by R. W. Holmes
“Hello?”
“Who is it?” asked Zinerva.
“Of course” Gael replied to the caller. “We'll be there right away.”
“Who is it!?” snapped Zinerva.
“It's Emily” replied Gael. “She-, yes Emily, I'll tell Zinerva you said hi.” Gael ended the call and put his phone away, before saying, “She says her ship will be ready to fly in half an hour, so we should leave to drive down to the hangar now.”
“Oh, great” said Zinerva. “Half an hour alone, in a car, just the two of us. After all this. It's a good thing I can love my own misery, too.”
Chapter 14
Argyle Nader
Space flight, as Gael had quickly come to learn, was rather boring. Like flying in an airplane, the view was the only thing that truly kept it interesting. What's more, Gael had decided to sit up in the cockpit with Emily, where he learned that the job was even more boring for the pilot.
“So...” Gael murmured awkwardly. “This is it? This is what you do ninety percent of the time?”
Emily continued flipping through various TV channels on a wall-mounted screen that was intended to warn her of space anomalies and shrugged. “It takes time to go places.”
“I guess” Gael acquiesced, before pulling out the large, clear piece of plastic that was his computer and asking, “Do you mind?”
“Of course not” said Emily, before finally settling on a channel broadcasting the worst-made soap opera on daytime TV. “And excuse me if I'm laughing constantly, but this show is just so terrible. If there were anything actually worth watching at this time of day, I'd probably still watch this.”
'She's sharing her interests with you' Gael thought quickly, before putting his computer away and looking up at the screen.
On it, a man and woman overacted their parts and all too quickly built towards a dramatic reveal, before the woman suddenly swooned and a butler came running into the room.
“Monsieur, I'm so sorry!” the butler exclaimed in horror. “The cooks, they did not know that Madam was allergic to shellfish!”
Emily snorted as she fought back a fit of giggling. “Not only has that never been brought up, but I'm pretty sure she's said her favorite food was oysters in a previous episode. I mean, hello? And they had crab legs. Why didn't she say anything?”
Gael smirked and put his away his computer, before resigning himself to enjoying the over-the-top characters presented before him for the rest of the flight, even if they were a little grating at times...
Beep!
“Huh...?”
A great, ominous sloshing noise swept past the room, before returning with a small plastic square that had lit up with a message.
“Oh” he mumbled plainly, his eyes just barely able to make out the name 'Emily' next to the word 'Sender'.
The young man stood up from his bed and stretched. It had been almost nine hours since he'd talked to Emily, and his initial search into Allen Olmstead's doings hadn't turned up much.
“Okay” Argyle said as he maneuvered around a pile of clothes, kicked a few empty soda cans out of the way, and stepped up to the pseudopod holding his phone out to him. “Oh! Oh shit, she's here. Go open the dock.”
Argyle's shoggoth pulled its pseudopod back into its large, slimy body and lurched away in search of the station's control room.
Back on Emily's ship, Gael had not quite put together that they had arrived.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“Docking” replied Emily. “I know it's hard to see... You're better off looking for where there aren't any stars.”
“Wait... what!?” Gael exclaimed in surprise. “A dark station? Aren't these, like, super illegal?”
“Everything The Fae, the R'lyehans, and the Outcasts do is usually, in some way, illegal” replied Emily. “Trust me, what's in here is something the rest of the world doesn't want to find.”
“And that is?”
“Argyle and his shoggoth.”
As if on cue, the door to the cockpit opened and Shay and Zinerva stepped inside.
“Please tell me we're here” Zinerva said drearily. “I can't 'just sit and stare at the stars' anymore.”
“We are here” confirmed Emily.
“And the stars were great” added Shay. “I don't know what you're being so glum about.”
“Zinerva, just put something on the TV next time” said Gael. “You don't have to be around Shay all the time.”
Zinerva scowled as her mind did the somersaults necessary to brand Gael's suggestion as ridiculous, before gasping when a great light opened up out of nowhere from the blackness just before them.
“This is Nader Base” said Emily. “The home of Argyle Nader, the most dangerous Outcast in the world. Well, for now, at least. Regardless, this is the first meeting of the Outcast's three greatest enforcers, so it's kind of a special occasion.”
“It would also be a really really good place to blow up” Gael said nervously.
“Yeah, but this place is, like...” Shay started, unable to fully articulate what she meant. “It's always moving, okay? Argyle isn't a genius or anything, but he does know how to do some pretty cool stuff with technology. Wherever he is is usually the safest place across the whole group.”
“Argyle?” Emily snapped into the intercom. “Argyle, are you there? You can't get upset and go do stupid things every time I forget to call you.”
Inside the small, seemingly immobile and nigh-invisible space station, Argyle stumbled into the control room halfheartedly just in time to catch the tail end of Emily's angry statement.
“Hey” he said back nonchalantly. “Yeah, sorry, password?”
“Easter weekend” replied Emily.
A long, hooked metal arm extended from the station and grabbed hold of Emily's ship.
“Is there some significance to that?” asked Gael.
“No,” said Emily. “Although when it's actually Easter weekend, the password is tomato.”
The 'arm' grabbing hold of Emily's ship began to retract, drawing everyone into the station, and depositing them in the first of a few small bays for docking at.
“Gael, Zinerva, no sudden movements” Emily said as she led everyone to the ship's bay door. “The shoggoth doesn't know you yet, and it sees anything other than relaxed as an admission of guilt.”
“I'm gonna jump on it!” exclaimed Zinerva.
“Funny you should say that, the slime at the core of a shoggoth is essentially pure acid” said Shay. “You'd have five minutes of the worst agony imaginable, and then death.”
Zinerva frowned, and weighed how amusing her random action would be versus the pure agony she'd experience. “I'm not gonna jump on it...”
The bay door of Emily's ship opened, and the retractable ramp hidden in the floor beneath it extended down to the ground.
The station itself was gray, as most metal structures tended to be, but unlike Enterprise Island, Argyle's station was dark, and not just outside. Lights were, in general, dimmed to a very low level, and on top of this there were several empty beer cans scattered about the area in small piles.
“For the love of God, Argyle, teach your shoggoth to clean...” groaned Emily.
“They say being messy is a sign of brilliance” Gael offered politely.
“Yeah, I'm sure someone messy was feeling really brilliant when they came up with that, too” Shay said disapprovingly. “There's probably enough aluminum in the cans scattered about this place to make another space station.”
The sound of harsh, sloshing mess rattled through the halls, displacing cans, trash, and incidentally scrubbing the place clean of dust, before the source of it slopped into the hangar.
A dozen eyes of varying sizes, all congealed into a great, black mass of oozing slime, stared down at Emily and Shay expectantly, while a few other eyes blinked curiously towards to Gael and Zinerva.
“Hello again” said Emily, her best attempt to not sound nervous falling woefully short. “Saw
some of your kind at Enterprise Island earlier... I think I'd forgotten how, uh, scary you can be.”
The shoggoth blinked, before smooshing itself aside so a young man with pale, brownish skin could squeeze past. He was somewhat short, with bags under his eyes and an expression far too neutral for anyone to divulge information from. His clothes, the sweatpants and sweatshirt that they were, only made him harder to peg.
“You didn't have to come” said Argyle.
“I absolutely did have to come!” Emily snapped back furiously. “You act like you're not upset that I was late for the call, and then you go and break protocol. You know how stupid that is!”
Argyle shook his head and turned around. “Come on” he said lazily. “We'll go to the conference room, I still keep that clean.”
“Oh, one room” Shay spat in disgust, before sarcastically adding, “Well done, Argyle.”
Gael and Zinerva remained motionless as Emily and Shay started following, not because they were scared, but because the shoggoth was very aggressively postured to keep them from following.
“Uh... a little help?” called Gael.
“Oh, shiggy, come on” Argyle said to the shoggoth. “If they're with Emily, they're friends. We've been through this.”
The shoggoth let up a little, but maintained its unending, many-eyed glare towards Zinerva.
“Yeah” said Zinerva. “I'm a demon. What do you want?”
“Wait, did you bring him?” Argyle asked Emily. “The demonologist?”
“I go by Gael” said Gael. “Also, I'm not a very good demonologist. I don't even have control over my own imp.”
Argyle shot an extremely concerned look to Emily.
“Zinerva is fine” replied Emily. “Really. A thousand years without Lucifer has left Hell's demons pretty aimless, so all she cares about is getting to stay.”
“Also, your shoggoth might lose if it picks that fight” said Shay.
“That's-,” Argyle started.
“No, really” said Shay. “Been here, like, two days. All nine fires of Hell.”
Argyle furrowed his brow incredulously. “I've done my research” he replied confidently. “It takes two decades at minimum for a person to strengthen their soul for that sort of-,”
“Oh no, it killed me” Gael interrupted quickly. “I just reverse summoned myself back to my body. Also, Zinerva and I don't want to fight. We just want people to stop trying to kill us.”
“Let them by” Argyle said to his shoggoth.
The shoggoth lurched quizzically towards its master, confused by his sudden decision.
“If he really can do all of that and wanted to hurt us, he wouldn't have come in through the front door” said Argyle. “He'd have fired on the station from outside.”
The shoggoth, as bizarre and horrific as it was, seemed perfectly capable of understanding rational though, and so took Argyle's reasoning for what it was and let Gael and Zinerva by. After that, it was a short, silent trip down a few cramped hallways to a relatively large room with little more than a large plastic TV screen mounted on one wall and enormous conference table in the center.
“So!” Gael said quickly, deciding to be proactive. “What have you found about our mutual friend Allen?”
“Actually, I have a lot” replied Argyle. “I was hoping the two of you would be alright with enjoying some television while I put it all together.”
“Of course, Argyle” Emily said warmly. “Take your time.”
Gael looked to Emily confused as Argyle angrily muttered a few things under his breath made his leave.
“What the hell was that all about?” he asked her.
“Argyle is... sensitive” replied Emily. “He gets upset easily, but hides it really well. Heck, he's probably livid that you asked him what he found before telling us he needed a moment.”
“Really?” Gael and Zinerva said in unison.
“He's weird” Shay admitted uneasily. “Sometimes the others call Emily 'his handler'. He's really good at what he does, though.”
“I understand” Gael said as he took a seat at the table. “Besides, this means we get to watch more terrible soap operas.”
Far away on the planet of Mars, Kennedy and Cypress joined Angelica and Artemis as they went to rendezvous with Father Jacobs and the angel Sauriel.
As it turned out, this meant going to a pub. Famous with the locals for its salt and vinegar chips, basement location, and interesting patrons, Goldy's Pub was a location most people in Eiffel just weren't quite sure of. Father Jacobs wasn't one of them of course, but everything he enjoyed about a pub started with chips drenched in vinegar and ended in the interesting people to meet.
“Hey!” he called out merrily as Angelica and her friends descended into the pub. “Come on over here, I saved you and your friends a seat.”
“Huh...” Cypress mumbled as he and Kennedy led their way through the swaths of tables between Jacobs and themselves. “There are a lot of those body modders you talked about here.”
Artemis stared on silently in agreement, shocked by the number of humans with false ears, horns, elaborate piercings and tattoos, and even the occasional forked tongue.
“This is amazing” Angelica muttered humorously to herself. “Look at how impressed with you they all are, Artemis.”
“This is not the way I wish to be found impressive” Artemis mumbled uncomfortably.
“At least people are staring without the intention of calling the police” said Kennedy. “Because if we were somewhere else in the galaxy, they might be.”
Finally, everyone arrived at the table and took their seats.
“I've heard the good news” Father Jacobs said with a smile. “And I brought this so that we wouldn't have to leave.”
Angelica's smile turned into a frown as Father Jacobs lifted up a bucket of water.
“It's a baptism, miss” Jacobs said reassuringly. “I know it's serious, but performing it? It's a simple process. In Jesus's time, they just waded out into the river dunked your head.”
“It is a spiritual ceremony!” Sauriel suddenly declared emphatically. “In the human way, you wash the filth from your scalp, to symbolize the purification of the mind and soul so that it may be allowed passage through heaven's divine, pearly gates.”
“Wow” Kennedy said immediately. “Angel bro, how much have you had to drink?”
“A lightweight, that one” Jacobs mused whilst taking a draw from his own frothy mug of dark, unlabeled beer. “Much better company after a drink, though.”
“Sauriel?” said Angelica. “I, um, I wanted to ask you... Artemis can stay, right? He wouldn't be able to come back once he died next, so he'd kind of have to be on his best behavior regardless. I just don't have it in me to send someone, anyone, to Hell after experiencing it myself.”
Sauriel sighed laboriously and slumped back in his chair as the alcohol in his system seemed to obliterate any sense of propriety the celestial had.
“I mean... it's a demon” said Sauriel. “Am I being a very good angel if I depart knowing I've left a spawn of baphomet to walk free?”
“I don't know, is it an offense serious enough to warrant being 'cast out' Lucifer style?” asked Kennedy.
“I don't know” Sauriel replied with a shrug. “Which means it must not be all that important... I know the things that matter in my charge, which is bad for you, because I know not to be lenient with demons.”
“What if I said I wouldn't do it?” asked Angelica. “What if I would rather damn myself to Hell than damn another?”
“I mean... you're totally lying” said Sauriel.
“Okay, yeah, I am!” exclaimed Angelica. “But I really really really really really don't wanna do it. How pure can my heart be if I'm burdened by regret for the rest of my life?”
Sauriel smiled and laughed. “I love that about humans” he gushed. “Lucifer didn't get it, about the free will. He was an angel though, and we're very binary. Not like humans, no 'black and white' with your
kind.”
“Did that help, though?” asked Angelica.
“Absolutely not” replied Sauriel. “The divine is all seeing, and when you see everything from all angles, good and evil is black and white.”
“Well then, God is wrong” said Angelica.
“What!?” snapped Sauriel, clearly offended.
“Actually, I can't help but agree a little” said Father Jacobs. “Sauriel, you've told me they're in great danger. Is it really right to rob the girl of her guardian purely because we don't agree with its origin?”
Sauriel stared back at Father Jacobs incredulously, before saying, “Yes. God said so.”
Father Jacobs grimaced and took another sip from his mug. “I'm sorry” he muttered to no one in particular. “But if there's one person who knows better...”
Angelica clenched her jaw, her rebellious spirit ignited by Father Jacobs's indifference and Sauriel's draconian stubbornness.
“I refuse!” she said, before standing up. “I will never harm someone else to improve my own life, and if that's not good enough for God, then God isn't good enough for me!”
Sauriel hiccuped as Angelica stormed off, Artemis quickly following after, and then turned to Father Jacobs.
“I don't think she's lying this time” he said to the priest.
Father Jacobs fell forward and dropped his face into his hands. “We have failed her. For the first time in my life, I know, I truly know that what I am doing is God's will, and I failed. Why couldn't we just let the goat creature stay!?”
“You forget yourself, father” mused Sauriel. “This was not your test, it was hers.”
Father Jacobs sat upright and took a deep breath. “How do you sever the demon from her?” he asked. “How do we separate them.”
“That's easy” Sauriel replied nonchalantly. “The person who called the demon must take a blessed silver knife and wave it through the air between the demon and themselves. Their connection, while spiritual, will catch on the blade like a thread, and can then be cut.”
Father Jacobs nodded, before looking to Kennedy and quickly saying, “You can get baptized anywhere. Go!”