by Michael Todd
“Did it take long?” Ella wondered.
“No.” Katie tilted her head and looked at Ella. “But mostly because I didn’t have long. I was called out on my first incursion just a couple days after I got here. I had to toughen up or die. The first step for you, though? You need to cry. I know it sounds stupid and hokey, but everyone here,” she waved a hand in the general direction of the building, “the guys and girls, they have gone through that. Once you let the emotional part out, you will be able to come to terms with what has happened to you. It’s not easy, I won’t lie. You go from your normal life to being this capsule for evil, but you’re being asked to do good with it. Meanwhile, everyone else in your life has disappeared.”
“What happens when you’ve come to terms with it?” Ella asked.
“Well, then you get some awesome training,” she enthused. “Play with some really cool toys and then kick monster ass like you are in the movies, hopefully without dying. If possible, during all that you want to try to have a relationship of sorts with your demon. It won’t do you any good to fight it, although you don’t want to release yourself to it, and they can give you some valuable assistance that can help you survive. My demon helps me all the time, but most of the time I keep it to myself. Sometimes, though, she helps me with something so huge that it gets covered up so people—even the other teams—won’t get freaked out.”
“I’m scared to talk to him,” Ella admitted.
“Don’t be. At this point, you hold all the cards,” Katie advised. “You are in control of the situation. You know what? I have an idea. Hold on one second…let me talk to my demon.”
Do you think you could communicate with her demon? Katie asked.
I can sense that this one is a big motherfucker. Pandora sniffed. I’ll do it, but I want something in return.
Okay. Katie sighed. Like what? A year’s supply of donuts? All the Italian you can eat?
Nothing like that, Pandora chirped mischievously. I want another car.
Oh, lord, Katie moaned.
And not just any car, one just like the one you had, Pandora explained. I really enjoyed riding around in that thing, top down, the sun on your back. Just cruising. That is, until Ding-a-ling Demon showed up and ruined everything.
And if I promise you we will look for another vehicle—no promises on the type—you will talk to Ella’s demon? Katie asked. The girl is having a really hard time with this change. and I think if the demon will talk to her she will feel more comfortable with the whole thing. Right now she is terrified, and that is going to get her killed fast.
Yes, I will talk to him, Pandora assured her.
All right, Katie agreed. Another vehicle coming up…sometime.
Katie took a deep breath and sat down in the chair, leaning back and closing her eyes. Pandora would take over her vocal cords, which was a very strange feeling.
Pandora was preparing to contact Ella’s demon; she could tell because there was a sense of concern that Katie did not typically feel. She thought about asking her what was up, but she figured it was best that she just let her do her thing.
She didn’t need a distraction.
“Melneck?” Pandora spoke through Katie’s mouth. “I thought your scent seemed familiar. Why are you hiding in there?”
“Small world.” Melneck scoffed, speaking through Ella and scaring the hell out of her. “Oh, sit still, child. It’s not that bad,” he told the girl.
“She’s new. Give her some space,” Pandora advised.
“Since when did you become sympathetic to the human plight?” he asked.
“Not really sympathetic, but it’s easier if they calm the hell down,” she told him. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Shouldn’t I ask you that?” he asked. “Never expected to see someone from the Eight slumming up here.”
“I was tricked by my asshole brother-from-another-mother,” Pandora growled. “He tried to get me out of the picture and into a form he can kill easier. At least he thought he could kill me easier, but that doesn’t seem to be how things are working out for him. Silly demon…always thinking he can one-up me, never thinking about the fact that I am fucking smarter than him most of the time, and way older.”
“Well, I guess that makes two of us, then,” Melneck replied.
“What do you mean?” Pandora asked. “What does T’Chezz have to do with you and this girl?”
“Nothing to do with the girl,” he assured her, “but I came here under orders from T’Chezz as a final payment for a favor I owed him.”
“Bet you’ll think twice next time about asking for a favor from that jackass.” Pandora scoffed.
“Yeah, never again,” he agreed. “I heard someone speaking to my previous host’s dead body after I switched over to this kid. They told it, ‘Seems like I won’t have to kill you after all. T’Chezz will be happy.’ She was being moved to a blacked-out SUV when it happened. I couldn’t see who it was since my human had completely collapsed, but I could tell the sniveling voice was someone from below.”
“That does not surprise me at all.” Pandora chuckled. “I think T’Chezz underestimates the power we have in our human hosts. I also think that he was trying to do that to me, or rather still trying. He doesn’t want me in the picture. He knows that his demons would follow me in a heartbeat, though I don’t really want to be a leader. I don’t see what he would get out of killing you, but he never did make much sense with that shit.”
“Well, either way, I know he wants me dead,” Melneck agreed. “He sent someone up to follow me around and then kill me off as soon as I was done. It serves T’Chezz right that his effort failed to turn a Damned, anyway. He has very little faith in humankind, that’s for sure. He believes them to be a lot weaker than they really are, and it’s a shame. I’m not saying I’m on their side—I’m on my side–but they could give him quite a fight. He doesn’t even realize it.”
“I think he is starting to, if he is sending you up here to do his dirty work,” Pandora suggested.
“I don’t really know why he thinks it would matter if I went back to hell?” Melneck mused. “It’s not like I’m not headed back there anyway.”
“Yeah, but this is a little different,” Pandora told him. “I know the demon you are talking about, and when he kills, you either go way down into the depths of the fire not to resurface for centuries, or maybe to a true death.”
“A true death?” Melneck paused a moment. “I thought that was a myth.”
“Not a myth.” Pandora shuddered. “I’ve seen it. Demons can have a true death, their souls completely extinguished and their bodies turned to dust. There is no coming back from that. I am not sure how that happens yet, but I am not willing to test it. I might get bored down there in hell, but I’m not looking to completely disappear.”
“This is bullshit,” Melneck yelled angrily, raising his human to her feet and forcing her to pace. “Seriously, this is complete and utter crap. I had plans, and now every one of them is going to have to be put on hold. Talk about annoying! This is the epitome of it.”
“At least you’re still alive.” Pandora shrugged Katie’s shoulders. “Anyway, just try to help your human out. Think of it this way: the stronger she is, the longer you live. If she dies, you die. When it’s time you can get free and go back, but right now this might be the safest place for you. They think you are dead, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to kill your human. Lay low for a while; build something with her and make her more confident. You’ll get your moment.”
Pandora released Katie’s vocal cords and Katie rubbed her throat. She looked at Ella, who had stopped pacing and was doing the same thing with a look of terror in her eyes. She forgot to prepare her for that, but she seemed to have taken it at least somewhat well.
“Sorry, forgot to tell you that part.” Katie smiled.
“Yeah.” Ella shook her head.
Her demon is named Melneck, Pandora explained to Katie. He is one of the tightest-ass
ed demons I have ever met. I knew him down below, and seriously…if he ate coal, diamonds would come out when he took a shit.
That is disgusting.
No one down there likes him, because he is a presumptuous ass, Pandora replied. The good news though is that he found out T’Chezz was planning his death, so he isn’t loyal to anyone but himself right now. I told him to help Ella; that the more he helped her, the longer both of them would stay alive. I am pretty sure he agreed, and I don’t think she will struggle too much with it.
Good work, Katie told her.
“Ella,” Katie began, moving back over to the girl, “I need you to start working through your feelings. We are all a family here. We’ve all been through the process, and we are all here to help you with anything that you need. There are also counselors on the team, if you’d prefer one of those. However, after talking with Korbin and Damian, we know that your priority is to begin training. Training is one of the most important things we do, and it’s not just for workouts and tiny waistlines. It’s for survival, because right now you are weak, so you run the risk of dying permanently.”
“I don’t want to die,” Ella said quietly. “I know I said that in New York, but I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s okay.” Katie smiled. “We all go through a really rough time when things start to change. How about we forget about the past and start fresh right here in this glass-boxed room? You can embrace your new situation and learn to do the things we do.”
“Okay,” Ella agreed, although she wasn’t very happy about it.
“Perfect!” Katie stood up and headed for the door. “We start training at six, so get some sleep tonight and be ready by that time to set things on fire.”
“Okay,” Ella replied as Katie left the room.
That’s not so bad, Ella thought. Six in the evening is not a bad time to start.
Chapter 11
Look, you little bitch, Melneck hissed. Get your non-athletic funky ass out of this bed. I am not here to be your goddamned babysitter.
Dream on, asshole. Ella laughed mentally. My parents spent twenty years trying to get me to do what they wanted. You think you are any better? Fucking think again. I don’t get up before the crack of noon on an early day.
Melneck growled and ran his powers through her body, fucking with her intestines. She immediately became very gaseous, stinking up the entire room. She didn’t budge, just pulled her covers tighter around her. She did not want to get up, she did not want to train, and she did not want to deal with the rest of this team of soldier do-gooders. She wanted to stay in bed and decide later if training was something she wanted to do. She wasn’t about to start running, doing pushups, and fencing without fully feeling into it. Melneck increased the pressure on her intestines.
I really feel like you are hurting yourself more than me. Melneck chuckled. I have smelled sulphur in one form or another my whole life, so this is like a sweet memory from my parents’ house. It’s like I am getting ready to start my day.
You think it’s pleasant now, wait until you see what I can do to your body, Melneck growled. Don’t like your thighs? I can make them fatter. Your ass too big? You haven’t seen nothing yet. Oh yeah, then there is my favorite…acne.
You don’t scare me, Ella snarled.
IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR GIANT ASS OUT OF THIS BED, YOU WILL GET DIARRHEA NEXT, Melneck screamed. I am not going to put up with some lazy piece of shit. I will take over your body. Don’t fucking test me girl!
“YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!” Ella screamed out loud, throwing the covers back. “I swear, when I get you out of me I am going to kill you myself.”
I’d like to see you get so strong that a threat like that would worry me in the least. He chuckled. Right now, all I would have to do is flick you and you would break in half. Now get up. Take a shower, brush you goddamn teeth because your breath smells like a demon’s rotten asshole, and get downstairs. I’m sure they are all waiting for you.
Oh joy, Ella growled, getting out of the bed. A new happy little family, just waiting to meet their new fucking pet. Not what I signed up for. I’d rather work non-stop shifts at Starbucks with the same obnoxious bitch ordering the same obnoxious fucking drink with fifty-seven ingredients. And to think I used to think that was the absolute description of hell! Who would have thought I would have found the real hell in a desert?
Oh, trust me honey, you’ve seen nothing yet if you think this is hell. Melneck laughed.
“There she is,” Katie told Calvin. “Good luck with her.”
“I grew up in the ghetto.” He cracked his knuckles. “This girl has nothing on me.”
“Right.” Katie chuckled, waving to him as she walked away.
“Good morning, Ella,” Calvin said as he walked up to her. “I am your team leader Calvin. I’m second in charge under Korbin, who you will meet eventually. I want to start out the day with some questions.”
“Oh, I love questions,” Ella grumbled, walking over to the table with Calvin. “Why is this place such a wreck?”
“We had a demon invasion here,” he replied. “We got them all, but it was tough on the structure. So, tell me about yourself. Where did you come from, what are your interests, and so on?”
“Well, I am not really interested in anything,” she said pointedly. “I was a straight-A student in high school, but not because I cared to study—just because it was so damn easy. They tried to challenge me with AP classes, but they were all yawnworthy. All they included was more homework. The other crap was already in my head.”
“Okay.” Calvin wrote some notes. “You sound like a very smart young lady. What did you do before you got infected?”
“I worked at Starbucks. That’s about it.”
“No college?” he asked.
“I got a couple scholarships.” She shrugged, looking around. “But I wasn’t interested. My parents just couldn’t wrap their little heads around that. College wasn’t for me. They saw opportunity; for me, all it included was learning more and ‘getting ahead,’ and I have no idea what that means.”
“What did you want to do?” Calvin asked.
“I dunno.” She shrugged. “I only have one life, so I want to enjoy it. I didn’t want to become a slave, to be a tool for the government for forty-five years just so I could retire when I was too old to enjoy myself. Hell, no! There is too much in this world for me to experience. I am doing that shit now while I’m young, while I can go out and see the world without a walker and a bunch of pills to keep me alive. We are born into slavery and we work our whole lives thinking it’s for the greater purpose, but when we finally get to the end all we have to look back on is what we did at work. No, thanks.”
Calvin nodded along, listening to what she was saying but not hearing anything new, for all she was so smart. Sure, she was probably genius-level, but that wasn’t going to help her when she was facing down a six-hundred-pound demon with nothing but a sword and her talent. She didn’t seem to understand why she was there or what she would be doing.
“Did you have any interests outside of school or work?”
“Parties. Smoking weed and chillin’ out with my friends.”
“Right.” He looked up at her. “I meant like physical activities.”
“Nope.” She yawned.
“Nothing?” he asked. “No fighting, no wrestling… Maybe competitive volleyball?”
“Competitive volleyball?” She snickered, peering at him to see if he was trying to put one over on her.
He wasn’t.
“Don’t knock it,” Calvin told her. “I’ve become a believer in the power of volleyball. Katie there…she is the team heavy, meaning she carries us in almost all the fights. When she came in here she had nothing under her belt except competitive volleyball, and she is the best ass-kicker on the team.”
“Oh?” Ella lifted one eyebrow. “How nice for her.”
“All right,” Calvin said, putting down his notes. “I think at this point the best thing for us
to do is just see what you have in you. Go put on some tennis shoes, I put some new ones on the bench, along with some workout clothes that Katie brought down. We’ll hit the track.”
Ella rolled her eyes and stood up to grab the clothes. This was not her idea of a fun time in the least. She changed and they went out to the track, starting off with a slow jog. She had no interest in proving herself to these goons, and she definitely wasn’t going to break a sweat for any of them.
Come on, Melneck griped. You have the stamina of a six-year-old.
Shut up, Ella growled.
I’m not kidding, Melneck snapped. I have seen a toad move faster than you. A big fat one, missing one leg, just skimming along at a quicker pace than this.
Ella picked up her pace and scowled. She had to figure out how to deal with humans who wanted to work her harder than her parents had and a demon who was a complete and total asshole.
As she ran she thought about what had happened the day before. As if her day hadn’t already had a hard enough beginning running from her mother, she’d had to walk the trash out at that specific moment, thinking she could sneak a smoke.
Oh, you won’t be smoking anymore, Melneck told her. Disgusting habit. I drained the nicotine from your system while you were asleep and made it so you were no longer addicted.
Great, my demon is now an ad for Chantix. She scoffed.
I also healed your lungs, he added. Which is why I am so surprised you move so slowly.
Ella ignored him as she ran around the track, trying to focus enough to not trip over her feet. She seriously couldn’t figure out how her life had gotten so much worse. She had enough shit in her life; she did not need this.
This is going to be sooo awesome, Melneck crowed excitedly. Every day we will get up early and eat a healthy breakfast—egg whites, toast, and maybe some coffee if you’re good—and then hit the gym. We have a whole gym at our fingertips. I will come up with a training routine for you. It will be fabulous.