Page 12 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
“Friends, I need to tell you about a brutal murder that happened at New Eden Asylum. I was making significant progress with two of the possessed who weresoclose to being healed. The rest of the demons found out about it and started a riot. I’m sure they either killed or set back the progress of those two unfortunate men.
“Theydidkill many innocent priests and nuns who were just trying to help them. It was brutal and no one should have to die like that. It’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. I only just managed to escape with my life and I was the sole survivor.
“What I witnessed was unspeakable. The violence they are capable of with their magic. What they did should be considered a war crime. We have the knowledge to neutralize their magic and I’msoclose to finding a cure for demonic possession. We just need everyone on board.”
The reporters blew up until Hannibal called on one.
“Excuse me, but you said New Eden Asylum was the first Coalition facility in the United States and a historic landmark?”
Here we go. I’d never met Father Nathan, but Cas, Pax, and Benji said he was a good man. I knewdeep down he was arealpriest who was devoted to his god like I had been to Athena at one point. He wasn’t anything like Hannibal or anyone else I met at New Eden. It was just going to take me a hot minute to be less wary of him because they wore the same clothes and used the same titles. I knew better, but trauma had no logic.
Still, I was guessing Father Nathan had done his part to bring the Coalition down. I would thank him and never tell him he was carrying out Persephone’s plan unless I could get a read on him. I’d watched plenty of religions be born and die and a few holy wars.
I knew gods were real and what the truth of the universe was. I also knew what a comfort belief was and how devastating it was when your god betrayed you. I’d happily do that to men like Hannibal, but I wasn’t going to destroy Father Nathan’s entire world when he helped us. I looked back to the TV.
“Yes. It’s a beautiful building. It was originally built to neutralize their magic with wards given to us from the angels and then updated throughout the years with the latest technology to keep them contained easier. These wards keepyousafe from them.
“I can’t stress how much all of you are in danger if they’ve figured out what they are because they aren’t public knowledge. The only people who know what we are using are top Coalition members and I still don’t know what kind of foul demonic magic overpowered it.”
“That’s all well and good, but there’s virtually no record anywhere of New Eden Asylum ever existing. The address you gave everyone has a fairly well established vineyard on the property. Our reporters spoke to the women working there and they say it’s been on that land for decades. The grapes and land deed back that up.”
Hannibal stood there sputtering and Saul was glaring at him like he wanted the floor to swallow him up. Dionysus and Persephone were sitting there smugly.
“How’d you get a vineyard and people to work it in that short a time frame?” Cas asked.
“Making it was easy. Hello, god powers. Staffing it was also pretty easy. I couldn’t go back to Olympus because of Hera, so I was always more involved with the people on Earth. My Maenads are insanely loyal, even now. If you don’t give them a job with just a few hours leftover to blow off steam, they do shit like tear Orpheus apart with their bare hands because he didn’t want to party with them.”
I wasn’t shocked. Dionysus’s Maenads were intense. He had totellthem I was his mate, so they didn’t kill me in a jealous fit. Then they all pulled me aside and told me there were certain expectations to be his mate. They said if I didn’t pretend his divine farts didn’t smell like roses and worship the ground he walked on, they’d come for me.
And then we kind of became friends and that fierceness and loyalty got transferred to me, too. The only reason they weren’t plotting against Athena was because they weren’t stupid. Without Dionysus to back them up, she would have destroyed them.
Yeah, it was best to tell the Maenads they could avenge me by working at this new vineyard. It was true and if he hadn’t given the Maenads a purpose, they would have found this press conference, ripped Hannibal apart, and then held an orgy in the gore.
That was exactly what wedidn’twant. We needed the leader of the Coalition to look like the unhinged, dangerous one. They were asking about the property. We needed them to expose him as the leader before someone got him out of there.
The cameras were going to keep going unless someone got violent. We had the Maenads contained. Some of the people in the audience were probably supernatural, but hopefully, they knew better. I had to hope they kept any urges locked down if someone finally called him out. Did Father Nathan not do his thing?
“This is demonic magic!” Hannibal yelled. “That building was there just a few days ago. They can’t destroy paper records. Check the archives!”
They could but they wouldn’t find anything. Hades made damned sure Persephone felt as safe as possible and explored every aspect of her magic. My best friend was an utter badass wrapped up in pink unicorns while still completely embodying the Queen of the Underworld.
There would benothingleft of New Eden Asylum except for memories. The victims weren’t going to talk. They knew they were safe, and we had a plan. They wouldn’t jeopardize it. People who might have had information on their computers would find it missing and blame the Mandala effect. They’d probably blame hackers until they realized it didn’t even exist in the archives. I suppose they could go for vast government conspiracy, but they weren’t really capable of what Persephone could do with her little finger.
Apparently, the reporter that confronted Hannibal about the location wasn’t the only one who had dug into it. They were all shouting about the property. But over all the din, the sound of everyone’s phone going off at once was noticeable. Ireallyhoped that was Father Nathan.
Apparently, it was. Some people looked down to read the notification and others kept peppering Hannibal with questions about the property. Oh, but it was beautiful. When enough people started shouting about him being the leader of the USCoalition, more people started looking at the evidence and demanding answers.
Saul stepped to the podium before it got ugly.
“No more questions!” he yelled, hauling Hannibal out of there.
It was awesome. Saul screwed up his face like he smelled something foul when he got up into Hannibal’s personal space. I started giggling because apparently, he wasn’t lying about everything. He truly believed Benji hadn’t been fucking with him about that recipe he’d given him to stop demonic possession.
I loved that for him.
Cas turned the TV off.
“Well, that was fun.”
