Demon Bound

dismay.
    “And it started grabbing us. Not the kids. There were eight of us left after the lieutenant—but it didn’t mow through us like it had the village. It’d pick our guy up, then take him out where we could hear what was happening to him. And we were moving those kids as fast as we could, but when the screams stopped, that was when we knew to huddle down and keep watch for it again. Our grenades were useless. By the time we’d throw them in its direction, the damn thing would be around the other side of us. And even when we got lucky enough in our aim to shoot it, it just kept on coming.”
    He met her eyes, said evenly, “I was scared. No—beyond scared. For myself, for the other guys, for those kids. Nothing else I’d seen over there came close.”
    Did he think he shouldn’t have been frightened? “Understandably so.”
    “Maybe. But the thing is, that sickness in my gut was gone. We were losing our men, we had no fucking chance against this thing—but what we were trying to do was exactly right.” He gave a quick, self-disparaging smile. “Of course, that was the only thing that was clear. I was thinking the craziest shit, making all these deals with God, the devil. Buddha got thrown in, too. Thor and Superman. I honestly would have done just about anything to get out of there—and worried about the consequences later.”
    She looked down at her hands. If only her circumstances had been as noble as saving a group of children. But willful ignorance could not be so easily excused. “I can imagine,” she said quietly. “And then?”
    “It took Thompson—which left just me and Pinter, the FNG. So—”
    “FNG?” Alice glanced up. “A weapon?”
    He crossed the room, laughing to himself and shaking his head. “The fucking new guy. A month before that, I’d been promoted to spec-4—a communications specialist—but I still had the title. So it was a good day when Pinter came along.” Jake lowered himself next to her again. “And he was the only one who got out of there. Maybe. Could be, he got wasted the second he and the kids made it to the village. Dunno.”
    “Because you didn’t make it.”
    “Nope. Because by then, we’d figured out that it was choosing us by age—or rank, maybe. Working its way down, and just playing with us before it went after the kids. So after it got Thompson, I knew I was next. And a part of me was hoping that Thompson wouldn’t ever stop screaming.” That flush covered his cheeks again, but he didn’t look away from her. “But it wasn’t just dying that scared me. I had a pretty good reason to get back home in one piece. But I knew it wasn’t going to happen—and that somehow, I was going to have to take that thing out with me. So I wrote a letter to my girl, had Pinter and the kids huddle up, then went out to wait for it.”
    She tried to interpret the smile that began to form on his lips. Half pride, she thought, and half disbelief—or embarrassment. “What did you take with you?”
    “A grenade,” he said, then grinned before he stood and moved to the middle of the chamber, hopping up on the dais behind the lantern. His shadow loomed across the ochre-washed wall. “But just as a diversion. Because Thompson had tried that, and the nosferatu swatted it out of his hand before it went off. But I had two land mines—and I dug out a hole for them and covered them up. And when Thompson stopped screaming, I stepped on them.”
    “But didn’t they—”
    “Nuh-uh. Because they had mousetrap detonators—pressure release—that could be rigged so they don’t blow until you lift your foot. So I’m standing there like this—” He spread his legs shoulder-width apart, hunched his shoulders, and widened his eyes. “Shaking like crazy. And thinking how stupid it would be if dawn came before the nosferatu did, and I was stuck there the whole flippin’ day.”
    Alice’s startled laugh pealed from high in her throat. “Yes,” she agreed, nodding. “That would have been unfortunate.”
    “Yeah, but it didn’t happen.” He abandoned his stance, and shrugged. “The nosferatu came, I went boom! And it did, too. Then there was Michael, showing up and asking me to come be a Guardian. And I thought, ‘What the hell.’ Better than singing in Heaven. Or Hell, if I was headed there instead.”
    “Yes.” The vestiges of her laughter fell away, and she sighed. “Jake, if you told me this in order to lead up to Michael, and make an argument