Apostles of Doom

“Holy potatoes!” Teragdor gasped. “Afterwards? Did they try to kill you guys on the carpet?” He took another drink of beer.

Zed shook his head from side to side drunkenly. “Amazingly, no. I figured we’d be dead, but they just came back, quite a bit worse for the wear and thanked Gastropé for inviting them to the party!”

Teragdor shook his head in disbelief. “That doesn’t make any sense! Demons don’t work that way!”

Vaselle was swaying as he thought about the story. “Did one of the demons have like four arms and four legs?”

Zed nodded as Teragdor looked at Vaselle curiously. “Indeed, that was sort of the leader of the three!” Zed affirmed.

Vaselle nodded. “That’s Tizzy. I know Gastropé is his accursed master.”

“So you’ve met one of these demons?” Teragdor asked incredulously.

“Yeah, he’s pretty nuts,” Vaselle said. “But he makes like really good baked goods!” Vaselle could have really used a cookie at this point. Although that might not have been a good idea, considering how wasted he already was.

“A demon that bakes?” Zed asked curiously.

“What, do they just leave the dough out on the patio and it bakes?” Teragdor asked before releasing a huge belch.

“Practically, but no, they have ovens and regular cooking gear,” Vaselle said.

“How do you know?” Teragdor asked, disbelieving the wizard.

Vaselle blinked. Crap, now he’d stepped in it! “Uhm, that’s what Tizzy, the demon told me.”

“So you’ve talked with this demon?” Teragdor asked.

Vaselle nodded and then shrugged. “Actually, if he’s around, the difficulty is not talking to him. He’s very locationus… locutious… locashus… he’s very talkative,” Vaselle finally managed to say.

Zed nodded. “He did talk a lot. Gastropé’s friend Jenn says the demon is very annoying.”

Teragdor blinked. “I think that’s a pretty weird description for a diabolical fiend from the pits of the Abyss!”

“Yeah. Jenn doesn’t like him that much, but she seems more frustrated with the demon than afraid of him. With Gastropé, it’s hard to tell.”

Zed nodded.

Teragdor shook his head. “If everyone else knows him, maybe I should ask Gastropé to introduce me—”

Zed laughed. “You could exercise him!”

Vaselle laughed as well.

Teragdor blinked drunkenly and said, “It’s exorcise, not exercise!”

“I bet Tizzy could do a lot of exorcising with four arms and four legs!” Vaselle joked loudly, and Zed held up his mug for clinking. Vaselle clinked his mug, as did a giggling Teragdor.

“Do those sound empty or something?” Vaselle asked.

Zed peered drunkenly into his mug. “I only got a drop of clinked ale left!”

“You’re the expert on rituals, Teragdor. Does having only one drop invalidate a clinking?” Vaselle asked.

Teragdor tried to appear thoughtful and introspective, but failed. “I think for safety’s sake, we should refill and repeat the ceremony. Hate to have a failed clinking!”

Vaselle nodded, gesturing for the other two to put their mugs on the bar. “Barkeep!”

Chapter 122

Mount Doom: DOA + 3, First Period

Tom entered his sitting room, followed by Tizzy. He was surprised to see Boggy, Reggie, Estrebrius and Talarius playing whist at this late hour. He had to pause and wonder at his own surprise. He had been stuck wide awake around the clock for the last umpteen weeks and after only a few days in Doom, he was back to expecting people to sleep at night? He shook his head.

Antefalken was also there, scribbling away on his ballad, the crystal ball acting as a paperweight to hold down a large stack of curled parchment. Actually, he thought, given the time of night it was very odd that Reggie was there. He glanced towards the incubus. “You didn’t get summoned tonight?”

Reggie looked up and shook his head. “Apparently my accursed mistress and her colleague got freaked out when they discovered I knew Phaestus and Sekhmekt personally and had just been drinking with them last night.”

Tom made a wistful expression with his mouth. “Yeah, that would probably do that.” He had to refile the fact that Phaestus and Sekhmekt were actual gods, as in ancient Egyptian gods, to the back of his mind for a later freak-out. He’d managed to suppress and ignore that troubling thought for the last day or so, but Reggie had brought it forward once more. However, tempting as it might be to have a mental breakdown over trying to even conceive of being friends with ancient deities, it would just have to wait. His basement Kraken was cracking and that was sufficiently mind-boggling for tonight’s nervous breakdown.

“You look pretty beat,” Antefalken observed.

“Long day, ending with the discovery that we are running a Black Site in the basement.” Tom shook his head in disbelief as he spoke.

Everyone other than Reggie looked at him in puzzlement. “What’s a Black Site?” Boggy asked.

“A Black Ops site, black operations,” Tom explained. “An extra-legal location where people are made to ‘disappear’ ”—he made air quotes—“and imprisoned and tortured for information.”