Institutionalized (Demon Squad Book 10)

by Marquitz, Tim

  “Wait!” he called out, starting after me. “You’re going to leave me in here?”

  I grinned and willed the tunnel closed behind me, sealing him inside. “Turn down service is whenever the dread fiends feel motivated to bother. If you’re polite, or something approaching its vicinity, I’ll have them drop off a mattress and maybe even some cookies. If you’re not,” I warned him, my magic carrying my voice through the stone, “I’ll re-route the plumbing so all the toilets feed into your cell. Shitty death from above.”

  A muffled thump sounded against the stone, and I pictured him punching the wall. “You will pay for this,” he screamed.

  “I usually do,” I answered, making my way out of the tunnel and closing it behind me. But it never stops me from doing it. You’d think I’d learn eventually. A tired sigh escaped me. “Besides, this is in your best interest, Maximus. If you’re not safe here, you’re not safe anywhere.”

  The reality was, he wouldn’t be in there for long no matter what went down. I just needed him on the sidelines for a while so I wasn’t fighting his agenda, Shaw’s, and my own at the same time. More importantly, he was the ace up my sleeve. I’d been jumping through hoops since he drafted me, looking for Rala and Mike and having zero success, Shaw thwarting me at every turn. But now I had bait, something to hold up and wiggle in front of Shaw to bring her to me. That shifted everything in my favor.

  Unfortunately, that would only last as long as Maximus’s bosses didn’t get wind of what I’d done. I still didn’t who—or, more likely, what—they were, but to run a secret organization of supernaturals and stay out of sight while doing it, they had to powerful. I didn’t need them joining the fight in search of their pet. Still, I had a few cards left to play before I opened up that can of Cthulhus, but my kidnapping Maximus had started the clock. Time was running out.

  Styg stared at me when I emerged from the tunnel, my face no doubt reflecting the shit I’d stirred up.

  “You ready?”

  He didn’t say a word, his eyes on the walls as they warped back together.

  “We’re back to that, huh? Oh well, you’re more fun when you don’t talk. Plus, it keeps me from having to answer a bunch of stupid questions.” Questions I didn’t have answers for yet.

  I grabbed his arm and led him down the hall. He came along, feet and metal tendrils scraping the floor in his reluctant wake.

  “It’s possible I’ll need you to do something here soon.”

  “Of course you do,” he muttered. I might well have farted for all his enthusiasm.

  “Don’t be so morose, Styg. You’re dragging down the emo bell curve, making the rest of your brethren look happy. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of the Goth culture, would you? What would Marilyn Manson think?”

  He groaned.

  “You know what? I’m gonna start calling you Marvin.”

  “Who?”

  “From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The robot. You know.”

  His expression was what one would call coma.

  “You seriously don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  Styg shook his head.

  “Man, if we make it out of all this alive, you are so fired. How can you not know Douglas Adams? Dirk Gently? Zaphod Beeblebrox?” I took a deep breath and let it out slow as he shook his head at each name in turn. This new generation was a waste of a sloppy creampie. Their mothers should have swallowed them all before their horrid genes took root and sprouted into adulthood. “You know what, never mind. Just go get ready. I so don’t want to see you right now.” After I told him what I needed him to do, I collected the backpack and sent him shuffling off.

  “Don’t forget your towel, asshole,” I called out after him.

  He didn’t even bother looking back.

  Once Styg was gone, and I’d gotten over my incredulity—fucking whippersnappers—I summoned my magic and made my way to Earth, agreeing the entire way that its creation, like that of the universe, was most definitely a bad move.

  Twelve

  What do you know about computers, Padre?”

  While I had a tech genius waiting for me back at DSI headquarters, I couldn’t entrust this particular assignment to her.

  “I’m not entirely incapable,” Father Lance told me with a smile. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a slim laptop, lifting the lid and turning it on. While we waited for it to load, he glanced at me. “Care to tell me what we’re doing?”

  With a grunt, I dropped into the chair set in front of his desk. “My good deed for the next millennium.”

  “Somehow, I find that hard to believe, Frank.”

  “Even Satan did good things now and again,” I argued. “Eve was a twig back in the day. Lucifer convincing her to eat that apple was just his way of looking out for her. She might have starved without him. Chick needed some meat on her bones.”

  Lance chuckled at my blasphemy—one of the reasons I liked the guy—and turned the laptop around before moving his chair over so we could both see the screen. “Interesting interpretation of Eve’s plight aside, what do you want me to do here?”

  “Go to this site.” I used Lucifer’s memory to rattle off the address of the DSI server Maximus had provided after our last chat. Rotating, black and white images appeared on the screen, segmented into five sections.

  Lance’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the screen. “As willing as I am to accept your oddities, Frank, I have to admit to lacking your interest in being a voyeur.”

  “Prison sexploitation flicks are the best, buddy. You’re missing out,” I told him. “That said, this is more than me entertaining my inner perv.” I tapped one of the images and it filled the screen. And there, before us, the DSI prison that held the families of the team appeared in high res, the camera slowly panning across the cell block.

  “What is this?” Lance leaned in to take a closer look, squinting at the laptop.

  “One of Maximus’s supernatural prisons that escaped the recent onslaughts. Unlike the others, safeguarding legitimate supernatural threats to the world, this one is tasked with holding fleshy leverage on his agents; their families and loved ones.”

  Lance turned his gaze on me, storms brewing in his eyes. “What do you intend to do?”

  “I’m plotting a breakout,” I said, a chuckle spilling out. “That is, if I can pull off the shit I’m planning.” Waving off his question as to what I intended, I turned the laptop so it was facing me and stared at the remote image of the prison, studying it.

  Rather than pay attention to the guard who sat reading a porn mag and rubbing himself through his slacks, or on the prisoners going about their daily routines inside their cells, I focused on the main corridor between the cages, getting a sense of it, running the memories of the other prisons I’d gone inside to better get a feel for how the place smelled and looked, familiarizing myself with it. Once I felt confident I had it, the image steady in my head, I let my magic well up.

  “Be back in a few minutes, Father.” That was, if I didn’t kill myself. “Get some provisions ready for about a dozen folks. You’re gonna get to shepherd a flock of wayward sheep for a bit.”

  With that, I closed my eyes—mainly because I didn’t want to see death coming when I fucked this up—and teleported.

  I arrived an instant later, grinning from ear to ear once I realized I hadn’t materialized in the middle of Limbo or, worse still, halfway in a wall. Gasps all around told me I’d nailed the landing, so I opened my eyes to take everyone in just as an alarm sounded. The sound wailed through my skull and I growled. I’d hoped to avoid making a mess but it didn’t look like that was gonna happen.

  “Relax, everyone, I’m here to get you out. I’m a friend, and I’m gonna take you back to your families.” It wasn’t a complete lie; it just wasn’t entirely the truth either. I would reunite them with the team, just not until I had Mike and Rala in hand.

  My dirty dealing set my stomach to knotting but there wasn’t a
nything that could be done for it.

  The hiss of a door sounded at my back, and I groaned as the metallic clank of footsteps echoed through the corridor. I spun about to see an average looking guy strolling through in from the other section. It was the guard I’d seen playing pocket pool on the monitors. He had long, wild hair with enough wave in it to set off tsunami warnings all along the west coast.

  Whispered voices from the prisoners floated to my ears as most of them backed away from the barred doors of their cells. I wouldn’t have paid much attention to any of it if I hadn’t heard one of the younger prisoners say the name Porkchop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the kid point at the guard before retreating out of sight into his cell.

  “Porkchop?”

  “That’s me,” the guard said with a smirk. Fucker was proud of the name but, for the life of me, I sure couldn’t figure out how he’d earned it. He was tall, probably a few inches more than me, and in proportion to his height, probably landing somewhere around two-twenty or so, but in shape. Must have been one of this reverse nicknames, like calling Shaquille O’Neal Tiny.

  “You like to go down on the hog, is that it?”

  He grinned and started unbuttoning his shirt. I took that as a yes.

  “Man, I get that you’re lonely, and I’m flattered and all, but I’m really not into sword fighting, if you know what I mean.”

  Next came his pants, and that was when I decided it was time to make my stance clear. “No means no, buddy. Put little Porkchop away and—”

  Right then I figured I was gonna get to know why the prisoners called him Porkchop.

  The guy began to transform, and I felt the low waft of mystical energy fill the hall. I sighed. The dampeners kept the cells muted, stopping the occupants from using any inherent magic they had. I hadn’t, however, given any thought to the hallway between the cells until just then. Had it been suppressed, I would have bounced into Limbo as it rejected my arrival. But it hadn’t so, following that string of logic, mister were-whatever there could do what he did best: grow hairy and howl.

  He did the former right away, thick, short fur erupting from his body and covering his flesh in prickly layers. As for the latter, well, the noise he made would never be mistaken for a howl.

  In fact, it was a snort; a great rumbling sound that vibrated the floor beneath my feet. Then he swelled up, gaining mass across his entire body, muscles rippling as if he’d sucked down a metric fuck ton of steroids. His skin pinked and thick-ass tusks sprouted from his mouth, rising in sharpened peaks that nearly reached his temples before his face lengthened and became a snout. His narrow eyes widened, puffy bags forming underneath, red rings circling the irises. He hunkered down as the transformation continued, and glared at me.

  The shit was creepy.

  “I get it now,” I muttered as he grunted, lowered his head, tusks pointed my way, and charged. And as much as I wanted to make a bacon joke, I just didn’t feel comfortable discussing eating a guy in a prison.

  Porkchop came at me low, tusks gleaming under the bright lights, ham hock fists out at his sides, ready to smash my face in. He snorted again, spittle flying, and closed, looking to gore me.

  Unfortunately for Mr. Chop, all the other weres I’d run into recently had tapped out my reserve of surprise. You can’t see a were-panda with a Wu Tang Clan fetish and a were-rhino with pants and get excited about a were-boar. Just wasn’t happening. Sorry Porky.

  So, as he dropped his snout toward the floor, I manifested a spear of energy from the front of my fist and drove it into the top of his skull, pinning him to the floor.

  Porkchop squealed, his ass-end skittering and damn near flipping over the rest of him before gravity took hold and slammed it to the floor. He shuddered while his brain sorted its electrical signals and passed along the message that he was dead to the rest of him. It must have sent the shit by Pony Express as it took a good long minute before Pigzilla stopped twitching and gave up the ghost of bacon past.

  Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

  I dispelled my magic and fought the urge to dig a pit and toss Mr. Chop inside. Instead of doing that, I followed the schematics I’d memorized and shut down the mystical suppressors shutting down the cells, the mechanism out in the office where Porkchop had been tenderizing his meat.

  Back in the cell block, I disengaged the doors and pulled them open. The prisoners spilled out in a grateful burst and my senses kicked off at suddenly being surrounded by a bunch of supernaturals.

  “Thank you. Thank you,” a woman told me, clasping my hand tight in both of hers. Middle-aged, if I had to guess, with long blonde hair nearly to her waist, her eyes were sunken and dark and made her look way older. “Thank you,” she repeated, only then letting me slip my hand loose of hers. She rang back as a minor power, probably some kind of Nephilim.

  Most of them did, even the demon that was obviously related to Thud. Shit, they could have been twins given how closely they resembled one another. Brothers, I figured. I just hoped he didn’t share Thud’s penchant for opening his mouth.

  I didn’t, however, get a chance to find out before the last of the prisoners exited his cell, drawing my attention. The remnants of the suppressors—spells crafted into devices for a long-lasting effect—only then spooling down, his power had been mostly hidden from me. Now that he was out in the hall, there was nothing between his essence and mine. I recognized his energy immediately.

  He was an angel, a full-blooded member of the choir, not some half-breed Nephilim who just happened to land in one of the higher weight classes. No, he was one of God’s chosen.

  Our eyes met and we took each other in, both of us sneering out of habit.

  The guy was dark-skinned and handsome, with short-cropped hair and brown eyes, which were currently doing their best to dissect me. His angular features gave him a regal appearance, a black Spock ready to challenge my logic.

  It didn’t take me but a few seconds to realize who I was staring at: Grace’s father, the information pulled from Maximus providing me with the names of the DSI captives. His stood out.

  “Noah, I presume?”

  He snorted his displeasure. “I am indeed, Hellspawn. And how would you know that?”

  We were off to a great start. “I’m sort of friends with your daughter.”

  “That disappoints me,” he said, giving a slow shake of his head. “She should know better.”

  “You sound like the dad of every pretty chick I’ve ever met, you know that?” Ignoring the condescension that had overrun his expression, not to mention his words, I took off my backpack and dug in the front pocket, metal jingling. Out came a handful of rings. I tossed one to Mr. Personality and gave one to the rest of the prisoners.

  “What are these for?” the kid who’d called the guard Porkchop asked—Lucas, if I remembered correctly.

  “Teleportation rings,” I answered. “Put them on and I’ll get all of us out of here.”

  As soon as they heard that, the group of prisoners rushed to get the rings on. All but Noah. It was clear from the get-go he was gonna be a pain in my ass, and not in some drunken experimental kind of way with booze and lots of lube. Once more ignoring the guy, I glanced to make sure everyone else had their rings on. They did, all of them wanting to be free and willing to trust anyone who offered them the keys.

  “Okay, folks, my buddy Father Lance is waiting on the other end. The world is a bit upside down since you’ve seen it. Lance will make you comfortable and care for you until I get there, and then we’ll explain it all, so please hang tight. We’ll get you caught up on current events quickly enough, and then get you shipped back to your families.”

  I didn’t give them a chance to ask questions, triggering their rings with my magic and sending them hurtling through the ether, zipping toward Lance’s church. He’d pick up the pieces on the other end. I had someone else to deal with right then.

  “For all your words, you didn’t set them free.” Noah sniffed at the air as if hunting
for a whiff of my dishonesty so he could point it out.

  “No, I didn’t,” I said, not bothering to lie seeing how the guy had already picked up on what I’d done.

  “And why is that, Hellspawn? Afraid they might not fall in line with whatever vile machinations you have in mind?”

  Instinct warred with discretion and I left Grace’s name out of my mouth. “My machinations, as you so self-righteously call them, include seeing them safe and sound in hostile times, not dragging them into a war zone where they might see their family members one last time before they die.”

  I imagined patting myself on my back for my answer. Even I almost believed that shit.

  Noah gave me a sour grin. “Whatever you say, demon. You might well have fooled the simpletons but you cannot deceive an angel of God’s Choir.” He took a loping step forward, chin up and eyes glaring with heavenly fire. He was an angel, all right. His power roiled and pricked against my senses, sharp pins of dissatisfaction.

  I chuckled, standing my ground. It had taken me a long while to get my magic under control, but I’d learned fairly early on how to mute my own energies so random scans didn’t have a chance at determining my true power levels. With Lucifer’s memories to reinforce my will, his thoughts so much more tangible than an ancient library in my brain, I had reined my essence in even more than ever without even realizing it until that moment. But now, with Noah in my face, asserting his dominance like a celestial wolf getting ready to piss on my leg, I uncoiled my energies, slow and malevolently, tongues of magic lashing at him, letting him know my lineage and the extent of the powers I possessed. He took a quick step back, eyes bulging, looking ready to burst loose of their sockets.

  “Careful now, Noah. I’m not just any demon. I’ve the deed to the southern kingdom. You don’t get to be all up in my face without consequence.”

  If ever there was a time for the “Do you know who I am?” statement, that was it, but I held back. Grace might be a pain in my ass but I wasn’t looking to talk myself into killing her dad, even if he was a prick. Call it professional courtesy.