Institutionalized (Demon Squad Book 10) Read online

  “Indeed it would have,” he answered. “But fear not, Triggaltheron, after this, Hell will hold no more secrets from you.”

  I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “What do you mean?”

  He ignored me and stepped into the alcove. Like an idiot I went in behind him, the narrow space illuminated only by the light out in the hallway. A plain, stone altar was set against the back wall of the alcove and on its surface sat a cup that looked half drinking stein, half Holy Grail.

  “That’s not actually the—?”

  “No, it’s not.” Lucifer chuckled, realizing I was asking if it was the Holy Grail. “This,” he said, holding the cup up, “is the Chalice of Clarity.” He turned it in his hands so I could see it more clearly.

  It had intricate designs carved all along its gilded sides, ravens and sigils and all sorts of thorny looking brambles, and there, standing out against the rest of the chaotic design, was the image of a wide open eye set inside a silver heptagram. It looked like a Celtic Frost album cover minus all the Giger mechanoids. That thought, of course, made me miss Chatterbox even more. I could have used a good musical aside right then.

  “What’s it do?” I asked, not really sure I wanted to know but realizing he wouldn’t have brought me there if he hadn’t planned on telling me.

  “Much as its name implies.”

  “I see.”

  Lucifer stared for a moment before letting my sad attempt at a joke go. He tossed the chalice to me and proceeded to roll his jacket sleeve up, then he fiddled with the golden cufflink there, and pulled his shirt sleeve up, too. Then he pulled out a knife.

  “Whoa, buddy. I know I can be difficult but no need to shank me. Don’t make me called Child Protective Services on you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If only it were for you,” he said and proceeded to drag the blade down his exposed arm, cutting a deep trough between his elbow and wrist. Crimson welled. “Chalice, please.”

  I handed it over and he clasped it in his hand, palm down, letting the blood from his wound spill directly into the cup. It splattered inside, filling it much quicker than I expected, the chalice brimming with red before Lucifer willed his injury closed and cut off the flow. He lifted the cup as if holding it up in a toast. The blood bubbled, tiny hisses spilling from the chalice, wisps of smoke erupting in their wake.

  “This,” he said with a smile, “is for you.” He passed me the chalice.

  I knew from experience just what Daddy Lou’s blood was capable of so I waved it off. “Thanks but I’m trying to cut back. Do you know how much cholesterol is in that stuff?” A small vial was enough to super-size every aspect of my demonic heritage, turning me into the Hulk on PCP, sans the cool shredded purple pants and a Jennifer Connelly cuddle after the fact.

  “Don’t be a pussy, Triggaltheron.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You lick your mother with that tongue?”

  “Just yours,” he answered. “Now drink the damn thing.”

  “Seriously, I don’t think this is a good idea. That much of your blood will give me an aneurysm and make me shit rainbows for a week.” I took a step back, bumping into the wall of the alcove, nowhere to go.

  He sighed. “Why must you make everything so difficult?”

  “It’s a talent, what can I say?”

  “Say nothing, please.”

  Before I could state my First Amendment rights, Lucifer reached out and grabbed my chin, fingers digging into the joints, forcing my jaw open. I squeaked—admittedly like a little girl—and went to pry his hand off my face but, despite all my recent upgrades in power, I wasn’t remotely prepared to wrestle the Devil incarnate. It was a depressing realization. He wedged me against the wall as if I were an infant and tilted my head upward and began to pour.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, as far as blood goes, Lucifer’s is a pretty good vintage. Full bodied and tangy, with just the right amount of zing to make Lionel Richie feel easy like a Sunday morning. But still, the last damn thing I wanted right then was to be force fed what was likely twenty times the largest amount I’d ever ingested. Lucifer, however, was intent on making me do just that. He just kept pouring and pouring and I swallowed to keep from drowning, everything from my lips to my guts lighting up as if I were drinking gasoline with a napalm chaser.

  I gasped for breath as the last of it slithered down my throat and he released me, pulling the chalice away before stepping back. His gaze settled over me with an analytical coldness. My legs buckled and I dropped to my ass, the room swaying through blurry eyes. The dregs of his blood sat heavy on my tongue and I felt higher than I had at any time during my recent heroin adventures.

  “This is the part where things become…uncomfortable, I’m afraid,” he told me, setting the chalice back on the altar.

  “Seriously, Mr. Cosby. I don’t want your pudding pop.”

  “You might not appreciate me after this—”

  “I don’t appreciate you now,” I slurred, my lips tingling as the blood took hold.

  “—but you’ll soon be aware enough to realize this is in your best interest.”

  The lines to a Suicidal Tendencies song came to mind but I had a hard time pinning it down. Where was Chatterbox when I needed him?

  Lucifer’s blood shot through my system at warp speed and Sulu wasn’t holding anything back. My skull seemed fit to burst and my vision went from blurry to Timothy Leary in a heartbeat, the room melting around me and oozing into my every orifice. The ground reached up and pulled me over on my side and I saw Lucifer’s shoes moonwalking toward the door.

  Hee hee.

  “If it’s any comfort,” he said, his voice drifting lazily to me on ladybug wings, “you’ll pass out before the pain becomes too overwhelming.” Lucifer chuckled. “And by the way, I want to see my grandchild before I leave Earth. Reach out to me when you’re done with your mission, whatever it is. You’ll know how to contact me soon enough.” Then he was gone, leaving me to twitch on the cold, stone floor.

  The full force of his blood hit a moment later in the form of Godzilla and King Kong spit roasting my cranium while Mothra looked on and cheered, throwing dollar bills and shouting, ‘Make it rain,’ in Japanese.

  That’s when I realized, to no one’s surprise, to include my own, that Daddy Lou lied about me passing out soon. It was a long, long time before mercy found me curled fetal and dragged me into the darkness. I did not go quietly.

  Two

  Ever have a syphilitic orangutan violate your face holes?

  I don’t recommend it.

  That’s what the taste in my mouth reminded me of as consciousness returned. My skull throbbed with a spastic tribal rhythm, all out of sync with the world around me. I could feel my eyes bulging in their sockets and my ears seemed ready to burst, blood rushing through them like a waterfall, looking for a way out. Every bone in my body ached, muscles stiffened into stony knots. I dragged myself off the floor, using the wall for support, and got to my feet. Shit. Even my toes hurt.

  Once I was up I stumbled against the altar and glared at the chalice but it wasn’t as if I could blame the damn thing for what had happened because I knew…

  I drew up short, staring at it as I suddenly understood what it was. The chalice was an ancient Sumerian artifact created by Inanna in order to pass the whole of her knowledge on to her minister, and servant, Ninshubur should she never return from the underworld, as was the law of the infernal land. I watched in my mind’s eye as she crafted it, pouring its molten essence—

  I reined my brain back and wondered how the hell I knew that.

  Then I knew exactly how I knew that.

  “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.” It was so clear. Too clear.

  My breath caught in my lungs and my eyes drifted from the chalice to the tiny altar room and suddenly I knew when the place had been created, how it had been made, and for what purpose. Then I knew about all the other little bolt holes Lucifer had dug all over Hell and the purpose behind them all. One a
fter another they splayed out across the screen of my mind, a projector chattering on endlessly, Satanic Wikipedia on overload.

  My head reeling with memories I had no reason to possess, I staggered out of the room and into the hallway only to be assaulted by an image of that particular location in Lucifer’s chambers being designed, dread fiends skipping about and transforming the stone, and I knew why they’d done it, and when, and even when they’d stopped for lunch…and what they’d eaten.

  For a guy who was a D student at best, I knew way too damn much.

  My stomach lurched and a mental image of the mechanics of why I wanted to vomit popped into my head in graphic detail. Not a split-second later my thoughts circled back around to why this was happening and I understood Lucifer’s reasons for feeding me his blood, each concept appearing like some magic cannon had blasted them into my brain.

  My head spun with all the new and unexpected thoughts and memories and I could feel myself being sucked into the rabbit hole of it all, questions forming on top of questions on top of answers that only bred more answers, leading to more questions. And while all of that became apparent, the only thing I didn’t know was how to stop from losing my mind to it all.

  And then I knew that, too.

  My brain settled as if I’d shifted it into neutral and yanked my foot off the gas pedal, all the weirdness taking a backseat to…well, my normal weirdness. It was like I’d crawled into the pillow fort of my skull and could be myself again. It was comforting after what I’d just experienced. My thoughts—all my own this time—went straight to Lucifer.

  “You sneaky little hobgoblin.”

  The one part of my inheritance he’d skipped out on before he left, because he hadn’t wanted me to know I was his son, I’d only just realized, was the part where he clued me in to what it meant to be the ruler of Hell, to be Satan. And, of course, he’d done it in spades, no holding back.

  The Chalice of Clarity, in essence, was the mother of all mystical USB cables. With it, Lucifer dumped all of his memories and knowledge into my skull in one big burst, leaving me to sort all the files and figure out where they belonged. It was like a super computer butt-fucked a Commodore Vic 20, cramming way too much data into the squishy hard drive floating in my skull.

  What was worse than him actually doing that were the reasons behind it.

  First off, and more than mildly surprising, was because he truly did love me and wanted me to succeed him as the legitimate ruler of Hell, the Devil in form as well as function. The second reason was—

  My stomach tightened into a hard knot as his main purpose settled in my mind.

  Lucifer expected to die.

  I stumbled again and nearly fell over, his thoughts on the matter surging to life. God’s war was ramping up and the stakes were getting more and more dangerous as more universes came to rally under the banner of the Aliterean Consortium, which always brought to mind some corporation rather than an alien rebellion. Stupid name aside, they were the powers to be in the battle against God and it seemed they were starting to turn the tide in their favor.

  A cold chill settled over me as I pictured what Lucifer knew about them. When I’d visited Feluris they were the big bad in the distance, a quiet rumble of an approaching storm you could only sense. Seeing them through Lucifer’s memories made them something more, something far more ominous. He’d seen them up close and personal and now I was, too, though his memories. God’s forces had suffered some major losses and even Lucifer had begun, all his natural pessimism aside, to believe God might actually lose, like legitimately lose, and he was preparing for that eventuality.

  Now that was terrifying.

  It wasn’t like I was a huge fan of God’s rule, playing for the other side and all, but it was a familiar yoke I’d worn my entire life, even if he hadn’t been around for the last fifty years or so. The deity you know, and all that. Lucifer didn’t seem to think the Aliterean’s were a step up in the boss department either. Quite the opposite in fact, hence his reason for rejoining the fold and fighting alongside God. Not that the foremost rebel in existence would ever be happy under someone else’s rule but for him to think God was the right side to bend a knee to told me everything I needed to know about Alitere and his cohorts.

  Still, despite the shift in the war and Lucifer’s feelings about it all, it was still light years away from Earth, or so it appeared. The Consortium didn’t seem all that eager to bring the fight to our little blue orb yet, though that was because they didn’t know how to manipulate the prison realms or how to use them to slip through space without draining all their magic in the process. Until they did, the Earth was safe. Well, from the alien hordes at least. It was still in as deep of shit as ever with all the crazy supernaturals already running amok here. There were plenty of those.

  And speaking of those left behind, it was time for me to offer myself up as a sacrificial lamb to the guvment of the United States o’ `Murika. Thanks to Rebecca Shaw, ex-head honcho over at the Department of Supernatural Investigation, they believed me and DRAC to be the ones responsible for the nuclear explosions that had hit the nation in recent days. They weren’t gonna give us any peace until that matter was settled. It was gonna be one hell of a conversation with me trying to convince them that the rogue ex-Archangel Gabriel was to blame for all of it, along with his sidekick Judas, of backstabbing Jesus for a sack full of silver fame. Yeah, like they were gonna believe that.

  I contemplated pre-lubing. Better slick than sorry.

  Back in my quarters, I picked up the mess Lucifer made and packed it up again and headed out to drop all of it off. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to but it wasn’t like Scarlett was gonna come to Hell to pick it up.

  The visit with Scarlett and Katon was quick and fairly painless. Abigail was asleep so I slipped in, gave a her a kiss on her rosy little cheek, told her I loved her, traded barbs and a quick duet with Chatterbox, a wailing rendition of Fates Warning’s “Prelude to Ruin,” of course, then hightailed it out of there before Katon or my cousin could start asking me questions I wasn’t ready to answer yet. Rahim still wanted me to keep mum on Mike’s disappearance and I wasn’t gonna be the guy to break that news to them. There was no way that would go over well.

  It was scary to think Mike hadn’t been able to reach out to anyone. That meant he wasn’t just duct-taped and gagged in a closet somewhere. He was hurt badly, unconscious, stuffed in an alternate dimension, or maybe even…dead.

  I didn’t want to think about the last possibility. There was enough shit on my shoulders without adding that to the pile.

  Gabriel had the opportunity to tell me if he’d killed him but he wouldn’t spill. He decided to be all mysterious and leave me hanging. The archangel wanted me to suffer, knowing damn well it would be harder not knowing than to hear Mike was dead. And since he wasn’t talking, I killed the fucker, which of course left me no way to know where Mike had ended up.

  That was a big part of why I was approaching the government. With DRAC in disarray and hunkered down in Hell, they didn’t have the resources to track Mike down without putting them all in danger. Oh, they were still working on it, Rahim working himself toward a stroke chasing down leads and Rachelle doing what she does, but they were wanted just as badly as I was, dead or alive, and the government was hedging their bets on the latter. DRAC’s movements were limited until someone—me—surrendered and gave the government what they wanted. A scapegoat to pin everything on, a face to slather across the news and brand a villain. Who better than the guy the world had already seen going crazy live on camera back when Karra had been killed?

  Rahim and Rachelle and all the others in DRAC were nameless, faceless entities. Me, I was the Unabomber, Osama bin Laden, and Donald Trump all rolled up into one thrilling, made for TV mini-series. Shaw, even on her way out the door, had made sure of that.

  Fuck.

  So, Abby’s inheritance settled and DRAC out of sight of the government for the moment, I teleported int
o an alley across the street from one of the main DSI offices and made ready to have my constitutional rights violated in a way that would likely have me walking funny for the next sixty to seventy years.

  I stared at the revolving glass door of the office building, watching the varied staff go through and meet the wall of security just the other side of the lobby, and drew in a deep, tired breath. This was gonna hurt.

  No reason to draw it out any longer, Mike suffering somewhere the entire time I procrastinated, I marched across the street, up the stairs, and pushed my way through the spinny door. I even managed to keep from going, ‘Wooo,’ when I did it. Not two seconds later my face was full of all sorts of gun barrels.

  “Get on the ground!”

  “Freeze!”

  “Hands up!”

  “Get down!”

  “Don’t you fucking move!”

  The commands came at me hard and fast, and quite contrary at that, each security officer wanting me to do something different, but I’d come for a reason and I wasn’t gonna capitulate to the help until I got what I needed.

  “I came to speak to your boss, people, and while I’m gonna be nice despite all this hardware in my face, there won’t be any bondage play until after I have my say.”

  An overeager fat guy in a suit pressed the barrel of his Glock against my temple. “Do what you’re told or I put a bullet in your brain.” Dots of fuzzy spittle landed on my cheek and I cringed. His breath was two notches left of kimchi ripeness. It made my eyes flutter and I was certain my eyelashes curled.

  “First off, you should find some mints somewhere before your halitosis triggers another Cold War. Second, and arguably more pressing given the depths of funk spewing from your mouth right now, is that you and your merry band of junior rent-a-slops don’t stand a chance of taking me out.” I rolled my eyes to meet his and let a dribble of energy loose so they flared red. “Now, take a step back, close your mouth—please—and tell your bosses upstairs that I’m here to chat. If they can spare me a few minutes of their time, I’ll go peaceably and no one will get hurt, specifically you.”