Rangers

by Chloe Garner

  He went and got his bag from the foot of the tree and started unpacking it.

  “How much steel have you got in there? Anything blessed or marked?” Samantha asked. “I’ve got the weapons for it, but you have to understand the weapons for them to fully work. And besides that, the town is even more innocent than I had estimated. We’d be going in, killing innocents, just to get ourselves killed. Guaranteed.”

  “We can’t just leave her,” Jason said. Sam was still breathing deep, with his stomach. He looked up at Jason and squinted.

  “We do just leave her,” he said. “We snatch her after they let her go and we take her out somewhere in the middle of nowhere and we pull the demon back out.”

  Samantha looked at him, chest untwisting just a little bit, and nodded.

  “That’s the play.”

  “No,” Jason said. “I’m not going to have let her walk into this. We said we would get her out.”

  “You go down there, you die. If you go down there to die, Sam will follow you. And if Sam follows you, I will follow him. We all three die, she ends up possessed, anyway,” Samantha said. “We snatch her with a disoriented demon in her, pull it back out, and then we deal with the town.”

  They stood most of a quarter mile away from the church, up on a hillside, but even that far away, they could all still clearly pick out the notes of the scream.

  Jason started down the hill, but Sam was on his feet just as quickly and caught him. They listened to the scream as it died away, Jason thrashing against Sam’s grip the whole time.

  “It’s done,” Samantha said. “I’m sorry. If it helps, she probably won’t remember that part.”

  “They were supposed to wait until dark,” Jason said, looking down at the church helplessly.

  “Sorcerer would have. Demons don’t care as much,” Samantha said. The church rapidly began to empty, and Sam dragged Jason back up the hill to behind the cluster of bushes.

  “Thirty-five demons,” Sam whispered to Samantha. “I’ve never seen that many together.”

  “I have, but not organized ones. Possession is risky for them,” she said. “Cheaper, but punished with much more regularity. We don’t tolerate it.”

  “What do we do, even after we get Allison out?” Sam asked. Samantha knew the answer, but she pushed it away.

  “Let’s worry about her first,” she said. “That’s going to be hard enough.”

  Allison was the last one out of the church, her pace disjointed and even more robotic than the others.

  “We have to assume that they all know we’ve been asking about this place,” Samantha whispered, watching Allison through her binoculars. “It will be a lot better if we can get her in the first hour, though. After that much time, most demons will have found a lot more of the levers and gotten a better grip.”

  “It’s still going to be daylight,” Sam said. She nodded. Jason was shaking with rage.

  “Are you going to hold it together, man?” Sam asked him. Jason looked at him defiantly, then looked down at the ground and shook himself.

  “I’m good,” he said and nodded. “I’m good.”

  Allison walked to her car, parked at the side of the church, and just sat in it. They waited for most of ten minutes, but she didn’t move.

  “Figuring things out,” Samantha said. “Hasn’t been on this side in a long time, if it ever has before.”

  “Stop it,” Jason said.

  “What?” Samantha asked.

  “She isn’t a science project,” Jason said. Sam opened his mouth to protect her, but Samantha shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. I review details when I’m anxious.”

  Jason looked at her as though he wished he could apologize, but couldn’t, then turned to look back through his binoculars.

  “The side of the church is good,” Sam said. “No windows on that side. One of us going alone has the best shot of making it.”

  “I’ll go,” Jason said.

  “Can you hit her hard enough to knock her out?” Samantha asked. “We don’t know how strong the demon is that has taken her.”

  “I can do it,” he said.

  “Just a minute,” she said, pulling off her backpack and digging through it for a minute. She pulled out a strip of bandaging and cut it, pouring the partial contents of several vials onto it and folding it in half to mix them. The oil from the first bottle saturated it completely.

  “Demon chloroform. Try that. If it’s still confused enough, or weak enough, that will be easier than hitting her. There’s nothing in it that is going to hurt her body.”

  Jason nodded, then looked up at her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. She nodded.

  “Be careful.”

  He started furtively down the hillside, pausing at the fewer and further-between shrubs and overgrown weeds. Samantha pulled her weapons of choice out of her bag - two shiny-bladed knives that Sam wouldn’t recognize. She didn’t want to kill innocents, and she wouldn’t set in motion a plan in which it was unavoidable, but she would kill them to protect herself or her friends. This was the order of things. Sam pulled a rifle out of his bag and followed Jason down the slope with the sight.

  “Headshots,” Samantha said. “Even those might not be enough.”

  He nodded, adjusting his aim higher.

  Jason made it to the side of the car, sitting with his head below the level of the passenger side window. Samantha’s grip on the pair of knives was slippery and she felt her breath grow even more shallow. Pastor Rick walked out of the church, but Jason wouldn’t have been able to see him. Sam and Samantha both stopped breathing. The only hope was that he had heard the door open, but it became apparent that he hadn’t as he snuck toward the back of the car and rounded the trunk.

  Rick ran toward Jason and Samantha fell sideways as Sam pulled the trigger on the rifle. She sat up to see what had happened. Rick staggered backwards, and Sam shot again. Jason ran to the side of the car and ripped the door open, slamming his hand over Allison’s mouth, then pushed her over far enough for him to get into the car. Sam shot Rick again. The rest of the demons were running toward the church as Sam shot Rick a fourth time and Samantha heard the engine in Allison’s car start. Sam pulled the trigger once more, then Jason hit Rick with Allison’s car and raced away. Sam stood and slid the rifle into his bag, then helped Samantha out of the dirt.

  “Run.”

  <><><>

  The chase had been halfhearted at best, once they crested the hill out of the little town.

  “We’re going to need to figure out what we want to do about them sooner rather than later,” Sam said. “They probably won’t be here tomorrow.”

  “I’d say we’ve got less than three hours,” Samantha said. She looked at him.

  “We can’t deal with them,” she said. “I can’t kill them because I won’t, and you can’t kill them because you can’t. We need to call in the experts.”

  “I think we’ve got contacts in LA,” Sam said. Samantha shook her head.

  “My kind of experts,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “Carter would make mincemeat of them, and while no one is as good as he is, there are men closer to here who could manage it,” she said.

  “I don’t like admitting we’re in over our heads,” Sam said. “And Jason hates it worse.”

  “Jason is thinking about other things.”

  He looked glanced in the rearview to make sure no one was following, then looked at her.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” he asked.

  “Those people didn’t know what they were signing up for,” she said. “They’re innocent. Every one of us that I’ve ever met is more interested in his own safety than saving innocents. They want justice, but only when it comes to demons. People are pretty much on their own. They’re going to sweep in and massacre the town.”

  Sam thought for a minute then looked at her.

  “They were terminal, anyway. What happens when you pull the
demon out of a person with a terminal illness?”

  “They go back to dying, if the part that was failing hasn’t completely failed in the meantime,” Samantha said.

  “So… I mean, it’s terrible, but you aren’t taking more than a few weeks or months, in exchange for not being possessed any more. That’s an okay trade, right?”

  “If it were that simple. They participated in dark magic to help thin the boundary. Unknowingly, sure, but participated, all the same. There is a very good chance of inflicting soulburn, like that. And they’ve been possessed, ever since. They can’t have healed. If I make a call and send down the cavalry, it’s entirely possible that I have condemned every person in that town.”

  They were both silent for a long time.

  “You have to do it,” Sam said.

  “I know,” she answered.

  “If you don’t, they’ll just set up somewhere else and keep going,” he said. She nodded.

  “They’ll do that anyway, but it doesn’t change anything. It’s an army of demons, getting bigger all the time. We have to knock it back. Those people are probably going to die, anyway, and if we don’t do something about it now, a lot more people will die.”

  “We don’t usually have to worry about things like this,” Sam said. “We just go in and kill the things that need to be killed.”

  She nodded.

  “This was every day, with Carter. It’s wearying.”

  They caught up to Jason, who was pulled over along the road. Samantha rolled her window down.

  “She’s still out,” Jason said. “You think we could just bring her back to the hotel and pull it out there?”

  “Too loud,” Samantha said. “Head north on the highway and just take the first exit that looks promising.”

  “Anyone following?” he asked, looking back. She shook her head.

  “Running, more like.”

  He nodded and started off again.

  “We got one,” Sam said.

  “We got one.”

  “You should make the call, if you’re going to,” he said. She sighed and nodded.

  “I need your cell.”

  She dialed a number she had memorized years before and told the man on the other end of the line the size and location of the demon camp.

  “I’m not with him any more, and it’s your territory,” she said, listening to him complain. “I’d say you’ve got less than an hour to get organized, then they’re going to be scattered.” More abuse. She stuck her tongue into her cheek and grinned at the phone. “It’s not my job to make your messes easier to clean up. I got what I came for and I’m headed out. You have a problem with it, take it up with him.” She listened some more, tipping her head back and forth. “Yeah, I won’t answer at this number. Listen. There’s a good chance they’re soulburnt. Do what you can, right?” The abuse was louder this time, and she simply hung up the phone.

  “You okay?” Sam asked.

  “That went well,” she said, then glanced at him. “Really.”

  “So it’s done,” Sam said. She nodded.

  Jason took two turns off the interstate and headed off into the desert for five or six minutes before he pulled over and Sam helped him to get Allison out of the car.

  “What happens when you exorcise a sedated demon?” Jason asked. Samantha was getting rope out of her backpack, and she stopped.

  “She wakes up, usually. Does the normal demon thing, then the body screams while you pull it out.”

  Jason stood, holding Allison, and looked at Samantha.

  “She’s going to remember, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “In one way or another, yes,” Samantha told him. Sam squeezed Jason’s shoulder and shook his head.

  “Just do it, man. It’s the best we can do.”

  “Unless,” Samantha said, regretting it as soon as she said it. Jason’s eyes latched on to her as he waited. She couldn’t expect him to make a rational decision right now.

  “How much risk are you guys willing to take, for her? I can pull it out in Angeltongue. She wakes up at the hotel. Doesn’t remember a thing after the church, more likely than not. If the demon is still too confused to pay attention to how it gets pushed out, and if it hasn’t gone through enough of her memories yet, we could get away clean.”

  “Do it,” Sam said.

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed. She looked between them and stooped down to get new supplies out of her bag.

  “Psychics are a particularly lucrative target for demons,” she said, getting out the oils she needed to seal the demon out once she pulled it. “They have special characteristics that they like. If we get their attention, Sam stands a lot higher risk of being identified and possessed.”

  “It’s fine. You need to work fast, right?” Sam asked. She checked her vials and nodded.

  “No more deciding then,” Sam said. “Just do it.”

  “Should I put her down?” Jason asked. Samantha approached slowly, shaking her head. She wetted her ring finger with oil and made a mark on Allison’s forehead, then put her hand on the girl’s head and closed her eyes. She worried a little she was out of practice, but the words hadn’t failed her yet.

  She began with the softer blessings, rooting around for which one would strike on the inert demon most strongly, then, as she got hold of it, laid into the harder blessings and the demon curses. The flame of power inside the girl’s body thrashed, but Samantha had insulated Allison from it. The girl’s chest rose once against an arched back, then Samantha had the grip she was looking for and she pulled, using purification blessings that she only used against demons. Allison relaxed and Samantha let the demon go. She didn’t tie a bell to it, because she didn’t want it worrying about who had pulled it. In three or four minutes, it was over. Sam and Jason were staring at her, when she opened her eyes.

  “Is that it?” Sam asked.

  “It didn’t put up much of a fight,” Samantha said. “I expect that was a first-time possession. Strange.”

  “Seriously?” Jason said, looking down at Allison.

  “Oh, come on, it’s a lot harder once they’ve got a grip. It’s not that big a deal. Stop looking at me like that.”

  “I think that was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jason said.

  “Why don’t we do that every time?” Sam asked.

  “Sure beats getting bitten, again.”

  “Guys. There are demons out there who could squash any of the three of us like bugs. I don’t want them looking at me, and I certainly don’t want them looking at Sam. I’ll help when I think I can get away with it, but you shouldn’t get excited. This is probably a one-time thing.”

  “Help me get her into the car?” Jason asked. Sam went and climbed in the driver’s side to help get Allison settled, then they drove back to the hotel and waited for Allison to wake up.

  <><><>

  “It was…” Allison said, searching for words. Samantha sat quietly next to Sam on the bed as Jason held Allison’s hands. “I couldn’t move. It hurt. Everything… hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I wish they had been telling you the truth.”

  “It’s over, I guess,” Allison said. “I guess I’ll go home and just… wait.”

  Sam stood.

  “I think we’re going to go watch the sun set,” he said. Samantha stood up behind him.

  “Thank you,” Allison said. “I can’t believe I trusted them.”

  “You were desperate and you thought you had nothing to lose,” Jason said.

  “And you tried to stop me,” she said.

  “We didn’t know yet, or else…”

  Sam closed the door behind them, and he and Samantha walked across the parking lot. They went and sat on the curb and Samantha turned her head up at the sky.

  “Well, I wouldn’t call that a solid win, but we certainly didn’t lose, either,” she said. Sam nodded.

  “You scared me a little, today,” he said. She looked over at him, pulling her sunglasses off and f
olding them in her lap. “We really don’t know who you are at all.”

  She looked down at her hands, playing with the arms on her sunglasses and shook her head.

  “Haven’t a clue,” she said.

  “I knew you weren’t lying when you told me you’d died, but…”

  “Hard to believe, all the same.” She looked up at him. “If I could just show you, I would, but that kind of a display of fireworks just isn’t a good idea. I could make you a list but…” she looked back down. This was the hard truth of it. “It doesn’t matter what I could do. I don’t do that any more. Carter wasn’t in any danger - as it turned out, he was the one endangering me. If I were to draw attention to the two of you, I would leave. I would beg you to let me go, and I would leave. Hostages are only useful when the person you’re trying to manipulate knows what happens to them. I would go back to Carter for a while, let everyone believe I thought I was too good for you, then I would… I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far. It doesn’t matter what I could do. I won’t. I don’t want to have to leave.”

  “You’re like a rockstar, aren’t you?” Sam asked. He was happy. They had saved Allison, they had disbanded the camp, and he was secretly thrilled that he didn’t have to worry about Samantha - all this she knew. She smiled.

  “Carter said that if I applied myself, I could crack the top fifty,” she said. “By the end, I had a bead on the top fifteen.”

  “Fifty what?” Sam asked.

  “Most powerful people to ever live,” she said.

  “They keep a list?”

  She snorted.

  “In separate places, with different disinterested parties. They take this seriously.”

  “They think they can guess how they compare to dead people?” Sam asked. Samantha laughed.

  “It isn’t like a basketball tournament. You don’t have to be alive to win. It’s actually completely objective. They only have to struggle with the fact that they all lie like dogs.”

  “How can you objectively measure power?” Sam asked. She rubbed her cheek and looked away.

  “It’s really simple, but it’s a whole can of worms to explain,” she said. “And I haven’t thought about it in a really long time.”

  “Fifteen, huh?” Sam asked.