Demonic Delights and Holy Cupcakes

Evil

Three months.

Haniel had been seized by his fear for three months in ways he had never experienced. The council meetings had continued, the march of progress moving on towards the balance, the equilibrium, that Lucifer was working so hard to achieve. With all the vampires eliminated from Praetoria, Haniel had to wait for this long, prearranged meeting with his contact within Lucifer's lines. Originally, it had been about distractions and information.

Now Haniel only wanted to know one thing. What had happened? He had been there watching that day. He had seen Lucifer walk into the trap as surely as Gabriel had.

Yet he could find nothing that proved that the Iblis who smirked at him during the Council was anything but his fallen brethren. Gabriel had ceased speaking with Haniel, telling him that whatever had happened was done. No longer under the sway of the World Eater, she wasn't very concerned about Lucifer getting his way, if it was Lucifer. Though why the World Eater would continue to push forward Lucifer's initiatives, if it was the ancient being in the fallen one's skin, was beyond Haniel.

Before all of this happened, he had agreed to meet his contact after three months from the date they acted, to give the dust time to settle. And he couldn't very well go hunting her down on his own. He wouldn't get anywhere near her without raising suspicion. The wait had been agonizing. Angels needed little sleep, but he needed more than he had been getting, as he lay awake in the night wondering if existence was being eaten apart around them and he was the only one not oblivious to it.

He was quite possibly going insane from it all.

It had quite surprised him to find that all of the pathways had been destroyed between their clump of worlds and the rest of the universe. Whomever had done it had kept the action under wraps and it was yet another mystery that ate anxiously in the back of Haniel's mind.

Luckily, they met on a neutral planet within their realms, on the land mass on a world where all sentient creatures lived underwater. He was precisely on time and only moments after he had arrived, there was a flare of dark power.

"Haniel." Dezrath murmured, watching him with that infuriating smirk on her features.

The angel turned and looked at her for a long moment before grimacing. "General. I suppose congratulations were in order."

Dezrath chuckled and rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "I know you expected I was going to be killed during my fight. Though hopefully wound Urdu enough that she was out for the count while you played your part."

"I honestly didn't care who survived." Haniel frowned at the demon, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched her pace along the barren, rocky expanse of the cliffs that fell into the sea. The land mass wasn't much of a mass, just a series of several dozen one hundred meter by one hundred meter cliff faces, lining up into the horizon. "You're connected to Lucifer."

"Part of the whole General thing." Dezrath yawned as she responded, rapping her fingernails on her teeth idly. "But he's distracted and doesn't delve too far into my privacy."

"How the hell did he get free?" Haniel snapped, glaring at her. "I saw him step right into the trap. I saw him fight and lose. Yet here he is."

Dezrath watched him for a long moment, concern crossing her features. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

Haniel shuddered and glanced at the sky. "It was the... Gabriel was in a thrall. And we're uncertain our benefactor was motivated by anything more than the desire to... capture Lucifer."

"I could have told you that." Dezrath rolled her eyes, her smirk returning. "Gabriel is going to make you take the fall if anything goes wrong, isn't she? We had a deal. I get you the info, I distract one of his Generals, and when it all shakes down, I get my world. You help me eliminate anyone who could challenge me for my supremacy. And the demons leave you all alone."

"No more slavery to Lucifer. No more playing nice with lower beings." Haniel gave her an impatient look. "But we need to find out how Lucifer is still walking around."

"Have you thought... that maybe it's not Lucifer?"

Haniel frowned, glaring at the woman. "Of course I did. But you said that you were connected to him."

"And you assumed that vouched for his legitimacy?" She chuckled softly, her tone bored. "I am connected to a being of immense power, whom I swore an oath to. One that is in the form of Lucifer. But I haven't delved into it. If I push, he pushes back and if it is the real Lucifer, our game would be up, if he bothered to look into my mind."

That did not reassure him, and he frowned when he saw her considering him, looking ready to ask more questions. "We need to be prepared."

"For what?" Dezrath took a step closer to him. "You know more than you're letting on. Why did Gabriel get cold feet? What could... put an Angel into a thrall?"

Haniel wanted, more than anything, to confide in the demon.

Out of anyone, Dezrath would be the closest person he could consider telling. She stood to lose as much as he did if this all went south, but any sign of weakness and she would attack or renege on their agreement. She would show him no loyalty if the house of cards he had built fell.

Haniel refused to mull over the cruel reality that it had been Gabriel who had built this disaster. He had it now, he had to move forward.

"Our benefactor is a being of immense power. One that could take on Lucifer and win. Enthralling an angel shouldn't be that much of a surprise." Haniel bit back, narrowing his eyes at her. "Angels get eight realms, you get the Bellows. The remaining dark realms will convert to our control. The deal has not changed. But you have to observe Lucifer closely. I want to know who it is that is in his form."

"What if it is this mysterious benefactor?" Dezrath purred softly, grinning as if she could sense the dread that went through him at her words. "They're still on our side?"

"For now. Let them take what they want from Lucifer." Haniel paused for a moment, then tilted his head to the side. "You should also try to... destabilize your fellow General. While you have the chance. You know he'd stand in your way, would hunt you down. If Lucifer somehow has escaped, we will need to come up with another plan. And Baltha would be better off eliminated from the picture."

"I'm working on it." Dezrath inclined her head before scowling at him when he opened his mouth to press the issue. "I had an excuse to challenge and kill Urdu. If I just attack Baltha for no reason, there will be questions. Half of the city hates me for killing her. It's pathetic."

Haniel frowned for a moment, then incline his head. "Alright. Three weeks?"

Dezrath nodded curtly before disappearing in another flash of dark power, leaving him to stand on his own, listening to the crash of waves on the rocks far below.

Haniel fought the urge to rage.

After several minutes of introspection, he turned and summoned his own power, returning home. Even after all these weeks of waiting, he felt no better about things after the conversation with the demon.

In fact, it was possible that he felt worse.

It seemed the only person who knew much of anything was whomever was pretending to be Lucifer, though Haniel had no clue what game the World Eater was now playing. The world should have been thrown into chaos to allow the Angels to act by now. There should have been some sign of instability for them to prepare to end this farce of peace and accomplish what they had been trying to do for so long.

The fact that he had seen nothing of the sort made him wonder if the instability was going to be far more than he and his brethren could handle.