Before the circus gets too crowded I want to make sure I get my share of people here in the chancel, but there is a problem because the people I want are not easy to find. I have to go back in time to get them. I need a plan and I don’t have one. I supposed the best way to do this is to go to the library and look up any information on time travel that I can find. I spent most of the day in the library before June comes prancing through and I ask her about it, because in my mind she should be able to just make it happen what good is it to be reality if you can’t warp time?

I have to admit of the two old broads I like June better than the bitter pill that is Guilt. She said she would think about it. June thinks that with Eternity’s help the time travel could be done. Eternity is willing to help in return for a favor. Whatever like saving his family wasn’t enough? I think by the time the end of the month I am going to need a big favor board. I owe Eternity, and crime owes me.

Time travel is weird and June was a little vixen in this time era. We were looking for the proper people to return to the chancel with and I noticed hushed crowds talking about Jack the Ripper and I decided to do give all the girls in this era a break Maybe what I will do is make him into my little pet after June turns him into a girl. I think I like the idea I think Punishment would love it so I will never tell her. I get some of the girls to hook me up with the proper garb for attracting him and keep most of the girls out of the area where he is said to roam. One little lesser creation of Lust ought to do the trick, heh trick get it?

June is going to stay with the girls in St. Paul’s while I go find my little friend and make him suffer. It doesn’t take too long before he shows up. I decided that I should let him move to attack me before getting out of the way. After all one must follow the rules, well at least the ones that would put you on trial anyway. I decided to try and use glorious on him. It fails; alright this is not what I expected so I look using the ‘other sight’. Oh boy the scalpel is an excrution weapon. Ok so this would be the part where I pull out my gun and end him, except for the part where I was expecting a normal human and get something else and didn’t bring my gun. Oh joy and as I am thinking all this here comes Jack thinking he is all that and I attack to disarm him. He is not expecting me either so this works. I separate him from the weapon using my body and he is really confused by this and starts to pull out a cane and comes after me. I decide to go for a brick that is between him and me in the building. I should be fine as long as he can’t reach the scalpel. As I am thinking this, the scalpel has apparently learned to fly and comes back at me and to his hand. I get a small scratch on the cheek alright now I am just plain pissed here I was going to let him live, and now I want to kill him slowly and torture him. As I am turning my head to have the scalpel miss me I see another dark figure in the alleyway. Here’s to hoping it’s Eternity.

I sat in the library grateful for the peace I was surrounded in. If I am going to be part of this crazy family I should know more about not only us but also the extended family. I studied and learned. My mind wondered a bit when I ready about Lost Things and even though most of the family was against me talking to him I called him anyway. I have with the death of the angel outgrown the need for orders and I shall do as I please. Even if they do not realize it I am doing this for their own good. We did not talk long but I did tell him what I think and I believe he trusts me to be honest. I guess we shall see in time.

I have not yet decided what to do with Jessica. Her betrayal has been unexpected and I feel very angry but I will give her a chance to explain herself. I have found a way to bring her here and I shall talk with her upon her arrival. I order her to central park and she is to carry anything she cannot live without. I am able to bring her to the chancel and confront her with what I know. She is stunned at the fact that I have this knowledge and I am more confused after talking with her. I send her to the angel’s house to live for now.

There were several screams throughout the chancel and one was that the bronze man is here. He is after Donner and the old lush and if he reaches them the battle will be swift and will not end in our favor. I may not like Guilt as a matter of taste but I will not allow her to be butchered in our home. I have to find him first and distract him; their lives depend on it. I spot him and take careful aim anything less than deadly wound and he will brush me off. I unload the gun just to make sure I have his full-undivided attention and I do. He lands in front of me and we have a go at each other. Did I mention he pulled out the sword? The big sword the imperator-killing sword came into play. He got the better of me and I am suddenly weak. I am much weaker then I should be for the hit I took. Interesting I had not been expecting that.

Donner shows up shortly after he hit me and the bronze man says all he wants is the release of his sister and Donner agrees. I would have stayed and tried and perhaps died but I left the decision up to Donner. He agrees to the exchange. June shows up during this time too and she and the bronze man have an exchange of words in regards to the sword. I do not trust his innocence but I shall just keep that to myself. The bronze man and the girl he came for leave. He is very attached to her, and I am sure I can use that.

The family has decided to remember what they have forgotten. I for one would be happy to stay in the dark about somet things; memories are not always a good thing and I get the feeling there are some things I do not want to live through again even if it is just in my head. This isn’t really a democracy, though, and no one really cares what I think so they trudge forward with flowers in hand.

The one bright spot: maybe I'll find out what really happened with me and the angel.

I am never alone in my new memories. I would not be so lucky. It’s the angel and he is talking to me like I am an incompetent child far beneath the task he is asking me to do. He expects me to screw up and is counting the ways in which I can or will.

It makes me wonder, not for the first or even fortieth time: if I am so damn horrible, why the hell is he sending me anway?

My perspective changes and I am now the thing I hate, I am him. He is just pushing her (my) buttons for fun and wants to push her (me) down just to see how she (I) reacts. What an asshole. There is someone else in his head too, except this is someone he respects and he is being warned about his methods.

Yes indeedy -- he should be warned, because I have seen how the play ends and I am certain he did not heed the warning.

Another memory: It’s the woman who is now my new "anchor" and I'm remembering how we met. She is a very kind gentle person and we are hiding our friendship from the angel for whom we both work as anchors, but I realize in the NEXT memory that he knows because he arranged the whole thing, and I am torn. How could he do that and that bitch has just been pretending all along. I hate them. I hate them both right now and this girl will need to be punished.

I should have let her die.

The memory of meeting with a mysterious man. I do not know his name and he is not giving it. He is going to kill the angel and is offering me the angel's power. I know I can change the power -- make it better -- make it right. I will not use my people the way he used his love or hate.

He knew. The man I swore allegence to when the angel dies is, I think, the Angel's boss, but the angel knows. Knew. Whatever. He knows he is going to die and he is/was scared. Serves him right, if you ask me but no one is. I still hate him even if he is being weak and vulnerable. I could have made my own friends if I wasn’t being sent all over the world on his whims -- I wouldn't have needed his assigned playmates.

I killed for him; it was my job and I was good at it.

Explain that to your friends.

I laid still and pretended to sleep, both because I'm tired and because I'm curious what the family talks like to each other. Donner doesn’t seem all that upset that I have replaced the angel but others are really unsure and given the chance and my turned back, they would surely stick a knife in it.

They need to get back to someplace they are calling the chancel, but they need to be armed first. Donner is making some calls for weapons, but we aren't going to survive long without money. They are all sitting around talking about how to get money as though this is such a difficult thing. I'm not going to speak up -- I'm just going to go solve the problem.

I need new clothes anyway. Broken glass and leather don't mix well and this was one of my favorite suits.

When morning comes I leave this building in search of someone to help aid me and lavish me with gifts. My list of needs are a new suit, a couple vehicles, and cash. While most people think drug dealers are good for nothing, I happen to know they are a great way to get cash in a short amount of time -- usually I'll just beat it out of them, but I was beginning to get the impression I had more options available to me. Fungus had set Hank’s friends off to get cash by selling 'hippie drugs' but my way seems so much more efficient: find someone who has the money, then take it away.

The new suit is not exactly what I wanted because I'd have to special order what I want. I have two suits now on special order and they should be back in a week, until them I am stuck in something that, while it looks alright, doesn’t really suit my taste. The guy who buys it for me (I don't bother hearing his name) says it looks alright.

I return a few hours later to the group who have (of course) been sitting around just talking and accomplishing not really a damn thing. I try to hand the rest of the money to... Fungus, I guess it's name is. It seems the to be one of the least objectionable creatures to me, even though it looks weird, but it isn’t "allowed" to handle money, so I give it to one of the old ladies -- the one who wasn’t spending last evening getting trashed. I am tempted this morning to make loud noises and sudden movements at the lush from last night but I'm able to control the urge.

We have to wait around a bit for Donner’s friend to show up with the guns and shortly afterwards we pile into the two vehicles I've obtained. Thankfully stick-up-her-ass Punishment has decided to ride with Death. Fungus, and Reality are coming (heh) in my car and Donner took off through the electrical wires. That worked out pretty nicely; everyone who I can stand in my car and everyone else in the other car. Well I should say I am not sure where Terminus stands on the whole new Lust thing but I'm not envisioning any heart to heart talks in our near future. I have no use for the old alcoholic Guilt Guru in my car (or life for that matter) but you never could pick your family.

If that's what they are to me.

They are planning for some big fight at their home base but when we get there it is empty of all the bad guys, which is really too bad because being around some of these people really makes me want to hit something. I guess there is always tomorrow.

Senachiel had let it slip that I had allies and now I was curious: Just where do I fit into this tangled little web? Is there a side that I'm on? Do I really have allies or many enemies I don't have faces for?

Senachiel's leaving now and I can't just let him go; he's the only one who knows anything about me, myself included.

Surely there is more information to be had from him if he was not so very distracted by something else. He is flying away (though I think can probably catch up to him), I am not going to let the only one who knows what is going on get away so easily. I jump to the roof of the nearest building and from there to his back and force him to land on the roof of... he is going back to the dead angel’s building. There is talking inside the building, not fighting, so I ask him more questions that need answering. His response is to give me a flower, yes a flower. He says I can contact him with it by pulling the petals off and speaking. He is heading for the front door but I still have questions and there is still no fighting noises, just talking, from inside.

I cut him off and ask him more questions and we talk for a short time until the building does finally erupt in fighting sounds. Senachiel is headed into the building and I can't stall him anymore. I can tell (how can I tell) that here is a man on the third floor and another on floor two. I imagine his "brother" is on floor two so I jump through a window to the third floor. Glass shatters and leather is not as sturdy as one would like in times like this, though my skin is just fine. I let the young-but-white-haired man in the room know he needs to leave because two of them are after him now. I give him a phone number to meet me at (Jessica) and head to talk to her, this lady whose voice is so familiar and yet not. I need to hurry.

The streets are too crowded to simply run through them so I use the rooftops. I am not sure how I know where I am going but I trust the inner voice that is telling me where to turn and which direction to head. I slip into the building and to the penthouse suite. I glide the door open and someone is swinging a bat at my head. It is a very slow swing and I am able in one motion to block and disarm. My attacker it the woman who's been calling me -- her voice matches -- but she looks older and panic stricken.

She is growing older by the second because her old master (the angel? my old master?) is dead. She reminds me how to create a mortal anchor with someone and I give her the option of her being bound to me -- it would safe her life, perhaps, so she wants it, and I proceed. As I do a voice tells me to stop. Not the voice in my head but something external, behind me.

Big.

I ignore it; after all they could be talking to anyone and it is not addressing me directly.

I find my body sailing across the room -- not something I initiated, which is annoying. Alright, so I guess this is a fight, and damn this jerk hits hard. If I hadn't already ruin this leather suit I would be even unhappier right now -- going through the middle part of a sectional couch didn't do it any favors. I get back to my feet and really need to hit something. I rush him, ducking under his attack and use the momentum to pick him up and throw him out the patio window. I did mention we are at the top of a building on the penthouse level right? He looks like he might be part bronze. All bronze? Anyway, he's heavy, and this is where it would suck to be him.

He falls, and falls, and falls and the concrete looks as bad has he does when he hits it... goes right through it, actually.

Now the question is do I go after him? He hits hard -- probably dead, right.

Yeah, I do need to see if my new best friend is alright or not. Should teach him a lesson about attacking defenseless women though. I leap out the window and use the patio balconies to slow my descent... except that about halfway down they seem to be quite crumbly all of a sudden and I'm free-falling from thirty-three stories up. Oh, this does not look or feel good. I think I might be able so slow myself a little and at this point that would be a very good thing, so I do that.

Please don't get me wrong, I still going to hit the pavement hard as hell but I don't injure myself too badly doing it. Then the ground rots around me and I fall through the pavement and things get fuzzy from here. He's waiting for me.

We fight, which is expected (well, somewhat expected because I was hoping to gloat over his corpse). Plan A did not workout so well so plan B was to make the corpse now. The electricity guy from the dead angel's house showed up to help at some point and it was not a pretty fight. Bronze guy looked worse then I felt when things were said and done but I guess someone did not appreciate the fight and sent everyone to their separate corners -- something about Not Freaking Out the Straights.

Our corner involved a phone booth that sank into the ground and came out on a rooftop... in Chicago.

We step out of the phone booth and yet another person is up here holding a gun at my face. I don't have any sense of humor for this right now. I ask her to put it away in light of the bad day I am having. She is reluctant but does so when this, well… fungus-ey thing starts talking to us. I need sleep and the fungus-ey thing makes a nice bed for me. I listen to the others talk while I desperately try and return to the restful darkness.

The black fades to white, then color, and I immediately long for the black again. I close my eyes and attempt to rub the image away, but I'm not that lucky.

See, the image is this: I’m lying on a couch and the man in the chair across the room (which looks like a shrink’s office) is dead. Or least probably dead: for a normal human the wounds are mortal, except he (it?) isn’t human. The wings on his back spread out over the wingback chair (there’s some irony) pretty well give that much away. Still, I’m pretty sure most species cannot live without their hearts, and his (its?) seems to be missing, “cut out” might be more accurate.

And I have a blood-covered knife in my left hand, fancy that.

I review my inner reaction to all this and don’t find any sort of denial or panic; yes, I could have done it, it seems likely in fact, though I can’t figure out why. Right now, I can’t even remember my name and I’m going on instinct, which is telling me that a dead angel in the room deserves caution, not panic, and that I better make damn sure he’s really dead (which I do).

I have no time for admiring my (alleged, your honor) work -- I should leave. On top of my lack of identity I have no idea how much time I spent napping or who might be on the way. Nope, not where I want to be, and I also don’t want to leave the knife here.

Then my cell phone starts ringing. I’m grasping at straws, so I answer it and the lady on the other end seems to know me. She called me Macy and it doesn’t sound wrong. She is telling me about all this crap happening around the world and that people are looking for “us”, which is of course overshadowed a little by the dead angel in the room with me. I brush her off, since this is not really a good time for a chat, and tell her I’ll find her. She says she’s in New York and looking out the window I can tell I am, too.

Again, I don’t know how I know, but I know, which is getting to be a tired joke.

I seem pretty agile as I jump a six-foot fence without as much effort as I think it should take. Interesting. I’m a gymnast/assassin? A couple more fences, a dozen more blocks, and I am comfortably away from the scene and drop the (wiped down) knife into a garbage bin after cleaning it of evidence. Seconds after I dump the knife I hear a voice from behind me asking if I lost something. I ignore it; sometime, if you ignore it, it goes away, but I’m not having much luck today -- three thugs move to block me up ahead. I turn to face the thin man standing behind me.

He wants to know about the angel. Damn.

But it’s not that bad: he was sent to kill the man I killed, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend right? He seems to think so, too: he wants to me to go testify so that they know I am not part of this association the angel was in. This guy (Senachiel, something-or-other of Lost Things) really likes to talk so I am letting him. He mentions something about a Red Tooth Rite and for a second my mind flashes images of a bloody heart in my hands. The men behind me start to move up and I remind the talking man that we are playing nice. He calls the dogs off for now. He says he can’t tell if I’m actually ‘the new Power’ and decides to test my hearing by having a lady carrying groceries (two bags worth) three blocks away stop and whisper that I should tell him everything I know. I don’t flinch; he doesn’t notice me noticing her and I ask him what he is waiting for. He buys it totally, bully for me. I agree to go with him because I am guilty of many things, but not of any angel’s past sins. Plus, I could stand to have someone on my side right now. My phone rings again, it is my helpful little friend from before. She thinks going with this guy is a bad idea as Lord Entropy (whoever that is), might find me guilty of anything that offends him just to clear up the whole mess and get rid of everyone involved – basically implying that it would be a bad idea to go. Before I can decide for certain the lights on the street dim and the sidewalk vibrates and suddenly the guy I’ve been talking to has wings (just like the guy back in that room) and has just pulled out a weapon.

Neat.

More GM flores

"You hate him." The dark figure stood in the darker shadows of her living room, impossibly tall, wearing a long coat and wide-brimmed hat that should have been ridiculous.

She shrugged, not looking at him. "I hate what he is. I hate his hypocrisy."

"Hypocrisy?"

Her face twisted. "You know many other angels that make a project out of exporting vibrators to eastern-bloc countries?"

"He is Lust."

"Sure, just don't tell me your goal is the sanctity of the home while you're filling out the shipping order."

"Still --"

"And not forgetting how he sent me to blow a third-world dictator's brains out."

"...while he was sodomizing his sister's child, you mentioned."

She shrugged again. "I work for the power of Lust, not Punishment. It looked to me like I was killing one of the choir. Slime-ball, yeah, but it's not like you get too many Saints on our side of the fence."

"Yet you went."

Her eyes narrowed, focused in the indeterminate distance. "I don't exactly have a choice, with what he did to me. That's the deal. I'm stuck with it." Her eyes moved over the well-furnished loft and the edges of her mouth twitched in a way that was not entirely friendly. "Other than that, the perks are alright."

"Yet you hate him."

"Sure." She looked up at him directly for the first time, at the shadows beneath his hat, and flinched away. "Yes. Yes, I hate him."

"You would kill him."

"Can't." She learned back and spread her finely-muscled arms along the back of the couch. "Harms the mission. Not possible."

"You sound confident."

"I've done my homework."

The hat brim dipped. "What if I told you," his voice continued, smooth and liquid, "that you could do this thing without in any way harming the true master of you both, or his goals. That you could, in fact, be Lust, the way you envision it might be. The way you think it should be."

She looked at the shadowed figure for a very long time without speaking, then: "I'd ask you how."

This is not where it began, but it is where it started for her.

This oneword is also a bit of fic for Nobilis :)

lust

"Lust is a tool," he said. "It brings humans together, certainly... helps people connect and keeps the fires burning through the years, so to speak. Lust, in fact, leads to beauty." His voice was a drone in the back of my head. Pendantic, that was the word. "It is too easy to say that lust is about corruption."

"Easy, maybe," I said. "But not wrong."

-- From the Thought-record of Macy Hamilton

[edited transcript version of intro session]

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Macy, Baroness of Lust, scion of The Fallen, is played by Jackie