XIII

Maddox walks away and starts looking through his phone. Sauda goes straight to her rucksack on the side of the room.

Being a half-demon, she can rip out a spine or two, but her military training gives her the ability to use any weapon, and she loves her weapons. Her favorite part of missions was picking out the hardware like choosing an outfit.

“What’s that smile for?”

Raum appears at her side. He looks down at her and his smile sits to one side showcasing a dimple.

“It’s gun time.” Sauda smiles up at him.

“Ah yes. You and your toys.”

Sauda looks down at her neatly packed weapons. She pulls out her favorite SIG P238 and kisses it.

“Do you know what you’re packing?” Raum asks.

Sauda pouts. “I can’t pack what I want to because it all has to be concealed. I have to carry light and small.”

Raum watches her eject an empty magazine and rack the gun. “This one is my favorite. It rides shotgun every single day. Small, compact, and with six rounds.” She can smell the oil she uses to clean it as she places it down and places two full magazines next to it, making sure the right stamp is on the bottom. She pulls another gun out and Raum watches her routine.

“My backup for concealed carry: a SCCY CPX-1. Ten rounds.” Again she lays it down with two more magazines. “And finally, my backup-backup. Smith & Wesson Shield. Easy to rack, easy to load. Eight rounds.”

“I love the way you look when you’re talking about your guns,” Raum smiles.

“Bite me,” Sauda says, but the smile stays on her face as she pulls the magazines. She takes off her shirt, revealing a tank top. She pulls a double shoulder holster and puts it on.

“That's the one I bought you?” he asks.

She slips it over her shoulders. A custom-built shoulder holster made for her frame, with both gun holsters at the small of her back, so she won’t have to worry about the seconds lost trying to get around her breast to draw a gun. It also has two knife sheaths higher up her back.

“Yeah, the one for my birthday.” Sauda takes off her belt to loop the shoulder holster through.

“I’m glad you called on me,” Raum says, leaning closer to her.

“I didn’t.” Sauda takes two steps sideways from him and reaches in the bag, pulling out her leg holster.

“When are you going to stop being mad?”

“Stop!” She hisses. “This is not the time or place. My superior is here for one, and we are not about to discuss our lack of a love life over my guns.”

“I just want you to come home.”

Sauda loops her belt through the leg holster strap and buckles her belt through her jeans. She picks up one gun, slams a magazine home, chambers a round and puts it behind her back into the shoulder holster, all while keeping her eyes on Raum. When sliding a gun in its spot without having to look down, practice makes perfect.

She looks in his eyes, eyeshadow on his monolids, making them seem brighter. She loads the second gun and puts it in its place.

“You think you have enough?”

“No, but what other choice do I have? Who knows what they got in there.” She takes two black, nine inch, fixed blade tactical knives and slides them into their sheaths in the middle of her back. “But if forty-eight bullets and two knives aren’t enough, I’m a Demon spawn with heightened senses and superhuman strength. I got this.”

Sauda smiles and Raum smiles back, ducking his head.

She grabs her last gun and stuffs it in her waistband. She can’t put it in her leg holster until she’s away from the tourist. Her leg holster, strapped to tight flexible black pants, just looks like a fashion statement.

She adjusts her belt and holster and then she pulls a larger, light button-up shirt out, puts it on and leaves it unbuttoned. The trained eyed could easily spot her guns, but a tourist would be none the wiser.

She practices pulling her gun from the holster before she looks up at him again..

“Raum... I am still human. I am only twenty-seven. I want to do some living up here. I know we’re bonded, but…”

Sauda closes her bag and looks up at the man that once upon ago she swore her soul to. “I was young and dumb and thought I knew what love was. I knew nothing—I know nothing. You’ve lived for millennia. I need to live.”

“You love me.”

“Do I?” Sauda’s harsh whisper only reaches his ears, “We were together for five years before you let me know that you could invoke love in others.”

“I never did that to you! What you feel is real, and all your own.”

“All right!” Maddox booms.

“Not the time,” Sauda whispers, walking away.

“Guided tours are few,” Maddox says, drawing everyone’s attention, “but I got one. Seem’s tourism is at an all-time low for war-torn Yemen.”

Sauda looks over to Dix. He was putting on a belt with a holster on one side and a pouch on the other. He pulled down an oversized white plain tee to cover everything. He looked like a kid wearing clothes that were way too big for him, not a trained military specialist, but that was the aim. She wasn’t too happy about the bright color of his shirt as most of her clothes were black, but there was no time to be fussy. He looks up to her.

“You ready, Red?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Raum and Sauda,” Maddox calls them, “this is the track the tour goes on. It doesn’t go near where we need to be.”

Sauda looks at the map and sighs, “Probably Bathory’s doing.” Everything seemed to get more difficult the longer they were in Yemen. “There are points that we can get off that get us all closest to our marks, but it’ll be a longer trek for some than others.”

“Do you have walkie-talkies?”

Maddox and Sauda look at Raum and the enormous smile on his face, both dimples lighting up. Raum bounces on his toes, hands silently clapping.

“Communication devices.”

Maddox looks at Raum longer. “Radio silence until you’re in position.” He nods at Sauda.

“Roger.”

Raum smiles at Maddox and walks away to talk to his battle partner.

“Will he really be able to help?” Maddox asks.

“Honestly?” Sauda looks at Raum stalking towards Samuel Dean. “I think my dad did it just to ruffle my feathers and try to get me back to hell. But an extra pair of Demon hands on our side never hurt much. Raum hates men that think they’re gods just because they have money and power. He destroys it, that’s his thing, and I think Bathory fits that description. He can reconcile friends and foes and invoke love. So maybe if we need Bathory to... like us?”

“Maybe he can reconcile the two sides of this war. That would hurt Bathory a little,” Maddox says, “but aren’t those powers a little too nice for a Demon?”

“He’s a first-generation demon. Born from two fallen angels that were on the wrong side of the war.”

“Hmm,” Maddox says, “any other good things?”

“He can tell the past, present, and future—”

“Way to bury the lead, Johnson! Go tell him to tell the future for us.”

Sauda laughs, “He doesn’t know how to control it yet. It either comes to him on its own or it doesn’t. He can’t do it on cue.”

“Damn Demons,” Maddox sighs, “Fall out.”