"You've been quiet for a while, now," Rachel said, intruding on Fiona's quiet contemplation. She turned a slit eye to the small woman who was intruding onto this territory as though she belonged here. But in a very real way, Fiona had come to realize, Rachel did belong here. More than Fiona did, even. Because this place was about people who'd hit rock bottom wanting to become pure enough to enter Heaven. And there wasn't enough bleach and soap on Earth to scour away the things that Fiona had done in her life, and not enough in all Creation to even scrape the first layer off of what she'd since done in Hell.
"Snow doesn't stay very long, down here," she said.
"In Heaven, it doesn't snow at all," Rachel noted. "Or at least it hadn't in the last twenty years. I don't have a useful frame of reference before that. I take it from your expression that this brings back memories?"
Fiona's face shifted for a moment into a stubborn expression, trying to ignore that she'd been made so effortlessly. She'd considered telling Rachel to get out, once upon a time, for daring to have the audacity to plumb into Fiona's foul and cancerous depths. Now, though... Fiona was tired. And she wanted the pain to stop.
"It reminds me of my home," she said, watching the fat flakes drift downward, now that the temperature had risen up to 'merely' freezing. She used her crutches to hobble next to the chair that sat beside the window, so she could still watch even when she wasn't standing. It was still uncomfortable to lower herself, as her upper-legs at her hips and thighs screamed with tearing sensations every time she moved them more than the slightest bit. True, she could move her legs from her knees down, now, but that didn't offer much in the way of mobility. When she'd finally settled herself she looked out at the snow once more. "I wasn't always Fiona O'Daire. Just like you weren't always Rachel Scailes."
Rachel nodded, not offering any judgment having that truth brought up. After all, 'Rachel' was the name that the Catholics had given to her when they imprisoned her for the accident of her birth, and 'Scailes' was the surname she took in marriage. Lesser or more foolish people would have pitied or reviled her for bending so far in the face of oppressive force; Fiona knew better. Rachel had declared that any price was allowable to survive what had killed her fellow prisoners. And she paid it without complaint. Such resolve was to be lauded, not mocked. "I presume you're talking about Connacht," Rachel said.
"My father was Fergal O'Ruairc," she said. When Rachel tilted her head in lack-of-recognition, Fiona specified. "He was the petty king of Connacht."
"So you were a pirate princess," Rachel said with a mildly droll tone.
"If only I should be so lucky," she said. "Fergal – for I will not call that arsewipe 'father' – came late to the crown. I was born when he was still an uninherited son. I was an inconvenience to him. T'would have been simpler if I was the bastard he always claimed that I was. I could have stomached that. It's the way of bastard children of mighty men to fall into the shadows of history. But I was born of his wedded wife. Though the Tanists would never have spoken for me, I had a claim to that fucking throne!"
"You were disinherited," Rachel said, as though that explained a presumption she'd silently made. Damn that woman, and her clever damned eyes. It was fortunate that Rachel Scailes was on the same side as Fiona. She would not have liked the prospect of somebody with such incisive perspective whom Fiona was utterly unable to remove from the board by killing her. That had been a shock to Fiona, that Rachel simply could not be killed. Perhaps that was the reward of Heaven: Truly, life everlasting.
"I was made to take the vows and join a convent in Ulster. I was twelve years old. I grew up on wine, cheese, and beef. And now I was living on bread, water, and salt," Fiona found herself getting angry all over again recalling those miserably cold, damp, and pain-filled days. "I already knew how to read, to write, knew my numbers. But they treated me like any other illiterate bumpkin, inventing things to punish me for because I was... 'uppity'. That I dared to look those black-habited bitches in the eye and stand with my back straight in the house of God. Pride, they said I had. I just knew what I was worth!"
"You're not going to see me saying one word in defense of the Catholic Church, either in your time or mine," Rachel said with a shrug. Fiona, though, kept speaking.
"They ate like princes, the Abbess and her cronies did. Wine, and cheese, and beef. They grew fat while the rest of us turned to skin stretched tight over bones on unleavened bread, and whatever fish we could catch in the few minutes each day that we weren't being 'taught', being made to pray to a God who never cared about us, or..."
"And the anger just kept getting stronger, with every paltry meal," Rachel said, and in those cold blue eyes, Fiona saw a mirror of her own burgeoning rage.
"One day, one of the other girls came to bed smelling of beef-fat. She had been put to work in the kitchens because the Abbess had decided that she was finally meek enough. That was the last straw for me, that smell in the air. I was hungry. Hungry enough that the only thing that kept me from devouring the girl was that I knew where the real food was. And even starved as I was, I was bigger than any of the other girls; only the Abbess was bigger, and that was because she was as wide as she was tall, and practically rolled to get around. No, I went to the larder, kicked the spit-girl out of the way, and I consumed the entire beef, that night," she said, a note of pride in her voice, still remembering how unbelievably sweet that the meat had tasted to her, after five years of privation.
"I can't imagine the Abbess was happy with that," Rachel said, purely rhetorical because it was clear she held no sympathy for the ball of adipose tissue and blind-zealotry that had been put in charge of that place.
"She was not," Fiona shook her head. "She had her ghouls hold me down and took an iron to the stove, getting it nice and red hot. She said that 'my hungers would bring the shame of God' on the convent. As if she wasn't doing that already herself. I'm not joking to say if you set her on fire, she'd burn for a week. So when that piece of red-hot iron was pushed in, to sear my tongue, I finally... stopped. Stopped holding back. Stopped ignoring the fact that I as a teenager was larger and stronger than grown women twice my age."
She leaned back, remembering the moment, how she recoiled and shouldered into the poker – giving her a scar that only death removed from her, and using the sheer momentum to hurl the Abbess' cronies bodily at their mistress. "Of course, then it was a brawl. But though they were grown, and had bludgeons to beat me with, I was more than six feet tall, and had seen enough pugilists to know what advantage that gave me. One punch to each crony, and they hit the floor like a sack of dogshit. I broke my knuckles. I remember that clearly, the cracking pain, and the red oozing from my fists as I rounded on the spherical bitch herself."
"And I imagine she didn't offer much resistance either," Rachel said.
"She grabbed a knife. In defiance of the tradition against the Clergy spilling blood she took up a knife and tried to cut me with it," she shook her head at the memory. The truth was, she'd gotten closer to gutting Fiona than she'd cared to admit, because that was a most ancient Fiona who understood most poorly the art of combat. "So when I broke her hands on the cauldron and took that knife for herself, I decided 'fuck it'. They were already going to Outlaw and Excommunicate me for this. I might as well go all the way. So I took one of those... I don't hasten to call it a loaf of bread, because they had the structure and rigidity of a brick. Imagine if you would a pill of concrete with the dimensions of your arm and hand; that's what they fed me and the other girls. Well, I took that thing, and I told her that if she really wanted to be our Abbess, she should enjoy the same fare we do. And I shoved that entire thing down her gaping gullet."
"And you choked her to death on hardtack," Rachel said, a look alike to satisfaction on her face.
"She died blue-faced with a mouth full of food that she'd never had pass her lips before that day. And I decided, right there and then, that I would never be denied the tastes and pleasures of the world again. I gathered a few of the more rebellious girls, stole out into the dells, and we eventually stole a sloop. After that? We fought alongside sellswords, played merry with bandits, and within the half-decade our group expanded enough to be a real pirate crew," she said, letting the nostalgia wash over her. She wasn't blind to the fact that things didn't happen quite so easily as she'd just said, but the fact was that she, a woman in the dark-ages of Europe, managed to carve a path for herself without a man's say-so more than justified any costs made in the doing so.
"And it all started because you smelled roasting beef," Rachel said with a distant nod. Fiona paused for a moment, shifting her thoughts back to that moment, the moment that pulled her out of her fatigued napping, when that smell hit her nose. The hunger that it had inspired. The fury that had ignited when it was denied to her. And the bitterness of the round-bitch's hypocrisy. Like a stew of many flavors, all of them had sat in the pot for so very long that the sharp, overt flavors had mellowed and mingled into something that was in the same moment somewhat bittersweet, and intensely proud.
"If they hadn't picked Anne to work the spit that night... or if the Abbess just gave out trifling luxuries on the feast-days and holidays... I probably wouldn't even be here," Fiona mused. But then she sighed, and shook her head. "Oh, who am I kidding? I was always gonna end up down here with the likes of you... well, not you. You're unexpected. You know what I mean," she waved the annoying turn of phrase aside.
"Don't," Rachel said, suddenly sitting forward.
"Excuse me?"
"Don't think for a moment that you were 'destined' to come to Hell. I don't accept that thinking and neither should you," she said.
"Doesn't change the fact that I can't undo what's done," Fiona said. "Even if I'm not fatefully fucked and merely willfully fucked, I'm still fucked. It is what it is."
"Do you know how much you've eaten since you've come here?" Rachel asked, suddenly swerving her path such that Fiona found herself of-kilter trying to keep up with it. "I've asked Cain; you're eating a third of what you used to before... well, you know before what."
"What's your point?" she asked.
"That flesh follows soul," Rachel said, repeating the Hellish Truism. "And if that's the case... doesn't it seem odd that your appetites have declined of late?"
And to her credit, Fiona was able to recognize that fact... and how odd it felt to be true.
Chapter 15
A Mercenary Attitude
To stand in the presence of God was an overwhelming thing for most. Raguel was not most. He could see where God sat upon His throne, staring with expression every bit as blank as Metatron's, trying to see what was on the other side of infinity. No, today was not a day to converse with a silent and heedless God. Today was to deal with those who dwelt in His shadow.
"You look rather more ragged than usual, Godfriend," War said, not bothering to look up at Raguel as he approached. It wouldn't have mattered, because War had no eyes. Or ears. Or hair. Or skin that wasn't scar tissue. He was a blister of hardened-over violence made manifest, the embodiment of everything that Man had ever lost in conflict with Man, and everything that Angel had lost in conflict with Angel. He continued to sharpen the tips of his arrows, gently, delicately, in the one hand he had and the strange prosthetic of rough black metal serving as its pair. "Have you been throwing yourself against the redoubt down there? You'll need better than you have to unseat that."
"It will be removed, because it must be removed," Raguel said. "The others are here, as well?"
"All of us, yes," the Horseman of the Apocalypse said with a smile that was all the more grisly from the fact that his lips were pulled in many unnatural directions by the cankerous scar tissue that made them. "Folly's been busy. Visiting the Human World and all that. Had a plague going on down there that would have made Pestilence proud, rest his starved-out soul."
"And has Gabriel come before me?"
"Who amongst your kind would willingly expose themselves to the likes of us?" War asked with a desert-dry chuckle. With movements so precise as to be practically mechanical, he set aside one arrow and began sharpening another against a plain, flat, grey rock. "Michael was here. Where you stand. Talked to God for a bit, and us. But I don't think he got what he wanted from his conversation, as you say."
"Michael is an optimist," Raguel said flatly. And War let out a desiccated laugh that looked mildly painful to release.
"You never fail to amuse me, Godfriend," War said, continuing to scrape the edges of his bodkins true. "Death is waiting, if you're looking for him."
Raguel nodded. There were no true 'leaders' amongst the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but even with that the case, Death was a clear first among equals. "If I could order you to take up your bow and lance against Lucifer, I would."
"And if I were permitted to take your orders, I think I would," War said with a satisfied look on the hellscape of scars that was his face. Then, he tilted his head down and continued to 'stare' blindly at his arrow heads as he scraped them against the stone, and Raguel left the foot of the Throne of God, walking behind it, into its lee. It's shadow. The one place in Creation that God could not see when He sat upon His throne. The place where He put the things that He did not want to see.
Famine still hurt Raguel's eyes to see, so strange was it. It was an unbeing, a negative person, a black-hole made not even of antimatter but of an even stranger unmatter, that walked and spread hunger wherever it went. It seldom spoke, but when it did, it did so in gamma-ray bursts and gravity-wave ripples and vortices of magical meagre, forces too great for most to even perceive. They were certainly beyond Raguel's perceptions, rarified though they were. But he didn't need to 'hear' Famine to know Famine's wants. Looking Within worked on that strange unspeakable thing. And Famine was pleased not to have to crack its un-lips whenever Raguel came about.
Folly, Raguel wished he could ignore. As by far the youngest of the Horsemen, Folly had only arisen in the last few decades, to fill a saddle that had been left vacant when the humans managed to kill Pestilence by proxy. To Raguel's eyes, Folly could be a young man, or a young woman, with features that could have well leaned one way or the other, with a constant confident grin plastered onto their face and wild, world-eating eyes. "Are you...?" Folly began, but Raguel silenced them with a glare, and walked past Famine and Folly, toward the deepest lee of the Throne's shadow.
In that dark place there were torches made of lashed-together bones, flames flickering in the eyesockets of beasts both extinct and extent. They marched in procession toward a long table made of Sladestone, the impossibly dense material endemic to Hell that could be used for radiation shielding, and not much else. It gleamed dully in the flickering rushlight that the skull lanterns shone, holding just enough polish that one could see faint reflections of that which sat on the table's surface. And that table held a meal, repeated exactly thirteen times, of some human dish that Raguel had seen many times. Pizza, unless things were deceiving. But as Raguel walked, he couldn't help but see the reflection of that feast on the table; in the reflected stone, the meals all rotted and festered with fungus.
At the thirteenth place, there was a towering throne, built out of the bones of Leviathans and dragons, and of humans. Human skulls capped the arm-rests, and human arms fanned out of the back, each one of them holding up a flag pole or standard. The standards all hung limp in the windless chamber, depicting the national glory of a now dead country, or army, or bloodline, the flags of sunken ships, of failed nations, and of crumbled ideologies.
And sitting in that throne, contentedly chewing on the pizza, was Death.
Death's guise was a relatively new one, newer even than the installation of Folly. He now appeared as a raw-boned human with a large nose and cutting eyes, his hair black and slick, his limbs long but not gangly. He was exactly the proportions that he needed to be, that was clear to Raguel. But Raguel saw the truth hidden behind this seemingly mundane visage. It was a lie. It was a lie of omission, of allowing people to see a part of the thing and think it the whole.
The truth was, everything here was Death.
Death was the shadow in the lee of God's Throne.
Death was the lanterns.
Death was the table.
Death was the throne of bones and dead nations.
Death was the floor Raguel was standing on.
Death was the air he was breathing.
In fact, of all the things that Raguel was currently experiencing, the only thing which wasn't Death was the pizza sitting in its boxes or seated in Death's hand.
"You know," Death said, his voice resonating with infrasound that, were Raguel a human, would have inspired a primal and inexplicable terror, "I am going to miss this, in a few duodecillion years when this universe finally dies."
"Low quality pizza?" Raguel said.
"Low quality is a status given upon the exquisite by the pompous," Death said, taking another bite with glee, feeling the cheese pull from the slice and drape across his lips before he swiped it into his mouth with a greasy finger. "It is a judgment that has no basis in objective reality, merely the ephemeral feelings of someone who wants to feel superior over something else through mean spirited mockery. This is an object qua object, Archangel. Pizza qua pizza. Cheap ingredients, cooked in haste in a run-down oven in a little town called Shawinigan, packaged and sent out the door as fast as possible. And it is delectable."
He took another bite in seeming rapture, shaking his head at it. "Grease and salt and fat, processed meat and freezer-burned vegetables. Truly, one of the pinnacles of sapient life's endeavors in creation," he paused, turning those dark eyes at Raguel for a moment. "It's almost a shame that I won't be able to enjoy this forever. In seven years, the business which makes this particular delicacy will die, during another economic downturn through no fault of their own. The business that moves in after will try to be haute cuisine. Pizza for rich fools. A waste of dough and tomato sauce. It lacks that certain something which draws humanity ever back to the gleeful prospect of 'junk food'. It lacks that heartless sort of heart. That soulless sort of soul."
"I am not here to discuss cuisine, Death," Raguel said.
"I can guess exactly why you're here," Death said, diving in for another bite. He paused. "They even put garlic powder and drizzle cheese on the crust. Not as an 'option', but because they're too lazy to paint inside the lines. Delightful," he said, then finished the slice, and the grease on his fingers flashed through going stale, going rancid, rotting, and then dissolving away into vapor leaving his fingers clean once more. "And if I were to hazard a guess towards your interests here on the dark side of Heaven... I'm afraid you're going to leave disappointed."
"I need to know what price must be paid to see Lucifer dead," Raguel said. It grated on him, burned at him, that he had to descend to this level. But a decapitation strike against Hell might nip this War For Heaven in the bud. And that was worth anything he had to spend.
"Poor little Archangel. Clutching at straws when there's a rope dangling next to you, ever blind to the greater whole," Death said, not even sounding annoyed. Just disappointed. He gave a shrug and splayed his hands. "Why rush the inevitable? Lucifer will have his ending in due time."
"And while that time elapses more innocent people die," Raguel said.
"Innocence is another made up concept, like 'junk food', and 'haute cuisine'," Death said with a dismissive wave. "It only exists because things think that it exists, and behave as though it does. In the grand calculus of the cosmos, it is a figment of a figment, and will pass from this world as quickly as the sun will burn out over the Earth, and the silence in the untold years after that death will scream far louder than the whisper of 'Innocence' ever spake. Do not talk to me of ideas that can die and claim primacy, Archangel."
"Even if Innocence can die, it is alive now. And I will see it live longer," Raguel said.
"You may be the Friend of God, Godfriend, but you are not God. You cannot order me to do anything," Death said, with an offhand gesture, "isn't that right, my comrades?"
"We serve at God's pleasure, this is true. Not yours," War's voice rose above the rasping of metal against stone. Famine did not speak. Raguel refused to acknowledge Folly.
"And if I may be a slight bit more candid, now that it just the five of us," Death said, adjusting himself forward on that throne of dead ideas and nations, steepling his fingers before his face and staring down at Raguel with oppressive gloom radiating from him the same way that oppressive light could radiate from Raguel. "God could not order me to kill his son, either. I have worked hand in hand with God for quite some time, but never forget that I do not consider Him in any way my master. Even God has an ending. And when that ending comes, I shall reap Him as I have reaped every other living thing that has ever existed across all the cosmos that God hath wrought."
"That sounds perilously close to a threat against our Father, Death," Raguel pointed out, keeping his tone moderate.
"I don't care how you perceive it, Godfriend. It is the truth. Folly is young, only a few decades old, and she will die when the species that spawned her goes extinct," Death said.
"Wait, what?" Folly asked.
"War has only existed so long as the concept of organized slaughter has. Once all life has moved beyond such conflicts, so too, shall War fade," Death continued.
"And that will be a fitting end," War said without fear.
"Famine too, will burn out, when the last of the black-holes which will dominate the very long-end of reality finally evaporate and disappear. In a Creation without disparity, there can be no hunger. And in that moment, Famine will be unmade," Death continued. There was a rumble that felt in an alien way to be 'acceptance' that came from the strange anti-being. "And in the end, it will be as it was in the beginning. Me. Alone. In the void."
Death rose, and the throne shattered and crumbled the instant he was no longer supported on its weight, collapsing with the rattle of dry bone and the crumbling of dry-rotted wood, muffled only slightly by the ruffle of dissolving cloth. "I was here before the universe began. I will be here after it is gone. I was there, above the Abyss, watching when God came here, and created Hell. Do not think me your 'brother', Godfriend. You and I are not relations in that way. You are less than an insect to me. Than a bacterium. A finite-thing. A thing with beginning and end. When you die, I will reap you. When God dies, I will reap Him, too. When all of Creation that He has spun into being finally reaches its inevitable, inevitable end, I will reap that just as easily."
He stepped forward lightly, his bespoke shoes clicking gently against the floor as the table crumbled and dissolved before him, the food vanishing into instantly rotted vapour as Death made his true power slip from his otherwise impeccably rigid control. Finally, when he had unmade the whole length of that sladestone table, when he had subjected the nearly immortal stone to such ravages of accelerated time that it could only crumble and dissolve atom by accelerated atom, and stood before Raguel with his fingers cradled before him, he shook his head, slowly. Gently. Patronisingly.
"You ask me what price you can pay to make me involve myself in your petty little war? No price. There is no price you are capable of paying that will sway me," Death said. "You can ask the others as well, but of their number, only Folly is foolish enough to perhaps be bribed. And Folly would be more a problem to you than she would be a boon."
"Hey!" Folly snapped, insulted.
"Then I will not demand it, as obviously I have no power here. Instead I will beg it," Raguel said. "Please. What must be done to end this?"
"You cannot sway Death through humility," Death said, but this time without the arrogance and the indignance. "It can, however, allow you to accept what will come. And let me tell you this, Godfriend, in the spirit of our past cooperation and the works we have done together... don't get too attached to your current spread of friends. Because two in five of them are going to be dead in the next fifty years."
Raguel recoiled just a touch, at that incredibly precise repetition of words. "Did Sahaquiel ask this same thing of you?"
"Sahaquiel was much more clever about his method in asking me, but yes, yes he did," Death said, starting to walk back toward his crumbled throne, which uncrumbled as he approached it. And Raguel noted that all of the lanterns with their flickering rushlight turned on their poles to track him as he moved. "And I will tell you as I told him; this will not be a good age for your kind, just as the Winnowing was not a good time for the Elder Devils," he then stopped, and began to chuckle, turning and seating himself in the moment that Death's throne had finished remaking itself. "It's the greatest irony in my eyes that of all the players in this little game, the humans, those most finite of finite, are coming out the furthest ahead. How very droll."
Raguel felt crestfallen, but didn't show it. This had been a desperate attempt, a hail-mary, and it was utterly failed from its outset. Whatever was coming, they were going to have to face it to the full extent of its brutality and injustice. "I apologise for wasting your time. This was a mistake."
"As you have the humility to apologize, it was not a waste of my time. And mistakes can be informative," Death said. He crossed his legs and stared, the table beginning to uncrumble as he did, with everything but the food returning to its place. "Perhaps next time we speak, it will be in a kinder age. But somehow I doubt it."
The Hotel was bustling. And not for the reasons that Charlie wanted it to be.
She had always envisioned that once she had a success case, people would flock to her edifice as they wished to surmount their own worst impulses and become the best versions of themselves that they could be. But instead, what she got was this; people huddling under her roof because she had an army unit dug in, the presence of Terror Incarnate more often than not, and decent food.
It would have been very simple for her to be disappointed, to despair from that disappointment, but if there was one credo that she'd been forced to adopt from Rachel over the last few weeks, it was 'I can work with this'.
Even now, most of the propeller of the ship that was intruding into the dining area had been cut away. It had been here for decades, only partially chipped away at whenever somebody had gotten annoyed at it, but abandoned as too big a task for any one person not long after. But now that there was an actual population of people, that brass bitch had been ripped apart and chucked into the garbage in short order, freeing up massive space for the tables to be reset and populated. And the dining room had become something of a hub for people in the age of this Second War For Heaven.
A past Charlie would have been picking despondently at the stew that had been prepared by the newcomers to the Hotel. Nasir and An had, apparently, been in life proprietors of a public house a day's travel outside of Babylon. As such they were skilled in bookkeeping, in beer-making, and cooking. The stew was likely one of the oldest human recipes that still existed, and frankly was delightful in its simple, elegant and robust base with very obvious but appreciated garnishes and additions. When An had seen that somebody was about to put pepper on it, she slapped the grinder out of their hand and slammed down a vial of date vinegar in its place, so they obviously had feelings about what was supposed to go on this food.
And they let those feelings out, loudly, in the kitchen. Angel Dust was probably relieved that he wasn't quietly expected to man the kitchens now that these two 'Betrayed' with their Gapped Halos were taking his place. Nasir liked things simple, elegant, and robust, like this soup. An, though, wanted things intricate, ambitious, and striving. Often the two of them could be heard clear into the dining room shouting at each other for 'lack of vision', or 'foolhardy excess' to the point where at least once a diner went into the back to make sure the husband-and-wife weren't in the process of killing each other. Charlie found it cute.
She sighed, unwilling to eat this on her own, as Vaggie was out dealing with the banking, Cain offering to protect her as she did so, so Charlie picked up her bowl of ancient stew and moved to the other Betrayed who had been sent to Hell and was happy for it. Addam glanced up at her from the technical manual that he was slowly reading through as she approached, and with his foot he pushed out the next chair to his table for her. "By all means," he said, tone distracted as he read through the anthology of technologies that would not be invented until thousands of years after his death.
"I see you reading all the time. Are you trying to learn about what's changed up there?" she asked as she started to eat. It may not have been polite to talk with one's mouth full, but it was clear that the only people who cared about that were teachers of decorum, and no such people were in the room right now.
"I am trying to be useful," Addam said. "I died in an age of mud-brick and cess-pits, and dwelt in a Heaven where I was not allowed to see its moving parts and infrastructure. Now, I live in a Hell where pipes for sewage and wires for electricity are king. I need to understand, or I am of worth to noone."
"Please, you don't need to feel pressured into helping if you don't want to," she placated.
"Ah, but there you are wrong. My own pride propels me in this," Addam said, not bothering to look up. "You would think that Heaven would keep the finest manuals on the ever rocketing spiral of technology that could exist in all Creation. But the truth, Miss Charlie? The truth is that people, once they have earned their 'just reward'... get lazy. With nothing more to strive for and all to enjoy, they stop trying to grow. They become complacent, indolent, and wither on the vine."
"Really? That doesn't sound right by a half," Charlie said.
"Perhaps your view of things may be accurate on Cloud Two, but on Cloud One, my parents and I were surrounded on all sides by happy, lazy people," he gave a chuckle, shaking his head and finally glancing up from his reading to look at her. "At least… until the hunger. It's not been until the last forty years, even through the Great Starvation, that things have started to change, and your woman Miss Rachel is definitely one of the reasons as to why."
"She certainly is a force of nature," Charlie admitted with a puffed out breath.
"I don't think you know just how true your sentence is, Miss Charlie," he said, setting the book aside. "We have seen in the last forty years only a few million more entrants into Heaven, and amongst them were the foremost 'saints' of their age. And they fell to despair and Went Numb in as little as a decade, while Rachel has done her good works for two and shows no sign of so much as slowing."
"She's tough for an Innocent, I guess," Charlie said.
"No, she is not 'tough'. Tough is a physical thing," Addam said, leaning back in his seat. "I am 'tough'. It didn't save me from the raiders that killed me. No, what Miss Rachel is, is 'indomitable'. Unyielding. In the root of her soul, she has made a decision that she will never, never shirk from, and she will see it through no matter how long she has to pursue it."
"That sounds like what Sam – her son – said about his life," Charlie noted. Sam had been always surrounded by people, by groups, by nations-in-microcosm, in the time before his death and any inkling of the 'exceptional existence' that he was expected to have, and the tools he had been given to facilitate it.
"Then that apple fell straight down from its tree," Addam said. "Rachel Scailes is actually quite immense of reputation amongst my kind, and even the Penitent and those Angels worthy of any consideration give her due respect. I cannot say what drives her to be so stridently kind. But having met her, I can say with certainty it is not basic empathy. Because for all Miss Rachel is a powerful force for the good of those alike my family... she is an uncomfortable person for me to be around."
"...yeah," Charlie said. The doors of the dining hall were thrown open as Splitwater soldiers came off of duty and demanded chow. During the moment they were open, she could see Rachel out there in the path to the lobby, standing with almost military bearing in front of Colonel Roth, looking every inch of her a fellow officer instead of a civilian social worker. Then the doors swung closed and cut the vision again. "I think she does it to protect herself."
"What do you mean?" Addam asked, picking up the book again and starting to idly thumb his way back to where he'd left off.
"She told me she wants to be surrounded by grateful people, so that when something comes for her, they'd protect her," Charlie said. And that sounded like an awfully unpleasant way to live.
"If there's one piece of wisdom I've managed to pick up in my years," Addam said, "it is that if you live long enough, you become one of two people. You either become the person you most desperately needed to save you, or you become the person you desperately needed saving from. I do not know Miss Rachel's history well enough to say which she is. I can only hope that whichever it is, it will be to all of our benefit."
With that, he opened the manual again and made it clear that he was ending the conversation, so Charlie took his cue and let him be. The days where things were 'normal', and it was just Angel Dust here under the roof... those days were starting to seem nostalgic in their simplicity. Of an age where the most terrible thing that they had to worry about was Alastor and the Purge at the turning of the year. Of a time when she had achieved nothing and the sky was the limit.
She turned her gaze along the tables that festooned the dining area, now that they weren't either crushed under a propeller or relegated to the edges of the room out of lack of space. Along the people who seated themselves at them. There were a few Sinners, those she had dedicated her time, her effort, and her now blisteringly considerable monies to helping, and of those, there were even two of them whom had actually bit the proverbial bullet and signed up for her 'program'. And she didn't know more than their names, because Rachel had done all of the heavy lifting for them. Was this what her destiny was? To be an administrator instead of a helper? Because that didn't feel alright by her. It didn't feel alright at all.
Then there were the others. A collection of imps, fiends, and hellhounds wearing Splitwater uniforms. People to be commanded by Vaggie at Charlie's behest. Again she wondered if she could follow through on Vaggie's recommendation – which itself seemed akin to pulling teeth from her – that they use Splitwater to get her own personal Hellish Legion back to fighting strength. Because Splitwater was only four hundred and some odd soldiers; however elite and disciplined they were, that was still only a hundredth of what a legion could put onto a field. Quantity, it was said, was a quality all its own. And she was probably going to do it. Because while an Exorcist could easily take on an infantry company, having a division of them offered more than enough men and materiel to turn away even one of those brutes.
Hell was changing. She had to keep up with it.
She left the dining area, passing Roth as he strode past and towards his dinner. Rachel, seeing Charlie approached, dropped her military bearing to something obviously more comfortable. Or perhaps, if Charlie's suspicions were true, she was taking up a stance that Charlie would find more comfortable. Either case, she turned a glance toward Roth. "The soldiers are getting bored, and bored soldiers cause problems," Rachel said with no preamble.
"And why didn't he tell me that?" Charlie turned, fists on her hips.
"Because he told Vaggie and Vaggie doesn't understand the importance of his recommendations," Rachel said, turning Charlie's attention back toward her. "Remember that when Vaggie was alive, she was a thief, prostitute, and incidentally a murderer. She has no knowledge on the topic of military matters."
"And you, a social worker, do?"
"You would be shocked how poorly modern militaries treat their veterans. Fully half of my 'casework' when I was working on my thesis was dealing with disgruntled, discarded, and disintegrating former soldiers," Rachel said. "I don't know who first said 'of whom much is taken, much is given,' but it certainly was not a soldier."
"Fine. Fine! I'll tell Vaggie to… militarize stuff. However icky it feels," Charlie groused, as she started toward her office. But Rachel followed her. "What?"
"A question about these legions of yours," she said.
"I've only got the one," she pointed out.
"By law or by tradition?" Rachel asked.
"I mean... I'm sure if I wanted more, Daddy would let it be so in a heartbeat," Charlie said. In fact, she was fairly certain if she went up to Dad and told him that she wanted to raise a hundred hellish legions and put two million or more soldiers onto the battlefield, he'd actually rejoice. But the fact was, she didn't want to run Hell through force of arms. Frankly, she didn't want to run Hell at all; but if it came down to it, she didn't want to become another warlord in a place which already had no shortage of far more skilled and able warlords.
"And how do the soldiers typically end up in a Legion?" Rachel asked.
"Contractually and litigiously, mostly. Some people are born into it, but I don't have that kind of structure in place. And I wouldn't put it in place if I could," Charlie stressed.
"Volunteers, though?" Rachel asked, as they crossed the lobby and headed for Charlie's office. There were other Sinners in the lobby, drinking with Husk at the bar. She didn't have time to suss them out right now, so she put it on the back burner. That burner was getting awfully crowded these days.
"Who would volunteer to be in a Legion of the Damned? It's a miserable existence that ends in violence, pain, and death," Charlie said.
"Of the Hellborn and Sinners who have become Champions of the Bleeding Pits in the age since Cain's... retirement... the overwhelming majority of them were former or current Legionaries," Rachel said. "Whether you choose to see it or not, there is prestige to be had in military service."
"Yes, it is very much the balm of the uneducated and brutish. But such people have their uses," Alastor's voice appeared as he congealed out of the air to walk with his arms around each of the ladies' shoulders in a most patronizing way. "Were you finally putting consideration to opening up your little barracks, my dear? Because if so, you're entering a race that most people started running a while ago."
"Better to start running now, than to stay still," Rachel shrugged her way out of Alastor's grasp. "If nothing else, it means she'll be able to finish and be off of the track before the rain starts."
"You have such delightful little metaphors, you know that?" Alastor said, ruffling Rachel's hair like she was a child. Rachel swatted the hand away with a very cold look. "In this matter, my dear, I fear that our Betrayed companion here has the right thinking for this problem. As plentiful as conscript soldiers are, I saw what became of those bolsheviks on the far side of the world when faced with any real problems. And since your sensibilities won't allow the prospect of burying your enemies with the carcasses of your soldiers, let me offer you this; volunteer soldiers tend to have autonomy, and autonomy can cut both ways."
"There's an old story of a general who was told that it was impossible to take a hill," Rachel said, following Charlie into her office and scowling as Alastor followed her. He, though, stayed just inside the door. "He told his colonel to take the hill. And by the end of the day, the hill was taken. He asked his colonel how he managed to do the impossible. And the Colonel said, 'I told my lieutenant, go and take that hill'. Remember what I said about orthodoxy and heterodoxy? Apparently the same thing applies to the military."
"If you're willing to stomach some upstart minor officers, they can provide outsized results for what they are. But can you honestly say that your pride would allow it?" Alastor chided.
"It will have to," Charlie said. "Now what did you want from me? You wouldn't have barged in here otherwise."
"So cold, my dear, so cold," Alastor laughed. "Keep that up and one might begin to believe that you are in fact child of The Devil Himself."
"Spill it, Alastor," Charlie said.
"Very well. I require a Klein Conductor to perform repairs on my studio. You're aware of the damage it sustained during that little fracas with the Glimpse? Well, it broke one of the more difficult-to-replace parts in the doing," Alastor said.
"Fine. Go get one, don't stop on my account," Charlie waved away.
"Oh ho ho ho, you don't quite see the pickle of it, little darling," Alastor began.
"I'm guessing Klein Conductors are a part of an Exorcist that get left behind when one of them is broken," Rachel intruded.
"Right you are! She's such a clever one, this woman," Alastor said.
"Well, there's Exorcists aplenty out there. Take your pick and go nuts," Charlie again waved out, hoping that this time he'd take the hint. He did not.
"You don't quite grasp what I'm saying, daughter-Morningstar," Alastor said, his everpresent grin shrinking as the mirth he had displayed began to betray impatience. "You see, I need a specific one, from a specific model. The lesser, faulty ones of the Type Fours simply will not suffice. I need one installed in a Type Ten or better. And though I know exactly where one is, I haven't the authority to demand it, as frustrating as that fact is."
"...You want a piece of Stella Goetia's trophies," Charlie's face fell into her hands. "I can't..."
"You can," Alastor cut her off by taking a step into the room, his glowing red eyes casting light as though they were dim lanterns and his smile becoming borderline cruel. "You are Princess of All Hell. She is an upjumped Duchess. Make a demand, and she will obey. And I'll be out of your hair quick as a blink. Isn't that what you want?" he chuckled at the end, malevolent and superior.
"Ffffffine," she muttered.
"See? Isn't it so much easier when we all play along with each other? Things can move so much more smoothly in this place when people are amiable," Alastor said, then turned and strode out of the room, laughing to himself as he did. The door slammed shut with is passage, propelled by nothing that Charlie could see, and Charlie again sighed and flopped herself deep into Vaggie's chair, drained by the imposition of the Radio Demon.
"He's going to be a problem," Rachel said, glaring at the door which separated them.
"He's already a problem," Charlie muttered.
"No, he's not. Up until now, he's been a parasite, consuming your time and resources to his benefit and little to none of yours. But I guarantee you, what he is now is nothing compared to what he will become," Rachel said, turning a cold, stern look in Charlie's direction. "It may be time to show him the door."
"I can't do that..." Charlie said.
"Because you still think he can be Redeemed?" Rachel lofted a brow. "Charlie, you're not stupid. You surely recognize that not all denizens of Hell can be Redeemed, because not all denizens of Hell wish to be Redeemed."
"I still have to try," Charlie began, but Rachel took a stomping step forward.
"No. You don't. You don't have to throw yourself over a cliff after somebody who decided to jump," Rachel said. "You have people who are better served by your time, and represent more return on your investments. At this point... I'd say all Alastor is, is bad product."
Charlie shook her head. If she gave up on him...
"You are running triage on a wound in people's souls," Rachel said, coming to a halt in front of the desk Charlie had flopped herself into the seat on the far side of. "People need what we offer, they need it badly enough that they will clamor for it... it's time we stopped worrying about the people who chose to bleed to death."
"No," Charlie said, getting to her feet and dwarfing the much shorter Rachel in doing so. "That's the easy path. That's doing what's expedient and claiming that it's 'right'. And if I start doing that now, at the start of all things, how many good people am I going to be kicking out of my doors by the end because I no longer have faith that they'll meet my by-then impossible-to-attain standards? I value your opinion on treatment. I do. But when it comes to deciding who I treat, MINE is the only word that matters. Am I clear?"
Rachel was silent for a moment, her eyes flitting up from Charlie's, then back down to them. Oh dear; Charlie hadn't even realized her horns were starting to poke out. She took a calming breath, and felt them retract back under her hair.
"...You are being clear," Rachel said. And then without elaboration or further argument, she gave a shrug seemingly more intended for herself than any other, and turned to leave the office.
But the point that Rachel had raised still had a kernel of truth to it. What good did Alastor bring to the Hotel? Really?
She sat back down, and tried to run an inventory of it. It ended up coming very, very short.
Stolas was being real fuckin' needy for the last little bit. Now that his acidic wife was now an acidic ex-wife, he had the house all to himself and his daughter, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that Blitz was not to be accosted anymore when he came and went. That was nice, actually. Getting the serving staff who used to stare at him with contempt now having to serve him as a distinguished guest sat well in his petty little heart. That was the thing about being an imp. You had to be petty. Imps didn't usually get a chance to be bold.
All things considered, there were far worse ways to be than the one that Blitz found himself. He was currently tucked in beside Stolas' long chest as the demon royal slept contentedly in a bed that could have slept Blitz's entire extended family, including his employees atop that. And here, he found himself reaching with his tail for his Hellphone. He honestly didn't want to leave. This was... nice.
Still, boredom was boredom, so Blitz unlocked his phone with the pattern that was about as close to the red glass brooch that he'd taken from his mother's corpse – before she got better – as the device would allow. It opened to the photos again, showcasing him riding on Stolas' back like the Prince of Flowers was a pony. He gave a chuckle at that, then started thumbing backward. Honestly, this thing was sluggish as fuck for a phone, but he was entirely to blame for that. Most people regularly purged their phones of old pictures and videos. Blitz, on the other hand, packed the slightly magical hard-drive of the device so tight with media that it strained to not collapse into an informational black-hole under the weight of it.
He didn't see the problem with it. All kinds of folk wanted to keep mementos, he reasoned. Of course, his reasoning fell short on the sheer scale of Blitz's memory hoarding. Most people kept key reminders, of friends in their happiest moments, of family when they were all gathered together, of victories stratospheric and defeats chthonic. Blitz, though, horded everything.
He'd spent thirty three years in Hell before that Birch bullshit happened. Thirty three cold, lonely, miserable years, where everything he touched turned to pain and failure. Where his family died or left him. Where his daughter tried to push him away. Where his employees shuddered at the presence of him. Then, Birch. And because of that staple-faced fuck, Blitz'd had to spend twelve years in the Human World. It was almost as though it had been intended, stem to stern, to reset his system. Just a decade relying on his wits in a world that explicitly and blatantly wanted him dead. And when he came back?
He wasn't sure if it was the decade in the Human World, or that Hell just had been waiting for a kick in the ass, but that was when everything started to change on the double-fucking-quick.
He flipped backward through the tens of thousands of pictures he had, often shuffling back by save-folder since to do it manually'd mean he'd be here in this bed for another twelve years. Back and back until he saw the picture of the four of them all sitting around a campfire. Barb, himself, Mom, and Fizzaroli. The picture seemed to have caught them while singing something, with Mom's expression. She just watched them with a sort of sad satisfaction. He'd never understood that look back then. He was starting to think he might now, though. That was a look of a mother knowing her kids were growing up way too fast.
Fuck, he hadn't heard back from Fizzarolli, either. But he didn't expect to. A drunk-dial from somebody who had both stabbed and been stabbed in the back was not the kind of thing that one of Asmodeus' little 'favorites' was likely to even entertain and listen to, let alone justify with a response.
Was this what being 'mature' was all about? Getting shit that you spread to the four winds back in a group 'cause it was stinking up the place seemed fucking exhausting, and he wasn't a young imp anymore. That, like a lot of things, got stolen from him. Not even by Birch, but that fucker definitely added onto the pile. No, Blitz'd been having things taken from him since his childhood.
And at that, he finally sighed a breath he'd held for a very, very long time. "I keep thinking this is gonna end. Cause it always does," Blitz said, quietly, from his place tucked up against his lover. Stolas offered no answer, because he was properly fuck-tired as Blitz liked to make his partners. But that was the thing. It wasn't ending. In fact, Stolas seemed to cling to him like shitty plastic wrap clung to itself, even more than he used to.
While Blitz was not as a rule a contemplative imp, he wasn't nodding off and he didn't want to untangle himself from Stolas, so he just lay there and thunk for a bit. He actually had a fair bit of experience with shitty relationships. He knew that because every one that he'd ever been in had him as one of the partners, so it was definitionally shitty. Still, he looked back. Fizz got ambitious, and Blitz tried to hold on for dear life. But Fizz got a break that Blitz didn't, and that shit ended. Regina started out as a fling, but then he caught a bad case of 'feels' and that shit didn't end until she slapped him with a restraining order. Which he violated by stalking her, which is why she didn't die when her new boyfriend got violent. Didn't save her from herself. She OD'd not long after that.
He started walking forward through the many, many failed relationships that he'd ever had, and actually looked at them, not with anger and spite and shameful self-justification, but just looking at them. What had happened. Who did what. Frankly Krastor was at fault for that one going down, which was odd to think about in retrospect. Krastor had been a Dream Eater from down in Sloth. And now that Blitz thought about it, Krastor had been using Blitz all along, stringing him along, using him for pleasure and discarding him once he was either bored or had nothing more to gain. Fuck that guy. Blitz's heart felt a touch lighter, being able to point to even one relationship that he'd been in that didn't dissolve because of his own shitty behavior. He might be most of the problem, but he weren't all of it.
Verosika was a massive mea culpa, though.
Fuck, he threw away a good thing with her.
So while his procession of jilted, furious and spiteful ex-lovers ran through his mind, and he made a catalogue of the dumbass reasons he fucked them up, he found that when he progressed to the end, to Stolas, he found himself making the exact same mistakes as he'd always done. Driving him away, putting up walls. And Stolas kept coming back.
Almost like he actually cared.
Stolas shifted in his sleep, pulling Blitz with the movement of his long limbs until he was pulled tight against the owl-demon's breast. "mmmmblitzie stay..." Stolas muttered through the cloak of whatever dreams he was dithering through. And now, if Blitz wanted to do anything other than awkwardly look at old photos or sleep, he absolutely would awaken the Prince of Flowers when he did so. While it was mildly embarrassing to Blitz's sensibilities that he was being clutched close like a teddy-bear, his augmetic ear told him a different story. Pressed as it was against Stolas' ribs, he could feel the owl-demon's heart slow to a steadier, more contented pace, now that Blitz was pressed, flesh to down, against the demon royal.
So with nothing better to do, and no way to extract himself without awakening his fuck-buddy, he settled in to either awkwardly fall asleep or lay here until the Prince of Flowers woke the fuck up. Frankly, he didn't want to piss on this the way he'd pissed on every other pairing he'd made. Maybe he was doing this relationship-actually-working thing out of spite. A naked and blatant showcase against the life he'd led that he could, in fact, have somebody care about him and not immediately fuck it up because of his own stupid bullshit. It was petty, but imps had to be. They seldom got a chance to be bold.
Eventually, as the minutes dragged on, he did feel his eyes start to grow heavy, and the awkward clutch he'd found himself had loosened just enough that it actually managed to become comfortable. So he listened to the calm, soothing heartbeat of his lover through his false ear, and he dared to think that maybe this could go on for a while. He was already half way to dead. Maybe he could stick it out the other half?
Literally that was the closest that Blitz's mind could even come to the concept of monogamy or matrimony. And he only could have such thoughts in the last blinkering moments before he fell into dream.
Pity his dreams still held the hurt and betrayal his waking mind tried to ignore or move past.
"The fuck do you want now, y' prancin' queer?" Husk asked when Angel Dust made a beeline for him near the end of his shift. Well, by the clock it was only about two thirds through what his shift was supposed to be, but in Husk's mind that was close enough for government work.
"Hey, babe. I need yer help wit' something," Angel Dust said, only being about a tenth as slutty and annoying as he usually did.
Well, that meant that Husk wasn't going to ignore him out of hand. It offered nothing else. "I ain't gonna fuck you, and I ain't gonna let Stewart fuck you neither," Husk said.
"That ain't it. But I'll get Stewart one'a these days, you mark my fuckin' words!" Angel Dust swore. He then gave his head a shake. "Look, I know you got more shit goin' on than you let people know. Our little shit-show out at Porn Studios told me that much. So..."
"So you want what?" Husk cut him off. "If you want me to help you kill somebody, you better fuckin' pay for it."
"I ain't tryin' to kill nobody. Well, nobody in particular," Angel Dust said. He sat down across the bar from Husk. "Look, buddy, pal, I got family, alright?"
"Yeah. I know. I met him," Husk said flatly.
"I ain't talkin' about my goon of a bro. I'm talkin' 'bout my sister," Angel Dust said.
"You got a sister?" Husk asked, not particularly caring.
"Yeah. Only she got in up top!" Angel Dust pointed upward, which pulled Husk's attention from the bottle of truly vile swill that he was drinking and to the spider-whore. "I been talkin' to Rachel, you know? 'Bout how bad shit got up there. And I figure it's time that I do a little rescue operation."
"You're seriously telling me you want to rescue an Innocent, from Heaven, and bring her to Hell?" Husk clarified. Angel Dust gave a serious nod. "You're outta yer fuckin' head. Who in the sweet geriatric fuck would even wanna come down here?"
"Shitty people beats starvin' twenty four seven," Angel Dust said. And though Husk had never truly gone 'hungry', he knew what hunger pangs could be, and saw the damage that they'd done to others. Hell, he could easily bring up Rachel as an example of what starvation did to a psyche. To this day, she still packed away two large men's worth of food at every meal.
"Alright. For the sake of argument, and argument alone, let's spin this bitch and see what comes out," Husk said. "Presumin' you're not fuckin' around, which is an easy one to make 'cause I ain't seen you this serious since that whole bullshit with the V's, then you do in fact got somebody in yer family you give a squirrely shit about. What makes you think you can just waltz up into Cloud 3 and get 'er?"
"When the fuck did I mention Cloud 3?" Angel Dust's serious face grew suspicious.
"Bud, I know shit the likes of which would spin your brain the whole way 'round," Husk said. It was true. He'd heard that Angel Dust was in contact with somebody in Heaven, and specifically the third Cloud, about forty years ago. But having no need for such information or seeing no leverage to derive from it, Husk just packed it into a box in the back of his brain and left it there to collect dust. "I even know where your daddy got that Phone he's using."
"How in the fuck..." Angel Dust began.
"I talk to people who know things and know people, who in turn know things and know people, on and on and on," Husk said, leaning back on his stool and draining the reprehensible 'alcohol' that Alastor provided for him as payment for his service at this hotel. "I'd probably qualify as a one-man intelligence agency, if I gave enough of a shit to do somethin' with it all. So stop being a little bitch about how I know what I know, and accept that I've been here long enough to know."
"Y'know what? Fine! I ain't even gonna question that shit, that's your plate of paella," Angel Dust said.
"You didn't answer my question," Husk said.
"I don't think we can just waltz up there and snag Molly," Angel Dust said, providing a name to the gap in Husk's mental dossiers. "I think we gotta put a plan together. And I know you're big on plans, 'cause our last one went off so well."
"I am kinda proud 'a that one," Husk admitted. Being able to stare down a Triarch and have that bastard blink first was a definite high-point in his time down here in Hell. It kinda muted the fun that Vox was already on the process of bouncing back, having turned his abilities to manufacturing electronics themselves instead of what was displayed on them. Take the victories you get. "Don't think we can do the nuke thing again, though. Might ruffle some feathers and make 'em think they can do likewise here."
"Naw, that ain't the thing I've got in mind at all," Angel Dust said. "I think we gotta be fuckin' sneaky. Get in there, all the way in, cause some havoc, grab Molly, and get out in the confusion."
"That's less than three percent of a plan," Husk pointed out.
"It ain't even that, that's the skeleton of the plan. We gotta work out the meat of it before we do diddly squat," Angel Dust said, stabbing the countertop with a fingertip. Well look at this guy, all serious and shit. He kept this up, Husk might eventually gain a kernel of respect for the bender.
"Who's on the squad?" Husk asked, thumping the pillar and having another bottle of horrendous rotgut skate down the fluting and into Husks' grasp. "I gotta figure you ain't dumb enough to think you can do this by your onesie. So who else?"
"My brudda', of course," Angel Dust said. Husk nodded, as that was an obvious choice. Not just because this 'Molly' was sister to both of them, but because Sam had accidentally turned the pathetic pissant mafioso who was Arackniss Veloce into a behemoth bruiser... who still looked like a pathetic pissant. The sheer scale of the muscle that Arackniss brought to the table was not to be undersold, and Husk found himself nodding.
"That'll get through some problems. Might cause others, though. I don't know the layouts of the Clouds, so we're gonna need some others. Reconnaissance experts, maybe," Husk mused.
"What about you?"
"I ain't goin' up there! Are you fuckin' high?" Husk said, glaring at Angel Dust.
"Maybe I shoulda' done. It'd make this bullshit less intolerable," Angel Dust muttered. And Husk had to admit that the queer was right on that. He did look about as sober as Angel Dust got, which was a fuck-tonne better than he had been this time last year... or even this time three months ago. "Alright, if you're gonna puss out on us, who do you know who won't?"
Husk gave that a moment's thought, discarding a laundry list of people who either weren't entirely suitable, or outright would not be convinced to do this for all the wealth in Hell. Eventually hit hit that rarest of treasures in a field of 'no's, though; Husk hit a 'maybe'. "There's one. If he's still working. If he's recovered. If, if, if," Husk said.
"What's his sitch?" Angel Dust asked.
"It's an imp I know about," Husk said. "An assassin..."
"He one'a them jagoffs off the TV that kills the livin'?" Angel Dust asked.
"Fuck no, keep those idiots as far away from yourself as you can get. Trust me," Husk said. He'd heard all kinds of stories about the 'professionalism', and 'capability' of the Immediate Murder Professionals. Of those three words in their title, only one of them was accurate. Although to be fair, that was then, and since that ephemeral 'then', its founder finagled his way into being the Proxy of Lucifer. Things change, even in Hell. Still safer to keep them the hell away. "No. I'm talkin' about a guy who came up outta Wrath. Antimonarchist, who hypocritically enough was a Gun of Satan for a while, but I hear he's on sabbatical, on account 'a the fact that Sam fucked him up right good."
"Wait a minute, I think Sam told me 'bout this one. This that 'Striker' guy?" Angel Dust asked.
And that simplified things that somebody else did the leg work, so Husk nodded while drinking deep. When he finally set most of his esophagus on fire and started to corrode his stomach, he plunked the bottle down and continued. "Don't know much about Striker personally, never met him. But I've known his type. And he's the type to be a big fuckin' fish in a pretty small pond. The moment he found a bigger fish, it probably knocked him off his balance. Which means if we offer him an insanely dangerous stunt for him to regain his pride off of, he may – may – say yes."
"Alright, so we got a 'maybe' on a sneaky fuck. What else we gonna need?" Angel Dust asked.
"Obviously you're gonna need a wizard," Husk said.
"...the fuck, why?" Angel Dust asked.
"'Cause magic's everywhere down here, let alone up there. Yer gonna have shit get in your way, and you'll need a wizard to push that shit aside," Husk gave a moment's thought, as the list of people whom he knew to be wizards or something like them was much, much smaller than his list of sneaky bastards. That thought didn't turn out to be as long, though, because one name bubbled quickly to the top. "And I got a vague idea who to call in."
"Yeah, who?" Angel Dust asked.
"'Nother imp, operatin' out of Imp City. Thaumaturge or some shit," Husk said.
"You know all kinds'a imps, don't ya?" Angel Dust asked.
"When they're the right tool for the job, yer fuckin' right I do," Husk answered. "Name is Krieg Miller. Hear tell she's from down in Lust, but moved here to get away from some shit. Makin' waves as the first Thaumaturge to live in Pride since the Scarlet Fucker pitched all a' them Clan Cruac assholes into the Abyss way back when."
"What'd'ya figure we'll need to get her on side?" Angel Dust asked. Which was the right question to ask and frankly gave Husk a little bit of heart that the coke-head faggot was actually being serious about this whole affair.
"Money, obviously. Don't know what her price would be, so you better spread ass and start savin' up," Husk said.
"You wanna be a part 'a that?" Angel Dust asked with a grin.
"Fuckin' pass," Husk scoffed. As Angel Dust chuckled to himself, Husk gave some more thought. "Alright. So it's you, your bro, a sneak and a wizard. What else you got?"
"Oh, Cherri's gonna be in on this. Says she's got business topside herself," Angel Dust said.
"Well that's the mayhem part down," Husk muttered, rubbing at his face. It took more of a rub than he vaguely remembered it doing. As though his chin had gotten bigger. Whatever. Problems for another time if ever. "Still need at least one more. A pointman. Somebody who knows the lay, somebody who's been up there in the last few decades."
"That's a funny way of sayin' 'fuckin' impossible', there bud," Angel Dust noted.
Husk leaned forward, and pointed, to where Addam had his sandaled feet kicked up on an ottoman while he continued to read through his technical manuals. The gap in his halo shifted minutely as his gaze spread across the books he intended to learn from, before snapping back to the start.
"Him?" Angel Dust asked.
"Maybe him. Maybe somebody like him," Husk said. He stabbed the countertop with his own finger. "'Cause you mark my words, in the next couple 'a months, there's gonna be more 'a him down here. Rachel might'a been the first but that asshole's livin' proof that she ain't gonna be the last."
"So I gotta keep my eye out for those poor bastards. Fair 'nough," Angel Dust said with distracted tone.
"Yeah. You find me a Betrayed who's got an axe to grind, and you'll have your squad," Husk said.
"Fantastic. Can you set me up with that assassin guy? You may not'a noticed, but this sweet ass can only move around up here, like you. Imps could be fuckin' anywhere!" Angel Dust pointed out the hopelessly obvious.
"I'll put out feelers. When you want this done?" Husk asked.
"As soon as we got the goons to do it," he said.
"On a calendar, not by yer gut," Husk said with annoyance.
"...fuckin' I don't know. Before spring's sprung, I guess?"
"Late spring," Husk said.
"That ain't what I said..." Angel Dust began.
"Late. Spring," Husk repeated, eyes hard on the spider-demon. Angel Dust looked like he wanted to pout, to sulk, and to throw a tantrum, but he did none of those things. He rubbed hard at his face, dragging his lower eyelids down as he did.
"Fine. Late spring. I hope fer your sake Molly don't come to no harm in the meanwhiles," Angel Dust said, turning and stomping away as much as his twiggy physiology was able to. He'd just reached the doors to the stairwell up when the other door, to Vaggie's office, opened and released Rachel, who stomped over as much as her short-stack physiology was able to and pulled herself up onto the stool with an annoyed look on her face.
"'Nother non-starter?" Husk hazarded, starting to pour her a quick Sidecar.
"She is as stubborn as the Devil Himself, I swear to that mute fuck on His throne," it was a rare fit of pique that saw Rachel using that kind of language, so he finished the drink and handed it to her before daring to offer response. When she started sipping at it, and her annoyance began to ebb, he let their talks continue.
"So what'd she do this time?" Husk asked.
"It's what she's refusing to do which is the more galling one," she said. "She should kick him out while the kicking is still relevant. Before he flattens this place, laughing."
"Oh. Him," Husk said. He didn't say much about Alastor. The Radio Demon maintained certain debts over Husk, that made moving against him an innately risky proposition, even discounting how much of a fucking monster that Alastor was when it actually came to a straight fight. "She'll learn her mistake only after it costs something she can't pay back. Not the way I'd like it, but that's the way it is."
"He's going to get a lot of people killed. Even you aren't immune to him, I hope you realize."
"I realize better than you'd believe, woman," Husk muttered. She drained the rest of the Sidecar and he followed it up with a daiquiri.
"I need to actually get out of this place before I choke that woman out with frustration," Rachel said, making a throttling motion with her hands as she did. She puffed out a breath and sat for a moment as he slid her new drink in front of her. "Are you still doing your gambling nights?"
"You'd have to end the universe to stop that from happening," Husk said flatly.
"Next time, I'm coming with," she said, in a very brook-no-denials kind of way.
"I can't exactly drag along a plus one," he lied.
"Yes you can. You've done it before," Rachel spotted it. Fucking hell she would be dangerous at the table.
"That was forty fuckin' years ago, back when I gave a damn," Husk said.
"Then give a damn again," she said.
"You think it's that easy?" He asked.
"No. But I'm asking that you do it anyway," she said.
"...fine. Fuckin' fine. But you're bringin' yer own money and I guaran-goddamn-tee you're gonna lose it by the end of the night," Husk said.
"What else am I going to be able to spend it on? I don't exactly have expensive hobbies," Rachel pointed out.
Well this, he thought, was either going to be a problem or a solution. And he had no idea which.
"Opportunity abounds in Hell such that Heaven could not possibly match. I know, the old saying goes that 'Hell is finite and scarcity abounds', but as scarce as you think that Hell was, let me tell you that Heaven was its inferior in a lot of ways. Consider the caves in the crust of Hell. Though not endless by any means, they literally weep crystals of iron, zinc, aluminum, silver, lead, and molybdenum. Mining in Hell in the current era is just walking down a mine-shaft and clearing out what grew back since the last time you were down there, exuded by the influence of the Abyss. And don't get me started on the vast tracts of arable land. Hell, in my opinion, was always created to be the scaffolding upon which Creation rests. And the Waymaker's works? Dear God, to think all of those resources and all that space were just sitting there. Unseen. Untouched.
Consider Heaven in contrast; there are no mines whatsoever. Why should Angels swing a pick? The fields planted were mere 'hobby farms', to bring contentment to agrarian masses and those of a more botanistic bent. They always believed that they would have plenty because God Wills It, and the moment that He vanishes they suddenly have to deal with scarcity having never experienced before. God's Silence passed over Hell and Earth without either of them even noticing, so adept were we with the concept of toil.
Does it therefore surprise you to know that the ever-regrowing wealth of Hell allowed it to be field sell-swords and hired guns in such numbers as they did? They could bribe recalcitrant Hellspawn, buy the loyalty of the more disciplined of the Beings From Outside, and even tempt humans into armed conflict against heaven. After Lviv, they didn't even need that! Food and clean water bought the Innocent. Food. And. Water. I know, it's a wild concept, paying for humans, both dead and alive, to fight against Heaven, but it did indeed happen!
Honestly, your new queen had a good head on her shoulders when it came to Hell's defensive policy. Lucifer could never have 'lowered himself' to the thought of using Hell's wealth for anything other than his own aggrandizement. But her? She learned how to capitalize on the ways that Hell was strong and Heaven was weak. I don't consider myself a traitor in following her, frankly, even with my provenance. I just wish she could have taken the throne sooner."
-Aleph The Inverted, Redemptor