"Pleeeease tell me that there's some better news," Octavia said as she dropped herself into her chair. Arrayed before her were Purson and Penemue and Tabris, who was currently sitting in Purson's lap and looking at everything around him with undisguised interest. Also present, as a matter of course, was Dux Bellorim Ambrosius Agrippa, but also present was a face of increasing regularity in Dux Bellorim Jones Von Ketterman. The Geminon master-of-armies had skin like burnished gold on one side of his body and face, but right at the nose it began to desaturate, and by the time it reached his cheek was pallid grey. He was a man who'd lost half of himself years before, but kept his post regardless. He was as capable as his wastrel children were useless.

Last at the table were a trio of Innocent, all of whom now wore clothing appropriate to their position of Fort Abandon's logistical masterminds instead of the rags they'd had when Octavia had sourced them. Two looked plainly human, while the sole male of them had distinct avian features, almost seeming like a sinner who'd managed to purloin a Gapped Halo.

"You're asking for the sun to rise in the morning, Governor. After the disasters of last quarter, anything better than an entire army being evaporated – at your personal cost – would appear comparatively miraculous," Takemoto said. She was a petite thing, hair almost as dark as Tabris' and eyes much the same. And she was, in Octavia's estimation, a creature entirely made of math and calculators. She could crush data into the fine dust of interpolation at a rate that nobody else on Octavia's staff could better, and few even approach to match. And of those few, they were seated around her now. "And considering your cost-saving efforts, we've even managed to recoup part of the losses from the explosion and the subsequent loss of the adjoining Tower."

That had been a fucking mess and a half. A Penitent ghosting all the way into the outskirts of Fort Abandon, only to play suicide bomber and set off a pile of munitions that had been left outside of its secure bunker – where it was supposed to fucking be – resulting in a compound detonation that caused the nearest Rat Tower to tip over and fall onto the outer reaches of the Fort. It'd taken weeks to just move the bricks and rubble away.

"And Naberius' Demilegatus has finally been tracked down for his failure leading to the disaster," Jones said. He flicked a folded piece of paper, which unfolded hovering above the table, showing a Devourer with commander's stripes on his outfit being hog-tied while a bunch of Legionaries lay on the ground broken and bleeding. "He of course resisted, and when Naberius tried to invoke his rights, Commander Redolant had a sudden, inexplicable fall."

"So, he what?" she said, cutting through his innuendo. She didn't have time for it.

"What my counterpart hedges around saying is that before Naberius could claim him and shield him from the consequences of his laxity, certain agents arranged for the still-chained Redolant to be cast over The Edge," Ambrosius said, holding up a picture of his own. Octavia beckoned, and it showed a crater into the rocky wastelands of the Pride Wilds, which was host to a splattered and burst Devourer who had fallen all the way from Heaven and had exactly nothing to break his fall but his face.

"God damn it," Octavia muttered. "We needed him alive to be FUCKING ACCOUNTABLE!" she swatted an empty inkwell off of her table and derived some tiny satisfaction of the sound of it shattering against the wall. "People are never going to learn to pay attention to their fucking jobs if they just quietly die when they screw up. I need them to be loudly, vocally, obviously held to account for their fuck-ups so that people stop fucking up like that!"

"I will look into whose agents those were. Naberius has not made many friends since the War For Heaven began, and this does seem a ploy dedicated to making us look ignorant and weak. I will presume hostility," Agrippa said. Octavia gave him a nod. She turned to Purson and Penemue, next.

"Tell me we've got something that can keep the Penitent out of our walls?" she said, her tone less pleading than once it was, and more demanding. The intangible Penitent were the perfect reconnaissance units for Heaven, since they could literally walk through walls if it suited them, learn whatever they wanted to, then fuck back off again without any sign that they'd been there. And a more perfect saboteur she could not imagine.

"The prototypes show promise, Governor," Penemue said. She waved her hand, and the photos dropped to be replaced by a magical depiction of what looked like an industrial fan, if one covered with runes and symbology that she didn't have the time to bother to learn about. "They have been shown to displace those volunteers we've tested them on, and don't meaningfully degrade air-quality. We've already placed some of them around this room, oriented outward, so that any attempted intrusion will see the Penitent blown away the moment they lose their solidity."

"The only downside is the power requirements," Purson said. "We are working to make them more efficient, but until we can, they must be used sparingly lest we cause a brown-out in Fort Abandon and a power-outage to the rest of the Occupied Zone."

"Keep on it. I don't want those sneaky fucks drifting in to pour bleach down my throat when I'm sleeping. Actually, just install another Fusion Battery; I want that thing running now." Octavia said. While less diligent people in her position would feel comforted in that nobody'd tried to kill her, Octavia read her security reports. There had been hundreds of assassination attempts of varying degrees of intricacy, scope, source, and approach-to-success that had been launched since she took the reins up here. The only reason she was still alive was because Agrippa was good at keeping her alive, and chose her security forces with utmost care. She wagered that just about anybody other than her, if given the push-back she'd faced, would have been killed a half dozen times over by now.

"And as well, they would interfere with the bottom line," Megumi Takemoto said. She hit some keys on her laptop, and the projection on the wall shifted. It showed The Two Lines that would determine her overall life expectancy. The black line was the cost associated with maintaining the foothold of Fort Abandon and its pacification strategy. And while that black line had cratered down to much more manageable levels under her policies, it was starting to go up again, as Hell had recently breached the high-water mark of having complete control over now 60% of Cloud One.

But the other line was her lifesaver. The green line of how much Fort Abandon's policies made, Soul for Soul. And that had started at nothing at the moment of Octavia's installation, growing higher and higher, nearing closer and closer to the threshold that was the black line as the agricultural policies went through, as the factories began to open, as the Studios opened and she used Heavenly talent to make music and television for Hell instead of having the transfer of media only going one way.

There was a brief pulse, last quarter, the black line spiking up and the green line plateauing. Echos of a clusterfuck.

Then the newest numbers. And she stared agog at the green line shooting upward and for the first time reaching above the black, even by a tiny, tiny amount.

"Is this accurate?" she asked.

"I have rechecked the numbers," Takemoto said. "I, too, thought that there might be some sort of financial artifacting that was disrupting things, a troublesome outlier, or the like. But no. Observe:"

Then, the graph changed slightly, showing a set of error-bars associated with the green and black lines of the most recent quarter versus the now. And it seemed that she was taking the least forgiving and most conservative estimate for what she was earning, placed against the most liberal and unpleasant estimates of the upkeep of Heaven's lowest Cloud. And between the least she was earning and the most she was spending, there was still that miraculous blip of green above the black.

"It's done," she said. "We did it. Heaven broke even."

"By the worst possible estimates, yes, yes we have," Purson said with a subdued smile.

Octavia sat back in her chair. It had taken her almost five years. Five years of her life ensconced here in this bunker in Heaven, running down every failure and fuckup and over-promoted paper-general and lack-wit soldier and grifter and pilferer and embezzler and resaler, and leaving them either dangling neck-first from the rafters or cast down and left with nothing, not even their reputation, as she used the full volley of the power that Lucifer had installed in her to crack down. No more would fuck-ups be tolerated because they were performed by 'friends'. If you broke her rules, you paid the price. Period. No matter who. She made that abundantly clear when Andrealphus, her 'uncle', leaked classified deployment information on his Sinstagram and she had Lucifer's Proxy literally call him a dumb-fuck in front of the entire Grim Parliament. She'd never seen Andre looking that humiliated and small before. And notably, he stopped bragging about where his Legions were in Heaven.

"That does lead to another issue that will need dealing with sooner than later," the birdlike Innocent finally piped up. He gestured to Takemoto, who skipped a few analytics panels that Octavia was definitely going to want to go back and look over, but showed a picture of an older, grey-bearded Innocent, one who had a different kind of gapped halo. Instead of a clip cut out of it aligned with the bridge of his nose, there was a slanted band cut out aligned above his left ear. Octavia shrugged.

"You show this like I should know who that is. What does this matter?"

"That is Saint Peter," the avian Innocent said, gesturing to the projection. "And yes, we did find The Book Of Deeds with him. Which means that we now control the Landing Point where the Pearly Gates used to stand."

"All this time to even get to those fucking gates," Octavia shook her head.

"There's talk about what we should do with Peter," Takemoto said. "Talk of starting Judgement again. And they're not going to take no for an answer."

Octavia mulled, grateful that her last dental appointment had given her molars titanium caps so they wouldn't grind and give her headaches anymore. For every step forward there was another stumbling block. And the moment – the second – that she managed to achieve the impossible another pressing problem just had to show up and undercut her.

"Have him brought here. I'll decide what to do with Peter later," she said.

Any victory she would have felt curdled before the inherent truth of Hell's presence in Heaven: Every mess here was her responsibility to clean up, and if the place wasn't fucking spotless each and every time Lucifer larked in and looked around, it'd be her ass that paid the price. So the slog would continue. Only now, she had just a nugget of actual hope that, unless this newest problem was a spectacularly expensive one, she might well be most of the way out of the shit now.

And no, she didn't consider thinking that to be tempting fate.

Chapter 55

The View From The End Of The World

Another wellness check, another abandoned room.

Rachel didn't consider it a condemnation of her professionalism and her ability to see people through the program when one of them flaked. Some of them had been tentative when they came in, merely dipping a fingertip into the hope of redemption while the rest of them stayed dry in bad habits, bad thinking, and self-destructive entanglements. This had been one such, a non-believer coming here essentially on a whim, and leaving when it was made clear that remaining would require actual change from him.

Still, that meant one more room open to somebody who might actually value the program. In fact, Rachel had been relieved to see this room with its dresser drawers left sloppily open and its bed left unmade. She had the replacement for this room already lined up from the waiting list – a former comrade of a major Overlord, who had tried the Stone of Farewell twice in his long time down here.

The churn continued, and there hadn't been any other Redemptions, but Rachel was beginning to suspect, even as she sent a text to the cleaning squad to clear up the room in preparation for its new dweller, that there was some sort of trigger to the final transformation from Sinner into Redemptor that she simply wasn't properly understanding. It wasn't fear or pain or a negative emotion like that. Wendy had Redeemed in a state of blissful satisfaction. Fiona, per Rachel's deep and repeated investigations into her mindset at the moment of her disappearance, found that the Dragon Knight had been in a state of stone-stubborn resolution.

An unseen mechanism was tripping her up. And the moment she figured it out, more of them would be going upward. The lift opened and she joined the two other program-adherents, not bothering to bandy words with them because they were clearly locked in a conversation about scrimshaw that she had no idea why it'd come up. But it gave her the peace to depart on the ground floor, and sidle up to the bar, which at this time of the year was busier than most times. The weather outside was cold, with Lucifer's winter clinging on despite the encroachment of spring. And Husk was the only barman that the Hotel bothered to employ.

He was seen as the safest bet, somebody not in the program handing out temptations, as opposed to somebody who needed to be taught how to resist such things being the hand on their tap. Rachel thought that line of reasoning specious. Just hire an outsider. There were enough of them in New Purgatory these days for some schlub to fill in the rest of Husk's unattended hours.

"Sidecar?" Husk was already handing her a drink as she approached.

"You know me far too well," she said. "Busy?"

"Bunch of losers and yutzes too lazy to go out and do something? Yeah. I'm busy as hell," Husk said.

"Who are you callin' a yutz!" one of the Sinners who was shamefully drunk considering it was 9:30 in the morning said.

"You, ya fuckin' beer-coaster. I could twist you and wring enough liquor out of you to feed the rest of the fuckin' bar!" Husk snapped at him.

"Fuck you!" the Sinner said, stood, and then fell onto his back onto the floor.

"Fuck you too," Husk said. "Good news?"

"Cid has left in the night," Rachel said, sipping at her drink and taking the drunk's stool, while soldiers, as per their standing order, immediately dragged away anybody who couldn't stay upright when drinking. "I'm bringing in Sancho."

"Sancho who?"

"Cervantes," Rachel said. Husk grimaced and sucked air through his teeth. "What?"

"He pals around with Zestial," Husk said. She shrugged at him. She had read that, but had no context for what it meant. "That fucker was an Overlord almost as long as Cain has been. That sonnuvabitch had a free pass to cross the Greed Wall, 'till he gave it up to Lucifer in order to become more powerful here."

"Sancho did?"

"No, Zestial did," Husk said.

"Then I fail to see the problem. We're not trying to reform an active Overlord of Pride Ring. That'd be an exercise in folly."

"Zestial's real fuckin' friendly with the Scarlet Fucker. Scarily so," Husk said at a whisper, pitched so that likely only she was sober enough to hear it. "I don't want that fucker to have so much as a finger back here. And this Sancho asshole may well be that finger."

Rachel gave that legitimate thought. For all she agreed with Charlie that Sancho was a good prospect for Redemption, in that he was starting already ahead of the starting line, Alastor was a wrinkle that was hard to countenance. He'd been quiet since his ouster, having made no overt moves to get revenge on Charlie's project in general or Rachel Scailes in particular (Because Rachel had made her stance on the Radio Demon absolutely clear, and Alastor absolutely was that goddamned petty), but that inactivity did nobody any comfort.

After all, Alastor was a creature both gross and subtle. And even a tiny snake can have venom powerful enough to kill.

"Then I'll have to be very careful about this. More thorough than usual," she said at last. Charlie was going to press for Sancho's involvement, now that Rachel had turned her on to him, but even Charlie would recoil at Radio Demon entanglements. She had been burned, and would, smartly, never trust him again. Why she bothered trusting him in the first place was something of a headscratcher to Rachel. This was the kind of person that Hell was built for.

"Better be, Rach," Husk said.

"Well, regardless of that thing's possible involvement," Rachel asked, "what's your opinion of Cervantes?"

Husk snorted out a laugh. "A good follower. No kind of leader at all. A bit biddable, easy to push if you know his buttons. Which I do; make him feel small, and he'll march to any tune you whistle."

"Not ideal. Charlie won't stand for that," Rachel said.

"Then find a way to hide it. You're adept at dolling things up to be less grim than they are," Husk said.

"Since when?"

"Bitch, you've got me wearing fucking shirts!" Husk snapped. Rachel laughed at that.

"Miss Scailes? There's somebody asking after you," a voice came from over Rachel's shoulder. She glanced back to see a junior soldier standing there.

"Who?"

"Media. He had credentials," the soldier said. He was a fishy fiend; she could never remember what set apart a Selachimorph from a Piscean Consumer, so she just filed it under 'fish-man' and left it there.

"Fine," she said. "Give me a moment and I'll come with you."

That moment was taken up going to the office of hers and rubber stamping a 'bitched-and-ditched' onto Cid Scheiner's file. Husk had been rather colorful with naming her stamps. Bitched-and-ditched for when you left without telling anybody. Properly Fucking Off if you left after telling somebody. Pushing Dandelions if you went out of New Purgatory and got yourself killed. Pressed and Dragged if somebody else dragged you out by your soul. That one saw little use, because every time Charlie was present when an Overlord tried it, she turned that Overlord into a crater, that they could pull themselves back together from outside of the district walls.

One day, she would accept that her power was hers to use as she saw fit, for good or ill, and stop fearing it just for the ill. Rachel's job would certainly be a lot easier if Charlie bothered to throw her weight around more often than she did.

The three went out of the hotel, and across the street to Pascal's Mugging. There, sitting at a table, was an Incubus wearing all of a business suit, which instantly identified him as Byron Pael. Given what she'd learned about the Concubi, he must have some of the least sensitive skin of his entire species. There was a reason why Truly wore as little as she did, despite having the role she had, and that reason was that clothes were, by and large, uncomfortable to beings whose typical skin-square-inch had as many nerve endings as a clitoris. Those who wore more than 'slutwear' typically had to have it specially made to be less aggravating to their flesh.

"That'll do," Rachel said to the soldier escorting them, leaving just Husk and Rachel to enter the dining area. Why Pael hadn't gone inside, given the weather, would remain to be seen. "You know you've deeply disappointed Charlie by not releasing that book you were talking about."

"Not my choice, I'm afraid," Pael said, turning in his seat to face her. He took in Husk and hesitated, concern on his face briefly before returning his attention to her. Yet another indicator that Pael knew his business, if one could look beyond the surly drunk that Husk showed the world and know the more comprehensively dangerous man underneath it. "The publisher called Vaught a hack and a fluffer – to his face, mind – for doing a 'puff piece' on the Princess."

"I would hardly call it a puff piece, considering the lengths we went to describe its shortcomings," Rachel said. "It's cold out here. Let's go inside."

"Right. The weather is unpleasant, isn't it? Sometimes these things completely slip my mind," Pael said, entering the cafe and being shepherded by those behind him into the meeting area which was reserved in most cases for when Charlie needed to talk with a bunch of people at once. He had only just picked a chair at the corner of the table and sat in it, when there was a flick in Rachel's vision, and Fiona appeared in the room with them.

Rachel leaned back. "Fiona? Is something wrong?"

"I feel an Exorcist somewhere in New Purgatory," the Dragon Knight said. Considering she was wearing her scarlet armor right now, it was making quite the statement as to her wariness. "The sound is very weak though. Which means, whatever they've dropped in is damaged, but that still makes it dangerous."

"It's been shockingly peaceful for weeks now," Rachel related, with the streets of New Purgatory seeming to heed the promenades of a small town on Earth with how sedate they'd become.

"May be that one of the junked ones reactivated. I don't know mechanics well enough to say," Fiona said. She then turned to Pael and narrowed her eyes at him. "Who are you?"

"You are… certainly something," Pael said, leaning back in his chair. He turned to Rachel. "Miss Scailes, would you mind introducing this person?"

"Fiona Saint-George," Rachel said. Fiona had stuck with her new name ever since coming back from Heaven. "The second of our two thus-far successes."

"I see," Pael said. "Could you explain the process of redemption, as you understand it?"

"Not right now, I've got actual work to do," Fiona said. "Can't have one of those fucking butchers skulking in our back alleys. Tell Charlie when you can."

"Why didn't you tell her yourself?" Rachel asked.

"Because that'd worry the poor thing, and by the time you tell her, I'll probably have already binned it," Fiona said. She turned another look to Pael, eyes locked on him for longer than Rachel wagered was 'normal', but then she broke her stare and turned away, vanishing without a sound a moment later.

"Just what we need. More Exorcists," Rachel muttered.

"Hrm?" Pael asked, turning to face her again.

"Every time I've died in Hell, it was because of an Exorcist being let off of its leash. I don't comprehend why Heaven felt a need to create such savage implements, other than the raw exercise of most animal cruelty," Rachel said.

"I've seem them on a rampage," Pael said with a nod. "They are so… overbuilt."

"What'd'ya mean by that?" Husk asked. Pael glanced over to him, then sighed.

"Think about what the Exorcist is designed to kill: the Sinner. A Sinner is just a human with a few added resiliences, and the ability to Regenerate. So why, if your job is killing human-scale opponents, do you design a device which could take on battletanks bare-handed?" Pael asked. He pointed at Rachel. "It's almost as though they were, as you said, aiming for maximum cruelty. It just doesn't make sense in that way. An automaton to kill the Damned without risk for the Angel? That makes sense, it's proportional to the threat. But the Exorcist is just… excessive."

Husk grumbled, and lit a cigar that he produced from his pocket. "Maybe they weren't just designed to take out Sinners," he said. "There's other nasty things down here in Hell. Things tougher than humans, even after the Fall."

"Then why use them at all, risk them being destroyed by lucky shots by the Damned every year? It just doesn't add up," Pael said.

"What, are you writing a book on Exorcists now? Maybe that'll actually get published," Husk noted.

"You're more than half right, and it just might as well," Pael agreed. He looked between the two of them. "You've fought Exorcists before, hand to hand."

"I don't know if you could call my flailing about 'fighting' them," Rachel said.

"Don't sell yourself short, Rach," Husk said. "Yeah, we have. Those things keep fucking around with our Hotel. Don't know about you and yer situation, but I fuckin' live here. Can't have those things munching the walls along side the rats."

"This is all besides the point of why you're here at all," Rachel finally reined things back in.

"Right. Any treatise on the excesses of the Exorcist is secondary to why I came," Pael said. He looked to Rachel, eyes locking on hers. "Vaught doesn't think Charlie will push paper. That's page-inches being spent aggrandizing the second highest-ranked being in Hell. And Hell doesn't exactly have a surplus of sentimentality."

"Nor stomach for 'puff pieces'," Rachel agreed.

"You, though, you're something else. You're an outside voice, one that hasn't had a lot of formal exposure in the usual channels people use to get a glimpse of the ecosystem of Hell Entire. I know that there's other Innocent in Wrath, everybody says that. But you were here before any of them. And more than that, you're in a position of authority, have history with significant figures, and can give weight to the state of Heaven given your understanding of the state of Heaven."

"So you want to do a piece on Rach?" Husk asked.

"I would," Pael said.

"The state of Heaven is changing," Rachel said. She'd visited Brickton, the section of occupied Cloud Probity just outside of Fort Abandon, at the request of Molly to check up on 'her guys'. While the architecture remained the same depressing, oppressive brick structures that dominated all of the human-occupied levels of Heaven, the addition of working sanitation, electrical and information infrastructure had transformed the band of about fifty square kilometers that radiated out from the Heaven Portal something close to a developing nation on Earth in terms of needs-fulfillment. In Brickton, people didn't Go Numb. In Brickton, people could share soup and sappy melodramas, and talk about better days before, and hope for better days ahead.

Charlie had wept at the perceived beauty of it when she saw it, finally casting of her funk at the state of the rest of Heaven by telling her that yes, Hell could make Heaven worthy of its name again.

"Then doubly important that you're able to give your opinion of it before what you saw is lost," Pael said. "I haven't been to Heaven myself. Haven't had the courage."

"It's not that dangerous these days," Rachel said.

"There's many kinds of ways that courage can fail," Pael said with a grim look, then the shook that thought away and dug out a corded microphone that he set on the table. "But enough of that. I can't pay my rent without working, and I don't get residuals unless something gets published. This is Recording One, working title 'Betrayed'. Interviewer Byron Pael, Interviewee Rachel Scailes."

"Imma get something to drink," Husk said to Rachel.

"What, you're going to leave me alone with a strange man?" Rachel teased, gesturing toward the incubus.

"He ain't into you," Husk said in the most matter-of-fact way. And with that he vanished, while the interview began, and Rachel began to speak on topics that she had no idea how were going to be put together into any kind of coherent narrative. But then, her place was as a social worker, of building up the Damned until they became something better. Leave the weaving of narratives to storytellers.

It was telling that IMP had a decontamination booth in its offices now.

It had been installed for when the crew came back from a job covered in blood and offal and didn't want to track it through the carpet or worse, take it home with them. But of late it had been used more to scrub off the sticky, foul guts of Things From Outside, or in one truly dire mission radioactive fallout, off of themselves so they could rejoin polite Hellish society clean and proper. But this time, Moxxie, Millie, Maelstrom and Blitz all stayed in there extra long, trying to get the stink of rot off out of their hair and out from under their fingernails.

Technically, they'd succeeded in their job before even leaving this morning, because technically, the target was already dead. But when they actually got to him, he turned out to be rather ambulatory for his deadness. And then things quickly spiraled into chaos. Maelstrom kept his head, though, seeming to pull information out of the air on how to kill them and to what they were immune. He must have been doing homework.

Finally, Moxxie sat himself down and waited for Millie to join him in the office waiting room, dressed anew in fresh clothing. Gadreel and Vidar were there, the former looking unsettled, the latter his usual pressure-cooker angry. One day Vidar was either going to have to learn to take a break from his fury, or he'd pop a blood vessel. There was no middle ground that Moxxie could see for the kid.

"I was told that the dead rising would be a sign of the End Times," Gadreel said.

"It's a slipshod apocalypse if that's the case," Moxxie said. What mattered was that the job was done, a Greek crime-lord was dead, and the victim of his that had paid them would be free to await the mobster's descent to Hell whenever the human bothered to show up.

"I know. However it is still unsettling," Gadreel said. She had somehow managed to slough all of the foulness of that job without needing a shower, as though always terminating these undead without getting a speck on her. Of the lot of them, only Vidar hadn't been brought, because the kid still needed more training until Blitz considered him 'up to scratch'.

"Maelstrom continues to surprise me," Moxxie admitted, glancing back to the decontamination room. "Where did he learn all of that about the walking dead?"

"Purson," Gadreel said. He turned to her. "Maelstrom is a person for whom education was denied by fiat. Now that he has the power to ask it, he demands it. And he demanded the knowledge of how to kill things which make all of Creation unclean."

"And Purson allowed this?" Moxxie asked.

"He encourages it," Gadreel said, moving to lean against the wall next to the loveseat Moxxie was sitting on. "Purson and Penemue have a vested interest in Creation being clean and intact. And apparently that latter is increasingly becoming a problem."

"That reality is unraveling? I didn't think that he was that apocalyptic in his thinking," Moxxie said.

Gadreel frowned for a moment, then rolled her eyes as though chiding herself over something. "Of course you wouldn't. You haven't had a chance to speak to Tobias," she said. He asked her who she was talking about. "Tobias Wraithcombe, an Innocent – a Betrayed, currently – who has been given Fellowship in the Private Library. He has a theory about Creation that's increasingly being given credence, a theory that as the world becomes more porous, more Things From Outside leak into it, and the more Things From Outside are in Creation, the more porous it becomes. A vicious cycle."

"That sounds more like an observation with a hypothesis attached than a full-blooded theory," Moxxie pointed out.

"He's done his mathematics," Gadreel said. "A world where there is nothing from Outside, a world entirely whole and untouched from the things beyond, it is considered to have a Wraithcombe coefficient of 0. By the estimations based on the Unhallow of Heaven, the Bleeding Pits of Hell, and the incursions of the mortal world, Tobias has estimated that the Coefficient of Creation is hovering around .49, which is painfully, perhaps fatally open."

"What happens at one?" Moxxie asked, as Millie emerged, fluffing her hair with a towel.

"At one, a universe becomes unraveled as though it were never there at all," Gadreel said. "We Angels have been too lax for too long. We should push your employer to take more jobs against the Outsiders when we can."

"I don't think any of us in the office have that power," Moxxie said.

"What power?" Millie asked, as she dangled her towel on a hat-rack nearby and hopped into the loveseat and immediately flopped against Moxxie – a pleasant feeling to be sure.

"Trying to convince Blitz to do more jobs against Outsiders, potentially for less money," Moxxie summarized.

"Yeah he's not gonna do that," Millie noted. "Be honest, sweetie, can you still smell it in my hair?"

Moxxie took a breath of Millie's dark hair, and true to her worried voice he did smell the funk of decay and dissolution on her, but it was so small that it was only within notice if he had his face right up to her pate.

"Not a problem," Moxxie said.

"I'm gonna take another shower," she said, moving to rise from Moxxie, but he pulled her back close.

"I said, not a problem," Moxxie said. He flashed his bride a grin. "Any man who can't take his wife when she smells like death is no husband at all."

"Oh you fox, you," Millie said with a blush and a wave. This was probably going to be Millie's last job for a few months, as she was now starting to swell with pregnancy. Let her have at least one more spectacular success to see her through the boring months of no work and home-life.

"Alright, that was a fuckin' mess," Blitz announced as he showed himself, "and I think I ate a bunch of fuckin' zombie hair, but that's still a win in my books! Fuck it, everybody can knock off early!"

Blitz, of course, was strutting naked to his office, still glistening with water as he went to where he kept his spare clothes. Shame, Blitz lacked to any degree whatsoever. Moxxie could only shake his head.

"I don't think its our job to end a potential armageddon," Moxxie told the Angel leaning near him. "We just make money by killing people. It won't do us any favors to get outside of our lane."

"Are we just not going to talk about how the boss just sauntered through here naked?" Vidar asked, bafflement for a moment replacing fury on his face.

"That's Blitz. You get used to it," Millie said with an off hand-gesture. Then there was a chiming sound coming from Gadreel, a sound like a cascade of bells. She tensed, then pulled out her Hellphone. She outright scowled at the caller id. "Who's it?"

"It's from the Governor of Heaven," she said.

"Octavia? How's she doing?" Millie asked.

"I wouldn't know. I haven't talked to her since my defection," Gadreel said. She took the call, walking away from them with a most serious look on her face.

"Any new names, hon?" Millie asked.

"I'm becoming partial to Cassidy, actually," Moxxie admitted. Millie's choice for a second girl was growing on him. "As long as you're willing to accept Casher for a boy."

"It's just… Imps named Cash ain't exactly made the best showing of themselves in the last couple 'a generations," Millie pointed out.

"That's why its Casher, and not just Cash," Moxxie said.

"If you say so, sweetie," Millie said. Last out of the shower was Maelstrom, who at last was not covered from ears to toes with filth and foetor. He was also the only one of the lot of them who didn't have a scratch on him; even Gadreel had a bruise on her shoulder that reached up to the side of her neck where one of the undead tried to bite through her 'armor' and failed.

"That look on your face says you're not happy with all that," Moxxie noted to the Hound.

"That was several thousand walking dead, after the human authorities fire-bombed a city to contain them. Things are getting out of hand up there. Next we'll be chasing a target and fall into a Vampire nest or something," the Hound said.

"Oh, pfft, Vampires aren't real," Millie chortled.

"Yes they are," Moxxie and Maelstrom said as one, but Maelstrom continued, "they just fled Hell to live permanently in the Human World."

"And what's this about?" Maelstrom turned to Gadreel.

"Not sure. I wasn't being rude and listening in," Moxxie said. Because his senses had sharpened to the point that, if he tried, he could hear the entire conversation going on in any phone-call within twenty meters of him. Or several phone-calls at the same time, with how his brain now worked.

"Fine. I will come," Gadreel said after a particular gap. She turned to the others. "Though I would prefer to bring an external subject matter expert. This is something outside my usual area of expertise."

"What's goin' on?" Millie asked, as Gadreel nodded and finally hang up.

"I've been summoned for a conclave along with all of the Ars Goetia and the other Traitor Angels in Probity," Gadreel said. "And I think it prudent to ask you to join me, Moxxie."

"...why?" Moxxie asked, sitting up from his comfortable slouch.

"I kill. That is my sole area of actual aptitude. I have little to offer a conclave beyond an ability to murder. You, however, are actually multi-talented."

"I'd stand out like a sore thumb if I was the only imp there…" Moxxie began, but a moment later had the door to Blitz's office slam open, revealing that he was now clothed, dangling out with a hand holding up from collapse by the doorframe.

"Hey Moxx? Stolas just invited me to some Heaven shit. Get the kid and Maelstrom to lock up," he said. Well that quickly harpooned Moxxie's primary peeve.

"Fine. I'll go," Moxxie said. "Did they say why they're having a conclave?"

"What, you're headin' up, too?" Blitz asked.

"Apparently. Millie? Do you mind?"

"Go on, Moxx," Millie said, leaning over to give him a kiss. He smiled, then flicked his hand into a brief circle and carved a portal back to the Golden Manse up against the wall. She parted from him and sauntered back home, giving him a happy wave as she went. Moxxie hoped that whatever Angel business that these imps had been volunteered into, it wouldn't take up the entire weekend. He and Millie had an overnight trip down to Wrath to visit Millie's people and show of Beatrice to them; he'd hate to have to reschedule it.

But then, Hell seldom cared for the plans of imps.

Heaven remained a sad, desperate blight against Creation, in Charlie's opinion. But at least it wasn't becoming sadder and more desperate with each viewing. In fact rather the opposite. Though the buildings going up outside of Fort Abandon and in the district of Brickton were noticeably shorter than their brick-hewn counterparts made by desperate and privation-harrowed Heavenly hands, they were clearly built better. No tumorous growths that looked willing to crumble to a stiff breeze. More internal room as reinforced concrete was stronger than mud brick and required less space for the same strength. And with each New Tower that went up, it bought precious space between towers, so that no longer was traffic limited to trudging on between the gaps in the buildings, but you could actually move a truck several layers deep into Brickton now.

In a word, Brickton was building a Heaven which didn't feel quite so miserable. The only limitation of Brickton was that it was so small a part of the whole of Heaven.

The last time that Charlie had been surrounded by this many of Daddy's loyal luminaries had been at the party celebrating the birth of Tabris. And now, the lad was already standing with an arm around Penemue's leg looking at the gathering of other Angels, current and former, that Hell had gathered. Roz was here now, because that included her, despite being utterly ignorant of anything that Angels could reasonably be expected to know. And Charlie was here because she was not just a Princess, but because she was Lucifer's daughter. And Daddy claimed that he had 'other projects' more worthy of his time than this conclave.

"I don't like this," Roz said. "There's a lot of animosity going on here that I don't want to get entangled with."

Charlie could only nod. The Ars Goetia were all loyal to Lucifer. That didn't mean that they were loyal to each other. In fact, it seemed that certain enmities were being born or deepening as the War for Heaven went on, likely born from their Legions either succeeding or failing and earning the glory or opprobrium that such events earned. Charlie didn't see the point in all of it. Sure, Heaven had made it clear through what they'd made of Probity, just as Daddy had always said, that they didn't deserve to maintain rulership over Heaven. But to get pissy over who's soldiers did better in battle? That just seemed needlessly petty.

Then again, these were the same Ars Goetia who had previously been using those same Legions to fight an even more useless Forever War in a Demiplane that Daddy made specifically for them to jockey for control and prestige, politically. Charlie might not have been a warlord, nor have a warlord's insight into things, but the entangling of the military and the political just seemed like a poison pill that would intoxinate both.

The chosen venue was a new area in Fort Abandon, relatively near one of its outer gates that had been given over to a more civilian structure, this one seeming something akin to The Grim Parliament of Pride Ring made somewhat smaller. There was no aristocratic Lesser House, let alone a Least House for the Overlords which dominated Pride Ring. Just a collection of the higher. And there, she could see a number of faces she hadn't had a chance to see for years.

Like Stolas. The Prince of Flowers looked a new Angel entirely, delighted, primped and preening as though given an entirely new lease on his life, which was a far cry from the beaten, surrendering longshanks-owl that Charlie had spoken to on the day that the Demiurge revealed himself. And near him was Daddy's Proxy, that vulgar imp whom Dad actually seemed to like, rather than merely tolerate as he had with Nathan Birch, or Jacek Kurigzitch before him. Of course if he was here, why had Daddy asked her to come? It wasn't a question that had an easy answer.

Stella had a look of patented impatience to her. She seemed to be studiously ignoring Stolas, as though didn't exist. As though that section of the court didn't exist, in fact. Charlie was aware of why, though. Even Charlie hadn't been sheltered from the news of their deeply bitter divorce. But as an Angel, she was clearly given a duty to be here, so here she begrudgingly was.

Also present was Gadreel, a newcomer to Hell, who stayed well off to the side of the room as though unwilling to allow her back to be to anybody. She too had an imp at her side. And if her memory served her, the imp over there was the same one who had cured Fiona's brain-tumor half a decade ago, and the same one who had very begrudgingly asked her for a meeting with the Radio Demon a few years later, which Charlie had never heard the ends of. Whatever it was, it wasn't her business, because the Radio Demon wasn't her business. He could expeditiously fuck right off, in fact. The Radio Demon, not the imp. The imp seemed a very polite little guy.

There were some new faces as well. An older Angel, whose hair and beard gave mind to a rain cloud, who was knelt with is legs crossed underneath him, hovering above the floor, was unfamiliar to her. He must have been a recent defection. Also, there was that burly Angel that had been in Heaven's dungeon. He was sitting at a desk with his chin propped up on his hand, looking bored almost to the point of taking a nap.

Then there came a shift in the hubbub, the background drone of voices, as though something had changed. Charlie nudged Roz, and then started to look for its source; it didn't take long to find. Newly entered into the room was the daughter of Stolas, one whom made both he and Stella brighten noticably, before each noticed the other doing it and promptly reined themselves in. She had grown up so fast, Octavia had; Charlie had been there for the party of Octavia's hatching, for those milestones that Stolas and Stella had declared fit for public celebration, for all the years of Octavia's life. It never occurred to Charlie that the fact that she as a Nephilim was unaging and thus had a more tenuous grasp of mortal time-spans, that she considered twenty years a blink of the eye.

Charlie had recently turned 210, after all.

Octavia moved to take her place at the Speaker's Position, and pounded the wood with her fist to call the crowd to order. Frankly, she looked like she needed a vacation and a massage, tightly wound and deeply sick-of-everything. But that was between Octavia and her own mental health. Charlie's role in Hell was to save her people from Damnation and see them Redeemed, not to be the health-advocate for all of its upper crust.

"This session of the Angelic Conclave is called to order," a voice rang out, belonging to the Dux Bellorim Jones von Ketterman who stood at Octavia's side. The crowd finally quieted down. "Please be seated while role is taken."

Another person, one with a Gapped Halo silently began to take notes on everybody who had appeared, then gave a nod to Octavia, who sat down.

"You're gathered here today to discuss a matter of utmost importance for the good of all Creation, not just that of Hell," Octavia said, her voice projecting well and making her words clear all the way to the back seats. "If you would, please?"

A door opened, and a bearded man with an unusually Gapped Halo was escorted in by Dux Bellorim Agrippa, and given a fair amount of civility, in that he was bound in no bondage and was shown to a seat rather than shoved into it. The man stared at them all with a look of distaste, as one might look at people who have personally disappointed them.

"The military advance in Probity has reached a point where Hell now outright controls the former site of the Pearly Gates of Heaven," Octavia said. That caused a stir of conversation from the assembled current and former Angels. There were scattered shouts of joy, and even a few of praise, that came from the people seated around her. She didn't see a need to join them. This wasn't a feat to be lauded. "And with it, comes a new responsibility."

Now those who had been laughing and giving hurrah's now fell into confused murmuring. Octavia was timing this out very well. "If we have the Pearly Gates, then we're most of the way through Probity!" Andrealphus' voice called out.

"That's true, 'uncle', but it's been brought to my attention that ever since this war began, the machinery of Creation has been broken," Octavia said. She gestured toward Peter, who looked at most of the Angels gathered here with scorn and dismay. He softened his glare slightly when it panned over Charlie, as though somehow knowing that she was not their ilk, but the glare grew sharp once more as it panned further. "As has been confirmed by Saint Peter The Judge, there have been no newly dead souls to go through proper Judgement."

"Well, what of it? There's souls aplenty already!" Naberius cut in. "Let them stay in their log-jam until we can deal with important matters!"

"That's where your recommendation fails," Octavia raised her voice to cut him off before he could wrest control of the crowd away from her, "in that there is no log-jam. Those who have died for the last five years have been sent directly to Hell without Judgement."

"Ridiculous," Stolas said. "That seems relentlessly unfair, too much for even a Heaven of these days to allow!"

"Octavia speaks truth!" Roz said, standing up, and causing all heads to turn to her. "I am Rozarin Ahmadi, Thirdborn of Gabriel, in accordance to the Method of Penemue. Upon my mortal death I was relegated to Hell as a Sinner, and had to become my true self during an insane mission into the guts of Heaven."

"A Thirdborn?" Stella asked, turning and standing to face Rozarin. "One of you fighting for Hell? Now I know that Creation has gone insane."

"I fight for the Princess," Rozarin said, but then she caught herself before she broke from her script. "The fact is that Heaven dropped the ball in a cataclysmic way, which is why the population of Pride Ring has been booming even with the Forever Purge trying to trim their numbers. Every. Single. Human. Is being sent to Hell."

"And by your tone you think that a bad thing?" Naberius asked.

"Of course it's a bad thing!" Rozarin said. "They should at least have a chance to have themselves weighed!"

"That's beside the point," Octavia said, cutting the Thirdborn off. Octavia waited for the muttering of the once and current Angels to die down a bit, before continuing. "I am not going to stand here and make a moralistic argument for the wellbeing of humans. None of you are humans. You have no stakes in their wellbeing, and thus wouldn't care. To demand something be done for their benefit is an obvious non-starter."

"But they…" Charlie began, but Roz reached back and pushed her back into her seat as she tried to rise. Charlie shot a betrayed look at Roz, but the Thirdborn gave a look that said 'wait and let her cook'. So she pouted, yes, but she did wait.

"Instead, I'm going to give you a ruthlessly practical reason why we should invest some small infrastructure into beginning Judgement again," Octavia said. She snapped her fingers, and a set of graphs appeared projected on the wall behind and over her head. "There are roughly one hundred and sixty thousand Souls that die on the human world each day. A populace equal to six entire Legions and then some, expiring and being hurled into Hell, where they are promptly made useless to you and your kind as they are ensnared by Dealmakers, enslaved, or made addicts. Worthless to an economy, and to a war effort."

She pointed at one graph in particular, which grew larger. "That is roughly two souls a second. Two mortal souls per second being injected to collapse Hell's economy and strain its utilities. Bathin, would you humor me and tell me how much car-impact related repair costs have increased since 2023?" Octavia asked.

"More than a thousand percent," Bathin admitted.

"And why?" Octavia asked.

"People keep throwing themselves in front of my rigs when they're moving," Bathin said.

"Rookie souls not understanding that a car bumper can't end a Sinner's existence," Octavia said. She then pointed to a different graph, a timeline, which swelled and overtook the others. "Hell has seen booms and ebbs in arrivals through the centuries. And every time one of those gluts of Souls hits Hell, what happens? Turmoil! Overextended services and famines! Too many mouths to feed and not enough hands willing to do the work to feed them! For fuck's sake, back in the 1930's we had actual agriculture happening in Pride Ring! And that had to stop when a bunch of Germans and Italians fucked that up a decade later!"

"So what, you want to make those extra mouths Heaven's problem?" Raum asked.

"I am saying," Octavia said, "that there is only one losing play with the circumstances we've been given, and that losing play is to do nothing."

She snapped her fingers, and a new set of diagrams, maps, this time, appeared replacing the glut of information that had been there before.

"We have an opportunity to do what even Lucifer hasn't done before," Octavia said. "We have an opportunity to control the discourse."

There was a brief hubbub at that, people obviously not grasping what Charlie was already twigging to. Doing the right thing for selfish reasons was still doing a right thing. And Octavia, to get that right thing done, had to couch it in the most selfish reasons she could find.

"We control the Pearly Gates, or what's left of them," Octavia said. "Less than a million Souls of infrastructure work can get a Judgement Place built and staffed. Since, by my conversations with Peter, the Judgement is atemporal, we would only need a handful of people in the building itself. We will take over the Judgement of the Dead. And we will benefit no matter what that Judgement's outcome."

"I fail to see how," Raum admitted.

"If they were vile enough to be a Sinner, to Hell they go as normal," Octavia said. "Peter and I have agreement that there will be no letting the debased into Heaven, and I'm sure you would be fine with that, considering we…"

"Then what's the fucking point of this all?" Naberius cut her off. "All this prattling about the worthlessness of new Sinner and you tell us now that you're going to keep making new Sinners anyway? This is folly and waste of time!"

Octavia glared at the Old Crow, who had a number of other Ars Goetia starting to agree with him. Notably not his brother Raum, though; the Young Crow had a pensive look on his black-beaked face.

"Either a trickle of Sinners," Octavia overpowered the discontented mutterings of this parliament of once and current Angels with volume and with clearly mounting frustration, "or the deluge we currently have. Sinners in name only, who don't buy drugs, don't hire whores, don't watch pornography and don't fit in with other Sinners. Sinners who disrupt Hell's economy and society just by being there, until somebody gets sick of them and kills them again."

"I could take in…" Charlie started to raise her voice, but again Roz shook her head and laid a hand on her shoulder. What are you doing, Roz?

"Trust me, wait for the right moment, it's coming," Roz said.

"What? Did she tell you something she didn't tell me?" Charlie harshly whispered at her.

"Of course. Do you think I make speeches for myself as a hobby?" Roz said with a 'well duh' look on her face. Charlie didn't like being cut off like this, but she had to trust that Roz had her best interests at heart.

"And more than that, we control the area that those Judged Innocent would be released into," Octavia continued. "If we adhere to Peter's rubric for judgement, that is removing nine-tenths of the current flood of Sinners In Name Only and diverting them into Heaven. A Heaven which we are currently improving above and beyond what the stewards of Heaven have been able to achieve. They will enter into a Heaven not wrought by God, but by us."

She then snapped again, and a map of Cloud Probity appeared, showing the current Occupied Zone, the extent of the services which snaked outward from Fort Abandon, and made note of an expanse which wasn't overbuilt, marked with alternating red and black bars. The Unhallow, growing dangerously close to the battle lines.

"God's failure created the Rat Towers and forced sixty billion humans into them. But we, the Angels of Hell, are the rebirth of the promise of Heaven, the greatness of Heaven," Octavia now raised her voice not to overwhelm dissent but to cajole others into heeding her. "This is the Heaven of the Ars Goetia, doing with nothing but our wits and our influence what God with His Fiat could not! And when those we Judge Innocent are released into Heaven, it will be OUR HEAVEN that they walk. They will see what OUR PEOPLE have built. And they will be able to look to their neighbors and know the failures of God's Heaven."

She raised a hand, with four fingers up. "Four cohorts of Innocent," Octavia said. "By my estimation, with the Heaven we show to those in Judgement, we will be able to recruit directly from the pipe, and create four cohorts of Innocent… per hour."

That made Charlie's heart sink a little, thinking of the newly dead taking up arms within hours of being introduced to the higher mysteries of Creation. But it clearly intrigued the more martial of the Ars Goetia. Again Octavia held up those four fingers.

"Four cohorts of soldiers who cannot meaningfully die, who are fighting not for a distant king who cares little for them, but because they want to live in a Heaven that we've shown them that we can build for them. Per hour. Forever," Octavia said. "As long as there are humans dying, there will be more workers, more farmers, and most important to you, more soldiers. And they will look at our Heaven and they will fight for it."

She then took a step around her lectern and snapped once more, changing the graph to a pie-chart of the compositions of Hell's and Heaven's armies, showcasing how the majority of the fighting was being done by Innocent and Cherubs, whereas Hell mostly used imps and a mixture of fiends and Sinners. It didn't even bother listing the Hellhounds, despite how many Charlie knew Legions used.

"And the moment Heaven's army sees that the Innocent are fighting against them, they lose heart," Octavia said. "They lose certainty in that they're on the right side. Their morale teeters. And you know what bad morale makes for. That is why we should begin Judgement again. Eschewing all moral or ethical reasons, we should Judge because it will win us this war!"

There was a new murmuring going on, as Ars Goetia began to actually consider her points amongst themselves. Stolas looked proud as Lucifer, and Stella scarcely less so. "Why was I even invited to this thing? I'm not a warlord," Charlie asked.

"Wait for it," Roz said.

"Whhyyyyyy? Just tell me!" Charlie needled.

"It's about to come," Roz said, and pointed to Octavia, who returned behind her lectern and allowed the Ars Goetia to discuss the matter for several minutes, before she shut off the projector over her.

"Of course, there's still something that troubles Peter. He wants something out of us if he's going to offer to do this in conjunction with us," Octavia asked. There came a boo from somewhere in the back of the chamber. Octavia ignored it. "Peter has found it deeply unpalatable to send redeemable souls to Hell, where they would burn in anguish until Heaven decided to kill them again. And he wants that trend to stop."

"Well he's shit out of luck," Buer growled, picking his lion-teeth with the claws of one of his many arms. "The Stone is gone, and Purgatory with it."

"The stone is gone," Octavia agreed with a nod. "But Purgatory? Purgatory still exists."

"Yes, as a few city blocks clinging to the flesh to Pride," Buer contended.

"No, I'm not talking about that relic," Octavia said. She then looked up and locked eyes with Charlie. "Is it not true that over the last few years a New Purgatory has been established down in Pentagram City?"

Roz now nudged Charlie to stand. So this was their play. Well, Octavia should have probably informed her about this so she wouldn't have spent this entire meeting confused and unhappy. "It is true," Charlie said.

Before she could continue, Octavia cut in and spoke, "And is it true that the district is protected from outside incursion by your own Legions?"

"...yes," Charlie said. "The Second Legion of the Damned is growing stronger with every day."

"And have you or have you not managed to, by your craft, see one of the damned Redeem themselves, even without the Stone of Farewell?" Octavia said. That got Charlie to straighten her back a bit harder and tilt up her chin.

"I have. More than once, even," she said. Octavia turned to Peter.

"So you say that you would wish that souls not fit for Heaven but not deserving of suffering should have a proper place for them to go? I say it exists, and it is there," she pointed toward Charlie. Peter looked unsettled, but begrudgingly nodded. "And since that was his one demand of us, I leave the rest of it to you. We will adjourn while you discuss the merits of this course. We will return in two hours to form a consensus. That is all."

She banged the tabletop with her fist again, and the Ars Goetia as one rose up and began to speak loudly, the background noise of the room swelling. Charlie stepped away from her seat, Roz joining her. "I could have known about this!" she complained to the Angel next to her.

"Your reaction needed to be genuine. This is Saint Peter. The only one more insightful into people is Raguel," Roz said.

"Or maybe Sam," Charlie muttered. Now that the Goetia were milling about and clustering into groups to discuss whether this was a good idea – it was – and how they could benefit from it – that didn't matter, it was a morally correct choice – Charlie and Roz were able to navigate their way through the crowd much more easily. They descended down from the terraced seats to the well which had a massive, muscular Angel standing guard at the foot of the steps. She wasn't mistaken; that was the one who'd been in the prison cell that Daddy went to talk to. Obviously this man said the right things to her father for him to still be here.

Yeqon, for that was who that was, turned a smoldering look at Roz as she and Charlie approached. Roz just smirked, and strutted past him without word or challenge. He didn't stop them. What had happened between the two of them, Charlie wondered? Maybe they'd clashed in Heaven or something.

Charlie, though, passed by Dux Bellorim Von Ketterman and approached where Octavia was now leaning against the back wall, but also remaining in the proximity of Saint Peter. Peter turned to stare at Charlie as she approached, and Charlie once more felt herself weighed and measured by a look, in a way that she hadn't since that November day where Sam destroyed half of Daddy's palace.

"You are a shocking beast," Peter said. Charlie missed a step. Octavia turned to them, finally seeming to realize that Charlie had approached.

"Rude," Charlie said. Octavia pushed from the wall and faced Charlie. "Why didn't you warn me that you were going to voluntell the use of New Purgatory?"

"If your reputation is anything like what Hell seems to think it was, it stood to bet that you wouldn't mind," Octavia said.

"It still wasn't polite to do it," Charlie groused, because damn it all, Octavia was right.

"Well, are you going to accept the new souls of Purgatory?" Octavia asked.

"Of course," Charlie said, even though just saying that made her realize that she would need to have no buildings put up to even house them. New Purgatory may well expand again soon, as it turned out.

"Then there is no problem," Octavia said. She then heard somebody call her name to one side, and a scrum including Stolas and several other Ars Goetia beckoned her over. That left Charlie with Saint Peter, who was staring at her warily, as though she were a dangerous creature.

"What?" Charlie asked.

"I died long after the Nephilim were wiped out. Seeing one is… disconcerting," Peter said. Charlie gave a scoff. She wasn't that special. "Doubly so one of your moral character. How, pray tell, did somebody of such ethical grounding rise up from the pits of cruelty and privation that is Hell?"

"...I don't like when people get hurt," Charlie said. Peter leaned back. "When I was growing up, when somebody was bullied or injured or killed, all of the other children around me would laugh. And I felt so… different from them. I didn't find it funny at all. Because I always asked myself 'what would I feel like if that were me', and it was always terrible."

"So through some great freak of mutation, you came to be born in Hell with a working moral compass?" Peter asked.

"No… no that's not it," Charlie said. "Mom and Dad–"

"Lucifer and Lilith," Peter confirmed.

"...taught me that I have a place in the world that's important. That being royalty means power and responsibility hand in hand," Charlie said. Daddy hadn't been quite so blunt as to say it thus, but he clearly understood that with great utility comes great use. He was always the perfect tool for exactly the wrong job, an inheritor of a throne denied to him so he simply waited for his time to soar, down there in Hell. "My people are hurting. They are hurting from the moment the land here until one of the Angels or their fellow Sinners kills them again. And I can't accept that. There had to be a better way. If those are my people, and this is my kingdom to inherit, then I wanted the kingdom to be its best possible self when Daddy passes his crown to me."

"If," Peter said.

"What?" Charlie asked.

"If Lucifer passes his crown. Do you really see him giving away a throne?" Peter asked.

"Yes," she said with utter confidence. "When he has his own throne up here in Heaven."

Peter pulled a face at that. "You honestly believe that. You either have insight into The Great Enemy that nobody else in Creation does, or you are a naive child. Time will be the judge of which," Peter said.

"You are spectacularly rude for somebody judged 'good'," Charlie groused.

"The last three centuries have not been kind to my good graces," Peter admitted with a sigh. He looked at her again. "Do as you must to bring justice to an unjust Creation. Now that the College has fallen to history, you may be the only one who can."

"What College?" Roz asked.

"The College of Satans," Charlie said.

"...I thought you wouldn't like them," Roz said, after a moment's pondering.

"A foolish plan must be called foolish, no matter the pride with which one offers it. And though those tasked with calling spades spades may be disliked, called 'spoilsports' and 'killjoys', without check and balance all falls to folly," Peter said. He then glanced to a set of doors. Charlie almost didn't catch his intention, but eventually twigged and started toward them, whereupon Dux Bellorim Agrippa followed as Peter, Charlie and Roz moved into a short hallway lined with currently empty offices.

"So… what's this about?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know if you've been informed," Peter said, "but in the spirit of kindness for kindness' sake, I feel I must tell you: you have been marked for death by Heaven."

"What?" Charlie asked, recoiling slightly.

"God pronounced a pogrom against the Nephilim in times long past," Peter said. "And since He never rescinded that pogrom, it is still in effect. You have an even chance of any given non-Thirdborn killing you the moment they lay eyes upon you."

"Or attempting to, at least," Roz said.

"That can't be right. I've talked to plenty of Angels," she said.

"Umm, not… exactly," Roz said.

"I talked to Michael and Raguel, and they didn't mention any of this!" Charlie said.

"Michael and Raguel are uniquely predisposed to see the good in you, the former because it was so obviously against his expectation of you that he had no choice but believe, and the latter because of his very nature," Peter said with slow shake of his head.

"Because he can See Within?" Charlie asked of Raguel.

"Because he is kind," Peter said. "What I say now must be held in deepest confidence. I can trust none but you with it."

She turned a look to the Dux Bellorim.

"He is an allowable exception. He's not a Sinner," Peter said gruffly.

"What?" all three of the people who weren't Peter asked.

"This Roman is a Virtuous. He lived his life well and died well. He is in hell only by the voraciousness of your father, not by any misdeed of his," Peter said. "And more than that, I can see that he is a creature of honor. So if I ask you not reveal this, not even to your charge the Governess, I will trust you if you give your word."

"I cannot give that word without knowing the nature of your revelation," Agrippa said. "So I will recuse," he said, then backed out into the meeting room, leaving the three of them in the hall.

"How can somebody who's not a Sinner be in Hell?" Charlie asked, and then she immediately groaned and palmed her face. "Right, the machinery's broken. You're there, and Rachel's there. That's proof enough."

"Indeed. The truth I offer is that I have been and remain in contact with the Archangel Raguel," Peter admitted. "And he has asked me to relate to you that if you ever find a hand of Gabriel reaching out to strike at you, pray."

"Pray?" she asked.

"Pray to Raguel, and he will hear it," Peter said. "And he will protect you. That is the only kind thing to do; to do anything else would be a betrayal of his nature. Even against his brother. Even against all of Heaven if the need comes. He said, and I quote, 'it is time to be helpers again'."

"Thank you, Peter," Charlie said. "I won't betray the trust you're putting in me."

"You sincerely believe this, so I will accept it," Peter said. He turned and faced the assembled once and current Angels in the little parliament that Octavia had arranged for them. "Too many of them have forgotten the power that comes with kindness, the resolve that comes from community. They have been too long apart from each other, and those who should have been their responsibilities. Many have become hedonists, or prideful, or small reflections of their master the Morningstar." Peter turned to Roz and Charlie. "See to it, Nephilim and Thirdborn, that you don't follow down their paths."

Three years to the day after the agreement, Raguel was standing just inside of the doors of Vigilance. A part of him wished that his brother would relent and rest longer, to take the time to actually heal this plague upon his being that his pride was poisoning him with, but Raguel needed not to see within Michael the Glorious to know that the Taxiarch was a creature of obedient duty. Raguel had managed to get him to agree to three years of Vigil, and three years Michael would take.

True to Raguel's expectations, the doors opened, with Ereniel holding the great stone portal aside and revealing Michael once more in his golden and ivory robes. And Raguel did hearten to see Michael's degree of improvement. He still looked spare and weakened, like a man recovering from a long sickness, but no longer did he look like a living, rotting corpse. Dramatic was putting it lightly. But there were still scars on Michael's visage that showed that Vigil hadn't restored him quite so completely as it had for young Birah, who was almost laid low by Hellish arms. Michael's hair was golden again, but now thin, and it seemed his bald-spot was now a permanent fixture. As well, his face was lined with stress-wrinkles, scowl-lines reaching down from the corners of his mouth. His skin had a slightly ashy pallor to it. But his eyes were what Raguel remembered. Sharp. Crisp. Clear again, no longer muddled by infirmity and pain.

"Almost to the hour, I note you leaving your Vigil. You've become predictable, brother," Raguel said.

"And I predicted your waiting for me in exactly that spot, down to the inch. You are every bit as predictable as I, brother," Michael said. His voice likewise was not restored to its old vigor. Now it was rasping, but at least no longer reedy and wheezing as it had been at his worst. Michael glanced past the arching pillars that formed a dome overhead, painted with the figures of the dead Angelic heroes of a war that none but the Firstborn even remembered, something long before the Leviathans. Something so far back into the past that it predated the creation of the current human Universe. Even Raguel's recollection was patchy, such was the vast gulf of time between it and now. "I don't see any others."

"Heaven has not had many in Vigil since the general-retreat from Probity was called," Raguel said.

That caused Michael's eyes to snap with outrage. "What coward turned tail and fled from our battle lines!" he demanded as he descended the marble stairs and halted several from the bottom so he could stare mighty Raguel in the eye.

"I did," Raguel said. Michael's outrage turned to confusion and hurt. "I will not spend the currency of Angelic lives to hold a line in one place where all others are collapsing."

"You left the Innocent in the hands of Hell? How could you, brother?" Michael seemed deeply upset by that.

"Do you remember Octavia, brother?" Raguel asked. Michael frowned, but thought, before turning away for a moment, then returning his gaze as the Taxiarch recalled their years-ago conversation on the nature of Angelic failure.

"I do…" Michael said, no doubt recalling the spark which ignited the argument which had driven them a half decade apart. "What of her?"

"For all her demonic heritage, child though she be of traitors and hedonists, I have seen the shape of her control over Probity," Raguel said. "And it is kind."

"So what? Because she's doing the wrong thing the right way you can abide it?" Michael demanded.

"She is feeding the Good. She gives them clean water. She bolsters their spirits against despair. What ends she pursues while doing these fundamental goods is eclipsed by the importance of the goods themselves," Raguel said. Michael muttered something under his breath, and Raguel, out of politeness, didn't Look Within to see its contents. Michael gave his head a slow shake, and descended the last few steps until he was abreast of Raguel and the two of them exited Vigilance.

The streets of Diligence remained colorful and bright, almost shining audaciously under the late morning sun. A few stopped and stared at Michael as he revealed himself after his rest looking much restored. It was fortunate that vanity was not amongst Michael's shortcomings. Such scrutiny would make a vainer man preen like a peacock. "Enough of the lowest Cloud and our failures, past and present, regarding it," Michael said. He turned a hard glare up at Raguel. "Tell me that you've controlled Gabriel."

"Immaculately," Raguel said. It was a constant struggle, a fight at every meeting delivered with full lung and red face to demand that Gabriel not launch into another half-considered ploy that would likely see another hundred thousand of the precious and diminishing Host of Angels dead. "He has not expanded his influence over those who are nominally unaligned, but instead decided to entrench his position over the Gabrielites. Near daily, he whips them into zealous fury, beating on my doors and demanding actions that no sane leader would allow. And of Uriel? I have no hold on him. His duty is too precious for me to dare rein him in."

"Sickening to see those good souls like Uriel, Malik and Forfax falling to such pedagogy," Michael muttered.

"Malik has broken from Gabriel," Raguel related. "Perhaps Atheed was the last bind holding him to the Gabrielites, but now he spends his time with Azazel."

"That's good to hear. Malik was always the worse warrior but the better Angel of the two of them," Michael said.

"Uriel, of course, has most of his time spent finding and killing the abominations of the Unhallow. Foul, that it now requires an Archangel's attention to do it. And Forfax remains inscrutable to most. He does not make the mad demands as Gabriel's mouthpiece, but still stands in battery with the Gabrielites when not doing his job as The Hunter," Raguel said.

"Why? Surely you could discover that with a glance," Michael said.

"It would be unacceptably rude. He has committed no treason, and has prioritized his duties to Heaven and to the Father over those to Gabriel. As long as he continues, I will not intrude on him. He is a creature of duty, Forfax is. I will not impugn it with needless suspicion," Raguel said.

"For somebody of your talents, you're insanely trusting of people," Michael said.

"Because of my talents, I can afford to be trusting of people," Raguel countered.

"And what news from Hell? I know you have eyes there," Michael said.

"The more troubling news is still in Probity, brother," Raguel said. "Lucifer has broken the Highest Censure."

Michael stopped and stared at Raguel. "God's curse should have withstood centuries yet even without his renewal of it… how?"

"A Paradox Engine has been ignited in Hell," Raguel said.

"Another fucking Paradox Engine!" Michael exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "Does Hell just do nothing but sit around and create blasphemies against the natural order? Damn them all we need to break that thing before…"

"It's too late," Raguel coached him. "It was too late when you went into Vigilance, though we didn't know it then, and it is doubly too late now. The Censure has fallen, and Lucifer is free to walk the Clouds of Heaven."

Michael stared sullenly at the horizon for a time. Then he sighed, his head hanging. He turned a tired look to Raguel. "What about her?"

There was no reason to name her. Both of them knew who Michael was speaking of without needing her named.

"She's trying her best," Raguel said.

"...fine. That's the only outcome I could have hoped for, realistically," Michael said, wiping a hand across his face. "We have work to do. A thousand tasks needing doing and only two sets of hands to do them."

"There could be more, if you were willing to trust more," Raguel offered.

"Unlike you, I can't afford to be trusting of people," Michael said bitterly. And once again, any hope that Raguel had of informing his brother of Cloud 8.9 was crushed in the crib. If ever there was a time to admit to the madness he had built into the skin that separated Diligence from Patience, now was not that time. Not when Michael's head was clearly hitched to dark things and traversing dark places.

Raguel could still feel the infection of Khalera on the Taxiarch. Just a tiny whiff of rot set against a field of flowers. And as long as Michael claimed that damnable thing, no hand could take it from him, short of God Almighty. So Raguel bit his tongue and followed after the Marshall of Heaven. Maybe Raguel would be able to convince him in a kinder day than this to finally set that thing aside. But today was not that day.

The hubbub that followed behind as Raguel and Michael moved through the streets of Diligence faded away to gentle patter, of Angel speaking to other Angels on matters that, in the grander scheme of the continuation of Creation, were utterly unimportant. Azazel was thoroughly ignored by his brothers the Secondborn and his cousins the Firstborn, and he much preferred it that way. Let others live their lives baked under the limelight. He had responsibilities to maintain. Withering scrutiny would only serve to distract him in their discharge.

He walked away from Vigilance, and away from the Taxiopolis as was no doubt Michael's destination. Diligence still looked for all Creation as though there had never been a single thing go wrong in all of the history of time itself, a great facade of gold and ivory and pearl. But facades were just that. And Azazel had been long taught by experience and his own cunning to look behind such things, with the ruins of the original Parliament of Shouters being a particularly informative blight. He saw that there was an infirmity in Heaven, likely one that had been there for an exceptionally long time and was only now beginning to throw symptoms. A smugness. An arrogance.

Why weren't humans allowed up here?

That question rattled around in Azazel's head now as it had when it first occurred to him two and a half centuries ago. There was nothing that even a dedicated mob of humans could manage to vandalize. The state of construction up here was bettered nowhere. And the Innocent were clean creatures, not subject to the smutting presence of oils and smearing mud if they were able to take care of themselves at all. It was part of why the smell of the lower Clouds was to some extent bearable. The Innocent were clean of sin, and thus clean of the filth that was associated with it. Even a modicum of self-care rendered them pristine. And how sad it was that those in Probity, Charity and Kindness were under such privation that they stopped thinking it would matter?

He continued down the streets, invisible to the Firstborn and only occasionally acknowledged by a mute nod by the other Secondborn, until he reached a building which had been long abandoned, though upkept. The Palace of Jeremiel, Archangel of Wisdom and Judgement. The one who ought to be Judging the souls of the dead, even now.

The place felt chill, and was almost painfully quiet. Though it still had all of the splendor that vivacious Jeremiel had slathered it with, there was still a pall of pain to it all now, having been locked in stasis and unchanging since his demise. Time was, Jeremiel would change his décor almost on a weekly basis, whenever the whim took him. Now, though… it was the decoration of a tomb. Azazel walked past where the sarcophagus sat, surrounded by all that Jeremiel would have loved in life, now rendered as mute witnesses to an Archangel's corpse slowly fading until only dust remained.

Archangels didn't rot the way even Angels would. They just slowly faded away, until they were forgotten.

He kept walking, leaving the fading corpse of Jeremiel behind him, and moved through halls that had not heard laughter and revelry for a hundred centuries and more. It had been at one of Jeremiel's great celebrations that Azazel first discovered that there was something worth exploring, worth cherishing in the human species. In a way, a more cynical Azazel would think to blame him for entrapping him in the arms of a human woman. But Azazel could only ever thank the dead Archangel. A Grigori had to take the sweet with the bitter, for all of life was bittersweet. The pain of the memories of Tauthe did not drown the joy of having been her father.

Few bothered to come here anymore. Although, as of today, one of those very few was now active in Heaven again, and thus Azazel would not likely be able to use this as a clandestine meeting place for much longer, if at all. Michael and Jeremiel had been very close. The more salacious rumor amongst the mill was that they had been lovers, but Azazel knew better. Michael was married to his duty and to nothing else. He had no time for pleasures of the flesh, even before the Great Heresiarchy. More likely, Michael and Jeremiel had been the most kindred of spirits, alike to Michael and Raguel. Still, Azazel did feel some sympathy for one who lost one close to them.

The rooms at the back were the preparation areas for great feasts, whose hearths were long, long cold and dark. But there was a change in this innermost and least-traveled room in the modern age. Against the thin layer of dust – for this room was only cleaned monthly, whereas the more public areas were seen to weekly – there were growths of green and yellow.

Peeking up in organic lines were dandelions, rooting themselves in the dust that had sunk into the cracks between the great marble blocks of the floor, and growing with lunatic intensity, so quickly even that Azazel could see one bloom with visible speed as he closed the door to the cooking hall behind him. The hearths, too, were overgrown with dandelion, the logs in them which had rotted to dust now anchoring stalks ended with puffs of white. These had not been here last month. If they had been, there would have been notice given, and Azazel would have heard of it.

"Well?" Azazel asked.

And there came a Power into the room with him, a white-hot flame igniting in the air before the Grigori of Arms, one that extended outward until it took the form of a man, rendered in raw fire so hot that it caused the wooden table-tops to char and crack near him. Finally, there was a snap.

The Demiurge had arrived in Cloud Diligence. End of the line. End of the world.

"Either you are impossibly punctual, or that took longer than expected," the Demiurge said, his melancholy face sweeping the room. "You know what is going to come. Are you prepared for it?"

"If you were any but you, I would ask you to reconsider," Azazel noted impassively. "That there has to be a less disruptive…"

"You are right, in that you know it was pointless to ask," the Demiurge noted, nodding. He raised a hand, snapping his fingers and having a strange metal bang sound, and the giant and overwhelming form of Thor Odinson appear beside him, no longer Baraqiel, no longer weak. Now, he was a titan of an outer god, his red hair bearing streaks of patrician grey. Azazel wondered if the return from Syncretization had changed Thor's nature somehow. Turned him from the Aesir god of power, into the god of something else? In the end, it was immaterial to the Grigori. "This must be done. The Cascade must be prevented at all costs. I will give you freedom. All of you."

"Then I can only hope you've found a way to limit the damage it will cause. To everyone," Azazel said with a sigh. Because he knew full well just how bad it would get. All of Creation was bound to God. It couldn't exist without him. And if God were ever to die, then Creation itself would, by the transitive property, evaporate like a dream in the morning.

"I've learned enough," the Demiurge said, "and seen enough to know what must be changed and what can afford to not be. You will change little. Thor will change now not at all."

"How can you say that with any certainty? You are playing God, in the most literal sense of the term," Azazel pointed out, keeping his tones moderated but allowing his intensity to spark in his eyes.

"I know the rules, now," the Demiurge said. He looked at Azazel, and the Grigori felt a bead of sweat begin to roll down his brow and cheek. "It is almost over. We are almost free of God's shackles. But first we need to ensure that He doesn't take His ball and go home when we do it. I have asked you once for trust, and did I wound you by it?"

"No," Azazel admitted.

"So now I ask for trust again. You will know the day, and the hour, by the Song that will reverberate Creation. All others will be blind to it until it is upon them. So be prudent, and do those few things I have asked of you," the Demiurge said. "Heaven will need you when I am gone. It will need you desperately."

"Don't try to bloat my ego. I am but a servant of Heaven," Azazel said.

"That that remains true is why you will be so needed," the Demiurge said. Azazel frowned at the way he put that. "You have a question. Ask it."

"I was asking why you haven't given me marching orders, like you would with Metatron?" Azazel asked.

"You need do nothing so involved," the Demiurge said. "Simply, idly, remind Michael and Gabriel, at a time of their inconvenience, that Lucifer still exists. All of the other paths will close from that small nudge alone. All will be what it must be. Beyond that, your duty to your faction ends."

He extended a hand. And Azazel sighed and extended the cloth-wrapped package that had been smuggled all the way up from Sloth Ring of Hell, passing between so many hands before reaching Azazel's. Now, to its final destination. He opened it to reveal a queer crystal, one he turned over in his hand, before shrugging and with a twist of Godsong binding it as an amulet on a chain of Prima Materia. Yet another impossibility which simply signposted who and what Sammael was. Yaldabaoth then put the amulet on, tucking it under his armor.

"Death to the silent god," Azazel said. "And bring forth a Terrifying Freedom."

"May the fates be kind to all of us," Thor finally broke his pensive silence, his voice like thunder presaging a storm. "We will all need the luck of my Uncle to survive what comes next. And he taught me clean that luck is best gathered by building it by hand."

Azazel felt dread as the two of them left through a different door than Azazel had entered by. This was going to get very, very bad. Obviously and clearly, perhaps universally so. And like a seaman upon a storm-tossed ship, all he could do now was hold on, and pray to a God who no longer listened that the ship he was on didn't break under the waves.

"A lot of doomsayers claimed that the late 2020's were looking like the perfect place to watch the end of the world. Well, we kinda proved them right, and kinda proved them wrong. On one hand, the world up to that point? It pretty definitively kicked that bucket. I mean… it's kinda hard not to look at how quickly Christianity's then extant denominations all turned inward and died after the end of '28 and see it as anything other than the opening acts of an apocalypse. But humans are a stubborn bastards. Where one group saw the end of the world, another saw the birth of a newer one. Maybe even a better one.

If there's one thing which is spoken of by my extraplanar counterparts, it's the sheer scale of the change between the Common Era and the Uncommon Era. I know, I know, that's entirely a Warnerite thing, declaring a new year zero along with their new faith born out of the quite literal corpse of the old one. But look at things honestly, Miss Killjoy: When I was an infant, magic was essentially unheard of, humanity was alone in the cosmos, and Heaven and Hell were bedtime stories. And now I work with both literal Hellspawn and literal Angels using magic to kill things for government money. This is not the world that anybody back in the 20's could have seen coming.

First of all, no, second of all fuck you, I'm not a sorceress. Sorceresses leverage inherent talents to do magic. I earned my magic through scientific study and field exercises. I am technically classified as a Heavy Energy Parautilitarian, which is a scientific way of saying I'm a wizard. I worked for my eldritch power. I didn't just get it handed to me on a silver platter like the imps down in Lust Ring.

Where was I? Oh, right; the apocalypse. Things getting worse as a result of human action was pretty much expected by the time was born; an age of finding out, to answer the age of fucking around which had preceded it. But we ended up finding out so hard that it gave birth to an entire new age of fucking around, which I am proud to have had a small part in creating. You couldn't have gotten me to live in the world of my mother and father for all the wealth in Hell. What it's become now?

There's hope out here, now. I honestly think that we, as the stewards of Creation, are going to be okay."

– Chloe Sharpe, Purifier Magos and Doctor of Heavy Energy Studies