• It was roughly ten kilometers to the target, yet within those thirty feet lay pressure sensors, laser tripwires, automated turret systems, and a fifteen foot high lead lined tempered steel door with over a thousand possible electronic combinations.

    There were five of them, two women and three men. Each wore a factory grey bulletproof vest, tight fitting ankle length pants, and shock absorbent grey shoes. Despite the bland regulation uniforms, each tried to add a personal flair to it, damned be the consequences. The leader, a redheaded young woman, had an emblem of a scythe emblazoned on her right arm. She took point, peering around the corner while she waited for her spec-ops unit to disable the alarm system. “Damn it, Binary. What’s taking you so long?” she said.

    Binary, a young black boy who had only been on three previous missions since the academy, looked up from his arm-mounted comp terminal and adjusted his glasses. His father’s dog tags clinked against each other musically. “Sorry, Reaper, but this is a tough nut to crack. I’ve got three tries until the system fries itself and sets off the alarm.”

    A large Native American man chuckled and crushed his cigarette, dumping it into a spent shell casing. He tugged at his necklace made up of scraps of tanks he had destroyed. “Whatever comes our way, I’ll blow it to kingdom come.” He tapped the rocket launcher slung over his shoulder, producing a tiny dull thud.

    “If you fire that in such close quarters, we’ll all get blown to kingdom come, Titan.” A pale white man sat slouched against the wall, his left eyes covered with a black eye patch embroidered with a golden skull. The only one of them to have survived two previous wars, he was slipping into his fifth decade of life, and mandatory retirement loomed over him like a giant wave. He ran a finger over his ulaks, careful not to cut his finger on the razor edges.

    The other woman, a beautiful blonde woman a few years older than Reaper, blew a raspberry. Her pearl earrings gleamed a milky white under the sterile fluorescent lights. “Scathe, you have no sense of adventure anymore.”

    Scathe chuckled. “I’ve had enough adventure to last all our lifetimes, Siren, and I’d rather not add to that any more than I have to.”

    I muted beep drew everyone’s eyes to Binary. He smiled ear to ear and announced, “I got it. We’re good to go.” They all gathered around him as he distributed syringes filled with a anxiety depressant drug laced with a reflex accelerator. Each bared the jugular vein on their necks and injected the full dosage.

    Scathe sighed. “I miss the days when we didn’t use drugs to make us better. We used a little thing called adrenaline.” They all crept forward, cautious in case the pressure sensors ran on a different circuit than the rest of the defense system. When nothing happened, they quickened their pace. Binary plugged his terminal into the vault door, punching in random codes in an effort to get in quickly.

    Siren tapped Reaper on the shoulder. “You still never told us what was behind this door, leader.”

    Each member had their eyes on her, wanting an answer from . Thanks to the anxiety depressant drug, she had no trouble telling them. “The king of demons is sealed behind this door. We’re not sure how the FSB got it, or how they’re holding it in there, but if they find a way to harvest his energy…” She shrugged.

    Another beep, and the door’s pneumatics hissed and the door slid open. Nearly pitch black, the only light was a dull pulsing red. Siren pulled a flashlight out of her vest and turned it on, only to have it fizzle and the bulb burst.

    “Electronics won’t work in here,” a voice called. The red glow gave away the outline of a man, but the voice sounded younger. More adolescent. “Any source of power not natural and biological will either overload or fizzle out.” The figure stood up, and they saw that it was indeed a teenage boy. He had shoulder length hair and was svelte, but those were the only details they could make out.

    Titan stepped forward. “Are you the king of demons?” he called.

    The figure cocked his head to the side. “I guess you could call me that. Although I’ve never had any luck in trying to impose any laws on them, I do rule the city of Dis. They call me Childerohan.” He put his hands on his hips. “Why are you all here?”

    Siren stepped up now. “We’re here to free you.” They all pulled out their assault rifles and cocked them. “Or kill you, if you won’t cooperate.”

    He chuckled. “I’ve died before, and have no urge to do so again. But I hope one of you knows how to deactivate an ancient Latin spider web rune system. It feeds off of my powers and suppresses them at the same time, so failing will kill me anyway.”

    The others stepped back, leaving Reaper to face the legendary being alone. “That would be me,” she said, and stepped forward into the circle. The closer she got, the more pressure she faced. Ever since demons had become a staple energy source, she’d seen many imps, succubi, and ogres, but the power here was unfathomable. She stepped to the edge of the suppression circle that kept him from leaving, and was shocked by the minuteness of it. Eight feet all around, it was barely enough room for him to sleep, let alone stretch his legs. She put a hand on the circle, then stepped back. “That’s some powerful juju they got brewing here.”

    He sighed deeply, and she felt a stab of pity for this unknown immortal. “They’ve been storing my energy for three decades now, and I’ve been running on life force for the past five years. The Soviet is about to make one hell of a comeback, and it’ll be thanks to me. Unless you free me, that is.” He put a hand on the floor and strained himself. The metal floor flashed briefly and he picked up the newly transformed razor. “How far the mighty have fallen if this is the most I can do.” He flicked it to her casually. “Mix your blood with the runes, and the dilution should make it possible for me to escape. Once we bust this nut-” Binary sniggered at this ill choice of words, and the devil tyrant did the same. “Sorry, raised in the Big Apple. Anyway, the alarms will most likely sound, so we have about five minutes, maybe six, until we have to deal with those PAL suits they have lying around.” He shook his head and smiled. “You’d be surprised what you can overhear when the guards think you can’t understand anything but Latin and Greek.”

    She took the razor and cut open the tip of her finger, then let two drops of blood drip to the floor. The dull glow that was given off by the runes flickered, then extinguished to blackness. “Step back,” he said, and the snicker of a blade sounded. Siren turned another flashlight on him, finally revealing this lost emperor. He stood at roughly six feet, with white skin slightly pale from the dark. His hair was black as midnight, and his eyes were blue as the depths of the ocean. He held a crude grey blade, fashioned out of a sheet of the metal, and its edges were ragged from slicing through the web of energy holding him in place. He stepped past Reaper and into the light, savoring the brightness as the others kept their guns trained on him. “That’s truly unnecessary. My power, even in its diminished state, could stop those bullets in the air.” He took a deep breath, then flitted to the entrance of the corridor they entered in. “Hurry up!” he called back to them.

    They all exchanged a nervous glance, then followed him back to the entrance of the complex. They were nervous of the silence that pervaded the air around them. Outside and ten kilometers away from the building, they met up with their sortie to complete the mission. The commander of the mission, a lieutenant major recently promoted to handle the mission at hand, demanded a audience with the POW and squad.

    As they entered, the Lt. Major flashed a small salute at the squad. They stood at attention as he stood up to inspect the spiritual royalty. “This is the king of demons?” he asked incredulously. “Kinda scrawny, ain’t he?” He reached into his pocket and drew out small device used to measure energy. The meter spun to rest on a million volts of electricity, then cracked and fizzed out.

    Siren stepped forward. “Sir, he seems to have an adverse reaction to small electronics. Even in his diminished state he manages to put out an abnormal amount of power in multiple forms.”

    The Lt. Major scratched his head. He turned to Binary and signaled him forward. “Any of those fancy toys of yours measure past a million volts?” He turned back to Childerohan. “What other kind of energy do you produce?”

    The demon king scrunched his face in thought. “Volts, watts, amps, calories, mana, soul, void, minute particles of dark matter, adverse heat energy, and the usual biorhythm pulse. I’m mainly a walking power plant, although it’s near impossible to harness my energy without hurting either me or the equipment.” He shrugged. “I could help you to blow up the FSB, but after that I’m out of this game.”

    The Lt. Major grabbed a fistful of his hair and shoved a knee into his gut. “You will do what we tell you, demon scum! We freed you, and the Law of Solomon says you have to help us.”

    The demon stared at the Lt. Major wrathfully, and he flew into the far wall of the tent, punching through the weak material and slamming into the ground beyond. The squad trained all their weapons on the demon king, but the weapons wouldn’t fire. “I told you those weapons would be ineffective against me,” he said over his shoulder. He walked to stand over the Lt. Major. “Don’t try to use the Law on me. I was around before it’s creation, so it holds less power over me. Even less so because I’m a demon Aspect now. I will do this out of obligation from you helping me escape, but anything afterwards will be of my own will.” He walked back to Binary and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you gonna hook me up to your equipment? If were gonna do this, we should do it right.” He walked out and straight to Artemis squad’s tent. They shared another nervous glance, then followed him to their mutual quarters. He already had established sixth of the room, taking the space they had all used to store small trinkets and gifts from home. He scratched another containment circle in the ground, stepped in, and sat down. “Hook me up. I’ll let lose a burst as strong as possible right now, and you measure it.”

    Binary grabbed the cables leading to his desk terminal, but Reaper took them from him. “Best I do it,” she said, and no one contradicted her. She had an abnormal resistance to magical energies, so anything having to do with a demon of a rank djinn or higher fell within her jurisdiction. He grabbed the cables as she held them out to her.

    Binary flicked on the terminal and gave everyone a view of the screen. A diagram of Childerohan’s body appeared next to a graph showing the different types of energy. Several were marked with “Unknown”, and seemed to gather the quickest near his heart and head. “This thing says your calorie count is at ten thousand and rising at about a thousand a second. Is that normal for you?” Binary asked.

    “I guess, but what I’m really worried about is my mana level. I need magic to do anything special, and I’ll just use it to regenerate my other sources.” He pointed at the topmost unknown energy, which was rising much more quickly than the other unknown sources. “Let me do that burst for you.” The air shimmered like a heat wave, and the numbers spiked erratically before falling to nearly half of what they originally were. He fell to his knees and gasped, and his heart rate doubled. He threw the cables to the ground and scratched out the circle. “Last time I put myself at risk for another war,” he grumbled. He took a step, then fell into the arms of Siren. “I hate being so weak,” he said angrily into her shoulder.

    She helped him into the nearest bunk, which happened to be her own. He laid down and groaned. His fingers brushed against his neck, then his entire body froze. His eyes were wide with panic, and his breathing was ragged. Suddenly, he screamed, and Binary’s glasses cracked in the left lens. Reaper ran over, her magic immunity working overtime. She put a hand on him, and he crushed the bone in a vice-like grip. Her scream added to his, until both were shot up with intense painkillers. Both had dreamy expressions on their faces, but he still seemed worried. “What’s wrong with you?” Binary said after he replaced his glasses.

    “It’s gone, baby. Gone like the wind!” He chuckled once, then his demeanor changed to that of a small child. “I lost Mommy’s necklace and bracelet! Daddy’s ring is gone, too. They got rid of Uncle’s tattoo, and Auntie’s earring.” He started sobbing hysterically until Siren put an arm around him.

    Binary had a flash of insight, and he turned back to his terminal. “Computer, search ‘Childerohan’. Cross reference, ‘Demon King‘.” The screen blipped, and the words “No match” flashed on the screen. He tried a different tact. “Search ‘Childerohan’. Cross reference, ‘New York City’.”

    This time, Childen’s entire biography, from his time in New York on, was on the screen. Binary scrolled down, pieces of information floating randomly to him. “Purgatory”, “God”, “Spirit”, and several other words were highlighted. He scrolled down until he found a description of him. The necklace he was talking about seemed to hold his weapons in medallion form, but the other items were unlisted.

    Childen was rocking back and forth on the bed, and in a sing song voice, said, “Bloody Nightmare, Duskrunner, Shadowtail, lost them all in the jail. Embryo, Origin, Malady, seem to all be lost to me. Firecracker, Cherry Bomb, Epitaph…” He paused. “I can’t rhyme Epitaph,” he said, and started crying.