The Complete Protected by the Damned Series

by Michael Todd

  Pandora cleared her throat and waited for a minute, obviously wanting to say something.

  Psst, Pandora hissed with a snicker.

  What? Katie asked.

  You said “harder.” She laughed.

  Katie smiled and shook her head. Pandora, you are incorrigible.

  And Business Is Good

  Protected by the Damned, Book 3

  Chapter 1

  There was a moment—just one moment—where everything stood still. Where the bubbling of the lava streams, the screeching of the tormented, and the agony of the Damned all paused.

  T’Chezz stepped forward into the light of the flaming torches, his lips trembling in anger. He slashed his claws across the chest of the human that hung from the ceiling, and blood rolled down its skin. Then everything went back to normal, whatever that was. No, that wasn’t right…there was more anger in the room than there had been before.

  “You are useless,” T’Chezz spat as blood dripped to the stone floor beneath his clawed hooves.

  The hanging human’s arms and ankles pulled him in separate directions, and the shreds of his torn clothing drooped from his bleeding and battered body.

  He had been sucked down into the bowels of hell and chained for T’Chezz’s pleasure. Unable to handle the burning of his wounds, he whimpered, then tried to speak.

  But fear clogged his throat.

  “You are pathetic,” T’Chezz growled, pointing his grotesque fingers at the man. “You are Chosen—you should be able to withstand a little torture. It would all be over if you just told the truth!”

  “I’m…trying,” the man gargled. His stomach seemed to be filled with half his blood, and the other half was trying to seep out of his mouth.

  “Oh, you are?” T’Chezz said, moving over to him with demonic speed.

  He squeezed the man’s chin forcefully and snarled in his face as sweat poured from the human’s skin. The demon rolled his eyes in disgust and shook his head, then turned and walked across the room.

  He looked out over the bubbling molten rivers that ran through the underground inferno.

  T’Chezz smiled, running his fingers sensually over the array of tools on his desk. “If you won’t say it, then maybe I’ll have to cut it out of you.”

  “NO!” The man panicked, straining against his chains. “Please.”

  “Oh, please,” T’Chezz mimicked, picking up a small blade and laughing. “No need to beg, since it won’t make any difference.” He looked at the politician. “Don’t you know that politicians are the worst of evils?” He noted the man’s disbelief. “It’s true. Perhaps not in the first generation—usually that group tossed out their ineffectual and useless predecessors. I am referring to the fuckers who have been screwing up the government lately.”

  T’Chezz laughed loudly as he walked back to the hapless human, then casually stabbed the blade into the politician’s leg.

  The politician screamed in pain, closing his eyes. His perfect hair was no longer perfect, his pressed suit was in tatters, and his adoring constituents were far above him. T’Chezz pulled the knife back out and wiped it across his tongue, then shook his head.

  “Your blood is poison,” he spat.

  The politician groaned as T’Chezz’s bellowing laughter echoed through the room. His head was down and his eyes were shut tightly, but when he unclenched his muscles he noticed the pain was gone. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked down at his now-free and clothed body. Even his shoes were still freshly polished.

  He stared at his hands and turned them over as he shrugged the five-thousand-dollar suit jacket up on his shoulders. He was sweating, shaking with fear, but his body was unscathed. He didn’t know if he had been healed, or if all of it had just been in his head.

  “These hunters are closing in,” the human said in a shaky voice.

  “Then maneuver,” T’Chezz told him. His back was to the politician. “You are the perfect plant in their world. They trust you because of your power.”

  “They fear me, which is different than trust,” he tried to explain.

  “Better,” T’Chezz corrected. “Fear is what drives the human race. Fear is what I see in their eyes as they stare into the darkness, clutching their sacred books and whispering their prayers. Fear is behind it all, but until now they had no idea what they feared.”

  He looked out the window. “That will change.”

  “What do you want me to do?” the man asked.

  “Your job,” T’Chezz growled, turning back to the politician. “I will place you back on Earth, but you are expected to do better; perform better. I can promise you that your being a valuable plant will be completely irrelevant if you don’t.”

  “I understand.” The politician trembled.

  “You’d better,” T’Chezz snapped. “I will eat your flesh myself, and you don’t smell appetizing at all.”

  “It will be done.” The politician grimaced.

  “See that it is,” T’Chezz said, walking toward the door. “It’s time these humans understand that we were on Earth first. We don’t need their meatbags walking around.”

  “Where are you going?” the politician yelled, cowering as T’Chezz snapped his head toward him.

  “To meet my new partner.” He smiled, his fangs dripping. “I’m hungry, and not just for flesh. I’m hungry to get this started. I won’t sit around and allow these Damned to get in the way. This is my time, politician. This is my world, and these humans—these ‘killers,’ as you like to call them—they will learn who their real master is. It’s not a man in a suit on the top of the hill. They will wish for scumbags like you when I am through with them. They will wish for death even before that. Go!”

  T’Chezz threw his hand in the air and stomped out of the room, leaving the politician thinking about what to do next. He closed his eyes, feeling the heat and swirling air around him. When he opened them again he was back on the surface, only this time things were different. His existence and survival hinged on what came next.

  No more screwups allowed.

  “Seriously, I think Jessica has slept with the entire cast,” Eric confided.

  “Even the old maid, Mrs. Avers?” Katie chuckled.

  “ESPECIALLY Mrs. Avers.” Eric shook his head, sadly. “She even did her dust wand. Bitch is dirty under that maid costume—don’t act like you don’t see it.

  “That is so gross.” Katie shook her head. “Days of Long Since Past is like the ultimate in soap operas, which means pretty much everyone is a whore.”

  “I wish life worked that way,” Derek chimed in, staring at the television.

  “I don’t know,” Eric said. “I don’t think Korbin is interested, and you know Katie over here gets her rocks off with swords and pushups.”

  “Hey,” Katie said, pouting. “I am more than that.”

  Both guys looked at her and raised their eyebrows. She shook her head and turned back to focus on the show, but she could feel their stares. She started to laugh.

  “All right, fine…maybe not that much different than what you are saying,” Katie admitted. “Still, it’s nice to think that I am not any of those characters. They all sleep with each other. It’s like this twisted circle of friends.”

  “That circle would be more like a tree if it were like that here.” Derek laughed. “Katie at the top, with many branches.”

  “Right,” Katie said, “which is why I keep my tree branchless right now.”

  “This show saved lives once.” Eric wasn’t listening to the other two—or chose not to get involved in the great tree debate.

  “Bullshit,” Derek argued. “How?”

  “No, I’m serious.” Eric turned to them. “My squadron was out in the Sandpit and we were in this firefight. It was freaking intense, man…seriously. There were injured; we had been fighting for hours, and everyone was freaking exhausted. They had us pinned down too, like bad. We were in the city, stuck in this half-blown-to-hell building surrounded on all sides by these f
ucktards. I seriously figured that was it for us—we were done.”

  “So how did the soap opera help you?” Derek leaned forward.

  “Well, after hours upon hours of hiding and shooting and hiding and shooting, we were at a standstill,” Eric said. “There was this raw recruit…his name was Johns, and he was in charge of tactical over the wire. You know, ‘our eye on the ground’ kind of thing. Anyway, he came over the net and told us that we had thirty minutes to get out of there or risk missing that day’s show. Shit, all of us had been wondering whether Jessica had slept with Ivan or not, and they were supposed to reveal the truth on that day’s episode. It was a really big deal for us.”

  “So what happened?” Katie asked, wide-eyed.

  “Well, the sheer amount of lead we threw in the next thirty minutes probably cost the US government close to fifty K.” He chuckled. “But in the end we nailed the other side. They never even saw it coming. It was like a Hail Mary out of nowhere. There wasn’t one of us who didn’t get a hot casing in our boot or down the back of our shirt, but it was fucking amazing. None of our men ended up getting hurt after the start of the firefight.”

  “Did you get to see the show?” Derek asked excitedly.

  “Hell yeah, we did.” Eric nodded. “We hauled ass out of there, and only missed the opening credits. Jessica didn’t end up sleeping with Ivan, and the whole damn platoon sat there cheering and booing from the MWR tent. Was probably one of my best moments out there. We felt real again, you know? Like we were more than our guns. We were enjoying something that everyone at home was enjoying too. It made us feel normal, even if it was for only a minute.”

  “Did you have many fights after that?”

  “Right after that was one of the bloodiest battles we had ever seen,” he said, his eyes glazing over. “We lost thirty-two souls that day, and not one of us saw that day’s soap.”

  “The sergeant stopped being an ass after that.” Eric chuckled. “He hadn’t been too happy with all the paperwork from the first battle. I’d do it again, though. It was nice feeling like a person again.”

  “I hear you there,” Katie said, glancing at Derek. “I hear you.”

  When the soap opera was over, Katie clapped her hands and shook her head. It was always exciting. She sat there in the chair for a moment while Eric flipped through the channels. All of them had a day off for the most part, so she really had nowhere to rush off to.

  “You want to watch some baseball with us?” Eric asked, looking at her. “There’s a doubleheader.”

  Katie held back a smirk while Pandora pretended to gag and puke in her mind.

  “No, I think I’m gonna put some real clothes on and actually get some work done,” she told him. “Maybe next time.”

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll be here.

  Katie got up from the chair she was lounging in and stretched, then walked away without any more discussion. It wasn’t that she didn’t like sports—she had been an athlete in her former life—but baseball was about as exciting to her as watching grass grow. Instead, she changed her clothes and headed over to Joshua’s building to see how their efforts were going.

  She leisurely walked outside and across the sand to the gate, which was already open, then went inside and down the main stairs. Joshua was sitting behind his desk staring down at two knives, and he looked up and smiled at Katie when she walked in.

  “H-hey,” he said, standing up and holding out the knives. “Perfect timing. I finished these two knives for you.”

  “Oh, great!” Katie chirped, taking them from him.

  They were just as beautiful as the others, with shimmering metal, perfectly made handles, and steel butts. Joshua reached out and turned the knife blade-down, then tapped on the butt. Almost as if it had been magically inscribed, two cursive Ks vibrated with color. Katie ran her finger over the letters and smiled as she looked up at Joshua.

  “You haven’t given me a name yet, so I put two K’s for Korbin’s Killers,” he told her.

  “How did you…”

  “Hang out here long enough, you learn a thing or two.” He chuckled, rubbing his hands together. “I’m really excited, though, that I’m able to cut my time down. I have been getting two knives a week done with this new machinery, which is more than I have ever done before. I know you wanted an increase in productivity, but so far this is the best I can do.”

  “These are great,” Katie exclaimed. “I know these take time to make. It’s not an overnight process. How are you with the bullet idea?”

  “At the moment?” he said, pulling out some papers. “Not very far with the idea at all. I am trying to figure out some technical things. The intrinsic energy of the metal is hard to control. I can’t just turn it off and on, and I’m trying to figure out how to melt it down without losing the metal’s properties. It’s beyond anything I can look up, and when these books my father left behind were written there was nothing even remotely similar to bullets. On top of that, even if I melt the metal down, I’m trying to figure out how I would spray the molten liquid.”

  “Can you not just mold them into bullets?” Katie asked.

  “No. Bullets aren’t a solid form like you are thinking, not with the energy involved,” Joshua replied.

  She laughed. “This is all a bit above my paygrade. Just keep working on it. I’m sure it will come to you eventually. They are important, but I don’t want production of other things to slow down either.”

  “Right. I’ll keep working at it.”

  “Great.” Katie smiled. “I’ll check back in later.”

  Katie walked back upstairs, slightly disappointed. When she reached the top, Mamacita looked over her shoulder and smiled as she accepted an order from FedEx. She checked the boxes in, signed for them, and closed the door as Katie walked over.

  “Hey,” Katie greeted her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought Joshua might need some help, and I dropped him off this morning so he didn’t keep parking that huge van in the driveway.” She looked Katie up and down. “You okay? You look tired.”

  “I’m okay.” Katie sighed. “Just trying to get through the days and keep the business going. How are the girls?”

  “They are all very good.” The madam smiled. “They ask about you and Joshua all the time. I have allowed some of them to come here with me and help out when needed.”

  “Nice!” Katie smiled. “All right, I’m going to head into the office. If you need anything from me, you know where to find me.”

  “Take a nap,” Mamacita called, picking up a box and walking carefully across the stone floor in her heels.

  Katie shook her head and walked over to the office, plopping down in the new chair. She sighed and looked around for a moment, then opened the books. As she looked down at the numbers, her heart sank slightly in her chest.

  They had already spent a shit-ton of money.

  Even with the infusion of capital from Korbin, she was going to have to start offsetting the costs—and she had no idea how to do that. The company was going to run out of resources, and that meant they weren’t going to make as many weapons as they needed.

  Chapter 2

  Katie dragged her feet through the doors and into the main building. The last thing she wanted to do was go to Korbin and tell him about the issues with the company, but she didn’t have any choice. They needed to get things under control or they would be up Shit Creek with no way to make the weapons, much less create a viable business out of it.

  She had gone through too much already to get the company going, and she wasn’t going to chicken out now.

  When she reached Korbin’s office, she knocked on the open door.

  “Katie,” he said, shuffling some paperwork as he looked up at her. “What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to see if you had a minute to talk about the company.”

  “Not right now.” He shook his head. “I have to jump on a conference call with the other team leaders. I’ll call y
ou when I’m available.”

  “Thanks.”

  She closed the door behind her as she left and headed back up to the main area, smiling kindly to Damian as she passed his quarters. She didn’t feel like talking with anyone else, and she wanted to put the new knives in a package for Korbin.

  She figured if she was going to go to him for a favor, she should probably take something as a peace offering.

  Or bribe.

  “Katie,” Calvin called from behind her, “you got a package from eBay.”

  Oooh, what is it? Pandora asked excitedly.

  “Thanks,” Katie turned and walked back, picking the package up from the table.

  She turned without a word to Pandora or the others and took it back up to her room. When she got inside with the door shut she set the knives down on the dresser and opened the package, pulling an old dusty book from the wrappings.

  It was a historical book, one that was over two hundred years old. Katie had found it on eBay and hoped it would give her some more information on what she was facing.

  What do you want that thing for? Pandora sniffed.

  I want to see if it has any more information on the Seventy-Two, Katie answered. I want to know what I will be facing in the coming days, especially with your brother on the hunt for my meat sack, or so you keep calling it.

  I don’t know why you don’t just come to me, Pandora said. I can tell you all about them if you would just ask.

  Could I really believe you? Katie asked. You don’t have the best record of telling me the truth and this is too important for me to have doubts.

  Point taken, Pandora said.

  There are two ways I can look at this, Katie said. I can trust that your boost alone is enough to kill him, or I can assume that it is going to take more than that to keep my body safe. I have to go with the latter of the two, especially since my soul is depending on it. I don’t want to be wrong about this, you know? I want to be able to feel comfortable that I can run into this T’Chezz character at any point and know I can handle myself with him.