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Cerberus

Chapter 13: The Dealer

Sneak Peek

The beat was pounding and the lights were flashing. The thrum of the techno music danced in Nathan’s soles as he made his way through the rave. He had been to this venue before so he knew the layout pretty well. The DJ was an old friend so he got him some VIP access, but he wasn’t here to party. The ferret made his way behind stage and over to the green room. From what Nathan could remember, this is where Flynn would hang out the most when they split up. Nathan was always jealous of Flynn’s ability to fuck his way back stage, but that powder nosed party animal wasn’t there anymore, and he wanted to know why.

He needed to find a way to help Flynn, and maybe if they can quietly get him through rehab, maybe he could fix this. Maybe he could undo the damage he had done. The problem is that he didn’t have any leads besides one.

“Hey there short stack,” A Doberman near the greenroom door smiled at him, his sunglasses on top of his head. He wore tight jeans, a wife beater, and a nice leather jacket over it. “You the talent or…” The Doberman took the pass hanging from Nathan’s lanyard and looked it over. “Ah, you’re here for the talent. Don’t worry little guy, Ice will take good care of you, keep things nice and chill.”

Nathan paused. He knew this guy. They actually dated in high school for a short spell before splitting their separate ways. They got to know each other a bit more when Flynn and Nathan were partying about too.

Perfect!

“Robby?” Nathan pulled back his hood. “Is that you?”

“Nathan?” The Doberman squinted before a big smile spread across his face. “Hey! I haven’t seen you in forever! How are you and Flynn doing? He around here someplace?”

Already Robby was looking about for the wolf’s sexy ass. A dog with a bone, this one.

“We broke up a while ago,” Nathan crossed his arms.

“Shit! For real? How the hell did you fumble that piece of ass,” Robby chuckled. “Then again, from what I hear, you’d prefer to be the one with the pussy, right!”

“Shut up Robby,” Nathan rolled his eyes, a light grin playing at his lips. “You still hosting?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Robby smiled. “I keep the talent nice and comfortable, and the groupies nice and loose. Speaking of which, you looking for something?”

“I’m looking for someone,” Nathan crossed his arms. “Do you still get drugs from Damian?”

“I don’t work for the guy directly, but I do have some of his product,” Robby pulled a little plastic baggy out from his coat. “Two hundo and you’ll be flying high all night.”

“His prices really went up, huh,” Nathan eyed the powder before putting his hand up. “No thanks Robby.”

“It’s Ice now,” the Doberman smiled. “Come on, don’t be trying to ruin this rep I’ve built up. No one want’s to party with Robby. Robby’s someone who masturbates in his mom’s basement.”

“But you did do that,” Nathan cocked a brow.

“Hey! We stroked each other off, big diff!” Robby put his hand to his mouth to lean in and whisper. “But seriously. Call me Ice.”

“Okay Robby,” Nathan smirked, cocking a brow. “I will, if you can get me a meeting with Damian.”

“Woah,” Robby put a palm on Nathan’s chest. “You don’t’ want that, dude. The big boss ain’t someone you want to fuck with, ya hear? Just stay in the green room, smoke a bowl, and the headliner will be back in ten to blow off some steam before his next set.”

“Can you call him?” Nathan asked.

“I ain’t got Damian’s number, alright,” Ross’s eyes were wide. “I don’t know what you think you can get that I don’t got, but trust me, I got his best stuff.”

“No, I need to talk to Damian,” Nathan stood his ground, glaring at the Doberman. He learned that stair from Lauren. It made the dog feel like he was shorter despite looking down.

“I ain’t going to get my ass beat just because you wanted to bother the boss,” Robby shook his head. “That ain’t happening.”

“Then give me the number for your supplier. I’ll ask him.”

“Fuck no! You know what happened to the last guy who asked for a supplier? He’s in a concrete coffin somewhere in South Fork.”

“Well, I have some information that I’m sure Damian wants to hear,” Nathan stood his ground, the Doberman twitching a bit. “Just text your supplier that it’s about Flynn. I’m sure they’ll respond.”

“You think the most prolific dealer on the south side gives a flying fuck about your ex?” Robby rolled his eyes, but pulled out his phone. “Fine, I’ll text him, but if I don’t hear anything back I’ll show you my boot and the door.”

“Thanks Ice,” Nathan smiled. “I’ll wait right here.”

“Trust me, they don’t ever message back fast. Takes like an hour for them to—” A sudden buzz went off on Ross’s phone and his eyes went wide. “Oh fuck, shit dude…um…”

“Yeah?” Nathan leaned against the wall, his teeth glowing in the black light.

“I…shit, he’ll see you. I…do-does my hair look okay?” Robby was nervous, his fingers slicking through his expensive haircut.

“How long before they get here?” Nathan asked.

“Oh shit,” Robby straitened up. “Hi Cross.”

Nathan felt a hand come down on his shoulder, a massive paw with leathery skin. Nathan looked up to see a rhino with scars all over his face.

“This him?” That’s all Cross said. Ross looked back at Nathan for a moment and then back at the rhino who sneered.

“Y-Yes! Yes, he’s the one talking about Flynn,” Robby answered.

“Come with me,” Cross patted Nathan on the shoulder and went towards the exit. Nathan simply followed, going out through a side exit and following the Rhino down the alleyway through a cloud of cigarette smoke. The people parted for Cross as he made his way down the alleyway. He came to a door and knocked on it a specific way. A slit in the door opened and Cross simply leered at the eyes that looked at him. The slot slammed shut and several locks were undone before the door swung open.

“Damian is upstairs,” Cross said pointing to the metal steps going up. “One way in, one way out. Don’t try anything funny.”

“Got it,” Nathan nodded and started going up the stairs. Before he could too far, cross put his hand up and placed it on Nathan’s chest.

“Choose your words carefully. He’s in a bad mood,” Cross said before walking out a door into a garage where several other burly men were playing cards. The glint of barrels on the table.

Nathan shook his head before steeling himself and going up the stairs. Nathan came to the door and knocked.

“IT’S FUCKING OPEN!”

Nathan jumped before taking a deep breath and opening the door and going inside. The ferret had been to Damian’s old apartment before it got raided. The old apartment used to be a dingy basement, but this was a corner penthouse with a big open floorplan. Tall ceilings for the massive Dane to loom at his full height, stainless steel, marble countertops, and dark tinted windows to keep out the daylight.

Then there, standing in the kitchen with an open beer bottle was the Dane. His jet black fur was silky and soft, his eyes like a duo of dark coals, his maroon suit jacket draped over a chair while his black undershirt was open to expose his powerful chest.

“You must have some serious balls showing your face up here,” Damian growled.

“It’s about Flynn,” Nathan crossed his arms.

“So I hear,” Damian rolled his eyes before taking a swig from his glass. “Hurry up and spit it. What do you have to say?”

“I know you’ve been dealing to him again,” Nathan stood firm.

“Is that what he told you?” Damian gave a halfhearted chuckle. “Cute.”

“I need to know where he is—”

“Oh how the turns have tabled,” Damian had a sly look as he cut the ferret off. “You come looking for me so I can give you information about Flynn? Do I get to taser you this time?”

“I’m not here for any trouble,” Nathan stated plane. “I’m here because I need to know more about what’s going on with Flynn, and I know you know what’s going on.”

“And what if I do?” Damian chuckled dryly. “What makes you think I’m going to tell you shit?”

“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, right now, I’ll leak the information that you’re a CI.” Nathan laid his cards out on the table.

“A CI?” Damian furrowed his brow. “I ain’t no nark.”

“Not according to the hellmage registry,” Nathan pulled up his phone, opening up his pictures, then coming over to the island and sliding the phone over. Damian was going to let it fall right off the edge, but he caught it lazily at the last second as it slipped over the edge. He then glanced at the phone and had to do a double take.

“What? But…these are fake,” Damian snarled before his eyes went wide. “Fuck, Zagreus.”

“Zagreus?” Nathan furrowed his brow.

“I mean Zack,” Damian looked a little shaken before his eyes latched onto Nathan.

Nathan remembered the name on the registry for Damian’s handler was Zachariah Graves. The ferret had a sly smirk.

“You can delete the ones on my phone if you want,” Nathan shrugged. “I have copies.”

“How did you get this,” Damian snarled.

“None of your business,” Nathan didn’t need to tell Damian the not-so-legal means by which he obtained the files from Lauren’s car while she was shooting the shit with his dad. “What matters is I have them.”

“No, it is very important how you got them,” Damian had a smirk. “Because if this was obtained illegally, you’d be just as fucked as I would be if this gets out.”

“Really?” Nathan huffed. “My first offence as an EC officer’s son would be a slap on the wrist. You’d be lucky to survive the night, hell, the hour if this got out.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make sure you never give out this information,” Damian snarled, taking a step around the counter island.

“I don’t think you want to do that,” Nathan unzipped his hoodie to reveal chainmail underneath. “Holy Kevlar, a demon can’t touch me now even if they wanted too.”

“How the fuck do you have that?” Damian took a step back.

“Again, none of your business,” Nathan smirked. He wasn’t fully sure if it still worked to be honest. It was his grandfather’s old armor from his crusader days. He pulled it from the basement before he went out on this little excursion. “Now tell me what I want to know.”

“You cocky little shit,” Damian’s horns slowly bled into existence, red aura glowing around the hellhound. “You think you’re pretty fucking clever, don’t you?”

“All I’m asking for is information on Flynn,” Nathan said. “I wasn’t going to underestimate a hellhound and get myself killed.”

“Yeah, you thought of everything, huh,” Damian had an unnerving, mocking tone in his voice as he reached under the island. The sound of duct tape peeling away as Damian pulled a gun out and aimed it at the ferret. “Did you put on real Kevlar under that silver suit?”

Nathan’s eyes went wide and he put his hands up.

“Wait!” Nathan felt his heart drop. “I’m not working alone.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say,” Damian cocked the gun and aimed.

“Just hit one on my speed dial! If I don’t check in every hour, my associate will leak the evidence I have on you to the post.”

Damian glared at Nathan, the barrel of that gun pointed right at his head. Nathan saw Damian’s knuckle flex. He winced, his eyes closing. But instead of the sound of gunfire the sudden sound of a dial tone made Nathan crack his eyes open. Damian’s other hand came down to hit the speed dial and it was ringing.

“Hello? Nathan? Are you okay?” A voice squeaked over the line.

“Who is this,” Damian snarled.

“Oh gods, it’s you…”

Nathan felt like he was going to vomit. Aaron was a mess when he told him his plan, but all the little owl had to do was tell the truth.

“I said, who the fuck is this,” Damian growled.

“No, let me speak with Nathan,” Aaron’s voice shook, but he sounded firm enough. Nathan looked back up at Damian who was glaring at him. He motioned with his gun for him to speak.

“A-A-Aaron, it’s N-Nathan,” the ferret spoke. “I have Damian here and I need you to tell him our plan.”

“Of course,” Aaron cleared his throat. “I’m going to post your Confidential Informant status online and send it to every newspaper in the city. By morning, your identity would be well known by then.”

“Fucking hells!” Damian tossed his gun onto the counter and hung up the phone. “You’re making one hell of an enemy kid.”

Nathan had to brace himself on the counter, his heart beating out of his chest, a cold sweat rolling down his back. His knees shook, his legs Jell-O in an earthquake. But he did it! He had Damian by the short and curlies, and he wasn’t going to let him go.

Not until he knew more about Flynn.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Nathan started. “I just need to know what’s happening to Flynn.”

“What the fuck did you want to know?” Damian snarled.

“Well…I…” Nathan paused. He honestly hadn’t thought what he would ask. He was hoping Damian would just spill everything he knew. But there was one thing he needed to know above all else. “Is Flynn a hellmage?”

Damian huffed, picking his beer back up and taking a swig.

“No,” Damian huffed, sitting on one of the island stools. “He ain’t no hellmage.”

“So, he hasn’t been communing with demons?” Nathan felt his heart rate start to lower.

“I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘commune.’” Damian shrugged, rolling his eyes.

“Conjuring, summoning, intertwining his energies,” Nathan spat out a few terms he knew EC offer’s used. “Selling his soul.”

“Nah, none of that,” Damian took another swig of his beer. “He’s as clean as a whistle. Well, maybe not clean.”

“So you were selling him drugs,” Nathan pressed. “Stop lying to me!”

“Bitch! I ain’t got no reason to lie to some punk ass kid!” Damian barked and Nathan flinched. Damian lowered his voice, calming himself. “Even with your damned ‘leverage,’ you’re still a minor nuisance compared to the shit Flynn’s got himself tangled up in.”

Nathan regained his composure. He couldn’t be sure that Damian was telling him the truth, but Damian was still underestimating him. That stung a bit. Everyone always underestimated him and it burned him to his core. He was the son of a highly respected EC officer, destined for great things, and practically untouchable, but that didn’t mean he was some spineless child. He knew he caused all this by forcing Flynn to party before he was ready, and he’ll be damned if he wasn’t going to fix it himself.

“If you weren’t giving him drugs, then who was,” Nathan scowled.

“That headless prick Cerberus,” Damian snarled.

“Cerberus?” Nathan felt a sudden twinge of guilt as he remembered what Flynn tried to tell him. “Was he forcing him to take the drugs?”

“Yeah, probably,” Damian shrugged. “That’s usually his thing. Gets his bitches all hyped up on what he’s got and then nails them to the wall.”

“That means…” Nathan put a hand on his forehead. “Oh shit, he was telling the truth?”

“Yeah, from what I could smell on him, they’d only shacked up recently, but very intimately,” Damian huffed through his nose before taking another sip of his beer. “A junky and a broken man shacking up to try to piece each other back together. Tale as old as time. Now that I say it out loud, it makes perfect sense that they would find each other.”

“Do you know where they are?” Nathan began.

“Bitch, do you think I’d be sitting here in my apartment licking my wounds if I knew were that skank and that headless cuck ran off to together?” Damian stood up and went to his fridge and grabbed another bear and slammed it open on his counter top. “All I know is that they’re playing with fire. They pissed off some seriously powerful people and they’re gearing up to get themselves killed.”

“Wait, who would they have pissed off?” Nathan cocked his brow. “Was it Cerberus’s supplier?”

“You still think this has something to do with some drug dealing kingpin?” Damian huffed and sat back down. “Nah, these players are way bigger than me or your little EC’s religious ramblings.”

“Religious ramblings?” Nathan shook his head. “The EC and the DSC are the leading experts on demon detection and slaying in the world. What do you mean they are small?”

“You Catholic mother fuckers are all the same, thinking your pantheon of one god and his angels is the only one that has his fist up this world’s ass. Seriously, you guys shoot yourselves in the foot more often than not simply because of your puritanical ideas that only one pantheon can rule over a world.”

“Wait, are you implying that there are multiple gods that rule over the world?” Nathan crossed his arms.

Damian stopped mid swig, pulling his beer from his lips and swallowing hard. “I…”

“Wait, really?” Nathan knew that look. That was the “Oh-shit-I-just-fucked-up” face that Lauren told him about all the time in interrogations.

Damian looked Nathan up and down, his dark eyes expressionless for a brief moment before they furrowed into a sneer.

“You’re more easy to fool than I thought,” Damian chuckled. But Nathan was watching for any tells. Damian’s tail was trying to tuck between his back legs behind his stool and the fur on the back of his neck was on end.

He was trying to lie to him, and he was scared of what he knew.

“Really? If you tucked your tail any further between your legs, it’d be going up your ass,” Nathan nodded at Damian’s tell, the Dane’s eyes going wide as his tail shot back up, but the damage had been done. “What do you mean other gods? Are you saying that Flynn is somehow mixed up with something so big it involves an entire other pantheon?”

“Leave,” Damian snarled.

“No, I want answers—”

“LEAVE!!!” Damian shouted, his horns flashing into reality, red energy curling around his body as his fur stood on end. “Get out NOW!”

Nathan jumped, the big hellhound snapping at him. Every instinct inside him told him he was in danger. Every fiber of his being was telling him that he was going to get torn apart by that beast. Then he heard a light humming. Nathan’s eyes went wide as he realized the golden cross he put around his neck was tingling, repelling against hellish energy. Damian was trying to fear him, to get him to leave.

“N-No,” Nathan stood his ground. “Tell me what I want to know or I’ll leak your information!”

“I don’t care if my own men cut me into tiny pieces with blessed silver and feed me to the fishes,” Damian snarled. “I’m not telling you anything.”

Nathan was taken aback by that. In some part of the ferret’s mind, he knew Damian was afraid of something more than even his own men and the EC combined. But what could it be. It had something to do with Flynn and Cerberus—

“Cerberus…” Nathan let the word fall from his mouth. “No way, you can’t mean…”

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