LEX Files

The helicopter banked low skimming the tops of the trees at a demented pace. The carpet of green below was a blur and William’s acrophobia threatened to seize him. His partner, Ezra, sat with his wide-brimmed hat tipped low over his face, plain large features a picture of calm, eyes slit.

“The Lex, the world’s last line of defense against the forces of evil,” William’s drawl cut the silence, eliciting the barest twitch from his counterpart. William grinned in response and upped the octave a bit, “Lex Talionis, if you don’t know what it means, you are probably not on our list. The Lex: dispensing justice, fighting the demons your sorry ass didn’t even know existed.”

The big man creaked a baleful, eye open, glaring at the whisper-thin gunslinger, bedecked in tactical gear cut for speed and festooned with pistols and gadgets, then let out a long-suffering sigh. “Slogans again Jameson?”

Ignoring the use of his surname, William kicked his feet up next to Ezra’s bastard sword tipping the cruciform hilted, knightly sword ever so slightly out of his way. The blade was made of layered Damascus and coated in oil. Ezra was the kind of man who read competing versions of the bible for kicks, whereas he preferred to work on his motorcycles, drink, and chase tail. Thinking of chasing tail, he segued to Bella, knowing that would get a rise out of the man. “I hope we see an angel while we are out there,” he said, hooking his boot on the crossguard and making humping gestures with the hilt.

“Do not besmirch the holy weapon with your perversion, you might rub off the oil” he replied, his voice calm even in rebuke. “Jameson, if the heights are bothering you, perhaps you should oil your guns, again.”

“It has nothing to do with fear, Ezra,” he retorted with emphasis on the name, “I was just funnin,” he drawled.

“Morgan,” the big man corrected, “Ezra is for people I like.”

“More like for angels, I reckon,” he teased, “you know that sour puss of yours only lights up when she says your name,” he teased, as Morgan’s features darkened and his eyes suddenly ablaze, “easy Morg, I was just kidding bud,” he started, then realized that Morgan was looking past him.

“There,” he rumbled, eyes fixed on the distant compound getting larger as they cleared the trees. The helicopter’s twin jets rotated from thrust to repulsion, firing a slower steadier blast assisting in the rapid stop. Jameson, who was strapped in, slammed hard against his restraints, a wide grin painting his face. Morgan grabbed the sword in one hand and the oh-shit-handle in the other to brace. A light above them bathed them in green and both men grabbed a cord, repelling to the ground below.

Jameson and Morgan moved, covering one another in a wordless dance of hand signals and tactical moving, ducking from cover to cover as distant gunfire, aimed at the helo, diminished. Shouts in a foreign tongue echoed throughout the compound. More than a dozen armed men, local insurgents, roved with varying degrees of skill, though none showed a tactical presence that would be worrisome. This, more than anything, demonstrated the demoness’s desperation, she would never purchase bargain-basement insurgents if she had any other options. They crossed to the central defensive building, a brick-and-mortar two-story sprawling structure with its many entrances fortified.

The guerilla the two men crept up on looked more scared than skilled, automatic rifle whisking toward distant noises. Morgan rushed the smaller man, his footfalls alerting the man who spun, blocking any possible shot from Jameson. As the man spun, Morgan stepped inside the arc of the rifle, grabbed the man’s belt, and hauled him close, using his shoulder to press the gun in between the two, and with his offhand grabbed the man’s head, pulling it violently into the trapped gun with force guaranteeing a knockout.

“I wasn’t gonna kill em; Jeez,” Jameson complained.

Morgan glanced at Jameson’s gun hand, resting on his suppressed .22 caliber, the silent killer. “Reflex buddy,” Jameson grinned.

Jameson spotted a discarded dirty magazine the man had been reading with a snort, then noted near it a flicker of metal. Grabbing the edge of a dust-covered board he found a small dugout egress window; “thank god for safety-minded folks, thinking of everything.” Jameson drawled, as he lifted the debris covering the corrugated aluminum which ringed the window.

Morgan noted the tracks in the dust leading from the body, which Jameson had not seen, back to where the board had hidden the entrance. “Tracking tactics, finally paying off, well done Jameson.”

“You know me buddy, always listening, even when you think I am not,” he replied with a wink.

Bella swooped through the night sky, her soft, usually white wings carrying her over the compound at such a height as to be invisible to the naked eye, the use of tactical paint and camouflage over her armor had the angel blending seamlessly with the cloud strewn sky. Focusing her innate magic, she released her halo, allowing the spirit of sunlight to guide her, the torch-bright being was invisible to all save for the faithful.

She followed the halo down trusting the spirit to guide her from unnecessary bloodshed, there, on the roof of the building following at such an angle as to use a water tower as cover from the anti-air defenses. Bella dropped onto the roof drawing out a small telescoping rod, she let her harmony flow into the rod, reliving, for an instant the joy of an unexpected kiss Jameson had sneaked her when Morgan was getting ready for the mission. “Just a bit of magic for later,” he had said with his trademark wink. “When are we gonna tell him?” he asked, watching Morgan anoint the oil for his sword.

“Soon,” she said, calmly, “just not today.”

“I got you this,” he gushed, handing her a delicate gold heart-shaped locket, the ivory center full of meaning for her.

The locket she wore played across her fingers catching the light from her halo and casting little reflections of a heart across the roof, startled, at her lapse of reverie, she focused, using the magic to transform the rod into a delicate bow of equivalent mass. Without real arrows, the bow was used as a stunning tool, perfect for this situation. Steadying her shoulders, she prepared the aim before strafing out, laying down a short-controlled stream of shots with neat precision. The arrows of light streaked into the unsuspecting group of soldiers standing near a mounted machine gun, the kind often used on Humvees. She moved gracefully over the fallen men, encapsulated in a mental fog, rimmed in soft golden light. She stared down through a skylight fortified with expanded metal. The metal mesh was too tight, to get in through, and below she spotted her boys as they entered.

The building was a shell of its former self and the pair edged forward into an interior ringed with debris. Morgan drew his sword closing obviously to the center where the demoness was in the middle of a ritual. Six men were strapped naked to poles driven into the debris; their obvious agony of many wounds belied by erections still throbbing from use. The demoness was naked, beautiful in form, though marred by a pair of small horns, two leathern wings, and a reddish hue to her skin, but most abominable of all was the three-foot spiked and spined tail, covered in gore from insertion into three of the men who hung limp, apparently dead. The men were not truly dead, they had been inseminated with her demonic venom and, while their souls were fueling her discordant ritual, their shells were now enslaved to her will. As she spotted Morgan, she nodded, and the three dead men tore free from their bonds with inhuman strength and collected their fallen weapons.

The demon snapped a bubble of blue gum, sex gum, he recognized, meant to keep things up; so to speak, Jameson’s thoughts quipped. “More volunteers,” she remarked, her hand roving over the body of one of the remaining men, her hand caressed the base of his neck, drawing out his spine, as a swordsman pulls a blade. Her magic sewed the spine into a wicked blade, pealing a delighted laugh.

Jameson rushed into the rubble just outside the circle the two would meet in, allowing the knight to draw the demoness toward the center. Jameson got the thrall’s attention as he prepared to deal with them. Sulphureous venom hemorrhaged from the holes in the thrall, but the bowlegged monsters moved with military precision, as they had in life, trailing their intestines as they came. Jameson set up one of his gizmos off in the debris then rushed opposite. The brain was the weak spot, they needed it to function, like zombies, it was critical. He rushed as the nearby roar of battle took off just above the low-slung wall of debris.

These soldiers were formidable, and as Jameson's gizmo started firing one of his pistols remotely at the single would-be flanker, who ducked as he would have in life, Jameson sighed in relief, free to engage the two thrall moving opposite. The pair were covering each other’s fire sending a steady stream of death, Jameson fired back, ineffectually, while his offhand found the small recorder he kept in his pocket, allowing for his primary gun to run dry. He cursed while enacting the recorder which played the very realistic sound of reloading that every insurgent is trained to listen for, meanwhile he readied his 45. Reloading is a two-handed process (unless you got mad skills) so the insurgents did as they would normally do, breaking cover and rushing his position. Two shots ready and aimed ended the skirmish as the thrall and their brains parted company. The gizmo had just run out and was clicking madly in dry fire when he popped up and finished the third who was mowing the decoy down with automatic fire.

As he popped up he let out a strangled cry as he spotted Morgan scant feet away, the demoness had the profane blade diving at him, her tail fresh from a tripping maneuver that had caught him off guard. Three pops from the 45 flew smacking off her head like the sting of bees.

Above, Bella flashed the locket, desperate to get a message to Jameson, he had to understand. As the flicker of light painted the demoness, right on her chest, Jameson, alerted serendipitously looked up in sudden comprehension. Satisfied Bella grabbed the machine gun determined to help.

Love, he realized in a flash of insight, without hesitation he surged toward the demoness, imagining her as Bella, just as he had kissed her earlier, locking her image in his mind’s eye. The attack was as unexpected as it was clumsy and the demoness who shifted, preparing a killing blow with her tail instinctively aimed at his heart. Jameson’s kiss with all of the love he had for Bella met soft lips which parted gently, in surprise, then just as quickly bit down on his tongue savagely.

From high above Bella rammed the heavy machine gun barrel through the metal mesh, hanging on she bucked as the wildly spraying fire rained onto the demoness, who recoiled using her leathern wings to cover the shots. Morgan, regaining his footing, let loose two furious cuts, the first cleaving off her tail before it could skewer Jameson, the second ramming solidly into the chest of the demoness. The demoness shrieked sliding down the anointed blade as white fire poured from the wound.

Jameson covered in sulfurous venom cringed under Morgan’s glare, “She meant go for the heart, obviously,” Jameson slurred through a blood-soaked mouth, “so clear now.”

Morgan shook his head, “Is there nothing you won’t kiss?” he replied.