Page 32 of The Malevolent Eight

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Corrigan said, putting up his hands in apology.

‘He was referring to Shame this time,’ I clarified.

Former Angelic Emissaries who question their rulers, then, after being consigned to serve as all-you-can-fuck mystical prostitutes aboard pleasure barges, and not only defy their mission but switch sides to the Infernals, are really not supposed to express an opinion when standing once more before their creators. If you’re thinking that means only an idiot would have brought one inside a Celestine cathedral in the first place, you’d be wrong.

‘The Mortal realm has ever worked according to its own laws,’ I said, pleading my case to Rationality. Even in the old days, I never wasted time on Abnegation, who is both a whiny martyr and a right prick. Yes, okay, they’re all right pricks, but still. ‘Humanity, whether a corruption or a redemption of the Auroral ideals, remains a force of transformation and reconsideration.’

I gestured to Shame, who was showing a distinct lack of that emotion as she glared back at her creators. ‘To call an Angelic Emissary an abomination would be to suggest a flaw in her nature, and thus in her creators. Should we not therefore conclude that her apparent defiance of her mission was merely a necessary. . . reinterpretation of Divine Will? Does not her adoption of the word Shame reveal both penitence and a desire to one day reunite with the Auroral Sovereign?’

In case you missed that bit, the Auroral Sovereign isn’t a real person, but the Celestines insist on pretending there’s an invisible holiest-of-holies lending unquestionable authority to their deeds. It’s always nice to tie someone up in their own propaganda.

Slowly, reluctantly, the maelstrom subsided, the storm faded, the glittering ceiling returned and the placid serenity of the cathedral was restored.

‘There is logic to Gallantry’s inferences,’ conceded the Celestine of Rationality, adding wryly, ‘though I suppose we should have expected him to come to a lady’s defence, given his name.’

Did she just wink at me?

Honestly, I’d thought it a rather mundane romantic encounter, as these things went. But I’d been pretty drunk on the Auroral Haze at the time, so maybe I’d been more memorable in bed than I thought.

‘And what of this other abomination?’ asked the Celestine of Temperance, the scales embroidered into her coat tilting precariously as she pointed at Alice. ‘Surely we need not tolerate an Infernal in our presence?’

I’d always had a certain fondness for Temperance too. She pretty much hated me. No idea why. I suppose at some point I should consider why I’d had so many more encounters with the Celestine Presences than most Glorian Justiciars.

‘Alice is—’

I was cut off unexpectedly by a voice that brooked no dissent. ‘She is mine,’ said the Celestine of Justice.

‘A demoniac corrupted by one of your own apostates?’ Chastity asked. He was looking genuinely disgusted by Alice’s naked form. Perhaps it was all those ritual scars carved into her pale, leathery hide. ‘Hazidan Rosh mocked you by training an Infernal in the ways of the Justiciars. Does this not offend you, Sister?’

‘Actually,’ I said, all too aware of the noose I was tying around my own neck by intervening, ‘the fact that a demoniac could so completely embrace the teachings of the former First Paladin of the Justiciars could be evidence of a righteousness so potent as to overwhelm the foulness bred into her kind. Would this not, in turn, suggest that it is the virtue of Justice, and not force of arms, which offers the surest path to the Triumph Eternal?’

The Triumph Eternal was, of course, the supposed purpose of the Great Crusade, though by now I was fairly convinced it was utter bullshit.

‘I repeat,’ the Celestine of Justice intoned, her golden eyes locked on Alice’s, ‘this one is mine.’

I’d never seen a demoniac look as uncomfortable as Alice did in that moment, gripping the tips of her bat wings to keep them from quivering.

‘If we could return to the matter at hand?’ I asked, directing the question to my old boss. ‘I seek only to pass into the Glorian Archives to revisit a single case during my early years as your servant.’

They say Justice never sleeps. Justice also has no sense of humour. That doesn’t stop her from trying once in a while, though. ‘My servant?’ the Celestine asked. ‘Were you ever that, Gallantry? Or was your true devotion held by Hazidan Rosh alone?’

We were on dangerous terrain now. Hazidan, despite having been the First Paladin of the Glorian Justiciars, had had a contentious relationship with the Celestines right up until the moment when they’d condemned her to live out her remaining years in the Infernal realm. Pretty dumb move on their part, all things considered.

‘If I was flawed in my service to you, Celestine Justice, then we must consider the possibility that one of my verdicts was also flawed. I fear the consequences of my error may soon be suffered by us all.’

‘And who was the accused sentenced under this allegedly false verdict?’

Here we’d come at last to the tricky part: imagine yourself an immortal being, the embodiment of some virtuous ideal, worshipped all over the world. Along comes a puny human who tells you that somewhere out there is another human– with a really stupid name, no less– who can kick your arse all across the schoolyard and might be working for a shadowy group of doomsday cultists whose existence you never even suspected, yet who have been manipulating your sacred Crusade behind the scenes. How would you react?

Yeah, that’s pretty much how the Lords Celestine took the news.

As the fiery hail, blistering rain and pits of damnation opening up beneath our feet made our hosts’ disapproval plain, Alice whispered, ‘Perhaps you should leave the diplomacy to the kangaroo from now on.’

‘Wantonarrogance,’ declared the Celestine of Humility, whose voice had deepened as the flames of his displeasure coruscated around his suddenly taller and more imposing frame. Hypocrisy is a bit of a blind spot with these folks.

I was rescued by the Celestine of Rationality, who stepped down from her throne to address her compatriots directly. A bold move, I thought, since, both metaphorically and literally, it placed her beneath their gaze. ‘Brethren, I implore you, let honesty have her reign.’

Honesty, in case you’re wondering, also didn’t qualify as one of the Twelve Virtues.

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