Quotes:
"I got Beleth's autograph. It's inscribed in my soul." - Max
"DEMONS!!!!!" - Max and Malcolm, at various times.
"Andre wouldn't have liked me anyway, and I'm damned scared of him." - Malcolm
"They gotta be demons. They're using air conditioning in April." - Max
"Oh, the angst." - Malcolm
"I could use any bit of butter to get my ass off the frying pan." - Max
8:30 PM Day 4
They leave from outside the bar, and decide to allow Star to ascend to Heaven to do Star-like things. They head to the Byzantine Orthodox Church, which had been earlier pointed out was a tether of Laurence. On the way there, Max gets Blitzen to pull over by a bank of phones. Max memorizes the number of one phone, pages Machmay from another, and then goes to stand and wait by the original phone. After a few minutes, Machmay returns the call. Maxwell brings Machmay up to speed about the Game, and tel ls him about Fr. Remy at the Monestary. Pointing Machmay in that general direction, Maxwell hangs up and they resume their journey.
The Tether is a huge towering cathedral like building, which is extremely peaceful and dead calm inside. Star goes off to the tether terminus. While waiting for Max, Blitzen zips off in his car. Maxwell goes up to the alter, kneels and prays. He's a pproached by the Seneschal, who identifies himself as Dumiel, not by role-name. Dumiel says some words of encouragement, and offers the small collection of medieval arms the church keeps, along with informing Maxwell of a nearby armory.
Blitzen zips off to the Tether to Gabriel he originally arrived at. On the way there, he believes this grey sedan with a mother and kid in a girl scout uniform are really calabim of the Game who are stalking him. He pulls over at a phone, and does so me very strange things while the car goes away. Once he is convinced he is no longer being followed, he drives windershins around the block a few times and then heads to the tether. It's a large, popular Boxing Gym [never defined before, defined now]. Blitzen searches out the seneschal, and it's a very large Malakite of Fire, referred to by everyone as simply Joe. Blitzen is looking for some satchel charges, and why yes, you'd be surprised what Fire keeps around to smite a few sinners. Blitzen is off ered a flaming sword, but he turns it down. Joe takes Blitzen down to the armory, which is more then well stocked. He coughs up several blocks of C-4, detonators, and a remote control. Blitzen puts these all in a sack, and then has an amusing idea cent ering around the cute little basket that Star made an C-4 Easter Eggs. He gives the Seneschal his phone number.
9:15 PM Day 4
Blitzen comes screetching around the corner to pick up Maxwell. They need to waste some time before going back to the bar to bust some heads. They stop at a KMart, and Maxwell picks up an aluminum baseball bat. Then they think they are going to go t o Dennys [because there are always demons at Dennys, true fact] but halfway there they see another grey sedan, which looks like the first one, except now there are two kids in the back! Blitzen becomes suspicious, but the Mom driving the car doesn't seem to be cruel. Maxwell gets Blitzen to pull along side the car, and yells out that the kid in the back seat needs to be buckled in.
Maxwell notices that Machmay is not calling him with a report.
10:00 PM Day 4
They get to the Denny's, and sit in the parking lot in the car. Blitzen resonates on everyone he can see. After a while, he starts to just pick up floatsam from the Symphony, like there is this constant popping of disturbance as the celestials of DC do things. Maxwell reaches down to play with the radio, and he hears the Song which Daimon recorded. Blitzen, not paying as much attention, hears the underlying message in the Song.... "If fighting doesn't end, Heaven will Fall." He's surprised, recogn izes Daimon's voice (which sounds alot like John Lennon, but that's another story entirely), and announces that this must be Eli's message preprogrammed into the Lilim - which just might be true. The Blitzen tries to call Sgt. David Keeler, but he can on ly get dispatch who tells him that the detective has gone home for the day.
10:30 PM Day 4
Blitzen drives down to the warehouse in the run down side of town. They parked about a block away, and cased the warehouse itself. The two of them discussed their plans at length before making any moves, plans which revolved around a Raphael-repaired bound collar and will collar. The warehouse was still devoid of life, but someone was obviously there. Now there was a candle on a stand, burning slowly, in the middle of a painted pentagram (blood?). The candle had not been burning long.
The two of them leave, assuming the group they were tracking down was in the bar. The bar was only a few blocks away, a very short walk. When they get there, they see the row of motorcycles parked out front. They enter the bar, and the roughs inside stop what they are doing to stare at them, since they are so out of place. The black woman from earlier is still on her stool. Maxwell spots the guy who is their most likely target - 'Blood Knife Joe' - and starts moving. Blitzen turns his hands on - fawoof - and begins to give his speech. Maxwell, in an inhuman burst of speed, comes around the pool table to slap the collars onto his target, starting the combat. One of the target's buddies take a shot at Maxwell. Blitzen takes out his charges and to sses them intot he middle of the bar. Maxwell beats his target into unconsciousness with his baseball bat, then whips out Soulpiercer to do some serious asskicking. But he never gets a chance as one of the other demons in the bar roll an Infernal Interv ention. Both Maxwell and Blitzen are hit with a sudden, extreme, irrational fear of demons and the denizens of the Pit. Both of the angels bolt out of the bar, leaving things behind. Halfway to the car, Blitzen remembers the charges, and sets them off - but the demons had time to chuck them across the street, and the building on the other side of the road explodes.
Both angels get to Blitzen's car, where there is a small man in all black perched on top of the hood. No one was more surprised then him when they yelled "DEMON!" in his face, got into the car, and pulled away. The man had time to jump off.
11:00 PM Day 4
Consumed with irrational fear, Blitzen drives more wild then normal straight for the Tether of Laurence. Blitzen has the presence of mind to actually park the car in a spot. Both angels go tearing into the church screaming "Demons are EVERYWHERE!" as they go running for the terminus of the tether. Before the Seneschal can even say anything, they've both already ascended to Heaven.
???? Day 4
They tumble out of a room in the Cathedral in Heaven, and run out of the Cathedral to the street of the City. Both of them feel momentarily safe, until Blitzen realizes that the Spires are filled with Fallen, Evil, Icky Dominicans who are probably Dem ons. This sends them freaking out further, thinking no place is safe. They accost a passing Mercurian of Trade for 'cloaks or protection'. He decides that the discord, visible on their celestial forms as large black greasy spots, has eaten their brains . While running scared, they run into a pair of Malakim of the Sword, both of whom think the angels are just plain insane after being told that Heaven is crawling with Demons. Since no one will believe them, they go tearing off for the Groves. But, Mic hael is in the Marches, David... he might not be Trustable! They go looking for Janus, but several servitors of the Wind shake their heads and say that their Bright Lord isn't currently IN.
They decide to run for the Glade, because Novalis is about as Good and Antidemonic as one can get. They run to the Glade, and luckily, Novalis is there. Begging and jibbering before the Cherub Superior, they cough up their whole stories. After being called "Poor dears", she leaves them in the good hands of servitors of Flowers to go contact Lord Laurence.
The servitors of Flowers feed the two angels marijuana brownies, and the two angels tell their stories. Some younger Flowers burst into tears. Blitzen gets really high and tries to play with the other Ofanim of Flowers. Just when everyone looks the most horrified and trying to console a broken, weeping Maxwell, Laurence shows up. Looking pissed. Looking very pissed. Laurence looks down at Maxwell, who clutches to his creator and blubbers about demons more. Clutching to Malakim Superiors doesn't do much for their moods. Laurence gives Maxwell another tongue-lashing, but removes the temporary discord. He does the same for Blitzen, because it is explained that Gabriel isn't currently 'at her sanest at the moment'. After some conversation, Lauren ce decides these two need a little boost to get their jobs down. He bestows upon Maxwell the Seraph of the Sword attunement, and the Ofanite of the Sword attunement unto Blitzen. Then the two angels, significantly braver, descend to a tether of Novalis. The first thing they notices, after the plants, is the morning sunlight streaming in through the windows.
8:15 AM Day 5
They find themselves in a Botanical Gardens Greenhouse, being definitely stared at by the plants. Yes, the plants are watching. As a matter of fact, the plants offer to shake hands. They meet the human vessel of Emma, Kyriotate of Flowers and Senesc hal of the Tether, who offers them breakfast, coffee, tea, backrubs, sex, you name it. Anything to make them feel welcome.
The angels walk outside, and notice that the Symphony is literally humming with disturbance.
They get their hands on a newspaper, and the front pages are filled with some sort of terrorist attacks on various places of business throughout DC, culimating in an appaulling number of deaths. They flip to page 5, which has a story about the place t hey blew up the night before. They're satisfied they're newsworthy, and discuss what to do. Maxwell finds another phone, and pages Machmay. He waits and waits and waits, and the return call never comes.
They decide to go do a little research on the two guys they got the names of from Fr. Remy. The first place they go to is Carl Meade's apartment, which is covered with the yellow tape of police line. Like they suspected, he's dead.
They go on to Ron Gardner's place. It's an apartment. The curtains are drawn. The big sturdy door is locked with bolt locks. But the big sturdy door is no match for Maxwell's shoulder. Surrounded by an Ethereal Shields, he knocks the door down. Ro n Gardner fires his shotgun in the darkness, and misses. Blitzen comes charging in, and grapples with the priest. The gun goes flying, and Blitzen wrestles the smaller man to the floor. Blitzen holds him in a restraining hold, as the smaller man fights and kicks. Blitzen resonates for cruelty, and he getst that this man likes to 'inflict punishment'. He waves it off to a normal Dominican thing. Maxwell walks up and subdues the man with a punch to the jaw. They shove a pillow case over the head of the priest and search the apartment. They find a table filled with papers and a shelf of books. This all goes into a large garbage bag to be taken for analysis. They rush out to the car, and handcuff their prisoner. Then Blitzen makes tracks back to the tether of Laurence.
The Seneschal is surprised, this is more traffic then he's had in a very long time. He explains to Maxwell all the tethers that have been hit, and who he thinks hit whom, although his church has blessedly left alone. As Maxwell begins to give the Sen eschal background on everything that has happened, Blitzen drags the prisoner into the terminus of the tether, intending to drag him up to Heaven for questioning. As he drags Ron Gardner into the tether, his vessel drops away revealing an androgynous fig ure tattooed head to foot in reproduced Papal Bull from Pope Innocent in the 15th century, completely in Latin. The Habbalah starts screaming and frying in the tether, little bits of demon going spinning into netherspace. Maxwell and the Seneschal come running just as Blitzen drags the demon out of the tether, but it's too late for questioning. There isn't enough left, celestially, for there to question. Blitzen shoves it back into the terminus and watches it finish frying.
12:00 PM Day 5
They drag the huge garbage sack into the church's smallish library, and the seneschal helps them sort the information. Among the stack of books and loose papers is a small bound hand written spreadsheet. Closer examination of the spreadsheet shows a listing of names, bands/choirs, superiors, crimes committed, and dates of 'sentance carried out', most of which is 'death'. The crimes are mostly of the 'heresy toward Heaven' or 'consorting with demons'. The dates go back 10 years. There is a mix of a ngels AND demons, although overwhelmingly there are Creationers listed. Realizing what they have, they made xerox copies, and tossed everything back into the garbage bag and ascended to Heaven.
???? Day 5
Maxwell went off to see Laurence
Flaming edge graphics from
Our Domain Gallery of Graphics
The "In Nomine" and "flaming feather" graphics are
(C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated.
Used with fnord.