The Hidden

by C C Sommerly

  “We have tried a mixture of demon types to see which ones might counter the effects and prevent the creation of a Demented, yet still provide the demon powers of a hybrid. And, until that demon over there, all mixtures did nothing but start the process of the subject becoming at Demented, which is why you see those soldiers in the stasis room. Until we can counter the dementing process, they will remain in such a state. This particular demon is a fantastic find. It has resulted in some sort of hybrid that retains the demon powers but doesn’t dement. And, we can sequence the genomes responsible, which is how we are going to use this demon blood as a cure.”

  “Sure thing, doc. Get your Franko on.”

  Merritt scowled at me but remained silent. The doctor tied off the demon’s arm and used a syringe to draw several vials of blood.

  “We haven’t found a limit on the amount of blood we can extract, but what we have found is that the potency of the blood seems to greatly diminish once it leaves the body. So, this means we need to be prepared to immediately begin extracting the genetic material from the blood.”

  The doctor rang a bell. A bell for god’s sake, and a white-clad assistant scurried into the room, taking the vials with him. I was ready to be done with all of this. What have I gotten myself into and why does Merritt trust this quack?

  Chapter 27

  Two days later I was crowding into a room next to the Boss’ office with Manny, Ginger, Reese and Ruthie.

  “Where do you need to go?” asked the Boss.

  “We need transport to Detroit to check out the demon sightings you mentioned,” answered Reese.

  “So, Teagan,” Ginger began with a bright smile. Like a little ray of sunshine, she was syrupy sweet. “Like what you saw in Chicago, the portal in Detroit is also hidden. It’s in a mail and packaging store. It’s owned by the parents of one of the hybrids, The Chandlers. They keep the portal safe and keep our secret,” said Ginger.

  With a quick portal hop, we find ourselves in Detroit. Mr. and Mrs. Chandler met us at the portal.

  “How can we be of assistance?” asked Mr. Chandler, greeting the hybrids with hugs. “And, who might this be,” while looking at me.

  “Teagan, our newbie. And, we have to rush, so can you help us get to the sewers,” said Reese.

  “Why would you — never mind, we have a sewer grate close to the store. You can get into it from there,” said Mr. Chandler. “I can show you the way.”

  Once there, we drop down into “The Detroit River Interceptor,” which is a nice name for a nasty place — sewers. The sightings involved people claiming to see Demented coming out of sewer grates all over the city. From what we found out, there is 3500 miles of sewers down here, so the likelihood of finding the Demented isn’t good.

  I hated tunnels and hoped there weren’t any rats, but I needed to spend more time getting to know the other hybrids and determine motives.

  “Why can’t we have light? You guys can use fire, like the Boss, right? Why not use it down here instead of tripping on all kinds of things hidden under the water” I said.

  “Because we don’t have a choice. We must keep a low profile. Dragon girl over there would be a dead giveaway that we aren’t fully human. Can you imagine the hysteria that would create? They would be readying nukes to take her out. You think humans could handle knowing there are super humans out there and that it’s because we are part demon,” said Manny.

  “What’s the point in having super cool powers if you never get to use them? It’s like having a shiny new toy that must stay in the box and never be played with. I’m not sure I can have the same restraint,” I said.

  “So, we keep a low profile and hope that the demon relations committee — smug and pretentious jerks that they are continued to promote good relations. Whether we want to or not, they are helping ease the path or our acceptance,” said Manny.

  What he said makes sense; although, I didn’t want to be dependent and grateful to the Demon Delegate for his committee’s work.

  “Besides, I don’t want to live the rest of my life in a cave. I’d like to go out and date, have a white picket fence and rug rats running around,” said Manny.

  Not sure why he wanted kids, children were overrated and nowhere near my radar or life path. I was pretty sure that I could live a full life without them. Any time I told someone just that, they looked at me like I had stomped on a kitten or sacrificed babies on the weekends. It was like you were treated as if you were deficient as a woman if you didn’t want to have children. Like you were missing out on your life’s purpose.

  Hours later, we are still slogging through the smelly water of the sewers. The cavernous tunnels could have easily fit a car. Who needed sewers this size? And, what were Demented doing underground? There was no food down here and since when did they hide, let alone hide underground?

  The large cracks running from the tops of the tunnels drip water, so we resembled drowned rats and our attitudes were equally bad.

  “Why couldn’t we have a Gumby suit or a full body jacket for this stuff?” I asked.

  Ruthie glared at me, but it was hard to tell for sure in the tunnel’s low light. “If you start crying, I reserve the right to slap some sense into you,” said Ruthie.

  While I was new and had yet to prove myself, I was done with Ruthie’s lousy and hostile attitude. She never wasted an opportunity to throw shade or say something sarcastic or downright witchy. This was probably the reason why I liked the military. At least there you dealt with men and didn’t have to deal with the cattiness of women. And bullies, like the purple princess, didn’t stop until you made them stop.

  “Someone’s channeling their inner witch yet again, is that also one of your superpowers,” I said with a fake sugary sweetness to my tone.

  “Why you little –”

  “Enough with the bickering, Ruthie and Teagan! This really isn’t the time,” said Reese.

  We walked in silence as I seethed, and Ruthie grumbled and shot me nasty looks. Why was everyone so quiet? Ignoring the purple princess, I wanted to know more about the rest of the team since we had nothing else to do and as the Boss said, I was stuck here investigating, so I needed to use every opportunity to find out who was hurting people on the team.

  “So, you can light yourself on fire and not burn. What do they call you? Human Torch?” I asked.

  Hunter scowled and then glared at me “We have ourselves a resident comedian. When you are going out on the circuit because everyone deserves to hear one-liners like that,” said Hunter over Ginger’s laughing.

  “Oh, come on Hunter, that was funny. I think I’m gonna adopt that as your new nickname,” said Manny.

  “You do, and you’ll find yourself missing a few teeth big boy,” said Hunter, but ruined the threat by punching Manny’s arm playfully.

  “Does anyone else smell that,” asked Ginger.

  “How can you smell anything? Haven’t your raspberry musk flower bouquet candles permanently deadened your sense of smell?” said Ruthie.

  “Just because I like things to smell good doesn’t mean I can’t smell. I actually have a heightened sense of smell, thank you very much,” said Ginger.

  Before Ruthie or anyone could respond, Ginger continue “And, I can smell Sulphur. You know as well as I do that smell always precedes demons and sometimes Demented”.

  We all started sniffing the air and from the other doubtful expressions on the others’ faces, they couldn’t smell anything either. Maybe it was because Ginger had dragon senses, the dragon version of Spidey sense, and could smell things we couldn’t.

  Sweat started rolling down my face as the temperatures in the muck rose.

  Reese leaned in and quietly said, “Have your weapon ready. Ginger is never wrong, and that heat we are feeling could be from Hell Fire.”

  I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants and pulled my sword from its sheath. I was as ready as I could be. Part of me wished I had my powers — like the others. In times like this, powers would really be
an asset. I just wasn’t ready to take the plunge and be activated. Every time I considered doing it, images of horns and tails flashed through my mind. As cool as it is having Ginger as a dragon, I wouldn’t want to be one, but it was a possibility that it could happen to me. These powers were like rolling a genetic dice. There was no rhyme or reason in what you got and even the hybrids with similar powers, still had significant differences to those powers.

  We all slowed down our pace to minimize the noise we made, but it was darn near impossible to be completely silent with the tunnels echoing even the smallest of sounds. Reese stopped and turned to face us with a finger over his mouth in the universal sign of “quiet”. Pausing, we listened for sounds of whatever was creating the heat. Both the temperature and the scent of brimstone was increasing to an almost unbearable level. Sure enough, the sounds of something moving through the water reached my ears. At this point, the heat was making it darn near impossible to breathe in the stifling air.

  Up ahead, a Demented lurched out of an adjoining tunnel. Finally, some action, I thought. Other Demented joined the first one until ten of them were visible along with a large demon right on their heels. He was so large that even in the spacious tunnels, he hunched over. With a garbled word and a gesture, the Demon appeared to direct the Demented towards us. As they moved forward at a steady and semi-coordinated manner. Weird. It almost seemed like he was controlling them, but they were mindless, so that wasn’t possible.

  I jumped out and began slashing at the Demented, my heart soared just hearing my blade slashing through the air in ruthless fury. I was so taking down these nasties.

  “Watch the blood,” Ruthie needlessly reminded me. As if I could forget about that. My normal signature move was loping off the heads, releasing a spray of blood and would cover me with the contaminated Demented blood. Instead, I was trying to just poke multiple times and fast to just get in a quick stab to the heart — just as effective, but minus the literal blood bath.

  A quick death was better and more humane, I thought. These were once people that were loved — maybe a dad or brother, a husband or wife. Besides, what kind of challenge is it beating an opponent that truly couldn’t fight back?

  “Duck,” someone shouted as a fireball flew right where my head was just moments ago. Its heat singed my hair. I better not become bald by the end of this, I thought. I rather liked my long, thick hair — it was one of my few vanities. That was close.

  “Another one incoming. Get down,” yelled Reese.

  I dropped down and found myself chest deep in the sewer water as Manny rushed to the front of our group. He stood in front of us and turned into his rockier persona, a.k.a., “Crusher,” effectively blocking the demon fire from reaching us. We ducked behind him, but the heat was nearly overwhelming. Although, if Hunter could surround herself with fire and Ginger was a dragon, didn’t that mean they were safe from demon fire and hell fire, I wondered.

  I sunk lower into the water as a precaution when a fireball flew directly over my head. It was all fun and games until someone wanted to play with fire. The demon prepared another fireball, but Manny rushed and tackled the demon. In his crusher form, Manny must weigh nearly half a ton. He was solid rock and I wasn’t sure if anyone could really outmaneuver him once he had you pinned.

  Ginger and I made short work of The Demented and went to see if Manny needed help. Not that I thought he needed help. He held the demon down with one hand and pummeled its face with the other. The demon grunted and tried to wriggle his arms free. Ruthie rushed over and stomped on the demon’s almost free arm. Not a particularly original move, but it worked. I had yet to see her do anything spectacular. She seemed to be a mediocre fighter at best, so why was she training me.

  Reese pulled out thick, metallic restraints of some kind and slapped them on the demon’s arms, instantly quieting the demon.

  “We have to check for the tattoo, so we know how to proceed. We wouldn’t want to hurt this fella too bad if he’s legit,” Reese explained. Manny stayed on the demon’s back, keeping him from moving and Ruthie turned the demon’s face and shined a pen light into its face.

  “Well, lookie here, an illegal. What brings you to this fine sewer system,” she asked.

  The demon spat and Manny pounded its head, saying, “Be nice to the lady.”

  “Pen Light Lady Death,” said Reese, as he held out his hand to the purple princess.

  She threw it and he caught it deftly despite it being nearly dark in the tunnels. Clicking the light on, I could see that he pulled out a plastic bag that contained a mini notebook. Reese pulled it out and started reading, “Per Article 15 of the treaty, all unregistered demons are to be captured at the catcher’s discretion. Should this prove too difficult due to demon lack of cooperation or setting, the demon may be dispatched as humanely as possible.”

  “Will you do the honors,” he said while casting a look at the purple princess.

  She removed her gloves and stooped down next to the thrashing demon. As she laid her hand on him, he stopped and stilled in the way that only someone devoid of life can manage. The unnatural stillness of death making him limp. I caught my breath and coughed. She really was the “Grim Reaper,” as she had introduced herself. And here I spent every chance baiting her. Definitely not the wisest choice on my part.

  Hunter produced a flame in her hand and passed it over the prone body of the demon. She frowned in concentration as the fire grew from her power until the entire demon was engulfed. The smell of burning flesh nearing made me gag. We watched in silence until the demon’s body burnt to ashes — a surprisingly quick process courtesy of whatever type of fire Hunter had. It was not normal fire. I suspected that it was Hell Fire, which burned anything down to nothingness in a matter of seconds. It was a power exclusive to demon and now, also used by hybrids.

  The walk back was much more subdued, each of us lost to our thoughts. This was until any patrol I had been on. It almost seemed like an ambush of the demon. Not that I was demon lover or anything, but it just seemed a bit one-sided. We so easily outnumbered and subdued that monster and killed off the Demented within quick order. Most of my patrols with the Elite Guard were against multiple demons that usually outnumbered us. It was bloody, fierce and casualties occurred on both sides. Somehow, it felt more balanced that what had happened back there. And, part of me wasn’t sure why I was so unsettled by it.

  Chapter 28

  Five hours later, we were back at the mail store to use the portal. We went through the portal in a jumble — all of us rushing to get back to wash the sewer stench off. Thomas was on the other side to meet us at the Underground’s portal.

  “Happy travels hybrids,” he said and then quickly covered his mouth after catching a whiff of us. “Guess you all will be wanting to clean up. I’m mean, not to say you stink, but you kinda do. I mean …”

  Reese cut him off, “We stink, we get it. Thanks for being on the other side for us,” which he ended with a tap of the youth’s shoulder, a heavy tap that nearly sent Thomas to the ground.

  From what the other hybrids had previously explained, having someone at the portal when we traveled through it was a precaution against any stowaways — either animal, human, or demon. Although, I don’t see how a demon jumping into a portal with us would go unnoticed, but I’d seen some strange things and experience had taught me that precautions were a good thing. As per our standard protocol, we all headed back to the quads to get cleaned up and an hour later re-convened back at the Boss’ office to debrief him.

  The Boss was sitting at his desk reading something on his computer when I showed up. All the other hybrids, except purple princess were already there. I grabbed the nearest chair and perched on it, while we all wanted for her royal purpleness to grace us with her presence.

  “Did Ruthie take out the demon?” said the Boss.

  At Ginger’s nod, he continued, “There's no need to wait then. The rest of you can debrief me.”

  “Can I be dismissed?”
I asked.

  The Boss looked at me with a steely glint to his eyes that told me what the answer would be before he spoke.

  “No,” he said.

  I really would have liked having the time to continue my investigation. That was the whole point in having me here at the Underground and finishing it meant I could return to the Elite Guard that much sooner.

  Hunter quickly laid out our sewer expedition, the fight with the Demented and demon and then killing of the demon.

  “Sounds like it was done by the book. Were there any injuries or anything out of the ordinary that I need to be award of,” said the Boss.

  “Not a thing, sir,” said Hunter.

  “Very well. You are all dismissed, except you Teagan.”

  Great, just freaking great. Not only was I stuck cooling my heels during the debrief, but now I was stuck having a tête-à-tête with the Boss. Lovely.

  Once the other left, the Boss looked at me intently. “How are things going for you here?”

  What did he mean by that? Things were just peachy. I couldn’t wait to start braiding hair with the purple princess and singing by a campfire with the others. I bit my tongue and instead said, “I’ve made little progress with the investigation because of all the time spent on patrol. So, I’d say that progress has been pretty minimal up to this point.”

  I waited for a response, but he just looked at me, extending the silence into one of those awkward non-talking moments where one of you wish the other would talk. Finally, he breaks the silence “I know you don’t have updates because I haven’t received any recently. I was asking about how you were getting along with the other hybrids and what your impression of the place is at this point.”

  That was a loaded question and there were so many ways I could answer it. I wasn’t here to make friends or make a future for myself with these hybrids. This was just an assignment and one I wanted over sooner than later.

  “Nothing has changed. I still want to go back to the Elite Guard. I don’t want to activate or at least want some way to avoid it. And, I need a break from patrols to do just that. I have had virtually no one-on-one time with the hybrids. Well, except sitting on a roof doing zombie raccoon watch and we couldn’t really talk.”