Gremory appeared in a flash of black light and smoke, and before it had even cleared, she realized it was all going wrong. Typical summoners were teenagers equipped with half-memorized words they'd found on a forum, with not even a Seal of Solomon to protect them. Better prepared summoners had sigils they'd traced from library books and mispronounced words invented by the Golden Dawn; these folks were harder to enslave, but just as easy to trick. (Perhaps even more so- a little confidence is a dangerous thing.) What she had never, ever seen before was a nerdy goth girl passed out on the ground, and a beautiful winged figure who seemed to be carved from silver marble.
She hadn't even seen an angel in over a millenia. Even once more was too much.
"Ill-met, my adversary," Gremory said in as detached a tone as she could manage. "Do you serve as this foolish summoner's guardian angel? It seems a lowly job for a member of the heavenly host." She tossed her long chestnut curls, woven with golden thread and emerald beads, and held her head up high, baring her neck beneath its net of pearls and her bare shoulders gleaming above her wine-red velvet gown. Who was he to think he could intimidate her?
Admittedly, he wasn't a bad sight himself. Seven feet tall or so, with six wings lining his back, he looked so much like a work of art that it was a surprise when he moved and his silver-marble locks swayed over his shoulders. The light gleaming from his eyes was piercing even to a supernatural being, and his face was so beautiful that if he'd really been a statue, she would have assumed it was made in the likeness of the artist's lover. He was clad only in a white robe, which was draped around him in such a way as to preserve only the bare minimum of modesty.
"What would you have done to this poor girl?" he asked, indicating the prone summoner. His voice resonated in Gremory's bones, and she barely suppressed a shudder.
"Whatever she asked for, naturally," Gremory responded. "Was she really so wicked that divine intervention was needed to prevent her dreams from coming true?"
The angel's perfect face scowled, which made no dent upon his beauty.
"Duchess Gremory," he said, "chief procuress of hell. I know what you have done to those who call upon you in the name of love. You offer them slaves and call it romance, you twist them into mad libertines with borrowed power, and should another summoner or even a demon desire them in turn, you throw your foolish partners to them in chains as you feast on their suffering."
This wasn't entirely fair; Gremory had only done that last part once. When King Paimon, Most Beloved of Lucifer, desires a witch he sees through the scrying glass, it would be foolish for an enterprising demoness not to trick her, bind her, and deliver her to his harem. It wasn't as if it was her regular business practice.
"I do not seek to war with you over this fool," she said. "If you care for her so much, you may have her, and I shall be on my way-"
The angel had a hand around her arm before she finished speaking, and with a shock of pain that shook through her entire body but lasted no more than an instant, he yanked her across the boundaries of the summoning circle. Gremory landed ungracefully on the floor, completely uncoordinated in the face of the first physical pain she could remember experiencing in thousands of years.
"Truth follows after you," the angel said, "even if man's justice cannot."
