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
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.”
“Tortured for information?” Tizzy asked, puzzled. Antefalken chuckled, and Boggy just shook his head. Talarius’s helm turned to look between the demons, clearly not knowing what they found so humorous.
“Who in their right mind would torture someone for information?” Tizzy asked.
“Yeah,” Boggy said. “There are like a jillion reasons you might torture someone: punishment, revenge, fun and games, stress relief for either party, lots of different sexual reasons—”
“But not information!” Tizzy interjected. “You can’t get any reliable information from torturing someone! As soon as the victim determines what you want to hear, they’ll tell you that to get the pain to stop. Trust me, I’ve been on both ends of the deal.” He paused to frown. “Although mostly on the receiving end.”
Antefalken nodded. “If there is one thing we know in the Abyss, it’s torture. It is a staple here; I am pretty sure that has been widely advertised as one our favorite pastimes. If anyone would know, it would be us.
“Okay, okay, I just said that because that’s what people with Black Sites often do!” Tom said, trying to drag the conversation back. “Besides, I don’t think we torture.” He looked to Tizzy. “Not in the basement, at least.” Tizzy nodded half-heartedly in agreement. “But we do make them disappear. And I’m not sure if they get a trial.”
“Gods have the power of high justice,” Tizzy stated. “So one way or the other, there was a trial.”
Talarius shook his head. “So what are you saying? You have prisoners in the basement?”
Tom shrugged. “There are prisoners there, sleeping. One of them is possibly waking up.”
Antefalken was looking puzzled. “What sort of prisoners did Orcus have?”
“Not Orcus,” Tizzy said. “Orcus was just the warden.”
“Orcus was the warden of a prison?” Talarius sounded quite skeptical.
“Tartarus,” Tizzy said.
The room went silent as several eyes widened, and Antefalken dropped his quill. There was a clinking noise as Talarius slumped in his seat.
“Are you telling me that we are sitting on a giant pile of sleeping Titans?” Antefalken asked looking, stunned.
“Ssshhh!” Tizzy made a whispering gesture with his left forefinger and lips. “You don’t want to wake them!” His eyebrows waggled with humor.
Talarius once again stayed in his bed after waking. He’d had a very sleepless night of tossing and turning after learning that they were literally sitting on top of Tartarus. The mythical prison of the gods, where the worst abominations in the multiverse were imprisoned for eternity. Then, to top it off, he finds out that his captor, and his captor’s predecessor — Orcus, one of the most diabolically evil demons known to the Five Siblings — was the warden of Tartarus. That the D’Orcs were the jailers of the gods’ most notorious prison.