by Michael Todd
“I’d rather start 1-800 Monsters.” Baal laughed. “At least then I could make some money and provide a valuable service for demons like you and me. Katie or Lilith or Pandora, whatever they are calling themselves, would be out of mind right now if we had known the truth.”
“Yes, but that is not how it went, and I am determined to set my sights on the realistic. We could call the biggest, most powerful demon in the area, and Lilith would out-fight, out-sass, and outdo herself every single time. We will take care of her in due time, but for now, you are right—let them have one of many incursions every time we send out portals. It will make them think she is taking down crime, but in reality, we are using decoys and distractions while creating the perfect plan and collecting the souls left behind.”
“I believe you have just become a guru.” Baal laughed. “But that plan is perfect. Keep them guessing and chasing. Eventually, they will figure it out. They always do. Until then, we will run them in circles. One of the blows ahead will be the fatal one, leaving Earth ripe for the picking.”
Calvin swiped his sword through the demon’s neck and kicked him hard in the chest. He panted heavily, going through the motions of trying to clear the fields. He could hear screeches of pain around him. When the screeches ceased he chuckled, hearing Katie bitching as she cut through the beasts.
“I finally get to fucking come to England, and I have to deal with you bastards,” she yelled as she decapitated another demon. “On top of that, you bring Uncle Freddy, the fat guy with the hot breath who ended up knocking my demon the fuck out. I am so sick and tired of dealing with you bastards. Will you all just fucking die and get this over with? Please!”
After about an hour of turning demons to dust, they finished out the section they were so diligently hacking away at. It happened to be the largest section, the one with the pile of demons trying to dig their way to China or whatever it was they were doing. Calvin walked up to Katie, who was standing with her sword resting on her shoulder, wiping the sweat from her brow.
Calvin lifted an eyebrow and looked her up and down. “Nice armor. You kind of look like She-Ra or the original Wonder Woman. You holding out on me?”
Katie shrugged and stabbed the last demon in the chest. It was lying on the ground taking far too long to die, and Katie had lost all patience. “It seems Gabriel wasn’t shitting around about the sword and armor. The problem is, it almost killed Pandora to make it happen.”
Calvin shook his head and stuck his knife back into his belt. “Not a good exchange. She is pretty much the most important one out of all of us, no offense.”
“None taken. She kicks major fucking ass. She’s a pain in the ass, but worth it.”
“Yeah, life wouldn’t be so annoying without her.” Calvin grinned. “Though I’m not sure she would say the same about me.”
Katie laughed. “I think she would. She just plays hard to get at everything, including friendships. She’s a demon, so it’s a slow progression for her. She’s advanced by leaps and bounds since the beginning.”
“I agree, but I would be sad if she was gone.”
Pandora started to wake up just as they were praising her, saying things that, even though she wouldn’t ever admit, touched her cold, dark, black heart. On the inside she was ashamed for not telling Katie earlier about the armor and weapon when they could have saved her a lot of grief and stress. She had almost been killed that day, standing in the field with no idea how to take out a fire demon. She had said she would fight to the death, and Pandora knew that if she hadn’t been so stubborn, if she hadn’t fought angel things so hard, Katie would never have gotten to the point where she would accept defeat. However, no matter how bad she felt, she couldn’t bring herself to express those feelings to Katie—at least not yet. Calvin, on the other hand, was a little bit easier to handle.
Pandora jumped into the conversation, taking over Katie’s voice for just a moment.
“I heard that, big man. Keep it up, and I’ll make you so long Sofia will have a screaming orgasm yelling your name in San Diego while you are still in Las Vegas.”
Calvin looked at Katie for a moment, who shrugged and pointed at her chest, letting him know that was all Pandora. The three of them let out a deep bellowing laugh, enjoying the relief it brought them. The last of the demons were wiped out by the military who were sweeping the area, helping survivors and making sure no more of the beasts were hiding in closets or basements.
Calvin walked over and put his arm around her shoulder. “You know, the three of us will never just go down in a ball of flames.”
Hell, no. I’d definitely pee on you if you were on fire, buddy.
Katie chuckled. “Pandora said if you are ever aflame, she will be more than happy to pee on you.”
Calvin grimaced, trying not to picture that. “Oh, so Pandora is into the super-weird freaky shit. I bet she likes feet, too.”
Now he’s going a little too far. I can reverse that earlier promise; don’t let him forget that. This girl has got game.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Angie and Katie walked through the doors of the police department, Katie nodding at the front desk clerk as he pressed the button to let the two of them walk back. This time neither of them were dressed for battles or clubs, but were instead decked out in business attire. Angie was wearing her brand-new black rimmed glasses. Katie thought they made her look smart, but Pandora thought the two of them looked like the beginning of some skanky porno in a police station. The sight of Jim, the twenty-year veteran with a belly bigger than Buddha, shook that thought immediately from Pandora’s mind as they walked in.
Katie was in a great mood, knowing that she was going to make Angie run the show. If she was going to be the go-to for the new business, Katie wanted to know that she could command the attention of a group of men watching and waiting for her to screw up. She had to get tougher skin, and in their line of work, she had to be able to stand up to a bunch of assholes.
They walked through the precinct, all eyes on them, and nodded at Travers, who held the door to the conference room and walked in behind them. These cops were hard-nosed but respectful, and waited patiently as they set out the information and demonstrated the new product. Angie handed the notes to Katie, but she shook her head, pushing them back toward her.
“This one is all you, girl. You did the work, you understand the system, you sell it.”
She looked a little nervous, but very excited. She turned to the group and clapped her hands to get their attention.
“Good morning! My name is Angie, and for those of you that don’t know me, I work with your favorite neighborhood merc, Katie. I know your time is precious, so we are just going to cut straight to the chase, no fillers and no bullshit.”
“I like this woman already,” one of the guys told his partner, leaning back and crossing his arms.
Angie winked and turned to the display board on the easel beside her. “We are offering the opportunity to have twenty-four hour service providing potential demon incursion information. This service is not only superior in quality, but it is also faster than the service provided by the government at this time. Now, if you remember the incursion in Brooklyn at the complex over the historical cemetery, you have already worked with our main guy. Timothy is a computer genius, and he is in the intel center at all hours of the day. He has created a system that can track excess energy and heat the second it develops. He then can zoom in and pinpoint the exact coordinates where that portal, gate, person, or demon is located.”
She flipped the board and pointed at the picture of the building in Brooklyn.
“For example, during the Brooklyn incursion, he was able to give the exact location, potential size of the gate, and floor that the gate opened on in five minutes on the phone with the so-called experts. Hours before the military could pinpoint the English incursion, and long before they even recognized the heat signature, Timothy had called General Brushwood and let him know where to search. He delivered tw
o large incursions into the government’s hands within minutes and never set foot outside his office.”
She smiled and flipped the board to more specific information.
“Right now the system is in the trial stages, but don’t let the word ‘trial’ fool you. This is the same system that detected the English incursion the very first night it was tested. These things usually take months or sometimes years to get working, and then they go through tests, more tests, and then trials. This system is so good that the word trial is just a formality. Those who wish to sign up for this program will be a part of a research group to prove how much faster Timothy’s information is than the government’s, and possibly how much better it is as well. Everyone knows that in these situations that accuracy is paramount.”
“Sounds fantastic, like something the entire world would want,” one of the guys remarked. “But the big question is, how much does it cost?”
Angie smiled and leaned against the desk. “For you and the rest of the officers here, the price is $100k per month.”
Several of the cops whistled and fanned themselves. “Okay, what’s the reduced price, since this is a trial and everything.”
Angie smiled and stood back up, tapping her pen in her palm. “That is the reduced price, down from $250k per month. That’s over fifty percent off.”
“I don’t know, that’s a lot of fucking money for someone to do something just a little faster than a service we get for free. Why would we pay that much more for it?”
“Yeah, we already use our tax dollars. How much faster could this possibly be.”
Angie put up her hands to calm the masses. “Let me ask you something… If it was your house the demons were porting in next to, how many minutes’ head start would you want the support teams to have? Do you want them to show up when the demons are already hanging out with your wife and kids, or do you want them there, guns drawn, blasting them away as soon as that portal opens? Personally, I would want them already there so I don’t have to put down my bonbons and miss my shows.”
The guys chuckled, talking back and forth with each other. Katie smiled and nodded at Angie before stepping forward.
“How about this? If we don’t give you a fifty percent better timeframe, we will do the service for $10k a month instead? That means you are still getting the service, but you are paying way less, and with the possibility of us still being faster than the government. On top of that, you get to deal with Angie instead of the general. I would argue that Angie is a little easier to deal with than Brushwood, but then again, she can be a tyrant.”
“Tyrants turn Thomas on. He can’t get enough of them.”
“Ha-ha.” Thomas laughed and threw a piece of paper at the guy.
Everyone chuckled and talked about the product a little more. They were interested, there was no doubt about it, but the price was damn steep even if it was coming from the budget and not their own pockets. They already had a hard time collecting overtime, much less asking for a system that would cost a million dollars a year to run.
“Are you letting the price get in the way of personal safety, safety for your families, and safety for your loved ones and the community?” Katie asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay,” the chief called. “Everyone settle down. Just to make this crystal clear so that I understand, if we give the contract to you and you give it to us in eight minutes, then they give it to us in four?”
Katie held back a chuckle. “No. It means if we give it to you in eight, they take twelve or more.”
“So, that means if the government takes forty-five minutes to tell us, you guys would have to let us know within thirty minutes,” the chief said, trying to make sure he fully understood.
“Yep, that’s the deal. If that doesn’t happen, we give it to you for $10k a month instead of a $100k. We are sure of this system, and even surer of the guy who not only created it but monitors everything twenty-four hours a day. He created an app that does the same thing on a smaller scale, to use along with this program. It will allow him to step away from the office, to sleep, shower, shop, or whatever, and still be able to monitor what is going on from the comfort of his cell phone. He is pretty much a genius.”
The chief nodded and looked at his officers. “Would you two mind stepping out for just a second? I just want to go over it with the others.”
“Sure thing.” Katie nodded as she and Angie left the room and closed the door behind them.
“Well, that was terrifying.”
Katie smiled at Angie. “No one would have ever known you were scared. You were assertive, funny, and interactive with those guys. That is how I want you to continue to work. There will hopefully be a lot more appointments in the future.”
“I like this part of things. I never thought I would. I guess living in that apartment barely getting by, squashed by the troll of a man, I never took the time to picture myself as a businesswoman or personal assistant or jack-of-all-trades. I didn’t want to daydream about things that I never in a million years thought could be true. I stuck with reality, and knew the best thing I could do was just go one day at a time.”
“I can understand that. When I was first Damned, I didn’t think there would be anything else in my life. I thought fighting demons, training, and more training were what I would spend my days doing until I was gone. I tried not to think about futures I couldn’t achieve, but then something happened. I started to feel more confident about myself.”
“Me too.” Angie smiled. “The moment you carried me away, I started to feel more confident. Then you gave me the chance to show you that I could be the woman I think you saw in me before I even saw her in myself. The opportunities seem to be limitless, and if I haven’t said it before, thank you for that. I never really had anyone in my life who believed in me, or felt that I could be more than what I was. It’s a good feeling waking up in the morning knowing there is so much more for me out there, and all I have to do is work hard and grab the opportunities.”
“Good.” Katie smiled as the door to the conference room opened. “I want you to feel like you can do anything. This project—it’s just a start, but it was your brainchild. You and Timothy came up with something I would have never thought of. I’m just the money in this situation.”
“That’s not true.” She chuckled. “You were the motivator and the person who said, ‘Yes this can be done, and I want you to do it.’ Otherwise, it would have just been some silly pipe dream. It still feels like a dream, and Timothy even said that on the phone yesterday. He couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that he created something this big, this helpful, and this important. It’s a double whammy. You make money, and you help people.”
The women were ushered back in and they stood at the front of the room, watching the others mumbling under their breaths about the new program. The chief stood up and waved his hand for them to sit.
“We love your inspiration, we love your enthusiasm, and we especially love the idea of heading off demon incursions, lessening the casualties, and keeping us on our toes. So, we have decided that you have your first buyer. Congratulations. We will get everything set up with Procurement, and then you can go over the exact details of how everything works.”
Katie and Angie nodded excitedly, shocked that it had actually worked in such a short timeframe.
“We are so happy to work with you, and you will see. You will be the groundbreakers for a new, faster way of finding demons before any more precious lives are lost. Thank you, people.”
Angie was starting to come into her own, and it looked as though she was going to be a force to be reckoned with. She had made her first corporate grand slam, a million-dollar-a-year contract, and a product that she was proud to have been part of. Looking back just months before, if she would have been told she would be there signing those contracts she would have laughed and walked away. Once she was there, though, there wasn’t anything in the world that was going to hold her back—and Katie was right
there beside her.
Katie leaned back against the seat of the jet and yawned, pulling her arms up over her head and stretching. She was exhausted, and had fallen asleep almost immediately after takeoff. She looked out the window, realizing they were making their descent. She saw Las Vegas in the distance, and sand everywhere else.
Calvin looked at her and smiled. “Good morning there, rockstar.” He smiled. “Have a good nap?”
“Mmm, I did, and I didn’t even dream. It was just good, solid, no-frills sleep. How about you? Too excited to see your lady to get any shut-eye?”
Calvin chuckled. “Something like that. I’m just happy to be home, I missed Vegas, the base, the people…everything. When Sofia said she was going to meet me here instead of San Diego it was like music to my ears.”
“I know Timothy is going to be happy to see us. He is waiting for me to tell him how our first sales pitch went.”
“It made him rich, that’s how it went.” Calvin cackled. “I wonder how many pairs of alligator dress shoes he will own after he starts getting paid?”
Katie shrugged. “I don’t know, but it is up to him. He can wear whatever he likes.”
Calvin nodded out the window. “Home Sweet Home.”
Katie smiled at how little contrast the base was to the luxury condo she had been spending all her time in recently. It wasn’t about the fashion or the art, it was the fact that both places, no matter what was going on, felt like home. A place where she could walk in, kick off her shoes, have a glass of wine, and no one was going to question her about anything.
After the plane touched down, they climbed down the steps and out onto the runway. Waiting there was Sofia. She bobbed up and down excitedly, then raced over to throw herself into Calvin’s arms. He dropped his suitcase on the ground and wrapped his arms around her, picking her up and squeezing her tightly. She kissed him on the lips and smiled, feeling like she had been away from him forever.