by Michael Todd
“Melvin,” Ella squealed happily as he entered the training center. “It’s been a while now. Go on anymore hot demon dates?”
One of the guys off to the side snickered.
“Great, now you are making fun of me too,” he growled, walking up to Damian and sticking his hand out. “How are you doing, Damian? Long time no see.”
“Haven’t been out this way in some time.” He smiled as he returned the handshake. “Good to see you, and thank you for saving this one’s fragile ass.”
“Hey, I’m not fragile! I just need some work, that’s all,” Ella grumped.
“That’s a bit of a change of heart.” Melvin chuckled. “Las Vegas push your mind into the right place?”
“Nah, that happened last night when I got to see an exorcism,” she told him, moving her arms around like a stupid version of Frankenstein’s monster. “The demon was all crazy, teeth bared, snarling, and cursing everyone in the room. It was awesome.”
“All right then.” Melvin laughed. “I don’t know if I would describe an exorcism as ‘awesome’ but whatever gets you motivated, I suppose.” He turned his attention to Damian. “Did the infected live?”
“Yeah,” Damian answered, leading them onto the floor. “She is a bit the worse for wear, but one of your guys watched her till she woke up and got her bandaged. Told her she had gotten hit by something, and he brought her home. She was a little confused, but she ended up settling down.”
“Good, then I call it a success,” Melvin remarked, turning to Ella. “Now, what are we going to do with you? I see you’ve acquired some workout clothes…”
He looked down at her shoes.
“Although you apparently don’t like tennis shoes,” he finished as she wiggled her toes in her boots. “No matter, we can work with that.”
The guys in the gym took her to the side to show her some basic protective moves, feeling it was most important to understand how to protect herself. Melneck monitored her movements, giving her pointers here and there on how to turn her body, position her hands, and move her feet. It looked to Damian and Melvin like she was doing well, but she was having trouble with Melneck’s instructions.
If you would just fucking slow down, I would be able to understand you, Ella griped.
Slow down? He scoffed. Do you think the demons are going to slow down when you are fighting them?
I know they won’t, but could I at least learn the technique before you start hounding me? she grumbled. There are no demons here to fight right this second.
I personally think this is a waste of time. He sniffed. I would start you off in some Tai Kwon Do, get the muscle memory down.
That discipline is just for show, Ella argued. I need something like Jiu Jitsu for fighting. I don’t need useless techniques.
First of all, Tai Kwon Do is not useless. It’s the most-used martial arts style in your puny little world, Melneck informed her. And secondly, Jiu Jitsu will do you no good unless you can get those demons on the ground. Sure, the small ones you can, but what about the big ones? You’ll never get them on their backs. You could probably use the rolling techniques for faster movements, but the rest will be a waste, and might even get you killed.
Then what do you want me to do? Ella asked. Because boxing isn’t going to work. I need a real combat technique—something that is down and dirty—because these guys, they don’t play by the rules. If I do, I’ll get myself killed. I mean, I’m small and lean, and I can move pretty fast.
All right, all right, Melneck said, thinking. I know! I should have thought of this first. Krav Maga will be your best friend.
Sounds like a food. Ella snickered.
Far from it, though you might not like the training. It was created by the Israeli Defense Force for close combat. It’s down and dirty, all right. Kicks in the nuts and, pokes in the eyes. The training pushes you to your limits and then past them.
Well, I’m probably going to be tired for the rest of my life anyway, Ella bitched. I might as well be tired and able to kick the shit out of someone.
“So, I think I know what kind of fighting I want to learn,” Ella told Melvin.
“All right, whatcha got?” he asked.
“Krav Maga. It is combat-oriented, will push me to my limits, and best of all, it will make me a badass fighter.”
“Hmm…” Melvin walked around her. “I like that idea, though I don’t know if you can handle it.”
“I got this,” Ella assured him confidently.
“All right.” He shrugged, keeping the smirk off his lips. “We’ll train you, but I need to get my teammate Cody in on this, since he is the martial arts specialist. Some of the other team members in the New York area can come help train too. I like your motivation. Keep it up!”
Ella smiled at Damian and he winked, proud that she had started to come around.
As Stephanie sped through the desert, there was nothing on either side of them but sand and sun. They were headed to the new property, and Joshua was excited but also nervous to see his new home.
Joshua glanced back at Avery, one of Stephanie’s girls, who was sitting in the back of the car. He was taking the forced time off as a good thing, just relaxing and helping wherever he could. Stephanie turned left through some broken-down gates and headed down a long-paved road. Ahead in the distance were the buildings, painted to blend with the sand. They were of a plain style, but large.
“This was an old ICBM base back in the day,” Stephanie explained.
“What is ‘ICBM?’” Avery asked.
“Intercontinental ballistic missile,” Joshua answered. “They were big weapons, or rather are big weapons, and we built bases specifically to assemble, test, fire, and control them. This looks like it was one of the older ones.”
“It was,” Stephanie said. “Older, I mean, but at the same time it is pretty badass. I bought it after they decommissioned it years ago. I guess when you come from a cult like I did, you always assume that the future will be bleak. I wanted a place I could come to and be safe from everyone and everything. In my mind, there was nothing safer than a military installation that provided security for a weapon like that. This one was completely off-grid. The government never let anyone know it was out here.”
They pulled up in front of one of the big buildings in the center and got out of the car, looking around them.
All of the remaining buildings were in reasonable shape on the outside and there hadn’t been a ton of trash left behind. There was more than enough space to build whatever they wanted. Stephanie stared up at the bright blue sky, closing her eyes and enjoying the sun for a moment.
“I spent some time here cleaning it up a few years ago, and every three months I come back to make sure it’s still in working condition.” Stephanie looked at Joshua and Avery. “We will need to do more with it. I can tell you that it has functioning generators and water systems that provide power, heating, and cooling; the basics. I suggest we figure out if Amazon delivers here for the rest of it.”
“What about the machines?” Joshua asked.
“Well,” Stephanie said, pointing into the distance, “over that way there are some pretty good cement slabs from the buildings they took with them when they left. I think it would be a good area to place the machines on their pallets until we lay the foundation for the manufacturing building. That’s supposed to happen in three days, with a seven-day drying time. We can’t put anything at the new place until the cement has cured.”
“Okay…” Joshua looked up at the sky, thinking about the weather.
“I can tell you are worrying about them.” She smiled. “Maybe we can get some supersized tents to cover them.”
“It should only take a week or a week and a half for the power company to come out and run some of the grid that we need,” Joshua said.
“The power comes within three miles of here, I think, since the old cables aren’t efficient anymore.” Stephanie peered into the distance. “It is going to cost a pretty penny to
get them to run it the rest of the way. I never needed it, since I assumed power wouldn’t be available when I really needed to come here. I was planning for a doomsday scenario, not a vacation home—or a place to house a demon-killing team.”
She laughed, thinking about how much her life had changed.
Just months before she had been sending in clients for Avery to “take care of,” and now she was overseeing a huge paramilitary installation. She was glad, though, to have put that part of her life behind her.
There was no longer anything in that world for her, and now that she had a better sense of self and better control over her abilities, she didn’t feel like she needed to have a secret hideaway anymore.
She was more than happy to give it to her team.
“So, what does Korbin think about this bill?” Joshua asked. “I know he isn’t a big fan of massive spending.”
Stephanie smirked. “Who said we told him what the bill was going to be?”
“This team is pretty extensive,” John said, looking at Damian and Katie. “There is a lot going on here the higher-ups don’t really understand. Sometimes we have to work with the military, sometimes we are too late, and sometimes we don’t get the call at all. It can be a hassle.”
“I can’t even imagine running one team, much less three, in an area like this,” Katie admitted.
“It definitely gets busy.” John chuckled. “We rarely go three nights without a call. There was only that exorcism last night, which was a very light night. Usually we would be racing from that call right over to another one, but luckily it didn’t happen that way. They told me how well you guys did with that call, by the way. I appreciate you taking it. I know it had to be a pain getting off a plane and rolling right into something like that.”
“It’s all part of the job,” Damian assured him. “I have to say, though, you have some pretty angry demons here.”
“Yeah.” John nodded. “They get really rowdy.”
“So, what’s next?” Katie asked. “You have us for a few days to help wherever we can.”
“I was actually going to ask if you wouldn’t mind going to the New Jersey side.” John raised an eyebrow. “I am pretty low over there right now team-wise, and we have missed some pretty big calls. There might be some false alarms, but it’s better to check them out than let them go and end up with a demon running loose.”
“Absolutely,” Damian told him. “And sure. We are up for that, right, Katie?”
Katie nodded. “Definitely.”
“Would you take Ella with you?” John asked. “Let her get a real-world feeling for everything. I know she saw the exorcism yesterday, but I don’t think that’s a good representation of what we normally do. It was more like an introduction than anything else.”
“Absolutely,” Katie replied. “I think the girl needs some serious training, and taking her out with us might give that to her. I can go over the signs and what to look for, and keep her as safe as possible if we have to do any fighting.”
“Perfect,” John said, standing up from his desk. “Take any of the SUVs you want. There is GPS, just like at home. Call in when you get to Jersey City and we will go from there.”
“Great.” Katie stood up and shook his hand.
Katie and Damian grabbed Ella, who was standing near the office waiting for them to come back out, and headed to the garage.
They hopped into the SUV and programmed the GPS to get them to Jersey City from downtown Manhattan. It took them a bit to get a handle on things, since New York traffic was a bit different than anywhere else.
Damian squeezed the steering wheel tightly as they entered the tunnel and cruised toward the bridge.
When they finally made it to the Jersey base the place was bustling, but there were only five men instead of seven. They introduced themselves and were directed to the intake rooms, where they were handed vests and shown the way to the armory. When they were ready they sat down in a large glass room, waiting to be shown back up to the main area.
“You know, I’ve never been a redshirt before.” Damian chuckled.
“Me either,” Katie said.
“Why did they call us ‘the redshirts’ anyway?” Ella asked.
“Well, on Star Trek the redshirts were the people who were probably going to die,” Damian explained with a smirk. “It’s a morbid-sense-of-humor type of thing. We do that from time to time to keep our sanity. It’s not like we believe it jinxes you—or at least I don’t think so. There are people who refuse to be on redshirt teams; they won’t take the assignment because they are superstitious in that way. I personally never have because the priest is usually the last to be picked for something like that. It is usually the standbys or the extra members who end up as redshirts, and since I don’t leave Vegas much unless I’m on official business, I don’t get called on for things like this. In reality, the shirts simply distinguish us from the others, since our faces are unknown and they don’t want any friendly-fire situations. But like I said, it’s not a jinx, just a joke.”
“Except for those two in Los Angeles,” Katie reminded him.
“You weren’t supposed to mention that.” Damian rolled his eyes and smacked Katie.
“Oh, sorry.” She chuckled.
Ella sat there listening with her hands clasped in her lap as her nervousness got worse.
She had thought about the fighting, the demons, and the exorcism, but she hadn’t thought about the danger. She hadn’t thought about the fact that by returning to New York, she would be put on a team where people died long before the others.
She didn’t want to be a redshirt. She wanted to go back to the main island and continue training.
These guys are seriously yanking your chain, Melneck assured her. You are freaking out for no reason. It’s just a damn shirt. There is no such thing as a jinx.
I thought that about demons, too, Ella shot back. But here I am with one inside me and many who want to kill me and eat my body.
Relax. He chuckled. Besides, you aren’t the redshirt. This is your team’s home base. Those two idiots across from you are the expendables.
Chapter 18
Katie sat down at the table in the main area of the base, looking over her shoulder at one of the other team members. He had just asked her on a date, and he hadn’t been the first to do so.
Three guys had asked her out so far, and although she turned them all down, the phenomenon did intrigue her a bit. It was a surprise; she wasn’t used to it. When she had been in college she’d gotten hit on all the time, but that was because she’d had a volleyball body and long flowing hair.
She had been surrounded by college guys then—back in what she called the “real world”—but she hadn’t even been looked at sideways since she had become Damned. Even the cops in Los Angeles hadn’t hit on her, although in all fairness they had been terrified.
“Hey,” Katie murmured to Damian as he ate his sandwich.
“Yes?” He looked up at her.
“So, several of the guys here have hit on me.” Katie leaned forward. “I’m not used to that. No one back home hits on me, like at all.”
“Yeah, it was bound to happen.” Damian smirked. “In Las Vegas they see you as a teammate, even more like a sister. These guys don’t know you, which makes you fresh meat.”
“Oh.” Katie grimaced at the analogy.
She went back to eating her food and thought about what Damian had said. While she was very thankful that the guys on her team thought of her that way, she never had realized there might be a possibility of a relationship inside their world. Her mind went to Korbin and Stephanie and their more-than-obvious attraction. Maybe there was a possibility for more with them, which was something Katie felt they both needed desperately in their lives. Just as Korbin ran through her head her phone rang, and it was him.
“Hey, boss,” she answered, licking a thumb and wiping it on her napkin.
“Is Damian with you?” he asked. The question produced a sinking fee
ling in her chest.
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard.
“Put this on speaker,” he directed.
“Damian.” She nodded to the phone in the center of the table. “Okay, Korbin go ahead. We are here.”
“I got an interesting email yesterday from the DEA,” he started. “Attached were three videos from the bank in Los Angeles that you two decided to play superhero in. They have been squashed, but the two of you need to be more careful when you decide to go all vigilante. If these videos had spread you could have been outed, and that would be bad for all of us.”
Katie didn’t like being accused of playing superhero, but she understood the gravity of the situation—especially if those tapes had been released.
It was obvious from Korbin’s tone that their identities had not been concealed at all. She started to think about her mother; about what it would have done to her to see her “deceased” child on a video fighting crime.
“Sorry, Korbin,” Katie told him sincerely.
“It won’t happen again,” Damian agreed, glancing at Katie.
“See that it doesn’t,” he ordered, and disconnected.
Damian didn’t say a word, just raised his eyebrows as he picked up his plate and walked away. Katie sighed and did the same, realizing that this was the first time in a week she had thought about her mom and her previous life.
Her brain hurt from it all, so she wandered around the house until she found the main TV area. It was empty and the lights had been dimmed.
She plopped down in a chair and pulled up the online archives of her soap opera. Pressing Play, she tossed the remote to the side and leaned her head back against the chair.
Before the opening credits had even finished, she heard someone enter the room. She lifted her head and looked over to find Ella in the doorway. She ran her hand down the doorframe and sauntered over, falling onto the couch. She propped her head up and looked at the screen and back at Katie, one eyebrow raised. Katie turned back to the soap and watched the show as the first scene played out.
