Red Skies

by Jan Stryvant

  Sean pulled his sword back to swing, and just then the demon suddenly leapt to its feet and spun to face him. Sean wasn't sure what had set him off, but he swung the sword forward with all his might as the demon started to come at him, the blade meeting it right at the waist and passing through a lot easier than Sean would have thought. The neatly-bisected demon fell to the floor and expired instantly.

  'Think he told them?'

  'I'm not sure. He probably told them someone was coming, but when he saw you, he was no longer meditating, so they may not know about you yet.'

  Sean nodded and stepped back away from the ever-growing wet spot on the carpet as the body quickly bled out. Looking around the bedroom, it was fairly neat and had been kept clean, except of course for the circle on the carpet. Leaving the room, Sean checked the other two rooms, which both turned out to be children's rooms. But there weren't any children in them, and it didn't look like there had been in a while.

  "I'm getting a bad feeling about this," Sean muttered to himself and went downstairs to let Sheila and Bryan in.

  "He's upstairs; I cut him in half," Sean told them. "There's kid's rooms upstairs, and I assume he had a wife, but I don't see a sign of them anywhere."

  "Did you check the basement?"

  "Basement?" Sean said and then slapped his forehead with his hand. "No, I didn't. You two might want to stay up here."

  Bryan nodded, but Sheila shook her head. "Trust me, I've probably seen worse, Sean."

  Sean nodded and took a deep breath. "Anyone else I'd say was full of it. Well, let's check out the basement."

  Sean went over to the door to what he guessed was the basement and opened it. The faint scent of decay got a little bit stronger. Pulling out his phone and turning on the light, Sean carefully led the way down the stairs. The basement was unfinished; it was just a big concrete box with a bunch of storm windows around the edges. There were children's toys, some boxes, a furnace, and a washer and dryer.

  Also down there was a very large chest freezer, and sitting on the ground next to it was a large black plastic bag.

  Sheila found the light switch and turned the lights on, so Sean turned his phone off and put it away.

  "Stand behind me," Sheila said.

  "Huh?"

  "I want to film this."

  Sean noticed she had her phone out now.

  "Jared Scott's basement," Sheila said in a soft monotone voice that didn't quite sound like her. "I wonder what we'll find here? Oh look, a freezer! But what's in the black bag next to it?"

  Sean kept his mouth shut and followed Sheila as she walked over to the bag and, using one hand, pulled it open.

  "Ugh! Rotten meat. Why would there be a bag of rotting meat next to such a nice large freezer? What do you say we have a look?"

  Sheila moved over and opened the freezer, and Sean choked off a curse. Underneath the body of a woman, whose eyes still held a look of fear, were two dead children. All of them had had their throats slit and their hands and legs were tightly bound with wire.

  "Ah, it's the family, all together. From the looks of things, they've been here for quite a while. Seems your best friend is a very, very sick man. Would be a shame if the media were to learn you've been consorting with a mass murderer for the last several months now, wouldn't it? How many times have you been here, wondering where the wife and kids were, when they were right down here beneath your feet?"

  Sheila stopped recording them and put her phone away.

  "You said you killed it, right?"

  Sean nodded. "Cut him in half."

  "Thank god. Now make sure you didn't leave any fingerprints, and let's get out of this nightmare."

  Going back upstairs, they turned the basement lights out. After that they shut down the computers and, while Sean and Bryan gathered them up, Sheila took a last look around, finding Jared's phone in the process. That done, they went out the front door, which they locked behind them, then got into the van and drove away.

  "How bad was it?"

  "It killed his whole family, Love," Sheila said and, wrapping her arms around Peg, she hugged her tight. "Two little kids. Snuffed out like they were cattle." Sheila turned and looked at Sean. "When the time comes, Your Highness, I'll do whatever it takes to keep that from happening to another child. They didn't deserve that; no child does."

  Sean nodded. "No, they don't."

  The ride back to the office was quiet; it was almost eleven when they got back and went inside.

  "Hey! I see you got some more for me to crack!" John said as they came into his office.

  "You finish with the other laptop yet?"

  John laughed. "Took me all of ten minutes. These yahoos think a password will protect their computer; I just pull the drives out and bypass that completely. If you don't encrypt your drives, there's no point to using a password. Remember that!"

  "So what did you find?"

  John shrugged. "I dumped it all to another machine, there was too much for me to go through. Steve's sleuths are going through it. I just crack shit and do the security. You're the folks playing politics."

  Sean nodded. "Hi, Cenna," he said and waved to John's girlfriend.

  "Hi, Sean," she said, smiling back.

  "We can look at all that stuff in the morning," Peg said with a yawn. "Let's check in with Granite, then catch a ride to Steve and Terri's. We can plot your next step in the morning."

  Sean nodded. "Later, you two. We'll talk tomorrow," He said and followed Peg and Sheila out of the room.

  Next Morning

  "So what did you find?" Sean asked Granite as they all sat down the next morning. Roxy, Peg, Daelyn, Jolene, and Sheila were there. Daelyn and Jolene had arrived the day before, which was why Sean had his faerie sword.

  Steve and Terri were there, having gotten a basic understanding of their new lives and abilities under Roxy's tutelage all day yesterday.

  John and Cenna were also there, as well as three of the team leaders that had been assigned to go through all the data on the computers they'd captured yesterday.

  "Well, Scheckley's campaign manager stopped using his computer almost three months ago. We're guessing the demon who possessed him wasn't very senior or technologically literate."

  "Why would they put a junior-level demon in such a senior-level person?" Daelyn asked.

  Granite shrugged. "No idea. Maybe they don't know any better? In any case, all we got out of his computer was a list of people he knew before being possessed. Conway's friend, however…" Granite motioned towards one of the sleuth team leads, a woman by the name of Criss.

  "Jared's computers were being used regularly," she said. "Primarily the laptop. It had a calendar of all his meetings, past, present, and future; names and phone numbers of the people he was dealing with, and emails. Lots of emails. The one you killed in the morning reported to Jared. That one was taken at least four months ago, probably longer."

  "So, do we know who else is possessed and where they are?"

  "We've identified three others, two of which were possessed in the last two weeks. None of us really understand how that works; we're still digging through the emails and trying to make sense of them. We're only sure of those three because we sent people by their homes last night to literally sniff around. They found the scent at all three."

  "I sent teams out this morning to put them under surveillance," Steve said, "after Granite told me about finding them."

  Sean looked at Granite, who looked a little uncomfortable. "I report to Steve, you told me so yourself."

  "And I report to you, Sean," Steve said. "Don't mess with the chain of command. I'm sure Chad's told you all about it."

  Sean rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay. I wouldn't have minded being told, but this is Steve's show, so it's his job to handle it. Has the morning attack made the news yet?"

  Steve nodded. "Boy has it! The police weren't able to keep a lid on it because the guy from the alarm company spilled his guts to a reporter. They probably floated him a l
arge bribe, 'cause he got fired immediately and he had to know that would happen."

  "What are they saying about it?"

  "Satanic cult seems to be leading the speculation right now; the dead rotting body in the upstairs bed and the circle in blood on the floor point heavily to that, but they're wondering why the campaign manager was killed with a bladed weapon. Scheckley is scrambling already to put distance between himself and his now dead employee."

  "Have you seen Sheila's tape from last night?"

  "Sheila made a tape?" Steve asked, surprised, and looked over at her.

  "She thinks we should try to blackmail Conway, and possibly the other two from Maryland, into doing what we want."

  Steve smiled. "It's always nice to have a professional onboard. Let me look at it, and I'll see what we can do with it. But the big question right now is, what do we do with the three we know about?"

  "Kill them," Peg said, and Sheila nodded.

  "I have to agree with Peg," Roxy said. "Sheila showed me the video, and I saw what they're capable of in Canada. We need to get rid of them as quickly as possible before they take over more people."

  "How is Chad doing in Canada?" Steve asked.

  "He's done with Canada. Things in Toronto turned out a lot better than we expected. He's already back in the States and on his way to Reno. I agree with Peg and Rox, we need to move on these three today."

  "How?"

  Sean looked over at Criss. "Do we have access to their email?"

  Criss looked at John, who nodded. "Piece a' cake."

  "Okay, then. Jared was the senior one; he used email to talk to them, right? Let's set up a meeting and have them come to us. We'll just ambush them when they show."

  "What's the excuse for the meeting?" Criss asked.

  Sean shrugged. "See what he's used for an excuse in the past. See if they sent him anything yet today. Call them in one at a time if you can. If you need help, ask Sheila or Peg, they're good at that kind of thing."

  "Where should we invite them to?"

  "We should have kept the keys to Jared's house." Peg sighed.

  "You mean these keys?" Sheila asked with a smile.

  Sean blinked. "When did you...you know what? Never mind. We need to get on the road and get back there now so we can set up for these ambushes."

  Sheila smiled and looked around the room. "Do we have anyone here who resembles someone famous?"

  Steve nodded. "With a little makeup, we could make Roxy look like the vice president's youngest daughter, why?"

  "Great, we do that and have everyone else wear black suits and act like security. We tell the others that we have the chance to possess someone close to the president and he needs their help distracting her security detail while he takes care of it."

  "Oh, they'd definitely be all over that!" Steve laughed.

  "Well, that is the idea. No one in the neighborhood will think twice because Jared is a lobbyist, and a VP's daughter is important, but not exactly newsworthy."

  Sean nodded. "Great, let's make this happen."

  The ride out to the house was considerably faster today, as it was Saturday, so there was no rush hour or work-related traffic. They'd taken one of the limousines and parked it in the driveway next to Jared's car, then they'd simply gotten out and gone inside.

  Sean took Peg and Star with him after grabbing some bags and cleaning supplies, they went upstairs to deal with Jared's body. Peg wanted a good look at his face so she could place an illusion on one of wolves from Star's team, should it prove necessary.

  Jack, another from Star's team, was sent to clean up the bag of rotting food and toss it in the garbage can outside to cut down on the smell in the house. It may have been faint, but it was getting to the point where a human could have smelled it, and Sheila was worried about anything that might tip off their prey.

  The plan they had was simple; one of the agents would let the victim in, telling him that Jared was in the den with the vice president's daughter, and pointing for him to go. When they got there, Daelyn would hit them in the back of the head with her hammer, stunning them. Then Sean would open the door, pull them inside, and kill them, with Roxy helping. They'd covered the floor with plastic drop cloths to keep anything from getting stained. They'd then wrap up and bag each of the bodies after relieving them of their phone, wallet, ID and any keys they might have.

  They started with the more recently possessed people, hoping they'd be the least experienced, and therefore the easiest to kill. When the first one showed up, they all went to their positions and waited. When Sean heard the loud 'smack' of Daelyn's thrown hammer hitting flesh, he opened the door, pulling the stunned demon in. Roxy ran him through with her sword, and Sean took his head off with his.

  They quickly went through his pockets, tossed everything in a small bag, then rolled him up in plastic, stuck the body in a large body bag, and sealed it. Then Sean carried it out to the attached garage via an inside doorway and tossed it in the minivan parked inside with the bagged remains of Jared.

  Roxy, meanwhile, took the bag with the keys to one of the wolves, who went out to the car the demon had driven up in and moved it out of sight. When they were finished here, each of the cars would be driven back to the home of the possessed person, where a team would meet them and they'd see what intelligence they could gather, as well as what kind of blackmail material they could find.

  "How about you grab the next one and pull him in, and I'll just take his head off?" Sean told Roxy.

  "Sure. Maybe we can make less of a mess," Roxy agreed.

  The next one showed up an hour later, and again it went off like clockwork. Daelyn's hammer stunned them, Roxy pulled them in the room, and Sean decapitated them.

  "Two down, one to go," Roxy said as they cleaned up the mess and prepared for the last one.

  "Let's just hope this is the last of them," Sean replied. "If we have to hunt more of them down, it'll suck."

  "I hear you on that!"

  "Sean," Sheila said, coming into the room, "I'm worried about this next one, he's pinged Jared's phone with a text saying he was going to be late."

  "Did you reply to him?"

  "'Course I did. Told him to hurry and stop making excuses. I don't know if he's stalling; it'll be your call how long we need to wait."

  "Well..." Sean started but was interrupted by Star.

  "He just pulled up!" Star called from the front room.

  "Bastard," Sheila growled and ran out of the room, as Sean pushed the door closed and Roxy threw down the last of the plastic tarps. They heard him come in the front door, and the 'Agent' tell him that Jared and the vice president's daughter were in the den. It sounded just like the previous ones, right up until they heard the smack of Daelyn's hammer.

  But as Roxy opened the door and grabbed for him to pull him inside, this one was not only not stunned, but he was drawing weapons from under his suit jacket with both hands.

  Roxy didn't have her sword out. He quickly moved back from her as his left hand cleared his jacket with a pistol in it, and he started to shoot at her.

  Sean did have his sword out, but his initial reaction was panic—because Roxy was pregnant—so instincts kicked in and he bum-rushed the demon. Dropping a shoulder as he shifted into his hybrid form, he smashed it into the wall, embedding it into the plaster as it fired at him with two pistols. Grabbing it by the neck, Sean whipped it around and smashed in into the floor, then a sword suddenly sprouted from its head. Looking up, Sean saw Roxy with his sword; he must have dropped it. She had run it point first through the demon's head and into the floor beneath, killing it.

  Sean fell over to the side, feeling a little weak. Apparently he'd just been shot about twenty or thirty times at point-blank range. The demon had been pretty fast on the triggers.

  "What the hell was that?" Roxy growled.

  "He was about to shoot you!" Sean panted.

  "What have I told you about acting like an idiot and getting all shot up?"

 
Sean started coughing and spit out a mouthful of bullet fragments. "But you're pregnant!" he grumbled.

  Roxy smacked him across the muzzle hard enough to turn his head. "I can get out of the way myself! A few bullets aren't going to hurt me!"

  Sean took a minute to catch his breath; whatever those bullets were, they were pretty nasty.

  "Roxy," Sean said and looked up at her, "I'll stand in front of you, or any of the rest of you, if you're being shot at." Sean coughed and spat out another bunch of fragments; it was like choking on gravel. "And," Sean did his best not to growl, "you will not bitch at me for it. Those weren't normal bullets, you're pregnant, and you're my wife."

  "He's right, Rox," Dae said, coming over to them and checking Sean over. "You may not like it, and it may scare the hell out of you, but you can't fault him for protecting us."

  "I think we should move on to more current problems, if you don't mind?" Star said from the front room.

  "What's wrong?" Sean grunted.

  "All those gun shots seemed to have gotten some attention. People are outside looking at the house."

  "We need to clean this mess up," Roxy said. "Let's get the body into a bag and see if we can't do something about all this blood."

  "What about the damaged wall?"

  "Nothing to be done for it. I think we need to get this joker's car moved, then we all leave, except the guy Peg spelled to look like Jared. He goes out, opens the garage, pulls the one car in, the minivan out, and heads to the rendezvous point."

  "What do we say to anyone who knocks at the door?"

  "Tell them we're watching a movie and we accidentally turned the volume up," Sean said and coughed up another mouthful. He suspected the next visit to the toilet was going to be an unpleasant one.

  "What were those bullets he shot you with, anyway?" Daelyn asked, looking at the floor.

  "Mag Safes, or something like that I think," Roxy said. "They tend to expand a lot and fragment. They're pretty nasty."

  "And I'm still feeling weak," Sean said and, checking his mana levels, he blinked. His regeneration had eaten up more than half of his base. While the multipliers he wore increased his casting abilities, his lycan regenerating abilities didn't get the same advantage, and just drew from his unmodified base mana, something that had never occurred to him before.