"Jordan, Jada-dan, Maasai." Its voice rang like quartz, flecked with the light that shone through the room. "Given the recent incursions in Washington DC, I have altered your schedule. You will proceed there at once, and make contact with the local Servitor, Mazpatiel, Power of Judgement."
The three Servitors bowed their heads: smaller six-winged Seraph all scaled in topaz and tiger-eye, pale cool-eyed Elohite, tawny Cherub lioness with feathered wings folded back against her body. The Seraph lifted his head to ask, "Are we to take any particular action, Archangel?"
There was a long-drawn hiss of movement as the greater Seraph drew its coils in a long, gleaming circuit through itself, tail whispering against body. Eventually, it replied, "The evidence suggests a possibility of Superior involvement. Take no direct action against demonic forces unless pressed. Make no arrests unless there is clear demonstration of heresy. With reference to the Lilim, assess her influence upon the Wheel, but do not seek to drive her away if she appears to be following a neutral cause of action. I require information."
"Thy will be done," murmured the Seraph, bowing his head again, and folding his wings in a gemlike sweep of motion.
"Go," breathed Dominic, and the three filed out of the door, leaving the Archangel alone for a moment.
Light flashed again, from above, as a bright-winged mortal form descended from one of the windows in a flurry of white wings. She landed precisely, wings fanning out in a delicate tracery of feathers.
"What news, Zekiah?"
The Mercurian's voice was neat, an asceticism carved into the tones. "Marc says he believes that they can be obtained, Lord, but they may be expensive. He asks how highly you price them."
"As highly as necessary." The Archangel's voice was still flowing, melodic in the cadences of the angelic tongue. "They may be the saving of another being. Tell him to bargain as is necessary, and be swift: I do not think that we have very much time."
"Yes, my Lord," the Mercurian replied, and broke into flight again, winging in a high circle towards the upper windows and out into the airs of Heaven.
---
They huddled together on the bench, flinching apart whenever flesh pressed against flesh, but both cowering away from the Djinn warders on either side. The harsh lights made the Calabite all the dingier, ragged wings and bruised flesh untidy and unkempt against the precise lines of the metal bench they sat on, and the Lilim all the more cool and jade-like, despite the lines of blood that flecked her skin.
"It was *your* fault," he had muttered, once, at the beginning, and they had both been beaten impartially until they had stopped trying to cry out. They had not tried to speak since.
The door across the room opened, and the scar-tangled Habbalite nodded to the warders. "The Prince will see them now."
They stumbled across the floor meekly, trying to compensate for the heavy ironwork around their ankles and wrists. As they entered the small study, the guards threw them to their knees, looming behind them in restrained attitudes of musculature and violence.
The Lilim and Calabite watched the dull grey carpet in front of them, hoping against hope that the other might raise their eyes first and receive the full attention of Asmodeus. His stare was a physical weight upon their backs, a heat and a burning.
Naamah swallowed. "My Prince, I have a ..."
"I did not," he said, words spaced, "give you permission to speak."
She screamed for a short while after that, but was then forced back to her knees, and managed to hold her silence, breathing hoarse and desperate.
"Now." A chair creaked, out of their line of vision, where he would be sitting behind his desk. "Speak."
Naamah spoke through bloodied lips. "My Prince, I hold a Geas upon one of the Kyriotates."
"And you," he said to the Calabite.
"It was Focalor." Kushiel, the Calabite, had nearly pressed his face to the carpet, grovelling in the smell of dry wool and old blood. "He underestimated the angels all along the line. He thought he had the Elohite under his hand, but then the bastard managed to summon Dominic..."
Asmodeus raised his hand, and silence fell like a harsh blanket across the room. "So," he said, gently. "No artifact. No Renegades. And no excuses."
Naamah said, thinly, "I saw the needs in the eyes of that Lilim, Master. I know what he wants."
Outside the walls of the room, the corridors hummed with movement, a dim cadence of steps and urgency that nearly penetrated through the thick aura of fire and blood and hush. The Game stirred, like a great organism roused and preparing for action.
Asmodeus rose from his chair. The form seemed human enough, but there was the sense of something vast and old and shifting beneath it, sliding and twisted and dark, only the eyes bright and burning like black stars. "Kushiel, you are worthless. You will be treated as such." He did not even look at the Calabite, or at the Djinn who held him. "Collar him and treat him as expendable." His attention settled on the Lilim, and she flinched, trying to press herself deeper into the carpet. "You have some information of worth. Continue to speak. You have one half of an hour before I will be required at the High Court."
The Lilim kept her face hidden in the carpet, trying to breathe, as the air rasped in her lungs. "Yes, Master." Behind her, the warders dragged the trembling Calabite away, his wings twitching in little useless movements and his head bowed.
The door closed, iron locked and bolted and shutting away secrets.
---
The blond man fretted, toying with the maps that were scattered across his table. The room was elegantly decorated in a Neo-Scandinavian style, all white pinewood and dark metal and pale walls. It was highly civilised. He was fond of it.
The light on the answering machine of his phone glowed, dull red and winking, and he barely refrained from looking at it, forcing himself to keep his back turned. He had answered the message, and was barely sure himself why he chose to keep it there. Perhaps as a reminder of what it was, and of his purpose.
Dark light shifted in the apartment behind him, as suddenly other people were grouped there, watching him with eyes like knives. He turned, and bowed his head. "I stand ready."
---