Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

pay! In blood!"
    "My dad's going to kill me!" said Damien. He sounded like he might burst into tears at any moment.
    "Shut up!" said Belial. "Just shut up!" He darted over to the pew and grabbed the priest with the bruised face, hauling him out into the aisle. He stuck his gun against the priest's head. "I take him to the door, and tell them to bring us a car, right now., or I blow his head right off! You see how fast they bring us a car then!"
    "No," said Angelo quickly. "That's not going to happen." All three devils looked at him, drawn by the cold surety in his voice. "You shoot anyone, and they'll storm the place. Orders from Above. They won't allow the Hellfire Club to have a victory on Madraguda."
    "But we're not real Hellfire Club!" said Moloch.
    "You kill a priest, you might as well be," said Angelo.
    Moloch sat down suddenly on the floor, his gun pointing nowhere. "I can't believe this is happening. It was just supposed to be a laugh! Give us something to talk about ... I was an altar boy, for Christ's sake!
    I don't believe in any of that Hellfire Club shit!"
    "Shut up," said Belial.
    "You shut up!" said Moloch. "This was all your idea! I don't want to die ... I don't want to go to Hell. . ."
    "They put us in jail, you'll know what Hell is like," said Belial savagely. "End up with some big cellmate wanting you to be his girlfriend! You want that? Then shut up, and let me do what I have to, to get us out of here." He glared at Angelo. "They sent you in here to scare us. You'd tell us anything, any lie, to scare us into giving ourselves up. Well, screw that shit! We're accessories to murder. I know what that means.
    No slap on the wrist and a fine my dad can pay. Murder means hard time, long time, and I'm damned if I'll sit still for that. Not over a bloody accident. . ."
    "Damned," said Damien. "We're all damned . . ."
    "Will you shut up!" shrieked Belial. "Let me think! Come on, priest; we're going to talk to the cops. And you'd better pray they say all the right things ..."
    The disrupter blast tore half his head away. Belial rocked on his feet, and then turned round slowly, half his face gone, his hair on fire. Damien was still pointing the gun at him. Belial tried to say something, and then he fell dead to the floor. The priest stood looking down at him. Moloch, still sitting on the floor, raised his gun to point it at the priest. Damien cried out, but his gun was empty. The priest ran forward and kicked Moloch in the face. The devil fell backwards, the gun flying from his pink hand. The priest kicked him in the ribs, and then in the head, kicking him again and again, all the time shouting, "You're damned, you little bastard! Damned for all time!"
    Angelo walked past him, and took the gun away from Damien, who was sobbing heavily now, his fat frame shaking. "It was an accident, honest," he said indistinctly. "I don't want to go to Hell . . ."
    The other priest got up from the pew and went over to stop the first priest from kicking the crap out of the semiconscious Moloch. He sat the first priest down in a pew, and then looked back at Angelo. "You have to excuse Father Saxon. He's very upset. They urinated in the font, defecated on the altar, destroyed precious relics. And when he remonstrated with them, they hit him. Laughed at him. He's not normally like this."
    "No one needs to know," said Angelo. "We can fix this mess, if we all get our stories straight. We'll blame it all on Belial. He's dead, and can't deny anything. So he killed Hendricks, and hurt Moloch.
    Everyone else gets a fresh start. Yes?"
    Damien looked at him, tears streaming down his face. "You mean it, man? Why would you do something like that, for me?"
    "Because in the end, you stopped Belial. You did the right thing."
    Angelo turned his back on them all, and headed for the main doors. He needed to get out into the rain again. So it could wash him clean.
    'Damn," said Brett. "You mean the official version's a pack of lies? You didn't manage to talk them down? That devil didn't commit suicide because of your eloquence?"
    "It made a good story," said Angelo. "And afterwards, I joined the Church because I saw the power of its beliefs. Reason wasn't enough anymore. I saw that. But with the Church's beliefs backing my words, I could make people do the right thing . . . The media took the story and ran with it, exaggerating it out of all recognition. They made me a Saint. I think there was a shortage at the time . . . and I rode the publicity