by Michael Todd
And Business Is Good
Protected by the Damned, Book 3
Michael Todd
Michael Anderle
Laurie Starkey
AND BUSINESS IS GOOD (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2018 Michael Todd, Michael Anderle, and Laurie Starkey
Cover by Ryn Katryn Digital Art
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, March 2018
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Author Notes - Michael Todd Anderle
Author Notes - Laurie Starkey
Connect with Michael Todd
Books by Michael Todd
Books written as Michael Anderle
And Business Is Good Team
Beta Readers
Bree Buras (Aussie Awesomeness)
Timothy Cox (The Myth)
Tom Dickerson (The man)
S Forbes (oh yeah!)
Dorene Johnson (US Navy (Ret) & DD)
Diane Velasquez (Chinchilla lady & DD)
JIT Readers
Tim Adams
Jim Caplan
John Ashmore
Sarah Weir
Daniel Weigert
Tim Bischoff
Paul Westman
Micky Cocker
Larry Omans
Joshua Ahles
If we missed anyone, please let us know!
Editor
Lynne Stiegler
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
1
There was a moment—just one moment—where everything stood still. Where the bubbling of the lava streams, the screeching of the tormented, and the agony of the Damned all paused.
T’Chezz stepped forward into the light of the flaming torches, his lips trembling in anger. He slashed his claws across the chest of the human that hung from the ceiling, and blood rolled down its skin. Then everything went back to normal, whatever that was. No, that wasn’t right…there was more anger in the room than there had been before.
“You are useless,” T’Chezz spat as blood dripped to the stone floor beneath his clawed hooves.
The hanging human’s arms and ankles pulled him in separate directions, and the shreds of his torn clothing drooped from his bleeding and battered body.
He had been sucked down into the bowels of hell and chained for T’Chezz’s pleasure. Unable to handle the burning of his wounds, he whimpered, then tried to speak.
But fear clogged his throat.
“You are pathetic,” T’Chezz growled, pointing his grotesque fingers at the man. “You are Chosen—you should be able to withstand a little torture. It would all be over if you just told the truth!”
“I’m…trying,” the man gargled. His stomach seemed to be filled with half his blood, and the other half was trying to seep out of his mouth.
“Oh, you are?” T’Chezz said, moving over to him with demonic speed.
He squeezed the man’s chin forcefully and snarled in his face as sweat poured from the human’s skin. The demon rolled his eyes in disgust and shook his head, then turned and walked across the room.
He looked out over the bubbling molten rivers that ran through the underground inferno.
T’Chezz smiled, running his fingers sensually over the array of tools on his desk. “If you won’t say it, then maybe I’ll have to cut it out of you.”
“NO!” The man panicked, straining against his chains. “Please.”
“Oh, please,” T’Chezz mimicked, picking up a small blade and laughing. “No need to beg, since it won’t make any difference.” He looked at the politician. “Don’t you know that politicians are the worst of evils?” He noted the man’s disbelief. “It’s true. Perhaps not in the first generation—usually that group tossed out their ineffectual and useless predecessors. I am referring to the fuckers who have been screwing up the government lately.”
T’Chezz laughed loudly as he walked back to the hapless human, then casually stabbed the blade into the politician’s leg.
The politician screamed in pain, closing his eyes. His perfect hair was no longer perfect, his pressed suit was in tatters, and his adoring constituents were far above him. T’Chezz pulled the knife back out and wiped it across his tongue, then shook his head.
“Your blood is poison,” he spat.
The politician groaned as T’Chezz’s bellowing laughter echoed through the room. His head was down and his eyes were shut tightly, but when he unclenched his muscles he noticed the pain was gone. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked down at his now-free and clothed body. Even his shoes were still freshly polished.
He stared at his hands and turned them over as he shrugged the five-thousand-dollar suit jacket up on his shoulders. He was sweating, shaking with fear, but his body was unscathed. He didn’t know if he had been healed, or if all of it had just been in his head.
“These hunters are closing in,” the human said in a shaky voice.
“Then maneuver,” T’Chezz told him. His back was to the politician. “You are the perfect plant in their world. They trust you because of your power.”
“They fear me, which is different than trust,” he tried to explain.
“Better,” T’Chezz corrected. “Fear is what drives the human race. Fear is what I see in their eyes as they stare into the darkness, clutching their sacred books and whispering their prayers. Fear is behind it all, but until now they had no idea what they feared.”
He looked out the window. “That will change.”
“What do you want me to do?” the man asked.
“Your job,” T’Chezz growled, turning back to the politician. “I will place you back on Earth, but you are expected to do better; perform better. I can promise you that your being a valuable plant will be completely irrelevant if you don’t.”
“I understand.” The politician trembled.
“You’d better,” T’Chezz snapped. “I will eat your flesh myself, and you don’t smell appetizing at all.”
“It will be done.” The politician grimaced.
“See that it is,” T’Chezz said, walking toward the door. “It’s time these humans understand that
we were on Earth first. We don’t need their meatbags walking around.”
“Where are you going?” the politician yelled, cowering as T’Chezz snapped his head toward him.
“To meet my new partner.” He smiled, his fangs dripping. “I’m hungry, and not just for flesh. I’m hungry to get this started. I won’t sit around and allow these Damned to get in the way. This is my time, politician. This is my world, and these humans—these ‘killers,’ as you like to call them—they will learn who their real master is. It’s not a man in a suit on the top of the hill. They will wish for scumbags like you when I am through with them. They will wish for death even before that. Go!”
T’Chezz threw his hand in the air and stomped out of the room, leaving the politician thinking about what to do next. He closed his eyes, feeling the heat and swirling air around him. When he opened them again he was back on the surface, only this time things were different. His existence and survival hinged on what came next.
No more screwups allowed.
“Seriously, I think Jessica has slept with the entire cast,” Eric confided.
“Even the old maid, Mrs. Avers?” Katie chuckled.
“ESPECIALLY Mrs. Avers.” Eric shook his head, sadly. “She even did her dust wand. Bitch is dirty under that maid costume—don’t act like you don’t see it.
“That is so gross.” Katie shook her head. “Days of Long Since Past is like the ultimate in soap operas, which means pretty much everyone is a whore.”
“I wish life worked that way,” Derek chimed in, staring at the television.
“I don’t know,” Eric said. “I don’t think Korbin is interested, and you know Katie over here gets her rocks off with swords and pushups.”
“Hey,” Katie said, pouting. “I am more than that.”
Both guys looked at her and raised their eyebrows. She shook her head and turned back to focus on the show, but she could feel their stares. She started to laugh.
“All right, fine…maybe not that much different than what you are saying,” Katie admitted. “Still, it’s nice to think that I am not any of those characters. They all sleep with each other. It’s like this twisted circle of friends.”
“That circle would be more like a tree if it were like that here.” Derek laughed. “Katie at the top, with many branches.”
“Right,” Katie said, “which is why I keep my tree branchless right now.”
“This show saved lives once.” Eric wasn’t listening to the other two—or chose not to get involved in the great tree debate.
“Bullshit,” Derek argued. “How?”
“No, I’m serious.” Eric turned to them. “My squadron was out in the Sandpit and we were in this firefight. It was freaking intense, man…seriously. There were injured; we had been fighting for hours, and everyone was freaking exhausted. They had us pinned down too, like bad. We were in the city, stuck in this half-blown-to-hell building surrounded on all sides by these fucktards. I seriously figured that was it for us—we were done.”
“So how did the soap opera help you?” Derek leaned forward.
“Well, after hours upon hours of hiding and shooting and hiding and shooting, we were at a standstill,” Eric said. “There was this raw recruit…his name was Johns, and he was in charge of tactical over the wire. You know, ‘our eye on the ground’ kind of thing. Anyway, he came over the net and told us that we had thirty minutes to get out of there or risk missing that day’s show. Shit, all of us had been wondering whether Jessica had slept with Ivan or not, and they were supposed to reveal the truth on that day’s episode. It was a really big deal for us.”
“So what happened?” Katie asked, wide-eyed.
“Well, the sheer amount of lead we threw in the next thirty minutes probably cost the US government close to fifty K.” He chuckled. “But in the end we nailed the other side. They never even saw it coming. It was like a Hail Mary out of nowhere. There wasn’t one of us who didn’t get a hot casing in our boot or down the back of our shirt, but it was fucking amazing. None of our men ended up getting hurt after the start of the firefight.”
“Did you get to see the show?” Derek asked excitedly.
“Hell yeah, we did.” Eric nodded. “We hauled ass out of there, and only missed the opening credits. Jessica didn’t end up sleeping with Ivan, and the whole damn platoon sat there cheering and booing from the MWR tent. Was probably one of my best moments out there. We felt real again, you know? Like we were more than our guns. We were enjoying something that everyone at home was enjoying too. It made us feel normal, even if it was for only a minute.”
“Did you have many fights after that?”
“Right after that was one of the bloodiest battles we had ever seen,” he said, his eyes glazing over. “We lost thirty-two souls that day, and not one of us saw that day’s soap.”
“The sergeant stopped being an ass after that.” Eric chuckled. “He hadn’t been too happy with all the paperwork from the first battle. I’d do it again, though. It was nice feeling like a person again.”
“I hear you there,” Katie said, glancing at Derek. “I hear you.”
When the soap opera was over, Katie clapped her hands and shook her head. It was always exciting. She sat there in the chair for a moment while Eric flipped through the channels. All of them had a day off for the most part, so she really had nowhere to rush off to.
“You want to watch some baseball with us?” Eric asked, looking at her. “There’s a doubleheader.”
Katie held back a smirk while Pandora pretended to gag and puke in her mind.
“No, I think I’m gonna put some real clothes on and actually get some work done,” she told him. “Maybe next time.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll be here.
Katie got up from the chair she was lounging in and stretched, then walked away without any more discussion. It wasn’t that she didn’t like sports—she had been an athlete in her former life—but baseball was about as exciting to her as watching grass grow. Instead, she changed her clothes and headed over to Joshua’s building to see how their efforts were going.
She leisurely walked outside and across the sand to the gate, which was already open, then went inside and down the main stairs. Joshua was sitting behind his desk staring down at two knives, and he looked up and smiled at Katie when she walked in.
“H-hey,” he said, standing up and holding out the knives. “Perfect timing. I finished these two knives for you.”
“Oh, great!” Katie chirped, taking them from him.
They were just as beautiful as the others, with shimmering metal, perfectly made handles, and steel butts. Joshua reached out and turned the knife blade-down, then tapped on the butt. Almost as if it had been magically inscribed, two cursive Ks vibrated with color. Katie ran her finger over the letters and smiled as she looked up at Joshua.
“You haven’t given me a name yet, so I put two K’s for Korbin’s Killers,” he told her.
“How did you…”
“Hang out here long enough, you learn a thing or two.” He chuckled, rubbing his hands together. “I’m really excited, though, that I’m able to cut my time down. I have been getting two knives a week done with this new machinery, which is more than I have ever done before. I know you wanted an increase in productivity, but so far this is the best I can do.”
“These are great,” Katie exclaimed. “I know these take time to make. It’s not an overnight process. How are you with the bullet idea?”
“At the moment?” he said, pulling out some papers. “Not very far with the idea at all. I am trying to figure out some technical things. The intrinsic energy of the metal is hard to control. I can’t just turn it off and on, and I’m trying to figure out how to melt it down without losing the metal’s properties. It’s beyond anything I can look up, and when these books my father left behind were written there was nothing even remotely similar to bullets. On top of that, even if I melt the metal down, I’m trying to figure out how I would spray the
molten liquid.”
“Can you not just mold them into bullets?” Katie asked.
“No. Bullets aren’t a solid form like you are thinking, not with the energy involved,” Joshua replied.
She laughed. “This is all a bit above my paygrade. Just keep working on it. I’m sure it will come to you eventually. They are important, but I don’t want production of other things to slow down either.”
“Right. I’ll keep working at it.”
“Great.” Katie smiled. “I’ll check back in later.”
Katie walked back upstairs, slightly disappointed. When she reached the top, Mamacita looked over her shoulder and smiled as she accepted an order from FedEx. She checked the boxes in, signed for them, and closed the door as Katie walked over.
“Hey,” Katie greeted her. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought Joshua might need some help, and I dropped him off this morning so he didn’t keep parking that huge van in the driveway.” She looked Katie up and down. “You okay? You look tired.”
“I’m okay.” Katie sighed. “Just trying to get through the days and keep the business going. How are the girls?”
“They are all very good.” The madam smiled. “They ask about you and Joshua all the time. I have allowed some of them to come here with me and help out when needed.”