CHAPTER 18

Walking through Simon's door was like being Patched had been: Sensory overload, pain and heat and cold, and then we were through. My enhanced senses made the experience so vastly much worse that I staggered as I emerged, gasping and trying to blink the lingering purple and red afterimages out of my vision.

"Reeeeeee!"

"Dat don't translate into anyt'ing exactly," Murray said. "Da basic idea is: Gahds! Gahds! Kill da intrudahs!"

I pawed at my eyes, blinking furiously and trying to look around.

"What the hell is this place?" Eugene demanded of no one in particular.

"Look out!" Estelle shouted. There was a steel-on-steel crash and I turned to see what was happening. My eyes were still dazzled from the trip through dimensions but I could vaguely see two shapes clashing, one of them Marcus-sized and the other far bulkier. I lunged forward and smacked the larger one with a swipe of my head. I wasn't going to take stronger measures until I could see properly.

"What's happening?" Murray translated for me. "My eyes are still full of spots."

"Demons," Marcus said tightly. "Protect Athos!" I felt him brush against me and then a moment later he was thrown back, all his weight leaning on me for a moment until he could catch his balance and straighten. On the other side of me I heard Estelle's bow thrumming repeatedly and Eugene shouted "!" Something inhuman bellowed a few yards from me.

I pawed at my eyes some more and the spots finally faded.

We were in a giant workroom, the walls shadowy in the distance. The space was divided into a five-by-five grid of long workbenches, each fifty feet long or more and sectioned into ten workstations, each with a machine and various parts and tools. Five massive glowing pillars held up the roof, one at the very center of the room and the others spaced evenly around the midpoint of the diagonals to the center; the pillars were the only source of light. Two enormous hallways, one on either side of the room, were the only exits. Half a dozen carts waited by each hallway, each of them large enough for me to ride in. The workers, small blue-skinned demons with three legs and three arms each, had vacated their stations in panic upon our arrival and were all scrambling for whichever of the two exits was closest. It was swelteringly hot and for the first time I found myself wishing I wasn't quite so floofy.

"Koooouuuuuu!"

The sound came in perfect harmony from eight charging demons, four coming from each hallway. They were fighting their way past the evacuating workers, which was the only reason they had not yet reached us. Each of the guards had a three-tailed whip draped over its necks and a spear in its claws. They were built like those guys that Dad liked to watch on the noisybox, the ones who threw the ball and ran into each other a lot. Six feet tall, very wide, lots of muscles. Except these were covered in fine red scales and had yellow eyes and claws and didn't have a ball. A ninth one was dead on the ground a few yards away, two of Estelle's arrows in its chest and various wounds all over it from Marcus's spear and Eugene's sword.

"Dat's hahd ta translate, but—"

"It means 'die, intruder'," Eugene snapped. He had drawn his sword and held it ready. "Can our weapons hurt them?"

"I keep tellin' youse, I ain't—"

"Oh, shut up!" Estelle said. "." The demons on my left were coming as a pair followed by two trailing singletons. Estelle nocked an arrow and loosed; the arrow multiplied as it left the bow, turning the leftmost of the pair into a deceased pincushion and striking the one on the right with an arrow to the knee. The other two were far enough behind that nothing came near them.

She fired again, a headshot to finish off the now-limping demon, but it ducked. Estelle dropped her bow and drew the two shortswords that she wore slung on her hips. The wounded demon reached us and she stepped forward on an angle to evade its spear. Her left blade slapped its weapon upwards as she buried her right blade up and under the ribs. The demon grunted in pain and backhanded her in the head, knocking her down and throwing her aside.

I growled and lunged while the monster was distracted, trusting that Eugene and Marcus could handle the ones coming from the other direction. My jaws closed around the demon's skull and I bit straight through, jerking to the side in order to tear its head off. Sour, stinky blood spurted, splashing across my shoulder and back as I lunged forward at the next demon, Mystic Acceleration giving me speed and momentum enough to halt its charge and slam it to the ground. I stamped on its chest as I went by, crushing its ribs in the process, and aimed for the fourth one.

"Athos!" Marcus shouted behind me and I jerked to a halt, reversing course to get back to my friends. The four demons from that side of the room were more organized and had arrived together, their spears extended in a bristling hedge. Marcus and Eugene were backing furiously away, too focused on parrying the jabbing thrusts to be able to close the distance and make any attacks of their own. Estelle was on her knees, groping for her bow despite being visibly woozy.

I snarled and charged, barking a command that Murray translated at appropriate volume: "Down!"

Marcus dropped, Eugene a fraction of a second behind. The demons automatically thrust low, trying to kill their targets but not paying enough attention to their surroundings to recognize the thousand pounds of pissed off Rotty-mutt leaping at their stupid faces.

I hit before their spears could draw blood, knocking the demons back tumbling and shrieking. I rolled over them, crushing one and hurting the other three, and then I flipped back and bit one while kicking another in the head with my hind paws. I didn't have the claws for a disemboweling strike the way HazelKitty did but I was strong enough that its neck snapped like a twig.

"! ! !" Eugene shouted from behind me.

My teeth met through the demon's head and I jerked convulsively, ripping bone apart and soaking myself in blood. The surviving demon punched me in the tummy with one clawed hand, but before it could grip and tear it was too late. Eugene was suddenly there, his sword severing the monster's wrist. Behind him, Marcus and Estelle finished off the two remaining demons and the room was suddenly quiet.

The demon's claws were quite painfully stuck in my tummy. I whined until Marcus carefully straightened the fingers and pulled them slowly out of me so that they didn't do more damage than they already had. He smeared some of Zoola's blue healing paste into the wounds to stop the blood flow and numb the pain. I slurped him in gratitude.

"Well, that was exciting," Estelle said. She had sheathed her swords and was leaning casually on her bow. A massive purple bruise covered the right side of her face but her eyes were focusing again. "Everyone okay?"

"Yeah." / "Yup." / "Uh-huh!"

She reached down to offer Marcus a hand up and easily pulled him to his feet despite their difference in weight. "Marcus, you've got the guidestones. Which way?"

He produced the stone from a pocket and studied it, then sighed. "It's saying that some of this stuff will interfere with portals and needs to be destroyed."

"Which stuff?" Estelled asked.

He held out the stone; the entire rim was glowing gold.

All four of us looked around and groaned.

"What is all this stuff, anyway?" Eugene demanded.

We all looked at Murray.

"'ey! Don' even be askin' me dat! You knows how I feel—"

I nosed towards a sign high up on the wall that I was arbitrarily calling 'north'. "What does that say?"

Murray hesitated. "I'm...I don't...I don't t'ink I'm suppose ta do written-woid stuff." He saw our expressions and hurried on. "I don' know! It don' come up often! I only do everyday stuff, it's all voibal. I'm only a Class T'ree imp, ya gotta be Class Six or higha before dey lets ya do treaties'n'stuff where writin' is important."

"You were hired to ensure communication between your principal and anyone trying to communicate with them," Eugene said. "Clearly, someone is trying to communicate with Athos. They left a sign here and given where it's mounted it probably contains important information."

Murray looked uncertain.

"Please, Murray?" I asked, hitting him with max-power Soulful Eyes.

He hesitated, scratching the back of his head with an unhappy expression. Finally he looked up at the sign. "Well...it sez 'For da glory of Lord Gliv'. And below dat it says 'Weapons Factory Numbah 6. Houahs since last execution: 17'." He paused. My enhanced ears allowed me to hear him say "Huh," but I doubted that the humans caught it.

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"Who is 'Lord Gliv'?" Estelle asked.

Murray was still hovering in midair, his batlike wings beating slowly to hold him in place as he stared at the sign. "He's a Count in Da Court ah Darkness," he murmured, his thoughts elsewhere. "Commandah ah dah 17th Legion and—hey! I told yuhz: I don't do exposition!"

"So, we're in some demon muckety-muck's secret weapons lab," Eugene said. "Must be some good loot here." He was walking down the length of one of the tables, examining the various tools and parts. "I don't recognize any of this stuff."

"I do," Marcus said, moving down an adjacent table. "Not the stuff they were working on, but the machines. This is a lathe, that's a drill press, that's a small drop hammer. I don't see what makes them work, though. There's no crank and no engine."

"Could it be...magic?" Eugene said, rolling his eyes.

Estelle used the hilt of one of her swords to rap experimentally on the machine that Marcus had described as a drill press. "These things are built tough. Breaking them is going to be a problem."

"Huh, look at dat," Murray said, his voice elaborately casual. "Dose sure are some big hallways leadin' outta here. I wondah where dey go? Sure would be int'restin' to check dat out."

Estelle frowned at him for a moment, then swore. "The worker demons escaped. They'll send guards." She looked around. "We need to get out of here."

"We're not going anywhere until this thing isn't glowing gold anymore," Marcus said, hefting the guidestone. "There's no point in finding the destination if we can't portal out."

Her mouth tightened but she simply nodded and started moving quickly down the line of machines, checking each one briefly as she went.

"I've got something," Eugene said. He was crouched down, looking at the underside of one of the tables. Estelle and I hurried over to see what it was.

There was a network of tubes running along the underside of the workbenches. A large tube came up along one of the corner legs, then ran down the center with smaller tubes branching and re-branching like veins. The smaller 'veins' periodically stopped and turned upwards to pass through the bench and into the bottom of various machines. The tubes were butter yellow and pulsed slightly as sparkles of blood-red light ran down their length every few seconds.

"Any idea what's in it?" Estelle asked. She stretched out a hand and paused a few inches away. "It's hot."

Eugene shrugged. "Some kind of energy supply, presumably. Runs the machines."

"Check this out," Marcus called. He was standing at the 'eastern' hallway, looking in one of the carts.

We stood and made our way over.

"What?" Eugene asked.

"They're making tridents," Marcus said, pulling one out of the cart and holding it up.

Murray gasped. It was quiet, but I heard it and I looked over in time to see his eyes widen at the sight of the weapon. The humans were looking in the cart and missed it.

"What is it, Murray?"

"Hm? Nuttin', boss."

"You gasped."

"No I didn't. I didn't! Stop lookin' at me like dat."

"I heard you."

He fidgeted in midair. "Ya musta imagined it. Gosh, dose hallways sure are big and int'ristin'. Bet we could do lots ah cool explorin' if we wanted to."

"Are you worried about being here when the guards come back?" Eugene asked. "If so, you might want to tell us how to trash this stuff."

"Who, me? Worried? Pshah. I ain't worried 'bout nuttin'." He waved a tiny hand dismissively. "Nah. I dunno what yer on about wid dat. I'm sure dat jes because dis is a weapons manufacturin' facility dat don't mean it'll be heavily guarded or nuttin'. Probably gots plenty o' time."

"We aren't leaving until this thing says we can leave," Marcus said, holding up the guidestone. "If the guards show up I would imagine they'll be just as angry at you as they are at us. You might want to find a way around that 'no exposition' thing."

Murray looked conflicted. Or maybe constipated, I wasn't sure. Probably conflicted.

"Well—"

"Don't you dare," Zabazel said, breaking his silence for the first time today. Marcus's translator imp was so quiet and tended to stay high enough in the air that I had forgotten he had come with us. "You keep your silence, Murray of the Third Pit's Iron Quarter. You have always far more free with your conversation than a translator imp should be and now you have been outright hinting at the threat of the guards! We translate, no more."

"Zazzy, ya can't be dat stupid, right? If Gliv's boys show up and we're still heah, they ain't gonna go easy on us."

Zabazel snorted. "They won't go easy on you. I am of the Fifth Pit."

"You sonuva lemure! Jes 'cause your stinking Lady is too chickenshit ta mix inta da war, ya t'ink you can t'row me ta da—"

"Silence! Say one more word that is not translation and I will report you."

Murray's jaw closed with an audible click.

I looked at him and saw that he had gone pale. I looked at Zabazel and felt my blood boil at the smug expression and folded arms. I growled, soft and deep, my head slung low and teeth showing.

"I am offended at your treatment of my friend," Murray said, translating my growl with a wide smile. "Translatah's notes: Dere's some nuance to what 'e's sayin' dat don't translate too well but could be intoiprated as 'you is ugly' and maybe a bit of 'I really wants to bite ya heckin' face off because demons stink'—hey, boss! I resemble dat remark! Oh, and dere's a little bit of 'also, you is a heckin' smug git.'"

Zabazel snorted. "Editorializing, I see. And in your own idiolect, not your principal's. I knew you weren't cut out for this job. When I tell the Review Board of your actions, they will—"

He stopped talking because I had leaped in the air and bit him in half. He didn't even have time to scream; his top half fell to the ground and I spat the bottom half out next to it. A moment later, both halves dissolved into dirty smoke and drifted away.

"Boss!" Murray said. "What ah ya doin'?!"

{No one threatens my friends.}

"Ya friend?! But..." He trailed off, clearly not knowing what he wanted to say.

"What happens when he turns up dead?" Estelle asked, her tone completely clinical.

"He's a imp. We don' die ta physical force," Murray muttered. "His essence will meld wid da planar winds until it drifts back ta his home domain. It'll re-gather back in his original spawning pit and den he'll run ta his Lady and tattle. Mebbe a few days? Couple weeks on the outside. If ya wuz gonna kill 'im ya shoulda used magic, or a spiritual weapon."

"My body and my spirit are one," I reminded him. "Does that matter?"

Murray blinked. "Say dat again?"

"Athos," Estelle said warningly.

"I already told him," I said defensively. "He was there when we talked about it. Murray, my Dyadic Unity Skill says that my body and my spirit are one, so I think my teeth count as a spiritual weapon."

Murray stared at me, his eyes going very wide. After a moment he stumbled down out of the air to alight on the edge of one of the carts.

"Youse spirit is jes walkin' around exposed ta da air?"

I shrugged. "Maybe? I don't really know how all this works."

"Holy water, doused and drunk," he whispered. "By all da Lords and Ladies, ya mighta jes killed him fah real. No reformin', no tattlin' to da bosses." Suddenly he looked nervous again. "'Course, ya jes killed an Infernal rep in fronta me. I'm s'posed to piss off home and report yah so dat ya can be punished appropriate-like. If he ain't dead an' I stick around den I'm aidin' and abbetin' an attempted moiderah. If he is dead and I go report ya den I gotta explain what happened and my review gets tanked. Best dat happens is I get put on da shit job as punishment. Might even get reverted back to lemure so's my essence can grow inta a different imp."

"What is 'the shit job' to a demon?" Eugene asked.

"Imp, ya damn bigot. Criminy. Da shit job is what it soun' like: Ya crawl up some client's butthole to make sure 'is shit is packed in good and tight."

"Why would someone pay you to do that?" I asked, head cocked in confusion.

"We're getting a little far afield," Estelle said. "We need to get this place dealt with and get out of here. Murray, you need to decide if you're staying or going."

He hesitated, looking at me and then up to the sign on the wall.

"Yeah, guess I'm stayin'," he said at last. "I still aint' doin' no exposition."

"In for a penny, dude," Eugene said. "You want to get out of here before the guards show up? Give us a hint."

Murray glowered at Eugene for a few seconds, but then he paused to think.

"I ain't tellin' ya nuttin'," he said. "'Sides, you prolly couldn't destroy stuff here even if ya wanted to. Lord Gliv done a real good job when he built dis place. First class materials all da way—I mean, jes look at doze powah columns! Top woikmanship."

The three of us dashed for the nearest pillar and started inspecting it. It didn't take but a moment to locate the small keyhole about seven feet up on the western side.

"I got this," Eugene said, grabbing a spikey tool off one of the workbenches and hopping up on the nearest workbench so he could stick the spike in. It was too big to fit. "Damn. Hang on, there's smaller ones around here. I can pick it if I can just find something the right size." He started walking along the bench grabbing up various pieces of metal that might work.

Marcus hopped up on the workbench and studied the keyhole. "I bet I can break it open," he said, placing the tip of his spear against it. "If I can get the tip in—"

"Heeeey!" Eugene said with a grin, shooting finger guns at Marcus.

"Not like that! If I can get the end of my spear in to at least the first tumbler, I should be able to pry it loose."

"Alternatively, you could use this key that I took off the body of one of the guards," Estelle said drily, offering the relevant object.

"...Or I could use this key," Marcus said with a sigh. He slipped the key in and turned it; the pillar clicked and swung open like a clamshell.

Inside was a glob of pulsating reddish flesh with four thick tubes coming out of it, two up and two down. Sparkles of silver and gold and blood-red light danced and flickered across its surface.

"What am I looking at, Murray?" Marcus asked.

"'ey, I said I weren't doin' no exposition."

Marcus took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then turned to face the imp. "We need this place destroyed. If I stab that thing, is it going to destroy the facility? More importantly, is it going to hurt us?"

Murray hesitated, rubbing his neck and looking uncomfortable.

"Look, Murray, we're going to trash those things and hope," Eugene said. "You're going to be standing beside us when we do it. Would you rather that we were standing here, or standing over in the hallways, or standing waaaay far away?"

"...Doze hallways sure look interestin'," Murray said reluctantly. "Bet dere's lotsa cool stuff in 'em. We should check it out. Prolly want to move quick-like, since I'm sure dere's lots ta see."

Marcus nodded. "Way far away, got it. Thanks."

"I didn' say dat!"

Marcus ignored Murray's protest. He looked at the hallways, then back at the pillar, judging angles. "Estelle, how far you think you can hit that?"

Estelle checked the distances and angles for herself. "Not far enough. The roof is too low for any kind of arc. Let's clear the path from the door to the pillar, then we set up a pile of junk at the mouth of the hallway. Weapon of Peace gives massive knockback; it should spray the junk around enough to slam some of it into...whatever that is. It'll let us be farther away."

"It's a plan."

"Give me the key," Eugene said, holding out his hand. "I'll open the other pillars."

Murray looked positively sick.

o-o-o-o

"Damn it," Estelle said, pulling a strand of her scorched hair around so she could see it. "Next time, let's be a lot farther away."

"No argument," Marcus said as he used his canteen to wash out the road rash he'd received when the blast bounced him off the wall and sent him skidding across the granite floor. "In good news, the guidestone isn't gold anymore so I'd say we did the job."

Eugene looked at him in disbelief, then hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the collapsed and soot-stained hallway behind us. "Ya think?"