Kate and Azazel marched into the headquarters of the FBC. It was eerily quiet. The two demons only passed two humans as they made their way to the head office. Smming the door open, Azazel was mildly surprised to see that the new leader of the FBC and his two present underlings were even younger than Kate. The oldest among the three was maybe twenty-four.

  The guy behind the desk jumped up in shock. “Who are you and what are you doing here? And how did you get in?”

  “I am high inquisitor Azazel of the pandemonium, this is head librarian Kate. We simply walked in through the front door. You are?”

  “Jason Hedgeley, head of the federal bureau of control. These are agents Aiden Donnovan and Ryan Philips. They will be the ones to escort you both out of here momentarily. You did not have permission to enter this building.”

  “Jason… do you really want to see them try that? We are merely here to talk.”

  “Mister Hedgeley, but yes, I would like to see them escort you out. I think I will be a gracious host though and let you two do your little spiel and then ask you to leave. What do you want?”

  “We had negotiated several things with your predecessor, we just came by to see how the implementation of those changes is going and maybe talk about your recent meeting with superintendent Muller.”

  “The meeting with the royal institute is cssified, sorry.”

  “Addendum four, section one. You did read the Treaty of Celestis, didn’t you?”

  Hedgeley frowned. “Of course I did. Just remind me what you think the addendum says.”

  “As representatives of the interests of the pandemonium, we are granted access to all cssified information, no matter what form, in human possession or by human sources. That would include your meeting.”

  “You have that right, yes.” It was quite obvious no one in this room besides the two demons had bothered with the Treaty.

  “Good. Before we move on, I should inform you that we both are mind readers. You cannot lie to us, you cannot hide anything from us, you cannot attempt to deceive us in any way. I am sure your predecessor informed you of the consequences of attempting deception.”

  “He did not.”

  “In accordance with the Treaty, the punishment for deception by a human in official matters, which this is, is death. As high inquisitor, I am judge, jury and executioner in those matters. And our head librarian acts with the same authority in regard to her library and all attached dealings, which are pretty much all the things we do in this world. Do you understand?”

  Hedgeley swallowed. “I do.”

  “Let’s move on then. Tell us about your meeting with superintendent Muller.”

  “We talked about our restructuring and I voiced my dismay about her surrender to you. This is not your world and it is the job of agencies like ours to make sure this remains a human world.”

  “A human world as God intended?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Have you really not read anything about what you are dealing with?”

  “We have the bible.” He was dead serious about that.

  “I see…”

  “If that’s all, then you need to leave now.”

  “No, our head librarian still has words. Kate?”

  Kate stared directly into the eyes of mister Hedgeley, causing him to shrink back into this chair. “You said you want this to be a human world, like you believe God gifted you. You told Clementine Muller that you want to cleanse us from this world.”

  “How do you know what I told her?”

  “I can read your mind. Pay attention, human. Now, cleansing sounds a lot like a threat. I don’t like bullies and will just give you a warning. The moment you harm anyone or anything we hold dear, we will use you as you were meant to be used. You are cattle, we merely went vegan because the cattle made fun paintings. Once the cattle starts getting feisty, I’m personally putting steak back on the menu, understood?”

  “You are threatening me in my own office. Doesn’t that make you the bully? It doesn’t matter what you tell me, I have God on my side and he will judge you when the time comes.”

  “And that time will be soon, right?” Kate put on an almost mocking tone.

  “I intend to force that, yes.”

  “You’re one of those rapture believers, aren’t you?”

  “The rapture will come and it will be on our terms. I just want to be a good servant of the lord and leave this world as a good pce for those who couldn’t see the truth. They don’t deserve our ire, just our pity. But none of that will happen as long as you are here.”

  “You didn’t even read your own book… no wonder you hate libraries so much, you people can’t read at all. But if you want to wait for God to help you, I’m happy to indulge you. If you get him to actually show up, I’ll concede that you were right and leave this world. So, let’s agree that you will just sit on your arses here and come talk to me once God has shown his stupid face. Until then, you do nothing. No, actually you should read the Treaty of Celestis and maybe your little bible thingie. Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.”

  “You will regret this, librarian.”

  “We will see about that, won’t we? Now, you three have a wonderful day, we have better things to do. Goodbye.” Kate teleported herself and Azazel back to the library, just outside her own office.

  The high inquisitor sighed. “What idiots.”

  “How did those twerps take over the FBC? They know fucking nothing.”

  “I took the liberty of finding that out while you distracted that boy. Apparently, his father was put in a position to oversee budgets and found out that the FBC is getting a lot of money for doing nothing that would be reported to anyone. Of course, that would be the perfect posting for your useless religious nutcase son and his eight friends. Everyone else was fired because the FBC did nothing anyone understood and now these nine idiots get paid for doing exactly what his daddy believed the FBC did: absolutely nothing. Too bad that they are too ambitions for their own good and found the paperwork about the blessed ammunition and the FBC dealings with Gabriel.”

  “And now they have partial knowledge of how things truly work but are still deep in their Sunday school bible mindset.”

  Azazel nodded. “Exactly.”

  “With that fanatical ideology and the FBC resources they can do so much damage, especially now that we have proven to them that it wasn’t just bunk. We showed ourselves as an actual real target, not something to combat on a spiritual level. Fuck.”

  “We overestimated them and in acting on that, we made them what into exactly we feared…”

  “Did your people get the shield inscriptions done?”

  “Yes, they finished st night. Your parents’ home, the RICA offices, the homes of everyone else we are friends with, and of course here. Valefor and Thrasir have been warned, as was Asmodeus. All three are capable combatants and more than able to defend those close to them. Oliver wanted to talk to you personally ter today, Monica and Laura have two justiciars stationed at their home, Lizzy and your parents are also protected by two justiciars.”

  “Sarah was picked up by Lilith just before we met. That would be everyone except Dorian.”

  “I spoke to him, he declined protection but will get a hotel room nearby in case something happens to you. He was certainly worried but also too scared to speak to you about it.”

  Kate frowned. “Fair enough. Shit. I never felt like I fucked up this much before.”

  “You didn’t. The old FBC did, RICA did, Gabriel did, and sometimes I wonder if I did. You are not all-knowing. I can be but chose not to know today. Let’s hope they have enough braincells to figure out that acting on their threats is a bad idea.”

  Kate pressed her forehead against the corridor Wall. “I don’t want to be in this world right now. I’ll just go tell the others to notify me once Oliver comes by, then I’ll just go to Hell. Fuck this. Fuck all of this human bullshit.”