[Shazam] Ch: 107 [Greed & Revenge]

Blaze’s eyes glowed dark red.

The light spread through the cracks beneath her skin, briefly overpowering the golden lightning trapped inside her body. For one sharp moment, the weakened demon standing beneath the cages disappeared, and Azazel caught a glimpse of the ruler she had once been.

The old Blaze remained buried inside that damaged shell.

Proud, cruel, patient, and powerful enough to turn entire kingdoms against themselves before burning whatever remained.

Several of Azazel’s eyes narrowed while the mouths across his body stopped whispering.

Blaze raised her chin slightly. “And you still hide behind mirrors and cages while pretending patience is the same thing as strength.”

A low vibration moved through the chamber.

The iron cages hanging above them began swaying without any wind. The shapes inside curled tighter against their bars while shadows gathered around Azazel’s enormous form.

Blaze had insulted him inside his own palace.

Any lesser visitor would already have been torn apart.

Azazel could taste her weakness from across the room. Her soul had barely rebuilt itself, her magic moved unevenly through her body, and the divine lightning continued poisoning everything it touched. The golden cracks beneath her skin pulsed whenever she used too much power, revealing exactly how close she remained to collapse.

Azazel could devour her.

The thought arrived with immediate hunger.

If he consumed what remained of Blaze’s essence, he could absorb fragments of her knowledge, authority, and ancient power. Her surviving servants would scatter or kneel. Her ruined domain would lose its final claim to independence, allowing his armies to cross the border and take everything without resistance.

One death would give him an entire domain.

Several mouths opened across his chest as his body leaned forward. Black smoke rolled from his shoulders and crawled across the obsidian floor toward Blaze’s feet.

She did not move.

That stopped him.

Azazel’s hunger remained, but caution pressed down upon it before greed could take control.

Blaze had entered his domain alone.

She had brought no guards, no hidden legion, and she wasn't even carrying a weapon. Even in her strongest years, she had never trusted another demon enough to enter hostile territory without preparing several ways to survive betrayal.

Now she stood weakened beneath his throne, surrounded by his servants, while divine poison slowly ate through her soul.

That made no sense.

Perhaps she had already placed something in motion. A curse tied to her death could tear through his domain the moment he consumed her. Her remaining essence might carry a trap designed to infect whoever absorbed it. She could have hidden a contract somewhere in Hell, one that transferred her territory to a rival or summoned some kind of ancient demon to create a rampage if she failed to return.

The possibility did not need to be likely.

A single percent was enough.

Azazel had survived since the oldest ages because he never confused opportunity with safety.

The smoke around Blaze’s feet slowly retreated.

One of Azazel’s larger mouths smiled while the others resumed their quiet whispering.

“You entered my palace without an escort,” he said, his many voices overlapping softly. “You insulted me beneath my own roof, even while struggling to keep your body from falling apart. Either death damaged your mind, or you believe you possess something valuable enough to guarantee your safety.”

Blaze’s expression remained calm, though the golden cracks along her throat brightened briefly before dimming again.

“You could try killing me and discover the answer yourself.”

The mirrors lining the chamber changed at once.

Each reflection showed Azazel lunging toward her. In one, he swallowed Blaze whole before golden lightning erupted from inside his body. In another, her death opened a burning gateway above his palace. A third showed John Mason standing over Azazel’s remains while Hell burned around them.

Azazel glanced at the images without trusting any of them.

His mirrors revealed possibilities, fears, and desires. They rarely bothered distinguishing between the three.

“You came expecting restraint,” Azazel said as his countless eyes focused on her. “That means you understand me better than your reputation suggests.”

Blaze gave him a cold smile. “Your greed is impressive, Azazel. Your fear is far more useful.”

Several mouths twisted with irritation.

The pressure inside the chamber increased. Cracks spread across the polished floor while the creatures trapped inside the cages began trembling harder. Azazel’s shadow rose behind him until it covered most of the ceiling, creating the outline of something vast enough to swallow the entire palace.

Blaze remained standing in the center of it.

Her knees wanted to weaken. Pain burned through her chest each time John’s lightning pulsed against her recovering soul. She kept every trace of it buried behind a look of bored contempt.

Showing fear would end the meeting and showing pain would invite him closer.

Azazel watched her for several seconds before the pressure eased.

“Very well,” he said. “You have earned a conversation through recklessness alone. Tell me why you came before I decide curiosity is less satisfying than your screams.”

Blaze glanced toward the cages hanging overhead. “Privacy.”

A mouth near Azazel’s shoulder laughed. Another whispered something in a language older than humanity.

“You entered a palace made from listening walls, and now you request privacy.”

“I requested nothing,” Blaze replied. “Remove your servants and silence the room unless you want every ambitious fool in your territory learning what I intend to offer you.”

Azazel studied her again.

She was provoking him deliberately, though the reason remained unclear. Perhaps arrogance was the only armor she had left. Perhaps she needed him angry enough to overlook something.

That possibility made him more cautious.

A ripple passed through his body.

The horned guards at the entrance bowed and withdrew. The cages rose into the darkness above until their occupants disappeared from sight. One by one, the black mirrors clouded over, replacing their shifting visions with empty darkness.

The palace doors closed behind Blaze with a heavy impact.

Symbols carved beneath the obsidian floor ignited in deep crimson lines, sealing the chamber against all intrusion. Azazel allowed Blaze to watch every layer of protection activate.

"Now speak," Azazel said.

Blaze turned slowly, examining the sealed chamber before returning her attention to him. “John Mason.”

The name changed the atmosphere immediately.

Some of Azazel’s eyes closed. Others widened.

A mouth hidden near the center of his body whispered, “The Chosen One.”

“You know what he is.”

“I know what Hell believes he is,” Azazel replied. “A mortal sitting upon Lucifer’s throne. A champion carrying powers stolen from forgotten gods. A king who buried three rebellions during his first year and reorganized punishment sectors that had remained unchanged since the earliest ages.”

Blaze’s gaze sharpened. “You have been watching him.”

“I watch everything that may eventually threaten me.”

“Then you already understand why I came.”

Azazel’s form shifted as thicker smoke gathered around his upper body. “You want him dead.”

Blaze walked a slow circle across the chamber, hiding the stiffness in her movements by making each step deliberate. “Death would satisfy me, but satisfaction is a luxury. I want him broken first.”

Several mouths smiled together.

There was the offer Azazel had expected.

Revenge.

A simple motive could still conceal a complicated trap.

“You crossed half of Hell to ask me to fight the creature who reduced you to this condition,” Azazel said. “Your faith in my strength is flattering.”

“I have no faith in your strength.”

The smiles vanished from several mouths.

Blaze stopped and faced him. “If you challenged John directly, he would destroy you. Your armies would burn, your palace would collapse, and every eye in that disgusting body would watch him tear your essence apart.”

The chamber darkened around her.

Azazel’s claws emerged from the smoke near the floor, each one long enough to split her body open.

Blaze continued before he could interrupt.

“That is why I came to you.”

The claws stopped.

Blaze’s smile returned. “You understand temptation. You know how to find the wound beneath the armor and press until the victim opens it for you. John cannot be defeated through force while he controls the throne. His body is guarded by divine power, infernal authority, and whatever protection Lucifer placed upon him.”

“But his mind remains human,” Azazel said.

“His heart remains human,” Blaze corrected. “That is where he can bleed.”

Azazel became still.

Blaze had finally offered something worth hearing.

His mouths whispered among themselves while his eyes moved independently, each one studying a different detail of her damaged body. He watched the tension in her shoulders, the careful rhythm of her breathing, and the hatred that surfaced whenever John’s name entered the room.

“You know his weaknesses,” Azazel said.

“I know his attachments.”

“Those are rarely the same thing.”

“They are always the same thing when properly used.”

Azazel’s laughter spread through the chamber in several different voices. Some sounded amused, while others sounded hungry.

Blaze had expected that reaction.

She stepped closer to him, stopping only when the smoke from his body curled around her heels.

“Harley Quinn,” she said. “Maureen, Queen Hippolyta, Luna, Kahndaq. The people he gathered around himself because he cannot tolerate losing anyone else.”

Each name settled into the room.

Azazel listened carefully.

Blaze continued while keeping her expression controlled. “He built his entire identity around protecting others. He believes sacrifice makes him righteous, responsibility makes him strong, and love separates him from monsters like us.”

“Then remove the people he loves.”

“That would make him furious,” Blaze replied. “An angry John Mason is still dangerous. Grief has strengthened him before. I need something more precise.”

One of Azazel’s mouths opened wider. “You want him to destroy them himself.”

Blaze’s dark red eyes brightened.

There it was.

The reason she had come.

“I want him to doubt everything he protects,” she said. “I want him to question whether they love him, fear him, or simply depend upon his power." She clenched her fists as her voice rose, despite the pain. "I want every sacrifice he made to feel meaningless." Her demonic energy gushed out of her body in dark red mist. "I want him to believe that the people closest to him would be happier if he had never entered their lives.”

Azazel’s smoke thickened as the idea took shape.

“And when doubt becomes guilt,” he murmured, “guilt becomes isolation.”

“When isolation becomes despair,” Blaze added, “he will begin breaking himself for us.”

Silence followed.

Azazel could see the design now.

It remained incomplete and likely to end with someone being erased from existence. That only made it interesting.

However, one question still mattered.

“Why should I help you?” he asked. “If John falls, the throne becomes vulnerable. You would claim it before his body finished cooling.”

Blaze did not deny it.

“You already took pieces of my territory during my absence,” she said. “You want the rest. Help me break John, and you can keep every district your armies currently occupy.”

Azazel’s mouths laughed quietly. “You offer me what I have already stolen.”

“I offer you the chance to keep it without wasting soldiers.”

“That remains insufficient.”

Blaze had expected him to demand more.

She lifted one hand and pressed two fingers against one of the golden cracks near her chest. Pain surged through her immediately, though she refused to let it reach her face.

A thread of golden lightning emerged from the wound.

The chamber reacted violently.

Every mirror remained dark, yet cracks spread through their surfaces. Azazel’s smoke recoiled while several mouths hissed. The divine spark twisted between Blaze’s fingers like a living creature, radiating enough pressure to make the floor tremble beneath her.

Azazel stared at it.

“A fragment of his power,” Blaze said. “Living Lightning taken directly from John Mason and trapped inside my soul.”

Greed returned at once.

This time, Azazel did not hide it.

Dozens of red eyes opened across his body while every mouth fell silent.

Blaze closed her fingers around the lightning before he could study it too closely. “Help me, and I will give you enough divinity to rival Beelzebub."

Azazel leaned forward until his enormous shape filled Blaze’s vision.

“You would tear pieces from your own soul to pay me?”

“I would tear out my heart if doing so placed John’s beneath my heel.”

...

[At the same time] 

Inside John's isolated dimension, Maze was still asleep beside him while his eyes were on Blaze and Azazel's conversation. As the ruler of Hell, he has full control over it. So, no matter how much restriction or magic the demons use, it's meaningless. 

'Are they stupid? They are talking about destroying me while I'm in charge of Hell. Do they not know that I can peek into their domains? And how the hell did she survive? I thought I destroyed her soul back then.' John thought for a moment before deciding what to do next. 'Well, whatever. I'm gonna fuck 'em up.'