As Heaven is Wide - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

- Wanted Dead or Alive -

* * *

They’ve been laying low for a few days now, waiting for the rumours to finally die down. Daimon hoped their crazy venture through the Heavens would be old news sooner than later.

Although, did it really matter?

The rumours were so confusing and misleading that they were actually to their advantage. Besides, the demiurge was able to provide a new disguise for Daimon everyday. He did not lack in creativity too and often Frey had to stop him, or try to reason with the Eon’s sense of fashion.

No, there was no real reason for them to wait even a day longer. Frey knew that he was just stalling for time now, trying to search for excuses to clutch onto this scrap of post-Christmas pseudo-normalcy a little longer. Without the sword they would be just as stuck in a week as they were now. It was time to act because each day gave the Archangels more time to come up with a way to destroy the sword or track them down. Not that Daimon was particularly concerned either. He felt safe with a piece of flying carpet in his pocket. And he really doubted Raziel would find a way to destroy the Star of Doom, or even dare do it. It had been pretty much hand-made by the Lord.

The problem was in him. He had been ready on Christmas.

If they had found the sword back then, he would have destroyed the Earth by now.

But no adrenaline rushed through his veins at the moment. He didn’t even feel like a stray rabid dog anymore. He was safely off the streets, his life-long enemy turned to be bearable and even occasionally amusing and it was nice to pretend that Earth didn’t have to go. Maybe at least not until the end of the year.

Daimon’s wounds weren’t bleeding so far and so he told himself that perhaps it really was alright to wait a little longer, that the Lord didn’t mind that as long as Frey did his job in the end. And it could be beneficial to just watch from the shadows for a while and gather intel, right? No, probably not really. Fuck, he just had to get his ass back in gear and brace himself for this again.

At least one good thing seemed to have come out of their unsuccessful venture. The patrols in the town grew more scarce. It might have been a result of some political repercussions after that circus Michael pulled on the Christmas day, shooting all around the crowded alleys of the Kingdom. Or perhaps they were simply looking for him in Texas now.

He doubted that Raziel somehow managed to trace their teleportation by carpet or even Jaldabaot’s allegedly purely ‘demiurge’ powers to where they hid the motorbike. But maybe he could have picked up the trace of the black magic lingering on Sahara. Daimon hoped they wouldn’t find her. Sahara was a very decent machine and she saved their asses back there. Of course, the demiurge helped a bit, but without the bike, they would have been toast.

Jaldabaot didn’t seem to mind the wait all that much. He was rather pleased to see Frey develop patience of some sort. He claimed they were going to get Daimon’s real sword back very soon no problem and also announced these few extra days was quite a windfall that he was going to use to work on something that would come in handy later.

Daimon didn’t know what to think of anything anymore. He just knew he couldn’t stand idly sitting in the demiurge’s hideout. Properly disguised with a different look, he was spending his days in the streets and around pubs, keeping an ear out for anything useful. Of course, all he heard was just rumours.

But rumours often had a grain of truth inside them.

* * *

While Daimon Frey had been roaming the streets and sitting in stinking bars, listening to gossip, the Eon of Eons, Brightness incarnate, spent his days in a much more productive manner. He was making an armor for the mostly absent Destroyer of Worlds.

Jaldabaot didn't mind solitude. When you spend a few millennia in exile after being a ruler of Heaven for about as long, you don't just go out and socialize unless you really need to. At least not on Earth, the great dumpster for all sorts of failures, scumbags and dregs from both Heaven and Hell.

Jaldabaot preferred to stay in the refined company of his own self and Queen playing from his iPhone. The demiurge worked all the time, only making breaks for food, sleep, bathroom and occasional chit-chat with Frey. Thankfully the little trip to Heaven left him inspired like he hadn't felt in centuries, even after he woke up nauseous and with a monster of a headache the day after Christmas. But those symptoms didn't last, unlike the memories of those hours in Heaven...

Hours spent in the queues among proper Luminous, several minutes dancing with pure innocent creatures that knew no filth of the mortal world, an hour or so of escaping from his beloved Kingdom after having succeeded in not killing a single soldier in Daimon's palace.

Jaldabaot kept reliving their recent adventure to Freddie Mercury's voice, as he shaped the metal with his bare hands, and the demiurge's heart felt light for the first time in millennia.

And he even forgot he was working in a slowly rotting carcass of a building, waiting to be demolished, that only his powers refined and made inhabitable. For once in his existence he didn't see the ghastly imperfections of the trees, snow and sky outside, even though he was facing the kitchen window as he worked. All that remained in his world was the work and the music and the feeling of purpose and progress, as his hours passed over the crafting of Daimon's armor.

And he was crafting it for a reason. What had Frey even been thinking going around the streets in just a jacket, getting his back riddled with bullets? Frey needed an armor. It would give them an advantage in the conflicts to come, and help them on their quest to destroy the Earth. Because soon they were going to get the Star back and fulfill Lord's will… And his will. Jaldabaot smiled to himself confidently as he worked.

* * *

Few days before the New Year, Daimon was returning to the Eon’s apartment wide-eyed and hopeful. There was a brand new rumour in town and it was one that he would give everything to believe true.

Hija was alive. They somehow brought her back. His sweet, smart cobalt-haired magess, who had became trapped in a ghostly dimension between life and non-existence on Gabriel's moon before the battle with the Sower, several years back.

She ended up there after trying to protect herself from an assassination attempt. To fend off the mercenaries sent to kill her by Nisroch, she cast a complex teleportation spell, attempting to move the entire island to another location between dimensions and then back. The island disappeared and the assailants drowned in the sea. But Hija never managed to bring it back. She became trapped in a half-way between the worlds together with her servants.

Since that time, Raziel had already tried everything to free her. Or so he had been claiming all this time.

In the light of the recent events, there were three possible truths now.

The first one was simply that the rumour about Hija’s comeback was the Archangels’ ruse to lure Daimon out of his hiding.

The second was that Raziel had lied to him before and only now when a convenient moment arrived, he finally decided to go ahead and rescue her. This thought made Daimon feel particularly pissed and bitter. With each day he believed even less in the power of that pitiful thing he had once used to call ‘friendship’.

The last possible truth was that his ‘friends’ had gone to extremes to bring Hija back now, perhaps desperately deciding she was their only chance to put sense back into the crazy Abaddon's head, and perhaps even lure him back to Heaven. They knew he'd want to meet her. That he'd need to meet her, as soon as he found out she was alive again.

And so, grim and hopeful at the same time, with bittersweet thoughts of love and betrayal swirling in his head, Daimon made his way up the stairs of the abandoned building where Jaldabaot lived.

The destruction of Earth had been adjourned indefinitely to some other day, and this time he had a real excuse.

If his wounds reopened now, and drowned him in his own blood, Frey didn’t fucking care. If this was a trap, he didn’t care either. Gabriel and Raziel must have been counting on this but shit, if this was real, before fulfilling the Lord's order, he had to see her at least for a moment.

But first he needed to find Kamael. His old friend, Kam, whose name had been repeated time after time in the hushed whispers about Hija's return.

* * *

When Frey came back from one of his trips downtown and began blabbering about his girlfriend, Jaldabaot rolled his eyes but in the end decided he was not to judge the Destroyer in such a matter. He could judge him for sacrilege and slaughter of the Kingdom’s civilians once upon a time, because back then Lord had placed him into a position to deal such justice. But matters of romantic relationships were far out of his competence or area of interest.

Truth be told, the Eon could not even imagine what having a proper good old friend felt like, not to mention a lover. Yet seeing Frey so excited about something or someone was surely new and well, rather interesting all in all.

"So, all it took was the Lord ordering you to destroy the Earth for your friends to actually bother with resurrecting your beloved, eh? Such devotion on their part," was all he said on the topic, before agreeing to help Frey try to arrange a meeting with that Hija girl. This whole meeting was more than likely going to be a trap but he was going to let Frey learn on his own mistakes. Anyway, the Archangels kept meeting the Eon’s low expectations.

He worked in silence that evening, occasionally glancing at the window to watch the blizzard outside.

Ever since Christmas in Heaven Jaldabaot felt like he was missing out on something. He actually always felt that, but never wanted to admit it even to himself. But now even he couldn’t deny that the recent visit to the Garden of the Seven Heights had left a wound in his heart, that seemed to be bleeding even worse than Abaddon's numerous injuries.

The demiurge had spent his life in Heaven living in an ivory tower, watching the world from the height of his power and his ego. His proud solitude was broken only by allies he plotted with, enemies he plotted against and boot-licking subordinates, who took care of all the details.

He had all his heart could desire, but his heart stayed silent as he spent his days living up to his stature, fulfilling his duties and managing the creation of a new world. The beautiful, marvelous Kingdom he was ruling, lay outside his window much unnoticed, as he focused his attention mostly on the construction of the new world, carried out by others. And the patterns on his robes. One couldn’t appear in the same robes twice, when one was the Regent of Cosmos.

Only after a long while in exile, forced to roam the filthy, dirty, ragged Limbo, Spheres and most of all the bungled Earth, did the former Archon realize how bitterly homesick he was.

And now, after those few moments of distilled happiness, the likeness of which he could not remember ever feeling before the dance on Christmas in the Garden of the Seven Heights, the demiurge constantly felt a bittersweet longing he knew could never be satisfied. A longing similar to the one, as he guessed, Frey was feeling now when speaking of this Hija...

That whole Hija business was another matter that made him feel like he was missing out on something very important in life. But he couldn't pinpoint exactly what that might be.

Nah, he was fine the way he was. And soon when this dustball would be gone, he would be better still, some peace of mind at last.

Jaldabaot shook his head to get rid of the dull ache such thoughts put in him and focused on the cuirass, that he was making.

* * *

Ginger-haired and freckled once more, Jaldabaot walked into the bar he was directed to by Daimon in search of Kamael. The Eon vaguely remembered the commander of the Locust from way back, but since that time he’d only heard echoes of rumors about him. And the rumors had it that Kamael fell during Lucifer’s Rebellion, but didn’t do well in the Depths either. According to Frey, despite Kamael’s fall, he still remained one of his closest ‘friends’.

Jaldabaot pulled out his iPhone and looked at the guy Daimon created in The Sims 2 for him, after Jaldabaot pretty much forced him to, claiming he couldn't tell Depth-Dwellers apart.

Well, of course he could.

But enduring numerous angry glares and threats was worth the exquisite pleasure of watching Daimon Frey fail at creating a humanoid creature in a computer game for over 20 minutes, while cursing like a trooper and looking utterly ridiculous.

Jaldabaot snickered quietly, hiding the iPhone and heading towards a table in the corner, where he thought he saw his target. Frey made Kamael sound like he might have been his last loyal friend and ally in the whole Universe. But Jaldabaot was not going to believe any of that sappy rubbish. The rumors about Hija, even if true, were most likely being spread for a particular purpose.

Jaldabaot knew all about intrigues and plots of all sorts. His vast knowledge had not saved him from being overthrown and right now it was rather rusty. But the demiurge was still pretty sure he could handle walking straight into any trap the Archangels managed to set. It would actually feel great to prove Daimon wrong if that was the case. Friends were overrated.

The ex-Archon stopped in front of his target's table. The demiurge’s red hair and face adorned with several constellations of freckles were accented by a black cowboy hat, black leather jacket, blue jeans, fingerless gloves, and cowboy boots. Nobody would ever guess that the angel who had just walked in was the Eon of Eons. Of course, Jaldabaot took wicked pleasure in leaving some clues. Today he wore a t-shirt that read "I worked for Shadow, I worked for God, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" in a font too tiny for anyone to read without getting a really close look.

The last completing touch to his crazy look was an acoustic guitar strapped on his back.

Let this Kamael beat his brains out trying to put two and two together. Ha! All of Frey's friends still thought he was locked up in a loony-bin for elderly demiurges. It was rather amusing and the former Archon took pride in how well he had accidentally fooled all of them.

"Hey, friend of a friend," Jaldabaot said with a grin. "Kamael, right?"

An auburn-haired demon, busy exchanging words with a few companions at the table, looked back over his shoulder slowly, unsure whether he heard right. He had been expecting somebody from Daimon to contact him, of course. In fact it was precisely what the Regent had ordered him to do; to sit and wait until Frey came to him - but somehow Kamael still hoped that it would not happen.

He hoped that somehow Frey was hidden so well that he wouldn’t hear the news, which he had been so skillfully spreading. Or that for some mysterious reason Daimon just wouldn't care about Hija anymore. At least not enough to take such risk over it.

But hoping for that had been foolish.

Of course Hija still meant the world to Frey, and of course he would contact him somehow to find out more. It was Daimon Frey for fuck’s sake. The Destroyer of Worlds. He wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone and at this point he probably didn’t give a shit about many people either.

And as long as Kamael hated to admit this, there was also the fact that Daim would probably never expect his best friend to betray him... Not even after everyone else had. They’ve been best buddies, always having each other’s backs. Always.

Kamael wished he had been stronger than this. He felt like Judas, selling Daimon for a bag of silver coins. But he couldn’t lose the Kingdom again, live this wretched life again with nowhere to call his home...

Feeling the by now well-familiar cold claws of guilt clutch at his stomach, Kamael nodded to the stranger slowly, then turned back to the other Depth-Dwellers at the table. Quickly drowning his fear and guilt in a shot of strong vivid green alcohol, he apologized to the two demons, and got up, facing the strangely dressed cowboy angel.

"You’re coming from him, yes? He wants to see me?" he asked quietly as they found themselves in a distance from the table. He wasn’t sure why he even admitted the thought that Frey would send a cowboy to find him… Shit maybe he shouldn’t have assumed...

"Yes. And yes, again," Jaldabaot nodded, allaying Kamaels doubts just a little. He motioned towards the exit. "We'll do a bit of walking now, button up," he advised, but didn't follow his own advice, walking out into the bitter cold with his jacket unzipped.

Kamael looked back one last time, and feeling even more apprehensive and properly traitorous he left the warm, familiar buzz of the bar behind and followed the weird cowboy angel out into the biting cold. After a moment of walking that really made the demon button up and pull a hood on his head, he asked, "So, where is he? And who are you?"

"A-a, no, first you tell me how exactly you two carried out your bloody vengeance on Halpas and his servants," Jaldabaot retorted with his own demand. He sneaked a brief glance behind them, as they walked through the street, to check if they were being tailed.

"What?" Kamael gaped at him disbelieving what he had just heard. Once he had been something along the lines of an aristocrat in the Depths, a count palatine. He had his own land, his own manor, and he lived quite cosily there, until he made too many enemies, that is.

Sadly, making enemies in the Depths was much easier than making money on Earth. In the end all those enemies banded up against him and raided Kamael's land, forcing him to renounce his property and flee for dear life. Halpas was one of the demon magnates who orchestrated the attack on Kamael’s lands. The count palatine managed to escape unscathed and for a couple of decades was deluding himself that he can still return and take back lands and estates. It was about that time that he talked Frey into helping him take vengeance on Halpas.

And well, Daimon and him had come up with a plan and they were about to put it into motion, but first Kamael threw a small before-party to celebrate their venture... During which they got heavily trashed but still decided to go through with the plan and kick some demon asses... Unfortunately they met some fetching demonesses on the way instead and… No, no, no, that wasn't happening; Frey didn't tell that completely embarrassing personal story to some random cowboy guy... did he?

"...what?" Kamael repeated again like an idiot.

"Why are you asking me? I just asked you," Jaldabaot protested.

Oh good Lord, so Daimon did tell him that. Who was this guy even for Frey to trust him so much? And most of all, why did Daim trust this winged cowboy more than he trusted his best friend? It hurt, dammit. Frey hadn't even tried to contact him or ask for help, and from what Kamael had heard he was in deep shit recently. So why didn’t he reach out? Why?

He guessed Daimon might have decided the shit he was in was simply too deep to pull Kamael into it with him. Or even try to borrow a rowboat from him. Yeah, that would be a nice explanation. Especially since the alternative would be that Frey simply didn’t trust him anymore and suspected Kam was going to sell him out to the Regent.

This hurt even more. Because he… he kind of was.

"Frey really told you to ask me that? I can't believe it. Or maybe you're somebody from Halpas, leading me into a damned trap, huh?" Kamael tried to mask his uneasiness with a stream of words. The question didn’t serve much purpose. He was pretty sure Halpas had grown bored of looking for him already, probably some hundred years ago. But he also didn't like the idea of answering this kind of tricky questions to a complete stranger.

"Nah, he didn't. Whatever. He wanted me to double-check your culinary preferences," Jaldabaot waved a hand with a laugh, never really giving Kamael the comfort of knowing for sure whether or not Frey had really told him that embarrassing story.

Kamael, who had grown a little red on his usually pale face (but could try and justify that with the biting frost outside), let out a silent sigh of relief that he didn't have to retell to some random guy how instead of kicking demon asses they had flown into the fortress through a wrong window... or more like crashed into a wrong window because they were piss drunk, and found the room full of appetizing servant demonesses... and what happened next. The blue-eyed fallen angel shook his head. "Then ask that other question you were supposed to ask, because I'm not telling you about Halpas. That’s my private life, for fuck's sake."

“Private life it sure was,” Jaldabaot snorted. Unfortunately for both Kamael and the demiurge, Daimon told him the story when they got trashed on Christmas, exchanging drunken secrets at random. "But you’re right, I don't really want to hear all the gory details again," the ginger-head rolled his eyes dramatically. He took a cig and a lighter out of his pocket, struggling to light the cigarette the Earthly way for a few moments before he finally succeeded and started smoking.

"Well alright, here goes the real question then - what did you want from the summoner, when you took your good ol’ friend for a trip through the pentagram for the first time?" he asked resigned. He was already pretty sure he got the right Kamael but he still asked, for the sake of principles. He didn’t miss the chance to complain, though, "You both are such bores, really. My original question was far superior, it'd be much harder to just guess," Jaldabaot waved his cig around nonchalantly.

Kamael didn't like this guy. Maybe it was just first impression, but he just really, really didn't. This angel was allowing himself too much.

"Milkshake,” he answered, exasperated. “I wanted a strawberry milkshake. Are you done with this ridiculous test now? What's your name?"

"Neo," Jaldabaot said, turning to Kamael with a smile and offering an unlit cig to the other angel.

Kamael looked mighty distrustful. "You're really called like that, or are you just a fan of the Matrix?" He took the cig, never having heard about those being poisoned.

"Neither, it's just a nickname, one of many," Jaldabaot leered. It was yet another beautiful clue nobody was going to get. What a shame. He was the Neo of Neos.

Kamael lit up the cigarette with his own man-made lighter; he generally seemed to be fond of the human habits and inventions. "Fair enough,” Kam shrugged. “But imagine I also use those, and you just ruined that bar for me by calling my actual name." And that was yet another reason not to love the strange curly-haired angel.

"Well, you should thank him for that, he didn't tell me not to," Jaldabaot shrugged too, smiling and laid-back.

"And what, you’re some kind of new friend of his?" Kamael squinted. "I don't recall ever seeing you around before."

"Yeah, I only began hanging out with him recently, when new vacancies opened up on his ‘friend list’. Because you know what? So far all the good old friends have been causing him more wounds and trouble than his worst enemies," Jaldabaot noted philosophically.

Kamael shuddered, but only he could tell that it was not from the cold. He felt this statement applied to him personally. Why, oh why was he such a jerk? He had been Gabriel's errand boy and spy ever since the Regent reluctantly handed him over the keys to one of his estates on the Moon. It was Daimon that had pressured Gabriel into rewarding Kamael for his role in the battle. The Lord of Revelations had made his own attitude quite clear. The Moon was closer to the Kingdom than Kamael had been in millenia. If he served the Regent well perhaps he would be allowed to remain there or maybe in some few hundred years he would even be allowed to go back home, to Fifth Heaven. No, that was probably wishful thinking. Maybe at least Second Heaven? Any Heaven would be nice. But serving Gabriel right now meant breaking Frey’s trust and possibly putting him in danger.

Was he really going to be like the others? No… come on, he wasn’t really turning on Daimon here, right? In the end he was just going to bring Hija to him. Hija couldn’t be of any danger to Abaddon, could she? Gabriel and Raziel could think what they wanted but she would never betray Frey and lead him into a trap. And it wasn’t a trap anyway. Gabriel assured him they just wanted to help Daimon. Kamael scolded himself inwardly. He had to stop thinking about this! Self-doubt would not make anything better right now.

"How is he doing?" The demon asked, changing the topic. Daimon had supposedly lost his mind. That’s what Gabriel had told him. And the longer Kamael spent in the company of this prying angel with a perfectly shaped face but redneck manners, the more he believed that really had been the case.

"Not bad, not bad. Thanks to me, mostly, and thanks to that bike you gave him. I imagine escaping the Kingdom on Sinbad's boat or the Mirror of Truth - whatever that does - would have been much more troublesome," Jaldabaot snorted, remembering the options they had been faced with in Daimon's garage. He hadn't known what exactly those objects were back then, but a few days ago he had asked Daimon about the weird boat, when they were having dinner. It was… a long story.

Kamael looked at him surprised. "A bike I gave him? What do you mea-... Waaait..." His eyes grew wider, as he suddenly connected this information with a recent rumour that's been circulating all over the streets of earthly cities, about some crazy biker in Heaven... "It was him? Frey paralysed the whole traffic on Christmas in Heaven?"

"Yeah, he makes a good Grinch, doesn't he? Went and spoiled Christmas for everyone," Jaldabaot chuckled. “And he was so grumpy while at it, you should have seen ‘im!” It was safe to admit this to Kamael. The worst he could do was to tell the Archangels, who already knew it had been Frey anyway. Jaldabaot himself was still staying very mysterious in this ginger-head freckled optical illusion of his. He actually made sure to look more or less the same way now that he had in Heaven; he wouldn’t want to give their enemies an idea that he could alter his looks with this much ease. It was enough that they knew he was able to disguise Frey.

Kamael was still looking at him dumbstruck. And not because he didn't know who Grinch was, in fact contrary to Daimon, the fallen angel was well familiar with human filmography. He simply couldn't believe it. "Why the Hell did he even go there?"

Jaldabaot turned to him, looking serious all of a sudden. He seemed to study Kamael for a moment, his eyes narrowed. "Well, didn't the Archangels tell you, before they sent you to lure us out?" Jaldabaot asked with an ugly smirk.

Kamael tried not to pale. After all, that could have been just a joke, right? This guy couldn’t possibly know... "W-wh... no, what are you even implying? How dare you?" he accused angrily.

"How could I not dare?" Jaldabaot snorted. "I want to live! So I'm voicing my own healthy skepticism. Daimon believes in you, like a stupid little kid. He thinks friendship actually stands for something. He thinks you're somehow different from that back-stabbing flock of royal chickens. Well, I don't, you can’t fool me, so there," Jaldabaot kept half-smiling. He sounded pretty convinced that Kamael was no better than the other friends of Daimon’s. And somehow that didn't seem to upset him even a bit, quite the opposite, the curly redhead looked amused.

Kamael clenched his teeth and didn’t let himself blurt out something that wasn’t thought-through this time. "But he’s going to destroy the Earth!" he stated at last, as if that explained and justified everything. He felt both guilty and pissed that Gabriel involved him in this without telling him what’s really going on. He knew the approximate situation but not the details. Like the fact it had been Daimon wreaking havoc in the Kingdom on Christmas or why. Fuck, that motorbike should have rang a bell... Who else could possibly own one in the Kingdom, or know how to ride one?

"Oh, yes, he is going to destroy it. That was the Lord's order. One Frey really doesn't like. But he doesn't have much of a choice either, you know? Because except for being the Lord’s ‘loyal knight’, he also happens to have wounds all over him, that reopen whenever he's not working on it, so it’s kind of hmm, hard to abandon, I’d say. Do you know that when the Lord gave him the order he actually went to Gabriel and asked for the Earth to be completely evacuated of all angels before he strikes? And that Gabriel promised him to do it? And you know what - the next thing they did instead was to proclaim him a madman and raid his home.“ Jaldabaot gestured wildly, spitting venom and grinning. “When he ran, they sent the army after him and they’ve been doubling the amount of wounds on his body every other day ever since. I pretty much found him bleeding to death in a trash can. Nice friends, right? Such loyalty! Such affection!" After he finished, he turned to Kamael with a cruel smile. His cold metallic eyes studied the other angel in the most unpleasant of ways. There was a spark of madness in those silver eyes that somehow seemed out of place among all the freckles.

Kamael paled significantly. He had never felt shittier than now that some random angel recounted the story from Frey's point of view, adding extra details and unfortunately making all kinds of grim sense. Kamael wanted to just snort and accuse the Winged of lying but it all came together too well. He had to admit this whole matter was really shady and hurried. First the Archangels refused to tell him anything and then suddenly Gabriel fed him an expedited summary of how Daimon had gone crazy and hid somewhere on Earth and then he smooth-talked Kamael into this job, changing the topic each time he tried to ask questions. It was quite a shock to hear they brought Hija back. Gabriel even let him see her for about 20 seconds to prove it’s the real deal but nobody told him anything more about it either.

His job was just to spread rumours until Daimon contacted him. Of course, Kamael had to agree to do it. He would end back on Earth in the trash can together with Daimon if he hadn’t.

But as much as until now Kamael had consistently tried to make himself believe he was doing this for Daimon’s sake, now… well, now he wasn’t so sure anymore.

To hear about Daimon's wounds reopening on the Lord’s cue was yet another revelation.  The wounds were a memento from the old times when that freak Jaldabaot had him tortured and killed, and sure, they had always been a bother for both Frey and Raziel who had to prepare special healing potions for Abaddon. But that they would suddenly be a means for the Lord - or according to something Gabriel muttered over the Eye of the Day to Raziel while Kamael eavesdropped behind the door, the Shadow, - to control Daimon? Now that was really hard to wrap one’s head around.

He wondered if Frey would tell him about it himself now. Even if he actually still considered Kam to be his faithful friend. The former commander of the Locust didn't think so. Daimon had always been keeping his problems to himself and would attempt to keep doing that even when his problems went universe-wide and became public like a fucking brothel. Kamael’s shoulders sagged a little. This whole situation was overwhelming.

“Huh, so? Do you have anything to say to that? Hello?” Jaldabaot waved his hand before Kamael’s eyes after the fallen angel had become so oddly quiet.

Kamael looked at him but found himself unable to comment on those accusations. Worse than that - unable to decide what he should do now. He guessed he had to see Daimon first and check just how crazy the Angel of Destruction really was.

"Just… please take me to him," he said, not sounding accusing, or even annoyed anymore. Actually, not sounding like anything at all.

* * *

They met Frey in a desolate corner of a small snowy park, more like a garden even.

Jaldabaot had chosen the location because it had multiple escape routes and he knew the area quite well, or so he had claimed to Frey earlier. Also, before leaving the Destroyer of Worlds there, he had made him a thermos with hot tea, just in case Daimon would start freezing on that bench he left him on or something.

Generally, ever since Christmas Jaldabaot had been quite a hospitable host. Except for occasional cutting remarks, grumbling and whining (mostly back when he had the massive hangover), the demiurge had been nothing but a great help to the cause of destroying the Earth once and for all.

When he saw the two of them approaching, Daimon got up from the bench he'd been sitting on. Despite being wrapped in a grey scarf and dressed quite warmly, he felt rather cold. Or maybe he just got cold each time he saw Jaldabaot wearing his "winter outfits" worth of a tropical summer night.

Frey had a hard time believing it was really Kam, his good old friend Kam out there, walking towards him now... beside Jaldabaot…

...something was very wrong about this particular image. He hoped at least that Jaldabaot hadn't introduced himself.

No, actually, he was pretty sure the demiurge hadn't done that, because there was just no way Kamael would still want to see an allegedly crazy friend, if he knew Frey had made allies with a supposedly equally crazy enemy of the Kingdom. Anyway, Daimon was just glad to know he wasn’t completely alone in this madness.

"Kam...?" He looked at the auburn-haired fallen angel hopefully when the two arrived at the bench.

Kamael looked back at him a little scared. Daimon had short light-brown hair, he was dressed in the most casual way Kamael had ever seen him dress (and he'd even seen Frey in his pajamas), and he was missing the trade-mark salamander tattoo on his cheek. But it was Frey alright. The ex-commander of the Knights of the Sword would recognize that bastard everywhere, even if he hid those huge irises gaping with cosmic void behind dark glasses like he once told him to. Also, nobody had a voice quite like Daimon’s. It sounded like stones cast into the current of an underground river.

"Daimon, I..." Kamael was hesitant, not knowing how to even start this conversation, not sure whether he should just turn around and run away now, or stay and let things happen the way they would. Not sure if Daimon was insane or now. Either way, he doubted Daimon would even want to shake his hand at this point. He probably wouldn’t, if he shared any of the ginger angel’s attitude and resentment...

But he didn’t get to wonder much more, as suddenly he was heartily embraced, patted on the back with a strong hand and then let go to find himself facing a very hopeful, and very sane looking Frey. "Kam, you son of a bitch, long time no see."

Jaldabaot stood a few steps away, staring at the two man-hugging angels with a puzzled expression. Something was wrong with Daimon's face. Jaldabaot scratched his chin, studying the Angel of Destruction for a moment, before he figured it out. Frey was smiling. In a non-malicious, actually friendly way.

The Eon of Eons pulled out his iPhone and took a picture of this purely historic, supernatural moment.

Meanwhile, Daimon was smiling indeed. Unsurely, yes, because he knew he was stepping on very thin ice even without Kamael knowing who exactly was just taking a photo of the air where they stood. (Human technology could not capture images of the Winged, so good luck there, demiurge.)

Daimon looked at Kamael expectantly, but the fallen angel was just staring back at him, lost, like he had no words for Frey at all. It washed Abaddon's faint smile away. "Is it true, Kam? Is Hija back?"

Kamael dropped on the bench, and looked up at Daimon, not paying attention to the ginger-head to the side. That hearty hug Frey gave him entirely erased all memories of the cowboy angel for now. "Yeah, it’s all for real. Raziel brought her back," he smiled to Frey half-heartedly. "She really wants to meet you, Daim."

Meanwhile, Jaldabaot put the cellphone into his pocket. Instead he took a hold of his guitar, moved it to his front and went to sit down on a swing nearby. He didn't look at the other two angels, glancing around instead. He scanned the area for any witnesses or perhaps spies, but found none. Quietly, the demiurge started playing his guitar, occasionally looking up from it at the other two angels and the park around them.

Frey sat down next to his friend meanwhile, and looked at Kamael with disbelief, unsure if he should be crying from joy, or maybe just crying. "Does she know... does she know what I need to do?" Suddenly he seemed even more unsure and out of character as he fixed his eyes on Kamael. "Kam... do you even know?"

The former commander of the Locust cast his eyes down on the icy, snowy park alley under their feet. "Not sure about Hija, but I know, Daimon. They told me. That you..."

"That I've gone nuts? That Shadow took control over me?" Frey asked bitterly, quite sure this was the case.

Jaldabaot watched the two, as he twanged quietly. He was absolutely sure Kamael was up to something with his rumors. But he was not going to interfere or try to stop Frey from walking into his friends' trap. Stopping a train with no brakes would be easier to do. Jaldabaot was just going to make sure the trap was not fatal and they could still destroy the Earth after that.

Kamael looked up at the Destroyer of Worlds, studying Daimon, trying to find that madness that was supposed to be there, to see that darkness everybody was talking about. And darkness was there, but it was just the good old black of the cosmic void and his good old gloomy friend Frey, perhaps even gloomier than usual, but definitely not possessed. Tired, yes, and probably expecting even Kamael to turn his back on him and snitch him out to his other ex-friends, but definitely not crazy. Or at least not looking the part. "So it really was the Lord, Daimon? You're absolutely sure of it?" he replied the question with another question.

Frey sighed, shaking his head, "You know Kam, Gabriel and Raziel asked me the same thing. Guess what I replied, and guess what they did anyway."

"They declared him crazy, trampled his garden, moved a hundred guys with guns into his home, and took all of his favorite 'books' away from the safe in his library, if you know what I mean," Jaldabaot chimed in, showing air quotes, as he got to the part about Frey's missing collection of weaponry. “Now the Hosts are shooting him on sight, his friends are plotting how to make his life even more miserable and I wouldn’t be surprised if they sent assassins-”

Daimon scowled at him with such an expression that it stopped the Eon’s monologue mid-word.

Kamael looked from Daimon to the musical ginger-head, listening to this with such an expression as if it was him, Kamael, that the whole Kingdom was after.

Daimon shook his head, grimly summing up what Jaldabaot just visualized, "Actually yes, all that and I have a hunch that it's just the beginning. But I need to do that, Kam..."

"Yes, I’ve heard about your re-opening wounds..." Kamael said a bit wide-eyed.

Frey grew serious "No, listen Kam, it's not even about the wounds. Right now I'd even want that, you know? To just die. And have some peace of mind. It's about something else-"

"Enough, Daimon, you start sounding like you are a bit crazy, don't scare your friend off," Jaldabaot interrupted. Then he turned to Kamael, "To keep things short, basically, the Lord wants the Earth destroyed. Daimon heard the order and has a good physical reminder of it, cause when our quest progresses his wounds stop bleeding, I’ve seen that myself," Jaldabaot poked his chest with his thumb. "You see him, see he's not possessed by anything or crazier than he was before. You commanded the Locust once, didn’t you? You must know the Shadow’s presence. And it’s not here! Now would you kindly make up your mind?" Jaldabaot sneered, eyeing Kamael with a predatory look. His silver eyes pierced the former count palatine of the Depths right through, like a pair of icy needles.

There really was something disturbing about those eyes. They seemed unfittingly old, dangerous, and clever. Kamael looked into them. For some reason they gave him the creeps. Or maybe it was this whole situation, this odd story about his best friend narrated by a complete stranger with a guitar.

Hearing another allusion to his secret cooperation with Gabriel, he looked back to Frey to see his reaction. But Daimon didn’t seem to even begin to suspect him. It made Kamael feel even shittier than before.

Frey glared at “Neo” again. He wasn’t supposed to stick his nose into this. Jaldabaot had an awfully keen sense of hearing for his age. But in this case the demiurge was actually right. It wasn’t that he sounded crazy - rather, this entire story was crazy, and would remain so even if it was told by the Lord himself, so maybe he should just spare trying it out on Kamael. Spare himself the bitterness when yet another friend fails to believe or understand. It was frustrating though that the truth was the best way to make enemies of his own friends.

"He's right.” Daimon sighed, “It's all just too fucking complicated to hope you'd give me a chance, Kam." But it was obvious that despite of what he had just said, a part of Frey still hoped that Kamael would do just that; give him a chance.

Jaldabaot smirked triumphantly and started swinging on the swing. Daimon had just admitted he was right in front of a third party. He needed to mark this historic date in a calendar.

Kamael hung his head. He was looking for words and didn’t seem to be able to find them.

Frey looked at him, suddenly afraid he understood what that meant, afraid that any moment now his best friend was going to give up on him, like others had. "Kam?"

During the moment of deafening silence that fell, even Jaldabaot stopped swinging, only to break the tense silence with a humorous yet venomous, “Yeah, speak your mind, Kamael. We’re all friends here.”

But Kamael had already decided, even without the annoying angel helping him. "Daimon, it was Gabriel who told me to set the rumour about Hija going. But I bet you must have already guessed that." He looked weary all of the sudden, and even less of an angel that he so wanted to be once again.

Daimon looked at him, hope dying in his eyes. "So Hija... it's just a trick, isn’t--"

Kamael shook his head violently, waving his hands defensively. "No, no, Daim, Hija's really back. I saw her." He reassured. "It's just... they probably brought her back so that they can get to you. And I'm supposed to convince you to meet her. I have no idea what they might be planning but I imagine they are planning something." He added, bitterly, and then not looking at Daimon or the unidentified angel, he said quietly, "I'm so sorry, Daim. I screwed up big time, pal and if you hate me forever now, I will not blame you." He took a glance at Frey to see the disenchantment on his friend's face and be done with it. He found a cautious, suspicious expression there instead, that he immediately read for what it was, "Oh no, nobody's gonna jump out of the bushes, Daimon. I'm just hopeless and homesick and I trade information for being able to keep what I have. But I’m not a mercenary traitor, please let’s not go that far."

"Aren't we all?” Jaldabaot interrupted. “Homesick that is," he added quickly. He wasn’t a mercenary traitor or hopeless, he was quite hopeful. Especially hopeful that now that Kamael cracked, the talking would go quicker and they would get the whole Hija-business over with swiftly and painlessly and get back to trying to destroy the world.

Daimon, who seemed ready to get up and punch any winged ninjas in the face were they to appear in front of them, heavily rested his back against the bench now, clearly relieved. "Shut up," Frey said, pointing at Jaldabaot.

He shouldn’t really feel relief. He just pretty much found out that Kamael was against him too. Well, at least Kam had the guts to admit it. Jaldabaot could mock him for what he said but Daimon had known Kamael for ages. And he knew better than anybody else how much his friend always regretted joining Lucifer's rebellion and losing his home in Heaven forever.

As if that wasn't enough Kamael then lost his home in the Depths too, and lived in magically created apartments in various earthly hotels for decades on end. Only after Kam’s help in the battle with Shadow, Gabriel let him stay in a gifted villa on the Moon. He could understand why he would want to hold onto what little he had and how it could be leveraged against him. If anything, Frey was even more pissed at Gabriel now.

"Gabriel blackmailed you? He threatened he’d send you away?"

Kamael sighed. "Almost. He subtly conveyed it to me. But I've been a spy for him even before that, under similar conditions, so he simply wouldn't hear about a lack of full cooperation now. If I don’t cooperate, I’m out, especially with you gone." The fallen angel said gloomily. Kamael was pretty sure Gabriel still saw his half-comeback as a bad political move and would get rid of him without any second thoughts, "I'm sorry, Daimon. I'm sorry for me, and for Hija being a trap. Because it seems she is a trap. That is so damn mean of Gabriel and Raziel and I am such an utterly shitty friend..."

Daimon drew a deep breath. "Alright… thanks for telling me Kam. I don't blame you. You see, right now I'm in no position to be particularly picky about friends. So if you're ready to feed a few lies to your... eh, employer, I'm just going to forget it all and assume we're still pals. As to Hija, I'm glad she's back. And I still want to meet her. So Gabriel should be happy enough with your job."

Jaldabaot walked over over to the two seated Winged and swung his guitar behind his back. "Yeah, thanks for changing your mind, Kamael," he leered, putting his hands into his pockets. "We'll save a great deal of tissues now that Daimon won't need to weep over your betrayal that never was!" the ginger haired angel announced happily.

Kamael looked like he was the one who was going to cry instead.

Daimon patted him on the back. "Don't mind him, he’s just old and bitter. Friend or foe, these days I can hardly tell a difference. I'm just glad to see you, Kam. Let’s go somewhere and grab a drink."

Looking up at him, Kamael drew a shaky breath and slowly nodded. Screw it. Daimon was perfectly sane and for the sake of keeping this friendship, or what was left of it, he could just go back to one of his hotel apartments... Or well, since apartments wouldn’t actually exist anymore if Frey destroyed the Earth, he guessed he would find himself some other place to exist in… Spheres maybe...

Whatever was going to happen, it felt good to have a best friend again. Perhaps even worth not having a place to call home.

"Alright, Daim,” Kamael said with a pale smile, “Alright."

* * *