Everyone looked at him. Phoenie was still struggling to find the words Theseus had stolen from her.

“Dude, you’re gonna blow them up?” said Joel, with perhaps a little too much excitement creeping into his voice.

“Not quite,” said John, “They’d just label us as terrorists if we did that. The explosives were in case we needed to break anyone out. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t have enough to affect their infrastructure,”

Theseus grumbled.

“Exactly!” continued Phoenie, making the most of the opportunity before he could butt in again, “We rescue the captives and, while we’re there, obtain secret Godhand documents to destroy their popular standing in the town council, and among the general population!”

“What secret documents?” asked Doyle.

“They have secret documents?” asked Joel.

“Of course they have secret documents!” said Phoenie, smirking.

John coughed to return attention to his logical explanations. “Well, to be more accurate, they have secrets per se, according to Amanda. Phoenie asked her to infiltrate the group and she’s had a run around of the manor. Seems the whole organisation has a tiered membership structure that you don’t find out about until they’ve ensnared you. Pretty nasty stuff,”

“All we need to do is expose their corrupt practises to the public and they’ll be finished!” said Phoenie, refusing to let John have all the credit.

“And you think they’ll just let us go ahead and do this?” asked Doyle, arms crossing (as the depth of the mission began to ensnare his shallow mind, no doubt).

“They’re extremely paranoid of technology,” said John, “That’s our main advantage. Their security is terribly primitive: no cameras, detectors, scanners or even computer locks. On the other hand, we have access to a whole range of equipment and supplies. Infiltrating that place should be easy,”

“Too easy,” muttered the ever-pessimistic Dante.

“Yeah, I thought so too,” said Theseus, “Thought ‘Hey, it it’s that easy, why ain’t someone done it already?’ But these guys say it’s not as simple as that,”

“Godhand doesn’t need physical security,” explained Andromeda, “It already has fear on its side: fear of the Inquisition and the Patriarchs. There are stories of entire family trees being wiped out, and of whole towns being razed, just because someone or another attempted to cross them. And even if those are just exaggerated rumours, they’re still enough to install fear in the general populace,”

“Yeah, I mean, there’re enough people out there who believe in demons!” said Theseus, casting his eyes towards Phoenie (but one day she’d prove him wrong!).

Doyle was looking pensive, his brow furrowed (was he thinking about how best to impress Andromeda? Didn’t he realise she was chaste by choice?!) “So, you say we gotta march across town like an army?” he said, “Don’t you think they’ll notice us before we get there?”

It would have worked better with just the four of us, thought Phoenie.

“We could always ask Chris Shaw if he’d drive some of us over?” suggested Doyle, “Could use his car to carry equipment too…”

“Yeah, like Chris is ever going to agree to this!” said Theseus (talking sense for once! Shaw would never agree to help them…”

Elone Kent, who had remained a silent mystery to Phoenie up until this point, stepped forward, caressing a strand of her over-dyed hair with bony fingers.

“I can make him agree…”

***

Chapter 16
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