9124/Of Angels and Men

Of Angels and Men
Date of Scene:	15 December 2021
Location:	The Laughing Magician
Synopsis:	Lydia and Jon catch up and talk about the angel they have stashed in the back room of the Laughing Magician.
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Jonathan Sims
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia had gotten a text from Jon telling her that he's back from Ecuador and wanted to know what she got from speaking with Chas and the angel. Lydia had responded that she'd rather talk about it with him face to face rather than trying to lay out all her thoughts on it while trying to type on her phone in bite sized pieces.

So Lydia came to the Laughing Magician to meet him here, and has been waiting for the better part of half an hour. If it was anybody else other than Jon she would have been convinced that they had blown her off, but as it is, she figures him to have gotten caught up in something.

So here she is, waiting patiently for the man to arrive.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon comes in to the Laughing Magician wearing khakis and a brown cable-knit sweater, looking better rested than Lydia's probably ever seen him. Ecuador was good for him, evidently. Despite that, there's an odd smell about him, something a normal person wouldn't pick up, but Lydia's vampire senses totally can. A putrid, rotten smell. Corruption and pollution, coming from the messenger bag he's carrying slung over one shoulder.

    "I'm so sorry, Lydia," he says as he spots her in the bar. "Rosie, my secretary, she'd made an appointment and my calendar hadn't synced up right on my new phone..." He sighs. "I had a patient. Good thing I went, I think, but..." He frowns. "We'll see, I suppose."

    He glances to the back room. "How is he?" There a mixture of worry and frustration in his tone. He still hasn't worked out everything he feels about Chas having summoned that angel.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia looks up from her phone that she was browsing on to pass away the time to Jon as he enters. There's a hint of annoyance to her features as he makes his excuses before waving it away with a hand. "Things happen," she says.

Her nostrils flare when she picks up that awful stench that's coming from the bag. Her eyes slide to it, and then back up to him. "Should I ask what's in the bag, or am I better off not knowing?"

When questioned about Chas her gaze drifts towards the doors that lead into the back room. "Chas is... hrm." She pauses unnaturally still to consider a moment how to phrase what she thinks. "Contrite. I didn't speak to him much," she says turning back to Jon. "I mostly spoke to the angel."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows. There's an odd look on his face, particularly as Lydia asks about what's in the bag. As if he's been caught doing something wrong and is trying to think of how to spin it--a teenager caught smoking behind the bleachers, in his own mind at least.

    He sighs. "My patient was one Lucifer Morningstar. As in, yes, /the/ Lucifer Morningstar. He showed me his proper visage and now I'm going to have to replace the couch in my office." He sighs. "He gave me a vial of... unholy water, I supposed you'd call it. He seemed to think it might help, with the angel."

    He goes to sit down at Lydia's table, putting the messenger bag on the floor and a little ways away so hopefully it won't smell /quite/ so bad. "Which... you spoke to." He raises his brows. "How did /that/ go?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Of all the things she thought Jon might say about it, telling her that it was a vial of unholy water given to him personally by Lucifer (who happened to be a patient of his) was nowhere on that list. Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and she makes a little silent 'oh' with her lips as she reconsiders the messenger bag. "It'll probably help, yes," she concludes. "But you don't need me telling you to be /really careful/ with that vial."

"It went well, all things considered," she says. "The angel was conversational, and unconfrontational. If what he says is true, then I think I understand what had happened and where it all went wrong." She shakes her head. "/If/ what he said is true. Angels aren't capable of lying, but that doesn't mean that what they say is the truth. Just the truth as they see it."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon laughs, a little shakily. "Ohhh, yes. I am going to be /very/ careful with that flask. I summoned the water that he changed, and my water... well, you saw me mend Agnes' skirt. My water heals things. Evidently the stuff might make wouunds that /resist/ healing." He shudders.

    His expression turns contemplative. "Do you know the oddest part about the whole matter? I wasn't even all that scared. I should have been. The /literal/ Prince of Evil was sitting on my office couch and I just thought 'oh, well, yes, of course, why wouldn't he be here?' I'm not certain I like what that says about me. Or my life."

    After a moment, he shakes himself. "Ah. So. The angel. Yes. And I think it's filtered through Chas' impressions, just now. It's possible if we could get it out of Chas while still binding it, we'd get purer answers, but..." He shrugs. "Probably not worth the effort. What did it say?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia closes her eyes, remembering the conversation she had with the angel. "It gave me enough clues that I think I can piece together what happened. Chas felt powerless in the wake of what the demon in John's skin wrought. He's surrounded by people with power, capable of fighting the evil that he sees every day, that he cannot."

She opens her eyes, to look at Jon. "I suppose he felt hopeless, helpless and desperate... and desperate men can often do desperate, foolish things. When the demon left, it didn't take any of the tomes of power that it brought with it, and I can't imagine those tomes were left so carelessly behind. I'm guessing he found some of those tomes."

She looks at the bar as she speaks, a finger tracing stain in the bar in the shape of a ring. A halo of beer. "From there he summoned the angel, bound it to himself for power, and bid it to 'fix the world' and 'save humanity'. Those are direct quotes, by the way."

"But how could it do that when it's entombed in a vessel of flesh and blood?" She asks with a shrug. "One person at a time, I suppose." She purses her lips thoughtfully. "I think the binding drove it insane. It took Chas' frustration and anger and intense desire for /justice/ and was warped by it. You don't put a perfect being in an imperfect vessel and expect it to work perfectly."

She sighs, perhaps a bit wistfully. "Imagine, being a being of divine will and power so crudely constrained in a prison of flesh and blood. I almost feel sorry for it." She looks up at Jon, steel in her eyes. "Almost." She drums her fingers on the bar as she muses, "There's a couple of questions that need to be answered that I don't think anybody has asked yet. Are we fit enough to judge an angel, and if so, when we free Chas from it, where do we send it?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Judging these things is my duty." Jon pauses, frowns. "Or rather... I gather the information so my gods can judge them. Either way... it's a thing I need to do, so I will do it." He looks grimly determined. Not remotely happy about the matter, but... it is what it is.

    He sighs. "I wish I shared your certainty that there's something wrong with it, that it's... insane somehow. That it's not merely going one by one because that's all it /can/ do, and if Chas had more power it would be doing yet more. I'd say it's just that I don't trust anything that's too far to one thing or another, but..."

    He looks down at his hands. "It judges us /very/ harshly, Lydia. Some of the things it said to me... well, if it's Chas' perceptions twisting the angel, then perhaps he's not so good a friend and ally as I thought. If not... then..." He sighs. Shakes his head. "I suppose I'd hoped, given that my gods are less... cruel... that my perception of such beings from church was wrong."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia looks thoughtful for a moment. "Do your gods hold jurisdiction over the Host? /Can/ they?" She takes a breath just to let it out in a sigh. "I suppose they're my gods too, now. One of the things that I love about Judaism is that it acknowledges that there are other gods out there. It's just that we're beholden to just one. Unfortunately, none of our religious texts cover the relationships between the gods."

She considers things for a moment. "I was given the impression that if the angel were free of it's mortal constraints it would have already started the end of the world." She starts tracing that ring again, "If it was this deranged /before/ it got bound, wouldn't it stand to reason that it would have attempted to bring around Armageddon sooner?"

She shakes her head. "No, I'm fairly certain that something in the summoning or the binding warped it. Perhaps it already had an idea that humanity was fundamentally flawed to begin with, and this just pushed it over the edge to do something this... /insane/ about it."

She looks a little sad as she reaches out and takes Jon's hands in her own. "Don't judge Chas too harshly on this," she says. "Think about what would happen if a divine being inhabited your body and could see into your psyche all those dark, uncomfortable thoughts that your rational mind rejects, and then acts on them." She chuckles. "We all have those thoughts. You should know that better than any of us. Those little moments of pettiness and jealousy. Now imagine giving those moments a bazooka."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon raises a brow, looking up. "Lydia... maybe you didn't grow up hearing about the Second Coming, but I /did/. There are things happening that... are /awfully/ familiar." He shakes his head. "Look, all I'm saying is that I don't yet know whether Chas twisted the angel... or just gave it an /opportunity/."

    He hesitates, then says, "...I can say with absolutely certainty that if a divine being inhabited my body and saw into every dark corner of my mind, it would not find any reason to /kill/ people. I can say that because I /do/ channel gods, Lydia. Because I have them watching my every move. I know better than almost anyone here what Chas is going through. I... resisted their compulsion to kill my cousin. They had judged her and found her unworthy, and I refused, and... I think they let me because she was family. But the other time? With... Leksandria...?" He shudders. "I didn't want to kill her. I don't want to kill /anyone/. But Ammit wanted her heart, so the /Archivist/ helped kill her. And enjoyed it. And I have /nightmares/ about it."

    He shakes his head. "I don't judge Chas for what the angel did. Not unless he condones its actions. But... I stood right at that bar, and I /begged/ anyone who knew /anything/ to speak up. And he stood behind me, and he..." He swallows. "Unless he /couldn't/ say anything... then he had a chance to stop it, and he didn't. And I don't know if I can forgive him, for that."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia arches an eyebrow at Jon and gives him a penetrating look. "First of all, the Second Coming is a Christian thing. So is the Book of Revelations. You should know this. Our end of the world is a gradual, peaceful thing, a return to Eden. Are you telling me the Christians are ruining it for the rest of us by bringing it about?"

She sighs, and looks away. "Look. I'm not trying to condone what Chas did. He made a mistake, a very costly one, and he'll need to take responsibility for it. I just think..." She lets out another sigh and looks to the heavens. "I just think that even the most guilty is deserving of an advocate. That we become /worse/ when everybody turns their back on you. Justice needs to be delt, but it also needs to be tempered by compassion."

"I don't want to kill him, Jon. I don't even want to kill the angel." She sets her jaw and presses her mouth into a thin line. "You don't know how it would be /so easy/ for me to kill, how freeing it would be. But if I did... that would be a bit of humanity that I would never be able to get back."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon looks at Lydia, /quite/ deadpan. "I am, in fact, saying that the Christians are ruining it for the rest of us. I /refused/ to believe in all that drivel until these things started happening. Trust me, Martin's in the same place you are." He sighs. "I could be wrong. Gods, I /pray/ I'm wrong. I don't like it any more than you do. But, then... Revelations doesn't say that humans can maybe /stop/ it, so... there's that much going for us, anyway."

    He squeezes Lydia's hands. "You're not wrong, to want to advocate for him. And... I'm glad /someone/ is. And killing, even in a righteous cause, is... it's..."

    He looks down at their hands. "I don't want to do this," he whispers. "But I /have/ to. I don't entirely understand how or why, but /somehow/ I /do/ have jusridiction over the Host. Not... not through Thoth, I don't think. Not Ma'at. They're... officers of the court. Whatever set the Archivist up to do this was something... else. Something bigger. The Great Mother, perhaps, the Terrifying One. I take comfort in knowing it's not /just/ me that's meant to do this, it's just that... I'm the one that's /here/ right now. So... it falls to me."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia shakes her head. "You must be privy to more information than I am about this," she says of Armageddon. "I may not know that much about the Book of Revelations other than what I've seen in movies, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have Norse gods, mutants, and alien men who can lift skyscrapers and shoot laser beams out of their eyes. I have faith in humanity to be able to stop it." She chuckles, "After all, if /we/ motley crew could manage to come together and bind an angel, who knows what else we can do."

Lydia is silent for a while and clutches at Jon's hand. "I /used/ to know what it was like to be part of something bigger," she says, sounding small. "It may not have been much but I was part of a coven. I miss it, having a higher purpose. I still..." she closes her eyes, trying to feel that tug within her that binds her with her sisters, but finding none. "I still haven't talked to them about it. How can you be a member of a coven when you don't have any magic?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon regards her sadly for a moment. "Maybe you should go find out. At least to say goodbye. But maybe there will be... something they can do."

    He sighs. "I... /do/ have information you don't. Some of which I cannot share. But I have good reason to believe this is bigger than a single man summoning a single angel." He hesitates. "The one thing I /can/ say is... Lydia, the spell... which was terrific, by the way! It..."

    He swallows. His voice trembles with barely-contained terror. "Ahh... so... when both spells activated... space folded in on itself, as we expected, and then... we went through Nullspace. And... and /everything/ went through Nullspace."

    "Lydia... we /ended the universe/ for a moment."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods solemnly. "I'll take your word for it. If that's the truth of it, then something bigger is afoot, and this may just be a symptom of it, and not a cause." She shudders, "I don't want to contemplate the ramifications of that."

She just blinks at Jon. "But... how...?" She shakes her head, "I /made sure/ that couldn't happen! The circles were designed to collapse in case of a critical failure. I put in a ... a magical breaker switch!"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon shakes his head. "No, no, I don't mean the energy escaped the circles... in fact, it wound up /stronger/ than we thought it would be. I mean... look, it made /sense/ that we sort of... when the circles activated, there was a moment where we were in Nullspace, the Anti-Matter Universe. We were in proximity to the circle, it worked like you said, and then those of us who'd gone after Becker got sort of... spat out onto the street in front of the bar, where the others were. But in that moment... I found out later that..."

    He hesitates. Swallows. ".../Everything/ went with us, is what I mean, Lydia. And if that shouldn't have happened then... then I think it's because of the angel. Like, we were trying not to divide by zero, and we didn't, but somehow the angel being involved accidentally multipled the whole thing by infinity. I... I don't think... that would have happened normally."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia sits there, trying to wrap her head around it. "I don't..." she stammers. "How could that possibly /be/?" She shakes her head. "If... if that happened, and we were all swallowed into the Void, how did reality get restored? Does /God/ have a reality breaker switch?"

Lydia scowls, running a hand through her thick, curly hair. "If that's the case then what we have sitting there isn't /just/ an angel." For a moment she starts to look panicked, "And if that's the case then it's perfectly capable of lying, so feel free to discard everything that I said."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon frowns. "Why would more powerful angels be capable of lying?" He seems genuinely confused. "I... it had six wings, all covered in eyes, so I figured it was a Seraph, or perhaps something higher. An archangel, maybe?" He shakes his head. "It's... it's like... I had figured that we removed something that was fundamental to the underpinnings of reality from the equation for a moment. That's... that's what the statement felt like. Like somehow, the angel moving through Nullspace moved /everything/ through Nullspace because /everything/ is attached to it...? And then when the spell moved it out, everything came back online again."

    He shakes his head. "I think I'm going to have to go talk to it, to make /any/ sense of all of this.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods slowly, "Okay. I see what you're saying. I was thinking that maybe it's not /just/ an angel, that maybe it was something else, but ... I don't know. What kind of being is so fundamental to the universe that the universe ceases to exist when it does?" Her brows furrow as she tries to work this out. "How does something like that get captured into mortal flesh? How does the mortal flesh keep from /flying apart/ at the seams?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sighs. "That... is what I intend to find out."

    He squeezes Lydia's hands one more time, then pulls his away and moves to stand. "It's not your fault, Lydia. I'm pretty sure it's my fault, what happened." His expression is apologetic. "Regardless... well... now we know better, right?" He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair.

    "I really wish I wasn't learning on the job. A mentor would be..." He sighs, and shrugs. "No use worrying about things we can't have, right?"

    He leans down to pick up his messenger bag. "Are you on watch, or did you give d'Arqueness a reprieve?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"I gave her a reprieve," Lydia says. "I plan on going back up to the Asteroid once we're done here." She stands and rests a hand on Jon's shoulder. "Jon. Do /not/ start doing the blame game and take it all on your shoulders." Her eyes drift back towards where they have Chas, and the angel, restrained. She gives him a friendly pat and takes a step backwards. "I hope you can get some answers," she says.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "It's not about blame, Lydia," Jon says quietly. "It's about responsibility. If there are consequences to be had for what was done, I'll do my best to ensure they fall on me. It was my idea to bind the angel in two places--you didn't even understand what I meant, at first."

    He smiles. "It'll be alright. I'll let you know what I find out, okay?"

    He shoulders the messenger bag and heads on into the back room.