by Michael Todd
Calvin snapped a salute. “Yes, sir!” He grinned. “I’ll put Groth the megademon on the line with you next time, sir. Maybe you guys can chat about cooking and swap some recipes.”
“Smart ass.” Korbin scowled and stood up. “All right, Damian, let’s get the team ready and packed up. We need to get back to Vegas and continue training.”
Katie remained at the table with Calvin, her mouth firmly shut. The rest of the team was bummed to leave, but they dragged themselves into the house to get ready. Katie just wanted to get the whole thing over with, in and out.
She stood up and went out on the porch to watch the ocean until it was time. There would be no reporter-flavored takeout for the demons today—not on her watch.
Calvin sat at the table for a while after the team left, allowing the stress of the last two days to evaporate with the foam on his coffee.
He tried to wrap his mind around what they were about to do.
They hadn’t had a chance to develop the non-martial skills they would need for this assignment. Usually being a Damned meant fighting demons, and that was about it. For the first time since he had been there, they had to do some investigative work. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or if they should be worried that it signified things were getting worse out there.
Katie went back inside after the last of the staff vehicles left in a puff of exhaust fumes. She found Calvin at the table and joined him. They sat there in silence for several minutes, thinking about the task at hand.
Finally Katie turned to Calvin. “OK, we have the reporter’s schedule, thanks to your research. So how are we going to do this?” she asked. “I’m not going in without a plan. That’s the perfect way to get us all killed.”
“No, I have a play,” Calvin assured her. “It’s something I used to do before I joined Korbin’s Killers.”
Katie felt the corner of her mouth rise of its own free will. “Lay it on me.”
Calvin grinned. “It’s like this. We are going to find Charlotte first; find out what she is doing, where she is working. When we have her location, we’ll send her a text to let her know we will be calling in three minutes. We will tell her that when we call she must step outside for privacy. She will do that, and we will grab her. We control the situation, she will be safe, and then we go get donuts somewhere without worrying that we are being followed or set up.”
Katie slapped the table. “That plan is perfect.” She laughed. “You are a genius!”
Pandora was in agreement for once. Uh, yes, because of donuts. I promise that I will be on my best behavior—as long as you promise to eat another of those cream things.
You’d better be. Katie chuckled.
“It will be perfect, if she isn’t familiar with the scheme,” Calvin commented. “I’m thinking that because she knows us, she will be okay with what we propose. I don’t think she’ll question it, basically.”
“Right,” Katie agreed. “Well, let’s get rock-n-rollin’.”
Katie and Calvin went to their rooms and got dressed for their day. They first went to where Charlotte lived, but she wasn’t there so they talked to a couple of people who seemed to know what she did on a regular basis.
She was a reporter for the crazy side, yet she didn’t change up her schedule. Katie figured she would have a talk with her later about safety, but for their purposes it worked out. They wouldn’t have to chase her all over creation.
Charlotte looked down at her laptop and sighed. Another shitty article, another shitty week, and no break in any of the real cases. She had just gotten back from following the teams around on the East Coast, and figured a little time back in San Diego was best for her right now.
Still, she was getting really tired of dealing with stupid-ass people who saw Jesus in the water spot on their ceiling. At least she was working from Starbucks today. The coffee wasn’t good, but it was strong and plentiful.
She pressed Enter, which sent her latest fluff piece to the editor. Just as she picked up her coffee, her phone buzzed. It was a text message from a number she didn’t recognize.
Charlotte. It’s Calvin from the Las Vegas team. I’m in the area and you’ve been asking for an interview, so here I am. I am going to call you in one minute. I need you to take your things and go outside to accept the call. It will keep us both safe.
She pulled her brows together and shook her head, dismissing the gut feeling she had. She was really surprised to be getting a call from one of the Damned. They never talked to anyone, and she had been trying unsuccessfully to sit down with them for a long-assed while now.
Something felt off about the whole thing, but at the same time she couldn’t let her suspicious nature get in the way of an interview with one of them. She grabbed her stuff, shoved it in her bag, and headed out of the coffee shop. She walked away from the store and in front of the alley way. The phone rang, and she hit Answer.
“Hello?”
A deep, calm voice spoke. “Charlotte, this is Calvin. Don’t be scared.”
She stiffened. “What?”
It was too late.
A hand cupped her mouth and her assailant pulled her into the alley, where she was thrust into an SUV. The man in the driver’s seat, who she assumed was Calvin, looked back and nodded as they took off.
Charlotte sat up straight in the seat and looked at the woman who had taken her, and at Calvin. She flushed with simultaneous fear and anger.
“Who are you, and what are you doing with me?” she snapped, glaring at the woman.
The woman held out a hand. “I’m Katie. Look, I’m sorry we had to do it that way, Charlotte. We know who you are, and what you are trying to do. We need to talk, but we need to do it on our terms. You are in danger. It wouldn’t be the first time someone from your profession dug too deeply into a story and found themselves standing in their own grave. We know you have been looking into us for a long time—and we don’t blame you for that—but we hide information to protect you from harm.”
“I wasn’t going to call for help, or whatever,” Charlotte snapped.
Katie raised an eyebrow at her.
“Okay, fine, that was exactly what I would have tried to do,” she admitted. “But do you blame me? You dragged me into an alley, threw me into a blacked-out SUV, and took off for God-knows-where. Where are we going, by the way?”
Katie narrowed her eyes at the reporter and dropped her voice. “Somewhere dastardly. Scary. Evil, even.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened, but she managed to squeak, “Where?”
Katie lifted a single eyebrow. “We’re going…to get some donuts.”
“Oh!” Charlotte tittered in relief. “Okay, I get it. You wanted to make sure you were safe, I was safe, and that I couldn’t screw you over.”
“Yep,” Katie said.
Charlotte took a closer look at Katie. “Hey, aren’t you the girl who was rescued from the parking garage incident back in Las Vegas?”
“In the flesh,” Katie replied, raising her chin toward the reporter.
“Well, you look better in person,” she told her. “Way more badass.”
Katie snickered, shaking her head. She supposed that maybe she had become a bit of a badass. It was out of necessity, though, and she still felt bad for kidnapping this girl, even if she was trying to spill the beans on their clandestine organization.
“Do you like donuts?” Katie asked.
“Umm, who doesn’t like donuts?” Charlotte countered.
I like this girl already, Pandora purred. Maybe I should switch bodies.
Okay, but she will write an expose on your life, Katie warned her. You will forever be the reporter’s demon, recounting stories for the next piece she needs to write. Each story will get you a donut.
Oh, hell no, Pandora spat. Let’s just stick with donuts and demon killings.
Good choice. Katie laughed. Good choice.
Chapter 13
Korbin sat at his desk, rubbing his chin as he tried to figure out what
was going on.
Things had changed, and it wasn’t for the better. What had happened with Katie and Calvin in San Diego was alarming, to say the least.
The demons they had been facing to that point had all been controllable from inside a human. They couldn’t survive outside. This demon, though, didn’t need a human body for anything other than food, and from what it sounded like, the demon grew stronger with every human it swallowed. This was not something he could keep to himself, and it was obvious that things were getting darker by the second.
When Korbin had gotten back from San Diego, he had scheduled a conference call with the heads of the other teams on his side of the states: Brian Hudson, William Hunt, and Amy Brown.
He knew they would all make themselves available, since he rarely called emergency meetings. In fact, he was usually the guy who trudged in at the last second to those types of meetings. He looked at the clock and called into the meeting service, entering the chat room and putting the phone on speaker.
“Hello?” Korbin asked.
“Yes, Korbin,” Amy answered. “We are all here. What is going on?”
“I’m sure that by now you guys have heard there was an incursion of sorts in San Diego,” he began.
“We heard something about it,” William replied. “Sounded like the demon gave your team a run for its money.”
“He did,” Korbin agreed. “But that isn’t really the concern.”
“Then what is?” Amy asked.
“The demon came over without a host body,” Korbin told them.
“What?” Brian exclaimed. “The demon was in the flesh, just walking around San Diego?”
“Yeah,” Korbin replied. “though I would have to say it was more like he was roof dwelling and chewing on corpses.”
Amy gasped. “Jesus! This is not good; not good at all. What did you do?”
“Well, my team was able to get their blades into his skull, though one of them almost died doing it,” Korbin replied. “But we learned that if demons at this level are fatally wounded, they go back to hell. They just disappear from our realm.”
“Great,” Brian grumbled. “So you only had two of your team members on this thing?”
“Katie and Calvin were out there doing some research for me,” Korbin explained. “They just happened to be around when the SD police called.”
“The police?” William queried. “How did they know about us?”
“The higher-ups have given permission for us to work with the local departments,” Korbin relayed. “Go to the chiefs of police and bring them in on our plans. It provides more back up; more cover, basically, for the fights.”
“So you had this help on the scene there?” Amy asked.
“Yeah, pretty much the whole force was there, and while they don’t seem to be too good at keeping the secret among themselves, they had no issues with not telling anyone outside the force,” Korbin replied. “Of course, the thing seems so fantastical to people who aren’t us that they probably are afraid of looking like nutbags.”
“Shit, I feel like a nutbag most days just thinking about the truth.” Brian chuckled. “As far as the cops, I just don’t know. I feel like they would be a liability, not only for the teams remaining hidden, but keeping the team in play focused on getting the job done, rather than saving the cops from whatever situation they are in.”
“I tend to agree,” Amy remarked. “I mean, the government as a whole has been a pain in the ass to involve in anything. Everyone in there has a serious complex and they’re constantly measuring dicks, when all they really do is push paper and bandage paper cuts.”
“I don’t know if that’s fair.” Korbin chuckled. “A lot of good ex-agents end up here as Damned.”
“That is my point exactly,” Amy told him.
“All right, I hear you,” Korbin replied. “But with this new enemy on our hands and no real idea of just how many will be showing up next, I think it’s important for us to surround ourselves with as many people as possible, Damned or not.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Amy sighed. “Not happy about it, but needs must and all that.”
“I personally don’t have a problem with getting the Feds involved,” William responded. “Just more eyes on the prize.”
“Exactly,” Korbin agreed. “The more people who have our backs in this situation, the better. I am dead serious about this. This is not your run-of-the-mill demon. From what I’ve been told, the one Calvin and Katie faced was just three levels below one of the Seventy-Two.”
“Well, fuck,” Amy spat. “I’m going to contact the government groups out here, and invest in more weapons while I’m at it. We will make sure to be stacked before we even think of leaving the base on a call.”
“I’ll do the same thing.” Brian sighed.
“If you think it’s the way we should go, then so will I,” William replied.
“Good,” Korbin said. “We need to keep our heads on straight, and be overly watchful.”
With his call over, Korbin sat in his office watching the others training below. As the head of the team he wasn’t just responsible for protecting the team from demons, but from the scrutiny of the outside world as well.
As soon as the government was told, he might have different entities knocking down their doors and demanding inspections, walk-throughs, and a better understanding of what was happening.
This was not a good thing. The members of his team had already given up so much. They’d had their lives ripped apart, and the last thing they needed was some politician breathing down their necks.
To top it all off, they had their business to worry about. The creation of a tool, a weapon, has infinite possibilities. In the wrong hands, this kind of weapon could be used to cause an incredible amount of pain for those it was not intended for.
Korbin did not want this technological—and perhaps mystical—advance to fall into the hands of politicians.
He wiped his face and got up from his chair, secured his knives, and headed for the building next door.
He stared through the open iron gates at the grounds. There had to be something he could do to hide the facility; make it look unassuming and unused.
He knew that he had to keep the government away, or their secret weapons wouldn’t be so secret.
Or theirs.
He stared at the massive brick building and filed through ideas, each seeming more ridiculous than the one before. How in the world was he supposed to hide a huge building right next to his own?
He was starting to think that installing the company right there on the base had been a terrible idea. He had just wanted to keep it close, though, and had not seen the invasion of demons in the flesh becoming an issue, at least not that quickly.
As he took a step forward, he dragged the toe of his boot through the gravel. When he looked up, he stopped to watch a very attractive businesswoman go into the building. Her clothes were perfectly pressed and her hair was tied back neatly, and though she was too far away to make out the face, she seemed pretty damned professional.
Seeing her was a surprise, but he figured since she was carrying several boxes that had been left on the doorstep and had walked straight in, Katie or Derek had hired her to work there.
Korbin took a step forward, intending to go find out who she was, but as he started forward his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out, seeing a reminder on his calendar for another conference call, this time with the higher-ups. He sighed, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and shrugged.
He had too much going on to be chasing a sexy pair of legs anyway.
“So tell us, what exactly have you figured out?” Katie asked, looking down with embarrassment at the sheer number of donuts on her plate.
Don’t be embarrassed, sweet cheeks. This is what we live for, Pandora said.
“Well, it’s both simple and complicated at the same time,” Charlotte began. “On the one hand I have uncovered some seriously hidden stuff, but
on the other hand, I can’t seem to get close enough to them to solidify the evidence.”
“You mean with photos and statements?” Calvin asked.
“Right,” Charlotte confirmed.
“And by the way, this is all off the record,” Calvin replied. “So you can take your finger off that recorder in your pocket.”
Charlotte sighed and sheepishly pulled a voice recorder from the pocket of her sweatshirt. She clicked it off and slid it across the table with an annoyed smile on her face.
Calvin smirked and glanced at Katie, who was staring down at her donuts with lust. Calvin elbowed her and frowned. Katie sighed and looked at Charlotte.
“So tell me,” Katie asked, “what makes you so sure then that these ‘teams’ exist.”
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she said, opening her notebook. “I’ve written down accounts of everything, but unfortunately, without a corroborating witness and photos none of that really matters.”
Katie looked at her notebook, the same kind you bought as a kid to write in during English. There were notes, sketches, and quotes scribbled on every page. There was a crease down the middle of the pages, and the notebook itself looked as if it had been folded in half and shoved into her back pocket more than once.
“All right.” Calvin smiled. “Tell us what you know…or think you know.”
“Okay, so I have five teams nailed down,” she related. “Korbin, Amy, William, Brian, and one team only known for their insignia, which is a skull with red eyes.”
Calvin tipped his head, knowing that the last on the list was completely false. There might have been some vigilante group out there with that insignia, but they had no connection to the Killers.
He didn’t want to give anything away, though, so he didn’t correct her. He hoped she’d go after that one, which would lead her far from the others and also out of danger.
“What makes you so obsessed with this?” Katie asked.
