"Lone... I don't know how or why or what, but she's connected even to the Arc. That, that is just not possible Belle. And it scares me to have to admit that. I knew everything I needed to know the moment I embraced what I was. So why am I left in the dark now?" Coyote wasn't really talking to the woman next to him, instead just musing outloud. But Belle wasn't as stupid as she led people to believe.
                              
"Maybe because even those in charge have no clue what's going on?" the once escort suggested, making Coyote focus on her.
                              
"What?" the old man asked, her simple statement making him have a eureka moment.
                              
"Well... you said that destiny can be changed. That Lone is that way she is because of something that happened unexpectedly. So if it can happen once, why not again and again? It's the theory of entropy, that all systems naturally degrade towards chaos..." Belle trailed off, flushing. "Sorry, one of my regulars is a physicist with a philosophical bend." she shrugged.
                              
Coyote laughed and hugged Belle around the shoulders. "My dear child, you were wasted as an escort." he didn't judge her for her work, an escort would be out of a job if there were no clients, so the fault of hte job lay on the society that makes it necessary, not the women themselves. Not this one anyways. "If this situation is truly dire, then no one would have information to give. We're working without instructions because no one has really seen this before."
                              
Belle nodded, having gotten used to the old man's strange attitude thanks to Lone. Just thinking about her best friend had Belle sniffling again, worried over her friends safety, her sanity and her quickly disappearing soul. "Are you really going to let Rimmon take you to hell?"
                              
Coyote sighed again. "You're a sweet girl Belle. If I were only thirty years younger..." he sighed wistfully and Belle laughed, which had been his purpose.
                              
"If you were thirty years younger, you'd still be 20 years older than me!" Belle laughed but there were still tears leaking out of her eyes. Coyote rubbed a circle on her back, trying to offer some limited comfort.
                              
"Hell and Heaven aren't what people think they are. Our lives here on Earth aren't reflected there. In the Ascended, Heaven for lack of a better term, things are all about building and creation. Things in the Descended, or Hell, are all about the deconstruction and ending of things." Coyote started to explain. He realized now that if he were to truly go forward with this plan, he'd never get to instruct Lone, so he hoped that her best friend had a great memory.
                              
"Almost everyone sees Angels and Demons as Good and Evil. But that's a simple lable for a very complex series of gradients. Although you seem to be rather smitten with Gabriel," Coyote noticed the flush the Arc Angel's name brought to the young woman's cheeks, "you might be a little distressed to know that he is in fact hte Arc Angel Gabriel heard about in the bible. Albeit all the stories in that book have been blown out of proportion and take far too literally. He has done some terrible things in the name of Good." Coyote stated, knowing that she needed to hear the words.
                              
Lone had experienced first hand how all the glittering things might not be golden, but Belle had been spared some of that. Coyote only hoped that a verbal reminder was all this child would ever need to encounter. "Those men in there, the one with Lone right now... they're the bastions of creation and destruction. Eternal forces that will always be on opposing sides because all living material needs to be created and destroyed. Born and die. They're not good or evil, but instead Necessity. We're the freaks with the need to blame nebulous concepts for our own actions."
                              
"So wait.... is there no god or devil then?" Belle asked, too confused to really be emotional.
                              
Coyote shrugged. "If we don't make it back from this little venture, go buy a Ouja board and I'll let you know."
                              
Belle looked at him, shocked and then burst into tears. Coyote had known the waterworks were inevitable and hugged her tightly while she wept for the friend who was missing, for Coyote himself, and for all the people who might be damned if this went wrong.
                              
####
                              
Gavin opened his eyes and realized that something very wrong had happened. The screaming, the pain.... then nothing. His memory was a complete blank, as if someone had taken bleach to it. He groaned and tried to roll to his feet, only to scream in pain.
                              
The Guardian Angel writhed as what felt like fire filled his veins, radiating out from the wings on his back. More accurately, radiating out from where two spikes had been driven through his wings, effectively pinning the Angel to the stone floor. His body was wrapped with agony as he tried to move his wings, free them somehow. But the moment his hand touched the metal of the spikes, the pain of his wings flared even stronger and he screamed, the flesh of his palm melting in contact. FInally pain drove him to release the spike and the scarring on his hand told him that it had been poisoned against his kind.
                              
And then the purple eyed Chalice stepped out and the Guardian Angel knew why their escape had failed. He only wished that Lone had found a way free, but he knew that was not the case. Hard to slip out of the boney grip that belonged to the devil's mistress.