“So what put them back on your radar?” Remy asked, holding the twin daggers up, points to the ceiling. All in the room were feeling it, the daggers’ power charging the air.

“Recently released parolees from Tartarus had heard some murmurings from within the prison walls; something big was about to happen and the weaponry was somehow involved.”

Remy slid to the edge of the couch. “That was it? Some parolees talking shit? There had to be more than that.”

“They said that there was a change coming,” Byleth said, the intensity growing in his gaze.

“And let me guess, you don’t like change… especially if it involves you. You like things just the way they are.”

The Satan smiled, a pale imitation of the beatific appearance he once had when still loved by God. “Exactly,” he said. “So I put the word out, that it could be quite profitable to anybody who could find these weapons for me. I figured if they were in my possession, they couldn’t do me any harm, and if they were as special as people said, nobody would dare try and fuck with me.”

Remy gazed at the knives, stifling the violent urges that attempted to force their way to the forefront of his thoughts.

“They’re special all right,” he said. He tore his eyes from the sleek, deadly weapons to stare intensely at Byleth sitting across from him. “Do you have any idea what they actually are, or who they were created for?”

The Morningstar’s face briefly flashed before his eyes, a surge of rage bubbling up from his center. The Seraphim roared its anger, bucking against the confines placed around it.

“Do you have any idea?” Remy growled, surging up from his seat, letting his arms snap forward, the Pitiless blades spinning through the air before dropping to stick in the hardwood floor before the Satan’s feet.

He was glad to be rid of them, the chatter inside his head starting to clear. Byleth’s men launched themselves immediately at him, the bald fallen pulling back a fist in order to strike him for what he’d done.

“Don’t,” their employer commanded, his voice no louder than a whisper.

They stopped midattack, turning to see if their boss was serious.

Byleth had slid from his chair, kneeling in front of the daggers.

“Leave him alone,” he ordered, his eyes held to the knives. “He’s only given me what I wanted.”

Mulciber roughly pushed Remy back onto the couch. Byleth leaned one of his ears down to the weapons. “I can hear them… They’re talking to me.” He laughed, reaching out tentatively to one of the blades. “They… they want me to hold them.”

Remy as well as the two bodyguards watched with curious eyes. He had no idea how the weapons would affect the Satan, if one who had fallen from Heaven would be privy to the visions that had been shared with him.

Byleth’s hands wrapped around the hilt of one of the knives, and then the other, tugging them both from the floor. It looked as if the fallen angel had suddenly received a massive electrical shock, his legs sliding out from beneath him as he twitched upon the floor.

The goons made a nervous move toward their employer.

“He’s fine,” Remy called after them. They turned, staring nervously, unsure if they should trust his word.

“They’re just talking.”

Byleth thrashed as he rolled onto his back. He held the daggers out before him, a look of absolute shock and surprise etched upon his face. With a sudden groan of exertion, he opened his hands arthritically, the knives falling from his clutches.

His men rushed to his aid, helping him up, returning him to his seat.

“For him,” Byleth groaned. “The daggers were made for him.”

Remy got up from the couch and went to the liquor cabinet. Helping himself, he picked up the crystal decanter and poured another drink. Byleth looked as though he could use it.

“Weapons of the Morningstar,” Remy said, handing the fallen angel the glass. Byleth took it from him, slurping loudly at the alcohol. “Weapons crafted for Lucifer’s hands.”

“It must have been just before the war,” Byleth gasped, out of breath from the experience of touching the Pitiless. The effects of the weaponry on the fallen appeared even more severe than they had been on Remy. “Some sort of secret weapons, perhaps.”

Remy thought about what Byleth had just said, the idea of weapons as some sort of last-ditch effort rattling around inside his head.

“Secret weapons that were never used.”

But if that was the case, why did they end up here… on Earth? Remy wondered, not even close to answering the questions that continued to float to the surface of his brain.

“How did you know about my case? How did you know I’d been hired to find what you had been searching for?”

Byleth clung to his glass of booze like it was a security blanket. “Your friend Francis made a few calls for you, asking around. And in turn, those he reached out to got in touch with us. It sounded like we just might be looking for the same thing.”

Byleth held out his empty glass. “More,” he commanded.

Remy took the glass and poured more Scotch from the decanter.

“Before your involvement, we had been contacted,” Byleth said, taking the glass. “Somebody who had heard about my offer to make them rich if they could deliver the Pitiless.”

Remy watched the fallen angel drink.

“So you made a deal with this person?” Remy asked.

Byleth nodded. “Arranged for an exchange, but it never happened.”

The fallen angel seemed to become even more nervous, getting out of his chair to fix his own drink. His movements were awkward, a shaking hand dropping the crystal stopper from the bottle, good Scotch splashing over the rim of the glass to be wasted as he filled it to the brim.

“I’m guessing that something besides your seller standing you up happened.”

“You could say that.” Byleth laughed nervously, pouring the contents of the glass down an insatiably thirsty gullet.

Remy urged the Satan to go on with a stare.

“We were attacked,” he said. Remy could see that his hands were shaking, and wasn’t sure if it was still the effect of connecting with the powerful weapons, or this recent memory. The fallen leader appeared unnerved.

“Rival host, maybe even a Hellion of your very own? What attacked you, Byleth?” Remy urged.

The fallen angel’s eyes got suddenly glassy as he gazed into the past. Slowly he made his way back to his seat, swatting away the helpful attentions of his bodyguards. He lowered himself into the folds of the wingback.

“He dropped out of the sky like a falling star,” the Satan said. “He was beautiful… as we all were once.”

Byleth looked at Remy, smiling sadly.

“An angel attacked you?”

He nodded. “Something wasn’t right about him. He was enraged, filled with a violent anger, going on and on about a sin that he couldn’t bear anymore.”

A sudden twinge of recognition stabbed at Remy, like a jab from one of the powerful blades.

“Was he a Nomad, Byleth?” Images of the poor creature that he and Francis had rescued from a dissecting chamber flashed before his eyes.

Remy reached down to grip the fallen’s shoulder, to urge him to answer.

Mulciber immediately grabbed hold of Remy’s wrist, attempting to pull it away. The Seraphim did not take kindly to being touched by one of them, and Remy allowed it to emerge, taking hold of the large man’s arm and twisting it violently to one side. Pulling the big man closer, Remy drove his forehead into the Denizen’s face.

The fallen grunted, blood exploding from his nose as he dropped to his knees moaning. The other Denizen made his move, but Remy froze him with a stare.

The Seraphim liked this, wanting to make the foolish creatures suffer, but Remy restrained it. This wasn’t the time for games.

“Byleth?” he said firmly.

“Yes, yes, he was a Nomad.” He tried to have some more to drink, but his glass was empty. “I didn’t think of it at the time…” Byleth stopped, remembering the details. “But I think he was trying to warn us.”