Greed's pupils dilate violently, the heat in them still struggling to simmer to a cool. Murmur's question hits hard. The ones that made it out are a sorry bunch now, spending their time licking their wounds or tending to those who are far more worse for wear. Others, however. The Sin's mouth forms like a flash chill to gold; his frown soft, but firm.
"Don't worry about it," he says, lowly. "For now, need you to take care of yourself, hmn?" Greed tongues the filter of his smoke to drag in a fresh breath of ash. Ash. That's where some of them went. Burned to dust and scattered only to be lost to neither Heaven nor Hell, but to the void in between. A nothing, an emptiness.
The Sin stretches his legs and as the tendons snap and crunch, he casts a look over the pews. Dolcetto and Roa, over at the old-wood confessional, cleaning their cuts and slices with fresh brandy. Martel tending to Bido in the most comforting way she can. Bido and his visible tremors making his hood quiver in the gloom. Greed's jaw sets and threatens the filter of his cigarette, making the paper and tobacco floss brisk between his teeth.
He pops something against the inside of his cheek and a peel of lemon sleepily unfurls around his knuckles; the look of it like a snake, hatching from a shell. "Just in case you need it," he slurs before gingerly pinching the curl at the rim of Murmur's cup.
A delicate topic to be sure, but one that needed to be clarified nonetheless. It was important to know their status, they were safe only for the moment after all. Hands may be needed sooner rather than later.
"It is for prudence that I ask, while they are unlikely to attack us in this place, it is best to know where we stand." He echoes that frown, taking Greed's silence to mean that of those not scattered about the temporary safe zone, it was unlikely they'd be returning. His gaze followed Greed's, they were in a sorry state, likely the Nest wouldn't survive another surprise assault. Not like this. "Tell me, did they happen to collect that fallen wing in their retreat?"
A strange, macabre request perhaps but Murmur had a reason for it. He always did, after all, and removing the wing while allowing its owner to escape with their life had been a calculated maneuver. Allowing himself a momentary distraction he accepted the lemon, plopping it with grace into his tea. "My gratitude," He does, in fact, like the flavor.
Something coy tugs at the corner of his mouth. Between the cigarette smoke and the ghostly blue of the abandoned church, a heat suddenly fumes across his face; as if some want, some desire, has already been satisfied.
Greed inhales, eating away half of his cigarette. "Know me too well, don't you?" Purring, he breathes his words into life in a rush of air through his nose. "Doc's got it in the safest place in the world." The Sin cants his head, causing the rest of his body to tip and teeter like a dancer drunk on applause. "Figured it'd be a good spot. Besides, it gives me an excuse to give our good ol' friends upstairs a message in return for the shit they pulled tonight."
He slinks back and as his heels rap-rap-rap across the church floor, the Sin takes the lead. He weaves away from the pews and up to the ceremonial platform; his legs and torso maneuvering between wreckage and stockpiles alike more similar to a vulture plucking its way through a funeral's buffet.
It's only when he gets to the confessional, does he pause. What had probably been a pristine structure once has quietly transformed over the night. The wood's been smeared in oil - a dump of ashtrays, matchboxes, and cash from the bar litters the carpet. Greed takes it all in with a lopsided grin; his eyes reignited to a gassy purple-pink.
He strikes the back of his teeth with his tongue. "Welcome to our little congregation handsome. Let me show you around - " He starts and with a gentle lift of his wrist, the curtain to the confessional pulls away, revealing the severed wing. Someone, at some point, had taken the time to carefully wrap it. Red-silk curtains from the bar's private rooms loop around the feathers, leaving it cushioned, yet stable for transport.
The Sin shuffles to one side of the tight space to leave Murmur enough room to enter. "Thought it might be worth saving," he pinches his cigarette from the tip to snuff it between his fingers. "Guess they weren't wrong, huh?"
Greed leans forward, his lips pursed. For a while, he just stares at it - all the feathers left without an owner, how much space it fills. There's worth there, and he knows it. It calls to him like blood to a shark. The price of it, the power of it, the sheer unfathomable possibilities.
Yet -
The cigarette butt finds the confessional's floor and the Sin eases back and away into a sluggish slouch. "Equivalent exchange," he remarks, absently. "For what you did back there. It's yours."
"I make it a habit to know well those I choose to engage with, yes," He responded with a wry smirk of his own. Gingerly he moved to stand, wincing slightly at the sting. The wound would heal quickly enough, but angelic weapons were particularly suited to damaging other angels just as well as they were designed to cut down demons. Of course he knew they'd collect the fallen wing, they couldn't resist a treasure like that. Nor the act of revenge it represented.
That was all part of Murmur's calculated plan.
Sipping his tea he moved to follow, curious how Greed would define the "safest place" possible for such a thing. Of course, he quickly regretted wondering and had to shake his head at the sight of such a defiled confessional. Not that he had any particular attachment to the practice, the ways of mortals were not the ways of angels after all. How they decided to repent was up to them... even so, this church was one he did not want the demons getting too comfortable in. It was still consecrated ground, after all, and that was the very thing protecting them right now. Angels would not perform violence here, it would be unsavory to them.
For now even they were granted sanctuary in such a place.
"I expected they might," He looked pleased, brushing past the Sin to inspect his prize. He did raise an eyebrow at all the pomp and show of gifting it to him, and couldn't help the faint exasperation that escaped him. It belonged to him by right of battle, but that was hardly the part he was exasperated by. "You really must stop underestimating me, Avarice." Now he's using the name to express his disappointment. "This," He reached out and tweaked a feather, and for the briefest moment a flash of a most predatory grin crossed his features. "Is bait. I have already laid the groundwork. Three cast from their earthly vessels, three failing to tear down a tarnished traitor, and one to lose a wing in the process. Not only have we cost them grave injury, but more than that they have been humiliated. This one will stop at nothing to have his wing returned, lest he be disgraced for eternity."
There was a triumph there, subtle and yet as sharp as any of his blades of ice. As though victory could be claimed already in a battle not yet even fought. "With this, you have an avenue for revenge. Moreover you have an avenue for information, which is far more valuable now as forces align against you. We have but to lay the trap."
Murmur planned it all out. As soon as the attack happened every step had been calculated, every angel taken down, every angel allowed to escape, and even his own injury had all been moves in a greater game. Greed was lucky this one was on his side.
Just as swiftly as the first had gone out, a new cigarette appears between the Sin's fingers in a single, slick motion. He plays with it; flipping it over a knuckle, making it disappear into the palm of his hand only to have it appear out the other side again with nothing but air and an assurance of a quick fix.
Greed arches an eyebrow and as it breaks over the rims of his shades, the look on his face is uncanny. It's sick with desire; fumed with want. But it isn't for his usual. Gold, riches, women, company, sex - no, those couldn't hold a candle to what he truly desires. That need, no that right for pure, raw vengeance; it grips at him like a snare. The corner of his mouth shrinks and his teeth crack open, inviting and welcoming the butt end of his cigarette as smoothly as a signature to paper.
When his thumb ignites again, the flame shimmers to a rich, fat-bellied gold. "Sounds like you've got this all planned out," he swirls his tongue to release a spiral of fresh smoke. "-knew I shouldn't underestimate you. It's pretty impressive." He ashes a bit onto the floor and carefully smooths out any hot coals with the heel of his boot. "Made a few calls of my own. The Coven - " Trilling, the Sin lifts a hand into the air to twirl at a strand of soot until it condenses and reshapes itself into something of a curvy figure. "-Bido's making sure they take care of the rest. By tonight, the 'Nest'll be back in working order. Just might be harder for some of my infrequent visitors to find the place for a while. You still got the thing I gave you?"
The matchbox: a one-way ticket. Greed fumbles through his pockets to pull one out. "If not, I got one of these left for the time being. Call it a precaution." He pushes the side with his thumb to check the contents and a couple of measly sticks rattle and roll into a corner. "Don't have a lot left, so you'll have to hold off until then. In the meantime, I have my own to deal with."
Because heavenly bodies weren't the only ones working tonight, oh no. They had help. Help from deep below in a crooked shape and a vile face that he knew all too well.
The devil sharpens his teeth on the filter of his cigarette, making the paper wheeze like a lung, blackened by disease. "Never been one to pass on a discount myself. And what's better than two for the price of one? Besides - " Red brands behind his sunglasses, burning into the glass and pulsing as sure as a wildfire raging deep in a wooded pit. "-I think it's about time little Envy got their dues."
At this juncture Murmur would find it more strange if his proposition didn't elicit a dramatic response. Greed was a creature easy to predict, by his nature he coveted everything there was or ever could be to covet, but the trick was in knowing what he valued. It wasn't simple gold or trophies, no, it was those who he had claimed as his own. And Envy had made a dreadful mistake in bringing harm upon them. It was only reasonable to quell this threat before things got out of hand.
"Still working out some of the details," Murmur continued, moving to find himself a clear spot on the pew to rest and sip his tea, apparently unbothered by the severed limb in his company. He gestured for Greed to join him, they'd not had a moment to truly sit and discuss much of anything, much less tactics. At the question he reached into one of the many inner pockets in his thick coat, drawing out the box of so far unused matches to rattle it at the Sin. He'll be fine, and if need be he's sure he could collect a few more.
Before Greed could leave him so quickly again he chimed in: "I have a request."
"And what sort of details would those be?" The Sin asks, his voice tangled up in a slur. The sound that shivers out of him is a mix of a purr and a hum; the tune of it, a sweet, honey-suckle poison. Because he is predictable. What he wants is simple, what he craves is easy: an eye for an eye, a tooth of a tooth, and if Envy is the ugly monster, Avarice?
Avarice is the loaner quick on the heels whenever jealousy overextends its reach.
Greed tosses his cigarette into a ceremonial goblet as he follows Murmur's lead, leaving the idea to simmer for a later time. "Not exactly a clean night, so I don't expect results right away," he starts in while his body falls into an empty spot on the pew. With no regard to the sanctimony of things, he lets his legs and arms sprawl. He hooks his heels up and across the back of the pews and the rest of him sags to fill up the space. His whole demeanor still casual, cool.
"Oh-?" He cocks his head slightly to the side. "And here I thought you'd never take me up on an offer. Well, shit - " The Sin pops his lips, causing something hot to stir in his cheek. "Name it. Whatever you want," he begins before cutting himself off with a wave. "-no strings attached. Devil's honor."
"The where, for a start. Choose a suitable location, one that would be unlikely to arouse more suspicion than necessary. I will need time to prepare the binding wards, but it shall be done. Once that is in place we need merely bait the trap. Between my work and that of the coven capturing your messenger pigeon will be assured."
Again an eyebrow rose, the faintest hint of a smirk briefly touching his features, more tooth than necessary and with an air that he expects Greed will soon come to dislike what it is he wishes to request. "It is not for me," Of course not, it never is. "The angel. I would prefer it if you did not slaughter him. While he has transgressed against you remember that they act on orders and little else. Doubtful he even understands the web he's fallen into. Being forcefully evicted from one's Earthly body is agony enough, but outright destruction is..." He looks distant for a moment, maybe even pained, but it's brief and Murmur is a master of keeping his facial features under control.
"Their numbers only dwindle. There is only one method by which angels come into existence and a new one has not been created in millennia. Your display of mercy will not go unnoticed."
He may be an exile, but he still carries the weight of duty even if it seems counter intuitive.
Greed's fingers tip and tap atop the pew in thought. "I think I have a spot that'll work. But the rest of them stay here," he orders, his nail stopping short enough on the wood to draw a thin line. "I don't need any more of my things getting damaged. That being said, the place hasn't been touched in a while, so I might have to clear it out myself. How much time do you need?"
But for how quickly that serious tone comes, it's gone; in a flash of teeth, in a too-wide grin that gapes, stretches, and promises to one day, oh one day, swallow the world and everything in it. The Sin's eyebrows touch ever-so-slightly together; his face, a picture-perfect vision of eagerness. "Somehow, I thought that'd be the case - you really push a hard bargain, friend." His tongue lashes, splitting and reforming together again like magnetic glue.
However, his expression drops. Vengeance, payback: it's a thin line for him to walk. Because Murmur isn't wrong. The angel has already been stripped to its core; reduced and smothered, a punishment worse than anything he could possibly give. Still, that core of his twists and writhes. It pushes up his throat, making his jaw set and his eyes wander, as if looking for an answer. "It's a waste. I get it. Still," a heat rises off his finger as it turns crooked and sharp, making the wood of the pew hiss in a smoke. "-no one takes what's mine, Angel. I hope, for his sake, he remembers that."
Greed yanks his heels down, causing them to smack hard against the church's stony floor. "I'll make sure he doesn't die, but I can't promise anything else." Meaning, well, anything. Because isn't it true? A pound of flesh is a drop in the bucket.
And greed, ah greed: how it always calls for more.
"It is best they keep their distance." He agreed. There wasn't any need to utilize more of the Nesters, best to not have to worry about keeping them out of harm's way while trying to trap an angel. Even one of lower rank, such as the one whose wing he tore off, was a dangerous adversary to demons and their kin. "I will require time enough to collect materials, should you find yourself taking longer than I to clear the space then I suppose I could lend a hand." Loathe as he was to do so, despite his display Murmur did not enjoy fighting.
"I never do things by halves, you should know that by now." He responded in kind with an echoed smirk, much diluted compared to Greed's all-consuming grin. It was a difficult request, but an important one all the same. He had a feeling Greed would come to see it his way. "Your actions will be remembered, of that I can promise you. For angels, mercy is not weakness it is divine. They will know the threat for what it is, that you had every right to take back what was taken from you and then some. In light of that siding with any of your brethren again will be unlikely."
Murmur gestured dismissively, he wasn't asking Greed to be gentle by any means. "Do as you will, it will be a valuable lesson in vetting allegiances. Besides, at the end of this your reward will be much more delectable than one plucked pigeon." Greed could do whatever he wanted to Envy, especially once his Heavenly envoy had been dispersed.
Rising out of the crook of the pew, Greed gives a slow, dismissive wave over his shoulder. "No, no need. I can take care of it," he drawls in, his voice as fine as churning smoke. There's something about the way he stands (the semi-slouch, the way one of his heels lifts drearily off the floor to hover on the point of his toe) that says it all. He's weighing it out; chewing it. The debate of what he wants and his own, self-inflicted rules battling for control.
On the one hand, killing would be a waste, sure enough. On the other hand, he deserved something. Retribution: a tax, a payment with interest, and if Heaven wasn't about to pay the fee, well.
A series of holes begin to pit under the point of his boot; their formation, sluggish and pickled in rot. Greed's shoulders stiffen. "A valuable lesson - is that it?" A drop of wet falls form his mouth and sizzles gold onto the concrete. "You really are a pain, you know. But fine - it's a deal." He pockets his hands and as the angry smear beneath his foot puts itself out, the Sin lets his body fall lax; his ego, all but coming in to smother the notion.
He can wait. After all, his real target should be easy to bait. Envy was and is a predictable creature. No doubt, it's still licking its wounds from earlier. And a loss for jealousy? Well, that would just piss it off enough to do something stupid, wouldn't it?
Greed's mouth wrangles itself into its usual, self-appreciating grin. "Give me a couple of hours. I'll call you on Martel's phone." He thumbs over his shoulder to gesture back at the crew behind him. "She can give you the direction of the place once I'm done."
Murmur wasn't telling Greed not to get his due, not at all, he was simply directing that retribution in a more... constructive direction. A war with Heaven would do nothing but cause more loss. It was unnecessary, and more than that Heaven didn't need pulled into the quarrel between warring Sins. It wasn't normal for them to get involved in such things anyway, this would only serve as a reminder.
And in a way, paint Greed in the light that Murmur saw him, or at the very least the light he pretended was the case: Predictable, and most interested in maintaining his own little kingdom. Not a threat to Heaven, not a threat to stability. Murmur was gambling that in the long run those of the Holy City would be disinclined to repeat this endeavor and instead choose to leave Greed to his devices. He keeps to his own, they to theirs, and the other Sins will have to find new pawns for their games. Murmur of course would always be on their hit list, but that was a problem for a later date.
With Heaven out of the way peaceably, Greed could focus his efforts on the real problem: Envy. "There are other boons to this path," Murmur advises, mysterious as ever. He's not going to go into unnecessary detail, he's not lead Greed astray yet. Finishing off his tea he set the cup aside gingerly, pushing it back toward the Sin to return to his treasury, wherever that might be. "Excellent. Understood. I will return when I have obtained what I need."
He'd like more time to heal, but time was never a gift he had enough of. Before Greed could say anything else he was gone, little more than a gentle cool breeze and the faintest flap of a wing to signal his departure. He'd return by the appointed hour.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
SORRY FOR THE DELAY
"Don't worry about it," he says, lowly. "For now, need you to take care of yourself, hmn?" Greed tongues the filter of his smoke to drag in a fresh breath of ash. Ash. That's where some of them went. Burned to dust and scattered only to be lost to neither Heaven nor Hell, but to the void in between. A nothing, an emptiness.
The Sin stretches his legs and as the tendons snap and crunch, he casts a look over the pews. Dolcetto and Roa, over at the old-wood confessional, cleaning their cuts and slices with fresh brandy. Martel tending to Bido in the most comforting way she can. Bido and his visible tremors making his hood quiver in the gloom. Greed's jaw sets and threatens the filter of his cigarette, making the paper and tobacco floss brisk between his teeth.
He pops something against the inside of his cheek and a peel of lemon sleepily unfurls around his knuckles; the look of it like a snake, hatching from a shell. "Just in case you need it," he slurs before gingerly pinching the curl at the rim of Murmur's cup.
No worries! Likewise tbh I'm in crochet hell
"It is for prudence that I ask, while they are unlikely to attack us in this place, it is best to know where we stand." He echoes that frown, taking Greed's silence to mean that of those not scattered about the temporary safe zone, it was unlikely they'd be returning. His gaze followed Greed's, they were in a sorry state, likely the Nest wouldn't survive another surprise assault. Not like this. "Tell me, did they happen to collect that fallen wing in their retreat?"
A strange, macabre request perhaps but Murmur had a reason for it. He always did, after all, and removing the wing while allowing its owner to escape with their life had been a calculated maneuver. Allowing himself a momentary distraction he accepted the lemon, plopping it with grace into his tea. "My gratitude," He does, in fact, like the flavor.
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Greed inhales, eating away half of his cigarette. "Know me too well, don't you?" Purring, he breathes his words into life in a rush of air through his nose. "Doc's got it in the safest place in the world." The Sin cants his head, causing the rest of his body to tip and teeter like a dancer drunk on applause. "Figured it'd be a good spot. Besides, it gives me an excuse to give our good ol' friends upstairs a message in return for the shit they pulled tonight."
He slinks back and as his heels rap-rap-rap across the church floor, the Sin takes the lead. He weaves away from the pews and up to the ceremonial platform; his legs and torso maneuvering between wreckage and stockpiles alike more similar to a vulture plucking its way through a funeral's buffet.
It's only when he gets to the confessional, does he pause. What had probably been a pristine structure once has quietly transformed over the night. The wood's been smeared in oil - a dump of ashtrays, matchboxes, and cash from the bar litters the carpet. Greed takes it all in with a lopsided grin; his eyes reignited to a gassy purple-pink.
He strikes the back of his teeth with his tongue. "Welcome to our little congregation handsome. Let me show you around - " He starts and with a gentle lift of his wrist, the curtain to the confessional pulls away, revealing the severed wing. Someone, at some point, had taken the time to carefully wrap it. Red-silk curtains from the bar's private rooms loop around the feathers, leaving it cushioned, yet stable for transport.
The Sin shuffles to one side of the tight space to leave Murmur enough room to enter. "Thought it might be worth saving," he pinches his cigarette from the tip to snuff it between his fingers. "Guess they weren't wrong, huh?"
Greed leans forward, his lips pursed. For a while, he just stares at it - all the feathers left without an owner, how much space it fills. There's worth there, and he knows it. It calls to him like blood to a shark. The price of it, the power of it, the sheer unfathomable possibilities.
Yet -
The cigarette butt finds the confessional's floor and the Sin eases back and away into a sluggish slouch. "Equivalent exchange," he remarks, absently. "For what you did back there. It's yours."
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That was all part of Murmur's calculated plan.
Sipping his tea he moved to follow, curious how Greed would define the "safest place" possible for such a thing. Of course, he quickly regretted wondering and had to shake his head at the sight of such a defiled confessional. Not that he had any particular attachment to the practice, the ways of mortals were not the ways of angels after all. How they decided to repent was up to them... even so, this church was one he did not want the demons getting too comfortable in. It was still consecrated ground, after all, and that was the very thing protecting them right now. Angels would not perform violence here, it would be unsavory to them.
For now even they were granted sanctuary in such a place.
"I expected they might," He looked pleased, brushing past the Sin to inspect his prize. He did raise an eyebrow at all the pomp and show of gifting it to him, and couldn't help the faint exasperation that escaped him. It belonged to him by right of battle, but that was hardly the part he was exasperated by. "You really must stop underestimating me, Avarice." Now he's using the name to express his disappointment. "This," He reached out and tweaked a feather, and for the briefest moment a flash of a most predatory grin crossed his features. "Is bait. I have already laid the groundwork. Three cast from their earthly vessels, three failing to tear down a tarnished traitor, and one to lose a wing in the process. Not only have we cost them grave injury, but more than that they have been humiliated. This one will stop at nothing to have his wing returned, lest he be disgraced for eternity."
There was a triumph there, subtle and yet as sharp as any of his blades of ice. As though victory could be claimed already in a battle not yet even fought. "With this, you have an avenue for revenge. Moreover you have an avenue for information, which is far more valuable now as forces align against you. We have but to lay the trap."
Murmur planned it all out. As soon as the attack happened every step had been calculated, every angel taken down, every angel allowed to escape, and even his own injury had all been moves in a greater game. Greed was lucky this one was on his side.
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Greed arches an eyebrow and as it breaks over the rims of his shades, the look on his face is uncanny. It's sick with desire; fumed with want. But it isn't for his usual. Gold, riches, women, company, sex - no, those couldn't hold a candle to what he truly desires. That need, no that right for pure, raw vengeance; it grips at him like a snare. The corner of his mouth shrinks and his teeth crack open, inviting and welcoming the butt end of his cigarette as smoothly as a signature to paper.
When his thumb ignites again, the flame shimmers to a rich, fat-bellied gold. "Sounds like you've got this all planned out," he swirls his tongue to release a spiral of fresh smoke. "-knew I shouldn't underestimate you. It's pretty impressive." He ashes a bit onto the floor and carefully smooths out any hot coals with the heel of his boot. "Made a few calls of my own. The Coven - " Trilling, the Sin lifts a hand into the air to twirl at a strand of soot until it condenses and reshapes itself into something of a curvy figure. "-Bido's making sure they take care of the rest. By tonight, the 'Nest'll be back in working order. Just might be harder for some of my infrequent visitors to find the place for a while. You still got the thing I gave you?"
The matchbox: a one-way ticket. Greed fumbles through his pockets to pull one out. "If not, I got one of these left for the time being. Call it a precaution." He pushes the side with his thumb to check the contents and a couple of measly sticks rattle and roll into a corner. "Don't have a lot left, so you'll have to hold off until then. In the meantime, I have my own to deal with."
Because heavenly bodies weren't the only ones working tonight, oh no. They had help. Help from deep below in a crooked shape and a vile face that he knew all too well.
The devil sharpens his teeth on the filter of his cigarette, making the paper wheeze like a lung, blackened by disease. "Never been one to pass on a discount myself. And what's better than two for the price of one? Besides - " Red brands behind his sunglasses, burning into the glass and pulsing as sure as a wildfire raging deep in a wooded pit. "-I think it's about time little Envy got their dues."
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"Still working out some of the details," Murmur continued, moving to find himself a clear spot on the pew to rest and sip his tea, apparently unbothered by the severed limb in his company. He gestured for Greed to join him, they'd not had a moment to truly sit and discuss much of anything, much less tactics. At the question he reached into one of the many inner pockets in his thick coat, drawing out the box of so far unused matches to rattle it at the Sin. He'll be fine, and if need be he's sure he could collect a few more.
Before Greed could leave him so quickly again he chimed in: "I have a request."
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Avarice is the loaner quick on the heels whenever jealousy overextends its reach.
Greed tosses his cigarette into a ceremonial goblet as he follows Murmur's lead, leaving the idea to simmer for a later time. "Not exactly a clean night, so I don't expect results right away," he starts in while his body falls into an empty spot on the pew. With no regard to the sanctimony of things, he lets his legs and arms sprawl. He hooks his heels up and across the back of the pews and the rest of him sags to fill up the space. His whole demeanor still casual, cool.
"Oh-?" He cocks his head slightly to the side. "And here I thought you'd never take me up on an offer. Well, shit - " The Sin pops his lips, causing something hot to stir in his cheek. "Name it. Whatever you want," he begins before cutting himself off with a wave. "-no strings attached. Devil's honor."
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Again an eyebrow rose, the faintest hint of a smirk briefly touching his features, more tooth than necessary and with an air that he expects Greed will soon come to dislike what it is he wishes to request. "It is not for me," Of course not, it never is. "The angel. I would prefer it if you did not slaughter him. While he has transgressed against you remember that they act on orders and little else. Doubtful he even understands the web he's fallen into. Being forcefully evicted from one's Earthly body is agony enough, but outright destruction is..." He looks distant for a moment, maybe even pained, but it's brief and Murmur is a master of keeping his facial features under control.
"Their numbers only dwindle. There is only one method by which angels come into existence and a new one has not been created in millennia. Your display of mercy will not go unnoticed."
He may be an exile, but he still carries the weight of duty even if it seems counter intuitive.
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But for how quickly that serious tone comes, it's gone; in a flash of teeth, in a too-wide grin that gapes, stretches, and promises to one day, oh one day, swallow the world and everything in it. The Sin's eyebrows touch ever-so-slightly together; his face, a picture-perfect vision of eagerness. "Somehow, I thought that'd be the case - you really push a hard bargain, friend." His tongue lashes, splitting and reforming together again like magnetic glue.
However, his expression drops. Vengeance, payback: it's a thin line for him to walk. Because Murmur isn't wrong. The angel has already been stripped to its core; reduced and smothered, a punishment worse than anything he could possibly give. Still, that core of his twists and writhes. It pushes up his throat, making his jaw set and his eyes wander, as if looking for an answer. "It's a waste. I get it. Still," a heat rises off his finger as it turns crooked and sharp, making the wood of the pew hiss in a smoke. "-no one takes what's mine, Angel. I hope, for his sake, he remembers that."
Greed yanks his heels down, causing them to smack hard against the church's stony floor. "I'll make sure he doesn't die, but I can't promise anything else." Meaning, well, anything. Because isn't it true? A pound of flesh is a drop in the bucket.
And greed, ah greed: how it always calls for more.
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"I never do things by halves, you should know that by now." He responded in kind with an echoed smirk, much diluted compared to Greed's all-consuming grin. It was a difficult request, but an important one all the same. He had a feeling Greed would come to see it his way. "Your actions will be remembered, of that I can promise you. For angels, mercy is not weakness it is divine. They will know the threat for what it is, that you had every right to take back what was taken from you and then some. In light of that siding with any of your brethren again will be unlikely."
Murmur gestured dismissively, he wasn't asking Greed to be gentle by any means. "Do as you will, it will be a valuable lesson in vetting allegiances. Besides, at the end of this your reward will be much more delectable than one plucked pigeon." Greed could do whatever he wanted to Envy, especially once his Heavenly envoy had been dispersed.
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On the one hand, killing would be a waste, sure enough. On the other hand, he deserved something. Retribution: a tax, a payment with interest, and if Heaven wasn't about to pay the fee, well.
A series of holes begin to pit under the point of his boot; their formation, sluggish and pickled in rot. Greed's shoulders stiffen. "A valuable lesson - is that it?" A drop of wet falls form his mouth and sizzles gold onto the concrete. "You really are a pain, you know. But fine - it's a deal." He pockets his hands and as the angry smear beneath his foot puts itself out, the Sin lets his body fall lax; his ego, all but coming in to smother the notion.
He can wait. After all, his real target should be easy to bait. Envy was and is a predictable creature. No doubt, it's still licking its wounds from earlier. And a loss for jealousy? Well, that would just piss it off enough to do something stupid, wouldn't it?
Greed's mouth wrangles itself into its usual, self-appreciating grin. "Give me a couple of hours. I'll call you on Martel's phone." He thumbs over his shoulder to gesture back at the crew behind him. "She can give you the direction of the place once I'm done."
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And in a way, paint Greed in the light that Murmur saw him, or at the very least the light he pretended was the case: Predictable, and most interested in maintaining his own little kingdom. Not a threat to Heaven, not a threat to stability. Murmur was gambling that in the long run those of the Holy City would be disinclined to repeat this endeavor and instead choose to leave Greed to his devices. He keeps to his own, they to theirs, and the other Sins will have to find new pawns for their games. Murmur of course would always be on their hit list, but that was a problem for a later date.
With Heaven out of the way peaceably, Greed could focus his efforts on the real problem: Envy. "There are other boons to this path," Murmur advises, mysterious as ever. He's not going to go into unnecessary detail, he's not lead Greed astray yet. Finishing off his tea he set the cup aside gingerly, pushing it back toward the Sin to return to his treasury, wherever that might be. "Excellent. Understood. I will return when I have obtained what I need."
He'd like more time to heal, but time was never a gift he had enough of. Before Greed could say anything else he was gone, little more than a gentle cool breeze and the faintest flap of a wing to signal his departure. He'd return by the appointed hour.