by Michael Todd
The only thing he felt was pain deep in his chest, as his traitorous heart tore itself to shreds at the necessity of leaving Sofia behind.
Moloch pulled open a medium-sized portal in his office and nodded at Baal. The two demons slid through to the other side. They emerged in a remote area southwest of Beirut, about a hundred miles from the ocean. Moloch looked down at his feet and kicked a body to the side, stepping through the rubble of the crushed town. The place was basic and had no defense against any kind of attack, especially not one that included more demons than there were people.
Moloch’s lip curled in a satisfied sneer. “Ah, lucky location number eleven.”
They looked around the town at the devastation that ranged from corner to corner. Half-eaten bodies lay in piles, fearful looks frozen on bloody faces. Some of the buildings still smoldered from fires, and the rest were reduced to rubble. The only ash on that property belonged to humans, not demons. They had taken off from there and headed toward Beirut before Moloch had called them back, not wanting to draw attention just yet to the major city. Kind of like in New York, devastation needed to occur. A warning, but nothing huge enough to create mass panic. Not yet, at least.
Both Moloch and Baal felt the power inside of them, the pleased surge of emotion at seeing all the death and destruction around them. They were from hell, a place filled with death and destruction, but to see the humans laid to waste was a special kind of high that floated through them. The two demons walked through the town, observing the heinous crimes that had occurred there. They passed a stone wall the demons had nailed several humans to and picked their entrails out while they were still alive.
As the demons passed with grins, several birds flew off the bodies, cawing as they felt the evil natures of Moloch and Baal. They stepped through a small area to the right that used to be a school for the children. There were pieces of paper with drawings in the dirt, splatters of blood soaked into them. As they rounded the corner a cat jumped out, hissing and growling. Baal snapped his hand out and grabbed it, hissing into its face before tossing it into his mouth and chomping down. Moloch laughed as Baal spat out the bones, wiping the fur from his mouth.
“I like ferals. They taste a bit gamey.”
“Then you would love Lilith. I hear her human is a bit feral.”
“There would be nothing more pleasing than to feast on the body of that meatsack while Lilith screamed in agony inside her. I would keep the human alive just to let Lilith writhe in the pain, let her know what she had done.”
“Then we kill her.”
Baal smiled an evil smile. “You don’t mean…”
“Yes. We don’t ever let that traitor come back. She will be in a world where nothing exists. None of her precious donuts, none of her shopping, or her men. And we would keep the human’s soul as a trophy. Lock it away in my fireplace with the rest of those who created a mess for us over the years. I’m tired of playing fair, Baal. This display of chaos should show you that if you had doubts before, you no longer have to. I took care of this battle, I put these men and women in their graves, and I did it successfully in twelve places all at once, all over the world. If I can do that, I can do it anywhere, and the humans would never even stand a chance. I would come down and stand in the center and revel in the sounds of their whimpers and screams, the best sounds there are.”
Just then a groan floated in on the wind. The demons turned, narrowing their eyes, taking in deep breaths, sniffing out the life they could feel still pulsing from the beaten and battered village. Moloch put out his hand and looked at Baal, both of them hearing screams and the growls of demons, but they didn’t see anyone or anything around them. They followed the sounds through the rubble and found a tablet lying open next to a young male, dead on the ground. Moloch leaned over and picked it up, finding that he had been YouTubing the event. Moloch laughed as he pressed Play and watched the horror on the video. There were demons everywhere, people being ripped in half, and children being eaten like snacks.
When the video was done, he laughed and hit the upload button. Once it was finished, he posted it and tossed it back down beside the boy, his empty eye sockets staring into nothingness.
Brock and his team were at their base, sitting around in the gym. Two of the guys were working on their deadlifts, another was on the treadmill, and Brock was using hand weights, bending his arms up and down, watching himself in the mirror. One of the guys behind them looked at the other teammate and smacked him, nodding at Brock.
“Hey, saw you guys on TV in New York, you lucky bastards! Going out with Katie AND getting to work with her? The fuck? You guys are TV sluts if there ever were any!”
Brock chuckled. “Just doing our job, and looking damn good doing it.”
The other guys shook their heads and went back to working out. Brock winked at his teammates in the mirror. No one but them knew Brock had gotten lucky with Katie, and he wanted to keep it that way. They didn’t need to know his business, and they definitely didn’t need to know hers. He was a little wistful, sure. He liked Katie and wished their lives were different, but they weren’t, and he was okay with that. The best that he hoped for was maybe another date.
The guys finished their lifts and crowded around, putting their stuff away. Brock looked up at them and rubbed his stomach. “Chow time?”
“Fuckin right, bro.”
One of the guys groaned and threw his head back. “What I wouldn’t give for another donut.”
The guys laughed, and Brock patted him on the back. “Maybe another time. For now, we are back to routine, buddy. Ready to kick ass and take no fucking names.”
“Hell, yeah!”
Outside one of the academies in London, a group of high school students was in the courtyard, watching the video of the of massacre outside of Beirut. The video had only been up for about twenty minutes and already had over a million views. As they watched, a couple of them put their hands over their mouths, shocked and disgusted by what they were seeing. The guys cheered every time a human lost a limb, being asinine teenagers. The video followed this kid through the streets of his village, dodging demons and hiding.
On the screen a man screamed at a demon in front of him, waving a broom at the beast. The demon grabbed the broomstick and broke it in half, sticking the pointed end through the man. The demon lurched forward and grabbed him, and just as he was about to rip the guy in half, the video went black.
“Noooooo,” one of them yelled, shaking his fists in the air.
“They pulled it for security reasons. Damn shame.”
“I bet they pulled it because no one was supposed to know about it. They probably are there right now bulldozing the town, burning the bodies and starting construction of some resort over the top to act like it never happened.”
“They probably sent the demons.” They laughed.
Little did they know they were playing right into Moloch’s hands.
Chapter Nineteen
Timothy sat in the dark intelligence room, bathed in the glow of the computers. There were microwave burrito wrappers, chip bags, and Mountain Dew cans all over the place, including a pile around the trash can by the door where he had thrown them over his shoulder and moved on to the next one. He hadn’t left that office for more than a bathroom break since the general had given him the go ahead. He wanted it to be perfect. He wanted everything to go smoothly, but it was being a little more difficult than he had first thought.
He leaned back in his office chair and ran his hands over his face, groaning loudly. He had been stuck on this one thing for six hours, writing and rewriting the code, trying to get it to do what he wanted. He had spent an hour on the phone with the intelligence crew that worked for the general, trying to keep them from kicking him out of the satellite imaging every five minutes. It took the general himself coming down to lay into them before they left him alone. Once he was secure, he started all over again, fighting with his mind to get it right.
“If I change the
directive here, I can input the coordinates here...”
He was trying to figure out how to make the system better, more efficient, and less specific. He wanted to be able to show a large area—even as large as the whole country—while still allowing the system to ping him when there was an intense burst of heat and energy. The whole process had to work seamlessly. It couldn’t spend twenty minutes loading every time it zoomed in or out.
Timothy pulled the map out until it was showing the entirety of the East Coast. He moved to the other computer and simulated a “ping of pain” for a specific location in New York. He put his hand to his chin and waited for a couple of seconds, and BAM…there it was—the flashing yellow light. He put his hands in the air in victory, then rubbed them together.
“Okay, now it just has to automatically zoom in on the coordinates as well as sound an alert to tell people there is advanced activity in that quadrant.”
He typed fast on the keyboard, switching between screens. He typed three more keystrokes and pulled back, letting the screen show the whole United States. He turned to the other keyboard and restarted the simulation, which would show enough energy to signify one small portal. To him, one small portal could quickly turn into a full-on gate, so it was important to know what was happening. Of course, with the final product, he would make sure the operator could adjust the sensitivity to show whatever size energy burst they wanted, from one infected to a full-on portal.
After about ten seconds the screen flashed yellow, and the map zoomed in to hover over a small shop on the outskirts of Little Italy. A soft buzzer dinged, and he toggled with the sounds, making it a blaring alarm. He clapped his hands together and laughed, proud of himself. He turned back toward the computer and started typing again.
“Okay, baby… What if I want to work this on England? What would I need to do to make the same process happen all over the world?”
He wasn’t sure if the satellites he had access to would allow that, but he was going to give it his best shot. Whoever used the software would have to have direct access to their government’s satellites, which made the product more federal than private, which was okay because they didn’t want random citizens rolling out to try to kill demons or reporters getting to the scene before the authorities.
“Hey there, wizard,” Joshua said from behind him, looking wildly around the room at all the cans. “Holy crap! You are going to give yourself a heart attack or diabetes or something.”
Timothy laughed and leaned his head back looking at Joshua. He spun around in his chair and kicked the pizza box off the other one. Joshua chuckled and walked in, sitting down.
“You haven’t left this room in forever.”
“I know.” Timothy groaned. “But seriously, I have this project, and I don’t want to waste even five seconds. I am really getting it going. I think it is going to be pretty badass if it works in a real-world scenario.”
“I don’t know how your brain works that fast, seriously. I have to focus on metal, that’s it, and now it pretty much runs itself. You are rolling code and math problems and all kinds of shit in that dome of yours. My brain wouldn’t handle it, you’d find me drooling on myself crying in my bed.”
Timothy laughed. “Nah, you could do it, it’s just learning a language that’s all. Once you know the language, you can apply it to just about anything you need to. There are specific rules you have to know, but if you put me in the armory, I would burn my arm off and set one of those grenades off in the building. It would be a serious shit show. Someone would probably lose an eye or something.”
Joshua chuckled and pushed one of the cans off of the desk into the trashcan. “So, how is everything else? I heard Stephanie and Korbin were back.”
“I don’t know about back, but they are definitely helping Calvin right now, which is pretty cool. Neither of them is Damned anymore, so they are kind of vulnerable in my opinion, but they are apparently still badass.”
“Of course, they are. Stephanie was always badass, even before her demon.”
“She is a fierce queen for sure, and I hope they come back here before going home. I miss her manicures and girl talk.”
Joshua chuckled. “I don’t know about that part, but I definitely miss her. She gave me the courage to be someone, to take charge, to not let things outside of my control define who I am. She is a big sister to me.”
“She is a special lady for sure. Anyways, I gotta get back to this project, but come get me later we will do soaps and popcorn, promise.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
Timothy smiled and turned back to the computer. He cracked his knuckles and placed his fingers over the keys. He opened the settings and started working on highlighting three countries—England, Thailand, and Japan—and trying the program for them. He worked and worked at it, letting his frustration slide away every time something pinged or became a little clearer. His motivation cleared his head and pushed him to be better at what he was doing. It was a circle of pain in some ways. He would get frustrated enough to take a break, and then all of a sudden something would work again.
When he finally got it where he wanted it, he decided to say screw it and give it a live test. He set up all the parameters and stood there nervously watching the screens. He nodded and turned, heading out to go have some fun with Joshua, leaving everything running on its own.
“Personally, I’d like to see an incursion in the heart of Russia. I know the demons don’t like cold, but it would be fabulous to see what it looks like when the snow is painted red. I bet they could make a nice picture out of it for us.” Baal laughed loudly, stepping over a body in the street.
Moloch and Baal were taking a stroll through one of the last successful incursion locations to tour. It was one of the larger villages in the China Provinces, but too far out for anyone to even know that there was an incursion going on, much less save them. It would take one of the merchants traveling there to find the village completely ripped apart, to know. It would come out though, and it would add to the mass hysteria that Moloch was aiming for.
Baal stopped and waited for one of the few remaining demons to run across the street in front of them, dragging half of a body with it like a wild lion after attacking a gazelle. The demons were still milling around, finding the last of the few remaining survivors and killing them in the background. To Baal and Moloch, it was music to their ears, to everyone else it was an untold horror of mass proportions.
“I think that this next time we should go after the Motherland, England.” Moloch snarled with a grin. “Have tea with the Queen and then eat her.”
“What about Germany?” Baal asked.
“No, no. Germany has already paid enough for now, what with the World Cup and all.”
Baal laughed loudly, throwing his head back. “What? I can’t help it if they didn’t know a demon was on their team. What better way to upset a whole country than watching their teammates get demolished by a red-eyed soccer player? These humans and their international sports! They are just so damn easy to manipulate.”
Moloch laughed. “They can never say we didn’t allow the country to rebound before we attacked again, that’s for damn sure. The PR about demons not having hearts is so one-sided and biased, it’s a wonder anyone trusts the news these days.”
“I’ve heard the humans don’t trust the media at all, but they are such primal creatures that as soon as murder and mayhem show up, they can’t turn the channel.”
“We must be giving the news stations a fucking boost then, they should be paying me royalties for this shit.”
The both laughed and shook their head, glancing at each other. Baal opened his mouth to ask, but Moloch shook his head.
“No, I am not in cahoots with the news, but that would be brilliant, wouldn’t it? The humans found out that the news sold their lives for some commercial spots and extra footage? Not only would they be devastated by our entrance into their country, but they would also be heartbroken by the angst t
heir own people left behind.”
“Oh, boo hoo.” Baal smirked, rubbing his eyes dramatically. “We could drink the tears of our enemies.”
“I’d rather drink the blood of our enemies personally, but to each his own, I suppose.”
“I don’t know, there are so many unhealthy humans it’s hard to get a proper pint anymore. I’ve turned to panda blood in recent days. They are vicious but cute, and they only eat greens. Their blood is organic or some shit like that. It’s some fad the demons brought back from Earth. Some movement about eating healthy.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“I know.” Baal laughed. “But it’s honestly not bad. I don’t mind it so much.”
“Don’t tell me you are on another one of those health kicks again? I don’t want to see you huffing it around the office, jumping the lava pits to lose a few pounds. Most of your weight is in the scales anyway.”
“That’s probably true. I’m big scaled.”
“OH!” Moloch yelled, slapping Baal on the back. “That reminds me, did you see the Swedish play in the World Cup?”
“I missed that one.”
“There was a moment where the goalie just about jumped out of the ring. No one could figure out what the hell was going on, but he let the other team score twice before they took him out to replace him.”
“What did you do?” Baal grinned.
Moloch pursed his lips and looked around. “Oh, nothing but put a demon soul into the lining of his gear. The damn thing was scratching through the plastic trying to get inside him and put his claws right through the man’s back. By the end of it, the goalie was possessed, and they had to sew his back up. It was fucking hilarious. Damn Swedes, always thinking they are better than everyone. Even the souls that come to hell; they think they are proper demons or some shit like that.”