Page 6 of Beggars, Sin, and Wine

Rude because Benji was sending vibes straight back to Di like he wanted to fuck him, too, and out of all three of us, he was the bigger flirt. He was loyal as fuck and he’d only bed someone if they were pack, but he’d sure flirt. And he knew damned well Cas and I wouldn’t cheat.

“Don’t get him started on his wife,” Di said. “Those two have been ride or die for thousands of years and they’ve fought way bigger than the three of you to be together. He’ll talk for hours and I’d rather get down to the business of helping my mate, who is probably being tortured by the Coalition as we speak.”

“No offense, but how is a green witch going to topple the Coalition?” Cas asked. “And what does that have to do with us?”

“This particular green witch is god touched.”

“Which god?” I asked.

Because that was important. There was more than one and some were better than others. One was responsible for the angels and the Coalition and there were others that weren’t all that great.

“Smart boy,” Di said, nodding at me.

I had no idea why I liked that so much.

“She was touched by a brilliant god. She’s methodical and this particular god never does anything without a reason. She’s made plenty of mistakes, but never when she was meddling in the hero game. You’re now a part of one of her hero quests. Buckle up, princesses,” Di said.

Cas let out a little growl. There was absolutely no part of Cas that was remotely princess-like. Cas and the burly motherfucker with the beard were oozing masculinity all over this office.

“What exactly do you expect us to do?” I asked. “We help people who have already escaped. There’s something about the Coalition facilities that neutralize our magic. Some of it is silver, but Benji and I could never figure out what else they were using. If we go in, we aren’t getting out.”

“Ah, but the three of you are uniquely qualified to break into New Eden Asylum where my mate is being held, and get everyone out. They’ve lined the walls with silver, which the Smith can handle with a little help from my bearded friend. The missing ingredient you couldn’t figure out is that they are disbursing angel tears into the atmosphere and we happen to know black salt will neutralize it. Pax goes in undercover and transfigures the silver and the rest of you get yourself taken. You work together to get the black salt into the air filtration.”

“You can’t sneak black salt into any Coalition facility. They take all your shit and if they find it on Pax, they are going to figure out he’s not a priest. I’m not sneaking black salt up my butt. If the condom breaks, I’ll get super dehydrated. And if our creator didn’t want cocks and fingers up our ass, she wouldn’t have stuck a prostate up there, but using your butthole to smuggle stuff is morally reprehensible,” Benji said.

Fuck, I loved Benji. There were so many random hills he’d die on. He thought certain pizza toppings were morally reprehensible and pineapple wasn’t one of them. Benji wasn’t interested in witchcraft, so he didn’t know no one had to put anything up their butt.

“Benji, we can make the black salt with salt from the kitchen and ashes from the incense they burn.”

“Oh, good. I thought Cas was going to have to take one for the team and smuggle it in.”

“Why was I going to be the one with a condom full of black salt up my ass?” Cas demanded.

“You’re the leader. Duh.”

Di was just nodding like he totally agreed with Benji on all of this. Something told me no one would be remotely prepared for it if those two decided to team up and become friends.

“There’s no need to smuggle anything,” the bearded man said. “Your Smith is correct. They will have the materials there. Take this. It will allow you to be immune to the silver in the walls long enough to transfigure it into something harmless. It’s a substance that looks silver but is not. It will help fool them into thinking you are a regular old human.”

He handed me a pretty harmless bracelet. It felt like metal, but it definitely didn’t feel like silver. It wasn’t draining my magic. I could actually feel it pulsing with it. I needed to know what these guys were because the entire supernatural community had been trying to figure out how to make us not allergic to silver for a very long time. I had questions, but they just kept going.

“Our witch is down in the basement. You’ll need these so she doesn’t affect you. They’ll take them off the two that are pretending to be patients. Pax, you need to keep them on you. Make sure you are all wearing them when you get to the basement.”

The bearded man also started handing out necklaces. I didn’t know what was so special about them. They felt like a washer bolt on a plain leather chain with a clasp. Yeah, I definitely had questions, but there they went again.

“With the silver in the walls neutralized, you’ll be less disoriented, but you won’t have all your magic back because of the allergy. All bets are going to be off when the black salt gets into the air filtration system and everyone realizes they aren’t neutered anymore. They are probably going to have some opinions about their captors and it’s going to be violent.

“The people upstairs can come and go but have limited movement. The people in the basement never leave their cells unless they are being experimented on. The shadow wolf comes in next. The lock on the basement door is biometric, so whether you force someone to open the door or rip their arm off like the movies is up to you.

“There is going to be someone guarding the other side of the basement door and there’s a panic button in there that will call the cops. The pretty little hybrid needs to poof to the other side of the door and take care of the guard before you go bursting in and letting anyone out.”

Benji cracked his knuckles and smiled. He didn’t have to say anything. I wasn’t locked up. I was locked in my room at night, but I could come and go during the day because they didn’t think I was dangerous. Especially after they blinded me. Benji was in the basement and had been practically feral from the moment they captured him. He would happily rip the throat out of anyone involved in a Coalition basement.

“Where are the three of you going to be during all of this?” Cas demanded.

It was a good plan and it honestly could have worked. I had no problem doing it. But we all risked getting caught, so we needed to know what these three chuckle fucks were going to be doing while we were risking our freedom for this girl.

“Waiting for you,” the goth man said. “We were getting there. The silver and angel tears don’t affect us, but the angels didn’t just betray your secrets to keep you in. They betrayed ours to keep us out. There’s going to be a sigil painted somewhere in blood. As soon as you destroy it, we’ll be there helping get everyone to safety and cleaning up the mess so the humans don’t freak out. You’ll need to get our witch back to your home and care for her while we’re fixing everything. We’ll come for her when everything is settled.”

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