by Michael Todd
The vice-president leaned against the wall with a smirk and arrogantly crossed his ankles. He wasn’t about to let this go, even if it meant a full-on fight.
Jehovivich could tell he was cocky, but she couldn’t tell if that trait belonged to the human or his demon.
Probably a bit of both.
Either way, she now knew that not only was there a demon behind the creation, the game was a real and sincere threat—one that needed to be taken care of before things got any worse. First, though, she needed to take care of the demon in front of her.
“This is absolutely insane,” the CEO cried, standing up in a huff. “You can’t just walk into our office and demand things. And then you pull a gun? What kind of mission are you on?”
“Shut up,” Jehovivich commanded. “And sit the fuck down.”
A deep demon laugh blew through the room, surprising the CEO and the gaggle of onlookers. The voice no longer belonged to the VP; it was that of his demon. The CEO plopped down in his chair and gaped at the man in disbelief. The colonel continued to aim her gun at his head.
“You stupid bitch,” the demon growled. “I am going to eat you alive. First, though, I am going to hang you upside down, strip you, and run my bladed fingernails down your body. I will make sure you stay alive long enough to feel every inch of pain. Only when I think you have had enough will I stop.”
“Uh, you do realize that I am holding a gun and you are holding a fountain pen?” the colonel asked.
“That pathetic piece of metal?” The demon laughed. “It is barely strong enough to penetrate my first layer. You think that you can scare me with that.” He jerked a thumb at the door. “Get the fuck out of here. You and your general can forget about the bigger game. It isn’t going anywhere, and the game is key to our world’s revival. I can tell you right now, though—if that is what you are bringing to the party I have already accomplished my goal, sweet cheeks.”
The colonel smirked and pulled the trigger, shooting him right between the eyes. The demon dropped to the floor, screaming in pain as his hands covered his forehead.
She smiled down at her gun—which held the special bullets—and walked toward him. He grumbled, groaned, and cursed.
His face was a bit worse for wear and blood pulsed out of the wound with his heartbeat.
“You tricky fucking human,” he spat, his eyes red and his voice guttural. “You will pay for this, bitch! I will kill you and string your intestines out like a clothesline for all your little friends to lick while I stab them in the ass with a pipe.”
The colonel glanced at the crowd, who shook in fear and chattered loudly to each other as the demon sat back up despite his partially-caved-in head.
“You’ve had your time to speak,” she stated. “Got anything else to say, you rotting piece of filth?”
It was doing everything it could to not get sent back to hell, but the colonel just wasn’t having it. “You made it possible for a demon from your disgusting dimension to enter a young girl.”
“Bitch!” he screamed, his strength draining along with his blood because of the metal lodged in his brain.
“You are the scum here on Earth. The worst human is above you.”
She kicked him in the chest, shoving the demon back to the floor. He hissed but didn’t try to get up.
He was too injured at that point, but not enough to just die.
It was at this moment that the colonel realized how much joy she felt. She had the power to get rid of the demon.
She was there alone; no need to answer to the general or anyone else. It was on her to make the choices, and in this scenario?
Killing that bastard was at the top of her list.
“You should lie down. That’s quite the bump on the noggin,” she told him as she straddled him.
“I’ll kill you,” he hissed, glaring at her.
She shook her head and spoke without inflection. “I’m gonna say you probably won’t.”
He gasped and his eyes narrowed. “One day I will find you and I will kill everyone you love,” he growled, the blood still squirting from the gaping wound.
“This conversation bores me.” She leaned forward just a small bit, placing the pistol on his skull. “Back to hell with you,” she declared and her pistol bucked twice more, sending two more of the special bullets into his head.
He writhed and groaned as more black blood seeped from the wounds in his skull.
The colonel yawned and waited until the human took his last breath, sending the demon straight back to hell.
She nodded, stood up, and brushed off her hands. The CEO was staring wide-eyed at her and she lifted an eyebrow, waiting for his response. The body behind her shattered into dust.
“I…uh… Okay, no problem,” the CEO stuttered and picked up the phone with shaking hands. “I am recalling the games right now.”
The general nodded. “I understand. Good job, Colonel. See you back here.”
He hung up, then dialed a much longer phone number and waited for the liaison on the other end to pick up. Four phone rings later he got a person.
Normally it was one ring.
“There has been a serious breach in safety protocol in the US.” The general got right to the point. “I need to speak to the Chairperson of the Coalition for Neutralization of Alien and Humanity Integration.”
The general took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. He couldn’t believe that something like this bullshit with a stupid game had gotten so out of hand. What the hell were the demons going to dream up next?
When the head of CNAHI—a horrible acronym if there ever was one—got on the phone, Brushwood straightened.
“This is the Chairperson,” was the only greeting.
“This is Brushwood in the US. I want to inform you of a new tactic the demons are using to bring their race over,” he told the person. “It is in the form of a children’s game, created by some guy who got the idea from some 1600s documents. The game is called Mirror Mirror, and it’s incredibly hazardous to the innocent. We’ve started the process of pulling all merchandise off the shelves here in the States, but some of those games are still in the wild here and abroad, which means we need to make sure all countries pull together in this effort. It is a difficult task, that’s for sure, but the game could be a huge contributor to the growing demon population if we aren’t careful.”
“Understood, General. You will send the relevant information via secure digital means?”
“Yes, already sent. Someone needs to review and get on it ASAP. We’ve confirmed that the company here in the States had an embedded demon making it happen.”
“We will. One moment.” There was a noise and muffled words in another language—Russian, he thought—and the voice returned. “We are working on this now. We are tracking an increase of thirty percent in demon incursions in the last thirty-six hours.”
“Dammit.”
“I agree,” the man stated. “If you are a praying man, General, send some of those prayers to Europe, because they need it. I’m afraid we don’t have containment on this anymore.”
“I haven’t been praying,” General Brushwood answered, “but I might be soon. If I take it up I’ll send you some.”
“Thank you.”
Each hung up.
The second phone call went to SOCOM, the Special Operations Command group which assigned the general’s black ops their missions. His task was pretty specific.
Stop the goddamned demons from infiltrating his area of operations, which presently was the United States—except he had constraints against the amount of firepower he could bring down inside the US.
The line was picked up.
The general spoke with SOCOM, giving them all the details and the main distributor and creator addresses, and tried to tie up as many loose ends as possible.
When he was done he hung up the phone and swiveled his chair toward the window, rubbing his chin. He just didn’t understand how a cock-up of those proportions
could have possibly happened.
It sounded like the VP had been a demon a lot longer than the game had been out, and had actually had a part in its creation.
How they had missed the production of the game he didn’t understand.
The demons had been vicious for a very long time, sure, but smart? They had never mastered smart before.
The good guys needed to find out whether this was an accident or something done on purpose.
Had someone asked him months before if he thought something on that scale could ever be carried out by the demons, he would have laughed the questioner into the ground.
Now, though, he was starting to question their evolutionary traits. They were getting smarter and bigger, and they were certainly much better trained.
The war had just escalated.
The music thumped loudly inside the space as the candles flickered and the alcohol flowed.
The Enlightened had enjoyed a visit from their leader, Moloch, and he’d told them what their next mission would be.
They were going after a small weapons depot in Washington state. Apparently it was an incredibly important task to widen the war’s front.
“To the next round of ass-kickings,” one of them toasted, lifting his glass. “May your claws strike true, your dark hearts beat as one, and if killed, may your soul travel quickly to the underworld.”
“Hear, hear,” the group cheered and downed their drinks.
Moloch’s arrival had been fortuitous.
It had renewed their faith, taken away their fears, and made them want to run head-first into a blazing battle to fight for the survival of their chosen masters—the demon race.
Of course, part of what they didn’t know was while Moloch pumped them for war, there was a shadow on the sidelines—one that waited for the day the Enlightened were no longer needed and could be disposed of properly.
The leader of the group stood watching, not participating but understanding that even though he had calmed them before, it was important for them to be able to let loose now.
They were ready to rock and roll, and as they drank the connection between them and their internal demons grew stronger.
One could feel the waves of power erupting from them. It wasn’t about the human contact, it was about the demon one, and this was one strong group of people.
Perhaps strong enough to overpower the prepared.
Chapter Eleven
It had been a long couple of weeks for Katie and she wanted a break, but with the government guys coming to meet Joshua there wasn’t time for her to get any kind of rest.
She woke up and tried to get Pandora talking.
Katie’s conversation went like this:
I’m tired.
Pandora grumped, Go back to sleep.
Grouch.
Bitch.
And that was the end.
Katie made her way over to Joshua’s area of the base and went inside. She found him working on a new weapon.
“Hey.” He smiled and moved from his workbench, giving her a hug. He stepped back to look at her face. “You look tired.”
“Yeah, it’s been a long few weeks,” she admitted.
“Did you get to use the staff yet?”
“No. The last call didn’t warrant it, so I’ve just been practicing,” she griped. “But don’t worry—with everything going on, I’m sure that I’ll get to use it soon.”
He shrugged. “What can I do for you this morning?”
“I…” She put a hand over her mouth to cover a yawn. “I came by to get an update before the new guys come in later this morning,” she replied, following him over to a nearby couch. “Are you ready for them?”
“I’m not really sure what I should do to be ready for them.” He snorted and scratched the back of his head. “I mean, I’m assuming they will tell me what they need from me.”
“They will.” She nodded. “Are you okay working with the metallurgist? I know this stuff is pretty hush-hush; family secret and all that.”
He took a deep breath before he answered her. “I think so? Though I am a little nervous about what I can say and can’t say.”
“Don’t be nervous about that. You don’t have to talk about the mystery magic side of things if you don’t want to,” Katie assured him. “I’ve handled the income issues, and the legal side as well. They’ve signed contracts, and the government will be absorbing the cost of them being here. All you have to do is work with them. I have met both of them, and though they are your typical civilian stuffed shirts, they are pretty nice when they let go just a bit. Both are going to be here for a long time, so it’s important to me that they learn how things work; how the rank and file system goes here. They aren’t in charge of anything. They are just here to build us a shop—something more efficient that will help you get some rest from time to time and increase production.”
“Got it,” he declared, nodding like he was mentally taking notes. “Then I’m good. Happy to see what I can learn from these guys, and I’m sure I will be able to teach them a thing or two.”
“Perfect.” Katie sighed. “Though I have to admit they don’t seem like the kind of guys who will be ready and willing to learn anything. They are robots. They pretty much roll in and create spaces and production flows and stuff.”
“That’s fine with me,” Joshua replied. “Honestly, Katie, I am pretty excited to learn more about the metallurgy. I grew up learning everything there was to know about the mystery side of it, but no one ever really took the time to teach me about metals and how they interact and such. I’ve learned some from books, but I think it will help me with my weapons-smithing. If I know how to handle a metal I can practically do anything with it.”
Katie felt a load drop off of her chest. “Good. I was really hoping that you wouldn’t be nervous about this change,” she admitted. “Now, all that said, you can’t give away too much information. There are things that even I don’t know. It should be your general rule of thumb that if I don’t know something, they shouldn’t either. At the same time, we desperately need to make this all work. There aren’t enough mercenaries to tackle the influx of demons as it is, and these weapons are one answer to that shortage.”
Joshua nodded, lost in thought for a moment. “Do you think you will be bringing in new people? For our team?”
“Eventually. But with the other teams missing so many men and us only missing one, we might stay at six for quite a while, which leaves us at a disadvantage,” Katie explained. “Amy’s team is down to three functional members right now. They’re backstopping with redshirts, so they are pretty much in a holding pattern until their men recover or they are given some new people.” She put a hand on his arm. “Using these bullets made with your metal is like having another person on the team; we can take down twice as many demons. It allows the normal humans to play in this game as well.”
“Okay, boss.” Joshua grabbed a red cotton rag that was hanging out of a pocket and used it to dry his hands. “Weapons are the answer, so I’ll make this work as well as I can.”
“If you need me to, I’ll come down and work with you guys,” she told him. “Just give me a ring. I’d like to touch base with them when they get here anyway, since they are new and will need to get used to the way we do things.”
“I’ll make sure to text you when they arrive or call the desk and tell Stephanie in case you’re in the tunnels.” He glanced at her. “Will that work?”
“Yes, and thank you, Joshua.” Katie smiled and stood up. “I guess I better get some breakfast in me and then head over to get some training in before they arrive. I’m really hoping to get a chance to try out my new staff on the next operation, but we will see. On the one hand I want to use it, but on the other it would mean that there is an incursion, which pretty much sucks ass.”
Joshua chuckled. “We live double-edged lives. But I am sure you will like it, and hopefully when this new setup is completed I will be able to start working on cooler weapons;
things we haven’t used before.”
“You are the best, sir.” Katie smiled.
She headed out of his building toward her breakfast. Joshua and his family secrets needed to stay hidden, even with the new guys coming. Somehow they had to make certain of that.
Because for the demons, he was a prime target.
“Swing low,” the commander called. “You want to hit them in the knees to take them down. Then swing up and over, pushing the sword, staff, knife—whatever—deep into their chest. The metal is going to stun them, so even if that blow doesn’t kill you will have time to shoot them, set them on fire, or whatever you need to do to kill the sonsabitches.”
The Special Operation, Small Tac Team, was in the government training facility working with one of the new instructors. They worked on hand-to-hand combat as well as they possibly could.
The leader walked through, studied the men’s practice, shifted stances, gave demonstrations, and watched as the men began to get better.
Sure, they didn’t have the power of a Damned, being “innocents,” but they had pushed their bodies to the limit and kept on going. As he approached the front of the room to start a new string of moves, the alarm went off and those in the group prepared to head to their posts.
A young soldier ran into the room and handed the trainer a piece of paper with instructions from the general on them. He read it, then addressed the men.
“All right, men, the demon attack is located one hour east at an armory,” he yelled. “Gear up, grab your weapons, and let’s hit the helicopter pad!”
The men were ready in five minutes and in the air within ten.
They landed outside the perimeter of the armory in an open area. The men lined up with the leader and slowly crept toward the building, watching for signs of demons. Everything seemed relatively quiet, but that could be a trick.
There had been many changes in the recent weeks, so these men didn’t put anything by the new breed of demon.
The leader led them in cautiously and slowly. They entered the outer layer of the building, standing quietly behind one another. When they reached the main space, they found several demons wreaking havoc.