This socialising thing is brutal. I was young once, I used to go to bars. It wasn't anything like this.— Angel
As afternoon bends into evening, Helophel meets up with her promised backup. This is Heloise, a Mercurian of War normally resident somewhere in France (she doesn't mention where, and Helophel doesn't ask). Heloise is briefed, and Oloriel is rebriefed. It is his job to read the Divine Destinies of Curtis and Keel to see if there are strong reasons to accept or reject them. A simple set of signals is worked out — these have to be understood by Servitors of War, after all. Oloriel will make sure he is sitting down with a pint of beer (representing Curtis) and a packet of crisps (representing Keel). He will place these to the right of his table (as he looks at it) if they should be recruited, to the left if they shouldn't, and centrally if he has no strong indication.
Meanwhile Jenny, David and Maggie head home, or at least towards Beverley Road. Magariel is alarmed to find that Jenny's danger level is steadily rising; she will in a few hours be in serious non-life threatening danger, with her death being in someone's remote plans. When she arrives home, Magariel resonates for watchers, finding her father and an Agent of Hell involved. Reasoning that Mr Weaver may be Shedite-ridden, Magariel wangles dinner with the Woods in order to be nearby without raising suspicions.
Helophel, Atoziel and Heloise arrive at the Carpenters Arms roughly simultaneously with Curtis and Keel; at least they have the same sense of timing. The two groups colonise a table and buy drinks so as not to look too suspicious, and the angels sneak a glance over at Oloriel, who is already installed at another table. They are confused; choking on your beer and spraying it over the person opposite is not in the list of agreed signals. Oloriel does put his beer down firmly to the right as he starts apologising. The crisps are also on the right… on the floor in fact, which is probably an accident. Oh well.
As the splutters of outrage grow elsewhere in the pub, Helophel and the others cautiously talk around things with the CI5 men. They admit to having tracked down Mr Smith (Atoziel), since he's often been in front of security cameras delivering things, and young Miss Ryan (Magariel) whose records are suspiciously flimsy. Helophel attempts to explain carefully that the angels aren't human, making free use of her resonance to sound them out. Heloise and Atoziel chip in (Atoziel in fluent Ineffable, unfortunately), making quite a convincing case. None the less, the agents remain cautious, the basic idea being pretty outrageous. Curtis is openly skeptical; Keel, according to Helophel's resonance, would like to believe. Both want to know just what the hell (pardon me ma'am) happened at Langridge House.
Helophel has a bright idea to demonstrate that All Is Not As It Seems, and offers to arm-wrestle. The idea is to demonstrate her strength (very high for a human, and more than her vessel would appear to possess). Curtis, ever the cynic, agrees, and loses badly. [ At this point the referee rolls a 111 for the arm-wrestling, and holds his head in his hands as the NPC he was relying to be more cynical has his worldview turned upside down. The Dice Know, I tell you. ] Curtis is shocked, and perfectly aware that Helophel wasn't trying too hard when she beat him. He admits this. It is hard to tell who is more shocked, Curtis at Helophel's strength or Keel at Curtis' reaction!
Elsewhere, the Ravenscourt Rangers are having one of their usual Thursday night rugby practices. This is their first without Alex, and as such there is a lot of settling to be done. In particular, who is going to be captain. Boriel keeps his head down, as befits a newby. There isn't a great power struggle in fact, and winger Harry Rand ends up de facto captain mostly through being more energetic than anyone else.
After practice, Boriel lets himself be dragged along to the Dog and Duck for a pint before heading home. The usual foursome are with him; Harry, Charlie, Jono and JJ. The Malakite makes some progress socialising, mostly by finally realising that Jono and JJ are a couple. After a relatively short while Boriel makes excuses to leave; he wants to be on hand if something goes wrong for Helophel and co. As he shakes hands with Jono, he gets a sudden rushing vision of splintered images: Justin Wells looking horribly tortured and burned, suspended naked in the middle of a brick-walled room; a man-hole cover that he somehow just knows is nearby; a pillar of white fire of which he is unaccountably afraid; and riding over all of it a terrible sense of urgency — he is going to act it must be now!
When Boriel comes to, seconds later it seems, both he and Jono are sitting and Jono at least is white and shaking. "You saw it too?" the man asks weakly. Boriel confirms cautiously, and Jono explains the visions to the others (except that Jono doesn't know Wells' name, he just seemed familiar). Boriel is very worried when the others don't seem shocked, though Charlie is skeptical. Apparently this isn't the first time that Jono has had a vision, though the others absolutely won't talk about the first time. The argument over What To Do has barely started when Boriel's phone rings.
None too far away, Excel has been invited to dinner by Shelly McKenzie. It seems that she wants to interrogate her husband's new lab assistant in the comfort of her own flat. Excel successfully deflects the smalltalk over the main course, but as Shelly is carrying the desert over to the table she gasps and drops the bowl. Someone apparently is in great pain, they have to go and help. Now. Andrew is less fazed by this than Excel might have hoped, and just grabs a bagful of stuff from his lab. Excel takes the opportunity of being momentarily left alone to give Boriel a very rapid summary. Boriel makes an executive decision, and abandons the rugby players to backup Excel. He phones Blakely, then Atoziel and Helophel who put their conversation with Curtis and Keel on hold, and finally Magariel.
With impeccable timing, Magariel is at this point running out of the Woods' house, pursued by David. She had just been helping with the washing up when her attunement to Jenny flared into full danger mode. The two of them burst through the Weavers' front door, and Magariel follows her resonance towards the shouting that they had heard from upstairs. She just about manages to knock Mr Weaver out of the way as she rushes to Jenny and starts comforting her. She is suddenly attacked by someone under Ethereal Form, and goes on the offensive herself. She and David bicker rather than cooperate until (on another divine intervention) they realise that they are under some external (diabolical) influence. Clearly a Servitor of Malphas is at work. At this point they both get creative, and take full advantage of the surprise caused by Zack appearing in a blaze of light (and probably a Song of Location) to deck their attacker. Who turns out to be Jenny's father, surprise, surprise. Seeing that the immediate problem is dealt with, Zack starts comforting Jenny. Magariel can practically hear David's teeth grinding as he helps her tie up the invisible attacker. Magariel pings on him, and wracks her brains to work out why he is now in greater danger. Eventually she remembers that after their host has been unconscious for half an hour, a Shedite is forced out. David is now in danger of possession!
Meanwhile, Atoziel and Helophel go over to the McKenzie's at high speed. When Andrew, Shelly and Excel emerge, Atoziel discreetly shadows them while Helophel waits for Boriel. It seems the party goes down into the sewers. Atoziel waits by the manhole cover until the others arrive. It is a strangely familiar manhole cover to Boriel, one that he has just seen in a vision. The group decide to follow Excel and the humans.