There were two problems. First off, the bar was more heavily populated with demons than we had expected. My guess is that there were between six and ten demons there. My Song of Shields Ethereal alone was deflecting several attacks in the first few seconds of its existence. Secondly, the demons did not appear to be servitors of Malphas. We had reason to believe our tactic of claiming just one of their number (and a servitor of another Price, for that matter) would draw only minor resistance from Factions. Alas, this had not been the case.
Still, as I said before, everything was going reasonably well. One of the demons right next to me shot at me, but easily stepped away at the last moment. I picked up the slumped form of the shedim Blood Knife Joe in my left hand, discarded the bat and drew forth Soulpiercer with my right hand. They were about to open fire on Malcolm and I had to cut into their ranks and draw their fire.
That's when it all fell apart. I thought there was no force that could overcome a Song of Shields, but I was wrong. There was a dark moment of intense FEAR. I looked around me in terror. DEMONS! Panic does not accurately describe what happened next. I had to get out of there. I flung Blood Knife Joe away from me as hard as I could and ran for the door. Malcolm must have felt the FEAR too, because he ran out the door ahead of me. I tried to keep up. I heard on explosion behind us, but I couldn't look back. I didn't even want to see the demons. Malcolm got to the car first and jumped in. I trailed behind yelling for him to wait. There was some guy leaning on the hood, but we had no time. I jumped in the car and Malcolm peeled out. He had the right idea. We had to get up to Heaven away from those demons. It was the only safe place. We drove to the tether at The Epiphany of Our Lord Church, ran in and went right up to Heaven.
Up in Laurence's Cathedral we had some time to catch our wits. Malcolm said that Beleth had come down into the bar. That made sense. I remembered seeing a smile cross the face of the lady at the Spitfire right before I felt the FEAR. Beleth was strong enough to shatter my shield and fracture our minds like this. Still, a question nagged at me. Why would she manifest for such a minor event? Was Blood Knife Joe so important to her plans? Had the woman summoned her? It is almost as though the superiors have all focused on our activities.
Malcolm thought he saw a few demons in the Cathedral. I tried to convince him that surely Laurence's Cathedral was safe from demons, but he was persistent. It was sort of a blur to me. We were completely mad. We ran all over Heaven. I followed Malcolm to the market, the groves, and eventually to the glade. In the glade we found some angels of flowers who were able to calm and soothe us. They were so nice and so understanding. I tried to explain. "I've been on earth fighting the war for almost a thousand years now, but I never realized... The Demons... they're so terrible and they're everywhere! How had I never seen it before? Why didn't anyone tell me?!?"
I was in the process of begging them to avoid going earth when Novalis showed up. She listened to our story and decided to go get Laurence to handle this. That sounded like such a good idea at the time, but when I look back it was probably the most embarrassing situation of my whole life. I was reduced to a whimpering mess right there in front of him. There was no excuse for my behavior, and Laurence was rightfully upset. He made it very clear that my next screw-up would be my last for a long time. Never-the-less he remove our all-encompassing phobias and additionally he gave attunements to both Malcolm and me. I can't understand his motives for doing this, but I'm thankful for it.
The attunement I was granted was that of Laurence's Seraphim. Based off the Symphony, I should be able to judge whether those I battle are ultimately good or evil. Alas, I struggle with the symphony. I all but ignored it for hundreds of years. It has only been recently that my own Cherubim attunement has become clear and reliable. Perhaps this new attunement will lead me to a heighten ability to perceive the Symphony. I can only hope and strive, for this ability to determine my opponents alliances would truly be valuable.
Malcolm and I descended back to DC. via one of Novalis' tethers and arrived in a botanical gardens.
The plan boiled down to this. We figured Meade and Gardener were our best leads. If those failed we'd go back to Father Remy. We walked back to Malcolm's car and drove over to Carl Meade's place. Unsurprisingly the scene had been taped off with police line. We had already suspected that Carl had been killed. This was good enough confirmation, so we drove over to Ron Gardener's apartment. We knocked on the door for a bit. There was no answer and the door was locked so I shouldered the hinges and threw the door open. There was Ron with a shotgun. He fired wildly, saving me the trouble of defending Malcolm, who rushed Ron and slapped the gun away from him. We questioned Ron about whose side he was on, but he was just as suspicious of us and guarded with his information as he had been on the phone. He questioned our intentions and even suggested that we might be from The Game. This was absurd. No matter what we suggested Ron remained uncooperative, so eventually we informed him the he could accompany us the heaven for questioning or we could drag him there. He chose there hard way. I dropped him with a single punch and stuff his head in a pillow case so he couldn't pull any funny stuff.
Before we left Malcolm gathered up a garbage bag full of books and paper, which turned out to an amazingly good idea. Within these papers Dumial, seneschal of the sword tether, was able to find a spreadsheet and other information that was quite incriminating to Dominic. Dumial suggested that we rush this information upstairs. Malcolm pulled off another triumph while we were at the tether, holding Ron Gardener's struggling, Habbalite form still long enough for him to be fully destroyed by the tether. No wonder Ron hadn't wanted to talk to us. He had already fallen.