Demon Accords 6: Forced Ascent (15 page)

My regular readers know what I’m referring to: the huge upswing in violent unexplainable crimes, the vast number of events worldwide that are obviously being covered up by our governments.  My theories are that our own efforts to unravel the mysteries of the universe may have instead unraveled walls and barriers that were never supposed to be breached.  The result: incursions from beyond.  Visitations from Hell.  Don’t believe me?  Do a simple Google search.  Or several.  Go ahead… I’ll wait.  Because I know what you’ll find.  Stories about mothers killing children, children killing children, fathers killing their whole families, and whole families being killed in inexplicable ways.  You’ll also find a huge upswing in gas explosions, disease outbreaks, mental illness, chemical contamination, and a whole lot of other bullshit explanations from our friendly elected officials.  My personal belief is that we’ve allowed demons into our world.  Grandma calls them danava.

I’ve been documenting these for months, but the most recent case was yesterday, deep in the Jersey Pine Barrens, the spooky forests famous for the Jersey Devil.  Another unexplained murder scene, two hunters, butchered and mauled beyond recognition.  If you cover enough of these crimes, you get a feel for how the police are handling each case.  How shaken the officers are, how likely they feel that they will catch the murderer.  So you can tell instantly when they’re in over their heads and know it.  The unmasked horror in their eyes, the nervous awareness of their surroundings, as if they too might be attacked.  Crimes so bad that they have to call in outside help.  This was the sixth time I’ve seen professional law enforcement so rattled that they brought in special consultants.  There’s a team they call, and they’re deceiving in appearance. They look like they belong on a movie set instead of actual crime scenes. They travel with an honest to God wolf and they’re some of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, but my contacts tell me they’re the real deal.

  Mostly the same set of people show up, although that depends on the time of day.  Crimes like this generally happen at night, and that’s when the whole team is there.  In the two instances when it was daylight, a much smaller group was present.  You’ll see them in the attached photos, photos that are very hard to come by.  Cameras go on strike when they’re nearby.  Of almost fifty-four attempted shots, we’ve only managed to get six clear pictures and only one video shown below. 

  There’s one subject who is always there, maybe their leader although I’m not sure that’s right.  But he’s the key.  His name is Chris Gordon and he used be a cop.  Once he arrives, the whole scene changes.  The foreboding, the overriding feeling of impending doom and overt evil disappears.  Cops stop looking over their shoulders, technicians stop jumping, and the bosses breathe a collective sigh of relief.  It’s palpable, an actual sensation that one experiences when he goes into these Hellholes and does whatever he does.  Sometimes there’s gunfire, but no one reacts. Professional cops in the midst of an active crime scene and they don’t react to gunfire.  Explain that.  I can’t.

So yesterday was another one.  Deep in the Barrens in the dark of night.  A chill of the soul that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the gruesome scene of horror.  Having a veritable army of cops on hand was scarcely a comfort, and since when do SWAT teams show up at murder investigations anyway?  When does the head of NJSP Special Operations run a crime scene? 

But along came the demon hunters, arriving in a big black SUV with tinted windows and a very pale driver.  Into the crime area they disappear and suddenly more gunfire, and while the cops keeping reporters at bay jumped a little, there was very little commotion.  Until the US Navy dropped a Tomahawk missile into the middle of the whole situation.

The press was being held back several hundred yards from the scene, but had that missile gone off, we’d all likely be dead.  Something stopped that missile and something kept it from exploding. Was God watching over us?  Sure felt that way to me and my fellow reporters.  I can’t tell you what happened, but I can damn well tell you that I don’t think there’s a chance in Hell it was a coincidence. Nor was the crash landing of a US satellite into the same part of the ocean that the missile was launched from.  I’m no expert and I have no proof, but it looks like someone took a shot and missed and someone else fired back.

I know what you’re thinking… why would the government try to kill its own citizens?  What if it was trying to kill just one?  Okay, you say, why kill the guy who keeps solving problems?  Maybe the powers that be don’t like others having power that they lack.

Several other little snippits for your consideration.  A black military Humvee showed up with black suit types.  They were still there after the missile hit.  And their Humvee… it’s the same one in the vampire Youtube video linked below. 

I don’t know who Chris Gordon is, or even what he is, and he seems to keep very dangerous company (see same Youtube video), but I’m starting to think he’s on our side.  Thank God someone is. Stay tuned.

“She jumps to a whole lot of conclusions without offering any real evidence,” I commented.  “No one is going to believe this.”

Stacia shook her head, sending her platinum locks swinging.  “No. See, you’d have to go back and read her earlier posts.  They all build on one another, and the demon from an open portal to Hell thing is common.  She wrote one article about a town in upstate New York that was overrun with demon-like things till the government stepped in.  The cover story was a chemical spill.”

“Wait. Didn’t Nathan Stewart tell us about that one?  Something to do with elves?”

“And goblins, which could easily be mistaken for demons, at least from what Stewart said.  So she’s got a good instinct for which stories are real.  She covered all of the New York City portals that you’ve closed and many of the others around the country.  This is the first time she’s offered up your name and picture.  Actually all our pictures.  Combined with the rest of the missile story and the video of Tanya, and she’s got a whole slew of believers.  Just read some of the comments.”

I did, and she was right.  The conspiracy nuts were out in force, but this time they were right.

Stacia was wrinkling her nose at me.  “You’re pretty sweaty.  Those clothes are gonna stink.  Got any others with you?”

“Some tees, some underwear, and a pair of cargo shorts is all that’s in my go bag.”

“Go put the shorts on if you’re going to keep up the lumberjack impression.  I asked Marnie if I could do a load of laundry, so give me your clothes and I’ll get the others’ stuff.  They won’t even wake up,” she said.

A few minutes later, I came back to her in just shorts and work boots, handing her my sweaty clothes. She smirked as I handed her my dirty clothes, making a show of looking me up and down.

“What the hell is up with your belt?  It weighs a ton,” she said, hefting the length of leather as she pulled it from the belt loops of my jeans. 

“It’s my ammo belt,” I said, pulling first a quarter then a fifty-cent piece from the specially constructed slots. 

She nodded.  “Yeah, I remember what you can do with those.  The fitty centers must be for killer whales and elephants.”

I got busy cutting the logs to stove length as she left to round up the rest of the laundry.

Normally I’d use a chain saw, but Jimmy’s was nowhere to be found and I would have felt funny using it without permission anyway.  Axes are one thing, but using a man’s power tools without permission is something else entirely; at least that’s how my Gramps taught me.

So I cheated.  A little mono-edge around the edge of my hand and voila, the perfect cut without much effort.  No one was around and I made short work of the pile of logs Jimmy must have dragged in with a tractor. I heard the bus pull up out front, but I was safely hidden by the barn. With more to split, I went back at it.  A few minutes later, or so it seemed, I was suddenly aware of watchers.  Lydia and Tanya were standing motionless in the dark of the barn, watching me, and the daylight was fading. Stacia was back on the tractor seat, watching as well, the little notebook computer set on the hood of the New Holland. Wood was mounded around me in tumbled piles, all smelling like fresh cut lumber. Time flies when you’re having fun.

“Ah, hi,” I said to the two in the shadows.  Tanya smiled and Lydia shook herself a little, then grinned at me. 

“Hey now, don’t stop on our account,” Lydia said, winking.  “We like to see a man working hard… it’s so uncommon these days.”

Caught off guard and mentally empty from all the splitting, I tried to find a comeback but was saved by two pair of footsteps coming around the barn.  A few seconds later, the teen children rounded the corner tentatively, coming to a complete stop when they spotted me.  The girl was carrying a laundry basket and her brother had a plastic milk jug of what looked like tea and a glass.  The girl dropped the basket, which luckily didn’t spill, her mouth forming a little
O
as her eyes got big.  Her brother looked shocked, then frowned, his eyes darting from me to the piles of split wood.

“Our mother sent us out with these for you and I need to get my computer back to do homework,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice that sounded peeved.

“Ah, thanks.  Lisa over on the tractor has your netbook,” I said, pointing.  It was his turn to get slack-jawed at the sight of the blonde leaning back in the driver’s seat with her legs slung over the steering wheel.

“Sure, it’s right here, but the battery died a few minutes ago,” she said with a smile, swinging her legs over and jumping down to the ground.  Stacia jumping is a beautiful thing and the boy’s mouth dropped even lower.

“Computer?  Could we maybe borrow that again later, after you’ve done your homework?” Tanya asked from where she was now—about ten feet to their left.  They both jumped and their eyes got even bigger.

“Ah, sure you can bbborrow me, I mean my computer, later, or now or whenever you like,” he stuttered, shifting his feet.

“Later is fine.  Please thank your mother for us,” I said, taking pity on the kid.  He nodded and turned to leave, pushing his sister along with him. 

Lydia picked up the basket of clothes, looking suspiciously at the pile. “Hey, some of these are mine,” she said.

“We don’t have a lot of clothes and I didn’t want to waste an opportunity,” Stacia said, moving into the barn.  “But the papers are all in here and you’ll want to take a look at them.”

I grabbed the jug of tea before following the others into the dim light of the barn.

Inside, we found the newspapers Marnie had bought stacked on the hood of the Rally Sport. An old table had been dragged from one corner to hold some opened pages, articles of interest circled in pencil.

“Okay, first, here is a printout of Chris’s girl reporter’s blog.  Then there’s a couple of other interesting bits. 
The Washington Post
and the
New York Times
both have pictures taken from the Youtube video of you, Tanya, beating up that Hummer.  The video went viral and the articles both comment to the claim of vampires although no mainstream reporter has offered any opinion about the existence of real vampires.”

“Okay, T, you know that’s gonna get your grandmother’s panties in a wad.  How are we going to handle it?” Lydia asked.

“The coverage means that the Coven has joined the hunt, at least from the shadows.  The normal procedure would be to send Rovers to bring us in.  I’d rather pick the time and place myself, not them,” Tanya replied.

“Will they follow normal procedure?  I mean, they gotta know that Chris can just age the crap out of any Rover team sent, right?” Trenton asked from the back of the barn.  He and Arkady were just coming up from below.

“By now, they know about DU and its blocking effect on aura, so I don’t think that will stop them,” I said.

“So
we
make sure that we have the initiative in any meeting, not them.  It’s time for vampires to come out of the shadows.  If we continue to force the issue, Senka will have to bring Darkkin into the light, if only to control the fallout and the public image.  Maybe we can use Chris’s pet reporter,” Tanya said.

“She’s not
my
reporter, pet or otherwise,” I said.  They ignored me.

“Good idea. I have her phone number,” Stacia said.

“They are watching her for sure,” Arkady rumbled.  “Not good approach.”

“So how else do we get to her?” Lydia asked.

“She’ll be at the next portal outbreak or if Brianna-from-Hell wastes anyone, then she’ll likely show up.  We could disguise ourselves and sneak past her watchers,” I suggested.

Everyone looked at me for a moment.  “Just when I’m absolutely sure he’s just a box-headed, vamp boy-toy, he goes and says something that sounds almost useful,” Lydia said.

“Hush up you or I’ll stuff you back in your Disney collectable box and put you back on the toy store shelf,” I replied.

“Oooh, been saving that one up for a while now, huh?” she replied.

Actually, I had.  I opened my mouth to shoot back and Tanya sighed, giving us both the
grow up already
look.

“Disguises are a must.  Too much facial recognition software around these days and too many cameras.  Also, no phone calls for any reason.  Both the feds and the Coven have voice recognition programs scanning the NSA databanks.  We’ll just have to go with old-fashioned spy craft, huh, Arkady?”