Josh wiped his brow as he helped Penemue haul yet another box of books into the bedroom of their new apartment suite in the royal palace. It was a truly opulent suite of rooms with marble walls and mosaic floors with gold inlay and gemstones everywhere, but the two scholars missed the Grand Library.
"Do you think Kushiel will reopen the library soon?" asked Josh.
"Who knows?" Penemue shrugged. "Then Grand Inquisitor never leaves any stone unturned. It could be days, weeks, months, or even years before the Grand Library is given back to us." Penemue's eyes filled with sparkling, crystalline tears.
Josh wiped the tears from his fiancee's eyes and hugged her close to him. "It'll be okay, I promise. This won't be forever. Kushiel will soon see that there's no heresy to be found in the Grand Library, turn it back over to us, and go looking somewhere else." He decided to change the subject to something less glum. "I hear the Council's meeting today. Something about an old position finally being filled."
"The Custodia Ordinis," said Penemue. "I've actually heard rumors that it's Stacy."
"No fooling?" Josh smiled. "Stacy Hoffman's an angel now?"
"She's finally marrying Charles," Penemue smiled. "And apparently she's now the guardian of the natural order against Chaos. The council's excited to meet her."
"Who's on the council, anyway?" asked Josh.
"Mom and most of my brothers and sisters for starters," said Penemue, "though Mom and Jesus are stuck on Venus dealing with an emergency right now. Then there's Dad's chief advisors: Odin, Metatron, and Sandalphon. Lastly, there's the Archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Camael, Jophiel, and Zadkiel."
"Sounds exciting," said Josh. "I'd actually like to meet the Seven Archangels myself."
"If you do, I hope you don't leave me for Jophiel," Penemue teased with a giggle. "Her beauty is legendary."
"The only beauty I care about is yours," Josh said, leaning in for a kiss.
They were interrupted when the door swung open, revealing Penemue's brother Jove. "I came to see if the unpacking is going well," said Jove. "I've been keeping unwanted visitors away."
"That's really not necessary, Jove," Penemue said, rolling her eyes at her overbearing brother. "Who have you chased off?"
"A bunch of weirdos," Jove said, stroking his platinum blond goatee as he recalled. "There was some gender-ambiguous fox angel; might've been Noble Inari, come to think of it. I never did care for their mischievous ways. Worse, Inari brought some human girl with them. She was quite attractive. I tried to talk Inari into giving the girl to me for my harem, but I got nowhere."
"Ew," Penemue said with a grimace.
"There was also some angle with sapphire eyes who was babbling about Azure," said Jove. "I think he was in love with her and couldn't deal with her treason."
"She's not a traitor, Jove!" Penemue shouted.
"Whatever," Jove shrugged. "They weren't talking any sense, so I had the guards toss them out."
"I wish you hadn't done that," Penemue sighed. "Now we might never be able to find them again."
"That, in my humble opinion, would be a good thing," Jove scoffed as he headed for the door. "See you later, Penemue. I must return to my vigil." He then shut the door a little too loudly behind him.
"Is he always like that?" Josh asked.
"Sometimes he's worse," Penemue said, rolling her bespectacled eyes. "Well, let's get back to work. There's still LOTS of books to unpack."
**********************************************
As Lamashtu stepped out of the portal and into her reserved guest room in the Royal Palace, she glanced at Proposition 13667.
"Proposition 136667: The Hellish Bill Of Rights.
Article 1: All demons regardless of parentage or heritage, be they born by blood or human-born, are to be equal under the law.
Article 2: The practice of kidnapping humans for the purpose of pleasure slaves is hereby outlawed.
Article 3: The practice of using a condemned human soul’s addiction in life to act as a sentence enhancement is to be outlawed. This practice runs against the treaty with Heaven as stipulated in Treaty Between Heaven and Hell Volume 2: Crimes and Punishment. Demons tempting humans is no longer to be practiced.
Article 4: All demons are to have the right to learn and use portal summoning magic."
Those were certainly some sweeping changes! The only easy part was the thing was the part about demons not being allowed to tempt living humans. That hadn't been allowed for centuries; this would just enshrine the ban in the highest law if the land. But it would be hard to convince the most entitled demons (the Karens of Hell) to part with their slave-spouses. But if Lamashtu could do it, so could the others! She was determined to make it happen.
On the subject of slave-spouses, another thought occurred to Lamashtu as she recalled all the times she had brutally forced her advances on Lucy and her other slave-wives. She remembered their tears and their screams. No living creature deserved that... not even the souls of those who had done the same to others. Lamashtu grabbed a pencil and hastily scribbled in an extra article.
"Article 5: In punishments of public humiliation, NO damned human soul is to be sexually violated, even in the event of the punishment of rape or other forms of sexual violence. Genitals and orifices are not to be touched, no part of the soul's body may be touched by the tormentor's genitals, and neither party shall be caused to ejaculate sexual fluids."
"It's time we put aside our darker impulses," Lamashtu smiled. "We need to be better than the damned."