John’s body screams in protest as he forces his muscles to move, each shifting motion sending lactic burn pulsing through him.

  “How the fuck did someone get in?” He grunts through the pain, struggling to slip into his running shoes as he hobbles down the hallway with Casper just ahead.

  Casper punches the elevator's ground floor button. “Right now? We have no idea,”

  A few heartbeats later, the doors open to controlled chaos. Small units from the company fan out in search parties, while suits and other admins take to isolating locations to scan for evidence.

  Breaking in to this facility is no small feat—but to break in and not get caught instantly, and even get away with it is beyond impressive. Not to mention fucking dangerous for everyone here.

  The gates that lead to the compound are some of the most secure John has ever seen. How someone could get past the two walls, two guard towers, nearly a dozen other security positions such as watch towers and snipers is beyond him. Everyone's IDs are scanned and processed against the person's face, not to mention the number of silent security measures that had to be operating in the background that even John doesn’t know about.

  John knows Blackwood, there is a zero percent chance all it took to enter special areas was a keycard, there has to be elements he wasn’t told about specifically to intercept imposters or other bad actors infiltrating the location.

  Following Casper to the locker rooms has John nearly on his ass from the exertion. He leans against the metal, panting hard, kneading his muscles to will the burn away from them.

  “Fuck John, you need to get your drinking in order,” Casper grimaces, the already hard lines of his face cutting somehow harder as he gears up while eyeing John down.

  “I swear to god this hasn’t happened before, I’m usually good. That fucking bartender must have laced it.” John grimaces, and then stops himself as Casper stares through John’s skull.

  “What?”

  “The bartender, the new one in the T1 lounge. It was a joke.”

  “Fuck.” Casper slams the locker and pulls the bolt back on his rifle, chambering a round. “Get off your ass and gear the fuck up, now.” Casper demands, and John would have been a fucking idiot to ignore him.

  Strapping into his kit despite the protests from his body, John follows Casper outside, across the courtyard, to an annex building’s elevator, dropping them down several dozen feet underground to the compound's Tactical Operations Center.

  The TOC is buzzing with activity, the busy working bees taking a wide arc around Blackwood who sits at the star shaped tables head, the air around him damn near crackling from the storm of rage brewing.

  “John, tell Blackwood what you told me,” Casper calls out, positioning himself behind John, who suddenly feels very cornered.

  John tries to look around the room for assistance, but with suits and Casper to keep him company down here he doesn't think he'll be getting that assist any time soon.

  “The new bartender, in the T1 lounge, she must have spiked my drink?” John tries. He looks to Blackwood for some indicator, some response, but instead the man just stares past John towards Casper who nods.

  “Has to be.”

  “Wait wait, you’re telling me this bartender is the one who infiltrated us?” John spins around. “How?”

  “We don’t know John, and that's the fucking scary thing.” Blackwood points towards the collection of monitors on the screen. “We have zero and I mean zero blind spots, I made sure of that, yet she appears to simply fucking manifest into the T1 lounge at 6pm last night.”

  "No one caught it as it fucking happened?" John looks around to the sweating bodies sitting perfectly straight in high backed chairs.

  "The footage wasn't visible last night. We only have footage now."

  "Software ain't my specialty, Blackwood but even I know anyone capable enough to hack us and cover their tracks isn't giving us the footage of them breaking in. And what the fuck do you mean by manifest?"

  Blackwood's jaw sets hard as he turns around, and with a few looks queues up the screens in response. Its clear by the speed of it all, they have been looking at, and showing this footage all day.

  Manifest is an exceptionally odd word, but it’s also the only one John can think of that fits what he watches on the screen.

  Three cameras cover three possible points of entry into the facility. One on the front door, one on the service door, and the other with a wide angle view of the entire space. Additional camera angles cover the angles that lead into those points of entry.

  John watches as, in the literal blink of an eye, the bartender appears in the doorway, and walks behind the bar.

  She looks directly into all three cameras at once—each screen showing her impossibly divided focus, and gives each one a wave before taking her post, serving drinks to an unsuspecting Kane a few minutes later. She continues to serve drinks all night as if she's been doing it her whole life. She serves Kane and friends, follow by John and Bella, then just John for hours until he staggers back with Kane later that night.

  “Everyone else is fine, but you John, you say she spiked your drink. Why?” Blackwood continues.

  “I know I drink a lot but my body is fucked up this morning, I don’t have an ounce of strength in me...”

  “Blackwood, he is just a drunk. Could be unrelated.” Casper challenges, despite the fact that it was his fucking idea to bring up this particular point to Blackwood.

  “No.” Blackwood holds up a hand. “If John's drinking was going to impede his performance I wouldn't have let him on. He says he was spiked? It means he was probably spiked.”

  Casper nods and shares a look with John, who half wants to punch the man in the mouth but knows damn well that won't work very well.

  “That still doesn’t explain how she appeared in the middle of my fucking compound.” Blackwood grimaces, watching the tape over and over, slamming his fist on the table “And she is fucking mocking us.” He freezes it on her waving to the camera.

  “The shit we saw in the town. The devils, we can't pretend they aren't related.” Casper offers.

  “Of course they are related. John you told her damn near everything didn’t you?”

  John winces. “Yes sir,”

  “You aren’t in trouble son, this site is supposed to be secure. You are supposed to be able to talk to the staff about operations. There was no reason to believe anyone was compromised.”

  Blackwood stands in quiet contemplation, his eyes locked on the woman in the recording.

  The air hangs heavy with his silence, his mind likely working a million miles per hour, as is John's own.

  If this woman could teleport around without a care in the world, with the goal to gather intel, why not just steal the documents or the reports? Why make a big show of talking to him and the others? John thinks to himself. It could be a threat, maybe spiking John's drink was her way of saying 'I have you by the balls'? But if it was a threat why not make demands? The logic just didn’t add up.

  She not only waved to the cameras, talked to all of them for the information but she refused to go to bed with John. That would have been the nail in his coffin, if she wanted him dead she could have done it there without issue, so why. To what end was all of this for?

  “She wants us to find her.” John says the moment before Blackwood's lips part to likely say the same thing.

  Blackwood nods. “She is sending us a message, a message that she wants our attention.”

  “Could have just knocked on the front door to ask,” John grumbles.

  “Would we have listened?” Casper counters.

  Likely not, now that he thought about it. It was dangerous as hell but a guaranteed method of getting the entire staff of Blackwood’s PMC aware of her quickly and in a way that proves she is capable and powerful. If her goal is to do something about this anomaly, this was a bold and very straight shot to get the eyes and ears of the person at the top.

  “She wants our attention? She has it. Casper, gather the others, we are meeting on the tarmac, I want snipers on the roofs, get me birds in the air and keep eyes on cameras. I doubt this is a way to get us out of the compound but if she is stupid enough to make a play for anything then I want to know.”

  “Yes sir.” Casper nods, and walks with John out of the building.

  ***

  It's the slowest 10 minutes of John's life as he waits outside in full battle rattle along with the other members of the team, each one looking around for this mystery woman with a mix of emotions John doesn't want to begin to describe.

  Blackwood stands at their head, arms idly at his side, eyes scanning the tarmac.

  The heat cooks them in their gear, sweat building in a film around John’s brow. The ground itself shimmers, reflecting the Specter assault helicopters as they circle the compound.

  For a while, John doubts this mystery woman will appear, and after several more minutes he begins to consider the fact that they have been played. What other goals could this woman accomplish with everyone here on the tarmac? How does it benefit her to get people up in arms? If all of this is a play for—

  Black smoke appears, and is instantly disrupted as the familiar, outstandingly full figure of the bartender appears on the tarmac, her body apparating out of nothingness in a fraction of a second.

  It takes twice as long for John and the others to get their bearings, bringing their rifles up to train the woman in their sighs as she waves to all of them and offers a coy smile.

  Johns body runs cold, the heat of the air outside forgotten entirely under the icy rush of fresh adrenaline at the sight of this woman simply manifesting on the tarmac around them. She got inside of their base, she spoke to them. She has to know what they are capable of and in spite of the full weight of Blackwood's PMC bearing down on the area she is still confident enough to appear. This is a dangerous woman in more than one way and everyone knows it.

  “Is all of this really necessary?” She asks with no small amount of amusement.

  “I assure you—"

  "Lilith."

  I assure you, Lilith, it is... until we know what the hell is going on at least,” Blackwood responds.

  “Mmm.” She scans the horizon, eyes locking to each and every sniper they have positioned around her with an idle gaze. “Please, I am unarmed and utterly defenseless.” She brings her hands up and does a spin. Her skin tight red dress leaving very little to the imagination.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “We have encountered a number of anomalies before you Ma’am, safe to say we are well aware you don’t need a weapon to be dangerous,” Blackwood continues calmly.

  “Anomaly? I'm hurt...” She pouts her perfect lips and brings a hand to her chest in feign insult. “I’m not an ‘anomaly’ hun, I'm a devil.”

  “You’re the devil?” Blackwood narrows his eyes.

  “Thee? No no, dear ol’ Lucifer is stuck in the lowest pit of hells. I am not thee devil, I am a devil. One of many. I hear you encountered a sibling of mine oh... some odd miles off in that direction?” She points towards the town, her eyes never leaving Blackwood's.

  “God, she is gorgeous.” Kane whistles.

  “She is a spawn of Satan.” Bronco almost growls the words.

  “She is very beautiful.” Blackbeard nods along.

  “Men.” Bella rolls her eyes.

  “Oh can it, miss high and mighty, you agreed.” John retorts, though his trigger finger twitches against his rifle receiver. He hase to make jokes, or else the existential dread of it all will crush him.

  Bella looks off to the sky. “I did? Hmmm”

  “Don’t play dumb.”

  “Eyes up.” Casper orders, and the banter stops as they notice the woman looking directly at them.

  “I can help you deal with my sibling. He is a thorn in my side as much as he is a thorn in yours.”

  “And what do you want in return?” Blackwood asks, his tone level despite the sweat building at the back of his balding head.

  “What do I want? What a thoughtful question. In return for helping you mortals out, I'd like a little compensation in the form of souls.”

  “Souls?” Blackwood seems to hesitate.

  “Mhm, souls. The people you kill in your line of work go to me, I place a little charm on your weaponry, the dead come to me and I grow a little stronger.” She shrugs casually, as if the words she’s speaking aren’t the most absurd thing John has ever heard.

  John's always been a passively spiritual man, but he would never call himself religious. He never conformed to any one sect or one set of ideologies, instead he believed in a very abstract “higher power” as well as the possibilities of a good afterlife for good people and bad afterlife for bad people but nothing beyond a “feeling” really.

  Now, this woman who teleported before his eyes puts all too familiar proper nouns to names to the shit he saw in that town and it's making him uneasy.

  Souls... human souls as a currency. Human souls as a real, tangible thing that exist enough to be traded. It's earth shattering—his mind doesn't know how to process the information. It came out so casually, so matter o’ factly. No fanfare, no ground breaking revelation, just the words from this woman' mouth, a woman claiming to be a devil.

  “And how do we know you are telling the truth? What proof can you offer us that you are what you say you are, and not just some anomaly playing with words and powers she doesn’t understand?”

  “I can show you.” the bartender holds out her hand.

  “Show me what exactly?”

  “I can show you Hell, I can show you all Hell. A portion of it at least, if you want to come take a gander. Seeing is believing and all that for you mortals.”

  “And how do we know it won’t be an illusion? Some other mind altering trick.” Blackwood presses.

  “Oh trust me, you'll know.” She keeps her hand extended. “Come on, take a look with me. Let me prove it to you. You’ll get to see my natural form there too, don’t worry, it’s equally seductive.” she winks.

  “Blackwood, you can’t be serious about this?” Casper asks, watching as the man takes a tentative step forward.

  “Casper, what choice do we possibly have? I read the files, all of them. The best we could do is try and nuke the site but we all know that won’t happen. We do not have the payload to level the city, we do not have the men to deal with the threat that keeps regenerating. If we do not move soon then more people will disappear into that site and whatever the hell that man is making down there is going to get stronger. We are fresh out of options and I'm not one to turn down a hand delivered asset.”

  Casper frowns, tightening his grip on his gun. “Fine.”

  Blackwood extends his hand and takes another step forward.

  “If we have any hope of dealing with this anomaly, then we have to at least hear her out.”

  Their hands connect, and then Blackwood is gone, leaving the tarmac empty.

  John lets out a low breath.

  Did that man just make the biggest mistake of his life? Did Blackwood just kill himself by offering his hand to that woman?

  The tarmac remains empty for a time, though really it’s only seconds. John counts them, and by the time his internal clock hits thirty seconds, both the woman and Blackwood reappear.

  A scream pierces the air, a baleful, harrowing thing that rattles John to his very core.

  Blackwood collapses to the ground, his hands over his head, his eyes wide, his mouth agape and gasping for air as he stares into the sky.

  Casper sprints to grab the man, as does Kid and Spaz, each one bringing themselves around Blackwood while John, Kane, and Bella all bring their rifles up to the woman.

  “Really? He consented.” The woman rolls her eyes.

  CRACK

  FWTANG

  The sound of a rifle claps like thunder through the air, followed by the ricochet of a round hitting concrete as a bullet passes clean through the side of the woman's head, splattering her brains across the ground and sending her head off to the side at an odd angle.

  “Shit!” John looks around to see which fucking moron just killed what could have been their one ticket to solving this problem, but can’t keep his eyes to the surroundings for long, as she shakes her head, readjusts her broken neck, and wipes a hand around the grapefruit sized hole in the side of her skull—the skin and bone mending itself instantly, as well as cleaning the blood from her perfect skin.

  “That wasn’t very hospitable,” she frowns

  “Jesus Christ.” Kane mutters under his breath.

  The devil shrugs. “A good man, all things considered.”

  By now Blackwood is recovered enough to make words through his quivering voice. “Get her inside...”

  “Are you sure, Sir?” Casper asks, his whole body rigid, one hand palming his handgun at his hip.

  “Get her inside!” He orders, staggering to his feet.

  The old man's eyes are beyond haunted, his face slack, bags under his eyes, nearly every inch of him shaking violently in Casper's hands.

  “The fuck did you see down there?” John asks as they all begin to file in.

  Blackwood turns to look John in the eyes.

  No, he’s looking past John, his gaze so distant, it’s like the man John knew was no longer there at all.

  “I... I saw hell...” he says plainly, so plainly it makes John's soul sink away.

  ***

  The trip to the Tactical operations center is quiet... a stark, horrible quiet that no one dares break.

  Hell was real, and Blackwood had seen it. If John was curious at first, that feeling was quelled the moment Blackwood returned a haunted, broken man. John could save his curiosity until he got there himself at the end of the road.

  As terrifying a notion as it was, the knowledge that an afterlife was unequivocally real made him happy, happy that his wife would be in that much better place.

  Still, it was only a silver lining on a fire and brimstone category five hurricane that was still intent on barreling straight towards him.

  The devil, Lilith—which she makes a point to clarify has no relation to the first husband of Adam in the Jewish bible, but rather bears the same name as a point of devilish irony—is a succubus.

  This fun little fact explains the dream John had that night, a dream he was now all too eager to forget. Luckily no one seems to notice his nervousness, no one other than Lilith herself who makes it a point to wink at him as she drops that fact on the table before them, along with a laundry list of other shit John can barely begin to wrap his mortal mind around.

  The devil responsible for the events happening here in Iraq is the same devil who has continued to plague the area for the past two years. According to Lilith he goes by the name Bazil.

  Based on the facts she provided, checking them against their own gathered intelligence, Lilith confirms that his goal is very likely, complete control of the middle east.

  A devil can kill if it wants to but it gains very little benefit from it. Instead a devil's power comes from two things, the contracts they make and the number of souls in their domain. By making a contract with a human, a devil can do two things, set conditions for the transfer of souls, and give a mortal a right to deliver souls to their domain if the killings happen in the name of the contract signed.

  Additionally, most Devils possess an inherent resource unique to their domain, the closest English terminology being something akin to “Nether”, meaning to be positioned lower or underneath. This “Nether” of theirs acts as a source of power that allows them to create certain effects in the mortal world, such as empowering ritual circles, warping the minds of people, healing their physical bodies, teleporting, among a nigh uncountable number of other abilities.

  John's head is already spinning, and it seems to only get worse as Lilith details out how a devil can only truly die within hell itself, and that slaying a material body in the mortal world was an impossibility save for two conditions.

  “The first, is if the entity doing the killing is of heaven, such as an angel or its many other hierarchical names, or if the weapon is of heaven. Should an angel drop down their sword and a mortal manages to live long enough to wield it, they could slay the devil in the mortal world and it would stay dead.”

  “I don’t suppose you know any angels then?” Kid asks, the first of their team to talk since the fire hose of supernatural information. He leans way too far in, his excitement plastered over his face. Evidently he got over this quicker than the others.

  “Safe to say we don’t get along, hun.” She smiles innocently.

  Kid sighs and leans back, his excitement not wavering for even a moment. “Makes sense.”

  “The second way to kill a devil in the material, is through the use of Godslayer runes. I’ve managed to pick up a few tools of a variety of different trades and while I unfortunately don’t know the exact runes to rend souls to oblivion or fully kill a devil in the material, I can offer you enough runes to ensure your kinetic weaponry hurts a devil. Prevent instantaneous healing and ensure they are... injured.”

  “Injured and still healing doesn’t do us a lot of good, Miss Lilith.” Blackwood crosses his arms, evidently not impressed.

  “On the contrary, it will help me get the edge I need over him. Your weapons injure the devil, I can come in and offer him a contract, one that says I won't hunt him down in hell, one that will strip you of your runes, and in exchange he isn’t allowed back to the material world and I gain control of his mortal assets.”

  “Making a deal with a devil, so you get all his power? We are trading one enemy for another.” Casper scoffs.

  “No no! Not at all, I assure you my deal with you all will detail the terms of that material's disbandment. I have no interest in holding on to a mangled mess of body parts in a desert. The people will of course all die when the seals are broken but their souls will go to me, and you won’t have anything left to worry about here.”

  Blackwood rubs his face, he has since calmed down but still his body trembles slightly. “Not yet. We need to send the information to the DOD back in Washington, let them know the contract needs extending if they want us to actually deal with the problem.

  “Fucking hell Blackwood.” John sits back, his ears not believing what they just heard. The man was a patriot in his prime and now here he sits, having seen the real hell talking about needing more money before taking a shot at killing a real devil.

  John might be going to hell when he dies but Blackwood is nearing a tea party with Lucifer himself.

  Lilith offers a smile in response. “I’ll await your response then.” She produces a black business card, perfectly unmarked save for a single lipstick kiss on its matte surface. "You all still use these, right? Just give it a kiss and I'll know you want to talk."

  “We need to say your name three times while spinning around in a dark bathroom too?” Bronco crosses her arms.

  “Only if you want my other services.”

  Bronco rolls her eyes, and Lilith gives a rolling finger wave to John before she vanishes in a puff of smoke.

  A few eyes drift to him, namely Kane, Bella, and Casper.

  Holding his arms up defensively he shakes his head. “What?”

  “Did you sleep with her?” Bella asks casually.

  “Oh if you did you have to tell me how it was!” Kane cackles.

  “Did you?” Casper narrows his eyes.

  “No! I didn’t fucking sleep with her, Christ.” John rubs his hands through his hair and stands. “I’m gonna get some training in. I need something familiar after all this religious shit.”

  Without bothering to hear a response from the others, John heads straight for the locker room to gear up. He has some fucking targets to shoot, and thoughts of mortality to burn away with gunpowder.