"This is a fucking stupid idea," Husk said.
"I'm aware. But I can't spend every hour of every day in that hotel," Rachel answered him. She turned her head one way and the other in the mirror, eyes on the massive beehive of coppery hair that had been wrangled to the top of her coif. It just barely made it tall enough and broad enough that the broken halo she could no longer render invisible was hidden inside the snarl of locks, only peeking through as occasional flashes of light through the tress.
"It'd be safer," Husk said.
"Do I look like somebody who cares about safe?" Rachel asked, turning a look at him.
"Honestly? You look like you should be giving a suicide mission to a hard-boiled private dick," Husk said.
"I'm not sure if that's flattery or scorn," Rachel said, then got out of the chair in the still abandoned hair salon that was in the hotel's second storey. She didn't actually get much taller when she did so.
"Oh, trust me, it's a compliment," Husk said. It was audacious as fuck, having somebody out of Heaven walking the streets of Hell. But then again, considering those streets were being bombarded by high-velocity carcasses at random, most people probably wouldn't spend too much time watching her, in favor of not getting pancaked by some dead asshole falling from the sky. "So what kinda medicine are you needing?"
"I need a psychosurgeon, first of all," Rachel said, carefully driving thick sewing needles into her up-do to give the impression that there were horns in it, then starting toward the elevator.
"And what exactly is that?" Husk asked.
"Somebody who has a means of reconstituting a mind," she said.
"Yeah, I don't think anybody down here is like that," Husk said.
"Oh contrare," she said. "Stories abound in Cloud One about what imps can do down here with their wyrds. There are tales of an entire clan of them moving up here into Pride ring, with all the magic they would ever need."
"You're talkin' about Clan Cruac, aren't you?" Husk asked, as the doors to the elevator closed.
"So you have heard of them."
"Yeah, and they were wiped out about ninety years ago by one guy," Husk said.
Rachel turned a glare at him, disbelief obvious. "Who could possibly have slaughtered an entire... what do you call an enclave of those things?" she asked, to which Husk provided the word, "Sietch of Thaumaturges all by himself?"
"That would be me," Alastor's voice appeared before he did. Husk was actually a bit surprised that Rachel didn't bodily flinch, as the shadows gave birth to a monster in a fine red suit, fully eight feet tall of lanky limbs, crisp white skin, blazing red eyes, and teeth that were the color and sharpness of bronze daggers. Scraping the top of the lift, sprouting from his head, were the antlers of a deer. He leaned down, way down, to Rachel, and took her hand in his. "I don't believe I've had the chance to make a proper introduction, have I?"
"I would say you haven't yet," Rachel said. Her face had lost all expression, and she was scrutinizing him with all of the intensity that Alastor grinned with. "You would be the one that everybody here is afraid of, then."
"My reputation does run out ahead of me, by times," Alastor said with a chuckle, returning to his full height. "And you? You are an unusual specimen, make no mistake. I've never had a chance to have my hands on the like of you..."
"And you still don't," Husk said, his tones growing hotter and his voice growing even deeper as he edged into the Beast That Grins' line of sight. "We're goin' on a trip to pick some shit up."
"Must you really be such a stick in the mud, Husker? I was simply trying to break the ice."
"Well, the ice is fuckin' broken. So unless you know where we can find impish sorcery in Pride Ring, we're done here."
Rachel turned a glance to him, still devoid of expression. Even still, he could tell that she was asking a very pointed question with that look. 'Is it wise to antagonize him?' was that question. And the answer was pointedly FUCK NO, but sometimes you weren't allowed to go with the right answer to things.
"Really? That's all you need? Well I know for a fact there's one of those running a little shop in Imp City," Alastor said with a laugh. "I'm sure she'll be able to set you right as rain."
"And you know this... how?"
"Oh, Husker, do you think for a moment that I owe you even the first word of explanation how I know things?" he asked, his smile losing a great deal of its mirth.
"Then I'll ask as a courtesy since you won't provided it to him," Rachel said, stone-faced in the presence of what was likely the most dangerous Sinner in Hell.
"I'll provide it in exchange for five answers," Alastor said.
"Name them," Rachel said. Which was dumb and he tried to inform her as such but she ignored him, her very pale blue eyes locked on Alastor's own crimson.
"How much of the Wall around Heaven has come crumbling down, in your estimation?" Alastor asked.
"All of it," she said. Alastor's grin widened a bit at that.
"Does the Plaza Beyond have guards?" Alastor then asked.
"Humans aren't allowed up there. I can't answer that," she said.
"Very well, I retract that question and posit another one," Alastor said as the elevator hit the ground floor, but the doors refused to open. Husk hit the open door button again. And again, nothing. "Ahem. Then on the lowest level of Heaven there is a place where reality is thin. I believe you call it..."
"The Unhallow, yes I've been there, and yes, it's guarded 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
"I was going to ask if anything's come through in the last few years?"
"Something comes through every nineteen days so regularly that we can set a clock to it."
"Nineteen days, you say?" Alastor lofted a brow at that information. "Not nineteen days and an hour, or nineteen days and a minute?"
"If it's drifting, it's doing so by seconds each year," she said.
"Excellent, very excellent," Alastor said. "And you confirm that you were Judged personally by Raguel, the Godfriend, bearer of the Gift of Justice?"
"I was," she said. So people who go up get to remember their Judgment? Weird.
"And what did you intend to name your second-born son?"
"Her second kid was Sam. Give yer head a shake," Husk interjected.
"Robert," she said. He turned a confused look to her. "I took one look at my infant when he was born and knew he wasn't a 'Robert', he was a 'Sam'."
"Fantastic. That is very useful information," Alastor said, strange red glyphs blurring into and out of sight around him.
"I fail to see how?" she muttered.
"Just one more, as promised," Alastor leaned down, way down, so that he could look her in the eye, his grin almost as wide across as her entire face. And there was a lot more malice than mirth in it. "May I have a strand of your hair?"
"You may not," she said, both instantly and showcasing a lot of prudence.
"Oh, you're going to be fun, I can just tell," Alastor said. He then leaned back, twirling his cane into being and thumping its end into a wall, burning into the brass panelling the street layout of a neighbourhood. "I don't make a habit of memorizing maps, when they lead to places I can reach twice. The one you're looking for is here," he thumped a shape indicating a building, "operating under the auspices of Blitz-Krieg Magical Solutions. May she bring you all the wonderment that a lady of your breeding deserves."
"That sounds from you very close to being a threat," Rachel said.
"Oh, if I ever threaten you, my dear?" Alastor said, and as he did, his eyes faded to radio dials, and the walls began to crack, bleed, and wail, while the air in the elevator rotted and crumbled away to reveal an eye watering nothing the likes of which somehow made the Abyss seem hospitable. "YOU WILL KNOW IT."
Then, a crisp and cheery ding, and the elevator doors finally opened. Husk grabbed Rachel and dragged her out of the lift before more misery could befall them.
"Yer playin' with fire, sweetheart," Husk grumbled into her ear as he pulled her toward the heart of the lobby.
"He's not the worst person I've ever met. Although he does come close," Rachel said. She opened her mouth to speak more, but the door slammed open, and Vaggie was storming from the back rooms toward the elevator, her one eye glaring hard at Alastor. Considering she was clutching a knife by its blade in her hand, Husk decided that he didn't want to get into her way.
"Ah! There you are at last! I was wondering if you'd forgotten about me!" Alastor said brightly, as he leaned against the back wall of the elevator. Vaggie didn't say a word, simply stomping into the lift, which slammed its doors shut almost onto her heel.
"Now let's get to Imp City before somebody gets us killed," Husk said.
Chapter 5
The Cut Worm Forgives The Plow
There was blood in the streets of Heaven.
Gold and black and scarlet, it ran so thick in some places that it overflowed the sewers and ran ankle-deep down the roadways. And Birah was mortified to see it, as bad as it was. Lucifer actually did it. He actually attacked Heaven.
"This was not your fault," Raguel said at his side.
"The hell it wasn't," Birah claimed, shrugging his way out from the hand on his shoulder. "If I'd have told Gabriel about this, he would have..."
"What would he have done, Birah?" Raguel demanded, turning that featureless faceplate toward him. "What would he have done that would be not worse than this?"
"We could have prepared for this!" Hepsut claimed, as he continued to walk a few strides away, his blazing sword in hand. "We wouldn't have been caught unawares, and we..."
"You think that Gabriel would have connected the appearance of Samael to the return of the Heresiarch? Then you are a bigger fool than he is," Raguel stated. "Gabriel does not have the sort of planning skills you assign to him. I would even claim that in his worst, even my brother Michael does not. Who could have known this would happen?"
"Azazel," Birah said. While it was unkind to throw him under the proverbial bus, he had no loyalty to the Grigori who was his 'sibling'. Especially not now.
"And what does the Grigori of Arms have to do with this?" Raguel asked, before idly stabbing a gasping fiend in the face as he walked past it.
"Birah, we should not..." Hesput began.
"Azazel told us to delay informing the Archangels of Samael's presence on Cloud One," Birah cut him off. "He's probably in league with the Devil himself."
"No. No, Azazel is not," Raguel said.
"You cannot know that," Birah said. Raguel then stopped, and turned, and glared at him.
"I can. And I do," Raguel said.
He then turned and continued to walk, pausing to point out an imp who was feigning death. Hepsut waved his sword in the imps' direction, to the appearance of golden chains that bound the little creature and left him locked in place.
"Azazel is not working for or with the Heresiarch," Raguel said. "Even now, his service remains to the good and the glory of God's Design and Heaven's power. That he has a more intricate game in motion than we have seen speaks to his character and would be more telling were it absent."
"Don't tell me you respect his duplicity," Birah said, confusion clear in his voice.
"I respect his ability to do what he must despite the pain of doing it. I respect his resolve to continue in his duty despite having to be face-to-face with the man who took away the dearest person in his life. And yes, I respect his ability to adapt to a world that wants to reject him outright. Heaven is not an honest place, anymore. It has not been for some time," Raguel said.
"If I didn't know you better, I'd almost call you a sympathizer for that," Hepsut said. "But I do know you better. And we've been on the same side of a battle too often for me to claim otherwise."
Birah growled at the back of his throat. He had been told to stay off of the line of battle when the Traitor Knight Asmodeus returned, with a hundred legions of damned and fetid at his command. The vanguard was not Birah's place, they said. Leave the fight to the fighters, and you deal with the less tangible threats. The fact that there were less tangible threats didn't assuage Birah, nor make him feel any less an exile from what ought to be his place. To ward the attentions of the Sorcerer's Legion of Purson was a small thing, as none of those imps and fiends had ever had had to fight the likes of an angel.
It still left him feeling useless, relegated to the back lines for something he could not control.
Heaven was his home, too. He deserved the chance to fight for it.
But in the end, his intervention wasn't even needed. Unlike those desperate times on the field during the Great Heresiarchy, today people still felt able to sideline him. To relegate him.
Despite only being a few months younger than Hepsut, the latter was set upon the battlefield, and Birah was shoved into the back to swat curses.
"Perhaps I am a sympathizer," Raguel finally said. "Perhaps I do sympathize with somebody who sees our broken world and declares 'enough'. Perhaps there is something that needs to be torn down so that something better can be built from its ruin. But I can only do what I was born to do. And I can attempt to be kind. If you are an Angel worthy of the name, then you would do so as well."
"This still feels..." Birah began.
"Like you have been slighted?" Raguel cut him off. Birah always had a level of discomfort around conversations with the Godfriend. He knew too much. He saw too much. And it was a delicate task to keep even the slightest secret from him. "There are few who would even care enough to, young Spellbinder."
And while that was probably intended to be a reassurance, it in truth formed even more of a barb. Birah the Spellbinder, greatest archivist of magical theory in Heaven, home to the second greatest library on the occult and the obtuse in Heaven, and the third greatest in all existence, was so beneath notice that nobody would even care enough about him to snub him.
"I surrender. Please don't kill me!" a rasping voice came from a pile of cadavers. On one side of the pile were a pair of cherubs, one exsanguinated, the other decapitated, while the rest of the pile was dead Hellhounds and imps. The one holding out their hands in supplication was a Hound, one who appeared blinded. "I don't even want to be here."
Hepsut just shook his head. "Then you should have picked a better leader," he said.
"Hold," Raguel said, as Hepsut readied his blazing sword. "Birah? Can you see the nature of his binds?"
Birah turned a confused look at the Godfriend, then returned his gaze to the blinded Hound, and what appeared to be a small number of other, surviving hounds who were in very dire physical condition. And when he looked upon them, he saw spells of cruel obedience placed on them, bound against their very names. "They were compelled to come here," Birah said. "They are slave soldiers."
"They spilled the blood of our kind," Hepsut said, but didn't seem particularly angry about it. Just reciting a fact.
"And we have spilled ten hundredweight more of theirs," Raguel said. He dismissed his own burning sword and pulled out his smartphone. "Raphael. Come hence, anon."
"What are..." Birah began, but there was within seconds a burst of feathers from a point in space, that unfurled into black-haired Raphael, with his trumpet forever grasped in his left hand. He looked upon the dead with impassive eyes, then to the dying and maimed Hellhounds.
"Why have you called upon me, brother?" Raphael asked in Enochian, his voice booming as though he were projecting for a stage-play. He stooped down, well down, for he was taller in this guise than any other Archangel, and looked on the slave-soldiers who were scattered across the ground. "For these creatures?"
"You are the founder of the healing miracle. I am claiming them as my prisoners," Raguel said in that same tongue.
"Why would you care for the health of the scum of the scum?" Raphael asked, just as without actual inflection as Hepsut had been.
"The scum of the scum have working ears, and are overlooked by our enemy. The dead cannot reveal intelligence gathered by loose lips," Raguel said.
"Very well. But whatever comes of them is upon you," Raphael said. Then, with a wave of his left hand, the wounds of the Hellhounds closed and healed without a scar, the ruptured eyes of the one asking mercy restored themselves, and golden chains appeared on them, marked with the hexagon sigil of Raguel. "I have other matters needing my time."
And then Raphael folded in onto himself, disappearing in a flash, leaving behind a few drifting white feathers. Birah, though, stared at Raguel, while Hepsut found another clutch of mangled fiends and gave them a more kindly death. "You didn't do that for intelligence," Birah charged.
"...No. No I did not," Raguel said. He snapped his armor-plated fingers, and the Hounds vanished from the battlefield, no doubt remanded to his oubliettes.
"If they break loose, as their kind do..."
"Then I will pay a higher but acceptable price for doing what is right," Raguel said. He turned those blazing eyes across the carcass strewn battlefield that had pressed almost the whole circumference of Cloud One. "In the last war, you were taught to do what is correct. Obeying the orders of God was correct. Protecting Heaven from Lucifer's depredations was correct. But to cast him into Hell? Despite God knowing what would result of it?" he shook his head, slowly.
"You're saying that God was wrong?"
"I'm saying that if you can learn one thing in this conflict, Spellbinder... it is that it is more important to do what is right, than what is correct," Raguel said, rubbing at a point on his shoulder as though it ached. "... no matter the cost to yourself."
Birah didn't know what the Godfriend meant by that. And at this point, he was a bit afraid to ask. But the point stood. There would be other battles. Other chances for Birah to get the chance in the melee, to show to all of Heaven that he was not a poor imitation of better Angels. And if the tone of Raguel was to be trusted, he would not have to wait for very long.
Rachel had never had the opportunity to ride in a limousine while she was alive. And thereafter didn't get a chance to ride in one after her death. And while the opportunity to luxuriate in the back would appeal to most, Rachel wasn't too sure that she'd left motion-sickness behind with her demise. So she opted to do the uncommon thing, and ride shotgun with Husk.
It had been a long and slow drive, traffic not complying to any degree with their move from the Capital of all of Hell to the next city over. And it had been a quiet drive, because Husk was obviously thinking of something. Something that he was mulling. He seemed that way. It was refreshing to have somebody who sat and thought about things before opening his mouth. Phil, for all his other perks, had a habit of shooting his lip at things he didn't understand. At least Philip Junior didn't pick up on his father's bad habits. Or didn't, as far as she knew.
She was content with the quiet, though, so she didn't press Husk for quite a while, just watching the landscape of Hell zip past as they shot along roads which, apparently, were ensorcelled so that things on them moved at incredible speeds comparable to the things off the concrete. It actually raised some implications as to the sheer scale of Hell. Considering the amount of distance they'd driven to get from the Capital to the next city over, if the mile markers were accurate, put Imp City at 780 kilometers away. That meant that the 'one hour trip' that it would have usually taken to get to Hell's Second City would have been done at three quarters the speed of sound. But again, this was Hell. Hell was weird.
Rachel suddenly understood why so many cars had such robust bumpers. With the speed that they got on these country roads, anything crossing the highway stood a ghost of a chance if a car came racing at them, and as a woman who had in her past eaten road-kill deer, she knew how much of a mess that a car could do to a meat-body.
The approach of Imp City was abrupt, as far as that goes. It didn't have the suburban sprawl of cookie-cutter houses that stretched to the horizon, instead appearing with a layer of smoke-belching industrial buildings, furnaces, petroleum cracking plants, factories, and an airport that looked so run down that she was pretty sure any plane landing there would get swallowed whole in its potholes. Beyond the naked and desperate industry came commercial high-rises, then residential towers. It was in the middle layer that they would have to find their target.
"Have you come up with what you're trying to say yet, Husk?" Rachel asked, as the speed limit ratcheted down from 'however the fuck fast you want to go' to 'be able to stop when the light's red'.
"You're fuckin' around with dynamite, crossin' words with the Radio Demon," Husk said.
"You seem intimidated by that red man. Why is that?" she asked.
"You haven't been talkin' to the girls, or to that whore in the kitchens, then?" Husk asked.
"I find Charlotte draining to be around," Rachel said.
"She can be, by times," Husk admitted.
"Vaggie is paranoia incarnate, and clingy to boot. And as for the whore, I presume you're talking about 'Angel Dust'? He just wants to talk about sex with men. Which given the context I find a bit inappropriate," she said.
"Yeah, that's Angel Dust," Husk muttered. "Now that he ain't up to his eyeballs in coke, he's got his other addictions to keep 'im company."
"And you still haven't answered my question," she said.
"Because Alastor is a fuckin' monster," Husk said, as he got off of the highway and descended into the streets.
"I can see no less than thirty monsters from this vantage alone," she countered, gesturing at the varied myriad of Sinners, Fiends, and other Hellborn.
"That ain't what I mean and you know it," Husk said. "In that hotel, in terms of power, Charlie's at the top. She don't show it, but I'm pretty sure if she ever wanted her daddy's throne, she's got it in 'er to take it. But just behind her, and not as fuckin' far between as I'd like it to be, comes the Fuckin' Radio Demon."
"And why do you call him that? Except for his eyes, there's nothing radio-like about him at all," she said.
"If I start tellin' that story, toots, we're gonna need to get a hotel, 'cause we won't make a meeting with yer wizard," Husk said, effortlessly swerving out of the way as the carcasse of a massive, heavily armored fiend smashed into the bonnet of the car in front of them, and they only got around it by driving on the sidewalk. Rachel felt her stomach lurch at that, and marvelled deep down at how casually the cat-bird demon managed to do that without even breaking the line of his conversation.
"So give... give me the short version," she said, after giving her head a shake at the bedlam that they now drove past and away from. There were less carcasses raining down now then once there had been, but that still put the dead that rained upon Pride somewhere in the range of a million. A million dead in a day. This war would be over soon, with casualty rates like that.
"The Radio Demon? He landed here just about a century ago, and started to throw down like he'd been buildin' up his power for millennia. He jumped into the Pride War – look that up some time, and you'll understand – and he fucking killed everybody involved. He, alone, went into a three-way war, and all three sides of 'em were wiped the fuck out. That fucker ain't dangerous. He is fuckin' danger."
"I see," Rachel said.
"I hope that ain't you sayin' you like 'dangerous men', 'cause he ain't havin' any of that," Husk said.
"There is no shortage of testosterone poisoned block-heads. They're not my type," Rachel said.
"Good," Husk continued.
"I've had more luck with malleable men."
"Now I'm a bit fuckin' concerned," Husk said. "Word to the wise on that grinnin' fuck; I'm pretty sure he sold yer kid out to Lucifer, too."
"Based on what?"
"Knowin' him, knowin' the things that Alastor knows, and knowin' how little he gives a fuck about anybody but himself," Husk said.
"When you say 'sold out my son'," Rachel pressed, unaware of the deeply dark expression that came to her face. When Husk turned to her, he actually gave a start at seeing her, before glancing into the distance for a moment. If she had to guess, he was trying to understand something by that expression. But as she lacked the context for what that could be, she simply let it lie.
"I mean to say Lucifer held a gun to all of Hell's head, and demanded yer boy come outta hiding. And he did, stupid bastard."
Sam did that.
To save Hell of all places.
She silently went back to her long neglected list of people that she targeted for revenge, and put new names right at the top. First, the Radio Demon, somehow, some way, some time. Then, Lucifer. She had no idea how or when she would ever get a chance to extract some vengeance on the King of All Hell, but she had all the time in the world to find out.
"'Course I was shocked as the next guy to see what happened next," Husk said. "It ain't common knowledge, since most people weren't in a spot to see it... but I was. And yer kid beat the fuck outta the big guy."
Rachel's dark expression turned to a querulous frown. "He did what, now?"
"Right. Probably should'a mentioned yer kid's the Demiurge," Husk said.
"I still need explanation, because that's just a word to me," she said.
"Fuck me, I thought he got that Catholic shit from you," Husk said.
"I got baptized against my will by the Canadian government, and only 'converted' because Phil made it a precondition of marriage. Couldn't have his parents nagging him about bringing home a 'Protestant Whore', now could we?" she said.
"That still don't explain... wait... Fucking hell, he didn't know you were a secret agnostic, did he?"
"I suppose he did not," Rachel said. "I did works that he might construe as alms and charity. I did it because it was of benefit to me in the long term. I was planting trees that I would have shade under in a decade, then cut for lumber a decade later. I died before short term could become long."
"So Sam went to his grave thinkin' you went to your grave a fine, upstandin' religious type," Husk said with a dry laugh.
"I can't control what people think of me, I can only influence it," Rachel said. "Is that it?"
"I think it is," Husk said, pulling into the fenced in parking lot with the broken gate. The place had no available parking near the door, so they had to go all the way into the back corner, parking across three spots with the center of the limo over a crater in the asphalt. "You're gonna need me if somebody gets pushy in there," he said, already opening his door. Rachel scowled at him, but had little choice but to do likewise. She then had to take a step to the left as an imp hit the reinforced bonnet of the car next to her after a plummet straight from Heaven, able to avoid the worst of the splash of black blood and guts that resulted, but not all of it.
"And why is that, gambler?" she asked.
"When you gamble as long and as dearly as I do... well, you get some shit," Husk said, as though he'd just run out of explanation he was willing to offer. But even still, the things he mentioned continued adding new nodes to her lattice of knowledge that extended forever outward from her very cold and calculated underpinnings. She wiped some of the blood off of her neck, but then had nowhere to deposit it. Husk noticed her problem, and pulled out a handkerchief from somewhere unseen and idly handed it in her direction.
"Noted," she said. "So I guess you're my bodyguard today."
"I don't do work without gettin' paid. What are you payin' me?" Husk demanded.
"I think I can come up with something," she said.
"Think again on that one. I ain't had an inkling to fuck in half a decade," Husk muttered.
"You poor man," Rachel said, honestly. Come to think of it, where was her own sex drive? Did Heaven shut that down? Ehhh, no; she chalked it up to being busy, and not having anybody actually trying to seduce her. She always did tend to more react than act in that regard.
"You'd be surprised what you can lose down here," Husk said, while they reached the doors and he pushed them open for her despite claiming not to be a bodyguard.
"Taken under advisement," she said, hitting the button for the elevator. "And there's probably other things I can pay you with, if it comes down to it. I'm a very crafty person."
"You look like you should be painted on the side of a bomber-plane, woman," Husk said, lighting up a cigar as he did.
"Thank you," she said. "It's been a while since a man complimented my appearance."
Husk turned a jaundiced eye to her. "Y' know, it's real fuckin' hard to tell when you're bein' sarcastic," he said.
"That's because I wasn't being," she said, and then entered the lift as its doors opened.
"Ya' don't say," Husk said, then leaned in the corner of the lift and lost himself in thought. Rachel let him. He seemed somebody who liked to think deep on things, to tear apart ambiguities and lay bare a truth, however unpleasant, that he could hold as a stern and steady foundation. Whether that was an aspect of his character from his life before, or something that he had to become in order to survive Hell, she would eventually figure out, but for now she knew that he could be trusted to be prudent. Well, prudent whenever there weren't cards on the table or dice in a cup.
He only followed just out of the lift, content to stand with his back to the call button and fill his surrounds with cigar smoke. So be it. He'd probably still be post up by the door if she went into an office. The hallway had six doors on it, four on one side and two, along with broad windows, on the other. The only double doors (ignoring the solitary one which obviously lead to a closet) had a slap-dash sign on it that read Immediate Murder Professionals Inc, because of course assassination was a commonplace service to provide to the denizens of Hell. Almost directly opposite that one door were a pair of imps.
Imps were such a strange thing. Her eyes were still used to things like Cherubs and Angels, and to a lesser extent Hellhounds, Fiends and Sinners. Imps, though, were firmly on the other side of the Uncanny Valley, but on its down slope. Their faces had a shape that called to mind a beak even though they had teeth, their noses barely visible, and both of the specimens before her had the same black-with-thin-white-stripes horns that jutted sharply from their skulls. Their eyes made her think of Grandfather, who died of jaundice. And of course, they were small, half a man's height or weight.
Not this one, though. While one of the imps who were talking while struggling with a stepladder was what she was led to understand as normal for an imp, the other one was as tall as Rachel was. With her horns added in, she was even taller.
And the door that they were over was the one that Alastor, the Radio Demon, had mentioned in the Hotel.
"Is one of you either Blitz or Krieg?" Rachel asked.
"Why are you looking for them?" the taller one immediately asked, turning to face her. She was heavily pregnant. And she had a look on her face that Rachel could actually recognize from her own repertoire. That was a protective look.
"Calm, Mother, calm!" the smaller one said, and tried to skitter up the ladder and hang her own slapdash sign, but couldn't reach the peg that hung over the aperture. She strained a few times then growled, and turned to face Rachel, sitting at the top of that ladder so that she could look down upon a human. "What business have you here?" she asked, with an accent that was somewhere between Semitic and Creole French.
"I'm looking for Blitz-Krieg Magical Solutions," she said. "I have need of them."
"Then you are in great luck today!" the younger of the two imps said with a shark-like grin. "And I will entertain this day for the low price of hanging this FUCKING SIGN!" she finished shouting over her shoulder.
"I could do it, sweetheart," the taller imp said. She too had an accent, but much weaker.
"With that?" the shorter asked, gesturing at the taller one's belly. "I will not forfeit a sibling for your haste."
"I am made of sterner stuff than that," the tall one said, then turned to Rachel. She was about to speak, then paused, looked her up and down, then shrugged and began. "I am Tilla Miller. This is my daughter Krieg."
"Rachel," she said, and then she motioned to the ladder. Krieg jumped off of it, allowing Rachel, with her meagre difference in height, to barely get that shoddy sign – reading Blitz-Krieg Magical Solutions, of course – into its place. "Now, can we talk some business?"
"Come into my parlor!" Krieg said with a showman's smile. She kicked the ladder over, almost tangling Rachel's ankle in it, and threw the door open to a room filled with boxes. Most were still closed, but some were opened. As though Rachel had caught her during a move, perhaps? "Behold my new offices! I am coming up in the world, I think!"
"Sure," Rachel said. "I need an estimate on some soul surgery."
"Soul surgery, or miracle surgery?" Tilla asked, gently shifting Rachel aside so she could enter behind her.
"I presume then that there is a difference," Rachel said flatly. And as she surmised, in the hallway, Husk moved to plant his back against the far side of the door.
"Has somebody been struck by foul magic or cut with the steel of angels? Call upon a Soul Surgeon," Krieg said with an off-hand gesture. Tilla turned a look at her, one that spoke to shrewdness.
"But you don't need to heal a soul, per se. You need to heal a mind. I'm right, aren't I?" she asked.
"Mother, do not put demands into my customer's mouths!" Krieg pressed.
"Are you a soul-surgeon, twee-cherry?" she asked. Krieg stared at her in the way that Rachel presumed that only teenaged, rebellious daughters could.
"I perhaps could become one!" she said, fists on her hips.
"And how are you going to pay for it?" Tilla pressed.
"...you are a fiend of a woman, Mother," Krieg muttered. Tilla gave the superior smile of a parent who knows that they've won, then turned to face Rachel.
"My daughter has been taught Miracle Surgery, if that is what you need. I'm told it can go so far as to change one's personality."
"Told?" Krieg scoffed. "I would be unsurprised if Ruut used it to leash you to Lust!"
"She quite probably did," Tilla said. It was the kind of thing that would have strained the credibility of most people, that lowly imps had such power over the minds of the people they were considered the lessers of. Rachel, though, lacked the lifetime of diminishing stereotypes to inform her of that prejudice. As far as she was concerned, of course the imps had magic that could do that. It wasn't like they were angels, who hadn't invented a new spell in ten thousand years. "What mind are you trying to suborn? I ask because if my daughter is going into a fight, I'm doubling the price."
"I don't seek to suborn anybody. Quite the opposite," Rachel said. She looked around. "Is there a chair around here?"
Tilla pushed a box out of the way to reveal a stack of folding chairs, which Rachel snapped one into shape and dropped herself in. Why stand when you could sit, why sit when you could lay down, and why lay down when you could go to sleep?
"There is a Sinner who is a client of a client. She is in a catatonic state, due to immense psychological and psychic trauma. I can't do my job with her if she isn't cogent," Rachel began.
"So you need me to rouse the senseless?" Krieg asked. "That should be simple indeed."
"Perhaps a little more than that. I've been reading on the woman's behavior both in Hell and in the period immediately pre-mortem – which I'm given to understand was in or around the 1100's. I think there might be something wrong with her brain."
"There is something wrong with the minds of many, down here," Krieg chuckled, from where she sat on the corner of the reception desk, a nearly-human scaled structure which was likely Tilla's place of work.
"I didn't say something wrong with her mind. I said something wrong with her brain. Anatomical defects leading to maladaptive behaviors. A tumor in her limbic system, lack of blood to her regulatory and executive regions, something on that level," Rachel said. Then she paused. "Apropos of nothing, do you know where we could get our hands on an MRI machine?"
"A what?" Tilla asked.
"Magnetic resonance imaging. It was the biggest thing when I died, could look inside you like an X-ray," Rachel said, necessarily simplifying things, because she didn't want to get sidelined with all of the other machines that the 90's gave to internal medicine.
"I have no knowledge of such a thing," Krieg said. "You would have to find a thaumaturgical work-around. Perhaps a tissue-by-tissue assay of function and form. Oh, do you have a sample of her brain tissue, if that's where you believe the problem is?"
"We have them," Tilla cut her off, awkwardly one-finger-typing on her Hellphone. "They're just exclusively for use by fiends and aristocrats."
"We should steal one!" Krieg said.
"Krieg, no," Tilla said with reproach.
"Krieg yes?" her daughter hazarded, but her motherly disapproval won out.
"How would you go about that?" Rachel asked.
"Not you too," Tilla muttered.
"We would need to ask my half-brother-uncle, Blitz," Krieg gestured toward the door, and by extension across the hall.
"The same 'Blitz' that is in the name of your company?" Rachel asked.
"The very same. And the owner of Immediate Murder Professionals Incorporated," she said.
"Why would that matter?" Rachel then pressed, as Tilla's face fell into her hands in annoyance.
"Because as the Proxy of Lucifer, my son Blitz has permission to go anywhere in creation as he so pleases. So we would need only to ask him politely to use his Grimoire, that we go to the human world and pilfer for ourselves one of these Mree Machines."
"M-R-I. Not Mree, MRI," Rachel said.
"That is what Mother said," Krieg tried to defend her mother.
"There are three things I need to say," Rachel said, suddenly starting to understand Tilla's malaise. "Firstly; an MRI machine is the size of a car. Can you really say you can steal something of those dimensions so easily."
"I could steal a house if I so chose. Don't discount my power due to my size nor age," Krieg scoffed.
"And secondly, the Proxy of Lucifer I'm presuming is some sort of heraldic post, a ceremonial one like a jester, correct?" she asked.
"No. My son is more than the King of All Hell's dogsbody. More... his road-agent," Tilla said, sitting back in her chair.
"...alright, different three... why is somebody of such prestige working in a dump like this?" Rachel then couldn't help but ask.
And Tilla could only shrug. "My son is stubborn."
"I know. It's great," Krieg seemed very pleased with herself.
Mum was due back any time now. But while she returned, Octavia made sure that when what remained of her parents' legions limped back, they would find at least one of the Goetia awaiting them.
The legions started trickling in. A few dozen here. Half a hundred there. All of the people who came back were wounded to at least some degree. But a significant portion of them were missing limbs, or badly burnt, or half-blinded, or deafened. They limped in, found the nearest stretcher that her house's servants had laid out, flopped onto it, and waited to be carried to triage.
That was a notion that she'd had to learn from Ambrosius. Triage. Giving medical aid to all soldiers, in order of who was most likely to survive, to the least.
"We've got another platoon coming in." Beezley said from the door, refusing to lay his Mutant hands on the wounded. Beezley liked to think that he had a higher dignity than that. To fuck with his dignity. She turned from the Decanus that had been rattling off the soldiers he knew to be dead, and moved toward the door. When she looked through it, to the yard where the infernal portals were opening and vomiting out wounded and dying soldiers, she felt her breath catch in her throat.
"Ambrosius!" she said. The proud eagle of a Sinner flicked a glance at her, but didn't answer her call, continuing to carry a soldier by her shoulders. The other one helping him carried the stricken warrior by her waist, because her legs ended around his knees. Once Agrippa found a place to deposit the wounded woman that wouldn't pack dirt into wounds, he turned and clapped his fist to his heart, bowing deeply to her.
"I regret to inform you that we were unsuccessful in our operation, my Domina," Ambrosius said.
"I don't care about that! You're alright!" she said, moving to give him a hug, but Ambrosius took steps back as quickly as she advanced.
"Please, my Domina. It is unseemly," he said.
"How? How did you survive? And were you even hurt? You look fine!" Octavia pointed out.
"I am not an amateur in the art of war, my lady," Agrippa said, turning his sharp eyes toward the ones still spilling forth after him. "Unfortunately, it seems that many of them were."
"What happened up there?" Octavia asked.
"It was roughly what I estimated it would be," the Legatus Damnatio said, gesturing her toward a gazebo that stood away from the press of people being taken into triage. From here, Octavia could see much of her parent's shared palace. The three wards, forming something like a split-Y shape, were supposed to be one each for the glory of Stolas, Stella, and eventually Octavia, but there had been little time and little work of note for Octavia to be glorious about, so that one was practically empty. And Dad's section still had some scorch-marks on it from when Mum was in a bad mood a little while ago.
"How many?" she asked.
"Domina Stella's forces have been wiped out in detail," Agrippa said, finally pulling himself up into the lawn-chair that was sized for her father. The moment he didn't have to put all of his effort into holding himself to the highest standard of decorum, now that he was out of sight of his soldiers, he finally allowed the fatigue that was obviously building up in him release, like steam escaping a kettle. By the time he was showing how he really felt, Octavia was surprised he didn't crumble to dust. "When the order came to withdraw, they refused and continued fighting."
"Isn't that insubordination?" she asked, crossing her arms before her chest.
"They fought to their deaths. There is no punishment I could give them for their obstinacy greater than the one they brought down upon themselves," Agrippa said. Then shrugged. "Besides that fact, their folly allowed us to use them as a de facto rearguard. I managed to withdraw with much more than I estimated I could wring from that melee."
"How many did we lose?"
"The Third and Fourth Flower Guard are wiped out or so close as to not matter. The First, Second and Fifth are drastically understrength. The Stellar Grenadiers are mostly intact, through some black miracle, I presume, because they were stuck in for most of the fight. The First Stellar Uhlans are gone. Second, Third and Fourth savaged but... well, there they are," he gestured toward the soldiers who were pulsing and streaming into the manor.
"Weren't those ones all cavalry?" Octavia asked. "I don't see any horses."
"They were. And there aren't," Agrippa said. That wasn't good. With the battle raging, Octavia snuck into Dad's parlor and read the ledgers-of-arms of her father's legions. Those horses were unspeakably expensive. And they would take months if not years to replace four legions worth of them. "As for the rest, some Legions were luckier, some less, but all have been scrambled to the point where I don't doubt that Heaven is littered with the splintered wood of shattered standards and sharp with the shards of our swords."
"This was a disaster," Octavia said, feeling her shoulders slump.
Agrippa got to his feet, back straightening before her. Even standing, the eagle-Sinner was shorter than her seated. "This was a miracle," he countered.
"All of these deaths, and for what?" she asked of him.
"Only these deaths, and we got to come home," Agrippa said. "We have accounted the Legions of the Prince of Flowers and the Duchess of Iron, and were thrown back with grisly losses. There can be no claims of perfidy or cowardice from any actor. We have fought. We have spilt our blood. And when Imperator Asmodeus called the withdrawal, we obeyed."
Octavia stared at him for a moment, then grasped what he meant. "Which means we have time, now. Time before they do something else. Time to prepare."
"Exactly so, my Domina," Ambrosius said. "Time enough to adapt them to your new paradigm."
"My new... won't Mum and Dad want them to be just like they were?" she asked.
"Given their recent laxity, I could scarcely care less what they want," Agrippa said. "They have not learned what all good soldiers must, that you cannot win the next war by looking to the previous one. Your parents' way, forgive my impudence for saying so, saw a cavalry charge against Angels and their Innocent velites armed with fully automatic firearms. In weaponry, the Prince of Flowers' legions are a millennium out of date. In doctrine, we are left behind by centuries. In armor, we may as well be naked," he gave his head a shake. "Even Baphomet, fraud-king that they are, has a motorized infantry regiment!"
Octavia stared at him for a moment, trying to get her mind in the proper gear. "But... what if they're called out again?"
"There are other Ars Goetia who were not mustered. Their legions will be spent against Heaven for the time being," Agrippa said. "Now, we have time to rebuild, to restructure ourselves into something enduring. We have time to arm ourselves appropriate to the war we fight, not the wars we remember. And we may yet see the star of the Song of Dusk yet rise."
"Then we need to get started," she said. "I've been reading, and the humans have something called a 'battle tank'. Useless to us, but I got to thinking... what if we made a soldier as tough as one of those lumbering brutes, and even a fraction as well armed?"
"A new age of shock trooper. Heaven shall not know what hit them," Agrippa said, grasping her meaning. The casualties continued to trickle in for the next five hours. And by the time the sun edged toward the horizon, they spoke still on what it would take to keep the House of Flowers standing.
The Rat Towers were a shithole and a blight upon Heaven. Had Malik the authority to do so, he would have them torn down, just to restore the views that once greeted those who flew over the lowest and first Cloud of Heaven.
"This is revolting," Atheed muttered, keeping his umbrella firmly centered above him. The dripping of water down these 'alleyways's was revolting in and of itself. It also washed with it the foetor of too many humans living too close together. Luckily there was little enough feces amongst the effluent. If there was one benefit to those people starving, it was that they didn't shit as often. And given the state of the pipes in this place, slapdash to the point of laughability, there was no way that those pipes didn't just dump them off into whatever distant alley they didn't want to think about. "I can't wait to get out of here."
"And your complaints will make this go ever-so-much faster, brother," Forfax noted. Unlike Malik and Atheed, he didn't use an umbrella, just letting the garbage water flow off of him. While he was a Firstborn like those beside him, he had a very blocky appearance, stocky and wide-faced, with thick, hairy eyebrows and no hair other than that. "This maelstrom is our doing. Had we the prudence of action when these things were going up, we could have moulded them into a less disgusting course."
"It was made by humans. How could could it possibly have been?" Atheed muttered.
"Hush," Forfax said. His thick brows drew down, his face pulled into an almost cartoonish scowl as he tilted his head to one side. "Did you hear that?"
"All I hear is dripping and the bitching of humans," Atheed said.
"Silence!" Forfax hissed. Malik shot Atheed a look, which vine-haired Atheed rolled his eyes for, but was quiet, while the Angel of Hunters and Prey arrayed his powerful senses.
"What do you hear?" Malik asked quietly, gradually, his voice the hiss of a knife being drawn from its scabbard.
Forfax continued to scowl, then turned to the intersection ahead of them. "That way, then left into the first door," he said quietly, almost lost amidst the foul symphony of water falling from unknown heights and splashing against stone, or wood, or metal. Atheed smiled at that, his hand flexing and his blazing sword appearing in it. Malik, though, kept his hand free. Forfax continued to lead at the point, his passage silent even by angelic standards, as he rounded the corner. The door that he spoke of was ajar, looking into a tiny, claustrophobic dwelling, no doubt. When he looked within, just a peek around the corner, he immediately flattened his back against the windowless wall, a strange look on his brick of a face. He turned those predatory eyes to them, and nodded in, sliding along the wall until he reached their place.
"Is he there?" Atheed asked, voice pitched extra low.
"He is. Do as you were told. I am to report this to Gabriel," Forfax said.
"You're not going to stick around and help?" Malik asked, unable to mask his lack of respect.
"You have your orders. I have mine. Do not block the progress of my ends," Forfax noted. He then slipped past them, which was moderately impossible considering the two Angels were standing essentially shoulder to shoulder. Still, the Angel of Hunters and Prey did not offer another word, nor turn back to them as he walked through the falling filth to a point where he could open his wings and leave this shithole behind.
That left Malik and Atheed to do what Angels do.
As soon as Atheed was at Malik's side, Malik turned and kicked the slightly ajar wide open, his blazing sword before him. And within were a trio of beyond-black, vaguely humanoid shapes, a spectacle which Malik didn't grasp in the moment for what they were. It wouldn't be until much later, when the Spellbinder debriefed him, that he would know these to be Time Locked Innocent. It was understandable why Malik wouldn't see them for what they were. As far as all angelic logic went, the only shape a Time Lock could have was spherical.
"Show yourself, renegade!" Malik shouted. There was a crunching sound, of wood being broken, which came from the second and final room of this 'house', followed by the sound of something being dragged. Atheed slipped past Malik, standing at his shoulder, his own sword blazing into existence. And finally, after a quiet 'hrm' sound from the other room, the light swelled and a being entered their space.
Even having been warned, Malik found it mildly blasphemous that this being wore even a facsimile of the Plate of God. The renegade turned blazing white eyes to them, holding in his hand a jute sack that was tied off at its opening, and regarding them without anything approaching fear. He described a circle with one finger, then dropped the bag into it; it vanished from sight. "I am here," the renegade said.
"You will abandon arms and come with us at once, to stand before Gabriel, or we will use our might to restrain you," Malik declared.
"No," the renegade said.
"What?" Atheed said, grip tightening on his hilt.
"I said no," the renegade said.
"...why not?" Malik demanded.
"Because I don't want to," the renegade answered them. "There is another path in this. A gentler one."
"We have weapons, and you do not," Atheed pointed out.
"I don't care," the renegade said, and took a step toward them. Both of them tensed, readying to attack. "This will not end the way you hope."
"If you do not immediately surrender yourself to the hands of Gabriel, we will use violence to restrain you," Atheed said.
"If you do not immediately get out of my way, I will use violence to disabuse you," the renegade countered without any real emotion in his voice, save one. Impatience.
"We outnumber you, and you are unarmed." Malik tried to point out the obvious.
"So?" he asked. "Step aside, or be moved."
"He is mad, brother," Atheed pointed out the obvious.
"And we have a duty," Malik said. He took a step forward, sword withdrawn but ready to thrust in a viper's-instant, as he approached the strange being in the counterfeit armor. When he tried to reach out, to grab the man, his hand bashed into a barrier, one that lit up with prismatic light. What blasphemy was this? Imp magic?
And when Malik turned to the renegade, those white blazing eyes went black, no longer blazing through the holes in his death's-head mask. And he spoke a word of abyssal power. "Dǚkh," said he.
No, said they.
The crash of the wyrd rebounding off of their Songs knocked objects from the walls and slammed the door against the wall. And in an instant Malik spread his golden wings and battered down the petty magics of foul misbegotten creatures under his divine right, swinging his sword to cut down the stranger. He could apologize for bringing a corpse instead of a prisoner later.
But the renegade, with a move faster than a blink, caught the blade in his gauntlet, dragging it past him so that Malik was dragged off of his stance and stumbled forward, and thus had no defense whatsoever for the brutal, downward haymaker that impacted him in the temple and then propelled him with the speed, force, and ergonomics of a nail-gun embedding steel into the wood of the floor.
Malik had a moment of near unconsciousness.
What the fuck just happened?
The pain radiating from his scalp dragged him back into coherence, but when he tried to push himself off of the floor, he found he lacked leverage. So much so that he had to press his knees down to drag his upper body out of the floor of the building, bits of wood and the stone beneath it tearing and ruining his robes. By the time he gave his head a shake and turned, he saw that Atheed was trying to cut the renegade down, but the stranger was ducking and weaving the strikes so easily that it beggared imagination. Atheed was no amateur. He knew the ways of battle as well as any Firstborn. So why was this strange outsider making such a cruel mockery of him?
"Much more nimble. Good to know," the stranger said, then became still as a wild and flailing blow finally struck him, directly in the side of the helm. It was Atheed's arm that recoiled, not the stranger's head. "And the armor is as robust as I you said it would be."
Who was he talking to?
Whatever answer that question had was curtailed by the stranger blurring into a thrust by his elbow, one that slammed into the Seraphic Steel breastplate of Atheed... and shattered it. The impact then blew Atheed straight through the door and cratered him into the wall of the building across from the claustrophobic alleyway.
Malik threw himself at the stranger, not even bothering to summon his sword but instead bearing up the cold flame that was his soul and bidding it to heat, to sear, to scorch, to blaze. And then when the power of Malik's purgative magic was desperate for release, he laid his hands upon the arm of the stranger, and let it blast out in a torrent of white-hot flame.
"BE-NOT," Malik intoned, dumping Banishment atop Purging.
Instantly, blasting flames roared out of every joint and gap that this counterfeit Plate of God had, scorching the roof and the floors and the walls under the intensity of it, and setting quite a bit of the room on fire.
The stranger didn't fall down. Didn't scream. He just stood there, until the Purge guttered out, and Malik was left holding the arm of an impassive stranger who stared at him as though he weren't even worthy of contempt.
"Be," the stranger countered, and then grabbed Malik by his shoulder, slamming him face-first into the burning wall with such force as to send his head through it into the next room, which had its Penitent dwellers recoil in alarm, only to have Malik dragged back through a moment later. Even as he was drawn back, he could see the wall reforming itself perfectly to order, not even aflame any longer.
Atheed lashed out with a javelin of light, one that raced through the door and toward the stranger's head. And the stranger caught it. With one hand, not even looking in its direction, with his attention still on Malik, he caught what should have been an intangible projectile. With a clench of his fist, he then shattered it.
"What are you?" Malik asked.
The stranger didn't answer him, instead hurling him through the open door and crashing him into Atheed, sending both into the wall again, deepening the crater that Atheed had made the first time. Since that building over there was built of bricks, it held up a lot more robustly than this one had. Only now, as the stranger emerged from the domicile of the Time Locked humans, there was no material evidence that any of the three of them had ever entered it at all. Atheed roared, and reached forward with a hand, golden lightning crackling with the power and intensity of a cruel sun. And when he launched it at the stranger, the stranger made no attempt to dodge. He merely held out a hand, and in that hand manifested a scythe built to reap not crops, but men. The lightning grounded down it. Malik knew that the lightning should have ignored any mere physical implement and scoured flesh, but still, it was grounded.
"This is insanity," Atheed said, while Malik got to his feet. His head was still reeling.
"Isn't it?" the stranger asked, a wistful smile on his face.
Atheed then lashed forward, his sword appearing in hand as he went, trying to thrust it through the eye-hole of the stranger's mask. And with a movement as effortless as an angel smiting a wicked human, the stranger chambered the blade along the haft of his scythe, then pulled Atheed well out of position, before the spike at the butt of the weapon transformed into an orb, which he thrust with the power of a jack-hammer into the shattered hole in Atheed's armor. The snap of breaking ribs hit the air, and when Atheed slammed into the ground, he immediately curled his arms protectively around his chest, rolled onto his side, and stayed there.
"Monster!" Malik declared.
"I've been called worse by bigger monsters," the stranger said. He took a step as though to walk away, to just disregard them as utterly unimportant. But Malik wasn't about to fail so easily. With a shout that narrowed his focus and empowered his arm, he drove the point of his sword in a sweeping ark that would, in an instant, drive up through the plate-gap of his arm-pit and through whatever withered organ this thing had in place of a heart.
Only not, because with a flick back, that same brassy orb on the bottom of the scythe raced down then up in a sweeping uppercut of metal, one that crashed into the bottom of Malik's jaw, breaking the mandible, sending him backflipping through the air, and dumping him into unconsciousness before he even hit the ground.
The ride to the hotel was luxuriant, as Krieg guessed that very few imps ever got a chance to ride in limousines. Well, except for her uncle (who by dint of eugenics cult breeding practice was also her half-brother), who now by rights could order Bathin, the Ars Goetia of Travel and Transit, to provide one whenever he desired. And more luxuriant, she got to make the trip alone, because Mother didn't want to leave Imp City without arranging for Krieg's other half-siblings, those who unlike Blitz she felt no need to call anything but half-siblings, to have somebody to care for them. After all, situations like this are what conference calls were made for.
The hotel was, of course, a marvellous dump of a place, as though two and a half buildings had been rammed together, and then nailed in place using a tanker ship. It certainly had a sort of desperate charm about it, far removed from the rigid and muggy environs of her Sietch-bound upbringing. And that she had the freedom to come here at all was a luxury that this time last year – or even half a year ago – she would have been denied.
Thank the Abyss she got out of there. She had no intentions of being teenaged, bare-foot and pregnant in a desperate bid by somebody else's breeding program.
"Your sign has been vandalized," she pointed at the sign, way up at the top of the building, which read 'Hazbin' instead of 'Happy'.
"Yeah, that happens," the quiet chauffeur grumbled as he got out.
"The sign is somebody else's problem," her prospective employer said, motioning toward the door. Krieg needed no more welcome than that to strut into the place like she owned it. And the inside was very much in keeping with the outside, faded glory and places that were obviously repaired from some calamity. And within was a woman that reeked of magics both domestic and foreign, one who had a thread-thin bind looping her brow that snaked past Krieg and out the door, heading toward High Central. She knew that her gift of sight was a rare thing, especially in imps. That just made her services all the more valuable, being able to see with her eyes alone the strands of magic that others had to fumble and claw for.
"You are my employer's employer?" Krieg asked, standing as proud as she felt in front of the magically dense, six foot tall blonde with rosy cheeks and almost imp-like crimson eyes.
"Rachel... what's this?" the blonde asked.
"Remember how I said we needed outside assistance? This is that assistance," she said.
"Don't you know how dangerous it is for somebody like you to go out there?"
"I was watchin' her, boss. Nothin' to worry about," the cat-bird-demon groused as he skirted all of them and made a bee-line for the bar.
"Still, you don't exactly blend in down here," the blond said.
"Hell has all kinds. It has you, after all," Rachel said. She gestured toward Krieg again. "The matter at hand?"
"Right," the blond puffed out a breath, then extended a hand toward Krieg. "My name's Charlie, and I run this hotel."
"A waystation for the rehabilitation of the damned. I'd laugh, but–" Krieg began, but Charlie cut her off.
"I've already gotten one person into Heaven. It can be done," she stressed, her eyes growing for a moment harder, and more in line with what Krieg was aware it took to survive in Hell.
"I was about to say, 'but I have seen the impossible happen before'," she finished.
"Oh. Well. You're in good company then," Charlie said. She turned her gaze to Rachel. "Are you sure this is appropriate. She seems... well, a bit young."
Krieg bristled at that. "I will have you know that while Mister Rough is making hitherto unprecedented strides, I remain the greatest Wonderworker alive in the Ring of Pride. If you would need any help in the Thaumaturgical arts, it would be from I and no other."
"I didn't mean to offend!" Charlie said, hands raised in a warding gesture. "I just... how old are you, again?"
"I have seen sixteen, nearing seventeen years," Krieg said.
"You're just a child," Charlie said, aghast.
"I was fifteen when La Tuque kicked me out. I survived. So has she," Rachel said, tones cold and flat. "Stop infantilizing and patronizing her."
"Thank you, human," Krieg said.
Charlie glanced between the two of them, then sighed, her gaze dropping for a moment. "I'm sorry. It's so easy for me to forget how fast people usually have to grow up here in Hell. I would have thought your parents would still take care of you on the human world, though?"
"Never knew one, the other's death is why I was in La Tuque," Rachel said, with equal flatness and lack of emotion. "The dragon?"
"Right!" Charlie said, clapping her hands. "Do you know that impish miracle healing that I've heard of?"
"I do. And I even know a more advanced form of it invented only a twen-night ago, that can heal any injury in seconds rather than hours," she said. Moxxie Rough was an uncommon intellect. Now that his blood was being artificially purified, he would likely help advance the state of Thaumaturgy into the next millennium by his own efforts, and into the next eon with her working in tandem with him.
"That should suffice," Rachel said.
"It may," Charlie seemed more dubious. "We should visit the patient. You might be able to gauge things a bit more accurately over there."
Krieg gestured for the blonde to lead them on. As they crossed the hall, Krieg caught a whiff of the pleasing aroma of garlic coming from the dining area, the foul twist of cheap liquor from the bar, and the muted perfume of what appeared to be a cyclopean Sinner who was no taller than Krieg was. The walls held portraiture of the blond in her youth. And viewing those made Krieg miss a step. As she was at the back of the formation, nobody noticed her do it, which was the best for her ego.
'Charlie' was Charlotte Magne of the House of Morningstar. Princess of All Hell. She shot a glare at the back of Rachel's head. Did she not think that this might be fairly valuable information to give? Krieg may have been a sheltered child, no surprise given her locked-down cult upbringing, but even she knew the identity of the Heir to the Low Throne. But even as that moment of shock at who her true client was faded, she could scarcely conceal the grin that spread across her face. Because the patronage of the high would go a very, very long way in ensuring her own eventual supremacy. Uncle Blitz had scratched his way to the top by fucking a Goetia. She would do well to emulate his success, if not his method.
She'd already been subjected to enough 'fucking for power' already, and she was not even seventeen yet.
With her ambitions now firmly screwed into the sticking place, she followed them into the main section of the Hotel, to the rooms which had been set aside for a catatonic Sinner. "She's right here. Hasn't eaten or drank anything since she was brought here," Charlie said, her tone having a shocking amount of what seemed to be sincerity in it.
"Which was to our benefit, because she hasn't messed the bed, either," Rachel said. Charlie shot her a look. "You weren't saying it, but you were thinking it."
Krieg ignored both of them, zipping between them and moving up to the bed that had a very badly injured Draconic Sinner on it. Her raw looking pink skin had the faint clefts of scales, scales that grew thicker and more protective the further they traveled down from her neck. By the time they reached past her shoulders, Krieg guessed they might be bulletproof. Her eyes were open just a crack, but she had as much sense in them as did Krieg's shoes. "I am examining her. If she rouses and assaults me, I'm getting paid anyway, clear?"
"What? Why would she," Charlie began.
"Deal," Rachel said. Good to know who had their head screwed on correctly in this business arrangement, at least. Krieg moved the blanket, finding the woman naked under it, but it was hard to say she was in any way defenseless. Those scales practically unsexed her, and were so thick and overlapping at her genitals that she probably had difficulty walking. Then again, she was a Sinner, so that growth could be a reaction to something. Something which inspired an actual degree of sympathy from Krieg. But enough of that. The Sinner was missing her right hand, the wound still bound and tourniqueted, which was likely for the best because it seemed to have been made by Seraphic Steel. And at that she finally recognized this woman for what she was, now that she was pink instead of a proper impish red.
This was the dragon that had collapsed after fighting Moxxie and Millie, upon witnessing Birch's demise. She was half tempted to let the dumb bitch lay in unending, tormented repose for that.
But the Dragon had indeed instilled that sting of sympathy.
Strange how everything kept coming around again. What Goes Around Comes Around indeed.
"My price has increased," Krieg said.
"Worse than you thought?" Charlie asked.
"She worked for an enemy of mine. If I am going to rouse somebody who might try to kill me, I'd best be earning a premium for it," she said.
"I'm surprised you didn't just say you weren't doing it," Rachel said.
"Nobody yet living chose to work for Nathan Birch, this Dragon included. Still, I must hedge my safety in money," Krieg said.
"I'll cover it," Charlie said.
"Wouldn't it be wise to haggle?" Rachel asked.
"I'm a trillionaire. Unless she's being insanely unrealistic, I can pay what I want," Charlie said, and turned that smug look at Krieg said. But inside that smugness, there was something very close to approaching a dare. Go ahead and try. Fuck around and find out, delivered without words.
The zero that she'd considered adding to the end of the price suddenly vanished for some reason.
"Alright, let me be more clear," Krieg said, stepping away from the bed. "Unless you offer assurances to my physical safety, I will not work on the Dragon for all the wealth in Lucifer's vaults. If you can, my rate is five thousand five hundred per day. I expect this will be an endeavor of some days'-work, pulling this mind out of itself."
"Does she have a personal enmity towards you?" Rachel asked.
"She may, she may not. I am not chancing the former," Krieg said.
"Very well. You mentioned you had a bunker in the middle of this building?"
"Right, yes. The soldiers are using about half of it, but the pantry's pretty much useless. We can put her there while she recovers," Charlie said, giving a resolute nod.
"And the doors will keep her in place if she arises berserk," Krieg said. "I accept. Eleven thousand up front, five and a half for each day from the third onward. Now unless you have other matters requiring magical intervention, begone!"
This would be her master's-piece, proof she could hold up to all the Ring of Pride that the brilliance of Clan Cruac had indeed been stolen, and that impish magic had returned in force to Pride, under the new, teenaged Archcrone Krieg Miller.
"Of course I owe her. I owe her more than any lifetime could ever earn to repay her. We all do. Even you do. I know you think you're immune to the realities of what's happened over the last few decades, but I'm not. I know the monster I was. And I know that she saved me from it. She helped me... not so much kill it... as domesticate it. You'd be surprised how valuable in a time of war having a monster on a leash could be.
...
Just stop, Killjoy. The only reason you're sitting there and hosting this interview is because she managed to save your life. And your life, camera man. And yours, mister boom-operator. This is not a ratings-dig the likes that you're used to. Whether you want it to be or not, this a documentary. You couldn't cut the feed to silence me if you wanted to. Try it. See? I'm still on the air. You, all of you, owe her a debt. And as somebody who's spent more time down here than most of you, I will put this in terms you clearly understand. For the first time, somebody sits the throne who can be respected instead of feared. And I will see that respect paid forth."
- Trista Saint George the Red Knight Redemptor