Okay, my above comment regarding sacrifices to one's Dark Master sparked something... Something I like to call
The Subway Effect
The first time it had happened The Wolf, The Ram, and The Hart had not been amused. An uninitiated intern had overheard upper executives discussing the upcoming sacrifice, and had misinterpreted it as a desire for lunch. To be fair, which the three Senior Partners rarely were, the sacrifices
were going to be their lunch. There was something pleasing about small children. The taste, the texture, and the terror all combined for an exquisite meal. Finding three paper wrapped bundles of meat spheres in a red tomato sauce on bread waiting for them instead had been considered an insult. The Senior Partners still ate the offerings, they were hungry after all. And it had been better then was expected. No terror to season the meat, and it lacked the delightful crunch of small bones. But the meat, sauce, and bread were not bad. Not preferred, but they eventually decided this was an acceptable sacrifice, this time. This decision had come far too late for the hapless intern however.
The second time it happened didn't annoy the Senior Partners quite as much. This wasn't what they had ordered. They had ordered a twenty-something female virgin. Instead there were three of what humans called 'submarine sandwiches'. Each one was different. They had different meats, different cheeses, different types of bread (and the Senior Partners hadn't been aware there
were multiple types of bread), different sauces, and different vegetables on them. To their surprise, these 'subs' were good. Hart had even mused that it might be as good as a 20-something female virgin. And a great deal easier to consume due to the lack of bones. Still, it was again not what they ordered. So the Intern was ordered to be fed through a wood chipper. It was the principle of the thing, after all. When you place an order, you were suppose to receive what you ordered.
Over time the mistake kept occasionally being made. And eventually the Senior Partners decided that they did in fact prefer these sandwiches to the traditional sacrifices. For one thing, the traditional sacrifices frequently came with a side order of annoyingly competent Heroes. The Wolf, Ram, and Hart had already lost their foothold on eighteen of the twenty different realities they were trying to take over due to pesky Heroes being attracted by their demanded sacrifices. One of the most troublesome of those Heroes had been a man named Harry Dresdon. And when two of the remaining realities fell to them, those delightful sandwiches were lost. It seemed Hell On Earth made it impossible for Subway to stay in business. So after much thought and consideration, a new set of orders were placed in the last remaining Reality they were trying to take over.
XxXxX
Holland Masters was... confused. For two decades the Senior Partners has been frequently demanding the sacrifice of three Subway Subs, often with very specific requirements for bread and toppings. That was odd, but did make things easier to keep under the radar of various Champions. After all, it's difficult to arrange to kidnap and sacrifice innocents every week without drawing the attention of those who would stop you. Sending someone down to the nearest Subway was much easier. But he'd just returned from the most bizarre meeting with the Senior Partners in his entire time with the firm. This would change many of their upcoming plans. After all, the Senior Partners had decided to cancel their plans for the Apocalypse due to it preventing them from getting their subway sandwiches. What. The. Hells?!
