by Jenn Stark
Gregori and Hugh burst into the clearing a moment later, moving swiftly. In the center of the field, angled so that the watchers in the tents and the drone cameras could have the best viewing angle, was the large panel van that had driven by them minutes earlier. Both sides were open, and on the near side, easily a half-dozen demons crouched, barely holding on to their human glamour. The pain that held them in stasis was breathtaking in its severity. Even Hugh sucked in a sharp breath. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Gregori gritted out. “These aren’t just demons. They’re the Possessed.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
They reached the van, generating no reaction from the horde, who were so transfixed by their pain shackles that they had no time to worry about a visit from the Syx. If anything, a few of them turned misery-locked eyes their way, begging for release.
Gregori scowled. You knew you were having a bad day when the prospect of returning to damnation across the veil was your best alternative.
Still, Hugh and Gregori accommodated them, and in less than fifteen seconds, nothing but black goop remained on the battlefield behind the van. That would get noticed, but not until the AugTech minions checked the video stream from the remote drones. Nobody was watching the back of the van now.
All the action was in the front.
It was outright chaos. A human—a real human, neither possessed nor merely a demon in excellent glamour—cowered in the center of the field, guarded by three Possessed soldiers who were systematically taking out waves of demons racing out of the trees. Both sides had guns, but the Possessed were simply better at shooting. They were the ultimate hybrid, bent to single-minded focus, and when Gregori opened up his senses to them, he could easily see why. They had implants in their skulls—several of them, and in a line down their backs. So not only Possessed, but controlled, with a combination of AI and a witch’s touch. And they were winning.
“The demons getting shot by the Possessed aren’t going to die,” Hugh muttered as they maintained their glamour against the truck, blending in against the bulky vehicles. “They’re debilitated by the pain they’re feeling, enough to knock them out, but they’re not going to die.”
“Nope. Instead, they’ll be collected, stored, and released again for the next demonstration.” Gregori’s lip curled. He had no affection for the worst of God’s creatures. Demons were the basest form of what humans called evil, with no morality, no choice, no option in most cases other than to seek out and destroy all that was good and bright. They lived for horror and blood, and it took tremendous willpower for them not to attract attention to themselves with their depravity. They had to learn that willpower in order to survive on earth all these millennia. But the recent influx of the horde was a different story. They’d had no time to learn the ropes, no time to understand the balance that must be struck between ravaging and restraint. They had been herded, trapped, and enslaved by someone even more diabolical than they were, and certainly a hell of a lot smarter.
But while all demons had the power to possess humans, they could only be compelled to the act of Possession with any level of success by a witch. Gregori narrowed his eyes on the three soldiers standing over the hostage. These Possessed also vibrated with pain, pain and something more. Outrage. Even the most heinous of creatures knew when they were being exploited, it appeared.
“Please,” moaned the witch again, the voice in his mind getting louder. Gregori turned and saw the small knot of AugTech technicians gathered at the edge of the field. Two men, one woman. The woman held a slender device in her hand. Some sort of remote control, Gregori knew, but that wasn’t where the real power was coming from. It was coming from her other hand as she raised it and played with the currents of energy surrounding this field of death. This was a very powerful witch, and one also encased in shackles of pain…but not so much pain that she couldn’t raise at least her voice in defiance, even if she couldn’t raise her fists. “Please.”
“Go,” Gregori muttered. He and Hugh materialized from beside the truck, their glamour morphing to take on that of so many faceless demon soldiers who’d been attacking the three hostage defenders. Startled, the Possessed humans turned, but Gregori and Hugh didn’t give them much time to react. Even with the incredible electrical surge of the artificial circuitry of the Possessed, the enforcers reached inside and yanked the demons free from the mortal bodies they were violating, dissolving two of them immediately into ash. Those demons would find themselves on the other side of the veil, and there it would be God’s choice as to what happened to them. But no longer would they be held in the thrall of humans who would bend them to such depravity.
The third demon was something different, something new, and it took both Hugh and Gregori to remove it from its human host. When they did, the beast glared at them with eyes as blue as starlight. It was one of the most powerful demons they’d ever encountered, someone who could give any one of the Syx a run for his money, and they stood for a moment, staring at each other as the rows of demon soldiers dropped to the ground and a net of human soldiers raced onto the field, guns firing. Gregori made the call.
“Fly,” Gregori whispered. “Fly.”
The one-time Fallen didn’t need more encouragement. With an inhuman cry, its wings unfurled, tattered ribs stretching, and it lifted itself toward the heavens and out of sight. Hugh and Gregori turned as one of the AugTech technicians ran up to them, fear rolling off her body—and they realized she too was not exactly what she seemed. She was a witch, right there on the battlefield. Of course, Gregori thought, to control the demons within the Possessed.
“Please,” she gasped. “You must help us.”
16
Angela had surged forward without thinking, her hands clamped around her binoculars, as soon as she’d seen Gregori and another man race around the van in the center of the clearing, clearly catching the hostage team by surprise. Only…Gregori was now dressed like one of the AugTech soldiers, the same as his partner. As if they’d been part of the demonstration the entire time, a secretly embedded duo of destruction loosed to create havoc at the last moment.
They certainly created havoc in the tent, though immediately controlled havoc. Every screen had blanked, and Granger had started snapping apologies about technical difficulties, loudly calling into his walkie-talkie to hold the mission. Smoke bombs went off in front of the hostage group, and there seemed to be more fighting, which several keen-eyed military officials watched through their binoculars. But Angela tossed her set on a table and dashed forward, directly into the smoke.
“Congresswoman Stanton,” somebody barked, probably Granger. She didn’t stop. She knew Gregori was in trouble by the van. She knew it with every fiber of her being. She just had to—
A nightmare erupted in front of her, one of AugTech’s soldiers snarling in rage. Not Gregori—she was still too far away from him—but one from the outer perimeter of attackers. The soldier staggered out of the smoke, eyes wild, arms flailing. Then his skin—shifted. His face sagged and his jaws extended, and in the disorienting haze and smoke, he looked…well, he almost…
He struck. Angela’s arms went up protectively, but she was no match for a hundred and ninety pounds of solid muscle and flailing arms, hands—claws, fangs. Her mind blanked in absolute terror, and then she started screaming back words and lines and passages so buried in her psyche, she’d long since forgotten them. Passages from an ancient book buried in her parents’ study. Passages of protection and power.
The creature heard them. His head swung around, his eyes snapping to hers as he hissed in surprise, scrambling away from her to leap back into the smoke. His pain-crazed eyes had seemed almost relieved, she thought as she struggled to her feet. She had no idea what she’d told him, but he was away from her, and that was good enough.
The smoke cleared, and as someone shouted over the intercom to stand down, stand down, civilian on the field she realized that civilian was her. But
by then, she was almost to the van. Gregori and his partner—whoever that had been—were no longer present, but three bodies lay on the ground, and another huddled in a heap in their center. A woman, she realized with renewed horror.
“What’s happening here?” she demanded as she dropped to her knees to help the woman, blood seeping into the material of her expensive pantsuit. “These people are hurt. Where are the medics?”
“No one’s hurt.” A man ran up to them, his voice a little breathless, almost desperate, and even as Angela reached for the crumpled woman on the ground, she felt herself roughly pulled up and away.
“Hey!” she growled.
A second voice followed directly behind. “Get your hands off the congresswoman.”
The low, steely voice reverberated with such strength, Angela could practically feel the van rocking beside them in reaction. She turned with as much surprise as the AugTech employee—and staggered to the side when the minion released her and straightened out of pure, animal instinct.
Gregori stood beside her, once again dressed as a security guard, though he seemed bigger. Rougher. And he glared at her assailant with such an outpouring of hatred and barely restrained fury that the man took another step back. Other people ran up, these looking far more official, and Angela dropped to her knees once more, her arms going around the woman, who was just returning to consciousness. Small, fine boned and pale, with soft blue eyes and ghostly blonde hair, she looked like a fairy fresh out of Middle Earth, not a highly trained military technician.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Perfectly fine. Really.”
Her words sounded steady, but her gaze, when it connected with Angela’s, conveyed the depth of her lie. She wasn’t afraid, exactly, but she was outraged and mortified and deeply dismayed. What was this woman to AugTech? Why was she here?
“Ms. Green,” a new voice behind Angela rang out, hard as granite. “You’re all right? And you, Congresswoman Stanton?”
“No thanks to your man, yes,” she said stiffly, taking in the newcomer. He was compact, square jawed, and tough-looking…which put him in good company with most everyone she’d met today.
“My apologies for that. I’m Zachary Howard. I run this division of AugTech. Janice Green is one of our best testers, but admittedly, this was an extremely heightened demonstration. We did not take the appropriate precautions. The blood you believe you see is not human blood. It is a tinted and viscous liquid meant to simulate real-time situations.”
“And these guys?” Angela gestured to the men sprawled around Janice Green, as she recategorized Howard. Not a minion at all, then, but one of the men in charge of this mess. Good to know he was so hands-on.
“Knocked out by the gas,” Howard said without hesitation. And to be fair, the EMTs were administering oxygen masks to all the soldiers scattered on the ground, many of them responding with convulsions and gasps. “We can’t always be sure soldiers will respond to verbal commands in the heat of battle, not when they’ve been given their orders.”
“But I thought you said these men weren’t soldiers,” Angela snapped.
“The units, my apologies,” the man amended easily. “We work hard to approximate real-life conditions, including how we reference the battle units. And we anticipate that the eventual utilization of the security measure will occur almost exclusively in battlefield conditions, with other soldiers who are human. We needed to be prepared to stop the demonstration even if verbal commands were overwritten or not heard. We did that. The gas is extremely localized, released at each unit’s collar. It takes them down quickly and completely, without harming anyone around them. As you yourself can attest.”
Angela made a face. She hadn’t been dropped by any gas, that was true enough.
“Congresswoman Stanton?” Gregori’s low voice had her turning her head, and she met his gaze. It was so forceful, she nearly stepped back, but not because of his anger. Instead, she felt as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, exactly what he wanted her to do. And that was to stand down. To act like she accepted everything that was happening in front of her and even be complimentary about it. That message in her mind was absolutely preposterous, yet so strong that she couldn’t deny it.
“I’m solid, thanks.” She turned back to Howard and offered the man her first smile of the day. “I apologize for entering the field of your demonstration, Mr. Howard. I appreciate how quickly you responded to a civilian on the field, and I must say, I’m impressed with the level of your operation here. From everything I’ve seen, this is truly a security measure—even a weapon to be reckoned with.”
Howard’s eyes shifted slightly, as if he was assessing the veracity of her comments. As well he should. Angela poured it on a little thicker, stepping toward him.
“What’s the timeline here? I know there are probably two dates in your head, one you feel confident about suggesting to the congressional committee, which I certainly appreciate. But I need to know what the other date is as well. When could we deploy these units if we needed to? If you had sufficient funding and support?”
It was the word “funding” that did the trick. The intensity of Howard’s expression eased, his mouth even twitching into his own smile. “For an emergency deployment situation, we can ramp up in a matter of weeks. For smaller units, such as an extraction like the one you just saw but with much less fanfare, we’re talking days. Some of the units have been sufficiently tested to qualify for that. I wouldn’t want to trust them ordering coffee from Starbucks, but they could go into the store and get somebody out with no loss of human life.”
“Excellent.” Angela kept her expression open and enthusiastic. At this point, other members of her committee were approaching, carefully escorted by AugTech representatives. She turned toward Randall and noted his excitement and something almost approaching hope as he glanced at her. She could feed that hope easily enough.
“So what do you think?” she asked. “Because I thought this was the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen.”
Trudy responded first. “There seriously was no loss of human life in any of that carnage?” she asked shakily.
“None,” Howard confirmed, his gaze returning to Angela even though she hadn’t asked the question. His eyes were assessing, hard, and more than a little curious. There was no way he could have known she’d screamed out ancient Serbian demon injunctions while getting accosted by one of his “battle units,” but the man clearly sensed something was up.
Angela peered all around, but Granger was no longer on the scene. Now that the situation had escalated to the point of meeting the big guns, there was no point to him anymore. She suspected he was little more than a glorified babysitter.
Howard continued. “All units except for these employees will be extracted and repaired within the next forty-eight hours. We may need to give our employees a little more time off to recover.”
“Well, this is very impressive,” Randall said, and several murmurs of agreement came from the military brass in the crowd beyond them. Nobody seemed to have any concern about the mechanical glitch in the screens or the necessity for issuing gas to take out the drone soldiers, but Angela was pretty sure they’d agree to just about anything with the idea of a military force that could be repaired, not buried. “When could you deploy test units into our military installations? With the approval of military leadership, of course.”
“We’d work with all parties on the standards and protocols needed to be put in place,” Howard said smoothly. He nodded deferentially to the row of brass lined up beside the van. “It’s too early to speculate what standards we’d need to meet, but I can assure you that as soon as you have a need for these units, they’ll be ready.”
“And if we needed them next week? Tomorrow?” asked one of the brass.
Howard offered a red-carpet-worthy smile. “We’d do everything in our power to accommodate you. Depending on your needs, tomorrow might be pushing it, but I can guarantee you the results will exceed your expe
ctations.”
The demonstration broke up shortly after that, with all the requisite glad-handing and promises of follow-up documentation, and the congress people dispersed to their own vehicles. Angela was more grateful than she could possibly express to realize that she and Gregori would be alone in a state sedan, whisked back to DC without the need for conversation. She had no doubt the interior of the vehicle was bugged, so there’d be no point to that conversation regardless, but at least she didn’t have to keep up appearances. Merely having Gregori’s solid, reassuring bulk beside her did more to settle her nerves than she was brave enough to admit.
“You’re okay?” he prompted as soon as they cleared the last checkpoint and were back on the highway. She blinked at him, surprised because, of course, he knew the car was bugged as well. But his steady gaze once more seemed to convey far more than his words. He wanted this conversation between them recorded and logged.
“Completely,” she said, pitching her voice between relieved and intrigued. “I shouldn’t have left the tent.”
He snorted. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“You shouldn’t have entered the demonstration field either.”
“AugTech approved clearance after you left. One of their reps approached me, gave me a briefing,” he said, surprising her. She had a feeling there’d be techs somewhere scrambling to corroborate that, but if it gave her permission to continue this ruse with Gregori, then so be it.
Still… “Why?” she asked with credible wariness.
Gregori shrugged, his eyes crinkling at the edges, though he didn’t give her an outright wink. “Because of my military service and a few of my other contract positions. They did their research, wanted me in the know.”
