Thanatos, otherwise known as Death, had meant to travel straight to Hell to help investigate the Iron Knight situation after reaping Stacy's grandmother. However, he had traveled to Heaven to speak with Jehovah about perhaps allowing the old woman to skip her short sentence in Hell and go straight to Heaven. After all, it might help persuade Stacy to become an angel. While in Heaven, he had been informed that Kushiel had collected the Iron Knights. Relieved, Thanatos returned to his duties.
As he left a hospital after a busy morning's soul collecting, he was suddenly ambushed by a blank-eyed demon. A Chaos thrall! Thanatos was flabbergasted. He had not seen a Chaos thrall this powerful since the Chaos Wars before the Genesis! Caught off guard, he had no time to react before the monster grabbed onto his skull and whispered something.
Death fell to the ground unconscious. The Chaos thrall picked up his cloak and scythe, claiming them for itself. Whispering another Chaos spell, the Chaos thrall took on the skeletal form of Thanatos. It then cast a spell on Thanatos, disguising him as a middle-aged human as well as rewriting his memories. The thrall then left the scene. It would just do Death's job for now; there was no sense in drawing attention. It was enough to deprive Lucifer of a powerful ally. Later, maybe something interesting could be done with this scythe. After all, didn't Lucifer want Death to officiate his daughter's and his sister's weddings? Killing two of his family at what was supposed to be a happy time would be fine revenge for the suffering the fallen angel had inflicted on Chaos in the time before time...
When Thanatos awoke, he was no longer Death. As far as he could remember, he was a homeless gravedigger named Daniel Mortimer. Figuring he'd just passed out from drinking too much (again), Dan shrugged and shambled off to see if the local funeral home needed to hire a strong, able-bodied gravedigger like him.
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Heka and Qesem grinned wickedly in their cave in the wilderness of the Second Circle as they sensed their Chaos thrall usurping Death's identity from Thanatos. This was a tremendous victory and just about guaranteed that nobody in the conspiracy would ever be outed. Plus, having the Grim Reaper as your lackey could prove to be a very versatile tool.
With that, they got back to work conjuring Chaos spirits into their kidnapped victims. A trembling Pallaca fearfully watched as, one by one, Lamashtu's other naked slave-wives were led into the circle and turned into Chaos thralls. Glumly, she knew she'd be next.
"Psst!" whispered a voice. "I'm on your side."
Pallaca turned to see the damned soul of an elderly Catholic priest. It must be one of the slain Iron Knights! "Who are you?!" Pallaca gasped. "Are you going to hurt me?!"
"Of course I won't hurt you," the Iron Knight whispered. "I'm Father Patrick Murphy. I was an Iron Knight... until a few nights ago. Angels and demons stormed the safehouse, and an angel and a demon cut me down together. It was in that moment that I realized that the mission of the Iron Knights was not the will of God. Truth be told, the constant killing had been making me uneasy for years. I suppose I'm getting what I deserve. At least... I would be getting what I deserve if it weren't for THESE deranged characters!" Father Patrick gestured at Heka and Qesem. "Maybe I'm just a foolish old man, but I get the impression that these two are the enemies of God and the Devil alike. So, what's your story?"
"I'm Pallaca," said Pallaca. "Though I used to be a human named Lucy Watkins. I was a prostitute in Victorian London. It was a hard life, but I was getting by... until 1854. That was the year I was kidnapped by Princess Lamashtu Morningstar, the daughter of the Devil himself. She stole me out of the brothel, pulled me through a portal to Hell and pushed me at some priests of Darkness who made me walk through some kind of pool that changed me into a demon. I've been part of the princess's harem ever since."
"Despicable," Father Patrick scoffed. "It's atrocities like that which inspired me to become an Iron Knight. My own niece was kidnapped by a demon, you know."
"I'm sorry," Pallaca said, squeezing the damned priest's hand. "Anyway, things got even worse when those two portalled into the harem and stole all of us. They're turning us into... things! Wait, why are you out of your cage."
"The guard was drinking bloodbloom wine," Father Patrick explained. "I managed to take his keys off him. I'm getting out of here while I can. Care to come with me?"
"What's the point?" Pallaca sighed. "We're in mountains surrounded by 2,000 miles of desert. We'll never find civilization."
"Then we'll live off the land as hermits," said Father Patrick. "It's better than what awaits us inside that magic circle." He watched grimly as twelve more Iron Knight souls caught fire as Qesem plunged his dagger into one of the slave-wives.
"Maybe you're right," Pallaca sighed.
"We can survive this if we work together, Lucy," Father Patrick reassured.
Pallaca smiled a bit. "You called me Lucy."
"Of course I did," said Father Patrick. "It's you're real name, after all. This Lamashtu forced the name 'Pallaca' on you. A pretty demeaning name, at that. It means 'whore' in Ancient Greek, you know."
"Really?" asked Pallaca (or rather Lucy). "I never new that. Girls who who grow up on the streets of London don't get much of an education in the Classical languages."
"Come now," said Father Patrick. "It's time to be free of both Lamashtu and this vile cult." With that, Lucy and Father Patrick slipped out of the cave and into freedom.