."
"That isn't how this works," Charlie began.
"I get it. You think you understand the way that Hell works just because you've spent two centuries here," Rachel said. That had been a surprise to her when Husk told her. Rachel would have pegged Charlie as not a day over literal twenty five. "The fact is, I probably understand it better with the fifty I've spent in the three varietals of damnation I've experienced than you have. If you want to be ideologically pure, that's your business. But know that you're not going to get anything done if you do. Purity is a terrible indicator for effectiveness."
"It's my name on the deeds, and my name at the top of the programs. I need to do this right," Charlie said, chopping her hand into her other palm.
"Heterodoxy has always been more effective at proselytizing than strict orthodoxy," Rachel said. "The belief that bends to accommodate the strange viewpoint is more palatable, more understandable, and more acceptable than the one which demands you change your thinking to suit its paradigm in order to reconcile it. You are looking at the hotel from a very orthodox viewpoint. If I do this, then this will occur. But let me ask you this: Is life simple, or complicated?"
"Complicated, obviously," Charlie didn't look amused by the question.
"So why is it that you presume that life would offer simple answers to any complicated questions?" Rachel asked. Charlie stared at her. "Stop me if I offend, but when you claim you got a person into Heaven, I have to ask did you really? Or did you provide the staging ground for that person to get into Heaven themselves?"
"I..." Charlie said.
"And don't answer from ego. Think. Take a breath. Give it a moment. And think about why she vanished from your care when and where and how she did. Think. Think," Rachel said, continuing to draw out Charlie's response until she actually did what Rachel coached her into doing. When Charlie's eyes fell to the floor for a moment, and her expression grew pensive, Rachel let her do it. Contrary to popular depictions of therapy being 'how did that make you feel' or blaming problems on wanting to have sex with your mother, it was actually more akin to this, of forcing you to stop when you wanted to go, go when you wanted to stop, of looking past instinct and reaction and finding what underpinned it.
Never forget, for example, that Charlie Magne of the House of Morningstar was the daughter of the True Incarnation of Pride.
The only difference is that Charlie knew it, and didn't want to mindlessly walk that path.
"I did the latter," Charlie eventually said, her annoyance gone, resolution now taking its place. "I have no idea what happened to see her Ascended. But I know I had to have helped. Somehow, some way, I helped. And I can help others."
"And do you also accept that individuals end up in Hell for vastly different reasons?"
"Obviously," Charlie answered Rachel's leading question.
"So it therefore stands to reason that individual strategies for 'Redeeming' clients would necessarily be that; individual."
"Obviously," Charlie said again.
"And can I presume that you don't possess some otherworldly knowledge because of your blatantly supernatural nature?" Rachel asked.
"What do you mean by that?" Charlie asked.
"You're the Devil's daughter. There's a lot of things people could interpolate from that," Rachel said. She then gave a shrug. "And from the fact that you find that baffling, that means that either you don't, or the knowledge that you do possess is close-to-the-metal. That being the case, I have training that you don't, in an area that you want. Trust that I can use it."
"Very well," Charlie said. She then gave her head a shake. "You know, Sam wasn't nearly as pushy as you are."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Rachel said. "Now I'm going to go hire an assassin to do brain surgery. Is there anything else you need from me?"
The gymnasium was a part of Lucifer's palace that he never used. After all, he was already perfect, there was no use gilding a gilded lily. But there was a hitherto unexpected hiccup in his inward perfectionism; occasionally somebody or something comes along that punches your zen in the face. Thus it was that Lucifer was in one of the more neglected areas of his quickly rebuilding palace, lifting barbells as though he were an up-jumped monkey made of meat.
Every time he did, it hurt, but hurt less. He'd run out of patience for his macerated muscles to just reform properly. No, now he was going to force them to be correct as an act of will.
Of course, Lilith was quite happy watching him, stripped to the waist as he was, engaging in physical exertion. She watched every tension of his muscles with the hunger of somebody who wanted to devour a feast after starving for a week. It was heartening to Lucifer to know that, even after the impossible had happened, he's still got it.
The door to the gymnasium opened with a creak. And when it did, Lucifer forced his will into his flesh, and when he did, the fading yellow-brown of bruises vanished all over his body, suppressed by his force of willpower, as he turned to face the imp, who scuttled over, eyes averted, and handed over a scroll. Lucifer didn't even favor the little cretin with a word, just gesturing away, and having it flee. The door closed with a creak again, and like releasing a held breath, Lucifer's welts and bruises returned.
"What is it?" Lilith asked, moving from where she'd been standing at the periphery to now looming over him. He handed it over to her, not even bothering to look at it. She quickly unfurled it, and let out a displeased 'hrm'. "It seems that Mammon was not the only one who was dragging his heels. There are five legions still engaged in the Forever War."
"Fucking damn it all," Lucifer said. "I told them to knock that sophomore bullshit out and do their jobs."
"If this is what it seems, it could be that somebody is trying to hold forces back so that they may use those forces to claim victory over their hellbound supposed-allies," Lilith said. She then raised a delicate finger. "But there is one obvious problem."
"Do tell," Lucifer said.
"The legions are those of Naberius," she said.
Lucifer scowled at that. "Naberius? That old crow? That's..."
"Entirely out of character for him to stab somebody in the back when he can challenge them and defeat them honorably to their face? Entirely so," Lilith said.
"So you agree, somebody's playing a double game, here?" Lucifer said. When it came to predictability in the Ars Goetia, Naberius was second only to Belial, and that was a really fucking high bar to set. He snapped his fingers and conjured up a Hellphone. After flitting a few times down the long list of his angelic brethren who had followed him to the Pit, he reached the number for his Proxy. "Well, either Naberius is showing heretofore never before seen guile, or somebody's fucking with a reliable soldier and his legions. Can't have that either way. Pick up you little shit."
"Yeah what's up, big hoss?" The imp on the other side said. Lucifer just stared for a moment. 'Big hoss'? Was that some sort of imp thing? He never paid any attention to their societies as a rule, because they were so far beneath the fiends, let alone his own level of perceptions.
"I have a job for you."
"Right now?" he asked.
"Of course, right now," Lucifer said. "Naberius has not pulled his troops from the Forever War, and..."
"That is very out of character for Naberius!" the high, lyrical voice of Prince Stolas wafted through the phone, which made Lucifer shoot a glance to his wife. So that was still going on? How saccharine. And now, Lucifer couldn't even punish it as a Breach of Standing And Decorum, because that idiot imp was now – until he got himself killed, anyway – on the bottom of the same social strata as Lucifer's family members.
"Despite his and all of the Ars Goetia's mistaken understanding of things, and I do hear you there, Stolas, those legions are not yours. They are mine. And I want them all. Go to Naberius, and give me back my fucking legions."
"Mind if I off him if he gets lippy?"
"Do you even need to ask?" Lucifer asked, then hung up on him.
"It might be a bit hasty sending the imp on such a task," Lilith said. "Their kind are not best known for their discretion or their aptitude. They live flicker-lives, dying long before they could achieve any kind of mastery. I think you should either strip him of his Remit and terminate him, or just use him as the blunt instrument that he is."
"Ah, but you overlook the critical parts of his current appointment as my hand in Hell," Lucifer said to his bride. He held up a finger. "One, he is material proof that even the lowest of scum can hold a high office. And that kind of naked ambition will eventually promulgate to his much more capable successor who will serve me with a truly lunatic zeal. Two, every success he does manage to achieve will both bring shame upon my previous Proxies and set a successively higher bar for my future ones. And three? It will amuse me greatly to watch how he inevitably dies."
"I still believe that he is a gamble to even keep in your service," Lilith said. "He is already too close to one of your brothers."
"Who the fuck cares at this point? It's not like he's going to make a half-imp Nephilim with him. I don't know if you've not been paying attention, my sweet, but two men cannot a baby make."
"His presence in the social circle of Stolas Goetia is going to cause disruption, mark my words," Lilith said, gently kneading his shoulders. "He already managed to keep the Duchess of Iron out of the vanguard just by fucking her husband."
"Still. He's just an imp. Either today or some day in the future he'll die and I'll have somebody with a bit more discretion," Lucifer said. He got to his feet, still aching, still having muscles twinge with pain when he moved then just so. Lilith ran her fingertips along his arms and his face, and when she did, Lucifer could see the Old Magic forming a mildly refractive field that surrounded him entirely, making white light seem ever so slightly rainbow-esque as it reached him. It was the Old Glamour, something that as far as the King was aware, only Lilith in all Creation could do. "Now I'm going to go out for a little walk. Would you accompany me?"
"It would do Hell a wonderful fright to see you in the streets again," Lilith said with a smile as sultry as the finest offerings of Lust. He didn't bother getting his heralds to lead him. Like his old moonlit walks, he wanted to be able to see what Hell was, to remind himself why he had to be king. Sometimes despite having all the delights culinary at your fingertips, you have to eat garbage to remind yourself why you shouldn't eat garbage.
A snap of Lucifer's fingers, and there was a fluttering sound, dark grey feathers falling to the ground around where he and his bride had suddenly appeared in the heart of Low Central. The streets were in about as good a shape as they were going to ever be, what with the Purge coming in right around a month. The stores were starting to close, the restaurants serve their surges, and the bars and lounges to open.
There was something... quietly content... about these walks. Something that the Angel of Ambition could not explain for all his wit and loquaciousness. People of course recognized him, and those who were unfortunate to be in his way and unable to flee genuflected on the rain-soaked pavement. Of course, they'd only gotten about a block when a carcass streaked down from the sky and splattered into the middle of an intersection.
"They seem to be running out of corpses to throw out," Lilith said.
"I expect better from Asmodeus the next time he goes up there. Fucking pathetic. Losing that many people with nothing to show for it," Lucifer said.
Lilith turned a look to him. And that look would have had him explode with rage and murder whoever gave it, if it were anybody else in all Creation giving it except for her. A look very gently reminding him that the only reason that Asmodeus had stormed that broken wall – and the wall had indeed been broken down for its entire circuit, as he had predicted – was because Lucifer was physically unable to do it himself.
They picked a restaurant that looked like it might be interesting. Interesting garbage, but as noted, sometimes you have to remind yourself. The two stepped in, and the instant that the host, a Mutant with four eyes and the features of a shark, saw them, he immediately lost where he was in his conversation and stared. Lucifer just impassively stared back.
"Can I get you two a table?" the shark asked, with a voice so high and squeaky it was like his balls never dropped.
"Do be so kind," Lilith said with the silkiness of velvet rubbed the right way. The host rose and moved to a nice looking table which had a pair of aristocratic looking fiends eating at it. Without a word said, the host grabbed both plates and threw them away onto the floor, grabbing the man by his shoulders and lifting him out of his chair. The fiend gave furious rejoinders at first, but when the host turned and oriented him so that he, and his date, could see why he was being displaced, he fell silent.
Then the whole restaurant did likewise.
He stopped fighting at that. The host let him go, and the two of them just slinked away, while the rest of the wait-staff ignored all of the rest of the restaurant and made sure the table that had been vacated would be prepared in the forty seconds it took for the most powerful duo in the Pit to reach it. They barely made it. His opinion of the place rose, slightly.
"I remember this place, in retrospect," Lilith said as she laid her stole across the back of her chair. It left her wearing a backless number that revealed much from many angles. "I think this place was run by an Elder Devil until recently."
"Fucking Elder Devils," Lucifer muttered.
"He knew how to make a proper curry, if memory serves," Lilith continued. Lucifer may have been older than Lilith, but she had spent quite a bit more time in Hell than he had. "Of course, I don't smell any. Poor Durga probably shuffled off, as all their kind do."
"I can think of one Elder Devil we could do without," Lucifer muttered as he looked over the paltry offerings that this establishment had to offer. They didn't even have anything interesting. Just hell-born produce and meats with various means of preparation, seasoning and presentation. How very pedestrian.
"Satan's position is stronger than it was," Lilith said. "And when their counterattack comes, it will grow stronger still."
"How do we break him of that strength, my sweet?" Lucifer asked.
"Until the Host's counter-charge is broken, I fear we must not," she said. Lucifer didn't like that. But he listened. He listened as his wife explained why. Why he had to put up with FUCKING SATAN for another day, let alone the length of this war. Oh, but if he had the slightest edge on that religious nutjob, he'd have pitched him into the Abyss an eon ago. It always galled him that he couldn't clean sweep Hell, to install an entire parade of his own followers into positions inferior to him. No. There just had to be that one asshole he didn't want there in the first place and couldn't find a way to get rid of. His bitter thoughts swirled for a while as she expounded at length, until he felt Lilith reach across the table and take his hand.
"Lulu? Your phone is ringing," she said.
Lucifer frowned at her, as he heard nothing. But when he manifested his phone, it was in fact ringing. And the caller-ID was 'Proxy-the imp'. Great. More direction he was going to have to give out to that little cretin.
"I am not best pleased to be fielding a call right now," Lucifer said.
"It wasn't Naberius. It was a shitty under-captain..." the imp said without preamble.
"Demi-Legatus, Blitzie," the longshanks owl intruded.
"Right what he said. It was Demi Legatus who wanted to replace his boss by makin' you come after him for fuckin' around with the legions."
"...it's been twenty five minutes," Lucifer said.
"He's really shitty at hiding his secrets. Believe me," the imp said. "You want me to off the l'il bitch and get his troops moving again?"
Lucifer just stared across the table at Lilith, who was looking almost interminably smug.
"I told you he was going to be more than you reckoned for," she said with a proud, red-lipped smirk.
And Lucifer grinned back, knowing something she didn't. "If only you knew."
"It was written a little while ago on Earth that 'The most sublime act is to set another before you'. Blake, he had a way of saying things. But that has a habit of being misinterpreted down here. Down here, they think 'setting another before you' is about dodging blame and harm, letting somebody else take the fall for you. It's the opposite. It's putting that others needs above and before your own. Having others means that you have something to fight for. And with the war the way it is, having something to fight for means you have something to not die for.
Trista figured it out fast, but considering that were it not for a lot of things conspiring against her, she wouldn't have landed here to begin with, it made sense that the first person I saw who actually internalized the true meaning of the Proverb was our friend, the one named after the philosopher. I believe you've mocked him in your shows before. Friends are a viciously rare commodity here in Hell. And when you get them, they're worth fighting to keep. I think a lot of the reason why so many of the old timers like me just lingered in this durance vile for so long was because we conflated the absence of God with the absence of hope. Of camaraderie. Of connection.
Once people started to learn that? Well, that's when things really started to change, wasn't it?
-Cain, Terror Incarnate and First of the Damned