Fate: California Obscura

We joined Desiree and Carter, and as August handed her a glass of wine, he asked us, “So, any ideas on how to rescue Mateo’s partner without actually dying?”

“Someone could sneak in and try to get him out while the rest of us cause a distraction,” Tinder said, as he sat down right beside his husband on the sofa and August put an arm around his shoulders. They were an interesting couple. Tinder was as rough around the edges as August was sophisticated, but somehow they seemed perfect together.

Desiree had opened her laptop again, and I asked, “Do you need my wi-fi password?”

Her laugh came out as a snort. “Please. I’m on witch-fi. I don’t need a damn password.”

I glanced at her screen as a series of six live feeds came up, and I asked, “Is that the brothers’ compound?”

“Yeah. It’s actually not far from here, up on Skyview Road. There are two gates, both with armed guards, and the whole thing’s surrounded by a ten-foot brick wall. That’s just ridiculous, since it’s also warded.” She drained her wine glass and handed it to August without a word, and he jumped up to refill it.

I asked, “How are we going to get around the wards? As soon as we start chipping away at them it’ll alert the brothers, and there goes any hope of catching them by surprise.”

Desiree gestured at the screen as a delivery van pulled up to the gate. It had the name of a local butcher shop on the side, and it was waved through by the guards. “We need some kind of Trojan horse situation, like all y’all crammed in the back of a catering truck or some shit.”

I asked, “Why didn’t you include yourself in that scenario?”

“Because I’m the guy in the chair.”

“The what?”

She stared at me like I was thick. “The guy in the chair. Or in this case, the woman, but in sexist action movies it’s always a guy. In other words, you need someone on the outside, acting as your eyes, monitoring the situation, and feeding you information. That’s me.”

Something occurred to me, and I asked, “Wait, why are the brothers having food delivered? Do demons even eat?”

“We can if we choose to. It’s not mandatory, but sometimes it’s nice.” Carter leaned over to get a look at the computer screen. “Here comes another delivery van. I think they’re hosting a dinner party.”

I frowned at that. “So, they’re taking a break from torture and mayhem to throw a soiree? Really?”

“Everything the brothers do is for their own amusement,” Carter explained. “The problem with living for millennia is the tedium. Every day is just like the next, and it stretches on in this endless cycle of monotony. So, here on earth, they’re going to do whatever they find entertaining. That could definitely include a dinner party for, let’s say, the most notorious criminals on the west coast, followed by a live show of the brothers torturing their enemies. It would certainly drive the point home that they’re never to be crossed.”

The part about torture made me nauseous. What if that was exactly what they were planning, now that they’d captured Elias?

When August returned with her glass of wine, Desiree said, “Thank you, Lucifer,” and took a drink.

“August,” he corrected her.

“Whatever. I’ve already forgotten your husband’s name, but I know it was a dating app. I’m just gonna call him Grinder.” She said that in all seriousness, and Tinder burst out laughing.

“Going back to what you were saying before, the Trojan horse idea isn’t bad,” Carter said. “Neither is the idea of trying to cause a distraction while one of us sneaks in, since those gates obviously allow access past the wards. I really don’t think we stand a chance if we go for a frontal assault.”

“So, let’s blow up part of their compound while Carter goes in and gets Elias,” Desiree said, as she clicked on the keys with her glitter-polished nails. “After that, we should all plan on leaving the country ASAP, because the brothers are going to be pissed.”

I said, “Carter’s not going in to get him. I am.”

“I’ll be much more capable of defending myself if I’m discovered,” he told me.

I held his gaze steadily. “But Elias is mine, so I’m going in after him.”

“You know,” Tinder said, as he adjusted the collar of his black leather jacket, “Desiree’s right. The brothers are going to be furious if we rescue Elias, and there’s probably nowhere on earth we could hide from something that powerful.”

I asked, “So, what are you saying?”

Tinder turned to Carter and asked, “Can demons die?”

“We can be destroyed,” he said. “It’s not easy, but it is possible. It would take…well, the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb, I guess.”

“The only way to make sure we survive this is to destroy at least one of the brothers. If those rumors are true, then they need killing anyway,” Tinder said, and Desiree nodded in agreement. Those two were both remarkably matter-of-fact about the idea of destroying demons and blowing shit up, as if they did this every day.