I woke up in bed beside Lil, though the previous night had mostly consisted of me trying to show my appreciation of her efforts exclusively through cuddling. She wasn't happy with me though, just tolerant. She let me kiss her once before I left in the afternoon.

I had let myself sleep shamelessly in, all too willing to waste hours in bed instead of worry about what was coming for me at the end of the day. Truthfully, I was really craving sexual intercourse, but Lil was not in the mood and I didn't really want to do it with anyone else at the moment.

Stacy came to collect in the morning, but I wasn't up then, and the air smelled like he had been smoking a great deal when I finally came down in the afternoon.

"My work is all done. This place looks deserted."

"I've lost much of what I had."

"I asked you to build a following with this day in mind. And you lost it all before then."

"I'm not happy with it. But they should be providing a bit of a distraction in the mean time. Hopefully."

"I don't need a distraction. I have my bombs set. I need a riot."

"Surely you have other resources available to begin one within your vast web of contacts?"

"I need this one. A bunch of cultists is the perfect excuse for literally anything. If I send off a prison riot or a police riot or the likes, then we'll have the public reevaluating those systems. If a bunch of cultists go crazy, the public can just agree with me when I sigh and call them lunatics."

"They're out of my control now."

"They are." He said. "So we have a small change of plan. Come on. We're heading to the edge of Pride."

Stacy of course had not warned the militia or the like about the invasion later tonight, so there was no sense of forbidding in the city streets. It was the month of November. There was discussion of snow, and Thanksgiving, and how cold it was. There were a few people playing instruments in the streets. A couple wild birds had somehow found their way into the city as well, and they wandered through the crowds to collect scraps of food.

"I could have done this from the start." Stacy said. "But I didn't think I'd need to."

At the very edge of the city, the facade of city-hood was lost in the great circumference of the dome that housed it. There were still screens here, showing the pale grey sky, but this close you could almost see the dots that made up the images.

And below the twelve foot line, there simply were no screens. Just a white metal edge. Every so often a number was spray painted next to a plain and heavily locked door.

Stacy had the key, of course, or really keys- besides three metal locks, there was also a cardreader and a numpad.

"This is the heaviest security I've seen in Hell. You keep your pit and headquarters under less locks."

"There's no good reason for that, but it could be said that this place is more important."

I wanted to question that as Stacy had me strain myself pulling the rusted steel door. Beyond it was just a dark and narrow staircase. Stacy encouraged me to take the lead, something I at first attributed to his figure- but he had no trouble keeping pace with me, so I ended up determining he was likely sending me first to act as his shield.

I couldn't exactly complain. The ascent was filled with the sound of our metallic footsteps and a distant whir of machinery. It was too dim to be remarked upon. I barely stopped myself from walking into the door at the top, as the tedium had caused me to simply default to the endless climb.

I forced the door open to reveal the sort of dusty room I had expected to find in this darkness. It was unremarkable, but long untouched. The light switch still worked, and there was barely room for the both of us to sit down.

The room was full of screens and controls, most of them locked in plastic cases. I was lost the instant most technology grazed my fingertips, but Stacy seemed to be aware of what he was doing, and started- uh, computing, on one of the computers.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The control room for the weather. It's automated now, and controlled remotely from in Pride. But here I can assume manual control, as well as do a few other things."

"Why do we need to control the weather?"

"I don't need to. It's just a good hiding place. Plus, this place serves as a security room, and should still hold access to most of the cameras in Hell."

"Do we need them?"

"It's best you don't. But yes, I think you ought to anyways."

"I'm very out of the plan right now."

"It's simple. Your own cult may have left you, but you did help spawn a new wave of angel cults. Even if you don't control them personally, they're still crazy about angels in some meaning of the term, and I'm absolutely sure they would be happy to know about the arrival of some within the next hour."

"So you're just going to tell them?"

"No." Stacy said. "You are."

He finished using the computer, hitting a couple buttons with great emphasis. I figure he probably had been done a while ago, and had just been waiting for dramatic effect until now to activate the machine.

A green light started blinking on one of the screens, and Stacy shoved my rolling chair in front of it. His hand squeezed my shoulder once, then retreated.

The screen flickered on. A hazy picture took shape of what I realized was the central square of Pride. The words 'ON' flashed twice in the middle of the screen.

"What?" I said, turning to face Stacy for help. He gently pushed my head so it was facing the screen again.

Truthfully, I was unfamiliar with most technology. But that didn't make me an idiot, and I soon figured I was staring into a camera. In the square, people were facing me- I realized I must have been projected onto the two screens on the Melchior and Balthazar buildings. But I gazed up at another monitor, and found my visage was in fact displayed on every screen in the sky- and I looked dark and afraid.

In front of me was a microphone, and I pulled it forward. "The angels are coming." I said, but not with any sort of finality. I was talking slowly- I didn't even feel certain about the facts myself. What was I doing this for? "In two hours. Roughly. They will come through the hellmouth. And leave Heaven weak."

It didn't feel like I was speaking. It felt like I was just thinking in this lightless room.

"They... will have orders not to attack unless attacked first. Michael will not be leading, but he will be there as they climb through the tunnels."

Stacy was standing at the far end of the room- or really, two feet away. "Use the cults." He whispered, not for effect but rather because he didn't want anyone to hear.

"The time is... now." My gift for public speaking was still tremendously lost, it seemed. My voice shook without reason. "I am the angel- I am the angel. And my brothers and my mother will come today. And now is your time too, as it is mine- repent. Find them, and repent."

"Your wings." Stacy reminded so quiet I had to doubt I had even heard him.

"I don't have wings. Not longer- no longer. Michael made me Graceless."

"Oh, no matter!" Stacy said, though I could see his anger and hear how his voice pitched up as he spoke. He hit a button, and the screen went black.

"You had a microphone in front of your mouth." He said. "Not like I can say I'm surprised by your lack of knowledge here, but everyone could hear you say that. It's not going to change a thing at this point- God knows cultists will be cultists. We should be good. But it does make you useless now that everyone knows exactly how weak you are."

"Sorry."

"This is something you should have said the moment you saw me."

"He did it by accident. He was trying to fell me."

"What are you now then?"

"Human, I think."

"Another change of plan is called for then."

Stacy went back to his computer work, typing a few things in and such. Screens changed. I realized he was moving through security cameras, watching the crowds. There was a certain panic, of course, in Pride- people were running to their homes, the police were being dispatched, and the media was trying to build commentary.

There weren't any real riots, however, and in fact it seemed most demons were quite content to simply hide indoors. The only ones I saw leave were- well, Stacy kept switching cams, so it was hard to gain a true large-scale estimation of what was going on. But there were people heading outdoors instead of in, and only a few were interested in looting.

From all over, one or two people would seem to sneak out into the streets, perhaps scared someone would stop them. They'd have candles with them, or some kind of plant, and they'd set out in the direction of the tunnels.

The police didn't stop many of them, and indeed, it seemed a good couple hundred demons were on the move. I still didn't understand. Did they even worship me anymore? Were they really willing to die for the angels? Something was driving them to walk forwards and smile with giddy energy. But it wasn't my doing.

I was just the messenger.

Stacy followed them through the tunnels, moving from camera to camera as they descended through the levels. Time moved as if I were watching a film of the events. A boring one, but at least something was happening. And I couldn't quite guess the end.

Until Stacy showed me the end, of course- he skipped some cams down, to the end of the tunnels. A place called Wrath, where an elevator next to a giant pit marked the arrival point of the angels. But waiting in the hall, still ten minutes from the entrance, was Lil and maybe thirty others.

They were just standing there, really. Waiting. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except for the dread in my stomach, of course. "They're going to die."

"You did hear me when I mentioned 'the bombs being set' didn't you? I said it about twice. With any luck, they're all going to die."

I didn't speak.

"The population could use trimming."

He flicked between three screens rapidly: The elevator from the surface, the elevator line to the pit, and the elevators that led down to Wrath.

I cringed. "It's going to take them ages to take every angel through two different elevator lines to get to Wrath. Wait. Do we even know they're going to start from Wrath? They may just take the first elevator straight to Pride- there's no guarantee they won't."

"I can control that from here." Stacy said. He ran again through the feeds of the upper levels, and found the majority of the worshippers had crossed into the underground. He didn't bother to check how many- just that the flow of people at the entrance had thinned. Then he took a box and threw it on my lap. He unwound a cord from inside it, and carefully handed me a stick with a single button on it.

"Wait, though." He said, a hand on my shoulder again.

The elevator had started to move up towards the present Earth. It was a good fifteen minute journey, I'd like to say, and there was no point in being suspenseful about it- after all, after this they were just going to have to take another elevator up again.

But I was holding my breath as the doors opened again and Michael and his Brothers got on. Percial, also present, pointed at the camera. Michael looked up at it, smiled quite happily, and destroyed it with his blade.

The elevator continued its descent. It stopped in Pride and Stacy frantically switched to a camera there- only to catch Michael step out, walk to the edge of the city, and then turn around again and walk right back into the waiting elevator.

He seemed hyperaware of everything, and I recalled with no fondness how convinced I had once been that he was psychic. The thought again came to me quite easily. He knew I had been watching him. And he must have somehow known what was waiting for him in Wrath.

When he came to the end of the line, he walked down towards the pit, to the small secret meeting room. He seemed happy about it this little detour- Percial had a history with this place, I knew, and Michael pointed out the bloodstains with glee.

Then it was another oddly intentional detour, up a floor by elevator just so they could transfer lines back down to Wrath. To the level where Lil was- and so, soon, the doors opened to reveal Lil- the other cults had come too, but she had secured her spot with a small perimeter to spare.

Or did the doors open to reveal the Brothers of Blood? Either ways, the doors were open, and either ways Michael seemed utterly bemused by the candle-wielding demons. He didn't draw out his blade or even tense up. He walked over to Lil, who was on her knees with her eyes closed, and tilted her head up.

Neither seemed scared, and Michael ran a hand through her hair lightly before standing up and beginning his walk up through Hell.

People parted for him, and I imagine some were trying to speak to him, but he would just nod and smile at everyone regardless. Behind him, the other Brothers- and Percial- just looked uncomfortable. I could see them play with the blade on their fingers as they walked.

We let them get through most of the crowd. And I say we because I was starting to feel a lot like a we. Stacy's hand was on my shoulder reassuringly, but when I looked up he was just as distant as Michael. He flipped through the screens of the halls, pointing out his bombs to me and tightening his grip.

Then he rested again on a screen of Michael.

So then, I pressed the trigger. It was harder than expected, and made a sort of loud metallic click when pressed. But we were in a room without sound, so the click echoed a few times as fire consumed the tunnels of Hell.

People burned before they were crushed, I assume. But the cameras were taken out just as fast as lives were, so it was difficult to tell.

After maybe ten seconds, none of the cameras worked besides the ones in the various levels themselves- Stacy showed me feeds from Wrath of burning people fleeing inside, or of Greed as people huddled in their offices as the ceiling collapsed in front of their doors.

He left the feed with a shot to the tunnel's entrance, where a total cave in had been assured. The police surrounded it, waiting for an expert to come by and explain what could be salvaged.

Not much, I was assuming. But it was hard to tell.

"And now, for part two."

"It goes beyond this?"

"We still have to worry about you, don't we? Michael doesn't die according to your canon, so if he emerges from that rock pile, don't you think it's your responsibility to make him leave?"

I watched the last remaining camera.

"I'm not sure he will."