Chapter 27

"That'ssss it, eggies. Single file, quickly now..."

Several of Pentious's eggboi minions filed into the Hotel lobby, punctuating each step with quick 'hup's and other noises.

Vaggie wasn't amused.

"Pentious, what the fuck are you-"

"Ssshut your mouth for five secondsss and look outssside, woman!", he angrily interjected as he pointed towards the open the door. "You'd realize that you are under sssiege!"

Charlie peeked her head out of the door.

"….Oh fuck.", she moaned.

Looking down the street, she saw what was the unmistakable gold sheen of a Heaven drone.

And another one.

And then another one.

And then an entire fleet of them besides.

Vaggie poked her head out alongside Charlie.

"...Fuuuuuck.", she exclaimed.

"Uh, Vaggie…", she said as she slowly backed away from the door. "You might want to get Baxter-"

"I'm already on it.", an electronic voice announced over unseen speakers. "Brace for incoming security measures."

"Hey! When the fuck did you install those?!", Vaggie yelled to no one in particular.

"Yesterday.", the voice answered. "Initiating measures in five, four, three…"

Around the hotel, a quartet of four equidistant points slid open like trap doors. From these holes emerged four enormous metallic poles, each topped off with large metallic spheres. Within these poles unraveled a single wall of metallic wiring, each extending and connecting to the pole that was to it's immediate right.

"...two, one, initiating security measures now."

All at once, the newly emerged metallic fencing was shot through with thousands of volts of electricity.

The drones tentatively buzzed near the Hotel, making a careful yet timid perimeter. One slowly emerged to touch the fence. It immediately shorted out and plummeted to the street below. A couple of others followed suit, crashing into smoking heaps onto the concrete.

Vaggie slowly shut the door. "Pentious, what did you do?"

"Nothing!", he screeched. "I did nothing! It'sss not my fault that they were in my flight path while I was doing reconnaisssssance!"

The sound of another drone crashing into the pavement could be heard through the door.

"Riiight. And you were doing that because…?"

"W-well…"

His slithery tail slowly slithered around him in embarassment. "I wasss...I was planning my next attack, of courssse! To avenge my humiliation from that accursed Alas-"

Vaggie rolled her eyes. "Well, as soon as those things are gone, you're slithering your ass right out of those doors, are we cle-"

"Don't belittle me, purple female!", he yelled back. "I'm not here because of thossse dronesss. I'm here becaussse I must ssspeak with Mr. Baxter this instant. It's urgent!"

"Is your hiss getting worse?"

"I'm very stressssed right now!"

Across the lobby, the eggbois had managed to fill out the entire room, aimlessly walking around and poking at random things that threatened to break.

Lester looked around suspicously.

"I do not know how I feel about these creatures.", he remarked.

One of the eggbois nearby reached up and plucked a piece of cheddar from Lester's cheese plate.

"...I now have nothing but contempt for these creatures.", he remarked again.

The unseen intercoms whistled back to life.

"Pentious, what do you want?", Baxter asked.

"Your laboratory! I need to sssee you! Clock is ticking!", the Snake-Sinner yelled back.

"...Is it what you mentioned yesterday!"

Pentious gripped his fingers, his hands shaking.

"...Yes, Baxter. Time is not on our ssside."

"...Fourth floor, door 8. Keep your minions at a respectable distance or I'm making omelets."

Pentious slithered up the stairs as fast as his snake body could carry him, leaving the eggboi minions by themselves with the staff and guests left in the lobby.

Fyewackett looked up at Lucifer. "So uh...you gonna do anything about that?"

The King of Hell let out a long, pained sigh.

"When Heaven is involved, 'doing anything' often brings more trouble than its worth."

"Yeah, they send those drones around here all the time.", Charlie piped in. "They tend to hide in plain sight...although I've never seen that many in one place before..."


"Sawney!", Chay shouted. "I know you're in there! You can come out now or we can do this the hard way!"

Gluton's counsel had led Chay and Alastor both to a cave located under an underpass, specifically under the Spiral Highway.

It wasn't exactly subtle, either. The Bean clan had seen fit to decorate the outside of their domicile with the spoils of their meals: Large wooden poles were decorated with the skulls of Hellborn, including Imps, Hellhounds and even Lustfolk. Femurs and ribcages hung from the scant vegetation that pockmarked the place, rattling in the desert wind. A wreath of horns and teeth hung next to a branch growing from the cracked rock of the cave's wall.

And if that didn't tip anyone off, the horrifying noxious smell emitting from the cave's mouth definitely would. Even through her scarf, Chay could still smell it.

From the cave, she heard voices.

"Meeeat…", a voice whispered in a dull hiss. "The meeeat speeeaks…"

Dozens of glowing eyes blinked to life in the cave's darkness.

"Seems you've struck gold, Miss Ong.", Alastor remarked

"Has grandpa ordered out?" another voice hissed. "I didn't know he ordered out for a Chinese…"

Chay's eyes narrowed. "I'm not Chinese."

"Wasn't asking you, Slim Jim!", the voice hissed back.

"Well now, this is going to be quite hilarious.", Alastor remarked gleefully.

Chay groaned with irriation.

"Alright, fuck it…"

She reached into her jacket and pulled out her revolver.

"I've got ten Angelic bullets loaded into this gun.", she yelled. "Either Sawney comes out, or I'm going to start shooting. You got five fucking seconds. One!"

A feminine voice was heard from within the cave: "Oh, did your grandfather order out?"

"I'm not having that discussion again.", Chay shouted. "Two!"

"Does the meat deem itself fit to speak?", a more masculine voice asked.

"Again, not repeating that shit. Three!"

She whipped the gun to the side, extending the telescopic barrel. She thumbed the hammer.

"Last chance, Sawney! I am not going to fucking play around with you! Fou-"

An enormous clawed paw erupted out of the cave, grabbing the nearby cave wall and stabbing claw marks into the crumbling clay.

"Ye shouldae knocked first, lass. S'only polite."

The head of Sawney Bean emerged out of the cave mouth, his wiry bloodshot eyes glowing a pale sickly yellow and his long tongue scraping against the ground.

"I trust ye have good reason to be interruptin' my snack?", he said through blood strained jaws.

"No.", she said as she pulled back the hammer on the pistol. "No conversation, Sawney. I'm only here for some answers, and then after that we leave."

He poked himself out of the cave even further. "That's awfully presumptive, lass. Nae think ye can just-"

She aimed the pistol at Sawney's head.

"Question one: Were you hired to steal the moon rock from Princess Stella's vault? Yes or no."

Sawney began to growl.

"Yes, or no. Do not fucking tempt me, Sawney."

His eyes narrowed. "Why should I tell ye anything, lass? You come to me home, threaten me kin-"

"I already know enough about your 'kin' from Lester, Sawney. That's why I have the gun. Yes, or no."

The enormous Sinner licked his chops.

"Why do ye care? Just more contract work…"

"Just like the shard. I'll take that as a yes. Question two: did you have assistance in stealing the moon rock? Yes or no."

Sawney snorted. "Take a flippin' guess."

"Also a yes. Now, question three: Ella is at the Vee Tower. Yes or no."

"That wasnae a question-"

BANG

A bullet ricocheted off of the cave's face.

"I'm not screwing around here, Sawney. You are only live right now because I decided to miss. Now answer the goddamn question!"

Alastor looked over at Chay curiously. Did he sense a bit of animus?

Sawney looked up at the still smoking bullet hole. "Touchy, aren't we lass? Are we workin' something out here or are we just feelin' a wee bit murdery?

"What I' m 'working out' is why you would sell out your own granddaughter to the Vees."

"Ah, that. That wasnae me. I just snatched the shard from Vox's office."

Chay's hand tightened around the butt of the gun.

"Question Four: Ella and the shard are linked. How?"

"We droppin' the Yes or No format that earl-"

"Explain yourself, Bean, or so help me-"

"I'm afraid that knowledge is way outta my paygrade, lass. All I know is that Ella got sent to Vox, and then the shard came out. Whate'er happened in between is still secret."

Chay narrowed her eyes.

"I doubt he's lying, Miss Ong.", Alastor piped in. "He doesn't seem intelligent enough to concoct a story like that on his own."

"...Fine. Question Five: who helped you steal the moon rock?"

Sawney laughed, a deep throaty laugh that was as brassy as it was chilling.

"Yer a smart lass, think about it. Yeh saw that vault fer yerself. Ye saw that security setup. Who do you think would have any knowledge about the comin's and goin's of that place in the first place?"

"You, obviously. You were working security."

"Yer close, lass. I did work security, yes. But I was only hired muscle. I had no knowledge of the codes used to deactivate those systems. Only one person knew that."

-...You gotta be fucking kidding me.

It was a possibility she had considered, but it was so cliché it seemed nigh improbable.

An inside job. Stella helped him steal the moon rock.

It still didn't explain how he managed to traverse that cliff's face in the first place, but that was besides the point.

"Alright Sawney, last question…"

She stepped forward, keeping the gun trained on Sawney's forhead.

"Where is Flynn?"

The enormous Sinner just sneered.

"Where d'yae think?", he answered.


"...So you've seen more of them.", Baxter said.

"Yesss, I'm afraid ssso.", Pentious nervously hissed back. "Dozensss of them. They were on the outskirtsss of the city."

"And how long ago was that?"

"Thisss morning. But there'sss something else, Baxter. Something that greatly concernsss me."

Baxter tapped away on his computer, accessing the archives of his surveillance equipment.

"Those thingsss…", Pentious began, "They aren't just like regular Impsss."

"They're walking corpses, Pentious.", Baxter said as he pulled up footage of the creech siege from weeks ago. "That's pretty much the definition of irregular."

"I don't mean that, jackasssss.", the Snake-Sinner spat back angrily. "I mean the corpses are not regular Impsss. They seem deformed. Overly ssso."

Baxter pulled up a screengrab of one of the creeches. "That would probably be all of the industrial metal spontaneously generating from their bodies."

"Yesss, and that still puzzlesss me.", Pentious said. "How exactly does a sssimple piece of machinery sssspontaneously create metal and wires from biological tisssue? It seems impossible. Even sssorcery has its basic lawsss…"

Baxter scrolled back to the main screen and activated his surveillance cameras. "It obviously has a rational explanation, Pentious. You're as much a man of science as I am. We'll figure it out."

Pentious's eyes grew wide and watery with happiness. "We?"

"At least until tomorrow. Then you'll have to get your shit and leave."

The Snake-Sinner pouted. "Awww."

"Also, if I see one of those eggs near my room, I'm going to scramble them."

"I'd like to ssseee you try, fish-face!"

"They're fucking creepy!", Baxter yelled back.

CHAPTER 27 END