012 – Mammon Inc.

Time to Seal: 05:08

Stephen was already at work on the next batch. That was good, we would need something else in three hours. I imagined Hell would use their worst attacks in the final hours, so we would need to refresh those buffs as soon as they ran out.

Others were bustling in the crowded room, helping out with prep work, counting goods on the shelves.

I hadn’t really paid attention to Stephen before. He was a well-dressed man in his thirties, now wearing an apron over his cardigan. He looked like money, which had been the reason I had ignored him. One year in LA and I had interacted with enough people-with-money for a lifetime.

I made my way over, keeping out of the way of the others, stopping behind him. He looked at me as I approached but kept his focus on the prep work in front. I wondered if Cutting Food and Knife Fighting were distinct skills.

“You’re Stephen, our new Chef?”

He didn’t turn to face me. “Eve, right? If you find me some forbidden apples, I can make us some sinfully good pancakes.”

If this joke would have caused my healthbar to tick down I wouldn’t at all have been surprised.

“How long have you been sitting on that line?”

“About twenty minutes, give or take.”

“Been thinking about me and my name?”

“You and your, well, devil, to be honest.” He put the knife down and turned to face me. He was really tall. “This will sound really corny, but the moment they appeared with you, I resolved to do better.”

“I really don’t want to keep you from doing your job too long, but do elaborate, please.”

“I’ll keep it snappy. Used to be an investment banker. The moment the Apocalypse started I knew I was toast. That I’d fucked up my life and now I was damned for certain. Especially when others were seeing angels and all, but I didn’t. I had my own devil on my shoulder, all my life, and I’d listened. Fucked a bunch of people over.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“You were there with that devil and you just kept going. Through the Apocalypse around you. And, I don’t know, that just made something click for me. That it wasn’t too late, that temptation wouldn’t mean damnation, or something like that. I can’t remember choosing this Class, but I wouldn’t have chosen anything else. I want to make up for, well, everything. I won’t become one of the Fallen.”

I didn’t know what to say. On the one hand I couldn’t exactly follow his thought process, on the other I hadn’t considered that having a devil around might inspire people to do better.

I settled on “Huh.”

He turned back to his work. “Sorry, you probably didn’t need to hear any of that. Why did you want to talk to me?”

“Wanted to ask about your tasks. From what I gathered, most people have something regarding defeating things through their Blessing.”

“Yes, Haziel told me about that already. I have two of those types of tasks. One for others defeating foes while under one of my buffs, but the first one there starts at 100 and the next is 1000. The other is for when I defeat something myself while under my buffs. That starts at 5. But I’m honestly not sure yet how to go about that.”

“Probably not a worry for today. Then we can figure something out. Eventually you’ll have to risk your neck and go out there. But tonight, we all just need to stay alive.”

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He nodded. “Working on it.”

I contemplated talking about that whole Fallen thing. Maybe poke his brain about why he was inspired by Lucy. How to improve my “PR”.

But I didn’t get to talk about any of that. Suddenly the entire world became noise. The entire place vibrated, and from everywhere around us came this sound that sounded like the end of the world. Stone scraping, metal screeching, asphalt shattering. Everyone ran to the main room. I had to climb on the counter to see anything of what was going on outside. One moment there was a laundromat on the other side of the road, the next it was like it was being pulled toward us, the street curving, as the building was lifted up and above us. A wave of nausea hit me as I tried to make sense of the impossibility happening outside.

Jamie was standing at the very front of the room. I opened the party chat.