Humming a little tune, I went down into the darkness of my cellar.
An expansive one had come with the property, and I’d expanded it since then, adding the proper airflow for a lab and dividing it into three parts. Lab, storage, and diabolist practicing chamber. I’d put Gregory and Melissa in the latter.
Bound to cause some worry and confusion when they wake up? Maybe, but the room was designed to contain diabolism, which would help with the one of them I expected to make the most fuss.
I opened the door, carefully stepping over the boundaries I set up. Nothing as fancy as Father Reginald’s setup, just some enchanted steel designed to cut off all magic that passed over it. Not very effective at stopping intentionally directed effects. Byproducts of practice sessions gone sour though? It worked nicely for those.
For Melissa’s diabolism, I’d have to hope the diluted holy water I’d poured down her throat worked. It would be painful when she woke up, and a hundred times worse if she used Diabolism until it was out of her system. Not ideal, but I wasn’t letting a potentially hostile Diabolist have nearly free rein inside my shop.
The entire room wasn’t very pretty, just a big stone block with a metal door. Purely for practicing, and since I wasn’t enough of a fool to try summoning or sacrifices the paraphernalia could be pared down to fitting inside my coat.
I lit the room’s single lamp, illuminating my two prisoners down below.
I’d put some distance between the two of them when I’d put them down on these spare mattresses. Wouldn’t do for either of them to wake up right next to each other. I couldn’t guess if that would end with them trying to work together to escape, or trying to kill one another.
They’re hands were cuffed together, and those were nailed to a single ring I’d installed in the middle, same for their leg irons. That was about all I’d managed for security last night before going upstairs and passing out.
Gregory first. Depending on how this conversation went, he might be out of chains before I started the second.
His hair actually looked better like this than it did combed. Just the way it hung, brown locks framing his face.
You are not going to kiss this one are you? The Imp suddenly interjected in my head, making me jump back to my hooves. He’s a particularly worthless dandy, and sworn to a deity only slightly less terrible than the terrible sun-entity.
“Could you not?” I hissed at the Imp. Not for the first time I considered going and hunting down Versalicci just so he could change the contract on the thing or banish it.
It is a serious concern. The Duke likely has a good match among his many-
“Of all the things I want to talk about, the thing that spawned me having some devil set aside I’m expected to marry is actually below thinking I’m going to kiss an unconscious person!”
Unfortunately, my yelling seemed to have roused one of my prisoners from their sleep, and of course, it was Gregory.
“Five..five more minutes Bishop,” he muttered sleepily. “I’ll get the chorus whipped into shape this afternoon I swear.”
“Yeah, whips are definitely not getting used,” I remarked, and his eyes shot open.
He fumbled with his chains only a little bit before he realized he was restrained, and only a second more looking about at everything around him. He settled into a cross-legged sitting position as I waited for him to get his bearings.
“You know, I’ve been in compromising situations beforehand,” Gregory said with surprising calmness, although I could hear just a little quaver to his voice. “But most of the time, I agreed to get in them.”
“Most of the time?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Angry family members, angry exes,” he replied with that forced serenity. “People angry over things beginning or ending.”
“I don’t really qualify as any of that,” I said firmly. “Nothing really started.”
“No, it did not. Malvia, why is there dried blood on my suit?”
There was quite a bit of it, the entire front of it covered in stains from the body parts littering Tyler’s basement. Honestly, I thought the splash of color made an already quite nice suit even nicer. Mind you, blood was a pain to get out, and it would smell, and you know what, that actually wasn’t important.
“Because I didn’t strip you while you slept?” I ventured. “Seriously, what kind of person do you think I am, Gregory?”
“A person who is willing to bite into fingers and sacrifice people to summon devils,” he deadpanned.
I bristled, then tried to force the tension out of me the moment after. Don’t let him rile you Malvia, it’s not worth it.
“Can we simply not with the sniping?” I asked him. “You’ve already complicated things enough, I don’t…I’m not having a discussion over that.”
“Okay,” he said with a sudden gentleness. “I…that was rude of me. My apologies, Miss Harrow.”
I grinned, just a little one. “Aw, thank you. Mind you, I did kidnap you and interrupt your investigation, so maybe a little rudeness should be expected. But speaking of that investigation, what were you doing with Donald Tyler? I overheard something about Father Reginald owing him money. Guessing that is a trail you were following?”
“Yes,” Gregory said after a moment of hesitation, gears clearly turning. “It turns out our murderer was right in some regards about Father Reginald. When I went through his records, it turned out he owed quite a bit of money to Glee Street. Not just lost in the casino, but borrowed from a number of moneylenders, one of whom was Mr. Tyler. I don’t necessarily think the murders were done by him, diabolism is a bit of overkill for not paying him back, and if he was keeping it secret from his superiors-“
I let him get a few more steps into his lies about Father Reginald’s supposedly gigantic gambling debt. I could guess what the actual reason for the owed money was. He had been buying from supplies of Diabolism supplies, after all.
“This is about the combined church Diabolism program, isn’t it?” I said, and his face went blank. “Maybe Father Reginald did do some gambling on the side, but that’s not why he owed Tyler money. He was trying to secure Diabolic supplies for the church program, wasn’t he?”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened then again, gaze intent. “You made it into the practice chamber and warding room then. Clara swore she’d hid the key and burnt all the correspondence.”
“She did,” I confirmed. “An admirable job, but she had to contend with Voltar. Although the door being locked after she came out from it was going to pique his interest anyway. Be glad he decided to focus on the door instead of the girl.”
“Voltar doesn’t torture people,” Gregory interrupted quietly.
And suffers all the more for it.
A retort was half-formed on my lip before I decided it wasn’t worth arguing. “Not what I meant. If he hadn’t found the key I imagine it would have been the lock picks then the crowbar. And if those didn’t work he’d see about ferreting out the information out of Miss Lionel. Also, just a tip for the future, you didn’t need to confirm it actually was a group. You could have played it off as rogue agents of the church. Albeit the sheer amount of holy sigils down there does make that-”
“I’m sure it was all very clever,” Gregory said sarcastically, earning a scornful glare from me.
“It wasn’t, but thank you, I need more deflating this time of the day. But in all seriousness, how much trouble are you in if it comes out you leaked this? Gallaspie already doesn’t seem to like you.”
“He will. And would regardless. If he refuses to believe me when I tell him that you already knew? He can approach my superiors in my church and keep his suggestions I need to bathe in holy water inside that odious little block of cheese he calls a brain.”
I couldn’t help but grin a little.
Perhaps the boy has some semblance of sense after all. Down with all worshippers of the suns.
“Alright. So the various religions of Avernorn and the Empire as a whole are funding a collective program into making their own Diabolists?”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Gregory finally let out a little sigh, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Keep in mind, I was only introduced to this program very recently.”
“At some point between the end of the shape-changer affair and now?”
“Yesterday morning.”
I paused as I digested that. “You mean after the murder?”
“On the carriage ride over,” he admitted. “I arrived at the church early to assist Bishop Doylen’s for the celebrations later this week, when I found myself bundled into a carriage and asked to help with this. Told about it all. Well, about its existence. Bishop Doylen herself seemed to only know it existed and little else, and as far Father Reginald’s former colleagues-“
“One of them already seems to hate you, and the other seems alright but is probably not willing to spill any more secrets to an outsider than necessary?” I guessed.
“You’ve summed it up pretty well among the senior members,” he replied. “The ones I know of anyway. I was told I was wanted because of my experience with Voltar. No one mentioned you being there.”
“I’m sure that must have come as a shock,” I said.
“A little unbalancing,” he admitted. “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t handle any of that well, and while being thrown off by a string of revelations is disconcerting, it’s no excuse for how I handled things.”
“Apology accepted,” I said. “The diabolism program?”
“The bishops can give more details,” he started, before swiftly continuing upon seeing my expression. “But since they might not cooperate, my understanding was that it was being pursued to do research on the diabolic. There have been worries ever since well, not to be awkward but your brother’s activities. Some in the church have been arguing it could have resulted in a crisis on the same level as Her Most Profane Majesty.”
“That was never going to happen,” I said flatly. “We never were going to get that far. Hells, he barely managed to get people into key positions of the city bureaucracy willing to take orders before the entire thing started falling apart. It took a month for Voltar to expose the first of them?”
“From the inside, I’m sure it looked more fragile than on the outside,” Gregory said. “I wasn’t there firsthand to know about it as it happened. All I knew is that there were riots in the Quarter that required the army’s intervention. For those who did know? An Infernal who was willing to summon devils and had multiple diabolists working for him nearly took over the city without anyone knowing. There were fears of opening a permanent portal to the Hells, multiple ones even.”
“It never would have happened,” I assured him. “Versalicci never cared for the Hells or for Infernals. He only cared about personal power, and personal power he controlled. An army from the Hells taking over he’d then have to answer to? He never would have risked that.”
The son is distrustful, The Imp whispered. Power is all he craves, but never when another stands to benefit, not if it means one higher on the ladder than him. Admirable if he was in the Hells. Definitely something to be arranged, if you have the mettle for it.
“I’ll trust you know your brother better than I do. I’ve never met him, and from what I’ve heard I never want to meet him. But still, you could understand why it would spark worries. The diabolism program? It’s there mostly so we could start research into the Hells, and what was going on down there.”
“There’s a whole wealth of literature on Diabolism,” I said. “It exists, I’ve tried getting my hands on some of it, and mostly failed, but it’s there. And I know some churchs hold onto quite a bit of it, especially Halspus.”
“Old literature,” Gregory noted. “And that’s what was preserved. A lot was well, burnt. But even if there was a concerted effort to preserve said literature, it’s spread across a lot of places, including the Imperial Archives where the royal family is not letting anyone without their approval examining it, the different churchs, and then the private collectors. People who just happen to have a book on the diabolic arts in their attic.”
Of course the sun god’s lackeys burnt it, The Imp hissed in my head. Permanently sealing off the Hells is all they care about, denying us proper congress and trade.
Well, it was possible both of those things happened to cross between the Hells and this world, I suspected both got overshadowed by the violence sent both ways.
“Run across a few of those?” I asked him.
“Only one. It was enough to leave a nasty impact on my in my youth.”
Huh. He had never explicitly said anything about it, but I’d always thought I’d been his first brush with Diabolism. I wanted to ask about that attic, but since he was talking what I needed him to, I held my tongue.
“It’s also old,” Gregory continued. “Diabolists were always rather secretive with what they discovered to begin with, and after the downfall of Her Most Profane Majesty? Nothing. The Hells are entire layers of worlds, we’ve barely scratched the surface on what is down here. Usually the portals open to specific parts of the Hells, but there are other places down there, we know from a few of the accounts. Places even deeper that normally can’t be accessed from here. Even in the places that are easily reachable for most diabolists, there are devils that show up and no one has ever encountered their kind before. Getting ready for that was part of the program’s goal. At least what I was told.”
“Having a secret weapon that no one, not even the empire, would suspect you of having, sounds pretty good for another goal,” I opined, and he nodded glumly.
“Neither of them said as much, but it’s not hard to see that as a reason,” he said. “They also insisted they are the only two bishops involved which I doubt.”
“Too balanced of a leadership pool,” I noted. “Deadlock. So there’s a third vote?”
"At a minimum,” Gregory replied. “Gallaspie sees my involvement as an unwelcome intrusion. Derrick is more welcoming, but it’s clear neither of them appreciates me being foisted on them. However, if they think Tarver is not going to have one of his mortal servants involved in….that, they will learn to regret that.”
I was a little flabbergasted. That level of vitriol I’d heard before but, well, aimed at me, and even that had felt like a chilly breeze compared to the icy cold in his words. A thought that I should have had before now finally arose from my brain.
“You and Father Reginald were close?” I guessed, asking carefully.
“A little,” he admitted. “We didn’t meet regularly, and he didn’t recruit me into the church, but when a young boy needed reassurance if he just disappeared someone would care? He was there. And helped make sure that fate would never occur.”
My eyes widened a little. Gregory had hinted about how frosty his relationship with his shitheel of a father was before. And there was no denying the love lost when his father intended for him to die via Shape-changer assassination attempt. Still, for one to be that young when it happened.
I waited for him to elaborate, but he moved past it.
“Seeing him warped into that perversion did upset me,” he said. “The two bishops though…you should know Gallaspie hates you for what you did with Bishop Strevans.”
It took a second to place that name. “The shape-changer? He’s irritated we found someone who was masquerading as Bishop Strevans?”
“As far as he is concerned, Bishop Strevans was a devout worshipper of Halspus regardless of her actual identity, and her expulsion from the church without more concrete evidence of involvement in their plot.”
“Interesting,” I mused. Perhaps Bishop Gallaspie had been directly involved in that series of agitations in the Quarter during that time.
“Gallaspie is there to keep an eye on the entire thing,” Gregory told me. “When they were putting this together, Halspus’ church was the largest repository of Diabolic information they could negotiate access to. The cost of that was Gallaspie joins as one of the bishops involved with the project and gets complete oversight on everything.”
“Why bishops?”
Gregory paused, clearly taken aback at my interjection. “Sorry?”
“Bishops,” I repeated. “It’s all different religions, why wouldn’t there be different ranks for each of them? Especially the ones not under the central pantheon?”
“I…you don’t know?” Gregory asked incredulously. “They are different ranks, it’s just that the Empire demands that the public-facing ranks be as uniform as possible. Makes their paperwork tidier. And was tilted in favor of Halspus’ church since most of them use the rank structure the Empire pushes us towards adopting. You didn’t know this?”
“Xang’s followed a very different religion and didn’t have much faith in foreign deities,” I told him defensively. “And then I was in the Quarte, where it was either Halspus’ priests trying to police or persecute us, and occasionally another deity trying to make inroads before they had their efforts frustrated by the Halspustians, the Watch, or groups like the Flame. My religious education can best be summed up as nothing local, followed by occasional points at as evidence of the corruption in man’s heart when they brought worshippers to the outskirts of the Quarter to pray at us.”
“Point taken,” he said. “Bishop is a leadership position senior enough that it can be trusted they speak for their church. Bishop Derrick seems more invested in the program as a whole. She’s the one who talked Gallaspie out of not immediately trying to throw you all out of the church initially, and she’s more interested in-”
“You can save it for Voltar,” I said, fishing my key out of my coat. “Save your throat some effort, and maybe we can convince those two to just tell him themselves.”
“That’s it?” he said disbelievingly. “You’re letting me go?”
You’re letting him go? The Imp shrieked. Surely just a nibble, just a taste, a bit of skin, a trickle of blood. Do not even deny you want it!
Amazingly, having that echoing inside my head nearly made me fumble the keys to the cuffs. “Shut up,” I hissed.
Before a confused Gregory could say anything I added “Not you. Do you want me to put you back to sleep? You’ve been on good behavior but that doesn’t buy you any leeway if you start making comments like that.”
Bah, you shame your father!
“Did you ever say what kind of imp is inside your head?” Gregory asked. “Because if you did it has slipped my mind.”
“Gluttony,” I said irritably. “And it’s a greedy little one too. Anyway, unless someone wants to risk their weekly cow ration, they will be quiet unless what they bring up is relevant to the case.”
“The cow thing is regular?” Gregory asked. “I uh, sorry. It’s none of my business.”
Of course, I had to say the one thing to remind the both of us of that incident.
I took the lack of interjection from the Imp as confirmation it was done talking and went back to fit the key into Gregory’s handcuffs.
“So, you are just letting me go?”
I nodded, putting the key to the cuffs. “Knocking you out was more….well, I suppose seeing where things stood. Not between us, but the Church and Voltar. Besides, I could only imagine the uproar if it came out I was keeping you in my basement.”
“It’s not the strangest place I’ve been discovered,” he admitted with a grin. “One day I was forced to spend the better part of the afternoon and evening locked into a wardrobe.”
I was about to ask about that when suddenly I heard the sound of someone knocking on my door loudly.
“Shite,” I said, looking up at the ceiling with a frown. “With my luck with visitors recently, I should probably answer that.”
The hammering on the door only grew louder as I moved towards the door.
“Do me a favor?” I asked Gregory, pointing over at the probably pretending to sleep Melissa. “Keep an eye on her while I handle this. Don’t wake her up, don’t venture close, don’t assume she’s sleeping, and definitely don’t let her out. Black Flame, and also mixed up in this, I think.”
He nodded, moving towards the door, while I went up to see who the Hells it was this time.
How much was the truth? Not out of personal animosity for Gregory, I couldn't ignore that possibility just because he was being somewhat friendly again. Loyalties, loyalties, where did they lie? With family, religion, or the other churches?
For now what he said was close enough for me to accept those words, as I moved to see who was still hammering at my door.
Of course it was Holmsteader. And she'd brought friends.