by Michael Todd
“Hell, yeah,” Calvin agreed. “I don’t want no weak woman at my side.”
“What is up with this furniture?” Katie asked, since the table squeaked and wobbled beneath them. “It’s like taped together and shit, like they dug it out of dumpsters.”
“You’ll see,” Korbin told her with an enigmatic smile.
Katie gave Korbin a curious look, but went back to eating. Sure enough, about two-thirds of the way through their meal an argument broke out to their right.
She turned around in her chair and watched as two drunk guys started fighting over who had won the last World Series.
Katie laughed and turned back around, then stopped and stared at the others. All the guys had picked up their baskets and drinks and scooted back from the table a bit.
Damian nodded at Katie’s food. He had a bottle of beer in each hand and a sandwich in his mouth.
She shrugged and grabbed her shit right in the nick of time.
The two guys threw punches, shoved, pushed, and cleared out that space in the bar. A few moments later one of the guys picked up the other by the shirt and threw him right onto their table, smashing it completely.
Korbin nudged the guy with his foot and shook his head. “Out cold.”
Katie stared at the unconscious dude on the floor at her feet with her mouth hanging half-open. Korbin looked up at the bartender and nodded, and immediately two guys came from around back with another table, which looked a bit more stable. They set it down right over the unconscious dude on the floor, and everyone immediately dropped their food and drinks back on the table and continued with their conversations like nothing had happened.
Katie wasn’t sure what to say. “Um,” she tapped the top of their table, “there’s an unconscious guy under our table.”
Korbin dipped a fry in ketchup. “That is why the furniture is beat up.”
This is definitely an interesting place, Pandora said. It was the first time she had spoken all night. And that movie? Lord, was it terrible! It was such a macho bunch of crap.
Uh oh, Katie replied. Look who is picking up the feminist bug.
No, she said. I just didn’t think that Arnold guy should be shirtless, and those girls? Why were they wearing such tight body suits? Seriously, who walks around like that on a normal basis?
Well, I kind of do now, Katie pointed out to her.
Right, which is exactly my point, Pandora grumbled. You humans are an interesting breed. You talk about not having pain and suffering and violence in the world, but then you make these movies that all of you flock to that are nothing but explosions, dead bodies, and terrible heroes. And by the way, I do not appreciate how they portrayed the demons. I do not have a damn tail.
Calm your tits. Katie chuckled in her head. It’s just a portrayal.
Yeah, whatever, the demon said. Have fun with your greasy fries and unconscious footrest. Kick him once for me for just being an absolute moron.
Will do. Katie chuckled, hiding an outward smile.
Korbin didn’t miss it, though. He knew exactly where Katie’s attention had gone, and he was wondering if he should start to worry.
Chapter Fifteen
Life at the compound was always busy; there was always something to do.
Train like your life depends on it, Pandora told her, because, it does.
Nothing like a realist to kick your ass every day. Fatalism only got you so far, but pain could be a very motivating factor.
By the end of most days she was exhausted, but it helped her fall into a deep sleep. As far as sore muscles went, her body healed at three times the normal rate. Every morning, she was good to go again.
Her body had never been this fit and strong. Damned shame it came with a snarky demon.
From the office above the training pit, Korbin watched Katie from afar.
When Calvin knocked on his door, Korbin looked up, saw the reflection, and nodded. “Come on in.”
Calvin stepped over to the window and looked down. “She’s still at it.”
“Yes.” Korbin, arms across his chest nodded. “Every day, and almost every way she is trying to learn.” He turned to look at Calvin, “You see anything with her that concerns you?” He nodded. “Apart from her lips moving like she’s talking with herself, I mean?”
Calvin thought for a moment. “She’s hitting the library now, taking copious notes and other information down. If this was a company, I’d say she was gunning for your slot.”
Korbin grunted. “I don’t wish that on anyone, but who can tell the future, right?” He nodded in her direction. “I had a conversation with Damian last night. She actually schooled him in a particular aspect of demon lore. Then, when he didn’t believe her, she was able to find a book in the library that verified what she had said. It wasn’t a total about-face since the information wasn’t confirmed, but it took Damian a few minutes to reconsider some sort of basic rule he had accepted. Now he is doing his own research, trying to find out if someone just accepted some information and now everyone believes it.”
“Not like that’s dangerous or anything.” Calvin turned around. “You ready to go over the team skillset list you asked for?”
Korbin stepped away from the window. “Of course.”
And I think, Pandora quipped, that Adam and Blake are secretly in love, and all that playacting they do on The Voice is just to throw people off.
It’s called a bromance, Pandora. Katie rubbed her eyes. Not every friendship has to end up in sex.
I didn’t say sex, I said love, Pandora replied. But I totally meant sex.
I’m aware. Katie shook her head as she went through the moves of the latest kata, or martial arts training exercise, she had been taught. Everything is sex to you. Two ladies are talking over coffee, they like each other. Two men like to drink beer and talk sports, they want each other. Two guys, both with wives or girlfriends, give each other shit on national television for the ratings, and they want to jump each other’s bones.
Well, Pandora answered a moment later, I’m dependable.
No, your ability to think outside the box is severely limited.
I thought thinking outside the box was for people admitting they’re gay.
That’s coming out of the closet, and I know you know this. We talked about it the other night while we were watching South Park.
I’m telling you, it’s a good thing that show isn’t available in Hell. Lucifer would have a shit fit, and the consequences for those creators wouldn’t be good. She chuckled. Although it was fucking funny.
So we just pipe South Park down into Hell and we solve the war problem? Katie asked, snap-kicking her foot out and then back around and dropping her left arm into a guard position.
Unlikely, Pandora kept quiet a moment. We don’t have television, so we watch yours most of the time. We also have some demons who are able to recite it back using mind-to-mind display. Not as efficient as your television, but passable.
Then why hasn’t Lucifer been told about South Park? Katie asked as she finished the last step of her kata. She stood up, then stretched out her calf muscles.
I’m sure any of those imps which watched it knew enough to either not explain that episode, or totally change the representation of Him. Otherwise the one that told Him about it would be a dead imp.
Katie considered that for a moment. Kinda sucks if you see a story that can get you killed for repeating it, but that’s your job.
Probably why South Park isn’t known down below. Too many ways to die.
It was a rainy evening—something they didn’t see a lot of in Nevada—but instead of lounging around with the others, Katie left the workout area and headed to the library for more research. After her conversation with Damian, this was becoming a more enjoyable pastime.
She had already read through the other books of Moses—the ones the Church had hidden and the ones never released to the public. They contained revelations that shook her, but she plowed onward. After those books, she went to the grim
oires to get a sense of what was waiting for her in the field.
Part of why she was doing all this studying was to learn, but the other part was for appearances. She needed to prove that some of the information Pandora was providing—the stuff she really shouldn’t know—was in the library.
Every time they had a conversation Katie would jot down notes, then head over to do more research and expand her knowledge base.
For some the transition to Damned, especially when put on a team immediately, was a time of personal reflection. For others it was about spiritual growth, or even deep depression.
For Katie it was a time to expand her mind, get better at her craft, and attempt to make the world a safer place.
She still had no idea why Pandora had become an ally or what her secret motive was, but she wasn’t going to dwell on it.
She kept her guard up, and had prepped herself for the moment Pandora began to turn. In the meantime, she used every bit of strength and knowledge the demon provided her—they were essential to her success. She wanted to be in a place where she no longer had to rely on Pandora, just in case she found herself fighting her for control of her body and mind.
“Hey,” Derek said, poking his head in the library. “We’re all meeting in the great room. You should join us.”
“All right.” Katie looked up from her book and slipped a pen into her place. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”
After Derek had smiled and walked out of the room, the fake smile on Katie’s face faded.
She had just found the section on the Seventy-Two, but if they were having a meeting she needed to be there. She cleaned up her things and put away her notes, then headed over to the ops room. When she entered, she smiled as she watched Korbin passing around beers.
“Glad we could tear you away from the library,” Korbin said. “Learning some good stuff?”
“Oh yeah,” Katie replied, taking a seat.
“This is just a casual meeting to discuss operations and how we could improve ourselves in the field,” Korbin told them, sitting down. “We’re due for a call. The field has been pretty quiet, which is never a good thing. That means that somewhere out there, someone is planning an incursion. Someone—or several someones—is preparing to conjure a demon or twelve. Usually when we go this amount of time without a call, we see a pretty strong demon.”
“When was the last long stretch before this one?” Katie asked.
“Right before you were Damned,” Korbin answered, looking at her with suspicion. “It had been about twenty days, which is the longest stretch I had ever been through. We couldn’t pinpoint the parties involved until a day before the actual abduction occurred.”
“I thought those guys were amateurs who got lucky,” Katie said. “How did they stay under the radar for that long?”
“I haven’t figured that out,” Korbin said. “I’m starting to think it had something to do with the demon inside you.”
“How can a demon have any control over this world without a human capsule?” she asked, feeling a bit nervous.
“They can’t,” Calvin said. “Or at least, that’s what we thought. If it was something like that, either your demon or another they conjured before yours was extremely powerful and very smart.”
Look at that, Pandora whispered. The humans are starting to use their brains.
This isn’t a good thing, Pandora, Katie replied.
So fix it, she said. Tell them something to make them think I’m an idiot.
“I don’t know,” Katie said to Calvin. “My demon seems to be a bit slow occasionally, and definitely didn’t have plans to stay around here. I have a tough time believing she was intentional about anything—other than sex.”
Pandora snorted. Way to go, now I’m a blond sex doll with no other goal in life except... Wait, never mind.
“Demons can be tricky,” Korbin said. “Telling you what you want to hear, slowly chipping away at your resolve and earning your trust—that’s how they completely envelop someone strong like you.”
“This demon isn’t getting in that far,” she said. “I can promise you that.”
“You never know.” Korbin took a swig of his beer, leading to an awkward silence.
“You know what I would really love?” Katie asked to change the subject.
“An exorcism?” Armani chuckled.
“Well, that too, but I was thinking more along the lines of a nice hot mug of tea,” Katie said, getting up from the table.
“Did you just say tea?” Armani asked, wrinkling his nose. “Like Queen-Elizabeth-drinking-tea-on-the-lawn-at-Buckingham-Palace-type tea?”
“Well, nothing quite that formal, but yes, that kind of tea.” She chuckled. “When I was a little girl and things got tough, my grandmother would make me a hot cup of tea with sugar and a bit of cream. It always settled my nerves and my stomach, and made the conversation flow a bit better.”
Armani looked around the table. “Does this seem strange to anyone else, or is it just me?”
“Oh, stop being so masculine,” Katie scolded, shaking her head. “I saw some tea in the kitchen just the other day. Who wants to have a cup with me?”
The guys looked back and forth amongst themselves, unsure what to say. None of them wanted to be the first to buckle to a cup of tea, but they also didn’t want to be complete dicks. Katie dropped her hands to her hips.
“Tea,” Armani said, looking at Derek.
“Yeah, tea,” Derek agreed. He lifted his bottle, on which the condensation rolling down the sides whispered softly into his ears for him to drink the beverage. “Who would want this delicious beer when there is hot tea?”
“What do we have to choose from?” Calvin asked. “It’s like Earl Black or something else, right?”
Katie giggled. “Close. Choices are Earl Grey or black.”
“I’ll have Grey,” Armani said.
“I second that,” Derek interjected.
“That sounds great,” Calvin replied.
Korbin smiled. “I’ll have black.”
“Perfect,” Katie told them. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The group waited until she had rounded the corner before smiling at each other, unsure where this was coming from.
None of them wanted to disappoint her, though, especially given how hard she had been working lately. Instead of beer-and-ops, it looked like it was going to be a tea-and-ops meeting in the great room.
Not exactly how the guys would have pictured a female on the team changing its dynamics.
Garrett had been missing all day. Come to think of it, Katie hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. He had stayed in his room, not really wanting to socialize.
After a successful tea-and-operations discussion, Katie decided to head back to the library to do additional research.
She and Pandora had discussed the different levels of demons, and she wanted to get a good grasp on what was in the library before she started talking about it. When she walked in, Garrett was on his laptop at the table. He looked upset, but tried to hide it by clearing his throat and forcing a smile as he turned to look up at her.
“What’s up, chief?” Katie asked, trying not to show she had noticed.
“Nothing,” he said, pointing to his screen. “Just created a Facebook page under a different identity. You know, since I can’t log in under mine because my family and friends think I’m dead.”
“Oh.” Katie stopped for a moment. “Do you think that’s the best thing for you to do?”
“I can’t not see them.” He tapped a finger on the table. “I have to know they’re okay.”
“And what did you find?” she asked. She sat down next to him and leaned over to look on his laptop.
“Well, first I found my old page which is covered in remembrances from everyone I ever met,” he told her, shaking his head. “It’s crazy. I would have never thought so many people cared about me. There are pictures of me from when I was a kid, pictures from two summers ago whe
n three families saved up and took our kids to the Bahamas, and pictures from my wedding.”
A tear rolled down Garrett’s cheek. He moved the cursor down the page, showing her more posts. There were so many people who loved him, and the idea that Katie’s family was going through the same thing sent a lump to the pit of her stomach.
He scrolled through some of the pictures and stopped on what looked to be an Easter portrait with him, a beautiful blonde-haired woman, and two excited little boys wearing bunny ears. They looked like the all-American family with their matching pastel polos and the smiles that reflected the happiness in their lives.
Katie’s heart hurt as she saw what was on the page, and the look Garrett was sharing between them. “I love my family,” he whispered. “I know there are a lot of men out there who take advantage of the fact that they have a wife and kids. They don’t treat them well enough, but I always made them the center of my world. I can’t bring myself to look at my wife’s page. I’m too afraid that she is depressed or struggling.” He put up a hand, wiping away a couple of tears. “I need to know, though.”
Katie reached over and touched the laptop. “Why don’t you let me look?” she asked him, her voice soft. “I’ll tell you what I see.”
“Would you?” he looked over, a bit of hope in his eyes. “God, thank you. I’ve been sending them money anonymously, and I hope they’ve been able to use it.”
Katie took the laptop and turned it away from him, clicking on the link to his wife’s page. Katie scrolled through the woman’s posts with a straight face.
They were created sporadically, and were usually full of deep and intense, emotion over their loss. There were pictures of his boys at the remembrance ceremony that would break his heart. There were posts about the anonymous ‘angel’ sending them money.
“She got the money,” Katie told him, looking up. “She told them it was from their family’s angel.”
He covered his mouth and breathed in deeply, tears streaming from his eyes.
“They’re doing okay; the best that they can under the circumstance,” Katie continued. “The boys are doing well at school, but they all miss you so much. Your wife, she’s upbeat and positive. She’s surviving, Garrett.” Katie swallowed. “That’s the important part.”