Shoot Your Shot

Chapter 20

Arackniss shifted a bit to get more comfortable and readied himself to listen to the story. He would decide at the end whether or not he believed it. "Lucifer came to me, and hired me to find the real Overlord of Drugs and Recreation. I took the job for a few reasons, the first, it's Lucifer and you don't say no when he offers you something like that." He couldn't argue with that, honestly. "Secondly, I thought it would be easy. I thought it would be incredibly simple, because all I had to do was gather evidence that Henroin was the Overlord and hand it over." Looking over his shoulder, he looked up at his lover in slight shock. "Yeah, I didn't believe for a second that there was anyone else, just like everyone else in Hell. When we were talking about the job, he insisted and I even tried to talk him out of it. It didn't seem fair to just... take it from him like that, but he wouldn't take no for an answer, so I said yes." He shrugged and sighed. "We wrote up the contract that he sent you a copy of, and there were only two copies made, one for me and one for him. So I knew the moment I saw that you had it who told you. We wrote up the contract with the idea in my head that the answer would be "It's Henroin." And then I started."

"Started watching us." Pentious grimaced and nodded slowly.

"I needed more information about everyone, which, by the way, was a bitch and a half at best. I've told you what I found for you and the answer is; nothing. I found most of the information on your sister Molly, and there were rumors about your brother, but not much all around. So I needed more than that, and that's when the spying came into it. I had Gregory place bugs and cameras all over, but he hadn't been able to get in here." He motioned all around them. "So, just so you know, your bottom floor is pest proof, but everywhere upstairs is just easy access for them." He made a mental note about that. "Point is, I watched and listened for two months and the only information I got that entire time was that Henroin was the Overlord." In the beginning, it had been an open and close case for Pentious, is what he was hearing. "It wasn't supposed to end like this. It was supposed to last for a month or two at best and then... you caught me." He smiled and tilted his head. "When you clearly addressed me in that call, I knew something was... off. That was the first time I started to suspect that Henroin might be a cover. But when I thought about it more, it just seemed silly, to have some of the conversations you and your father had, if you were the Overlord. Remember, this was before I knew you were his son." Arackniss cringed.

"He usually only calls me Al on the phone. To the rest of Hell I'm Arackniss, to my Family I will always be Alejandro." Another nod from his lover.

"So I was under the impression you were someone else. And then I came in and I met you for the first time and I just..." He shook his head and laughed under his breath. "I fell head over heels for you. The more time we spent together, the more I got to know you, the more I knew I loved you. All while still under the impression that, if your father wasn't the Overlord it was someone completely different." He grimaced and shook his head. "I didn't realize it was you until it was too late. Then Lucifer pushed me to tell him, and snakes can't lie to Lucifer, you know that."

"So you told him the truth?" He shook his head again.

"No, I didn't. Normally, if I had even tried to lie to him before, it would have come out as gibberish, garbled and unrecognizable, but that day I heard a voice. A lot of voices, and something tells me Lucifer knows exactly what it was."

"What do you think it was?" Pentious bit his lip as he thought before looking him in the eyes.

"Would you believe me if I said Satan? It told me to lie to him, that it was okay if it meant protecting you. So I did." Shifting to face Pentious head on, he stared at him in shock.

"You lied to Lucifer?" He nodded.

"I told him that all of the evidence proved that Henroin was the Overlord and there was no one else." He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Mostly, he felt more foolish than ever. He'd received the copy of the contract and hadn't let Pentious explain himself in his anger. Instead, he'd not only dumped him, he'd shot at him and cursed him. "And I didn't get a chance to talk to you about it before he sent you the copy."