Wish upon the Stars chapter 906

“So what exactly is this ‘lead’ you found for us?” I asked Devlan after we finished our negotiations. As soon as we were done he hurried us outside and we all piled into a car he had waiting. The back was spatially expanded, and after climbing in, I couldn’t help but wonder if this car used an infinity crystal. I hadn’t known they existed for so long, but who knew how many infinity crystal based buildings I’d been inside without even realizing.

Devlan smiled, withdrawing a bottle of wine from under his cloak, then popped the cork and poured himself a glass, taking a long sniff. “You mentioned looking for the external connection to someone named Wendell inside the fortress. Coincidentally, by the way, Wendell appears to have suffered a terrible and mysterious death recently. I don’t suppose any of you had anything to do with that?”

“I heard someone say he was anemic,” I said with a straight face. “Maybe he had an attack.”

“An attack…of anemia.” He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I wasn’t aware anemia attacks were a possibility.”

I nodded solemnly. “Yeah, they’re pretty rare. Very mysterious.”

“Some people are saying that he may have come across…a Vampire.” He said casually, his eyes searching my mask (which was pretty pointless, my expression was LITERALLY a block of wood).

I shrugged. “I heard Vampires don’t exist. Seems like a convenient thing to blame your problems on.”

“Vampires DEFINITELY exist,” he snickered. “But yes, plenty of locals have made the same intuitive leap. Besides, I suspect we would all know if it was a Vampire. I’ve heard they’re horribly unhygienic. Bad breath, greasy hair, and they never bathe.”

“HEY, yes we do!” Bethy snapped angrily. Then she froze, her mouth slamming shut with a loud clack as her eyes widened in horror.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. “Godsdamn it Bethy.”

“Yes, she’s a Vampire,” Callie said with an eye roll. “Now you know, don’t tell anyone. Now can you PLEASE tell us what the damned lead is?”

“Right,” he said with an embarrassed chuckle. “Apologies, got a bit distracted. The only connection Wendell had was a winery. Shadow Creek vintners in the midcity. He apparently had a special arrangement with the winery owner. Despite being so insular, supplies are of course a necessity inside the fortress. They have regular shipments inside, though they go through comprehensive searches and quality checks.”

I froze. Winery. The Void taint had been embedded inside the wine Wendell had been offering people, and his power had been wine based. Plus, if the Void taint could be spread to help with his power, it could also be spread to help alter the disposition of the locals. Enough of that stuff getting out would make harvesting more Void taint simple.

My eyes met Callie’s, and she nodded. We were on the same page, the winery was the perfect place for a Void infiltration to spread from. I nodded gratefully to Devlan. “Sounds like a good lead, thanks man.” Having thanked him, I scanned our party for this little trip again.

Our core group this time was mostly the same. Bethy, Abel, Callie and I. But this time Belsara and Animal had come with us too. Having another candidate along was useful, and Belsara was much stronger than Nat. Animal, I was beginning to think was much more connected to Devlanthan had previously been apparent. In fact, I was sure of it. I remembered that he’d made a comment when we’d first met about “loving to talk to someone with a brain” that almost perfectly mirrored one Devlan had made earlier.

Beyond that, he was a dangerous person, and would probably be useful to have around. Bethy seemed to recognize him as a peer, which was…terrifying, really. The closest I’d seen to that was the way she treated Abel, and even that was more of a teasing little sister vibe than genuine acknowledgement.

“So, what did you get up to while we were committing grand larceny?” I asked him wryly. “Haven’t seen you much since we arrived.”

He shrugged. “Visiting old friends. While I was never permitted to move up to Yettin, lots of people I know have come here. Some were happy to see me, some not so much.” He grinned, exposing teeth that were suddenly far too numerous and VERY sharp. “The ones who weren’t welcoming needed some lessons in manners.”

“What, they didn’t accept your invitation to have them for dinner?” Abel said with a snicker.

“As mentioned, I don’t eat humans,” Animal pointed out patiently. “I just informed them that their abandonment hurt me. It only seemed reasonable to ensure they understood the pain they’d caused. Words hurt.”

I snorted. “Do they hurt more than those scary ass teeth?”

“Sometimes,” Bethy said brightly. “Daddy used to have a friend who could talk people to death. He would be like “FOOL” and the sound would like break their bones and stuff. I haven’t seen him in a while though. Daddy said he was too loud so he stopped having him over.”

I hummed with interest. “Noted,” I said after a moment. “But since Animal doesn’t strike me as the “words of death” type, I’m figuring he probably just kicked their asses in a more direct fashion.”

“I did,” he admitted with a shrug. “Regardless, aside from some genuine conversation, I refilled my coffers a bit. They were nice enough to compensate me for my emotional damages.” We all laughed as the car finally came to a stop.

The drive hadn’t taken as long as I’d expected, or at least it didn’t feel long. It was highly possible I just got distracted chatting with my friends. Climbing out of the car, I carefully inspected the area, determined to internalize as much as I could. I even triggered Dantalion as I scanned the space around us.

We were on a hill, to my surprise. I hadn’t seen any inside the city until now, but sure enough, a large emerald ridge was just sitting on a plot of land mid city. The winery itself was strangely homey, with a squat wooden construction, a red gabled roof, and trellises of wine grapes interspersed along the walls and throughout the yard in front of it.

“Well, this doesn’t look like a den of evil,” I pointed out. “Or does that make MORE likely to be one? Blending in and all?”

Ignoring me, the group headed up the hill, reaching the sturdy looking banded wood door surprisingly slowly. I was pretty sure the entry path was spatially expanded, because we’d walked further than it had looked like we were going to. When we finally arrived, I rapped lightly on the wood, and it opened after a moment to reveal a small, dark haired man with a monocle and a bushy mustache. “Yes? May I help you?” He asked, in a tone that made it clear he wanted to do literally ANYTHING but help us.

I glanced at Devlan. We weren’t the ones who found this place and I had no clue what our plan for entry was.

“We’re here to take the wine tour,” Devlan said snidely. “Can you ‘help’ with that?”

While bushy stache had definitely been snarky to us, when he spotted Devlan, his spine straightened and he seemed to change into a different person. Gone was the derisive help opening the door for peasants.  Now he seemed excited and eager to be of service. “Of COURSE, sir,” he gushed. “Please, come in. Might I ask what vintage you’re considering for your contract? We have tours for each of our departments. Red, white, rose, and even sparkling.”

“Red,” I answered quickly. The wine Wendell had offered had been red, so if there was Void taint here it was probably in that section of the winery. 

At his acidic glance, Devlan sighed and repeated. “Red. We would like a tour of the red wine facilities. We’d also like to speak to your vintners. If I’m going to be stocking a vintage I like to know the quality of the people brewing it.”

This seemed suspicious to me, but the monocle guy didn’t even blink. From context, I gathered Devlan had brought us here as customers, looking to acquire large amounts of wine for The High Society club. I imagined lots of people in town knew Devlan, considering he was supposed to be one of the key players in town, and I was sure this visit would be a dream come true for most distributors.

Given The High Society’s involvement in supply chains, it wasn’t even out of character for them to acquire a large amount of wine. This was an objectively brilliant cover for an investigation, and I shot Devlan a nod of appreciation as the monocle guy (whose name was apparently Cranston) led us further into the building towards the wing where they made the reds.

The interior of the winery looked…kind of like a hunting lodge. Lots of wood furnishings, empty space, and weirdly, a bunch of animal heads mounted on the walls. Cranston led us to a small doorway at the top of a very cramped set of steps that groaned ominously under our weight, and we descended into the bowels of the earth.

I was pretty sure the stairs were DESIGNED to seem unsteady, because they were D-rank wood and I didn’t see how they could have gotten so dilapidated without actually breaking. When we got to the bottom, we were standing in a huge room made of grey stone. Along the walls were dozens of wooden vats full of attractive, muscular men and women stomping on grapes.

“As you can see,” Cranston said as he led us along the length of the room. “We choose only the healthiest, most aesthetically pleasing grape crushing employees. We refer to this position as “pediatric vintner support”. Each of our employees has access to a full time foot spa and complimentary massages, as well as luxurious exfoliating foot scrubs free of charge.”

“Wow,” I muttered to my wife, careful to use Murmur to conceal the sound. “We found the evil in this place WAY faster than I expected.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes, and then shushed me so we could liste. Cranston really like to hear himself talk and there was a lot of pointless information that needed to be filtered out of our brains, but midway through the explanation, I froze. Out of the corner of my eye, I’d sensed a flash of movement. I turned to look and as a small dark clad form vanishing down a hallway. Looking around to make sure we weren’t being noticed, i grabbed Callie’s hand and pulled her with me after the figure.

My fate sense was pushing me towards whatever I’d just seen. We caught up to the figure, concealed in dark clothes, around the nearest corner, following them into the depths of the winery. Finally, after turning down a long dark hallway, we came to an out of the way door that the figure had to punch in a long code to unlock.

With Murmur active, it was child’s play to recreate the sequence and slip in undetected, following the figure into a chamber where a lone man sat at a table.

“Master,” the figure rasped, bowing to the man. “We’ve received word that the Northrup boy was killed. The circumstances are…suspicious.”

The man, an unobtrusive middle aged human male, glanced up from the documents he was reading. “A shame. That one had potential. After the collapse of the tree realm and the loss of Saeka I was considering grooming him as a replacement. He was weak, but pliable, and surprisingly effective. No matter. This outpost won’t be necessary for much longer. The tunnels are coming along splendidly. How was our recent harvest?”

The figure withdrew a bottle from its cloak, stepping forward and pouring a glass. The man rolled his eyes. “For the last time, Skrok, this is a simulacrum. I can’t ingest anything. I’m not really here. Deliver it to The Sommalier. And tell The Vintner to accelerate production. Once we break through in the tunnel we’ll need to be mobile immediately. It’s almost time to leave this cursed place.” Without another word, the man dissolved into a cloud of smoke, which cleared almost immediately. Grimacing, i grabbed Callie and dragged her out of the room. That had been a lot of information, and we needed to discuss our next step. Things here were much worse than expected.