by Michael Todd
The general shook his head. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Right now, they are not sure. Long term, it will probably be a no. These things are what they are.”
Dragos scoffed. “Nonsense. We’ll have our people look into hacking their equipment. We need the information one way or another. If they will not cooperate, we will take what we need.”
The general shook his head, standing up. “Hold on. Hold on just a minute here. We just got our positive relationship back with Katie, and you want to jeopardize that by not only misleading her into trusting you but stealing from her? She has gone above and beyond to protect the people of this world, including every single person in this room. She is one of God’s angels, in case you’ve forgotten. That is not the kind of woman I want to run into when she is pissed at me.”
The council members whispered some more, and Dragos rolled his eyes. “We aren’t stealing the secret to the universe, just to where the Leviathans are. It is Katie’s job to forewarn us, in this and in attacks. What would you like us to do instead?”
The general gritted his teeth, tamping down his frustration. “I have told you that I will speak to her. We cannot do that to Katie. It will completely ruin the relationship, and she will become one of our enemies. I would much rather have her as a friend than an enemy.”
The general sat back down, giving the council a chance to talk the decision over. Dragos was insistent, and he had a feeling it was because of something that probably didn’t even have to do with tracking the Leviathan. That wasn’t a surprise, though. Even the people closest to him didn’t trust him. He was always out for himself in one way or another.
One of the other council members flicked on his mics, talking in place of Dragos, who looked angry. “We have decided, General, that you are correct. We do not want to abuse Katie’s trust. We want to keep her on our team. Therefore, we will not do anything without your approval.”
The general nodded in thanks. “I appreciate your decision.”
The council moved on to other matters, but the general knew he could not trust what they had to say.
“Move faster,” one demon snarled to another.
The other demon grunted. “They’re heavy, okay?”
The first demon rolled his eyes. “Like our master will care. He will already be pissed at what we have found.”
The other demon shivered. “It isn’t our fault. I hope he doesn’t remove my legs again. It took two decades to regrow them, and I still don’t have a pinky toe.”
The two demons dragged a third, terrified demon up to the doors of Lucifer’s throne room. The guard looked at them and then at the demon. He swallowed hard and grabbed the rings, pulling the large doors open. The demons nodded and continued inside, making their way across the vast marble floor.
Lucifer was sitting on his throne, giving his demon servant instructions. “So, I don’t want Calichon sitting next to Triumph. They had a love affair, and it’s not pretty when they get too many glasses of scotch in them. Total catfight.”
The whimpers of the demon being dragged echoed through the room. Lucifer snarled and looked around. “What is that fucking noise? If it is one of the demons missing a limb again, tell them to deal with their shit on their own time. I am not a damn surgeon.”
The first demon cleared his throat. “Your Grace. We are sorry to interrupt. We found him out by the lava quarries. Total mess. We weren’t sure what to do, so we brought him here. Especially after the others were discovered.”
Both demons bowed low, shaking. Lucifer looked at his servant and waved his hand. He stood, pushing his sleeves up and walked down the steps to the floor. As he approached, he waved the two demons to the side and looked down at the one they had dragged in. He pushed on him with his claw and snarled.
Wrinkling his snout, he glanced around and raised his eyebrows. “Well, fuck! This is not good. I was hoping I would never have to deal with that fucking Leviathan again. Fuck my luck!”
He looked at the two demons and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Do whatever you need to with him, just get him out of my throne room.” He turned dramatically, snapping his fingers. “Get my walking jacket.”
He slipped his sitting jacket off, and the servant caught it as it fell. They knew not to let his clothing hit the ground. The last time it had happened, a demon had lost his dick and ended up in five pieces mounted around the castle for crying about it.
Lucifer rolled his shoulders and strode around the corner from his throne and down a long stone corridor. When he reached the end, he pushed on the door and waited for it to creak open. Stepping inside, he put his claw to his chin and stroked the hair hanging from the end of it. He walked around the armory, running his fingers down his different weapons.
He paused, then shook his head. “Meat mallet won’t work. I would have to touch the dirty bastard. Let’s see… Sword, no. Spear, boring. Ax has potential. Oh, wait. Yes, this is perfect.”
Lucifer smiled excitedly as he reached up and pulled down a pitchfork. He touched the tips of the tines, wincing at their sharpness, and then bellowed his laughter. “This is exactly what I was looking for.”
He sauntered out of the armory, stopping for the servants to help him into his jacket, then headed out, taking a stroll into the lava plains and molten mountains. He hadn’t been that far out since Katie and Pandora had been messing around in hell planning their attacks. As he walked up a small hill, he spotted Kabbus. “Oh look, he’s blobbing about as he always has. Some beasts never change.”
Lucifer cleared his throat and yelled, “Kabbus! Nightmare! Lord of Terror! Get the fuck out of my house! I thought I told you that you were not welcome here? I swear, you are like an insolent child, just doing whatever you like, then someone else has to come along to dispose of you. I had a perfectly nice afternoon of dismemberment planned, but now I’m out here shooing you off my property like a stray fucking dog.”
Kabbus slowly slithered around to face him and made a succession of noises. Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Yes, I am pissed you are eating my demons, dammit, not to mention leaving your tentacle slime everywhere. You don’t just march into someone else’s dimension and do whatever you like.”
Kabbus raised his tentacles into the air and lashed out at Lucifer. They flew past him, blowing open his jacket. Lucifer spat, pulling his jacket closed and buttoning it. He stared at Kabbus with a blank face for several minutes. “I was afraid for maybe a millisecond, or it might have been indigestion. I had a terrible slice of baby fat for lunch. It always sits wrong, especially when I have to go for a long-ass hike through the lava fields afterward to take out the fucking trash.”
Kabbus made more noises, and Lucifer looked at him, surprised. “That isn’t very nice. Do I come to your home and call you names like that? No, I do not. And I also do not eat your servants. I told you that if you came back here, you would be finished. So sad you didn’t listen to me the first time around.”
He grew very large and lifted his pitchfork, slamming it down into Kabbus. The beast roared, and Lucifer chuckled as he picked him up and flung him into the fiery pits. He watched until he could no longer see him and then turned away, wiping the single bead of sweat from his forehead.
Lucifer shrank back down and tossed his pitchfork to a servant standing by. The servant handed him a towel to wipe his hands with. “Fucking Katie and Lilith had me take out their trash? Beelzebub will answer for this.”
25
Brock stuck his hands in his pockets and looked out the window of Joshua’s office. Calvin and Korbin were sitting in the chairs, and Joshua was behind his desk. “It sure was weird being in here the other day when all these machines were off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them not running.”
Joshua smiled. “That was only the third time they have all been turned off at once in the middle of a production cycle, but we caught up on that one and put it all back together. It was worth it. The sound would have been terrible, with everything else going on.”
Korbin chuckled. “I do too, especially when it comes to the men and women on this base. And your girls! They were on it, helping whoever they could. I appreciate that.”
Joshua sat up proudly. “I will tell them you said that.”
Korbin looked over his shoulder at Brock. “You said you wanted to talk to all of us together?”
Brock rubbed his hands together. “Yes. I have been doing some thinking, actually. We all know that Calvin is going to be staying here so he can be with his wife and for his baby, who will be here before we know it. Everyone on this base has a place, and I have just kind of filled in where I was needed, or sometimes not needed, but they took me anyway. I would like to replace Calvin on the fort sites. Do training and building—whatever needs to be done.”
Calvin was impressed. “This is good, Brock. Teamwork. I very much appreciate it.”
Brock squeezed his shoulder. “Of course. Everyone has done something similar for me at some time or another. I need to start paying those dues back. I want you to be with your family. I know how important family is, or at least I remember from when I was just a human trying to get through life. Hopefully one day I’ll be in the same situation, or somewhere around there, and someone will do the same for me.”
Calvin shook his hand. “I’m sure they will.”
Brock shrugged. “Besides, I want to build forts. I’ve heard great things about them, and if it’s something Korbin is this passionate about, I want to know more. I want to learn about it from the ground up. I like training Damned too, so that would be a great way for me to get my hands dirty.”
Korbin stood up and put his hand out. “This sounds fantastic. I was worried that I was going to have to call out to other mercs not on teams to see if anyone wanted to come. That would have been hard for me, because I have to know that I can trust them, and that they’re going to do the best job they can out there. Lives depend on it. On all of it.”
Calvin shook his finger in the air. “You know what else it will do? It will take a load off of Katie. Between the Leviathan, the problems in New York, and the forts, she has really been running herself into the ground. She shouldn’t have to do everything on her own.”
Brock snickered. “I tell her that all the time but she just laughs.”
Korbin smiled. “Yeah, well, she’s the kind of superhero where you have to take some of her jobs without asking in order to get her to slow down. She won’t argue if you just do it, so this will be good. And Brock, it will give you some really good experience working with Damned who haven’t been military. Basically, training a civilian from the bottom up in a short amount of time. You have to find your rhythm.”
Brock was excited. “I’m looking forward to it, and to telling Katie that she can take a deep breath and slow down until the next disaster surfaces. She may fight me, but I know she is going to be happy about it.”
Joshua tapped his hands on the desk. “Well, this is perfect. Plus, we did an inventory, and I won’t be as short as I thought on the forts. Not as much as you want, but we have enough to make everyone happy.”
Korbin shook his head. “No sweat. We’ll work with what we have. That’s what we’ve always done. They will be protected to start out, and after that, we can send them whatever they need.”
Joshua pulled out his paperwork and began filling in different sections. “I will get the team working right away on setting you up with special metal bullets, grenades, missiles, and possibly some bigger guns. I want you to be able to either take them with you to your next location or at least know they will be there within a couple of days of you getting there.”
Brock stretched his arms over his head. “So, where are we going for the next fort? Have you decided?”
Korbin looked at Calvin. “We did, actually. To take the guesswork out of it, we had the council come up with a list of countries we wouldn’t have to wait for. Then we talked about which ones they were really hoping for us to get into.”
Calvin smirked. “That’s right. They told us Antarctica, but we said we’d just send Brock.”
Brock stared at them for a moment before Calvin began to laugh. “Dude, I’m fucking with you.”
Brock sighed in relief. “You don’t even know. I would freeze out there. I would need a fur-lined parka and about twelve scarves.”
Korbin laughed loudly. “Actually, we decided that we are going to head over to the Middle East. Bahrain was one of the places on our list, and it’s also pretty well protected. There is an ancient burial site located there that has been of interest to the demons on occasion. The ancient burial site needs a fort over it no matter what. It will be the first place a portal will open if they target there.”
Brock nodded, listening to Korbin. “So we will be out there until it’s done. Will we need to recruit Damned?”
Korbin wasn’t sure. “Sometimes they come to us, sometimes we have to attract them to us. Some are coming with us from France, too. I’m sure there will be more than enough Damned for us to find some decent ones who want to serve. It’s heroic in their minds, and it gives them something to do that isn’t destructive.”
Joshua stood up and smiled, letting his hands swing at his sides. “You guys can talk all you want in here since it’s nice and quiet. I have to get on the floor, though, if you don’t mind.”
Korbin patted him on the back as he passed. “Of course, dude. Do your thing. We will get out of your hair. And thanks for getting us these bullets so fast. They are much needed.”
Joshua headed out onto the armory floor and started checking clipboards. When he got to the third row, he glanced at Wanda, who was moving back and forth, boxing bullets. He bit the inside of his lip and put the clipboard back. His feet shuffled back and forth, not quite sure which way to head. Finally, he made a decision.
Wanda looked up and smiled as he approached. “Hey, you. What’s up?”
Joshua swallowed hard. “I was wondering if you would like to go to dinner with me?”
Pandora and Katie sat on the edge of the barracks roof. They swung their legs back and forth in sync, as if they were on the same wavelength. Katie leaned forward, staring down at the courtyard below.
Pandora put her arm around Katie. “Don’t go falling off the roof. Not enough time to sprout those wings. I don’t feel like having to mend a fucking broken back.”
Katie shook her head, leaning back. “That would be quite the inconvenience, wouldn’t it?”
They both smiled, staring at the sun setting in the distance. It was beautiful, painting the sky in shades of pink and blue. There was just something perfectly calm and quiet about it. No demons, no raging Leviathans, just a normal sunset on a normal evening out in the desert. Katie had forgotten what those were like. She was always so busy doing a million things that she didn’t take the time for this type of thing anymore.
Pandora tilted her head to the side. “This reminds me of a sunset I watched in Egypt a very long time ago.”
Katie smiled. “Aw. A moment of self-reflection?”
Pandora scoffed. “No. Please! Do I look like Buddha? I was with this really hot royal type, and he was pleasing me in ways the Egyptians never taught their descendants, if you know what I mean. Still pretty, though.”
Katie stared at her for several moments, blinking. “You always tell the worst stories.”
Pandora shrugged. “What? I can’t help it. Hey, do you know what my first nightmare was?”
Katie grimaced. “You already told me.”
Pandora sighed and repeated it anyway. “I didn’t have a fucking cooch. My coochie…it was gone. Done. Plastic like a fucking Barbie doll. That’s the kind of shit that makes me thankful for fucking Egyptian sunsets.”
Katie tilted her head back and started laughing. At first, it came out with no sound, then it burst from her like fire. She held her stomach as she giggled, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Oh…oh, God, it hurt
s. You know, if I didn’t know you, I would be confused. But since I know you, that nightmare fits you perfectly.”
Pandora curled her lip and crossed her arms. “It’s really not that funny. It was some scary shit, okay?”
Katie shook her head. “I was having nightmares about not being able to save people or the world. You were having nightmares about not being able to get the big D anymore. You could have always scissored a Ken doll.”
Pandora pursed her lips. “If I could, I would turn you plastic for one damn day. I bet at some point you would feel that hard shiny layer and think to yourself, “Where am I going to put the dick?”
Katie smiled and patted Pandora’s hand. “You know what? I think it’s good that we’re so different in that sense. We would kill each other, always trying to be the person who saved everyone.”
Pandora swung her legs. “Yep, and if we were both like me, we would get nothing done. Shit, the human race would be half-gone and we’d still be in that alternate universe with all the naked people.”
Katie wrinkled her nose. “I feel like it’s not as glamorous as it looks. There have to be saggy old people around there somewhere. They probably put the ugly people and the old people into like naked sweatshops.”
Pandora laughed. “To make what? They don’t wear any clothes.”
A strange wind suddenly gusted up the side of the building and swirled around them. Their hair blew around them like a tornado, and they felt goose bumps up the backs of their necks. Pandora sniffed the air and narrowed her eyes. “I smell…a stick…up an ass.”
Katie and Pandora turned to find Gabriel standing behind them in his robes. His white hair glistened in the setting sun, and it almost looked like he was covered in glitter. He stretched his long silver wings out behind him, the first time Katie had seen him with them.
