The night after an event at Hvn was only quiet for those who performed. While the saying was, "no rest for the wicked," the night after an event at Hvn, it was the wicked who had the luxury to sleep. The fourth-floor hallway of ballrooms had gone under construction about an hour ago. While the festivities of the night were winding down, the guest liaison reassured the accommodations for cleanup were in place. Clutching a tablet in his hands, Malik walked down the main hall from the elevators and took a peek into each room. The mirrors had already been removed from the first room, the long table and chairs had already been removed from the dining room. However, the church from the third room had hardly been touched, if at all. Malik took in a deep breath and stared at the front of the room. The lights behind the fake, stained-glass window still backlit the glass as if it was an early Sunday morning. The spotlights from the show were off, but the regular lights in the room were enough to light up every piece of filth that littered the room.

Malik walked down the center aisle, his eyes locked on the image painted in stained glass. An angel with its white wings spread out, bent over a rock by a river as a horned demon thrust their thighs together from behind. It would be too naive to say the angel didn't have some resemblance to him. It had a youthful, slim figure much like himself rather than that of a cherub or seraphim. It had his short, bright blond hair. However, since one couldn't see the angel's face, he couldn't verify if its face was similar to his own. The eyes would have told him everything. The creature standing behind, the demon, wasn't that far different from the priest who had been giving the main show on the stage last night. Gage's sharp read horns stuck out from his darker hair. The bent over angel's rear-end was stained pink from the constant bouncing of hips against it.

Malik didn't want to look at it and couldn't keep his eyes off it at the same time. The only thing he wanted to know if that was supposed to be him. Continuing down the center of the room to the pulpit, his foot slipped on the rug beneath him and he grabbed onto a nearby pew to stop his fall. Small bits of debris broke against his hand and immediately Malik withdrew his hand. Crusty, dried cum from the show the night before reflected in splattered lines and puddles along the wooden pews. It stained the Bibles tucked into the back of the seats and the pillows on the kneeboards folded up beneath the shelves. A used condom smeared its filling against the carpet where Malik had just stepped and many others littered the floors, hiding in the corner of the seating, the corners of the room, and hung from the fake candlesticks and crosses.

"You like it?" Vasile's voice echoed in the room.

Malik turned around quickly to see Vasile standing in the sanctuary doorway. The dark circles that had been gathering under the man's eyes had disappeared at some point during the night after Malik had delivered him a requested guest. The vampire had made it clear that masquerade nights were usually reserved for fresh feasting more than any other night and Malik was to bring him the specific guest he requested when he was ready. He was also to see the guest out once Vasile was done with them. It wasn't something Malik felt good about, but when he was at the man's mercy, he didn't see much choice than to serve his wishes and it didn't seem like the guest was ever truly harmed when they walked out. Vasile's dark brown hair was still messy from the night, but his green eyes were bright and focused.

Malik shook his hand low as if it would get the feeling of crusty filth off of his skin then wiped it against his slacks. "Do I like what?"

"The chapel. The stained glass." Vasile took a couple of steps into the small church. "I put a lot of thought into that stained glass design, you know."

"It does appear thoughtful." Malik curled his hand around the back of the tablet.

"I think we should keep it. Reuse it. I'm sure we'll do a theme like this again soon."

Malik carefully surveyed the floor for any nearby messes he needed to avoid before taking a step toward Vasile. "I don't understand why this had to be a theme.

With subtly care, Vasile walks into the sanctuary toward Malik. "Do you know how many people get off on the defilement of the church?" When Malik didn't so much as a nod, Vasile said, "fucking in church is a fairly common fantasy."

"But what if the guests go to have sex in a real church after this?"

Vasile shrugged before crossing his arms. "What our guests do outside of these walls is their business."

"If that's a common fantasy, then what about... what about the pig on the plate?" Malik's cheeks flushed a little and rather than looking directly at Vasile, he diverted his attention to some of the furniture off to the side. More colorful condoms dotting the wood, more sprays of solidified semen and stains left behind by intercourse. In the back corner of the room was a small confessional booth with both doors closed, hiding any number of secrets by now.

"Gluttony and vanity are two perfectly good reasons someone might need to visit church and repent. The guests seemed to like it. If you loosened up a little, you might enjoy it too."

"I won't," Malik said without pause.

The small smile slowly melted off of Vasile's lips as he looked over the other man's expression. He moved toward Malik until he stood in front of him. There wasn't much to their height difference, but Vasile had plenty of authority leading him to stand taller and less passively than the younger angel. "And why's that?"

"Angels don't work that way."

"What way?"

Malik surveyed the room, his eyes lingered on the pink condom hanging on the the pew armrest beside him. A yellow condom, heavy at one end, hung out beneath the closed door on the confession booth. "I don't feel lust. Human desire is not only foreign to me, it is also impossible for me to feel. Place all the same stimuli before me as you would any of your guests and I will not respond in the same way."

Vasile crossed his arms and pursed his lips. "Are you telling me you lack the proper parts?"

"My body is a complete representation of a human male."

"But it doesn't work like it?"

"Because I'm not a human." Malik stared across the short distance into Vasile's eyes. The man had the features of a young man, barely twenty, but the age in his eyes went well beyond that. Thousands of years of history, decades that went well beyond Malik's own age where Vasile had more in common with the age of senior angels than they had with each other. While Malik was much younger than the age in Vasile's eyes implied, he didn't feel outmatched or worried, but rather interested in the other man's experiences.

"No, you're not," Vasile said.

The elevator dung down the hall and footsteps quickly pattered down the hall until Gage went shooting past the sanctuary's open doors. After walking past, he stepped back until he stood in the door. "Oh—Good, there you are, V." He only took a glance at the floor to be sure he wouldn't step in something on the rug before entering the sanctuary. He draped his arm around Vasile's neck and leaned against him. "What's the deal with the new guy?

Vasile's tension built and melted away quickly. By the time Gage ushered his question, his shoulders were down he plucked the demon's arm from his shoulder and stepped to the side. "What new guy? We haven't hired anyone this month."

"The one from last night. Red hair, black mask, real cute first timer." Gage's long, red pointed tail whipped to the side.

Vasile squeezed the bridge of his nose. "The incubus?"

"Is that what he is?" Gage's tail whipped the other way. He pursed his lips, looking straight toward the pulpit where he'd stood the night before. Slowly he nodded his head and pinched his chin between his fingers. "Makes sense. He's got a draw to him."

"That's the lure," Malik said.

Gage's attention locked onto Malik. "The what?"

"The lure. Since they feed on sexuality, when they are hungry, they release a phenomenal lure that drawers those of sexual desire nearer to them. This allows them to feed without force and to have a spread of meals. The hungrier they are, the more erratic they may become, so the lure draws prey to them in order to minimize damage and danger to the incubus," Malik said.

"Wow." Gage's head dropped to the side and he grinned. "I had no idea you knew so much about incubuses." Gage paused. "Incubi?" He stared at Malik. "What's the plural on that?" He dropped his head to the other side. Before Malik had the chance to respond, Gage said, "You sleep with one before?

"No," Malik said strictly, but without aggression. It was a matter of fact that he had no problem admitting to and it was delivered in the same way as the previous description. "Before angels are assigned anywhere they may run into a demon, we are required to study the different types of demons and learn, at least, the basics of their breed."

"So you must know all about me too, huh?" He glances sidelong at Vasile and licks his body lip. "Do you know about him?"

"I know what a vampire is, yes—" Malik said.

"Who doesn't though? They're all over pop culture. People can't wait to fuck a vampire, though that always made me wonder why V doesn't headline at his own parties, but who cares about that right now. I always wondered if he'd sparkle in the spotlight." Gage closed the gap between him and Malik. As he walked, his tail moved waved from side to side behind him, slowly and playfully twitching at the en din random spurts. "But--I digress. I actually wanna know what you know about me." He slipped his arm around Malik's shoulder as he came close enough and pulled the angel into him tightly. "It's like heaven-gossip."

Malik shook his head quickly, almost like a panic. "Oh, no. It's not gossip at all. I can assure you that everything we learn about demons in the White Library is strictly factual and for classification purposes. If we didn't understand demons and know how to recognize them, then when any of us ran into them on the mid-plane, we wouldn't know how to respond, what the demons purpose is, if they're violent, distracting, playful. We must diagnose what a demon's main purpose is in order to understand how they operate and what they are doing on the human or mid-plane."

"Oh," Gage held the word out. He connected eyes with Vasile for a moment and he raised his eyebrows, holding back a chuckle. "Well, tell me what you know about me."

There was a pause as Malik evaluated Gage, the closeness, the intonations of the demons voice. A smile spread quickly at the thought of sharing what he knew. "While you are a demon of desire, you are different from an incubus. A demon of desire does not feed specifically on sexual energy, but it feeds on the desires of the heart whether someone desires companionship, finances, revenge, or anything else. You assist them in accomplishing their desires, usually through encouragement and mild action as you receive the highest reward when they have accomplished their desire. However, you do not receive any satisfaction or reward if you are the one to satisfy the desires; you require the individual make reach for his or her prize on their own. In a way, you feed on the corruption the decisions cause upon the soul in order to receive ones desire. It is also said that demons of desire understand what the deep desires individuals seek even before their own awareness. After you have tasted their desire, demons of desire cultivate the human into temptation and action, whether it is over a short time or a long time. It is also said that—"

"God!" Gage pulled from around Malik's shoulders. He gripped a handful of his shirt in his hand and tugged on it a little as he stepped away, then released. "You talk a lot, you know?" Gage stepped toward Vasile, refocusing. "He always do this? It's like he's a fucking book, reading itself to me."

"You asked him a question," Vasile said.

"And I was expecting the juicy."

"You're talking to an angel."

Heavy footsteps gathered outside the chapel along with mop buckets sliding along the floor and a small group of men entered the room, some with tools, some with buckets and clothes for cleaning.

"You should move along now, Gage, unless you'd like to help them clean," Vasile said.

Gage spun on the balls of his feed and speedily made his way to the door. For each creature he walked past, he slid his hand over their shoulders, chest, cheek, anything he could playfully touch until he made it too the door. He grabbed hold of the frame and used it to half-face the room. "Watch out for the confessional. It's gonna be a little... saucy." He winked and walked away. A couple moments later, he came walking back. "Oh! Almost forgot to say--" Gage paused, waiting until he had both Vasile's and Malik's attention. "That white suit last night? You looked great. Really brings out the color of your eye." As he said the word eye, he tugged on the cheek beneath his left eye, blinking so his both his eyes turned the natural demonic black to match the solidly tainted eye Malik had in his right eye, mirroring Gage. "You should wear stuff like that more often." He blinked again and his eyes returned to green and human again before he disappeared down the hall.

There was a longer pause before Vaile said, "And Malik." Still, in the place he'd stood before, he hadn't moved. "Be sure they remove the window carefully and place it in storage with the rest of these props. We'll use it again soon." Vasile gave the stained glass one last look before stepping out of the room.

Malik quickly crossed the rug to the entrance of the chapel. "Where are you going?"

"To my office. You're not the only one busy this morning. And once everything is put away, come see me." Vasile took his leave toward the elevators and Malik went down the hall to review the other two rooms were cleaned sufficiently to be put in storage.