by Shad N Freud
The figure pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and dug one of the crinkled smokes, leaning over to light it with the flames from a burning car. He took a deep drag, then turned back to Cenere. His glossy black eyes speckled with stars and galaxies, flashing a smile filled with row upon row of serrated triangular teeth.
“Cenere, my boy, this is a social call. I’ve come to inform you that I won’t be making you wake up with wet sheets again. No, this time it’ll be way better. Like every other time, you’ll wake up with no memory of these little meetings of ours…but unlike all the other times, you’ll get to remember one thing that’s damned important: you have a traitor amongst your ranks. But…I’m still not going to tell you who.” He coughed, his entire body rattling like a pile of dried bones. “Should really cut back on those. They’re murder.”
“My heart bleeds, you prick. So, how long until I get to wake up?”
“Well, time flows differently here. So…up for a game of poker?”
“No, but you can feel free to play with yourself. Or go fuck yourself. Whichever euphemism you want to use, I suppose.”
The thin man chuckled. “Do you have any idea how much I’m going to enjoy watching you and your little group get killed, raped, and eaten? Oh, and you’d better hope it’s in that order. The demons that serve me aren’t too picky. Of course, if you were to decide to give in to my demands-”
“Get fucked.”
“Charming. As I was saying, if you were to decide to give in to my demands, things would go far more smoothly, and I’d make sure you were comfortable while you watched the end of the world. Ah well.” He tossed his cigarette into the car fire and shrugged. “Guess I’ll be on my way then. I already found one of you to help. And let me tell you, she is one hot little number. Of course, I may have stacked the deck a little bit with her, to force her compliance. C’est la vie. Off you go now. I have worlds to end, nightmares to inflict. You know how it is.”
Cthulhu laughed raspily as he faded from view, and Cenere looked up in time to see the collapsing remains of the Shawcorp Tower fall towards him, with no possible avenue of escape.
“I really hate him.” Cenere said and screwed his eyes shut. This was going to hurt.
∞∞∞
A bloodcurdling scream from Cenere’s room went unnoticed by Carl as he stared with dead eyes at the picture of his wife and child in his hands. He took a long pull on the bottle of scotch in his hand and went back to staring at the picture. Jeeves hadn’t come into the room out of respect for Carl’s privacy, but the copper butler was losing patience with Carl with every empty bottle he sensed hitting the floor. Carl was slowly drowning himself in expensive booze and resorting to liquid meals far too often.
If it weren’t for this mission, Carl would have likely sought out some great fanged beastie in the jungles of Africa or Southeast Asia and challenged it to a knife fight naked. His life, he felt, had already ended. He was just trying to keep it together long enough to save the world, then go climb into a bottle until he likely drowned in an inch of water in a gutter somewhere.
He heard a gentle tapping at Cenere’s door and rolled his eyes as he downed the remaining liquor in his bottle, then tossed it at the burgeoning pile threatening to consume the floor. He held his hand out and another bottle of thirty-year-old scotch fell into his hand. He flicked off the top inch of the glass, then ignited his thumb for a moment to soften the edge of the glass before pouring it straight down his throat.
He stared at the picture again and tears came back to his eyes. He wished Ink was still alive, just so he could kill her again. And again, and again, ad nauseum.
∞∞∞
Camilla lay in bed, her deft fingers taking care of an urgent need as she fought to fall asleep. That damnable tiefling’s face haunted her as she caressed herself, her calloused fingers far more useful than any toy she’d ever bought. Besides, her life as a travelling murder-hobo made it difficult to keep them intact, whether due to impact from enemy weapons, the vicious humidity that ate electronic components and latex alive, or the way batteries always seemed to die whenever she needed them. She bit her lip as she neared climax and began to shudder in orgasm as she heard a bloodcurdling scream from the tiefling’s room.
She growled in irritation as her big O was ruined, and she quickly threw on a bathrobe to go give the beautiful, aggravating man a piece of her…mind, definitely her mind! She shook her head to clear the images of shoving the tiefling onto his bed and exacting retribution on his body with her own and took a deep breath. She raised her hand to knock when she reached his door and paused timidly as she stared at his name plate.
She gently knocked on the door and heard thrashing within. Abandoning her desire to hate-fuck the bonny lad for a moment, she opened the unlocked door and found the tiefling within covered in a burning sheet, his body badly injured.
She quickly grabbed him, dragged him out of the bed and into the shower, frantically turning on the tap to douse the fire. Doing so exposed his scorched skin, burnt hair, broken bones, and lacerations. She gasped in shock as she realized he was still asleep and gently shook his shoulder to wake him up.
This led to her laying on her back, dazed from the haymaker he’d caught her with, his hands clutching her throat as his teeth cracked from being clenched so tightly, his eyes glowing brightly with inner Hellfire. His broken bones made themselves known and he fell off of her, clutching his ribs and rolling on the floor in agony.
She sat up, trying to shake the cotton wool her brain was wrapped in, and clutched her broken nose as she watched green smoke pour out of Cenere’s mouth as well as his open wounds as they healed from the inside out. She stuck her index fingers up her nose, set the broken bones in her nostrils, then stifled a scream as she healed the damage. “I’ll forgive that one, handsome, bit if ye ever batter me in th' hooter lik' that again, I’ll make ye eat yer fingers.”
She placed her hands on him, channeling Hellfire into his body to help hasten his healing. Once the worst of his injuries were healed, she got to her feet, and offered the naked tiefling a hand up, her concern allowing her to ignore his assets. “Wanna talk about whatever that was?”
Cenere took her hand and stood up silently, not ready to trust his voice yet as he came down from the healing. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I forgot to set the silence rune on the room again.” He stared at her a long moment, then shook his head to try and clear the cob webs from his mind. He looked at their burnt clothing and fought the urge to rip hers off as she stood there looking him over for injuries, the fabric of her scorched robe struggling to keep her modesty intact. Cenere stood ramrod straight and fought desperately not to look down.
He grabbed a couple of towels and shut off the water. “Thank you, Camilla. I think I’ll try to get back to sleep now. Good night.” Cenere said stiffly as he gently, but firmly guided her out of his room, leaving her standing in the hallway, her eyes scrunched up in irritated confusion.
She just couldn’t read that man! She looked down at her robe and remembered she wasn’t wearing anything under it. Normally, Cenere would stare at anything with tits and a heartbeat, and screw anything that wasn’t bolted to the floor. So, why was he treating her like she was poison? A solitary tear ran down her face as she looked at his door, then sadly returned to her own room, wishing she understood that sweet, beautiful, stupid man.
∞∞∞
On the other side of the door, Cenere used the towels to clean up the wet floor, as the fire suppression system had activated after Camilla had gotten him into the shower. He threw the towels into the hamper, then activated the silencing rune and proceeded to thump his horns against the warm marble wall.
If Camilla didn’t think he was a weirdo before, she most certainly did now. He didn’t know what to do and he was worried he might have missed his shot with such an enchanting creature. He pressed his hand against the room control and the destroyed bed sank into the floor, replaced with a fresh one. Perhaps tomorrow would be bet
ter.
That said, he had a nagging thought that twisted his stomach in knots as he tried to drift off to sleep: one of the girls was a traitor.
Chapter Nine
“Looks good on you. At least, as good as you can look dressed like a goose-stepping Nazi.” Carl muttered as he adjusted Cenere’s collar. Cenere was visibly repulsed by wearing the uniform of an SS officer enchanted to hide his inhuman attributes. His uniform was glamored to hide his horns, his boots concealing his hooves, his tail wrapped around his leg. He looked in the mirror and snarled.
“Do you know what those bastards did to my people? Tieflings were rounded up by the trainload and shipped off to the camps for extermination. Gypsy scum, they called us. Lumped us in with all the other unfortunate bastards, the Jews, crazies, gays…anyone that wasn’t blonde, blue eyed, and pretty.” Cenere brushed off a speck of dust. “And we’re going to be at Nazi Ground Zero. Himmler’s going to be in my grasp, and I won’t get to kill the fuckwit.” Cenere took a deep breath and adjusted his hat as he looked in the mirror. “I swear, first thing I’m boing when this is all over is watching The Producers, The Great Dictator, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Inglorious Bastards. Might even watch Saving Private fucking Ryan. I just hope it’ll make me feel clean again. Because this fucking monkey suit makes me feel dirty.”
Carl looked down at his own uniform. “I know the feeling. At least you don’t need to pretend to be a big dumb orc.” He pointed at his tusks. “Don’t get to have these removed until after we get back to the present. Hate the bloody things. Always get in the way.” He pulled out his lighter and smokes, growling as he put the pack back in his trouser pockets. “I feel naked without my coat.”
It was the last day before the group would travel to the past, and everyone was feeling antsy. For Carl and the other Inquisitors, it was largely due to the fact that traveling back in time was a mortal sin in the Church, and they were somewhat fearful as to the ramifications of their pending activity. Granted, in rare cases the sin was forgiven, especially if the perpetrators had no choice in the matter…or if it was done in service of the Church. But the fear remained.
For Jin, it was the chance he’d get to see his god, the Allfather, the Platinum Dragon. For Zeke, it was because the car seemed like it would have a bumpy ride through the temporal rift, and despite his organs being optimized for daily use, he could still feel the queasiness coming on.
Sachi and Krang, oddly enough, hadn’t had any trouble at all getting to sleep. In fact, Sachi seemed to be downright radiant of late, no longer exhausted all the time. Cenere watched as she practically bounced over to the car, giving Camilla a rather suggestive look and a brief nod, leading the pair to go chat in private. Cenere could only guess as to what they were talking about, but he looked over to the mechanical man who seemed to be a slightly darker shade than usual. The reason why hit Cenere like a clue-by-four and he strolled over to Krang, clapped him on the shoulder, and the pair began talking about what had been transpiring between the resident sneak and her mechanical beau.
Carl shook his head, pocketing the filter from his cigarette as he walked over to take a peek at the vehicle that would be taking them to the past. Long, sleek, air-cooled, and built with the finest of German engineering during the late thirties, the car was a work of art before the German scientists had gotten ahold of it. It was the same make and model as Hitler’s staff car, adorned (or marred, depending on your point of view) by the small Nazi flags mounted near the mirrors, and the swastika hood ornament as well as various power cables, flexible metal hoses, and what appeared to be thrusters jutting out of the back, making the vehicle vaguely resemble another time traveling car from a movie in the 80s. The dash was covered in dials and indicators like an aircraft control console, with a big red button to initiate the car’s self-destruct function.
Carl sat down in the car, and sank into the pillow-like seat, the rich leather cradling his butt as he got a feel for it. Despite the doo-dads and dials, the car seemed like it would drive like a regular manual transmission. A pair of technicians came to investigate who was sitting in the car and saw the Cardinal in charge of the mission to the past sitting in the driver’s seat, checking over the gauges and dials. “Uh, begging your pardon Cardinal Beaumont, but what are you doing?”
Carl looked up from his wool gathering and smiled at the pair of techs. “Sorry gents, just getting a feel for the car we’ll be driving back to Nazi Germany. There anything I should know about these wheels?”
“Well, it’s an eight-cylinder, air cooled Nazi Staff Car with zero trunk space, auto-adjusting seats for perfect temperature and firmness. The conventional engine runs on leaded gasoline while the Temporal Rift Drive runs on plutonium. There are enough fuel rods inserted to make the trip there and back. We’re under orders to have the car destroyed by Archduke Baal when you get back.”
Carl slipped out of the car and allowed the technicians to get back to their duties, running final tests on the car’s control systems. The final hours before their trip were upon them, and Carl strolled back over to the group who were quietly playing spades at a table in the mess hall. At the back of the mess hall, he saw Graahl and Baal playing poker with the Pope. He paused for a moment, then decided to join Graahl in taking the Pope to the cleaners. Man was terrible at poker. Carl sat down, tossing a five-kilo gold bar into the buy-in pile. “Deal me in.”
Baal nodded and handed Carl his chips. “About the other day, Carl…I hope there are no hard feelingsss.”
“I hope you get eaten by a bloody Terrasque, you gobshite.”
Graahl snorted, grabbing his snout to prevent himself from laughing out loud. Baal’s head swiveled around and shushed the honey badger. “Sssomehow, I doubt you’ll feel that way after your missssion isss complete. Ssshut up, Graahl.”
While Carl was at the “adults” table, Cenere and the rest were huddled together in a very important discussion, all of them dutifully ignoring the obscenities Carl was directing at the Archduke as Graahl fell out of his chair, his guttural belly laughs almost impossible to ignore. He laughed harder when Carl called Baal a “goat rogering gutter snipe,” or a “warg buggering Nazghul” because of the resemblance between the Archduke’s gauntlets and those of the Witch King from Lord of the Rings, as well as the floor length ragged black robes he wore. Cenere almost lost his shit when Carl asked Baal how Sauron’s dick tasted, and desperately tried to mask his outburst with a cough.
“I think he was someone important, lik' a pope or summat. Mebbe a Grand Inquisitor. Ah just have nae idea who it could be.” Camilla said as she wrote her name down on a sheet of parchment, signing it as she handed Krang a heavy sack of gold coins. There were about twenty kilos of gold coins in the bag, and at about a hundred coins per kilo, this was a sizeable fortune in gold. To the group, however, it was barely pocket change. This Prophecy business was proving to be so very, very profitable. This bet was a drop in the bucket for the entire party, save Krang who had little use for money and offered to act as the money holder for a modest fee of five percent of the pot. Cenere shook his head.
“Sorry gorgeous, but I’m inclined to disagree. Archdevil? Sure. Archduke? Nah. I’m thinking the Archduke was a purchase. Had some dirt on Lucifer and used it to gain the position. Or did something so stupidly important that Lucy dear had no choice but to give him the title,” Cenere said as he handed over his own twenty kilos of gold coins. He shrugged as he smiled at the gorgeous young woman. “Side bet? Say, dinner at a nice restaurant, followed by a night of dancing and a world tour of the Sinland locations? Loser pays?”
Camilla leered lecherously at Cenere who had the common decency to at least feign a blush. “Did ye just ask me out on a date? Sure…but, loser has tae wear lingerie th' entire time. Nothin' else.”
Cenere laughed and nodded. “Like that would be much of a hardship. You’ve never seen me at a Rocky Horror show.”
“Frank?”
“Frank. Full costume. I even wear a glamoured pair of sh
oofs to make it look like I’m wearing heels and a wig that hides my horns.”
“Well, ye do have th' legs for it. I go as Magenta, myself.”
“I go as Columbia,” Sachi chimed in, blushing slightly as Krang’s hand brushed against hers when she handed him her own twenty kilos in the form of gold bars, five kilos each. “I’m betting he’s the old Archduke of Purgatory and he’s assumed an identity to help Lucifer test the loyalty of the other Archdukes.” Sachi signed her name as Jin tossed one twenty kilo bar to Krang.
“Are you guys serious? My money is that it’s Lucifer, running around in disguise after time travelling backwards and after locking away part of his power so he doesn’t register as a God.” Jin said, looking over at the poker game.
Zeke handed over a two-kilogram bar of unworked adamantine and signed his name after whispering in Krang’s ear. Krang’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Zeke incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack. I mean, there’s a slim chance I’m wrong, but I want to keep this one close to the chest.” Zeke smirked as he looked over at the Archduke, running a second, third, and fourth pass on his scan using his eye. He had a mountain of evidence as to who it could be and was 99% sure of his findings. He shrugged. Considering they were each as rich as Croesus, and none would miss the money, it was more a matter of bragging rights. After all, what was a million dollars between friends, at current market value?
A non-Inquisitor Bishop stepped forward and addressed the group. “You have no idea how jealous the lot of us are. You get to go back in time, give the Nazi’s a bill of sale, wave your arses at the Japanese empire, and meet a dead god? I would love nothing more than to go with. But such is life.”
