Streets of Hope

"We ask the Conclave to check on his stand-in," replied Eustace, who took the pair back to the elevators they'd taken to reach the front lobby. Then followed a ride down to the basement level of the hotel, and more brisk walking across the harshly-lit expanses of the maintenance corridors that lead to the complex's obviously borderline industrial-size laundromat. If several hundred rooms and two dining rooms needed regular upkeep, a few rows of standard washers and dryers wouldn't have cut it. One of Eustace's own coins allowed for a metal door's peeping slat to slide, for heavy latches to be undone, and for the Hellfire Club to open itself to its newest visitors.

You could've expected career Infernalists to have turned a common study space into a musty man-made cavern of books and ritual-related implements, but Minerva Devlin, Otto Geier and their peers obviously had refined tastes, and enough remaining sanity to drape the Dark Arts in the exact kind of sultry refinement that a certain warthog would have adored. The Hellfire Club was, as it turned out, an actual lounge, complete with bartender and slinking patrons in twilit leather and designer cocktail dresses. A singer-pianist duet on the far stage produced airy jauntiness along the lines of Diana Krall's peppier tracks, and laughter occasionally punctuated conversations that seemingly varied between the dreadfully serious and the bubbly and casual. From the look of things, nobody here had overt signs of having traded bits of themselves away for power.

"Going by Tom's history," noted Archie, "you would have assumed a neighborhood's worth of Infernalists to look more bedraggled..."

The barmaid, a red-haired beauty with dark green eyes and more than enough freckles to seduce or allure, stopped for an instant as she shook a Martini shaker. "That's the benefit of having an entire town's worth of practitioners consecrated to Nergal and Ereshkigal," she said. "It only makes sense for one of Pandemonium's defense suppliers to have a laid-back approach to ritualized transactions."

Her smile turned into an unspoken tease. "What can I get'cha, Tin Soldier?"

Archie gave Crystal a bit of a look, having been surprised to be called this. The barmaid's teasing smirk shifting to a smile. "Maeve," she said. "Maeve Lachlan. I'm the local misfit Miss Devlin likes to keep behind a countertop.
- A bit of a maverick, I assume?" asked Holden.

She paused to take an order for a Cosmopolitan and set about fixing it. "Not so much," she said, "I just don't like to leave stones unturned. Comes with growing up around the Gentlemen's researchers. There's more to being a Warlock than piecing formulas together or navigating some entry-tier demon's list of Names. The runts might come out first and they might be the first ones to hit us, but they're always the weakest of the bunch - always the yes-men for someone else with more restraint."

Lachlan glanced at Coombs. "You've gone and robbed me of clients, haven't you?" she asked, with a false trace of envy in her voice. Eustace smirked at that. 

"I like to leave American spirits to the seasoned professionals," he said. "I'm a sommelier, not a mixologist.
- Love it when a man knows his place," she said, eyes twinkling. "Try not to liquor them up before I get to, next time."

A few moments passed with her working on other orders. "Lemme just fill up the B-roll, I'm hitting the last call for the night shift," she said. "We're just about to have space and time enough to snoop about."

Another glance at Coombs. "Grab a dish rag, Daniel Craig," she said, "you're helping me close up early.
- We think Belial might be brewing something," supplied Archie. That left the female Warlock to smile with teeth.

"He's brewing something," she said, "and I'm a barmaid. I mix drinks. The sky is blue with specks of Celestial gold and Infernal red, and Eustace is my favorite pretentious idiot. Couldn't be any more obvious."

The sommelier set to work, acting perhaps slightly less confident than he had back in his wine-tasting cabinet. "Always so delightfully abrasive, miss Lachlan," he said. "You're the highlight of my week, truly."

Archie hesitated for a moment. "I'll have a soda," he said, "Mister Coombs already plied us with alcohol, and I gather we're about to discuss sensitive material. That said, I noticed you both seem more at ease with one another than the lateness of President Jones' endorsement of the allied Weavers would suggest..."

Eustace smirked at that. "We've all been collaborating for roughly two hundred years," he said. "Void Weaver presence is as integral to Walpurgis' local customs as its German roots and affinity for the Dark Arts. The only thing that's changed is my now being able to forego a Flesh Mask. It hasn't been easy and some people clearly were more at ease with a seemingly human Eustace Coombs, but all changes come with a modicum of adjustment for all parties involved."

* * *

Aided by Calhoun, the small group seemingly slid through the rooftop's shadows and through a frosted skylight, resting at an angle above Horatio and Valefor. For the moment, Grimley kept up with the charade and settled with small sips of a liquid his undead physiology wouldn't have tolerated in large doses. He could only metabolize alcohol through someone else's blood, and raw intake would force him to spend a bit of his own reserves to temporarily re-activate his digestive system. This being a bit of a strain, he was obviously better off with wetting the tips of one or two tendrils and politely passing a few drops of the liquid to his mouth. Valefor, being merely a demon riding a dead body, had no such compunctions. He also seemingly had no taste for Scotch. Aislinn would rather acutely sense Tom's disapproval of Chivas Regal being slammed down like cheap tequila.

"To new avenues," noted the demonic commander. "I'd previously been a skeptic, Hogarth, but you've done a fine job of convincing me, so far. Have you managed to wrangle a few of his abilities?"

Horatio affected a shrug. "I'm not much of an acrobat - the base mind makes this Squid comes across as a fairly rigid sort, prior to his being turned - but Shadow-Walking comes with a few interesting perks...
- Such as?"

A patch of gloom darkened next to Grimley, and he carefully slipped an arm through it. Another one manifested next to Valefor, Horatio's hand poking out of it as he politely set the barely-touched tumbler of Scotch aside. "Space is less of a concern," he said. "I can be as quick as freshly-summoned troops from an Infernal rift," he said. "These pools of darkness preserve momentum in complete disregard for the apparent laws of physics, so I could conceivably strike from anywhere or connect two distant locations for as long as my stamina allows."

Valefor grunted. "How long can you keep this up?
- With Grimley having done a fine job in accustoming this brain of mine to such a complex arcane task, I can hold a single portal in place for long hours. Failing that, a massing of small bridges can be simultaneously opened across the Void.
- Is this Void the same one the normal Prelates are known to manipulate?
- Not exactly," explained Horatio. "They manipulate presences rather than an absence - their name is a misnomer, really. Atoms, particles, molecules and so on. Vampires of Grimley's lineage tap into what is effectively almost an infinitely empty space.
- Why is it only almost empty?"

Horatio shrugged. "There seems to be air within it, with enough oxygen to sustain your average mortal being. I'd almost compare it to a twin of deep space as the mortal plane understands it - filled with trace gases and particles. If any of these gases could be drawn together by gravitational force and form, say, working stars, then no-one has ever found them before. It's simpler to think of the Void as a concept of space being traveled with it not being perceived. A mile here seems to be a mile in the Void, in essence, but there's no friction in there, and each undead's own supernatural resilience protects them from speed-related injuries like whiplash. It isn't uncommon for the Moon-Mad to brace the backs of their mortal companions' heads with their hands, to protect them from eventual concussions."

Valefor followed along. "If physical constraints no longer apply, any attempted path can become a straight line - without the need for return portals to Hell.
- Precisely," offered the cleaned-up Ringleader.

Horatio seemingly glanced at his own fingernails, even as another pool of shadow formed behind Valefor. "The Void is also notorious for serving as the Moon-Mad's infinite junkyard. Bodies, sensitive evidence, buried secrets... All of them can find their way in there, and only my kind can chart that darkness to recover the occasional pearl or two. That, however? That's just the boring, pedestrian cake mix waiting underneath a delicious mixture of suffering and wanton violence," he said, a bit of his old leer seeping through. 

By that point, however, it was too late for Valefor. Black arms, torsos and heads pulled out of the dark murk all but soundlessly, grasping the commander and muffling him. Grinning by now, Horatio snapped his fingers. The office's lights blinked out seemingly on command even as a low, predatory, almost monotone chuckle resonated in the gloom. Valefor tried to scream for help, only for the light patting sounds of Grimley's shadow-hands to continuously repeat as grips were shifted about his person. When a single bulb returned, Grimley was now clad in his typical Ringleader attire, makeup re-applied and grotesquely wispy mustache re-waxed and all.

"I thought I'd bring you back your boy," he leered as he sat on Valefor's desk, hands very much like his own following with those of the black hand projections. Morris Hogarth emerged out of the gloom, but not as a demon worthy of any sense of threat or menace. Instead, he clung to Valefor like a raft in the ocean, the same eyes as Grimley's now wide with wordless terror. In realizing the failure of his envoy, a low growl escaped Valefor and the scent of Brimstone began to waft forth from him.

"Here's something else we leeches have," noted Horatio, his tone brazenly casual. "We have a heart. I have one enough to reward someone who came so very close to succeeding with the mercy of going back home, and my heart also happens to be large enough to not turn down help when it's offered. Madness and wisdom only thrive among friends, see - and all you've got to show for your tenure atop Wrath is a laundry list of enemies, my dear Valefor."

Horatio pre-emptively cackled at a joke. "Laundry list - I hope you've got bleach in your stock, me bucko, seeing as you've got stains no detergent could ever lift! As black as night, you are; as drab as licorice without sugar!"

His laughter seemingly ran the risk of becoming too audible, only for Horatio to once again shift gears abruptly. After almost doubling over, he lunged for the pool of darkness and its conjured limbs, adding his own opposite pulling force to further pin Valefor in place. His tendrils slowly unfurled as he spoke, his small upper Void Weaver lip giving him a bit of a lisp as he brought his mass of stinger-laden suckers closer.

"Let's put a smile on that puss..."

Obviously, this resulted in Valefor straining with all his might. Hogarth was the first to fall, and to plummet back down into the vertical pool of inky blackness with a shriek that barely had time to rise to its full volume. The smell of burning flesh rose as Wrath's leading general abandoned restraint and channeled more power into his assumed coil.

"Now," was Gabriel's quiet command, as he made sure to step out of the shadows at a blind angle from Valefor's position. His wings' tendrils of light lashed out at his arms and hands, trying to help Horatio by preventing him from struggling against the Ringleader's myriad tiny mouths. Down below, the factory's main floor was suddenly stormed by the Freaks, a cacophony of cackles, titters and gleeful howls disrupting the industriousness of the setting. Gunshots and sword swings soon followed, but they didn't seem to do much to stop the onslaught.

* * *

Liz smirked. "My people believe in the Architect - that everything has its preordained place across all of Reality's quantum multitudes. We can alter things safely, in the knowledge that what we do is part of the Work. It might seem nebulous at first, but emergent behavior bubbles out of the cauldron of Possibility; and structures or events that were always meant to be become visible. Cogs in the Work, brush strokes of the Artisan.

It's why we're fighting, still. Why we've never lost hope. Delmar the Revered's old sermons spoke of a coming Crucible, but he didn't mean it in the sense of a difficult stretch that's endured out of attrition. He meant that the best of what we are will arise out of my people's modern service of the Architect, the same way a metalworker separates his molten medium from pitch. We'll save who we can, lose many we used to call brothers or neighbors in seeing the Loyalists fall - but we'll have been tempered."

Quiet resolve filled her frame. "If we pull this off, if this new island can rise, then we won't ever have to fear Them again. We'll be back where we were when the Covenant was first declared between our two gods. There's always going to be those too mad, too lost to see the light, but they'll have lost the ability to corrupt us. We'll finally watch over the laws of this material plane in the way we were intended to."

From resolve, her tone then shifted to pragmaticism. "Your people come first, however," she said, nodding at Andrea and Zeb. Defeating the Goat comes first, but we can use that prophecy to destroy both coastal fronts, East and West, and secure thousands of miles for our common cause. With our efforts here, we'll be able to push Pride back to the Midwest over months, effectively circumscribe the Goat's territory-"

Zeb raised a hand. "Easy now, miss Pope. I've been where you are often enough to recognize the signs of someone running wild and gleeful with renewed hope. Even if your people take the shores, we'll still have to gain ground over a period of months, if not years. America is eventually going to overcome this cipher Infernal state once it's reduced to a single site and excised like a tumor - but it won't happen tomorrow. Our best approach is to retake what is ours, leave your people some well-deserved space, and ensure that mister Magnus' colleagues come across as models of collaboration. We have proof that the Damned can coexist with mortals and angels, but it's currently drowned out by the Pit's endemic hatred of all things Celestial. I, for one, doubt that merely stopping or restraining the Black Goat will end this."

He looked around. "You have your own zeal, they have theirs. Let's not forget this."

Liz sighed and shook her head. "I know, I know, I just-"

She paused, smirking. "I think I liked you better as a collection of embarrassing stories, mister Buck. Are all liches like that?"

That left the dressing jacket-clad skeleton to roll his eyes. "No, most of us turn to dust or go insane under pressure. If you're lucky, you have Silas Robertson's pragmaticism. If you're unlucky, you spend centuries wallowing in personal issues only to have your eyes opened by someone with an arcane influence you barely understand. Explain to me how the bloody Hell it is that space magic counteracts a curse placed upon my family by a man bound to the Wendigo itself, for one. I thought Nasir's area of expertise was gravity!"

Pope shrugged. "I'm no mage; I thought hexes of that kind of magnitude were unhackable! I've heard of Eastern mystics influencing luck or homeostasis or someone's general health and well-being, but pulling a generational hex off of someone like that is virtually unheard of! You're guaranteed to get poked and prodded at by arcane theory specialists, once this blows over. Samoset's curse shouldn't allow you objectivity or hope - it's not in the stated parameters."

Something then seemed to hit Zeb. "It's funny you should speak of parameters: with everything that's happened over the last several centuries, I never gave myself the time to find where my strength was. I never had hope enough to experiment, or at least nothing as stable as this. This isn't an alcoholic's wild rush, it's..."

He smacked his nonexistent lips. "Barring the sense of being parched, I haven't been this lucid since before my wife and son died. I never could've conjured these spirits without Helena's help, shot those green Witch-fire darts..."

The lich raised a hand, his eye sockets narrowing as greenish wisps rose from between the cracks in the flat bones of his palm. "Samoset can't possibly have accounted for this - the Wendigo is bound to be furious. This could jeopardize everything we're working towards."

* * *

Thorn grunted his assent at Aspasia's statement, then proceeding much as Gabriel had for Aislinn, Tom and Hannibal. He tested his front door's latch, locked and unlocked it for good measure, and then opened it on a screaming, gray hellscape of shale platforms, overcast skies and perilous cliffs eroded by a roaring sea. Something in the sight struck Isaacs as being familiar.

"These waves," he asked, voice rising over the wind, "they aren't from Sweden's coastline, aren't they?!
- Welcome to the Far Reaches!" replied the brook horse. "The outermost lands in all of Faerie, where our plane beats up against Creation's churning quantum potential, as well as the jealous things that lie in wait! There isn't a safer place for me to lead you to London-Upon-Faerie, Sharpe's men and some of the Goat's toadies have eyes on all major points of ingress! We cross the passage ahead," he said, pointing, "then take a second Gate! I'd advise you all to avoid losing your footing here - if you fall, there will be no recovery from this! The waters here are thin - barely real, as it stands! You would clip out of all planes of existence!"

The Fae horse glanced back at the group. "Hold hands, if you have to!"

Siv and Sanna hesitated, doing their best to keep their own coats bunched up against themselves to ward off the wind. "Are you taking us home, first?!
- Aye," replied the horse, "Norway first, then London! I'll drop the both of you off where I first took you, Sanna!
- This ends our contract!" noted Siv. "Will my bonds be released as well?!
- My Oath to you has ended!" confirmed the jailer. "My only remaining obligation is to see you safely home!"

The naturally-formed stone bridge was wide enough for two persons to walk on it side-by-side, but the view on either side was so nausea-inducing that Three opted to keep his eyes straight ahead. "Is this was Samigina navigates on, when he scouts out the Reaches for threats?!" he asked.

It was Naberius who answered, one hand keeping his hat pinned in place. "Yes! As you can imagine, it partially explains his personality! He wasn't nearly so reckless, before Solomon asked him to keep an eye on Faerie's borderlands! Or, well, its border seas, if you'd prefer! I wouldn't attempt to throw or bounce anything, here - the laws of physics are at a breaking point in this very place! You need only look at the shores, below!"

Three looked straight down at the base of the wall they strode on. Large gaps had been eroded away over time, with several large boulders not waiting on the rocky shoreline, but instead floating several feet above it. As he watched, a large stone broke loose from the bridge and fell to the pebble-strewn shore below, its angle giving it a sharp bounce towards the shoreline. It reacted like a video game object involved in a collision-detection bug, twitching and jerking wildly as it skittered away from the shoreline. Whatever ersatz of physics that was still influencing it gave up halfway, the rock shooting for the skies in response. Aidan waited a few more seconds - it didn't fall back down.

"People live here, believe it or not!" added Nodin. "The Fomor cast their lot here after both the Fae and the Others disappointed them - I've worked with King Bres in the past, including more recently! He hopes to profit from Sharpe's appetite for talent as I once did, and apparently wasn't shy in casting his lot with you!"

They approached a large, thin and dangerously eroded stone pillar, the Far Reaches' winds howling around it. "We've never met him before!" supplied Three.

Nodin parted with another cruel smirk. "You haven't! Tom Magnus and Aislinn McConmara have! You're in for a lengthy debrief for all parties, tonight!"

* * *

"We'll get our fill, Abbie," replied Melmoth with a nod. "We'll make sure we do - starting with this."

A few minutes passed, their orders being eventually brought in. The Broker dug into his Tafelspitz with the sort of gusto that went well with his overall personality, gripping his fork almost like a child; all pudgy fingers curled around its handle. He wasn't overt enough to evoke Gluttony more than Greed, but he certainly didn't have the Celestial graces of perspective and material analysis. Essentially being as polite and as decent as possible while still shoveling food in as if someone were to snatch his plate away, he looked as though this slab of Viennese culinary culture were plugging up a gaping hole he'd ignored for a tad too long. It was only about halfway that he realized he'd stopped making conversation with Abdiel. He looked back up, wiped himself down with his napkin and coughed in embarrassment. 

"Sorry," he said. "Greed's just a few theoretical jumps away from Gluttony: I've made a lot of progress over the centuries, but the essentials like food and drink are still things I'm, well, irrationally afraid I'll lose, I guess. I'm not the same demon I was when I first peeled off of Mammon after Falling, but he made sure we'd be afraid of losing what matters most when we've got nothing. So, well, gimme a nice spread, and I'll feel this bone-deep fear creep back in. I know you wouldn't pull my plate away, but what if the waiter comes back and decides I look like I've finished?"

He shook his head, smirking in self-deprecation. "Sometimes, I envy the rogues from Pride's side, like Herbie Wormsworth or Paimon. They've got class, at least. You've got class. Me, I'm a rube with a checkbook, a Name and a slot in a coupla grimoires or honorary spots for horror stories about the risks of Infernalism. I can afford all this kindness now, but if you weren't around and all I had was what the Goat took from me, I'd be clutching at scraps back in Hope, snarling at whoever'd be looking to pinch off what I would've found while dumpster-diving. Greed obviously doesn't do too well when its envoys are dirt-poor."

A ways away from the pair, another couple lowered their voices to hushed tones. "I can't believe they're letting Pitspawn dine with angels," said the man, who seemed rather indeterminate from a distance. His companion might've been a Fae Commoner or an aristocrat of low rank, judging by the weak - and currently unused - Winter Mantle that she carried. She also replied in Austrian German.

"I think the Council's lowered its guard too quickly, if you ask me. What's stopping any demon with half a brain from working to seduce an angel? We already pushed through a mundane migrant crisis, and now we're forced to swallow the idea that there's demons out there who want a chance to live with us as equals?!"

Slightly darker plumes of smoke left Melmoth's nostrils and mouth as he groused, apparently fighting the urge to snap back at them.

* * *

It took a few seconds for both Damned soul and possessed policewoman to realize just what was transpiring, but Bathory's previously perfect control of the body turned to the contorted displays typical of an exorcism. The difference was, of course, that it began after Nami voiced her command, and that only one of the wrestling minds was aware of Amazo's deception. Consequently, she spasmodically thrust her abdomen forward and back, hands fighting to grip a haft or blade that wasn't there, fingers occasionally relaxing into the outstretched hand of someone asking for assistance, only for the knuckles to bend in and outwards, turning her manicured nails into would-be claws. Behind her, Francis did what he could to keep his opera cane - the stand-in for the fake sword - wedged against the middle of Lindsay's back, but following her gestures while staying safe was increasingly turning into an ordeal. Beads of sweat pearled on his scales and fell off, his fangs pointing out as he struggled to keep an even pace with his target. Around the group, the club had understandably been largely vacated. Only a few far-off bystanders nearer to the main door were left, making the continued pulses of the Vaporwave track feel increasingly out of place. Even with the strobe lights, it'd be obvious Bathory was now trying to mangle what she couldn't keep for herself: bile was flushing Strong's skin, dark varicose veins emerged into view along her legs and arms bruises forming unbidden across her exposed upper torso. Growled Hungarian words escaped her as foam bubbled on the corners of her mouth.

"I've never given anything back, don't you dare think I'll start with her!"

Then came the sudden noise of the mixing station's spinning plate coming to a stop as the needle warbled to an abrupt end. The music ended, Bàthory taking the moment to land a shrill scream of pure defiance. The projector was still going, however, the clip selection having rotated back to Hell's Bells and the orchestra of demons that mocked Mickey, early into his Dante-worthy sojourn into the netherworld. They all looked identical, a lanky jet-black build with round heads, drooping noses, two sweeping horns, wide grins and Pac-Man eyes. In the actual short, they used one another as physical musical instruments, a jape meant to illustrate Disney's carefree view of those meant to torment the Damned.

In this one, all five of them stopped, watched Mickey anxiously creep past them with a fixed grin on their faces, only to look straight at the group. Silence was replaced by the short's actual backing track, here devoid of strings and horns. The audio popped and crackled, but it was clear enough all the same.

"Welp, I'd say it's curtains for her, Lu..."

The devil at the far right - supposedly the band leader - crossed his hands on his chest and gave the room a once-over. "I'd say you're right, Me. A few minutes more, and I should have enough of a connect to push out of this tacky crap and into something concrete... A few million miles more, a better carrier signal, and I'll hack my way back to flesh and blood."

As he spoke, the projector rotated on its axis, bringing the display out of focus for a moment. When it stopped, the conductor devil had been zoomed in and relocated next to Nami. He still looked flat, but he was the only thing left of what had previously been a bit of ghoulish good fun, courtesy of the House of Mouse. It looked a bit like Daffy Duck's intentionally flat renditions, in shorts like Duck Amuck. He sat himself on a stool he couldn't actually occupy, still being a two-dimensional image. The Blood Countess raved all the while, a luridly wide grin on her usurped face.

"Lucifer Lightbringer, come to save me from Celestial wretchedness! Hail to you - Hail, Dark Prince! Your servant begs, pleads for your help!"

Impossibly, the 2-D devil reached across the bar, owing to its flat nature allowing it to bypass its distance from the wall of bottles, and pulled a flask of something that had to be whiskey closer. Two fingers from the same hand were used to fish a clean glass from the preparation counter on the other side of the aisle, and he then poured himself a small measure of the golden-brown liquid, setting it aside instead of touching it. 

"Yeah," he drawled, crossing his legs and stretching his arms on the countertop, "that's a no for me, Lizzie. First off, I'm not quite here yet, for starters. It's this or poor ol' Francis here has his shot at angina a mite sooner than I'd like, which would complicate things for later."

Francis panted, nervously using a hand to wipe off some sweat from his brow. "A-Angina?!
- Remember what happened, the last time you tried to blanket the local Nexus out of sight? You were lucky then, you still had all of Solomon's boons, Quigley my man. Now, though? All you've got is a djinni you've set as bait, two armfuls of trick playing cards, and a left ventricle that's about to buy the farm. I'd give it, oh..."

He pouted. "Three minutes and twenty-six seconds, going by the last time I looked at the script," he said, then clicking his tongue. "Let her go, kid's got this," he said, jerking his chin in Nami's direction. "I didn't have to lift a finger that I landed the finishing blow."

Indeed, Bàthory looked both confused and crestfallen. It seemed to be enough for Strong to push the intruder out with something that was equal parts a scream and a gasp. It might've been Lucifer or Nami's proximity, but the non-corporeal demon now had enough energy to vaguely affect her true self, as a moon-faced girl of some twenty-odd years, clad in old aristocratic regalia. She'd died in her fifties, alone in a locked-off tower of her castle, but she'd obviously used her status as one of the Damned to at least affect the eternal youth she'd always dreamed of.

"But how?" she weakly asked, her voice echoing as she hovered an inch or so above the floor. "How could I have failed you?"

Lucifer closed his eyes and worked his neck, the sound of crinkling leather or protesting rubber following him. A little pop followed, the Disney devil's design now sporting more complex grayscale fur highlights, a few more fingers and toes, and a more detailed spaded tail.

"Take a wild guess, sweetheart," he said, his features turning morose for an instant. "You're like all the rest from down there - mistaking the reason I gave you power for an excuse to go on a joyride," he said, then crossing his eyes and deliberately going for a dopey expression. "Dur," he said, "the one they called Little Horn's just gone and showed me the unrivaled might of blood magic! Guess I'll just start slaughtering my own peasants and drinking their blood! I coulda set up a coven of Blood Wardens against Valefor's own incursions in the region, but what the Hell do I know, right? Beauty before brains, I always say!"

He sighed and eyed the untouched whiskey glass beside him. "Criminy, what I wouldn't give to have actual brain cells to kill, right about now... At least there's some good to come out of this particular clusterfuck - Lil and I had been looking to blueprint another bloodline before we parted ways, and Amazo here's a perfect candidate."

Haraldson was left blinking. "Lucifer?!"

Once again, the cartoon demon closed his eyes and worked his neck, this time adding his shoulders. Sounds akin to those of Mylar balloons being inflated followed along, color blooming across his previously monochrome features. His features seemed to shift between various animated designs, from Glen Keane's soft proportions to Genndy Tartakovski's angular design, with Spumco and Nickelodeon's grungier palettes flickering into view for an instant.

Lucifer grinned as he looked down on himself. On a whim, he seemingly settled for a Hanna-Barbera send-off, naked fur with lone cuffs and a shirt collar, floppy red tie included. "Standard Definition - finally!" he sighed, apparently in relief. "That means I'm somewhere around Saturn's moons. Won't be long now."

He then seemed to remember the Draugr's utterance of his name. "Oh - yeah. That's my name, don't wear it out," he said. "I'm not being cute - I mean it. You have no idea what it's like to be poked and prodded at by every would-be Satanist and dabbler with a half-decent ritual circle, it's like trying to go through a triple bypass as a coronary surgeon while there's a nagging three year-old kicking you in the shins for most of the last two thousand years!"

"I'll take a soda as well," Crystal responded, then nodding to Eustace's assertion. "As do all things, such as the social changes I'm sure we'll see eventually. And I'm sure there's some of that coming up that we don't even realize."

***

Aislinn stayed hidden within the provided hiding spot and covertly watched things play out between Horatio and Valefor. She didn't want to let her guard down, despite the Squid's upper hand in the situation. After all, Valefor was a wily bastard, and you didn't know if he had a card up his sleeve. She glanced over at Tom to see when he wanted to emerge.

***

Andrea sniffed with disdain at the mention of the Wendigo."I'd personally suggest being direct with the Wendigo at some point. It's a demon that might listen to Meris, since she's Solmon's Heiress. It might also be worth looking into seeing if there's something else that it craves more than Samoset's grudge. Evil spirits crave for things they don't have, so if there is something, we should probably put it to our use."

***

Given their respective tough exteriors, even the gale force winds seemed like a challenge to the Archmage and the Fauness. Aspasia had offered her hand to Meris for her to steady herself on and proceeded forward.

As Nodin mentioned Bres, a light of recognition sparked in the storyteller's eyes as she scoffed lightly, then smiling gratefully in an odd sort of way. "Bres, that Bres?! Bloody hell, we're really stretching out the definition of ally! Though, it's better to have them on board than not!"

The red-earred woman frowned curiously at the name and didn't seem familiar with it. Given that they would learn more about the Fomorians later, she resolved to following after the water horse and kept her eyes and hooves on traversing the steep and precarious terrain.

***

Abdiel's keen hearing easily picked up the negative conjecture, and she kept an indiscernible expression as she eyed the slightly billowing demon. "Mel," she merely said to him, before curling her fingers around his free hand. As a mirroring action to the offered peck from earlier, she offered her chaste kiss on top of his thick hand. However, hers seemed to have a boldness to it that conveyed that she wasn't some innocent angel being taken advantage of. She hoped it would be enough to quell his ire and direct his attention back to her. Also, the fact she did this so openly that she hoped it sent a message to the murmuring couple to kindly not assume.

The other hand was lifted above her head, and she lightly snapped her fingers to create a small golden spark. It quietly exploded above them and the table they shared, like a tiny firecracker and rained down around them. The Broker would sense that it had cut them off from the rest of the restaurant, essentially a sound barrier to prevent any nosy sorts trying to hear them. They would still be viewable, but it seemed her created aura made them easy to ignore. The respective couples could enjoy their meals in peace without annoying speculation and whispers to dampen the evening. Thankfully, the spark left no evidence behind and made no smoke.

"A little trick I picked up when the more zealous sorts wanted to add their two cents to tribunal proceedings," she explained with a little smirk. Having since released his hand, she picked up her spoon and sipped at the the thick stew. "As for the topic we were discussing, that might be so in some ways, but I'm aware of your history. Even when you hit rock bottom after the Goat and Belial took away what you had earned, you had been humbled and learned to accept mortals as actual people, rather than just as a commodity. Paimon and Wormsworth have class, yes, but they still have some personal development to go through. In that regard, you have them beat for the time being. It might not be your thing, per se, but give yourself a bit of credit, okay?"

***

Nami briefly glanced at Lucifer's various projections and maintained her gaze on the Blood Countess. "Quigley, he's right; I've got this. Take a break before you keel over prematurely," she said, momentarily dropping back to her normal voice.

Bathory then became the Nephilim's target again, as she spoke once against with power. "As for you, I compel you to return to Hell, Elizabeth Bathory. If you have any bit of dignity in that head of yours, you'll leave without any fuss. I doubt you're suddenly going to have any redeeming epiphanies, so leave now! Return to the Pit!"

A few last patrons hovered about, a few more odd displays of Thomas Quint-like grotesqueness acting as civil as could be. Coins flashed, glasses clinked - and a pentagram that had been inlaid on the floor, in the middle of the lounge, slowly bloomed to a bright red color. Reddish mist coalesced within it even as Maeve and Eustace paid no mind to it - and out of the portal stepped Nergal, looking as though he'd just shucked his suit jacket back on. He might've had skeletal features, his face was still angled in a way that suggested a smile. He approached the bar as he fixed his cufflinks and checked on his gloves.

"Mister Coombs, Miss Lachlan," he said, nodding. "I thought I'd stop by again, recharge the proverbial batteries."

Unbidden, Maeve set about working on a last cocktail - a fairly simple Irish coffee. The whipped cream and chocolate flakes were omitted, and she instead set a small caramel biscotti in the small teacup, next to the mug. "The usual," she said, "on your tab, mister Galbraith.
- Thanks a million," replied the demon, a tiny smidge of Texas burr creeping through.

With everyone served up a few moments later, Maeve sighed and washed her hands one last time. "Alright, time to pull out the big guns," she said, grunting as she dug under the countertop. Her hands came back into view wrapped around a thick manila folder that looked fit to burst, someone having wedged a large arcane textbook within it. Seeing this, Nergal sighed ruefully. "We have photocopiers, Maeve," he said. "What if Otto comes looking for this?
- I'll hand it back," she opposed. "Just - you know. Somewhat dog-eared, maybe with a couple coffee stains..."

Nergal pulled the book out of the folder. "Agrippa's Three Books on Occult Philosophy... I'm guessing this is pertinent to old Cornelius' discourse on Belial?
- Yes," she replied. "Agrippa lists Belial as a skilled sophist, someone who's able to twist someone else's words, offer damning levels of power and heaps of corruptive influence presented as gifts or charitable boosts. In the early goings-on of a compact, he's as pleasant to work with as Solomon's retinue is," she said. "He'll give you whatever it is you might need - emotional support, friendship or a more concrete arcane boost in terms of power - and start making his own demands slowly, subtly."

She set the book aside. "We can't take snapshots of the Pit. We can't send drones through our own rifts for more than a few paces - the Pit is basically Chernobyl for anything tech-based. We've had to go really, really low-tech to bring any kind of usable survey data back," she explained, pulling out what had to be the strangest X-ray snapshots to ever have been taken. Instead of bones or organs, the contrast lines were arranged in the hazy outline of what looked like a factory compound. Another shot showed the ghostly impression of a massive portcullis gate, the last image being a negative of what looked like a horn-sporting Orc bent over an anvil, glowing white fist raised above an anvil. The surrounding perspective lines gave some sense of the being's true size, about that of a four-story building.

"Meet Belial," she said, "or at least, the figure we think is Belial. We have reasonable doubts, however, starting with the fact that test summons don't trigger a reaction."

Nergal snorted. "Belial's not stupid enough to give in to anything as obvious as a classic summons, Miss Lachlan.
- We know," she replied, "but the last several decades came chock-full of measuring tools for practitioners. We're starting to be able to measure the effectiveness of the bridges summons usually create - and of the tiny, involuntary amounts of feedback demons send back, even when they refuse a summons. If you work on my level and you're not just focused on Infernal and Celestial politics, like Miss Devlin is, you have to take the mechanics of it all into account."

She looked back to Crystal. "What's a doorbell's ring, technically? It's sine waves, modulated air pressure - and if you've learned to recognize the sound it produces, then it's a sign that there's someone on your doorstep. Demons react to summons too, and they each have a tiny ping, a sort of via-based feedback pulse, that rides back in front of them and initiates some sort of handshake protocol. We don't understand it yet, but we know the end result is this: two dimensions temporarily fold into one another, the demon becomes visible, and only then is the energy that's trapped in the summoning circle siphoned in, to make the spirit as close to corporeal as possible. The Pitspawn aren't the type to refuse summons, on the whole, but we do know of one spirit Pandemonium stole their Name from, to be sure it'd be never summoned, never couched down to paper. That'd be Leviathan."

Nergal nodded. "Interesting... So you used a summons you knew would fail to have metrics to compare against the genuine article - a concerted refusal."

Something then made Archie pause as he took a sip from his lime soda. "Who did you summon, if you needed a positive test case?"

Maeve looked back at Nergal. "Remember last month, how you asked Jubal to take away my summoning privileges for a few weeks? You said you weren't looking to start refusing beckoning calls, but that you would if pressed into it?"

The skeletal demon narrowed his eyes and then settled with a groan and an eye roll. "You could've asked me, Maeve. I could've set an afternoon aside to spend flitting between here and Pandemonium to give you decent data to analyze!
- That's the thing: demons that are so deeply tied to a place or a coven that they can just pop in and out on their own - like yourself - can't give me the type of data I'm after. The point is, Belial's back-ping when summoned feels odd. Refusals are usually explicit, and no summons ever misses its mark completely. You can't, say, change a demon's IP address range, to use a metaphor, and then miss it entirely because you've got an address that's out of the new range. You can only fudge a summons if you don't fulfill the prerequisites - and I know Belial's. Belial flat-out ignores summons, Mister Galbraith. He's somehow strong enough to resist all but the most effective summons I was able to put together, short of animal sacrifice or blood offerings. There's no back-ping, no sense that he's even receiving anything."

Archie tapped on the countertop with an index finger. "Body doubles are commonplace in covert operations. Could Name doubles exist? Could a demon be entrusted with another demon's Name, with instructions to ignore all summons?"

Nergal looked uncertain. "It's technically possible, yes, but the amount of effort Erin and I needed to go through to share our Names with one another was so considerable we took to Wrath's dead wastes in the Pit, to seal our pact! On Earth, the resulting discharge would have been cataclysmic!"

Holden quirked a brow. "Not to butt in, but did this involve a Hieros Gamos ritual?
- I don't feel the need to confirm or deny this with you, mister Holden," replied Nergal, his tone understandably turning a smidge defensive. The android shook his head in apology.

"I only asked because the only example of such transference that I've seen, I've seen remotely. Aislinn's Ascension took part of the city off the grid, and she was a mere mortal. I'm only putting your own ritual into context."

Nergal nodded, his eyebrows raising as his temper cooled. "Oh - I see. You're wondering how Belial could have concealed that kind of transaction from us, what kind of arcane energy sink could withstand so much power without it being too obvious. Well, the fact that it's been done matters more in the immediate than how it was done, but we'll have to look into it reasonably soon. Now, though, we have a string to pull on, something to exploit."

Holden looked back to Crystal. "How do we force Belial out of hiding?"

Lachlan smirked. "I see two ways out of this. We might be able to conjoin them into one strategy. We can brute-force Belial's summons for as long as we can, until either the double or the genuine article gives in and shows up. We can also further isolate Belliard, if he actually is Belial in the flesh. He went through a period of willful isolation with both your daughter and yourself, Miss. Lowell," she said, "and he proved to be resourceful enough to cope. If we can force him back in that state, we'll be able to exploit him, or at least keep a close eye on him."

Archie took another sip. "And how exactly do we cut off the Pit's blacksmith?"

Nergal's grin looked a tad sinister. "We'll need a raiding party, the Throne of Water, and the worst downpour Belial's loaned province in Pride will have seen in centuries. I'm not War, but I've been warlike for long enough to be well-acquainted with Belial's forge compound. We'll have one main forge fire to douse, as well as five ancillary ones, used for detail work."

* * *

Valefor's struggle kept increasing in magnitude, until Tom realized just how rapt Horatio was with his target. The vampire hadn't noticed just how his tentacles had trouble latching onto the increasingly distended corpse's upper half, as muscles more or less bloomed under the fragile coating of half-rotted skin. He was still producing involuntary chuckles and pushing in that the general for Wrath's terrestrial armies managed to free his left arm from Gabriel's coils of light, and clamped his now-enlarged fingers around Grimley's throat. Residual cackles turned into rasping noises, the enraptured gaze of a satisfied predator closing in leaving the Squid's features. Surprise and shock replaced it, his hands going up to try and free his neck. He didn't need to breathe, but still had cause enough to worry, if Valefor managed to break his neck.

Tom sprang forth at that moment, his tongue rolling through Iram's old Arabic dialect, staff pointed and guiding hand outstretched, a bolt of reddish-white lightning questing for Valefor's side and chewing away at the muscle mass and connective tissue the Infernal commander was apparently conjuring out of his own reserves of Hellfire. The shock caused him to release Horatio. Being what he was, the Ringleader didn't so much gasp for air as he yelped like a startled hyena. In through a pool of shadow he went, reappearing just above Aislinn, fist extended like a cannonball. The resulting impact would've killed anyone else, but Valefor merely produced a loud grunt and almost toppled over as his center of gravity was disturbed. His calves and shins were also expanding, following along with his rapidly expanding trapezius and spinal muscles. He now looked like a zombie on steroids, clothes torn and new flesh glowing in a reddish-orange hue, his neck and skull being of apparent least concern. Slowly, however, pockets of Hellfire-flesh were beginning to form at the nape of his neck. Soon, he'd entirely reconstruct his skull and face, if left unchecked.

"Stay away from the office windows!" shouted Magnus to his lover. They had the upper hand here, but if the general was allowed to leave, whatever was left of Wrath's forces would quickly regroup on their position. Aislinn being an Archmage, she'd regrettably survive being hypothetically thrown through plate glass - but it wouldn't exactly be a fun ordeal, either. Best to avoid it, considering.

* * *

Zeb grunted as he glanced between Andrea and Liz. "Considering the recent happenings and Wrath's points of deployment in Hope, it wouldn't be impossible for the Wendigo to be attracted back towards our home," he said, looking back to the young werewolf. "The Wendigo is a spirit of Envy - endless, insatiable hunger and endless need - and Samoset pledged his revenge against my family to him in saying he would taste retribution. He's tasted of Samoset's hatred, I don't see how he could want to do anything with my desire for restitution."

The Squid researcher looked a bit perplexed. "Why wouldn't he? Having the wife and son back, maybe turning my own brother into a full human again - I'm not exactly Envy made flesh, but that sounds, well, like something I'd envy somebody for."

Buck shoved his hands in his dressing robe's pockets and rocked a monogrammed slipper around. "Demonic thirst isn't exactly slaked with nice things, miss Pope. I wouldn't have spent generations as Hope's eccentric wastrel if Samoset hadn't wished for it to a degree, if he hadn't wanted to see my family name reduced to mocking japes and off-color jokes. Hexes aren't much more than micro-curses, in a sense. Samoset didn't simply wish for all of Nikolaas Buck's issue to be unlucky or boorish or stiflingly mundane - he wanted old Nick's life and everyone else's in the following dynasty to suffer. Suffer we did, and we still do. I've always believed Fate or Karma would've passed on the mantle of importance to some other East Coast city, if it hadn't been for my ancestor's actions."

He paused. "There's that, and the fact that I have no personal connection to Samoset. I've tried to cast a counter-curse multiple times, but there's always something missing, an element of resolve or hatred or self-righteousness - something that prevents the Wendigo from seeing me as a client, instead of quarry," he said, then clicking his tongue. "No visceral hatred, no terrifically convenient counter-curse. It's hard to focus on someone who's turned into local legend, for one - someone who hasn't left a single trace of their death or whereabouts, after my family fell under his shadow."

* * *

"They have as much to gain from Hell being ousted than we do!" reminded Thorn as he stopped next to the rocky spire. "The Tuatha's descendants have always closed their hearts and eyes to the Fomor's plight; maybe a spot of goodwill will turn things around!
- It could motivate further treachery!" countered Naberius, to which Thorn scoffed. "From which side?!" he asked, then turning to disappear behind the monolith's curve. As expected, he didn't come back out from the other side. The two huldra didn't look too perturbed and merely glanced at the others before following along. It was definitely a rare breed of Gate, the curved, uneven plane of the spire turning into a shadowed rock wall as Aspasia, Meris, Three and the others followed its curvature. The dimly-lit space beyond felt like an abandoned crypt, but traffic noises could be heard coming from close by. Careful climbing and a bit of stealth were needed to get past a pair of guards, but it'd then be obvious they'd stepped out of a condemned crypt in the ruins of St. Olav's Church, in Tonsberg, Norway. The group headed for the sidewalk and followed the curb for two intersections, before Nodin stopped and turned to the two sisters.

"Will you be alright here?" he asked, Siv then nodded. "We will," she said. "I just don't know how or if I should thank you...
- As is customary of us Fae," shrugged the brook horse. "I can't deny I've been cruel towards the both of you. As you should know by now, however, cruelty can sometimes be justified."

Siv glanced at Three as the Fae spoke, something in his stature speaking volumes in how much he disagreed. She looked back to Thorn to nod in thanks, and then returned a more frank - and honestly beaming - smile toward the others. "Thank you," she told them, something then driving Drake to step forward.

"If you ever need more help," he told them, "call us first. I know the Fae tend to be self-reliant, but we won't rope you into an Oath - we'll just help however we can."

Thorn grunted at that. "Noble sentiments haven't kept hearts beating, Drake.
- I didn't ask for your opinion," he replied. "Let's head back to London. Hopefully we'll reach Oberon and Titania while it'll still be daylight."

Siv reached out for him to pause. "Wait, please. What you did for Sanna and I - for mister Woodford..."

She looked back to Meris and Aspasia. "With the American Fae pressuring us, with the Courts turning to self-preservation in the face of Hell's attacks, it's gotten more difficult to remember what a worthy monarch should do, what her vassals can offer. We talk a lot about preserving chivalry as an idea, but it only leads to politics - or to people like Phineas Sharpe. It's hard for some of us to accept that the modern world can still offer kindness and grace."

She sighed, seemingly gathering her will. "Sanna and I aren't just huldra. We're of the Vanir. So is Thorn. Our sacred charge is the World-Tree. He guards it, we tend to it. We guard the first, common root of all Nexuses, the fountain from which all via wells forth, the one Tree no dryad could successfully protect."

Three sighed as he took this in, suddenly being very conscious of their being on a busy sidewalk. "Where is it?" he asked, his voice low.

"Everywhere," replied Siv, "and nowhere. You're seeing its branches and roots right now, even if your eyes can't perceive them. It has roots of its own, however, in a place beyond all planes, a guarded sanctum Frigga and Woten entrusted our ancestors with."

Three took a leap of logic. "You're talking about the Architect and the Artisan, aren't you? The Void Weavers' parent deity and God."

She nodded. "Myth distorted their roles, their place. They're not husband and wife, not king and queen. They're teacher and pupil, respectively."

Drawing in a breath, Three opted to try an area of inquiry. "Does Akoman know about Yggdrasil?
- He can never learn," she replied, her tone hushed. "All of his unwitting servants have to remain in the dark, for the good of all of us.
- And Nodin took you off the playing field because Sharpe was getting close," he surmised, eyeing Deirdre.

Nodin nodded. "Decency commanded that I release you eventually. I opted to use your imprisonment to gauge those who were already facing against Hell."

Regis seemed slightly miffed. "Was I a part of your plan, then?
- You were a useful additional variable," replied the brook horse. "How willing would our future champions be to risk Morgana's wrath, I wondered? Even mister Isaacs here jumped in headfirst, for all his pretense of a supreme lack of care."

Rupert looked annoyed to so much as be here. "What was I to do, stifle the rest's attempted heroics in a desperate bid to go home early? I may have been called unstable, but I'm especially nobody's fool. I knew I wouldn't have survived the Wilds without help."

Woodford balanced his rifle on his shoulder. "I was asking if you cared, mister Thorn."

That left the brook horse to sigh as he looked at the two girls. "The Wilds house hundreds of other victims of the Jungle Trolls, across all eras and cultures. It could've been you or the Hittite soldier I remember chancing upon, when I first scouted the area Morgana had lent me. You or the French huntsman from the sixteenth century, or perhaps any number of foolhardy Native American tribesmen who bit off more than they could chew.

I'm not in the business of empathy, mister Woodford. Your new friends are, however. They care, and that should suffice."

Regis' ears flattened at that response, a short growl escaping him. Agares stopped him from snapping back by placing a hand on his rifle's barrel.

"Easy there, Esquire - nobody who looks to gain approval from the likes o' him lives for that long, in my experience. He's right, though - our ragtag bunch is more welcoming."

Amduscias sniffed at Thorn. "This ain't the best way to make an impression with folks who offered you safe passage to Hope, mate."

The brook horse rolled his eyes. "We'll all hold hands and trade stories on the very day all Vanir are released from their guardianship duties towards the Root. Tell me when I'll run short of blind fools to drown and throw against stones and of mad, reckless lives to snuff out so the Aesir can keep pretending to have owned the Realms of Seasons since time immemorial - and I'll start working on my social skills at that exact minute."

Again, Three followed along. "Wait - if you're of the Vanir and people like Oberon and Titania are technically Aesir, according to you, does that mean the Vanir-Aesir war actually happened?"

Siv nodded. "We have to go, but - yes, it did happen. Just not here, on Midgard. It only touched what you call Faerie, and only involved those of us with Norse descent. The rest of Faerie spent centuries in ignorance of the bloody cost we paid to prevent previous holders of the King and Queen's names from claiming a power they couldn't comprehend."

She smiled at Meris. "I'll send emails at Magnus Tower as soon as I can - tell you as much as we can afford to. To put it simply, the Vanir are to the Fae what the Gentlemen are to the Void Weavers."

* * *

Abdiel's display humbled Melmoth, and her words encouraged him. The plumes that had been leaving his mouth almost subsided. "I know," he said, nodding. "I mean - thanks. It's just hard for me to do in a way that's entirely healthy. I usually shoot for self-deprecation 'cause it leaves more space to whomever I'm with. I don't usually strut my stuff unless I'm ticked off."

He chuckled. "It ain't much of a surprise, but I was hedging close to doing that in front of Mister and Missus Perfect, over there," he said, discreetly jerking a thumb back at the couple.

A few more moments passed as he attacked his plate again. "Speakin' of development, though - there's a lot happening even without all the negative crap I just vented. What's your plan, in case something changes with the Thrones? How are you gonna process that, anyway? You haven't all been corporeal for that long, compared to the Universe's total span of time - what if someone or something messes with your sense of Self or Matriel's?"

He gestured with a fork. "It might seem extreme, but you've just put yourself out there, these past few months. You're not, y'know, diaphanous and all-encompassing and all that jazz, right now - I could poke you with this, if I wanted to."

A chuckle escaped him. "Not that I would, but I, y'know - happen to be a red-blooded male demon in front of a stunningly beautiful elemental aspect who's currently assumed a very flattering example of the female gender."

His eyes flashed slightly, power briefly winking in them. "Consider me curious, I guess. Or, ironically enough, tempted."

* * *

Lindsay Strong added her very human distress to the pile, as the shock of separation had currently left her to stagger to the nearest bar stool, one hand clutching the bar's upper railing as though her life depended on it. She wailed for now, expelling as much pain, rage and confusion as her lungs and throat could wordlessly voice. Opposed on seemingly all fronts, Bàthory could only send Lucifer one last pleading gaze, before she lost all grip on the material plane. She soon turned diaphanous, her features distorting as shame and defeat were rendered unrecognizable by the Hell's inexorable pull. It was only once she'd appeared to have completely left that Quinn moved to try and comfort the policewoman. By that point, Amazo had slumped into the nearest booth seat. Every exhale was a loud sigh, as though he had trouble regaining his breath.

"I don't," he told nobody in particular, his speech slurring. "I don't get it! I used this exact illusion on a Stasi officer in East Berlin, in the eighties, and it worked just fuh-"

He looked back up, being seemingly disoriented or confused. The right side of his face was starting to sag. What started as a scoff of vague observance turned into a halting choking sound. Alarm filled his already expressive eyes, making his own despair quite tangible. "Ow," was all he weakly managed, before his left hand moved to claw at his shirt's buttons. He resisted the impulse to lean back into the leather seat for a few seconds, then flopping hard against the booth's seat. The projector, in the meantime, swiveled to follow Lucifer as he sprinted down the row of seats at the bar to reach the snake. He morphed in mid-step, having turned into a mid-nineties 3D render, as though he'd been a rejected character from ReBoot or Beast Wars. Being reduced to rigid segments and ball joints oddly made him look more primitive than his Yogi or Snagglepuss send-off. At least, he now looked to be somewhat realistically shaded by the surroundings.

"Really?!" he seemingly asked nobody in particular. "Look, I know you've sensed me coming back and you obviously give a damn, so don't you dare make me into more of a liar! Keep him alive for a few more minutes and I just might not trash your workshop!
- Who in God's name are you speaking to?!" asked Leonard.

Lucifer started working on what looked to be CPR, only to look at Ephesian and dramatically extend both hands forward - as if to say he'd just answered his own question.

While it didn't have a sinister quality, Crystal smiled with a certain amusement. "As far as I know, Matriel would still be in Hope, so I suppose all you'd have to do is send him a message or summons requiring his help. What about the raiding party, though? What numbers are we talking about? It'd need to be large enough to handle whatever opposition there is, but also discreet enough to slip by them," the werewolf noted.

***

Aislinn followed her lover's advice and avoided the office windows. However, she noted the increasingly dire situation and realized they'd be contending with a gigantic zombie traipsing about Hope if they didn't stop him here and now. His limbs and torso needed to be severed and also prevented from recuperating with Hellfire.

With a few whispered words of energizing power, Aislinn unleashed large fireballs at his torso and legs. Unfortunately for Valefor, they weren't your typical displays of elemental magic. The selkie had imbued the projectiles with her own blessing power, creating her equivalent of Celestial Fire to eat away at his developing form.

***

Andrea rested her chin against the heel of her palm and sighed. "Nobody even within the Wampanoag or Narragansett communities know where he or the Wendigo is. Maybe you could possibly trick him into thinking your happy and doing well. Something along the lines of "Force yourself to smile, and you'll eventually feel happy. However, in this case, you'd make it seem like you're overcoming the curse by not downtrodden by it, even if you really are."


***

The comparison the huldra made caused her to understand the role the Vanir played amongst the Fae, and Meris nodded solemnly. "I understand. Thank you and look after yourselves, Siv."

***

Abdiel smiled as her eyes flicked to the fork and chuckled. "If you poked me with the fork, I might flinch slightly, but I'd otherwise be unharmed. Though, your teasing might affect me more than the tines of a fork."

She then became more somber and nervously held her wine glass a bit tighter. "As for my Self, that's something of an uncertain territory because it'd be a very dire situation. If an angel is physically killed, they are typically backed up, so to speak, and brought back up in a relatively quick manner. It's different from a spiritual death. If something or someone influenced who I was to a great enough degree, I might not be the person you know as Abdiel and would lose the purpose I was given upon leaving God's Manifestation. Or a worse scenario, if it or they wanted to be rid of me permanently, I would potentially die. Either my element would fall into the wrong hands or would have to be transferred to someone I strongly trust before I stopped existing. That potential is a concern every Throne has to deal with," she explained.

***

Having sensed Lucifer early on, Nami sighed and looked over at the lawyer. "He's talking to God to keep Quigley alive so he can help him!" she blurted to him.

Since Quinn was taking care of Lindsay, the Nephilim hurried over to where the snake and the devil were. Her slender frame made slipping into the booth easy enough and stooped near the top half of the snake anthro. She checked for signs of him potentially passing out. "I know you're just on the cusp of being three-dimensional, but how can I help you?!" she asked him urgently.

Nergal angled her face as Crystal spoke, something in his crimson eyelights suggesting he was smirking. "I've got contacts," he said. "I wouldn't be worth much if I hadn't used my time in exile to become the Sammaelites' primary armorer. Ahriman's favored son is still coordinating things in Vienna for the eventual descent on Hope, but he's far from the only trustworthy Socratic demon with a gun I happen to know."

Archie quirked a brow. "I'm at least aware of Ahriman, but the last ones I know of who spent some time in the City of Dis aren't currently here with us. I assume you aren't speaking literally, in speaking of his favored son...?"

Nergal's smile went for a more benevolent angle, impishness leaving it. "You've met him during your first meetup, last fall. He's possessed one of your local mechanics with consent. He goes by Bob, if you'll remember."

Recognition gleamed in the android's eyes. "Ah, yes! My apologies - and who might be his vis-à-vis, seeing as you seemingly trust them?
- He's a little less personable than the big guy, maybe a tad less human. He goes by Gallows, and usually focused on murderers or thieves seeking redemption. As you might imagine, he got his start during the nation's first Westward expansions. He's young, as far as demons go, but his having stuck to real-time more than compensates for it. You'll find him, er, a little less jaunty than mister Whitney, I'd say. Bob used to handle numbskulls in need of a moral thrashing, he's more used with being the last leash keeping absolute monsters at bay.
- I assume he can obey orders?" asked Archie.

Galbraith made a face. "He'll obey mine and Ahriman's, and he'll follow you to Hell and back if I tell him to. He might not enjoy it, but he'll comply. Being more of the Lone Gunman type, he usually prefers to stalk targets and strike with horror or existential dread, rather than mere guilt. Bob's own Doomsayer works wonders against anyone who still has a good chunk of humanity left, Agony and Pain are more suited for those who've gone past that."

Archie followed the demon's mild emphasis. "He's named his pistols Agony and Pain," he said flatly, rolling his eyes. "Absolutely grand."

Maeve laughed at that, Eustace smirking behind his tendrils. "Socratic demons being the only line of defense in Hell against the Pit's natives, it sort of makes sense for one or two of them to go Edgelord," the barmaid said. "Agony and pain are two things anyone should wish upon creatures who've never had a shred of humanity or compassion to call their own, mister Holden."

Archibald drained his soda. "Substantial and discreet," he said, echoing Crystal's observation. "Being rather biased, I'd prefer it if only Crystal and I were sent. She is a werewolf and I, a trained operative. It would lengthen our time spent in-AOO, but would maximize our chances.
- We have six targets," reminded Nergal. "I'd propose three per target, plus Matriel and myself. We can leave Sammaelites to a few of the satellite forges, but Belial's own fire should be our focus. We can round things out with the others once they'll be done exploring the hotel, if anyone else is interested."

* * *

Mere grunts of effort turned into sudden howls, Valefor trying and progressively failing to hold himself upright. Pain obviously fueled Wrath, but Aislinn's inventive use of magic negated any benefits the commander could've gained out of his own ire. Rage was torn away over the next few seconds, mere struggle and pain being left behind. The would-be berserker sank down to his hands and knees, one fist clenched as he still tried to marshal enough strength together to stand up. The younger Archmage had made this an impossibility, however, as his lower spine and thighs were soon almost completely devoid of flesh or muscle. His merely human bones couldn't hold up his upper mass without enough of a support structure.

"If you banish us," croaked Valefor, "you'll have nothing to shield you once the Far Reaches breach into the mortal plane! You need - You'll need the Goat's forces for yourselves!
- You lost the right to pledge your weapons to us the moment you attacked us, Valefor," replied Tom, who supplied his own antagonistic Hellfire to the commander's agony.

Valefor grunted, now almost fully prone against the floor, as his upper muscle mass also began to deteriorate. "Then, free us! Free Wrath from its compact with Pride!"

Tom stopped for an instant. "Was this pact entered willingly, or did he force you into it? You seemed awfully convinced of your actions' righteousness, back when we discussed a détente with Sloth."

He added another jolt to keep the commander pinned down. "Wrath is patient, you made that clear back at Robertson's. Nothing you're saying is any guarantee that you wouldn't simply turn back around and lash at us. Wrath isn't crafty, it's a wounded and cornered animal. One day, you won't be able to help yourself. One day, the old fire's going to stir again, and you'll come for us."

The zombie grunted. "And Sloth wouldn't?! Is this really what you believe?!
- Sloth is inherent to mortals," countered the warlock. "Laziness drives creativity, believe it or not. I've seen Belphegor's peers peel themselves out of their idleness to save lives, over the past few weeks. I've seen the big cat pen designs for peacetime reconstruction the Karthians couldn't have dreamed of, without via or the confluence of Hellfire and Celestial light. You? You embody the kind of animalistic rage this body's memories have only seen out of cornered sociopaths. You'll never grasp mundane annoyance or mere anger."

Valefor's existing muscles began to shrivel away. "Don't forget, warlock - Wrath will always find standard-bearers in the defeated. Not all will seek to join you!
- It'll be the same as it ever was," replied Tom. "Honest folk doing their best, with brave folk to protect them from the sour grapes hiding in their midst. The one difference is some of these naysayers will have leathery wings and horns.
- Or feathers and halos," cut in Grimley, grinning, "but that's neither here nor there, hm? What matters now is we make sure you don't get to lead another charge. Now that you're nice and weak, it shouldn't be too hard."

The demon struggled unsuccessfully as Horatio hoisted him back onto his feet, as ruined as they were. "It'll never work; this flesh is long dead!" he said, spitting in Horatio's face. "You're even more of a fool than you look if you think you'll manage to turn me - Lilith and Lucifer's gift needs a living host to take root!"

At those words, Horatio gave Aislinn and Gabriel a bit of a leer. "Dear friends, wouldn't one of you possibly care to ply their considerable resources to pry Death's mantle away from this bag of bones, hm? Someone here's been without a pulse for far, far too long..."

Gabriel blinked. "You're asking us to resurrect Valefor's assumed corporeal form - so you can make it undead.
- Weak as a kitten," appended Grimley, "but undead, yes. Blunted fangs, a barely-enhanced muscle tone. his mind given the consistency of strawberry jam... A lord of Hell turned sideshow attraction. I'd pay a pretty penny for the Goat to see that."

Tom seemed skeptical. "You can't control the curse that precisely," he began, seemingly as an assertion, until doubt crept in. "Can you?"

Grimley kept his hands underneath Valefor's now almost-atrophied arms. "It's a coin toss that's nudged this way and that with weeks of abuse and carefully doled-out care, but I am the head of the North-American Freaks, technically. No matter the bloodline, patriarchs and matriarchs have some slight echo of the fateful pair's power to craft the Blood. None of us could ever manage something to the level of Lucifer or Lilith themselves, but we do have some authorial intent - to be reserved for extraordinary cases."

* * *

"Haven't I been technically doing this for a few generations, now?" asked Zeb. "Keeping sobriety at bay, doldrums away with a healthy application of Hope bourbon and cheap wine..."

He scoffed at himself. "It's hard to feel unhappy, when one of the Green Fairy's many, many cousins is convincing you that you've become some sort of death-defying magus whose power is so immense that the death of his loved ones feels trite. I always felt on top of my game, when I effectively was leaving puddles of drool around the city's police precincts and short-stay cells. It's the waking up part that always brought me crashing down."

Liz leaned on the console. "This might be insensitive, but I really gotta ask: can liches snore? I mean, your vocal cords are technically gone, and your intrinsic field can only emulate things you're either conscious of or that are part of your mental projection. Nobody's exactly conscious when they sleep, so..."

Zeb parted with a mean chuckle he directed at himself. "Trust me, miss Pope, liches can snore. As long as we have reserves left, we can affect ghostly twins of our lost organs' various functions. As nobody exactly dreams situations where their voicebox is entirely removed, my reserves of power emulated what my unconscious mind was asking of my equally unconscious body, in all those one-bed pokeys I slept in. I could point you to a few sleep-deprived officers who used a flashlight or a nightstick to rap on cell bars to wake me up..."

That left Liz to cant her gaze sideways. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you do have someone you have contempt for. It's not Samoset, clearly, but you're honest about what you think about yourself, and you're essentially saying that your drunk self wishes it had the clarity you now have. Would that be spite enough to lure the Wendigo in?"

Zeb's eyelights briefly flared, after a second's worth of hesitation. "I'd need a while to hype myself up, refocus on the idea that this wretched earlier state of mine is Samoset's fault, but - it could work. I just don't know if I could do so while sober, unfortunately. Could I conceivably get drunk for a good reason?"

Pope shrugged as she looked at Andrea. "Under supervision? Probably...?" she said, drawing out that last word in a wince. "Just - not here, though. Not now either, obviously."

* * *

"We will," replied the girl, smiling even as she turned away. "Adjø, and thank you!"

A few more minutes' worth of walking followed, the procession attracting gazes as their unveiled forms caught the eyes of locals who owed their relative peace to the Fiends' dislike of Nordic climes. The rifts had changed the climate locally, yes, but Norway was positioned so that the time of year wouldn't have involved particularly warm days, even with the ambient rise in temperatures. Sweden also happened to be one of Heaven's greater staging grounds in Europe, Celestial influence being enough to keep things in check at least to a degree. Nodin led the group to a deserted public park, picked a large oak and circled it three times, disappearing behind it on the third revolution.

In following him, the group would find themselves in what looked like a public park in one of London-Upon-Faerie residential neighborhoods, the upper curvature of the Victorian sewer only partially visible behind the detailed illusion of a scrolling overcast sky. In the distance, old Clank speakers clattered to life as their tines played out a preset message in crisp and lifeless Buckingham Palace dialect - or perhaps its Dickensian ancestor.

"A reminder: by order of Their Majesties as of the Twelfth of November, London-Time, a curfew will be in effect from the nineteenth hour of this day to the seventh of tomorrow's. All Gate travel will be suspended within the half-hour, and all porter services are to be halted. Trans-planar network connections will be severed in the next ten minutes; please shut off all electronic devices, including routers and smartphones. The small rifts allowing for networked transmissions with the mortal plane may remain open, any use of them during curfew hours will be subject to fines. Repeated offenses will result in the guardsmen being notified. Remain indoors until tomorrow's warning: safety cannot be guaranteed without escort. This message shall repeat twice."

Three didn't need much time to figure out what this meant. "We're practically out of time," he said. "We have less than twenty minutes to make it to the palace, explain our plan and get the drum-"

He'd barely said this that a lilac-colored carriage and its equally frosty horse pulled in front of the courtyard. It might's had the physical makeup of a wild horse; someone had still gone through the trouble of assembling what looked like an old-fashioned tweed rider's suit and flat cap. The horse stamped one hoof on the cobblestones and actually called out to them.

"Ho, there!" he said. "Lord Haskill sends his regards! You'd better gallop on ahead, Mister Thorn - I'll take care of them!"

Three stared and blinked, the horse shaking its head. "It's Mayhew, Sir Knight! I wasn't about to pull the lot of you while on two legs now, was I?! There's space enough inside for all of you - hurry on in!"

Three bolted forwards, stopping on the single wrought-iron step in front of the cabin. "We never told Haskill or Eirean our plans, we'd just agreed to them back in Israel! There isn't much that Vernon could conceivably be aware of!
- He doesn't know what you've planned, and neither do I, but he knows enough to have unsanctioned Gate crossings tracked! We have men in London's Infernal occupation that report back to us! If some of Hope's Summer Knights and the Heiress of Solomon illegally cross into the seat of the Realms, it means something's afoot! It's good that you've come, we would've wanted to discuss with you in any case!"

Three ducked inside, his heart rising in his chest as the space inside appeared to have the rough shape of the interior of a horse-drawn carriage, but the layout of an absolutely massive Victorian drawing room. What should've been cramped space for eight or nine pairs of legs was actually a sprawling living room done in checkerboard marble, dark wood essences and the expected gaslight-era overabundance of plants and clutter. Several sofas and armchairs all waited, Hope's Winter Lord rising from one of them. Next to him waited the Summer Lady, her wild shock of red hair once again neatly marshaled into a frizzy ponytail. She typed away on a Thinbook-style laptop, taking a few seconds to save her work and close the device.

Drake shook hands with Haskill. "Is something wrong back in Hope?
- You mean, more than usual?" replied Haskill with a sad little smirk. "On the bright side, our scouts are reporting that we now have Revenant vampires on our side: Grimley's own troupe returned from Heaven in flesh and blood. Wrath's largest encampment was overrun by their numbers - with Aislinn and Tom's help - within moments. Unfortunately, their turning back to assist Arthur might come too late.
- Did Pride send more Knights to the front lines?"

Haskill nodded. "Yes, but that only compounds the real issue. You see, Arthur is the main problem. The enemy's managed to box Alana in the park's northwestern gazebo, yards away from the Tree's trenches and Arthur. She's no longer there to attempt to contain him, not for lack of trying. Our scouts even attempted to assist her cadre of vampires and armed survivors directly; the Knights seem to be under explicit orders to leave her alive and under pressure. Pride, as expected, is much better organized than Wrath - at our detriment.
- And Sophia?"

Vernon sighed. "She has Ciaran and Arthur, but one is a single selkie and the other is beginning to consider extreme measures: the practitioners he'd set aside as bait were all turned. An increasing amount of those he'd sworn to protect is being conscripted, and Holden's own frayed mental state is affecting his striplings' approach to his orders: Sophia's had to barricade herself behind roots and planks. We'd both be back there if we could be of any assistance, but Eir and I exhausted our Mantles for the next several days. We've given it all that we could: you'll find my frost and icicles and her own vines and brambles all over the Park's Southeast beach-head - the angels told us to retreat once our exhaustion became obvious."

Concern touched Aidan's features. "Are you okay? Maybe we could-
- Physically, we're both fine," reassured Eirean. "After a while, the kind of mindset and belief you have to hold onto to power a Mantle just becomes hard to maintain consistently. You can't see yourself as dreadful, icy joy or scorching conviction made flesh forever - even if you're from a bloodline like mine or Vernon's. You need a while to recharge. That's not the only thing we wanted to discuss, though. You've probably heard the curfew messages by now, and figured out what they imply: wireless signals are now passing between the Planes. It's the least of our worries, though."

Three followed Eirean's gaze toward Meris'. "Something's happening with Time, Meris. We're... I'm not sure how to put it, but we've been losing people who cross Gates, and finding their traces elsewhere later. Traces that date back decades, or centuries. Modern Fae Commoners and their friends, reappearing as artifacts or traces the Infernal invaders inadvertently stir back up to the surface. According to the angels, this shouldn't be possible. You can't travel through time if you can't master Angel Time - the odds of someone leaving traces is too great, and we don't know how timelines resist or adapt to change. Normally, only Celestials are equipped to handle time travel without incident."

Vernon shook his head. "We're all still here, our current conflict hasn't been simply willed out of existence, so it seems safe to assume that Time is made of sterner stuff than we thought... Or maybe luck is keeping the unlucky few from making overt changes to the timeline. But - please, find yourselves a seat. Both of us wanted to be here to vouch for you, in case the King and Queen voice any objections."

* * *

Mel looked like he'd listened to her words as intently as humanly possible. "Got any fallbacks or contingencies?" he asked. "I mean, beyond just being careful?"

He set his fork down and once again steepled his hands together below his chin. "I don't wanna lose you, Abbie - or Gabriel, or Hesediel, Matriel, Ariel or anyone else. I've got friends down here, and more than just friends, too. Besides, I'm kind of in the same boat; there's limits to how I can manifest here, even with the Gates wide open. I'm just as vulnerable to annihilation as you are. I'm not a Prince or a Fae, I  can't just pass on my specific subset of Greed to someone else, especially now that I'm somewhere between the Goat's blacklist and Heaven's trusted associates. If I'm gone, Wolfram and Associates is gone, the Hope Arcane Stock Exchange is gone, and every bit of power I've kept in circulation is back up for grabs."

He sighed. "I know that doesn't compare to Thermodynamics going poof, but I don't want my passing to leave the door open for power-hungry warlocks to swoop down on us like vultures. I'm still trying to figure all this out, which is why I asked you all this."

An idea seemingly struck him, a glint in his eyes taking root - and he dismissed it with a shrug. "Nah, I can't do that to you. I couldn't give Fire a subset of Greed, that'd be too risky. Fire's already as ravenous as local oxygen and fuel supplies allow, adding human Need to an Element would be a recipe for disaster."

* * *

"Take over for me!" replied Lucifer just as quickly. "I barely had enough to squeeze his pecs, I can't manage chest compressions like this!"

As he spoke, the smell of burning wood and vinyl began to rise. He followed his own beat for a few more seconds, stopping only once he'd be sure Nami would be able to immediately pick it up, to keep forcing Quigley's heart to beat evenly. That done, he turned and looked at the deserted nightclub's dance floor, narrowing his big eyes as points of lurid orange-red light began to appear in cracks between the floorboards. Seeing this, he sighed.

"I couldn't have kept running forever," he told nobody in particular. "I guess it's better we deal with this shit now, while I've still got gas in the tank..."

The floorboards soon began to crack and splinter, Hellfire bubbling up from the eight small rifts that had formed across the open space. Out of them crawled humanoid figures, their variable morphologies forcing some of them to further push floorboards away. They didn't look like any particular subset of Pitspawn, even if the look of mad glee that touched two of them as they looked upon Lucifer could've indicated Envy. They struggled against one another as they climbed, snapped and screamed or gibbered, smaller rifts opening as the amount of floor space being taken increased. Soon, Nami and her allies only had the booth they were in to call their own - the Pitspawn were everywhere, on both of the club's floors.

Tension rose for an instant, dozens of bodies bowed forward as if to leap - and they all screamed, with the mad, dark joy of undefeated and unchallenged wrongdoers.

"LUCIFER!"

Tension marked the Lightbringer's hirsute features as he took a step forward, until something made him look up and off to one side. A single chime rose on the speakers that surrounded the space, a slow and insidious grin spreading on the CGI demon's features. The rigs' various subwoofers could be seen vibrating as strong infrasounds left them, producing a bone-vibrating frequency that made the demon's features turn hazy. He craned his head back and closed his eyes.

"Yeah, baby," he cooed, seemingly for his own benefit, "it's good to be back!"

As he did, light seemed to bloom from deep within his own frame, an expanding point of pure whiteness that'd strangely seem flat and harmless to Nami and the others, even while the mass of Fiends felt compelled to take a few steps back, wincing. An ecstatic groan left the demon as his form was entirely swallowed. There was a sudden rush of noise, like a magnesium wick hissing after being lit, the whiteness receding to reveal very real dark brown fur, clawed toes and hands, a round head and a drooping nose, irises both realistic and patterned in a two-tone brow-and-gray pie-slice manner that replicated his earlier Pac-Man-like peepers. Two horns rose from his almost uniformly spherical head, a tiny flame hovering between them. What looked like a white, black and golden varsity jacket had appeared over his back and arms, paired with tight-fit stonewashed jeans. The jacket sported four letters arranged in a grid, at the back: LCFR, obviously enough. No wings were visible for now, but his spaded tail swung lazily, in almost feline contentment.

They screamed again - wordlessly, this time, the purely emotional glee and shock of fanboys and girls standing within touching distance of their idol. Arms raised, Lucifer seemingly took it all in better than the Black Goat himself would have, a satisfied smile on his face, eyes closed - and fingers crossed behind his back, for Nami and the others to see. Almost-transparent golden facets had appeared in front of the booth, the Lightbringer having likely manifested his wings as a force field to protect the others in the immediate.

Lucifer might have managed to pacify the horde for now, but it didn't stop Amazo from weakly stirring. Oddly enough, the snake seemingly turned transparent for just an instant, underneath Nami's hands.

Crystal sipped the last of her drink and hummed pensively as she weighed the options. "I know you might have your reservations, dear, but I'd rather have Bob and Gallows with us. Belial's main forge isn't something he'll let go of lightly, since the others will be under siege as well. Numbers should work in our favor, hopefully. It'd function as a pack."

***

Aislinn scoffed lightly. "It seems like some of our best bets have been on creating new precedents; this certainly seems like one of them," she mused, glancing at Valefor.

She then set her gaze back on Grimley. "As far as resurrecting dead flesh, it sounds like what's needed is a Breath of Life spell, if I recall correctly. It's one of those rare rituals the Throne of Air came up when resurrection was required without all the dramatic grisliness. It'll add a positive bent to Valefor's charming personality, with your work to follow. Consider it as laying the foundation," she said.

***

Andrea clicked her tongue in agreement. "Well, yeah, obviously. I know it seems like an oxymoron, Zeb, but you need to how find that balance between clarity and drunkenness. That may take some time, though. Keep it on the back burner and introspect a bit," she suggested.

***

The issues with Time suddenly troubled Meris as her mind wondered over the possible causes-none of them good. Still, she found herself a seat in a wingback chair and turned off her cellphone for the time being.

Aspasia grunted as she heard the tail end of needing to be vouched for. The red-earred Fauness sighed and jerked a thumb back at Owens in particular. "You may have to do that, especially with Owens here. We also met a former associate of Archie's back in the Wilds and had to pull a few unorthodox strings to make sure he'd make it through alright. But better to lend a hand than let Miss Swamp Thing have her way, hm?"

***

Abdiel tilted her head curiously at his interrupted suggestion. "True, and the thing with an Element is that is essentially beyond comprehension. That's part of why we Thrones can't show our true forms to mortals, since we don't want them losing their minds."

She held up a finger. "However, there might be ways to back up our personalities and and associated powers, as an ultimate last resort. I'm sure you're familiar with liches' phylacteries. It might be a stretch, but we only have so many options. This could still be at risk of being taken, if we don't take the proper precautions. Also, I know you dismissed your idea before, but you can still tell me. There's always a chance we can modify it to our needs."

***

Nami had resumed with the strong, rapid pushes and followed them with invigorating breaths into Quigley's mouth. She tensed while working at the arrival of the Pitspawns' arrival and their adulation over their Dark Prince's return. His crossed fingers gesture relieved her a bit as she noticed the peculiar but brief transparency of the snake's body. Did it it have something to do with the gold facets Lucifer had erected? "Nani?" she silently mouthed, her expression perplexed as she focused on trying to keep him alive.

"Ever the wary predator, I see," noted the android, as he smirked at his lover and lightly bumped her shoulder with his own. Looking back at Nergal, he settled with a shrug. "I do see your respective points, and I wouldn't be where I am today if my tendency towards lone heroics hadn't been a factor in my decision-making."

Nergal parted with a negative nod. "I think we perfectly understand where you're coming from, Milord; I've trusted plenty of reconnaissance efforts to small teams or lone agents in the past. This isn't recon, however. If Belial's forges seem largely unguarded, it's because his forge workers are still Pitspawn in their own right. He's really more of a mob boss than a Prince like the Goat, so even the most technical brazing or welding technician on sight stands as a worthy foe, all its own. The Smith, as we used to call Belial, doesn't deal with popinjays and politicians. We'll have to be decisive."

The summoning circle in the back briefly flared to life again, Bob and Ereshkigal appearing within it. "Oh, thank Lucifer," groaned the Sammaelite, "can someone beer me up, please? I like Vienna as much as any guy, but between the dragons and the vamps, all they had on tap was a shit-ton of mead, German lager or blood."

Erin smirked at that. "Maeve, I think this calls for a Budweiser. I'll just join the other adults at the table with an espresso."

The barmaid had set to work even before Nergal's wife had finished, seemingly knowing enough to plunk an opened bottle on the counter. Bob picked it up in a large mitt, angled the cap's crown with the edge of the bar and slapped it open, immediately lifting it to his lips with a quiet and grateful groan. He drained a third of it in a single pull and then set it back down, sedately turning what would've been a large burp into a quiet exhalation. Lachlan seemed vaguely amused. 

"I kinda like how you're put off by vampires waxing Austrian while downing an American product that's got roots in Germany, Bob," she said. "You do know this is Walpurgis, right? Black magic for Humanity's survival, character enough to make Austin shake in its boots, the first largest annual Oktoberfest in North America, the local Warlock patriarch winning a lifetime supply of Bitburger pilsner in some stupid sweepstakes five years ago, and the German officials for the company narrowing it down to ten years because free beer for life for a Warlock would be overdoing it a tad?
- The body I rode in before the planar mergers was American, so the taste stuck," muttered the Sammaelite. "Like the accent, my taste in barbecue sauces, cheap beer and cheaper cigars.
- Not cheap girls, though," noted Ereshkigal with a smirk. "I hear Sariel hasn't been returning your calls too often, lately."

Bob grimaced. "Ahriman, right? I swear, someone oughta magic up a filter for that goat's empathy," he groused. "We're fine, she's just busy, is all. Lotta people need counseling, living in Magnus Tower's asking a lot from a lotta people and not everybody from Heaven or Hell's adjusting equally. We'd see each other more often if we could; it's just hard to find someplace that's nice enough and intimate enough without ending up in the ass end of nowhere."

Nergal turned around, coffee cup in hand, and rested his elbows on the counter as he kept an eye on the circle. "I'm guessing Gallows is being kept, hm?
- His brand of punishment's working overtime, lately," noted Bob. "The Pitspawn been dishing up a world of hurt, they've got a world of karma to get shot in the face with, for their efforts."

The burly Sammaelite raised a hand, the smooth, matte and cold lines of his pistol materializing as he did. It was every bit the definition of a hand cannon, Crystal only needing to look at it to infer that Doomsayer's kickback would be too much for even her own hands, and even if she tried to account for it with a mounted shoulder rest. This clearly wasn't meant for mortals to wield. She wouldn't lose digits, but she'd certainly be bruised for weeks on end. Still, what might be surprising was how Bob allowed the gun to spin on its trigger guard, grip now angled upwards - and twisted off a brass ringed cap. He glanced back at Lachlan.

"D'you take obols, spits, or...?
- Coins or cold, hard cash, O Demon of Socrates," teased Maeve. "Credit's hard to come by with the infrastructure being FUBAR, but I doubt either Otto or Nergal would mind the occasional IOU.
- Well, that sucks," noted Bob, "'cause I kinda forgot to pack dollars for the trip. I've only got what I forgot in my coin stash, I don't know how many moons ago."

The barmaid jerked her chin at the pistol's butt. "Don't tell me you're going to shake an ancient, pre-Hellenic cooking spit out of there, bucko, 'cause I won't-"

One eye flashing, Bob ensured that his pistol's chambers were empty, double-checked its safety, and only then felt safe in shaking and angling the pistol's butt this way and that, metallic jangling sounds accompanying it. It took a few seconds, but he eventually pulled out a small and rough metallic ring out of it, which was soldered to a long and thin spike of primitive steel.

Maeve groaned at that sight. "Ugh - fine. Maybe the cooks could use an extra utensil - after they run it through an Olympic pool's worth of dishwasher fluid and isopropyl alcohol."

* * *

Horatio's titter promised nothing good for Valefor, as he rounded the defeated general. He kept restraining him, obviously, but had moved to allow for easier access.

"Then please," said the Ringleader, "do proceed, if you can. It's free access, all-you-can-eat popcorn and free range at the petting zoo, if you pull it off..."

Hannibal eyed the dissipating carnage, down below. "Since when does Grimley's Circus have a petting zoo?
- We're more of an old-fashioned dime museum now, what with having dependable roots to draw on," airily replied the Squid, as if the mood called for a conversational tone. "All I need is a few mortal tattoo artists, a few raunchy comedians and a ragtag bunch with an eye for burlesque, and we'll have a full complement.
- Won't that expose your archives?"

Grimley chuckled as he parted with a self-satisfied shake of his head. "It's so rare for my troupe to find worthwhile aides and roustabouts; any locals who manage to pull me out of one literally Hellish funk deserve our confidence. We're in for a few rocky months, obviously, but we'll eventually come across a workable arrangement for my vault's storage. That's without considering all the juicy possibilities the local mess offers: if Time and Space are being scrambled up, who says I even need to worry about finding a local nook for my vault?"

Valefor grunted. "Why are you gloating?! I could report everything back to the Black Goat!"

Horatio parted with a low, menacing chuckle that wouldn't have sounded out of place coming from Mark Hamill, and ran a slow finger across Valefor's neck.

"No, you won't," he sweetly said. "You won't, because I won't let you."

Tom, however, had tripped on something else. "Wait, back up. That part about time and space - was that just you being a troll or this a case of the Moon-Mad's insight rearing its head?"

Horatio rolled his eyes at that, more out of affected goofiness than out of exasperation. "If I knew, Tommy boy, I'd tell you!"

The Warlock grunted and looked back at the now thoroughly-trashed factory floor, below. "As much as I'm glad to have you back, Horatio, this Cryptic Wisdom crap is going to get old fast..."

Grimley replied to that with a loud cackle and an involuntary forward bow, Valefor's bound arms straining in response. "Don't make me laugh," pleaded the Ringleader, "I'm not ready to break our boy's arms, yet! You're the one with schemes upon schemes upon schemes, and I'm testing your patience?!"

Magnus hesitated for a moment, then partially lowered his spell-slinging hand. "Fair point," he said, just quietly enough to make it clear he hadn't wished to admit it.

* * *

Liz shrugged. "Call it a freebie, but a lot of us Squids take to CBD or mild pot-smoking when Amaxi or another one of the Cosmic Assholes try to key in. Mister Whitney sticks to CBD caplets; he doesn't want a stoner high to mess with his aim. I use a Hybrid blend in joint form - enough to shut the Bitch up and make Her looming over me feel like something I can ignore, not enough to feel like I'm turning sluggish or paranoid."

Zeb's eyebrow shot up, and he parted with a thoughtful grunt. "Eliphas bought a hookah before the curse set in; he intended to use it as a centerpiece for the lounge area, outside of his study. I, er, borrowed it for the sake of my early research and then pawned it off for money. Things having changed since the days of hashish and opium, I might be able to find something suitable..."

Pope dug in her pockets and pulled out an e-cigarette. "The company formulates its own compounds for Void Weaver operatives, we can create liquids for e-cigarettes or inhalers that ignore the e-cig industry's reliance on carcinogens. The perks of being able to assemble molecules without a lab or much of a classic training in Chemistry."

She handed her pen and a small plastic vial to the lich. "Keep them for now, you'll be able to get back in touch with us if the formula needs to be revised, or for refills."

* * *

"Obviously," replied Eir with a smirk. "Fates willing, you'll be able to settle down some, sir," she said, nodding at Regis.

"Haskill raised an eyebrow. "If I might, what happened, exactly?
- I suspect the one you call Morgana only saw me as a pawn in some sick game of hers," replied Woodford, ears drooping. "I suffered for Heaven knows how long, and then these fine friends of yours came along. I'd seen these Jungle Trolls of yours in my earlier days or hours or nights spent in that rainforest, prior to being trapped, and my best understanding is that I've inherited their physical makeup, but only some of their ferocity. They were quite cruel hunters in their own right, toying with me for hours, cackling from the underbrush as my shots were lost in the canopy, but I feel much the same as I did before - if only more motivated, somehow. I understand I've lost centuries' worth of technological progress and understand very little of your society even as it seems to be under siege - but the confusion that should be overwhelming me has stayed its hand, somehow."

He shrugged. "I have some... nugget of wild, alien trepidation in my bosom as I speak, a hard chunk of animal glee at the thought of being given a worthwhile target, but it feels strangely manageable, somehow. I'd liken it to being a predator that has lost its prey's scent. I should be frustrated with my new predicament, but it feels as though a part of me is whispering, somehow - telling myself that things will sort themselves out with time."

Vernon nodded. "Trolls of all types do have a certain uncanny resilience to themselves. Anger never really seems to stay for long, the instincts their native lands imparted them with usually replace it rather quickly. Rock Trolls are the most patient of the lot, as you're likely to learn. Without their being attuned with rock and soil, they would never have managed to save America's agricultural and mining industries from its own worst tendencies. Add dryads-turned corporation CEOs, and you'll understand why States like Iowa or Idaho haven't been ruined as thoroughly as others."

Three nodded. "Corporeal demons need feeding, too. It was in everyone's best interests to keep things working the way they used to - 
- And it paves the way for our secret weapon," noted the Lady. "Empathy works wonders: set a Fiend to work a patch of land now that its stomach is grumbling for the first time, and they'll drop the siege beasts for combines and rakes."

Drake spent a few seconds looking at the fireplace, focusing on how distant the carriage's shocks and Mayhew's turning motions were. They weren't moving quickly, the carriage's occasional jostling to a near-complete stop translating as the gentle rattling of Vernon's teacup. "Does Titania know about Morgana's plans with Sharpe? Does she know about the Vanir?"

Vernon pursed his lips together and nodded. "We've only just begun to accrue data, but yes. The official Courts are now well aware of the other two's plans for our post-invasion world. Sharpe negotiating alliances or striking now was to be expected. We'll soon see if the man endorses his associates' use of terrorism or if he would rather play politics. I suspect he favors both, having long since admitted his fondness for men and women of Lord Holden's calibre. As for the Vanir; we Aesir have been in a centuries-long détente with them: we let dryads administer their Nexuses, sometimes even plant them ourselves, and we generally approach arcane focal points with the respect and caution they deserve. I, unfortunately, cannot speak for Morgana's ilk, or Phineas', or even those who have apparently joined in for their own mercenary gains."

That left Isaacs, of all people, to mutter frustratedly. "You would assume that someone with Sharpe's track record would know not to sow further division in a time as fractious as this one; the man almost led a successful Secessionist movement across all stratas of the Sidhe and left cultural imprints across the American south that can be felt to this day; and he doesn't know enough to understand all of us are up against the forces of Hell?!"

Naberius sighed, opened his mouth in apparent objection, and then raised a finger. Sitting up, he headed for the fireplace, stirred its embers with the provided poker, and then gestured towards the shining motes, pouring power into them. They fluttered out of the hearth, multiplying as they did, and began to sparkle with different hues than the simple orange-reds of incandescent wood particles. Blacks and whites and reds appeared, with a few golden-brown tones manifesting a tad later.

"Phineas Sharpe," the Steward began, "the sole, undisputed winner in all of the American Confederacy. Most other commanders were too brazen to temper their bigotry, to quell their desperate clutching for the halcyon days of cotton plantations and lumber mills staffed with conveniently sub-human folk, or so they believed. They held onto their hatred, their privilege, and it cost them the war."

The motes of light arranged in a high-definition, color version of something Aidan and the others had previously only seen in sepia tone: Phineas Sharpe as he looked back in 1863. Dark, swept-back hair and a well-furnished mustache, a Roman nose and the Sidhe's pointed ear pinna, a more ostentatious variant on a Confederate general's parade regalia stretching below his neck, his right breast festooned with medals for battles that had only rarely been fought on the mortal plane. He looked like he'd Chosen somewhere in his mid-forties, likely after years of failing to find satisfaction as one of Titania's appointed Summer Lords in the South. Morgana had been the one to make the Choice official, having pushed the slave-owning Fae and heir to the Sharpe Sawmills between South Carolina and Louisiana towards a more contentious path, in promise of added power.

"He did not, as History tells us. He served his time in Fort Slocum, on Davids' Island, then retreated to his family's old Spanish holdings, in Louisiana. Oberon's saving of Archibald's life and his having cursed Sharpe led to our man disappearing from public life. He briefly re-emerged to register with the Vienna Council in 1976, and had undergone harrowing changes, since then."

The motes in the chair rearranged into the shape of the flannel-wearing old man Archie had briefly investigated, a year before the incursions. "Information on Sharpe at that point turns fragmentary. Even as we searched for our Heiress, we kept tabs on those who had once turned to darker paths to sate their desire for conquest. We petitioned Azorthagal for the man's vital signs: cancer virulent enough for even his deathless cells to be left defenseless was eating him alive. Oberon's curse was finally taking him. Until the incursions, he'd turned silent - inactive. We'd presumed him dead."

He sighed and glanced at Deirdre. "Then, those of her ilk began to crawl out of the proverbial woodwork. By your words, Lord Haskill, I would surmise we are to meet him soon - in new flesh, I'd wager."

Three frowned. "Has he gone Clank?
- Nothing so convenient, I'm afraid," replied Vernon. He then glanced at Naberius and at the man-shaped motes of fire in the high-backed chair. "May I?"

Naberius took a step aside and nodded slightly. The Winter Lord stood up, ventured closer, and softly blew air towards the construct, his arcane willpower following his breath. The motes rearranged themselves. Mottled human skin turned to a thick and healthy ruffle of white feathers, the wrinkled mouth into a sharp, black beak, the dark human eyes turning into pale irises surrounded by a blood-red sclera. A dark, modern suit cut took shape, the scale-tipped and clawed fingers of avian anthros.

Agares grunted. "So, our Keyser Söze's a bearded vulture, now?
- A young, designer-built lammergeier anthro, yes," confirmed Haskill. "Painstakingly designed in Paradise and shipped back here, during the invasion's hectic first few days. He carries the original body's own genetic markers, which made him a Changeling in all but name. Add artificial maturation in a pod, and he all but certainly Chose a second time, only a few days after being decanted.
- He can't have Chosen too quickly," noted Drake. "Just ask Aspasia: Transgenics need a good, long while to completely flush their bodies free of nanotech. A single nanite might not amount to much in terms of iron content, but a bloodstream's worth of the stuff would be agony for any Fae."

Vernon reached next to his teacup and handed the human a manila folder. "Here's an order summary processed by Satoshi Labs, one of Elysium's post-defeat splinters. You might have to ask Sam to help you with katakana," he said, tapping one of his own temples, but my translators are convinced: a breakthrough in nanotech is waiting for the highest bidder, outside of Earth's gravity well: higher-frequency nanites coated in a silicon myelin shell."

Three licked his lips. "If foreign bodies are effectively disguised, then it means Paradise's defeated the Sidhe's iron allergy. They've circumvented the curse the dragons placed on your ancestors to quell your rebellion. It opens the Fae up as customers for cybernetics, for cheaper and more cost-effective medical treatments - and it'd be one Hell of a bargaining chip."

He paused. "Why that particular species, though?
- The ossifrage is a carrion bird," added Woodford. "Its diet is largely comprised of bone, which its powerful stomach acids digest thoroughly in but a few hours. Andorra is one of its frequent nesting areas, and you did mention he had Spanish holdings in Louisiana."

The troll still looked a tad confused, and exchanged a look between Meris and Vernon. "Who would this... cyber-whatsit bring profit to, exactly? This Satoshi organization, or Sharpe?"

Vassago looked as self-conscious as ever, perhaps a symptom of his having lost his library. "I could answer this if I had access to my library, but as things are... I can only assume they've come to some sort of exclusivity agreement."

* * *

Melmoth shrugged. "Well, like I said, I thought I could leave my subset of Greed with you as an insurance policy, if I ever felt seriously threatened. It might change you a smidge - maybe you'll put some of that wonderful subtlety of yours on the back-burner, seeing as I've always been kinda blunt. I couldn't hunt my usual targets if I didn't temper it with sympathy and I'm not exactly afraid of you being lacking in that department, but-"

He clicked his lips. "I just don't know how much the Throne of Fire would enjoy being forced to talk macro- and microeconomics with Douglas Heathcliff, on the advent of my death. I also don't know how much you'd enjoy, well..."

He surreptitiously looked back at the Fae couple. "How much you'd enjoy doing this," he said, winking as he stood up. He stuck a hand in his pocket as he turned and headed towards them.

"Justin St. Clair - Melmoth, Aspect of Greed, nice t'meet'cha," he said, more or less congenially barreling towards them. "How're things, huh? Great wife, your first two Changeling kids since Hadrian's Wall turned into a tourist fixture, a great job as a day trader here in Vienna, grateful clients - not all of 'em strictly legal..."

St. Clair turned an icy glance towards the demon, Mel's almost goofy smirk decidedly looking like it was frost-proof. "Do I know you, sir?
- Oh, come on, you just bad-mouthed Abdiel, here!" he said, gesturing to her. "She can take it, she's a bigger girl than you'll ever be a man - but when I invest my energy into somethin' or someone - say, a relationship, I expect it to be treated with respect. Let's just set mine aside for a sec, huh? I'm not here to defend my love life, it doesn't need defendin'. The relationship I'm goin' on about is ours, J-man..."

The Fae's frost began to melt, doubt creeping in. "I don't quite see what you're referring to. I suggest you take it up with the Infernal Affairs representative, here in Vienna. He might-"

Othstein clicked his tongue. "Paris, 1897. Your firm's struggling, your first wife's left you after she found out you owed money to Jules Bonnot, one of the local mob bosses-"

The girl's eyes widened. "You were married?!" she exclaimed in English, her Austrian accent made trilly with sheer anger and surprise. Mel feigned surprise and pointed at St. Clair.

"You mean he never told you?" he said, going from shock to a dismissive shrug. "I knew, kid - demon. It's my job to know these things. Not to go off-track, but Bonnot kicks his ass, as much of a mortal as he might be, and leaves him bleeding on the pavement in some alleyway near the Seine's shipyards. Iron knuckles, natch - Mantle goes poof."

The demon quite brazenly picked a nearby chair, spun it around and straddled it, as if it quickly join the couple's table. "Now," he told the woman, "hubby here's not a believer, and he doesn't have a shred of practitioner skills to speak of. With a powdered jaw and cracked ribs, though, he's prayin' hard. Not for the Good Guys, though, seein' as he's one of the Fae, and one of the haughty ones. Celestials never did jack squat for the Sidhe, or so the common beliefs go. He doesn't know any Names, doesn't know about me or Mammon or the Goat or anybody, so he just, well... He just Asks, with all the chutzpah you'd muster for a geas. I feel a tug on my lapel from a plane over, so knowin' I'm the least likely to fuck him over irredeemably, I hightail it over to Paris."

He paused, leaning in slightly to touch the woman's hand. "I gave him his jaw, sweetheart. I gave him his three ribs, his unblemished Eurotrash mug, and I took the pain away. I gave him luck and good fortune for six years, six months and six weeks - long enough to leave the Milieu behind and find some better place to embezzle clients, hoping he'd at least picked up on the lesson. I asked for the last ten years of his immortal life, in repayment. If he played his cards right, I'd never show up to collect. He'd get to live out his life without any further dark spots, with nothin' except the occasional spat of mundane drama. The death of friends, Age and Time steamrollin' things on while he'd carry on lookin' as marketable as ever..."

The Infernal Broker had now turned gloomy, something in the surrounding low light of the restaurant apparently darkening in response. "You didn't learn, Justin, didn't'cha? From Paris to Italy, in with the Camorra. Hop on a boat to Corsica to swim ahead of the oldest syndicate in Europe, end up smack-dab in the coin-purses of wealthy sheep-herders with the locale's penchant for drama and blunt knives. Earn a few scars courtesy of the Blight, then hop on over to America, where you sided with the Irish in New York's gaslight-era gangs. Strike it rich with the Tammany Hall boys, then hightail it with their dividends - all the way back to Germany, where facilitatin' operations for the Nazis and the Stasi worked wonders until the Berlin Wall fell. Then, hoppin' along to New Order's Blue Monday, you slip off into Austria, do coke and bang hookers without condoms. Fuck it, right? The Sidhe can't catch STDs as easily as mortals, so fuck it if you end up with HIV-positive striplings strewn across the autobahn."

The girl looked positively horrified, by now. Mel steepled his fingers together and tapped his thumbs against one another a few times. "I mean, it could be worse, sweetheart - you just married a fuckin' dumbass and an asshole to boot, and the whole sins of the fathers crap doesn't apply with kids in kindergarten. They're still as clean as can be."

The demon looked back to the male Fae. "You, though? You're in Hell, and I don't even need to collect. You're immortal, so here's the gist: people will forget, and you'll eventually get to start over, but it'll take generations. The Web's a real pain in the ass for chodes like you - it doesn't forget, like friends and family do. It doesn't forgive much, either. The court of public opinion's going to be crucifying you for the next decade, once your wife cracks and tells all to someone with a working smartphone and a notepad and pen. With immortals around, those generations I spoke of might as well be measured in millennia."

He leered. "A divorce court that lasts until the next geological era, until the portals cool off and the sea levels change. Alimony payments 'till the word alimony loses all meaning. Generations of unrecognized whelps banging on your door, rightfully asking for the right man to belatedly tutorialize all this Sidhe bullshit. Who knows - maybe a seriously resentful Summer Commoner with high-iron-content rounds and a gun - and the patience afforded by the centuries they never asked for..."

The man's face had turned pale. Mel hadn't done anything to affect the surrounding tables, but the others were clearly doing their best to ignore what was happening. He might as well have cast a pall of silence over the Fae couple. Still, he shrugged, a plume of smoke leaving his nostrils as his big, showy Rolex glinted on his rotating wrist, in a vague gesture of allowance.

"Or, y'know... I could always collect my due, Justin. It'd be quick and painless. Bam, heart attack, and you're off to spending eternity as a doorjamb in one of my employees' lounging areas. I like to take useless idiots like, well, yourself, and make 'em mean something for Wolfram and Associates. The last guy I collected, I turned into a never-ending block of Cyan wax ink, for the Graphic Design department's fancy CMYK printer - which itself used to be a serial adulterer. Nifty, huh?"

His smile disappeared, and he jerked a thumb towards his own table. "Option Three is you apologizing to my friend, here, and doing the same for the maitre d'. Some of the best damn chefs and food critics I ever worked with had fangs, by the way."

The woman blinked a few times and then looked off to Abdiel. "He's... He's not like the other demons we've seen here," she said, Melmoth raising his eyes to the ceiling and mouthing Finally, she gets it! behind her back.

* * *

Nami might be able to get another push in, maybe a second, before the snake's body simply vanished from underneath her hands. Nothing was left behind, nothing so much as his opera cane or top hat. Seeing this, Magnus quickly relayed the info to Lucifer, the Pitspawn taking it as a sign of the Lightbringer having plied his gifts to further torment his apparent prisoners. Another chorus of gleeful yelps and shrieks sounded, the hirsute demon raising both hands after a few seconds.

"Thank you," he started, "thanks a million! I never would've thought I could've earned this kind of welcoming party!"

Another round of clamor, Lucifer taking a few steps in the throng. "This is all too much, especially considering the circumstances! You've got so much to do, so much to see - and here you are. See, you're treating me like I'm the one guy who gets the party stirring and, well, I can't blame anyone present here for saying that! I've got the record for it, the attitude, the clothes..."

He then gestured above, to the second floor banister. There, pinned by two burly and vaguely simian Pitspawn, waited both the hapless human DJ and the anthro raven who'd barked orders at him. "What's your take on the situation, gentlemen?" he called out. "Is this a right shindig, or am I off-base, here? Don't be afraid to be honest; the peanut gallery here loves me so much they'd tuck you in for beddy-byes if I asked 'em to!"

That changed the atmosphere, somewhat. Confusion shyly took root in the assembly as darting eyes and questing hands stopped, as the already-ransacked bar was left alone for a few seconds. "I'll - I'll need months to recover from this!" replied the raven. "Allocer won't mobilize more funds, I already used up my Active Collaboration grant!
- I-I just wanna go home!" weakly added the DJ.

Lucifer inhaled sharply. "Right - let's recap, folks! We've got Creation's very structural integrity on the wire, a situation that can't be solved by any one single party even if I'm the one with the debugging tools, Hell's wastes emptied on some vague promise of dominion over mortalkind by someone whose biggest accomplishment in the Pit amounts to erecting a giant stone penis in his own name, Earth's ecology being irremediably fucked over so badly it'll take decades to shift the onus of responsibility back onto heavy polluters - you all got oil barons off the hook, once you switched seasons around and doomed polar bears and Adelie penguins to genetic sequencing and later re-introduction, too. The world's granaries are fine for now, but what about when Asmodeus' people start screwing folks left and right, popping out incubi and succubi faster than the food chain can handle?"

He paused, then barked at the assembly. "YOU'RE CORPOREAL, MORONS! You eat and sleep and breathe and piss and shit, now! You're hungry and tired; maybe a few of you chucklefucks spotted some other demon with bits that tickle your funny bone, so you're horny, too! You're now tethered to everything this planet produces, and you're destroying it?!"

The flame between his horns flared to life, turning into a bright and tall plume for a few seconds, as his irises and pupils turned to pupils. Lucifer seemingly doubled in height in an instant, now looming over the assembly, his horns almost touching the light fixtures.

"YOU WEREN'T MADE FOR THIS!" he snarled, his voice distorted by power. "YOU WERE THE CALLUS, THE CORK TO KEEP DOOM AT BAY! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO USE THE SPIRIT OF YOUR REBELLION TO OPPOSE AKOMAN, TO PUSH BACK ORDER IN ITS MOST NOXIOUS FORM! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT ENTROPY! YOU ALL FAILED EACH OTHER! YOU FAILED CREATION AND YOU FAILED ME!"

Silence had fallen over the nightclub. Lucifer shrunk down to his standard dimensions, his spent anger giving way to a few pants and at least one good primal snort of animal, indignant fury.

A single, sibilant voice hissed, almost too quietly. "That's not what the Goat said..."

Lucifer's quiet response was almost louder than any further shouts or screams. "What did he say?"

There was a moment of hesitation. "He said... He said Earth would be ours, that only we could oppose ruin. He said we'd fight the other Creators on our own terms, defeat the fallen ones and stand ready for Akoman. He said-"

Lucifer cut in with a chuckle, one that rose into a good, long peal of disbelieving laughter. "You fucks, opposing Akoman. Without me, without my plans, without backing from anyone else in Creation. Is - Is that what he told you?
- Yes," was the still quiet, if unwavering reply.

Still chuckling, Lucifer gestured back to the forcefield and caused a tear to open in it. "Urakawa, I'll, uh, need your help for a sec. Don't, um, worry about Quigley for now - it's serious, I know - but we've got cosmic fish to fry, right now..."

He brought his attention back to the crowd. "This, you unrepentant dotards, is Nami Urakawa. She's a Nephilim. You've seen dozens like her across Creation, and your racial hatred's always superseded your common sense. Normally, you'd be right in thinking anyone here could take a Neph with their eyes closed. Most happen to be the issue of some doe-eyed Cherub with a thing for a human or anthro-shaped bit of kindness on two feet, a Joe Schmoe in the Choir nobody's ever going to notice. Not her, though."

He paused, gently grasping Nami by the shoulders and bringing her forward, a bit like a presenter bringing a prize fighter forward for a weigh-in. "This, right here, is fifty percent Wyldfae, fifty percent Water Throne. If a typical Nephilim is industrial Tabasco, she's a lovingly-crafted pot of stomach-scorching salsa verde," he said, intentionally giving her a leer, then transferring it to the assembly.

"Meaning you're all chumps, for her. Meaning, dear monsters and freaks, that if she shucked off the comeliness of her Asian features and bloomed right here and now, right in front of you - if she carried the full weight of her father's title right in front of you - you'd fall to your knees and pray. That is, if you're strong enough. Most of you would just, you know, die, and head back to Hell with your tail between your legs."

He looked back at Nami. "I'm not sensing any opposition, so I'm thinking I might jailbreak you by, oh, one percent? Still centuries ahead of you officially growing a shit-ton of eyes and wings, but enough to make a point?"

"Long time no see, Bob," Crystal greeted him with a wave. "We were just discussing the best approach to take out Belial's forges to hopefully flush him out," she noted, then thinking back to something mentioned earlier.

"He's obviously crafty, so wouldn't he have something in place to keep the fires from being tamper-proof? Wouldn't it be more difficult than just having Matriel come in and douse all of them with the storm of the millennium?"

***

AIslinn got to work crafting the recalled ritual. The basis of it called for heavenly light, so she recreated the same Celestial fire that had helped take down his Zombiezilla form. The The medium size plume of fire swirled around like a mini tornado. The next ingredient required for the practitoner to add in a bit of their own breath, hearkening back to the times of when the angels were imbuing life into the earliest dragons. Her focused exhale was pulled into the vigorous torrent that took on a slightly clearer version of itself. The last part involved a particular sung note that seemed to tie everything together and give it its intended purpose of bringing dead flesh back to life.

She scooped it in her hands and ventured back to Valefor and Horatio. "Ready anytime you are, Horatio. This has to go through his nostrils and mouth, so make sure he doesn't try to be stubborn," she said to the vampire with a slightly impish smile.

***

"Hopefully, that'll help you get into the right mindset when needed," Andrea commented to Zeb.

***

"Wave money in front of the Elysium-based Yakuza and they'll do anything, even if they don't realize it's history likely repeating itself," Aspasia noted with a sigh.

She eyed Vassago and the rest of the group. "Best chances of tracking Sharpe's actions on Paradise would probably be through the Dusters or through Frank Brenner. What Sharpe's doing there wouldn't necessarily draw attention for now, but the memories of the Massacre of Sector Seven are still fresh enough in the locals' memories. You get enough Fae losing their iron weaknesses and taking on traits from the ossifrage might make them nervous. They'd feel potentially emboldened to throw their weight around, and the newly acquired traits plus Mantles is a bad combination."

She then glanced back at Vassago. "How did you originally build your library ages ago? I think you'll eventually be able to rebuild once things calm down, but for now, you might be able to start a second one. Keeping track of possibilities involving Sharpe would be a starting point, at least," she suggested.

***

Abdiel smiled at the Fae woman. "There's merit in the old mortal adage: Don't judge a book by its cover," she explained, then sighing.

"In some ways, the Goat's done a superb job at sabotaging chances for humane demons, unfortunately. There's sensible types who would rather try to live a secure and comfortable life like most people, from both Pandemonium and even the Pit. Collaboration between angels, demons, and this plane is actually the long term goal, but the abusive types are the proverbial squeaky wheels getting the grease, ma'am," she explained. "You have both sorts from all walks of life, regardless of species or allegiance."

"Melmoth already mentioned my name, but I'm Abdiel, the Throne of FIre. I don't know what precisely might lie ahead, but there will be those who oppose the collaboration I spoke of due to their own ignorance and hatred for others. I know it'll be difficult to understand, but turning against those from the Infernal plane, those who want peace and prosperity, play right into the hands of those who wish doom upon this world."

***

Lucifer's proposition caused her to widen her eyes, but she slowly nodded, albeit appearing somewhat uncertain. She lowered her voice as she didn't want the largely demonic audience to pick up on the emotions she was doing her best to hold back. "Uh, sure. I mean, my powers have been stirring since I had to out-maneuver Belial's draconic thugs and prevent my burning shuttle from crashing and killing those inside. I don't even really know what my element is; I've just been an amped-up empath with wings and a few other standard angel abilities," she rambled rapidly albeit surprisingly clearly.

She glanced back at the DJ and the club owner and then her companions with concern, knowing how powerful a Throne's abilities was. She then whispered in a rambling tone, "I know my power's probably not enough to drive mortals mad, but they'll be okay, right? 'Tou-san's always said to handle these things with care, especially around regular people."

"We have a trump card, in that department," noted Nergal. "Bob, could you remind miss Lowell as to why you look like you do, beyond the obvious part where you possessed an obese biker?"

The Sammaelite grunted. "Cop-lady's right, there's a contingency plan. Belial's got a backup central fire - an underground one - that's used to superheat air channels below all the forge fires. If anything snuffs them out and the valve controls are still manned, someone can still push enough creosote, Brimstone dust and raw heat to restart the fires. If Matriel's involved, the flooding needs to happen in two locations."

He picked one of the bar's coasters, flipped it around and recovered a Sharpie pen from his leather vest's breast pocket, drawing a crude, block-ish rendition of Belial's compound. He placed X's to mark all seven forge fires, then added a network of dotted lines that stretched beneath the edifice, connecting to a main chamber as well as a series of air vents that led back to the surface.

"The grates are hard to find, seeing as airborne surveillance is kinda difficult in the Pit. Matriel's gonna spot them, though; on the Western side of the compound. There's an artificial plateau with a set of grates, for air circulation. As to what Nergal eluded to, I look the way I do 'cause Belial captured me, once. I spent a long time outside of the mortals' time stream, stuck working those emergency bellows. I'm not Hesediel or even Belial, but I'm handy with a forge. Seeing as he has a thing against hydraulic hammers, well..."

As if to illustrate his point, a few muscles in his big forearms and biceps twitched. "Gallows broke me out, actually. I sorta developed a deep aversion towards metalworking, after that, and I needed a couple of your years to get past it."

Erin smirked. "He wrote poetry, during that time.
- I wouldn't publish it," hurriedly replied the Sammaelite, "my metrics are absolute shit. It's mostly me ripping off Charles Bukowski. I couldn't work a forge without getting flashbacks to near-blastbacks that should've killed me, and I was in no shape to go back to protectin' practitioners or average Joes from their own worst tendencies; not when I had my own bag of issues to work through. If I wasn't writing, I was sleeping or eating or trying to work myself in a drunken stupor - which is no small feat for a demon that lives in Pandemonium."

The circle flared to life a second time, the figure that walked through looking like a cross between an Orc, the Cryptkeeper and Sergio Leone's Man With No Name. He wore no poncho, however, having instead settled with charcoal canvas pants and brown leather chaps, with a gray worker's shirt and suspenders. He wore a belt festooned with a few haphazardly-placed bullets, and spurs that looked like they were within one or two rough miles of falling apart - which only made them jangle even more.

"Robert," he said, raising a finger to his hat's brim. "Gents..."

Bob grunted in response, his eyes narrowing. Gallows smirked tightly in response, as he clearly enjoyed pushing the burlier Sammaelite's buttons. Nergal opted to keep things casual with a light cough. "How are things on Hell's front, Gallows?"

The greenish demon flicked a coin out of his pocket, caught it, then tapped it against the bar's counter. "Whiskey," he said, "no ice." Maeve gave him a bit of a look, but complied. Only then did the gunslinger look back at the others.

"It's a good time to be a Sammaelite, that's for damn sure," he said. "Pride's best and brightest are over in Rhode Island and Washington State, so all the Pit's left with is Egoes packing too much armor and not enough sense. Ain't nothin' quite like the idea of seein' nascent dread on the face of something that's never felt it before in its life," he said, smiling with cruelly uneven teeth. 

"They haven't fixed the issues with the gaps between their armor plates?" asked Nergal, to which Gallows scoffed. "Why would they?" he asked. "They're Pride. Their two-bit armorsmiths are convinced they're the best there is. Not that I'm complaining, I couldn't get headshots in, otherwise."

Erin took a sip of her coffee. "We're thinking of raiding Belial's forges.
- It would largely enable us to force him to deal with us on an equal footing, seeing as some of us have doubts as to the identity of a certain John Belliard," explained Eustace.

That left the green-faced demon to scowl. "Hmph. Belial's got an ace up his sleeve, I'd bet on it. You can't ever fully lock in something like a forge, air circulation's more of a matter of public safety in a place like this. He might not be Melmoth, but he cares enough about his juniors to make sure he doesn't lose 'em every so often. So, he has to work with the vents and the open chimneys, knowing there's six other Venal Sins flitting around in the Pit that'd like nothing more than get their Blacksmith Chow on. I'm guessing Bob told you about his previous posting?"

Archie nodded. "Er, yes. He has. An altogether unfortunate situation.
- If we go in," replied the gunslinger, "there ain't no guarantee you'll get the results you want. It could be you're playing straight in Belial's hand."

That one made Archie blink. "What would a Named Scion of the Pit have to gain from being knocked down, or even forced into negotiations on the mortal plane?"

Gallows sighed before draining his whiskey. "A market share. Pride's bullshit is scarring would-be Infernalists and putting baby mages on the straight-and-narrow. Hellfire already has enough trouble circulating classically, as a currency. Pentagrams, rituals and sacrifices aren't cutting it anymore, not when any demon can just and waltz on into Fleshie Town using a portal. If Belial is forced to work here, he'll find a tangible buyer's market. Replace tithes and oaths with cold, hard cash, add in a working, standard metalworks plant..."

Eustace wiped a glass. "Yes - and who better to orchestrate it all than a possessed mob boss from the Old Country? The question now is, how does one go about reducing the influence of Hell's blacksmith without making his existence here in the flesh too easy?"

It took a few seconds' worth of reflection, but Bob finally shrugged. "I dunno - let's try and bring the guy over. He'll shit his pants once you touch down if he's mortal, Belial's double's gonna throw a fit if he sees his boss in the flesh, acting like a third wheel for a ragtag group of trans-planar raiders."

Archie seemed to like this. "Yes, I remember using a similar tactic, when I took down the Brotherhood of Phebus, while first opposing Sharpe's Automaton supporters. Putting the group's leader against his own body double - seeing as they wore the same armature - caused a fair bit of chaos I was able to exploit for the mission's gain."

* * *

"It shouldn't be too much trouble," seethed Grimley, as he yanked Valefor's head back, the zombie's single eye going wide with fear as he saw the swirling mass of light in Aislinn's hands come closer. A long wail escaped him, ratcheting up to a scream as she brought him to his face. His own instincts betrayed him, however, the scream requiring an inhale to follow for basic comfort, which allowed the small flames to barely touch his lips and nostrils...

At first, nothing happened. Then came a twitch in the zombie's features, pain pulling his features taut. He weakly flailed in an effort to reach his own throat, but Hannibal stepped in to pin his right arm in place. Light crept in through the ruined remains of his chest and limbs, once again rebuilding his musculature - albeit on Creation's expected terms. Valefor didn't grow stronger from it, but he obviously grew increasingly complete, as seconds passed. The fire that rebuilt him seemingly attacked what it couldn't work outwards from, replacements emerging from the retreating glow of Celestial light. Before long, his entire skull was swallowed in light, hair and brand new skin emerging from the delicate flames that swaddled his features. They lined up with Valefor's first appearance: a tight buzz cut of dark hair, pale eyes marked with crow's feet, the weathered skin of a formerly stationed soldier-turned-military base administrator...

The person this body had belonged to might have been kind, or even patient. They might've been bold and calculating, or empathetic and perceptive. They'd never know, however, as those now-remade human eyes were filled with nothing except naked terror riding atop a weak current of rage. The tatters of his clothes barely concealed what needed concealing, the unnatural warmth finally registering on the body as beads of sweat appeared across its expanse. Valefor squinted his eyes shut and tensed his features.

"I can't-" he gasped, "I can't leave! I can't leave this body! What did you do?!"

Hannibal's features looked grim. "You can't leave this body because it belongs to you, now," he said. "You might as well have been born in it, like the mortals you so despise.
- Which, by law of Lucifer's curse and Lilith's eternal boon, means dinner's on the table," added Horatio, tentacles writhing, a dark chuckle escaping him. "You've never truly felt pain before, so I'll be gentle... Consider it a small mercy."

Tom's anthro senses didn't need much help to sense the sudden spike of naked terror that arose from Valefor. Horatio's painted tendrils almost lovingly wrapped themselves around Valefor's throat, the Squid raising a hand to tip his hat away from his forehead, to make sure it wouldn't obstruct his movements. His arms then locked themselves around Valefor's remaining arm and chest, evoking as much gentle care as they did inescapable strength. The Ringleader's eyes closed as the body's newborn life flowed down his throat, a hungry moan escaping him. By that point, however, Hannibal had stepped away, cautiously observing the scene while licking his lips.

"I'll be fine," he then added, unprompted, "I simply should've stopped for a bite on my way here from Chicago."

* * *

The skeleton looked about and sighed. "We've thoroughly touched my personal tragedies and prodded at the greater mysteries of both your people, Miss Pope, and of our shared predicament; is there something else in need of being addressed?"

The female Weaver blinked a few times. "I, um, I'm sorry if this all seemed intrusive to you, Mister Buck. I just thought that with our collaborating, you'd be-"

Buck nodded his head and gestured dismissively. "No, it's fine. I'm simply not used to being the center of attention in this particular way. I didn't mean to be abrasive; but I can feel the withdrawal palliative I picked up from Frank Brenner's stock wearing off, somewhat. I can feel my patience fraying. I need something concrete, something I'll grasp more intently...
- Try taking a hit," Liz suggested, nodding her head at the e-cigarette. "It's already loaded."

Gingerly, the lich brought the small tube to his teeth, balanced it between both rows as currently invisible lips pinched it in place, and pressed the small LED on the tube's side. His eyelights briefly turned brighter, the edges of his sockets then drooping down as he half-lidded his eyes. Tension left his shoulders and back, something to his gaze now looking slightly occluded. He didn't exactly look like the mixture had knocked him out, but rather as though a pall of medically-induced comfort had drowned out the first few whinges and moans of his inner demons.

"Better," he said, as he exhaled, then offering a slightly syrupy smile to the Squid. "Thank you," he said. "I had my reservations, but your composition seems to be working well for me. I don't feel cognitively impaired, but you've definitively packed some degree of euphoria with CBD's intended effects..." His speech was slurred by the tiniest of margins, but he'd at least lost the tension that had filtered through it, moments earlier. Relieved, Pope turned to clearing out a nearby desk.

"You're a practitioner, maybe I've got the Something more concrete you're looking for," she offered. "Consider it one last avenue to explore before I see the both of you back to the hotel's front lobby," she explained, as she returned to the Codex. 

"We've received warnings of sorts from the Architect; prophetic bits and bobs us local Squids paired together to get a clearer picture. They all more or less fit together to form a coherent vision, and we're not sure as to how literal or metaphorical it is," she explained, as she worked the keyboard.

"First question," she started. "Is Time Magic even remotely a thing in occult circles?"

Zeb took another hit, leaning on the Codex's casing and peering out at the spinning facets of the cube. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, "time magic is a theoretical impossibility. I'm no Francis Quigley, but all we've ever been able to do is fake our way to what might seem to be temporal paradoxes. Here, I'll just-"

Eyes squinting, Zeb reached out with a hand. Five rays of blue light that corresponded to his fingers flared out, each ray touching a different area around the Codex. Light seemed to focus together in all of them, growing more textured and coherent, until they stood in front of five holographic duplicates of the lich. One Zeb Buck paced around the Codex's base as if pondering things, another was seated at a nearby table, scribbling away at a notebook while being surrounded by scrolls and grimoires. One more was lying down on a sofa that lined the short wall of the Codex's pit, nursing an old-fashioned opium pipe. A fourth one was seen heading for a vending machine in the far back, stifling pothead giggles as it did so, while the fifth one manifested at what was marked as the network administrator's desk, slumped down to the point where his butt was almost off the chair and his head, pinned to his chest. His eye sockets were reduced to slits, his jaws looked barely open, but it didn't stop the sort of rip-roaring snores you'd attribute to lifelong drunkards from leaving him.

The real Zeb snorted in amusement. "There aren't six of me, naturally. Thank Heavens, there's only one Zebediah Buck to laboriously climb his way back up to something that approaches respectability. The others are memorized states, postures or events that stuck with me, slightly re-jiggered to fit the surrounding geometry. Pure illusions. It doesn't stop anyone with honest skill from playing around with them."

Liz nodded. "This isn't a sort of quantum superposition, it's just a set of illusions. I'd hoped it would also cast a bit of light on how George Gammell manages to go quantum, honestly."

Zeb shook his head. "You're barking up the wrong tree; Gammell operates on a different set of rules. I'm not Meris either, but my best understanding is that the man's patron or creator isn't beholden to this particular Creation's parameters, a bit like the Others. If you're native and not an angel, it's simply impossible for you to hack Time by default. Even the angels don't so much hack it as they use quantum tunneling to poke through different points in the same timeline. I'm terrible when it comes to computers, but the best analogy I've got is that angels have Superuser access. They're not the administrators of Creation per se, but they're given free leave to exploit some back-ends that wouldn't naturally be safe for anyone existing corporeally."

He frowned. "Is something wrong with our timeline? Can Void Weavers measure its health, somehow?"

Liz made a face. "We're not sure; it feels like someone is very carefully poking holes in Spacetime. Lucian Rothchild told us he woke up a few days ago with the worst hunch imaginable, the utter certainty that God or the Architect perceive our moment in time as being diseased - like a limb stuck with gangrene. He expected a sort of amputation, but nothing like this ever came. If you want proof, well - you're still here. We all are. Instead of an amputation, it's almost like someone's tried to stick drainage tubes in the open wounds of our space-time continuum, instead of taking a meat cleaver to it. Time is being poked full of holes, but we're either seeing no contradictions or cascade events out of dozens of alleged disappearances, or fortuitous changes in the current timeline. Nothing overtly concerning at all, and the irony is that this is exactly what's concerning us."

The lich eyed Andrea. "So, for the benefit of our non-practicing friend who hasn't dipped into Physics as a major just yet, you're saying that the situation with the Goat is so bad that either God or the Architect briefly and honestly thought about pulling the plug - only to choose not to?
- Yes," agreed Liz, looking apologetic as she glanced back at Andrea. "We lost huge chunks of our rendering power by abandoning the Black Speech, and the compensating syntax we're still assembling isn't complex enough yet - it can't function as a mathematical engine on the same scale. It used to be some cult heads could map out potential futures to choose a course of action and we'd also like to figure out what's on the proverbial menu, but not if it means throwing the Others a bone."

She sighed. "Basically, several people have either been travelling through time as of the past few weeks, or they've traveled, they reached their destination, and now we're charting spontaneous rewrites of History. We can't chart the actual changes, but we can sense the ripples they create while forming. I was hoping Zeb here might have a hunch as to how that's possible, but it all goes back to his point of mortals just not being compatible with time travel as a basis. All flesh travels through time at a one-second-per-second rate, even as the stuff of it adheres to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. A month for a mortal isn't the same thing as a month for a Fae or a vampire."

* * *

Vassago licked his lips. "Well, I'm not like George Gammell, for starters. When he goes quantum, every iteration of himself is the genuine article. Tall, short, thin or fat, fleece or flesh, average-sized or the same size as Magnus Tower - they're all unique and true to who he is. He isn't dividing his consciousness into distinct bodies - stick five Gammells together in the same room and they'll all have distinct thoughts. They'll have conversations, not like parts of one person interacting, but like individuals discussing things normally. That's well above my pay grade. Even if there's a room full of clones of myself, they're all just me, in that exact moment. A lot of limbs, a single consciousness. The first iteration I ever used was also the one that planted the library's seed - that wrote the first books, put the first observations in that place onto paper. If I worked on the same scale as your friend, I'd say the answer to my problems is easy: I'd follow my own trail back to that first shelf of books, that modest little collection, and then I'd let the whole quantum tree, of sorts, play out again. I'd eventually be able to reach the point where the library was the way it was just before the attack, and I'd be able to put something together with my other bodies, mount some sort of preemptive restoration effort."

Three shrugged. "Why not exploit our current epic stack of problems for our own benefit? If Time is turning wonky, then it should be easy for anyone acquainted with time travel - like an angel - to slip in before the attack and paradoxically negotiate a transfer with one of your past selves. It wouldn't be much of a contradiction, you're already someone who had some advance warning of the attack, being who you are."

The librarian nodded hesitantly. "I tried to warn you, things changed so suddenly I couldn't so much as leave the library! I had to keep my selves dispersed, I had to keep track of it all!"

Drake held out a hand. "It's alright, Vassago. "Nobody here is doubting you, I know enough to know your position makes it difficult to act concretely. Even your being here with us must feel strange."

He nodded. "So much to record, so much to commit to posterity, for other Heirs to learn from - and I have no desk, no shelves, no pens or paper! I might be a demon, but I'll start misremembering things soon if I don't find a way to put everything down! I'm not used to functioning with a single head, a single brain!
- And the odds are good you'll have some dirt on Sharpe, once the library's restored?"

Vassago shrugged, hands raised in a show of impotence. "Maybe, I don't see how I could ask angels to drop everything and carry billions of volumes and indexes kept in a non-Euclidean space to a safer and equally non-Euclidean space..."

Three grunted thoughtfully. "Maybe angels aren't what we need for this. The only other non-Euclidean space I know of outside of your library is the Darkhallow - and the Gentlemen have data storage capabilities that puts anything physical to shame. You'd lose on the traditional aspects of your library, but you could also function out of a standard office, with an ordinary computer serving as a search terminal."

Vernon nodded. "Not that this matters in the immediate - it's another item for the back-burner," he said, leaning forward to peer back out of the carriage's doors. "We're almost there; I think Mayhew managed to cut through traffic by taking us through a few back roads..."

The carriage lurched to a stop, an odd rustling sound rising somewhere to the side of the impossible tea room they stood in. Soled shoes crunched on gravel, and the door was open by Mayhew's humanoid form. "We'll have to walk up to the castle guards, I'm afraid," he said. "Someone else's retinue has apparently taken all the front parking spots," he said, ears flicking in annoyance at something that was still out of sight. Intrigued, Eir put her laptop in its carry bag and stepped outside, her lips pursing as she saw something she clearly didn't appreciate.

"He's here," she said, looking back at the others. "Sharpe, I mean. Him, and someone else."

Another pair of hooves clattered closer, another rustling noise was heard, and Nodin came back into view. "An Aesir toady made good time," he said, surveying Mayhew as if he'd been an oddity, Deirdre sliding off his back with a look of contrite and abject terror on her features. "Consider me surprised."

Three headed out, keeping an eye on the approaching guardsmen. They were Gruffs, as you would have expected out a Faeside city like Evergloam or London-Upon-Faerie, their bladed weapons gleaming for an instant before vanishing. Oversized and clearly Gruff-based rifles appeared in their hands, a fully automatic Glock rifle commissioned by the Court. Its sturdy plastic frame obviously allowed the two Wyldfae to put the weapons' iron and steel assembly to good use without direct exposure to the Bane. He then took his eyes to the caravan parked in front; a procession of unidentified black sedans and a single, gleaming 2024 Rolls Royce Wraith Eagle IX. The back of the file was taken by an impeccably clean hydrogen-fusion 2025 Hummer, both luxury vehicles being of a stark white shade. The Rolls had golden trim around its headlights as well as golden door handles. The Hummer look like more of a utilitarian choice, a bit of an odd duck, with its practical front ramming grill, top equipment rack and covered spare tire on the back.

"I take it the Rolls is Sharpe's?" asked Aidan, to which Eir replied with a pout and by crossing her arms on her chest. "You'd assume correctly," she said. "That man managed to make even cancer treatments look gaudy.
- And the Hummer?"

She peered at the vanity licence plate, which read ROCKHRD. "No idea. Sharpe doesn't have gas-guzzling colleagues; he's one of Morgana's servants. He's more into cutting the Gordian Knot by proposing legislation to make Green certification compulsory. It's not a bad idea, except he'd have Attempted Manslaughter charges applied on anyone with a deciding hand in polluting industries...
- Give me eco-consciousness or give me death," quipped Three with an acerbic smirk. "Even with the world stabilized and the new options offered by Celestial Light and Hellfire, we'll be trying to find compromises for decades, once this is all over."

The rifle-toting Gruffs came closer. "Curfew will be in effect in a few minutes," one of them said. "'Tis too late now to turn back.
- We need to see the King and Queen," replied Three. "I'm Aidan Drake, Summer Knight of the Lady Eirean McHale of Hope. We have a plan for the war front, and we need their help."

The other Gruff peered inside the carriage and then looked off to see Thorn and Deirdre approaching them, the brook horse in his full glory looking like some ghoulish mount with a matted horse mane. His hooves looked to have been paired with a raptor bird's back-facing goring claw, his eyes were too close together and too front-facing to fit a horse - even compared to Mayhew - and the soft docility common to horses was here replaced by the antiquarian's glacial countenance. He came to a stop, feet stamping for a few steps, and snorted at the Gruffs' sight, looking more like an offended predator than a nervous prey. He tossed his head, something too low to be a horse's whinny leaving him. The gesture was repeated, until annoyance flashed in his eyes. Owens got the message and slid off his back.

"You can tell the King and Esquire Sharpe I've returned something that belongs to him," finally said the horse, even as his form melted and slid back into that of his humanoid form. "That should grant us an audience."

* * *

The male Fae looked to be performing rather extreme mental gymnastics, which now annoyed the female one.

"Thank you, Fraü Abdiel. Herr Melmoth, I'd like to apologize on Justin's behalf. We'll leave you to your meal, if you don't mind."

Mel left his vaguely gloomy and threatening countenance to linger in Justin's direction for a few seconds, then shifted to one of his signature boisterous grins as he stood up. "Much obliged, uh - Valerie, is it? I'm a demon, I kept tabs on him so I at least got to overhear your name, a few years back. I didn't want to intrude - it's just part of the job."

Valerie's glance towards Justin had changed to a slight glower. "I understand," she said, "although I think I'm suddenly in need of a financial advisor..."

St. Clair's features all but decomposed. "Darling, I-
- You can take a taxi, tonight," she said. "You're sleeping on the couch - and leaving first thing in the morning."

A card appeared between two of Othstein's fingers, and he passed it off to the woman. "I love me a nice and righteous divorce process," he said. "One of my guys gets to feel good about their work, for once, and it usually counts as some other sap's well-deserved torture..."

* * *

Lucifer looked like Nami's very nature was a cookie jar, and he had his proverbial hand inside it. For now, however, he settled with bringing his mouth close to one of her ears.

"I won't let you go so far as to scramble people's brains just yet, kiddo. You're still in need of some training wheels. Let's start by making you a flat supe, for the time being..."

What followed might as well have been a salvo in the Black Speech, even if she'd understand on some faintly perceptible level, that it wasn't. Sounds slithered out of the Lightbringer's mouth, laden with structuring intent, poured like rainwater into her manifested flesh and slipped between the atomic bonds of her Nephilim body - and touched something.

Her father, uncles and aunt were the turning, guiding wheels of Creation itself, and she'd probably would have expected something like gears or cogs to take shape somewhere across her form. However, the mortal creatures of this plane had brought about things that were just as essential to everyday existence for many, if still utterly unrelated to the natural order. Animals didn't grow wheels, brains weren't structured like a motherboard's trace patterns, cells didn't work in the same way processors did. Biomechanics had never accounted for the interplay between chemistry and physics necessary for things such as battery components or micro-electronics, for the weave of audio cables or RJ5 jacks that slid all around the nightclub. Lightning was natural, electricity was its more deliberate cousin, measured in voltages great and small. Software wasn't much more than restructured words, but she'd suddenly feel the weight of Intent coiled inside an object in her pocket - once familiar, now all at once alien and utterly limpid. Intent was an echo of life, and by that token...

By that token, technology was as much a marker of life as anything Creation had naturally caused to evolve. The nightclub was alive, going by that logic, and some of its sensory organs could feel the foreign nature of the invaders. The owner had installed an arcane deterrence component to the security system, but it had only been paired with the silent alarm. Nami would hear the club's silenced call for help, cut off both by the mounting damage within and the demon-infested police force's lack of care, everywhere without.

The club's organism couldn't act on its own - but she could. The club's steely, stone-hewn and coppery flesh felt as close to her as her own. Ruptured veins would spill blood in the form of unregulated voltage, the primitive cerebral nodes of its security system could still be helped along in their quest to upload screencaps to someone of worth in the police force, and its mouthpiece was the deejay's abandoned booth, waiting only for a nudge to scream its fury at the hellions. The hardware didn't yet know how to produce sounds that would only be harmful to Pitspawn - but she did. 

There it was, in the back of her brain, nudged in-between muscle-memory routines involving her shuttle, as if it had always been there. A chunk of the world's code, of God's very plan...

The mark of a Throne. A small one, for now, something that put her on the same level as beginning technomancers - but something she'd feel to be far less constrained by arcane academia than anything that could've combined microelectronics and magic.

Crystal frowned as she eyed the android. "How did that work out?" she asked him as she quirked a brow. "Might give us some insight into how our plans might turn out..."

***

Aislinn glanced over at Hannibal as he excused himself and silently hoped he wouldn't lose it over his slight thirst. Her sense of smell might not have been as sensitive as Tom's, but she could equally took note of Valefor's fear. She waited quietly for the Void Weaver to finish draining and turning the newborn demon.

***

Andrea made a face. "If God and the Architect were so close to pulling the plug, why didn't they just freeze time and send the travelers to go back to their original starting points? Surely, the timelines could be mended, couldn't they? It at least seems like they could have more faith in their creations to fix the problems the Goat's creating with all of his stupid actions. Or is it possible they rethought their initial decisions because they found some workarounds?" she asked.

***

Given they were depending on Nodin's returned item, Meris and Aspasia quietly waited near Three. Still, the ROCKHRD license plate puzzled the fauness. She sniffed the air for any particular olfactory clues. It was a long shot, but it might reveal something.

***

Abdiel nodded her head politely to the Fae woman and smiled. "Thank you," she said.

A quiet vibrating ringtone softly hummed underneath the angel's chestplate. Frowning, she excused herself and pulled out the smartphone, seeing that it was her brother on the other end. Given they hadn't spoken with anybody in Hope for a while, she figured he was touching base with them.

She figured the Broker would want to hear what the other Throne would have to say, so she gestured for him to return to the table.

***

Shuddering slightly, Nami felt his words enter her ear and course down into her being. It was like electricity awakening an intrinsic part of who she was, seated deep in her brain.

She regained the brilliance beneath her skin, while her eyes shone with Heaven's radiance as it turned the regular hues of her irises to pure light. A gentle breeze seemed to lightly tousle her hair. Her wings unfurled themselves, being of a blue akin to her father's. however, hers had more silvery gray among the feathers. Previously, the typical Ophanim eyes were closed. However, they were wide open, as though adjusting to their first view of light. The row of eyes on each were an electric blue with neon violet streaks arcing outward from the pupils.

She sensed the anger and rage permeating the space the Hellspawn had invaded, how the security system wanted to screech in tones it never could on its own. She smiled down at the mob of demons with a feline coldness resembling that of her mother's countenance. "You bastards have the audacity to come into this place and wreck everything, thinking you won't have to suffer the repercussions," she said with the gravitas that echoed close and distant, similar to how she had with Bathory.

The security cameras could be heard whirring to life as they began recording the damage and the mass of demons. Lights started coming back on, while the deejay's booth started making mewling squawks and hums, almost like the strange sounds of a newborn trying to form its first words.

"Come on, tell them how you feel... Show them that they're not welcome here," she whispered encouragingly to the awakening electronics and display. "Send them on their way..." she said as the pulses and screeches increased in pitch and intonation. Oddly enough, her friends, the deejay, and the owner would be fine and would only hear the sound faintly.