[In Nomine] Fic: Deals

[pyrephox]

"Hey, Anna!" The dark haired woman burst into the greenhouse, door flapping carelessly open behind her. "Anna! Where are you hiding this time?" Anna could hear her fingers making the leaves bob and rustle as she touched them in passing.

"I'm not hiding, Sara," she replied, without looking around. Before her, the tightly furled rosebud was slowly, oh-so-slowly, beginning to open. She'd hoped to see it complete the transformation from potentiality to beauty, but...arms slipped around her and she found herself hugged.

"You're /hiding/," Sara declared, snuggled against her back. "You can't seriously mean to futz around with this silly little plant all day!" She reached up to bat at the flower with one hand, and Anna gently blocked it.

"I was thinking about it," she said, mildly. "Although it seems the plans may have changed." She turned to smile at her friend. There would be other days, and other flowers. "Did you wish to offer an alternative?"

"Yeah," Sara said, and it seemed for a moment that her smile faltered, her dark eyes more moist than normal. Anna pinged her attunement, but the Symphony revealed no danger, and by the time she finished concentrating on its song, the flash was gone. "Actually," her friend said, "I need a favor. Some friends of mine want to move some stuff, and your truck's the only one big enough to get the bed in. They've got those little dinky cars. So...want to go for a ride?" She put a teasing lilt and a waggle of the eyebrows into the question.

"Mm. Let me think..." She pretended to ponder, while watching Sara fidget and grow more anxious. "Of course I'll help. After all you've done for me, one little favor couldn't hurt," she declared with a laugh. She wiggled herself free of the hug, and turned towards the greenhouse sink. "Let me wash the dirt off, and we can go."

Facing away, she never saw the expression on Sara's face.

***

The house Sara directed Anna to was out in the woods, outside the city limits. It was a pretty little Victorian, although ramshackle at the edges. As she climbed out, Anna hazarded, "College students getting a deal? You might suggest they rethink it...that place looks pretty, but I don't know if I'd trust it for living in. Where do we go from here?" She didn't see any other cars, but they could be behind the back, she supposed.

Sara said, "There they are," just as the door opened, and four beings stepped out onto the porch. The long, red horns and machine guns rather gave them away, and Anna hissed, leaping over the hood of the truck and planting herself firmly in front of Sara in one instinctive motion.

"Get out of here," she said quietly to her friend, trying to stay calm. "Take the keys and go. I'll explain later."

"No."

"Sara, /go/!"

Sara stepped forward to touch Anna on the shoulder, her hand warm and her voice suddenly cold. "You will do nothing but what I say. You /owe/ me, Cherub, a thousand debts over five years, and I am now collecting them. You will obey." And Anna, whose true name was Rasuil, felt great and terrible hooks shred into her soul, binding her to her friend's power. She resisted desperately, essence flaring up around them, the scent of crushed roses hanging suddenly dark and heavy in the air. All to no avail, as she felt the hooks tighten, become collars. "Sara, /why/?" Her voice broke on the last syllable.

"I tried to do it the easy way," Sara said, at her ear. "I tried to let you come to it in your own time, your own way. But you never let me in, you never listened. But you would let me do favors, wouldn't you? A little help here, a little there. And you never paid me back."

"I thought...I thought you were my friend!"

"Friends return favors, Anna. Friends square the deal, they don't try and trap each other with meaningless gratitude and naive innocence! That's not the way the world works." And she seemed sad for a moment, stepping away from the angel. "That's not the way it works. All debts get paid, eventually. Now walk, Anna. Follow me, and make no attempt to resist."

Numbly, Anna followed the Lilim into the house, past the demons on the porch who catcalled and made obscene gestures, and even more obscene remarks. Followed her to the living room, bare but for a chair with straps, and a tray filled with unspeakable instruments. Anna came to a halt where Sara indicated, studying the setup with mute resignation. Well, she'd been vessel killed before. Even tortured before. She could endure, and rest in the Glade long enough for one of her Lady's Thorns to free her from the Lilim's influence, one way or another.

Sara caught her expression, and smiled. "They're not for you," she said.

"Then...who?"

The demon came up to her, cupped her cheeks with her hands. "You will not attempt to summon any aid, Anna." A hook bit deep, and the Cherub whimpered. "You will not injure yourself or attempt to flee." A second hook, and she moaned. "You will not attempt to sever any of your attunements." Another dark binding, and Anna screamed as she realized where the demon was heading. Over her terrified shrieks, she /still/ heard the damning favor, "...tell me who your attunements are, Anna. Each and every one of them. Who they are, and where they may be found right now. Tell me everything I want to know."

The rest of Anna's essence exploded from her in a rush as she fought against the last hook, and she sank down to her knees, crying openly. "No, no, please. Not that. Please, no, Sara. Anything you want, anything at all. Just don't ask me..."

"You've already been asked. /Tell me/. Now." Another hook on top of the other, and Anna crumpled into a heap, clawing helplessly at the floor as she fought against the Geas. Dissonance scorched her soul, making her writhe with anguish on the dusty floor. Sara watched, her voice still calm. "Tell me, Anna, and the pain will go away. All you have to do is tell me. Such a small thing. You may find a way to escape before they get here, you know. I may let you go. You're my friend. Buy some time. Maybe you can convince me." Her voice was soothing, like rainwater on soft soil. "Just tell me what I need to know. We won't hurt them. I promise."

Through the haze of dissonance, Anna raised her head to look. "Promise?"

"If you like. I will promise, I will /swear/, on my own Geases, that neither I nor these demons here will harm any of your attuned. I won't let them."

It was a small thing. She tried to look for loopholes. "No demons. None, nowhere," she rasped.

"Done." Sara raised her hand. "If you tell me who they are and where they are, I swear that no demon will do any harm to them."

Dissonance bit again, and Anna's thoughts shattered. It was too much, it was pain like she'd never known. "O-okay. No harm, no harm to them," she muttered, and began to speak. As the names and current locations poured out, one by one, the demons left quietly, until she and Sara were left alone. "Why?" she asked again, still curled up, limp with relief from the disappearance of the dissonance upon fufillment of the Geases.

Sara lowered herself to an Indian-style posture. "Freedom," she said, simply. "You know things that Baal needs to take down that Tether of yours. You're the most accessable angel in the area who has the knowledge. I owe the Prince several large debts, all of which will be paid in full by getting him what he Needs. And I'm a little further down the road to being truly Free." She leaned forward a moment, her brows crinkling. "I don't want to hurt you, you know."

"T-then don't. Let me go. Come with me. You can...you can Redeem. No one has been hurt yet..."

Sara sighed, and shook her head. "Only ten hooks left, and only one of those is to Mother. And then, I don't have to have anything to do with the War, or any of the rest of it. Just everything I want, when I want, how I want."

"But you'll be sacrificing a friend to do it."

Sara laughed. "That's what friends are /for/, Anna. You owe me. You didn't have to accept what I offered, you know. You needed it, and you didn't care what I had to do to get it."

"That's not true!" With difficulty, Anna levered herself up, reaching out for her attuned. "I loved you. I still love you, Sara!"

Sara took her hand, stroking the dirty fingers gently. "I know. That's what made it so very easy. Now, shhhh. Don't say anything else until I ask you a question. Just lie there and try to relax." She enforced the command with yet another Geas. How many?Anna wondered as she sank back to the floor, how many favors over five years, three of them as lovers. How many hooks left to go?

***

Five. Five objects of attunement, and the demons waited until they were all arranged, lined against the wall like paper dolls. Three were family, a mother and two children that Anna had watched over for ten years now. One was an artifact, a minor Knowledge talisman that had been given to her by Novalis, herself, a book on gardening. The last was Sara, leaning against the wall with the others, flipping casually through the pages of the book. She looked over at the other infernals, nodded, then to Anna, "Well, let's begin, shall we?"

"What do you want to know?" Anna asked, wearily. It would be a betrayal to speak of the Tether and its defenses, but the Gentle Lady would understand. With all of her attunements here, with the Geases on her soul, she would understand. One point of dissonance could be worked with, as long as all her beloveds got out safely.

Sara stepped forward, offered the book to Anna, who took it and cuddled it fiercely. "Nothing. There are no questions for you, yet. First you must understand."

"Understand...what?"

"The stick." She stepped away, her voice becoming cold. "Destroy the book, Anna, destroy it now," and the Geas snapped tight around her throat.

"NO!" The Cherub curled around the artifact, hugging it to her chest, resisting the urge, and feeling dissonance once again flay and tear at her. "No, no, no. I love it. You can't make me. You can't. Noplease. Sara, no. SARA!"

"Destroy the book. You owe me, and this is what I want in return." Again, the cajoling, gentle voice, "It's only a book. A minor artifact. Barely worth the fuss. Just tear it apart, and the pain will lessen. It's not worth drowning in the pain. The book won't feel hurt, or sorrow, or betrayal. It's yours. If you destroy it, you're just using it in a different way, and it's /meant/ to be used." Anna shook her head frantically, locking her hands away from their trecherous urges. The Lilim bent down by her head as the pain increased, almost became a symphony of its own, screeching and howling around her. "The longer you hold out, the more pain there will be. You're doing this to yourself, you know. If you'd just do as I say, it would stop." She reached out to stroke the crying Cherub's sweat-soaked hair. "Don't think about it, just let yourself go. Let yourself take care of the pain."

Anna didn't know how long it was, with the soft voice in her ears and the rising pain battering at her inner defenses, but finally, her hands moved. It was almost as if she wasn't doing it at all, even as the pages tore, the binding ripped, and the artifact came apart in her hands like paper. Which it was. Just paper, not a book at all anymore. The single note of dissonance left after the multitude was a positive relief. There was a stench hanging around her, more than sweat, the smell of an open sewer. Somewhere, in the midst of the pain, she'd tried making Discord, but it hadn't helped enough. The smell at least had made Sara move away, back to the other side of the room. "There," Anna rasped in a voice hoarse from screaming. "Now ask what you want to know."

There was silence.

"Ask, damn you!"

In regretful tones, Sara said, "Not yet. You don't understand." To one of the other demons, "Put the woman in the chair. Gently."

"Oh, God. God...please..." Anna's babbles were ignored, and the orders came again, small tasks. Pick up the knife. A finger. Just a finger. Wait. There. Shallow, now deeper. Wait. There. That's it. The left one, now. Just a little more, then you can let her go to her rest...

***

By the end, the chair and Cherub seemed to be made of earth, red and brown clay. They were caked with it, and even the demons avoided the place in the center of the room, stepping daintily around the stains. The last echoes of Disturbance faded away in the aftermath, into silence. Anna had stopped weeping when they got halfway through the first child.

Now she knelt, emptied of almost all love, her last attunement gleaming in her soul's sight, although tarnished by the dissonance that weighed heavy on her. Sara came to her, settled her hand against the Cherub's blood-caked hair, then herself into the chair. "One more, Anna. One more, and then it's all over."

"You?" Her voice was dull.

The Lilim nodded. "Me. I'm the bitch who did this to you, to everything you love. Strap me in," she said, turning to the demons, who jumped to comply. Even they had seemed shocked by the events, had stayed away from the Tempter whenever possible. Strapping her in seemed a positive relief, and when they were done, she inclined her head at the icepick Anna had in her hand. "We can start with that, if you like."

Anna started to raise it, then realized there was no Geas, no compelling pain behind the order. Her hand stuttered to a halt.

"What are you waiting for?"

"...no. No Geas."

"Do you really need one to hurt me? You want to do it, you know. I can see it there," she nodded to Anna's hand, white-knuckled beneath the coating of gore. "And I can see it in your eyes. You need it. You need to see my blood flow, to give me the pain I've given you."

Anna started to shake her head, but couldn't complete the motion. Beneath the numbness, she knew Sara was right. She /burned/ to avenge the deaths of her attunements. Burned to blame someone, anyone. And the voice of the Symphony was so very dim...the attunement was just another flicker of pain, pain to be extinguished. With a rusty scream, she buried the icepick in the demon's eye with all of her angelic strength, felt her heart turn to cold ashes in her chest as the woman jerked and thrashed in the chair, and then slumped still.

Behind her, another hand came down upon her shoulder, as heavy as steel. "And now," the Prince of the War said with quiet satisfaction, "you are mine."

And she couldn't bring herself to care.

Comments

[siadea.livejournal.com]

...holy shit.

...no, not a nice story.

...but it works. In a very terrible, very effective way.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) I was hoping it did.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

...I really should have taken the warning on the lj-cut more seriously.

So very well done.

I'm going to go curl up into a little ball and shake, now.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

*gives you scritchies?*

I thought about making the warning more explicit, but couldn't think how. The brutality isn't really in any one, easily defined event, but just in the whole situation.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

*coughs* What scares me is that it gives me as much ideas as it does whimpering. And, well, I know how IN can get; I was expecting something much like this from about the moment they reached the house. Didn't stop it from being effective...

[byzantienne]

... dear god.

That is brutal. And effective. And ... yeah.

[holyprophetril.livejournal.com]

It is...not a very nice story at all. And very, very well written. Ow.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[archangelbeth]

What they said, ohyeah.


"Look, Boss. I got you a replacement for me."

This is why Judges start screaming when they uncover demon-angel relationships. Textbook case.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Indeed. :)

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Things not to read before bedtime. In the best way.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Hee. Thanks. :)

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

What everybody said, but this especially. [meeps, admires]

(Although there's something very...I'm not sure what. Bemusing? About the Lilim being willing to let herself be sent to Trauma, too. It parses much better for a Baalite than it does for most Infernal Words, and parses much better from the perspective of the Sara wanting Anna to understand "the truth" but, well...self-sacrificing for someone else's sake, even if it's perverted from what most IN characters would consider Divine Selflessness. Maybe just ironic. [snrks] I dunno. Something.)

Very, very well-written, though. [eeps a lot] ... [and uses the "Lilim with a syringe" icon, because]

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

She's a Free Lilim, not a Baalite. She's just repaying some debts.

And she's not really sacrificing herself, or going to Trauma. But that body is going to be useless around that area, now, because it was so linked to the angel's Role that when the Flowerchildren try to figure out what the hell happened, that's where they'll start.

Sara woke up in a new vessel, and a Body Bag, in a safehouse. All part of the Deal.

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

Ah! That makes sense, yes. [grins] Niiice. [meeps at the story more]

[incandescens]

Very very effective indeed. Very impressive.

Demons really aren't nice people, generally, are they?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Nope. Or rather, they're nice in the way a sociopath is nice: for as long as it takes to get what they want. As soon as it becomes easier to get what they want by being nasty, the niceness goes away. Some of them might feel bad about it, but only in that selfish, self-pitying abuser way. "If you'd done it my way to start with, I wouldn't /have/ to hurt you. It's really all your fault. You're making me do this."

[incandescens]

Exactly. The anomalies are just that -- anomalies.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Yes!

The way I figure Sara...she's not a sadist. She doesn't take any pleasure in what she did, and she didn't 'get off' on it, in any sense of the phrase. She liked Anna. That's why she tried to get her to Fall in a more gentle fashion, first. But it didn't work, so she moved to plan B.

And it only bothered her a /little/ bit to move to plan B. Because she wants to be Truly Free, and anyone who gets in the way ot that...well, that's their choice. She's not going to save them from the consequences if they're too stupid to watch their own backs. Anyone could do what she's trying to do, she figures. If they want to stay under the thumbs of Superiors and fight this War, then they deserve everything they get. She'll make her own path, and pave it in blood, just like Mother.

[incandescens]

Exactly. And it's not as if anything or anyone in the entire world mattered an inch against her own wish for freedom, or anyone's pain counted for more than a moment's thought when set against her own needs. Right?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Precisely. And as far as she's concerned, that's the way the world works. Everyone looks out for Number One, because the moment you stop, someone comes along and takes advantage of you. That's why Geases are so reassuring...she knows every debt, how big it is, and who it goes to. No uncertainty, no vulnerability to guilt trips, and no need to have to depend on the soft currency of 'gratitude' or 'kindness' or 'love'. Those are just words for people wanting something for nothing.

[heatherbeast.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeek.

Excellent work. I can think of one or two someones who would be grinning rather nicely through reading the entire thing.

Events like this are what makes story writing more gratifying than wholly consensual based RP between multiple PCs.... although granted, there's NPCs to abuse...

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Heehee! I bet they would. :D And thank you.

Yeah. You /can/ do it in consensual RP, /if/ you have two massively mature players. You can do it more easily in non-consensual RP, but you need either a) the aforementioned mature players, or b) a game moderator who will put up with the inevitable screaming.

"She won't accept favors, even though she doesn't know I'm a Lilim!"
"Waaa! I didn't expect to have anything /bad/ happen! I thought she was going to use the Geases for kinky sex, then Redeem, and have more kinky sex!"

[heatherbeast.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Two massively mature players. I can think of at least several.

It's just a matter of getting them into the same room. Without it devolving into the woefully predictable Balseraph of The War on Michaelite of War (times two!) stalemate (well, stalemate in terms of neither having enough of a body left to raise any more weapons). The kind of fighting that is *SO* sensible IC for characters, but leaves the players shaking their heads OOCly at their own IC actions...

And now I'm off on tangent land. Have a great 4th!

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Fun to watch! :D

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Well done.

This, this is how demons should be portrayed.

[library-cherub.livejournal.com]

I could see where this was going. Didn't make it any easier to read, but I suppose there was less shock value.
I'm not sure, but had I been the Cherub at the request to name my attunements I would probably have just let the Geas dissonance increase, and turn it into Discord (especially Merciful if I had the choice (being a Flowers Cherub and all) until I was useless to anyone (esp. Baal). Then again I like to focus on the self sacrificing aspect of Cherubs.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

She could have. And she did, at one point, but you don't get to choose what Discord you get, by canon, and eventually the pain got too much for her. Every note of dissonance is a bit of fundamental disconnection with what makes her a Cherub and an angel. And, remember, the person doing it to her was one of her /attunements/, herself. That small seed of betrayal made it easier for Anna to start to fear and resent the kind of trust a Cherub attunement requires, and they caught her when she was feeling vulnerable and off-guard.