Blood Demons

by Richard Jeffries

  “Tell me, Craven,” he said softly. “Tell me what you need to tell me.”

  Through trembling flecks of flesh that used to be lips, two breaths emerged. Key heard something that sounded like “haaaa—naaaa.” He didn’t understand it, and neither did the translating machine.

  “What?” Key pressed, letting his grip tighten, feeling the noxiousness of the creature’s flesh. “Tell me again.” He lowered his ear to Craven’s mouth.

  Later, Lancaster would examine what happened next the same way he studied how Craven had dodged Nichols’s bullet in the school cellar. The Cerberus alarm went off a microsecond before Craven’s tongue almost knifed into Key’s ear. But Key was already straightening from the surprise of the claxon. Then the stabbing tongue was gone, no one having seen it.

  “What the hell?” Key exclaimed.

  “Emergency,” Lancaster grunted. “Set my news feed on alert.” He slapped on the electric chair’s controls again; at the same time he dialed the potency down. “Everybody out,” he ordered.

  “But—” Daniels started, indicating the creature.

  “Craven’ll keep,” Lancaster assured them, his tone broaching no contradiction. “Rahal, Dr. Helen, keep watch. Let us know of any change immediately.”

  The two acknowledged. Then he was out the quarantine door.

  Key shared a look with the others, then he rapidly followed, already accepting that the retired general was not one to cry wolf, and that the interrogation was all but over in any case. Now all they had to do was figure out what “ha-na” meant. But, as his dad said, “first things first.”

  As Lancaster ran toward his office, he was already realizing that he needed to have extensive stations so he could access the alerts from anywhere in the palace. And virtually everyone who was following him was planning to suggest the same thing.

  Safar, however, was way ahead of them in terms of the simplest, and most obvious, tech—he had pulled out his phone and was staring at it as he ran.

  “Waa faqri!” he swore.

  Gonzales knew it was serious, because he had heard Safar use the Arabic term that translated as “damn” before.

  Then they all knew, since all of Lancaster’s monitor screens were on in his office as they entered. Everyone approached with trepidation, as if they wanted to draw out these last moments of relative ignorance and innocence, of not-knowing. And then they saw. The monitors were all showing the same thing from different sources: the Liberty Bell attack. A third of the screens showed witness interviews, a third showed tourist videos, and a third showed the museum’s security footage. All agreed that an angelic blond girl holding an orange juice container had set off a bomb—killing her, killing the man closest to her, and tearing the bell in two. The obscene image was replayed over and over, in fuzzy slow motion, the colors blanched by the explosion. It played in a nauseating loop: the iconic landmark, big and heavy, lifted upward by the blast, parting along the crack that raced to the top in a mighty leap, just ahead of the rising smoke of the explosion. Then they saw the two halves of iron falling to the sides, into the ugly white cloud and out of frame like a shelled peanut, the ancient wood from which it was suspended sighing upward as it was relieved of its great, historic weight. Then it, too, was lost in the obscene cloud. There did not seem to be any shrapnel, at least nothing jetting through the cloud or toward the security camera. The old bell had taken the hit like a titan, the solid metal from which it was made refusing to splinter. The edges of the crack had peeled back and up and it just—broke.

  “Fuck them,” Daniels finally seethed with uncommon, heartfelt anger. He stood stiffly still in the middle of the room as the callous carnival played around him.

  Lancaster got behind his desk like a commander about to launch his ship. He engaged contact with his network of associates and informants around the world. Nichols tightened her fists repeatedly while Daniels pounded his on the top of the nearest easy chair.

  “Was the bomb in the carton?” the redhead asked, unafraid to admit that she couldn’t tell.

  “No,” said Safar, still checking his phone screen. “It was full of tissue paper. That was why the security guard didn’t confiscate it. It was full of a harmless roll of paper that he could only see the top of.” Safar looked up from his screen. “Paper that floated everywhere after the explosion. Paper that had written on it, over and over again, ‘I will keep going until you stop me.’”

  Key’s head snapped up. “Moorkh!” he exclaimed. “Goonga!” he cried as he raced back out the door.

  Although Daniels and even Nichols quickly followed, Key slid, standing up, back into the quarantine area seconds before them. So he was first to see Craven in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  As the others were seeing that, Key’s eyes snapped over to where Dr. Helen lay at the knees of Eshe Rahal—the young lady’s fist in the old woman’s hair as her opening mouth lowered toward the old woman’s neck.

  Just as the others assumed the scientist was helping the old woman after an attack by Craven, Key snapped up the lightning rifle and shot his lover in the face.

  Chapter 22

  “Come in, General.”

  Lancaster didn’t know if Pat Logan’s earnest rather than ironic use of his rank was a good or bad sign. He hadn’t even used the usually sarcastic “retired” as a kicker. He supposed he was about to find out. He stepped into Logan’s command post, which took up an entire long, half-circle bivouac tent that was just one of four erected side by side between the Bagram Airbase runway and its control tower.

  The retired general was flanked by Master Sergeant Morton Daniels and Corporal Teresa Nichols—both in full assault gear uniform. Lancaster wore his dress blues—the only U.S. military uniform that used all three colors of the American flag.

  “You dressed for the occasion,” Logan said drily, glancing at him as he leaned over the desk of his personal aide, First Lieutenant Rita Jayson.

  Lancaster caught her eye as it went from the files to her commanding officer. It glinted as it passed. He was glad to see she was still working for Logan after having revealed to Lancaster the mission wavelength of the last attack on Zaman.

  Each one of the Cerberus people would have sworn that Logan could not have caught the look that passed between aide and general. Nonetheless, the savvy ladder climber looked from her to Lancaster anyway.

  “You two have met?” he asked as he took the file and headed to his own, much larger, desk in the center of the tent.

  “I saw her on the runway the last time I was here,” Lancaster said truthfully as he and the two agents shouldered their way through the hive of activity. This time the area was predominantly filled with intel officers rather than soldiers—obviously assigned to triple- and quadruple-check their latest findings. Lancaster nimbly changed the subject back to his uniform. “I thought it was only fair, considering your latest promotion.”

  Nichols took a second to check if Daniels could control himself. To his credit, he didn’t roll his eyes, but he couldn’t contain a flattening of his lips and eyebrows. When the team first heard of Logan’s seemingly inexplicable ascension to brigadier general following the Paktika Urgon fiasco, Daniels had grunted, “I never met a man who could fall up stairs before.” To Daniels’s debit, however, the reason his eyes weren’t rolling was that they were locked on the handsome flank of Rita Jayson.

  Logan sat and meaningfully picked up an expensive cigar from a box on his desk. It was obviously a gift from friends in celebration of that promotion. He took his sweet time lighting it, clamped it in his teeth, and leaned back.

  “You know as well as I do that it was a face-saving upgrade, Chuck,” he said with a wide, shrewd smile.

  “Do I know that?” Lancaster asked insincerely.

  Logan continued as if the other man hadn’t spoken. “And you also know that it comes with its very own razor-lined trapdoor. I said I would
fall on my sword if I fucked up again, and I will. But until then—” He let the unfinished phrase hang as he took a long pull on the cigar and sent up three perfect, ever-widening smoke rings. “Until then, I’m going to enjoy it.” He leaned back even more, wove his fingers together behind his head, and crossed his ankles on top of his desk.

  Lancaster was sympathetic, but largely unmoved. “I gather you knew I was coming.”

  Logan dropped his feet back to the floor and jerked forward to grab a file. “Oh, yes, First Lieutenant Jayson’s line rang with each link in the chain of command you reached.” His eyes ticked down six lines of notes on the paper. “By the time you buzzed in the C.O.S.’s ear, we started cleaning off the red carpet.”

  Lancaster frowned, remembering the chief of staff’s words of support for their new Johnny-on-the-spot, who was, of course, the old Johnny-on-the-spot who had most recently screwed the pooch, then ran away.

  “I’m here for the same reason I’m always here,” Lancaster said evenly.

  “Say it—just so we’re clear,” Logan replied.

  “I want what you want.”

  Logan looked down, smiled, and shook his head. They could play this game for an hour; the man wasn’t going to commit to anything, not really. But Logan wasn’t going to let him get away with it. When his head raised again it had less of his usual suspicious cunning and more charge-of-the-light-brigade acquiescence.

  “Okay, we can do it this way,” Logan said quietly. “What do I want? Glory? Fame? Respect? A cushy job with a great pension?”

  “You tell me,” Lancaster said, continuing to pass the buck to Logan.

  Logan took the cigar between his right fore and middle finger, then waved both the tobacco smoke and the words away. “Let me make this easier,” he said. “The only reason I let you in is that I realize all of the above has always been true.” He looked the retired general dead in the eye. “So where does that leave me? Us? What can I do for you? Or, more importantly, what can you do for me?”

  Lancaster took a few steps to the side of the desk and plunked one ass cheek on the corner. “This setup is the same as before,” he said, taking a brisk, professional tone. “Too easy.”

  Logan raised his arms in surrender. “I know,” he said, taking a less-formal tone. “Another impossible terrorist attack seemingly designed to elicit just the right, contained, reaction. Instead of a big body count, we get a kick in our pride. If one witness hadn’t gotten so close, probably only the suicide bomber would’ve died.” Logan shook his head heavily. “A four-year-old suicide bomber.”

  “And another dare to catch him if we can.”

  “Not catch,” Logan interceded. “Stop. He doesn’t want a carpet bombing. He wants it personal. Eye to eye.”

  “Only this time,” Lancaster mused. “No big neon scar across the mountain range saying ‘secret base here.’”

  “No,” Logan grunted, looking at the busy intel guys. “This time the anonymous tips were as frequent and continual as the messages that you were on your way up the chain of command.” He shrugged. “But what was I going to do? Say ‘I think this is a setup’? Not with that same chain of command nipping at my ass.” He motioned at the activity. “They spent all their time collecting data. I spent all my time seeing if I could debunk it.”

  “And smoking fat stogies,” Lancaster reminded him.

  “And smoking fat stogies,” Logan admitted without rancor. “You get the little pleasures where you can, in our business. ‘For tomorrow we die,’” he went on, quoting 1 Corinthians. “But even if I smoked the whole box, it wouldn’t change the intel. Even without the anonymous tips, satellite and ground surveillance is unimpeachable. Aarif Zaman is pinpointed in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Badakhshan Province.” He caught Lancaster’s eye. “That’s practically in your backyard, isn’t it?”

  Lancaster nodded. The mountain range—a militarized combat zone created after 9-11, as well as the ongoing al Qaeda and Taliban fight—was practically sandwiched between Bagram and Tashkurgan over a distance of four hundred miles. Cerberus couldn’t help wondering whether Zaman’s new “hideout” was positioned knowingly to eventually prep a kick in its pride as well.

  “Yes,” Lancaster said slowly. “He couldn’t have done much better at getting our attention even if he had mooned the spy satellites.”

  “And what are we going to do?” Logan said hopelessly. “We’re a hammer, remember? And right now, Zaman is the biggest, baddest, sweetest nail there is.”

  “He’s also the one that’s sticking up the most,” Lancaster reminded him. “Like he’s begging for it.”

  “Ah, martyrdom.”

  “Maybe,” Lancaster agreed. “Let us track him for you.”

  Logan sniffed. “No more time. You may be in a position to say ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ but I’m not.”

  “You don’t want to throw good soldiers after good soldiers.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Logan almost exploded. Instead, he stood straight. “At oh five hundred hours tomorrow morning, we’re going in. And this time, no matter what happens, I’m not leaving without him.”

  Lancaster stood up as well, then, all too knowingly, and saluted the newly minted brigadier general. Despite himself, Logan’s face was washed with gratitude. But then the crafty suspicion made an unwelcome, but understandable, return.

  “Okay, Chuck,” he said. “What do you want?”

  Lancaster was the picture of knowing innocence. “Me, Pat? Why nothing, absolutely nothing.”

  Logan waited for the ‘but,’ and soon he got it.

  “But, if you’re in the mood not to leave without something, I’ve got two good Marines you would be wise to find a place for.”

  * * * *

  The new, seemingly improved brigadier general knew what he was being loaned here.

  At least part of the deriding sniggers about Cerberus in the halls of power came from envy over their seemingly bottomless budget and the exceptional equipment that bought. Besides, both Daniels’s and Nichols’s reputations were reaching legendary status amongst the enlisted men—the former even before the Arachnosaur incident.

  So, just to make sure there were no distractions, each got their own bunks—which were essentially simple master sergeant rooms off the main sleeping quarters. Neither minded. Although basic and utilitarian, they each got their own, lone, cot, sink, shower, and privy. Daniels was grateful for the privacy. Neither he nor Nichols held any illusions about their roles in this possible snafu—situation normal all fucked up—so a good sleep might be their only actual reward. A reward that had been in short supply since the start of this bloodless corpse investigation.

  At least that might be the case for the redhead. As Daniels stepped from the privy, wiping his freshly shaved face, his nostrils flared. There was a scent that hadn’t been in the quarters prior to his toiletries. It was of jasmine, lilac, mint, cinnamon, rose petals, musk, and one aroma he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He lowered the towel and looked toward the door.

  First Lieutenant Rita Jayson stood there, in her form-fitting skirt uniform, one hand on the upper frame and the other on the doorknob lock. As he watched, she twisted the bolt to the right. They both heard the clack.

  “Sir?” he said, lowering the towel and facing her, wearing only his Cerberus underwear.

  “It’s ma’am,” she answered, either correcting him or taunting him, it was not at all clear which.

  He decided to pursue the former opinion. “Ma’am,” he said. “To what do I owe this welcome visit? Good fortune? Karma?”

  She looked him up and down, her lips in a cross between a pout and a purse. “My predecessor in this assignment, Lieutenant Strenkofski, said if I ever met you I should pass on a message from her.”

  “Oh?”

  The woman frowned. “Innocence doesn’t seem to become you,” she observe
d, taking one step into the small room. It was not as small as the student rest closet of the Oman Medical College where he had drugged and abandoned Strenkofski, but still.

  “Is that what I’m being?” Daniels asked innocently.

  “Trying to be,” she affirmed.

  There was nothing uncertain about this officer. He looked from her mane of luxuriant mahogany hair to the swell of the shirt intersecting with the strain of the jacket lapels trying to contain her mighty chest, before sweeping down to the impressive curves of her trim waist, hips and shapely legs.

  “You have something for me, ma’am?” he asked, managing to retain formal military protocol and demeanor both.

  “I do,” she replied, and then the world shifted. She reached for the top button of her shirt with one hand while pulling up her skirt hem with the other.

  Daniels tossed the towel he knew not where and closed the distance between them just as her white lace demi-cup bra and stockinged garter belt appeared.

  “This is a very interesting message,” he whispered huskily in her ear as he unsnapped the bra—through both the jacket and the shirt—while unzipping the skirt.

  “That’s only the subject heading,” she whispered back, her warm hands curling behind his neck and down his shorts.

  If there was ever a clear distinction between natural blondes and soulful brunettes, Strenkofski and Jayson set the standard and the rules. Both had been willing to lay beneath only after they got to ride on top. While the blonde’s skin was flawless cool cream, the brunette’s was smooth warm tea.

  Barbara’s breasts were pendulous teardrops always about to cry, while Rita’s chest was ever-cresting ocean waves. The second lieutenant’s body was a sleek rocket ship, while the first lieutenant’s was a well-oiled sports car. One was sky, one was earth, and both were hungry.

  Even so, Jayson had it way over Strenkofski. Because, with the brunette, Daniels got to finish. Twice.