It occurred to Tilla that she was going to have to sell her children's names.
Every day she spent up here in Pride was a day that she felt less pull to go back to Lust. And while she wished she could say that it was because of her own strength, she was honest enough with herself to admit that it was entirely down to Krieg forcing her to be here and make the best of it.
Still, with her children reading quietly in the room that used to belong to her oldest, she found herself pondering as she rubbed a hand over her belly. What was she even going to call this one? Was it a boy or a girl? Freedom was to most people intoxicating. She knew that from the commercials that she watched between her programs. But for her? For somebody who had grown up with none of it, who'd had it stripped from her at every opportunity, it was suffocating. Not being responsible for herself. She was well used to that. But having to make these decisions, with no authority but her own behind them.
She knew from her conversations with Raleigh that he considered her children 'a delight', because they never got into carnage the way that Desdemona's own spawn seemed to live for. What even were they doing if their children could cause such havoc? But she had to remind herself that this was not Lust. This was Pride. And Pride Imps were some of the most pathetic of the clades, the smallest, the weakest, the shortest lived and the only subspecies of their genus that still used r-Selection as their preferred breeding style. The only thing that Pride Imps had going for them was teeming numbers. Needless to say, any Pride Imp with a working brain took a spouse from literally any other clade. Their children were always much better off.
And just like that, she was viewing her own kind in terms of eugenics again.
Amazing how deeply the Arch Crone crammed that philosophy into you.
Bartolomayo hadn't even been a Lust Imp. He'd been from the thin diaspora of Betrayal Imps that survived the destruction of their home Ring. He had been such a dashing figure, his skin a burnished orange that looked like a sunset over the bayou, teeth like razors and eyes that could nail her feet to the floor. He'd been 'fresh blood' from to the breeding program, a rare miracle that a man would be a wonderworker. Gramma-ma had expected for him to pump a few children into Tilla and then fuck back off to Seitch Kheruk. Instead... instead he made time for her.
It was the first time in Tilla's life that she understood the concept of romantic love. It was the first time in her life that she looked forward to fucking somebody. And just like all good things, it came to an end when Plureae had dull blood. The Arch Crone didn't even think that the problem probably wasn't Barto. It was probably Tilla. The lynchpin of the stupid zealot's plans was something that couldn't have succeeded in a thousand years, no matter how many times she was risen from the dead.
In her lonely nights, she wished that Barto was here. They'd kept their trysts going on in secret for a good few years while he was studded out to other poor girls in the clan, all the way to the conception of her yet unnamed, yet unborn spawn, before Gramma-ma finally declared enough was enough and had him banished from Bal Matheer. And as she sat, with her children doing homework that most imps thought no child would ever do willingly, she started to have a thought, then a notion. A notion of one day going to Seitch Kheruk, and doing for Bartolomayo what Krieg did for Tilla.
The notion slowly started to transform into a plan.
Her planning was cut short, though, when the door to the apartment slammed open, propelled by an impish boot. Tilla turned to the door, and spotted Blitz framed by the entryway. His entire body looked rigid, and his face was screwed up in an expression of anger. She opened her mouth to say something, but Blitz wordlessly took a step in, grabbed the door, and then slammed it so hard behind him that she was surprised it didn't come off of its hinges. Then, with stiff, jerky steps, he moved to the far side of the sofa from her.
He dropped himself back onto it, then crossed his arms in front of his chest as his lips pursed even harder as though holding something in that if it got out would ruin him. Tilla just blinked at him for a moment, unsure of what was going on. Had his ritual gone badly? Was somebody hurt? Or dead?
Her fears began to mount as his eyes began to well with tears.
She was silent as Blitz did everything he could to not weep, his chest shuddering and his shoulders shaking, until he finally admitted defeat, uncrossed his arms, and lowered his face into his hands. Tilla, paralyzed by confusion, could only watch.
Then, those leaky eyes turned toward her, and she saw not an assassin, nor a libertine, nor a rebel. She saw a sad, frightened kid.
Her kid.
"Why does everybody leave me, Mama?" Blitz asked, his voice hitching and shuddering.
Tilla moved then, closing the distance on the sofa. Blitz took the opportunity to grab onto her and latch on, his restraint dissolving utterly into desperate tears as she tried to make soothing noises, to hold this child close and take away his pain.
Fuck, the last time the two of them did this... she was only a little older than Morgan. A teenaged unwilling mother who had been forced into compulsory breeding, now having to raise children she had no place being mother to. When she had borne Blitz and Barbie, it felt so wrong, so alien to her. To have to feed them, clothe them, comfort them, when she herself still to some extent herself needed to be fed, clothed, and comforted.
And then, when the stress became too much, when she could handle being mother no more, she tried to reinvent herself as their sister. Because it was easier. Easier and crueller, and not at all what they needed. But this was Hell, and Hell is not kind.
"I don't understand why I keep doing this!" Blitz blubbered, clinging to her embrace like he did when he was a toddler. "Everybody that I care about I keep fucking things up with, and-and and I don't even know why I keep doing it," he snorted, nose now running as he continued to ramble. "Barbie didn't... I mean it was... Fuck why? Why did I do that? She was just getting tugged by that fucking rapist's strings, and I said all that shit to her and now she won't even talk to me and fucking FUCK why do I keep doing this over and over and over and over again?"
"It's okay," she said in the tone she had gained in the time since her failure with Blitz, cultivated to be mother to her later children. "You're going to be alright."
"And and when Fizz got that break I just shit all over him," Blitz continued, as he snaked his tail around the two of them and thoroughly locked the pair of them in position. He then tensed and squeezed harder. "Fuck god damn it Verosika. She actually cared about me! Me! This fucking dumb-fuck of an inbred shit – she got a tattoo!" he stressed, which she didn't really understand. "Succubi don't get tattoos! And the moment the FUCKING MOMENT that..." he trailed off into incoherent blubbering.
"You're not what you're calling yourself, baby," Tilla cooed, running her fingers along the base of his horns.
"And now? M & M are gonna go away, and even Loona's leaving. They're all leaving me, Mama. And it's my fault. It's always my fault! Every single FUCKING one of them, they left me 'cause they saw what they were getting hitched to and realized they were better off alone. Why? Why do I keep doing this? What is wrong with me? I don't... I don't understand."
"Loona's not going anywhere," she said, but he ignored her.
"Next I'm gonna do something to fuck up Stolas. Then I'll be up shit creek like I deserve. No way to make money. Nobody left to care about me. I'll be alone, like I'm s'posed to be."
"You're not that bad," Tilla tried.
"You left me too," Blitz said quietly, clinging even harder.
Tilla found her face shifting into an expression that she had seen in this boy many times in the last few weeks. A grimace of furious, defiant stubbornness. Because she made a decision. One that she'd been putting off for two decades, and had apparently done immeasurable harm in doing so.
Tilla Nuckelavee declared in her heart that from this moment onward, she was Blitz's mother. Not sister. No easy path. She would be what she should have been the whole time for him.
She would protect her baby boy.
Chapter 32
Say Your Goodbyes
The sizzle of the meat frying in the pan made a counterpoint to the metal click of a gun being cocked directly behind Sam's head. Sam paused for a moment, his head tilting as he considered who this was likely to be, then went back to tearing the chicken apart and letting it finish frying with a wooden spoon in each hand.
"Chicken fried rice?" Sam asked.
"No thanks," Husk answered him.
"Considering you know me better than most, I trust that thing's got a Seraphic Steel bullet in it," Sam said. "It sounded like a flintlock."
"Ain't you clever," Husk said.
"Any particular reason you're holding a gun to the back of my head?" Sam asked.
"Seems like a good idea," Husk said. "An' it ain't Angel Steel. Just Stygium Lead, which I know you can bounce back from. You're gonna explain some shit, and this the surest fucking way to make sure you don't teleport away before we have our little chin-wag. You can Skip on the quick, I'll grant you that, but unless you've got reflexes like a sober Angel Dust, you can't do it faster than I can pull a trigger."
"How is Angel Dust? Still staying sober?"
"Why are you askin' that?" Husk said. "You gonna do something to him, next?"
"I've already done something to him. Something that might lead to his ruin. By all rights, pulling that trigger would be justice for how I mangled his psyche," Sam said.
"You ain't making a lot of sense, Sam," Husk growled. "So how 'bout you unpackage that a bit?"
Sam turned, then, dumping the chicken into the rice and mixing the hell out of it. "Simply put, I have done some Overlord shit," Sam said. "I have manipulated people into fighting for me, because I can't do it myself. And that feels really fucking cowardly, let me tell you."
"Cowardly like slinking outta the hotel like a fuckin' snake?" Husk demanded.
"She would have told me to stop," Sam said.
"Then you fuckin' explain to her why!" Husk said, thrusting his pistol toward Sam slightly. "You don't just leave a goddamned letter and run away 'cause you're afraid that if she bats them bright red eyes at you you'll fold like seven-two off suit."
"Yeah. I should have," Sam said, not even bothering to deny it. "And I ran out like a coward because I wasn't strong enough to do the right thing."
"Which makes all of this... what? You slippin' back into old habits? What the fuck even were your habits?"
"Reacting," Sam said with a sigh. "You know, I've actually been better than this. Even since coming to Hell, I actually did some good. And as soon as..."
"Fuckin' right you done some good," Husk cut him off. "Those fuckers up in the Loop got what was coming to 'em."
"While I'm not going to disagree with that, no, that was me going back into old habits," Sam said. "I was reacting to Valentino. And yeah, it did some good in the end... I was doing the same thing which got me fucked over in life. Just rolling with the punches life – death – was sending my way. I'm trying to break that habit, Husk. I'm really, really trying."
"You're really going after Birch, aren't you?" Husk said, still pointing that flintlock at his head. From the look on his face, it wasn't shock so much as quiet dismay, a confirmation of what he'd already dreadfully believed.
"I have to," Sam said.
"No, ya fuckin' don't," Husk said. "You could just come back to the Hotel and leave this dumb bullshit in yer rearview."
"I can't do that," Sam said, as he sat down and started eating. The flintlock tracked him the entire time.
"And why not?" Husk demanded of him.
"I'm not going to be Redeemed," Sam said. He shrugged. "I'm not a big believer in destiny. It goes against everything I believe in with regards to causality. I refuse to live in a purely deterministic universe. But at the same time, the things I can do aren't the kind of tools you give to a good man. They're the kind you give to a man who destroys the bad."
The flintlock lowered slightly, now center-of-mass instead of headshot. "And why exactly do you figure those two're mutually exclusive?" Husk demanded.
"Do you know what people are starting to call me, out there?" Sam asked. Husk nodded.
"The Poisonfire," he answered.
"I am a primarily destructive being. Nothing will rise up from me anymore. I can't build anything. I can only tear down. So I'm trying to tear down what needs to be destroyed, for the good of everyone. That necessarily puts me at odds with every individual in Hell who benefits from the current Status Quo. Including Lucifer himself," Sam said.
"Bullshit," Husk said.
"This is my nature," Sam began, but Husk took a long step forward and then slapped him across the face with his open hand. It stung quite a bit. Husk was a lot stronger than he let people know, it seemed like.
"Fuck this 'nature' bullshit," Husk said. "You don't know shit about your own nature. You just got a big fuckin' helping of Catholic Guilt noosing yer fucking neck and you don't even try to cut it when you got the sharpest knife in the fucking world in yer hands. Get the fuck over yourself, Sam."
Sam stopped and looked at Husk at that. "Why I'd almost say that I've struck a nerve," he said.
"Ya' maybe did," Husk said.
"Fine," Sam said, standing up and looking the cat-bird in the eye only because Husk was slouching. "You want to know my reasons for leaving the Hotel? Why I tore poor Charlie's heart out? Because I believe in her."
"Keep goin'," Husk said, the flintlock now pointed at the floor.
"Charlotte Magne is the only fundamentally good person in Hell. She is doing something that will break the misery and cruelty of Hell. And it was a miracle and a half that me doing what I did against Valentino didn't immediately dump the Hotel into the deepest pile of shit this side of a Minnesota pig farm. I've already used up every bit of good luck that I'm ever going to get. Now I have to be careful. And being careful means that anything I do from now on can't be connected to her in any way. I have to let her go; I have to let her do what I can't. And you have to let me do what she can't."
"She misses you," Husk said flatly.
"She misses the idea of me," Sam said. And then Husk slapped him again. "Okay, the first was to get my attention. The second, what the fuck?"
"Because you're bein' a mopey fuck and I can't stomach that shit," Husk said.
"I'm not being mop–" Sam began, and Husk slapped him a third time. "Knock that off!"
"When you stop being a whiny bitch, I will," Husk said. He sighed, and did something with the flintlock and had it disappear. "Look. I get it. You think yer doin' the kind thing by putting distance between you and Charlie. And ya might even be right to do it. But the fact is, you can't do this shit alone. Birch has protections. Protections that even your angelic bullshit can't punch through.
"Remember how I said that I was manipulating people into doing my fighting for me?" Sam asked.
"Who in all 'a Hell do you trust enough to fight Birch, the way he is now?"
"A bunch of street-level assassins, three of whom just did the same thing Alastor did to become the horror he was upon his death."
Husk just stared at him. "And this, after you swore off doin' what you done to Angel Dust's bro," Husk said.
"Yup," Sam said. "Hypocrite, I know."
Husk sighed. "For fuck's sake," he said, "you don't do anything by half-measures, do ya? Shit. Come on, you should know this better than I do: if you've got to do something stupid, you might as well be smart about it."
"I'm trying to be. It's turning out harder than I would have thought," Sam admitted.
"So what bunch of idiots do you have doing your fighting for you?" Husk asked.
"Ever hear of I.M.P.?" Sam asked.
Husk could only palm his face. "And just like that, you're an idiot again."
"I know," Sam said. "I have do to this. You can't bring me back alive to that hotel, not until this is done. Even then, I might not be able to come back. I'm here to kill God, after all."
"She wants you to be safe," Husk said past his hand, tired eyes on him.
"And that's why she's the best person alive in Hell," Sam said. He picked up his plate. "I'm sorry, Husk. Don't come for me again."
There was a snap as Sam teleported away, leaving the cat bird alone in his apartment. Husk pulled the bag of sand, and the question attached to it, and spiked it into the floor in defeat. This would be the last time Husk spoke to Samuel Scailes.
Husk stared at the bag for a moment.
Then he realized something.
"...son of a bitch," he muttered.
The door opened with a low squeak, and Tilla turned to it. Krieg was strutting in as though she'd just won a lottery, a wide grin on her face. But that grin died almost instantly when she beheld the strange scene of her 'uncle' weeping and clinging to her mother's body like a terrified child. Her mouth opened, one finger raised, but the glare that Tilla sent to her shut her up completely. She reached one hand out from around her inconsolable son, and quickly flashed through the sign-language that she'd taught her kid so that she could teach what magic she was able to steal to her without the Crones noticing.
Close the door. Don't say a word.
Krieg glanced to the door, and very carefully closed it behind her. Blitz continued to muttered and babble, his voice hoarse and his face covered in tears and snot. She looked between the two of them, then her own hands flashed through movements.
What happened to him?
She glanced to him, then Krieg.
Curse of sleep. On him. Now.
Krieg recoiled a bit at that. She shook her head, but Tilla simply thrust that finger at her, then pointed sternly at the top of Blitz's shaking head. Krieg stepped out of her shoes, tip-toeing across the living room, until she was just behind the sofa from Tilla. She held her hands before her as though palming an orb between them, the yellow of her eyes falling away before black. And then, once she'd gathered the power unto herself, she spoke a word of power.
"Dǚkh," she said, and Blitz's weeping finally stopped, and he fell limp against her. Krieg looked between them, confusion clear on her face. "Mother, what has happened here?"
"How long will he slumber?" she asked instead of answering.
"Ten hours, perhaps twelve," Krieg said. Tilla nodded, and extracted herself from her son's desperate embrace, laying a blanket over him and a pillow under his head. "Mother, please. What is this strangeness I see?"
"Are you blind to the nature of this man?" Tilla asked. "He is broken. He was broken a long time ago, and I am to blame for it. So I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago," she said, as she reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his Hellphone. She stared at its lock-screen. What would he use as a pass code? She wasn't going to lie to herself and say he had a stirling memory. So he would choose something he would have to be dying to forget. And her eyes fell on the brooch that even now was pinned to his shirt.
She reached for it for a moment, but hesitated. The fact was, he'd earned that brooch. He earned it by surviving where she didn't. And he earned it by having the audacity to deny her own indoctrinated wishes and see her out here, to safety.
And then she had a thought.
She tried a pattern, one that was reminiscent of the shape of the brooch. The first time failed. The second time she tried it in the other direction, and with that, the phone opened to her. And pride of place in that phone were pictures of Blitz and all of the people who he now wept inconsolably for. She saw her own face, barely looking any younger, staring back at her. But she saw what Blitz likely didn't. That her smile was brittle as she had her arms around each of her twins. That her eyes were tired, and she wasn't looking directly into the camera but instead slightly above and beyond it, to the man who was taking it, in trepidation.
She wished she didn't still fear her father. But if wishes were horses, all of the imps in Hell would be eating steak.
She started to flick forward in time. To Blitz's closest friend, turned first boyfriend, turned, apparently, mortal enemy. To a succubus in a fancy dress, and if she wasn't completely mistaken a love-heart tattoo on one shoulder... with Blitz's chosen name. Well. That was something. And that was another bridge burned as well. Forward in time, to an exasperated hellhound looking utterly disdainful as Blitz was proud as Lucifer himself while holding up adoption forms. After that came a bunch with his coworkers, starting with them confused and alarmed at his presence, slowly morphing into annoyance and dismay, as the pictures began to take place in more and more intimate environs. There was even a picture of the two Wrathlings caught in the midst of coitus, with the husband throwing a book at Blitz and his camera.
The last picture he had was of him tucked up against somebody that made even ignorant Tilla's eyes bug. That was a demon prince. That was one of the Ars Goetia. Prince Stolas, the Prince of Flowers. And Blitz was nestled up against him as though they had just gotten done fornicating. Until she actually saw proof of it with her own eyes, she thought it a brag. She found herself smiling despite herself. "You ambitious little sprat," she said softly. A lowly imp had ingratiated himself to one of the highest levels of Hell, and he didn't even do it through that bizarre Satanic church.
The Hellphone let out a strangled yell of pain, and the caller ID flicked to say 'Stola', as he obviously didn't bother correcting his spelling mistake. She considered sending it to voice-mail, but she felt that stubborn bit of her soul screw into place, and with a twist of her lips she answered, and held it to her ear.
"Oh Blitzie~, I was wondering if you would be willing to move our schedule up this time. I'm going to need that book a bit early this month," the melodic voice of the Ars Goetia came through the phone.
"So that's why he's so ambivalent about his relationship. You're using him," she said.
"Who is this? This isn't my Blitzie. Put him on this instant!" the Demon Prince demanded.
"I don't think I will," She said, as she moved to the hallway. "Do you know the kind of pain you're putting him through?"
"If you don't stop wasting my time this instant, and put my Blitzie on, I will have to send somebody to correct your misbehavior!" Stolas snapped at her.
"And if you do that, I guarantee you will earn his eternal hatred," she hissed. There was a silence on the other end.
"...what do you mean? And for that matter... who are you?"
"I am his mother," Tilla said, glaring through the walls as though they had done offense to her. "And I am the only person in all Creation that he's not afraid to love."
"That's impossible. Blitzie implied his mother was dead."
"Death doesn't stop the cruelest of imps," Tilla said. "And I am a child of those cruel people. So I promise you, if you cause any harm to my boy, you will lose him forever. I will personally see to it."
"You shouldn't be threatening me, she-imp," Stolas said.
"My boy might not be the brightest, but he's clever enough to find out what you'd do to me, and that it was done by your hand," Tilla said. "And if you so much as shed a drop of my blood, his resentment will drive him away from you for all time. And it will be. Your. Fault."
Another long, long silence. "What do you want?" he asked, for the first time the bluster faded. Almost like there was a touch of desperation, there.
"We're going to have a proper conversation. Somewhere private, somewhere neutral," she said. She wracked her brain for a moment, then remembered something Desdemona had mentioned a few days ago. "There is a public garden that recently burned to the ground in the West Side. I'll be there in an hour. I trust you have your ways of getting there. We will speak again in person."
When she turned around, Krieg was right behind her, furiously making knife-neck motions to get her to stop talking, but Tilla had already gotten out what she'd wanted to. And she wasn't going to listen to her middle daughter anyway, at least in terms of this. "Are you mad?" Krieg demanded, pulling the apartment door closed behind her.
"No. I'm something worse. I'm angry," Tilla said. "Stay here. If Blitz seems like hes going to wake up early, hex him again. I want to be there when he wakes up."
"You're going to extort a Demon Prince!" Krieg said. She glanced behind her. "I now know where Blitz's audacity comes from. I had thought it skipped your generation. Now I see my folly; you were merely waiting for the most ridiculous audacity to hurl yourself against."
"I am his mother," she said. "Today I start acting like one."
"You're not going to be this ridiculous with my eventual suitors, are you?" Krieg asked, leaning back.
"Of course not. You're smart enough to know a bad egg from the good," Tilla said.
"High praise," she said with a gesture of exaggerated gratitude.
"Damned right," Tilla said, moving toward the stairs. "And look after your siblings while I'm gone."
"What if you die?" she asked as Tilla reached the corner.
"Same as always," Tilla said. "Avenge my death and bring ruin upon the stupid."
"Where is she?" Michael demanded as he burst into Lucifer's office. Lucifer, who was in the middle of eating a burger, just blinked at him for a moment, then snapped his fingers, causing Purson to appear in a corner of the room.
"And fuck you too, Michael," Lucifer said. "Were you raised in a barn? Didn't your Father teach you not to interrupt someone while they're eating?"
"I don't have time for this," Michael said, his grim expression tighter than usual, on a face that was... oddly sweaty. "And why is he here? I have no business with you, brother."
Purson merely shrugged. He wasn't fully dressed in his usual regalia, which meant that Lucifer had caught him in the middle of something, although sadly for his sense of humor not so in the middle as to catch him with his dick dangling out. Lucifer set his burger down, wiped his lips, then faced his brother. "...There. Now I'm not eating. Get the fuck out of my kingdom, Michael."
"One of the Grigori is missing," Michael said. "I know you've been giving overtures to them since your banishment. You know where she is. So tell me, and don't get in my way as I collect her."
"Really? So I am to blame for your failure to keep your own house in order? How very like you, Michael. You never did have the stomach to own your own failings."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Michael said. His unwell-looking face had a deep scowl burned into it.
"And I'm running out of patience. If one of your prisoner-angels fucked off, that's on your head, not mine. Now get. The fuck. Out. Of. My. K̴̹̳͕̅I̷͓̗̙͌N̴̪̒̃̈Ğ̸̳͐͝Ḋ̸̝̂O̷̝̒̕͜M̶̳̰͋̃."
"Don't think you can threaten me, brother," Michael said, his wings flaring from his back. Lucifer shot to his feet, his own wings shifting into a light swallowing black that matched every ray of brilliance from the Angel of Glory with a shadow of his own. It didn't even occur to Lucifer that Michael should have defeated his darkness outright. That this was too even a showdown to be normal.
"You're seeming to misunderstand your level of leverage, Michael," Lucifer said, rounding his table to stand before his brother. "This time, you didn't bring muscle. This time, you're here, alone, in my center of strength. And this time, if you don't leave, now, I am going to make you regret having wasted my time in coming here. Whatever Secondborn fugitive you're hunting for is your fucking problem, not mine. And if you try to make it my problem, I guarantee you, you're going to wish your biggest problem was your own fucking incompetence."
Michael stared at him. "If you are sheltering Penemue, this will end badly for you," he said.
"So it was Penemue? Well you're fucked, then," Lucifer said. He turned to his underling. "Purson, as the Great King of Secrets, you're rather a bright one. Wouldn't you say that Penemue is even smarter than you are?"
"Yes. Yes I would," Purson said with a degree of smugness that fell far short of what Lucifer was levying.
"And your kind aren't exactly known for their brains, are they?" Lucifer asked of the Taxiarch in front of him. Michael just glared at him. "Wherever Penemue fucked off to, I'd ordinarily say 'good luck finding her' quite sarcastically, but I know of her well enough to say that you could have all the luck in Heaven and still be shit out of luck, arrayed against her on a bad day. Purson, where do you think she would hide?"
"I am no master of that subject," Purson said.
"Indulge me," Lucifer demanded. Purson feigned thought, then shrugged.
"If there be one under Heaven who could brave the Realms Outside, traverse them safely, it would be bright Penemue. Have you the bravery to follow her?"
"...Shit," Michael said. He turned for a moment, rubbing at his increasingly unshaven face, pulling at skin that was almost translucent over his golden veins, then pointed at Lucifer. "This isn't over."
"Please. It had never even begun," Lucifer chided. He pointed out the door. "Get the fuck out." There was a twisting of the way, as Michael pulled his bodily avatar into the greater aspect of his being, and with a snap, he vanished not just from Lucifer's palace, but from Hell entirely. Lucifer could only shake his head. "What a goddamned tool," he muttered.
"You were right, my liege. He is not renowned for his intellect," Purson said. And then there was a shift in his body, and Penemue walked out of him, similarly only partially dressed.
"I admit I'm surprised you didn't cast me before him," she said.
"Oh, I'm not protecting you, little Scriptor," Lucifer said. "I'm racking up your debts to me. And when I demand that you pay them, you will pay them immediately, and in full. Now, it's convenient you were hiding inside your man, because I need your unusual magicks for a moment."
"I earn my keep," Penemue said.
"Reality Anchor, there," he pointed at the floor at the spot where Michael had departed.
"Intensity?" she asked, as her halo burned into being and her own, smaller wings began to flare.
"As hard as you can make it," Lucifer said, and immediately put her out of his mind. Days had gone into scouring Pride for all of the names of the people who'd been in that club, and every single one of them that wasn't directly under his daughter's thumb had given different answers. Lucifer wasn't even sure why he put off torturing some answers out of Charlie's underlings. It just didn't seem... timely. But there was one name that was positively identified to that karaoke bar which wouldn't be the same breed of trash that he'd had to mangle into honesty.
With a moment of his own song, he held up one hand, as though in benediction. And then, as he let the note sour, stretching and violating the sanctity of space and collocating two places, so that origin and destination were for just an instant, the same. Then, there was a metal snapping sound, and the room now played host to four, instead of just three.
Alastor, the Radio Demon, the Beast That Grins, turned to face Lucifer, not looking nearly as surprised by his unexpected summons as Purson had been. He simply thumped his microphone cane onto the rug at the center of the room and crossed his fingers atop it.
"Well isn't this a spectacular surprise? Why, if I'd known I was going to be brought into the palaces of power today, I would have better shined my shoes," the Radio Demon said.
"You're awfully glib for someone in the presence of his ruler," Lucifer said. Alastor opened his mouth, then paused, tilting his head to one side, then turned directly to Penemue. "You'll find that your usual tricks are, for the moment, suspended. As amusing as they might be, you and I are going to have a talk. There's no getting out of that."
"Alright. Although I must admit I'm somewhat uncertain as to the decorum; I've never been summoned by a king before."
"How about this. You shut the fuck up when I'm talking," Lucifer said. He pointed at the floor. "K̵͕̓N̷̳̯̹͂̀E̵͇͛̅E̸͐̍͂͜L̵̠͍͂̌." he demanded.
Alastor was stiff for a moment, but inexorably, his body folded twitch by twitch, his grin taking on a different sort of pallor, one of strain and effort, until finally with a thunk, his knee hit the floor. Once did, Alastor's grin shifted tone once more, into one almost of pride. "Well that was an interesting experience," Alastor noted.
"You fought against me for nothing. Anything in Hell kneels to its King," Lucifer said. But then he paused, turning a tilted look at the Radio Demon. "But you knew that. And you fought anyway. Not because you wanted to win, but because you wanted to see how long you could fight it. You did that just because you could."
"Guilty," Alastor said with a shrug.
"You're an interesting insect in the terrarium, make no mistake," Lucifer said. He leaned in, violating the Radio Demon's personal space with a cruel grin of his own. "But also make no mistake in that you are still an insect. And the instant that I find you displeasing, I will crush you 'neath my heel. So you had better be forthcoming, and cooperative, or you will find a great weight bearing down on you with nowhere to run and hide. Do you understand?"
"You are being perfectly clear," Alastor said.
"Good. You see, Purson. This is how all of my subjects should behave. Know your place. And your place, 'Radio Demon', is on your knees before your betters," Lucifer said. The Radio Demon didn't interject, which was wise. Lucifer turned to him again. "You know where you were on the night of 17th," he said, not asked.
"I do," Alastor said.
"Elaborate," Lucifer said.
"I had been invited to witness karaoke," Alastor said. "As I understand, it sometimes happens that Miss Charlotte takes a notion to unleash some Angelsong. This was the first time I was pointedly invited."
"What was my daughter doing inviting you, human?" Lucifer asked, bearing in on him.
"She has coerced my cooperation with an endeavor of hers," Alastor said without resentment or indeed any inflection other than showmanship. "As her 'employee', I was on the guest list."
"Your daughter shows might indeed," Purson said.
"Purson... don't. Don't interrupt me," Lucifer said to him, and the Great King of Secrets resumed his silence. He turned to Alastor. "That means you were there to witness the second Angelsong that took place that night. One that was performed by an ensorcelled man whom nobody was able to positively identify."
"I was there, yes," Alastor said.
"And I trust that you, with your wiles, were able to penetrate that sorcery?" Lucifer prodded. Alastor leaned back.
"Is this about your search for the Demiurge?" Alastor asked. His grin ratcheted up a notch and spread his arms in a gleeful gesture. "Why didn't you say so? This could have been so much more expedient on both of us!"
"You know the identity and whereabouts of the Demiurge," Lucifer confirmed.
"Identity yes, whereabouts no," Alastor said. "I would be willing to part with what information I have, if you're willing to offer certain concessions."
"You're not in a strong position to bargain, human," Lucifer pointed out.
"My concessions are not steep of price," Alastor said. He raised a hand, and jutted out his first finger, "One, I wish to be allowed to leave this place intact and unharmed," cheap enough, that. Another finger rose. "I wish to be excluded from all business that follows regarding the Demiurge. Our business will be concluded, and cannot be contended by any party in the future," oh, he was shrewd. Making sure that he was excised and excused from any further involvement prevented Lucifer from putting that particular leash on him. But at the same time, Lucifer had little desire to hold the strap on this foul little being. A third finger raised. "And lastly, I wish to have permanent fellowship in the Private Library of the Great King of Secrets and his... I'm going to guess wife, Penemue."
"That is not his to offer," Penemue said.
"Darling? Shut the fuck up," Lucifer said sweetly. Penemue glared at him, but fell silent. "From the price you're asking, it sounds like you'd do this for a pat on the head. What did the Demiurge do to you to inspire this sort of enmity?"
"Enmity? No," Alastor scoffed. "Nothing of the sort. I've simply learned everything that I can from him. I no longer need him in any dimension. So I see this as merely passing on a tome that I have read to the point of memorization. He is yours to play with, now."
Lucifer glared at the Radio Demon, but the red-suited Sinner didn't give away anything with his stone-still grin. It seemed too good to be true. Well, if it wasn't, then Alastor would be found in violation of his own agreement by Naked Law. Lucifer shrugged. "Done. What is the name of the Demiurge, Radio Demon?"
The Radio Demon rose to his feet, and glanced to Penemue. Lucifer shot her a look, one that told her to drop the Reality Anchor the instant he gave Lucifer what he wanted, and not before. When she returned a minute nod, Lucifer bade the Radio Demon speak.
"His name," the Radio Demon said, "is Samuel Scailes."
"Sweet merciful fuck I've never made that trip so fast in my life," Raleigh muttered as he finally put his taxicab into park.
"You're a miracle worker," Tilla said.
"Yeah, I know," the Pride-Imp said, opening his car door, jumping down off of the stack of old phone books that allowed him to see over the dashboard, and lighting himself a cigarette. The tire-marks of the skid he'd pulled to get off of the main highway, go sideways down an off-ramp, continue drifting sideways through a street, and then fishtail and spin through the empty parking lot until he was backward most of the way in a parking spot showed the haste that he'd shown. As she'd said before, Pride-Imp or no, Raleigh was a good sort. "Don't expect me to pull that ride again on the way back. I'm pretty sure that was the drive of my life, right there."
"You can take your time going home, I promise you," she said. Here in Pentagram City, the skies were gray and foreboding, sending forth a warning of drizzle that would at a moment's notice blossom into deluge. For the moment, it didn't matter to Tilla one bit. She had a meeting to attend, with somebody who was causing her boy pain. She strode through the gates, and past about ten feet of poorly maintained floral garden before she seemed to cross an invisible line and entered into black, burnt wasteland. As she looked around, she saw that most of the park, and in fact a section of the town opposite her was also in utter ruin, as though a wildfire had swept through and gutted it.
This was madness. Utter folly. She, a mere nobody-imp, was going to confront one of the Ars Goetia. If there was any sanity in Hell, it would only end with her dead and the Demon Prince laughing at her stupidity. But these were mad days. As she moved, she rounded a hillock and started to see weird, white plants on the ground. They looked like, had they been dry, they would have been balls of white puff, like cotton, but far closer to the ground and cast about like weeds. As it was, they were clumped and oppressed by the rains. That was the first odd thing she saw. The next odd thing was an array of Pride-Imps with cameras who had become petrified and dumped to the side of the road. Paparazzi? She rolled her eyes. Of course the vultures were nearby. An Ars Goetia was lowering themselves to the realm of mere mortals. That stank of salacious rumor and embarrassing exposee.
She rounded the last hillock, barely six feet of earth that had once carried flowers and ornamental trees, but now was host only to charcoal and rain-washed ash. When she did, she saw unexpected yellow, breaking the black. At a spot next to the shore of the park's lake, yellow flowers that she'd never seen before sprouted in defiance of death. And sitting nearby, on a partially warped cast-iron bench, was the longshanks owl Stolas, The Prince of Flowers.
"I've warned you before. Leave or join your stony friends!" the demon prince demanded of her, his red eyes emitting a fearsome glow.
"I am Tilla Nuckelavee," she said. "My son is Blitz Nuckelavee."
"Oh. You," Stolas seemed to slump, his outrage dying down slightly. "What do you want, she-imp?"
"You and I are going to have a talk about your intentions with my son," she said. She slid herself onto uneven far-end of the bench from the demon prince. For once, just this once, she was glad of her mutant height. It made this both easy, and comfortable. "As his mother, I am trying to make up for years of failure. And that means that if I have to take out the trash that I left in his path, I will do it easily and eagerly. His access to happiness was my responsibility. And it's time I lived up to that."
"Blitzie is..." Stolas began, haughtily, but her glare actually gave him pause. Or perhaps he had pause in him, and realizing what he was about to say activated it. Stolas seemed to slump a bit more. "Blitzie is..." he tried again, this time reaching out with one hand as though to grasp some immaterial spirit, but failing. "I don't know what my Blitzie is. But I want him. I want him more than I've wanted anything in an eon."
"And why, prince, do you want my son?" she said, continuing to nail the fact that he had less power than he almost ever did, and that Blitz's heart was more in her hands than in his.
"I don't know. I just..." he puffed out a breath, and then continued his slump to the point that the fourteen foot tall owl was now down to a point that he could have looked her in the eye. "I don't want him to leave me."
"You, the demon prince, don't want my son, the imp, to leave you," she confirmed, because that was not at all what she was expecting.
"You have to understand," he said, reaching out and almost taking her arm, before recoiling and putting that hand on the bench between them. "I haven't been happy in so very long. When I joined King Lucifer, I thought that it was just going to be a great adventure, something that I could hold in amusement while the old king was replaced with the new. But then..." he rubbed at his face with both hands. And his face had shifted into a mask of despair.
What was this madness she was party to?
"I loved Stella, once," Stolas said, words wistful, and drifting like a song through a fog. "I loved her enough to demand the same torment that she earned at Michael's hands. They still hurt, you know? My crushed and shattered wings? I still feel them sting and ache, every hour of every day. And I thought, that maybe that would be enough. To have somebody like myself, somebody who was an equal, an other half... And for a long time, I think... I think it was enough. Enough to conquer Hell. Enough to last millenia," then, he lowered his face into a hand. "But not long enough to last forever."
"And?" she bade him continue, because she had no idea where this was going, but he seemed eager to speak, and she wasn't going to just ask him to stop.
"She became distant. And I needed something that she wouldn't give me. I looked for it anywhere that might offer it. And Blitzie... my darling Blitzie..." he offered a sad laugh. "He has such dreams. He would speak about his ambitions. About his desires. And they were contagious. I wanted them, too. I wanted him to have them."
She simply sat back, as the demon prince in his finery became animated, staring into the distance and gesticulating, trying to convince... not even necessarily her, but perhaps himself.
"You have to understand. I have read the Prophecies. I have seen every moment of my life, from the instant I was Sung into being, until the moment that I am struck down. And every moment of it... every single moment of it... has come to pass. And without surprise, what is there? Just dully going through the motions, hoping that what is bound to come next will be less boring and less painful than what I've just gone through... and it never is. Everything. Exactly. As. Foretold. Everything by God's Design... except for two things," Stolas said, his face falling, so deeply said.
"And those two things?" Tilla prompted.
At that, for the first time since beginning this diatribe, his despondency transformed into something like hope. "Octavia," he said. His glowing red eyes seemed to shine even to say that name. "There was no mention of my Octavia in any of the Prophecies. Not so much as a mention of my little starfire. And she was... I lived for her. When she was little, the sun rose in her eyes, and set when she fell to sleep."
"And then?" she said.
"...and then Blitzie," Stolas said. "I never saw anything like him before. The bald audacity of him. The ambition of him. And he was so incredibly eager to pleas... ahem... to please," he corrected himself, as he probably thought her something of a prude. So Blitz had learned that the way to this Demon Prince's heart had to be carved with a penis? What a shrewd boy. His lips tilted up into a smile. "And it only got better as things went on. Not just the... uh... pleasurable aspects of it. I just felt better to have him around. To be next to him was almost like... like being in Heaven again. To be the bold, brash angel I once had been, before all of this. I felt like, with Blitzie at my side, I had a choice again. Like I could make my own meaning."
"So why is it that he is so sure you're using him?" Tilla asked.
"What? No," Stolas said. He then pressed both palms to his face. "I didn't mean to... I didn't... blast it, why can I never express myself when he's involved? Why is it so hard to put this into words?"
He turned to her, an actual vulnerability on his face. Tilla managed not to show her shock, that in this moment, they were not lofty Demon Prince, and lowly imp, but instead two people trying to understand somebody who was beloved of both.
"My son," she began, her words measured, "has had a gruesomely terrible life."
"I presumed as much," Stolas began, but she raised a hand, and for a wonder, he cut himself off from continuing.
"He was told from his youngest days, that nothing good would ever come of him. That he was worthless. That he had no value to offer to anybody. If you tell a child they are loved, then even if the world is cruel around them, they will believe it. If you tell a child they are hated, however... there is no kindness that the world can show them that will convince them otherwise. They will carry that seed of hatred in their hearts, and it will poison their every thought and deed for their lifetime. I let that seed settle deep into Blitz's heart. I couldn't have stopped the world from being cruel to him. That was never in my power. But I could have at least enforced on him that he was loved. And I failed," she said.
"I think we both have," Stolas breathed out.
"It makes sense that you became enamored with my son," she continued. "He's an imp. You've read The Words of God, I take it?" Stolas nodded grimly, a scowl on his face. "Then tell me this, is there a single imp named in its entire text?"
"What?" Stolas asked, his suspicion plain.
"Is there a single imp mentioned by name in the entire of the Prophecy?" she asked. Stolas turned a look to her, then glanced aside, pondering.
"Imps are mentioned often. But... but I don't recall ever reading one actually named," he said.
"Because the Words of God cannot predict the imp," she said. She had smiled when she told this to Krieg, and was smiling now. "We are outside of God's ability to foretell, because we came to be without God's consent. We are outside His vision. On aggregate, He can guess the movement of the tide of the impish race, but he can not see any single imp, and never will. Blitz surprises you, delights you, because he is the only one in all creation whom you have no way of knowing what he will do next. And that puts you in the place of every other person who has ever lived who found themselves in love."
"I... I suppose you are correct in that," Stolas said.
"Have you ever told him these things you've told me?" Tilla asked.
"He must know," Stolas said.
"Blitz is a child of cruelty. Why would he for an instant presume somebody was going to treat him with kindness?" Tilla asked, flatly. Stolas sighed, slumping.
"...Then it is true: I have failed him as well," Stolas said. "What do I even do for him? Every day that has him in it is thrilling in the same way that all of the ones without him are dull."
"For one thing, try telling him," she said. Stolas turned a very unamused look at her. "I know, it won't work at first. It won't work on the thirtieth, or the hundredth time, either. But as stubborn as my boy is, he's not completely bulletproof. That despair had to get pounded in through the cracks I left behind. There are cracks enough to shove something else a bit more kind in its wake."
"You are an unusual specimen, she-imp," Stolas said. He gave his head a mild shake. "Kindness. What a strange notion."
"My name is Tilla," she reminded him. "And given how much cruelty he's lived through, he's going to need as much kindness as we can give him."
"Are you proposing an alliance, then?" Stolas asked, a glowing brow raised.
"For the good of Blitz, as mother and as lover," she said with a nod.
"I can agree to that," Stolas said.
And as she was about to speak again, there was an incredible crack of thunder, one that blew the imp's hair and the demon-prince's down, causing both to glance to the east, to the center of Pentagram City that rose as a mountain of buildings, to High Central, where the Palace of Lucifer himself stood. Projected miles tall, visible likely from all points in the Ring of Pride, was the King of All Hell. And he did not have a kindly look on his face.
"Greetings, scum and peons that I would only favor to scrape off of my boot," Lucifer said. "Today, as it turns out... is an auspicious day."
"This can't be good," Tilla said.
"It probably is not," Stolas agreed.
"Where the fuck were you? The ass end of Sloth?" Reggie asked as Loona pulled herself into the massive booth a the back corner of the Denny's. There were black curtains hung with spells of anti-scrying, and the tiles out in front of it were etched with sound nullifying runes, making this greasy, disgusting abbatoir-to-gullet restaurant somehow as secure as the meeting rooms that the Ars Goetia frequented. Although, she wouldn't put it past some of them to invest in this place. They did awesome bacon. The waffles weren't bad, either.
"I had to drive all the way from the edge of Purgatory, and ran out of gas a half mile out of town," she said. That had been an enlightening experience. She was able to cross marathon distances that would have left her more or less spent and didn't even have shortness of breath at their utmost. And she did it faster than she'd ever hiked a mile in her life.
"Purgatory? What are you doing at that old shit-pot?" Reggie asked.
"Does it matter?" Tex asked. He was looking better, now that he was back on his feet.
"Right. Fuck, sorry," Reggie said. His left eye was bloodshot to hell and back, but considering that his alternative was to lose it, probably for the best. "I've talked to the boys down at Blix Macerators and Gravelry. We can get, like, twenty guys here any time you want them."
"Twenty guys as in?" Loona asked.
"Blix's workforce are mostly hounds, either indentures or former-indentures. A few freemen. No outright Owned, though. Thank the moon for that," Tex muttered.
"Wait, you're scrounging up an army?" she asked.
"Yeah, well, we're gonna need it, if we're fighting the Proxy of Lucifer," Reggie stressed.
"There's one glaring problem with that," Loona said. Lissa, who was sitting at Reggie's side shot her a confused look. "Are we forgetting what Birch can do to people?"
"He can't order all of us around," Reggie said.
"He can order each one of you, in turn, to fight everybody else. That means he might as well be able to," Loona said. She sighed, rubbing her face. "Look, for reasons I can't really get into or adequately explain, I'm now immune to Birch's bullshit. And I'm one of, like, four people in all of existence who can say that."
"You're immune? Did you... what did you do?" Tex asked.
"You didn't rip out your ears did you?" Tiff asked from the back wall of the booth, which she more or less took up by herself. Loona shot a look at her.
"If I had deafened myself, how exactly would I be carrying on this conversation right now?" she asked.
"Yeah, think about it, Tiff," Lissa said, giving the half-blood hound a shove.
"So... how did you do it? How does it work? Can we do it too?" Tex asked.
Loona stared at them for a moment, wishing she could give a different answer than the one she had, but after that moment, she hung her head and gave it a slow shake. "I'm sorry. The price? It's so fucking high I'm shocked I was able to pay it at all."
"Right. I'm an idiot," Tiff rubbed at her eyes. She looked exhausted. Had she been working triple shifts again? "Still. You said there were four people. What are the chances of hiring any of them on to help?"
"Oh, I've got two of them in lock step beside me," she said. Moxxie and Millie were now in this every bit as deep as she was. "As for the last? Well... do you know of any way to bribe the fucking Radio Demon?"
"You're not saying..." Rupe cut in. He was tiny, like her, compared to his 'better fed' brethren, but was a mottled black, brown and white. Apparently, he was the only sane pup of a feral hound mother. He leaned closer across the table. "Are you saying you're like the Radio Demon now?"
"Kinda?" she said. "I mean... I can't do like a tenth of the shit he does. But frankly I don't even know all of what the Radio Demon's bullshit does to you, so I'm going to have to figure it out when the fight comes. And Blitz doesn't have any defenses so... Oh fuck. I think I'm a terrible daughter," she muttered upon the realization. Her father just needed even the slightest sliver of validation, and she in her fucking childish outrage refused to give it.
"Three people against Birch's best is still a losing fight," Reggie said, and she was thankful he was too fixated to notice her swerve. Tex did, though. And his look promised later words. "And especially not if he orders my brother to fight you. FUCK!"
"I've put some thought into that," Loona said, shame now reducing her ego to a probably more appropriate level. "I know how to beat Maelstrom."
"But without killing him?" Reggie asked.
"Without even fighting him," she said. "But it's going to require a fuckload of trust on your part. And that you do exactly what I tell you to do."
"How exactly do you plan on beating a warrior like that without a fight?" Tex asked. "You've seen his reflexes. You can't get the jump on him. He's immune to any ambush that doesn't include a high-powered rifle. And I'm pretty sure the amount of adrenaline flooding his veins make him just as immune to sedatives."
"Like I said. I'm going to beat him, by not fighting him," Loona said.
But before she could actually launch into how exactly she intended to do that, there was a tremendous crash that outright ignored the runes on the floor outside the booth, tearing down the curtains as a blizzard of flying glass tore through the Denny's. Loona blinked at that, then looked out through the now benuded windows to where she saw a projection of a pair of very long legs that had to be miles tall.
"Oh what fresh hell is this?" Loona asked, getting up and walking past the other, more lacerated patrons, until she could see that there he was, Lucifer himself, projecting himself to stare out over all of Pride Ring.
"Greetings, scum and peons that I would only favor to scrape off of my boot," the explosive voice of the King of All Hell rang out. "Today, as it turns out... is an auspicious day."
"We should get our shit and leave," Loona said.
"Now before you get yourselves worked into a tizzy, bear in mind that for the overwhelming majority of you, this will have no impact on your day-to-day lives. This auspicious day will rise and set without touching you in the slightest. But for some of you, oh, for some of you it will. Because I am declaring a Wyld Hunt, here and now, according to the rules of the Old Ways," Lucifer said, preening like the peacock who'd just eaten the tiger. "Somewhere amongst you is someone that I want. I want him alive. I want him more or less intact. And I want him before the sun sets tomorrow."
"What are the chances this has nothing to do with us?" Reggie asked, obviously not believing his luck could be that good.
"Any hand that abets or hides the target will be subject to the most grisly punishment that I can imagine," Lucifer continued. "Conversely, any of you filth that serves him to me will be given any prize within my power to grant. I'm a believer in the carrot and the stick, after all. That is the carrot. Give me my target, and your wish will be granted."
And at that, the massive projection's expression, while still remaining genteel, now took on a darkness that no amount of shining light or gleaming gold could hide. "But as for the stick? Well, it's a doozy," he gave a chuckle which made every denizen of Hell's blood run cold. "If, at midnight tomorrow, you haven't handed me the Sinner called in life Samuel Scailes, called also by you idiots Samuel the Poisonfire, I will come looking for him."
"This is really bad," Loona said.
"And when I come looking for him, I will lay waste to every place I search such that it could never be used to hide him again. I will tear down this entire fucking plane of existence, brick by brick, wall by wall, soul by soul, until I have what I want. And if I don't find him in Pride, I will pitch the entire fucking thing into the Abyss with whatever of you filth haven't already died because of your incompetence at giving me my just due, and I will do the same thing to Greed," he said, leaning forward, looming. "And then Wrath. Then Lust. Then Envy. Then Gluttony. And if you hide in the bottom of Sloth, Samuel, I will still find you. I will find you if I have to drag you out of the Abyss itself."
"He wouldn't, would he?" an imp nearby asked.
"He fucking would," Loona said. She could tell just by looking at him, that Lucifer, true to his reputation, was every bit as petty, grasping, and vindictive as to literally unravel his own realm to take what he believed was his, even if there was no basis for it.
"The clock starts now," Lucifer said, with a clock appearing in the skies over Pride Ring. Crisp, flowing digits that started at 29 hours, and then started to tick inexorably downward. "You've heard my carrot, you've seen my stick. Pride? Give me what I want. Or perish."
"Do any of you know who that could be?" Vortex asked.
Loona turned a look to him, one that she coded to send an entire silent message of 'I know who he is, and I need him alive for my own purposes, and don't fucking talk about this out loud'. Tex managed to catch that incredibly densely layered look, and reached to Tiff, pulling her down to his level and whispering into her ear.
"Really," she said. Tex could only shrug. She turned to Loona. "What's your move?"
Loona would ordinarily have been caught flat footed, wondering why they were even asking her opinion, but right now, she instantly knew the next step, and that not taking it was the pinnacle of folly. "We don't have time to deal with Samuel Scailes," she said sternly. The other hounds gave nervous nods at her, still glancing past her to the clock which would spell their doom in less than a day. "We have a hellhound to free from the shackles of slavery. And I will need all of you to do your parts to do it. Are you with me?"
"I'm with you," Reggie said instantly. Lissa, at his side, nodded.
"Just tell us what to do," Tex said.
"Get the cook," she pointed toward the kitchen. "We're going to need a really fucking expensive dead pig, and you're gonna have to rent a food-truck."
And as for the rest of the plan, it seemed to assemble itself in front of Loona even as she spoke it. And the Free Hounds of Dennys? They hung on her every word.
Ye who pass, say your goodbyes;
for weight of sin yon leave thy lives.
Ye in truth, ye penitent;
shall find thyself soon heaven-sent.
-Inscription on the gates of Purgatory