Chapter 11

Lucius laid his hellphone down on the table.

"Alright, Fye, you're on speaker."

A tired voice spoke from the other line.

"You wanna hear it from me directly, or do you want to hear it from him?"

The dining room had been cleared out since lunch, with all of the guests having either returned to their rooms (like Shakie), or to their places of work (like Angel Dust). Charlie and Vaggie had politely left the area, wanting to give the Imps their privacy. The only ones in the room were Lucius himself, with Viola next to him and Gishram standing across the table."

"Is the prisoner still capable of speech?", Lucius asked.

"Yes, believe it or not. The bastard was hard to crack. Maybe the single hardest one I've ever encountered."

Lucius looked over at Viola, who simply shook her head.

"You sound exhausted.", Lucius remarked.

"I am exhausted. This fucker managed to take my entire stash of questioning needles. All of them. I had to get creative just to get the bastard to flinch."

Lucius looked at his watch. "Looks like it took you about two hours."

"Please don't remind me, comrade General Secretary."

The older Imp nodded. "Fine. Let's cut to the chase: what has he told you."

There was a deep, tired sign from the other line.

Fye began to give his info.

"Danny-boy is working for someone else. Who that individual is isn't exactly clear since they only communicated through aliases."

"Makes sense."

"The technology he was using to create the bio-mechanical Imp things is in fact stolen tech from Voxtek, or to be more accurate, it's an imperfect recreation of a Voxtek prototype, as was the equipment used to mass produce them. This confirms what we already know about the origins of those things."

"Cherri calls them 'creeches'.", Viola commented. "Might be a good label going forward."

"Yeah, she told me when I was with her and Sallie May that night. But to the point…"

The sound of a wheeled chair rolling across the floor came from the hellphone, followed by a screeching stop.

"Like I said, him and his boss never actually met in person. They just spoke either by mail or over the phone."

"Yeah, using aliases. Did he share any info on that?"

"He did. Which is why I need Viola to answer me a question."

The female Imp leaned in. "I'm here, Fye."

"Viola, do you remember when Chay told us what went down in that workshop? About how Danny-boy kept going on and on about someone Chay apparently knows?"

Viola looked up at Lucius with concern on her face.

"Yeah.", she answered. "I remember."

"Well, you're the expert on the human realm, so I have to ask: does the name Brother Number One ring any bells?"

"...Still no sightings. Shifting to Camera 2…"

On a higher floor of the Hotel, Baxter sat in his comfy yet worn chair, sipping at a mug of coffee while speaking into a tape recorder. In front of him was an enormous computer screen, its glow cutting through the room's gloomy darkness.

Over the last month, this surveillance had become routine for the squat Sinner. Although the Hotel had managed to survive the last Extermination, it had not done so unscathed, and Baxter had put it upon himself to improve the security of the building.

(Having the floor that your previous room had been located at collapse into the floor below it tends to -as one can imagine – make a person rather hypervigilant afterwards.)

This would be the real test for his security systems; if they could withstand the onslaught of the Heavenly Host, they could withstand anything.

But that wasn't really what he was concerned about right now.

"Hmm, no sightings on Camera 2 either. Shifting to Camera 3…"

BRRRRT BRRRT!

His screen was suddenly blocked by an incoming call, bearing the name ScalyMcBeal.

He sighed as he clicked the answer button.

"I'm in the middle of something, Pentious…

"I know I know, I'm sure you're ssssoooo busy. Now shut up and look at this."

Another smaller window popped up in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. The image within it was taken just outside of the West Side of the Pentagram. The Vees Building dominated the skyline, meaning it was taken in the relative vicinity of the entertainment district.

But it was the floating object hovering in the foreground that was the real piece of interest.

"Wait, that's…"

The object was golden in color, featuring a pair of art-deco 'wings' that gave it a sleek and futuristic look. Near the front, below the chasis, was a darkl glass bowl.

"That's an Angelic Drone."

"No sssshit, Sherlock.", Pentious hissed. "I caught this from one of Vox's drones this afternoon."

"Which means the Vees definitely know about it by now."

"Obviously. Now, look at this…"

Another window popped up below the first one, showing yet another image. This one also was taken in the Pride Ring, but Baxter didn't recognize the exact location, as it was taken much lower to the ground and was only in black and white.

However, it captured yet another drone, this time covered in shadow and much further in the air.

"Thisssss image was sent to me earlier this morning."

"It's...not quite as clear as the first one. Where is this from?"

"I got this from one of Wackford's people. This was taken in Imp City."

"Wally Wackford? Seriously?"

"The Imp is making quite a name for himself over there, Baxter. Rumor is he's working on a project for Voxtek."

"Everybody is rumored to be working for Voxtek, Pentious. And everybody is full of shit."

"Not Wackford. He has genuine roboticistsss working for him now. But to my point: We're still over 24 hours out from the next Extermination and Heaven is snooping around. You and I are both intelligent enough to understand the implications. Especially after what happened last year."

Baxter's head clapped against the leather back of his chair. He could feel a migraine coming.

"...What do you want, Pentious?"

A hissing gasp could be heard from the other line. "Preposterousss! I only give you this information in good spirit!"

"Don't jerk me around here, Pentious. We both know that you don't just offer up info like this for nothing."

Grumbles. "Fine. I have plans that require your current residence to remain intact for the time being. Seeing as you are the architect of its security, I figured that you could use it to protect the building if worse comes to worse. Once Heaven gets involved, we both know this will be bigger than us."

"Says the guy who was trying to level the city a couple of weeks ago. How's that bruised ego treating you, by the way?"

"It still stingssss, sssmart-ass."

"Is your hiss getting worse?"

"I'm very sssstresssed out right now! Aren't you?!"

"...Maybe a little."

"Exactly. Now, one last thing: That first photograph I showed you? Take a closer look at the bottom left."

He brought the first window back onto the screen and enlarged it. The image became increasingly muddied with the enlarged pixels, however he could just make out what looked like an Imp's tail and something…bulging...

...Oh shit.

Baxter took a deep breath and pulled out his hellphone.

"You have my gratitude, Pentious. Now, don't do anything rash."

"I don't intend to."

"I'm serious. Your ego is wounded enough as it is."

"Oh fuck you, you gilled little-"

CLICK

Baxter scrolled through his contacts before he brought up Vaggie. He pressed the contact button and held the hellphone to his ear as it rang.

"...Yeah?"

"We may have a security issue."

"Mierda. Of course we would. What do you need?"

"So, you were sayin'?"

Angel Dust handed the class of sparkling ginger ale to Via, who was seated at the bar with Shakie and Mimzy. Husk was wiping down the bar with a damp towel while sipping at a bottle of gin, keeping one of his ears open on the conversation.

"Oh, thank you", Via said as she sipped at her beverage. "Anyway, we were at Loo Loo Land with my dad's boyfriend and his co-workers. My father drags me to this hideous animatronics show where it looks like the machinery hasn't been oiled in over a decade. Any of you familiar with it? "

"Well, not us.", Mimzy remarked. "You know, with it bein' in the Greed Ring and all, but we do know about LuLu World. Charlie took us there a few months back."

"Right. Well, Loo Loo Land is basically just a really shitty bootleg version of that that's owned by Mammon. Anyway, he drags me to this show that's hosted by one of those Fizzbots...do you guys have Fizzbots here?"

Angel cringed. "Yeah, we do. My boss has a couple of 'em customized for filmin' purposes."

Via raised a feather eyebrow. "For...'filming' purposes?"

"Let's just say I don't have enough fingers to count how many times I've been fisted by one. Creepy lookin' fuckers."

"...R-right. Well, like you said: they are extremely creepy. And the one that hosted that show was...well, that. And those songs, ugh! It gets so bad that I just run out of the tent because...because I just couldn't handle it anymore. And then that same Fizzbot picks a fight with my dad's boyfriend and they end up setting the park on fire!"

"So...where was your father in all this?", Shakie asked.

"He...he went looking for me." Via said. "The truth was that he was trying to reconnect with me to make up for all of the shite with my mum and him. Then my mum ordered a hit on him and…"

Via went silent for a moment. Shakie gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It's fine.", Via eventually said. "Now that my parents are divorced for real it's better. I mean...there's still some work to do but…"

"Heh, yeah…" Husk said as he leaned over the bar. He nodded over at Angel. "Kinda reminds you of Charlie and her old man, right?"

"Yeah, no kiddin'.", Angel answered. "Fuckin' Christ, bein' a royal must come with a free helpin' of daddy issues."

"Wait...you guy's have met King Lucifer?", Octavia asked.

"Oh, yeah.", Mimzy remarked. "Well, me and Husker and Angel have. Baxter as well. Oh, and Alastor." The squat Sinner couldn't help but snicker. "Especially Alastor."

"I...don't follow."

"You're a royal, ain't you?", Husk asked. "You've at least seen him at some big royal function or something."

"Well, yeah. But not, like, personally or anything. He barely seemed to pay attention to anyone but him and the Queen. At most he was just trying to impress everybody."

"Exactly. Now Imagine someone like that meeting Alastor."

"...Huh." She sipped at her drink as she mulled over the suggestion. She imagined something akin to cats clawing each other's eyes out.

"He's gotten' better, though.", Angel said. "If you're lucky, ya might just run into him tomorrow morning."

Via spluttered out ginger ale. "He's coming? Here?"

"Maybe.", Husk said as he wiped up the bar. "He's kinda flaky like that."

"I hope he does.", Mimzy grumbled. "Gettin' myself all prettied up for nothin'…"

Via's eyes grew wide with panic. She pulled down on her beanie. "No. No no that cannot happen. My father doesn't even know I'm here. If His Highness himself finds out I-"

"Calm down, Feathers.", Angel interjected, rubbing her back. "Lucifer is just like his daughter. If anything, he'd just want to crush you to death with hugs like she did."

"Besides…", Shakie said. "You're an adult now, right? Your dad has to let you leave the nest at some point, doesn't he?"

"Well, yeah. As long as it's 'safe' and largely free of Sinners…"

"But you're under royal protection while you're in this building.", Mimzy responded. "So you got nothin' to worry about. Besides, you've only been here a day. Not like you've been missin' a whole week or soemthin'..."

Via sheepishly shrank into her seat. "Yeah...about that…"

THOOOM

The door to the Hotel was blown off of its hinges, rocketing across the lobby and ricocheting off the far wall, shattering into a mess of splinters and gold-plating and leaving an enormous crater. The room filled with mist and the shrieks of demonic legions, shrieking their warcry for their lord.

And filling the door was a large, shadowy owl figure.

A figure that was very large.

And very angry.

"CHARLIIIIIEEEEEEEE!"

CHAPTER 11 END