by Michael Todd
Being Damned didn’t seem so bad compared to that.
After a few moments, though, she became restless. She sighed and looked at the general and the suited men.
“Okay,” she said, slapping her hands on the table. “Have we finished the dick-measuring yet? Because if not, I gotta say,” she quipped, “I can’t compete.”
Calvin started to snicker but broke it off when Korbin snapped his head around and gave him stink-eye.
He looked at Katie as well but she just shrugged her shoulders, unaffected by his visual threat. She was tired of playing along. Korbin didn’t blame her, but at the same time, he needed her to behave.
He sighed. That was something he had no control over.
“What?” she asked. “It happens all the time. You’ll never understand. You will never get how totally inadequate I feel when you guys do this. I mean,” she pointed to the general’s side, “it’s not just you guys. It’s all men, but come on!” She pointed to herself. “I’m right here.”
You’ve probably got a bigger dick than any of these guys. Pandora snickered. Except for the black guy. We all know he’s packin’.
Katie didn’t reply. Their agreement had lasted one minute and thirty-seven seconds.
New world record.
I mean, if you really want to find out I can muster one up and you can try it on for size, Pandora said. It might take a little bit to get used to, but hell…you could slap the shit out of a demon with it.
Katie wanted to yell at her, but she knew now wasn’t the time or place. She just continued to ignore her instead, waiting for the party to start.
Korbin shook his head, rubbed his face, and groaned. Katie looked at the general, who had maintained a straight face for a moment but now finally let go and started to laugh.
The other guys followed suit, but the colonel just sat there staring at Katie in annoyance.
When Brushwood finally settled down, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Okay, point taken, Miss Maddison. These two gentlemen are here from military support and infrastructure. They are civilian contractors who work solely for the government and have passed rigorous security checks. Charles Butler comes to us from a major ammunition manufacturer, and Travis Novack is from the advanced metallurgical arena. They have both been thoroughly briefed on not only the demon incursions, the latest intel, and what we do versus what you do, but also they have been given the basic information on what your company does. They are here to help; to help you specifically, which in turn will help us as well as the other mercenary teams. Obviously, weapons are very important right now, and if we need to assist you to keep a steady flow coming then that is what we will do. Since the military is technically not allowed to help mercenaries in this manner, we looked to our civilian contractors.”
Katie just stared at them, unsure what to say. She had just brought this need up to Korbin, and now the answer was being handed to them—but from someone that she really didn’t trust, no matter what deals they had made.
She kept her guard up for her group, as Korbin did for the rest of the mercenaries.
“Mr. Butler, our ammunition man, is available to bring you whatever the hell you need in order for you to more efficiently and effectively produce those bullets,” General Brushwood continued. “We have special machines at our disposal that allow us to rapidly produce rounds. We are of course offering to bring these to you at no charge. Mr. Novack is the world’s preeminent specialist on new and unique metals. I just want to make it clear to you that in no way, shape, or form am I trying to steal what you guys are doing. I know that these gentlemen will be working at your site, but you need to think of the possibility of something happening to Joshua. What if he dies? I don’t want the world to be fucked because we didn’t do everything possible to ensure that this process continued. Since he is the only person in the world—that we know of—who has this knowledge, we need to protect him, but also back up that knowledge for the future.”
Katie poured a glass of water and took a sip as she glanced at Korbin. Though it was her company, this had to do with her and Korbin. She was going to let him make the first response. He cleared his throat and sat forward, his hands pressed together on the table in front of him.
“Unfortunately, after what we found out today in the meeting I have to agree with General Brushwood,” Korbin began. “We cannot let the one thing that may save us in this war, be lost forever because we were too unwilling to trust to back up the information.”
“If I may,” Mr. Butler interjected. “We have at our fingertips highly advanced machines to produce rounds. Not only do they output at the fastest pace in the business, but they are capable of working with materials most other machines cannot—and that includes, I’m sure, some we haven’t even tried yet. What I am offering is to provide my expertise to customize these machines right on the floor of your factory. I can come there, figure out the specs, and make them work efficiently with whatever special metal you have in mind.”
“Right.” Katie peered at him. “But once we have these machines, what’s stopping you from rebuilding the process back here at this base?”
Butler opened his mouth, then closed it. His brows pulled together and he looked at her strangely. The general cleared his throat and looked the other way, taking a sip of water. No one else said a word; they just let her contemplate the question she had just asked. After a few moments, she rolled her eyes at her own stupidity.
“Okay,” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “I’m the dumbass here. Obviously, you already have the machines on your floor for your own business. You aren’t building anything from scratch for me. I get it—you just want to help.”
Butler shook his head and smirked and Katie put up a hand and stared at the others.
“I’m having to relearn a little bit here myself,” she told them in embarrassment. “Please give me time, okay?”
Everyone but the colonel smiled at Katie, realizing that this time she was the problem. Korbin slapped her on the back a couple of times and she shook her head, trying to get her footing.
Apparently she wasn’t thinking before she spoke today—well, she usually didn’t, but she tried in mixed company. She took another sip of her water and looked at the metallurgist.
“So how about you?” Katie asked. “What is your role in all this?”
“Well.” He coughed. “Sorry. I’ll be able to help with any issues you might have with the equipment and the special metal. But also I’m in charge of creating and building new R&D labs that need to use new metals—strong metals. The company I work for is loaning me to you to see if I can help figure out how the metal can be used in ways other than just for weapons. I’ve heard that it’s incredibly strong, can hold a sharp edge, and has some destructive qualities when it comes to the demons’ bodies.”
He has had some kind of anatomical opportunities to try out a few special knives, Pandora grumped.
“You could say that,” Katie told Novack, ignoring Pandora. “But if we choose to do this, all of that can be explained to you back at our facilities.”
“Of course,” Novack agreed. “We are here to help; I want to make that clear. From what we were told in the brief, it seems that this alliance between the two organizations could prove to be—not only beneficial but a savior for the rest of us. We weren’t aware something so dire was happening, and we want to help in any way we can.”
“’Dire’ is not even close,” Katie replied, staring into Novack’s eyes. “And we really hope this doesn’t fail.” She glanced at Korbin. “For both groups’ sake.”
Damian approached the bed, flicking holy water over the girl’s body. Every time the water hit her it sizzled and smoked, and she wailed loudly. The girl sat straight up in the bed and rotated her head slowly toward Damian.
“Sacerdos get de!”
“No,” Damian yelled, “I will not leave. Tell me what you want with this girl! How did you get inside her?”
“They summoned you? How?” Damian demanded.
“A ludum, ludum speculum aliquis stultus. Vocaverunt eos et daemonis nesciunt. Modicum et iam non ego scio quod non reliquit, ut domum palatum parum onto eam moratum atque meam.”
Damian gritted his teeth, angered by the way the demon talked about this girl. He didn’t understand what “game” the demon was talking about. The only one he had ever heard of to talk to the spirits was a Ouija board, and he had long ago concluded that it was nothing more than a toy company’s hoax.
He knew how dangerous mirrors could be in the working of magic, but had never heard of a child’s toy with those capabilities.
“A game?” Damian whispered, turning to stare at Eric.
“What? I don’t speak Latin. I don’t know what they are saying.”
“A game?” Damian repeated louder. “The demon said he was summoned through some sort of children’s mirror game.”
“Oh…shit.” Eric shook his head. “There is a new game out. It’s a mirror with letters on it, and they say you can talk to spirits through it. I saw the commercial for it during the afternoon cartoons.”
The ghost hunters looked at him with questioning expressions.
Eric stared at them, realizing he just admitted he watched afternoon cartoons as a grown-assed man. He was glad he hadn’t mentioned the soaps he was obsessed with. They would have been really surprised by that.
“Hey, don’t judge me,” he admonished, wagging his finger at them. “My man card is in my pocket and it plans to stay there. Besides, I am not the one running around in silly uniforms looking for spirits in people’s attics, okay?”
The three looked at each other and shrugged, figuring that maybe he had a point.
They wore matching tracksuits with the company logo on the front and carried around strange equipment all the time. Still, he watched cartoons, which was something that couldn’t be ignored.
Damian shook his head and rolled his eyes, turning back to the girl who continued to growl and writhe in the bed. He opened his bible, took a deep breath, and began the exorcism.
“Anima Christi sanctificare me voluistis: Corpus Christi, nisi mihi; Sanguis Christi eius inebrient me; Aquam de latere Christi lava me Dicendum quod passio Christi, confirma me; O bone Jesu, exaudi me; inebriate protege me separari a te ab uno malo, libera me: in hora mortis meae voca me: et iube me venire ad te, ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te in saecula saeculorum. Amen.”
The girl screamed in agony, but the demon clutched her soul tightly. Damian grimaced and flipped another page of his book and, stepping forward, he placed his hand on her forehead. She wriggled, her arms out to her sides, her eyes rolled back until just the whites showed.
“Dominus meus, vos autem potentes omnia, tu es Deus, tu pater. Nos obsecro, et, intercedente pro nobis auxilium de ordine Archangelorum Michael, Gabriel et Raphael, ad liberandos etiam fratrum nostrórum, qui in malo et servus est. Sanctis caeli succurrat,” Damian yelled, marking a cross across her forehead.
She screamed again, but this time her chest arched and light came from her open mouth. She shook violently and Damian released her head, set his book on the nightstand, and sprinkled holy water over her, then pulled up his sleeves and held his cross out in front of him.
His presence became more intense as he shouted, “Daemonium dimittere eam! Dimittere eam. Vade ad vidisse igneos puteos horrendam ex inferno, et maneat ibi in aeternum ardenti in peccatum.”
The girl’s head snapped to the right and she looked at Damian with red eyes. Holding the cross tightly, he roared the words over and over again. She screamed so loudly the glass in the mirror across from her bed shattered and hundreds of shards fell to the floor.
Suddenly there was a wind in the room, but Damian held his cross tightly.
“Fuck you,” the demon screamed in a deep, angry voice. “I will see you in hell!”
The girl’s eyes flashed red and she fell back onto the bed, her body returning to its normal posture and color.
Damian breathed deeply and slowly lowered the cross, then put it back inside his jacket. He glanced at the ghost hunters, who were gaping at him in shock. Eric had the same look on his face when he looked in that direction.
“Was our date romantic enough?” Damian joked, then walked out.
Chapter Five
The general decided that now would be a good time to break for lunch and announced, “We have catered sandwiches and fruit. Help yourselves.” He then pulled a cigar out of his pocket and chewed on the end, knowing he couldn’t smoke it inside the facility. Colonel Jehovivich turned to the general, then glanced across the room at Katie and the others.
“General, may I speak with you for a moment?” She flicked her eyes to the corner. “Over there, in private?”
“I suppose.” He pushed the chair back and walked to the corner. “What’s this about, Colonel?”
“I don’t know how you could find this okay,” she began, looking at Katie and back at Brushwood. “She made a damned demon claw out of her nail. Don’t you think that is a bit too much? Who’s the enemy here? We have killed infected for less than that in the field. Now we are allowing a merc to march into our facilities and put on a show like it’s some badge of honor, showing off what the demon inside of her can do?”
“Calm down.” The general sighed.
Her voice hissed. “Calm down? How can I calm down when I am watching you negotiate with a woman who is obviously hiding something from us although she’s supposed to be an ally? How in the world is she going to ally with us when she and her demon are so close? How can we trust her to do the right thing when she is clearly consorting with her demon? And she’s changed. Her body is…different from the last time I saw her, and the last time I checked that was a definite reason for concern when working with the Damned.”
The general rolled his unlit cigar around with his fingers and watched Katie as she talked and joked with Korbin and Calvin.
He was aware she could be dangerous, and he knew that the way she handled her demon was not at all typical of how most of the Damned did, but at the same time, none of them had been able to do what she had done.
She was a beast in the field—a killing machine—and she never wavered, not once that he had seen. He had pledged alliance, and though he had kept things at arm’s length he needed to give credit where credit was due, otherwise they would never get anywhere. He looked at the colonel for a moment, noting the anger on her face and the fear in her eyes.
“Let me ask you a question.” He took the cigar from his mouth. “Do we need to understand how to kill humans?”
The colonel opened her mouth, then shut it and shook her head, looking at him in confusion. “Well, no. I think we understand exactly how to kill humans. In fact, we have known that since we were created.”
“That’s right.” He nodded. “I don’t think Katie needs to tell us how to kill humans either. And if she was our enemy, why would she be trying to help us kill her and her team?”
“I… Well… She…” The colonel stumbled over her words, frustrated by the general’s seeming indifference to her very fucking valid concerns.
“She wouldn’t, and she isn’t,” the general finished. “Colonel, you and I are going to have a discussion when this meeting is over.”
The general walked back to his seat, sat down, and handed his plate to one of the airmen helping to clean up lunch. Colonel Jehovivich just stood there for a moment, completely shocked by the general’s response.
She had worked with him for years; even transferred to that unit with him to remain his right-hand person…and this was the first time he had ever reprimanded her. She closed her mouth and gritted her teeth, then walked back to the table and sat down. She glared at Katie, who looked at her and smiled widely when she noticed her irritation.
“All right,” the general interjected, r
ubbing his hands together. “Everyone ready to continue?”
Everyone nodded, so the general flipped his folder open and read the notes he had taken. Jehovivich just sat there, determined not to say a word for the rest of the meeting.
The general had made his position very clear, and she wasn’t going to get herself into hotter water if she could avoid it.
“So not only will these two men put in machines, they will help you build a rapid manufacturing facility at your base,” the general explained. “Everything you will need to enable Joshua to mass-produce metals and bullets, which will free up some of his time to work on other weapons of your choosing.”
They sat there for several hours discussing the ins and outs of the new facility.
It was important that they nail down all the details before they were done so that they could continue on without further meetings.
Everyone in that room was very busy with their respective duties, and the manufacturing of those bullets was one of the top things to be put in place—especially if the demons were training and planning at the same pace.
“Hey,” Katie whispered, turning to Korbin. “How good is your relationship with Stephanie?”
Calvin snickered, covering his mouth. She locked eyes with him for a few seconds, then looked away, ignoring his childish behavior.
Korbin lifted an eyebrow, unsure why she was asking.
“I want to know because we are going to be dumping a lot of stuff on her land,” Katie explained. “I would prefer that we are clear it stays with the base. We can’t allow friendships or relationships to get in the way. You know how important it is that all of this stays a secret, and not just now. It needs to stay secret for as long as it takes to defeat these bastards, even if you and I aren’t around to see that.”
“I see.” Korbin thought for a moment.
