by Michael Todd
Brock leaned against the dresser, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “Let me head up the team, or co-lead with you. I think this warrants more than one experienced Damned.”
Korbin wrinkled his face. “This is dangerous, and we’ll probably have Katie and Pandora with us there too.”
Brock shook his head. “Okay, just hear me out. Let’s recon the area and figure out what the hell is going on out there before you bring in Katie and Pandora. We can check out the area where the soldiers landed, find any evidence that may suggest a Leviathan, and get all the details Katie and Pandora will need to successfully launch a full-scale attack on this thing. Plus, if we can, we’ll save the soldiers who have been lost.”
Korbin pursed his lips. “That might not be too bad of an idea.”
Brock shrugged. “After all, we set up these forts and these Damned teams just so that Katie doesn’t have to be everywhere at once. If this turns out to be something less devastating than a Leviathan, we would have pulled her for no reason. We already have limited resources in this country—no, this world, really—to fight all of these things. We don’t need to expend them all in one spot.”
Korbin looked him up and down. “And you’re sure that this isn’t just an attempt to keep Katie safe? I understand, if that’s what it is, but still, that is a really dangerous precedent to set.”
Brock waved a hand. “Not in the least. I am simply trying to minimize the manpower until we know what the hell is going on. We need to share the burden in all of this, and not sit back and make Katie take care of everything. Even in regular situations, you have a check team that observes the area before the strike team goes in. Well, you should, at least. It’s obvious these guys did not, but from what it sounds like, this mission was not authorized.”
Korbin chuckled. “No, it was not, and it possibly stemmed from the stolen data at the base.”
Korbin sighed, and Brock chewed his lip. “So, do you think I’m right? Share the burden, do the reconnaissance first?”
Korbin’s jaw clenched and unclenched, but he finally nodded his head. “All right. Go get your gear.”
11
Sean pressed rewind on the video and watched the section again, holding the already de-feathered and butchered raw cockerel meat in his hand. The kitchen was quiet, everyone having already eaten and gone back to their rooms. Sean needed to do something with his time. He was going crazy in his room alone, so he’d rolled up to the kitchen and decided to watch one of Juntto’s cooking videos and make cockerel and stinging nettle soup, a very close Viking rendition of a frost giant recipe he’d posted. It was kind of difficult, considering Sean had never worked with those specific ingredients before and Juntto had a habit of talking so much on his videos.
He rewound the section on cutting up the chicken one last time, noting each step. As he reached over to grab the knife, Timothy walked through the swinging kitchen door. “Hey there, Chef Boyardee.”
Sean chuckled. “Hey.”
Timothy wrinkled his nose and looked at the ingredients. “What in God’s name are you trying to poison us all with now?”
Sean nodded at the video. “It’s a Viking soup that Juntto made on his video. It looked good when he was done, and it will feed a lot of guys, so I am trying to get it done for tomorrow.”
Timothy nodded, leaning against the wall. “I actually came to find you to tell you the good news. Well, kind of good news. They found the stolen software, and the general is taking steps to recover it.”
Sean looked up at him with a big smile on his face. “Man, that is really good to hear. Seriously, if you can get that info back, that will at least put some closure to the whole thing—at least on the tech side of things. I don’t think it will affect my punishment in the least. Still, I want to know our stuff is back safe and sound since it was my fault.”
Timothy shook his head. “It was not your fault. You know that. Carmen conned you, and while I wasn’t her biggest fan, I did not see that coming.”
Sean scoffed. “Tell that to the rest of the base. Aside from Eddie and Turner, the whole base seems to be avoiding me like the fucking plague. They all think I had something to do with it, like I let her in specifically to steal the data. After all I’ve done… Never mind. Doesn’t matter. What is done is done. And I just have to move on from here, I guess.”
Timothy shook his head, putting his hand on Sean’s arm. “Don’t do that. Don’t close up. You know I believe you, and you know that I wish this would all go away. I’m here. Talk to me.”
Sean glanced up at him, then continued cutting up the cockerel. “I don’t know, I guess I really didn’t think about how I felt until I had no one there to distract me. No job I liked, no friends around all the time to keep me going. And when I finally got to that point, I realized how being demonless made me feel alone inside of my mind. And then Carmen the software thief came along, and for some reason, she made me feel less alone. I don’t want you to think you weren’t an amazing friend, it’s just that there was something about her. I really thought she understood me. How I thought about things. Maybe she did, and she just didn’t care because she had a job to do. But the loss of my demon was hard for me, since with him, there was constantly an ally in my head. His reasons weren’t necessarily the same as mine, but we had the same goals.”
Timothy nodded supportively, listening to him talk about his demon for the first time ever. He always shut that conversation off as fast as he possibly could. “I mean, I don’t know how that feels. Yeah, I was Damned, but my demon and I had a completely different relationship; it was like having a homophobe in my head all the time. But I do understand that transition from constantly having someone there to absolute silence. It can definitely be lonely. Even for me, the guy who wanted his demon gone so badly he would have done just about anything to make that happen. At first, the silence was almost deafening sometimes.”
Sean looked at him with a half-smile, the first close to genuine smile he had produced since before the incident. “Thanks, Timothy. I really appreciate you coming up here and talking to me. And I appreciate how loyal to our friendship you’ve been. I feel like you’re the only one who never had a doubt. I mean, the guys never acted that way, but I could tell that they had at some point at least thought about it. It meant a lot to me to have someone there; made me feel less alone.”
Timothy pumped his fist. “Yesss! Gay bestie for the motherfucking, sparkling, fantastic, super-sparkly win.”
Sean burst into laughter, shaking his head. “I really hope we get to work together again.”
Timothy wiggled his eyebrows. “Girl, me too. Let me tell you, that damn dungeon is sad and pathetic all by myself. Dark and lonely. And the cooking shows just make me feel like a spinster now, not to mention that I do not cook, so I get hungry and never make the recipes.”
Sean nodded, chuckling. “So, you want me back for the squeaking of my wheelchair and my cooking. I get it.”
Timothy shrugged. “A girl’s gotta eat. I am all about the waif look, but I don’t really like the third-world-country starving-to-death look. It’s not attractive with the whole tailbone-sticking-out thing.”
Timothy stayed and cooked through the evening with Sean.
The chopper pilot came over the comm. “All right, boys, we are coming up on the spot where the first and second teams were dropped. We came out here as a dry run with the second pilot. He saw the whole thing, but he clammed up. We haven’t gotten him to say anything about what happened.”
Korbin, Brock, and three other Damned were pressed against the window, as the helicopter began to descend toward the ground. They were visiting the original location, figuring they would start there and follow any clues they could find. They also hoped there would be some good clues about whatever they found.
The helicopter landed and the five men piled out, taking their guns and some ammo with them. The chopper immediately lifted back off, going high enough to survey the area and keep a lookout for them. When th
e wind had died down and they didn’t need to block their faces from dirt and debris, the five of them scanned the area. There was an eerie feeling over the whole place, from the way the almost-hidden cave-like tomb was indented into the hill to the boot tracks from what they assumed to be the soldiers.
Korbin walked up next to Brock and looked at him seriously. “I’m going to keep the three new guys back a little, and you and I will push closer to the opening. If it looks safe, we’ll call them in.”
Brock nodded and waited for Korbin to give the orders. When he joined him again, they started down to the cave, which was in a small valley. Korbin put his arm out and stopped Brock, nodding to the right. There were two abandoned helicopters sitting there.
Brock was confused. “I thought the second pilot got away.”
Korbin nodded. “He did, but the first team had two helicopters because it was bigger. Looks like we know for sure they didn’t get out.”
They made their way carefully down the hill toward the flatter valley area. As they approached, they slowed, seeing something scattered around in the tall grass. Korbin squinted as they got closer, the two of them stopping in their tracks when they realized what they were looking at. There weren’t just two abandoned helicopters sitting eerily by. The valley was full of guns and personal gear.
Brock leaned down and picked up a rifle. “These are military issue. It looks like they just dropped them here. Why would they do something like that?”
Korbin shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe there was some sort of incursion or a larger number on the enemy side than we thought. Or maybe they dropped everything for some way creepier reason.”
Korbin called the three guys down to the tomb after securing it, and Brock began taking spotlights out of his bag and setting them up to point directly into the cave. Brock took the lead, slowly making his way in one step at a time. When he entered, he felt a bone-chilling surge go through him.
The place was a single room with ancient markings on the wall, an altar, and more guns and equipment that had just been dropped. Korbin bent down and examined a boot print under the spotlights. “Military-issue combat boots. These definitely belong to one of the teams.”
Brock tilted his head, stepping back and looking at the markings on the floor. He noticed that there were also knee prints. “They took a knee in here.”
Korbin’s brow was permanently furrowed. He walked over and studied the drawings on the walls. The three other Damned stood in the doorway, slightly shocked by the place. “Can anyone read this?”
Brock shook his head, followed by the other three guys. Korbin took out his phone and scrolled through, finding Timothy’s number. “No problem. If anyone can find out the random details of non-famous events, it would be Timothy.” He tried to place the call, but predictably, there was no signal in the cave.
They checked out the altar and the rest of the cave before heading back out. Korbin called Timothy as soon as they emerged and sent him photos of the inscriptions, then they all walked along slowly in a line, looking for anything that would tell them which way the guys went. One of the new Damned, Ayrton, waved everyone over. “Look how the grass is smashed. It’s not just a single line, it’s a bunch of lines. This makes it look like there was some sort of mass exodus or migration of at least, I would say, a dozen people.”
Korbin looked in the direction the prints headed. “They are all moving in the same direction too. We should follow it and see where it leads us. Get your guns out and keep them at the ready.”
The five of them walked carefully along the valley, following the trail of smashed grass and drag marks. Through the hills of Iraq, an area more than a little familiar to Brock, the team trudged, unsure if they would find anything.
However, as they moved over another hilltop, they found an array of weapons spread all over the ground. There were helicopter skid indentions in the grass, but no helicopter this time.
Brock picked up a shepherd’s crook and poked his boot at a military-issue M-16. “Uh, I think this might be the second spot. Looks like there are more than just military missing unless shepherds just leave their sheep in the middle of the hills.”
Korbin nodded. “I have a feeling they may not be far ahead of us. Keep your eyes open.”
The chopper pilot did a continuous loop around the guys below, making sure to go out far enough to spot anyone they might be getting close to without them realizing it. Up to that point, all he could see were random helicopter graves and weapons and packs left abandoned on the ground. When he ascended a few hundred feet to see over the next hill, a fair number of people came into view. They were trudging along, some in military gear, others not.
The pilot grabbed the comm. “Korbin, this is the chopper pilot, Lieutenant Andrews. Yeah, I have a group of people in my field of vision, straight ahead of you and moving in the same direction. Some of them look injured, and others seem ill. Over.”
A couple of seconds went by before Korbin replied, “Uh, copy that, sir?. Do you see any creature that looks to be from another dimension? Over.”
The pilot hovered near the group, looking at all of the people walking along. “That would be a negative. There is no monster down there. I am going to go in, land, and see if I can’t put together a plan to get them out of there. If you can, head in that direction, which is straight ahead six or seven more hills. Over.”
“Copy that, pilot. We’re on our way. Be careful, since we don’t know what happened to these people. Over,” Korbin replied.
The pilot did another pass and pulled ahead of them, landing carefully on a plateau. Switching off the chopper, he paid attention to his safety protocol and removed his headset, since he couldn’t use it out there anyway. He looked in the back, making sure he still had blankets and water. He had no idea what kind of shape these people would be in.
When he turned back, the group was surrounding the chopper. He narrowed his eyes, staring at them. They had blank, almost dead expressions on their faces, and their eyes glowed a bright and brilliant purple. The pilot waved at them at first, but then they began to shake the chopper and claw at the glass.
He was reaching for the toggle to turn the chopper back on when a big military guy leapt up, throwing himself against the glass front of the helicopter. The windshield started to crack, and the pilot panicked. He reached down next to his seat and pulled out his pistol, making sure it had a full magazine. By the time he snapped it back in place, the chopper was rocking wildly. Out of nowhere, there was a loud squealing noise, like tearing metal, and before he could react, they had ripped the door of the chopper off.
With shaking hands, he aimed, shooting and killing three of them. They fell to the ground, their eyes going back to normal almost immediately. The others took a few steps back, their bodies still lethargic. From the back he could hear grumbling, and the sea of people around him involuntarily fell or spun out of the way. The pilot gripped onto the edge of the seat, his eyes growing wide as Vinders lumbered forward. His eyes shimmered from purple to red and back again. The pilot moved to aim at Vinders’ chest, but the lieutenant grabbed the gun, ripping it out of the pilot’s hand.
Vinders was possessed by both the Leviathan and a demon, so his strength was unmatched as he punched the pilot in the face over and over. The pilot tried to cover himself, but Vinders was far too strong, so he just took it until he was barely conscious. Vinders reached in and ripped him from the cockpit, dragging his body along with him as he approached Legion.
Vinders dropped to one knee and presented the pilot as a gift. Legion moved closer to him, breathing in his pain and anguish. Without any movement of lips or mouth, a whisper emerged from the mummy. “We Are Legion.”
The pilot’s skin began to heal quickly, and his eyes shot open, shimmering purple.
Korbin and Brock hadn’t wanted the pilot to land since it was risky, but Korbin had kept his mouth shut, considering the pilot was not only a career military guy but also a multi-tour veteran who had ma
ny medals for his combat actions. When the radio went silent a few minutes later, Korbin had a feeling that something wasn’t right. He stopped the troops and had them move to the top of the hill, looking around for anyone or anything.
Brock continued to try to reach the pilot, but there was still nothing but silence. Korbin came up. “Any luck?”
Brock shook his head. “Damn it, no. Fuck. He was right there, but he got sidetracked. I don’t know. Whatever this is, it seems to be collecting people.”
One of the Damned yelled down, “Hey, there’s a car coming down the dirt road on the other side of this hill.”
Korbin waved to the soldier and nodded to Brock. “Let’s go get this fucker.”
They hurried up the hill and over the crest, then down to the side of the road. The rusty yellow pickup truck kicked dust and rocks all over the place before slowing down and coming to a stop in front of Korbin. The window rolled down, revealing a middle-aged man with second-hand clothes and worry lines on his forehead. He flashed a friendly smile. “Hey, do you speak English?”
Korbin nodded. “Yes. What can we do for you?”
The guy looked around the hills. “I am looking for my cousin. He is a shepherd. I haven’t been able to find him.”
None of the other guys said a word; they had seen indications a shepherd had been nearby, but given the security level of this mission, there shouldn’t be anyone out.
“We haven’t seen anyone like that,” Korbin said. “We are military and mercenaries, here on a mission assigned by US general named Brushwood. Would you mind giving us a ride to the last known location of our pilot? He said he saw a group of people, then he landed, and nothing else came over the comm.”
The guy didn’t even have to think about it. “Uh, you up front with me to show me where to go. The rest of you can get in the truck bed.”
Korbin climbed into the passenger seat, and the guy put out his hand. “Archer, Archer Niles. I am British, but my cousin is from here. Do you think you are going to be able to find your pilot?”