Greed God chapter 213

April 9th 2016 Brightedge City, Salieri Graveyard, 10:00 PM EDT

As  much as I really wanted to hike that dress up and fuck Sindy after the dancing, Lady Celeste took my bullshit story about urgency seriously.  She wrote me a note and gave me an address for an access point to  another necromantic hotspot, telling me I needed to talk to a local girl  named Warlock's Daughter, who she said was better versed in the local  dark magic scene than most.

The entrance to the space,  which rather than a castle was a ritzy nightclub called Mordred's  Lullaby, was under the Salieri Graveyard, which I was almost positive  hadn't existed before, but we found it without any trouble. Before we  went in though, I placed a quick call to Zee. "Hey." I said as she  picked up. "What do you know about Warlock's Daughter? Anything of  value?"

She made a noise. "Maybe? Sounds familiar. Think  she had a thing with one of the Robins. Hold on, if she's a Gothamite I  should have notes. I keep a few binders with info on the local magic  scene. Can't use ancient texts for everything. One second." I heard  pages riffling as she pulled down and searched through a few notebooks  before she came back with an answer. "Found her. Darla Aquista.  Interesting girl. Former mafia princess, got killed and brought back as a  Revenant. Flies, shoots bolts of magic, some creepy shadow stuff."

I  snickered at that. "Creepy shadow stuff? Is that the technical term? I  can feel your knowledge and wisdom from here. Thank the gods I employ  such an expert."

"Ok first of all." She said in an  offended tone. "You don't EMPLOY me. You branded a magical slave seal on  my ass and sometimes slap me with your dick to make me happy. Which it  does, granted, but I don't get paid, so lets not pretend you can get  something better. The pussy and the magic are a package deal."

They  weren't and she knew it, but she also knew I wouldn't fuck her if she  didn't want me to, and jokes aside I was satisfied with her magic  knowledge so far. "Every part of you is magical darling, but you were  making a list, what was the second thing?"

"Second of  all." She said smugly. "She uses dimensionally siphoned link based  umbrakinesis. I just know your beefcake brain gets all foggy when I use  the big words. Don't want to scare you off with my massive intellect.  It's never a good idea to make your partner feel inferior."

I  chuckled at that. "Well if I ever do I can just ponder back to all the  times you blacked out from brain melting pleasure just from me cumming  side you. Hard to be intimidated by the intellect of someone you've made  drool all over themselves after you left them a twitching mess."

"Must you take every shred of my dignity?" She said in faux wounded pride.

That  got another laugh from me. "Only when you're good. Anyway, Warlock's  Daughter, is that some kind of catchy villain name or..."

"Sadly  not." She said grimly. "She's the adopted daughter of Johnny Warlock,  and she's extremely loyal. He brought her back and she basically does  whatever he says. Word around town is she calls him daddy in more ways  than one, but either way she isn't likely to make a move without his  say-so. Might be able to threaten him though. He's kind of a punk ass  bitch. Fused with some artifact for his powers, but they're low level.  He used to be a mob enforcer and not much has changed."

I  thanked her an hung up after checking how Thorn was doing (well) and  seeing if Jinx had been being good (she hadn't but Zee found it  amusing). "Alright." I said to Sindy. "We're heading into a club and  that dress is a bit old fashioned. You can keep it if you want, or I can  upgrade it into something more modern."

She grinned at me. "I'll keep it. I like the corpse princess look. Unless you think it's creepy?"

I  just rolled my eyes. "I don't mind the paleness, and you're a LIVING  lich." Though I would fuck a vampire, so I guessed the dead thing wasn't  a deal breaker. Learn something new every day. "The only kind of dead  I'm concerned about you being in bed is a dead fish." And not even that.  Her fucking magic pussy did all the work for her. She could lay there  and take it all night if she wanted. I just wasn't going to say that,  because it might set a bad precedent.

We got out of the  car and headed over to a nearby crypt. Knocking on the door as we'd been  told, the thing cracked open slowly, revealing a grinning skull on the  other side. "What's the password?"

I almost face palmed.  "If we didn't come here on purpose, a talking skeleton would have  probably scared us shitless. Is there even a point for asking for a  password?"

"I like the password." Said the skeleton in a  cockney accent. "So you can give it or go stuff yourself. I ain't such a  pissant I take guff from fuckin' vampires or their zombie sex dolls."  That surprised me, not just because of the implication of power, but  that he noticed Sindy was mine and not the other way around. Celeste  hadn't, but old vampires tended to miss details from what I'd been told.  Something about the timescale.

"Undertakers Delight." I intoned blandly, and the skeleton cackled, throwing the door open wide.

"Well  why didn' you just say so? Get your dead arses in here and party."  Sindy went first, floating through the door as her demiliches (somehow  much smaller now) orbited around her. I nodded at the mouth bag of bones  and followed her in.

The inside of the crypt was...not a  crypt. It was the club itself. I'd been expecting another staircase, not  a pocket dimension, but it was pretty cool either way.

We  didn't bother dancing or looking around the plush gothic interior. We  had business to get to. We got directions to where Warlocks Daughter was  drinking and then headed over to plop down in front of her. "Darla  Aquista?" I asked.

She looked up, blue eyes searching, and  I noted that she was probably a little buzzed, but not enough to impede  her because her eyes cleared after a second. Just that edge of slightly  wasted that slows you down a bit without actually affecting your  ability to think. "Whose asking?" She said in an annoyed voice.

I  flicked out the note with the address. "Lady Celeste." I didn't see her  old man around, which could be annoying if she really needed permission  to talk to us. "We were hoping to ask you about some local history.  Well, local before the cities combined. Gotham stuff."

She  looked bored, but she read over the note, clearly seeing something I  hadn't (though to be fair I hadn't really looked). She sighed. "My dad  will need to fill you in. I'm not supposed to give out magical  information. Might give someone an advantage. Still, I like Celeste, so I  can put in a good word for you at least."

I expected her  to lead us to a secret basement or something, but she just slipped a  phone out and fired off a few texts. Then she went back to nursing her  drink and ignored us.

After a few minutes, a man appeared.  Bright orange glowing eyes and a t shirt with a sharp toothed smiley  face on it made me pretty sure he didn't work in the kitchens, and a  quick appraisal told me everything else I needed to know. Johnny Warlock  was F rank, though his 'daughter' was E. Explained why he kept such a  tight leash on her at least.

He glared down at me. He had a  block face that had probably been intimidating at once point, but age  had softened it around the edges. The receding hairline of his ponytail  didn't especially help with the past his prime look, but he seemed to be  in good shape at least. He tried to look over me, but it didn't work as  well as he was clearly hoping. Mostly he just looked silly.

"Heard  you need some info." He grunted, in a voice that sounded suspiciously  deep for someone of his build. I was pretty sure he was purposefully  making himself sound scarier, which kind of made it hard not to laugh,  but I managed.

"Yeah." I said calmly. "We're looking for  information on a pool that used to be in Gotham. Probably in a  cathedral. Regeneration properties and tons of magical energy. Got  swallowed by during a quake." Even a prior location for the thing would  mean we could use landmarks to figure out where it might be now. It  wouldn't be perfect, but combined with the map it should be enough to  find the spot.

"What are you  paying?" He sneered. His condescending expression was honestly the last  straw for me. This guy annoyed me. The girl annoyed me. Having to  pretend to be a minion annoyed me, and all this annoyance was quickly  reminding me that I didn't have to deal with shit like this. This place  was a pocket dimension full of dark magic users, which meant no League  poking their nose into my business.

I  made a considering sound, then blurred forward and grabbed him by the  back of the head, slamming his skull into the table. Darla tried to  react, but Sindara's demiliches got on the way, growing to full size  quickly. "I'm sorry." I said in a saccharine voice. "You're right. It's  rude to ask for information without offering compensation. So here's my  generous offer. You tell me what I want to know, and your skull  maintains its current shape. Decide not to, and, well..." I trailed off,  locking my fingers around his head and squeezing.

This  was perhaps a bit forceful, but since I was in my mask people here  could recognize me as Mammon. Playing lackey for Celeste was fine since  the dead down there wouldn't know me, but this place was full of people  who might actually spread my name around. If I let it get out that I got  bullied by some punk bitch like Johnny Warlock, I'd never live it down.  Not that I cared about my reputation as more than a tool, but it cut  down on how many bodies I had to drop to be taken seriously, which in  turn kept the capes off my back.

Johnny  made a high pitched keening sound. "Fuck! Stop! I'll tell you whatever  you want, just don't fucking hurt me." I shot him a disappointed look.  That was just sad. Like folding under pressure from a stronger villain  was common sense, but have some dignity man.

Still,  it worked for me. "Ok. Talk." I squeezed a bit. "And get to the point,  my hand is feeling twitchy." I didn't want to be here all night.

"The  Order of Saint Dumas!" He said in a panic. "They were part of the  Knights Templar but the parted ways because their methods were too  extreme. They showed up in Gotham a few decades ago and wiped out a  branch of some bullshit cult. They took over the church the cult was in  charge of for a while before the place got swallowed by an earthquake,  but they were still around last I heard. I don't know about a pool, but  they got access to some weird magical catalyst. Used it to turn a bunch  of their assassins into supernatural warriors."

That  wasn't a landmark, but it was a lead. I rolled my eyes, letting him go.  "Alright. Fine." He turned on me with a rage filled expression but  froze when he saw two of my claws in front of his eyes. "Stop." I said.  "Don't do that. I just left you alive. Don't throw away your life in  some misguided attempt to reclaim your honor or whatever nonsense you're  thinking. I subdued you easily and I can do it again. Let it go or I'll  murder you. Is that understood?"

He swallowed and nodded heavily, and I stood up. "Well then, we'll be on  our way. Enjoy your night." We headed back out to the car and I slid  in, shooting a text to Zee to look into the Order. I hated jumping  through hoops. Chain quests were the worst. Oh well, whatever. I had  other ways to relieve my stress. I grinned at Sindy. "Lets get home.  That ass is mine tonight." Thank the gods for my reflexes, made running  all those red lights much easier.