Author notes: World-building is for me an important phase when planning a crossover. You find yourself wondering about things like: "okay, I have this organization from universe A. What changes should I make to canon so that they fit seamlessly? Should I tweak their origin story, maybe expand on the areas never covered in canon? What do they know and how did they interact in the past with the factions of universe B?" In other words, this is all about making them a fitting part of the merged universe, one that feels like it has always been there.
Another point is that I chose to interpret something about a certain Norse god in a certain way. This is my take on it for this story, not a truth.
- Rosenberg House, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 06:30 -
Willow woke up and looked at the small shape cuddled against her. She was really cute like this, asleep, her face free of that sadness that had wracked her the night before.
Skuld… my little sister. I remember so fondly our fights for the remote, my plans to get Keiichi and Belldandy to finally act as lovers conflicting with your own to keep things 'non-perverted' between them and so many other things. It doesn't matter that those memories are not really mine or yours. You're my sister.
She got up delicately, taking great care not to wake her up. She took her laptop and went down to the living room. She first sent an email to the high school secretary to explain that she had to skip today due to a family emergency.
"Let's see my inbox… reply from Mo… Mrs. Summers, easier to think of her like that for now. Belldandy's address… Living with Loki… if Frigga's here, she's gonna have a heart attack."
Willow remembered some of Urd's adventures with her half-brother Thor and their friend Loki. She got along rather well with the latter. Loki was a half-demon like her, so they understood each other. Then Mr. Perfect came into play and things went downhill.
Balder… how much Urd hated him… self-righteous jerk who thought any trace of 'uncleanness' should be removed from Asgard, half-bloods like me removed from any access to Yggdrasil or goddess license if not cast out… If Loki hadn't… Urd's patience for her little brother was wearing thin. She more reacted to how Loki used Hoder and disregarded the demon that died at the same time because of the doublet system than to the act itself…
After Balder's death, the Allfather had not been the same, losing himself in his work and too often forgetting to be just 'Daddy' to the Norns and their siblings.
"…Morning," said Skuld as she reached the living room.
"Good morning, Skuld… or do you prefer if I call you Alice?"
"No… easier to just be Skuld for now, Urd," said the girl, shaking her head. "Easier to forget…"
"You don't have… family left? I mean: human relatives?"
"My grandfather in Oregon but… what will he say if I do that? He already thinks that computers are Satan's work."
She reached behind her back and pulled a tube-covered sphere the size of a tennis ball. Willow took it delicately as the child started to shake and laid it on the table. She hugged the girl that became her little sister as she cried.
"I… know," said the girl, trying to dry her tears, "my parents, my human parents, they would want me to be happy to be alive but…"
"It's all right to be sad, little sister. Just remember that I am there for you and Belldandy will too."
"If she's here… why didn't the water…"
"Dunno. I like to think that you like me more. Or maybe it was just because I was in my bath at that moment."
"Maybe… you're using Linux?" she asked while looking at Willow's laptop.
"It's a custom, I constructed it from selected spare parts, and I use a tweaked Linux system for it," replied the teenager, recognizing Skuld's wish to change the subject. "Before I became Urd, I was already a lot into computers."
"Hmm… should have something in here," said the child as her hand retrieved a palm-sized cube from the non-space behind her back.
Willow recognized it. It was the Asgardian equivalent of a flash drive, this one tweaked to also accept USB cables.
"Your infamous Skuld OS?"
"Eh! It works perfectly well. It's not my fault Keiichi's computer is too backwards to handle…"
"Even a teraflop computer would be hard-pressed to manage your OS… We'll see what we can do with the spare parts I still have, but later. We have a lot of things to do today."
"We're seeing Belldandy?" she asked, a smile fighting to appear on her lips.
"Yes, we are. We also have to try to retrieve your things from the motel. Also, there is one thing. You will see demons in town… I mean our demons, probably Mara and Hild."
The kid paled at that.
"You'll have to remember that they're… just like us, humans that got changed. We have a truce and we're all working to get rid of monsters like the one you napalmed."
"But…" she started, obviously thinking hard and fast. "Okay, I'll make an effort."
"Good. Now, come help me make us some breakfast."
- 1630 Revello Drive, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 06:50 -
Dawn was looking at her reflection in the bathroom's mirror. Her fingers followed the curve of her horns, searching for irregularities. She frowned a little and took a file. With a few precise strikes, she removed the offending bump while making sure not to damage the pattern of her horn's ridges in that area.
"Perfect," she said with a smile as she took a pose in front of the mirror.
Her clothes were still aiming for that 'gothic lolita' feeling she had been cultivating for a year. Since Halloween, there was just less black and more dark red. She knew that Pam Akumachi, 'the other girl in her head', would have dressed differently but this was something of her old self she had decided to keep.
She giggled at her reflection, wondering what some of her friends from Los Angeles would think. Sure, she had made some new ones since she came to live in Sunnydale last summer, friendships that were now seriously strengthened by the fact Kit and Amanda were also Raim and Vine, Pam Akumachi's best friends. Still, she missed the old gang of the literary club in her former school. She was still chatting with them online, but it wasn't the same.
And now I have to mind what I tell them…
Her old friends had been the ones to induct her into the whole Goth movement after they had spent some hours discussing their mutual dislike of the Twilight Saga and thoroughly pointing out why it wasn't Gothic. She even had a t-shirt stating that 'Real vampires don't sparkle' somewhere but she hadn't worn it for a good while. Not since the parent-teacher night as a matter of fact, not since she had understood that the people that attacked Sunnydale High that night had not been 'a gang on PCP' but real vampires. Since that moment, she had understood what was eating her sister, what she was fighting night after night.
But now, everything is different… I'm a creature of the night now. It's been a hell of a start for my freshman year in high school… pun intended.
Horns, pointed ears, scarlet eyes burning with unholy fire and canines that were cute little fangs, all surrounded by perfect alabaster skin and dark red hair that somehow reminded her of the Balrog's flames. This was the face the mirror was sending her back. She tried to look for either her old human self or Pam Akumachi's cheerful face but the first was already dimming in her memory, washed away by the hellfire flowing through her veins. As for the second…
"Mom… do you think I am… eviler than Pam?"
Dawn turned her head to look at her mother. The teen demoness had felt her energy approaching rather than heard her coming. Again, she tried to remember the image of Joyce Summers and pit it against the one of the platinum blond, tan-skinned woman leaning against the bathroom door's frame. She tried to tell herself that her mom would never dress so provocatively, that she would have bothered with wearing a shirt and a bra under the jacket of her power suit. But the memory of the human Joyce Summers was dimming too, replaced by the new reality they had both eagerly accepted.
"I don't know much about Pam as I only have a few memories of Hild when she met her during Halloween night. She seemed to be a sweet girl wanting people to be friends."
"Isn't that… naïve?"
"It is," said Joyce with a sad smile, "particularly for a Shedu. But being a Shedu myself, I also respect her immensely. She didn't care about fitting in. She held on to the values she had chosen for herself despite what others thought. Finally, she came out on top and changed the rules."
"And… if she had been wrong? What if what she built… hadn't worked?"
"Then others with different ideas would have risen and replaced her. You are my daughter and are thus entitled to some privileges but neither Buffy, Urd nor you will inherit my throne simply because of this. If you are interested in following in my steps, you will have to conquer it and then prove every day that you are worthy of it."
"But… I mean Hild surely did but you…"
"I need to make sure that you have proper civic education classes… and we will need to take into account the mixed classes, as the other side… sorry, to get back to the point, Hell is an elective constitutional monarchy but the election rules for Satan allow for someone to seize the post in crisis times… which makes me think, can you wear this near your neck?"
Joyce handed Dawn an enamel pin figuring a golden Baphomet drawn inside a black flame.
"Sure," replied the teen while attaching the pin to her collar. "Is it your coat of arms?"
"For our House, the Darkflames, it would just be the pentagram and the black flame. This is the pin of the Baphomet Compact. In short, Houses form alliances called Compacts and the compact chooses a Prince to represent it in the government. In our case, it's your uncle Belial. It can't be me because as Satan I have to stay above the melee."
"Got it, this is like wearing a Democrat or a Republican pin… so if I get it right, nobody's objecting to you being Satan now, but it may change once things are calmer?"
"Yes, the Council of the Princes can revoke a Satan with a two-thirds majority votes, but it's not as simple as getting five Princes out of seven to agree. We integrated the possibilities and restrictions Nidhogg gave us in our politics," said Joyce while tapping her daughter's brow seal with her index. "Each compact has its 'electoral weight' calculated in real time. So, depending on the power of his compact, a Prince's voice is worth a certain percentage of the voting pool. As you can guess, there is a lot of bargaining to have Houses switch compacts when the Council has to vote on something… kind of like how they bargain in the Congress to get enough support to pass a law. Belial and I are working hard to make sure we have enough support. One last thing, you will also likely hear about the Dark Cabinet at some point. It's my government, like all the Secretaries around the President. Some of my ministers are Princes but others are just regular demons I appointed. I'll tell you another time why we don't need a clear separation of powers."
Dawn looked back in the mirror, at their joined reflection as her mom was now standing behind her, hands on her shoulders. There was a hardness in her mother's face. From what she remembered, it had sometimes been here, particularly during the divorce, but never with such intensity. Dawn knew that her 'new and improved' mom could do terrible things without the slightest remorse.
And that I will soon be able to… Mom will make sure of it, and it will be because she loves us and wants us to be able to protect ourselves…
- 1603 Revello Drive, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 07:30 -
A pity I don't have more… I know: this afternoon after class, Kit will certainly be up for it.
For the first morning since the start of the school year, she didn't have to take the bus. She had simply exited the house, spread her wings, and taken flight.
"I'm flying in the sky, just flying in the sky. What a glorious feelin' I'm happy again…" she sung with a grin, skewing Gene Kelly's words just a little.
It was truly glorious to her, to glide freely, moving faster than the cars in the streets. She felt the wind on the skin membranes of her wings though these didn't really flap. While her wingspan was honorable, it was nowhere near enough to allow her to fly in a 'natural' way given her mass and muscle power. The trick, one she remembered from the lessons Raim and Vine – Kit and Amanda's devil alter egos – had given to Pam, was that devil wings had more to do with sci-fi concepts like gravity redirection than with the ones of birds.
"… and I'm ready for love!"
She started her descent on the high school while, at her side, her familiar rolled his eyes.
"Mistress…"
"Yes, Zu?"
"You will really try to… woo her?"
"Of course!" said Dawn, not able to fully prevent the blush rising on her cheeks. "I mean… it's Linfa!"
She landed near the entrance, remembering what their homeroom teacher had told them the day before. While there was still a lot of work to do, they had already made some amendments to the school rules to take into account the students' 'improved mobility'. In practice, it meant no flying or teleporting on school grounds, except for emergencies or during some special courses like PE.
"And you are Pam?" asked the lion-headed eagle.
Dawn stopped, lowering her head as she felt doubt in her heart.
"I won't know if it works until I try, Zu."
"I see you've made up your mind… I'll spend the day resting in your pendant if you don't mind. I don't want to risk seeing that crazy girl."
The familiar dematerialized and Dawn entered the building, heading for her locker. She wondered if Zu had meant Linfa but then remembered there might also be another possibility. In Pam's world, a devil girl called Camio had been completely smitten with him.
A thought for later. Now, the objective is Linfa.
From what she had uncovered the day before, she was a freshman in Sunnydale High like her and her human name was Liberty Kendall. Her human self was a problem because of their respective big sisters. Buffy and Harmony Kendall could not stand each other and from the information Dawn had gathered, Halloween had potentially made things worse. Not only had Harmony merged with Lind, a Valkyrie that seemed just as amenable as General Patton, but their parents were even worse. If Susanoo's intel was correct, Linfa's mom was none other than the commander of the Valkyrie Corps: Mikael. She would probably have something to say about her little angel hanging out with Satan's daughter.
Though… remember what Susanoo told me about her dad. Gabriel is the Allfather's Jim Phelps and has a very pragmatic view of things.
- Joyce's office, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 08:27 -
Joyce shifted her gaze from the report she was reading to the woman sitting in front of her. The human that person had been before Halloween was unfamiliar to her, some biology postdoc at the UC Sunnydale from what she had been told. However, she was remarkably familiar with another side of that woman, the one that went with the demon marks adorning her guest's face.
"So, we have a problem," said Satan.
"It depends on how you look at it," replied the guest while scratching the animal sitting next to her chair behind the ears.
Joyce had to admit that for the part of her that was Hild, the animal in question was normal, a common household pet… in Niflheim.
"What's her name?" she asked with a smile.
"Belle, after the one in the novel. I just couldn't resist."
Joyce looked in the animal's eyes. All three pairs of them, each placed on a different head, or even four if you counted the ones on the viper head at the end of the animal's tail. Belle had otherwise retained most of her traits as a Great Pyrenees and actually managed to look cute.
Or maybe my new and improved brain has skewed my sense of aesthetics…
She saw the Cerberus cower before her gaze. Joyce shifted her eyes back to the report. She knew that the animal had enough magical senses to feel her power and was just acknowledging her dominance over her. It was better to ignore the 'dog' before the canine did something embarrassing. She turned the pages, reaching something that looked vaguely like a weather pressure map of Sunnydale and frowned.
"Bifrons… these are all measures taken while you were looking for the vampire nests?"
"Yes. As the local breed has a different signature than the ones we had in the other universe, it was easier to use a general scanning spell and filter afterwards."
Joyce didn't even need to read the conclusions. Thanks to Hild, she knew immediately what the measures meant. She typed a few commands on her Nidhogg terminal and looked at another graph.
"We have underestimated the corrupting effect of the Hellmouth. We are immune to it, but the local fauna and flora are not so lucky... I want you to coordinate with Vapula on this and refine Nidhogg's radiation filters. I also want sensors posted outside of the city's barrier."
"The barrier will prevent radiations from leaking outside but…"
"But preventing things such as a mutated seed from being blown away is another matter," she concluded.
"As well as animals who will have the desire to wander. To give you a simple example, a filly born this morning in a farm belonging to a god family has wings and a blue coat… from what I was told, the family's kids named the future mare Rainbow Dash," added Bifrons with a smirk.
Joyce sighed as she leaned back in her chair. Pegasi were not just winged horses. They were creatures of elemental air and needed to roam freely in the sky to flourish.
"Which means the Celestial Tear the Elohim opened has a similar effect… who is in charge of that dossier on their side?"
"I don't think they have a task force yet… you know how bureaucratic they can be. Raphael contacted me directly and I suppose he will be put in charge once things have gone through 'the proper channels'," replied Bifrons, making air quotes while saying the end of her sentence.
Satan nodded. Heaven and Hell were both constitutional monarchies but had some serious differences in how they implemented the concept. When you looked at the rules laid in Hell's constitution, government seemed chronically unstable, reminiscent of the problems encountered by states like the French Third Republic. The demons made, however, full use of the fact that Nidhogg made it physically impossible for a demon to break their word. Swearing to uphold the constitution was a mandatory part of the coming-of-age ceremony for all demons. All in all, Hell's governing system was adaptable rather than chaotic, but it had a downside also seen in modern corporations. The shifting alliances made it more difficult to keep plans with no short-term results going on.
At the other end of the spectrum, Heaven was pretty much as Ancient China had envisioned it. It was a bureaucracy with regulations for everything and where going through the proper channels could literally take ages. Once the machine was running at full speed, however, it was a juggernaut that few things could stop.
Joyce had another look at the woman petting her three-headed dog. From what she remembered, Bifrons was one Hild's trusted people, maybe even one of the few she could call a friend. Initially a patron of necromancers, she had diversified her activities during the Renaissance and ended up being the muse for all the wannabes Frankenstein, Moreau et al.
But I also remember other things… I remember her fondness for chocolate and some practical jokes that made Hild laugh a lot… like that day where she replaced all the bodies in a med school's morgue with zombies programmed to dance to the music of Thriller.
She had a small smile as she remembered the incident. Athena's face had probably been one of the funniest things, particularly with Bifrons sending paramedics straight to the goddess with a false report regarding a stuck-up lady about to have a stroke.
Note to self: if I un-cat Ethan Rayne… introducing them to each other might either be a match made… in hell or the source of many headaches to come.
"You know," said Bifrons. "This contamination will solve one of our big problems. The kids will want familiars."
Joyce frowned. While Hild never had one, many Shedim liked to have a familiar. There was, however, a slight problem with that. Modern familiars were advanced golems, artificial spiritual creatures that latched onto their master's soul and created a symbiotic link with them, normally deriving its personality from its host's soul. The Elohim used a similar technology to create their guardian angels.
But there is an older way: contracting an independent magical creature. That is the way Dawn – or rather Pam – used to bind Zu.
This was another reminder that there were currently two cultures of Shedim living side by side and that the same went for the Elohim. It wasn't too alien as the Devils and Angels of Pam Akumachi's world were similar to what Hild and Odin's people had been in the past on several key points, but they also differed majorly on others.
"The Elohim won't like it. Abandoning contracted familiars was one of the concessions we made when signing the Treaty of Ophir. It will also be years before we can put together the facilities to create artificial familiar eggs, and the same for them with guardian angels."
"Except the old treaties don't really apply to us as we are not the ones that lived in the other worlds… even if we tend to forget it."
"True… something else to renegotiate. Last point: do you have any data on human corruption?"
"Not for the Hellmouth but by comparison to some of 'my' old research, it will be slower. Sapient souls just don't resonate the same."
There was a discreet knock on the office's door and Joyce made a distracted hand wave toward it, sending just enough magic to open it while she perused once again the data assembled by Bifrons. Just as expected, she smelled the sweet scent of coffee, but then realized that the aura of the person bringing it was not her secretary's.
"Any reason you are playing butler, Belial?" she asked as the demon prince poured cups.
"You know that I am always eager to please ladies, sister dear."
Sister… the word rolled in her mind, reminding her of the new family links Halloween had spun. Her own with Willow because they were Hild and Urd, one between Willow and the girl that became Skuld and probably many others in town.
Like the fact Hild has a little brother called Belial…
Yet, there was something else. She knew Belial intimately, biblically even. Had they not been so busy lately… she put a clamp on her instincts. She would need time to assess everything and determine what was morally acceptable for the 'new and improved' her and where she stood regarding her new family members. Until then… she would quash any thought about asking Belial for a certain kind of stress relief.
"But I know that smile, Belial… to quote my daughter: what's the what?"
"You are right, we have a problem, one that will require our attention today but for which it is better not to rush blindly. A human escaped the conversion during Halloween night."
St. Michael Church, Sunnydale, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 8:40 -
Milos Zeman was praying, kneeling in front of the altar of his church. He knew he had sinned many times and that he was probably not worthy of the habit of a catholic priest. Too often he had watched what happened in Sunnydale without acting when he could have tried to fight and maybe gain some measure of redemption through martyrdom.
But there were orders…
Once again, he wondered if his superiors in Rome were really accomplishing God's will, if they had not become too jaded to the people's suffering in their fight against the forces of darkness. But with Halloween, something changed. He got up and went to the entrance of the church, looking at the street.
It was a nice, sunny day in Sunnydale and the town looked very much like the quiet Californian city it was supposed to be to the ignorant one. Even to him, it seemed that the usual aura of malevolence that permeated the place had disappeared, which had made him wonder, at first, if the Hellmouth had not gone fully dormant. Then, he had started to notice things.
On the opposite side of the street, a young couple was doing a promenade with their baby in a stroller. He knew them well. He had baptized their child a few weeks ago. They waved to him, and he waved back, forcing himself to act normally, as if he did not see the red marks on their faces, their horns and tails and did not feel the demonic power rolling off them.
He took a step down the church's front stairs, feeling the spell descend on him, masking all the blue and red marks on the townspeople's faces, the horns, and the tails. It was like in that old science fiction movie where the hero received sunglasses that allowed him to see past the illusion spun by the aliens. He couldn't be sure as only the wards of his church protected him from the glamour, but he was more and more certain that the whole town was affected… possessed.
He took the newspaper left by some delivery boy earlier and went back inside the church. Like the people's appearance, the newspaper was bewitched and would have looked nothing out of the ordinary… except when brought inside this church. The editorialist had signed a commentary on 'proper spellcasting classes' that would be introduced the following weeks and encouraged parents to teach their children to use their magic responsibly. He had signed it with the name Baalberith. Another article was an interview with Allan Finch, the Deputy Mayor, who reminded people to be wary of outsiders, both demons and mortals. His picture showed him as a blond man with long hair… and a halo.
"They have to be a… new kind of demon… maybe… the Grigori angels of the book of Enoch?"
- On the other side of the street, at the same time -
Spike lit himself a cigarette and smiled. What he was doing was quite simple. He was leaning against a car's hood and feeling the sun on his face. A sun that wasn't reducing him into a pile of ashes.
"I haven't seen you smile like this for a long while, Loki," said a voice near him.
He turned his head, thinking that one of Loki's oldest friends had kept his sense of humor by choosing someone looking like Christopher Walken. Despite everything, they had stayed such, as this man had understood that Balder needed to be dealt with. While he had no proof, he was also almost certain that this man had been behind the unexplainable security failure that allowed Sigyn to give the finger to the Valkyrie Corps and escape Heaven.
"A part of me hadn't seen the sun for a very long time, Gabriel."
"So have I heard… I suppose Drusilla is adapting well?"
The former vampire had a smile as he thought of his former sire, now his companion.
"Belldandy is the best thing that ever happened to her, Gabe. She's… it's like Bell allowed her to be as she should have been, if Angelus had not twisted her."
"Angelus… you know he is in the hospital?"
"How do you know?"
"He 'inherited' Valefor."
Spike scowled. Loki considered Valefor to be an insufferable poseur even if he recognized the talent of the Master Thief.
"Bloody charming… that bloke never understood the best trick is the one where the victim doesn't realize she's been tricked… You're seeing the Old Man later today?"
"Yes, if only to tell him how the problem in that church has been handled. A message to pass on?"
"Tell him I will treat his little girl right and make her an honest woman as soon as possible."
"I don't know if he will be pleased or horrified, but I will tell him that. About that church…"
"I am handling that personally, Gabriel," said a voice behind them while its owner materialized in a blaze of dark flames.
The archangel could not prevent a little shudder as her aura washed over him.
"You know I could go in there and do it all Annunciation-style," replied Gabriel.
"But you know why it wouldn't work," said Joyce, her now usual slight smile on her lips. "Wait for me here, boys."
They both watched her as she started to walk across the street, her high heels clacking on the asphalt.
"You know," said Gabriel, taking the smoke Spike handed him, "intellectually, I know that she's just like me, a human changed only two days ago. Yet…"
Spike snickered.
"Listen, mate: when she was a 'mere human', she chased 'vampire master' me with a fire axe. Actually… I think she will be even scarier than Hild."
Gabriel took a second to think about it. It was true that Joyce Summers was different from Hild in many ways, and he could now see some subtle differences. Hild would have made some snarky comment about how she was doing the gods a favor. When Joyce had said 'Wait for me here, boys', it had rather felt like 'Stay safe, Mom is taking care of everything'.
And here it goes, thought the archangel as he saw her knock at the church's door, which immediately made the gargoyles start to wail.
St. Michael Church, Sunnydale, at the same time -
Milos Zeman raised his head as he heard the gargoyles wail, their cries soon ending in a gargle as the church's door opened. He felt the wards tearing away as if they were tissue paper, shattering against the dark red light haloing the silhouette in the entrance. He had a look at the statues, shaking as he saw them cry tears of blood.
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned…," said the person in the entrance, the sound of her heels resonating as she progressed in the central alley.
He knew who had this voice. He had observed her many times because of who she was: Joyce Summers, the Slayer's mother, and a good woman. But now… he turned to face her.
"You are the last human in Sunnydale, you know," she said. "The wards of this church were well designed, with their own cloaking field to prevent the demons from noticing them…"
He looked at her, seeing the changes in her, the arrogant stride, platinum blond hair, burgundy eyes, and dusky skin. Yet, despite the flaunted flesh, she did not look like some harlot. Her inhuman perfection rather made people want to worship her and the very ground she walked upon.
Ô toi, le plus savant et le plus beau des anges, Dieu trahi par le sort et privé de louanges*…
Baudelaire's verses sprung into his mind as he looked at her. He knew. He could feel her gaze looking straight at his soul. He raised his cross, shaking as he knew that Satan in person had entered his church.
"Indeed," replied Joyce, a smirk on her lips. "Though… let's not reopen the dispute over the gender of angels."
"I… I already reported to Rome."
"I know. That's how we were reminded about the loose end you represent. As you certainly noticed, we had a lot to do these last days…"
"This is not some remote place you can isolate from the world…"
"Very true… Arranging everything so that regular people like delivery men did not notice anything has been… a rush. Anyway… things are now under control. Can you look at the obituaries page?"
He turned the newspaper's pages. The obituaries were empty, only announcing some services for deaths that happened before Halloween. A day without any death was completely unheard of for this town.
"You…"
"Please, do you really think I would bother with lying to you? I can crush your will with a thought."
"It might be a game for you…"
"Hmm… yes it could be, and She knows that I will have earned some fun next weekend but… I will only spend what I can spare of my Sunday on the beach with my three daughters… and maybe have dinner with my ex-husband. But to get back to the point that made me visit you, I am here to tell you we consider you to be the Apostolic Nuncio for our fair city."
"You… you want to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See?" he asked with disbelieving eyes.
"We do. I have no sympathy for the demon lords you are familiar with, and I think this world could do without their menace. For this, we need allies and I have it on good authority that the Catholic Church still has soldiers around the world."
Milos felt his head spin. The Devil herself was offering an alliance against the demons. That… wasn't so unbelievable. All people knowing about the real demons also knew that they often warred among themselves.
But if we help this one gain ascendancy on the others…
"I… I will contact them but… what of the humans of this town?"
"What happened here was not decided by me… but by someone higher. I am who you believe I am, mostly, but I am also still Joyce and the same goes for all people in town. Go meet your parishioners, talk with them, and see for yourself if they have been damned or just changed. Do not be bothered too much by the empty seats in yesterday's service. You see, they don't need to believe in Her existence anymore… they know."
He looked at her, being reminded that, if the tradition was true, those eyes had seen the Lord's face.
"I grant you the gift to see beyond the veil we spun. I'll also have my ex-husband send someone to repair those wards…"
- Across the street, at the same time -
Gabriel sighed as he looked at the church. The gargoyles looked like they had choked in their own blood. He took out his phone and sent a message to Allan Finch, asking him to send a team to repair the wards and purify things. He saw her walk out of the building and sing a cleansing spell. Good, things would be easier for them, and they would make sure to include some bypasses in the new wards to prevent such issues in the future.
He knew why she had succeeded when his own chances would have been very small. The priest knew that something was wrong in that town. When facing Satan, he had good reasons to be wary but… she was just another demon, and he could actually believe her to be somewhat honest. An attempt by him, going all messenger angel on him, would have been almost certainly considered a deception.
"I asked the Mayor's Office to send a repair team for his wards," he said as she neared them.
"Thank you, Gabriel," replied Joyce. "How is Heaven's Intelligence Service doing?"
"Still busy putting it back together but that's Athena's job. In the meantime, well I'm one of the few who knows how to play fast and loose on our side."
"All right. Loki will be your contact on our end while Belial puts our own services back together."
"Odin will probably try to convince you to create common institutions, maybe put back together the ones we had in Atlantis…"
Joyce shook her head.
"We don't have the two centuries it took to build them the first time. Maybe later but for now, our duality is actually a strength, as each side will be able to do things the other can't. For now… we're like Sparta and Athens during the Persian Wars: we have external threats to deal with and that takes priority. We'll find solutions to our internal problems later."
"Understood," said both Spike and Gabriel.
"With that, boys, I still have a lot to do. See you later!"
She waved goodbye, smiling cheerfully as she dissolved into dark flames.
- Sunnydale, Wednesday 2 November 2011, 9:17 -
Drusilla answered the door and was greeted by a preteen girl who rushed in to hug her while another, older girl waved hello from behind. Of course, she recognized them. They were her sisters after all.
"Oh my… please do come in," said the former vampire.
"Nice place you have here, sister," said Willow.
"Thank you, but you know it was just one of those abandoned warehouses a few days ago… and I still need some genuine art to fill in some spaces. Please have a seat. I will make some tea."
Skuld reluctantly let her other big sister go to sit on the couch, next to Willow.
"The… other you is British, Belldandy?" asked Willow who was wondering about Drusilla's accent.
"Yes, though I traveled a lot since then… it's probably better to put things out in the open directly. I was a vampire before Halloween."
"But…" started Skuld, "how? I… your aura is Belldandy's?"
"I think I can guess," said Willow. "Skuld, you remember what happened when Hild replaced Belldandy's angel with that demonic familiar?"
"Yes, it was changed into… something else, not quite an angel but… Got it, the nasty vampire could not resist my beloved sister's power."
Drusilla stifled a giggle. It was so good to see them both.
"That's true," said the middle Norn, "Belldandy restored my soul, a little like what happened to Angel."
"You know him?"
"He sired the vampire me, long before his soul was forced back on him. From what I know, he and my Spike are doing something at Hild's request."
"Spike being Loki?" asked Willow.
"Yes… It's not easy for the part of me that is Belldandy, but I am less innocent than she is, Urd. I understand Loki's reasons even if I would have preferred for him to find another way to deal with Balder."
"I know this happened before I was born," said Skuld, "but… I remember Thor saying bad things about him, though never in Mom's hearing range."
"Unlike what too many of us like to believe, Skuld," said Drusilla, "we gods are not necessarily good. To speak frankly, your big brother was a jerk, the kind who thought that certain people were worth less than others just because of their ancestry or looks."
"Yeah," said Willow, "people like me."
"I'm not sure I understand," said Skuld, "but I remember one of our neighbors in San Francisco, I mean in my human life. He didn't like black people and once I saw him dressed in a white robe…"
"Eh," said Willow, scratching the back of her head, "yes, Balder was like that. Skuld, if Loki hadn't killed him, Urd would probably have done something and…"
"I know, you don't do subtle," said Skuld, taking a sip of tea.
"Anyway, we are going to have to learn to live together, both gods and demons," said Drusilla.
- Abbazia di San Liberatore a Maiella, Abruzzo (Italy), Thursday 3 November 2011, 18:34 (GMT1) -
"Your Eminency… do you think that the Watchers have already realized?" asked a man in black monastic robes to his superior.
The cardinal James Carmody, head of the secret order of the Knights of Saint Jude, was busy helping his people go through numerous occult books. Earlier in the day, two emails sent by their agent in Sunnydale had revealed a major power shift in town.
"It all depends on if their man was possessed at the same time as the others… given that the Slayer's mother is involved, it is possible that nothing was reported to them."
"Your Eminency, I think I have it," said a nun in a white habit.
"Hmm… let me see this, Sister Lori…"
The cardinal put on cotton gloves and unrolled delicately the old papyrus, reading quickly a text written in Greek.
"This is part of the Alexandria collection?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the nun. "The original is attributed to Manetho and probably in the Watchers' library now."
"Hmm… Caesar certainly wasn't an easy man but having his soldiers secretly bring back part of the content of the library to Rome while faking its destruction is just another proof of his genius. Yes… it's here: 'and I, Manetho, did under his orders research among the archives in sacred script of the Double House of Life of the Great Temple of Heliopolis to assemble the prophecies given by the Heretic King that were hidden when his city was destroyed…"
He switched to a lower part of the text.
"... and Akhenaten said that on the day of… Brother Luca, can you match that date with the Gregorian calendar, please?" asked the cardinal as the monk near him took down some notes with his stylus on his computer tablet, inputting the data into a program developed by another member of the order.
"This corresponds to the 31st of October 2011 your Eminency."
"Thank you, brother…. During this night of transition, the gods will emerge once again from the Noun, led by Amun-Ra, lord of heaven, creator of the staff of life, and Asherah-Qetesh, great of magic, mistress of the stars. Sublime is their power as they stand on Atum's Wound to accomplish Aten's will… Atum's Wound, where did we see that?"
"Here, in Paatenemehb's texts," said Sister Lori. "We think it's an Egyptian expression for a hellgate."
"Thank you… They will make the new Heliopolis their earthly capitol, allowing all men and women who dared to stand on Atum's Wound to be reborn and elevated as their new courts. Then the vision becomes unclear as they battle against Apophis and the Shining Ones… and that's all."
"Your Eminency… I thought the gods of mythology were either the Powers or the demons playing with humans…"
"This is different. According to the records coming from the Shadow Men, the demons known as the Old Ones 'lost their purchase on this reality' or, in other words, God decided to make place for Man, putting the angels known as the Powers in charge of… lower management."
"So, this could be the Lord's will?"
"Luca… how many demon-related catastrophes did our order prevent in the last decade?"
"Too many," replied Sister Lori.
"Indeed. Even if the Watchers are fond of having the Slayer believe she's alone, the world has always been too vast for that. Our Order, the Watchers, the Yukikaze ninja clan, the Soldats, plus the minor local factions and the independent demon hunters… most of us with only very limited support from the Powers while the other side has structures like Wolfram and Hart. I can suppose that He realized how bad it was down here. But that's only a hypothesis… So, we dispatch a team to Sunnydale and try to learn more."
* This a quote from Charles Baudelaire's famous poem 'Les Litanies de Satan'. An English translation of the verses I found gives "O you, the wisest and fairest of the Angels, God betrayed by destiny and deprived of praise".