Chapter 18

Alastor and Chay returned home to a Goetian Prince and a weepy Princess.

...Well, obviously there were some other things they noticed at first. For one thing, there was the fact that the front door had been blasted off of its hinges (Alastor grumbled about it 'happening again', which implied that this was a recurring event). Said doors, by the way, were firmly stuck into the far walls of the lobby, apparently having been flung with such force that they had embedded themselves into the surface (thank Carmilla and the heavens for blessed galvanized square steel).

Then, of course, there was the slightly charred edges of the door frame itself, which suggested that whoever broke the door had done so with great fury. Not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but still...pretty noticeable.

And, of course, Lucius and Viola were nowhere to be seen...more than likely having fled to the penthouse suite to hide from whatever danger there was.

But it was when they walked into the dining room that they saw Charlie sobbing happily over a black furball in her arms, with Vaggie gently rubbing her shoulder.

"Told you.", Alastor said to Chay with a smug air.

"Salutations, Miss Ong.", Stolas greeted her, tea cup in hand. "Lovely to see you again. I'd greet you properly were we not somewhat occupied at the moment."

"Yes, nice to see you too, Your Highness.", Chay answered. "So…anybody want to fill me in or…"

Charlie's sniffling slowly stopped as she gathered herself together. "Yeah, sorry about that. Chay?"

The Princess walked over to Chay and Alastor as the fluffball in her hand slowly unfolded itself into the form of a feline.

"This is Kee Kee."

The cat in her arms slowly opened up its single, large eye.

"...Huh.", Chay responded. "You know, I had been seeing some random cat hair upstairs, but I just though that was from Husk."

"I fucking heard that!", Husk yelled from the lobby.

The cat's lone eye curiously looked Chay over, seemingly sizing her up.

"Mew?" Whose the skeleton lady?

Chay's eyes narrowed. "I have the sudden feeling that I've just been insulted."

"One can never tell with cats, I imagine.", Stolas remarked. "I much prefer quiefs myself. Remember the one we used to have, Via? The one that ran away when you were a little girl?"

"It didn't run away, dad.", Octavia responded. "Mum strangled it and threw it off the balcony."

Stolas blinked.

"….Oh. Well then...I suppose I should have told you about the farm upstate instead…"

"There are no farms here, dad.", she answered.

Chay's raised a questioning eyebrow. Stolas seemed...different from what she remembered. He didn't seem nearly as intimidating as he was when she'd first met him. He seemed oddly meek in comparison.

"Oh! That reminds me…"

Stolas slowly got up from the table, his head nearly touching the ceiling.

-Oh, right. I forgot how tall he was.

Though strangely enough, he still didn't reek of the air of privilege and aristocratic excess he had last time.

Fascinating.

"Miss Ong, I wanted to inform you that I have accepted you taking charge of my daughter's case. Any resources that I can provide you are yours to do with as needed. Consider it a peace offering."

Chay raised a bony eyebrow. "A peace offering? For what?"

"For...umm...breaking into Her Highness's domicile."

"...Oh."

Well, that's one mystery solved.

Stolas briefly kneeled on one knee in front of Charlie. "Again, This One apologizes profusely for Their conduct. I can only plead my distress as a parent for my behavior."

"You've apologized enough already, Uncle Stolas.", she answered as he stood back up. "I'm just glad to see you and Via again. I've missed seeing you. Ain't that right Kee Kee?"

"Mew." I could eat him.

"Indeed.", Stolas said. "We really must make a proper visit sometime and soon. But for now…"

The Goetian clapped his hands, summoning a blue portal in the middle of the room.

"I fear we must be going. Come along, Via."

Octavia rolled her eyes and stood up from her chair. "Dad, for fuck's sake, I'm almost 19."

The Prince looked at her, seemingly ashamed. The portal winked out of existence.

"...Oh, right. Good point. Well then...would you do the honors?"

Via's eyes lit up. "That's more like it."

Stolas gave her a cheeky wink as Via opened her own, purple portal. She waved her goodbyes as she stepped through.

"Don't hesitate to contact me if need be, Miss Ong. I wish you good luck."

He stepped into the portal.

"Good luck to all of you. See you soon!...I hope."

He entered the portal as it closed behind him.

Over near the door, a couple of Imps poked their heads into view.

"Is he gone?", Lucius asked

Sip sip sip

Adam sat at his desk, sipping on a big gulp cup of Heaven Cola. How he managed to do this through his digital mask was a secret known only to him.

At least, that's what Lute told herself.

"She seems to be leaving the area, sir…"

He put the cup down. "Yeah, I can see that. Fucking Christ but that was hard to watch…"

The screen in front of them tracked The Sigh leaving Carmine's building and dashing her way down the street, hopping from trashcans to car tops and pretty much anything that had a surface.

"If I had to see that bitch throat fuck Striker with her tongue for one more second...yech!"

Adam visibly shuddered as he got up from his chair. "Either way, I think we've seen enough. Go ahead and order the drone to return to base."

"Ordering now, sir."

Adam rolled his shoulders. "My neck was starting to get stiff. Goddamn...Lute, while you're up go ahead and call up that Virtue chick from last night so I can-"

"Sir, the Seraphim is on line 2."

"….Oh fuck."

Adam quickly hurried back to his desk, desperately trying to compose himself.

"OK...shit….Alright, maintain. Maintain…"

He took one last deep breath.

"There we go... Cool as a fucking cucumber. Put her on, Lute."

The screen winked off of the drone feed and shifted over to incoming call.

Adam was then met with the cool, calculated, and angry visage of the High Seraphim staring daggers at him through the screen.

"Sera, babe...S'up?"

The angel's eyes narrowed.

"...Something wrong?"

"Adam."

He couldn't keep the illusion going any longer.

"Fuck, Sera! Just say it! I can't take it when you do this passive aggressive kindergarten teacher bullshit on me!"

She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

"This morning, Emily informed me that you haven't been seen for the last three days. Normally, this would not concern me. But then I remembered what month it was."

"Oh yeah, New Year's! We're gonna get jello shots and a fuckin' rum cake-"

"ADAM."

"What?"

"...Do you know what I encountered outside of my office this morning? You should know, since you've had the same problem."

"...Street performers?"

"Adam."

"Raging fangirls flashing their tits?"

"ADAM."

"That guy who sells gelato on the promenade?"

"ADAM!"

"...The protesters."

"Yes. Protesters. Here. In Heaven. Outside of my office. Emily had to help push them away just so I could get into the door."

"Surprised she wasn't out there picketing. You know, that girl is gonna be troub-"

Her eyes turned blood red.

"-ulp."

"Adam. It is not just me. It's also the council. It's also the other representatives. Some of the protesters are representatives. Do you understand what I am trying to convey to you?"

"...Maybe."

"Then let me be more direct. I know you intend to launch another extermination. I know that you intend to go after Lucifer's daughter again. All of this, against my explicit requests that you cancel the extermination this year-"

"See, about that-"

"Silence, I'm not finished...Against my explicit requests that you cancel the extermination this year so that we can hopefully allow tensions to cool down. We are barely keeping this situation stable. I am barely keeping this situation stable. Which is why I am giving you one last chance: return to Heaven. Call off the extermination, and things can end there."

Adam's menacing mask grinned.

"Really? That your game, Sera? So lemme ask you this: what's the opinion of the council?"

Sera's eyes were no longer red. They were boiling, inky, furious black.

"How dare you-"

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm gonna take a guess and say that either the council doesn't agree with you...or you haven't consulted with them at all."

The High Seraphim's mouth formed a scowl sharp enough to slice granite.

"So this is what's gonna happen: until you can get the rest of the council to agree to end the extermination...which, need I remind you, was something that you specifically requested that I lead and have kept secret for eons...I'm going to continue under the assumption that we still have explicit council approval. And need I remind you: I can go over your head. I am the favorite, after all."

Sera's eyes slowly returned to their normal color, filled with both anger and sorrow.

"What you did to Emily, Adam...I-"

"Yeah yeah nice story tell it to Reader's Digest. Adam out."

The screen winked off.

Adam leaned back in his chair and yawned.

Lute walked up to him. "Sir?"

"Yeah, Lute?"

"That bit about the council, are you-"

"Oh yeah, I'm sure. Were we really in trouble, she would have had the rest of the council on standby."

"Sir…"

"Lute…", Adam got up from his chair and put his arm on the Excorsist's shoulder. "We are going to avenge your sisters in battle. On that, you have my word as the chief Exorcist. Lucifer's crotch fruit, that little traitor Vaggie, and every single one of those goddamn degenerate losers will pay."

He turned back around and picked up his big gulp cup.

"And then afterwards, we're gonna have a sick-ass post-extermination blowout! We're gonna have fuckin' pyrotechnics, and back-up dancers...fuckin' Neil Peart is gonna be on drums it's gonna be awesome…"

"God-fucking-DAMMIT!"

Vox ripped the cables out of his headports, bent over in agony. The image on his face flashed and glitched between color tests and static.

"The fucking...I can just...GYAAH!"

He threw the cables onto the floor and got up form his chair, his body wracked with spasms. Lightning shot out of his head, bouncing off of the water tanks that surrounded his office. The pain rocked him to his knees.

The door in front of him slid open.

"Wow...Vox, amorcito...you look like shit warmed over."

Vox looked up to see Valentino, with his hand still encased in a cast.

"Not in the mood for your shit right now, Val.", he said as he got up. "There's a breach in the system and I just caught that fucker Baxter hacking into Voxtek's servers, my secretary was supposed to contact WUL two hours ago, Bodfish hasn't answered me back, we've got under 36 hours until the next extermination hits us, and something in the goddamn net just nearly scrambled my goddamn brain!"

Valentino gave Vox a lopsided grin. The grin that, somehow, always managed make Vox's heart skip a beat.

"Well then, I have some good news for you darling. Bodfish is downstairs." He ran a hand under Vox's quite literally square chin. "I just came up to let you know."

The TV-head Overlord let out a sigh. "Fuckin' finally."

"There we go.", Valentino cooed at him. "No more tears, amorcito. Now, let's go talk to that limey sheep, si?"

Vox shook his head. "At least Velvette managed to get some info out of that boney cunt."

Val's eyes turned a darker red. "Perdon?"

"Remember when Vel told us about that shipment of blessed metal wires we were going to use for Project Sol? The one that got hijacked while it was making its way across the wasteland?"

"Vaguely. I do remember wandering why we had to get them from Imp City when Carmine is just a block over…"

"Yeah, well, get this shit: Velvette actually managed to get those little Imp cocksuckers that Ong hangs out with to admit to it."

Valentino's eyes narrowed. "You don't say?"

"Yeah, it's hilarious. She threw them some line about how 'it was for her Autumn fashion line' or some shit and they fucking blabbed like cornered fucking rats!"

"Interesting.", Val responded. His fangs bit into his bottom lip, leaking out his pink pheromones.

"So you know what this means, right? It means that Ong was an accessory to a theft of our property. Which means…"

Valentino could barely contain a giggle. "Oh, now that is just rich. We could actually erase that bitch and get my money back…

"Yeah, among other things…"

Vox looked at Valentino quizzically. "That reminds me…why aren't you at your studio? Isn't Angel supposed to be doing some last minute shoots?"

The moth-Sinner grimaced. "Yeah...about that…"

CHAPTER 18 END