Protected by the Damned Boxed Set 1: A Supernatural Action Adventure Opera

by Michael Todd

  The rock flew through the air and bashed into the demon, which got its attention. The demon turned quickly and snarled at Eric, and he slowly pulled his two knives from their sheaths and held them behind his back.

  The demon lunged forward, not paying attention as Eric held a knife out. The demon ran straight into it and screamed in pain, stumbling backward as Eric reared back and threw the other one into the demon’s shoulder.

  The beast’s screeches of pain echoed around the compound.

  Eric smiled at the screams, knowing how much pain he had inflicted.

  Before he could react, though, the demon pulled the knife from his shoulder and threw it at Eric, striking him back in the arm. Eric screamed and fell to the ground himself.

  The knife did its fair share of damage, but what was really damaging was that the metal—the special metal made to hurt the demons —absolutely scrambled Eric’s demon’s brain.

  Eric writhed on the ground for a moment before pulling the knife out of his arm.

  Pandora growled as she watched the scene through Katie’s eyes, then turned back to the two demons. The faster one stood at the front and was attempting to stare Pandora down, growling, snarling, and getting ready to attack.

  Before it could, though, the larger demon crept up behind it and grabbed the first by the shoulders, swinging it around to face him. He shoved his hand into the demon’s chest and ripped out its heart, popping the organ into his mouth and chomping away.

  Oh, man, Pandora said. This is gonna suck.

  How badly? Katie asked, in shock from the cannibalistic action happening right in front of her.

  On a scale of one to shove-a-tree-up-my-ass? Pandora replied. I’ll take the tree every time.

  That’s…pretty bad, Katie agreed.

  The smaller demon fell to the ground, its body slowly melting into the concrete.

  She winced, wondering how that felt before looking back up at the remaining demon.

  The brute demon growled and howled. Its muscles pulsating and increased in size as it grew taller, and its skin glowed brighter by the second.

  Katie looked at Damian, who was kneeling next to Eric and wrapping his wounds. As he treated Eric, he kept an eye on the demon.

  “Well,” Damian remarked, “this is a horrible new ability to learn about on the killing field.”

  “You got this.” Eric winced as he shook his head. “You and Katie are badasses, so you shouldn’t even be worried about that fucker. He may be big, but hey…you can tell he’s as dumb as a box of fucking rocks.”

  “Thanks for that.” Damian smiled. “Nice pep talk.”

  He patted Eric on the arm, then stood up and walked over to Katie. She seemed to be completely and totally in shock.

  He chuckled as he watched the demon. “It looks like they’ve got all kinds of tricks up their sleeves,” he pondered aloud. “Wish we had a list of their abilities.

  “Yeah, maybe they have a few tricks,” she said. “But so…do…we.”

  We’re really going to do this? Pandora asked. No going back afterwards.

  Do it.

  Katie walked forward with her eyes flashing bright red and Pandora brewing inside of her. The beast turned its head and stared at Katie, who had no fear in her heart.

  A sick smile moved over its lips as it crouched, ready for action.

  “DRESS REHEARSAL FOR HELL, BOYS!” Pandora and Katie yelled in unison.

  Katie put her hands out in front of her and watched as they slowly morphed into demonic paws with long sharp claws. When she looked up, her eyes were nothing but bright red orbs, and two red horns sprouted from the top of her head. She growled and seethed as she stared up at the beast.

  “Well,” Damian said, looking at her in disbelief, “that is definitely a new tactic.”

  He looked her up and down as her clothes ripped and shredded. Her body became wider, taller and stronger than her human form. She had grown huge; taller than him, her arm muscles glistening from the sweat rolling down her skin. She looked at Damian and winked, a smile moving across her lips.

  “Don’t worry, I’m still me,” she said, reaching her hand out for Damian’s cross. “There is just more of me.”

  Damian nodded and removed the cross from his jacket. He paused before slapping the cross into her hands, but it had no effect on her. He shook his head, not sure what to think about her metamorphosis.

  “Go take care of Eric,” she bellowed. “That lazy fucker isn’t going to die on my watch.”

  Eric’s sputtering voice called, “I got your lazy right here! Leave that sumbitch for me. I’ll drive my sword up its ass and shit down its throat.”

  Damian nodded to Katie and turned to Eric, but looked over his shoulder to catch another glimpse of Katie. This was wholly new to him.

  Katie shoved the cross into her belt and stepped onto the fallen stone, looking over at the beast. She lunged forward and plowed into the beast, pushing it through the wall and sending it sliding across the ground on the other side. Bricks fell all over them as they traveled.

  The two slashed back and forth, throwing large sections of wall and old equipment from the unused area of the compound. The fight was vicious, and caused widespread damage to the empty buildings.

  As they wrestled for the upper hand, small fires erupted from the heat of their bodies colliding. They destroyed several of the buildings, but they didn’t stop.

  Katie was not going to allow this demon to get away or hurt anyone else.

  “Hey, fucker,” Pandora called from within Katie. “Just give up, you piece of shit. T’Chezz is going to kill you anyway.”

  “Fuck you,” he roared, lunging at Katie.

  Katie put her feet beneath his hips and rolled backward, pushing him into the air. She got out of the way as he plummeted back to the ground, crushing the concrete beneath him when he landed. Slowly he got himself back onto his feet, and dusted his hands off on his massive scaly legs.

  He smiled again, shaking his head.

  “There isn’t anything you can do that I don’t know about,” the demon said to Pandora. “I can do this all day and all night up here on Earth. You are nothing like you are in Hell—just an empty shell of your former self—but I have been infused with power to last weeks, maybe even longer.”

  “Take me over there,” Katie told Pandora. “Nobody talks to my friend like this jackass.”

  Pandora laughed and the two of them ran toward the sack of shit, tackling the demon again and smashing through the support columns of the nearest building.

  She slashed her paws back and forth, the claws sinking deep into the beast’s flesh. He roared in pain when Katie and Pandora pinned him to the floor beneath them. Katie tightened her legs around him and straddled him, looking down into his eyes.

  This time only the human’s voice emerged.

  “You fucking waste of demon flesh,” Katie hissed. “Pandora might have lost some of her powers, but she has gained more than you could fucking imagine.”

  Katie lifted her right arm, and her human hand returned. She chuckled and grabbed the cross from her belt. She held it up, her face a reflection in the smooth metal.

  “Choke on this, you goat-licking bag of dick tips,” Katie screamed as she shoved the cross through the demon’s teeth into the back of his mouth.

  She slid forward onto his chest and pinned his arms, then jammed his chin closed as he gagged from the cross lodged in his throat.

  He moaned in agony, and thrashed to try to knock her off. Katie groaned as he rolled around in panic, breaking a couple of her ribs and possibly her knee, but she held on for dear life.

  After several minutes and a fucking huge amount of pain for both of them, the demon’s head began to melt.

  His body finally went limp, only twitching from time to time, so Katie stood up and moved to the side.

  She stared as his flesh begin to liquify. His head glowed with the golden light from the cross, and she waited until he was completely gone before mov
ing.

  She slowly walked over and stared down, then pulled up her shredded sleeve and reached down into the goo to pick up the cross.

  Ewww, Pandora wailed. Don’t you wipe that shit off on us. No fucking way!

  Katie found an old love seat pushed against the wall, so she walked over and wiped the cross as clean as she could, then held it up and shrugged. In the other area, Damian and Eric stopped to listen for any sound, but could hear nothing.

  “Okay,” Eric said, sitting up. “What’s going on? There are no explosions, no yelling, no earth-shattering falls.”

  “I don’t know,” Damian admitted, standing up.

  As he was about to go check the large sliding metal door to the building creaked open. Damian got into his stance, his sword at the ready, waiting to see who was coming out.

  He slowly began to relax as Katie turned the corner, now normal-sized. What was left of her clothes barely covered her body.

  She walked toward Damian and Eric with a smirk on her face. As she drew closer, she pulled out the cross and tossed it up and down a couple of times.

  When she reached Damian, she tossed it to him.

  “That fucker choked on it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After a change of clothes Katie, Korbin, and Calvin decided to scope out the damage, so they made their way to the roof.

  Katie sat down on the edge and dangled her legs over, watching as Korbin sat down on one side of her and Calvin on the other. The place was smashed: buildings demolished, walls crumbling, power lines down and sparking. It looked like a war zone around there. It was mildly depressing.

  Katie scrunched her nose and leaned back on her hands.

  “Sorry about demolishing your other buildings,” Katie said.

  Korbin sighed. “It’s all par for the course. To be honest, this place is just not safe anymore. The demons know where we are, and if we don’t leave, they will just keep coming back until we are all dead. They took one of us tonight, one of us who deserved a lot more time on this Earth and on this team, and we can’t afford to lose anyone else. I can’t take it, and I won’t allow it.”

  “I know you want to protect us, boss,” Katie told him. “But you have to remember that this is our life, and it will be all of our deaths at some point or the other. I agree we need to move on from here, but I can’t let you take responsibility for our deaths. You are not accountable for us, and you need to stop letting yourself fall into that pit.”

  “That is easier said than done, kid.” Korbin sighed, then stood and walked around. “When you are the leader, you are responsible for your team—alive and dead.”

  Katie nodded and looked down at the ground below. “Where to now?”

  “Don’t know.” Korbin replied. “I just know we need to move. Joshua and the others, they almost got stuck in our fucking war. That was more than irresponsible of me. It was reckless.”

  “We need to find another safe haven,” Calvin added. “Somewhere we can feel comfortable laying our heads down at night. Where we can train and get ready for the next time this happens. I just don’t know where we can go, you know?”

  “I think we all need to stay together,” Katie said. “Splitting up the team—and that includes Joshua, who killed four demons during the fight—would be bad; really bad for us. One of the reasons we work so damn well together is because we are each other’s family. If we split up, we’ll lose our familiarity and bond with each other. I don’t want to fight with a stranger who looks like Korbin, I want to fight with my brothers. I want to know they have my back and I have theirs…and that is something that we all have, including Joshua.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Katie.” Korbin looked around at the damage. “I need a day to let my brain settle. Right now all I can see is that battle and Jeremy’s body. I am not in a good place at this moment to make a long-term decision like that.”

  “Knock, knock,” Mamacita called from behind them.

  Katie turned around. “Hey.”

  She smiled. “Hey there, pretty girl,”

  “I heard you were one badass bitch today,” Katie told her, rolling her feet back over the wall and standing up to hug her. “Thank you for being there for us; for putting your life in danger for all this. We couldn’t have made it through without you.”

  “Aw, you would have been fine,” She smiled and kissed Katie on the cheek.

  Korbin looked at her and noticed that she had changed. She was no longer dressed in a suit or wearing robes in the brothel. She was just wearing normal clothes.

  Her hair was straight and pulled back at the nape of her neck, not up and wild like she usually wore it. It was refreshing to see her that way—just a regular woman for once.

  “I have to say,” Mamacita began as she walked over and sat down on the ledge, “I was a little misinformed.”

  “Why do you say that?” Calvin asked.

  “Well, what you guys do and what I thought you did are very different,” she admitted, chuckling. “It was definitely a new experience.”

  “Yeah,” Korbin snapped at her. “An experience you should never have been a part of. You could have been killed, dammit! You were supposed to stay down there with those girls to keep them calm and protect them, not come bolting up the tunnel like a wild karate master, trying to take down demons you know nothing about.”

  “I deal with you every day, don’t I?” Mamacita snapped back.

  “Not the same. You could have died in a heartbeat!” He sighed, rubbing his face and calming his voice before he spoke again. “We did lose someone, and we almost lost two of your girls, too. I don’t understand why you aren’t taking this seriously.”

  She turned her head slightly to look at him. “I am! Why do you think I risked my ass to come topside and fight that nasty-ass crusty demon with you?” she retorted. “It definitely wasn’t for the hell of it, that’s for sure.”

  Korbin sighed, wiping his face. “Well, I have to admit that your moves were damned impressive. I had no idea you had anything like that in you.” He mumbled something that sounded like an apology.

  “I didn’t learn to fight overnight,” she told him, picking up a stone and looking down at her hands. “I trained in martial arts until my early twenties. That was when I ran from the cult, and please make no mistake about it—it was a damned cult.”

  “Is that how you ended up at the house?” Katie asked.

  “Yeah, sort of,” Mamacita replied. “I am the niece of the original owner of the house, and I worked really hard to make it a place where girls could go when they didn’t feel like they belonged or didn’t have a family to help support them. I wanted to give girls another option than just going into an empty marriage, being homeless, or joining a gang. Perhaps my option was not that great. Maybe it was immoral or a bad choice, but it was all I knew. When I was out on my own, sex was how I stayed alive. It paid for my food every night, and a hotel room most nights. Over time, it became a business; something I could rely on, get an apartment with. Then I took over the house, and that was when I realized I had the opportunity to help other women. So I did.”

  “And how do you feel about it now?” Korbin asked.

  She chuckled and shook her head. “Now that I see the reality of the world, I can’t go back to that. Actually, it’s more like I won’t go back. My life has been a beautiful thing since I met you guys, from Armani originally to these business opportunities to watching the girls grow and forming friendships. I learned about the world in a way I never thought I would, and I cannot just walk away from that.”

  Korbin shook his head and sighed, raking his hands through his hair. He didn’t know what to say, since he didn’t want to put Mamacita in harm’s way—not even for a second.

  But at the same time, she really only had two options at that point. It was the rule, no matter who it was. She knew the truth, as did those girls, and that was going to hurt the Killers if they didn’t follow guidelines. He turned back to her and put his hands by hi
s sides.

  “There are only two options, Mamacita—”

  “My name is Stephanie Lee,” she interrupted, watching them eye her. “I had mixed parents. My mom is Hispanic, which is where I get my dark skin and dark hair. It’s also where I get my damn temper.”

  “Well, that makes sense now,” Calvin agreed, nodding.

  She shrugged. “My dad, he was calm, and always about the body and his martial arts.”

  “We are going to have to leave here,” Korbin told her. “This place is not safe for anyone, and I don’t just mean because of the construction zone. We are now on the map for the demons, and I know if they are given a shot they will come back here and finish us off. I don’t want to give them that shot. We can split up for now—go over to other teams—or I can start looking for a good piece of property, or we can become Korbin’s Homeless Killers.”

  “You know,” Stephanie mused. “I actually might have a solution. I have some property with a large building on it on the northeast side of town. It’s about forty-five minutes from here, out toward Area 51. We could set everything up there like it was here.”

  “That’s really sweet of you,” Korbin said, “but trust me, you’ve done enough. Believe it or not, our project—this whole thing—is even more secretive than Area 51. If we were to move over in that direction and end up in another firefight like the last one, I can guarantee that the Feds would start bitching. They are supposed to be protecting the oh-so-precious Area 51. Besides, I think that it’s finally time that we just bite the bullet, no pun intended, and build a full-out war base. Something that is hidden and can be heavily fortified, and will be around for a long time. We need our own airfield and our own transportation on call, and we need to feel safe and secure at the place we call home.”

  “Can we have a tank?” Katie asked.

  He chuckled. “Sure.”