A Toast to the Devil
"What cell did you put him in?"
"Actually, Dr-"
"Tell me you didn't lose him."
The assistant hung her head.
"The team arrived seconds after he walked out of the supermarket, sir, but the boy was gone. Just disappeared into thin air!"
Dr Three turned around, scowling.
"We'll need to take more… drastic action, then."
"Of course, sir."
Nico stayed in the shadows, making them conceal him, until he was sure there was no one in K-Unit's cabin. Then he plunged out of them, driving the trolley into the room. He pulled it to a halt to survey the setting up. Nico nodded in approval.
Tables were crammed into the corners along with the beds, leaving the centre of the room free of clutter for the men to stand. Snake and Jaguar must be getting the final table for the last space left. Nico was glad to see a cover over one of the surfaces; the drinks table. He'd brought cups too, so they were ready.
Nico checked out the window. The sky was stained orange, purple, pink and yellow as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Nico wheeled the trolley towards the first table he found and started unloading it. The drinks went on the covered one, along with the cups. The chips had their own smaller table. The fruit and vegetables were all placed on the biggest surface and Nico made sure to lock the door and blind the windows before he summoned two corpses. He told them to get to work on making the fruit presentable. They did, nimbly slicing and dicing.
Nico himself hauled the cooktop stove he'd gotten from the store onto the last table. He didn't plug it in – there were no sockets anyway – instead holding out his hand. His palm suddenly filled with dark Hellfire, and Nico held it to the burner underneath the stainless steel surface. It caught, and the black flames danced around. Nico arranged a variety of meats – sausages, chops, beef patties, etc – on top of the burning hot silver, and they were done in minutes. That's the thing about Hellfire.
Throwing the loaves of bread to the other end of the table, Nico slipped a particularly juicy slab of beef off the pan and created another Hellfire flame in his hand. Holding the beef over it, Nico started whispering.
"To Hades," he said, and watched at the meat disappeared in a flare of fire. A delicious smell started wafting around the cabin and before Nico could close his fist on the Hellfire, a knock came to the door.
"Devil, you in there? I got the other Units. Why the hell are the windows blacked out?"
Nico put out the Hellfire in his hand, leaving the one under the burner to cook the meat. It couldn't be seen anyway. He unlocked the door, flicked on the lights, and opened it.
Wolf was standing there with a decent sized group of men behind him. As the door opened, noses rose into the air simultaneously, and drool started to creep down each soldiers chins. Nico snorted, thinking of Percy's habit of drooling in his sleep. Then he quickly shut down that train of thought and greeted Wolf.
"Yes, I'm in here. I can see that, and they're blacked out because I'm cooking."
Another slicing sound came from the skeleton chefs and Nico winced. He checked their progress over his shoulder, deemed it fine, and quickly sent them back to the ground. THAT would be hard to explain.
Wolf sniffed the air.
"I can smell that," he said, almost in awe. Nico nodded.
"It's incredibly close to being finished," he said, taking a step back. "So I'll-"
"DEVIL!"
Nico turned to see Cub barrelling down the hill towards the cabin. Even in the pathetic light of the lamps around the camp, Nico could see the look of rage on the other boys face. The soldiers parted before Cub even reached them, terrified for their lives.
"You are so dead," one of them muttered to Nico, and Nico felt slightly inclined to agree. Cub looked scary as Hades.
In seconds Cub was in front of him, diving at Nico. Nico ducked and Cub sailed over his head, exiting with a roll into the room. The fair-haired boy sprung to his feet and whirled around. Nico, thinking quickly, grabbed an apple slice off the fruit table and shoved it in Cub's mouth before he could give Nico and earful.
The teen spy grunted behind the slice and sucked it into his mouth, eating it. Then he grabbed Nico's shoulders and started shaking them.
"Where the hell did you go?!" Cub shrieked. Nico shrugged.
"The supermarket," he answered. A babble of questions started outside as men turned to stare, wide-eyed, at the boy being interrogated by Cub. Before the blond boy could continue though, Wolf was pushed into the room by Eagle, Snake and Jaguar, who looked around in surprise before waving the rest of the Units in. Smothered by noise and the immediate sound of munching, Cub could only hold on to Nico and wonder just how he had gotten out of Brecon, to the supermarket, got all this stuff and gotten back. It defied logic.
"A toast!" Someone cried.
It was well into the night by now and men had eaten their fill, instead leaning on tables and holding plastic glasses of mineral juice, talking. They all stopped however, when the cry sounded through the air again.
"A toast, to two very annoying brats!"
A chuckle swept through the crowd as Wolf stood up on his bunk. He raised his glass, a red liquid frothing in it. Alex snorted; he didn't peg Wolf as the cherry-mineral-water type of guy.
"As I said before, two very, very annoying kiddies have somehow managed to get this together," Wolf said to the now silent crowd. Eyes turned to Alex and Devil, and a round of applause started. Someone clapped Alex on the back as he was suddenly lifted off his feet and passed over heads to where Wolf was speaking. Devil landed next to him on the bed, and Alex sent the other boy a playful glare. Devil shrugged. They hadn't been able to talk the whole time, and it was driving Alex mad that Devil wouldn't tell him how he got anything done that evening.
"And I suppose it is a rather semi-good honour to have them in K-Unit."
Alex touched his heart mockingly and pretended to wipe away a tear.
"You're so emotional, Wolf," he sobbed theatrically. "Be still my beating heart!"
Wolf growled and the group of SAS men laughed. Devil just nodded, smirking. Alex grinned to himself as Wolf punched his shoulder good-naturedly.
"So," Snake took over now, pushing Wolf off the bed. "Well done, Cub and Devil, for making each and every one of us shit our pants with fear, and then nicking food to share."
Eagle beat his chest twice before holding out the peace sign.
"Respect."
The other men laughed at the hyper K-Unit member, before repeating the gesture. Alex smiled happily. No more being avoided. He looked to his left to see Devil, emotionless as ever, but a content twinkle in his eyes. Alex sighed in relief. He knew they'd both been through horrible things. They deserved something nice.
The cabin was packed up and clean by three in the morning. Each man had helped return the tables and discreetly pile all the used cups, bottles and paper plates into a box that Nico was going to get rid of. By the time the son of Hades had gotten back from his shadow-travel to the dump, the only men inside the cabin was K-Unit, conversing by candlelight. Nico was about to open the door, before he heard what they were saying.
"I don't know how he does it," Cub was saying. "He ran into the bathroom. I saw the stall lock! And when I opened it he was gone. Just, gone."
Nico stiffened. They were talking about him.
"I wouldn't know Cub, but he's got this look in his eyes… really, it just scares me to death. I swear he can see my soul and read my mind sometimes. He's someone who's seen more than he should."
Snake was talking now, and Nico pursed his lips. They were unpicking what they knew of him. He supposed it should be expected. He listened in empty silence.
"Personally, I'm worried for the kid." Nico gave a start. Wolf?
"He knows more than he should about fighting and war, and that's not right. He should have a girlfriend, be sleeping in, eating more, not breaking assault course records and smashing five experts in sword fighting."
"Aww, whittle Wolfie's worried?" Eagle mocked, and Nico heard the sound of breath leaving body. He assumed Wolf had punched his fellow soldier.
"Eagle, you're so dense," Snake said. "Aren't you wondering about any of this?"
A gasping noise came, and Nico suspected Eagle had tried answering. Wolf sighed.
"What I don't get is how good he is!" Jaguar burst. "I mean, he can't just be that good naturally. He's got to have trained somewhere. You don't think…"
All the men winced at the unspoken implication. Alex looked around, his stomach knotting.
"What?" He asked. Four pairs of eyes looked at him.
"Scorpia," Wolf said eventually. Alex felt himself seize up, remembering his own time at Scorpia. But he made himself shake his head.
"He doesn't fight like someone from Scorpia," Alex said steadily. "He doesn't fight like anything, really. He just fights, and he's damn good."
"But who trained him?" Snake asked.
"Why do you want to know?" Came a voice from the corner. All five of them whipped around to see Devil leaning against the wall in the furthest corner, his foot up against the wood and a cheeky look in his eyes.
"Ah, Devil! Hey!" Eagle said excitedly. Devil shook his head slowly. Eagle bumped down. "How much did you hear?"
"Pretty much all of it," Devil replied, his smile growing. Wolf rubbed his head and Snake shuffled his feet. Jaguar just stared at the black-haired kid unabashedly. Devil blinked slowly and looked at the man.
"A picture lasts longer, Jaguar," he said softly. Alex sniggered as Jaguar looked away. He watched as Devil walked over. Wolf watched him carefully.
"How did you get here?" He asked. The boy stayed standing and leant on the bedframe closest to him.
"I came in a car, like the rest of you," Devil replied, rolling his eyes a bit. Wolf frowned.
"No, I mean in the room. We saw you leave with the rubbish and you didn't come in the door."
Alex watched a wariness creep onto his fellow boy soldier's face.
"Down the chimney."
Wolf shook his head.
"Why didn't we hear you then?"
"Because I was quiet."
Alex snorted. "More like the rest of you need to get your ears checked," he said, swiftly dodging a kick from Eagle.
"Why aren't you covered in soot?" Snake asked suspiciously. Devil sighed.
"Because I didn't come down the chimney," he said. Eagle looked confused.
"But you said you did."
"I lied."
"Well how did you-"
"It's how I was taught."
They all went quiet at that. Alex looked Devil over.
"Who taught you?" He asked. Devil faced him.
"My father did," he said. "It's a family trait, okay. Now, can we go to bed? I don't feel like sleeping through the assault course. It would make me slow and quite frankly, wound my pride."
Wolf just snorted, muttering "You can't be slow, whether you're asleep or not," and Eagle bounced onto his bed before immediately falling asleep. Snake looked Devil over one last time before grabbing his book and laying down while Jaguar just piled his covers on top of himself and started snoring. Alex lay on his stomach and watched Devil sit down on his bed. He made no move to sleep. Instead, he unstrapped the walking stick from his waist and ducked behind the bed, before remerging with his black sword in all its creepy glory. Alex watched as Devil started polishing it.
"Go to sleep, Cub," Devil suddenly said and Alex jerked his head up to find the other boy staring at him. He huffed and rolled over, his eyes closing slowly. Eventually, with the sound of cloth rubbing blade, Alex fell into unconsciousness.
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