by J. F. Holmes
There is a thin wall between our world and that of the Fae and, during times of war, it is easily stepped through. The passions and emotions stirred by violence and combat bleed over, and the supernatural often awakes from long slumber to meddle in mortal affairs. Then also, there are the humans who purposely force that wall down seeking glory and power.
Either way, there have always been those among us willing to meet the supernatural threat with cold steel, burning hearts, and grim determination. In modern America, they are the men and women of Joint Task Force 13, those who have proven they have the metal to confront soul-blasting otherness on the battlefield. This unit, this organization, though, has been intertwined with our country since its birth. The name changes, but they are always there, ready to answer the call. Unknown, seeking no glory, asking no reward. They hold the line…
…BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL
Joint Task Force 13
Origins
Devils and DustJ.F. HolmesSyrian Civil War, 2018
Redeye Dan HumphreysThe Present
RevolutionLucas MarcumRevolutionary War
Run through the JungleLloyd Behm IIVietnam
Spy vs. SpyMichael MortonPacific, 1941
Devil DogsChris BastAfghanistan, ca 2010
TrollJ.F. HolmesWorld War II
Appendix A Task & Organization
Appendix BPersonnel
Devils & Dust
J.F. Holmes
Chapter 1
She looked good. Well, better than good. Too good for someone on his fifth month of being forward deployed to Mosul. I was tired of getting hit on by teenage PFCs standing at parade pretty, trying to get my attention, hip cocked and chest out. They were used to batting their eyes to get anything they wanted, and seemed to have a serious hard-on for us Special Operations types. Even with a definite, “Go away, honey; you’re desert ten, and I don’t have any rank to give you,” they persisted. With half of the guys on my team being Marines who’d bang a sheep if it looked sideways at them, being on a severely black ops unit was no fun sometimes. Then there was the thing two months ago with the succubus up in Erbil. Kurdish territory, so we thought we could chill for a week, get some downtime, and I wind up in the Combat Support Hospital with some of my life force literally sucked out of me.
She did look good though. CIA agent Olivia Bright, agency liaison to Joint Task Force 13, stood at the front of the tent, the harsh sunlight outside framing her golden hair. Screw the desert factor, she would be a ten anywhere back in the states. That slow West Virginia drawl was music to my ears, and I idly wondered what she would look like in one of those small black dresses.
“Master Sergeant Chamberlain, my boobs are well hidden behind my vest, and the sounds are coming out of my mouth. Which is up here.” She smiled as she pointed at her face, no meanness, just making a point.
I snapped back to reality and answered, “Yes, Ma’am,” though she was probably a few years younger than me. “I was paying attention, just thinking. The main point of your briefing was that the bad guys are members of an organization loosely allied with the Syrian armed forces. Their base is in al-Qusayr, or just outside of it, in the ruins of Kadesh. Mostly Alawi Muslims, members of the Shabiha, the Syrian Army militia they use for breaking heads.”
Bright gave a real smile then, a slight upturn of one corner of her mouth, and then was back to business. “Glad to see the Marines aren’t rubbing off on you, Sergeant.”
“I rubbed one off ON him last night, Ms. Bright. He slept right through it, ruined the joke,” said Corporal Hemmings.
“Nice to see you upheld the traditions of the infantry, Corporal.” And this time she said it with a grin.
“OH THREE ELEVEN, OHH-RAH! SEMPER FI!”
“Cut the shit, jarhead,” I said, and slapped the back of his head. He gave me a hurt look, then grinned. My team, Second Squad, First Platoon, Bravo Company, Team Atlantic, Joint Task Force 13, was pretty tight knit, despite being from four different services. Five Marines, three Army, one Navy corpsman, and an Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller, we had transcended the traditional rivalries and operated as one smooth group. Most of the time. You had to when your soul was on the line.
“ANYWAY, as I was saying,” the CIA agent continued, “one of our informants got wind of something that just wasn’t right, and it was brought to my attention. I’ve been working this group, along with some of our allies,” (Mossad, we knew it, and she didn’t have to say it), “and there was intel that repeatedly mentioned the word ‘Seedim’, which roughly translates from Assyrian as ‘demon’.”
“So what else is new?” muttered Specialist Gandolfini from my left. He was on the room clearing team, an army infantryman who had just come on board.
“Don’t get all cocky, boot,” said Hemmings. “One encounter with a supernatural doesn’t make you an expert.” That was why I liked the machine gunner; comic relief when needed, and serious when not.
“Don’t call me boot, you crayon-eating, sheep-banging, momma-loving…”
“The only mom I love is yours, twice, last night!” shot back Hemmings.
“So in summary,” said Bright, ignoring the byplay, “you can expect to face, along with whatever supernatural threat is there, a group of pretty hardcore veterans who’ve been fighting this war for the past five years. Estimate at the site is approximately a dozen lightly armed, but it’s in an area that our planes aren’t going to venture into for political reasons, so no Close Air Support.”
I looked over at Tech Sergeant Dah, whose brown face merely frowned. I’d seen her do a traditional Burmese celebration dance when she’d wielded air power like an orchestra of death. I also knew, though, that the tough refugee was just as good in a gunfight. Otherwise she wouldn’t be here.
“You’ll be meeting a contact on the ground at your LZ who’ll have more up-to-date information for you.” Bright paused and said, “He’s…interesting. Please don’t piss him off.”
I wondered what she meant by ‘interesting’ but didn’t get a chance to ask. She quickly wrapped it up.
“I’m going to turn it over to your S-2, who’ll brief you on the nature of the supernatural threat. Major Warkaski?” said Bright, and she motioned to the woman seated off to one side.
“Thanks, Oliva,” the major growled in her raspy voice. If Olivia Bright was a goddess, the JTF intel officer should have been working a cash register at a Dollar store in some godforsaken rust belt town. Instead she had a mind like a steel trap, and an internal wiki on the mythology of seemingly every culture on Earth. If she’d flown all the way out from Quantico, this was some big shit.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is some big shit,” she started off, and we all groaned. She smiled and continued, “and I can’t tell you a hell of a lot.”
She pointed to a bulletin board that stood to one side. On it was a sketch of several figures, which I recognized right away as drawings of both Egyptian and Hittite mythological figures. Hey, you don’t serve in Task Force Spooky for almost ten years without learning a thing or two. “Where this group is operating, around the ruins of Kadesh, is pretty much a supernatural hotspot due to the sheer amount of warfare that’s happened throughout history. It’s the site of the greatest chariot battle ever, something like ten thousand Egyptian and Hittite war wagons going at it. Since then, because of its location between empires, people have been fighting over it. That’s generated a hell of a lot of supernatural energy, and the wall is worn pretty thin. As you all know.”
Again she tapped the paper. “This is a Gallu, or Sumerian demon. It’s pretty damn badass. Sumer was pretty far down the Mesopotamian valley from here, but when hunter-gatherer tribes in the headwaters migrated to the more fertile plains of Ur, they brought with them some of their original supersti…” and s
he went on and on. Her voice trailed off as she realized she’d launched into lecture mode, which was brought to her attention by Corporal Hemmings falling flat forward on his face, mimicking passing out.
“As I was saying…” She flipped the paper over and revealed a surveillance photo, a grainy black and white showing a dark-complexioned man, middle eastern, with a worn and weathered face. He was wearing a conservative business suit, sitting at a cafe.
“This,” said Major Warkaski, “is Murtada Nur ad-Din. Agent Bright has identified him as the financier of a militia that operates in northwest Syria and Lebanon. When she got a tip about the demon stuff, she turned it over to us. He’s probably the dude who’s trying to raise up whatever the hell it is. If we get there before they complete their ritual and terminate the target, it should put a stop to it.”
Gunnery Sergeant Arsene leaned over and whispered, “We? She’s coming with us?” I shot him a dirty look and tried to pay attention as our company commander took over the brief. Captain Ibson was all business, as usual.
“Thank you, Major. As planned, Master Sergeant Chamberlain, your team will be inserting via 160th SOAR helo here,” and he tapped the map at a spot about ten clicks southwest. There was a ridgeline between the LZ and the target location, and a cave in the side of a hill. “I don’t need to tell you how to do your job; just make sure it’s done. Pickup will be on call twenty minutes out, here,” and he indicated another spot about a grid square north. Good, a quick exfil. Arsene also grunted in satisfaction. Quick in, engage, quick out.
“Normally you handle planning this on your own, but higher wants…” He paused. Here it comes, I thought. “Higher wants ad-Din alive,” he finished.
A collective groan went up from the team. The complication factor had just gone up by a hundred. A smash-and-grab was a lot harder than a plain old smash. “Sir, can we get a DAP for air support, at least?” The modified MH-60 was a gunship, and close air support would be damn nice.
“Nope. Politics.”
I tried something else. “How about 3rd Squad?”
“They have another tasking down by Baghdad. A Pokémon hunt in an Iraqi army motor base.” That brought a laugh. Chasing down minor SN infestations was a pain in the ass, especially with superstitious, half-trained allies. It was a lot easier for the Iraqi Spookies to recruit than it was for us scientific-minded Americans, but they ran like hell more often than not.
“OK then, a squad of vanilla devil dogs,” I said, meaning regular Marines who could act as reinforcements if shit hit the fan.
“There’s room on the birds for a scout sniper team. Check with the Army SF ODA and get two guys. Make SURE they know who NOT to pop.” The tone in his voice conveyed the seriousness of his order.
******
We were wheels up in thirty minutes, but I took some time to talk to Specialist Gandolfini. Although he was an experienced infantryman, and had been on a raid with us already, I still wasn’t sure he was getting this whole JTF fights supernatural thing. Gunny trusted him with room clearing, so I was OK with his combat skills, but I had been in the hospital when he came onboard.
I sat down where he was thumbing rounds into magazines, and seeing that he was busy making sure his gear was tight, I picked up a can and started shoving the fat 7.62 cartridges into an empty mag. I liked the SCAR; it had a heavy punch and interchangeable barrels for long shooting or CQB. Reliable, and the heavy round tended to punch through scales or hell burnt skin. I hoped today, like always, that it would be regular old people we were punching holes in. Or nobody. That would be great too. I wasn’t nineteen and stupid anymore.
He didn’t say anything, just kept working, so I asked him what he thought of the team so far. “Pretty frigging decent, for being half jarheads,” he answered with a smile.” Gunny really knows his shit, though as soon as I get my stripes back, I’m going to have to beat some sense into Hemmings.”
“Stay away from evil women, I’m sure you’ll have them back in no time,” I laughed. A good sense of humor was vital to a unit. “Serious question though, are you all set with what we do? I know you had that encounter with,” and I stopped, because I couldn’t remember the circumstances that had brought him to the team.
“With some kind of acid spitting most fucked up looking thing I’ve ever seen. Scared the shit out of me. And that thing we went up against in Mosul two weeks ago … I don’t know what the hell that was, either. Looked like a crazy guy,”
“Run of the mill undead. It happens, sometimes. Like one in a hundred million. A persons’ will to live is so strong that they can reanimate.” I’d seen it three times now, and it was gross, honestly. They went insane, quickly, and popping them was a mercy.
“Well, I’m not sure exactly what I saw, to tell you the truth, Master Sergeant. You tell me it was supernatural, well, OK, I guess. Still get paid the same, you know?”
“Actually, you get special duty pay for being in the JTF, but that’s neither here nor there. Everything will be made clear to you when you go to the Intro Course at Quantico next month. For now, though, despite whatever the guys told you, I want to make sure you know what you’re up against.”
“Well, why not just give it to me straight?” he asked.
So I told him. The whole history, starting with Captain Tillerson of the Fourth Pennsylvania Rifles and Lieutenant Turley of the Continental Marines, all the way up through “the big one” of 1954 at Bikini Atoll, and through to the sandbox we were sitting in today.
“The ‘BIG’ one?” he said, making air quotes. “Like hydrogen bomb big?”
“The Task Force could have handled it, but things got a bit out of hand, the President panicked, you know how politicians are.”
“Eisenhower?” he said, eyebrows raised. “Panicked?”
I shrugged. “OK, well, maybe things got a LOT out of hand. Point is, it’s our job to stop supernatural shit before it gets that far.”
“Supernatural shit, like sparkly vampires.”
“You’re killing me, Gandolfini. Gandalf. Whatever. Did the thing you ran into in Tikrit look like a sparkly fucking vampire?”
“Well, no. To be honest, it scared the ever loving shit out of me.” He looked it, too, thinking about it, face pale under his desert tan.
“Yeah,” I said, “but you kept your head and blew it to shit. Stuffed a frag in the mouth of an acid spitting demon, which took some balls. That’s why you’re here, you kept cool under pressure in a supernatural encounter.”
“Well, when do I get my silver bullets, holy hand grenade and magic axe?” he asked, half seriously.
“Silver bullets we get occasionally, but a mag dump is better than a silver bullet any day. Hard to move when you’ve taken twenty high velocity rounds. Holy hand grenades, well, the Marines seem to think all hand grenades are holy. And you only find killer rabbits in England.”
He laughed, and said, “Yeah, that’s true.”
“And,” I finished, “there’s no magic weapons. Well, maybe back at Quantico, but do you think I want to sign for Excalibur and have that shit come up missing in a layout of my gear? Hell no! I’d frigging wind up in Leavenworth, and the Lady of the Lake will just hand it out again to some dipshit officer.”
“Watery tart!” he exclaimed, pondered that, then finally said, “Can I at least get a hot blonde cheerleader with a wooden stake on my fireteam?”
“Fuck that, I get first dibs. Rank his its’ privileges, and you seem to lose yours around women anyway. Rank AND privilege.”
“True that, Sarge. I got it bad, but at least I didn’t get my life forced sucked out by a female demon.”
I could feel my face go red, and I sheepishly said, “Heard about that, huh? Well, I was drunk, and on leave, and …” and my explanation trailed off as he started laughing. “Well, just pack your shit, we lift in five. Welcome aboard.”
Chapter 2
I went over the manifest in my head one more time as we boarded. There were two MH-6 Little Birds, and each one car
ried three per side, sitting on the skids. Beside me was TSG Dah, acting as my RTO, and my Anti-Armor jarhead, Sergeant Reynolds. On the other side were the two marines of my machine gun team, Sergeant Williams and Corporal Hemmings, each with a 240B. Between them sat their ammo bearer, Army SPC Jeremy, with two extra barrels and a shitload of ammo. I felt bad for the kid, but tough crap. That’s what you get for being young.
Gunny Arsene was directly across from me, with his two shooters, Specialist Gandolfini and Staff Sergeant Smith. They were a tight-knit fireteam, a three-headed, smooth-moving, death-dealing monster who barely needed to talk as they cleared a house. On the other side was our medic, HM3 Bailey, and the two Army SF guys, Master Sergeant Dowling and Sergeant First Class Clifford. Like good professionals, the snipers hadn’t asked many questions, though they weren’t read into the JTF, and I felt great comfort seeing the Barrett .50 they carried.
The easiest way to beat a supernatural threat was to stop them before they crossed the wall. Supernatural beings, large and small, usually needed human agency to bring them into this world, though many existed in both. Sometimes it was inadvertent, through a dream, or an oath. Usually, though, it was some power-hungry asshole who was bent on taking over the world because he had a small wanker or something. Whatever the cause, if we could put a bullet in the human, it usually stopped the threat before it started.
The problem occurred when the wall had come down and a super had stepped through. Then, well, it was balls-to-the-wall bangarang, unleashing the most firepower possible, in the shortest amount of time, in the smallest point we could. Yeah, they were hard to kill, and sure, silver, holy water, wooden stakes, whatever would be damn handy, IF we knew what to bring to a fight, and IF the usual dicked-up supply chain had what we needed. Try putting “7.62mm. Steel jacket, silver core, 10,000,” as a line item on a budget request. Fat chance. We generally had to get them custom made out of the unit slush fund. As far as the DoD was concerned, we were just another Spec Ops unit among dozens. A little blacker than most, but try explaining “we fight dragons” to some politician on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I had one magazine with eighteen silver rounds for my SCAR; that was it for the entire squad. Business as usual, and we wouldn’t need them if everything went right anyway. If they even worked on what might come through the wall; silver bullets were kind of a western thing, you know?