“I have no quarrel with you celestials today.” He patted his stomach. “Anger makes me hungry, and I believe both of those issues have been resolved. What is it you people like to call it these days, when you’re experiencing both? Hangry? How droll. But, you know, I could use some dessert.”
My hand flexed and clenched. I lifted my gauntlet. “Can’t eat if I knock all your teeth out, Uncle Bub.”
He laughed again. “How touching. You remember our first meeting, then. Very cute of you to call me uncle. So familial, especially here with your true father.” He cradled his chin in one hand, tapping a finger against his cheek. “But something appears to be missing in this lovely family portrait. What could it be. Hmm. Who could it be?”
I rushed forward, but Samyaza yanked me back so hard he could have ripped my arm off if I hadn’t stopped. “Get fucked, Beelzebub. We’re going to find my mother, and we’re going to make you pay for taking her.”
“Big words for someone who can’t even find a stray nephilim,” Beelzebub said, picking his teeth with his pinky finger, like something was caught there, as if he had tasted every last thing his buzzing children had eaten. “I know there’s one around here somewhere, but I have so much to do today. So much on the agenda.”
He clasped one hand around his throat, raised his head to the ceiling, and made a high-pitched ululation that made the walls of the dimension shudder. The vibrations stopped as soon as he went silent.
Sadriel spoke in a shaken voice. “What have you done, demon filth?”
Beelzebub grinned, his teeth jagged and sharp, like those of a shark. “None of your business, bureaucrat. But very well. If you must know, I am doing the work you couldn’t finish yourself. I have alerted my offspring. I am sparing your lovely nephilim the grisly fate of being butchered alive.”
She raised her chin. “Why would you do that?”
He parted his hands. “Why, to save them for myself, of course. This Hunger nonsense must end. I confess, this internet invention of yours has been beneficial for many us in the Seven. Social media alone accounts for why the Prince of Pride is still the most powerful among us.” He sighed, raising his head to the ceiling again. “Who could have imagined that selfies would be the key to cementing Lucifer’s status? But I digress. The Hunger must be dealt with. They’ve taken my name in vain, and they’ve wasted fine nephilim flesh.”
“You’re a fucking monster,” I shouted.
“Enough of this bullshit,” Artemis said, a hail of arrows flying over my shoulder just as soon as she finished speaking. Apollo blasted them with a ray of sunlight, catching every arrow on fire, and they flew screaming for Beelzebub, a volley of fiery, flaying death.
Beelzebub wavered as he divided himself into flies once more, Artemis’s arrows barely grazing the insects that made up his corporeal form. They thudded into the far wall, the holes in Beelzebub’s body already closing up as the flies reassembled and restored his human shape.
“I would love to play games, little god and goddess, but as I mentioned, there is so much work that needs to be done.” He looked around again, sighing. “It truly is a shame that I won’t have time to locate the nephilim that’s hiding here. Pity. Well, there’s always more where that came from.”
He snapped his fingers. The temperature shot up several degrees as fires appeared in every corner of the freezer, burning without fuel, and yet eagerly consuming all matter within reach. Food, broken furniture, or corpses, it didn’t matter. Hellfire, especially the kind summoned by Gluttony himself, voraciously consumed everything.
“No,” Sadriel shouted. Samyaza broke off from our group with Florian at his heels, running deeper into the freezer.
“We’re going to kill you for this,” I told Beelzebub. “I swear it. We’re going to save my mom, and we’re going to kill you for good.”
“If you say so, Mason Albrecht.” Beelzebub waved his hand over his mouth as he yawned. Cinders fell about him, and he faded away, disintegrating once again into a cloud of flies. “Come and fetch your mother. Invade my palace if you dare. Come and find me, nephilim.”
“I will, Beelzebub. I promise. I’ll see you in hell.”
20
The Lord of the Flies laughed, then erupted into a million pieces. The swarm of flies rushed us as quickly as bullets, shooting out the doors leading to Cornucopia and smashing the windows on its way back into Valero. The flies buzzed with Beelzebub’s laughter, leaving echoes in the freezer long after he’d gone.
Giant meat locker or no, the back of Cornucopia was heating up quick. “We’ve got to find the nephilim,” I shouted through cupped hands.
Stupidly I ran deeper into the room myself, but what choice did we have? Florian was off in one section, and the sounds of shelves being turned over probably meant that the twins were rummaging through another one. I caught up with Samyaza, who was running his hands across a wall.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He glared at me over his shoulder. “Checking for a panel. A secret door. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m sensing someone around here.”
I pointed at the wall. “Behind that?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “Fuck. I just feel them somewhere nearby. No time to do our ritual, either.”
The flames were licking higher, the heat turning up another couple notches. We were running out of time, and soon, probably oxygen, too. “Aren’t you supposed to be like some kind of walking, talking nephilim dowsing rod?”
Samyaza dropped his hands and shook his head, crestfallen. “Not exactly.”
“But I am.” Sadriel came running up to us, an impressive feat in stiletto heels. She pounded one fist against her chest. “Watch this.”
I wasn’t sure what “this” was meant to be exactly, until another slender instrument flew out of her pocket, a metal thing with a hinge that split into two legs and ended in
