by Alex Kings
Demon Venom
Book 2 of Beneath the Flesh series
A novella
Alex Kings
Copyright © 2016 Alex Kings
All rights reserved
To keep up with new releases and have access to extras, visit the author's website at www.AlexKings.com
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 1
Jess sat in a circle with Luke, Dr Patel, and Richard. They'd met in Dr Patel's office – the first time they'd all been free in a couple of days. It was becoming, Jess though, a proper conspiracy now. Four members.
All to try and save her.
She didn't like that thought. She tried to push it out of her head and went back to listening:
“Early morning, then?” said Luke.
“It seems to be the best time,” said Dr Patel. “Things tend to be quieter then. We're less likely to be interrupted.” She looked over at Richard. “Wednesday in particular – I think there's nothing scheduled then, right?”
Richard shook his head. “No. Nothing's happening on Wednesday, or the evening before.” He considered this. “And I can move about some shifts so it's less likely people will run into you –” He glanced at Jess. “– on your way here.”
Jess smiled at him. “Thank you.' She looked back at the rest of the group. “But we can't keep the whole thing a secret, can we? I'm going to be in there for, what, a couple of hours at least? And then there's the recovery time.”
“Which will take two days at the least. You're right,” said Patel.
“Especially after the stunt you pulled off getting to Bridgham,” Richard said. “You two have something close hero-status right now. That means you're not likely be mistrusted – but you won't have much anonymity either.”
“Thanks for the explanation,” said Luke.
Jess sat forward. “So, what, we say I came down with something that needed an operation? A few days after I got the stuff we need to do an operation in the first place?”
“Cracked rib,” said Patel. “It should explain everything pretty well.”
“And how do we explain what caused a cracked rib?” said Luke.
Jess looked at him with a smirk. “Maybe we could say you hit me.”
He didn't laugh.
She shrugged and sat back. “Could be an injury I picked up in Bridgham, just appearing now.”
“We don't have to decide now,” said Richard. “We've got a few days yet. Let's just settle on Wednesday morning, and I'll get the shifts out of the way, okay?”
“Yes, that sounds good. Thank you, Richard.” Dr Patel looked around. “Is there anything else?”
There wasn't.
“Okay, I guess that's it, then.”
Luke and Jess had a few minutes before their next shifts. They walked slowly beside the outer wall, in the shadow of the curls of barbed wire along the top. No-one else was in earshot.
“Does he have to come to all our meetings?” said Luke.
“He knows the secret, he wants to help, and he has enough authority to make things easier for us. Why shouldn't he come?”
Luke sighed. “He makes things easier, I know. But, I don't trust him.”
“Sure you're not just jealous?” said Jess, giving him a sly smile.
He smiled back. “Yeah, that's it. No-one but me is allowed to try and save your life.”
She leaned into him and squeezed his hand. “That's the spirit.”
They walked on in silence for a few moments.
“Really, though,” said Luke. “He knows the secret, alright. We can't stop that. But we've given him more – all our plans, access to our meeting. He knows Dr Patel's involved.”
Jess considered this. Richard had managed to get into their circle impressively quickly. But what was she supposed to say when he wanted to help them? He'd already saved them, already shown he wasn't going to give them away. “I guess so,” she said, with a shrug.
Their shifts were about to begin. “I'll see you soon,” Luke said, and kissed her.
She watched him until he was out of sight, then headed to the trading office.
Her arm was hurting, she realised. Not much, just a background ache. It had become so common now that she'd almost stopped noticing it.
The first couple hours of her shift went towards checking inventories with her companions, calculating exchanges, all the tedious but essential account they needed.
In the mid-afternoon, the van from Foxglove Compound arrived. Jess kept on with her inventories, waiting. Ten minutes passed. Eventually, there came a knock on the door, and one of the guards delivered Foxglove's message.
She let it rest on her desk for a moment before picking it up. A little white envelope. In it was their answer.
She was about to pick it up when there was a knock at the door. It was Alice Mason, the mayor. She nodded briskly. “I thought I should be here to see this.”
“Of course,” said Jess. She opened the envelope, pulled out the letter and began to read it.
After a few moments she looked up at Mason. “They're breaking off the agreement.”
Mason's face barely changed. Maybe the muscles around her jaw tightened a bit. “Details?”
“Everything. We can't even use Foxglove Compound as a stop on the way to other compounds. They say the only way we're allowed to let one of our vans within their walls is if we agree to their terms.”
Their terms. They wanted a lower price. More food from Paradise in return for less salvaged goods.
Mason held out her hand for the letter, which Jess gave her. She scanned it for a few seconds. “Remind me, how well can we adjust to their terms?”
“We can't. We wouldn't get enough salvaged material for upkeep. Or we'd all have to go on a starvation diet. And even if we do get by like that, it won't last.”
Mason gave her a questioning look.
“You can only salvage stuff once. When they've grabbed all the salvage in an area, they have to go somewhere else. They have to go further and further though demon-filled land to keep finding the same amount of stuff. They're going to have to put the price up again in the future. We won't be able to handle that.”
“And if we give in now,” said Mason slowly, “they'll have no trouble doing it again next time. I guess that settles it, then. Foxglove is no longer our trading partner.” She folded up the letter. “What can we expect?”
Jess looked across her desk to the notes she'd made. “Less material for building and repair. The main trouble we'll run into is water – our current filtration system gets through a lot of salvage. Then petrol for the vans – we'll have enough for another few weeks, but if we want to extend that we'll have to cut down on our number of journeys.”
“Anything else?”
“On the plus side, it might hurt them quicker than it does us. If they're bluffing about having other sources for buying food – or if those places don't produce as much as us – they'll feel some pressure by next week. Maybe they'll come back to negotiate
with us.
“I hope so,” said Mason. “But we can't rely on that. It's time to look for new trade partners, and maybe start sending out some salvage teams of our own. We'll need to reallocate. I'll get the details to you by tomorrow.”
“Yes ma'am.”
“You know,” said Mason, “I knew right from the start that the biggest dangers would come from other people rather than demons. But I never thought it would come down to fucking economics.”
“It always does,” said Jess.
When Mason had left, Jess got back to work.
Chapter 2
Mason was set to make an announcement that evening, but the news had already escaped. In the times between shifts, several people approached Jess (or other people working in the accounting) to ask about the situation with Foxglove. She told them the facts – that the trading had stopped – but refused to speculate beyond that until after Mason had spoken.
She hoped thinks would calm down tomorrow. Being pestered so much made it impossible to have important conversations with Luke.
Eventually, as the sky became dark, everyone gathered in the main hall. Jess and Luke joined near the rear of the crowd, standing beside Mike, a regular on guard duty who Luke had said he didn't like very much.
Mason stepped up to the stage on front. She told everyone the news formally, then went on: “Foxglove think they can push us around. They've been trying for months now, you all know, but only now have they managed to work up the courage to do anything.”
A consummate politician, Jess thought. Rhetoric to remind everyone who the enemy was.
Mason continued: “We're not going to let them. We're not even going to give them the chance to come crawling back to us. We don't need to rely on them. We're going to show Foxglove and everyone else that we can't be bullied. That's why I'm setting out the following plan: We're going to look further afield for new trading partners. And we're going to step up our own salvage operations.”
She paused to look around. “Make no mistake, this is a crisis. But if you made it here, you've survived far worse crises. You'll survive this one too.”
There was applause from most – but not all – of the audience. Mason nodded, and stepped off the stage.
People at the rear of the hall began to file out.
“We should go out there,” Mike loudly announced to everything around him, “and fucking well take what's ours!” His hand went to his hip where his gun would be holstered if he was on guard duty. “Without us growing food they wouldn't even be alive anymore!”
There was a brief murmur of assent from nearby.
Jess and Luke walked near him, hand in hand, without answered one way or the other. As they passed out of the hall into the cool evening air, he repeated his need to attack Foxglove, this time adding, “It can't be any more dangerous than going on loads of salvage trips, right?”
The reaction of the crowd was mixed. Some clapped, or cheered. Others remained silent.
Someone else stepped forward: A tall man with a long face and brown hair streaked with grey at the temples. “You're right,” he told Mike. He spoke loudly enough to be heard without letting himself shout. “We should attack, but they're taking advantage of us because we've shown we're weak.”
Jess hadn't seen him since the last election: His name was Andrew Dale. He'd run against Mason, arguing that Paradise Compound needed to become, in effect, a military dictatorship to survive. He's lost the vote, of course – but a worrying large number of people had still voted for him.
“If we go on like this, everyone will be ready to take advantage of us,” he said to his little audience.
By now, people had come to a halt outside the hall, with Mike and Andrew the centre of a small audience. Jess waited, not because she agreed with them, but because she was worried about what might happen.
Someone else pushed through the crowd toward Mike and Andrew. Jess didn't know his name. “Bullshit!” he said. “Don't you start this again. Not now!”
“Start what?” said Mike. “Who's starting anything?”
The third man glared at him, then at Andrew. “You bastard. You're trying to take advantage of this situation for your own gain.” Then, to Mike, “And you, you think you can solve every problem by pushing people around.”
Mike squared up to the man, stood until their noses were a couple of inches apart. “You want to repeat that?” he growled, softly enough that it was hard to hear.
The other man didn't move.
Andrew put a hand on Mike's shoulder. He said something inaudible to Mike, then looked to the rest of the crowd: “We should save our anger for the people at Foxglove.”
Mike retreated, and the two of them walked away. The crowd began to disperse.
Jess stayed for a few seconds, watching, then started walking. She sighed. “Looks like I might live just long enough to see Paradise Compound destroyed in a war.”
“Let's just get through the operation first. One impossible task at a time, alright? That's the best we can manage,” said Luke.
Chapter 3
Over the next couple of days, Jess spent most of her time looking up possible trade routes. They had a map of nearby compounds and other settlements scattered across the country. But information, dripping along trade routes, travelled slowly. Some of the compounds hadn't been heard from for months – had they been destroyed, or had Paradise simply not heard enough about them?
Not only was the information out of date, it was often patchy too. For half the places on the list, she only knew the names. Others were little better – there was not enough to know whether they'd be interested or able to trade.
Eventually, she whittled the candidates down to a shortlist of possible trading partners: Ironbridge and Goat's Head were their best choices. Ironbridge was further and more difficult to get to than Foxglove, and Goat's Head even moreso. After that, there were another three which were riskier still, only to be tried if neither of the first options worked out.
When at last it was done, on Tuesday afternoon, less than a day before her operation, she sat back and stretched.
Her side was still bothering her. She'd lost count the number of time she'd felt the parasite poking out of the holes in her arms, or between her ribs. Twice it had begun while she talking to someone else. Neither had asked if anything was wrong, but the first colleague had clearly noticed.
Ten minutes to go before her shift finished. She started working on possible salvage routes, but didn't have enough time to get started on anything serious.
When her shift finished, Luke was still on maintenance duty, so she went to see if she could find Richard.
He was in his office working on rota times. “Come,” he said when she knocked on the door. “We can talk in private here, so long as we don't take too long. Just lock the door.”
She did, then set down on the other chair opposite him. “Did you hear about the argument Mike got into after Mason's speech?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Is it gonna be a problem?”
“I think so. Andrew's been keeping quiet for a while, but now he's seen an opportunity.”
“The crisis. Best time to move against Mason, because some people will blame her no matter what she chooses.”
“Exactly right,” Richard said.
“Well, that's so lovely a thought I think I'll have to get back to work to take my mind off it.” Jess rose from the chair and stretched. A flutter of aches ran down her left side.
“Jessica …” Richard smiled. “You come here to chat, and you don't once bring up your operation tomorrow.”
“No,” she said. “There'll be plenty of time to talk about it after it's been done. If I survive. Anyway. If I don't, sorry in advance for the mess I'll leave you with.”
Richard suppressed a chuckle. “Fair enough. Well, just to let you know, I've cleared the route from your room to the infirmary until 8.30.”
“Thanks. I'll see you later, then.” She waved goodbye.
*
After Jess had gone, Richard sat back and considered the situation. In truth, he didn't care what Andrew Dale and his gang of militarists believed. The cold fact of the matter was that, at the time, they didn't have enough support. At the last election, it had been clear that Mason was going to win.
So Richard had allied with the winning side – Mason and her “civilised values”.
And now he was so associated with Mason that he'd have difficulty getting on Dale's good side. That was something that might need to fixed. For the moment, Dale still lacked enough support to win an election, but he could still be dangerous. His supporters might try something stupid.