Jude had no words.
The ringing in his ears finally faded, replaced by the wet, ragged sound of his own breathing. He forced himself up, his boots scraping against the asphalt. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, and he could feel the warm trickle of blood sliding down his neck from where the car windshield had chewed up his scalp.
He looked at Greta. He expected confusion. He expected fear. Maybe, in a small, delusional part of his brain, he expected gratitude.
He got none of it.
Greta's hands opened. The massive, rainbow-colored Labrys hit the pavement with a heavy, metallic thud, the chaotic energy flickering out like a dying neon sign.
Then, she screamed. It wasn't a scream of terror; it was a war cry.
She charged.
"You FUCKER!"
He didn't have the strength to dodge. Greta slammed into him, her shoulder driving into his broken ribs with enough force to force the air from his lungs in a painful wheeze. She didn't stop, driving him backward with her boots digging for traction until Jude's back collided with the brick wall of the laundromat.
His head cracked against the masonry, and fresh blood bloomed in his vision, hot and blinding.
"What the fuck did you do?" Greta shrieked, grabbing the collar of his ruined, bloody shirt and shaking him violently. "What the fuck did you do to me?!"
"Greta, stop—" Jude gasped, trying to pry her hands off, but she was impossibly strong, fueled by adrenaline and the lingering static of whatever magic had just surged through her.
"You liar!" She slammed him against the bricks again.
"You sat there!" she raged, her face inches from his, spittle flying. "For years! You sat there acting like you were nothing! Like you were weak! And the whole time you were… this?"
She gestured wildly at the street, at the ash pile where the demon had been, and at the fading golden light of his halo.
"I knew it," she hissed, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her face. "I knew you looked down on us. You hid this? You let me treat you like dirt while you were walking around with fucking wings? You sick fuck!"
"I was protecting you!" Jude yelled back, his voice cracking.
"Protecting me?" Greta laughed, a broken, manic sound. She looked down at her hands, which were still trembling with the aftershocks of the rainbow lightning. "Look at me, Jude! I'm glowing! I can feel… I can feel everything! It feels like my blood is on fire! What did you put inside me?"
She punched him in the chest. It wasn't a tactical strike; it was pure, uncoordinated hatred.
"I hate you," she sobbed, hitting him again. "I hate you for lying. I hate you for making me feel crazy. I hate you for being special when I'm just a—"
"Greta, please, listen—" Jude pleaded, raising his good hand.
She pulled her fist back for another strike, her eyes black pits of fury.
Then, the world was sucked into a vacuum.
The dirty alleyway vanished. The smell of garbage and sulfur evaporated. The cold October wind died instantly, replaced by blinding white light.
Jude's stomach turned as gravity reoriented itself. The brick wall behind him was gone, and he stumbled, falling to his knees on a surface that was hard, cold, and perfectly smooth.
He blinked, waiting for his vision to clear. He smelled lilies and high-altitude air. Jude's blood ran cold. He knew that smell.
"No," Jude whispered, looking down at the floor. It was polished white marble, so pristine it looked like a solidified cloud.
He looked up.
They were in the Cathedral. The ceiling arched miles above them, supported by pillars of gold and chrome. The eleven podiums loomed overhead, curving around the room like a jury box for gods, and in the center, atop the marble stairs, sat the throne made of woven gold.
Greta was standing next to him. She had frozen mid-punch, her fist still raised in the air. She lowered it slowly, looking around. Her rage didn't vanish, but it was momentarily paused by the sheer scale of the room.
"Where the hell…" Greta turned in a slow circle. "What is this? Is this a court?"
She spotted Bob first. The balding angel stood at the base of the throne stairs, but he wasn't holding a coffee mug this time. He wasn't smirking. He was standing at rigid attention, his hands clasped behind his back, his face pale and terrified. He looked at Jude and gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.
Then, Greta turned to the throne.
Seraphile was sitting there.
The ten-foot-tall goddess leaned forward, her massive white wings flared out behind her to span the width of the dais. She did not look like a CEO finding an accounting error this time. She looked like a natural disaster contained in human skin. Her golden eyes burned with a cold, absolute fury, and the air in the room vibrated with the heavy pressure of her anger.
Greta didn't know who she was, and she didn't care. She was coming down from a cocktail of cocaine, whiskey, and pure, unadulterated energy, and she was done being moved around.
"Hey!" Greta shouted, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. She pointed a shaking finger at Seraphile. "You! Did you do this? Did you bring us here?"
"Greta, shut up!" Jude hissed, scrambling to grab her ankle. "Don't speak!"
Greta kicked him away. "Don't fucking shush me!" she screamed. She turned back to the goddess, puffing out her chest. "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, sitting in your big chair, but you better send me back right f—"
Seraphile didn't speak. She didn't shout. She simply raised one finger.
It was instantaneous.
Greta was slammed into the marble floor as if a hydraulic press had been dropped on her back. There was no sound of impact, just the wet, heavy thud of a body being flattened by pure gravitational force.
Greta's scream was cut off instantly, her face pressed into the cold stone, her limbs pinned by the crushing weight of a god's will.
Silence filled the room. Terrifying, absolute silence.
"I do not recall," Seraphile said, her voice existing everywhere in the room at once, "giving the livestock permission to speak."
Greta's mouth opened and closed like a fish on a dock, but no air entered her lungs. Her face was pressed so hard against the white marble that her skin was turning waxy and pale. Her fingers scratched feebly at the stone, the fight crushed out of her.
"Stop!" Jude shouted, stumbling forward despite his injuries. He ignored the blood running down his neck. "Seraphile, stop! She didn't do anything! I didn't know this would happen! It was an accident!"
Seraphile didn't look at him. She didn't even turn her head. She simply twitched her left hand.
Jude's throat collapsed. It wasn't a physical hand, but a band of kinetic force that slammed around his windpipe, lifting him two inches off the floor. His hands flew to his neck, clawing at empty air.
"I did not ask for your testimony, pest," Seraphile said. Her voice wasn't the cool, corporate drone of their first meeting; it was vibrating with a terrifying, ancient heat. "And I certainly did not ask for your excuses."
She tightened her grip. Jude gagged, spots dancing in his vision, his legs kicking uselessly.
Seraphile stood up. The movement was slow, fluid, and terrifying. She walked down the steps of the marble staircase, her massive white wings tucking tight against her back. She stopped inches from Greta's squirming body, looking down at the girl like one might look at a cockroach that had crawled onto a wedding cake.
"Greta Marie Vance," Seraphile recited. She didn't hold a file this time. She spoke the words as if reading them from the fabric of Greta's soul. "Entered the Pennsylvania state foster care system at age four. Bounced through five homes in six years due to severe behavioral issues and aggression. First arrest for possession at age fifteen."
Greta let out a high, whining wheeze, her eyes rolling back in her head.
"You found an outlet," Seraphile continued, her tone clinically bored. "Track and field. You were fast. Fast enough to outrun your reputation. You secured a scholarship to Quaker University. A chance to be something other than waste."
Seraphile leaned down, her golden eyes narrowing.
"And you threw it away. Kicked off the team sophomore year for cocaine usage. Scholarship revoked. Future... deleted."
Seraphile straightened up, stepping over Greta's head to look at the empty space where the rainbow weapon had vanished.
"And yet," Seraphile whispered, the anger returning to her voice like a rising tide. "This degenerate, this addict, stands in my chamber reeking of a power she cannot possibly comprehend."
She turned to face Jude, who was still dangling in the air, blue in the face.
"The Wyrmmaker Labrys," Seraphile announced.
The name seemed to drop the temperature in the room by twenty degrees. Even Bob, standing by the throne, flinched.
"A weapon forged from the chaotic energies of the spaces between stars. It has not been seen in this dimension for ten thousand years. It was wielded by the earth angels of the First War to sever the heads of Leviathans."
She looked back down at Greta.
"It is a sacred relic. It is a world-breaker. It is intended for the strongest, purest, most disciplined warriors of the Host." Seraphile sneered, the expression twisting her perfect features into something monstrous. "It does not belong to you."
"The Labrys has slumbered since before your kind even knew how to walk," Seraphile continued, her voice low and filled with disgust. "It has ignored saints. It has ignored martyrs. And yet, tonight, it woke up for... this."
She gestured to Greta, who was still gasping for air against the marble floor.
"A broken vessel," Seraphile spat. "A creature of chemical dependency and wasted potential wallowing in her own filth. Whether the weapon chose her due to some perverse cosmic joke, or whether you, the pest, leaked enough divine energy to force it into existence through sheer incompetence, is irrelevant."
She turned back to Jude. The golden light in her eyes hardened into something devoid of empathy.
"The result is the same. Contamination. A Class-One breach of the Veil that separates Heaven and Hell."
Seraphile clasped her hands behind her back. "The Council has reviewed the data. The verdict is unanimous."
She looked at Jude, then down at Greta.
"Immediate termination. For the witness... and for the asset who compromised her."
Jude's eyes widened. He clawed frantically at the invisible band crushing his throat. "P-please," Jude begged, the word barely escaping his bruised larynx. "She... she didn't know... please..."
Seraphile didn't blink. She twitched her finger again. The pressure around Jude's neck doubled, his vision went white, and his legs thrashed in the air as the capillaries in his eyes burst.
"Your Eminence, wait!"
Bob stepped forward. The balding angel looked terrified, sweating through his cheap dress shirt and clutching his clipboard like a shield, but he stepped between Jude and the Goddess.
"Please," Bob stammered, his voice cracking. "He's a rookie. It was a chaotic field engagement. A Code Black manifestation. He acted to save a civilian life. We can wipe the girl's memory. We can scrub the event. Capital punishment seems... excessive for a first offense."
Seraphile stopped.
Slowly, terrifyingly slowly, she turned her head to look at Bob. She didn't speak. She didn't raise her voice. She simply looked at him.
Her eyes were not just eyes; they were open doors to a furnace that had burned before the concept of time existed. In that gaze was the death of stars, the crushing weight of black holes, and an absolute, terrifying authority that tolerated no dissent.
Bob froze. His mouth snapped shut. The color drained from his face until he was gray. He shrank back, his wings tucking themselves in so tight they vanished into his shirt. He looked at Jude, helpless, and then looked at the floor.
"Understood," Bob whispered, stepping back into the line. "My apologies, Supreme One."
Seraphile turned back to Jude.
"HOWEVER."
The word cracked through the air like a whip.
"I have overruled that motion."
The invisible hand crushing Jude's throat vanished instantly. The gravity pinning Greta to the floor lifted.
They both collapsed. Jude hit the marble on his hands and knees, dragging in a ragged, desperate breath. His throat felt like it had been crushed in a vise. Next to him, Greta rolled onto her side, gasping and clutching her chest. She looked small and terrified. The rage that had fueled her charge was gone, replaced by the trembling reality of being an ant under a magnifying glass.
Seraphile didn't step back. She loomed over them, her wings casting a long shadow across the white stone.
"The Council sees a liability," Seraphile said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, quiet register. "They see a mistake. They see a waste of resources." She looked at Jude. "But I am the one who handpicked you, Jude Miller. Against their recommendations. Against the metrics. I pulled you out of the line because I saw something useful in your mediocrity."
She leaned down, her face inches from his. "Your failure is my embarrassment. And I do not tolerate embarrassment."
She straightened up, smoothing the front of her toga.
"So, you will live. Both of you."
Jude slumped, relief washing over him so hard he almost passed out. "Thank you... thank you..."
"Do not thank me yet," Seraphile snapped. "Because you are both placed on Probation."
She pointed a golden finger at Jude. "For you, Earth Angel. One more mistake. One more breach of protocol. One more time you put a civilian in danger because you are too incompetent to control your own power." She let the threat hang there. "If you fail again, I will strip the wings from your back. I will tear the contract into confetti. And you will return to the waiting room. You will take your ticket, and you will sit in that orange chair for six thousand years waiting for processing."
Jude swallowed hard, nodding feverishly. "Understood. I swear. No more mistakes."
Seraphile turned to Greta. The coldness in her eyes deepened. It wasn't the anger of a boss; it was the disgust of a deity looking at a stain.
"And you," Seraphile whispered. "The pathetic junkie."
Greta flinched, but she didn't look away. She couldn't.
"You have seen behind the curtain," Seraphile said. "You have touched a weapon of the Host. You are now part of the ecosystem." Seraphile leaned in, her voice vibrating with heat. "One mistake, Greta Vance. One relapse. One line of powder. One drop of alcohol. One moment of weakness where you act like the waste of space you have been for the last three years."
Seraphile smiled. It was a terrifying expression.
"And I will not send you to the waiting room. I will open the floor beneath your feet and drop you directly into the fire. Do you understand?"
Greta stared up at her. Her lip trembled. She looked at Jude, bleeding on the floor. She looked at the Goddess who knew every dark secret she had ever tried to hide. She didn't argue. She didn't scream. She gave a single, jerky nod.
"Good," Seraphile said, straightening up. She turned to Bob, who was still cowering by the throne. "Bob will be in contact shortly regarding your... reassignment. Since you have made a mess of my city, you will be cleaning it up together."
"Reassignment?" Jude croaked.
"Get out of my sight," Seraphile said.
She raised her hand, and the world snapped.
The smell of lilies vanished. The white marble disappeared.
Jude hit the wet asphalt hard. He groaned, rolling onto his back as the smell of sulfur, garbage, and car exhaust filled his nose.
He opened his eyes. He was back in the alley. The streetlights were still blown out. The crushed SUV was still smoking a few feet away, and the pile of demon ash was still drifting in the wind. It was as if no time had passed at all.
Greta was lying next to him on the dirty pavement. She stared up at the dark Philadelphia sky, her eyes wide, her chest heaving. She was sober. Cold stone sober.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She did what she had done every day since she was four years old: she built a wall.
She pushed herself up from the pavement, her movements stiff but controlled. She brushed the asphalt off her ripped jeans, wiping her hands on her jacket as if she had just tripped on a sidewalk instead of being threatened by a deity. The terror was still there—Jude could see it in the tremor of her hands—but she shoved it down deep, burying it under layers of practiced apathy.
"I'm going home," Greta said. Her voice was flat. Mechanical.
She turned to walk away, stepping over the shattered glass of the car windshield. She took two steps, then stopped. She looked back.
Jude hadn't moved. He was sitting on the wet ground, his knees pulled to his chest, his forehead resting on his arms. He looked small. He looked broken.
"Jude." Greta asked. "What are you doing? Get up."
He didn't answer. His shoulders shook.
Greta sighed—a sharp, annoyed sound—and walked back. She nudged his boot with hers. Not gently, but not maliciously either.
"Jude," she said. "I said get up."
Jude slowly lifted his head. He wasn't okay.
Tears were streaming down his face, cutting clean tracks through the blood and dirt on his cheeks. He wasn't making a sound, but his chest was heaving with silent, racking sobs. His eyes were wide and hollow, filled with a crushing, absolute guilt.
Greta froze. She had seen Jude tired. She had seen him anxious. She had seen him annoyed. She had never seen him like this.
"I'm sorry," Jude choked out. His voice was a sad, broken whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He squeezed his eyes shut, rocking slightly. "I didn't mean to," he sobbed. "I tried to stop it. I'm sorry, Greta. I'm so sorry."
Greta stared down at him. The "mascot." The punchline. The guy she had spent the last year bullying because he was an easy target. He had jumped into a death trap for her. He had taken a beating for her. And now, he was begging for her forgiveness because she had almost gotten herself killed.
The wall she had built cracked, just a fraction.
"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Greta said. Her voice was quieter now. Less sharp. She turned to leave again.
"Greta."
Jude reached out, grabbing the hem of her jeans. His grip was weak. Desperate.
"Please," he begged, looking up at her with red, pleading eyes. "Don't tell anyone. Please. If they know... if Natalia knows..."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. The waiting room. The fire.
Greta looked at his hand on her leg. She looked at the blood on his shirt. She looked at the fear in his eyes. She looked toward the Sigma Chi house, where the music was still thumping, where Natalia and David and Ollie were dancing, completely oblivious to the fact that the world had almost ended in the alley next door.
Greta looked back at Jude.
"Okay," she said.
She pulled her leg free, but she didn't kick him. She turned and walked out of the alley, disappearing into the shadows of the street, leaving Jude alone in the wreckage.
Jude stayed there for a long time. He eventually uncurled his legs and pushed himself up, wincing as his bruised ribs protested. He wiped his face with his sleeve, smearing the blood and tears into a grim mask. He looked up at the dark Philadelphia sky. The stars were invisible behind the city glow, but he knew they were there. And he knew who was watching from behind them.