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[b][u][center]The Bonds of Need

Chapter 8

For a-lycotonum

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

“So, they have two prisons for ‘exceptional’ individuals,” Katya muttered, tapping her fingers against the table. “That…complicates things. Particularly when we only have their names.”

Vitus nodded. For a mission where they were supposed to come back with actionable intelligence, they had gotten surprisingly little, even less than he had hoped for. Sure, they had names for the prisons, now, but that meant nothing if they didn’t know what the prisons were or where they were located. It was one thing to know that Robin was either in ‘The Moon-Hole’ or in ‘The Beast Pit,’ but it was another thing entirely to find them.

Piers hadn’t taken it well. The one-armed man sat at the edge of his bed, his head in his remaining hand as he took deep breaths, obviously trying to calm himself down. Vitus was honestly fairly proud of him; he wasn’t sure that he would have been able to take the lackluster update so well.

He looked around at the rest of the group. The Cinnas had yet to return from whatever they were doing, so there was no need to worry about them just yet. Neena had gotten dressed once more, hiding the results of their little excursion and her further changes, and leaned back against the wall near the door. Shereeza had her head down, squatting like the dog she was at the other side of the door, embarrassed and clearly looking to redeem herself. Piers was…Piers, and Katya took the center of the room, her fingers busily tapping away.

“We’ll have to narrow that down,” she eventually said, the old woman shaking her head. “Hopefully the merchants come back with good news.”

“We’re relying on a neurotic and a pervert,” Piers muttered. “We’re doomed.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Vitus said. “They’ve come through before.”

“For supplies. This…”

“…We’ll figure it out.”

“I failed her. I failed her harder than I ever could imagine. And I need to make it up to her.”

Vitus could only imagine the weight that Piers was carrying on his back. Ever since the truth had come out about his betrayal – intentional or not – he’d been quieter, focusing on the mission to the exclusion of all else. Whatever was going through his head, it was clear that he meant to make good on everything that had gone wrong.

He just hoped that it wasn’t too late.

The two names for the prisons didn’t help, either. If they’d been different, if they’d been more specific, perhaps they could have erased one of the names from the list and focused on finding the other, but it was too close. One for beasts, one for creatures that were affected by some form of were-disease. She could have fit in either one.

[i]It’s better than nothing,[/i] he told himself.

“We need to do something about her, though,” Katya said, interrupting his thoughts and gesturing at Shereeza. “Either you have to take hold of her better, or she will need a collar to control her.”

“I don’t want to –”

“Vitus. It isn’t about want anymore.”

He gritted his teeth, but slowly dropped his head in a nod of understanding.

“Good. We will take care of that tomorrow; for now, she stays at the inn where she can’t cause any further trouble. You and I will –”

Someone knocked at the door. Neena and Shereeza stiffened, narrowing their eyes at it, and Katya dropped one hand under the table. Vitus could feel the magic gathering around her fingers, ready to cast at a moment’s notice, and his lips pulled back in a toothy snarl before he forced it back down. Dragging the illusion of humanity over himself with the barest of successes, he took a deep breath and waved them all back, a gesture of patience.

“Come in.”

The door opened and they all breathed a sigh of relief. Marcus and Pollius Cinna had returned, and the latter had a wide grin on his gooey, slug-like face.

“Good news, then?” Vitus asked as the feeling of magic in the room disappeared.

“Very. Most fortuitous, as a matter of fact,” the oozing, pulsating Pollius said, laughing. “We have obtained personal invitations to the manor of one Durio Pulex.”

“The drug dealers,” Neena muttered under her breath. “Hardly a powerful family, compared to some of the others.”

“Ah, but we do not need power, do we?” Pollius chuckled. “Favors, favors, my dear, that’s where the power [i]we[/i] need is located. And let’s not forget that we’ve been in town, dealing with stress for [i]so[/i] long now. We need a night out, and the Pulex family is never anything less than satisfying.”

Vitus arched an eyebrow as he glanced at Katya out of the corner of his eye. Before the older woman could answer, however, Neena rolled her eyes and pushed back.

“The Pulex family are drug dealers, beholden to an infernal Duke and stuck in a loop of service, addiction, and ambition. They literally can’t get out of it because the minute that they get [i]any[/i] success, the head of the family thrusts them back into poverty due to his own addictions at the time. And their Duke, Al’gan? He’s as asinine as his species, prone to braindead decisions purely for the sake of pleasure. Devil he might be, but an intelligent patron, he fucking isn’t.”

The whole room went quiet as all eyes turned slowly to Pollius and Katya. The older woman smiled slightly, while Pollius sputtered.

“She is surprisingly close,” Katya said, “though better informed than I was about the name of his patron. I assumed it was something equine, considering the stories of the family, but that is the first time that I’ve had it confirmed.”

“Not all of us rely on books and demons for information, old woman,” Neena huffed.

“Still, that’s worth knowing. And Pollius?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, madam?” the oozing man asked.

“We will be taking that invitation. But let’s try and keep any further transformations of yours to a minimum, shall we?”

“[i]Please,[/i]” Marcus all but whimpered behind his husband.

“But –”

“At any rate. Vitus. You and Neena will accompany Pollius to the manor, and attend whatever gathering they’re holding in the inner city.”

“Barely worth calling it that,” Neena muttered.

“Regardless, it is still within the walls, and they will have people that are slumming it for the night there,” Katya said, shaking her head. “And they will probably have information. Not as much as we might wish, but information. And someone like the Pulex family will also have a library…and perhaps a library that will tell us more than just the whereabouts of these prisons in Egorian…”

It was a hint that nearly went over his head, but Vitus caught the edge of his former professor’s stare as she said it. He remembered the tapestry back at the abandoned manor and the truth about his family. If there was a place that might hold further information on that dragon, if there was a way to track down where the Leontinas got their power and how he might use it for his own purposes, then the Pulex library would be a good place to start looking for it.

“When do we go?” Vitus asked.

“Oh, well, the invitation is for an hour past sundown, but I was thinking two hours,” Pollius said. “Arriving fashionably late and all that.”

“We’ll leave at sundown, then,” Neena said.

“…I’ll side with Neena on that one,” Vitus agreed.

“But –”

“We need as much time as we can get at the mansion if we’re going to find what we’re looking for, and arriving a bit earlier means that there’ll be less eyes on us further on. Arriving late means that everyone will be staring at us as soon as we come through the door.”

“Exactly!”

“That’s the point that I want to avoid, Pollius. I mean…come on. I know that you want to show off, but we don’t. You can ignore your urges for a few hours, can’t you?”

“…”

“Can’t you?”

“He’ll try,” Marcus interrupted. “I’ll get him ready. You just start planning. It’s going to be a long, long night.”

As the Cinnas bustled out of the room – mostly due to Marcus shoving his husband through the door – the rest of the group leaned back. Vitus shook his head, and Neena grumbled into her hand. It was Piers, however, who broke the silence.

“You are going to need back-up.”

“No doubt, but I don’t think that you’re going to be able to sneak through the wall with us,” Vitus muttered under his breath.

“You would be surprised. You are posing with him as a nobleman, correct?”

“…That probably would be the better disguise, but –”

“Do you know how to carry yourself as a nobleman?”

“No, but –”

“He’ll have to learn. Good point,” Neena said, shaking her head. “And a nobleman is going to have to have at least one servant to be believable. Footman?”

“I was thinking something like that. Someone that could be left at the door, someone that could keep an eye on things and be trusted with his ‘master’s’ gear, someone that wouldn’t be questioned staying outside.”

“And someone that nobody would assume a threat with your missing arm.”

“I was [i]avoiding[/i] that point…but yes.”

The way that they just walked as if it was already decided left him more than a little uncomfortable, but every point that they raised was one that Vitus couldn’t immediately argue. As he tried to find some way to argue against one, they brought up another, and then another, and another, and by the time that he had a half-decent reason to disagree, they’d already solved that issue and moved on to another.

He stepped away, letting them solve the problem, and sat down at the table. Katya chuckled.

“Not used to it, are you?” she asked.

“Used to what? What just happened?”

“That is the nature of Pack,” Katya said, shaking her head as she turned her gaze back to Neena and Piers. “They are part of it, much as they wish otherwise. They have started to understand and respect you. Perhaps not consciously as their alpha, but to some extent as their leader. They understand that their survival lies with you, and what they want must come from you.”

“Neena still wants to kidnap me.”

“Perhaps. But something’s changed. You can feel it. The same with Piers.”

He turned to them again. Despite his annoyance, once he started pushing through the aura in the air, he could feel [i]something.[/i] There was a…a cord, for lack of a better term, connecting Piers and Neena to him. Piers had a stronger one than Neena did, but both of them had one, and both of them were pulsing ever so slightly. He cocked his head to the side as Katya whispered to him.

“That is their connection to you. They are unchanged, so far; neither of them are hounds, but they are slowly being pulled into your command, your orbit. They will follow as you command, and they will obey and prioritize you. They won’t even know it, but they will start to care, to push, to fight for you in a way that they never fought for themselves.”

“And this is…because of me?”

“Because of the Pack. Because of Melchiresa.”

“…You just had to ruin it, didn’t you?” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his face. “Goddamn that demon…”

“She is the only reason that you’re free, Vitus. Do not wish that one ill; Melchiresa has claim on your soul, and they will collect.”

He had little doubt of that. But still, he had hoped…

[i]Hope is nothing. Pack is everything.[/i]

Vitus sighed, rubbing his forehead as the Hellhound half of him spoke up, too. He would live with it. If it meant that it got him closer to saving Robin and getting them all out of Egorian alive, he would live with whatever he had to.

#

They were through the gates and walking through the streets of the inner city. When they were chasing Shereeza, he had been too bestial and too harried to get a good look at everything, but now? Now he saw the difference between the waterfront properties and what lay closer to the core.

It was night and day, with the night being more prevalent. Black stone soared overhead, looming and leaning in a strange, organic fashion over them, like the great fingers of devils thrust through the ground. Everywhere he looked, spires poked into the skyline, and the smaller buildings seemed to rustle and roll like the knuckles of giants buried below the ground. The buildings themselves were marked with red lines and Infernal sigils, burning through the low light of the evening.

Vitus could feel some of them burning as he came close to them, casting heat on his flesh, and he had to force himself to keep the fur from sprouting and the illusion whole. There was something in the Infernal writing that was reacting to the demonic hound in him, and it wanted to fight back, to growl and lash out. He kept that down, focusing on the illusion of a human that was handsome, a little rugged, and with as little scruff as possible.

Of course, that wasn’t entirely possible, as the long black hair with red streaks refused to shorten that much around his shoulders, but at least he could keep it from getting longer the way that it wanted to. He breathed slowly as they walked down the carved stone street, following Pollius while Piers brought up the rear. Neena remained at his side, whispering to him.

“The head of the family is Durio. He’s been running the Pulex for a while, keeping their alchemical labs running twenty-four hours a day to feed the drug needs for the entire lower half of the nobility. There’s not a family in Egorian that doesn’t have at least some tie to the Pulex family, even if it’s just to feed a habit that none of them will admit that they have.”

“None of them will publicly admit to, darling,” Pollius corrected.

“The same thing in this city.” Neena shook her head. “Durio’s old enough to start feeling the decline that Al’gan always inflicts on his followers. It starts out giving you the power and stamina of a donkey, letting you power through the day, not being affected by tiredness and the drugs that you’re taking in, but the more that you change, the more that you lose your edge. That beast side slowly comes with a cost to the mind, as well, and Durio is [i]really[/i] starting to lose that edge that let him rise to the top.”

“That’s good for us, right?” Vitus asked.

“Good in some ways, bad in others. If he shows himself to be too stupid, then one of his family members might try and displace him, and he won’t be sharp enough to catch it in time. The best we can hope for in that instance is his daughter being the one to supplant him.”

“Daughter? Egorian allows female heirs?”

“Long as they’re smart enough, and Arria is definitely that. If she could pull herself from her bed for more than a few hours a day, she’d be a menace on the political scene. Even so, she’s the keeper of scandals for more than a handful of the nobility.”

Vitus nodded, trying to store that information away properly. The more that he heard about the Pulex family, the more that he could understand Neena’s distaste for them, but he could also see why Katya thought that they would be useful.

After all, finding Robin didn’t rely on finding a powerful family that could break them into the prison. What they needed was someone with information, someone with connections that could point them in the right direction. While the Pulex family was perhaps a little too connected – and dangerously so for them, considering the need to flee when this was over – they were the most likely to have the information that the Pack needed. It was their best chance.

Pollius turned off the main road to a gate of black stone and blazing fire. The heat coming off the top of the stone arch was almost intolerable even in the wind that blew off the distant water, and he was sure that he wasn’t the only one sweating as they walked through. As they traversed the winding stone path through the ‘garden’ that occupied most of the grounds, Vitus could just barely make out the movements among the plants. At first, he thought that they served as hiding places for guards or other agents among the flora, but no. The plants themselves were moving, and every flower was edged with thorns…or teeth…

A shiver ran down his spine as they reached the edge of the many-dangered garden, climbing up the steps to the front door. Pollius’s slimy body left a slippery mess behind it as they followed him up, and Vitus shook his head as he offered Neena his arm.

“Just make sure that you introduce yourself properly,” the dark-skinned woman said as she leaned in close, hooking her arm with his. “And make sure that you do the same for Piers. The last thing that you want is for them to look at you twice.”

“Durio will anyway, won’t he?”

“Yes, but by that time, we’ll be inside. First, we have to get in.”

“Just leave that to me,” Pollius said, chuckling as he knocked on the door. “I’ve been here before, after all.”

Vitus took a deep breath as they waited on the steps of the manor. He felt completely out of place in his attire. Dark crimson led to black details in his suit, lines and flowers of deepest darkness spiraling out from the center line of the top to become yellow flower-flames in almost random places. The same crimson ran down his legs, eventually turning black just before reaching his boots, which were so dark that it was hard to tell the color. It was as infernal as one could get in terms of color, and the silk was luscious enough that it should go a long way towards proving his wealth.

Neena, on the other hand, was bedecked in a leather dress, looking almost more like a hired dom than anything else. She had a black belt around her middle, the red dress itself cut low in the front and wide at the waist to make her bottom half look bigger, and a small crop hung from her waist, almost like a lord might have carried a sword.

[i]We are such a pair,[/i] he thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. [i]Why did I think this would work?[/i]

Pollius knocked again and the door opened. Vitus had a split-second to see a copper-skinned face with dark hair framing it before their slimy guide was between him and the other woman, whispering something. Vitus held back on interrupting him, allowing Pollius to do his thing introducing them, but he couldn’t help but feel tense. The ways that this could go wrong were vast and myriad, and only one needed to happen.

The seconds ticked by before Pollius leaned to the side, exposing the woman in the house. She smiled, gold-tinged brown eyes looking down at him, and she chuckled as she tossed her head back.

“Pollius tells me that you’re a local lord that he picked up on his way to Egorian. May I have your name?” she asked, her voice almost a little ‘chirpy’ in tone.

“Of course. My name is Vitus Retorian. This is my concubine, the lady Mattas.”

“Charmed,” Neena said.

“Pleasant to meet you. I am Arria Pulex, and it is my honor to bid you welcome as guests of Pollius within my house. I hope that he’s already told you the way that things work within Pulex Manor?”

“Many drinks, and many parties,” Vitus said, affecting a smile that he did not feel.

“Mmm, indeed. And many, many ‘gatherings,’ heh. Perhaps I shall have the luck to have you myself, Mr. Retorian, if the night favors me. I’ve always had a thing for the tall, scruffy types, hehe.”

The way that she looked him up and down made him feel like a piece of meat, but he had expected that. She stood to the side, offering them entrance, and Vitus took the invitation as fast as he could, pushing through the doorway, only to pause and look over his shoulder.

“My footman, Pirien, will remain outside. He has been charged to keep an eye on things for us.”

“Ah. I was not told about this…”

“Well, it is a request of mine,” Vitus said, chuckling. “Please, would you see fit to honor it?”

“Well, let it not be said that the Pulex family is not generous, but I cannot promise that he can partake of the goods of the party.”

“That’s fine. He’s a eunuch, anyway.”

Piers didn’t bat an eyelash at the commentary, though Vitus hoped that it wasn’t taken too seriously. He was only going over what they had already agreed to say, though even he felt a little taken aback at how easy it was to talk like that.

But it worked. Arria smiled, giving him an understanding nod, and gestured for them to go further into the mansion. They did, and as soon as they were out of earshot, Vitus sagged and let loose a breath that he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding.

“That worked…I can’t believe that worked.”

“Keep your voice down. It worked, but we’re not done yet.”

Nodding, he kept his mouth shut as they walked down the entry corridor. The walls were just as dark inside as they had been outside, but here, they were lined with torches that burned with a cool white fire, the illumination glittering off the walls like firelight off obsidian. It danced in ghostly fashion down the corridor, interrupted by the occasional infernal statue or tribute to the Hells below. Each time he saw one, Vitus stared at it for a moment, having to fight down the visceral reaction of the Hellhound within that wanted to leap for the thing and destroy it.

The Archdevils were powerful, powerful beyond measure, but that didn’t mean that the demons that waged war against them were afraid to fight. Even now, his demonic side was growling, prowling inside of his head like a beast in a cage. It wanted to rip them down, to make a show against their power, but he had to hold back.

For just a little while, he told that other side. For just a little while, hold back.

They left the corridor behind and entered the great hall. The door led to a stairway that descended toward a pit of a room, where the floor was reflective black, feeling like some great emptiness that reflected a devilish version of the person that walked atop it. From where he stood, Vitus would have sworn that the people he looked at were illusions and the horned devils in the floor were the true selves. It was only when he, Pollius, and Neena reached the bottom of the stairs and only saw themselves that he was reassured that the floor was not magical, merely artistic.

“Pollius? Oh, Pollius, you old rascal. So you came, after all.”

A surprisingly jolly voice wrenched Vitus’s thoughts from the architecture. They turned to the source, a man with the same skin tone as Arria, but with a far broader body. His face was slightly chubby and his body stocky, filled out with muscle and perhaps a few other things, it was hard to tell. He walked with the purpose of someone that knew what they wanted, however, and his eyes, while dulled, were sharp enough for the moment.

When he stopped in front of them, though, Vitus could smell much on him. Not just the scent of alcohol and something more sensual – to the point where he wondered if Arria had been the result of some dalliance from another family – but the scent of a true devil upon the other man. There was something powerful there, something that had been given by the infernal duke’s direct touch rather than merely blessed upon him with a spell.

[i]This one is someone to watch…[/i]

“So, what brings you here tonight, Pollius? Looking for something to sell off with your husband later, or maybe you just want some good time with the horses again,” the other man said, chuckling.

“Oh, something more akin to the latter, though I wouldn’t say no to something to sell,” Pollius said with a laugh. “But before I dart off for some fun, let me introduce you to a new acquaintance of mine. This here is Vitus Retorian, and he has some business that you might be interested in.”

“Business? At a party? Pollius, you will be the death of my scant few hours of pleasure.”

“Business before pleasure, my dear Durio.”

“For all but you, you mean.”

“But of course; I paid my dues.”

“And I have not?”

“Darling, your devil patron paid them for you. All you pay is the interest. Haha. But I must be off. The stallions wait for nobody! Ah, but first, a trip to Arria for some of her delectable potions…”

And with that, he was alone with Neena and the head of the household. He looked at Durio again. The Lord of House Pulex was not the sort of powerhouse that he had imagined someone in charge of a hellish house should be. Oh, he had the thick-built body of someone that looked like they knew their way around a fight, but other than that, he looked scarcely different to someone that he might have met on the street. If it wasn’t for the scent of devil upon him, Vitus wasn’t sure that he would have believed this to be the head of the house.

“So, mister Retorian –”

“Lord Retorian, please,” Vitus said, chuckling. “I know we haven’t met, but let’s keep it on the right footing.”

“Heh, well, Lord Retorian. Welcome to one of many houses of sin,” Durio said, slowly turning in place. “The gods have abandoned us here in Cheliax for our many infernal ways, and may the gods be damned again and again for giving up their endless hope for us, heh. We will live and thrive however we may, no matter how many times our own devils bedevil and damn us in turn.”

He wasn’t entirely sober, that much was obvious, but there was something in his voice that held Vitus’s attention. There was…grief there, and more, something that was filled with regret. Could that be used? Maybe, possibly, but at the very least, it was something different to everyone else that had talked about their devils here in Cheliax.

Letting go of Neena, he leaned in. Durio leaned back, the other man smiling a rueful smile.

“What do you have for me, hmm? What business be this?”

“Business of the greatest sort, Lord Pulex. The business of ambition.”

“And what, pray tell, does your ambition have to do with mine?”

“Advancement, of course, for what else matters?”

“More than you know, young man, more than you know. But advancement is a fine enough conversation. What would you offer?”

“The details of a greater family that has since scorned you, Lord Pulex. And the chance to show them the error of their ways.”

He could all but feel the pleasure coming off the other man. He could certainly smell it; Durio’s reactions were incredibly physical, and his satisfaction manifested itself as an erection, a throbbing, twitching one that was already pushing the other man’s suit forward in the crotch.

“Oh, ho, we should hear more of this. But not here. Come with me. The library should do for this.”

Check and check. Vitus offered his arm to Neena, and they followed the older noble.

It didn’t take long to reach the library. For someone whose business was drugs and their dispensing, Vitus hadn’t had much hope for a large collection, but Durio surprised him. The chemist lord’s library stretched further than his eye could see, and while it was nothing compared to the great library of the Arcanamirium or what Lord Brundir had at his disposal, it was far greater than he had anticipated of a local lord. It spread toward a wall nearly fifty feet away, with row upon row of books that begged to be read. Vitus’s eyes opened wide as he took it all in, only for them to fall on Durio again as the older man sat down at a small desk near the first row.

“Now, what is this about advancement, hmm? And what, pray tell, brings you to my door for it? Payment, perhaps?”

“No. In fact, I must confess, I am weak enough to have to ask you for a favor.”

“A favor? From me? Oh, you have poor taste in allies for that, heh.” Durio chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. “But I’ll indulge you. What kind of favor would you ask me for?”

“The favor of finding an informant of mine. One that was taken into one of the…special prisons for what she knows.”

“…So, the Hellknights are involved, then?”

Vitus nodded. That sobered Durio up, or at least, it kept him from chuckling quite as much. His smile, however, did not die off. If anything, it grew more keen, more insidious. The thick-shouldered man waved Vitus closer, leaning forward against the desk.

“You want my help in…what, precisely? Getting her out?”

“Ideally, but I’ll settle for finding where she is,” he said, taking a seat with Neena behind him. “There’s a number of things that I can manage on my own, but they all require that first little bit of knowledge.”

“Ah, and you want my help because I know everyone.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I do, I do,” Durio said, shaking his head. “No thanks to – mmm, oh, no, no, no. I’m not quite so far gone as to curse him. Not yet, not yet. I still care to keep my head on my shoulders, I do.”

Not sober, then, but certainly interested. Interested enough to listen to something crazy, and intoxicated enough to not be on top of his game. That was a good place for them to start. Neena’s hands dug into his shoulders as he leaned forward.

“I want to make you a deal. My informant has a great deal of information on a great many families, some of them quite a bit higher up than the one that has slighted you. I believe that we both stand to gain a great deal if I can get her out of prison, but I need that little bit of help from you. Grant me a little time to peruse what you know, and I’ll make sure to pay you back after that’s done.”

“Mmm, that’s quite the demand with [i]them[/i] involved. You believe that you can handle that?”

“I have once before.”

“And you survived. By running, I’m sure, haha!”

“…”

“I joke, I joke…but it is remarkable that you’re still here. You have met them, I can tell that much. And you are capable. But for such an undertaking as this…”

It was a good night to meet Durio, because he was so out of it that Vitus could see every thought passing over his face. Concern and self-preservation warred with greed and anger, and the latter slowly won out. The older man made a show of thinking about it, extending their time in silence for a short while longer, before finally offering his hand.

“You will stay here, overnight, and tomorrow morning, we will discuss terms. And a contract.”

“I expected nothing less, Lord Pulex.”

“Then shake on it. I look forward to doing business with you, Lord Retorian.”

Vitus took the older man’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze. The lord chuckled as he stood up and walked out, doubtlessly feeling like he had just gained something truly valuable. Vitus, on the other hand, remained where he was, taking a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. When Durio’s footsteps faded, Neena whistled to herself.

“Not bad. Could have been better, but not bad.”

“It’s a start.”

“I’m…surprised that you listened to me. You actually paid attention to everything I said.”

“Well, you know what you’re talking about. Of course I’m going to listen.”

The look on Neena’s face said everything. Clearly, Lord Brundir had never told her anything like that. He wondered just how the aasimar had ever gained her loyalty.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Vitus and the others make plans for getting into a mansion for further information.

Tags: No Sex, Infiltration, Human, Hellhound, Various Hidden Species, Devil, Demon, Fantasy, Series, Implied Sex,