“I’d listen to him if I were you.”
Both me and stinktongue glanced over to see Grace walking toward us. She waved the officer down and he backed off with a growl, though he didn’t lower his weapon. Grace came over to stand beside him. To her credit, she didn’t pass out or even gag once she hit the cloud of funk wafting off him. She stared at me, expression neutral, which I was beginning to realize was her default setting. But we don’t call it resting bitch face anymore. That would be insensitive.
“Why are you here, Frank?”
While it had only been a couple of days since I’d seen her last, the Nephilim looked as if she’d recovered nicely from our otherworldly jaunt. Her long black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and her gorgeous face was on display, no bruises or scrapes marring her dark skin. She wore a plain T-shirt that hung loosely off her shoulders and a pair of sweatpants, the whole ensemble completely obscuring her lithe, dancer’s figure. Much to my regret.
“Like I told stinky here, I want to talk to the powers that be. Shaw bent me over a barrel last time we hung out and she left her favorite toy behind. I’m hoping to return it before I get too comfortable with it there, if you know what I mean.”
“Thanks for the visual,” she said, shaking her head and trying not to picture it. She clearly failed in her efforts judging by the lemon-sucking face she was pulling. “Let him pass. I’ll take him to see Maximus myself.”
“But what if—?” the guard started.
“What if what, Officer Barnes?” she asked. “If he wanted to kick the door in he could have and there would be nothing you could have done to stop him. We’re better prepared to deal with him upstairs than any of you are down here. I’ve got him,” she said, giving him no opportunity to argue, and grabbed me by the wrist, dragging me along behind her. The clatter of disappointed weapons being lowered sounded at our backs.
She dragged me through the metal detectors, both of us setting them off, and across the lobby through a parade of wide-eyed stares, then to an elevator set a short distance from the main ones. She leaned over near a tinted-glass plate on the wall and a green beam ran across her eyes, the ding of the elevator opening sounding right after.
“Fancy.”
“Your tax dollars at work,” she said, ushering me inside.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t pay taxes, religious exemptions and all that. It’s good to be the Devil.
The elevator doors closed and there were no buttons to push so we just stood there as it shot us skyward with only the barest of vibrations telling me we were moving at all.
“Awful ballsy of you to stroll right through the front door,” she told me, her brown eyes taking me in through the reflective surface of the walls.
I shrugged. “You’ve obviously mistaken me for someone subtle.”
She chuckled as the elevator eased to a stop and the doors slid open. A long, brightly-lit corridor appeared before us and stretched into the distance, leading to a door that looked more like a bank vault than anything else. Two rows of masked agents, maybe six all told, dressed in SWAT-type getups, complete with M16s pointed my direction, met us inside. They lined both sides of the hallway, each in a tiny alcove designed to keep them out of the line of fire of the guy behind him. Not a barrel trembled.
“Guess the boss knows I’m coming.”
Grace nodded and waved me out of the elevator, leading the way. I ignored the soldiers and went along without complaint. They were just there for show. At least I hoped that was the case. If the new boss, this Maximus guy, was dumb enough to think they could protect him then our little tête-à-tête was gonna be short and entirely unproductive.
We reached the massive door and it swung open from the inside, easing into a bracket in the wall. Thud grinned at me from the entryway. Maybe five feet tall and nearly that wide, he was a demon everyone said reminded them of me. I couldn’t see the comparison.
“I didn’t know there was an asshole delivery service,” he said, smiling so broad I thought he might sprain a molar.
“The last person to say that was your dad when he watched your mom squeeze you out.”
The smile stayed plastered to his face. “Good one, Triggaltheron, but I don’t think you’re going to be chipper for much longer seeing what’s coming next.”
“What? You planning on propositioning me?”
Grace pushed me inside and cut the yippy demon off before he could respond. “Shut the door, Thud, and shut the fuck up while you’re at it,” she told him while nudging me forward. He grunted but that was the extent of his defiance. Still, he kept on smiling.
Now that Thud was out of the way, my eyes were drawn to the vastness of the room splayed out before me. The place was a conference room on steroids. The ceiling arched high overhead, thirty, forty feet or more, and was all big slabs of glass. Modern-looking chandeliers hung from the ceiling on long, silver coils that were rung with strings of gold, like vines creeping up to the roof. They cast bright lights over a massive, oak conference table that took up the center of the room. I couldn’t even imagine how many trees had died to craft the monstrous thing. It was stained a deep ebony that shimmered with a hint of blue as I walked toward it. All around the table were high-backed chairs that would have looked right at home in a castle, great knobbed backs rising above the seats like great turrets. And in those chairs were the rest of the government’s D squad, only minus Rebecca Shaw and the big hunk o’ Nephilim love that was Venai.
Styg, the necromancer, sat nearest the entryway, a back of the class outcast even on the best of days. He didn’t so much as a glance my way, though I understood his reluctance. After he’d failed to resurrect Karra he had to figure I was still more than a little miffed about that and didn’t want to deal with me. It was either that or he was too busy carving his name in the table to be bothered.
Styg hearts Death!
His trench coat sagged off his shoulders and the sharpened pieces of metal stitched over the lower seams were dim and dirty, no shine to them at all. He looked like an even more emo Kylo Ren than usual. I just wanted to run over and give him a hug and tell him Grandpa Darth said, ‘Everything was gonna be okay,’ but I was afraid he might cut himself so I left him alone.
Alexander Poe had taken a spot closer to the front. I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking when he examined me with his icy blue eyes. Just a few days back I’d saved him from being torn in half by a fire giant but I’d also recently played his illicit relationship with Marcus against him, causing him more than his fair share of grief. There wasn’t any telling if he was still pissed about that but at least he wasn’t going all Broadway on my ass.
Lastly, little miss brown noser was in attendance. Kit sat at one of the very last chairs near the head of the table. Unlike Styg’s gloomy bits, all of hers gleamed about her face, lips, nose, eyebrows, and ears, her piercings on point. She was a magnet’s wet dream and I found myself wondering what other holes she’d poked in her body. I shook the image aside as I approached, not needing that in my head right then. She glared like she knew what I’d been thinking.
Unlike Grace, Kit still wore the marks of our recent battle, her narrow cheeks purple, the first bits of yellow and black starting to show around the edges. Still, that she was up and moving about said a ton about her resilience considering she’d been carried off the battlefield. Either that or all the metal in her face deflected the worst of it.
Once I reached the end of the table a vaguely middle-aged man in an expensive, tailored suit rose out of his seat and stepped out to meet me. His head was shaved bald to avoid the unmistakable creep of a friar’s ring, but that was the only sign of disappointing genetics to be found. The guy was as tall as I was, maybe an inch taller even, and built similarly with broad shoulders that the suit enhanced, slimming toward his waist. Gray eyes took the whole of me in as he came to a halt a cautious few feet away. Grace tugged on my arm, a clear sign she wanted me to stop there. Guess El Jefe didn’t like to
mingle with the grunts. Still, I obliged. It wouldn’t do my cause any good to create a scene.
“So, you’re the famous Triggaltheron,” the man said, his eyes taking me in as if perusing a menu. “After all I’ve heard, I was expecting someone more…grandiose.”
“I’m grandiose where it counts,” I answered, pretty much realizing I hadn’t lasted ten seconds before mouthing off. I sighed and started over. “You must be Maximus.” Of course, knowing his name didn’t translate into me knowing shit else about him. I even dug into Lucifer’s memories for a second and came up empty. The guy was a ghost as far as the old man was concerned but that was to be expected. Daddy Lou’s memories of Earth were about fifty years out of date. “You the new sheriff in town?”
“Something like that.” He waved me to a seat before returning to his.
I shook my head. “First things first. Before we get to all the blame-laying and recriminations, I have a proposal for you.”
Maximus grinned, his teeth perfectly aligned. “Please, have a seat, Triggaltheron. While it’s obvious you came here with a purpose I, too, have one: a proposal, actually. It’s in your best interest to hear me out first.”
Poe patted the chair beside him. “Please, Mister Trigg, sit,” he said, back to his usual manners. It was as much an indication that he’d forgiven me as I was gonna get. I’d take it. Poe wasn’t a good person to have as an enemy.
Still, unsure of what the hell Maximus wanted, I didn’t see much reason to argue. If he’d wanted to cornhole me he wouldn’t have let Grace bring me upstairs and put himself at risk. So I sat and waited quietly while the man thumbed through a manila folder spread out on the table before him. He looked up after a few seconds and offered me a nod as if I’d been reading along with him.
“So, before we get bogged down and distracted I’m going to simply come right out and tell you what I want from you.”
I sighed, expecting some bureaucratic rigmarole that needed an army of lawyers proficient in Swahili to translate, but he surprised me by getting to the point just like he said he would.
“I want you to head up the Department of Supernatural Investigation.”
Three
“Whaaaaaat?”
The question spilled out of five mouths in unison, to include my own, with only Poe managing to contain his surprise, his expression willfully neutral. Maybe he already knew what Maximus intended. I wouldn’t put it past the wily old coot to know more than he should.
“You have got to be shitting me!” Thud, of course, was the personification of restraint. “You want this motherfucker in charge of us?” He stood, knocking his chair over backward, and pointed a stubby finger at me as if there was some confusion as to who Maximus meant. “This fucker right here?”
“Sit down and be quiet, Thud,” Maximus told him. The demon huffed and puffed but, to my surprise, he scooped his chair up, righted it, and dropped back into it like a scolded child, muttering something under his breath but not spewing anything more where it could be heard.
It was an impressive display by Maximus and it made me nervous.
That was when I let my senses loose for a look see. While Maximus didn’t seem like much on the surface he had to be packing some kind of wicked powers in order to tame Thud so easily. The demon was a dumbass but he was still a tank on stubby little turtle legs. He could kick the shit out of Maximus’s ankles if he really wanted to. That he didn’t even try made me suspicious. Yet I found nothing.
The suit rang back as human, not a sliver of mystical energy to be found anywhere about him. That was even more impressive than if he were a supernatural. The fact that he could cow Thud with just a couple words and a stern glance spoke to the volumes of shit the DSI was holding over the demon’s head to keep his dumb ass compliant.
Maximus turned his gaze back to me once Thud settled. “So…?”
I just sat there for a moment like a deer in the headlights, wondering how the hell I’d gone from trading my freedom for guarantees that the DSI would use their resources to track down and rescue Mike, and to convincing them to leave DRAC alone, to me being offered a job. It was damn surreal. Maybe I hadn’t recovered from my heroin binge after all. There was no way this could be real.
“I, uh…uh…” I started, my dry tongue scraping across my teeth. “You want an answer now?”
“And so clearly qualified, too,” Kit muttered, shaking her head while clapping. “Excellent speech, chief. Bravo! Best. Boss. Eveeeeeeeer!”
I glared at her but she was right. I wasn’t remotely qualified but still, there was an opportunity to be had by saying yes. Of course, I’d be slipping a leash around my nuts for them to lead me around by, but it also meant I could do some good things for my friends. It would be nice to get DRAC off the hook with regards to the agency, give them time to rebuild. And with me in charge Shaw was pretty much fucked. That was a nice bonus. Still, the paranoid in me wouldn’t relent so easily.
“I’m not sure this is a good thing.”
“So we’ve reached the bargaining stage already.” Maximus offered up a sly smile. “I’d expected this to be more difficult.”
“Why? I’m not always an asshole.” Every eye at the table turned to stare at me in defiance of my statement. “I’m not,” I replied. “I sleep sometimes.”
“So, what will it take for you to agree, Triggaltheron?” He steepled his fingers in front of him, his eyes pressuring me. “I need someone in the position. If it isn’t you, it will be someone else. Someone who might not share your…priorities.”
I sighed. He was right. This was my opportunity to clear the slate. “I want full immunity for DRAC and all of its members. They had nothing to do with the bombs.”
“So I’ve been told.” Maximus glanced over at Poe and nodded, the old man writing my demand on a pad of yellow paper. “Done.”
I raised an eyebrow and tried not to glare daggers. Maximus knew we hadn’t been responsible for nuking the countryside yet he’d more than willing left the threat hanging as leverage to get me to do what he wanted. It was a timely reminder that everyone at the table was there for themselves and I was only being offered the position because it served some higher purpose I didn’t yet understand. They were getting theirs. Now it was time to get mine.
“I want complete control over the DSI and its resources,” I said. “None of this hand up my ass bullshit by you and whoever else sits atop the pyramid. I don’t need you leading me around by my prostate.”
He grinned. “That’s a bit much given your history, but you’ll have limited oversight. No hand tying but we are not without our own agenda, Triggaltheron. There are things we want handled, and it will be your job to accomplish these things. How you handle them will be up to you, however, no overt supervision. As long as you are successful, that is.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.” It wasn’t as if they could bind me to the job and make me do what I didn’t want to. Right now they held the cards but once the heat was off DRAC and I found Mike we’d be in a better position to resist and I could walk away, middle finger held up high Johnny Cash style.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Maximus hopped to his feet and clapped, the sound of his meaty hands echoing through the room. “Fabulous. Then welcome to the Department of Supernatural Investigation, Triggaltheron.” He glanced at the stunned team. “Meet your new commander, people. Play nice…” He left the threat hanging and, in the silence, he headed for the door. The great steel portal rolled back as he approached. He stopped a few feet from it and spun back around to face me, snapping his fingers as if he’d forgotten something. He was a lousy actor. “This is your office now, by the way. Alexander Poe will assist you in settling in and getting you up to speed.” He grinned. “Also, your first mission begins now: I want Rebecca Shaw’s head on a pike and I want it soon.” Maximus started for the door again and I trotted over behind him, catching him before he left.
“Why me?”
His gray stare settled over me, a crooked smirk twitching at his lips. “Better the Devil you know, right?” And with that, he was gone, the huge door whirring shut after him and sealing me in with the hostile stares that pricked my spine like angry acupuncturists.
“He’s gambling you and he want the same thing,” Poe said in my ear, startling me. I hadn’t heard the old man creep up behind me.
“And what’s that?”
“For all this chaos to go away so we can go back to living our lives in the shadows. This spotlight does none of us any good, especially the men upstairs.”
My Luci-brain engaged and I chuckled, images of hostile alien beings storming their way toward the planet, intent on domination and destruction. “That’s nothing but a pipe dream blowing smoke up our collective asses.” I turned to meet his icy gaze. “God served us up on a platter the moment he decided to renovate the universe rather than create his own. The days of peace are over. All we can do is hope for some down time between battles so we can forget some of the shit we had to do to survive.” I glanced past the old mentalist to the rest of the team still sitting at the table, pensive faces telling me just how much they hated the new arrangement forced upon them. They had every reason to. “We’re all expendable to the real powers that be, Poe, each and every damn one of us are pawns in someone else’s game.”
He nodded. “That might be true, Mister Trigg, but let it be known that these particular pawns, foibles aside, are the reason Maximus did what he did. They spoke the truth of what happened, making sure the men upstairs understood that Shaw instigated the current political climate and that the ruin ended only because of you.” He spun on his heels and headed to his seat. “Keep that in mind before you choose to sacrifice them to your benefit.”
I groaned under my breath. Poe knew me too damn well. He wasn’t entirely right about how things had become so fucked up, but he wasn’t entirely wrong either. His words echoing about inside my head, I went over and plopped down in Maximus’s vacated seat and stared down the firing squad that was taking aim with their eyes.
Institutionalized (Demon Squad Book 10) Page 3
