Infernal Investigations

There was a burst of protest from the acolytes at the mere idea of Gallaspie being left alone with me, but he eventually got the point across he could handle me any time he wanted, and he would not have them tempted by a monster who knew a bit of politeness.

I’d be more offended if I thought there was a point to taking offense.

“I thought your insanity was merely an affectation to hide your deeper plans,” Gallaspie told me after they all left. “But no, you are actually insane, aren’t you Foulhorn?”

I shrugged, grabbed the kettle with my tail again and poured. The upside of those five being paranoid fanatics. More tea for me.

“Any of us could kill you as easily as breathing,” Gallaspie said.

“You can try,” I replied. “You might even succeed. But after? That would be interesting to deal with, everyone on this street having clearly seen your carriage loitering on this street. We get so few of them usually. The acolytes, the ones who might actually be fool enough to try, they don’t have the skill. I consider myself enough of a ‘monster’ to handle them. And you, well you could but you’re too intelligent to try, aren’t you?”

I finished pouring, my tail putting the kettle back as I swirled the cup. Damn, I needed to look into getting more sugar cubes if they were even approaching affordable.

“Of course, I don’t pretend that’s normal,” I continued. “Me being a dog to Her Majesty’ government is the entire reason why. You can’t just kill a prize hound without the owner taking offense, can you? Very impolite.”

I took a sip while Gallaspie glared, irritation plain on his face but he wasn’t calling on Light or gripping the pommel of his sword, yet. I restrained myself from asking if it rankled that he couldn’t simply kill me as he pleased and face no consequences because I had horns and a tail.

“Anyway, I don’t know if this was to try and season them on exposure to Infernals, but throwing them at me is a bit like throwing them at a multi-headed duck,” I said. “I’m rather strange, among the Quarter.”

Gallaspie snorted. “Pride.”

“Oh yes,” I agreed, smiling. “I’m an Infernal who has the allowance to be like that. Most Infernals are going to be nowhere near as polite as me, or as mouthy as me. The majority response they’re going to get is utter terror followed by putting as much distance between them and your acolytes as possible.”

“As is proper.”

I sighed. “Sure. I’m guessing they’ve never so much as seen an Infernal before? From the countryside, are they?”

“They will learn,” he said. “Your kind is nothing more than a bad dream for them, so far. Exposure to you will be good, especially if they attract the attention of a succubus.”

My fins flared out all across, restrained by clothing as they tried to open up across my limbs. “I’m sorry, has being polite suddenly become the same as seducing your acolytes?”

Or was he referring to my lineage? My recent activities if he had any knowledge of them? Hells forbid, had he somehow found out about my book stash?

“I merely consider you an adequate starting test of faith for them, that is all,” Gallaspie said.

“I am sure they have plenty of that,” I said snippily. “Enough to withstand me errantly wiggling my hips at them.”

“They have more faith, and had more when they stated their journeys, than you will ever managed to achieve in your life, Foulhorn,” Gallaspie snapped.

I didn’t say anything, just sipped my tea again. The retort was easy enough. Who had arranged things for Infernals to have no faith at all, besides those who we could trace our lineage back to?

Gallaspie was visibly forcing down anger and frustration, not all of it caused by me I would bet. The general events of the last few days. How quickly his control over this had been upended, and mostly thanks to the people he himself has brought in. He knew that, but he could hardly blame them when there was an easy Infernal shaped target waiting right across from him.

“I came here intending a civil, polite conversation,” Gallaspie said. “Intending to simply trade information and see how we might be able to help each other now that you are wriggling out of the control of Her Majesty. Instead it has swiftly spiraled out of control almost immediately.”

His tone made it clear who he blamed for that, despite me being the image of civility. I wasn’t the one who had brought a gaggle of fanatics in my wake.

“It’s hardly out of control,” I said. “Let’s start from the beginning. Why are you here?”

“I am worried about the intents of Her Majesty’s government for reasons beyond your possible understanding,” Gallaspie started.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot,” I said coolly. “You’re worried about this being used for more leverage on your church and religion. Between Her Majesty’s favoring of Maldeura and the concessions you already had to give for one of your innermost clerics revealed as a shapeshifter only a short time ago, you already are on shakier ground than you’d like. The threat of revealing that the followers of Halspus, the most strident of those opposed to the Hells, not only permitted but were involved in the followers of other deities dabbling in diabolism? Her and her government could make all kinds of demands in order to keep that information from being made public.”

I took another sip of tea while Gallaspie glared at me. If he’d charged his body with Light, it might even be that glare could make me melt entirely.

“Even worse for your organization’s position, it’s unlike the issue of the shapeshifter. The danger was disarmed after you helped get her captured and agreed to drop reopening chapels of Halspus across the Quarter to slowly poison all of us Infernals to death just by existing. Instead, this could be held over your church’s head for years, decades even. It’s impact would drain over time, but the core shock to your followers would remain. They’d demand the church purge anyone who knew and could have stopped it, wouldn’t they?”

“Finally,” Gallaspie finally said after several seconds passed. “Your true self peers out beyond the mask.”

I snorted. “Oh, yes, because after several insults and repeated prodding by you and your acolytes I have stopped being polite and started stating simple fact in response to your insulting my intelligence. Clearly I must have faked it all to the aim of mildly irritating you all. Bishop. Your actual questions?”

Gallaspie glared, hand now unconsciously on the pommel of his sword, but he actually seemed more relaxed now then when I was serving tea.

I did not need to worry about irritating Gallaspie. To an extent. Needling him too hard to the point he became unbalanced might make him more rash. But not needling at all would he more sufficient. He needed to know if I knew. Acting out of character from what he expected would be suspicious.

He mastered his emotions. “I was hoping with your recent falling out with Imperial Intelligence, you may be convinced to share some of what they know and were planning in return for a favor.”

“Hrrm,” I mused, cocking my head to the side. “Would that favor be protection from the retaliation of spreading Intelligence’s secrets around, or simply a stay of execution at your hands? No, no, we already discussed the latter. Even if I am on the surface on the outs with Imperial Intelligence, you can’t risk that, can you? That might just be a lie. Or even in disfavor, breaking one of their toys might come with costs. So. Protection?”

Gallaspie growled. “It has been considered among several of the churches, that protection from the wrath of Imperial Intelligence might be offered if you help us with some of our difficulties regarding them.”

Given this was the first I was hearing about it despite being near Gregory, Harper Metrill, and Slayer Derrick at varying points today, I guessed the ‘considering’ was more along the lines of Halspus’ church deciding and forcing the others to follow. Might even be related to that meeting of clerics I’d seen at their cathedral earlier.

I wasn’t so arrogant as to assume I’d been the main topic of conversation.

“The difficulties being they don’t trust you,” I said, smiling as my tail snaked across the countertop. “The reason being you didn’t tell them about the diabolism program until we found out, and forced it out of Gregory.”

“Yes,” Gallaspie snapped. “I don’t need another reminder about the low character of that worthless-”

He cut off as there was a small cracking sound. Oh. I’d chipped my tea cup.

“Oh,” I said, looking down at it. “Tssk, my fault. One second.”

I picked the small fragment out of the small pool of blood on the counter, then quickly wiped the latter up with a small cloth and then wrapped the cloth around my hand.

“You know, we’d figured it out long before he told us about it,” I said mildly. “He only told us because we’d already guessed most of it. So really, the most fault he is at is getting knocked out by me, and that was because I had him at gunpoint. Anyway, they don’t trust you for that reason, because if you had your way, this would be handled internally, with your church using the leverage gained from it to have greater control over the other churches. Instead, it may end up with Her Majesty gaining leverage over all of you.”

I paused, tightening the cloth around my hand. “Truth be told, I find it a moronic way of operating, mostly because it means no one is focused on actually solving the case. When said case revolves around people trying to open a Hellgate in the city. Moronic, truly.”

“So then,” Gallaspie said. “You are willing to say for example, who is currently on the suspect list? Although given what you said to my acolytes, the question should be where is everyone placed on the suspect list?”

“You are very far down on the list,” I told the bishop. “Truth be told, my words to your acolytes are not true in spirit. You may as well not be on it at all.”

Gallaspie spent a few seconds digesting that. “You disagree, I suppose?”

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I snorted lightly. “Bishop, I have spent a large chunk of my life experiencing the acolytes of Halspus up close, and your own reputation and efforts only slightly further away. My dislike of you is entirely because I have no doubts about you being a devout Halspusian.”

It’s why I suspected his goals for this conspiracy was something entirely different than what they appeared to be on the surface.

Gallaspie seemed to accept that backhanded compliment. It fit both his expectations of me and his thoughts on how I actually viewed him.

“Considering my hypocrisy regarding Diabolism, I would suspect you of being more suspicious of me,” Gallaspie said, eyes narrowing.

“If I believed you had made some kind of accommodation with its use, certainly,” I told him. “I think you’re there to cut everyone’s heads off if things go too far. The moment someone took things too far, you’d shut everything down on pain of your blade through their neck.”

“And you disapprove of that?”

I snorted. “Oh no. As shocking as it is to the both of us, I’m in complete agreement with you about the use of Diabolism. I think I briefly mentioned it before, Bishop, but no, I agree with you about people not needing to use it and should not be using it.”

His eyebrows raised. “A strange sentiment from someone who is quite a prolific user of it.”

Ugggh, the Imp piped up in my head. She barely knows how to use anything but Hellfire and Rot. Teaching her is like forcing a succubus to be chaste. It’s like forcing a greed devil to not chase after more souls. It’s like forcing an envy devil to give someone a compliment!

“My ‘teacher’ is currently disagreeing with you,” I told Gallaspie. “I didn’t come to this by chasing it, Bishop. I inherited it. I learned because at first the other option was having it burst free, and I swiftly learned that would never end well for anyone.”

It had killed at least one friend before I had learned that lesson.

“It infects. It spreads. It corrupts. But, when given the choice between reaching the Hells sooner or later, I choose later. Cowardly that it might be, I’ve seen the Hells. I have little desire to consign myself to their grasp a minute earlier than I must.”

I shrugged. “So I use it. I managed to live for a few years without, but then the world decided I needed to be involved in it again.”

Bishop Gallaspie scoffed. “You care about your own life? I think not. You remove agency from yourself for your own choices.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But we stray from the original topic. You want to know who the prime suspect is for being the Priestkiller, don’t you?”

And that was the crux of whether I lived or died, wasn’t it? If I didn’t feed a name he found believable as an alternative, he’d think I was trying to hide Forcreek as the guess.

“Harper Metrill,” I said.

Gallaspie froze, and five seconds passed before I breathed out.

“There’s circumstantial evidence linking them to several of the crimes,” I continued. “There were a raft of thefts in Belton before the murder that we finally linked to the Thieves’ guild. Their apprentices.”

In actuality, there wasn’t too much that needed to be invented to put suspicion on Harper Metrill, which was a little worrying. I could only hope I’d actually backed the right horse.

“Indications are that this involved materials stolen from both the diabolism program and the church’s stocks of materials,” I said. “The Lareran representatives are already used to ferreting out information that they aren’t supposed to know. Harper Metrill has twice tried to insert themself into the investigation, the better able to monitor what might be going on inside it. Including giving over a list of names for priests involved in the program that we expect has strategically placed holes in it. All to try and become formally involved. I can’t imagine she, or he is getting told by you or Slayer Derrick what is going on.”

I paused, as if toying with revealing a certain fact. “Voltar suspects her of being the third member of the council running this entire thing with you and Slayer Derrick. Either them or Timmel, but Voltar favors him more as the Priestkiller. Sometimes he flips around who he suspects, depending on the circumstances. Both of them could fit either role.”

Gallaspie was silent a moment. “Metrill? Really?”

“I didn’t sign up with them on a whim,” I told him. “Orders.”

“They did take you to the location of an accomplice of the conspiracy, did they not?” Gallaspie asked probingly.

“They did,” I confirmed. “One who was already dead. Who they would want to silence. And I was by myself, no one besides Lareran’s followers were involved. If I had not been so attentive I imagine it would have been easy to kill me and blame the death on the corrupted environs.”

“Do you know for certain?” he pressed.

“I can’t know for certain until we’ve looked into it more, but it’s sufficient that I’m going to suggest efforts be focused that way,” I said. “It’s far from the only direction the investigation is going, though.”

His face tightened. “This matter you want to discuss with me and Slayer Derrick in the ‘safety’ of Halspus’ most holy place.”

“I know you can bring Infernals in there living,” I told him. “There is a method. You’ve used it yourself in the past.”

Of course, said method was usually to bring in Infernals they wanted to seal in soul spikes and wanted to use said holy nature of the cathedral to prevent them from using Diabolism.

“You can search me before I enter,” I told him. “I’m not great at Diabolism without my focus-”

Because you don’t practice, the Imp hissed.

“-but your method for preventing Infernals from burning up in there neatly nullifies it anyway,” I continued. “I will be harmless.”

“You I doubt are ever harmless,” Gallaspie said. “Merely less able of causing harm.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps. But the last bit of information stays hidden under my hat until then.”

His eyes flicked up to the ragged disaster I’d put on my head. “How did you even get that on?”

“With great difficult,” I replied. “So?”

He mulled it over. “I tentatively agree. Come to the cathedral tomorrow with Derrick. After ten.”

“Happily,” I said, eager to get that part settled. I wanted to confirm Forcreek’s involvement, and soon. “You two are the ones I honestly think I can trust most with this.”

“Foulhorn,” he said. “You seem to have great faith in my steadfast resolve against the forces of the diabolic.”

“You’ve left enough souls in spikes to have convinced me,” I told him.

“A man might be tempted in his twilight years to do something a younger him would never consider,” the Bishop replied.

“And a man whose dealt with Devils all his life would know better than to trust their whispered words,” I said back, winking at the Bishop. “I think you’ve been around long enough to grasp it. Devils don’t lie on deals like this. You’ll get what you asked for. Everything you asked for in return for what you did. But after, when this city is crawling with devils?”

I chuckled. “Everyone picks it because they think they’ll be powerful enough to withstand the anarchy that comes after. Devils obey laws set by their higher-ups because said higher-ups can obliterate them. Realms in the Hells that operate on laws because the ruler of said realm wants said laws to exist. The flood of devils out of that gate won’t care. What laws will exist will be what the strongest among them decide. They’ll hope for luck that whoever made the contract will protect them for services rendered. But in truth?”

I met Bishop Gallaspie’s eyes. “I despise you with every fiber of my being for what you have done to us Infernals, but on the devils? I have seen nothing that disproves your idea that they are ultimately hateful, devouring, malicious creatures whose only loyalty is to gaining more power.”

And you think that it is a bad thing, the Imp said. Then again, you let it exaggerate to excesses beyond belief. Your parent-

It prattled on in its head about my parent’s generosity and honor and love. I ignored it. I’d heard about it all. Some nights I cried and hoped Laura and Dylan had avoided our parent’s ‘love and honor’.

As hateful as his current involvement in this full plot, Daver would have my thanks for showing me what happened with my parent’s children. I would not let myself be turned into that.

Gallaspie had remained quiet, and in fact looked…unsettled. Uncomfortable, even. I forced a smile.

“Apologies Bishop,” I said. “That was…”

I struggled for words. I’d broken from the expected character, which might result in my death in just a few moments. And me with my hands and tail all in plain sight of the good Bishop as well, for all that it mattered.

“You actually believe that, don’t you?” he said finally.

I gave him a crooked smile. “Bishop, Bishop, I could be lying. Don’t tell me you’re falling for my honeyed words.”

“I fall for nothing,” he replied, a bit of that harshness back. “The fervor of the lie was just unexpected.”

Back in familiar waters.

“Not a lie, not that you’ll believe me,” I said teasingly. “But no, Bishop, I don’t expect you to ever let devils into Avernon.”

Go to the brink then cut off the heads of everyone involved, perhaps.

He seemed unsettled still. “You’ll have your meeting tomorrow. We can discuss anything else about Imperial Intelligence’s activities then.”

“Stay a while,” I told him. “Enjoy your tea. You’ve barely touched your cup.”

Meanwhile I was already halfway through my second. Maybe the accusations of addiction had a glimmer of truth to them.

He eyed the cup again, and I rolled my eyes.

“Bishop, give it a shot of divine magic if you think it merely being inside my store for a few minutes is enough to poison it. And in return for the generous amount of information you have given to me, and keeping me from my bed, you can spend some time in polite conversation-”

My door slammed shut.

I considered it for a second, then shrugged. Well.

I wasn’t so casual inside my own mind. He’d seemed, well, not scared perhaps, but afraid as he left? Apprehensive?

I reached for me teacup again, still mostly full.

“I told you to try and end this habit,” Tagashin scolded, trying to reach for the cup in my hands.

My tail shot out like a snake, wrapping around her forearm multiple times. Fins fully extended, I slapped her in the face with it. Then I pulled hard, sending the floating kitsune spinning through the air until she hit the counter with an exaggerated scream of pain.

I took another slow sip of my tea as-ow!

“Bite me again and I’ll make that poison from last time look like a mild stomachace,” I said, glaring at the grinning kitsune, my fin between her teeth.

She let go, and I immediately pulled it closer, looking carefully for any puncture wounds.

“Seriously , this is beginning to be more trouble than it’s worth,” I complained as I looked over my fins. “The only place to swim is the Nover, and now I’ve had two madwomen bite at these!”

“I object to being put equal to your aunt,” Tagashin replied. “Also, you complaining about biting people is the height of hypocrisy.”

“The people I bite don’t usually live long enough to complain,” I said, finally finishing my careful fin examination.

Tagashin got up on my counter next to me. “Fine, I will take a cup of your addiction.”

“It’s not an addiction, merely a worthwhile practice,” I said, pouring her a cup.

She took an appreciate sip. “Do you think he believed you?”

“Hrrm,” I said, considering. “Clearly he believed I am not close enough to the truth. I get to live a little longer. Whether he thinks this is what Voltar actually believes or what I’ve been fed, or what I’ve been told to tell him? He might not care.”

“He could just kill you and be done with it,” Tagashin said.

“No,” I said, eyes narrowed as I stared at the closed door. “He didn’t.”

Tagashin chuckled. “Don’t even think about it girl. Your harem is getting big enough as is.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I said reflexively, then glared when the my brain caught up with the rest of that.

“Oh come one, don’t tell you haven’t considered it,” Tagashin said with a lazy grin.

“I’m not dignifying that with a response,” I said. “Any of it. So. Did another cleric die?”

“Nope,” Tagashin said, reclining on thin air, starting to float up off the ground. “No one died. I was keeping an eye on you, especially after I realized who was at your door. Once you’re concoction runs out and you finally sleep, I’ll go inform Voltar of your ‘betrayal’ of Imperial Intelligence.”

“Hmm,” I replied, then stifled a yawn. “Might be sooner than you think.”

“Go get changed and get some sleep then. We’re almost to two.”

True, but I spared a glance for the door before I tiredly clambered upstairs.

Something about that last exchange had caused a change to the Bishop. But what?

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