by Michael Todd
She went past the outer gate and let herself in. There was a lot of movement in the place, and the various machines were making a ton of noise.
Can’t we go somewhere else to do this? Pandora asked. I can’t hear you think in here.
Perhaps I prefer it that way?
It’s the internet age, honey. None of your personal thoughts are secret anymore. Whatever you put up on the web five years ago when you were young and drunk is going to bite you on the ass.
Why would anyone be looking for that? I’m dead, remember? Katie motioned to Joshua to get his attention, and pointed to the steps to go down to the basement. Pandora was right, it would be a little less annoying to speak down there.
Who says they are going to look for it? Pandora retorted. When I put it out there for them to trip over and bust their nose, they will find it quite easily.
Katie started walking down the stairs. Ha ha… You can’t operate the internet without my arms, and I’m pretty sure I would realize I was typing a command to upload or find something about myself. Plus, I was boring, so there are no horrible pictures of me out there.
Hell, who needs them to be real? I’ve heard about Photoshop. Your head, some slut’s gorgeous body with a few more curves than you… Ok, a lot more curves than you, and BAM! Instant celeb-slut. Guys will be downloading you like crazy.
Katie walked into the middle of the large room and grabbed a chair near a small table, waiting for Joshua to join her.
She heard Joshua coming down the steps. Once again, I think I would know it if you were doing something like that.
“Hi, Katie.” Joshua nodded. “How are y-y-you doing?” He grabbed a chair, turned it towards her, and sat down.
Pandora snuck one last comment in. Not if you were asleep, you wouldn’t.
Bitch! Can you do that? Katie growled. Dammit! Answer… Fine, don’t answer me. NO DONUTS!
Pandora stayed annoyingly silent.
Katie ignored her mental roommate. “I’m good. I’d like to hear what you found out about using the metal for bullets?
Joshua scratched his neck for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Well, I went to one of the best gun shops in the area. It’s in Henderson.” He put up a hand. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell John anything important.”
“’John?’” she questioned. “You had to tell him something, right?”
“Well, yes,” he agreed. “However, I told him it was for a research project. Somehow he got the impression I was an author.” Joshua shrugged. “I should have told him I was a blacksmith. I think he might have been more impressed up front.”
I thought you humans adored authors? You used to, Pandora interjected.
That’s only if you are Stephen King or George R. R. Martin, Katie replied. Not so much with other authors. Well, J.K. Rowling.
I saw something where someone wanted to murder that Martin guy. They were talking about how he was taking too long with his latest book. She sniffed. I’ve heard of John Grisham. That Rowling bitch can suck my titties! She didn’t have any good PR for demons in her books. What a waste of a great opportunity.
Does J.K. Rowling even know about you guys? And can you hush for a moment? If you can’t hush, then answer my question about doing stuff with my body when I’m sleeping.
Well, that shut Pandora up. At least that concern was semi-useful to her.
“John Kern,” Joshua answered, missing Katie’s moment of lost focus. “He’s the proprietor of Spurlock’s in Henderson. They’ve been open about forty years, and they are on this small stretch of a street that reminds me of an old Main Street.”
“And he told you…what? Did he get nosy?”
“Well, I had to wait first. He had a young girl and her mother in there talking about her first rifle. Very customer-focused.”
Katie leaned back in her chair, trying to take any stress off him. “If you need to, you can buy some guns and ammo so we aren’t just wasting his time.”
Joshua just nodded his understanding.
“So, are we going to be able to spray our metal on a bullet?”
Joshua shook his head. “No, that idea won’t work. What John talked about was using hollow-points.”
“Thought those were banned by the Geneva Convention,” Katie interrupted.
Joshua looked at her like she had grown a second head. Katie caught up. “Sorry, my bad.
The demons didn’t sign anything like that.”
“Technically the US didn’t either, at least regarding hollow-points, but they did agree to the spirit of something like that in the past. They’ve expressed that they might start using them again this year.”
Katie waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. Pretty sure we aren’t in a legitimate war where the Geneva convention is in place.”
Joshua continued, “And cops use them, too. One of the main reasons is so the bullets have a much smaller chance of hurting others by over-penetrating, even if they hit the intended target.”
Katie could tell Joshua had been studying the hell out of this. Some of it she knew from her conversation with Calvin, so she wasn’t completely clueless.
“Further, if the bullet stops inside the body, there is an argument about hydro-shock causing additional damage. Some scientists argue against it, but the concept has been around since E. Harvey Newton at Princeton wrote a research paper, and the effect was also noted by Colonel Frank Chamberlin during World War II.”
Katie could already feel a slight headache coming on and put up a hand. “I’m sorry, give me links to the background information. What did your talk with John… ‘Kurns’ or ‘Kerns?’”
“’E’, so ‘Kerns,’” Joshua replied. “I think we have a shot if we use a variable hollow-point like a Winchester Black Talon, which today is called a ‘Supreme Elite Bonded PDX1.’”
“Why?”
Joshua stuck his right leg out and started searching his pocket for something, pulling out a small piece of metal and handing it to Katie. “That is an example of a reverse tapered jacket. These are specially cut at the hollow to weaken it. When they hit, the six petals open like a flower and the metal inside—which can be our metal—will push into the body.”
Katie knew what regular hollow points were like when they hit, but this was almost pretty in its lethality. She looked up at him. “What caliber? .357?”
“Well, it’s metric, so 9mm,” he told her. “I don’t see us being able to make a lot of different varieties, so I’m thinking we go with 9mm so we can ship to all countries if we want. Since the cause of most deaths is bleed-out, we want to put a lot of shots into the victim. You guys’ stress level when you shoot is one of the main predictors for getting shots on target, but I’m thinking that a limited recoil could help with faster, more accurate follow-up shots. I also want to give you a higher magazine capacity—”
She finished up the obvious benefit. “Minimizing chances of needing to perform an emergency reload.”
He nodded. “The other would be BBs.”
Katie blinked a couple of times. “BBs? Like a Daisy BB gun?”
“Sort of,” Joshua answered. “I’m calling them BBs, but I’m thinking we would use them in shotgun shells.”
“Ohhh,” Katie considered the option. Being able to plant fifteen or twenty small balls into the skin of a demon would be damned helpful. “How do you make round balls? Do we have to create molds?”
Joshua shook his head. “Can’t do that, too time consuming and problematic. I did as much research as I could, but imagine you have a chunk of clay in your hands. You would roll your hands together until you made the clay a sphere. I understand that is similar, but they have these huge spools of wire. For us to do this, we would have to make spools of wire, then cut the wire to the size we want and manufacture these special disks of steel that will roll the little pieces of wire into balls.”
“What a pain in the ass!” She blew out a breath. “So, new machines?”
He shook his head. “No idea,” he continued whe
n her expression grew curious. “They don’t have pictures of their machine due to proprietary knowledge or something, so I have to design my ideas first and then we get them machined and do tests.”
Katie chewed the inside of her lips for a moment. “Let me get Derek and Korbin involved. I bet we can find something on the internet that you haven’t, or perhaps get someone involved on the government side. They have to be good for something.”
Joshua just kept quiet.
She smiled, slapping her hands on her legs, “So… We have the ideas, we have the path, we need machines, money, skills…” She thought for a moment. “More people, more money… Well, damn.”
She tapped a finger on her lips. “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” She stood up. “Thanks, Josh. I know we’ve been hitting you hard for the knives and swords, but I need you to think about how to do this wire, too.”
“Ahhh.” His eyes lost their focus. “I’ll, uh… I’ll do that.”
She patted him on the shoulder as she passed him, hoping he remembered to go back upstairs when he came back to himself.
Katie tried one more time to get Pandora to answer the question about being able to use her body while she was asleep, but even the threat of withholding donuts didn’t budge her. She wasn’t sure if Pandora was just being demon-y or truly giving up a secret, so she needed to figure out a way to make sure she wouldn’t go on a killing spree when sleeping.
Oh, for fuck’s sake! Pandora growled. You give me donuts, I won’t take your sleeping body out for a serial-killing fest.
Deal…
Weekly! Pandora added.
You can’t negotiate after I agree! Katie argued as she waved to the ladies in the shop and let herself out.
I never said how long my agreement was for. It’s for a week, and you should have clarified. Be thankful I didn’t say an hour! Fuck me, she spat. I should have said an hour!
One donut per week, Katie agreed.
I never said how many donuts! Pandora huffed when Katie stipulated that.
You should have clarified. Be thankful I didn’t say one donut hole.
18
T’Chezz sat back in his chair and stared out the window. He was lost in his thoughts, and oblivious to the world around him. His plan seemed to be failing at every turn, which was more than enraging.
The last kill plan had hit its target, but none of the demons had gotten away.
They’d tried to make it look like the Killers hadn’t been there, but they didn’t realize that when they killed the demons they came right back down to T’Chezz. He knew his sister had helped the human girl kill six demons on her own, and he knew she was making her stronger for a reason: to kill him. To fight him, and have any chance of surviving.
Knowing that, though, everything now made more sense to him. She was using the girl to protect herself, which was the sister he knew.
She was selfish and self-serving, and didn’t really give two shits about anything. The only thing he couldn’t understand was why she was allowing the girl to get in the way of the main plan.
T’Chezz looked down at the table in front of him, wondering when the politician would be back. T’Chezz had gotten confidential information from an informant on Earth.
He had said it was information on one of the teams, information that T’Chezz would definitely want to have. He had been searching for the teams, but more importantly for the weapons they were creating.
He needed those weapons, and he needed whoever was behind making them. He couldn’t allow them to get in the way of his plans.
He hated that he had been diverted. He was having to think about something other than his plan, but finding the weapons and their maker was necessary in order to keep his demons topside. None of them were surviving very long, and it was all because of that special metal.
T’Chezz was tired of the failures and wanted to take things into his own hands, but he knew it wasn’t yet the right time.
Going to Earth at that point could have created a huge problem, and could have easily turned into the end of his plans for at least a couple of centuries. He was tired of sitting around and waiting for things to happen.
So he sent the politician to meet with the informant and bring back the information. T’Chezz wasn’t exactly fond of the informant’s work recently, but he knew that the man was pretty much the only choice he had at this point. He needed the information and fast, before the Killers took out the rest of his army.
So, after he had summoned the politician and sent him on his way again, T’Chezz sat back and waited for the signal that he was to return.
He had never been very patient, even though one would think that after so many centuries he would deal with waiting a little better. Instead, though, he was struggling to refrain from getting even angrier than he was now.
There was nothing stopping the politician from running off, but T’Chezz knew that his fear was greater than his bravery—and that fear would get T’Chezz everything he would need.
Just as the irritation began to swell again, he got the message from the politician that he was ready to return. T’Chezz closed his eyes and whispered an enchantment in Latin.
“Huius addis daemonium in inferno, ab inferno ex solo in mea potestate.”
When T’Chezz opened his eyes the politician was standing nervously in front of him, his human form a little strained from the trip. T’Chezz threw him a piece of cloth to wipe the blood from his nose and stood up, walking over to the window. The man cleaned himself up and caught his breath, and turned toward the demon lord.
“That is always hard on me, coming through the realms,” the politician admitted.
“What have you found out?” T’Chezz asked impatiently. “Was the trip worth our time?”
“Yes,” the politician told him. “The informant has located the Killers, including your sister. They are in a compound near Las Vegas. The base itself is out in the open, but there is nothing around it for miles, just empty desert. You can see the Strip from the base, but finding the base from the Strip is nearly impossible; it blends right into the desert. That is where they live and train, and most likely where you will find these weapons.”
“Yes,” he said, stroking his chin. “If I know my sister, she will not want to be too far from those weapons—if for no other reason than to save her own damn skin. She doesn’t like surprises, so she has always kept her enemies closer than anyone else.”
“That is the saying on Earth,” the politician said.
“What?” T’Chezz asked, turning toward him.
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,” the politician replied.
“I like that.” T’Chezz smiled. “Sometimes you humans are smarter than I originally imagined. But you then do stupid things like kill each other over the colors of your skins, and I realize you are an ignorant and barbaric culture that is destined to make the same mistakes over and over.”
“That we are,” the politician agreed.
“Now, my question is, are you sure this information is true?” he asked. “We all know you didn’t do such an admirable job last time.”
“I did the best I could under the circumstances,” the politician said with irritation. “It’s harder up there than you think to not get caught. I have had to sacrifice everything to fulfill your wishes.”
“Sacrifice?” T’Chezz growled loudly, stepping toward the politician. “I am the one who must sacrifice! I’m stuck down here in this hell, constantly staring at the same walls and the same demons with nothing to do but oversee. I want to play again. To broaden my reach. I have waited all this time patiently.”
“You are right,” the politician agreed, bowing his head and backing up on shaking legs. “My apologies.”
T’Chezz took a deep breath and turned back to the window. “So?”
“So? Oh, the information,” the politician answered nervously. “Yes, I believe the information to be completely accurate.”
“And how did
you come to this conclusion?”
“Well, I drove past the base—not knowing what it was, but seeing it in the distance—when I went to Las Vegas,” the politician explained. “It is right where the informant said it would be, with all of the same attributes: color, etc.”
“So you’ve seen it with your own eyes.” T’Chezz rubbed his chin. “Goooood. very good.”
“Is there anything else, my lord?” the politician asked.
“Yes,” T’Chezz replied. “Go back, stay calm, and act as if nothing is different. Surely if we have found them, they can find us. Start quietly rousing the troops. Let them know something big is coming, and give them my order to be ready for anything.”
“I will,” the politician assured him, bowing.
T’Chezz grumbled, “That was the last time these Killers will get one over on me.”
“How did she do the other day?” Korbin asked.
“She did well,” Damian admitted. “Though I wasn’t with her the whole time, I saw about six piles of dust on the ground floor, most of them in the kitchen or nearby. I am pretty sure she took the brunt of it on her own.”
“What about this new training she has been doing?” Korbin asked. “I’m not sure where she is getting the details, but she is getting really good with that staff.”
Damian smiled. “She is, and I can’t tell you where she is learning it either—but I’m not going to complain.”
“Things are definitely changing,” Korbin mused. “I just hope we have not unleashed a monster that we can’t control.”
“Katie isn’t a monster.” Damian looked at Korbin with granite eyes.
“No, but the demon inside her is.” He sighed. “Anyway, so the reporter gave us some news on the politician. Apparently he is going to be at this fancy elite VIP fundraising party in the city.”
“Our city?” Damian asked.