by Michael Todd
“Well, sorry, fella,” Eric told the unconscious man. “Guess you were an innocent bystander. I have to say though, you got a set of lungs on you. I’m pretty sure they heard you screaming like an idiot all the way in Las Vegas.”
Eric stood back up and tossed the guy’s gum on his chest, looking around before grabbing his legs and pulling him behind the dumpster. The last thing he needed was someone looking down the alley and seeing a body.
What the girls were doing was already dangerous enough. He didn’t need extra attention because he’d knocked out some civilian who was probably taking cover from the girls inside.
The sound of glass breaking in the bar caught Eric’s attention and he thought about going in, but he really didn’t want attitude from the girls.
They had this. He knew it, but after knocking out an innocent person he felt the need to redeem himself by kicking demon ass. Still, he had promised to stay put. He knew one thing about Katie for sure: she had a reason for everything she did, even if it was to torture him and make him miserable.
After all, they were like brother and sister; it was her job to pick on his ass. He shrugged and walked to the SUV, reaching in and flipping off the lights. The moon was bright enough to see anyone coming out. He looked down at his watch and sighed.
“What the hell are they doing in there, anyway?”
“Come here, you rat bastard,” Stephanie shouted, grabbing one of the possessed by the collar and breaking a beer bottle over his head. “I didn’t come here for you, but I’ll take you nonetheless.”
Katie chuckled as she backed toward the bar. Two infected were eyeing her, and one took a step toward her. She wagged her finger at him.
“Nah ah ah,” she taunted. “You know the rules.”
“There are no rules,” the possessed growled.
“Exactly.” Katie coldcocked him as Stephanie ran up and knocked the other guy over the head with a bar stool. Katie winced. “That’s definitely going to leave a mark.”
Stephanie walked over and grabbed a cosmo off the bar.
“Sooo, how was your day?” Stephanie smiled.
“Well, I…” Katie frowned as Stephanie took off after a demon across the room. “Hey, I wasn’t done talking yet!” she called.
Katie shrugged and turned to the drinks on the bar. “Oh well, I’ll just do a little taste test.”
She moved down the bar, taking a sip of every drink along the way.
“Hmm, I give this one a seven out of ten. Good taste, terrible presentation,” she commented, looking at the bartender, who was cowering in the corner. “This one, though…” She tapped the rim of the glass. “I have to say, you hit the mark, my friend.”
“Heads up!” Stephanie shouted.
The bartender nervously nodded to Katie before jumping back as a demon-possessed flew over the bar, crashing into the wall and dropping to the floor.
Stephanie laughed and jumped onto the pool table, kicking a man in the face in mid-leap. She picked up the cue ball and chucked it across the room, nailing a red-eyed woman in the back of the head and wincing as she broke a table on her way to the floor.
“Whoops.”
Katie moved down to another drink and wiggled her eyebrows at the bartender. She stirred it with the straw and took a sip, but immediately spat it out and wiped her mouth.
“Holy hell, what was that?”
“G-g-gin,” the bartender stuttered.
“Oh, Christmas trees in a glass. Got it.” She glanced at someone crawling across the floor, trying to stay in the shadows. “And who do we have here?”
The man, who was wearing a dress shirt and pants, crawled rapidly toward the back door. Katie walked forward and stepped on his leg, tilting her head sideways. The man straightened and put his hands in the air.
“Please,” he whimpered.
That’s him, Pandora told her. And I can’t believe you don’t like gin. If you had the good kind, I promise it wouldn’t taste like Pine Sol.
I don’t really want to spend the money to find out. Katie leaned down and grabbed the guy’s collar. “Come here a minute, buddy, I want to ask you a few questions about the campaign contributions you’ve been taking over the last few months.”
The guy whimpered, his feet dangling as Katie lifted him into the air. He didn’t say a word, just choked on his own spit, terrified of what was going to happen. Katie sighed and shook her head, reaching into his jacket pocket and flipping open his wallet to see his ID.
“Yep, it’s you all right, and I have to say, you take a good driver’s license picture,” she said. “Good for you, I just look like I have seven chins and I walked through a hurricane to get there.”
A loud crash behind her made her cringe and the politician’s eyes darted past her. Stephanie was still taking care of the riffraff—which was fun and all, but Katie’s stomach was growling. Katie smiled at the guy and looked at Stephanie, who was finishing up the last demon in the group.
“We got the rat,” Katie yelled to her. “Time to go.”
“I was just starting to have fun,” Stephanie responded, breaking a pool cue over a barely conscious demon. “Just five more minutes. Please, Mom?”
“Nope. Pull them together for a fast extraction, then time to hit the road.” Katie chuckled. “But first, me and this guy have a little bit to talk about.”
“I swear I don’t know what you are talking about,” he whined. “I didn’t take any contributions.”
“Really?” she replied, pulling a piece of paper out of her back pocket. “It says here you took over a million dollars from a fund for sick kids. Well, that’s just fucked up, but I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t?” he whimpered.
“No,” Katie replied, looking at him with red eyes. “I blame your demon.”
“You are so theatrical.” Stephanie laughed as Pandora’s demon arm came out of Katie’s chest.
Stephanie looked at the bartender to give her some backup, but all he did was pass out behind the bar. Stephanie pursed her lips and sighed, jumping down from the table.
The demon Pandora was sending back to hell screamed and begged. It really didn’t want to go. When the demon was gone the politician passed out cold and Katie let go, letting him fall to the floor.
“Hey, where’s my bartender?” Katie asked.
“He passed out.” Stephanie jerked a thumb at the space behind the bar as she sat down and started popping pretzels into her mouth. “I guess he couldn’t take anymore.”
“Too bad.” Katie sat next to her and sipped the drink in front of her. “Humans these days! Oh, wait, didn’t one run out of here earlier?”
“I got him.” Eric kicked a body out of the way as he looked around. “Damn, you took out the whole bar.”
“They wouldn’t give him up.” Stephanie shrugged and picked up a cherry. “You gotta do what you gotta do. How was alley duty?”
“Fine,” Eric wiped the blood off a barstool with a napkin. “I think I now have rabies and tetanus, but hey—at least I’m alive, right?”
“So, are we off to dinner before Pandora has a complete meltdown?” Katie asked.
“Yes, I’m starving!” Stephanie jumped up and headed for the door.
“You guys go grab the car. I’ll be out in a second,” Katie told them.
She went to each of the unconscious possessed and yanked their demons out. Why the hell they had all chosen this establishment, she wasn’t sure. Only two were merely human.
She walked back behind the bar and wrote a thank you on a napkin before shoving it into the bartender’s pocket. She propped him against a stepstool and put a balled-up coat behind his head, then stood back with her hands on her hips and nodded in approval.
“Sorry, buddy. You were really brave there for a second.”
Several cops busted through the front door with their guns drawn.
“Hey, hey!” Katie put her hands up. “I think you guys know me.”
“Guns down, boys,” the lea
d cop ordered. “It’s the D Squad.”
“Most these people are just unconscious now; all the demons have been removed,” she told them, popping a cherry in her mouth. “This guy, though…he gets VIP treatment, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The cop chuckled.
“You boys have fun now, you hear?” She waved as she walked toward the back door. “Oh, and this one?” She nudged one comatose body. “He’s a politician. A big one, but he won’t be going back to the Hill for a while, most likely. I heard he voted against police raises anyway.”
Katie disappeared out the back door, leaving the half a dozen cops shaking their heads as they stepped over unconscious bodies.
“All right, boys, spread out,” the lead cop said. “We got a lot of people to see to.”
“Damn!” one of the cops exclaimed. “This guy was punched in both eyes, and he is still holding onto his ‘nads.”
“Right, left, kick in the junk?” his partner asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s definitely my favorite move,” the cop replied. “Poor guy is gonna be hurting when he wakes up.”
“Wait!” His partner looked at the pool table. “Is that guy wearing a tutu?”
Everybody chuckled, moving the furniture around to clear a way for the EMTs to get through when they got there. The captain walked into the place and looked at the guy in the tutu on the table, two pool balls placed right next to each other between his legs. He sighed and looked at the lead cop.
“Let me guess…the D squad was here.” He chuckled through his long curly mustache. “At least they have style when they break up a bar full of people. How many were there? Six or seven?”
“Uh, no,” the lead cop said. “It was just two of them. Maybe three, but we heard two female voices when we were coming in.”
The captain let out a long whistle. “I need these girls on the force. Whip you idiots into shape. All right, get this mess cleaned up, I’ll figure out a story, because I don’t think the guy holding his balls is going to believe a gas leak made them pass out when he wakes up.”
“Probably not,” the lead cop agreed, holding back a laugh. “But the truth isn’t very likely either.”
“Too true.” The captain looked around one last time before walking out the door. “None of this is believable anymore.”
Chapter 3
General Brushwood looked out the window as his helicopter touched down on the landing pad.
A short skinny man with thick-rimmed glasses and a white coat stood next to two armed guards, waiting for the general to exit the helicopter. He sighed, grabbed his hat, and swung open the door. He hated dealing with the scientists; they were always so clingy and nerdy. Still, he was at Research Base 221 for a reason, and it wasn’t the vibrant nightlife in southern Louisiana.
It was the main research base for the demon-related research. Demons were rife in the area.
The general stepped out of the helicopter and shook the scientist’s hand as they hurried across the helipad. The general saluted the two guards at the entry to the building and was ushered inside, then into an elevator.
The activity that went on in the building was top secret, and most of it happened hundreds of feet below the surface. From the outside it looked like a normal office building, but that was just a façade.
“Doctor Dolt, it’s good to see you,” the general started as the elevator doors closed. “I expect you have been busy.”
“Oh, yes,” he replied excitedly. “Examining the demons’ blood has been very educational.”
“And what exactly are you looking for?” the general asked.
“Well, first we had to make sure that we understood the complexity of the human RBC, sir,” he began, then noticed at the general’s lifted eyebrows. “The human red blood cell, that is. Anyway, the RBC is biconcave, meaning that it has a disc shape to it; a discocyte, which can bend when going through our smaller capillaries. Now, we know our blood cells can be infected, and are subject to changes due to genetic deformations and the like. We started out by studying these with different testing devices and through controlled experiments. Then came the fun part: we redid all the trials and tests with demons’ blood.”
The elevator door opened and Dr. Dolt gestured the general into the hallway, walking quickly to catch up with him.
They took several turns through the long corridors and stopped outside a glass-fronted room. The general looked through the window at several scientists in all-white suits, who were doing various things including taking blood from possessed humans strapped to tables. These humans were the ones that couldn’t be saved; the ones who had lost their reason.
They were starting to fully morph into their demon.
“Our specimens have been fantastic,” the doctor said. “They have provided us with some really great samples.”
“And what do you do with those samples?” The general asked as he squinted through the glass.
“Well, we run them through the atomic force microscope, we splice them with optical laser tweezers, and really, a whole slew of procedures. We subject them to normal twists and turns, and to abnormal external stress.”
“And?” the general asked.
“Well, did you ever make a homemade lava lamp with oil and water when you were a kid?”
“Yes,” the general answered.
“When the bubbles move up and down in the oil, they bend with the shape of the glass,” he explained. “They are oblong and transparent, and they look like if you held them in your hand they would be harder on the outside than on the inside.”
“Okay, sure,” the general replied, understanding what he was hearing for the first time since he arrived.
“If you were to pump one through a tube, the bubble would conform to the shape of the tube and bounce back when it came out the other side,” he explained. “That’s the human RBC, only red in color and very small. Now, a demon cell is more of a jelly-bean shape. It doesn’t conform as easily to a smaller space; it would stretch out. Over time, the human RBC, with the right pressure from the demon, starts to look like that.”
The scientist pointed to a woman strapped to a bed. She was fighting the cuffs on her arms and her face was distorted: her mouth wide, her eyes bulging, and her tongue almost black. The tips of her fingers were dark like they had been frostbitten, and on the end were talons.
“Her cells are morphing her body,” the scientist explained. “They will ultimately kill the human body.”
“And trap the soul,” the general muttered.
“Well, we don’t believe in the soul here.” The doctor chuckled. “But yes, in essence; it traps the human brain inside.”
“How do we kill it?” the general finally asked, turning to the doctor.
“That’s what we are trying to figure out, because that jelly bean—it isn’t affected by outside influences,” the scientist replied. “Not yet, at least. We are trying to find an injectable that will do the trick; something that once it is in the bloodstream, the demon dies. Of course, this will kill the human too, most likely. But the human is completely gone at that point anyway.”
“So you are looking for demon cyanide.” The general glanced at the woman again. “Kryptonite for the demons. You are trying to find a way to infect the infected.”
“Precisely,” the doctor said, relaxing a bit. “And when we do, we should be able to find a cure for the rest of the Damned; the ones who haven’t been taken over.”
“Right.” The general nodded. “If that is even possible.”
Joshua stepped out of his van and looked out across the new landscape. This was his new home; a feeling that he wasn’t sure he liked. He had never been very good with change. His “issues,” as his mom called them, or “gifts,” as Stephanie called them, gave him a bit of anxiety when it came to differences in his environment.
Still, he had fought demons, ferchrissake! He could handle a new building, especially knowing that all of his things were set up and r
eady for him inside. The place wasn’t finished, but the base structure for his workspace was complete, and that was enough for him.
He could make it feel like home later.
Joshua looked at the two girls he’d brought with him and nodded, gesturing to the building in front of them.
They clapped and shouted, excited to get to work in the new space. He fumbled with the keys as he walked to the door, finally putting the key in the lock before entering the security code on the pad next to the door.
When the green light came on, he put his thumb on the scanner and waited to hear the door lock click. He turned the key and slowly opened the door, revealing a wide-open space covered in white tile. His equipment, shined up like new, waited for him.
He closed the door behind them and locked it again, setting his things on the table just inside. The girls walked around in awe, as if they were in a foreign land.
Joshua chuckled. He loved seeing that; it helped him feel like he wasn’t the only one who was looking at everything like it was the first time.
“Check this out.” Joshua smiled as he walked over to another keypad.
He pressed his code in and stood back as a hatch in the floor opened. Slowly a platform moved upward, filling the space. The girls frowned, unsure what the big deal was.
“Is that an elevator?” one of the girls asked.
“No. Gosh,” Joshua chuckled, “I would never fit in there.”
“Me neither,” she said with relief. “Then what is it?”
“It will have the cabinet for the finished work on it,” he explained. “We designed it to keep as much of our work underground as possible. Whenever I finish a piece I’ll bring the cabinet up, load it, and send it back down for safekeeping in an underground chamber. It’s not finished yet, of course. They are struggling to get through the shafts because of the ventilation, but it keeps us that much safer.”
“That’s brilliant.” She nodded and bent down to look closer.
“Well, here we are.” Joshua rubbed his hands together and headed over to his workspace, turning on the machines as he passed them. “Let’s get to work. These demons aren’t going to wait on me.”
