"Sunday League? The Lord's Day Observance Society will do you for that!""Yeah, 18 - 0 last time."
Boriel goes to watch the Ravenscourt Rangers play their Sunday morning match, taking Atoziel along as an enthusiastic friend who doesn't play but likes to watch. Since Atoziel has enthusiasm bursting out of his ears, this is quite convincing. Helophel also watches this ritualized conflict, behaving as an independent passerby. Interesting; unfortunately she has a female vessel. The general view of the angels present is that the Rangers are a competent Sunday League team, and no one is terribly surprised when they win their match. Alex plays well, but is noticeably the team strategist, very good at captaining them. Attention is also drawn by one of the other players, a winger, who plays an absolute blinder of a game.
After the game, Boriel is dragged into the changing room by Alex; "Hey guys, meet Barry John!." Alex is somewhat put out when about half the team fail to recognise the name of the greatest rugby player ever. Boriel agrees to go along to Thursday night's practice session. Back outside, he introduces people to his friend Ed — Atoziel — who enthusiastically shakes hands with everybody. Atoziel has the Seraph of Destiny attunement, so determines the true names of everyone present, including Alex Verison (well, OK, so it's really Hezekiah) and the winger, Harry Rand.
Meeting up afterwards, Atoziel, Boriel and Helophel discuss what they've learned. Atoziel expounds at length in long words, so Helophel in desperation resonates on him (at touch range) to get subtitles. The gist of the subtitles is that Alex/Hezekiah is a celestial, probably a demon, and Harry is just a normal person who happened to be divinely inspired in his game today.
Atoziel goes off to the British Library, a Tether to Destiny of course, and starts looking up Heaven's records on a demon named Hezekiah. These are pretty scanty; a balseraph of that name turned up in Paris at the beginning of the century. They don't know what he was up to or which Prince he served; the Malakim hit first and didn't bother asking questions at all, as a mildly irked note from an angel of War about Malakim of the Sword makes clear in the report.
Atoziel also starts on one of his more endearing habits, breaking roles by following the paper trail. Alex's role stands up quite well, mostly because a lot of the references can't be got at on a Sunday, but it is starting to crumble under the onslaught. Atoziel also notes that his address is 52 Beverly Road — not far from Amanda, who is at 38.
Magariel is enjoying lunch in a pub when he is accosted by an old Chinese man; Eli's vessel du jour. This was a bit of a surprise, since Magariel hadn't seen Eli for decades. In the course of pleasant conversation, Eli all but orders Magariel to attune to the teenager he was worried about; there's a nasty mistake he might make soon if he isn't guided. The kid should be at the club tonight, Eli thinks. Asked if Magariel should attune to Atoziel, Eli replies that that would be cool. Whatever. He then leaves, saying that he might see Magariel around some time, but "strange things" are coming, he doesn't know what.
The angels meet up at a different pub in the evening, and catch up with each other. Boriel and Excel go off to build more locator bugs for Alex and Amanda's cars, since everyone is beginning to worry that Amanda is a demon too. A plan is hatched to bug the cars sometime around midnight, Blakely and Helophel being assigned as the angels most likely to make a stealth roll.
Magariel meanwhile takes a side trip to the nearest Tether of Creation that he knows, a chip shop in Fulham, and changes vessel on the grounds that an eighteen year old girl ("Maggie Ryan") will get on better with another teenager than a thirtysomething male. She then heads off to Giuseppe's, where she does indeed find the kid and ever so accidentally bump into him. He appears to be indulging in teenage angst, so she lets him stew for a bit. The kid is chatted to by a man who appears to be trying to be friendly, and reacts in a quite hostile manner, shouting something that Magariel can't hear over the music and leaving the club. Magariel stays for a while; the man sits down, looking annoyed, and finishes his drink. One of the bouncers slides up behind, says something to the man, claps him on the shoulder and starts to slide away again. The man looks very angry at this, but schools his face quickly before turning round to respond to the retreating bouncer, who laughs. He then goes back to the bar, and starts chatting to (up?) the women there.
At this point Magariel leaves, and follows his resonance to the kid, in 38 Beverly Road. What a familiar address. She keeps watch for a while; there is loud music which is then turned down. A while later she is distracted by a Disturbance from down the road — in the opposite direction to Alex's house. Turning quickly, she sees a flash of light from one of the houses, but it's far enough away that she can't be completely sure which one. A few seconds later, a light is turned off down that way as well. She saunters gently that way down the road, following the echoes of the Disturbance, and determines that it came from either number 17 or number 19. Disturbed, Magariel phones Atoziel from a call box, gets a kebab (as an excuse to hang around) and keeps watch.