by Michael Todd
She got up and opened it to the title page, but when she went to read farther her phone started to ring. She rolled her eyes and answered her phone.
“Katie, this is Captain Ashmore with the LAPDF.”
“Good morning, Captain Ashmore. What can I do for you?”
“We have just been told about an incursion on the north side of town, approximately fifty miles from where you are staying. Can I have them swing through and pick you up?”
“Sure thing, I’ll get ready and meet them in front of the hotel.”
“Thank you, Katie. They will need the help.”
“No problem.”
She hung up and felt sorry for herself for a moment, then dragged herself into the bedroom and changing into her fighting gear. She sat down on the edge of the bed and laced up her boots. This vacation was definitely not going the way she had planned.
When she was ready she went downstairs, ignoring the stares from the Richie Riches in the elevator and foyer. The doormen smiled kindly at her when she sat down on the bench to wait, but she knew they were trying to figure out who she was and what she was doing. She just ignored them, yawning as the sun moved out from behind the clouds.
I told you that a vacation was a stupid idea unless you went out of the country.
Katie shook her head. They would have found a way to include me there too. I’m not safe anywhere, but oh well. This is the job I signed up for.
I didn’t sign up for this, but it’s better than reading books about angels.
Katie still didn’t understand what the big deal was about that. Sure, Pandora was a demon, and because of that angels weren’t necessarily her best friends, but she had never acted like that before, at least not over a little research. She wasn’t going to press her, though. Katie knew Pandora would talk when she was ready.
A black SUV pulled up in front of the hotel and a soldier leaned out the side door. Katie walked over and smiled, although the guy was clearly nervous at the sight of her eyes. “I’m assuming you’re from the LAPDF?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, so let’s get this show on the road.”
Katie climbed in and shut the door behind her. There were three men in the vehicle, two in the front and one in the back with her. All of them sat quietly and stared out the front window.
When Katie couldn’t stand the silence any longer, she asked, “So, how did you get picked for this detail?”
“We were chosen from a pool of candidates, briefed, and put on the force. There are no rookies in this unit, only seasoned officers.”
“Nice, though sometimes a rookie can show you a thing or two. At least, that was how it happened with me. Have you guys been on many calls since Incursion Day?”
“Yes, ma’am,” one answered without giving any details.
Oh goodie! When you need info, they won’t talk. Humans are so weird.
Katie was pretty sure none of the guys in the SUV knew what they were and weren’t allowed to discuss with her, so she shut up and stared out the window, trying to make things less tense.
It took them an hour to get to the base where they were staging the operation and another ten minutes to get through the intense security there. They drove around to the hangar bays and parked. Katie glanced to her right and saw a helicopter sitting there. It had obviously originally been civilian property, but they had hacked it the best they could.
“Is that your team’s chopper?”
“Yes ma’am,” the officer next to her replied. “We started with a commercial chopper and modified it the best we could to militarize it. We stripped the original down and installed armor plating, an M134 machine gun, and a grenade launcher. The weight degrades the speed a bit, but it was worth it. They told us our military helicopter should be here in the next month, but they told us that last month as well. Things are backed up with everyone trying to control this demon issue. Because of that, many cities haven’t received any weapons.”
She nodded in understanding. “Okay, I see. You are doing the best you can until they catch up.”
“Pretty much. Everyone is doing that, really. LA is a big city, so it’s higher on the list, but there are a lot of cities that are listed as being in higher need.”
Her eyebrows rose up a notch. “Even with the number of incursions that have gone down here?”
The officer in the front smiled. “You know politics. California isn’t a favorite.”
Katie climbed out of the SUV and stood back while the officers gathered their gear. She stared briefly at the painted demon heads with Xs through them on the side of the helicopter. They were keeping a tally of their kills as a moving reminder of their power.
Pandora scoffed. Looks like their killing machine is slacking on the killing part. Their artist must be bored.
Katie climbed into the chopper before the officers and sat in the front next to the pilot. She pulled on her headphones and looked behind her at the crew as they piled in. They looked nervous but ready in their military fatigues. On the arm of each uniform was a patch designating them as LAPDF. They were a special division of the regular police, something Katie thought she would never see.
All hands were truly needed.
The pilot nodded and clicked on his microphone. “We should be there pretty fast. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
“Thanks,” Katie replied. “Actually, I have a question.”
“Sure.”
She jerked a thumb towards the window. “What are those demons painted on the side of the chopper?”
The pilot smiled and nodded. “Those represent the large demons we’ve killed.”
“Oh, so those aren’t all you’ve taken down?”
“No.” He laughed. “We would have to paint hundreds of the little bastards all around the bird. The captain thinks it would be ugly, so we stick with the big ones.”
She nodded. “Ahh, makes sense.”
The chopper took off, and Pandora sniffed at the comment with indignation. As usual when she was caught in her false assumptions she got quiet, hunkering down inside Katie for the ride over.
Katie looked out the window and smiled to herself. These guys were doing fine, killing demons faster than most of the military groups had at the beginning. Of course, it helped they were equipped with her company’s special bullets and weapons, but still, it was pretty impressive.
Katie couldn’t help but enjoy it when Pandora was wrong. She had a problem with looking down her nose at anyone who wasn’t Katie or the team. If Katie had come to terms with showing these warriors respect for the work they did, Pandora was going to have to learn that too.
Katie couldn’t even imagine being approached to do the job they were doing before she had been Damned. She wouldn’t have survived a day without Pandora’s powers making her safe and healing her body when she was close to death, which had happened more than once.
These men went in without a backup plan, and many of them didn’t make it out. The world was no longer a safe place, and they were doing the best they could to battle an enemy they really didn’t understand.
They had earned Katie’s respect.
As the chopper passed over the base, she looked down, watching the soldiers stare up at the non-military police chopper. She’d had no idea that the cities and towns were struggling so hard to make ends meet and create their own little armies to protect them from the demons.
She hoped that her company and Joshua were pumping out the defense weapons fast enough. She didn’t want to think about sending civilians or non-Damned into the field without protection, especially if the government was slacking. They deserved the same help Katie gave Brushwood and his men.
She didn’t know what kind of incursion they were walking into, but Katie had already made up her mind to protect these fighters the best she could.
It was her duty as a hunter.
The chopper flew quickly toward the battle. In the distance, Katie could see plumes of smoke rising f
rom the rolling hills and valleys out in the country. She hadn’t seen that part of LA before, and now realized the city wasn’t all glitz and glamour. As a matter of fact, for these cops, it was never glitz or glamour.
The pilot swirled his hand in the air, letting the other guys know he was going in for a landing. Below them battles raged, with demons on one side of the valley and fighters on the other side.
Off in the distance, Katie could see the lights of several fire trucks with a ring of officers protecting them as they attempted to put out the fires the battles started. No one had to tell Katie that it was a dry area and fires could be disastrous. She had heard of the famous wildfires of California and hoped that they could save the farmhouses speckled throughout the area.
Katie braced as the helicopter touched down, landing in a patch of grass away from the fighting. She slid open her door and followed the pilot over to a tent set up at the edge of the first valley.
Inside was his chief, looking down at a map of the land. There a large black circle on it that represented their perimeter, though Katie could tell just from looking that they didn’t have enough men to cover it.
The pilot pointed to her. “Chief, this is Katie from Katie’s Killers. She is here to help.”
“Excellent.” He shook Katie’s hand. “We definitely can use as many hands as possible.”
Katie nodded and walked over to the map, looking at the large black box drawn between the two valleys. She furrowed her brow and pointed to it, looking up at the Chief.
“What is this?”
“That is the portal. Demons are pouring out of it and splitting off into the two valleys. The canyon is right over the edge of this second valley area. We need to drive them away from the canyon. It offers a direct route to the city, and once in there, it will be hard to take them out without mass casualties. Ultimately,” he tapped the map. “We are battling for this canyon.”
“How many of your men are out there?”
“A hundred, if that. We are small but mighty.”
“I’m sure.” Katie nodded.
“We have a few snipers on the edges pointed at the perimeter, but everyone else is down there fighting the demons. We have both large and small demons. If you look down in the right corner of the second valley, you will be able to see two large demons holding their own. They are tough sonsabitches, I can tell you that much. The new bullets barely penetrate their tough skins and it takes a hell of a lot of bullets to make the pain resonate through them.”
“Are any of your men Damned?”
“No, ma’am, you are the only one here. These boys volunteered for this detail, or at least most of them did, and they all have families. We take every precaution possible to keep them from getting infected.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay, good to know.”
Katie patted the chief on the shoulder and headed to the weapons tent. She opened the bag she had brought with her and donned her tactical vest, then checked her pistols to make sure they were loaded.
She pushed them into their holsters and pulled out her staff, which she carried in two pieces. She slotted each one in the sheaths on her back and turned around, rolling her neck. One of the cops from the chopper came up to her.
“You look ready. Just make sure one of us stays...”
Katie waggled her eyebrows and trotted out, not stopping when she reached the perimeter. She jogged into the valley, shooting demons as they leapt toward her. A cloud of dust and ash began to float up, signifying multiple demon deaths. The officers just stood there watching her in shock.
They hadn’t expected her to jump straight into the action like that.
The chief came over as Katie went wild on the demons, jamming the sharp end of her pole into a demon’s chest and yanking it back out before it turned to dust. He let out a low chuckle and slapped two of the cops on their shoulders.
“I guess we got the best man for the job we could have.” He told them.
“She just happens to be a girl and is apparently kicking ass,” one of the officers remarked.
“You boys aren’t intimidated, are you?” The chief tried to hide a smile.
“No, sir.”
“Good, then pull on your gear and get down there. You have demons to kill.”
“Yes, sir!” several of the cops shouted.
They went to the tent and pulled out the weapons and ammo they thought they would need.
The captain approached the geared-up soldiers. “Boys, you may not understand it, but Katie is possessed—Damned—so remember when you are spraying those bullets and wielding those swords, keep them away from her. Okay?”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted before filing out of the tent, guns at the ready.
Chapter Seven
Moloch is here in the canyon, hiding in a cave. He wants to talk.
Well, that motherfucker will have to wait his turn.
Once Katie was on the field she realized that none of the men fighting were part of the LAPDF. There were only five of those on site, and she wondered if those five were the entirety of the unit. Whoever was fighting, there were a lot of demons out there rubbing elbows with her, and she was not going to let the demons get to that canyon.
This was one of those moments she could have used the whole team, but she didn’t have them so she’d just have to make do.
Several snarling demons jumped from the portal into the valley below. The five LAPDF officers lined up beside her and each took a deep breath, starting at the far end and running down the line all the way to Katie. The five took off in different directions, using whatever weapons they had to cut through the masses of demons. Katie ducked to the right and shot a demon who had a cop pinned to the ground, and the demon squealed and stared at the hole in its chest. Katie fired again, blasting the beast right between the eyes. It flew back and turned to drifting dust before it could hit the ground.
The cop got up and nodded before slicing at a demon with one of the swords Katie’s company had made. Before she could engage again, a demon jumped onto her back. She flailed around trying to knock it off, but it was holding tightly to her armored vest.
“Fine, have it your way.”
Katie aimed her gun over her shoulder, wincing and shutting her eyes as she pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the demon in the head and it fell off her back. She stood over it and emptied her clip until she was shooting into the ground, then reloaded and glanced at the portal just as four more demons emerged. She raised both guns and opened fire, striking all four and watching them scream as they fell to the ground. Two of them turned to dust and the other two were swarmed by the cops, who severed their heads.
One of the heads bounced down the hill and came to a stop at Katie’s feet, then burst into dust. She put one of her pistols back into its holster and walked forward as a gaggle of demons rolled from the first valley into hers, their claws out and blood on their fangs. That blood could mean only one thing, and it made her angry.
These men were not prepared for this, and they would die the same way so many had perished on Incursion Day. They were sending in anyone who could pull a trigger at that point, and most had come home in a body bag.
The thought made her furious and she fired at the group of demons.
One in the front who looked to be just slightly bigger than the others was barking orders in his native tongue. Pandora sniffed the air and made herself known inside Katie and the leader of that pack froze, looking more than scared as he realized who was inside the human.
Pandora laughed as Katie shot him three times in the chest and the demon wheezed before falling to the ground dead and turning to dust.
These fuckers think they can push you humans around because there are so many of them. I want you to fire at the portal. If you hit enough of them they will stop pushing them through.
Got it.
Katie climbed to the top of the hill and backed up enough to get a clear shot at the portal, then pulled both her pistols and waited for the next batc
h to creep out. When the next group came crawling through Katie opened fire, taking them out before they could reach the ground. They writhed and snarled as the special metal in the bullets brought a pain they had never felt before.
It wasn’t long, though, before they were nothing but blowing dust in the hellwind coming through the portal.
To your left!
Katie turned and fired at a demon running toward her, and the beast tripped and rolled before bursting into dust. Katie put one of her pistols away and reloaded the other, snapping the magazine into place and aiming at the portal again. A demon began to creep out and Katie fired before it could, blowing it back into the hole.
She heard a scream of agony and turned to find a demon biting into a cop’s leg, so she emptied another clip into the beast’s body. She put her pistols up and used Pandora’s strength to pick the injured officer up and make a run for the medic tent set up just behind the chief’s tent.
When she got there, several people came out and took the cop from her. She wiped her forehead with her arm, smearing blood across it. She grabbed another couple of clips from the ammo tent and ran back down the hill, shooting at every pair of burning red eyes she found.
The chief stepped out of his area and walked to the edge, watching Katie move. She growled, her eyes flashing as she carefully stepped over a human’s body. A demon came running from the other side, his sights on the dead guy. Katie lifted her gun and sent a bullet whizzing into the demon’ s eye socket.
“Nope, not today. Get your snacks elsewhere,” she told it.
Just then there was a deafening roar that shook the ground. One of the two larger demons had topped the second hill and was sliding down into the valley Katie was defending. She smiled and put up her pistols, then rubbed her hands together.
She called, “Hello, Big Boy. Let’s play!”
Katie pulled the poles from her back and clicked the buttons so the blades were exposed, then stomped through the dirt and ash with her eyes locked on the large demon.
Several smaller ones attempted to attack her, but she didn’t slow down, striking them in the throats with the blades of her poles. The demon watched Katie rushing toward him and growled, stomping forward to meet her in the center.
