Greed God chapter 216

April 10th 2016 Brightedge City, Shadowcrest, 6:00 PM EDT

I'd  enjoyed my day off immensely, but eventually everything winded down and  everyone was ready to head back. Once I dropped them off I made my way  to Shadowcrest, but I stopped outside to make a call before going in.  Despite the advanced nature of my phone though, my call didn't go  through. Of course, I wasn't using my interdimensional image calling  trick, since I was calling my dad and he didn't know about that, but  still it was weird that he didn't answer.

Under normal  circumstances him screening calls was par for the course, but given the  situation with the vampires and Siegfried being in town to help it  struck me as strange to be out of touch.

I clicked the  phone off with an eye roll. If he wasn't answering he probably assumed I  could handle or it or was just busy with his own stuff. I'd only been  calling to give him an update anyway, and since I didn't actually work  for him the attempt was more than enough lip service.

Deciding  to be nice, I knocked on the door, which was quickly opened by a  flustered looking Thorn. "Mammon!" She said, since I was wearing my mask  as I had been when I first met both her and Jinx. "You're here. Come on  in. Master is waiting for you in the library. She's been getting  impatient." I raised an eyebrow at that and she blushed, averting her  eyes. "Since I'm a formal apprentice Master is a valid form of address.  Mistress would technically be more accurate, but that sounds kind of  kinky."

I grinned at her. "Not a fan of kinky? I wouldn't  have pegged you for the vanilla type, THORN." Her blush heated up even  more as I winked at her.

Clearing her throat, she gestured  at me to follow her. "Come on, I'll take you to the library." She  turned and walked away, her quick pace doing pleasant things to her ass.

"You  know." Said a familiar voice to one side. "You really don't have time  for more of them. You already have too many." My reflection was watching  me with a bored expression from the glass fronted casing of a  grandfather clock. "Plus you have bigger things to be worried about."

I  rolled my eyes. "Yes, I'm aware. But there's no harm in adding to my  collection. It's in my nature. I'm surprised you aren't more entertained  by my hedonism, given how the fae usually work."

He  shrugged. "Your exploits bore me. Pole in hole gets old after a while.  Plus it's a reminder I'm not out there in my own body. You could be  working on that as we speak, by the way. Two heads are better than one.  If you get me a body I could really help out with your vampire problem."

I'd  actually considered that at one point, but...something about the  reflection was off. I was planning to get it a body, but only when I was  definitively strong enough to handle whatever inevitable bullshit it  tried to pull once I did. It was me after all, and I knew I'd probably  betray me given an ounce of motivation. Still..."What happened to no  rush? I thought as a fae fragment you were unbothered by the passage of  time?"

"Well...mostly unbothered. The longer you wait the  more bored I get. Speaking of boredom, I think your goth girl is waiting  for you. Might want to get going. We DO have info waiting for us." He  nodded to the side, where I could see see Thorn looking back at me  curiously.

Winking at her, I reached up to adjust my  collar. "Sorry. Just adjusting my tie." The conversation had been  murmured too low for her to hear and my reflection and I could talk  pretty fast. It had only been a half a minute at most since I stopped.  As I caught up, I fumbled for something to distract her. "So how is  learning magic from Zee? You taking to it?" I knew she hadn't awakened  her abilities yet, since I'd checked when I saw her, but if she was  anything like Zee she would gush about her magic practice and stop  thinking about any weirdness about my little pause there.

Sure  enough, her pretty face lit up with excitement. "I've been learning SO  MUCH. I mean, nothing practical yet, Master says that theory is the  bedrock of the arcane arts, and that I need to completely understand the  basic elements of magic before I can cast. She says performing a spell  without a comprehensive understanding of how to alter or correct it on  the fly is reckless and dangerous, and preparation is the key to  success. She's been making me memorize basic magic tomes." She froze for  a second, realizing that might have come across as a complaint. "Not  that I mind. They're all fascinating. I've learned so much already!"

I  smirked at her. "Cool your jets. I'm not going to tell your magic mommy  that you don't like your homework. But it sounds like she's setting you  up for success there. Learning the basics is the most important part of  developing any skill. Becoming good at anything takes hard work." As  much as I disliked the fact, I was actually being sincere there. Gods  knew my old man made me study enough random bullshit as a kid, but I  appreciated it now. Not that I used as many of those skills now that I  was a dragon. It was deceptively easy to punch all my problems in the  face. I should probably watch that tendency.

She flushed  again, but nodded. "I know. I'm so grateful really. For you bringing me  here and for Master for taking me in. After Luna and Dusk bailed on  me...well, I don't know. I kind of retreated into myself. I have a few  friends I keep in touch with, but they travel a lot, so I don't talk to  them much. Being here though...I feel like I have a place again. Like I  have a purpose. I owe you so much Mammon."

Staring up at  me adoringly, her face shone with gratitude and affection...I wondered  if I could convince her to blow me right now? Probably best to wait, I  had a meeting with Zee anyway. Instead I just smiled back at her,  putting a hand lightly on her head. "Of course. We're friends Thorn. I'm  happy to be able to be there for you." I winked at her. "And helping a  pretty girl out of a tight spot isn't exactly a hardship even if we  weren't."

Cheeks getting even darker, she turned and set  off for the library again, almost skipping as she went. Gods it was easy  to convince women you were invested in them. When we finally made it to  the library, I stepped in, looking around for Zee and noticing a book  just in time to catch it before it hit me in the face. Granted, I was a  dragon, and Zee was a normal person physically, so even if I'd taken the  binding to the eyeball it wouldn't have much mattered, but still, it  seemed uncalled for.

I turned to cock my head at her, and  she just glared back. "Eight hours?" You couldn't get here faster than  EIGHT HOURS?" Her hair was a mess, and she had dark circles under her  eyes. She apparently hadn't slept recently. Ah, that explained the  temper. I walked over to where she sat and reached my hands up to place  fingers on her temple, beginning to rub. "Don't think that will-" She  paused mid sentence. "Oh wow that's nice. Get you out of the doghouse.  You owe me bigtime...ooooh. Please keep going."

I'd begun  to channel primal force through my fingers, just a little, but it seemed  to be helping. "Good girl." I murmured. "Just relax. You've worked  hard. Just recover a bit and you can tell me all about it. I'm sorry I  put you off. Be a sweetie and focus on the research, I need to know what  you know."

She moaned in relaxed ecstasy for a minute,  then exhaled deeply. "Right. Research. I'm ok now. You can let go,  otherwise I won't be able to focus." I nodded with a smile, and she  sighed happily as I withdrew my hands. "Ok. Right. The Order." She  turned to Thorn. "Sally, darling, bring Master that book I threw. It has  important information." Thorn scampered over and picked up the volume  and passed it to her. Zee reached up and patted her face. "Such a sweet  girl."

She thunked down the heavy book and flipped it open  searching through pages before she found a specific entry and spinning  the book to show it to me. "Took me a while, but the Order of St. Dumas  WAS in here. My dad ran into them some thirty years ago. They got his  interest enough that he did a deep dive into them, but the ones he drove  off were the only ones he ever met, so the info just went to waste."

The  entry was a record from about fifty years ago, about a priest at a  Gotham church who was harassed by organized crime. He warned them away,  telling them he was protected by the defenders of the faith, and they  laughed him off. Three days later their headless bodies washed up on the  shores of Gotham Harbor. When approached about it, the priest informed  local authorities that Azrael had descended from heaven to seek  judgement against those who had wronged the church.

There  were a few other references to a similar figure in the nearby open  volumes, Azrael, who was noted to be a powerful man in medieval armor  whose face was obscured on every sighting. Oddly, the same armor seemed  to be present in every recounting, with each person noting an  otherworldly coldness just from glancing at the suit of mail.

Zee  pointed at one of the references to the armor. "I was able to cobble  together enough details from the various recountings to have a good idea  of what the suit was. I think it was an enchanted suit of armor called  the Suit of Sorrows. It was created by a radical splinter group of  Templar knights called the Order of Purity. They made it by melting down  the swords of a number of their members who were killed in a great  battle...in the 14th century."

That was more than a bit  confusing. "Ok. So the Order of St. Dumas, formerly the Order of Purity,  were a splinter cult of the Templars who were mainly wiped out in  battle with Lilith when she was originally killed, and they came to  Gotham to kill off Liliths worshipers when they found out they were  trying to bring her back? How did they even find out she was here?"

Her  only response to that was a shrug. "No clue, but they've been taking  potshots at the cultists for decades. They're still around, but they've  been driven underground from what I can tell. Probably because the  cultists have gathered an absurd amount of power-"

"As the  Court of Owls. Yeah. That much I figured out." I sighed. "So we need to  find out where the hell that cathedral ended up, and the only way to do  that is to find a group of underground religious nutjobs who went into  hiding decades ago to stop themselves from being hunted to extinction by  the people we're currently working with the hunt the vampires trying to  bring back the vampire queen that the zealots helped kill in the first  place. My fucking head hurts."

The question here was who  the hell was going to try to kill me here. If the Court were Lilith's  worshipers then they were most likely my enemies, but Templar  supremacists weren't likely to be excited to work with a dragon. With a  sigh I just waved it off. "Alright." I said. "Pass me some of those  books. Our next step is to dig up anything we can on Azreal. I refuse to  believe a nutcase in a magic suit of armor has stayed underground all  this time. Let's get to researching."

Things were lining  up in extremely odd ways, but not all of them were bad. I had a feeling  that suit of armor might be another way to take care of Lilith. If not I  had the stake plan as backup, but hopefully I could not only save  myself tons of points, but gain some more when I acquired it. I mean,  sure I'd have to rob a bunch of priests, but that was their problem.