Back in town…

Michael sat in the passenger seat of his suburban. Lani drove, which allowed him to look at maps and documents. He read up on how there were cults who had been trying to perform rituals, while some of the ritual sites had been ravaged and destroyed, others were simply interrupted by police or abandoned when ‘nothing happened.’ He took a particular interest in the sites where things got bloody.

“Did you ever read much about this summoning shit?” Michael asked as he skimmed through the documents.

“In what culture,” Lani replied, “pretty sure most people who read the book that can understand the languages of actual demon are smart enough to stay the fuck off it.”

Michael shrugged. “Apparently people are getting close enough and butchering each other.”

“Not all rituals require blood,” Lani droned, “And the ones that do, pretty sure they don’t need the person butchered.” she paused for a moment, then spoke again. “Pretty sure there’s something missing from that one pentagram’d dude.”

Michael pulled out the picture. He looked it over carefully. “He’s stabbed five times.” he kept looking. “There’s a good bit of blood behind him,” he looked closer, “if I were stupid I’d think he was on the floor.” He looked at other photos from the same scene. “He wasn’t bleeding when he was dragged,”

“Or he wasn’t dragged,” Lani interrupted. “Like he was thrown perfectly flat, caught against the wall and held in place while someone stuck five well placed knives in him.” Lani opened a can of drink and sipped it slowly. “What’s that pentagram made of?”

Michael looked at the perfectly drawn circle, the lack of smearing and undisrupted nature of it. It went over some uneven surfaces while still being perfectly drawn. The symbol appeared to be a burn mark. “Nobody can burn a mark that big on an uneven wall that perfectly.”

“Ever hear of telepathy?” Lani asked as she scanned the roadblock ahead. “Got your badge?” she asked as they got closer to what looked like one of the local militias.

Local militias were a recognized entity, but they had rules to abide by. One of those rules was to refrain from obstructing freeways. Though Michael had a badge and had federal agent authority, he did not have the interest in meddling with people who were simply exercising their rights. There was just one problem: this wasn't a good militia.

Lani ducked her head down as rounds started striking the windshield. Michael leaned down and grabbed his short M4 from next to his seat. "These fucks need dealt with," Lani shouted as she floored the accelerator. As she sped towards the ambush, she glanced at Michael. "We're gonna kill'em all, right?"

Michael nodded as he racked the charging handle back. His weapon had a twelve inch barrel with an aftermarket flash direction attachment that would send all the unspent gas forward. He had a holographic sight attached and a 60 round 'fat mag' loaded. He gripped it firmly with the stock against his shoulder. He braced as he waited for the impact.

As Lani drove straight for the front of the vehicle in front of her, she reached for her own M4. Her weapon was identical to the one Michael had. Racking the charging back and letting the bolt carrier slam into position on a round, she gritted her teeth as she waited for the suburban to slam into a Dodge Ram so she could get out and start spraying people. They won't survive this her mind pulsed with fury as the bull bar crushed two men into the side of the truck.

Michael opened his door as the suburban stopped and pushed his muzzle through the opening. A five shot burst erupted, landing in a man's collarbone and shredding his throat. He stepped out and turned toward the crushed men. Three shots each through their jaw through the forehead and the writhing arms stopped moving as they slumped over. He moved toward the back of the Ram as he ducked down and scanned below the truck for ground shooters.

Lani leapt from the drivers side and fired three through the pelvic bone of a man who had tried to run. Her muzzle came back up to engage another target who had tried to come around the front of another vehicle with a weapon of some sort. He caught four through his sternum before she climbed his chest and let seven more go through him, the last two going through his jaw. She moved quickly as she looked under the vehicles to make sure there were no feet moving around that didn’t belong to Michael.

Michael also went down to look under the vehicles, seeing Lani’s athletic shoes, as well as her face. Both of them pointed their weapons away as they realized they were looking right at each other. Standing back up, they cleared the rest of the roadblock only to find that they had killed everyone. Michael looked for wallets, finding none. Strange, not one person carrying an identifying thing on them, he thought to himself as he heard a distant boom. Incoming fire?

“Michael,” Lani asked nervously as she saw the look on Michael's face, “should we go?”

“Incoming,” Michael said loudly, “we gotta go!”

They hurried back into the suburban and took off the other way. They knew that most people would try to hurry in the direction of travel, as most operating books would tell people to do. Michael was smarter than this, and knew that most doctrines were public knowledge.

“What was that?” Lani asked as they sped down the road. A second after she asked this question, a mortar round struck the ambush site. A very large white cloud plumed, the dried foliage around the vehicles began to burn, and the vehicles in the area began to burn.

Michael observed in the mirror, then turned around to look. “That was a war crime on American soil,” he said with a grin, “someone’s getting fucked for this.”

Meanwhile, off in the distance, an observer keyed his radio. “Target going wrong direction.” a moment went by with no response. “You listening?”

“Yes” the radio voice responded. “Pack it up and come back. We did what we needed to do.”

“Roger,” the observer said exhaustedly, “out.” As he shoved his binoculars into his backpack and placed his folded map back in his pocket, a soft hand touched his shoulder and spun him around. In a panic, he grabbed his pistol and swung it at the face of the person who grabbed him. The black haired woman didn’t feel the impact, nor did she feel when he fired five rounds into her chest. She didn’t budge when he kicked at her knees, and he couldn’t move when he tried to push his way out from under her.

“You are weak,” she said flat and monotone. “My father's greatness protects me,” she said as she casually picked the gun out of his hand. “I wonder though,” she said ponderingly as she placed her hand on his mouth, “that burning thing you attempted, do you think you can control flame better than me?”

His lungs got really warm, so warm in fact that they began to burn. He tried to scream, and though her hand wasn’t tightly held over his mouth he could not scream. He no longer had the lungs to do so. He writhed about on the ground under her. His skin began to char and darken after a few moments. She looked deep into his eyes and waited until his body stopped moving.

She stood up and looked at the burnt vehicles and destroyed road where the mortar shell had landed. “Very foolish,” she said softly as she walked off, vanishing into a cloud of smoke that dissipated quickly.