by Michael Todd
“The beast is on fire,” the pilot reported into his headset. “I’m swinging around to take another look for the girl.”
He turned the chopper in circles to get a better look at what was going on. Other police helicopters kept news choppers away from the conflagration.
There was an explosion where the demon had been, and a huge ball of fire and debris blew past the chopper.
He steadied the bird, breathing heavily and blinking wildly to adjust his eyesight.
“Explosion! There has been an explosion,” the pilot shouted. “Repeat, there has been an explosion. Waiting for the smoke to clear.”
The pilot hovered over the spot where the demon had been, continuing to shine his spotlight downward. He looked down, swiveling his head back and forth to see if the demon was still there.
As the smoke began to clear, he pulled the mic to his lips.
“The area is clear.” He sighed. “The demon is gone.”
“Good work,” the recipient replied. “Go ahead and get out of there.”
“Hold on.” The pilot leaned forward and moved the chopper to the side. “There is a body down there.”
He shined his spotlight onto the ground where the demon had been, and gaped as he stared.
Katie was looking around in confusion, her face dark with soot. She breathed deeply and looked up, red-eyed, at the helicopter. He moved his light over her.
“The woman—the D Squad woman? She’s alive,” he said in wonder.
Katie put her arm up to block the searchlight and slowly reached up to flip him off.
“What’s she doing?” the dispatcher asked.
“Well, she’s flipping me the bird.” He chuckled. “Let me pull back a little.”
“There’s something on the ground,” the copilot said, pointing down. “Pull up more…I can’t make out what it is.”
The chopper moved higher, the beam of light widening to cover the entire space where the demon had died.
“What the fuck?” the copilot murmured.
There was a pentagram encased in a circle on the ground around Katie, burned deep into the grass and soil. Small fires still blazed along the circle’s edges. Katie was standing right in the center of it.
“It’s a… We have a pentagram,” the pilot reported. “On the ground where the demon died, surrounding the woman.”
As if Katie could hear them her head shot up and she stared into the light with her bright-red eyes. The pilot grasped the stick tighter, feeling the entire helicopter shimmy and shake around him.
The copilot looked at the readings and then back at the pilot. “What’s going on?” he yelled. “The readings are fine.”
The pilot looked at him with wide eyes and then peered at Katie, who stood, fists balled and eyes red, staring angrily up at the helicopter. The spotlight burst and everything went black, sparks falling into the smoke-shrouded cemetery.
The pilot put the bird into a hover and looked at the copilot.
“I…uh… I think that is good enough for this morning,” he said with a nod of his head.
“Yeah,” the copilot said, staring down at Katie’s shadow. “I don’t think she liked the light whatsoever.”
23
The scene was damned hard to believe.
Smoke billowed over the last remnants of the Inglewood Park Cemetery. Crushed stone was strewn all around the grounds, and police officers covered the remains of their fallen comrades as well as the other victims of the scene.
They couldn’t confirm due to the smoke, but word was that the demon was gone.
Still the cops waited, their guns ready as they eyed the smoke.
While they had no idea what might come through that cloud—nor could their shocked minds take in everything that they just had witnessed—they weren’t backing down.
Never in the history of humanity had a scene like that been witnessed by so many uninfected by the curse of the Damned.
“Someone’s coming through,” one of the officers shouted, and over a dozen nearby officers’ heads swiveled toward the voice.
Through the smoke and debris three figures slowly appeared. Eric and Damian supported Calvin as he limped past the smoldering embers, coughing and wincing at the pain.
A moment behind them strode the woman, her skin darkened from the ash and the red dissipating from her eyes.
The three men stopped and looked around at the ravaged landscape. The chopper in the background was unusable, and, not happy with taking it out of the sky, at some point the demon had chucked another rock at it.
That machine would never fly again.
Calvin looked over his shoulder at Katie’s expressionless face and the smoke still coming off her skin. He didn’t know how she had survived, but he knew where his faith would be placed from this moment on. He turned his head back around and eyed the cops, who slowly lowered their weapons as the Damned moved forward.
Damian looked at his male teammates and back at Katie before stopping once more.
Calvin recognized the three cops in front of them from the gun store. Their arms were crossed over their chests, and there were smiles on their faces.
“Friends of yours?” Damian asked, looking at Calvin.
“Something like that.” Calvin chuckled, limping forward with Eric under his arm helping him remain upright.
“That was quite a show,” one of the cops exclaimed.
“Fireworks and everything,” the second added.
“It’s good to see you still standing,” the third told them, reaching out to shake Calvin’s free hand.
“Kind of standing.” He winced and pulled his hand across his ribs. “We might need a ride.”
“We kept her safe.” The first cop winked and the three parted to allow the men to view what was behind them.
It was their SUV—a little dusty, but not a scratch on her.
Calvin chuckled and nodded at the cops in thanks. Eric helped Calvin climb over the smashed cop car.
Damian turned and stuck his hand out to help Katie over. She grinned slightly, breaking the gravity of the scene—at least on her part.
She nodded at the three cops, who took a step back but politely returned her smile.
Everyone had seen what had happened, but none of them could explain why she was still alive, or what she was, exactly. They had seen the claws, the red eyes, the healing—everything—but nothing topped the ball of fire she walked out of unscathed.
At that moment she didn’t understand it either, so she couldn’t provide any guidance to the those staring at her.
Katie climbed into the car and reached back to squeeze Calvin’s hand as Eric helped buckle him in. He looked at her with respect laced with something else; something she hadn’t felt before.
She turned back to the front and pulled her brows together. Something vibrated in her back pocket, and she pulled out her phone to find a text from an unknown number.
It’s me, where are you guys? Oh—this is Charlotte
Meet us in Las Vegas if you can, Katie texted back.
CU THERE, she replied, which made Katie chuckle.
Yeah, see you there, she thought to herself.
They left the cemetery after Damian confirmed he was the point of contact for the police until Calvin was capable of answering questions. Otherwise, the officers could and should talk to Korbin.
They went back to the hotel to shower and collect Calvin and Katie’s things.
The guys led her in through the back, as to not draw any more attention than they already had.
She wasn’t in any shape to go walking through the hotel. Neither was Calvin, for that matter. Damian stood guard outside her room, nodding as she went inside. She had to admit that a hot shower had rarely felt this good before. Her major wounds had healed, though her back was still sore.
She was just tired now, and given the complete lack of any comments Katie thought Pandora was as well.
After the showers and collection of their luggage the four
Damned made their way back to the SUV and headed toward the airport, where the plane was ready to take them home.
Damian had already updated Korbin on almost everything, or at least what he needed to know at that moment.
On the way to LAX they stopped back at Randy’s Donuts for some more sugary goodness. This time, though, Katie and Pandora were quiet.
Everyone grabbed some donuts, Katie deciding on half a dozen of her own.
They all sat around the table eating; not really talking, simply being there with each other.
The exhaustion was mental as well as physical. Calvin, they suspected, would need further medical treatment as soon as he got back.
When Katie was done, she wiped her hands and put her napkin on the table. Damian sat back and watched her, wondering what was going on in her head.
She seemed different, but he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was.
Slowly she got up from the table and slinked backward, almost as if she were trying to leave unseen.
He watched carefully as Katie walked outside and to the left, where a homeless man was sitting with his back pressed against the window.
Damian observed as she talked to him with a smile on her face like he hadn’t seen at all during that trip.
She bent down next to him and continued to chat, putting her hand on his shoulder and running it across his back. He couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but the man seemed completely at ease. There was no fear at all in his face.
Damian tilted his head and sipped his coffee, just watching her kindness toward a perfect stranger—something he didn’t see often from her. She was usually shy and standoffish if something wasn’t part of the norm, like she had been when she had first met Mamacita’s girls.
Damian looked back at Eric and Calvin, who were talking about the demon attack and laughing at the comments Calvin had spat at the demon about his dick.
Damian shook his head, having missed that part since he had protected the pilot of their helicopter during the siege.
Calvin, Damian admitted, had been a real hero. He hadn’t given up or backed away from the fight. He’d just kept going back in. Damian couldn’t help but wonder if he too had gotten a little help from his demon, especially since the red ring in his eyes was just a bit brighter than normal.
He shook his head and looked back at Katie, who was now standing up straight as she listened intently to the homeless man speak.
She looked content, but at the same time there was something about the way she was standing that made him slightly suspicious. Her legs were shoulder width apart, and her hand rested on the butt of her weapon. Then it happened—something he wasn’t expecting to see. Katie bent forward, still talking to the man, and pulled a demon right out of his back. The demon wriggled and squirmed, hissing and spitting in Katie’s direction. It was still only an apparition, which made it look more like a ghost than a demon, but nonetheless she had seen it when no one else had.
Damian turned toward her slightly in his chair as she continued to talk, holding the demon higher and away from the man as he sipped his coffee. He seemed to come alive: his shoulders relaxed, his demeanor changed, and his back straightened.
He shook his head, not even believing what he was watching. He glanced at the others, but they weren’t paying any attention. Still holding the screaming entity in her right hand, Katie pulled some cash from her pocket with her left hand and handed it to the homeless man. He looked up at Katie with tears in his eyes, and stood up quicker than Damian thought an old man like him could have managed. He hugged Katie tightly, and a smile moved across her face as the demon in her hand squirmed, hissed, and growled behind the man’s back.
There had been so many battles, and so much grief and anguish since the team had met Katie.
When she had first joined them she hadn’t known how to fight, much less walk up to someone and pull a demon from his body. Now she did it with such finesse that unless you knew what to look for, you wouldn’t have noticed at all.
Her demon had either taught her many new things—or had taken just a little more of her soul.
Either way Katie had come up a step, perhaps more so than Korbin himself. She was capable of handling what came at her now, no matter how big or scary. She always seemed to be on top of it, and at the same time managed to focus and help her teammates stay safe.
Damian noticed the appreciation in Calvin’s eyes when he looked at her.
He knew Calvin was still alive because of Katie and whatever had happened in that cemetery before he and Eric had arrived. Damian sighed as Katie waved to the homeless man, who walked away. That smile on her face, however, faded quickly, and she jerked around and held the demon up in the air. He could see her talking to it, her eyes narrowed, as the beast cowered in her hands. No one else had noticed any of it yet, not even Katie’s exit. No one but a Damned could have seen the apparition, but even so, no one seemed to notice the human standing right there in broad daylight giving the thing its Miranda rights.
Damian smirked. “You have the right to remain in hell. Should you choose to give up this right, I’ll kill you to send your scrawny ass back down there…”
Wouldn’t that be a lark? The Miranda Rights as rewritten by the Damned.
With a flash of her eyes, the demon disappeared. She dropped her hand to her side, surreptitiously wiping it on her jeans while looking down the street. She smiled and looked up as a plane flew overhead out of Damian’s line of sight, rattling the glass windows.
She was in her own little world, protecting these humans with everything in her—even when she was so beaten down she should have been just relaxing and regrouping.
In that moment she reminded Damian of Korbin, not so much in skill, but the idea that work never ended. There was never a pause in taking care of the innocent. She always did what was necessary, what was needed, and what was asked of her, even if she did it on her own terms.
There was a lot to explain to Korbin for sure, but there was definitely something to be gained from her new abilities and the way she protected those around her.
Just then she turned and reached for the door. Damian turned back to the table and sipped his coffee, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable.
She yawned as she walked past the guys and up to the takeout window.
He pushed a donut into his mouth and looked down at the table, listening to her order another chocolate-covered morsel of deliciousness and a cup of tea. He smiled at the tea part, glad to confirm that Katie was still in there.
She waited at the counter for a minute, smiling at the woman before she made her way back to the table. She sat down next to Damian and grinned bashfully.
“I thought you couldn’t eat one more donut.” Damian raised an eyebrow and looked at the item in question.
“For the right reason I can shove another one down,” she replied, not giving any more answer than that.
He wondered if she knew he had seen her; if she knew that he had watched her amazing kindness.
He wondered how much of that was Pandora and how much was her, especially since her talents had quickly grown by what seemed like leaps and bounds. One thing he didn’t wonder, however, was if Katie was still Katie, because through the red haze he could still see her just as brightly.
“You saved a lot of lives this morning,” Damian said, lifting his cup. “Korbin is impressed, the police are impressed, and those that don’t even know, they thank you too.”
“It’s my job,” she said, taking a bite of the donut. “It is expected of me, and if I have the ability to do it, then that is exactly what I’ll do every single time.”
“You have really grown into the new you.” Damian took a sip of his coffee. “I’m proud of you. You may be headed for a whole lot of demon shit in the future, but just know that you are admired and looked up to by this team. They feel safe when they are with you.”
“They’re not, though.” She sighed as she interrupted him. “None
of us are truly safe in battle, and that is a good thing, actually. It reduces the comfort level, and makes everyone stay on their toes.”
“Very true.” He nodded in agreement. “Will you be happy to get back to Vegas?”
“I will be.” Katie sighed. “I need another hot bath and a nap and some more really good Italian food, not necessarily in that order. Though I have to say, this time I won’t eat quite as much Italian food.”
“Probably a good idea.” Damian pursed his lips. “I know that Korbin and the rest of the team will be happy to have you back.”
“Yeah, and we can work on my training,” Calvin interjected, leaning his head into the conversation.
“After you get better,” Katie told him, as if she were a mom.
“I’m good,” he argued, giving her the shit-eating grin of a guy who is bullshitting.
“Oh yeah? Raise your arm above your head.” Katie waved at him. “Go ahead.”
Calvin scoffed and scooted back in his chair slowly. He lifted his left arm into the air, biting down on his bottom lip. Katie saw it start to shake almost immediately.
“And now the other one,” she challenged.
“Yeah, no. I can’t do it.” Calvin laughed, lowering his arm. “All right…get better, then train. Hope you’re happy.”
“I am.” She nodded and finished her donut. “Just another day in our lives, right?”
24
The plane ride back to Vegas was quick, but Katie was still glad to have some time to herself.
Pretty much everyone but her passed out as soon as the plane got into the air. She just wanted to stare at the passing clouds and relax back into her life once more.
The trip had been exhausting both mentally and physically. She had found herself in an unfamiliar position, so full of rage and anger that she could barely contain herself.
Katie finally broke the silence. How did I survive that? she asked Pandora.
What? The whole trip, or the giant fireball? the demon countered.