Page 53 of In the Devil's Shadow

“She has spoken,” Oisín declared before turning into a moose. His antlers were as long as I was, and he had to be over eight feet tall.

“You’re absolutely terrifying,” Diana joked as she patted her brother on his moosey snout. “Go forth and fuck shit up, brother.”

He trotted toward the hostage and swept him off the floor with his antlers, throwing him high into the air. His screams turned into shrieks when I hit him with a fireball to the chest. He burned for a few seconds after he hit the ground before Azazel put him out with his angel magic.

“Try to keep him alive for questioning, guys,” he said gently. “Remember, moon creatures aren’t immortal, just hard to kill.”

I enjoyed how he kept us on track without stunting our creativity. I’d really misjudged him all those years ago. I looked to Diana for confirmation. This was her rodeo, and I was a hot AF cowboy who was hoping to have a Brokeback themed orgy after this. Diana could be the prize pony we took turns riding between riding each other…Oh I’m so glad I brought my ten gallon hat with me from the NY mansion!

She nodded, giving me the thumbs up.

“Sure thing, Feathers,” I replied.

Mal levitated the hostage off the ground, holding him midair. After a minute, the captive’s head turned red. He convulsed, clawing at his throat while gasping for breath.

“If you want to be able to breathe, moon man, you’ll answer my questions,” Mal ordered in a bored, over-it tone. “Your life is in your hands.”

He let the moon man down, sitting him on the floor as the rest of the Scream Squad–as I had so aptly named us–gathered around him. We weren’t done until this moon man screamed for death.

“What’s Damon’s next move?” I asked. The moon man shook his head, remaining silent.

“Why are the People of the Moon aligning themselves with Damon?” Bash asked as he bent down, getting eye level with the hostage.

Again, more silence. This just wouldn’t do. We needed answers. We needed to show the people in the room that we meant business.

“Mal, can you port the wax warmer from my room in here?” I had a devious idea. One I’d been thinking about all day.

Mal snapped his fingers, and the wax warmer appeared on the table. I took the wicks and the explosives out of my pocket and placed them next to the warmer. I grabbed the hostage by his ear and dragged him over to the chair near my materials, but I pulled too hard and ended up ripping his ear off. I didn’t mean to Van Gogh him, but why not go with it? He screeched in pain, blood gushing out of the open wound as he thrashed on the ground.

“Hey, now, I don’t want tohearany complaints from you,” I joked. Laughter rang out around the room, and I smiled.That’s why I’m here, to torture fuckers that mess with my woman, and laugh in the process.

If you’re not laughing, are you really torturing people?The voice in my head asked me.

No, Voice, you’re not. No laughter means you’re not having enough fun. And torture is just a synonym for a good time.

As annoying as Voice could be, he understood me at a molecular level, and that was a comfort.

The wax in the warmer was melted just enough to form around each of the moon man’s slender fingers. I made sure to add a wick and a mini explosive right where his fingertip started before closing the wax with a little fire magic. There was a little more than six inches of wick at the end of each of his fingers. By the time I was done, he had five finger bombs. I lit each one with the tip of my finger, blowing it out for dramatic emphasis.

“Here’s how it’s gonna go down, moon man. Each fingertip has an explosive capsule. Made by yours truly. When the wick runs out, your fingers go BOOM,” I spelled out, crouching so I was at eye level with him. “You attackedmyLittle Goddess. And my friends. Really my family. My fuckingframily. They mean everything to me. So you have until the wick reaches the explosive to answer our questions. If you don’t, you won’t have fingers on your dominant hand anymore. Then I’ll move on to your left hand. Then your toes. Then your fucking nose. I’ll saw your other ear off and your shriveled moon stick dick and feed it to my fucking three-headed dog on Mount Olympus. Unless you answer our questions…”

“Why are the moon people working for Damon?” Bash asked.

The moon man started hyperventilating, staring at the wicks as they slowly burned, creeping closer and closer to the explosives at his fingertips.

“He’s giving us a settlement,” the man rattled off in a high-pitched shrill voice that was the norm of his kind. “Instead of having to hide on Earth like vermin, we’ll have a whole state to roam free and worship the moon whenever we want!”

“Interesting,” Mal said. “What’s his next move?”

The man shook his head, remaining silent.

“Come on, moon man, tell us all your secrets!” Oisín chuckled. His moose voice was even deeper than his human one, and it startled me a bit.

He morphed into the same boa constrictor he had become during our last meeting and slithered beside Bash, rising so his head and most of his body were off the ground. “If you think the explosive fingertips are bad, you haven’t been crushed to death by a snake.”

Oisín slithered over to the chair, as if he was about to wrap himself around our hostage. The man screamed and started rambling. I barely understood it over his sobbing. “He-he-he’s gathering up forces in NYC. He knows Diana is in Vegas, but isn’t sure where. Once he finds out, he’ll attack.”

“Interesting…” Bash said. “Ares, the explosives won’t kill him, right?”

---