Ouroboros II | The Wolf

8 | Beelzebub And A Bottle Of Bacardi

Things didn't often go as Bezel planned them to. It was sort of as if the world had a serious grudge against him. The harder he tried, the stronger the universe bucked. He just wasn't meant to stay in the saddle for long--but he was plenty okay with that. The sooner he was tossed to crumple against the ground, the sooner he could be absolved of all that fretful trying. If the world didn't want him there, it should hurry up and expel him, he thought. He didn't know why others tried so hard. Over, and over, and over. Why? Didn't it just hurt worse to be thrown again, and again, and again? Bruises built on bruises until they turned into breaks. 

Ira Rule was someone like that, too. Bezel could tell by the way he walked into a room. Head bowed, shoulders hunched, heart hammering. He entered each next space already prepared to be booted from it. But Absalom Edom had gotten one thing right: he didn't give up. 

"Angels, we actually did it?" The Bishop whispered. 

He stood frozen in the center of the dark cellar, the Vestige held in his thin arms. That weapon was ill-fit for him. Too long, too heavy, too jagged. Ira seemed to know it, too. He clutched the volcanic sword with trembling fingers, staring down into the surface of the blade with wide, blue eyes. The ocean-deep surface of his gaze was filled with a defensiveness. As if he'd dreamed of this moment--waking up each time with emptied hands. 

"Okay, great," Bezel quipped in his dry voice, "now say it again but not as a question."

Ira's eyes abandoned the black sword, trading in for the Prince leaned against the empty glass case. The one which had previously held his kris, keeping the metal suspended under a cloud of dust. The Bishop lifted his shoulders in a weak shrug of surrender and said, "Angels, we actually did it."

"Needs work, dear." Bezel muttered. "What comes next is going to take a little more conviction." 

"What comes next?" The intruder called. 

Ira whipped around, a grin blooming up across his predominantly gloomy face. "Father! You're back!" 

"You're still here?" Bezel groaned, sharpening his golden gaze down into daggers for the other Bishop. The man strolled leisurely into the vault, parking beside Ira. He looked at Bezel, meeting his gaze from behind a thick pair of glasses. He didn't look at Bezel the way he had been anticipating. There was no fear, there was no anger either--just a light of curiosity and bemusement. Bezel seems to invoke the same feelings in this man as a lost cat would. 

"I was just walking Absalom out." He said, which Bezel took to mean they still had matters to discuss. 

"I didn't want you two getting lost down here." Which meant he didn't want Bezel picking anything up on his way out. 

"So, are we ready to go?" He finished--he wanted them out now. 

"Ah, I think so." Ira answered. He let the Vestige fall to his side, holding it awkwardly with one clenched fist. 

The weapon was nearly longer than his legs, the tip hovered centimeters from the gray stone floors. The sight didn't flush Bezel with confidence--but nothing could, so maybe it wasn't entirely the young Bishop's fault. His golden eyes flicked up the sides of the glass sword, drinking in the sight of its crude design and rough make. It truly did resemble an Avernian child's arts and crafts project. Maybe the pig who wielded it had simply punched at the earth until the weapon had splintered off from the obsidian flooring. The sword was hardly remarkable--all that mattered now was the battery inside. 

Bezel could taste it on his burnt tongue, smell it in his blind nose. There was power inside of the black glass. Holy power beyond anything of this realm, or the next. That pathetic toothpick--it was a Vestige. That sword had the kick to kill Mammon--Bezel, too. Luckily, no one in that room had the ability to use it.