The Song of Ruin

by James Golen

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

57. Winner Takes All

Vaggie's life had taken a turn for the strange. She was perfectly aware of that. She'd frankly been aware of it since she was rescued after her plummet to Hell by an impossibly kind woman who Vaggie now owed at least half of her heart and most of her life to. Yes, it was not an even-relationship to be enamored with your literal savior. No, Vaggie didn't care. In both sets of her own memory, Charlie was a brilliant ray of light that saved her from a soul-destroying darkness.

In a way, it was a bit frustrating that Charlie was alone amongst their inner circle to not have that other self, to know just how much Vaggie loved her not just from this life, but from that one as well. But she would spend the rest of her existence showing it. Come to think of it, did that mean that she was no longer technically 'dead' considering that she was kind-of-an-Angel?

These were questions above her pay grade. And she wasn't in a rush to test herself against the Pride Wall in case that thing didn't brook philosophical arguments regarding epistomology. The fact that she had a weird mixture of gold and red blood wasn't lost on her. And oddly she had, even now, a weird sort of 'phantom limb' situation going on, in that she could feel a pair of wings that she rather definitively didn't have. But who was there to talk to about this?

The answer, luckily for Vaggie, was a simple one to answer.

She would talk to Cain about this.

Cain and Ayla had spent more time together after the events of that strange wave of madness. It was clear, to Vaggie at least, Cain was trying to 'make up' for some failure of the relationship, whereas Ayla was just happy in her entirety to be any part of their relationship. In its way, the couple that was Cain and Ayla was almost note-for-note a replication of Vaggie and Charlie.

"Oh, it's you," Ayla said, answering the door that Vaggie had knocked. She looked fine. Better than fine, as she always did, in fact. Ayla was, to Vaggie's eyes, a hard-body-hottie, built like she was meant to fight monsters or wrestle gods. It really made Vaggie question the broadness of Cain's tastes if they could contain both the ludicrously insane pixie that was Niffty, and also Ayla, who could have been used as a holotype for comic-book super-heroines. "Cain's still in a bit of a mood."

"Yeah I figured he would be," Vaggie admitted. "He's got that whole Byron thing pretty well nailed down."

"...the interviewer? Ayla asked her.

"No, Lord Byron, the madman poet… you know what, never mind," Vaggie tweezed her brow. The last few years had left her time enough, now that her Legion only required eight hours each day instead of twenty to see ready and respectable, to start going through the array of books that Charlie stockpiled her study with. And Charlie was, as was clearly evident from the box, an unrepentant and unapologetic romantic. Being able to understand, through reading those poets, a fragment of Charlie's world view… it made Vaggie love her even more. Charlie could see the beauty in Hell. Which meant she could see the beauty in anything.

"Ah yes. I have read him. Shocking, considering the scandals which followed him around like vultures 'round a dying man, that he didn't end up coming to Hell," Cain said. "And I must say I'm not sure whether to be flattered or feel mocked by the comparison. I know the old me would have struck you for that."

"I don't see you hitting women," Vaggie said flatly.

"The old me was a far more monstrous being," Cain said with a shrug. "All that you have ever known of me, all that I have ever showed you or allowed you to be party to is a version of myself that I have spent an eon in crafting. I guarantee you would have despised who I was before. Many did. That was a Cain who had many, many, many enemies, and with very good reason. Recent events have only reminded me of this."

"People change when they feel they have to," Vaggie said with a nod. "Or when they're forced to."

"As you were during that strangeness," Cain said. "How does it feel, to now be two mutually exclusive things at once?"

"Like I'm always on the edge of having a headache," Vaggie said tersely.

"That would be your blood pressure," Cain said. "You have quite a bit more blood in your veins now than you once did." She glared at him. "I'm quite serious. On one hand, you're quite a bit more difficult to exsanguinate. On the other, if you do more than prick a finger, it will fly out of you in jets and take some time to clot."

"Gross," she said.

"Have you come to try to learn Hymnals from me, then?" Cain asked. She tilted her head in confusion. "You have golden blood in your veins and the soul of a Human. I have only one of those and I am capable of them. You should be a natural hand at them in having both."

"No," Vaggie said. She frowned for a moment, then glanced over to a wall of Cain's recovered trophies, all of them symbols of people he'd defeated in times long past. Her spear wasn't there. But then again, it wasn't part of the motif that this wall had going for it. Cain was a man of aesthetics, after all. "You know more about magic and the way Humans can use it than anybody. So where does that leave me? I'm magically bankrupt."

"You were," Cain said, giving a light shrug. "I'll be frank, my friend; you now radiate power. Where once you were as unremarkable as a pour of concrete to make a walkway, only notable in how thoroughly your Hell-bound essence was gutted from you, now you have, oh, I'd say about six-sevenths of the muster of force that is granted upon creation to every Firstborn."

"And that is?" Vaggie asked.

"Right, you never had reason to interface with that. The Firstborn are the rank-and-file of God's Angels. Made to be powerful, and specialized, and static. At six-sevenths, I would say that puts you on par, if perhaps a touch weaker, than a Secondborn, who were made to be more broadly capable, and for whom stasis is merely a shackle upon their mind. You have no shackles at all. The only more harmonious commingling of Angel and Human that could exist is called a Nephilim, and that is a whole other beast entirely. Yes, I'd say that you are now, in your near-impossible way, the human equivalent of an Angelic Secondborn."

"Which means?" Vaggie asked.

"Excellent but not superlative power, and infinite room for growth," Cain said. "Frankly, I'm shocked that you haven't manifested a Halo or spontaneously grown a pair of wings."

"Wait, I've got one of those?" Vaggie asked, gesturing above her head.

"As an Angel, you naturally would," Cain said. So she stopped, and scowled, and tried to will one into being. Cain just stared at her in her moment of silent mental effort. Obviously no dice. "As well," he continued, as though simply taking her pause as a thoughtful one rather than an attempt at something which bore no fruit, "you can now safely take chances once more. Angels are blessed of good luck, which was enough to counteract the grisly void of it that was left in you."

"I'm not a gambler," she said.

"Likely because in any game of chance you would inevitably lose, no matter how the odds were stacked in your favor," Cain prompted. She stared flatly at him. He took a moment to fiddle with his beard, before continuing. "I understand that you have many questions about this new state of being. And I only have some of the answers. So what do you want of me? Tutelage in your new arts? A conversational sounding board? I have no shortage of time, but you at least have duties that you've taken up so whatever it is you're after, best we not waste time in hunting for it."

"What I want?" Vaggie asked, taking a deep breath and focusing. Not on what she might have, what she could have in the future. What she wanted in her hands, today. "What I really want? I want my spear back."

Cain stared at her for a moment, then shook his head with an unhappy scowl. "I'm sorry, good anomaly of the house, that I will not just give away something of sentimental importance to me because you demand it."

"I'm not telling you to give me my spear back. I'm telling you I'm going to fight for it. And if I win, I'll have earned it," Vaggie said.

That got Cain to sit back in his chair, his face brightening as he realized the audacity of her claim. "Well well!" Cain said. "If you want it back so badly, then I name the place – the Busted Knuckle of New Purgatory, and the means – non-lethal. Have you a preference for a time?"

"Immediately. Knives are nice, but I suddenly have several thousand years of familiarity with a spear which you took from me," Vaggie said.

"Very well. Give me two hours to have lunch and inform the Showman, and we'll have our contest towards the end of the fighting docket," Cain said, rising. "You do know that you're not going to win, though?"

"I want my spear back," she said.

"Very well. I'm not going to deny you your attempt. I will see you at… oh, let's say 3:30, out at the Busted Knuckle. This should be informative, if nothing else," Cain said.

---

Chapter 57

Winner Takes All

---

Heaven was still a shithole that made Lucifer ache every time he saw it. There was just no conceivable universe in which anybody would let his homeland get this bad. But at least there was some sort of progress, as the wretched was torn down and something more serviceable put up in its place. And while Fort Abandon still expanded along its particular edge of Probity, now there was an entirely new Fort being built up on nearly the other side of the lowest Cloud of Heaven. A Fort Nemesis. Where the Goetia all got a hair up their asses about taking over the Judgement of souls from Heaven's hands.

While it was ridiculous, it was their time and their money. One dead human was just about the same as any other, in Lucifer's eyes. And for once he had no reason to qualify that with a 'Lilith exception', because as was readily apparent to anybody with eyes, Lilith was very much still alive. Of course she wasn't as worthless as all those others.

Still, though he had no love for any particular dead bastard, to see what Heaven had done to the conglomerate of dead bastards was deeply upsetting, the way that smearing cow-shit on a masterful tapestry was upsetting. Sure, they were just humans. But being a medium to inflict suffering on his homeland was unacceptable to him.

Whatever the case, there were obviously problems that only Lucifer could solve. Hell, just this morning, he'd shoved The Edge out by a foot to make sure he could fix the problem later once the fighting stopped. His Heaven was going to be better than this shameful display, Goddamn it. But with that notable quibble dealt with, he turned his attention back to what he had come up here to.

A meeting.

A boring fucking meeting, about money.

"Okay, let's just cut through all of this bullshit," Lucifer said, causing the Goetia to blanch and recoil. "I get it. You've managed to staunch the endless bleed of Heaven. Whoop-di-fucking-doo. Where are those Legions I ordered you to build?"

"I… built the legion you asked me to build," Octavia said, pointing to the dossier on the Starfire Legion. Which was a ridiculously top-heavy group that only had around five thousand actual fighters in it. What was even the point of having twenty five thousand people in an army if only a fifth of them actually put swords into the bellies of their enemies? He wasn't convinced as to their effectiveness.

"I told you to build a dozen. Where are the others?" he asked.

"...recruiting and training," she said, clearly intimidated him as was proper.

"Well, the clock is ticking, and I don't give part-marks," Lucifer said. Still, he didn't actually say that he was actually impressed by the turnaround that the child had managed to pull out of Heaven. The economic black-hole was no more, and now apparently there were Innocent, those judged good by his dumbass brothers, who were joining his underlings' Legions. How she managed that, Lucifer had only the foggiest idea.

Come to think of it, she was doing something very similar to what Charlie was doing, in retrospect. A veritable coup of proper imaging. Of getting the mob on Hell's side for once, instead of mindlessly following pissant Michael and meat-head Gabriel. Even as he continued to leaf through the summarized notes of how and why this sub-centenarian Goetia managed to pull off that fiscal miracle, he found himself wondering if maybe Charlie and Octavia had exchanged notes. Get these idiot humans on board through proper messaging and optics.

And Lucifer didn't ponder as to how much he had forfeited by refusing to view the humans as anything other than fodder for the ambitions of others. That would have required a degree of introspection that Lucifer was unwilling to entertain, least of all regarding those ludicrous apes. He refused to interface with the false memories of another life. So why would he think about humans?

Lucifer had come up here prepared to tear a strip off of this kid for wasting his time and lying to him about pulling off the impossible task he'd given her, only to find out that she'd actually managed it. And in less than five fucking years, too. Unless she had fabricated a way to lie to Naked Law itself, all of this was genuine. Heaven was making money.

"So, beyond the raising of the Meteoric Legions… what else…" Octavia began.

"If you can raise those 'Meteoric Legions' in a timely manner, we can discuss your future then," Lucifer said. And frankly, he was thinking that there was no reason to move her from right goddamned here. He'd taken a gamble on putting a child in an intractable situation and she'd fucking aced it, paying off splendidly. He'd be as big a fool as Gabriel to move her somewhere else, now. But now, he decided to throw the kid a bone. "But I will say this, you've already increased your caché with the Upper House enough that they won't bitch when I upgrade your hereditary title to Duchess and your provisional one to Archduchess. Can't have a child outranking her parents after all. They wouldn't stand for that, even temporarily. Nobody would."

"Thank you, King Lucifer," she said.

"Now, explain to me why you've got so few fighters in that fucking Legion of yours," Lucifer began to demand of her, when he felt A Power begin to resonate against the fabric of Heaven. He broke off, turning and facing it, staring through the wall as he felt the resonance of an Archangel manifesting itself most indiscreetly in Probity.

"LUCIFERRRRRRR!" the roar was attenuated by the distance, but still reached all the way into the bunker where the Goetia did her duty to the King of All Hell. "SHOW YOURSELF AND DIE!"

"Michael," Lucifer outright grinned. He turned that grin to the child. "Keep doing your job. We'll finish this later."

He flexed his will, and called to him his panoply and arms. He would have preferred to keep the Holy Sword WANT as a surprise to the nut-licker he was going to meet, but considering that the blade of Avarice was now swallowed up by it, it would ride his palm by virtue of lack of options. Then, with a pulse of drive, he moved without moving, heralded by the fluttering of an Angel's wings, to the sky above a section of the battlefront, which Gadreel had called 'The Unhallow'. Even Lucifer could tell there was something wrong with that place, though he hadn't the context that it had been, before that strange madness that had afflicted him for a short time a little while ago, it had once been far, far wronger.

There, airborne above the Unhallow was Michael, wearing his armor in gold and Prima Materia, his nameless burning blade in his hand. His six brilliant white wings flapped and flared behind him, washing the ground under him in cold, sterile light, depriving it of shadows in a most unnatural way. Lucifer, upon his appearance, spread his six black wings, and gave those shadows back, and let them go to war with Michael's oppressive light.

"I was beginning to think you were trying to avoid me, brother!" Lucifer snarled at him, grinning out at Michael as his hat faded away and was replaced by a helm, which still locked in the golden serpent Crown of the Low Throne.

"All with working minds would avoid you," Michael said, his voice sounding distinctly different. It was clearly still him, but he sounded off, rasping and gravely. Well, if he was having a bad day, then all the better for Lucifer. He'd take just as much joy in ruining him sick as he would have healthy. "You are a Poison on Creation, and I will see you extirpated."

"Look at you, breaking out your $20 dollar words when a simple 'go fuck yourself' would have sufficed," Lucifer chided.

"Go fuck yourself," Michael added, which was said with an unusual vehemence.

And then he hurled himself forward at Lucifer, his blazing sword cutting an arc through the sky, racing to cleave Lucifer in twain. He deflected the blade and allowed the Taxiarch to race past him, to expose himself to Lucifer's counter-blow which lashed out at his less-armored back. But Michael twisted even as he missed, so that the blow hit him in the kidney-plate instead of against the binds that would hold this armor on. He immediately thrusted the nameless sword at Lucifer once more, and the King of Hell darted back, easily ducking each poke, until he found the spot he wanted and flicked a counter-blow hard onto the forearm of Michael, one hard enough to break bone through armor.

Michael didn't give in to the pain, though. He pushed through. Maybe he was tougher than Lucifer remembered. Well, Lucifer refused to think on that, as he twisted his own personal Angelsong and called forth warriors made of living shadow to assail Michael and allow Lucifer to drive WANT through his eye-slit. Michael, upon seeing Lucifer's new gambit, Sang fighters made of living light into being, so that both sides would clash, the flowing shadows against the soldiers whose heads vanished into luminance.

It was closer to a stalemate than Lucifer would have liked, but he could tilt the scales in other ways. In fact, he'd gotten one of them from that Goetia he'd been talking to not long ago. So even as their Angelsung cadres clashed, Lucifer also Sang a radio transmitter into his hand. And he quickly typed in the 'grid coordinates', before tossing the device away and letting it fade out of existence. Then, he simply had to hold up the pressure, and listen.

It took about forty seconds before the whistling began, forty seconds of virtual armies clashing in the name of real ideology. And despite the fact that Michael the Taxiarch, Marshall of Heaven, was Created with the foremost military mind of Heaven (behind Lucifer's obviously), he could only hold that stalemate, not overwhelm it with superior tactics and command. Not that forty seconds was a lot of time in a donnybrook, anyway. Well, regardless, the whistling grew louder, and the grin on Lucifer's face grew wide.

Then the artillery shells began to rain down.

They pounded and churned the earth, throwing plant matter and sod flying where they burst, some of them having the superlative luck to impact directly into the soldiers of light and warriors of shadow, and erupt into shockwaves and flying shrapnel, which deflected off of Lucifer's magical wards before it even had a chance to be turned aside by his armor. Michael, who had not been expecting Lucifer to have the audacity to call in an artillery strike on his own position, had to outright fucking run away, leaving his soldiers in disarray while he Transited nearly a kilometer out of the impact point.

Lucifer laughed, as the rain of metal and high explosives fell around him. He laughed with the glee of somebody who knew that Creation was finally – finally – returning to its proper alignment. Michael was on the back foot instantly, while Lucifer could easily slip aside of the few rogue shells that might have otherwise hit him and allowing their explosions to do no more than supply a breeze against his armor.

"Running so soon, brother?" Lucifer chided. "I wouldn't have thought a little bit of steel and trinitrotoluene would've unmanned you that quickly. Not that you were ever much of a man to begin with!"

Michael responded by ripping down with his free arm, and the call of gravity became absolute, such that not even Lucifer could ignore it. But as Lucifer was right next to Michael when the pissant did so, Heaven's-biggest-douchebag (well, maybe second, because Gabriel was fighting hard for that title) was dragged down to crater into the artillery churned soil along with Lucifer. He still laughed, even as he had to dart back, Michael dedicating himself now to offence.

"That's more like it! I was beginning to fear you'd gone completely soft on me! At least make my victory over you satisfying, brother!" Lucifer taunted.

But even as Lucifer laughed, with a lightning-strike Micheal redirected a thrust that would have otherwise deflected off of the Morningstar's armor and instead drove it upward, threading the needle past Lucifer's gorget and the visor of his helm, before driving the tip of that sword up and through the meat of Lucifer's jaw, no doubt intending to spear Lucifer's skull by it.

Lucifer clamped his hand onto the blade to keep it from plunging more than three inches into his flesh, and then yanked down before trying to cleave with WANT to sever Michael into chunks, which the Taxiarch likewise caught with his gauntleted hand, but to the sound of parting metal and a dribble of golden blood. Lucifer kicked hard, sending Michael rolling back, and tried to insult him, only when he opened his mouth, his tongue fell out, cut from its root, onto the turned dirt before him.

He glared at it, then at Michael, then forced his body to have a new tongue, smiling as it returned. "So there is still fight in you. Come on, then, brother! Face the death you've been waiting for, for a FUCKING EON!"

---

Charlie had not wanted the Busted Knuckle to exist.

A fighting pit, in her New Purgatory? No thank you, said she! But more experienced and worldly heads than Charlie had intervened and reminded her that New Purgatory can only help to undo the worst of sin by giving its denizens useful, acceptable outlets for it. Hell was, by and large in its whole cloth a violent place, one that raised up, lionized, and rewarded violent people. Violence was in the veins of most in this realm. And without an outlet for the violence that the realm had injected into those denizens, they would either invent reasons to release it, or go somewhere else that didn't require of them justifications.

A licensed and regulated fighting arena was Vaggie's and Truly's attempt to square the circle between giving New Purgatory a controlled outlet for Hellish aggression and Charlie's desire for a more gentle populace. Similar to how the Fucksmith's Union had turned street-corner, pimp-and-whore prostitution into a taxable business, with its own safeguards and structure, the Busted Knuckle was Cain's side-amusement, something he dedicated his reputation, what funds of his he had recovered, and his expertise in running. Bread and Circus was a very outdated thing in Vaggie's view, but Hell seemed to enjoy it. And under Cain's watchful eye, things were kept controlled.

No taking grudges from the arena to its outside.

Obey the rules you agree upon.

No Angel Steel against Sinners, and leave the Hellborn breathing.

And finally, in obeying all the above, at least have fun and make a show if it.

While originally just a venue for the tightly wound New Purgatory denizens to unleash some regulated violence, the Busted Knuckle grew quickly beyond its original mission statement, playing host to the second largest carnival of violence this side of the Combat Zone over on Inner True West, and that was just an entire district of buildings that Vox had rigged for audio and video and paid gangs to butcher each other in.

Now, though, Vaggie was going to be stepping onto the clay of the floor on her own. A year ago, that thought would have been laughable to her. But she wasn't Vaggie of a year ago.

The hallway that led to the arena pit was a long one, and she found that Cain was waiting for her as she approached the entryway. She narrowed the one eye she had left at Cain. Ordinarily, opponents were shepherded in through opposing corridors, so that the first chance they had to fight was on the clay.

"I once again ask that you abort this," Cain said. He had eschewed his usual finery, instead opting for a kilt of leather and bronze plates, greaves for his shins and fancy sandals for his feet, otherwise going bare-chested and bare headed. His beard was furled close and clipped into place and his long hair was tied into something like a beehive knot resting on his shoulders. "It will end messily for you."

"I want my spear back," Vaggie said, choosing to stare past her opponent and make for the clay. Cain sighed, and nodded.

"Very well. You are set on this course," he said, keeping pace with her as she approached the racks of 'venue appropriate' weapons, those dulled so that they would injure without killing, and then to the 'Sinner appropriate' weapons, which had no such niceties, other than being simply made of honest iron so that the wounds they left would be Regenerated in time. And from that second rack, she grabbed a spear which more or less mimicked the one that she'd had to give up to Cain.

Cain chose a dull saber and a blunt-tipped dagger.

He then jogged a few steps ahead, so that he emerged from the corridor first, into the light and clay of the arena pit. And the instant that he appeared, the roar of the crowd out there took up and shouted his name. He turned, his arms spread wide as though already victorious, and soaked in the acclaim of the mob, turning and beckoning them to higher states of furor, until he reached the center of the arena grounds just in time for her to clear the corridor.

"Lovers of violence!" Cain called out. "Bored spectators! Frustrated members of New Purgatory! Today is a red-letter day for you! For today, you will not be watching the clash between the unnamed masses of Hell, but a challenge to the person of Cain, Terror Incarnate!"

A new roar hit the air, people standing in their seats. Cain had only stepped into the arena once since he established this place back in '26, and that was when he had been specifically called out by a champion of a tournament that Cain had just finished hosting. Cain disassembled the tournament champion in less than two minutes, to the joyful approval of the mob. They were clearly looking forward to another massacre.

"Today, I face the challenger Vaggie, Legate Damnatio of the Legion of Dawn," Cain said, with a showman's gesture toward Vaggie. And it made her feel distinctly underdressed, coming into this fight in street clothes. But considering that Cain was doing this in a skirt and sandals, maybe she wasn't as underdressed as she had feared at all. There came a few scattered boos from the crowd, jeers from people mocking somebody 'dumb enough to fight Cain'. "Now now, let's not be rude. It takes someone of uncommon spirit to issue a challenge to me! Especially after what I did last time!"

Another roar, this one of laughter, from the crowd. "Are you done?" Vaggie demanded of him.

"Have some panache, Miss," Cain chided lightly. "You are performing before a live arena audience. I hope you realize that this will be over very, very quickly."

"I bet you really believe that," Vaggie said. Cain simply shrugged, unbothered by her vehemence.

Cain addressed the mob once more. "The fight will be until incapacitation or yield, and from what I know of this lady, she is an unyielding type."

That at least got a cheer from the crowd. While they clearly saw her as a doomed idiot, at least they could appreciate her gumption. Cain turned to her. "When are we starting this?" she demanded of him.

"Take your place on yonder mark. The moment I step onto that one, then we may begin," Cain said, and began to march toward a spot on the clay where the clay changed color, a spot with uneven edges where grey became a muted brick-red. She wasted no time. Vaggie knew that this was going to be the hardest fight she'd ever had in her life or afterlife, even with her new parasitic memories involved. The angels in that other place fought like they were immortal and incapable of being harmed. Cain would give her no such openings.

Cain stepped onto the dot of red clay, and then raised his hands one more time, to a cheer of the crowd. "You may begin when ready!" he called out.

She needed no more prompting than that. Her launch tore up the clay and hurled it in a spray behind her, as she barreled toward the First of the Damned, attempting to spit and skewer him. But exactly as Vaggie would have predicted, he was able to weave and sidestep his way past her charge, then bound away as she slammed her foot into the clay and redirected herself, trying to tag him at all with her spearhead. Only once did she come close, and she could tell it was because he allowed it, the blade passing close enough to cut a few strands from his mustache.

The crowd was growing cautiously optimistic as Vaggie changed tactics. He was adaptive and had exceptional reflexes, honed in fighting Angels who actually knew what a fight really was. So instead, she tried to upset that fancy footwork of his, twirling the spear from a stab into a jab with its wooden butt into the ground between his legs so that it would snare his heel on its retreat. And for once, she managed to have an attack to go plan, Cain's effortless evasion suddenly hitting a snag and his position no longer transitioning smoothly out of her attack range.

She capitalized by twisting hard and thrusting out with her spear, aimed for center of mass not caring what she hit so long as she hit something. And again, Cain disabused her by, even as he stumbled, clamping his hand onto her spear just behind its head and yanking it with him, both to regain his footing and to drag Vaggie off of hers. Then, then his own feet were planted, he pulled even harder, and with a heave lifted Vaggie from the arena floor and hurled her hard at one of the pillars which would be, in most melees, festooned with spare weapons. Today they were benuded, host only to the impact of Vaggie's spine against the unmortared brickwork.

She gave her head a shake, to get the stun out, and hand to flop hard to the floor, because her sparring spear had been launched as a javelin toward her. But even as she landed, she gambled. At a moment that instincts she didn't know she had demanded, she reached up and slammed her fist shut. The haft of the spear was now in her grasp again, its tip a hair's breadth from breaching into the stacked bricks.

She got back up, and the crowd began to really enjoy themselves. It had become clear to the mob that she hadn't just come out here to be disassembled like an unwanted doll.

"Do you yield?" Cain asked.

"Give me back my fucking spear," Vaggie demanded.

"That's a no, then," Cain said.

And this time, he advanced, launching himself with incredible force at her. And she knew that he could redirect no matter which way she dodged… so she didn't dodge. She parried. His incoming fist, she deflected away by getting her spear-head aligned with it, giving Cain the option of impaling his fist, arm, shoulder and chest with her weapon when he nailed himself between the spear and the wall, or shifting his aim. And she'd given him no option but to shift it slightly to the right.

What would have been a brutal blow to her was instead sent straight into the bricks, outright shattering dozens of them. She darted back as he extracted his hand at a swing, his fingers closed around a brick and using it as a bludgeon. Had she managed to frustrate him? Well, she was going to capitalize on his moment of incaution, spinning her spear in her hands until she could thrust it up and at the point where Cain's neck met his shoulders. This was mere steel, after all. If she got that one critical wound in on him, the fight would be over and she'd get her spear back when he Regenerated.

But it wasn't to be. Leaning in a way that shouldn't have been that smooth and effortless, he got the spear to pass him by without even parting his skin. She was about to drag it back, to hook and tear some of his flesh, but his strange whip-like movement of his body had catapulted the arm carrying the brick to ludicrous speed, and it crashed up and into her ribs on the left side, both the brick and the ribs cracking and the force of it lifting her up and hurling her the length of the arena, to a great, triumphant cheer of the crowd.

She landed in a pile on the clay, taking the one moment she had to reclaim herself, and then reached over to where she'd dropped her sparring spear in her landing. She pushed herself up. Cain was walking toward her calmly, dusting off the rubble of the shattered brick from his hands. It hurt to breathe, but she could even still feel her Regeneration working to fix it, at a rate she'd never enjoyed before in her afterlife. While it wasn't up to the standard of the evocatively renamed Scarlet Fucker, she knew that about a minute would see her well.

"That was surprisingly adroit of you, Vaggie," Cain said. "But you are a novice at hand-to-hand combat. Even your strange affliction hasn't changed that. And I have no shortage of tricks. Or bricks, for that matter."

"I do not yield," she preempted him. Cain gave a grin and a laugh as he picked up another orphaned brick. He cast his arm wide, to the mob who watched them battle.

"She does not yield!" he shouted at them. "The audacity of this woman!"

The Mob roared its agreement with his assessment.

Cain turned to her again, his stance lowering slightly. "Very well. If you will not yield when your mind tells you you're beaten, I will make you yield because your body tells you."

---

The Unhallow turned out to be an ideal battleground for two Archangels. There were buildings visible present in the distance, titans looming above the horizon line, but for the time being, the two of them had only wildlands under their boots and no impediments in any direction. Lucifer may not have been a big fan of an 'even fight', but this fight was anything but even. He was Lucifer, God fucking damn it. Michael was at best a faint and meager reflection of him. Again and again, Michael tried to close in, to clash blades and batter his way through Lucifer's defences. And with each attempt, Lucifer would ward those attacks and finish them out with a punishment of Michael's aggression, be it a pommel-strike to the helm, be it a hip-throw into a tree, be it a massive, baseball-bat like swing of WANT into the armor of Michael that cut a divot and crumpled the plate, it didn't matter.

The fact was, Lucifer was getting the better out of every exchange.

"You haven't been keeping up, brother," Lucifer said. "I've been preparing for this rematch for the last ten thousand years, while you allowed yourself to get soft!"

"Would you please shut up!" Michael said, and there was a pulse of golden light as he launched into another flurry, but these ones battered at Lucifer's arms to an actually painful degree, ending with Michael flicking his sword upward and clipping Lucifer in the Halo with it. He felt momentarily sickened, as the already shattered remnant of the symbol of Lucifer's heavenly rightness quaked under the blow. But he didn't allow Michael to capitalize on it. And since Michael had broached the Angelic equivalent of testicle-shots in this fight, Lucifer saw no reason not to return favor for favor, clashing WANT against Michael's nameless sword and then binding them, so that for a moment, the two Archangels stood, face to armored face.

And then Lucifer twisted the sword in his grasp so that WANT ground hard against Michael's Halo. He could see sparks and flakes chipping off under WANTS avaricious edge, damaging the Halo which was the loudspeaker of Michael's power. But Michael didn't seem to care, not reacting at all how Lucifer – or in fact any Angel – ought have when their halo was assaulted. He simply pushed back, his eyes glaring from his helm as he denied Lucifer's desire to weaken and lessen him. Then, with a yank, he dragged that nameless sword down, an act which Lucifer had to dart back from.

The nameless sword gouged a thin cut into the metal of Lucifer's armor.

Lucifer glanced down at his chest, then ran a thumb along it. A quarter of an inch, no more, of deflection, and the metal parted so thin that he could at most stack five hairs in its breach. "Well that's a bit better from you. I was beginning to think that all that time up there sucking on God's chode had atrophied your arms as much as it's clearly atrophied your wits."

"Why, oh why, can you not simply shut the fuck up?" Michael demanded of him.

"So vulgar, coming from your mouth. Why, I remember the last time we crossed swords," he had to pause for a moment as Michael chose that moment to feint and then launch a trio of thrusts, all clearly intending to use the slim gouge in Lucifer's armor to plunge deeper. Lucifer darted back and to one side, finally deflecting Michael's sword-tip into the trunk of a deeply unhealthy looking tree. Michael extracted his sword by bursting the tree to flinders with a ripping swing, but Lucifer had easily flitted back by then, "you were lambasting me the entire time. Insults as to my honor, my purity, and if I recall correctly – which I do – you even doubted my paternity."

"Go fuck yourself," Michael said.

"So inarticulate!" Lucifer said, taking a moment to run his fingers along the side of WANT. There wasn't so much as a blemish on the holy sword, no point at all where the metal had bent or warped in the exchanges he'd offered. But then, Michael's unnamed sword was likewise made with Prima Materia in its forging, the Second Sword ever made, since the First was wielded by Metatron. "You've degraded in your time up there. And given the state of Heaven in the modern day, I'd say you're far from the only one who has."

"Do not speak on what you do not know," Michael snarled at him, then kicked up a spray of dirt with a foot, a distinctly heelish trick that Michael of an eon ago would never have stooped to. Still, it was child's play to lean aside and let the sod pelt Lucifer's plate, while he worked instead to deflect the swings and thrusts that Michael had leveled upon him. Lucifer felt for a moment that he had a perfect opportunity, to drub this fucker properly, and did so, first punching Michael in his visor, and then twisting away to drive a full-armed swing into the side of his helm. The helm held, sadly, but it sent Michael stumbling.

"Res ipsa loquitur, Michael," Lucifer chided, twirling his blade idly as Michael turned and readied that unnamed sword once more. "Look at what Heaven has become in the hundred centuries since I was a part of it? It's a mockery of all it was! AN INSULT TO THE HOMELAND I WAS DESTINED TO RULE!"

"Your realm is no better. A circus of…" Michael began.

"Don't you even try to compare my homeland to my kingdom, you pompous anus-licker," Lucifer cut him off. "I was given a sewer to be king of, a pit where all of your worst and foulest, all those that you can't stand to look at are dumped. The worst of humanity, dumped into my lap, and you call it a circus when it's entire state is YOUR FUCKING FAULT TO BEGIN WITH?" Lucifer demanded. "I gave them free will – at God's requirement – and look what they did with it! I was happy for them to be mindless little automatons, toys that He could use to act out His passion plays, but no. He has to give them 'a chance'…"

"You lie," Michael said. "You sinned against the Father by giving Eve the Fruit of Knowledge."

"Mother fucker who do you think demanded that I do it?" Lucifer shot back. "The only human in all creation worth the effort it took to make is Lilith, because she at least knew that God was a dumb-fuck and she was better off without Him!"

"And you gave her the Fruit anyway," Michael said, rolling his shoulders and advancing once more. Lucifer allowed the dance to continue, deflecting his probing strikes and stabs.

"Of course. Lilith's will is the most beautiful part of her. Her audacity. Her denial. To know that she can tell me no, but she choose to give to me anyway? Fucking exquisite. Incomparable."

"Spare me your lascivious pap," Michael said.

"I think that's the biggest problem with you, 'brother'," Lucifer said, as he twirled around Michael during a fraction of over-commitment and swatted him in the ass with WANT as an insult. "You've utterly refused to grow in all the time you had since last we fought. That's why this is so insultingly easy for me; in the last hundred centuries, I've been a conqueror, I've been a king, a husband to the most fuckable human in all Creation, and father to the most subtle and long-thinking daughter that my imagination can contain. And you, Michael? You're just… you."

That baited another thrust from the Taxiarch, and since Lucifer was read for it, he clamped his gauntlet around the blade and dragged it in and past, before bringing WANT hard against the bottom lip of Michael's pauldron. And exactly as Lucifer intended, the force tilted it just enough that the edge could slip under and sever the binds holding it down, before the tip quested just a touch further and gouged his right shoulder.

Michael heaved his wing over, and Lucifer was not so denying of reality to admit that he hadn't seen a wing-punch coming. Those things hurt like a bitch, to throw, because wings were sensitive organs if you weren't a lunatic like Atheed who had his covered in plates of metal, or a fucking unit like Raguel. Lucifer stumbled a few steps, blinking away the impact, because that surely had to be tortuously painful to Michael if it was even merely stunning to Lucifer.

But when Lucifer faced Michael again – the Taxiarch was currently charging him – Michael didn't seem pained in the slightest. The impact of the two resounded in the Unhallow like a pair of churchbells slamming into each other, driving Lucifer back and digging a pair of ruts into the sod where his feet dragged, before he hooked his free hand under Michael's chest and heaved back with all the might of his core muscles. He suplexed Michael over his head, and through a tree, which came crashing down sounding like wet glass rather than wood, while Michael flapped his wings and hovered in the air, glaring out of his helm at Lucifer.

"What's wrong? Can't take the slightest piece of criticism? I swear your skin is more touchy than a Succubus' clit," Lucifer mocked, kicking the dirt off of his feet and taking a more dignified pose, now that he wasn't being battered and bull-rushed. "About what I expected of Father's foremost cheerleader. An empty head and thin skin. Truly the final word in slavery."

That seemed to touch a nerve in Michael, as though Lucifer had, through sheer chance and luck in his attempts to demoralize and humiliate the Marshall of Heaven managed to find the one ragged nerve that Michael hadn't hardened in what would have been obvious preparation to fight somebody like Lucifer. Michael let out an inarticulate roar, racing down like a bullet, and Lucifer actually had to dart back and to one side, then the other, as calamitous swings of that sword sent out obsidian-sharp blades of air even after the blade ended. While such would have burst across Lucifer's armor, he didn't want to even give Michael that much satisfaction. That Lucifer had to try at all to ward the better of that flurry's blows was vexing to him. Had he underestimated Michael? Or was he simply being too lax in playing with the Archangel?

His pride demanded he believe the latter.

"Now now," Lucifer said, and then felt a grin ratchet wide on his face as a perfect opening came, and he twisted WANT in his hands so that its blade both managed to sweep a cut aside, then to thrust forward and cleave into the hinge of the visor of the helm, before a hard flick gave Michael the option of abandoning his helm, or having an eye gouged out.

Michael abandoned his helm, it being torn from his head and clattering to the dirt some distance away.

And now that he looked upon Michael, it was clear his mockery was merely a shadow of reality, of what time had done to his former 'glorious' brother.

He looked wasted and spare, as though he were starving like the denizens of Heaven. Which was ludicrous; Angels ate because they enjoyed it, not because they required nourishment. But to look at him now, was to see a sort of degeneration of what had stormed into his office all those years ago with Raguel at his side. Made lesser. Weaker. Frailer, even.

"You look like utter dogshit. Looks like I was right on the money with my presumptions," Lucifer said, while Michael shook some coherence into his sight and flicked away a dribble of golden blood from a scrape that removing the helm in that particular way had given him. "Maybe you should go rest with the cripples in Vigilance for a few decades, and maybe when you're actually ready for this fight I can knock on your door and have it in the atrium?"

"I will drive you back to the pit of punishment that was made for you," Michael rasped at him, glaring with undiluted hate. That, at long last, was something that Lucifer could appreciate. In all Lucifer's very vivid memories, the look on Michael when he looked into the eyes of the Morningstar was one of scorn, reproach, and most of all disappointment. Now, though, it was hate. Hate, was what was appropriate, no longer holding masks of any etiquette or social expectation. Michael was able to show that he hated Lucifer just as much as Lucifer hated Michael.

It must have been terribly freeing for him.

But Lucifer didn't care as to the emotional state of anybody save for himself, and if you asked really nicely, maybe Lilith. Michael could feel as free as he wanted while WANT reduced him to soup meat.

Michael gave another shout, his Angelsong growing vast and stifling, as he tried to impose his will upon the reality surrounding the both of them. But Lucifer wasn't having that shit, not by a hair, not by a half, and certainly not entirely. He raised his own Song discordant to Michael's, unraveling Michael's control over time and space and leaving it a sad waste curling away like threads burned back to the sheet by a flame. And Lucifer advanced again.

The thought of how this was clearly not Michael showing his fullest strength was not one that Lucifer allowed himself to entertain. While it was true, he instead chose to think of the gap in the capabilities between they two as a result of Lucifer's growth, rather than Michael's dissolution. After all, if he could only beat Michael because Michael had gone to seed, then that was a paltry and meager thing for one as prideful as Lucifer to think, wasn't it? No. In Lucifer's mind, Michael was still all that Michael had ever been, still proud, still arrogant, still an annoying little shit. It was just that Lucifer had eclipsed him.

Another clash of blades, as Michael charged in, using his blasting light to try to blind Lucifer as he came. Lucifer would have laughed at Michael for the folly. He was the Morning-fucking-star. Light was Lucifer's domain, not Michael's. He warded the strikes of Michael, and at a moment of overextension tried to rip Michael's femoral artery. Michael managed – barely – to turn and catch the blade on the greave before it parted too much flesh, but now there was gold running down Michael's leg like the piss he as doubtless also losing.

"Unsatisfactory form, Michael," Lucifer chided, flipping the script from a spar that they'd had more than a million years ago. "You're better than that."

"Fuck you," Michael snapped, turning and clearly favoring his leg as he kept his body just barely off the ground with his wings.

Lucifer then advanced, taking the tempo out of Michael's hands and letting WANT sing, the sound of mountain-bells clashing whenever the blades of the two Archangel's met. Until there, just there, a perfect moment, when Lucifer's blade was bound just so against Michael's, and with a twist of his shoulder he caused the blade to shift its orientation, and then with a yank, drag its edge through the flesh of Michael's face, tearing a bleeding golden channel from his temple to the corner of his mouth. Michael snarled, almost sounding feral, while Lucifer sawed the blade forward again, digging the channel deeper, past the skin and into the muscle.

But before Lucifer could saw again, to part Michael's 'glorious' face right to the fucking bone, his instincts warned him of perfidy.

He saw only for an instant, reflected between the smears of golden blood on WANT, that there was another behind him.

Lucifer front-kicked Michael down and spun, just in time to get shot in the face by a massive, massive bullet.

It felt as though somebody struck his cheek with a hammer, one that stung in a way that he hadn't experienced since his failure to on-board the Demiurge. "Fucker!" Lucifer declared, glaring at the towering form of Raguel the Godfriend. "You shot me in the face you catamite!"

Raguel then fired that massive pistol again, and the King of All Hell only partially got out of the way of it, the impact catching his shoulder and tilting him. The intruder into Lucifer's nice, fair duel stormed forward, emptying that gun to a noise like an approaching war, and by the third bullet Lucifer was able to get WANT up and have those Seraphic Steel bullets deflect off of a worthier metal than they.

"Fuck directly off, Raguel! This is between me and Michael!"

"You and he aren't the only ones requiring a rematch," Raguel said, his voice echoing like the promise of thunder. Lucifer touched his cheek, which was starting to bruise from where Raguel shot him, and gave a chuckle.

"Well, fuck it. I'll run a clinic for all of you shits," Lucifer said, as he prepared for his second, lesser opponent for today.

---

Fighting Cain was like trying to kick-box a sandstorm.

It infuriated Vaggie in a way that she wasn't entirely sure was human, that she was trying to land a hit on that old Sinner and she managed to achieve nothing. He was making a mockery of her, and the part of her that was an Angel was practically red in the face with rage over it. The others, they only had odd memories, strange recollections like deja vu in their ongoing lives. But Vaggie remembered everything, vividly as though she'd lived that life too just the day before. She would dream of a functioning Heaven, not the one that Charlie had dragged her up to see that one time that looked crumbling and grim. She would dream of Adam. She would dream of campaigns of annihilation against the dead.

How, in 2019, she'd killed 310 Sinners in the three hours she'd been killing. How she picked her targets to be challenging, rather than readily available. Raging cunts like Lute could pad their numbers all they wanted on helpless goons. Vaggie had killed Overlords.

Then she saw a kid, a Sinner who died young, run down an alley. And she couldn't kill him. Because what could a 5 year old have done so bad as to damn him? She just wanted a moment to think, to understand why that kid was even there.

She told the kid to go, while she tried to rationalize the mere existence of a child like that in Hell to herself.

And Lute was right there watching, and considered the slightest act of mercy as betrayal of Heaven.

Honestly, having her eye cut out by a saber was far less painful than having it burned out by Karasnikov, so Vaggie had the Angel trumped on that, at least.

Vaggie gave her head a shake, rubbing her brow where she'd been introduced – face first – into one of the arena pillars. Get your head back in the game, Vaggie, she told herself. You need to use everything you have if you want to beat this cocky prick.

In a way, Cain was a lot like his father Adam in how he fought, show-boating endlessly and drawing out what would have been clear kills for the sake of amusement. But even then, as Vaggie retook her stance and kicked her spear up into her hands again, she could tell there was one vast, vast difference in the Adam of the angel's memories, and her own experience with Cain.

Cain at least tried to be a better man.

"Nobody can gainsay your resolve, Vaggie," Cain said, juggling a brick to himself as she regained her footing and her stance. "But I've been doing this longer than you have."

"I remember fighting beside Angels," she said, and then lashed forward in a pair of lightning strikes. One of them, Cain leaned away from, the next he had to dart back, and the third, which she had reckoned going in would be where he retreated to, he had to ward by sacrificing that brick. The brick shattered against his side and sent him skidding to a halt a short distance away, propelled by Vaggie's now angel-fortified might.

A hush fell over the crowds, as that was the closest she'd come to a hit since this shameless display began.

Then Cain stood up again, and clapped eagerly. "Ah, so there is some experience you can draw from. Still, you're untested. Not used to fighting against something that can fight back," he said.

"I want my spear back," she snarled at him.

"Come and earn it," Cain said brightly, beckoning her in. And when she rushed again, she drew from the most 'recent' of the memories she had from that madness that had changed her. Of a second fight against the merciless bitch who had gouged out that Vaggie's eye. And in recollecting those, she saw the mistakes she was making now. She was treating Cain like an other Sinner. Like a target. Like meat to be cleaved. She ought to be treating him like an Angel.

So she paused in her assault, remembering the footwork that she'd had to adapt into to fight first those so-called Exorcists and then to kill Lute. To be an Angel was to attack as though nothing could harm you. So she would awaken him to the reality of an Angel-killing form that she had invented herself, once Carmine pointed out that it was possible.

She didn't rush, this time. Her feet dug into the clay, giving her time to look at his stance, at his kinematics. His stance was moot, because he could instantly move into any stance he wanted. But his body, arranged as it was, would make him slow in moving to his left, at least for a moment. But he knew that. And since she wasn't going to mind-game herself with a barrage of he-knew-she-knew-he-knew's she stopped the penetration there and knew that the left-paucity was a triple bluff. Not just that he wasn't weak in his left, or that he was but was pretending that he wasn't, but that he wasn't, and was pretending that he was pretending that he wasn't.

So she did something rather brazen. And instead of trying to stab him, the instant the distance was right, she choked up on the spear just behind the head and twirled with a dancer's move – learned from Carmilla Carmine herself – that turned the haft of the spear into a long bludgeon, one that, finally, Cain didn't see coming to dodge.

His attempt to dash back was intercepted by a pillar of wood crashing into his liver, which finally knocked that smug look off of his face. And to take further advantage of it, she clutched low and heaved forward, driving the plain butt of the spear into his ribs. He turned as he stumbled back a few steps, looking genuinely surprised, before that smile returned.

"Well! That shows what I know about old techniques!" Cain said. The crowd almost drowned him out, even as Vaggie got her spear back into a more conventional stance. He finally gave her the basic dignity of drawing his blade – a saber very similar to Lute's – and holding it out at his side. "Let's see you show me something new!"

He was an unconventional fighter, far stranger than any she'd fought before, in either life. And now that he was on the attack, she had to use all of the defensive form that she had learned to kill Angels with. Using the extra reach of her spear to keep him out of carving range, to leverage his sword out of her path. Her fast reflexes answering thrusts of his own weapon with thrusts of hers. And the crowd was loving it, now that Cain wasn't just showing off but, to their eyes, actually closing in on the kill. They would be surprised, though, when it wasn't Vaggie who fell.

He was shepherding her toward one of the pillars, to hem her in. Laughable. Both from her brief 'tutelage' under Carmine and the repeated attempts by her former 'sisters' to kill her, she learned very well the importance of mastery of terrain. So when she was pushed back against the wall, she started to walk up it. Not to the pillar's cap, but far enough that even Cain had a moment of pause seeing her scale the thing with the contemptuous ease of a mountain goat, before she launched off and thrust hard, forcing the two to reverse their places, with Cain now backed, even for a moment, against the pillar. And he laughed at her. Laughed!

"Fantastic! I was hoping to see some unorthodoxy out of you!" Cain cheered, even as he deflected her attempts to nail him to the pillar with her spear. He was just frustratingly hard to pin down. Like, as she had earlier thought, kick-boxing a sandstorm.

And she knew that she wasn't going to get anywhere by sticking to the safe and the sane. Any fight against Cain was one where insanity was leveled against insanity, and whoever's madness had more skill behind it won. It didn't help Vaggie that Cain had a hundred centuries, near enough, of experience riding that madness. So if she needed to change it up… what did she have to do it with? She was bare foot, not wearing armor because even in her parasitic memories she recalled that every attempt to armor up before a fight ended badly for her. All she had was an eyepatch, a dress, and her borrowed spear, which Cain took that moment to grab just behind its head, and then heave, hurling her across the arena.

She rolled to a stop, somehow retaking her feet on sheer instinct and spare momentum, and then had to lean aside as her own spear was launched at her, and with her new reflexes she only just managed to lean aside from it and have it lance the place she had been standing, instead of the one where she was. And Cain was beginning to jog toward her, swishing his saber as he came. She couldn't face him bare-handed, not and have any hope of winning. So she backpeddled until she found the haft of her spear with her heel. It was a flick of her toes which brought it up to her grasp, and even as she leveled ahead of her, she could see that there was a tiny bend in the tip of it.

Vaggie was running out of time, which was one of the few resources she had. So she decided to do something that was on-the-face-of-it stupid, and feint into a place which even a Cain a tenth of his aptitude would be able to defend against. And exactly as she expected, he twisted and cut with that dull-edged blade, shattering the haft where his earlier deflections had weakened the wood. But rather than retreat or dodge, as Cain would likely have expected, Vaggie did something nuts. She charged in. His eyes widened just a bit, as she swung the chunk of wood still in one hand as a truncheon, and caught the tumbling blade-end and raced it downward. She knew which he would be forced to prioritize blocking. Even a bent spear tip was still sharp.

The saber raised to keep that spear from skewering him, and he flicked out his elbow to prevent her haft-stick from clubbing him in the already Regenerated ribs. But that was the next-to-last layer of her deceptions. She never intended to hit him with the truncheon.

Just to get her hand next to his belt, where he let his dirk hang.

He was about to slash down at her, to likely cave in her collar bone, when she pulled his own knife from his belt and slammed it up and into his chest. Even a blunted parrying dagger, with the force she put behind it, was able to part skin and break bone.

He twisted, missing his shot at her as she spun away. She was about to try to thrust at his other side, which was still barely protected and nail his other lung. But the instant that she'd parted his skin, he stopped toying with her.

With movements almost too fast to even see, Cain effortlessly disarmed her of her spear-head, her wrists aching with brilliant pain from the strike he'd delivered to have the haft drop from her useless fingers. Then, with that dropped to the ground, he somehow grabbed her by the side of the neck and with force beyond any that either life of Vaggie had ever experienced hurled her to the clay. She hit the base of the Arena so hard that it actually caused a small indent to form there. And even as she tried to turn, to defend against what was coming next, when she suddenly felt a knee on her back, crushing the breath out of her lungs. A fist closed in her hair and pulled her head back; it was either allow it or have a huge amount of it ripped out at its root. And then the sword was there, its dulled edge resting against the side of her throat.

The crowd went fucking wild.

There was a moment of bitterness that radiated out in Vaggie. All that extra power and she still wasn't even close to meeting Cain on equal terms.

"That was surprising," Cain said, and then he thrust the sword into the ground next to her face and released his grip on her hair. He took her by her armpit, and pulled her up to her feet, finally allowing her to pull in a needed deep breath. The crowd was screaming as though they'd just all won a lottery, and flowers and coins were being thrown from the stands into the clay of the arena. Cain held up a hand.

"I have proven myself still the greater fighter!" Cain projected hard, barely beating the crowd but getting them to finally realize that now was the Cain Is Talking part of the spectacle. "But let us hear it for the Mixed Blood Consort! Let us hear a call for the Protector of New Purgatory!"

And the crowd cheered.

For her.

Cain turned away from them, facing her with a more sedate look on his face. "How?" she asked of him. He blinked at her, and then extracted the dulled dirk from where she'd thrust it into him.

"How did I beat you? Experience and ruthlessness. Both of which you lack, but I see no reason why you should try to gain the latter. I hear from your comrades that your other self was doomed by her mercy. Do not make a mockery of that good deed, even if another woman with your name did it.

"But… I'm sort of an Angel, now!" she said.

"Humans always had it in them to surpass their Angelic counterparts," Cain said. "Most simply never try to, or don't last long enough to attain mastery sufficient to task. Had you fought the me at the time of my arrival in Hell with the skill you showed today, you would have pounded me into the dirt like a tent-peg. Humans are masters of mastery, beyond anything an Angel can match."

"So this was a waste of time and sweat and bruises," Vaggie said bitterly.

"Quite the contrary. You managed to make me spill my blood to any degree. The last time a Sinner – or indeed something like a Sinner – managed that was when the Glimpse was masquerading you back at the beginning of the war. And before her, good God. It had to have been centuries," Cain said brightly, even though the wound he motioned toward was already closed and healing over.

"So you're… impressed? With that?" she asked, pointing at the crater he'd made of her.

"I'm impressed that you are learning. That you are undertaking that most fundamental of human aptitudes; of getting better at a thing," Cain said. "And I think such advancements require reward."

"Wait… what?" she asked.

"Your harpoon," Cain said. He paused, then faced the crowd. "Betting booths and refreshments will remain open until midnight! Next, a grudge match between Isaac Iron Jaw and The Tiger of the Caucasus!"

Then, as the crowd's noise dropped to the dull hubbub of them taking an intermission to take a piss, get some food, or collect whatever wagers they'd put on this fight. Then, Cain laid a hand on Vaggie's shoulder, and she heard a loud, almost calamitous bang, and they were back in the Hotel, in Cain's Trophy Room. It was a much reduced thing from what he'd had in his own manse, but still played host to that which he still considered dear and sentimental to him.

"Could have warned me. I was willing to walk," Vaggie said.

"Showmanship, my comrade," Cain said with a flaring of his hands. "I wonder how much money people got betting on you."

"None. I lost," Vaggie said.

"Ah, but that wasn't what they were betting on. They were betting on two things; how long you would last, and if you'd draw so much as a drop of blood from me. And on both counts, you did rather splendidly."

"Because you were fucking with me," Vaggie pointed out. Cain shrugged.

"Is a man not allowed to have fun?" he asked, then pulled a harpoon down from the wall and presented it toward her. "Your harpoon, returned."

Vaggie stared at it.

"This isn't my spear," she said, finally realizing it. This harpoon was somewhat like a gaff, meant to dig into flesh and then rip when it was pulled out. Her own spear had what was called by the Seraphim of Forges a 'shuttle' tip, roughly A-shaped with hooks reaching out past where the haft connected to the metal.

"...this is the spear I collected from the Glimpse. Are you certain?" Cain said, raising an eyebrow.

"This is a Gaff. I had a Shuttle," Vaggie said. He stared at her blankly. "They're different kinds of spears intended for different targets. I… The me that lives here didn't get the one I actually have experience with."

"So you had a spear like the one you took into the Arena?" Cain said, putting what she'd later learn was a gift from Forfax to Cain back onto its display rack. She told him that was accurate. He frowned, then raised a finger to his lips. "I think I know where you'll find it. But it won't come cheap."

Vaggie stared at him, then groaned. "We're going to Carmine, aren't we?"

"We are going to Carmilla, yes," Cain said.

---

Well, if all of Lucifer's enemies were going to line up for him to kill them, who was he to say no? Raguel stomped forward, his armor washing the ground with faint golden light, standing nearly twice Lucifer's height now that he had released all strictures on his body. Even Gabriel wasn't that vain, as to bloat himself in up like that blind idiot Goliath.

He was even considering giving God's biggest lickspittle a lacerating verbal barb to that effect when Raguel held his hand out and summoned the Throne-Sword Diligence, and its blade ignited with silvery fire the instant his fist closed on its hilt. Then, with a blur of headache-inducing white light and the flapping of six silver wings, Raguel launched himself forward.

Lucifer prepared to parry and deflect the attack away. After all, Raguel might look like a big man, but for all his bluff and bravado he was weak. Weaker than Michael, certainly.

Only not.

When Diligence slammed into WANT, the impact lifted Lucifer from his feet and hurled him backward, shattering his way through dead trees and battering his flesh through his armor until he was able to spread his own wings and catch himself. Where the fuck had that come from?

Lucifer didn't have a chance to wonder long, for Raguel raced forward, the still-falling detritus of Lucifer's involuntary transformation from heir-to-God into missile rebounding off of him as he lashed down with a sweeping cut that reached out a great scourge of flame, one that Lucifer had to side-step lest it sweep over and consume him. He gave his shoulder a twist, feeling the discomfort there, and gave Raguel a smug look.

"Well, never let it be said you lacked all showmanship," Lucifer said.

Again, Raguel refused to deal with Lucifer's words, continuing to storm up, his feet sending quivers through the dirt as he approached and his swings of Diligence so monumental that Lucifer reckoned that only Gabriel could hit harder. And that spoke volumes as to the state of Heaven that in the atrophy that Michael lived with as Lucifer grew greater, Raguel had taken his thrashing at Lucifer's hand as impetus to finally grow stronger. The blows that Lucifer deflected with WANT sent painful shudders up his arms, every cut by Raguel attempting not just to kill him to to destroy him.

"Have I struck a nerve, Godfriend? You're showing a lot more backbone here than I recall you showing on the fields of Generosity!" Lucifer gave Raguel the sliver of commendation that such growth deserved.

"I fought you on Generosity poisoned and deluded," Raguel said, then with a deeply un-Angelic grunt he swung Diligence all the harder, and the impact of it again lifted Lucifer from his feet and hurled him to one side. This time, since he wasn't caught completely by surprise by it as he was the first time, he was able to halt his launch without knocking down an eighth of the Unhallow's trees in doing it. "Now, I am sober and sane."

"Still holding a grudge over that little trick I played? Get over yourself, IT WAS WAR!" Lucifer shouted at him, trying to shake feeling back into his arms. Mother fucker Raguel was hitting like a goddamned beast right now. "The only thing which matters in war is who wins. Everything else is justified!"

"There are means too costly," Raguel said, stabbing Diligence into a tree next to him so that he could swiftly reload that ludicrous pistol of his. "And the ends do not save them."

"Then you're still a hopeless idealist," Lucifer said. "The ends are everything. The only factor which matters is power. Power to create, power to destroy, power to control. And I had that ultimate power, which made you all envious! YOU ENVIED ME!"

"I envy you nothing," Raguel said, tearing Diligence free of its temporary scabbard. "You had all that God could have ever given you, and you always wanted more. You, the brightest of us, were never satisfied until you had everything, and then everything beyond everything. How much would you devour before your hunger was sated, Lucifer?" The last words coming out as a roar.

"EVERYTHING, yes!" Lucifer said. "I am owed everything! I was created to be the Heir of Heaven, and that means everything is by rights mine!"

"The only one calling you heir of heaven is you," Raguel said, and racked the slide back on that ridiculous pistol against the crook of his elbow. "And all with eyes and hearts know you cannot hold that throne."

He raised that gun and fired, and this time, Lucifer was able to get WANT into the path, deflecting the Angel Steel bullet before it could plug him. Not that it'd do much more than hurt. He'd already gotten tagged in the face by those things and they didn't break his skin (although he refused to interface with the fact that his cheek was still swollen and painful, as no magic in Creation could heal that injury until its time had run).

"Where did you even get that laughable piece?" Lucifer mocked. "I thought you were above 'a coward's weapon', eh brother?"

Raguel didn't raise to Lucifer's bait, continuing to fire until the magazine was empty again, and then he dropped the pistol, rushing the closed distance he'd managed while forcing Lucifer onto the defensive. In melee, though, Lucifer was still the superior. Raguel had been made strong by his outrage, but Lucifer still held every advantage in skill and speed. After all, Raguel was a talker and a conciliator by nature. And Lucifer was, by his nature, a king.

It didn't help Lucifer, though, to kill the oaf. Raguel had chosen with the beginning of the War For Heaven to exchange a red robe for the comprehensive armor that he wore even to this day, a panoply that covered his every broad surface in slightly curved plates, its every joint with a double-thick layer of hauberk mail, and even the face of his helm was secured against opportunistic stabs – such as the one that Lucifer sent at him right now – by a featureless face-plate that only allowed his glowing white eyes to burn out from. Lucifer tried all of his murder-blows, the ones that he had learned from Azrael back when the Firstborn was the only Death's Chosen in those days before Gadreel caught Death's attention also, but they all found impenetrable Prima Materia, both in deflecting plates and snagging rings.

And Raguel was not a complete dunce of combat, unfortunately. While Lucifer would have loved dearly to style on Raguel a second time as he had the first, the realities of the fight he was in didn't allow him to be so brash. Raguel's speed was increasing, as though his fury were even now mounting higher and higher. And with each, swifter blow, the gap between Lucifer's vaunted skill and Raguel's infirmity narrowed.

Lucifer was retreating, now. He didn't like to admit it but that was the hand Reality dealt. To backstep as terrible blows lashed out from the Godfriend, every one that Lucifer had to parry causing his arms to jolt and sing with pain. His shoulders were knots of stabbing pain with every impact twisting torn muscles and taxed ligaments. And while Lucifer could abandon this body and form a new one, it wasn't a good option for two reasons. First, the matter he formed these bodies from was plentiful in Hell, but up here? A far rarer, and thus slower, process, which may leave him vulnerable.

And secondly, and by far more importantly, Lucifer's pride was on the line. He wanted to kill these people with the least of his options, to show them they needed humility before the rightful King of Heaven.

But all of Lucifer's vanity was failing before Raguel and his stunning blows, his hastening movements. And then there came a breaking point, a moment of crystal clarity like hearing a champagne flute shatter against marble in pristine silence. A moment when Lucifer's tired arms and nearly numbed hands finally failed him, and a deflection by WANT of the Throne Sword lacked that extra twist of skill that Lucifer ought to have given it. WANT was ripped from Lucifer's hands, sent racing up into the sky in a broad arc.

Just for a moment, an unmanful and shameful moment, Lucifer felt in his heart an ember of fear. Not of Raguel. Raguel would never draw that out of him. No, he felt fear because he saw, in Raguel, an echo of the Demiurge, and the fury that had demolished much of Lucifer's palace six years ago.

So Lucifer tensed his will, and Transited.

He wasn't running away, of course. He wasn't a coward. He was going to where his sword was flying. And while the old saying went that a falling blade has no handle, Lucifer refused to be a slave to old saws. He managed to snag it by its cross-grip and settle it into his hands, staring down at the strange, unnatural ground of the Unhallow and at Raguel glaring up at him. "Did you really think it would be that easy, lap-dog?" Lucifer shouted down at him, taking a moment to force his body back into a better condition. That it obeyed him, and erased the damage that Raguel had done to his arms and shoulders was reminder in truth that whatever rage the Godfriend had, he was no Samael.

Raguel launched himself upward with a beat of his wings, accelerating to intercept and continue his duel with Lucifer now in the sky. A venue which Lucifer had a distinct advantage in speed and dexterity. But he didn't even have a chance to level his playing field, because Michael streaked up and drop-kicked Raguel out of his interception.

"HE IS MINE! MINE TO KILL!" Michael roared at Raguel.

"Brother, what are you doing?" Raguel demanded, flapping to a halt a short distance away.

"I am the Heir of Heaven, and it is my job to purge its vermin!" Michael said. Wrongly, but he at least had the audacity to put it to words.

"Incorrect, but I commend your spirit," Lucifer chided, and then immediately had to duck and wave as Michael launched himself in a fairly maniac charge, his nameless blade blazing and trying to tag him, every single blow intended to cut the King of Hell's throat, to gash out his wrists, to sever wings, or to put out his eyes. And Lucifer was able to dodge it all, because it was like fighting himself. And the only useful training partner that Lucifer had had in the last eon was his own shadow.

Of course, his moment of ease and style was lost when Raguel barged in, his own attacks lacking the same cruel craft but sweeping with terrible weight regardless. Diligence was a long blade, after all, the kind that was as tall as Lucifer was, but Raguel held it in one hand regardless. While Lucifer could taunt and ridicule Michael, Raguel required actual response, and every shuddering parry or tendon-ripping deflection was divinely painful.

But the fight didn't turn out as Lucifer feared it might, being forced to contend with an ascendant Raguel as well as a finally-honest-with-himself Michael, because after a few metal buckling blows that sent Lucifer spinning away, he stabilized himself just in time to see Michael lash out with his blade, but not at Lucifer. No, he struck at Raguel.

"Brother, have you lost your senses?" Raguel demanded, as he kept the nameless sword of Michael at bay with the longer lever that was Diligence.

"He is mine! Mine and none other!" Michael roared at him, before casting out a hand, and causing Raguel to freeze in place, before the white of his armor started to bleed with reds, and an event horizon of a Grand Seal began to show itself. Michael turned to Lucifer, his eyes now positively aflame with hate that had gone over the edge into insanity. Lucifer could only grin.

"Then come and claim me, clod," Lucifer taunted.

And that was all the impetus that Michael needed to hurl himself heedless into battle, swinging faster and faster now as Raguel had, as his rage and hate began to empower him beyond his Angelic limits, but still not even close to being what the Justice of God was managing. In its way, it was something of a shame. Even as their blades ground against each other, sending off magnesium-like sparks of light where layers of atoms were peeled from the edges of each blade, Lucifer knew that he was not only winning in this fight, but outright victorious.

Michael had nothing new to show him.

No new defiance, no evolution. Just the same, inglorious clod of dirt that the Father had sung into being and then stopped caring about. Never changing, never growing, never advancing. Just the same old Michael that he had always been. The only difference between then and now was that Lucifer had, at long last, gotten Michael to drop his mask and admit that, even at his best, Michael was just an inferior version of Lucifer himself.

Lucifer had been Made to rule. Made to be a King of Heaven. And Michael? He'd been Made for no reason at all.

And frankly, Lucifer was getting bored.

He swept the blade of the Holy Sword Want and broke through Michael's defenses one more time, just as easily as before, driving that nameless sword down and away, leaving it barely in the bootlick's grasp of one hand, before twisting his own blade and lashing down with a ruinous crunch, driving the edge of Want down against Michael's armor just aside where the gorget met the disassembled pauldron. And without the shining, contiguous plates of Prima Materia to prevent WANT's hungry edge from eating deeply, it plunged past the mail of rings, past the padded leather jerkin beneath them, and then past skin, muscle, and bone.

Michael howled in pain, the arm and one of his six wings on that side falling dead as all structural support of it was severed with the shattering of his scapular at the back, and a great pulse of golden blood raced out to spatter Lucifer. Only… the blood wasn't golden. Not entirely. It was dull and discolored like crusty mustard. To see that coming out of Michael was a shock unlike all shocks; the last time he'd been this revolted by something was… frankly he didn't know when. It was like Michael's blood-vessels were running with pus and sewage instead of blood!

There was a breaking noise, and Lucifer looked up just in time to see that Raguel had broken Michael's Grand Seal and swung a great baseball-bat swing of Diligence at Lucifer, intending to cut him in half at the waist. And Lucifer had exactly enough time to rip the blade out of Michael – tearing the befouled wound wider as he did – to block the thing, and be sent rocketing through the air, one of his arms outright breaking under the force.

He crashed into a building which he hadn't noticed earlier, a nail of Angel Steel driven into the dirt of the Unhallow, with such force that the thing was ripped from its base and collapsed. He also felt a few of his vertebra snap, but he fixed those with a twist of his Song and quickly retook the air. Michael descended, his body broken and his will battered. Raguel was approaching, though.

And then there was another flutter. Then another. First bare-chested ox-brain Gabriel, then the twenty-foot titan Raphael appearing forming a triangle surrounding Lucifer. "This ends now," Raguel demanded.

"...I don't think so," Lucifer said. "You had to go and ruin my duel. Fucking kill-joys, the lot of you."

And then, with a laugh, he allowed his body to dissolve into ichor and flame, burning away until he returned his True Self to Hell, and left all of those humorless arse-wipes floating there with their dicks in their hands.

Then, with his body restored, he wafted it through the Hellportal and returned to his Governor's office, remanifesting himself only with his armor and arms left behind in Hell. The Goetia he'd put in charge started at his sudden reappearance. "King Lucifer?" she asked.

"My brothers are a bunch of fuck-heads who wouldn't know fun if it bit them on the dick," Lucifer groused. He snapped his fingers at her, taking a moment to remember what they'd been talking about when he arrived up here. "Yes yes, the budget. Heaven's making money. Just get your fucking legions together and I'll see to it that you're rewarded appropriate to your successes."

"...thank you, King Lucifer," the Goetia said.

"Damned right, thank you," he said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm frustrated to hell and my dick is hard, so I'm going to go visit Lilith to do something about both of those."

---

The Armory of Zagan was a building right on the edge of True East where Pentagram City ended and the suburbs began. Vaggie knew it better than she thought she ought, knew how inside there was that grand hall where she'd gotten her shit kicked in by Carmilla in another life to prove how Angels weren't invulnerable. Only this building was… well… bigger. As though the compound she had built then had been added to by another, far wealthier power. Which Vaggie through cultural osmosis had learned was that of Zagan, the Goetia of Craft and Transformation.

"Carmilla, are you in, today?" Cain asked at the doors, glancing over to a camera which pivoted to look at the two of them. There was a long silence. Cain turned to her. "Hrm. She might be at a convention. I know there is a proffer being set up for some aristocratic–"

Cain was cut off when the door opened, and revealed Odette Carmine, Carmilla's more studious daughter. She walked up to Cain, looking him up and down. Then she pulled him into a hug and a kiss that was just this side of pornographic.

Terror Incarnate was the first to pull back from that, grinning wide. "Well hello, Odette! So pleased that you remember me after my long inaction!"

"Oh, as though any of us would forget you," she said, hugging him tight. "Why didn't you come sooner?"

"Sooner?" Cain asked, extracting himself from the other Sinner's arms.

"When you woke up!" Odette said, giving him a light punch in his chest.

"Ah. Well," Cain gave a sheepish look. "You and yours had nothing of mine that I wanted returned, and I recall how your father prefers to keep only the company of his family."

"Holy Shit, is that you, Cain?" Clara's voice came from the compound. Then she ran forward and tackle-hugged Cain, likewise snogging on him like their plane was going down. That drew a look of most-distinct ire from Odette, who now stood back with a grimace on her face.

"So good to see you again! Have you kept up your painting?"

"I got bored of it," Clara said.

"Cain… what the fuck?" Vaggie asked.

"Ah, where are my manners? These are Clara and Odette, Carmilla's daughters."

"You fucked both of Carmilla's kids?" Vaggie clarified. Cain shrugged. "At the same time?"

Now Cain looked mildly aghast. "Don't be obscene. No, they were separate trysts several decades apart," he then turned to the women who had parted back from him but now stood bristling toward each other. "I would have thought three centuries would have smoothed over this childishness. You've been here longer than most. Where is that maturity I so admired in you, Odette?"

"What, are you calling me immature?" Clara demanded.

"Comparably, but not absolutely," Cain said. Clara glared hard at him, now. "But this reunion is beside the point. Are your parents willing to talk to the man who made their livelihoods possible?"

"Fine. They're in the Fabricatory," Odette said, and turned on her heel to lead them into the building. Vaggie turned a look to Cain.

"Really, Cain?" she asked, quietly.

"They are far older than they look, and than Clara acts," Cain mentioned. "Like I said before regarding Niffty; my partners must be cognizant, eager, and exceptional. I am not so debased as to rob a cradle to slake my urges."

"Hell is fucking weird," Vaggie muttered, as Odette loaded the three of them – for Clara had peeled off and refused to join them on their march – into an elevator. The elevator went down, but not very far, before opening into a clear workshop area. Cain spent the entire time making small-talk with Odette.

"I was wondering about that; you had a nervousness about you. What did Alastor have to tell you?" Cain asked.

"Things I'd rather not think about," Odette said, dragging Vaggie back into their conversation as they navigated the workshop toward the back, where the doors were closed and industrial in scale. "I thought I understood what the Radio Demon was. When he came to this building… he proved I didn't know squat."

"I'm afraid that is very much par for the course with that unholy fiend," Cain said. "And your mother took his words badly?"

"She's been spending so much time around Stepdad since Alastor fucked off. I have to think she did," Odette said.

"If you ever need help against him, you need only call. The bonds between the Carmine Family and Cain have not decayed nearly so badly as for me to ignore them," Cain offered.

"If Alastor ever comes back here, ever again, I will take you up on that," Odette said. And she seemed deeply disturbed at thinking about the implications. It was just as well, Vaggie had little patience with Alastor's antics on the best of days. And when he just stood by and let Charlie's dream be curb-stomped during the Harrying, any whisper of good-regard that may have been clinging like laundry-lint to her psyche was finally ripped clean and flushed down the toilet, where it belonged.

They opened the those great bulkhead doors, and beyond were revealed Carmilla, her white hair gathered up into horn-like hives, while Zagan made his looming, gryphon-bodied form look almost comical in how it was hunched over, and his two sets of human arms delicately worked tools so small that they would be the equivalent of Vaggie trying to do surgery with toothpicks. Zagan's face had a pair of goggles on it, with layers of lenses offering magnification as he manually cut using hand-held tools a processor chip onto silicon and copper.

"Cain?" Carmilla said, turning away from her husband to face him.

"Good day, Carmilla! A pleasure as always to see you," he said.

"What do you want, Cain?" she said, obviously not best pleased to see him. Considering he'd fucked both of Carmilla's daughters, Vaggie could understand the sentiment.

"A word with your husband and you, if you would please?" Cain asked. She laid a hand on one of Zagan's shoulders, and he looked up, shifting the lenses up like a helm-visor and offering an awkward smile at Cain having now seen him. It was so strange, that Zagan looked like a terrifying gryphon-human hybrid, but was, by all accounts, something of a big old nerd.

"Cain! I was wondering when you'd show back up."

"I'm sure you were," Cain said, moving up to shake one of Zagan's hands. "I was looking for something. Do you think you might have one in stock?"

"I have a great many things," Zagan said.

"An Exorcist Spear," Cain began. Zagen shrugged.

"Not as many as I used to. Many got melted down. What pattern?" Zagan said.

"Shuttle," Cain said. Zagan paused, then moved over to a crate labled 'loose' and began to dig through, throwing the scrap of destroyed Exorcists and their abandoned weapons out on to the floor, before he gave an 'aha!' and extracted a weapon that Vaggie recognized instantly. "Shuttle tip, a popular pattern for soft-targets. Hooks for ripping wounds, moderate weight allowing for use as a javelin up to 30 yards. A decent weapon. I prefer the Lance tip, though."

"Lance makes wounds too small," Vaggie said, almost on reflex. "Even a Sinner can survive getting stabbed four or five times with one, while one good hit by a Shuttle will kill them."

"She knows her angelic weaponry," Zagan said brightly. "What's this about?"

"She's earned a reward from me by impressing me with her skills," Cain said. "And she wanted as prize a Shuttle-pattern Spear."

"Oh, well, certainly. You're welcome to it," Zagan said, handing the thing over, even as Carmilla cleared her throat very, very loudly. "What is it, my love?"

"A spear in that condition is worth one point one million Souls," she said.

"I'm sure our finances can float that," Zagan said with a dismissive gesture, making Carmilla scowl all the harder. It was clear to Vaggie at least that the only reason the two of them weren't living in a cardboard box was because while Zagan was good at making infernal weapons, Carmilla was exceptional at selling them.

"Could we call it an even one, in the name of good history between us?" Cain asked, extracting several wads of Soul-bills marked with Lilith's sultry face.

"There is history between us. You can call it good if you must," Carmilla said. She turned a look to Vaggie, and her eyes narrowed a bit. That made Vaggie stand a little straighter. In a straight fight, she had memory of being unable to beat Carmilla, but that didn't mean that she was going to flinch and scuttle like a beaten dog. "Fine. Just allow me to do my part in our business, my husband, while you do yours."

"Of course, of course," Zagan said, cupping Carmilla's cheek with one of his hands briefly. Then he turned to Cain with guileless excitement on his face. "Do you want to see what I've been working on lately? It might even flip the table on the whole industry!"

"Well, you've piqued my curiosity. By all means, show me, Zagan," Cain said, as Carmilla somewhat begrudgingly handed the spear over to Vaggie. And it was exactly how her muscle-memory recalled it, identical to the gram and to the millimeter. It felt as though she'd been missing a hand her entire afterlife and only now got it back.

"I hope," Carmilla said as Odette joined Cain and Zagan, "that you've taken those lessons we remember to heart. Hell will need them."

"...I think we all will. Heaven and Hell both," Vaggie admitted.

---

"There's an old cliché, 'waiting with bated breath', that seems to describe the end of 2028 fairly perfectly. Everybody knew that something big was happening. Michael suddenly active again after three years in seclusion up in Heaven. Hell completing the encirclement of Fort Last Light on Cloud One. The streets of Moscow running red with oligarch blood. In Heaven, Hell, and Earth, everybody knew some major, major event was coming. It was a static in the air. A buzzing on the edge of hearing. A song only half heard and half remembered, but nevertheless growing louder. A song of disaster. A song of ruin.

I know that I had something of a sheltered life. As the second Nephilim of the modern age, born to an Ars Goetia and a Hellish Overlord, I was bound to be, but that still didn't blind me to the realities of the world I was born into. I would even claim that my arrival was one more artillery shell being fired into the foundation of Creation's status quo. Creation could abide a single freak of nature, an anomaly, a unique new-Nephilim in its rogue's-gallery of madness, because it only claimed to be that; an outlier and unreproducable fluke. My birth? It showed that the fluke was replicable. It showed that the status quo people presumed immutable was illusory.

What I can say, though, is that I wasn't the spark that set off the chain-reaction that ripped Creation practically in half. I was just another sub-explosion, born from the butterfly-effects of shifting magical politics in Hell. Just think: If Blitz Miller hadn't gone to war with Lucifer's most-previous Proxy, would Krieg Miller have ever come to Pride Ring, and made the magic that resulted in my conception and birth possible? Probably not. All of life is those ripples from the stones of random choices being hurled into the pond of the real. I was born after the largest single political upset in both Hell and Heaven. My job, if it was anything, was to help those who were still left in the aftermath pick up the pieces of what was broken.

…

What does that have to do with anything? Do you think I have God on speed-dial or something? If you want that answered, to the Embassy and ask it for yourself."

– Cadence Carmine, Second Nephilim of the modern age.