Turns out the update with Nora wasn’t really a big deal. She and Brett scouted the entire neighborhood and many of the houses were empty. There were also no signs lupin anywhere that they could find. My meeting with the police was productive, but rather lackluster. The police chief grudgingly agreed to my command, though he had held a similar rank in the military when he had been in over two decades earlier. He was technically too old for the activation orders, but I wanted him in regardless. What I hadn’t counted on was a news truck in the parking lot when I walked out of the police station and across the lot back to the government center. With that in mind, I moved quickly inside the government center. Maggie was there alongside several people that must include a news crew. A twenty-something white woman holding a microphone called out, “Representative Cassland, if I could have a moment of your time. I would love to ask you a few questions.”

  I sighed. There’s no sense in avoiding it, so I pot on my poker face and turned directly to the reporter, “Sure, I didn’t catch your name though.”

  “My apologies, I’m Lisa Clask from channel 5. I’d love to find out your sudden rise in politics. It is rather impressive and unprecedented.”

  I kept my poker face, “I’m in this position only until the election. The Governor did get an amendment passed that someone appointed to legislative seat temporarily until an election can be held only needs to be over the age of 21. The election is in November, so this is a brief tenure as a politician.”

  “Now representative, that really undercuts the significance of your appointment. People have whispered that this is nepotism plain and simple. People have been saying that you aren’t qualified to hold any elected office. You lack experience and wisdom.”

  “Lisa, until proven otherwise those are probably fair criticisms. However, what I do with this appointment is the only thing that matters. I have been placed into a position of authority in the National Guard. I have met with Colonel Smolders of the Missouri National Guard, as well as Colonel Kent of the U.S. Army, and had a conversation with our governor. I know I will be tested in the next few months. Until then, I would ask you to wait and see what I do, and judge me on the merits of my decisions.”

  “That isn’t exactly fair though. We have giant portals all over this country, including several in the St. Louis area. We have reports of demonic creatures of different types causing havoc near us. Many countries on earth have been overrun. We can’t easily communicate with our allies, and people are scared. They need genuine leadership, and not some kid saying wait and see.”

  I let just a tiny bit of a smile through, “I didn’t hear a question in there. Do you have one?”

  She silently scowled at me off camera. “Yes I do. How are you qualified for your position in light of all the issues I mentioned above?”

  “I’m not. No one is. No one is truly qualified for this situation yet. All I can do is try my best. I’ll listen to both those above and below me for direction and advice. I have faith in our nation’s leadership from President on down. They will develop the tactics and strategies that we will need moving forward.”

  She scowled again at that. “Well thank you for your time.” She made a gesture to the cameraman to have him put the camera down.

  “And thank you for yours. Have a wonderful day.” I flashed a smile and walked over to Maggie. “Maggie, anything I should know before I go in and talk to those people in there.”

  “It isn’t nearly as full as last time, maybe a little over half. The mayor also needs to sit down with you. He is at home today and he asked that you visit him.”

  “After I am done here I have to go to 3 other municipalities that are within my congressional district. I am responsible for all of them. At least one of them has a portal, so if he wants to talk then he either needs to be here before I finish in there, or he can meet me in Sunset Hills at their City Hall. Can you do me a favor and call over to Sunset Hills City Hall and let them know that I will be over there today. I know it’s a huge ask, but after them I still need to fit in Crestwood and Oakland.”

  “I guess I can do all that for you. You are kind of my boss now.” She gave this tiny smile that I couldn’t quite decipher. I had that smile on my mind as I turned into the council room to meet with these additional constituents. Fortunately, the meeting didn’t take as long the second time around. I had directed them to check the areas close to the government center. I wanted wellness checks on every house. They were to figure out which houses were unoccupied. They wouldn’t enter anywhere unless it looks like something had already broken in. They were also to check outside for any possibility of lupin activity. This group of nearly 70 people was hard divide up, but we ended up with one squad 2 people short, but it wasn’t too big of an issue. I now had 190 citizens working to find demons in Fenton. I felt really good about that. I checked with Maggie on my way out to see if the mayor had arrived and she only shook her head. Oh well, his loss.

  As I got to my vehicle, I heard the faint sound of distant gunfire. I hoped all was well, as I absolutely had to repeat this whole thing 3 more times. Then my phone rang. “Hello?”

  “This is Robbie with the militia. We got Problems, big ones!”

  “Robbie, where are you?” I asked because I really needed to know which group it was, the distant gunfire sounded like it could have come from anywhere.

  “Near Fenton Park! This isn’t just some little wolf-headed creatures. We got bigger stuff.” there goes the rest of my day.

  “I’m headed there now. I’m sending extra help as well.” I hung up and called Nora. “Nora, I need as many of you as can come help me over near Fenton Park! Grab the magic items on the kitchen table!”

  “Where is Fenton Park?”

  “Crap! Billy knows how to get there. Take him along to navigate.” I could give her directions, but things felt too dire to take that kind of time. I forgot to put on the bullet proof vest this morning, thinking I would need it, and I didn’t have a spare in the back seat. That felt like a problem, but not one I was going to solve this instant. I looked up as I was opening the driver’s door and remembered, I’m next to a police station.

  A few later I was back in my vehicle with a Kevlar vest and 2 extra clips of ammo. My staff was in the car at least, not that it improved my combat capabilities. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to work my over a few neighborhoods to get to where the gunfight was at. I was greeted by a line of pickup trucks and SUVs filling both sides of the road making it a single lane. After parking further out than I wanted, I made my way into the end of the cul-de-sac. The houses were nice here, 2 stories and probably basements too. They made me think of some classic image of suburbia as I jogged ahead. The back to houses gave way to back yards complete with a swing set. That is where things looked like they fell apart. Three groaning men lay on the ground with arrows and slash marks in them. One was on his back with an arrow through one leg. He grimaced as soon as I was in his line of sight. “You didn’t say how sneaky they were.”

  “In the details I gave everyone I said they were sneaky and even had abilities to help them blend into their surroundings. What about that description made you think otherwise?” I really didn’t have time for bullshit and lies from people so eager to fight demons that they were at government city waiting to volunteer. I didn’t want to really argue with him, so I just shut up and got a first aid kit out of my backpack. His pant leg was a mess as the arrow shot through the side of his upper leg a little bit above the knee. I ripped the pant leg open to see if it made sense to pull the arrow the rest of the way through. It looked okay: no major blood loss. I left the arrow in for the moment. “We have more help on the way.” I checked the other guys, one had an arrow through the arm while the last had a nasty gash that cut through his vest and had him bleeding. I did try stuffing that one with gauze and wrapping a bandage around his chest. Hopefully that stops the bleeding. To their credit there were over half a dozen dead lupin. I double checked by stabbing each one through the neck as hard as I could.

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

  I grabbed my phone and called Billy, “Billy how close are you to the neighborhood.”

  “We’re pulling in now. There are a lot of fucking trucks filling up the road. So, we had to park behind you.”

  “I have 3 injured. You will want paramedics here, but they can’t come in with sirens on. I am not sure how you are going to get them to do that.”

  “Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure it out.” With that we hung up and I pushed forward past the swing set followed the clear trail left by the dozens of people passing through. It was easy to track my way there; I could use all sorts of signs of passage or just follow the gunfire. The trail of violence led down into a creek bed that was the border to the outside edge of the park. I found one of the guys shot multiple times with arrows; he was very dead. These guys should not have gotten down into the creek bed like this. It screams trap to me. The other side of the creek bed was built up above the rocks and water by about five feet, giving the lupin decent angles at my militia as they ran through here.

  I followed the dead bodies, both lupin and militia until I climbed out of the creek bed onto an open soccer field. By now I counted 20 dead lupin, an abnormally high number, and 4 total dead militia. This changed now that I was at the very back end of the current fight. Abyssal orcs were among the dead. Now I had the reason for the increasing volume of gunfire. I could see a firing line bringing down orcs as they charged from multiple angles. They had almost an entire fire team of six to kill each orc. Each orc that made it to a fire team started tearing them to shreds before dropping from numerous bullet holes. Orcs sure loved tearing off body parts.

  I ran up to support them, but saw Mr. Schulack resting up against a tree, blood covering much of his body. “Mr. Schulack, where did you get hit?”

  “Everywhere, Son.” He made a noise that was half groan and half scowl.

  “My friends are almost here. They have healing supplies.” Even as I said this I saw his eyes closing and he was slipping away. There wasn’t much I could do, and I had to try and make some sort of decent impact. I grabbed my rifle and got down in a prone position. There were several orcs in range, I focused on one rushing the closest fireteam. I fired repeatedly into it’s legs. It may not be center of mass, but as bullets pulsed out of my rifle and into the orc I saw layers of flesh pealed away as bullets started to pulp his legs. The first few didn’t go through the leg all the way, merely embedded in the outer flesh, but by the 4th shot his flesh started tearing up into the pulpy state it finally reached. The Orc stumbled and fell as his leg gave way. The fire team picked up on this, and everyone aimed at his head until it was a bloody mess.

  Once the first fire team freed up they poured fire onto an orc charging the next team over. This gave me time to get up and close in. The Park was a bloody mess, and fighting across a soccer field was great for shooting. If the orcs weren’t faster than they looked, this would be relatively easy given the amount of guns we brought to bear. I saw an Orc reach a fire team on the far end and swivelled my rifle to get a bead on it. He charged the first one and gutted him with a long serrated knife, the momentum picked the poor man up and carried him before the orc like a body shield. The other five guys in the group all backed away, but not all were fast enough. He lunged to his left to smash the human shield into another guy while using the axe in his other hand to slice into his neck, nearly decapitating the poor militiaman. I tried moving to get a better angle, but found none presenting itself. Just as I gave up the orc’s head nearly exploded. I turned to see Joe back by the creek bed. He took out two more in quick succession. No more orcs came peeling out of the restroom and the ones remaining fell in short order.

  I ran forward to check on all the survivors. This was not the rousing success that we wanted it to be. “How many casualties?,” I shouted out.

  A middle aged bald man jogged over, “You showed up?”

  “Of course I showed up. Someone called for help, so I’m going to help if at all possible. We still need to clear out that restroom. I imagine the teleportation circle is in there.”

  “The telepor what?” I know I tried covering this earlier with both the groups.

  I saw a gaping hole where the door and its frame used to be; that should be our way in. “The gaping hole is how we are breaching the restroom. We have to finish this off before they bring in more troops. I do need a casualty count though.”

  “Okay. Well let’s do this,” several responded. A dozen men bumped fists with one another or pumped them in the air. At least my charisma still worked wonders.

  One of the men responded, “We lost ten men down here plus any others on the way. Those things overwhelmed us. We have several injured as well.” That was not good. We have lost a total of 14 men in one encounter then. That’s fourteen lives we aren’t getting back. We needed to end this though, so we could tend to the wounded properly.

  I first turned to see if Joe and Nora had caught up. They were close with the twins not far behind. Hopefully, Frank was back at the house resting up. The restroom wasn’t exactly a large building, but it was the only decent sized enough to hide the teleportation circle. I looked at Nora, and considered the wands we had at our disposal. We had lost too many lives already today; I wasn’t sacrificing anyone else to breach a toilet. “Nora, did you grab all the magic items on the table?”

  “Yes, of course I did.” It almost felt like there was an unspoken ‘Well, Duh, you dumbass.’ I quickly had her hand everything that everyone needed.

  “This is a web spell. Just aim the wand as far into the restroom as possible and the spell should easily fill the space. That will hopefully allow us to move up and simply kill things with a bit of ease.”

  She grimaced, “How are we going to get in there and see stuff when it is solid wall to wall webbing.”

  Crap I hadn’t thought of that. Then I guess we go in guns blazing. No shield bearer to bear the brunt of damage though. That is a major problem. A lot of our solutions worked because of Frank’s big shield cutting off easy hits. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Yes, I do. I managed to find tear gas in your grandfather’s gun room this morning. I checked it out once we went round the neighborhood. Why he had it is a mystery, but we are going to toss a cannister in there while I wear a gas mask and go in and magic missile some shit to death.”

  “don’t you want anyone else with you?”

  “I’ll need Joe and two of these fine militiamen to shoot the crap out of people. You should stay here and help Brittney assess the casualties and help with first aid.”

  “Did you just bench me?”

  “No, the situation benched you.” She smiled at me like that wasn’t the crappiest form of semantics I’ve heard today.

  “I’m subbing in for one of the militiamen. I can’t stand by while others risk their lives.” It was a nice statement, and I know the men heard it. Had to project my voice a little bit for that one. I had just given a speech earlier in the day to these very men that I would stand with them and that we’d be together in this. I can’t sit out at the first opportunity.

  With that in mind Nora activated her Force Shield and stepped forward. The men around me gave me questioning looks; she was 5ft. nothing, skinny, and not a hardened looking person. “Gentlemen, she has at least 6 orc kills by herself. I would listen to her.” They seemed forced to reappraise her in light of her kills. I didn’t think it was time to call her Nora the Orc Destroyer in front of them. It might just ruin the effect I was going for. She didn’t wait for anyone to follow and started walking towards the large freestanding bathroom. I tapped the shoulder of the closest man and said, “You’re coming with me.” Joe, my drafted trooper, and I followed after Nora.

  She didn’t waste time. She walked purposefully close enough to angle the tear gas cannister deep into the bathroom and tossed it. She had a gas mask on and simply walked in after the tear gas went off and blasted at the first coughing sound. It was almost cinematic with how smoothly she did that. Joe somehow had a gas mask too, but neither I nor the guy I voluntold to go with us did. Joe strode forward smoothly and stepped in behind Nora and slightly to her right. Everyone heard gunshots and then the movement. Nora and Joe came running back out tearing gas masks off with Joe shouting, “Unholy Shit Incoming!”