Darian hauled up the trap door, revealing a wide staircase descending deep beneath the ground. His flashlight revealed a landing some thirty feet down, which turned and disappeared into the darkness. “Well, whoever built this meant business. How the hell did they do such a massive concrete pour with nobody catching on?”
“I’m going to bet it has something to do with the several miles of road through the forest we needed to navigate to get here.” I tested the first step, which held up as I expected from concrete. “Despite being aware of the reality of things like this happening from working in the CDC, the reality is not what I was expecting.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Something more along the lines of a warehouse hidden in a busy port, where nobody would notice anything weird coming from the place. That has been the kind of stuff to cross my desk on the way to my bosses. Not a hidden lab deep in the woods hidden beneath some damned garden shed.” I scowled. “And now I’m extra mad at them because of the cats.”
“Mr. Flooferson’s situation angered you, but seeing more than one cat caught up in this mess made it real, which in turn has angered you even more?” Darian guessed.
Damn. Darian must have done some psychology studying—or I had zero ability to hide my state of mind from him. “Something like that. I might also be cranky because my chest aches somewhat.”
“And you probably underwent hormonal adjustments while they were at it, so you’re primed to be cranky. Dad is constantly monitoring Mom, and he warns me when she’s getting an adjustment, so I don’t get into more trouble than I usually do. Apparently, women are gloriously complicated, and I should be aware that this complexity could result in the loss of my fragile life, should I anger the wrong woman at the wrong time.”
I laughed at the thought of one of the Devil’s generals warning his son about the perils of his hormonal mother and other women. To spare him from the details of how my hormones could transform me into an ice-cream binging monster several days of every month, I asked, “Keeping the limitations of your magic in mind, what do we need to find here to get us to our next location?”
“The paperwork and vials we found here will help. For example, I can make a trail that will lead us to other chemicals made in the same batch. Fluids like that don’t tend to count as living beings, much like your cat’s fur. If I can get a list of locations to exclude, my trail would only take us to samples that aren’t in the CDC’s hands. That would stand a good chance of getting us to where we need to go.”
“Could you find someone based on their blood?” I asked. “Like, let’s say I cut myself and left some blood on the ground. Could you use that to find me?”
“I could use it to find another source of the same blood, so if you were having your period and I used your blood to track you, I could find you that way, yes. Or if you cut yourself and left blood somewhere.”
I went down a few steps, turned, and raised a brow. “How do you know that?”
“Those are the only ways I can find a missing person. As for figuring that out, you can thank my mother. She was curious and had me do the experiment. I’m sometimes called in if they expect a body or violence. If I have a blood sample of the missing person, I can go to another blood sample. I’ve found murder sites that way before. The blood doesn’t count as the person if it’s not still in the person. Once it’s been spilled, it’s just another lifeless liquid. Once my mother clued into that, I did some experimentation, and that seems to be my limit. As far as wayfinders go, I’m not all that impressive, but I’m good if you’re trying to solve a murder mystery and there’s a blood sample. I’ve found corpses by their hair before. After a while, the hair on the corpse no longer classifies as a person, but that’s usually a day or two following brain death. Hair doesn’t really keep growing for long after death. People just think it does because the other cells are retracting as part of the putrefaction process.”
“I guess I won’t be growing epically long hair after death, then?”
“You would not be growing a mane, I’m afraid. That’s just a myth. My mother was really disappointed to hear that. She tried to convince my father to perform a miracle so she could have her hair continue to grow after death. He refuses.”
“Your mother is a marvel.” I resumed descending, taking my time so I wouldn’t trip, fall, and bash my brains out on the landing below. “I find the lack of railing in here to be disturbing.”
“Railings would make it harder to move equipment in and out. I bet there’s a larger trap door around the one we used to give space for equipment. The steps would make it tricky but doable, unless they have some massive pieces in here. Who knows? The equipment is probably long gone, claimed as a part of evidence. I’m not expecting to find much, and I’ll be looking for fingerprints to help give us more information on who might have been involved with the operation. If we’re lucky, we’ll find some paperwork that was obscured. That’ll be your job once we locate the lab.”
We turned the landing, which continued deep into the ground. “I feel like I should have asked if they were doing contagious disease experimentation on my cat now. Or if we’re likely to be targeted with a bunch of bombs. This deep, do you think we’d survive through a bombing?”
“That’s a really good question. Also, I agree. You should have asked. But if it was some form of contagious disease, wouldn’t there have been warning signs outside warning of plague or contagion? They have plague markers up in the mountains because of the rodent populations, so it would make sense they’d warn people if there was plague here.”
I contemplated bolting for the safety of the SUV and taking a turn caring for the kittens and momma cat. “It’s dark, and this is not the kind of scary story I want to hear in the dark, Darian.”
“I’d claim to protect you, but honestly, I’m kicking myself for only having brought one flashlight.” He directed the beam onto the ground. “In good news, this section seems clean of animals. It’s pretty tidy for something that’s been covered up for at least a year.”
I halted, crouched, and touched the concrete. Dust clung to my fingers. “There’s some dust.”
Darian pointed the light at the ceiling, which proved to be of more concrete. “Maybe some leftover bugs from when the lab was in use? Or the concrete has broken some during earthquakes?”
As I could buy into the earthquake theory, I decided to do my best to keep from thinking about what might have produced the dust on the steps. Rising to my feet, I resumed heading deeper. “If I see any centipedes, I’m out of here, Darian. You will have to battle it on your own. And if I faint because of some damned centipede, just let me crack my head open or something. I’ll deserve my fate.”
“I hope you can settle with me trying to catch you before battling the centipede. I might not battle it, though. I might just leave. I could be talked into taking you with me when I leave.”
I grinned. “If I faint and you have to rescue me from a centipede, it seems reasonable you can make demands. Otherwise, my gravestone will inform the world I was killed by a bug.”
“But it’s a bug with way too many legs. It also is out to kill anything in its path, and they are the definition of terror. If I see a centipede, I’m leaving. I’ll be valiant and take you with me, however.”
“I also dislike scorpions.”
“I am sensing a trend,” Darian stated, and he pointed his flashlight at his chin in an attempt to make himself appear spooky. For the most part, it worked. “Creepy crawlies that are venomous scare you because you’re a sensible human being.”
“And I refuse to test if they’re poisonous. I absolutely refuse. I don’t care if you dunk them in chocolate and wrap that mess up in bacon. I will not eat venomous bugs in an attempt to determine if they’re also poisonous.”
“As I said. You’re a sensible human being. However, why would you put bacon and chocolate together?”
“Because it’s good?”
Darian gasped. “But why would you do that to bacon?”
“Have you never had chocolate and bacon together?”
“Never.”
“It’s good.” I grinned and continued down the steps. “So is candied bacon, and so is regular bacon. Chocolate is good in most of its forms as well.”
“I like bacon, and I like chocolate, but I am not sure if I want to try bacon and chocolate together. That said, I am far more willing to try bacon and chocolate together than I am to eat a centipede or a scorpion.”
“I am not ready to start eating bugs.”
“But what about shrimp or lobster?” Darian narrowed his eyes. “I really like shrimp and lobster. Technically, they’re bugs.”
“Why won’t you try other bugs if you like some bugs, then?” I smirked, well aware I could do hefty damage to a cocktail ring given half a chance. “Are you a selective bug hunter?”
“Yes, I am. I like when my bugs come from the ocean. It makes them special bugs and defy the rules of all other bugs. It could be I just really like salt, and they’re properly brined for my enjoyment. Watch your step. It looks like somebody dropped something heavy and broke the concrete ahead of you.”
Sure enough, one of the steps had seen better days, and I crouched on the step above it to get a better view. Whatever had hit the step had done a good job of exposing the steel support wires in the concrete. I pointed at the bent metal. “Maybe the dust is just from whatever did this. That took a lot of force. It bent the metal, too.”
Darian joined me, and he touched the ground before rubbing the dust between his fingers. “I don’t suppose any of your practitioner tricks can capture reflections from the past? I’m now really curious what caused this.”
“Unfortunately not. You could probably ask your father, though.”
“I could, but the chances he’d answer me are pretty slim.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I hopped over the damaged stair and resumed my journey to the next landing. “What the hell? It’s going down even farther. What is this place?”
“A very deep lab, apparently. We must be at least fifty feet down by now. There’s actually a logical explanation for doing that,” Darian announced, joining me. “After about forty feet, the temperature becomes consistent underground. Oxygen, however, becomes an issue. Can you use practitioner magic to make sure we get fresh air down here?”
“Actually, yes. That I can do.” Chuckling over how easy the Devil made it for me to use my magic for that purpose, I took one of the sheets of paper from the pad and drew a rune representing air and a second one representing a light wind before binding the two together with a drawing of a chain. I concentrated and waved the paper back and forth until it began to produce a gentle breeze. I offered the sheet to Darian. “You can just put it in your pocket or something. No need for it to be out. It’ll last until you break the chain.”
“How do those runes produce fresh air?” He took the paper from me, examining the drawings. “Actually, what are these runes? I don’t recognize either of them.”
“Wind and air. They’re an older form of practitioner magic—think Biblical times older. I had to learn older rune sets, and the older they get, the closer to the elemental sources they go. I’m tapping the elements themselves with those runes, which is why the air will be fresh.” I pointed at one of the exterior circles I’d drawn around the rune for air. “This is a symbol for renewal, which I combined with air, which translates to fresh air we can breathe. Intent matters as much as the runes or symbols drawn.”
“These runes don’t use squared edges,” he noted.
“That’s because they aren’t that sort of rune. Squared edges were easier to chisel into stone or wood. These were originally drawn into sand or mud. It’s also a lot faster to draw in a hurry. Straight lines aren’t as friendly when you’re trying to work magic; going off kilter can create problems, where curved lines are friendlier when you toss magic into the fray. I do know some workings that require straight lines, but I get out the tools when I need to work on those. That’s how you summon demons like your dad without having a way to contain them, Darian.”
“Do you think my mother really drew a squiggle when she meant a straight line and summoned Dad?”
“I think she had no idea what she was actually doing and played with magic she should not have been playing with. It could have gone very differently for your mother if she’d summoned another demon or devil. There are plenty in the many hells that would have eaten her, spit out the bones, and destroyed the circle to make certain nobody repeated that trick. The only smart thing she did was summon your father to help contain your dad, really. But I do admire the amount of power and skill required to make that sort of mistake.”
“I’m telling Mom she’s never allowed to be left alone in a dark room with chalk and candles ever again. I like my mother and do not want her to be eaten by some demon that’s not my dad.”
I laughed at the innuendo. “She reeks of devil and archangel; the worst that would happen to her is a kidnapping, and Belial wouldn’t let that stand for long. Demons and devils generally aren’t stupid, and they won’t hurt the mortal member of a triad. That’s how you trigger an unauthorized End of Days. That’s also how to lose favor with the Devil, and he takes his triads seriously. I think, in some ways, the triads are how the Devil fulfills his basic needs to be a family man,” I admitted. “I don’t recommend following in your mother’s footsteps as a general rule.”
“Oh, trust me. If I’m going to summon somebody, I’ll be doing it very deliberately, I will have the appropriate bribes, and I’ll be prepared to make the most of my summoning. I mean, it worked pretty well for my mother.”
“You’re going to bite off more than you can chew,” I warned.
“Should I take that route, I will do so with the utmost care.”
Of course he would. I shook my head, made a mental note to talk to the Devil about his nephew’s desire to create a disaster, and continued into the depths. Two more landings and at least a hundred feet later, we came to a set of steel double doors which were cracked open. Thanks to my rune, the air remained fresh, but thick layers of dust coated the floor beyond.
Cages, some of them occupied with skeletal remains, lined the walls, reminding me of a sterile shelter. The animal shelter cages, however, offered the animals far more space. The ones containing cats included a small litter box.
I clenched my teeth, and my cheek twitched.
“I wish I could say I’m surprised. I’m really not. I don’t even want to know if they were already dead or dying when this place was busted.” Darian cringed. “My bet is on dying and couldn’t be saved, so euthanized and left in the cages where they died.”
“That’s horrible.”
“And the theory plays very well to the concern of some contagion; I can’t imagine why the animals would have been left like that unless there was some concern of a contagion that could spread to people, so they likely just gassed them and left the bodies to rot. They may have cracked open the door later to confirm the animals had died.”
“Wouldn’t that make this dangerous to go into?”
“They would have neutralized the toxins after making sure the animals were dead.”
“That’s even worse.”
“They were probably beyond saving, and it was less traumatizing for them to just kill them in the cages without rounding them up and traumatizing them even further. I don’t like it, but I can understand it. Cats like your Mr. Flooferson would have been taken for medical care and put in a shelter’s care while the others were left to die.”
“Wouldn’t that shoot down the contagion concern, though? If the animals were contagious, why would they rescue some and not others?”
Darian shrugged. “It’s just a possibility. With the mix of science and magic available, it’s not exactly hard to treat sick animals. If there was a contagion, they would care for the ones they thought they could save and leave the rest. It’s a lot harder to make sure contagion stays with the corpses than it is to dump a bunch of angry cats and dogs into some neutralizer and force feed them the treatments. Leaving them to stay down here, sealed, would solve a lot of problems. The contagion would die out on its own over time. And that’s if that’s the case.”
“I find the possibility disturbing at best, but that I find it plausible is giving me a serious case of the creeps.”
“I feel the same way. Until we can evaluate what’s in those vials, pretending a contagion took out the animals is the safest. Or some form of poison.”
“Well, there was that case of somebody developing aerial rabies,” I muttered, shaking my head over the audacity that someone would try to weaponize rabies, something easily treated with neutralizer. “Outside of having to hire a lot of pixies to cover the unexpected demands for pixie dust, a mass outbreak of rabies would not have been all that bad after it had been diagnosed. The human race would be pink and sparkly for a while, but the contagious could have been contained and cured, although there would have been major changes to how neutralizer was manufactured to make up for the increased supply and demand. There would have been a problem for two or three months, but that strain of rabies had a long onset time. Once diagnosed? It would have been eradicated quickly. The CDC is taking steps to make sure it’s possible to respond to a large-scale incident of that nature without any disruptions. That’s a major project one of my bosses has been working on lately. If the contagion is treatable with neutralizer, it won’t be much of a problem.”
“Well, at least something is going right in the world.”
I shrugged. “Unless your theory on lycanthropy is correct, as that’s one of the few things neutralizer can’t stop.”
“Maybe they’re trying to end the world through overpopulation? Lycanthropy heavily extends someone’s lifespan. The planet can’t sustain the entire human race should they become lycanthropes. There would be mass food shortages.”
That was something I could readily believe. “What does it say about me that I’m scared to go into this lab?”
“Well, in good news, lycanthropy doesn’t survive all that long on surfaces. A week or two at most unless it’s in a special solution.”
I considered Darian with interest. “How did you learn that?”
“My parents suggested I should educate myself on the various ways I could be rid of my base humanity. My dad likes the idea of me undergoing a conversion to become some form of demon. My father just shrugs and tells me I’m an adult, and if I want to contract a contagious disease, that’s my business and not his. My mother just likes the idea of me living forever and taking over the world. I have not told her I’m not really interested in living forever or taking over the world. I wouldn’t mind an extended lifespan, though. I enjoy living.”
“I enjoy living, too. Some days, I feel like I’m an exception to the rule on this one. However, I’ve noticed I work too much and don’t do much actual living, so I feel like I’m not living my best life or living life for somebody else.” I frowned. “Which doesn’t help me resist the Devil’s various temptations. Or other certain temptations, like brutally slaughtering the assholes who did this to these poor animals.”
“Yeah. I’m not usually the kind to want to kill people, but I am having some rather nasty urges right now. Unless we’re dealing with something like gorgon dust, we should be safe enough from whatever was in here. It’s been well over a year.”
“And if it was gorgon dust, there wouldn’t be any skeletons; everything would be stone.” As I was a brave, confident woman who could handle anything life threw my way, I shoved the door open. I winced at the grind of metal on concrete. The dust swirled around my feet. Darian swept his flashlight over the room, which had hundreds of cages lining the walls and a few examination tables waited. Like everything else, those were covered in dust, and one of them held the bones of an animal. “Why would they just leave that poor thing like that?”
“If I had to make a guess, it died while they were trying to save it, or they put it out of its misery while setting up to euthanize the other animals. If they opted to leave the bodies, that’s a sound enough theory. It could have already been dead when they arrived, too.”
“Think if I summon your father and use my magic to bind him to seeking out justice for these poor animals, he would one day forgive me and not kill me for having done it?”
Darian pointed the flashlight in my general direction, although he was careful to keep the beam out of my eyes. “Diana, if you do that and get away with it, I’d be forced to propose to you in increasingly embarrassing fashions until you agreed. First, that sort of power is ridiculous. Mom was able to summon my dad, but she had no ability to actually control him—or make any demands of him. That’s why she panicked and summoned my father. Who she couldn’t actually control, either. The two of them just found her hilarious to the point they fell for her charms. I’m very grateful she summoned them rather than the other options. There are some archangels who would have taken her straight to the Devil for some scolding. She may have still been alive when they took her down to his many hells. Or not. Depends on which one she’d snagged. Some days, when my fathers annoy her, she bitches she hadn’t snagged an incubus instead; at least if the incubus had broken out of the circle, she would have been guaranteed a great time before coming to a swift demise.”
“Would an incubus actually kill her?”
“No, but she’d have a lot more than one kid by the time he finished with her. It’s a vicious circle that tends to backfire.” Darian snickered. “When she pulls that stunt, Dad just asks how many more kids she wants. But, yeah. Dad would definitely play ball with you if you summoned him for that purpose, but you’d have to do an exceptional job on the seal to actually avoid him breaking out of it. He’s one step below Lucifer.”
“I feel like Lucifer deserves to be summoned and bound, and once I had him where I wanted him, I’d call Darlene and demand a vacation for his safe return, but I would invite her to do what she wanted with him while I had him down.”
“And that’s how you become Darlene’s friend for life.”
The problem with magic was the temptation of its use. “I wouldn’t, though. I could, but I won’t.”
“With great power comes great responsibility?”
“Not even. With great power comes greater consequence, and every action has a consequence. It is human nature to attempt to surpass one’s limits. Right now, I’m confident I could do that—but I won’t. I would look to see who—or what—I could summon next. Some things are best left buried—which was why I had no problems telling your father to make that book disappear.”
“Because they taught you how?”
“In part. I think that book is how power stays balanced—the buck doesn’t stop with the divines. People like me exist. And that scares me on a good day.”
“And on a bad one?”
I glared at the skeletal remains in the cages filling the room. “On a bad day, I consider doing it for the sake of long-dead cats and dogs who will never witness justice.”
“I think you will find Him a compassionate being. The universe has a way of repaying those who have suffered in the next life. Just think about the better futures they’ll likely get. In the meantime, let’s see what we can find in this mausoleum.”
Cages and corpses filled most of the lab with several rooms we determined to be for operations and experimentations on the unfortunate animals in residence. Unlike the trailers, the lab had been completely cleaned out and swept of fingerprints. Even with his magic, Darian couldn’t find a single one to lift with his kit.
“Damn it,” he growled.
“We’ll have to hope we find something in the papers we found in the trailers. I’ll check the place for anything hidden. There might be stuff in the cabinets.” Every cabinet we’d checked had been opened and empty, but we hadn’t pawed through them or done more than a visual inspection or checked for fingerprints using Darian’s magic.
My magic might tell a different tale, and I took one of the scraps of paper, grabbed a pale marker, and debated how best to draw the symbol to sweep through the whole place and reveal its secrets—if there were any secrets to reveal. The runes obscuring the boxes in the trailers had been potent enough, so I went for intricate, complicated, and thorough, playing off what I’d drawn to bring fresh air into the lab and casting a wide net. In the two symbols, which I drew on top of each other, I added one more, the simplest of the runes at my disposal.
An incomplete circle could be used for many things, but it worked best for me when I used it to break bindings—or to lure unsuspecting entities into a trap.
I drew a single, red line diagonally across the gap in the circle so it couldn’t be closed and would reveal dark secrets, inhaled, and gave the paper a shake before releasing it.
A gust of wind burst from the sheet, and it spun in the air, as though it’d been caught up in some twister. I expected the dust to swirl, but my magic flattened it to the floor. Blue flame engulfed my hands before sweeping out to the paper and devouring it. Light spilled throughout the lab, a gentle radiance imbuing everything. Most of it faded, leaving a few glimmers in a cabinet and within one of the cages.
The cage lacked a skeleton, to my relief, and I investigated to discover some intact, dust-covered fur from the previous resident. Darian followed me, and he gathered the sample in a bag.
“Can you use that fur to find similar fur, like you can with blood?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. It can get complicated, and the fur can’t still be attached to the animal it belongs to, but we might find somewhere else to go after we’re finished here from this sample.”
While he labeled the bag with the fur sample, I checked the glowing cabinet. The light enveloped a box-shaped object affixed to the bottom of a shelf. I touched, discovered something hard and metallic, and gave a brisk rub to wipe away any obscuring runes on the surface. The ploy worked, and a shimmering shroud flashed before revealing the case beneath, some twenty inches long, a foot wide, and four or so inches thick. It rested in a bracketed shelf, and I slid it out. Dust shed from its surface, revealing several other runes, which I wiped away. “They had a decent practitioner, but their practitioner was either overconfident, or this was their best trick.”
“Why do you say that?”
“No traps.” The magic I’d worked would have turned anything malicious red to match the color marker I’d used. “They either trusted their obscuration—to the point of being a low-grade shroud—to protect their secrets, or they pushed the extent of their abilities. This level of obscuration working is no joke. It’s not the same level as what the divines use, but it’s no surprise to me this stayed a secret.” I placed the box on one of the examination tables, drawing a second working to make certain I’d run into no surprises. Like the first paper, it burst into blue fire. The metal remained unchanged, and I eased the lid up.
A haphazard mess of documents greeted me, and beneath them, I located another collection of liquid-filled vials of varying colors. “Well, I’m going to have to go make sure the Devil gets me a real damned good meter. We’re going to need it. And a way to get samples out of this without unleashing whatever the hell this substance is. I don’t suppose you have any contacts who run labs? The CDC won’t give us the results, neither will the police. They’ll lock it down for certain.”
“Yes, I have a contact, but she’s not cheap. Worse, she’s an elf. Well, half-elf. That’s just as bad, really.”
I raised a brow at that. “You know Missy?” Everyone who was anybody in the CDC knew about Missy. Nobody dared to piss off the lycanthrope, who acted far more like an elf than any wolf. Where Missy went, her mother wasn’t far behind, and nobody screwed around with a lonely full-blooded elf. When the two paired up, trouble happened—and the other elves came out to play.
When the other elves came out to play, somehow, I got roped into self-defense courses. The last time I’d been tossed to an elf, I’d drawn the short lot and gotten Samantha. In exchange for practitioner magic lessons, I’d gotten off lightly.
I’d learned to dance rather than fight, but the elf promised all I would need to become a tolerable fighter would be a few weeks and a weapon.
“I know Missy. Wait. You know Missy?”
“Worse, I know Samantha.”
Darian made a gesture to ward against evil. “I, too, know Samantha. Dad worried I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself. As such, Father asked Samantha for a favor. Samantha thought it was adorable there was an archangel bold enough to ask her for a favor. She had me for two weeks. I almost died.”
I laughed. “She had me for a month spread out over the course of a year, and she taught me how to dance. She was supposed to teach me how to defend myself, but I’m either hopeless or she just was tired of teaching fighting. I actually really like Samantha. Missy is a piece of work, though. I actually really like her, but she’s psychotic. If you can talk with Missy, just tell her you’re working with me. She’ll probably give you a break on the bill. We just have to hope she doesn’t call her mother. If she calls her mother, she might call Samantha, too. If she calls Samantha, we might have to run away. Quickly. With Samantha, the longer we evade her, the happier she is. We need that head start, Darian.”
“Yes, we do. And if you agree to undergo a conversion, Samantha would be a good teacher for you. I approve.”
Interesting. “Why?”
“Well, you won’t be a wilting lily if Samantha is teaching you.”
That was true. “Once we’re upstairs, I’ll give her a call.”
“Okay, there’s crazy, and then there’s flat-out insanity. Calling Samantha is insane. It’s the definition of insane. Calling her means she might show up.”
“That is the idea.” I gestured to the cages, which easily numbered in the thousands once I added all the research rooms in the labyrinth of a lab. “I’m going to tell her about this, and I’m going to tell her I wish to make even elves proud of me when I’m finished with these bastards.”
“That’s how you sign yourself up for weapons training.”
“Yes, and?”
“That’s how you sign me up for weapons training, Diana.”
I shrugged. “Some prices are worth paying.”
“That is absolutely ruthless. No wonder the Devil wants you as his secretary. I don’t want to be tenderized before being eaten by an elf. I barely survived my first round with her.”
“But did you die?”
“Not quite, but it was close.”
“Don’t be such a baby about this.” I closed the box, secured it, and did a walkthrough of the rest of the lab. My magic revealed nothing else. “Let’s get back to the surface before the Devil convinces himself he needs to steal my kittens. I’m only keeping the momma cat and the calico, as three cats seems like a reasonable number of cats. And the calico is really cute.”
“All kittens are really cute.”
Smiling, I nodded. “Mr. Flooferson is especially cute, and I will always love him the best. As such, I must prove my love and devotion by making elves proud of my brutality when I bring this operation to its knees.”
“Please don’t end the world acquiring justice for your cat. I like living.”
“So do I, so I will do my best to avoid such a thing. That said, I might take a page out of Darlene’s book and take over the Devil’s many hells for a while if I need to. I bet Darlene would cooperate, and she could lure the Devil off to His place for a while. I can take over while they’re out. Hey, think your dad would help out? If I have a general backing me, I might actually get away with it.”
“I’m fairly sure Dad will only help if I’m joining in. He’s been trying to corrupt me for a while.”
“Sure, you can help. I’m not above manipulating you to get access to your dad. I’ll ask your father to help keep them upstairs for a little while longer so I have time to finish my plans. He’ll be into that, right? By doing so, he helps secure justice for the helpless, and that seems like his sort of thing.”
“It really is.”
“Good. We have kittens to take to the vet, a meter to coerce out of the Devil, and work to do. Let’s get this show on the road.”