XV

Screams fill the air from both the projected screen and the audience as the soldiers either laugh or hide after watching the killer slice the character's Achilles tendon.

“Why do we always have to watch scary movies?”

Sauda looks to the left to see Malik wrapped up in Ashleigh’s arm, hiding his face.

“After all we’ve seen, you're still scared of the boogeyman?” Sauda asks him.

“In my defense,” he says, uncurling himself from his partner. “We’ve only battled Demons one time, and I repressed most of it.”

“This movie isn’t even about Demons. It’s ‘House of Wax’ and there’s not a scary movie that you aren’t afraid of,” Ashleigh laughs.

“I plead the fifth.”

The door swings open, shining a light on the projector screen, and everyone looks to the culprit. Specialist Smith comes in with his hands stretched out in apology. He trudges back to his seat next to Adorna.

Swiftly, before he can escape. Adorna grabs out and pulls him into her lap and wraps her arms around him.

“Oh!” his face is pale and his lips wide in an o. “ha. Okay.”

He tries to get up, but Adorna's grip doesn’t even let him budge. Ashleigh just pats his head, as if saying, “poor baby”.

He smiles but the corners of his mouth go straight instead of up, making that crying Chrissy Teigen face. He taps her hand to let him up, but Adorna’s ignoring it.

“I like you, Smith,” Adorna purrs, absentmindedly rubbing his arm, enjoying teasing him. “You’d make an excellent fourth.”

At that, Smith struggles even more and Adorna loosens her arms just enough for him to have room to wiggle but not get away.

“Enough,” Ashleigh reaches over and pinches Adorna. “Let him go. He doesn’t want to date you, and you’re making me jealous.”

“Says the woman with a boyfriend and a bonded.” Adorna grumbles, pouts and lets him up. “Fine.”

As soon as she opens up, he scrambles out on his hands and knees like a scared animal, before standing up and straightening his shirt. He doesn’t look anyone in the eyes, and his face is red. Eyes and lips tight. Adorna rubs the spot where she was pinched while she smiles.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he says. He quickly dashes out and Sauda can smell the dark rage coming from him. If Sauda would have caused that rage in him, her Father would feast upon it.

“Bad Succubus,” Sauda smiles.

“I was just cuddling—”

“There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away,” Malik corrects.

“You don’t seem to mind,” Adorna comes back.

Malik turns to look at the screen smiling and Ashleigh pats his arm.

“This movie isn’t that bad.”

Everyone looks in front of them and Sauda’s eyes fall on the back of Kang Dae’s head as he sits a step below them.

As soon as they entered the entertainment room, Sauda instantly took the only open spot in the back between Jinn and Ashleigh, leaving Kang Dae to sit by himself.

Only an hour ago, she found out he was her fiance, and though she walked away from Raum hand-in-hand with Balaam, it was still too awkward to keep up the pretense. Years after not even talking to him, they were suddenly on their way to marital bliss. The second she could, she lost face and distanced herself from him. Now she sat with Elaheh tucked into her lap.

Sauda strokes the white baby hairs at Elaheh’s temple as they enjoy the movie.

“What do you say, little one? Enjoying the movie?” Sauda asks her.

Elaheh nods, tipping her head back and smiling at Sauda. “I’m learning a lot of new things. I’ve done that once, cut through a tendon, but never with a pair of scissors. It seems easier.”

“Well,” Sauda pats her head, “the next time we have a mission to interrogate someone, I will let you try. We have bolt cutters.”

“They talk about this kind of thing like it’s normal. Like trying a new flavor of ice cream,” someone whispers. No doubt a human.

Elaheh looks back to the movie and Sauda places a kiss on her temple as she squeezes her tight and focuses on the movie herself.

It was always like that with Elaheh, for everyone. She was the strongest and most dangerous being currently in the United States top-side and in hell, but still she was treated as a small fragile child. Sauda even saw some of the humans cuddling her, and Elaheh loved every bit.

Being born and raised in the slave pits of Ancient Persia, there was no kind of childhood, and now that she was free and safe, she could enjoy being a child even though she was thousands of years old.

Once, Sauda asked her why she remained a slave even though she was stronger than her captors and Elaheh was tragically honest. “I wasn’t always this strong,” she explained, “and they ingrained it in me I was a slave and the lowest of the low for centuries. It’s hard to shake that, even now. Plus… I enjoyed the bloodshed and the praise. The crowd chanting my name was a high. Playing with my prey, or defeating a well-matched foe… the way I could kill someone… “

And because of the look on her face, no one brought up her slave days again. Ever since then, everyone loved her and spoiled her. Letting her enjoy the childhood she never had.

Sauda leans back into her pillows and settles Elaheh more into her arms, enjoying the relaxation and letting go of the stress and worry about the upcoming La Muerte collision.

Then a scream rips through the air, but not from the screen.

Everyone scrambles up, looking around the room. The shriek of the intercom coming on makes some of them jump.

“Oh no! Please, no!” roared through the underground base. They could hear the sounds of a female sobbing and then something scraping. Sauda knew that was the sound of talons scratching bone.

“Tell them what’s happening,” someone else says. The voice is deep, like three voices speaking at once, the voice of a possessed person. Sauda listens closely to hear the human voice.

“Go on,” they chuckle, “tell them.”

The voice was soft beneath the demon voices. All that mattered to her was that it wasn’t Jordan’s voice. She sighs with relief.

“He’s… killing us.”

“Good girl.”

There's another scream that's abruptly cut off, and they know the sound of bubbling is her blood spilling out.

“Captain,” the Demonic voices laugh. “Come collect the bodies I’m leaving you.”

The sound of a zipper comes and Sauda turns to see Adorna stripping and transforming. Sauda grabs the gun in her onesie’s kangaroo pocket and starts walking to the door, feeling several people following her.

“Come see me at the elevators.”

Quickly, with both hands on her gun but pointed at the ground, Sauda makes her way to the elevators. She can still hear the movie playing and the voices of all those wondering what’s going on.

They’re at the corner before the sign-in desk in view, and it’s easy to smell the sweet iron stench of blood. Sauda raises her gun, aiming. Ready to go around the blind corner.

It’s a simple scene. Bodies line the elevator again, blood snaking down the hallway. What knocked Sauda off track was Specialist Smith standing in front of the bodies.

First, her body wants to react, aiming the gun to another enemy to protect Smith, but the jagged talons attached to his gray fingers, and the fangs shining from his teeth say that he doesn’t need protection.

This was more than a possession. This was a man who paid a heavy price to willingly have his body taken over by a Demon. It wasn’t like an astral projection. This was a true possession where the Demon literally took over a body, his power and soul stripping every bit of human from the body and replacing it with theirs.

Most humans lost themselves completely, and it obliterated even their consciousness. A smaller amount still live on in their bodies, becoming fully aware passengers. And then there were a rare breed of humans so strong that they kept control of their bodies and gained the powers and the life span of a Demon while the Demon’s soul dies away.

Smith smiles widely at them. “We seem to have a problem—”

“Will shooting you solve it?”

Sauda doesn’t turn around to look at Adorna, and Smith doesn’t pay attention to her.

“I may have killed an elevator full of people.”

“You seem pretty unsure about that, even though you’re covered in body parts,” Adorna mumbles.

Sauda looks closer, and he has skin and meat hanging from his talons, and caught between his teeth. Some human tissue falls off of his chin.

“There it is!” Smith laughs. He shakes his hands, getting rid of everything clinging to them. “That smart ass mouth of yours. I’m so sick of you and your…” Smith sneers at them, spittle flying from his mouth as he yells. “You can run faster, hit harder, turn the fucking air solid, without working for any of it.”

“It sucks, right?” Adorna asks, stepping in front of Sauda. “Being the best of the best at everything and then coming here and there’s a whole other tier of greatness that you can’t even reach.”

“Oh, but I can reach it. La Muerte has given it to me. The key to it all. Strength and power. From the moment I sold my soul, I had each and everyone of you in the palm of my hand. “Even you, Captain.”

“Alright. That’s enough. Can I kill him?” Adorna asks.

Sauda sucks her teeth. “Damn, I did like him. What a shame… don’t kill him yet. We need to know what Demon is in there and whatever else he may know about La Muerte.”

“Ah! Talking about me like I’m not even here!” Smith points his taloned hand towards them. “You think you’re above us humans. So high and mighty, looking down on us! Giving us compliments like we’re babies who are finally learning how to do something! Do you even know my first name?”

Sauda didn’t.

“Throwing a tantrum now, little baby?” Adorna smirks. She takes a few steps closer to him, and the sneer on his face shatters away.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to go messing with Demons?” Adorna asks, taking another step forward. “And now, it looks like I’m going to have to spank you like ya mama should have.”

Smith takes a step back, tripping over the dead woman at his feet but staying upright. He puts his hands up to fight.He flinches when his new nails stab at his hands when he tries to make a fist.

Adorna smiles at him, getting into his reach, and he knocks her head back as he punches her. This was the first time Sauda has ever seen a human make her stumble after punching her. No one moves in shock.

“Oh my God… I actually punched her.”

Adorna doesn’t give him time to celebrate, quickly she strikes, punching him on the side of his face. He instantly crumples to the ground.

“That was anticlimactic,” Sauda says, putting her gun back in her pocket. “I thought he’d put up more of a fight and you’d play with him a little more.”

“He pissed me off,” Adorna ruffed.

“Alright. Let’s get him, cut him up a little, and find out what he knows. Elaheh, go try out that scissor thing. Never say I never gave you nothin’.”

Elaheh grabs the edge of Sauda’s pajamas, tugs, and smiles when Sauda looks down. “Thanks.”