The package arrived before dawn, left silently on the doorstep of the glutton's apartment. It was a simple, sealed manila envelope containing three items: a photograph, a current address one block from the Basilica, and a frantic, half-burnt diary entry.
Elias had delivered. The intelligence was specific, focused on the location of the unauthorized divine energy that had drawn Ethan to Father Morian's church.
The target was a woman named Lila Vance, a former parishioner of Morian's who had lost her family in an accident last week. The final entry in the diary, scribbled in despair, was a primal, repeated plea to any god who would listen: "I wish I could feel nothing. I wish they would take the pain away."
Ethan studied the photo. Lila was ordinary, not an escaped soul. But her plea, fueled by extreme grief, was a raw fissure in the spiritual fabric. Unauthorized magic born of raw human desire.
Lucien considers raw human desire an unauthorized miracle. The absurdity was staggering—and deadly. A strong enough psychic or emotional wound could act like a flare, attracting attention from both Heaven (who purges anomalies) and Hell (who collects them).
He found the address easily. It was a small brownstone apartment, deceptively quiet. He approached with caution, keeping the Wrath on a tether. If this was a target, he would use Gluttony to consume her spiritual energy, or Wrath to burn the anomaly out. But the target was a deeply pained human.
Ethan used the fire's residual heat to melt the lock silently.
The apartment was not chaotic; it was pathologically clean. But the air inside was thick, pressurized, and vibrating with an overwhelming energy: grief.
Ethan raised his Sin Perception. Lila Vance was in the bedroom, huddled in the corner. Her aura was a vast, turbulent gray, the spiritual shade of debilitating pain. There was no crimson of malice, no purple of consumption.
Not an escaped soul. Only a human breaking under the weight of existence.
But her despair was creating the anomaly. As Ethan watched, a faint, sickly pink haze began to emanate from her body, pushing outward, coating the room. This wasn't the fiery destruction of Wrath.
This was pure, unholy Desire, the Circle of Lust. Lila's desire wasn't sexual; it was a desperate, all-consuming Lust for Oblivion, for the cessation of pain. Her raw need was manifesting as an energy capable of influencing and manipulating the emotions of everyone around her is a forbidden miracle that was dangerously destabilizing. If it flared any brighter, it would draw celestial attention.
Ethan knew the mission: silence the forbidden miracle. Lucien wanted the energy gone.
He took one step. Lila flinched, her eyes wide and haunted. "Who are you? Did they send you to help me feel better?" she whispered, her voice choked with tears.
The pink haze intensified, reaching out to Ethan, tempting him. Feel better. Focus on what you desire. Focus on the peace of the void. The power of Lust worked through a perverse empathy, mirroring the deepest want back to the target. For Ethan, it was the seductive promise of forgetting the Emissary, of returning to the quiet oblivion of the moment before he made the bargain.
The sigil on his chest burned a sudden, cold warning. The Lust power was trying to consume his resistance the risk of the circle.
Ethan fought through the desire, forced his focus back to the core of the problem. He couldn't burn her; he couldn't simply absorb her pain, or the Gluttony would become uncontrollable. He had to contain the emotional surge.
He took a deep, unnecessary breath and focused his own dark power, not on destruction, but on manipulation. He needed to override her desire for oblivion with a controlled, temporary fulfillment of that same desire.
He extended his hand, the gold rings in his eyes flaring with the terrible, focused clarity of the Emissary. He focused the nascent Lust power he had inadvertently inherited, combining it with the subtle force of the Wrath for precise delivery.
"I can help you feel nothing," Ethan said, his voice level and hypnotic.
He sent a directed wave of energy not fire, but a profound, overwhelming calm. It was an instant, non-lethal application of emotional manipulation: a psychic fulfillment of her deepest desire for rest.
The pink haze collapsed inward. Lila gasped once, her face went slack with sudden, profound peace. Her head lolled, and she fell instantly, deeply asleep, her spiritual aura shutting down like a tripped circuit breaker.
The miracle was silenced. The spiritual flare was extinguished, leaving only the gentle, rhythmic breathing of a woman finally granted a moment of temporary peace.
Ethan stood over her, the power receding. He felt the familiar rush of the Infernal Resonance, but this time, it was laced with something colder than Gluttony: a strange, detached pity. He had achieved containment and prevented a catastrophic celestial intervention, but he had done it using the power of Lust, a power that should only be used for emotional corruption.
He was appalled by his own efficacy. His hellish weapons could be used for perverse good, or at least, complex containment.
He left the apartment as silently as he entered, pausing only at the door. He could hear the faint, predictable spiritual hum of Father Morian's presence a block away, watching the anomaly.
Lila Vance was alive, safe, and temporarily stabilized, still a human in need of true help within the priest's domain. Ethan, the Emissary, had done his job: he had silenced the supernatural noise. The rest was a mortal concern.
The cost was the deviation itself. He had contained the infernal fire, but he couldn't contain the creeping empathy. He was a weapon, and in choosing his targets, he had broken the core of Lucien's contract.