Things didn't often go as Bezel planned them to. It was sort of as if the world had a serious grudge against him. The harder he tried, the stronger the universe bucked. He just wasn't meant to stay in the saddle for long--but he was plenty okay with that. The sooner he was tossed to crumple against the ground, the sooner he could be absolved of all that fretful trying. If the world didn't want him there, it should hurry up and expel him, he thought. He didn't know why others tried so hard. Over, and over, and over. Why? Didn't it just hurt worse to be thrown again, and again, and again? Bruises built on bruises until they turned into breaks. 

Ira Rule was someone like that, too. Bezel could tell by the way he walked into a room. Head bowed, shoulders hunched, heart hammering. He entered each next space already prepared to be booted from it. But Absalom Edom had gotten one thing right: he didn't give up. 

"Angels, we actually did it?" The Bishop whispered. 

He stood frozen in the center of the dark cellar, the Vestige held in his thin arms. That weapon was ill-fit for him. Too long, too heavy, too jagged. Ira seemed to know it, too. He clutched the volcanic sword with trembling fingers, staring down into the surface of the blade with wide, blue eyes. The ocean-deep surface of his gaze was filled with a defensiveness. As if he'd dreamed of this moment--waking up each time with emptied hands. 

"Okay, great," Bezel quipped in his dry voice, "now say it again but not as a question."

Ira's eyes abandoned the black sword, trading in for the Prince leaned against the empty glass case. The one which had previously held his kris, keeping the metal suspended under a cloud of dust. The Bishop lifted his shoulders in a weak shrug of surrender and said, "Angels, we actually did it."

"Needs work, dear." Bezel muttered. "What comes next is going to take a little more conviction." 

"What comes next?" The intruder called. 

Ira whipped around, a grin blooming up across his predominantly gloomy face. "Father! You're back!" 

"You're still here?" Bezel groaned, sharpening his golden gaze down into daggers for the other Bishop. The man strolled leisurely into the vault, parking beside Ira. He looked at Bezel, meeting his gaze from behind a thick pair of glasses. He didn't look at Bezel the way he had been anticipating. There was no fear, there was no anger either--just a light of curiosity and bemusement. Bezel seems to invoke the same feelings in this man as a lost cat would. 

"I was just walking Absalom out." He said, which Bezel took to mean they still had matters to discuss. 

"I didn't want you two getting lost down here." Which meant he didn't want Bezel picking anything up on his way out. 

"So, are we ready to go?" He finished--he wanted them out now. 

"Ah, I think so." Ira answered. He let the Vestige fall to his side, holding it awkwardly with one clenched fist. 

The weapon was nearly longer than his legs, the tip hovered centimeters from the gray stone floors. The sight didn't flush Bezel with confidence--but nothing could, so maybe it wasn't entirely the young Bishop's fault. His golden eyes flicked up the sides of the glass sword, drinking in the sight of its crude design and rough make. It truly did resemble an Avernian child's arts and crafts project. Maybe the pig who wielded it had simply punched at the earth until the weapon had splintered off from the obsidian flooring. The sword was hardly remarkable--all that mattered now was the battery inside. 

Bezel could taste it on his burnt tongue, smell it in his blind nose. There was power inside of the black glass. Holy power beyond anything of this realm, or the next. That pathetic toothpick--it was a Vestige. That sword had the kick to kill Mammon--Bezel, too. Luckily, no one in that room had the ability to use it. 

Bezel glanced down at his own sword. The twisted blade in his grip. It had been decades since he'd seen his weapon, but it still fit him. His fingers wrapped around the curved hilt, squeezing down on the curved bone. What animal had that handle been carved from? He could no longer remember. There had been a part of him that had once mourned parting from it. Now, a memory as faded as the patterns etched into the weapon. 

"Did you name it?" 

Bezel blinked. With ease, he discarded the sight of the familiar kris, trading it to return the stare of the Bishop they called Jethro Pine. He was also slightly recognizable. He'd been there at the battle last summer--but what role he played or purpose he served, Bezel couldn't be sure. 

"What?" He rasped. Dust was carried along on the force of his breath. Ira seemed equally as startled, his eyes snapping back and forth between the two. 

Jethro shrugged. "I'm just curious. That plaque on that vitrine always remained blank." 

Bezel glanced at the glass case. True to his word, there was a small golden square of pristine metal screwed into the frame of the shelf. He turned back to the Bishop and shook his head.

"I didn't name it." He answered. The Third Prince of Hell wasn't sentimental, not even before his emotions had been plucked out like loose feathers. He had far too many memories, far too many centuries, and far too many enemies to allow for such pleasantry. And yet, it seemed that that was what everyone expected from him. Ironic, since they also seemed to expect him to ditch all of his attachments to escort them into Avernus. A small part of Bezel suspected that what they were really after was just his suffering.

"Shame." Jethro sighed. "Such a beautiful sword." 

"Well, you could call it Chris if you wanted." Bezel muttered. Ira turned ruby-red and sputtered. Jethro laughed, tilting his head up towards the cave ceiling. 

"Well, on that note. It's far past time to leave. You two have. . . well, work ahead. Angels, I can hardly even believe this." Jethro said. He squeezed Ira's shoulder in gentle comfort as he talked, as if trying to convince himself that he was real and still standing beside him. Bezel half expected the younger to shake him off, but he leaned into the touch instead. 

"It'll be okay." Ira said. Bezel didn't know to who--himself or the older man. 

"How can you say that so easily, kid?" Jethro whispered. "You're talking about going to Hell. About killing one of the Seven Demon Princes in their home territory." 

"Not their home territory." Bezel interrupted. "The Princes don't belong in Hell either." 

Jethro blinked--furrowed down his lips into a frown--and said, "does that. . . make it easier?" 

Bezel shrugged. 

"Okay! Well!" Ira snapped, clapping his one free hand against his thigh to break up the silence forming cement bonds in the basement. "Wow, angels, what a day we've had. So, we need to get going. Right, Father?"

Jethro broke free of his daze, shaking his salt-and-pepper hair until it fell behind the frames of his glasses. "Yes, okay. Right. Still so much to prepare before your. . . trip." 

"There's more?" Bezel asked, tilting his head in doglike mockery. 

Ira nodded. "For both of us. You should go back to Mayvalt, check on her progress with the He-Goats and update her with the Cardinal's promise. I'll find you lat-" 

I'll find you. 

Those words stuck, freezing to the damp cellar air to hang in-between them. Bezel could see the Bishop's lips moving, his chest rising and falling, but he ceased to make noise. Bezel blinked, inhaling sharply to shake the sudden sting rattling around the inside of his skull, filling it with distant fog. There were broken and shattered pieces inside of him. Glass that occasionally caught the light, drawing in his eyes with a sudden burst of gold. How many centuries had it been? How many seconds? How many recycled lifetimes since Bezel had made that same promise? 

"-even listening?" 

"Huh?" Bezel managed. 

"Angels." Ira cursed. "Never mind, okay? Just go back to Eden, wait for me there. I'm sure between Mayvalt and I, everything will be worked out." 

"You're going somewhere?" Bezel asked. 

He couldn't avoid his reflection in the curved blade of his kris, staring back at him with apathetic eyes. Maybe it was that sword, reminding him of things better left forgotten. Would it seem strange now to leave it behind, forever locked in the vitrine? No, no. It wasn't an option. He needed it. Or more accurately, he needed what it had been forged of. But that would have to remain his secret. 

"Yes, which I just explained." Ira sighed. 

"Right, of course." Bezel shrugged, stretching out his limbs. "Then. . . later?" 

"Sure." Ira scoffed, puffing out a breath from his nose. "See you later."

And that, Bezel recognized, was a promise. 

| 𓃦 |

There was a retired old factory sitting on the banks of the Hudson. It was built of red clay brick, reaching up into the smog-choked sunset. It very much reminded its onlookers of black-and-white zombie films. A rotted fist popping up from the gravedirt. As enduring as the undead, the textile mill had been recycled, too. The dingy gray windows had been plucked--replaced with bright red, orange, yellow, and pink stained glass. A mockery to a place much, much holier. The broken bulbs and rusted pendant lights had been traded in for spotlights of splattered purples, greens, blues, and gold. So much color it flushed the streets surrounding its opened doors. On most nights. But not this one. There was the sunset sinking into the gray city--and there was nothing else. No splash of obnoxious light leaking from the shut doors. 

Bezel lined his car up along the curb and hopped out, glancing both ways down the abandoned street. It seemed no one cared to stray into his corner of the city--he couldn't blame them. The air was thick with oncoming rain and unpleasant anxieties. 

He spared one haphazard glance back at his vehicle, jammed into a no-parking zone, and shrugged. It wasn't as if he was sticking around to pay tickets. Bezel tossed the keys into the front seat and strolled into the dead club. 

He had half a mind to hide himself, as he had done in his enemy's court. He decided against it. He hardly had the magic required to open a jar of pickles. It seemed out of the budget--but it certainly would have made the task ahead much easier. 

Eden was dark, quiet. The glass doors, as Bezel pried them open, were the only noise. The hinges squealed, filling the cavernous building with it's melodic warning. The dance floor was barren. Bezel had never seen it empty during business hours. 

The spinning neon lights which always hung over the smooth black floors were still, muted. The only light came from the bulbs behind the bar, generic and yellow and hardly enough to fill the club with enough to see. Not that there was anything to see. 

Against the furthest wall, where Mayvalt had maintained space for seating, were the tables and chairs in a new order. The chairs had been stacked and shoved into a corner, the tables had all been pushed flush against the wall. 

"You're back." 

He lifted his golden eyes to seek her voice. It floated down from the highest perch in the club, the landing to Bezel's raised office. She stood at the top of the metal stairs, her hip pressed into the railing. She crossed her thick black boots at the ankles and locked her arms over the chest of her leather jacket. From her fingers, hanging as if it weighed hardly nothing, was her silver bo. A sleek rod with meadows of weeds, ferns, and flowers carved into the sides. 

"I'm back." He answered. "Where is everyone?" 

"Packing, I guess." Mayvalt answered. She shoved off from her lean and moved with heavy steps down the staircase. Each thump of her boot shook the walls of the club. The tip of her weapon tapped along the rail, filling the air with clanging. The yellow lights behind the bar caught the golden cuff sealed at the base of her left antler, resting against her pink curls. "Takes time to throw your entire life into a suitcase." 

"So, you did it." Bezel nodded. "I knew you could." 

"I did it?" She repeated. "Did what, boss? Convinced them? Forced them? Threatened them? Your faith in me feels like an insult right now." 

Bezel blinked. His fingers tightened against the curved bone hilt of his kris. She eased out onto the floor behind the wooden bar. Her fingers reached for the polished surface, dragging along the smooth table. He came forward, sliding into the seat opposite her. 

"I don't know why you're upset with me." He said. "You wanted this, Mayvalt. You knew I would have to take back their blessings to gain enough magic to open a portal to Avernus. It was your idea." 

Mayvalt bowed her head, squeezing her brown cow eyes shut to lock out the force of his golden gaze. "Sap, I know. I'm already blaming myself, more than you can imagine." 

Bezel agreed that that was probably true. He wasn't the best at measuring the full weight of guilt. It was something so unreachable to him--but he knew that it had a way of breaking those who could. "If I was stronger, we wouldn't have been reduced to this in the first place." 

Mayvalt's shoulders flinched beneath the shell of her black biker jacket. She lifted her eyes to meet him, forcing her eyebrows down into a pinched expression. "Wh-what?" 

"It's my fault, too." He explained. "It was my job to protect the Faun who chose to live in this place. I failed, Mayvalt." 

"No!" She snapped, shaking her head until her antler cuff rattled. "Sap, no. Boss, I'm the only one who gets to dig at my bosses failures, and I don't see any here. Not tonight. It's all just. . ." 

"Unfair?" 

She sighed, nodding. "If it weren't for Mammon,"

"Things would be better." Bezel shrugged. 

"What we had was. . . fragile. It just took one little rumble for it all to collapse--but that doesn't mean it can never be rebuilt." She smiled weakly. "Now, boss. We have a lot of alcohol here and no one to serve it to." 

Bezel forced up a chuckle and shrugged. "Fine, do your worst." 

Mayvalt set her bo on the bar's surface and turned towards the bottles, her fingers drifting over their half-filled bodies. She picked up a curved brown jar of Bacardi and slammed it down on the bar with a victorious smirk. "Finally, Fenvolt isn't here to lecture me about etiquette. I'll be drinking this from a fishbowl, I dare him to scold me one more time on proper cup-to-drink displays. And you, boss?" 

"Just leave me the bottle." He answered. 

"Sap, boss!" Mayvalt cursed. "Did your meeting with the Cardinals go that poorly?"

"Not at all." He shrugged. Between the two of them, one was far more likely to fall on her face--finishing a couple bottles was just a preventative measure to keep that from happening. "Sure, they're not sending us with flowers but they gave the brat the Vestige. They granted the remaining Faun protection. And they returned this to me." 

He set it on the bar's surface then, right beside her bo. The golden light of the club wash over its curved and twisted edges. Mayvalt inhaled a gasp, abandoning her rummaging for glasses to pick up the sword. She lifted it up to the lights, turning it left and right to inhale the full scope of the ancient carvings etched into the weapon. Carvings that didn't matter anymore. Bezel turned his eyes away, too tired from trying to recall their meanings. 

"Terbang?" She hissed. 

Bezel took the bottle of Bacardi and cracked the lid. "Don't call it that." 

She flinched. "S-sorry. . . I forgot." 

"It's just metal, Mayvalt." He lectured. "Just old metal. . ." 

"Not any old metal, boss!" Mayvalt scoffed. She set the sword gently against the table. "It's-" 

"I know what it is." He interrupted. "Let's not go announcing that." 

Mayvalt winced. "Sap, you're right. Oh, Princes. Did they not know what they had in their possession? The power that-" 

"Mayvalt." Bezel cut. "It doesn't matter. It's been returned to me. All is. . . well." 

She shrugged, setting her fishbowl glass down on the table beside the tip of the kris. "Well? Maybe. Until that Bishop gets greedy and takes Te-the sword out for a test drive." 

"He won't." Bezel scoffed. "All he needs is that Vestige--which he can't use. Just worry about yourself Mayvalt, and the very real vulnerability you're about to come into."

"Yeah, yeah," she dismissed, waving her hands freely between pouring Bacardi into her oversized glass. "An Avernian in Avernus--beware of the pebbles. I get it, okay? Maybe you should also take a turn worrying about yourself." 

"Why should I?" Bezel scoffed. He took sips from the bottle each time she abandoned it. The alcohol was as tasteless as water. Drinking it accomplished nothing but emptying the jar, it was a performance like breathing and sleeping to Bezel. 

"The tough guy act, huh?" Mayvalt snorted. She sighed heavily and flopped down on the bar, propping her elbows against the smooth wood. "Then I'll do the crying for both of us. I'm going to miss this place." 

"This place?" Bezel lifted his eyebrow, twisting in his seat to gaze out across the emptied dance floor. "It's just brick, Mayvalt." 

"You know that's not true." She lectured, holding her cup to her lips.

Bezel admitted his defeat with a small shrug. "Yeah, I know." 

"So, what's the plan, boss?" She said, her voice a whisper in that place.

"When will the Faun return with their belongings?" Bezel asked. 

"Tonight." Mayvalt said. "At the moon's peak." 

"Well," he murmured, "let's see how many of these bottles we can empty before then."

"Aye, boss." Mayvalt giggled, smiling down into the surface of her glass. "That's the most sensible thing you've said in decades." 

The night was washed away that way. They had no words capable of filling the remaining void, so they didn't try. There was only the sound of bottles tapping along the smooth wooden bar.  It was nearly comfortable. Sunset filtered in through the stained glass windows stamped into Eden's face. Pink on pinks, blazing into neon fires which stretched languidly across the abandoned dance floor. They eased towards the bar, ushered forward by the last of the daylight. The moonlight came next, rising as slowly as tar. Silver ash left over from the sun's fires. It filtered into the cavernous club, creeping up the walls like writhing vines. 

Mayvalt slammed her emptied glass down on the table, forceful enough to shatter the fragile stem. "Show time, boss." She announced. 

Bezel placed the bottle he'd been nursing from beside the hilt of his kris and twisted in his seat, turning to face the entryway. All night it had remained still and vacant, until now. The glass doors pressed slowly inward, timidly. Finally, the patrons came. As nervous and pale as lambs. 

"Mayvalt," he said. 

"Yes, boss?" 

"Turn on the music." He said. 

"Sap, you're bad at reading the mood." She laughed. 

"They don't call it a swan song for no reason, darling." He shrugged.

She sighed, dusted her palms off on the front of her black pants, and turned towards the metallic box of wires which controlled the speakers lined in the walls and ceilings. It was a heap of electronics that Bezel had never once attempted to understand. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the camera obscura most days. 

Bezel dismounted from his bar stool and grabbed his kris. He would have to find a scabbard eventually, but until then it would remain firmly in his grasp. He crossed to the center of the dancefloor, holding his position there as the Faun trickled in. They cast him nervous glances, edging off towards the walls instead of joining him. Which he didn't take personally.

He had forgotten how many of them there truly were. The building began to fill, reaching a level of capacity that the city of New York would have fined him for. As they began to crowd, it became impossible to fully avoid Bezel. 

"Sap, sir." This first greeter cursed. They stamped their hoof and shook their head, causing curled waves of green hair to tumble down into their brown eyes. "Are you really sending us back?" 

Bezel rolled his golden eyes down to their height, hunching his neck to stare down at the familiar Faun. There had been a time when no Faun but Mayvalt had been able to even rise to a conversation with Bezel and now he was getting belittled by a sheep. Perfect. "It's nice to see you, too, Luvelt." 

"Uh huh," Luvelt dismissed. "So, are you really?" 

"It would seem that way, but the option will be yours in the end." Bezel answered.

"Ho-how is that an option, si-sir?" Another bleated shyly. They bowed their head to hold eye contact with their polished brown shoes.

"Anvelt, glad you could make it." Bezel deflected. 

"Anvelt is right," the third chirped. He crossed his arms over his silver sequined top and popped out his hip in a slanted stance. One that seemed to drip with discontent. "There is no choice. Once you take our blessings away, we'll be exposed to Heimrians." 

"Mayvalt never wore a blessing, she was able to survive." Another Faun said. She came forward, placing her arm around the bitter and glittered Faun boy. She knocked him from his statue-like spot and ruffled his hair with her pink claws. 

He turned as pink as her nails and swatted her hand away. "You're not the Phrionnsa, Ruvalt. None of us are." 

"And the Phrionnsa is just a Faun, Sevolt." She snapped back. "One like any of us!"

"So, what?" Fenvolt called. He had placed himself behind the bar, the spot Bezel had become so familiar with seeing him at. "We live like cosplayers? What are we supposed to say when this place shuts down and we have to go get Heimrian jobs?" 

"Why would this place shut down?" Grenvalt challenged. She had also placed herself behind the bar, her elbows propped up on the surface of the table beside Bezel's five emptied bottles of liquor. "It has Heimrian patrons, too." 

"The boss is stepping out. Like, forever." Fenvolt scoffed. "I'm not paying to keep the lights on. Are you?"

"And when he goes, so will his protection!" A Faun Bezel didn't recognize shouted. "The bone-snatchers will pick us off and make us into toothpicks!" 

The panic born from those words were fast-moving. They swept through the crowd like a tidal wave. The Faun began to stamp their hooves, raising up shouts from their timid tongues. Bezel lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. 

"Alright! Alright, calm down! That won't happen!" He yelled. His voice carried better than the breeze. It became an order as firm as stone, solidifying the very air inside of the club. "Listen, everyone." 

They turned to him, eyes wide and pulses fluttering. The scent of fear was heavy, filling the room as sure as seawater. Bezel sighed. His fingers wrapped tighter around the hilt of his kris. The blade tapped against his thigh as he spoke. 

"My brother is going to gather an army. An army much more dangerous than Legion, an army unlike anything you can imagine. And once those forces are strong enough, he will funnel them into Heimr through his gate beneath Lake Seneca." He ignored their whimpers, pressing forward without hesitation. 

"His goal is to wipe out Heimr, to prevent an allied force from rising up as he challenges Elysium. My brother, well, he's my brother. I understand that my motivations might not seem clear to many of you. I know you all suspected us of working together last summer, and I don't blame you. But what he's doing is. . . it's wrong. Heimr is as innocent as Avernus. The Demon-Born War, the blood we have all shed--it's always been between the Ely. Your suffering isn't a pawn to be used in this family matter." 

"I need to take back the blessings I bestowed upon you all. I need that magic to open a gate for my companions to go into Avernus and challenge my brother before he can bring any more harm to those who did nothing to deserve it. I know that the price seems unfair to you. You're giving up the life you worked so hard to find, it won't be easy. But I vow that this club will not ever shut its doors, and I have received a promise from the Cardinal of the Sect of Saint Francis that his knights will no longer hunt Faun in New York. Those two things are all that I can offer you. I wish it was more, I wish we could all eat our cows and milk it too, but the world is never that generous. And it's that cruel world that we now have to save." 

His voice lingered in the air. Bezel wished it sounded rousing, or determined. It sounded like nothing at all, just white paint on a wall. Maybe Mayvalt should have been the one to speak. She had always been better at it. Maybe the Fauns didn't like the eating cows metaphor. Maybe he'd gotten it wrong. Was it eating cows? Eating cake? No, that wasn't it. There was no point of a cake other than to eat it. Why was no one saying anything?

The speakers in the club groaned to life, sending a jolt strong enough to break up the frozen Fauns. They craned their necks, staring up into the ceiling as the slow jazz floated down like dust from the radios mounted there. 

"So," Bezel pressed. "I'll be in my office. Drink, dance, decide. Come see me once your mind has been made." 

He turned on his black dress shoes and retreated up the metal stairs. He could sense their eyes locked on his spine as he climbed. He thought of the Bishop, then. What had he called him? Noble? Is that how he appeared to the Faun down below? A do-gooder? A heroic Prince campaigning for what was right? If only they could see the mask he laid beneath, as coiled up as a viper. 

As he pulled the last remaining strings of magic from them, dooming them, would they think his sacrifice equal? He was giving up Heimr. He was giving up his Soul. It was the easiest half of his choice. A part of Bezel had already made that same decision last summer. When offered his Soul in exchange for working with Mammon, he had declined. His Soul was already unreachable. There was very little of Bezel that still yearned for it. He couldn't yearn afterall. 

There was something else. A piece he held deeper than all the rest. He needed their magic, because he couldn't forsake his own. He needed that last sliver to conceal the only thing that truly mattered--mattered to someone who could not feel matter--and as they stared at his back, a plain button shirt over smooth human skin, he wondered if they themselves realized what was missing. Did Bezel? How could he claim to remember the weight of them? He could feel nothing. Yet he had reached for them in the Cardinal's court. With steadied fingers he had brushed his ghostly touch over that figure carved into crippled form on the ground, his wings stretched and torn. 

The metal door clanged shut behind him. Bezel crossed his office, likely for the last time, and stationed himself over the oval window fixed to face the Hudson. He didn't know for how long. His thoughts were racing, tangling up his senses into a cloud he couldn't see through. 

Knock, knock.

He turned, staring at the door. So that was it, then. Time to begin.