Editing Choir (section)

==Fourth Choir==
These Choirs are based around the Fourth Day of Genesis, when the Moon and Stars are created to give guidance to humanity; they focus on questions of clarity, vision, knowledge, and destiny.<ref name="wog"/>

===Demons - Choir of Madness===
The choir that brings about madness, it acts against balance and can be deadly to Others like [[Sphinxes]].<ref>The Sphinx still hadn’t risen.  Paige was stroking fur, but got no response.  [...] ''A descent into madness is a bigger fall for some than others'', Rose thought.

Hopefully the sphinx would survive that fall, in the end. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref> Vulnerable to symbols,<ref>“We need symbols!”  Rose shouted.  “Symbols for the howling one!” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref> such as crosses<ref>Reaching into her back pocket, Eva drew something she’d scavenged from the church.


A simple wooden cross.


A symbol, Rose thought.  She heard.


The demon had only just recovered from its failed grab.  Now Eva moved, fluid and smooth, holding the cross out.


The demon backed away, now, redoubling the effort on its howl.

[...]

The witch hunter had the means of warding off the demon, driving it back.  She took things one step further.  She touched the cross to the demon’s wounded chest, then brought a foot up, pinning it there, keeping it there as the demon dropped to its knees.  Smoke billowed.

[...]

Eva kicked, pushing herself away from the demon, leaving the cross there, fused with melted flesh.  The demon reached for the cross, but the hands were forced away, as if repelled by magnets. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref>

Members include:

* An unnamed screaming demon. It was covered in flesh so broken and twisted in hung off it like a robe, it's mouth distended open, glowing eyes visible behind someone else's face.<ref>Another, broad in the shoulder, mouth yawning perpetually wide, as if its jaw were broken.  It wore human flesh like a shroud, a twisted mass of skin and muscle piled over and around the shoulder, over the head, a twisted mask where the eye and mouth holes of another individual’s face aligned with the dark, burned face beneath.  The eyes glowed, and Rose instinctually averted her own eyes away from them.  The ‘clothes’ of human flesh it wore moved and twitched, an eyeball that looked to be a heartbeat from falling from the socket moved, looking in another direction [...] The one with the cloak of flesh opened its mouth ''wider'', and it ''screamed''. 

All rational thought and sanity fled Rose’s mind at the sound, and she wasn’t alone in that.  Nowhere close to alone.  Even Evan the firebird plummeted from the sky. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/judgment-16-4/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.4]]</ref> It's debilitating screams caused hallucinations<ref>''It assaults the eyes like the demon’s howl assaults the ears and mind.  The howl pulls, tugs me from sense and reality, makes me ever more detached, my grip on things slipping, one metaphorical finger after another losing its hold.  The scene of a town’s streets literally running with clotted blood makes the world a place I don’t want to be. [...]'' The scenery had been a trick of the senses, hallucination.  An extension of the scream. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref> and conducted down the demon's arms.<ref>The howling demon seized its attacker, and the nature spirit ''vibrated,'' screaming transmitted along the demon’s arms to its captive''. '' The spirit moved at a speed and manner that made it ''distort''. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref> However, those who were already somewhat mad were resistant.<ref>Eva?  ''Roxanne''?

What made ''them'' special?

[...]

Why were various ''Thorburns'' doing better?  Roxanne more than Ellie, Ellie more than Peter, the two of them more than Christoff.  Most of the Thorburns were able to crawl, while many Behaims were utterly motionless, almost catatonic.

Alister wasn’t among those Behaims.  He was on his hand and knees, head periodically moving, lips moving.

What made them special?  What made the Eye similar to Roxanne?  What advantage did Roxanne have over Christoff?

[...]

Roxanne was ''fucked up,'' Rose knew.  She had Blake’s memories of family, along with his memories of friends.  Rose knew what he’d experienced when she’d been taken to the hospital, how he’d seen Roxanne operate.  That Roxanne had very carefully armed herself.

Roxanne, the Eye, Eva, the Thorburns as a whole, all more ''unhinged''.

More inured and experienced with the various shapes and forms that… what was the word?  Not mental illness… mental ''unwellness''.  They were more familiar with mental unwellness, on both sides of the fence.  In cases like Eva’s and the Eye’s, they were batshit ''nuts''.

It fit with the way demons tended to operate.  Damned if one did, damned if one didn’t.  The only way to avoid being driven out of one’s mind was, well, to already be out of it. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref><ref>“Jeremy!” she called out, and she tried to put power into the words, give them strength, pushing them along the few stable connections that remained, to ears that were still capable of hearing.  “Get our people drunk!”<br>[...]<br>“Demon of madness and pandemonium!” Rose shouted the words, “Devils in this town obey the Thorburns!  By my name, I order you to ''cease!''”<br>[...]<br>“This favor I ask for now, is a bit of liquid courage for those who fight against the titanic evils,” Jeremy said. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07 Excerpt] from [[Judgment 16.5]]</ref> Could not truly be harmed by physical means, only slowed down.<ref>It evaded the swinging iron cube, and it tackled the howling demon, clawing deep.

Physical wounds wouldn’t do, but it ''tried''. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref><ref>She flinched, closing her eyes, as a flash of light struck the howling demon, making it stagger.  Twelve paces away, now.

But pain was only an illusion.  It wasn’t truly something that could be ''harmed'', it only wore the vulnerability to pain like it wore images conjured from the human subconscious.  Its internal directive to bring everything to ''madness'' would win out long before ''damage'' did anything. [...] Gunshots sounded, one after another.  The demon barely flinched, even as bullets took chunks of flesh off its shroud, or put holes in its face and upper chest.- [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/judgment-16-05/ excerpt] from [[Judgement 16.5]]</ref> It was speculated that the hallucinations were designed to use the minds of those targeted to permanently damage reality around them, leaving visible cracks.<ref>“Well,” Rose said, “I’m not liking the look of those ''gaps''.  The demon did its thing, and the town started to come apart at the seams.  I thought at first it was the ''Barber,'' but I’m not so sure, now.  We can alter the makeup of the world, with sufficient will or ''expectation'', and it’s subtle, and we’re pushing against the pattern or the will of others if we try to will the world to be different.  But if you have a demon alter that will or expectation, twist everyone’s minds to a specific purpose…”

“Breaking up the world?”  Lola asked.

“Or a part of it,” Rose said.  “They chose the demons they did for a reason.  One that could hurt practitioners by hurting their ''workings'', another that debilitated and stalled us, while…”

Lacking the words, she gestured at the surroundings.  At the ripped seams and world left ''ajar''.

“…Making it easier to do what they want to do,” she finished.  “So… I’m not ruling out that she could recover.  If doing permanent damage to our psyche was the point, then we’d ''know'', I think.  But I do think it was trying to hurt the fabric of things, affecting us like it did.”  - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/judgment-16-6/ excerpt] from [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/judgment-16-6/ Judgement 16.6]</ref>

===Angels===
No details about the Fourth Choir of Angels have yet been revealed.