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He followed Byleth and Mulciber, the still-droning Procell steering him down the hallway. At the end of the corridor, they turned the corner, descending a set of stairs where a heavy metal door equipped with multiple locks stood open. More Denizen lackeys waited by the door, standing up straighter as their Satan returned.
“In here,” Byleth said, waving Remy to follow as he passed through the door.
The room was large, filled with multiple shelving units, covered in weaponry of every conceivable design and shape from every time period. It was like the Wal-Mart version of Karnighan’s place.
“Oh, I see,” Remy said, eyeing the racks.
“False alarms,” Byleth said on his way across the room toward another door. “Extreme, I know, but I couldn’t be too careful. If I had the slightest inkling that they might be part of what I was looking for, I bought them.”
At the back door to the storage room he stopped to look at the arsenal he’d accumulated. “They’ve come from all over the world,” he explained, “and there were times that I actually believed I had finally put my hands on the legitimate items.”
He paused before opening the door. “But after tonight, I realize that I was never even close.”
Byleth threw open the door into a substantial garage; a limousine was parked over to one side, five trendy sports cars parked in a row on the other. A black van had backed into the center of the garage; its back doors were open wide, and the contents that it had carried were already unloaded.
A folding table had been set up just outside the back of the van; three yellow transport cases—the kind that would be used to allow valuable items to travel—had been laid out upon the tabletop like items at a flea market. Remy noticed that the daggers had been placed, still wrapped in Byleth’s suit coat, at the end of the table.
A wheelchair-bound Mason, wearing an Evil Dead T-shirt, drove over to meet them. Julia perched on his shoulder, enjoying some kind of biscuit. “Hey, look who it is,” the man said cheerily. “Didn’t expect to find you here.” A fresh trail of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“I’m a little disappointed, Mason,” Remy said, eyeing the objects laid out upon the table. “I thought we had a deal.”
“Yeah, about that,” Mason said. “With the kind of payday our friend here is offering, I’m afraid I’m go
Julia chattered a greeting to him excitedly in between bites of her cookie.
“Hey, Julia, nice to see you too,” Remy said to the monkey. “Did you know that your master is a scumbag?”
The monkey squealed with glee, jumping with her treat down from her master’s shoulder to his lap, and then to the floor.
“Julia, come back here this instant,” Mason demanded.
Instead she climbed up Remy’s leg and onto his shoulder, and tried to feed him her cookie.
“Julia!” Mason screamed, his normally labored breathing sounding all the more difficult.
“Have?” the monkey offered again.
“No, thank you, Julia.” Remy smiled.
“Julia, you bad, bad girl. Come to me this instant!” Mason carried on.
Mulciber swatted at the capuchin. “Go on,” he barked. “Go back to your boyfriend.”
Julia shrieked, baring her tiny teeth, trying equally to avoid the hand and to bite it.
Byleth cleared his throat noisily, not amused by the drama. “Are we going to do some fucking business here, or are we going to continue with this Animal Planet bullshit?”
“Go back to your master,” Remy whispered to the agitated animal. “That’s a good girl. Go on. That’s it.”
His soothing tone had the appropriate effect; the monkey crawled down to the floor and then hopped back up onto Mason’s lap.
“Don’t think I won’t remember this when it’s time for special treats again,” the man complained, obviously jealous of the attention the monkey had shown Remy.
Julia ignored him, her back turned to the threats as she continued to gnaw on the special treat that she already had.
“I believe you’ve brought something here to sell me?” Byleth prompted.
“Yes,” Mason answered, shooting a disdainful look at his monkey before turning his attentions toward Byleth. “Yes, I have, and let me say this time I believe I’ve outdone myself.”
Mason moved the toggle on the arm of his chair, spi
They all followed him toward the table.
Remy sensed it immediately, a sudden unease permeating the atmosphere of the garage. He noticed that Byleth was looking at him, that stupid grin that he wanted to smack from his face present again.
“I’m assuming you can feel that?” Remy asked him.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” the Satan answered. “That’s power you’re experiencing,” he told his former friend. “You’re now in the presence of objects that can initiate change.”
Remy wanted desperately to move, to grab the Satan by the front of his shirt and shake some sense into him, but that wasn’t going to happen as long as Procell kept on with his muttering.
“You’re not seeing the big picture,” Remy said. “And I’m sorry to say that neither am I. There’s something else going on here besides the fight over ownership of these weapons, but I just don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, and something tells me it’s go
Byleth dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “I’ve got all the pieces I need,” he said, moving closer to the table, eyeing the transport cases. “Once they’re mine, I dare anybody to try and fuck with me.”
Remy didn’t like what he was feeling. It reminded him of that uneasy sensation that built in the air just before the full fury of an electrical storm was released. He would’ve bet good money that something was about to happen, and double or nothing that it wasn’t anything good.
“Madach, I’ll let you do the honors,” Mason said, and Remy noticed a lone figure who had been standing by the black van as he came toward the table. He hadn’t paid him much attention until now.
He was a fallen, and Remy watched him carefully as he approached the cases. The former angel was nervous, his hands visibly trembling as he undid the latches on the first of the cases.
The way he was dressed—paint-stained jeans and work boots, heavy hooded sweatshirt—was as a working stiff. There was something oddly familiar about this particular fallen angel, but Remy couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Quickly,” Mason urged with a lopsided grin. “I think the Satan here is going to be very happy to see what I’ve brought for him.”
Madach stopped before undoing the last of the latches on the final box. “What we brought him,” he said in a firm, yet very soft voice.
Mason glared.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s what we brought him,” the fallen explained with emphasis, to be certain that Mason understood. “You and me. I came to you with the product and you said we’d bring it to him together… partners.”
Julia leapt up and down excitedly in her master’s lap, pulling at her loose-fitting diaper, as if sensing the growing agitation in the room, and maybe something more.
“Of course,” Mason conceded, turning his temporarily embarrassed face back to Byleth. “Madach was instrumental in me getting these items.”
Byleth nodded, eyes riveted on the cases lying on the table. “I appreciate his efforts,” the Satan said. “And perhaps, after the transaction is completed, we can discuss how appreciative I am.”
This seemed to satisfy Madach, and he finished with the last of the latches, flipping the lid open, and then moving back to the others to do the same, exposing the special contents to their potential owner.
And it was a look, something briefly expressed in the eyes of the fallen angel, that at last jarred Remy’s memory as to where he had encountered this person—this Madach—before.
It had been just days ago, in the entryway of Francis’ Newbury Street brownstone. Madach had been leaving the building as Remy had been coming in. He had reacted strangely to Marlowe, afraid that the dog was going to hurt him. Remy distinctly remembered wondering if that particular fallen would fall in with the Denizens, or lead a repentant life as was expected of him.