Walking onto a tour bus was like entering a new dimension. Joey barely listened as Dorian complained that getting a bus like this was overkill for a two-hour drive, but Cameron had insisted they enjoy a bit of luxury once again. Joey was led around and shown the tiny kitchen, bathroom, bunks, and the open room at the back with a TV and couches.
“This is super cool, but I can’t imagine living in something like this for weeks,” Joey said. “I guess living in a bedroom for eight years makes me feel that way.”
They had a small crew with them, fewer people than they had brought on tour since their set would be short and it was only one show. That meant there were extra bunks that Joey got to choose from to sleep in that night, and though it felt like being a rockstar, the bunk felt so much like being in a small box that he only tested it out for a few seconds.
They arrived in Milwaukee early since they only had one day to carry out their plan. Dorian made sure to subtly berate Jack repeatedly for allowing “the angel” to join them the following day. Annabelle had been uneasy that morning when dropping him off, but Joey had read more trust in her mind than ever before. He also didn’t want her to come, but knew he had to relinquish a bit of freedom to appease her for now.
Listening to Dorian’s plan the previous day and all the excitement surrounding his ability to even go on this trip, Joey had forgotten to research the bassist’s past further. He was confident he could find something now, but being around Jack nonstop and helping the guys with their plan would have to delay his search for a bit.
The plan was exciting, and he bounced around restlessly on the bus with the others as they got on the road. It was like being secret agents, demon agents using their powers to solve a mystery. Dorian constantly went over the plan with them, pacing and chewing on his fingers. Joey read all of their minds, none of them even trying to hide their stress and excitement. While Dorian never stopping thinking about what was coming, Cameron was analyzing a show on TV, Miles was hovering around the crew to send them subconscious thoughts, most of which were more for fun rather than to keep them controlled, and Jack went in mental circles that included worrying about the plan, about Joey, and about Annabelle.
There was a lot about Annabelle in Jack’s mind. Too much for Joey’s comfort. Especially since Annabelle’s mind had been constantly full of gushing thoughts about Jack after their “date.”
They arrived in Milwaukee at 10 a.m., and the band ditched the bus and crew as quickly as possible. Dorian used his phone to order a rideshare to Port Washington with enough seats for five. When their ride arrived, the five demons rode to their destination in complete silence. The driver tried to make conversation but Miles stared at the man’s head for a few moments to quiet him. Joey couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the man, an innocent human under the power of a car full of demons. But he convinced himself that a few subconscious thoughts to shut him up wasn’t harmful. The driver left them in Port Washington completely unscathed and oblivious to his situation.
Dorian had requested they be dropped off a block from their destination. He led them silently down the quiet, tree-lined street, eventually slowing to scrutinize the location ahead: the police department.
“Around the back,” Dorian said, and once certain no cars were near, they stepped off the sidewalk, through the trees, and into a cut out corner of the building that housed the air conditioner and electric boxes. He motioned for everyone to get down and huddle behind the small, white wall out of sight.
On command, Joey approached the cable and electric box and quickly unlocked it after studying its internal components for a few seconds. Dorian handed Jack his phone, which had a cut-off end of a charger cord plugged into it. He then looked at all of the wires in the big green box and found the one he wanted. Quickly he unplugged it, holding the end of the wire in one fist while pressing the side of that hand against where it had once been plugged in. Taking the end of the cord attached to his phone in his other hand, he nodded for Jack to do his part.
In a moment, Dorian’s phone flashed to show surveillance camera footage, and to everyone’s relief, it was in color. Jack studied the first image, a young female receptionist leaning back in her chair while holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder and twirling the cord around her fingers. “Easily distractable,” he whispered. “She’s bored. Definitely not on a business call right now.”
Joey was amazed to see how Dorian had such similar powers to him, hacking into electronics and manipulating them. The only difference seemed to be Dorian’s ability to physically conduct electricity as well. Joey watched in awe as the demon switched past the next two camera images of unoccupied hallways on his own. He found another showing a more open area where a few officers were chatting, some with cups of coffee in their hands. “Gotta watch out for that guy,” Jack said, pointing to a tall muscular officer. “Probably an asshole. This other guy is annoyed by him, could likely still be swayed, Miles, but this other one for sure, guarantee he’ll do anything you say.”
After reviewing more images, many with no one in them, Dorian spoke quickly. “Cameron, go in the front and do your thing as planned. Try to get the difficult officer out to you and hold him off.”
Cameron saluted, then walked around to the front of the building. The image of the front desk appeared on the phone again, and the remaining four demons watched as Cameron approached the woman. She looked perturbed to be interrupted, and reluctantly hung up the phone.
“Any sound?” Jack asked.
Dorian shook his head.
The drummer was casually leaning on the desk while talking to the woman who now also leaned on it, but with her chin on her hand. Though she appeared uninterested, she did not stop watching him. Gradually her interest changed, leaning closer, a small smile on her face.
“Is he hitting on her?” Miles asked.
“Better not be,” Dorian snapped. “That’s not the distraction I was hoping for.”
As the seconds ticked by it became clearer that Cameron was not doing anything flirtatious, but instead had the woman entranced by some sort of story. Finally she seemed to agree to something, and stood from her chair to go to a back room. Dorian quickly flipped through the pictures until finding the one that had the group of officers. The woman was speaking to the officer Jack had warned about, the man reluctantly following. As soon as that officer was in view of the reception camera, Dorian plugged the cord back into the green box and led the others to the back door.
Joey opened the lock without being asked. His heart was pounding. This was it. It was happening. The secret agent spy mission was underway. Silently and slowly they followed Dorian along the halls, peering into the first office they came across. Joey watched as Jack was motioned forward to peek in, and after a few seconds he returned. “Have him keep his head down or look away,” he whispered to Miles, who then proceeded to step forward and look at the man. Satisfied his work was done, he waved everyone on. Joey looked in the room as they passed, the officer inside was turned in his chair, looking through a file cabinet.
The next office was dark and the door locked. Joey again did his part and silently all four of them stepped inside.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Based on the camera views, that open room we saw should be around the corner,” Dorian said to Jack and Miles. “Keep them all there.” The two left the room, leaving Joey alone with Dorian.
The computer was on, and upon turning on the monitor they were not surprised to see the account was locked. Joey sat in the chair, but before starting what he was told to do, he asked, “How come you’re not doing this part? You hacked that camera system.”
“That’s different. I conduct electricity and electronic data through me, not actually manipulate it. Now hurry.”
Joey stared at the screen, gradually getting the circuitry of the device. He had only ever done this on a tablet, never a full-size computer, let alone one that was likely much more secure due to the information it held. But Dorian had taught him about how passwords worked on computers, so once Joey had traveled through the circuitry far enough to enter the hard drive, he knew what to search for.
The information within the device was incredibly vast, and for a moment he slowed down to take it all in. All the ones and zeros that made up the data were easily and instantly translated for him to read. It was like walking through a massive room with tall, neatly lined up shelves of data, and he wanted to look at it all.
But the words “Hurry up, kid,” were hissed in his ear and Joey got to work finding the file Dorian had told him to look for. He flew through the shelves and files quickly, finally finding what resembled his target: a hashed password. As directed, he deleted it, then retraced his steps back and out of the computer.
Finding himself back in reality made him dizzy, but Dorian was smiling as he pushed Joey out of the chair. “Nice work, kid,” he whispered as he sat down and went to work on his search.
For nearly ten minutes Joey watched Dorian type and click and scroll through various windows. Both of them jumped when Jack stepped into the room. “Gotta go!” he whispered. “Cameron couldn’t hold the cop anymore, so he’s back.”
“Can’t Miles take control?” Dorian asked.
“He’s fighting it too much. Hurry up!”
Dorian grumbled a curse, then pulled an intact USB cord from his pocket to connect his phone to the computer. A few more clicks and an agonizingly slow progress bar later, Dorian seemed satisfied with what he had. He unplugged his phone, closed all the windows, and turned off the monitor.
They were unseen as they exited and returned to the corner where they had hacked the cameras. Dorian sent a message to Cameron telling him to come back, and after a couple of minutes, all five were together again.
“Did you get anything?” Cameron said. “Please tell me you did. That guy was a pain in the ass.”
“Yes,” Dorian said. “I grabbed everything I could, and there’s some good stuff. Let’s get back to the bus so we can check it out on the laptop.”
“And you were so worried.” Miles punched Dorian lightly on the arm. “We’re a good team whether you like it or not.”
“I admit you all did decently.”
Joey felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Jack. “Don’t worry, that’s a big compliment coming from him. You did awesome, buddy.”
Buddy. Joey grinned, the elation of their success and being appreciated for his abilities carrying his spirits the entire way back to Milwaukee.
* * *
While Dorian was left alone to analyze what he had found, the others sat around in the back room of the bus. Miles had joined Cameron in being entranced by the TV, though the drummer was absent-mindedly morphing a drumstick into various wooden objects. Jack received a text message from Annabelle asking about Joey’s well-being.
“Let’s send her a picture to prove you’re still alive,” Jack said, and held the phone in front of them for a selfie. Within moments of sending, he received a response of nothing more than ‘Great’ and a heart emoji.
Joey struggled to not roll his eyes at the thoughts that were flowing through Jack’s mind. One stupid heart was all it took to get him excited to see her.
“She’s an angel, remember?” Joey whispered.
Jack was pulled from his reverie. “I’m aware of that.”
“And you’re a demon.”
“Also aware of that.”
Joey sighed and crossed his arms. “It’s just wrong.”
“You’re right.”
Joey scowled at Jack who was blatantly thinking about how he didn’t care at all about that.
“Don’t be upset about it. Nothing’s gonna happen anyway, so forget about it. Here.” Jack got up and went to a guitar case he had brought on the bus and took the instrument out to hand to Joey. “Let’s practice. Show me your stuff.”
It was about an hour later when Dorian burst into the room with his laptop open and a smile on his face. “You guys ready to hear this?”
“About time,” Miles said. “Hopefully good news.”
“Mostly good.” Dorian sat on the edge of an empty seat, his computer on his lap. “So, I’ve read through interviews the police did of Chris Warren’s family. According to them, he was a good kid who ‘went astray’ at the end of high school. Dabbling in satanism, spending a lot of time chatting online with other satanists. Never grew out of it like they had hoped. The cops had found a ton of paraphernalia in his room since he still lived with his parents. Books like the Lemegeton and The Book of Oberon, which I know you uneducated unfortunates have never heard of—they’re books on demonology and how to summon demons. They also found tons of stuff with pentagrams on them, some written in blood. But the best part was the pictures they took of the demonic sigils they found, too.”
Dorian grinned as he turned the screen around to show a photo of a piece of white cloth with the sigil of Sallos embroidered on it. Leaning forward to look closer, Miles said, “Sallos? Why the fuck does he care about that guy?”
“Good question, but humans don’t know of the typical uselessness of the western demons. Sallos is the duke of love, so he must have been lonely. Anyway, this looks like a cloak of some sort, so I’m assuming he at least attempted to summon him.” The grin widened as he showed another photo. “Look at this. It’s another cloak. The man chose wisely that time.”
Joey, fascinated by the sigils, read the letters clockwise around the symbol. Asmoday. He remembered Dorian telling him about his leader and was amused at the reactions of the others.
Laughing, Miles said, “Of course you’d be happy to see that. Though I have a hard time believing Asmoday would respond to a summoning.”
“Agreed. My king is far above that nonsense.” He showed another picture, a digital image of an intricate, square-shaped sigil with no name around it. “This is Buriel’s sigil. Wandering princes and dukes have no names on their sigils, but Buriel is one of only two demons to have a square shape, and I recognize this. No cloak or other physical items with this, but it was on his computer. I find it interesting that he went from some fairly harmless demons to the most vile of all.”
Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So all this does is just prove I picked out the right guy. I thought we were looking for information on people he hung out with.”
“Yes, and that’s where the bad news is.”
Rubbing his face and sighing, Jack said, “Lucifer does not like bad news.”
“Allow me to explain. According to the reports, this human was active on a private server of a chat app. The server was dedicated to some pretty sick satanic activity and discussions, and was only made up of four people, including Chris. The server doesn’t exist anymore unfortunately, probably because they’re dead.”
“How do you know they’re dead?” Cameron asked. “Are the other two guys part of it?”
“The police only mention one. They could not get real names from anyone on the server, but it was clear they were planning on getting together to summon Buriel at a place called Springbrook Park in Naperville.”
Joey gasped. “That’s right by my grandparent’s house. I went there after they threw me out.” He paused, thinking about that night. He hadn’t known why he chose that place to run to, to hide at. Perhaps it had called to him because that’s where he had been created. “I didn’t know that’s where it happened.”
Dorian nodded. “It was. The cops found out about the missing guy down there, Derek Jennings. I’d wager a guess that was your mom’s supposed boyfriend at the time. But that’s the only additional name in the report. They never found the names of the other two. And I’m betting those two are the current hosts for Buriel and Merosiel.”
Still leaning forward and covering his face, Jack said, “This is not helping me.”
“There’s one more clue, something you can give Lucifer. In their search for the other two guys, they tried to go off a piece of information in the chat, something that made them think they lived together or at least very close to each other. They said they would be riding together and it would take them at least three hours to get there. The cops tried to find missing persons reports in that three-hour radius but found nothing. Maybe we can find something though.”
Joey read terror in Jack’s mind. Dorian’s words had not appeased him at all.
“It’s better than nothing, Jack.” Miles spoke softly in an attempt to comfort him. “We know Drusiel’s host now. It’s a step in the right direction. Luc has to see the value in that.”
“For the love of Satan, Miles, don’t call him that!” Dorian slammed his laptop shut and glared. “Though you are correct. I believe the Dark Lord will appreciate this news and our efforts to achieve it.”
Joey watched Jack’s reaction, reading Fuck this asshole repeatedly in his mind. “You better be right,” Jack said. “It’s times like these I really do wish he’d made you leader so you can feel his wrath.”