The Song of Ruin

by James Golen

The Demiurge has revealed himself, and declared a vendetta against God. Hell is in turmoil as Lucifer - now with a mere imp as his Proxy - is surely planning a new war against Heaven, to reclaim the throne he calls his own. And those who are stuck on the battlefield have to find a way to survive. This is a story of how good men die. Book 2 of The Demiurge Duology.

51. What Seems Too Good To Be True

"It still itches," Blitz bitched.

"Considering the amount of nerve damage that you suffered, the fact that you have feeling in it at all is a minor miracle," the Caprican doctor said. He nevertheless opened up the paneling on the new leg that Blitz had to get installed after the old one got burned off. Well, not burned off, exactly, but so damaged that the choice was either hack it off or die of sepsis. And like fuck was Blitz gonna die because of the deeds of one Crimson Knolastname. The prosthetic that he'd gotten put in was a pretty hefty beast, and though it had an option to layer it with a skin-analogue in his dashing impish red, he decided to layer it in white, like the gnarled scar-tissue of his remaining foot and leg. Gotta keep things nice and balanced.

It'd been a bit embarrassing to have to bitch out on quite a few jobs for quite a few months, both because of his injury and because of the time it took to get this new leg up and running. He was gonna have to talk to Fizz about how he borg'd up. Maybe he knew some tricks that would knock this bullshit off of him.

"Well," the Caprican doctor said, "I'm not seeing a bad connection here. Let me get the tester."

The Fiend hopped off of the table and then mounted first a chair and then the countertop so he could reach the cupboards overhead. This guy was a small fry. Damned near impish in stature. Like that bigshot Dealmaker from back when. Well, not really, 'cause this guy was all pastel pink instead of ashen gray. The leg had been a fairly basic one, because he wanted to be on his back as short a time as possible. But that still left him with at least one perk that the leg offered him that mere meat couldn't. It had an integrated holster. Now, he would never be disarmed again. Suck on that, Crimson.

Of course, Stolas had been in a state over the fact that he'd been on death's door as long as he had. It was getting easier and easier to believe that the big old bird was actually in love with him when he refused to leave Blitz's side until he was out of the trenches of recovering from major surgery, as well as minor borgification. And according to Stolas, the Goetia had even gone to bat for him when Lucifer called in another task while he was comatose, pointing out that a nearly-dead Proxy – injured on the job no less – would understandably be unable to complete Lucifer's bitch-work.

The Caprican doctor returned to the table, and prodded the tester into the flesh of his leg where it met the metal of his borg-bits. He immediately gave a heavy 'Hmmm' to which Blitz told him to spill. "Oh, sorry. I'm getting misfiring that's bleeding over into the nerve-clip," he then paused. "Wait, you said that this wasn't painful?"

"Yeah, just itchy," Blitz said.

"From this reading, you should be screaming in agony right now for it to miss-feed into 'itchiness'," the doctor gave him a hard look.

"Well I don't get anywhere bein' a big old puss, now do I?" he said.

The doctor stared at him, then shook his head, chuckling at the stubbornness of imps. "I'm going to fry those nerves for you. It should both kill the pain that you didn't see fit to tell me about and curtail the itchiness that you did," he said. The doctor then reached for something that looked like a needle, but hummed with electricity. "I trust you would refuse painkillers if I offered them?"

"What did I say 'bout bein' a big old puss?" Blitz asked. And when the Consumer shook his head and jabbed the needle thing into his leg, it did sting like an absolute motherfucker, but he managed to only hiss with discomfort at it, and at the next seven stabs that followed it. The doctor then checked his reader thing again, then nodded and reached over to turn on the leg again. And lo and behold, the itch was gone. "Fantastic. That's all I needed from ya," Blitz said, as the doc sealed everything up and made the leg just look like a leg again instead of a disassembled toaster.

The Consumer pressed Blitz back onto the table with a hand, "Now, you strike me as somebody who doesn't tend to take very good care of yourself. Who should I give the maintenance and repair schedule to who you'll actually listen to?"

"Well fuck me sideways, are you sure you're not a shrink?" Blitz asked, because the doctor had managed to call that spade a spade alright. The Consumer gave a chuckle but motioned for Blitz to give a name. "Tilla Miller, my mom," he said, then rattled off her digits.

"I'll send these to her when you leave. Just remember that that leg may be made of metal, but it is still subject to damage and needs repair from time to time. It doesn't make you a super-imp," he released pressure and hopped off of the table, allowing Blitz to swing out his feet and drop to the floor.

And it felt normal.

It sure as shit wasn't actually normal, because this kind of borg-bit usually was well outside the price-range of an imp, but Stolas had demanded only the best for his lover. When Blitz walked off, he noted that the dull ache that he'd gotten used to since this thing was put onto him was actually gone as though it'd never been. He stepped out of the office, and the doctor started doing doctor things, things that were well outside of Blitz's horizon of giving-a-shit. And when he stepped out, there was the Goetia trying with all his might to pack himself into one of the deeply uncomfortable chairs that the hospital lobby had to offer. He'd figured that Our Lady Of Unreasonable Violence would have better chairs once you got past the riff-raff, but it seemed like they just bought chairs in bulk. The rest of the patrons were all gathered as far from Stolas as they could get. Those lower Hellspawn knew that it was tempting fate to interfere with the business of one of Lucifer's royalty.

"Blitzie!" Stolas said, rising from his awkward 'sit', which was more of a contorted lay-down holding his legs up so they didn't splay across to the next row of seats. He rushed to Blitz's side and scooped him up, and Blitz could only roll his eyes. "Did they manage to solve your little issue?"

"Yeah, just needed to fry some nerves," Blitz said. Stolas turned a concerned look to him.

"That sounds rather serious," Stolas said.

"Eh. It solved the itch, that's all that matters," Blitz said. Stolas turned to the receptionist.

"Put all costs on my account," he demanded.

"If you say so, your grace," the mutant behind the bulletproof glass said.

"So where do you want to go now, now that you're back in fighting fit?" Stolas asked, letting Blitz stand on his own two feet again.

"Honestly? I kinda wanna go back to work," Blitz said. Stolas turned a confused look to him. "I know right? What the fuck kind of work ethic did I pick up where after recovering from a crippling injury I wanna go out to a place where I can pick up more crippling injuries?"

"Boredom is a terrible beast, and can exact dangerous prices from us if it catches us unawares," Stolas said as he stooped to enter the elevator.

"Said a mouthful, Stolas," he said. He had a thought, and glanced up at the Goetia that towered over him. "Did Lucifer pitch a shit-fit when you went all mother-hen on me?"

"I think he was more interested in his newest angelic recruits that he's managed to bring into the fold," Stolas said.

"Oh shit, more Angels like what's-her-nose?" Blitz asked.

"Yeqon. And Charlotte managed to recruit an Angel of her own, as well as an Outsider," Stolas said.

"Well shit. Didn't think that prissy bitch had it in her to actually be useful," Blitz said.

"She's surprising people rather a lot these days," Stolas said.

There was a moment of silence in the elevator as it descended.

"...we've got the fuckin' book, what are we doing?" Blitz lambasted his own lack of good sense.

"Oh, it had completely slipped my mind," he said, and handed the Grimoire Ultima Mundi back to its rightful owner. Blitz swiped the magic from the relevant page and flicked it at the elevator wall, opening a portal to the top floor of the Miller Building.

"Come to think, you never did come and visit my new building, did ya?" Blitz asked.

"I had to presume that you would invite me when you good and ready to," Stolas said, running a finger along Blitz's horn.

"Well you're fucking invited," he said, and they stepped out into the business that kept Blitz sane amidst all of that Lucifer-bullshit that the Big Guy kept dropping on him. He was really gonna have to look into a way to retire without dying. Being Proxy was a ball-ache to end all ball-aches.

---

Chapter 51

What Seems Too Good To Be True

---

Watching the Extermination Clock hit 'T-Minus You're All Fucked' from High Central was usually a humorously macabre affair, since the dwellers in High Central, sheltered as they were by the shadow of Lucifer's palace, would almost never actually have to deal with Exorcists actually trampling their rose gardens, kicking down their doors, or killing their families. They'd even held that opinion when the Forever Purge began, and the clock on that great tower that loomed over Pentagram City, visible from all places in the urban bounds despite the fact that such a thing ought to be optically impossible, now went forth on its idiot way without purpose. It wasn't until last year that they finally got a taste, the slightest lick of what the rest of the city, and Pride Ring in general, was subjected to, that they started to remember what it was to have fear.

And more than that, it forced them to accept that the salvation from that fear might not come from money, or having an army of thralls to throw at a problem. Exorcists couldn't be bought, and could kill until the sun died in the sky far faster than a noble could muster his reserves, let alone recover from grisly losses. No, they had to accept that a pair of imps, those fetid, wretched creatures that they would favor only the lowliest of jobs to, could stand and fight against those horrifying automata and break them over their knee.

For a lot of nobles, that just made them more bitter. Fuck 'em, Moxxie thought. They would die stupid for clinging to a paradigm that provably no longer worked. Others, though, gave careful overtures to their new 'neighbors'. And from them, others began to filter in as well. Some the patriarchs of lesser baronetcies, others minor members of the Margrave houses, and Moxxie was even on good speaking terms with a fairly literate second-daughter of a Baron. Word was beginning to spread that this was The Proxy's Manor no longer. Now, it was The Golden Manse.

Why golden? Moxxie wasn't entirely sure. No amount of deep-thought could supply information he simply didn't have. But Moxxie didn't discourage the name, either.

Still, returning to his home through a portal with Beatrice clinging to his leg like a barnacle still felt as though he were God Almight returning to his throne. As soon as they were through the portal, Beatrice let out a giggle, unlatched herself, and started to toddle away. She was growing up so quickly. She'd already said her first word a little while ago. Mum-mum. Of course, there was an issue with that word. Though it appeared to mean 'mama', it was actually the same word she used if she wanted either parent's attention. Which meant that she probably used it to mean 'parent'. She quickly made her way to the TV room, and tried to climb onto the couch, but her body was still very small, and though she heaved and grunted, she couldn't quite pull herself up onto cushions. She turned with pleading eyes and said. "Mum-mum! Ups!"

"Of course, Beatrice," he said, and scooped her by her armpits and plopped her down beside the stuffed Thing? that Moxxie had stolen from Loo Loo Land… Satan, was it six years ago now? Whatever the case, she pulled it close, and leaned against her daddy, pointing with her free arm to the Television.

"Cartoo! Cartoo!" she said.

He nodded, and turned rummaged for the remote. It had a tendency to fall between the cushions, so he fumbled there first, while brushing the hair out of Bea's eyes, just taking vicarious enjoyment of her toddleric delight at the world being a generally wonderful place. Few imps got to have that kind of experience. And with Satan as Moxxie's witness, he would give her that for as long as he had the strength to offer it. He couldn't find the clicker under the first cushion so he looked over to search the next one.

Wayland held the remote to him.

"WHATHEFUCK!" Moxxie snapped. Wayland leaned back, blinking with concern. How in the fuck… oh, he must have followed him through the portal. Satan damn it all. Moxxie took a calming breath, and took things by the protocol. Millie was out on a job with Blitz and Maelstrom in some part of eastern Europe. Loona was busy doing Hound stuff. No passing it off, he would have to eat the indignity of having another toddler hitch-hike his portal home. "Thank you, Wayland," he said. The boy nodded, and then settled to watch the TV that Moxxie turned on.

Then Moxxie pulled his Hellphone and sent a Wayland Event to the child's mother.

How in the fuck I was just looking at him, was Tilla's almost immediate response.

He must have heard my portal open and sprinted for it, Moxxie offered.

Why did I stop using the leash, again? she asked with an unhappy face emoji.

Because he learned how to take it off faster than you could put it on, Moxxie reminded her.

On the couch beside him, Beatrice was already clapping her hands in delight at the simple but catchy music of the cartoon on the TV, one that espoused Satanistic Virtues such as conspicuous charity, revulsion and excoriation of the profiteer, the robber-baron, the racketeer, and the horder, and stating that when all stand on even ground, all may be brothers and sisters instead of enemies.

While dumbed down to a child's level, the thought had some merit. It was hard to be envious of your neighbors when the only difference between what you have and what they have is where your respective priorities lay. If you wanted what they had, then you'd no longer have what you have to reach it. And to want both, was to be the greedy person that the song warned against.

"Come on, Wayland," Moxxie said. The little imp glanced from the screen which he watched with a distant gaze of serenity, to Moxxie, and then blinked in alarm. He pointed at the screen.

"But… cartoon!" he said.

"You'll see it again, I can promise that," he said. He then scooped up Wayland, and Wayland did as he always did when he was being brought somewhere he didn't want to go; he struggled like a greased hog.

So strange that he'd been defeated by a hog the first time he went back to Wrath since marrying Millie. He had been so frail then, so weak. Now he was as strong as Millie had been then. He didn't even need the knife to kill the hog, not anymore. And he wasn't even actually trying to match Millie's might at all. He just needed to get faster so that his body could keep up, to some trifling extent, with his brain.

While Wayland struggled to stay in the Golden Manse and watch cartoons with Beatrice, Moxxie walked to the hallway, ignoring Wayland's melodramatic 'Nooooooo!' and opened a portal back to Imp City. Tilla, who caught the tail end of that dramatic 'noooooo!' instantly broke into laughter, leaned across her desk and collected her struggling last-born-son. Though Wayland didn't fight her the way he fought Moxxie, he now shot Moxxie with a look of utter betrayal. As much 'how dare you' as a four year old had in him.

"I swear, I don't know why he does this," Tilla said, settling the toddler into her lap and soothing the hair between his horns. "Let alone how!"

"I can't speak to how, other than he's always been fast and sneaky," Moxxie said. Honestly, he had a promising career as a spy ahead of him if he never lost the gifts of his infancy and youth. An imp who can just show up anywhere with no alarms raised could get away with just about anything. "The why, though? I think he just wants to play with another imp his own age.

"He's got…" she began, but trailed off before remembering that Eppcor Mitvic, their 'adopted' Prideling imp was already in preschool, finally being taught how to read. Vee, without that training, was having a rough first grade, but she was stubborn, and actually tried. Of all the kids whose time was essentially entirely their own, that left only Bea. "Oh," she said.

"Look at it this way; both of them will have a massive support structure growing up, the likes of which I don't think any of us but Millie ever got to have," Moxxie said.

"Oh, don't make me envious of your wife," Tilla said with a roll of her eyes. "Besides, you're probably right about that. And I know you want to get back to your girl so I'll leave you to it," she then leaned in and tickled Wayland, who released his toddleric wrath at Moxxie to started giggling, "and you are going to stay right here when he goes, do you understand me Wayland?"

Moxxie turned away, and gave a glance to the client that he had interrupted, talked over, and utterly ignored the entire exchange. "...and now you can do your business with BKMS," Moxxie said, before, he flicked his wrist and created a portal, walking backward through it with his eyes locked on Wayland in Tilla's lap until Moxxie was through, at which point he snapped the portal closed. That kid was either going to be a legend or a heartbreaker one day. And the line between the two was so obscure it might as well have been made out of fog.

He puffed out a breath and shook his head. Whatever future was in front of Wayland was something that only the future would know for now. Because right now, he could hear his three (and a half!, she would cheerfully add) year old calling for him.

Moxxie kipped into the TV room. The song had ended, and now the program was a more child-friendly segment of a new TV show out of Wrath called Walkabout Wrath, which was actually a small-scale nature show by two Innocent of all fucking things, exploring the wild regions of Wrath Ring and talking about the dangers of the landscape and to give the animals they encounter healthy respect. Respect that they weren't showing in great amount when one of them enthusiastically picked up a snake from the dirt, and began to explain that this one, though venomous as all snakes in its family were, was actually only painful to things even as big as an imp, because its neurotoxic, paralytic poison didn't deliver enough in one strike to lock up anything of forty pounds or more. And then he immediately got bit on the face, and started to slur his words, which prevented a need for bleeping because his face did it for him.

"Mum-mum? Juice pweez?" Bea asked. Moxxie could only chuckle, and walk over to the mini-fridge he kept up and well out of little spawn's reach so that he wouldn't need to adventure all the way to the kitchen whenever Beatrice wanted her juice. He extracted a bottle from the half-empted carton of them, twisting its cap off and heading back to her. She gave a spirited hurray when he held the bottle toward her, taking a first big swig that had a bit spill out of her mouth and stain her shirt, but, well… she was three. She could be allowed such little flubs. Doing laundry took nothing but time. "Juice, juice, I love juice! Juice, juice, I love juice…"

She continued to sing her happy juice song as she watched as the two Innocent now showed a first aid-course on what to do when you were snake-bit, bereft of the usual cliches of 'sucking out the venom' or 'tourniqueting'. The second would have been entirely detrimental, because the Innocent got bit on the snout. With a sublime feeling in him, a feeling of impossible completeness, he sat beside his rapidly growing daughter, who sang her little song, drank her little bottle of juice, and made all of Hell a better place, at least for those named Moxxie and Millie Rough.

---

Cain's invitation had surprised her, considering he'd taken quite a bit longer to 'reappear' from the adventure up in Heaven that Charlie had been told about. She was frankly beginning to worry that the worst may have befallen him, since nobody had seen him since meeting with Fiona for the first time. Heaven was a big place, and there were more than sufficient Angels to end the life of a single Sinner. But no, a hand-written invitation comes, and it is addressed to her. Specifically apologizing for not allowing a 1 due to the venue, even.

Charlie wondered why Cain was inviting her to Wrath. He had a suite in the Hotel right next to hers. Still, there was nothing better to do on this particular afternoon. The finances were squared, Rachel was watching the rehabilitation programming like a hawk, Truly was ensuring that the local prostitutes either joined the Fucksmiths' Union or else got out of New Pergatory, and Angel Dust was back in the kitchens, now turning An and Nasir's loud two-way arguments into a thunderous three-way one. Still, it made for some terrific food. Roz and Fiona decided to split the Penthouse between them, officially expunging the last remnants that still existed that the Radio Demon had ever sunk his claws into this building. Since both could fly, it seemed a perfect place for them to roost. All of that left her with free time. And now, a destination to use that free time upon.

She dressed in her best, which was, even still, that dress that she stole from the first Exorcist she'd had to fight on Hotel grounds. For all the violence it had weathered during Gabriel's Folly, it only had a single torn-off button to show for it. Those who were aware of the properties of properly made Angel Satin would likely consider it more valuable for that damage than less. It spoke to underlying truths that were more impressive whispered than shouted. And while she could have, if she desired, had Razzle and Dazzle drive her to the Hellevator and then to Wrath, she had a more direct way. She had Daddy's book.

The Grimoire Aestival held a lot of magic in it, magic that, still, she had to get around to memorizing. But if nothing else, it enabled her to rip a hole from her hotel suite to the grounds of the Palatium Iracundia. Before she walked through, she turned and faced Vaggie, who was standing nearby.

"Are you sure you shouldn't take Roz or Fiona with you?" Vaggie fussed, as was her nature, gently straightening the lay of Charlie's dress on her. Charlie soothed and shushed her, giving her a brief kiss.

"Don't you worry about me. It was from Cain. Cain won't do anything to me, willingly or unwillingly."

"But that," Vaggie pointed through the portal, at the towering palace made of granite and other, harder rocks, "is Satan's palace. And he doesn't like your father very much."

"Satan's a teddy bear. Don't you worry about him either," Charlie said. She clasped Vaggie's hands together to keep them from fussing. "I'll be back before you turn in for the night. I promise."

"You'd better," Vaggie muttered. She didn't look happy to be seeing Charlie leave for another Ring where she couldn't follow. But she looked less angry about it than once she had. She was changing, slowly, as she grew accustomed to Hell. To the extent that she was actually wearing colors, now. Her blouse was a vivid red, though her skirt remained grey and drab. Charlie gave her girlfriend a last hug for the afternoon, then went through the portal.

Instantly the heat hit her. The winter in Pride was bitterly cold again, but here in Wrath the summer never seemed to end. She only took a few steps before she found herself caught short, looking at an Innocent that she'd never seen before, working as a gardener for Satan. How had he gotten here? He wasn't one of the ones she 'fast-tracked' into Hell. She gave her head a shake. Whoever he was, that was his business, not hers.

She walked toward the doors of the palace, and as could be expected, there were several of Satan's adoptive children waiting outside, most of whom were talking to each other in Liturgical Enochian, which was mostly just showing off in Charlie's opinion. One, who seemed older, was not taking part, and rose with a loud thock of striking his walking stick against the great stone of the step. The other Sons and Daughters of Satan all fell silent, and then they all fell into a bow that was not nearly as deep as most would give to her, but neither so shallow as to be insulting. It was a bow the likes of which was to be shared between two of equal rank.

After all, by law, they were children of a king, just like Charlie was. She returned the bow to its same measure. "Greetings. I am here to meet with Cain, First of the Damned. I was invited to this place for the meeting."

"We have been made aware of your approach," the old Son of Satan said. "Please follow my sister; she will take you to their congregation."

"Their?" she asked.

"Follow me, your grace," a Dream Eater woman in the red Satanist robes bade. Charlie shrugged, and did so.

The Palace of Wrath was all she remembered it being. It was grand without being ostentatious, almost no gold at all used for decorations when bronze or brass could do likewise. It was more a marvel of engineering than flash. This building could likely survive having a mountain dropped onto it and lose, at most, a few rooms in the outer sections. The halls themselves had a different feel to them than they once did, though. Usually, the palace's halls felt imposing, daunting, making the one walking them feel small and vulnerable. Now, though, there was a sort of spirit, a sort of elan to them that allowed some unharnessed joy through the building.

In a word, she wondered what had put Satan in such a good mood.

As goes the king, so goes the castle.

The snaking path through the palace finally brought her to a great sitting room, one she'd been passed numerous times but never had a reason to go within. And within, the first person she saw through the ajar door was Cain, standing with his back straight and a grin visible on what of his face she could see from that angle.

The Daughter of Satan opened the door wider, and announced, "Princess Charlotte, Song of Dawn, Heir to the Low Throne, has come."

She stepped into the room and saw…

A bunch of Innocent with horns.

What?

"Charlie! How delighful that you've finally arrived," Cain said. He moved to her side and bore her forward, into the congregation of mostly women, all of whom had goatish horns sprouting through their hair, all to some degree or another. "This is the woman I spoke of, the Princess who gave me such needful shelter when I was destitute."

"She looks very much like her mother," the tall, intensely-black-haired woman said. She turned to Cain once more. "I do hope Lilith isn't intending on doing something rash now that I'm down here."

"I doubt it. She would only hold you in contempt for 'failing to reject God to His face', as she had," Cain said. He shrugged. "She might insult you in public, but that will be the extent of it. Charlie? This is my mother, Eve."

Charlie blinked at her. She was taller than Charlie, maybe even as tall as Mom, which made her extremely tall for a human woman. She looked to Cain. "Why was I so sure that she was going to be a blonde?" Charlie asked.

"Because that is how she is depicted by those who don't know better," the actual blonde in the room piped up. She was a tiny thing, of a size with Rachel, and she had a pair of prismarine-lensed spectacles over her eyes, likely correcting some truly atrocious eyesight (otherwise, they would have just used plastic, since prismarine costs a lot).

"People so often attribute the divine feminine to fair hair and dainty physique, when in truth it was Father who had the golden hair, and, well…" the small blonde motioned to herself.

"Cain?"

"Yes, my princess?" he asked.

"Why do all of these people have horns if they're not Sinners?" she asked.

He just stared at her for a moment, then he barked a laugh. "Oh! I never thought about how that must look to you. We all had horns," Cain said. Now that Eve was nodding, Charlie could see that it was true of her as well, only that her hair and her horns shared the same color and gloss making it ordinarily hard to tell.

"My partner and I were crafted to this image directly by Gods Own Hand. And this image was passed down from me to my many children, of whom these alone survived to adulthood," Eve swept her arm before them, clearly cut from the same cloth as Daddy as opposed to Mom; she was somebody with a lot of hard-won experience ordering people around. "Those who died young, they are in Heaven still. Most of them Went Numb. This is all the family we still have, one way or the other."

"That still doesn't explain…" Charlie began, but then she had a notion. "Wait. Waaaaaait. Wait," she said.

"I am waiting. For what?" the small blonde asked.

"If you were made after God's image… and you have horns…" she laid the bread-crumbs that had been laid before her. She looked up to where Cain was now standing beside his mother. "Does that mean that God has…" she pointed at her own head. Eve gave a chuckle and nodded lightly. "He does?"

"Indeed," the bulky, handsome man who could only be Abel said. "Of all our shared children, only one, my middle son Balthazar, had them. They seemed to have fled from the gene-pool by the third generation, only popping back up from time to time in particular specimens like Moses."

"This is so surreal," Charlie said. She gave her head a shake. "Where are my manners? Welcome to Hell! My name is Charlie, and I'm the Princess and heir to the Low Throne," she introduced herself more properly. Eve gave a grateful nod, then bade Charlie come and sit at the table with her, and the others. "I see that Satan's already made you welcome. How… exactly… did you get in contact with Satan again?"

"That would be me, my friend," Cain said. He shrugged. "As it turns out, Satan has a softness for families. Who could have possibly known?"

"Yes, who could have possibly known the worst kept secret in Hell, if not all of Creation?" Charlie teased. She turned to the eldest humans in Creation who weren't her Mother. "I don't know if my saying it will mean anything to you, but I am so sorry you had to go through what you did up there. I… I finally went up there and saw what the Angels have you living inside of. It's unspeakable!"

"Frankly, I am more than slightly confused that one of your provenance can say such things and mean them, but Cain has been very clear that of all dangerous mutants that Hell could produce, it managed at least to produce one kind soul," Eve said, picking up a tea-cup and taking a sip of it.

"Oh, you flatterer," Charlie said. "Still; what are you going to do now that you're down here? I can't imagine that Heaven will be too happy when they learn that you're gone."

"I don't think any of us care what they think at this juncture," a powerful and athletically built women opined. The way she gravitated toward Cain told Charlie that there was a lot of history there. "Adam turned himself into a monster so that he could pursue his own greatest cruelty."

"He is my husband no longer. Death did us part," Eve said grimly.

"And as for what we can 'do' down here?" the small blonde piped up, "I could think of hundreds of things that need doing that we would probably set up our entire clan in the doing of. There's so much irrigation that Wrath could be doing with the water it has, if only hands were given to tools…"

"Forgive Mari," Cain said, "she holds the ambition of perfect utility."

"Stop talking about effective procedures like they're a vanishing dream!" Mari snapped at him.

"It's also oh-so-delightful to rile her," Cain said.

"You were lucky when we were alive that I couldn't see you well enough to throw anything at you," Mari warned.

"Then I shall have to endeavor to duck," Cain said. He seemed so… peaceful, now. As though the last truly jagged edge of him had been finally buffed down. Not smooth of course, Cain was a creature of sharp edges by his very nature, but no longer did he give off the impression that he might rip a wound without noticing with his mania full. "Still, this is an auspicious day. My family is around me once more. Those things which were stolen from me during my delirium are either returned to me, or else irretrievably lost to time. My old friends who yet live speak, and my old enemies now suffer. It is a day of triumph, and that I share with you, Charlie."

"Really? So… you're going to leave soon?" she asked.

"Why in the heavens would I do that?" Cain asked. "You've been a spectacular host to me, Charlie. And more critical than that you've been a better-than-spectacular friend. If you would have me, I would stay there until the Hotel itself rots away to dust."

"I would have you," she said brightly.

"Then you'd best have me as well," the powerful woman said, leaning in on Cain, who looked actually a bit surprised by that. "What? Did you think I was going to just wander around here picking at other people's crops? I want to see what an actual modern city looks like."

Cain looked to Abel and Abel immediately nodded, message not needing sending to be delivered, so that when Mari, the small blonde, opened her mouth in complaint, Abel was already speaking. "Very well. One of us can afford to make that dangerous ascent while the rest of us get situated," Adam's first son said. "If things become safer in time, then perhaps the rest of us can visit. After all, I do hear that there's a war going on right now."

Mari, who had been about to try to make her case, found that it had been cut out from under her. She scowled, but allowed the conversation to continue, away from the pressing and to the frivolous and fun.

And for just a little while, Charlie felt as though her 'extended family' didn't abruptly end at the names of Lucifer and Lilith.

---

There was little point in being envious of Seviathan's utility inside a Gyrfalcon. Whereas Mother used that armored panoply like a very simple suit of armor, outright ignoring many of its very useful attributes and abilities, Octavia at least tried to ensure that she was always using all of the suit as well as she could with every spar and engagement. But then along comes Seviathan.

And the Hunter of Von Eldritch made it very clear how things were actually done.

Under his control, the armor didn't plod or crash; it skated and danced, using blasts of its lift-system to reposition itself in space, or to make shockingly sudden charges that crashed into targets and laid them flat. He was so swift that he could bring that massive machine into a battle-line deep in the heart of Cloud Probity and dance his way through the Angel's line, slapping Cherubs out of the air and pole-axing Angels whenever he encountered them.

It would have been borderline insulting, if he hadn't come back complaining every single time that something 'wasn't quite right', and that he wanted to test himself against her to find out what. Those 'spars' had been more informative in a few throws and a handful of minutes than countless hours of solitary golem-wrestling had ever been. He was showing her that for all the ability of the Gyrfalcon to be deliberate, measured, and metered, it could also be all of that and also terrifyingly, shockingly fast, able to use its own bulk as a ram in one instant, then flit away from counterattack as easily as would a housefly the next.

Of course, Seviathan was also spending even more of his money with every 'adjustment' to make his personal Gyrfalcon ever more dangerous and ever more suited to his particular style of lightning-tag combat. If the advances that he was building toward were viable, they would likely make for a hell of a successor once the Gyrfalcon III got around to getting designed.

"Looser hand," Mother said, striding around Octavia as she undertook her weapons-drills with her armor up here in Fort Abandon. The courtyard set aside for the training exercise didn't have the frills and useful perks of her dedicated training room in the palace, but it had room, solid floors, and somebody who knew what they were doing. Octavia loosened her grip on the spear, and repeated the movements again, but she didn't viscerally sense a noticeable difference between what she'd just done and the attempt before. Mother seemed to grasp this. "If you clench and the opponent were not a pillar of concrete, it would have been able to bind and rip your weapon from your grasp. A looser hold allows you to react with them, so when they jerk the weapon you can respond with your arm and retain purchase."

"I guess I understand," Octavia said. The 'dummy' for her spear-work was covered in scars and gouges, even though she wasn't supposed to more than touch the thing with her attacks. She had a lot of other priorities that she had to deal with, though. That she could even give this much attention to her martial training was costing her time that, if she had her own say-so, would not have been used for the like of this. "I still think I would use other weapons first. The spear is so…"

"The spear has been the weapon of the soldier for untold eons for a reason, Octavia," Mother said. "And not without good reason. Its simplicity means that its utility is evergreen, and the importance of a deadly point at more-than-arm's-length will prove it for an eon more."

"I know, I know," Octavia said. She sighed and idly lobbed the spear away, a few seconds before the armor's internal alarm went off and informed her that she'd used up her time. She knew damned well that she'd used up her time. If there was one skill that she was picking up with essentially supernatural clarity it was how much time was passing with every given interval. She moved over to the ConPod and dismounted the armor, stretching now that she was out of its claustrophobic embrace and looking her mother in the eye. She still had a bit of growing left in her before she matched Mother's height, but it was closer now than it had ever been. And to one side, Seviathan merely lounged and watched. "There's a lot of practice that you want me to do, but I just don't have any more time to spare."

"I know, my daughter," Stella said, laying a hand on the back of Octavia's shoulder. "But juggling what time you have as well as you do is a feat bringing a certain degree of renown to Goetia. Everybody knows what Lucifer wants out of you. Even coming close to achieving it will be legendary."

Octavia nodded, and let Mum continue speaking per praises, the words washing over her as she immediately turned her head from combat to finances. While it was deeply rude for a daughter to ignore what her mother was saying, it was clear that Mum didn't notice that Octavia's glazed expression was one of distraction rather than overwhelming. She simply thought about the snare she was in, letting thoughts bob to the surface of her stream of consciousness, before washing away, up until Mum finally gave her farewells and departed toward the Hellportal.

"Well, she certainly has a sort of opinion about things, doesn't she?" Seviathan said, when and only when Stella Goetia returned to her palace-fortress on the other side of the portal.

"Don't you start with this," Octavia began.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Seviathan said with a warding gesture, as he continued to eat an apple. "She's as terrific a fighter as one's likely to find amongst the Goetia. I think that only Asmodeus could best her in a fair fight, and that's because he's got ways of making it unfair on the cost of his own strange coin. I'm just saying that it's clear that she doesn't think for a moment what new possibilities are open to her by technological advancement."

"So I'm taking that you think you can beat her?" Octavia asked as she began back toward her office and the mountain of work that still needed doing.

"Indubitably," Seviathan said. He motioned with the chunked-out apple. "Put she and I in our panoplies in that courtyard and I'll disassemble her. My point isn't that she's bad. She's very good at her skill, in fact. It's that she's unwilling to adapt. That is why I'd beat her."

"You do realize if I were any kind of actual politician, I'd have to take you to task for insulting my mother like that," Octavia pointed out.

"Fortunate indeed then that we're just a pair of 'coworkers' in a particularly difficult work environment," Seviathan said. He followed her into the building, which made her narrow her eye at him but he didn't seem to take that for the 'go away' that it was intended to be, instead even trailing her into her office itself.

"Is there something in particular you want?" she finally asked as she dropped herself into her chair. Strictly, she needed to get out of this body-suit and into something that wasn't quite as sweat-saturated, but time was forever her enemy, and she never had enough to go around for those things of basic maintenance that she had to deal with.

"Can a Baronet not simply wish to stand in the room where so much legendary fare happens?" Seviathan joked. She glared at him. "Oh, fine. If you're so dead-set on having no sense of humor about this, then so be it. I was looking for some… assistance from you."

"Regarding?" she asked, her tones weary.

"I'm rebuilding Father's Legion," he said.

"I can't lend you any materiel, manpower, or training personnel," she immediately said.

"I'm well aware of the limitations of Legionary Law," Seviathan said. "Those aren't my problems. I've got criminals and indentures aplenty to fill its ranks with warm bodies. The problem is that with how obliterated they had become during the first wave during 2023, we've not had a chance to replace… well… anything."

"Anything?" she stressed. Seviathan nodded.

"Anything," he agreed. "No uniforms, no body-armor, no support equipment. No weapons, even! The few dozen remaining still have their guns, but what am I supposed to do with twenty thousand more who lack such basic warfare tools? Damn you, Father! Would it have killed you to take even a passing interest in the affairs of your own reputation and laid out infrastructure for me?"

"I'm guessing that Frederick has been spectacularly unhelpful," Octavia said, feeling at least a bit of amusement that she wasn't at the heart of the troubles which were now unfolding before her. She could watch it with the detached interest of watching a train derailing from a cliffside away.

"If I didn't know Father's mind better than I do, I'd claim he were trying to scupper me in favor of Helsa," Seviathan pointed out. "But the issue is that I do know. He is simply being a stereotypical 'useless noble'. I think his age is finally catching up to him. He is acting more like Bathesda every week, I swear to Evil."

"Well, there's not a lot I can do to help you. I know how much of your money is going towards keeping your Gyrfalcon running, so…" she trailed off, and Seviathan raised a finger.

"You might, actually, be surprised," he said. "You hear of military providers before I do. Are there any producing cheap arms I could get first-crack at? They wouldn't even need to be good; just numerous."

"Nothing but the best for you, and nothing but the worst for the men," she said with a chuckle. It wasn't how she ran her own Starfire Legion at all; all of her own soldiers were given such gear that others would have their eyes pop in envy.

"What's more replaceable? Any of ten thousand soldiers, or Frederick Von Eldritch's only son?" Seviathan asked. She rolled her eyes and he nodded. "I'm just being realistic with where the money's going to end up. As long as Father still holds the family purse-strings, he's going to arm them on the cheap, so I might as well have a proper list of providers for him to chose through."

"Fine, they're in the third shelf down," Octavia motioned toward one file cabinet in particular, and Seviathan gave her a genuine thank-you and began to rifle through and begin plucking out files. It would cause her no pain to have to pick through her cast-offs, those military contractors who weren't up to her standards. She could think of four groups that he'd likely pick just off the top of her head. Brightburn, which produced knock-offs of GLW products, likely wasn't worth the money spent in bullets to gun them down. Amestrix was a bit better, in that their weapons occasionally worked well enough, but they were so globally unreliable that she'd consigned them to the garbage heap of procurement without deeper thought.

After that, there were LCAM and Executive Action. One produced a rather pathetic, but reliable, weapon, the other produced much better weapons but had laughable quality-control so you never knew what you were going to end up with. One of Ambrosius' sidearms was an EA device, one which hadn't given him problems despite the pedigree that the rest of their kind tended to offer.

It was all such a pain.

Most of her time nowadays was spent not trying to corral weapons manufacturers, but to find a way to further pare the costs of running Heaven. The amount of territory that Hell had occupied within Heaven was putting more and more humans under Hell's aegis every day. At some point in the last few months, it seemed to have become clear to the Angels up here that Cloud One was a lost cause for their defense. Now, they were exchanging distance for time and slowly withdrawing to the upper Clouds. That still meant that it was likely years out that all of Probity would be under her grasp. She wasn't of a mind to rush it.

She still needed to find jobs for hundreds of millions of Innocent that would be to the financial benefit of Hell so that she didn't get lynched by Lucifer when his patience finally ran out.

"My domina?" Agrippa said, pausing at the door and pulling her attention to the moment. Both gave a glance over to Seviathan, who was now reading in-depth into the files that she'd allowed him, and both disregarded him as not important to this conversation. "Princess Beelzebub to see you," he said.

She sat up in her chair, blinking away any distraction she had in her. Beelzebub was not scheduled to come here today. Or this month, for that matter. The shapeshifter barged past Agrippa, with an enthusiastic call which all those present recoiled slightly from.

"Look at you, sittin' in the big chair making the big decisions! I remember when you were still as big as a loaf of bread!" Beelzebub exclaimed in lieu of any actual introductions that a Deadly Sin ought to have given. "Your papa must be beside himself with glee!"

"What… are you doing here, Beelzebub?" Octavia asked.

"Please, call me Bee!" she said, shrinking down to the point where she could fit into a chair, which she promptly kicked back and rested her feet up on Octavia's desk. "Can I not come and see how the baddest bitch of the new generation is doing up here in Heaven?"

"I presumed you had actual work to do preventing it, so… yes," Octavia said.

"Don't be like that," Bee said. "'Sides, this isn't entirely a pleasure meeting. If it were, I'd make sure that one didn't have pants on," she cast her thumb toward Agrippa.

"I would sooner dive off of The Edge without a parachute," Agrippa said with entirely flat tone.

"He wants me," Bee said with a laugh. "Naw, naw, I'm here on business, and that business is with you."

"Considering you've already made it clear you don't want my business in your Ring, I struggle to see what that could be," Octavia said.

"No, you're seeing things too close to the ground, my little chick," Beelzebub said. "I am not the one who shut the door in your face about the factories. Those were a good idea and I don't care what those lard-asses in their mansions in Gluttony have to say about it. The problem is that they own the land, so I can't just force 'em to do what I want. Not easily."

"...Wait, are you saying you want my Innocent in your factories after all?" Octavia asked, sitting forward in her seat.

"Yes, babe!" Gluttony Incarnate said. "As long as those fat assholes own the land, I can't just swing my dick around and get what I want. But there's other ways to swing a dick, do you feel me?"

"You don't have a dick," Octavia said.

"Unless I want to!" Beelzebub said with an arm lifted in triumph. Then she leaned in closer, as though starting a conspiracy. "Now don't get me wrong; being The Queen Bee of Glutto-nee means I can do all kinds a shit that people don't yam on about, but there's some shit that I can't do. And a lot of it is tied up in the Estates General of the Devourer Aristocracy."

"You can't pursue your agenda because of political gridlock?" Octavia asked.

"Exactly, babe! I knew you were smart," Bee said. "But there's ways around that shit if you're willing to break some rules. And I'm quickly running out of patience so I figure I should probably start breaking them before somebody else breaks 'em and gets the benefit of it first."

"What kind of 'breaks' are you thinking about?" Octavia asked. This could be exactly what she needed, or it could be a boondoggle that would see her dangling by her neck from a rafter.

"Land reform, bitches!" Beelzebub said eagerly. "I get some of those shits' land centralized under my control, and I can start to feed your Innocent into 'em and start producing shit. Get my ring actually making shit again instead of just eating it."

"And you're bringing this to me so that if it backfires in a major way, you have a useful patsy to pin it all onto," she said.

"Oh you wound me with your lack of trust," Bee said with faux hurt in her voice. She gave her head a shake. "I'm offering this to you 'cause you're just like me."

"...I fail to see how," Octavia said.

"You're a new voice in an old system, shakin' shit up and having those dusty-old fossils kicked out into the streets. I like havin' folk like you around," she began, but Octavia raised her hand.

"You are twelve thousand years old. How in the fuck are you 'a new voice'?" she asked.

"Relatively, bitch! Relatively!" Beelzebub exclaimed.

Well, considering she was by far the youngest Deadly Sin, since even Baphomet was older, maybe she was right to claim that. Unless Belphegor was younger. But nobody knew what Belphegor was, let alone how old he/she/it was. Beelzebub then leaned well over, expanding her height so that she could read over Seviathan's shoulder and utterly refusing to obey the basic concept of boundaries.

"Go with the Hounds, baby!" she said brightly.

"Excuse me?" Seviathan asked, moderating his tone but making it clear he was not happy about being ordered around by an out-of-Ring Monarch.

"I know the bitch in charge of that company! She's gonna achieve some big things in time; might be a good idea to get in on the ground floor with her," Beelzebub said.

"...and why exactly are you vouching for a random company run by Hellhounds, of all things?" Seviathan asked.

"A queen deserves to keep a few secrets, don't she?" Bee pointed out, then reached back and tapped a finger on the dossier he was reading. "But trust me on this one. Go with LCAM. You'll like what you get outta it."

"...I'll consider it," he said. Bee turned her attention back to Octavia.

"Now how many people can you get who can do basic factory bitch-work on short notice?" Bee asked of Octavia.

"Several hundred million," Octavia said. Gluttony Incarnate blinked at her. "I'm not throwing out random numbers; based on the level of education of the populace of the Occupied Zone of Cloud One, I've got nearly three hundred million people who can be trusted to work an assembly line the moment one becomes available to them."

"Well shit, bitch, looks like I'm the one on the back foot now!" she said. Then she paused, rubbing at her muzzle, "although I was on my back foot when I came in here, too. Man. Bein' a ruler's a pain in the thorax, ain't it?"

"On that at least, we can definitely agree," Octavia said.

---

With the day done and the clients fucking off to leave her alone for the time being, Krieg found herself pausing at the door to her office, looking at the ritual circle that Bart was even now cleaning up. Ordinarily, that task would have fallen to her boyfriend – well, fiance, now – but Uller's attention had been divided between earning his pay at BKMS and trying to ensure that his fellow ex-indentures were able go get onto their feet. Right now, he was finishing up in the alchemy lab, venting the fumes outside where they could be somebody else's problem and hanging up his gas-mask as he exited the room. He, lost in his own daze, didn't even notice her watching him.

He stood differently, now.

Uller had arrived into their shared lives a cringing and hunched thing, slumping his stature and collapsing his shoulders so that he never took up too much space. Given his provenance as a mushroom farmer under the thumb of an Extraction Company, it made a fair amount of sense, and the indignities he suffered at the hand of Nuckelavee's crones had only further branded deep the notion that he had to apologize for every cubic centimeter that he took up. But she had worked hard, like taking a chisel to granite, to cut those frailties away from him. He was a Thaumaturge, Stationed by his own hand and his own efforts, and more than that, he was her pupil. She was not going to be associated with a shrinking, retiring personality.

And yet for all that declaration, she knew that she hadn't been the source of his recent growth, that sturdiness of his back, that swell of his shoulders. He had found a reason to grow on his own. And while she was entirely willing to be the beneficiary of it, it still worried her somewhat. Hell was not kind to the imp unless you forced it to be. Perhaps, she considered, that he had finally began forcing it to be.

She passed her mother, who was even now sitting with Wayland in her lap as he slowly but clearly read from the book that she'd provided him. He didn't speak much, Wayland, but he could read as though twice his current age. Maybe he had some unknown infirmity that robbed him of plentiful speech. Or perhaps he was simply the sort to only raise his voice in complaint, and he found for the most part the world around him to be majorly satisfactory. Either way, he was a weird babe, just as all of Tilla Miller's spawn had been in their own way. Victoria and her violence. August and his ways of mirroring people around him. Krieg and her magic. Now Wayland with… well, she wasn't sure exactly what. But he would be odd, just as Blitz and Barb had been. There was no such thing as 'ordinary' any place where the blood of Tilla Miller pooled.

"Ahoy, Wayland!" Krieg said as she passed her mother and her half-sibling.

"Ahoy!" Wayland echoed brightly, then returned his eyes to the book, running a finger along the words and silently reading to himself. Krieg rolled her eyes. Whatever shape of fate that Wayland would carve for himself was yet invisible to her, but she had to imagine it'd be a strange one.

She passed by the doors to IMP just in time for them to slam open and have Maelstrom hurl somebody out into the hallway.

"And don't come back until you're fuckin' serious!" Blitz's voice chased the Sinner with his churning, water-like hair. "Fuckin' waste of my time and effort cheapass bitch-ass head-ass monkey fucker…"

Maelstrom gave Krieg a bare shrug, then closed the doors to IMP, leaving the Sinner to pick himself up and bristle.

"You've lost yourself a customer, you… you little shits!" the Sinner tried to regain some dignity, but the clear fact that he'd given Blitz neither an interesting job nor enough money for him to take an uninteresting job anyway told her all she needed to know about this deceased, debauched human. She entered the elevator, and hit the button down a floor. The Sinner slipped into the lift before it could close, which annoyed her, but hitting the Slam Closed button would cause a mess when it cut him in half and she didn't want to do laundry twice this week. So she just stood there and ignored his ongoing tirade as to the audacity of mere imps to throw him out for being a dull bastard.

The tirade continued even until the doors opened and she exited onto the second-from-the-top storey, which now played host to a bunch of Envylings. And not nearly as many as there had been when Uller first returned; a number of members of the families Jookie, Hamn, and Gregg were already spreading their proverbial and literal wings, finding that employment was a fairly easy thing for an Envyling to achieve. After all, an imp, a creature of small stature, who could fly under their own power? That was an absolute boon to construction companies across Hell for wiring and plumbing alone. And there was more than enough work in construction in Imp City for the next decade or two to go around. So all of those who were fit and able traded in their trowels and shovels for hammers and screwdrivers, and earned fifty times what they would have in the dark.

Not all were quite so fortunate, however. Some, like the Grantford Cruickshanks (what was considered the 'main' Cruickshank line of which Dismas and thus Uller were merely 'cadets') were having a harder time acclimating. They were so well tailored for working in blackness that now the traditional construction jobs that others enjoyed were denied to them. Not to say they were without hope; those with less airs and more practicality found themselves working in the sewers, again making many times what they could have in Envy, in an environment suited to their abilities.

The very old, the very young, and the pair of new mothers also gained no employment, but considering they were now being buoyed by an entire population of Envyling Imp, they would do alright. But the one which pulled Krieg's attention was the same one that pulled Uller's. Dismas himself. The cripple.

Interior offices, converted into living spaces, were left dim and difficult for her to see in, but they played host to those who needed to recover most. Dismas was in the second of the 'barracks' that had been set up, already being fussed over by Uller.

A near month of rest had done him good. The swelling on his legs had gone down to the point where she no longer had to concern herself with their amputation. She'd defied her own recommendation and fixed his bladder using the more traditional and 'gentle' Miracle Surgery, if only so Uller's father wouldn't die if he ever laid down for more than a few minutes. And more importantly, his eyes didn't have that despairing, glazed look on them anymore. Instead, he spoke eagerly with Uller in that all-but-incomprehensible pidgin that had spawned Uller's now-faded accent, no doubt relating things he'd seen or heard in utter contravention to the long, dark and painful years of his life. Pride, unlike Envy, had room enough for an imp to live well.

"Well speak of the devil and she shall grace us," Uller said, glancing back at Krieg. "And you said that he'd not be dancing in a year."

"I don't see him dancing," Krieg said. "I trust you're having a bit more comfort now than once you did. If you weren't, I would have to cane somebody for being so lax."

"I think you'll be able to avoid canings for the time being," Uller said. "Father is doing better than he has in years, and it's thanks to you."

"Nonsense. It is more thanks to you than to I," she rightly demurred. She was not above taking full credit for partial action, but to take any credit for no action? That was a distinctly Nuckelavee way of thinking, to steal the rewards others had earned. "So what think you, Dismas of Cruikshank, of this hiding hole in the Ring of Lucifer's ambition?"

"It is more than I could have dreamed," Dismas said. He touched Uller's arm for a moment. "Would you fetch me a blanket. I find myself chilled."

"Of course, Father," Uller said, and gave Krieg's hand a squeeze as he passed out of the room and toward the great depository of linens that they'd set up. She narrowed her eyes at Uller's father. A more blatant excuse to speak privately she had seldom heard.

"Why?" he asked of her.

"Why what?" she asked.

"Why do you invest all this energy, time, and money into imps who can do you no benefit?" Dismas asked.

"False premise," she said. Dismas leaned back in his wheelchair. "You do great benefit to Uller. Your comfort is his satisfaction, your safety his is sanity, and your health is his joy. Every whit of effort and advancement that gets put into you reaps benefits in him. And considering I fully intend to marry that man, it behooves me to ensure that he is the happiest version of himself. I will not be bride to misery. Both of us deserve better than that at this point."

"Why him?" Dismas then asked. She pulled a face at that, confused at what he could possibly mean. "My boy may have the Sweetblood, but he's still just another imp from Envy."

"First of all, no, no he is not," Krieg said. "He is a man who, through prices he has not even said, recovered the lost Codex Cruac in Alabaster, and brought it to the one imp in all Creation who could decrypt its secrets. He is the inheritor of the secrets stolen not just from Nuckelavee and the clans of Cruac, but from the Bard Himself. And more than that… he is a good man. He strives. He advances. Through his own relentless ambition and practice, he has built himself from his brightness a Station of the Blood, not merely being born to a lucky accident of birth as I was with my own. He is the perfect partner for the creation of a new age of Impish Magic. And, frankly, I could likely search for decades before finding someone a fraction of what he is to me. I understand him. I am fond of him. Lacking all other reasons, that alone would bind me to him."

"...then Uller will be the luckiest imp of his age," Dismas said. And Krieg wasn't above admitting that she preened a bit at that. But only a bit.

"Of course he is. I know what I am," she said with cheeky grin and absolutely no need to downplay her own greatness in order to allow Uller to shine. She may be that spectacular leader that many people lauded and lionized, but Uller was something every bit as important; a spectacular follower. If there was one lesson that Tilla had pounded into Krieg's head, it was that not all people could be leaders, because if they were, they would all pull in every opposing direction and end up going nowhere. A good leader with a powerful follower could topple empires.

"Here you go," Uller said, returning in that brief gap in the conversation, flapping open a woolen blanket and laying it over his still recovering father. To see his advancement made her reframe her estimates on how long this would take. It seemed that Dismas Cruikshank would indeed be able to dance at their wedding party, if he recovered at the rate he currently was. Astounding how physical the effects that a glut of hope could be upon an imp's physionomy. "Say anything nice about me when I was gone?"

"Just that you're a good match for her," Dismas said, settling under his blanket which made him seem twice Tilla's age, instead of only a year or so older. He gestured with an arm, forming a lump under the blanket. "Would you mind pushing me out to the windows. I'd like to see the sun set."

"Of course, Father," Uller said. He was such the sentimental one, Uller. But Krieg would find no fault in him for that. His nature was to try to take care of people. That would make a good father of him, when and not if she decided to have spawn of her own. She knew herself well enough to know that much of the duty of parenting would likely be on him. She may be amused by the antics of imp spawn, but she warranted that she wasn't the most nurturing of them. Still, with Uller around, the child would be far from neglected.

And even then, realizing she was looking forward to having children for the first time in her life, she felt a smile coming to her face, watching as Uller parked his father in the 'board room' facing the skyline of Imp City, and behold as the sun slipped behind the other buildings, painting the city red as the day died. She'd not have children before getting married. But after that?

After that, she saw no reason not. She'd be in her twenties by then. She would have beaten the curse of Nuckelavee such that it could never taunt her again. And her children would be all that Nuckelavee would never allow them to become in their blind and stupid iniquity. She would be Ur-Crone, and they would have a Hell in which their paths were only limited by their own ambition and imagination.

For just an evening, she allowed herself to watch the dying of the day, and imagine that Hell wouldn't resist her with every fiber of its being in giving those that she cared about in her blunt and stunted way to give them all she deigned they deserved – which was a lot. Tomorrow the struggle would begin again. But the three of them had this evening, and a sky the color of impish flesh.

---

Stolas found himself having to split his time much more carefully ever since he was taken to task by Ambrosius as to Octavia's wellbeing. But he found he didn't mind being so pincered as he was, because it was to Via's benefit. He still had more than time enough for Blitzie, who now just came over without expectation of sex, or anything else. He just came over and 'hung out', crashing on Stolas' sofas and watching Hellodramas and making fun of the silly choices that the actors made in them.

The Prince of Flowers found himself mocking their decisions with him, eventually making something of a game of it, where the two would sit and watch the most ludicrously acted properties, only to invent the most scathing insults for the production crews, the writers, the directors, and the actors involved in the features, deriving intense schadenfreude and amusement from the failures of Hellish entertainers who had more ambition than ability.

Time was no longer an enemy to Stolas personally, no longer a grinding millstone crushing the joy out of his life. It had been a shocking realization, one that came to him one morn as he awoke with Blitz curled up next to him, and he had no deadlines to fear. His destined death was behind him and failed, Michael's would-be assassin having suffered termination in Stolas' place. No, instead, he had all the time in the world again, was eternal again. But that came with new thoughts, new fears. It wasn't a fearless proposition as he had hoped it might by.

He would live forever, as Angels do.

Blitzie was getting older.

Stolas wasn't in a panic over that gradual realization, not quite, but it was beginning to grow from a thought to a concern. Blitz already complained about his body beginning to fail him in various ways that only a young man would complain about as he entered middle age. While Blitzie's vitality in many areas wasn't meaningfully reduced from Stolas first met him, years and a time-travel misadventure ago, it was still clear to Stolas that time was starting to catch up with the imp. And the concern that it began to instill into Stolas heart was growing.

There were ways to solve it, still – that reason alone was why Stolas hadn't progressed from concern to panic. Blitzie was still young-ish. All Stolas had to do to correct any failings of his health at this juncture were to pay a doctor for his more chronic maladies, and to buy a few Stolen Years from the Dealmakers' Conference. Those ghouls had Concubus agents aplenty who could reap years from mortals, be they human or fiend, and could be coerced to give them away again for the right prices. And a year stolen from a mortal could be used to give some portion of a year back to Blitz.

That was the sloppy part of buying immortality; the exchange due to the biological processes of the Concubus agent were always so lossy. And more aggravating was that the exchange was randomly lossy, with each agent losing a different amount of that Stolen Year when they passed it on. It was rather like ordering steak at a restaurant. No matter what, the steak that arrived on your plate would always be lighter than what you ordered. The only question was the degree of difference.

Stolas could still plan to give Blitz more time, and he had the wealth he was willing to spend to see it so. The inefficiencies and awkwardnesses of the process wouldn't stop him. From the prospective of an Angel, he had only just gotten Blitz into his life. A mere three or four decades with him seemed unacceptably small.

"Yours is not a face that I expected to see in these environs," Kraz said. He had finally been given leave by his contemporaries to sit in the chair vacated by the Goat of the Apocalypse, and seemed to be relishing in it. "Few are the things that a Dealmaker can gather that a Goetia cannot."

"It's not a question of 'can I gather it', it's a question of 'is it a convenient use of my time'?" Stolas countered the Devourer. He had never held esteem for those Gluttonous beasts. They were broadly unsuitable for most things, too brash and impulsive to be good soldiers, too consuming to be good citizens, too thoughtless to be good scholars, and more recently, too arrogant to be good neighbors. There had been a time when they were less pompous, one within Stolas' living, hell-bound memory, but they had taken to the last six centuries or so with a sense of arrogance which they no longer had the bona fides to back up.

It was like watching a culture implode in real time. Stolas would have wondered why, if he actually cared about Hellish political demographics. As it was, they were Beelzebub's problem. And if she couldn't maintain a grip on the leash of her own citizens, then that would simply reduce her in power comparable to the other Deadly Sins and perhaps even see her usurped.

In its way, to stand before a Devourer at the height of his arrogance made Stolas think of the lost ring of Despair, and its king, who had been dead and gone long before Stolas arrived in Hell. What kind of King would willingly give up and throw away all of his own entire kingdom, along with most of his populace? Satan still held Melanchol in such high regard, despite his provable incompetence at running a realm. Given 'Satan Knew Things', though, perhaps it was that there were more layers to Melanchol, the King Without A Kingdom, than first met the eye. And by that same metric, perhaps there was more going on with Beelzebub and the Devourers as well.

"I suppose that is for each of us to decide, isn't it?" Kraz asked, rhetorically. "Just because it is possible for us to extend our arm to the farthest edges of Hell doesn't always make it feasible, or indeed profitable to do so. And what turns a profit for one may only reap cost for another. You know the influences that we peddle in. Are you willing to pay our costs?"

"I understand fully the kind of business that the Conference undertakes," Stolas said. He was not a yokel, after all. "And I understand also that unpaid debts are owed to me for actions reaching back centuries."

"Oh you're going to reach that far back, are you? Do you have the contracts?" Kraz asked, a genuine amusement coming to his broad, tooth-filled and grotesque face. To look upon the face of a Devourer was to look upon a Human at its most deformed, obese, and disgusting. Stolas had never truly understood the Grigori's infatuation with humanity, despite having sex with one once. Truly, there were fairer partners in Creation to choose from.

"Naturally," Stolas said and snapped his fingers. Bixby began to approach from behind Stolas, carrying in his arms a tower of scrolls, some of them relatively new and still creamy white, others so aged that they'd turned brown, and other still ancient enough that only the magic contained in them held them still together. Kraz's wide, head-splitting mouth pulled into a wider grin at that, showing his innumerable, stained teeth.

There were many things that Stolas owed to Blitz, both now and in the future, and to go through his old contracts and cash in a collection of those which had been gathering dust for no good purpose seemed like a proper use of an afternoon to the Goetia. As the Prince of Flowers, he would engage in Dealmaking from time to time, usually producing plants of particular qualities – feats like producing teas with very particular aromas, virulent poisons like Stygium, or foods otherwise impossible to obtain – for demanding and hungering clients put them in debt to him. And as long as his mastery over flora remained, there would always be more contracts, more Deals. His litigious cashflow was infinite, requiring only time, the one resource of Stolas which was also infinite.

"Well well well," Kraz said as the first scrolls were passed up to him, and he produced a monocle into a divot in his face so that he could peruse them. "I hadn't thought you would be willing to part with something of actual worth. It's good to do business with a serious man for a change. I'm forced to do work with such unserious people these days."

"I can imagine," Stolas said neutrally.

"No, I deeply doubt that you do," Kraz said, his face growing into a look of distaste. "That damned Princess keeps pestering me over some Sinner's stolen power, but never offers something commensurate to it. Does she believe that the Dealmakers' Conference works on Charity or something? We're not fucking Satanists here!"

"Not all of you, at least," a very well dressed imp said, on the tail of Kraz's interjection. That would be Horace Worthy, doubly strange in that he was an Imp who was an established Dealmaker, and that he was a practicing Satanist who was the same. And Worthy wasn't exactly his name, as it was a concatenation and summary of it. If Stolas remembered correctly, his full name was Horace Foes-Of-The-Father-Shall-Be-Worthy-Only-Of-Destruction, which was far too much of a mouthful to be used in either common business or upon the face of a common business card… yet the imp still used that name in full on his business card, which showed how little Stolas understood imps and Dealmaking when the two intersected.

"Shut the fuck up, Satanist," Kraz said in an offhand manner. Worthy just smiled, though, settling back in his chair, his smug self-satisfaction shielding him from the 'yeah shut the fuck up's of Kraz's minions and fellow Dealmakers that washed over him for daring to speak up in his own defense. Kraz offered the Satanist imp no more thought than that, and returned his attentions to Stolas and those contracts Stolas had brought with him. "There's a reasonable amount of value here. What exactly are you looking to exchange for this?"

"Stolen Years," Stolas said. "And Stolen Years only. I am not going to jockey these for other things of value, for those aren't my intention or goal."

Kraz stared at him for a moment, and then plucked his monocle from his eye. "And what use has an unaging being with Stolen Years? You're not a mortal. You don't need them to keep yourself alive."

"Do you see the nature of the contracts I've proffered?" Stolas asked.

"I do," Kraz said, suspicion now in his tone.

"So you know that I am an experimenter in magic," Stolas lied. "And I require resources which can be inconvenient for me to accrue on my own schedule. I am not a sex-feeder. I cannot of my own power reap time from mortals. And yet I would very much like to have those same Stolen Years for my own purposes."

"I suppose that is true enough," Kraz seemed to buy it. He put his monocle back in and continued to look through the documents that Stolas had on offer, silent but for barking a single, sharp, shut-the-fuck-up when another Dealmaker entered the room being loud and obnoxious. As Kraz was the Dealmaker in The Big Chair, the pest silenced himself quickly and utterly. Finally, Kraz lifted his attention back to Stolas. "There's value here. But also a problem."

"Oh?" Stolas asked.

"I'm guessing that Goetia like you hasn't been paying attention to the value of a Stolen Year these days," Kraz said, stacking the contracts back into an orderly pile. "There's been a sharp down-tick in Concubi incursions onto the Human World. Between Mayday proving herself useless and the fact that the humans are starting to attack their kind when they find them again…" oh right, that was a thing that humans used to do. It seemed like only yesterday where humanity as a whole had gotten itself sexually puritanical for a thousand years, "the amount of Stolen Years has plummeted, since most of the Concubi need them to survive, and that new glut from the infesters from Heaven somehow can't be converted. The cost of a transferable Stolen Year has skyrocketed."

"So you're telling me that my proffer is worthless to the object of my desire?" Stolas lofted a brow, straightening his back and raising to his full height over the Devourer. The difference was less than it was for most fiends, for Devourers, lacking any other positive features, could become quite massive with age, both in corpulence and in verticality.

"I wouldn't go that far. Just that you're going to get what you might perceive to be an insultingly small number for what you're offering, comparable to when the market was still good, back in 2022," Kraz said diplomatically. "Ordinarily, open market? You'd get maybe three. But I like you, Stolas. You play the game properly, you gather value. I'd swing five for you."

"Ten," Stolas immediately countered.

"Now that's outright robbery," Kraz said, but didn't seem insulted. "Six."

"Seven," Stolas responded. Kraz gave a discontented growl, but after a moment's thought, nodded.

"Seven," he said. He snapped his fingers, and his aides quickly bundled the contracts one and all away. "It's always a pleasure doing business with the Royal Families. It's edifying to have them remember that we still exist. So often we have to do our work with uncouth Sinners and moronic fiends of low status. They don't understand the game, the rules by which we play, and the way that decorum is to be upheld."

"I'm sure," Stolas said noncommittally.

"You're back into good form at least. For a few years there, you were acting rather shamefully," Kraz noted in conversational tone. "Cavorting with an imp and all that. But the joke was on us, wasn't it? That the imp you were cavorting with is the Proxy of Lucifer. A league better than the shit that Lucifer had before him. What was the King even thinking, using a Sinner as his voice?"

"That would be between Lucifer and a carcass at this juncture," Stolas said, keeping his temper in check that Kraz was bringing up his Blitzie.

"It is at that. They should be here with your Years soon enough. Is there any other business you're pursuing with the Conference while you're in Pentagram City?" Kraz asked. Stolas promptly put his mind on autopilot and let the rest of the discussion pass without much conscious awareness, because he frankly could only care less about the doings of Dealmakers if you held a knife to his scrotum and demanded it. It took nearly half an hour of mind-numbing back-and-forth before Kraz's people came out with a cart, upon which were six vials, of which one was larger than the others, each of them containing a coruscating, iridescent and ever-changing fluid of hue that changed moment by moment. The fluid manifestation of the time stolen from the end of a mortal's lifespan.

Purportedly, it tasted like cherry cordial.

"Excellent," Stolas said, collecting the vials with a sweep of his arm, depositing them into extradimensional storage, and then with a few more proper pleasantries – because he was going to have to do this same distasteful trade again in the future if he wanted to keep Blitzie hale and hearty going forth – he departed, returning to the Presbyter Mage whom he had hired. The Presbyter took his nod as demand, and with a spoken word and motion of his hands, caused a loud metal bang to sound in the air, Teleporting Stolas back to his palace.

He wasted no time heading directly to the kitchen of the palace, passing through the imps and lesser fiends that served to produce his meals each day. They were quiet and alarmed as they watched him go, unsure of what to make of him, as he dumped all of the vials into a ewer, releasing a very complicated aroma into the air as they mingled, outright creating a tincture which had a faint alcoholic scent and otherwise smelled of cigars, energy drinks, family dinners, and opportunities that humans had lost by the utility of Concubus' genitals.

Without offering a word to the help, he began through the halls again, snatching up a cup as he swirled the ewer as the fluid reduced down by its time settling into itself, until the alcohol it was dissolved in began to separate and float to the top, leaving a more syrup like fluid of stolen time at the bottom.

He saw Blitzie still 'vegged-out' on the sofa, watching a delightful game-show where Sinners got themselves mauled and mangled in entertaining ways in exchange for prizes. Stolas just sat down when a Sinner Woman threw herself feet first into a wood-chipper in exchange for a new kitchen set. The blanket over his legs was askew to let his replacement dangle over the side of the couch, a reminder in metal that Blitzie wasn't as indestructible as he thought or Stolas wished he was.

"Did you miss me?" Stolas asked of his lover.

"What, were you gone or something?" Blitz asked, munching on the last, half-popped and thus exceptionally crunchy and unpalatable kernels of popcorn. He really had no regard for the wellbeing of his own teeth, now did he? Well, this would help solve at least some of that.

"Just getting you something nice to drink," Stolas said. He poured the alcohol off into a cup of his own which had been abandoned here some hours ago, and dumped all of the time he'd just spent a great deal of his disposable income for into the one he handed to Blitz.

"The fuck is this? It smells like a goddamned holiday or some shit," Blitz asked.

"Just a little something to help with your aches. It's one half alcohol by volume~!" Stolas lied, since that alcohol was now in Stolas cup. Blitz gave a shrug and knocked the entire thing back in one pull, only to immediately gag – a hitherto unprecedented occurrence in Stolas' experience – and pound his chest.

"What the fuck? That shit is naaasty!" Blitz said.

"Medicine usually is," Stolas said. "How do you feel?"

"Betrayed. I was promised liquor," Blitz sulked, glaring at his emptied cup.

"Well, you should be feeling several years younger as it settles into your stomach. It's very effective at curing the little aches and pains you don't tell me about," Stolas explained, to at least some degree, so that the effect of the time would bypass Lucifer's ghastly 'protections'. What Blitz understood could effect him, even if he understood a lie.

"I'll hold you to that," Blitz said, before chucking the cup away whence it shattered on the floor. The help would clean it up soon enough. The imp settled in close to Stolas, and returned his attention to the game-show, which finally ended the screaming of the sinner and began to mock the pile of mulch she had become, saying that her currently pureed form could not complete the second challenge to actually get her what she'd bartered for. More fool she. Always ask questions, and don't begin a mutilation game with reducing yourself to paste, because it's very difficult to ramp up from there.

"Blitzie, I've got a little question for you," Stolas said.

"'Bout what?" he asked, trying to find a comfortable position for his leg.

"Your mother," Stolas said.

"Why are you talking to Tilla?" Blitz gave him stupendous side-eye.

"She is important to you, thus she is under my protection. And she is a decent conversationalist, considering her background," Stolas lied, not revealing the alliance the two had made on a park-bench years before. Blitz seemed to buy it. "She seems to have sobriquets for all of you, and…"

"She has what now?" Blitz asked.

"Nick names," Stolas translated. "The mage, she calls 'twee-cherry'. Your sister she refers to as 'pokey'. She even has the audacity to call me 'Shanks' under her breath! But, I was wondering… what was her nickname for you?"

"Huh? Oh. Blitzø," Blitz said.

"Her nickname for you was your name?" Stolas asked.

"No it… Oh right I never told you that shit. The name I was born with was Balor," Blitz said.

"Balor? You're not a Balor," Stolas said.

"I know, right?" Blitz said. "I sold that shitty name to a Dealmaker back when I was seventeen, and I've been Blitz ever since."

"Don't you mean 'Bitzø'?" Stolas asked.

"Don't you start with that," Blitz said. "And to be frank, I almost sold that one to get away from my stalker."

"You have a stalker? Why am I only now hearing about this?" Stolas bristled.

"Huh? Oh yeah. Emberlynn, a crazy bitch. Monster-fucker in life and a monster-fucker after it. She wanted the D so fuckin' bad I swear to Satan," Blitz laughed.

"Has she caused you any harm? Because I can have her eliminated," Stolas promised.

"You'd do that for me?" Blitz teased. Then he blinked at Stolas' expression. "Holy shit you would. Nah, naw there's no need. She's annoying, not dangerous. Although frankly I'm shocked as hell she's survived five fuckin' years down here. I though she'd get gacked in her first week!" Blitz laughed, then stretched his arms wide, and there was a mildly disconcerting crunch when he did. "Oh hell, that shit you made me drink might be doin' something. Feels like the knot in my shoulder finally fuckin' let go!"

"It's strong medicine," Stolas said. The strongest there was. The raw essence of more time to live. He pulled his impish lover close, and the two of them watched their grisly programming which exploited the Regeneration of Sinners for the entertainment of the rest of the denizens of Hell. He could scarcely think of a happier moment that he'd had in decades, because the source of the previous happiest moment was even now making a marvel of herself up in Heaven.

There were still concerns. He'd need to Deal for years to build up sufficient favors and exchangeable wealth to afford more Stolen Years. But he had those years, now. If he was going to live forever, then by his diligence, Blitz would too.

---

"Hey Tru, you startin' to come around?" Angel Dust asked at the Reave of New Purgatory's door. There was a bodily thump sound, then a shuffling, akin to a zombie dragging its failing body along, before there were numerous rattles of locks being disengaged. Finally, after nearly two minutes from the time he'd spoken, the door finally opened, showing Truly Delicious standing stark naked, bleary eyed and deeply hung over. She stared at him for a moment.

"Whuzzit?" she asked.

"What, tryin' to get a tan indoors?" Angel Dust pointed out. She glanced down at herself, then groaned, and zombie-lurched back into her room to grab her coat and throw it on. While it still left her scandalously exposed to those who gave a shit about that kind of thing, at least she wasn't buff to the world. "Feelin' better?"

"Quieter or I shoot you," Truly groaned.

"Oh please. I'd bounce back from that shit in a minute," Angel Dust said.

"Which is why I'd actually shoot you and not just say I would," Truly said. She continued lurching back into her suite, past the bottles of whiskey and beer which, emptied, gathered on the floor around any reasonably comfortable – by which Truly defined as 'fuck-on-toppable' – surface from her recent booze-and-boner bender that she used to stay alive. She looked around until she finally found her underwear, and stepped into them without any of the grace dames usually try to show when pulling their shit into place.

"Seriously, are you doin' alright?" Angel Dust asked.

"Angel…" she began, then paused, and glanced up, squinting through the light of the ceiling fan, to see that her bikini top was swinging on one of the blades. She held a hand up and snagged it as it swung past her. "Gimme a second. Need a capper."

She didn't put on her top, instead going for the fridge and extracting a can of cold coffee, shotgunning that bitch into herself as fast as physics would allow. With a bit of a caffeine jolt pulling her into coherence, she started to put the third of the three articles of clothing she typically wore into place.

"Better?"

"Better," Truly said. She flicked the can into a bin of other empty cans, be they of coffee or beer, which now stood perilously close to overflowing. "I know a lot of fiends have the luxury of their sexuality being a small part of their life, and if their sexuality is 'none', they can live with it. But I can't. One day, I'm going to push my luck too far, go too long between one of those," she gestured toward to the kitchen table, which seemed to have been the site of last nights enfuckening, "and I'm going to die."

"That shit's bad," Angel Dust commiserated. She puffed out a breath, rubbing at her brow.

"I don't think you understand how bitterly I resent being born like this," she said. "But what point is there in complaining? Hell doesn't give a shit that one Succubus has such a harder time just surviving than the rest of her kind, through no fault of her own. Why would it? It's Hell."

"I still say that there's gotta be something that can be done," Angel Dust pointed out.

"Like what?" Truly countered with a tone that showed she had absolutely no hope left in her that it was the case.

"I don't know, but that's the thing about me; I don't know shit about a lot of shit," Angel Dust said. "I ain't ever learned any of that magical bullshit that Sam or Husk or all a' them learned, but it's fuckin' magic. There's gotta be some kinda broken shit or funky spell that can do you some good."

"Do you think I haven't looked into that?" Truly asked.

"I know you haven't," Angel Dust leveled with her. "You know about as much 'bout magic as I do. So don't gimme that shit."

Truly gave a chuckle and again rubbed at her head, no doubt due to the headache that she was silently suffering. "Can't pull one over on you, can I?"

"Fuck naw, you can't," Angel Dust said. He moved to sit down in a chair, only to find that it had a stained outline of some guy's ass and junk. He looked at it for a moment, but decided he'd sat on grosser things in his life and afterlife, taking a seat. Truly did likewise. "I did some askin' around. And I hear that there's drugs that make people right fuck-happy out there."

"I've tried MDMA. It made me launch lunch from both ends," Truly said.

"What about Asmodean Crystal powder?" Angel Dust asked.

"It barely affects my kind," she said.

"You've never tried it, have you?" Angel Dust narrowed his eyes. He knew a dodge when he heard it.

"That shit's expensive and hard to get outside of Lust Ring," She pointed out.

"Sounds like excuses to me. You got Charlie down there, who's willin' to open her pockets for a dumb fuck like me, so think about what she'd do for somebody actually fuckin' useful to her like you," Angel Dust laid shit out. "There's gotta be a better way a' doin things than this," he added.

"I truly do not understand that woman," Truly said, leaning forward so that her forehead could rest on the tabletop.

"What's to understand? She's got a big heart and deep pockets," Angel Dust said.

"I just don't get how somebody like that can be born in a place like this," Truly muttered. "Somebody's who's got everything, all the money, all the power she could ever want… and then does this? I just don't get it."

Angel Dust had a glib answer, but he actually paused and gave it some thought instead of just spouting. And because he did, he managed to dredge up a deeper, more honest answer to her charge.

"Charlie wants Hell to be bettah," Angel Dust said.

"No kidding," Truly said, turning her head and flopping herself forward so that she could splay across the table surface in her agony and be able to look at Angel Dust.

"No. I mean she's gonna change Hell until it is," Angel Dust said.

"...wish I had your faith in her," Truly muttered. "But faith in one hand and horse-shit in the other; see which fills up first."

"Might be surprised, Tru," Angel Dust said. "So are you just gonna stay there all day with yer face glued to a table, or are you gettin' up?"

"Why?" she asked.

"I wanna gloat!" Angel Dust said.

"You wanna gloat. Why?" Truly repeated.

"Ever hear of a mook called Sir Pentious?" Angel Dust asked.

"The Overlord? What, did he die?" Truly asked, slowly pushing herself up to an actual sit again, even if she had to brace herself against the table with both arms.

"Naw, somethin' way more humiliatin' happened to him," Angel Dust said with a big grin. "He got his shit pushed in by some Exorcists and lost all'a his techno-bullshit, and now he's hat-in-hand beggin' for a place to live in New Purgatory from Charlie!"

"Pentious doesn't strike me as somebody you'd have friction with," Truly said, her eyes starting to clear as the hangover she was absolutely feeling started to abate, at least a little bit. "What's your beef with the snake?"

Angel Dust was about to explain exactly what his beef was, but the instant he actually recalled what started it, he felt his throat close and his heart drop. Realize why exactly he had ever been in conflict with the snake Sinner in the first place.

A reason that started with Cherri and ended with Bomb.

Truly seemed to grasp the shift in his understanding of things as he finally thought about why he bore any schadenfreude toward the snake in the first place, watching as he drooped in his seat, his extra arms dangling low past his hips in a moment of psychic defeat.

"...It weren't my fight," Angel Dust said. "It was hers."

"Hers? As in?" Truly asked.

"Cherri Bomb," Angel Dust said, his body suddenly feeling cold and weak, lacking any of the motivating rush that had brought him here.

Truly sighed, and nodded. "And you're still holding onto her grudges for her?" Truly asked.

"I guess I am," Angel Dust admitted.

"Did he do anything to you that would have put you on a war path with him, without Bomb's involvement?" Truly asked, now sitting back in her chair like a person and less like a lean-to tent.

"Not really," Angel Dust said. "Cherri went after him 'cause he fucked around in her turf, and she weren't one to let things go when he kept pokin' her. And I helped her fight him, cause… well… I owed her. I owed her so many fuckin' favors that now I'll never get a chance to pay back."

"I know that feeling. I do," Truly said.

"I don't think I actually even knew her," Angel Dust said, feeling a hollow in his gut. "She was fun, she was loyal, she was good people, and she was dangerous as fuck, but I lookin' back, I realize I don't know a fuckin' thing about her. Why she was in Hell? Not a clue. Why she picked that little piece of PC to be her stompin' grounds? Not a clue why. I mean…" he paused, rubbing hard at his forehead. "Cherri had some guy she had some major fuckin' problem with. Like, almost a 'me and Valentino' kind a' problem. And I never even fuckin' learned that asshole's name. And I know she talked about him, told me about him, but I wasn't fuckin' listening 'cause I was wrapped all up in my own bullshit. What kinda friend does that make me, who can't even remember the name of the one fuckin' guy in Hell who could give Cherri Bomb nightmares?"

"If you want, I can ask around," Truly began.

"No," Angel Dust said, slowly shaking his head. "I spread my problems to enough people already. I ain't makin' this problem yours as well. Let it be a scar on me, another fuck-up in a huge fuckin' pile of fuck-ups that pretty much makes up my entire time down here."

"Don't you start with that," Truly said with a tone of failing patience.

"What?" he asked.

"That 'oh poor me' bullshit," she said. "You just got back from a successful infiltration, three Clouds deep, into Heaven, and got your sister and several thousand other Innocent out when you did. If you consider yourself a fuck-up with that on your resume then what does that make everybody else?"

"It don't erase my dumb fuckin' mistakes," Angel Dust said.

"Nothing ever will, but nothing is supposed to," Truly said. "You think I don't have my own pile of fuck-ups in the back of my mind whispering catty bullshit into my ears when I try to sleep? I know exactly where you're standing, Angel Dust, because I'm standing right there with you. So you can't remember one asshole's name in Hell? Maybe that's for the best. Now he's not your problem either."

"He should be. Just to close the book on…" Angel Dust began, but Truly stood.

"The book is closed," she contended. "Cherri's grudges died with her. And you trying to carry them on your back isn't going to do you, or any of your friends, any good. So put them the fuck down and move on. Yes, hindsight says you could have been a more attentive friend to her. But your failure with her made you want to be better with others. Like your sister, or Fredo, or dare I even say fucking me."

"...I guess you're right," Angel Dust said. He puffed out a breath. "I still wanna gloat, though. It's so easy with the snake 'cause he keeps sayin' the horniest shit without even seeming to realize it; it's a fuckin' riot!"

"See? You could have led with that and I'd have already hitched my horse to your cart," Truly said. "I half-way want to see this myself."

"Well come on then, you're lookin' more alive then you was when I came in," Angel Dust invited.

Of course, his mirth was somewhat interrupted by the fact that buy the time he and Truly reached the ground floor – a lengthier proposition than usual because the Hotel only had so many elevators and they were in near constant motion these days – Sir Pentious was already shaking Charlie's hand, to a look of delight on the snake Sinner's face and a look of annoyed concern on Charlie's.

He'd later learn that Pentious had dodged actually coming into the Hotel, and instead opted to refurbish one of the derelict buildings that Truly had exterminated out getting rid of the H8'ers and rebuild a somewhat more 'legit' business as a technologist, tool-and-weapon designer, and general weirdo-about-town in the increasingly formalized district of New Purgatory in Pentagram City.

Well, Angel Dust considered, it wouldn't have been Hell, if it didn't take the first and best opportunity to piss on his parade.

And to make it worse, Truly even seemed to find Pentious cute, as one would a particularly stupid dog. There was simply no justice in Hell.

---

"The year 2027 will remain a banner year for the development of the human species. The moment that it became actually conceivable that we could become a Kardashev 1 species, entirely thanks to Hell finally handing over schematics for a fusion power plant that produced more energy than it required to keep itself running. Oh, they didn't make it easy of course, but considering their position, stranded on Earth with a number of them imprisoned for killing us and the rest ex-slave-soldiers with very limited skill sets, the tech corps eventually had to bite their bullet and give us something to justify us putting up with them. And they just happened to give us the one thing humanity needed more than almost anything else. Clean, renewable energy.

Of course, the first few reactors that they set up were out of my ability to dig into them; despite my current title, back then I was just another scientist in Moscow, back when there was still a Russia that stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific. And Hell had plenty of reason not to let anything of theirs fall into our hands, even before they caused The Downfall. They were making moves to ensure their continued existence as a people. As a Siberian, I can understand the kind of ruthless calculus that a man must make, in order to keep him and his safe and secure when the wind is howling and the ice crawls in under the door.

In retrospect, it wouldn't have helped me much if I had gotten my grips on those first reactors handed over to France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Ukraine – Fuck, sorry, just Ukraine. They outlasted Russia as a coherent nation, they deserve that much respect at least. No, I mean that those were magical devices back then. It took another half a decade, once we knew that our always-twenty-years-away dreams were actually achievable, to create a device which operated purely on what they used to call 'structural magic'. Such a fanciful name for Synchronicity based technologies. I half believe that there are still parts of the world that call my entire discipline of applied hyperphysics 'magic', particularly in those sad little chunks of what used to be the United States.

No I don't consider it hypocritical to mock America crumbling into rump-states when Russia did the same. I am a Siberian, not a Russian. And I laughed hard and long when the military began to eat itself on the road between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. And the demons who caused those downfalls, both America's and Russia's, are probably laughing even harder yet!"

–Pietr Sokharev, Minister for Science and Technology, Novosibirsk, Siberian Dominion.