Chapter 266 Innocence.

Chapter 266: 266 Innocence.

I let her drag us forward into the glowing room, having absolutely no idea what kind of fresh hell I was walking into.

The inner office was massive. It vaguely reminded me of Arman’s setup, but scaled up and dripping with far more grotesque opulence. The carpet was a thick, plush black that looked exactly like spilled oil. The walls seemed to literally bend, distorting the geometry of the room around a chaotic, heavily cluttered mahogany desk sitting dead center.

A pair of velvet guest chairs faced the desk. The executive chair behind it was massive, stylized to resemble a snarling cat’s head.

The walls were absolutely covered in framed oil paintings depicting shadowy, twisted landscapes and faces howling in eternal agony.

The figures inside the canvas constantly shifted and writhed under the red lights. Much like the stylized flames on the front doors, I had a very strong feeling there was a lot more than just pigment trapped in those frames.

The only other thing in the room was a massively fat black cat sitting directly on top of the desk.

It was wearing a red silk bowtie.

"Omg, Behemoth! Bestie!" Lilith squealed, practically vibrating with excitement as she bounded toward the desk, her heels clicking sharply against the floorboards.

"Mmmmrooooow," the fat cat groaned. He lazily rolled over so he was sitting upright, his belly sagging against the wood. "Whaaaat is it nooow? What do you want, Lilith?"

...Alright. Well, definitely not the weirdest thing I had seen this week.

I gave Behemoth a closer look. He was a terribly ugly, bruised old tomcat. His ears were heavily nicked and chewed down to stubble, a nasty, jagged scar clawed its way straight down over his left eye, and he had a severely flat, squished face with a snub nose. Overall, he looked exactly like a grumpy old mob enforcer with a thick mustache.

"Behemoth! Is that any way to greet your favorite girl?" Lilith pouted, leaning over the edge of the desk. "After I came all this way just to see you! It was such a long walk!"

"Hrmph!" Behemoth grunted, his thick whiskers flicking in annoyance. "I do not believe you. You have come for something. Always wanting something! Well? What is it? I am busy man. Very busy!"

"Don’t be a grump!" Lilith giggled. "So rude! Besides, I brought friends! And I know exactly how much you love having company over!"

"I hate company," Behemoth spat. He rolled heavily onto his side, glaring at me and Vanessa with deeply evil, glowing yellow eyes. "Hm. Well? Who is this company? What do they want?"

Time for me to step up and handle the networking. "Hi," I said, stepping forward. "My name is Miles. We came to you because we need to arrange a transaction regarding—"

"Of course you do," Behemoth interrupted irritably, his tail thumping against the mahogany. "Everyone comes to me when they need something. You think I am bad company? Good! I do not like guests! But people still come see me because they are needing things. Hm. Well? What do you need? Souls? Perhaps you wish to challenge me to musical contest? You are not from Georgia, are you?"

"What? No," I said, blinking.

"Good! I do not play fiddle contests with men from Georgia! They are all cheats! Absolute cheats! But no matter. You! Girl!" Behemoth snapped, pointing a black paw at Vanessa. "You have said nothing. What do you want?"

Vanessa straightened her spine, refusing to be intimidated by the talking feline. "We need specific information to corner Legion."

Behemoth snorted loudly, his flat nose twitching. "See? Come for favour. Everyone comes to me looking for a favour! What do they know? I should shoot you all! Bang! Bang! Where is my gun?"

"Oh, bestie, please don’t misunderstand!" Lilith cried out as Behemoth began frantically pawing through the chaotic stacks of paperwork on his desk. "That is totally not it at all!"

"What? You do not want favour? Lies! I hate liars."

"No, no, no! We definitely want your help! Like, desperately!" Lilith cheered, waving her hands. "But we didn’t come to beg for a freebie! We came to pay! And pay super well!"

"Oh?" Behemoth stopped digging for his weapon and sat back up, his chewed ears perking forward. "You will pay? Then I will hear it. What do you want?"

"We just need a teeny-tiny list, bestie."

"A list? List of what?"

"Just some names! Specifically, the names of all the cute little cultists Legion has been aggressively gathering under his banner."

Behemoth’s yellow eyes flashed dangerously. His upper lip curled back, revealing a massive, yellowed fang. "Oh ho! You want that? That is not good business. He would not like if that information got leaked to the street."

"But you totally have it, don’t you?" Lilith cooed. She leaned heavily on the desk, batting her eyelashes at the mob boss. "I just know you do! You always collect all the absolute best gossip!"

"Maybe I do have it. But I have not seen my price yet."

"Price? Omg, Behemoth, surely you realize exactly who these two are?"

"Hm?" The cat squinted at me, then at Vanessa. His yellow eyes suddenly widened in recognition. "Ah! This one is..."

"Exactly!" Lilith chimed merrily, throwing an arm around Vanessa’s stiff shoulders. "This lovely young lady is Hex! The darling daughter of The Jester himself! And I am absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure her daddy would massively appreciate a helping hand given to his little girl! Major networking points!"

"And this guy," Lilith added, spinning around to gesture grandly at my armor, "is none other than the Iron Polaris! The rising star of the industry! And oh my gosh, the absolute chaos he is going to cause, Behemoth! The property damage! The heavy disruption! Surely," Lilith purred, reaching out to gently scratch the tomcat right behind his chewed ears, "surely that kind of brand synergy would be worth getting in on the ground floor of? Hmm? To say nothing of permanently deleting that annoying, uppity loser Legion from the board entirely."

Behemoth’s rough tongue darted out, licking along his muzzle. A low, incredibly deep purr rumbled from within his barrel-shaped chest like an idling diesel engine. "Hmm. You may be right, Lilith. Yes. You speak some truth."

"I do sometimes! Just sometimes!" Lilith giggled. "And," she added, leaning in closer, dropping her bubbly voice into a conspiratorial whisper, "if Legion were to suddenly get completely eradicated... why, then this list would have a super fun secondary use! Because all those poor, abandoned cultists would instantly be in need of new management. In need of guidance. In need... of you!"

Behemoth’s ears flicked. He suddenly shook his massive head. "Mroooow. Ha! Fine. Very well! It is not like I had much use for the list anyway. A mere curiosity!"

"Yay! We would be absolutely thrilled to take it off your paws!" Lilith cheered.

"Hmph! I bet you would be. Yes. I bet you would."

With a heavy grunt, Behemoth rolled himself onto his feet and waddled over to the back edge of the desk. He leaned over, his thick tail twitching as he hooked a claw onto a drawer handle and pulled it open. He began shoving files around. "Hm. It is in here somewhere. What’s this? Bah. No good. Old catnip. Stale anyway. Ah! Here it is!"

Behemoth popped back upright, dragging out a massive, gilded parchment scroll that, by all laws of physics, absolutely should not have fit inside that drawer. But I was well beyond questioning the geometry of the room. Going with the flow was much healthier for my sanity.

"Here!" Behemoth grunted, waddling back across the desk to shove the heavy parchment at Lilith. "Here is scroll. All names of those Legion holds under his thumb are written inside. And if you fail your hit," he added, baring his fangs, "you never got this from me!"

"Of course not, bestie!" Lilith crooned, snatching the scroll and hugging it to her chest. "Secret is totally safe! And when we win, we will definitely remember this! Five-star review!"

"Hmph!" the fat cat scoffed, settling his heavy bulk back onto his favorite spot on the mahogany. "Good. See you do. Now, go away! I am late for brushing! You hear me? Begone!"

"Thanks a million, Behemoth! Let’s go, besties!" Lilith cried, spinning around and grabbing Vanessa and me by the arms, practically dragging us back out the heavy double doors.

The doors swung shut seamlessly behind us. Lilith, humming a cheerful pop tune to herself, immediately unrolled the heavy parchment in the middle of the crowded casino floor and scanned the long list of names written in rusty, dried brown ink.

"Mmm. Yep!" she chirped. "Yes! This is going to work out perfectly!"

"Then we have everything we need to run the play?" I asked.

Lilith snapped the scroll shut with a loud crack. "Almost, Milesy! Almost! There is just one teeny-tiny last thing we need for the ritual to work!"

Of course there was.

"Alright. What is the final piece of the puzzle?" I sighed. "Twenty virgins? The Spear of Destiny? Maybe the Ark of the Covenant?"

"Ew, gross! No, Milesy," Lilith laughed dismissively, waving her hand. "We absolutely do not need anything with divine power! Totally the opposite! We need a specific location to cast the spell. Somewhere the spiritual energy is completely, permanently scarred. A place that will provide massive fuel for the summoning!"

"Oh yes," Lilith went on, her bright yellow eyes wide with manic excitement. "We need a location of unholy misery. A place of absolute pain, where tears and agony have soaked into the very foundation. Where thousands of souls have been tormented, where desperate prayers are ignored daily, and where countless virgins lost their joy to the cruelty of a single fumbling night, never to recover their innocence!"

"Wait," I said, freezing in the middle of the casino. "You don’t mean..."

"I totally do!" Lilith squealed with a massive, wicked smile. "We need a high school!"