The Veteran dared not move as the skeleton took its bloody finger away.
"Communications equipment was nowhere to be found. Are you completely isolated here?" It wheezed.
It took about fifty seconds before it actually registered to the former soldier that this abomination the Sith had conjured had asked a question.
"Yes."
"Poor?"
"Simple."
It stared. The Veteran wanted to go further away but the wall wouldn't let her.
The chuckle that escaped it was dry, wheezing, and utterly revolting.
"Simple," it heaved out. "You don't look simple."
The Veteran said nothing at this.
"You live alone?"
"Yes."
"Do you have a name?"
"Nothing Memorable."
Another hideous chuckle.
"Fair enough, Memorable."
"Are you going to kill me?"
It stared, the red fire in its eye sockets, casting a nastier pallor over it's rictus-grin face.
"No. I have a use for you. For this place. But I must have Privacy. Secrecy. No one must learn what I am doing."
"How do I know you wouldn't just kill me once you get what you want? I'm simple, not stupid."
"I'm not going to waste my energy killing a farmer. Leaving would inconvenience me greatly, but eventually I would achieve my goal some other way. So I am forced to resort to the trade of Demons: How about a deal?"
The Veteran's instincts, along with every terrible story she had ever heard about making pacts with the servants of Perdition and how they ended immediately told her to refuse.
But before she could get a word out, she spotted behind the skeleton the gray-shrouded figure, standing, silently. She strongly doubted the skeleton noticed. Just as she strongly doubted her refusing would end things well between her and the figure.
Stomach twisting at the implications behind his presence, The Veteran decided to make a tactical decision. One she did not like, but the way the shrouded figure talked about prices...
"What deal?"
"There must be something you want. Something you desire greatly. What about your flesh? You clearly have no love for monetary gain. I have great control over living tissue. I could coax your body into restoring itself once my task is complete."
"What would I be doing?" The Veteran asked, believing none of it.
"You would do what you have been doing...This is a vinyard, is it not?"
"Partly."
"You would deflect suspicion by acting normal. Being my...'Face'...for the moment."
"What makes my place so damn special?"
"Its steeped in the Dark Side...among other things..."
The Veteran did not respond as she began to think.
Uncomfortably, she found the Demon's bargain seductive, but didn't think the bargain would be honored. And she was not about to open up and say what she really wanted.
"If I serve you...you do a service to be specified by me upon completion," The Veteran said, leaving it open ended.
The Skeleton stared. The Farmer was no fool.
"Deal."
The Veteran stood back up, still utterly terrified at how deep she had involved herself. The Skeleton did not move, merely continuing to observe her.
"I have a task for you. I must have flesh."
"What kind?"
"The meat of a wild animal. Bring it whole."
"Okay."
The Veteran was scrambling up the ladder, rifle slung over her clothes. She didn't dare look at it as she flipped the entrance to the basement shut.
She burst out of the front entrance of her home, collapsing into a heap on the dirt road outside it. The deep blues of early dawn were close to vanishing. She had maybe a half hour before the sun was fully visible.
Survival instincts kicked in. Complete one task, do not think about complications, she told herself. Focus.
She checked her ammo. She had one round in the gun, three more in her pocket. There were Corellian Deer in the grasslands south of the wheatfields. It wouldn't be too hard to drag it back.
The Veteran began to make a brisk pace down the road. The wheatfields cast an endless blond haze on either side of her, great thousand-year old trees in the distance making great patches of the sky green against a rose horizon. No birds tweeted. Just the sound of wheat shuffled by a light breeze. She stared straight ahead, focusing only on her task to keep from breaking down again.
She heard the whine of another attack shuttle flying overhead. Another black flying wing. She didn't recognize the model. They had to have seen her house as they flew overhead, but they didn't care. Either they were careless...
...or they were Republic.
She looked to the east, spotted another flying wing making a long turn in the sky as a message blared:
"ATTENTION REPUBLIC CITIZENS. CASTELL IS NOW UNDER TRAVEL LOCKDOWN. DO NOT BE ALARMED. WE ARE PURSUING A CRIMINAL."
The Veteran began to sweat cold at the implication. She didn't just have a demon inside her house...she had a demon the military might be looking for.
And if they caught her with it...
The Veteran began to swear violently under her breath.
The sun had risen fully by the time she reached the Grasslands. Should be one or two grazing, she surmised as she hefted her weapon, looking for prey, sneaking low into the tall grass.
It was another half hour of moving down wind before she spotted one of the dark green dear. A stag. Its pure white horns glimmered as the mist started to rise up.
She breathed slow, taking aim. The Stag suspected nothing, powerful muscles rippling as it grazed, moving from place to place. One heartbeat. Two.
Her gunsight fell directly on its head.
The mechanical whir of her leg brought the memory of ozone to her nose, sparks flashing in her mind as she accidentally pulled the trigger.
The shot went wild, hitting a tree as the stag went galloping off, alerted.
The Veteran rolled over on the Grass, looking at a sky the color of a robin's egg.
She exhaled, breathed slowly, in an out, even as the whir in her legs reminded her of electricity, and the possibility of being shocked. She struggled to keep from panicking. She was not successful.
"She's good for the deal, in case you are wondering."
The Veteran shot up, staring at the Gray Shrouded figure.
"What the hell have you gotten me in?!"
"We made a deal. Services were promised."
"What kind of deal?" The Veteran snarled, the weight of her situation provoking something close to an anxiety attack.
"You were dying. Slowly being electrocuted to death. You asked for the lives of your men to be saved. You had little of value to me to pay for that request. I stipulated that you would render aid to the creature in your house.
"Why that creature?"
"That is not for you to understand. You need only aid it, then your services will be completed and our transaction fulfilled. Withdraw from the agreement, and you and your men shall drop dead instantly."
"Those are almost certainly black ops shuttles flying through the sky! This place is gonna be crawling with military assassins soon. Maybe even Jedi. What the hell am I supposed to do when they come looking for that monster?!"
"You have the advantage. No one knows you were present. And no one has any indication of where your guest may have gone. As long as you are smart, you will evade detection," the Figure calmly stated.
"Its not just the military. Does that creature have enemies?"
"Many."
"Will they come looking for it?" she asked tersely. "No way that thing would have asked for my help if it wasn't in deep poodoo. Someone messed up how it was summoned."
"There is a possibility of more dangerous foes being drawn here thanks to the military," the Figure admitted, unphased.
The Veteran got in the Figure's face. "What is it you have me serving?" She snarled.
The Figure gave no reaction.
"If you would know, then go to the rolling hills to the south. An old man lives there. He knows what you seek," the shrouded man answered.
The Veteran blinked, and the Figure in the gray shroud was gone.
She'd find the old man later, right now she had to get that creature its meat.
It was a half hour before she found another stag. The Deer's green coat was surrounded by morning mist rising off a mound of wild flowers. Its pure white horns were a thick arrangement of antlers with short, protruding antler spurs on each main horn. It was big. A Male.
She felt bad for it. She usually hunted smaller prey, but Castell's flying squirrels and saffron wheatfield wolves had migrated east because it had just turned autumn. It got chilly in these parts during autumn.
She took aim with her rifle as she went prone in the grass, the end of her rifle poking through the grass stalks. She desperately tried to ignore any sound her mechanical parts made.
She took a breath and held it. The trigger pulled, and the deer fell.
She scrambled up, jogging over to it. The Deer huffed, kicked a little, bleeding out.
Nauseated at its eventual fate, The Veteran shot it again, and it was dead. She waited a few minutes so its brain could eventually catch up to the body, before she knealt down, feeling the fur. It'd make for a good winter blanket.
Instead, it was going to that disgusting thing hiding in her panic room.
"Salutations, friend!"
The Veteran's head snapped around. It was a portly middle aged man, dressed in a blue set of civilian robes. He was balding, had a crown of brown on the sides, with a great, bushy brown mustache and large round face with rosy cheeks. He had beady blue eyes and a jolly smile.
"May I help you?" she asked.
"Castell Marshals, ma'am. I'm Bonny. Bonny Vor. Hell of a mornin', ain't it?" He asked enthusiastically with that relaxed, smooth Castell accent.
"It's bright."
"Got yourself some good game there! Big one at that!" The Marshall observed. "Might want to step back though, so you don't get blood on your clothes there."
"Yeah, I was a little close. Didn't get it cleanly the first time." The Veteran answered, eyes scanning Vor, automatically knowing the best, fastest way to kill him. It was involuntary. She even knew exactly what he would look like in death, depending on the method. She hated this about herself.
"Aww, poor thing."
"Yeah."
"Ma'am, it's my unfortunate duty to inform you that due to the Travel Lockdown the Republic declared on Castell, the Marshalls have been given authority to...well...comb the hills."
"Was that what that shuttle was screaming earlier?" She asked, eyes sliding to the deer and its infernal fate.
"Oh, yes. There's a very dangerous criminal, ma'am. Very dangerous. We're advising everyone to stay indoors until they're caught," Bonny answered, hitching his thumbs into his belt. "I'd be happy to escort you back to your home."
"No need. I can make my way."
"Ma'am, before you go, I was hoping you could tell me if you heard anything strange. Some of your neighbors in the redwoods west of here reported a strange howling coming from this general area. Did you see or hear anything strange last night?"
"I was drunk. Very drunk. Passed out on my front porch. Woke up around sunset and went inside, passed out. Slept all night."
"Celebrating?"
"No."
"I don't suppose anyone can corroborate your location last night."
"People live so far apart from each other in these parts, its rare when we meet."
"So that's a no?"
"That's a no."
"By the way, I never got your name..." Bonny trailed in a friendly manner.
The Veteran handed him her wallet. He flipped the brown wallet open.
"Huh, that's a pretty name. You live on Castell long?"
"Three years."
"You've got such a pretty name. Why not just say it out loud when I asked?"
"There's power in names. You don't say them casually."
"Religious?"
"Superstitious."
"I see. Well, I'll try not to use your name if it bothers you."
"Thank you," she said politely, stoically.
"You sure you don't need any help with your kill?"
"I'm good."
"I see, well, good day then, Ma'am."
"Likewise."
"Remember! Get inside soon! The Military is gonna be in these parts pretty quick!" Bonny called out as he began walking south, to the municipal nerve center of the Colony.
The Veteran sighed, before squatting and lifting the heavy carcass like it was nothing and began a slow walk back home.
And that monster.
Upon getting in the front door, The Veteran dumped the heavy carcass on the rough wooden floor, heading over to the concealed entrance to her panic shelter, pulling the entrance open. She saw only its flaming red eyes gazing from below.
"I've got your meat."
"Excellent," it wheezed. "Give it to me."
"I might have to break the antlers off to fit it down there. Will that be alright?"
"No problem."
The Veteran casually snapped the antlers off cleanly, and then slid the carcass down there."
"Need anything else?" The Veteran inquired.
"No. That will be all," the monster replied. "When I have need, I will inform you."
As soon as the monster said that, the Veteran was already closing the entrance. She went upstairs, as far away from that creature as possible. She headed to the toilet and vomited from stress. Than she went to bed with her rifle and lay trembling in it.
***
The Skeleton painstakingly tore the beautiful animal open with a hunting knife it had found on the shelf nearby. First came the internal organs. Then samples of muscle and fat. Then a rib.
The Summoning had gone wrong. Utterly sabotaged. The creature had not been this vulnerable in centuries.
It was still amazed the woman hadn't fired. Amazed and lucky.
It was mortal. If it died now, there would be no next ressurection. That woman had been as close as anyone had ever gotten to killing it for good.
The Demon it was merged with had been put to sleep following the botched summoning. It had access to some of its strength, but not its ressurective ability, nor its ability to reverse wounds in seconds.
But it still had privileged access to the knowledge of the Saint Carrida Hemato-Codex. And even without the Demon's nigh-overwhelming power, it had still been a very skilled Jedi Sage, once upon a time.
The Pentagram was drawn on the south wall, the flame script of the Codex's Healing Formulas encircling it, drawn from right to left, reciting forbidden things in quiet whispers that warped and distorted the environment in a way only it could observe.
The muscles it had cut out of the deer began to twitch and move, slithering onto already bloody thigh bone and growing, twisting and rewriting itself at the molecular level to its manipulator's aims.
The organs slithered into its ribcage, squishing, pushing around, bursting like boils and stretching out across the skeleton like a fine film, though slick and oozing. Veins grew and wired themselves. Hair began to grow on a nascent scalp.
As flesh grew, its emotions came back more, until its sense of playfulness was alive and well. It was infuriated also, and vowed that whoever had dared sabotage her ressurection would suffer dearly.
The spell worked slowly. Its flesh would not be complete for a few hours. Once it had a full body, its chances would be better, but it would still be vulnerable.
And the Farmer still needed to do what it wanted willingly. The Farmer could not be coerced, she had to know everything, and still give permission.
If only it could properly broach the subject...
***
The Veteran didn't realize she had fallen asleep until her eyes had opened. It felt like noon.
Groggy, she rose, checked her rifle. Both empty cartridges. She removed them and put two more in from a nearby box of ammo. She clicked the breech shut and began to make her way downstairs.
"I have to say...I like your house. Very rustic," called out a soft, seductive sounding voice, that had a hint of an accent.
The Veteran stared. She was naked, her back to her, sitting at her coffee table. Sunlight poking through the roof of the darkened home hit the curvy figure's hourglass frame, which had caramel colored skin.
The Veteran did not respond. The damn thing had fixed itself. The former soldier slowly, hesitantly drew closer to the coffee table, to get a good look.
She held her ground once she did, didn't jump back, didn't get sick.
The back was complete. Not the Front. The bloody ribcage was still fully exposed, and so was the spinal column, though the Veteran could see the tissues for the abdominal muscles and breasts being constructed, the beginner muscles weaving themselves through the clavicle bone and around what looked like a fully constructed Aorta.
The face wasn't complete either. The upper left and the nose of it still needed to be completed. But what was finished was the work of a master sculptor. It was scientifically beautiful, smooth and angular. Her lips were black, and her hair was jet black, in a messy, short partial coif. Her incomplete eye produced that unholy red fire from a slick and bloody eye socket. The other had an eyeball that was a slick, ruby sheen, and no pupils. Just red. Her lips were jet black. She looked to be in her early twenties.
"I do apologize for my incomplete state. You think this is bad? Watch me try and put on eyeshadow some time," it joked.
"Who are you?"
The naked, incomplete Demon stood.
"I am Darth Sangraal. Dark Lady of Regeneration."
The Veteran stared.
"Any other requests?" The Veteran asked.
"Straight to business? Must we?" Sangraal asked, taking a step forward. Her tone was faux-innocent, the fiery red glare on her unfinished face threatening to send a tremble of terror through the Veteran's body.
Copper scents wafted up her nose at the Demon's approach. Blood from the visible innards.
"I ain't worth getting to know."
"How did you come to be injured?"
"I could ask you the same thing. Wouldn't get an answer, would I?"
"So true," Sangraal huffed. The Farmer was skittish. Sangraal could not blame her.
"Why live so primitively?"
"Why live complicated?"
The Farmer was evasive. Sangraal hadn't even learned her name. But she sensed pain, deep and lasting. And fear. Extreme fear. That ironically made her harder to read.
"Okay, Simple. You want to keep your secrets. But we should at least not be so hostile. After all, we'll both get what we want faster by cooperating."
"What am I cooperating for?" The Veteran asked.
Sangraal paused. Evasive yet interrogative. Never gave away vital intel yet was quick to probe for any weaknesses in her guests ability to keep her mouth shut.
Unfortunately, the Farmer had the advantage. And Sangraal would not be able to conceal it forever.
"Very well, you win," the unfinished Demon said, stepping closer. The Veteran stepped back, freezing in disgust as Sangraal leaned forward and whispered.
"I need your womb to make something."
Thinking only of the lives of her men, who needed her now more than ever, the Veteran only said, "How long until you are ready?"
Sangraal's eyebrow raised. "You're not even curious what I need the womb for?"
"How. Long?" The ex-soldier's eyes were steely, her jaw clenched tight as the words came out tersely. Not impolite, not in a snarl...but tersely.
"A month at most. I have to focus the energies in this place properly-"
"As long as you are out of my house at the end of it, your preperations matter little."
Sangraal sighed, perturbed. She would have been less disturbed had the Farmer recoiled in disgust.
"It wouldn't be painful, if that's what you are afraid of."
"This ritual of yours isn't getting done any faster talking to me."
"It's a baby."
"Did I ask?" The Veteran said dryly, revolted by the way she could see the exposed heart starting to beat slightly faster through Sangraal's incomplete chest. The membranes on some of her internal organs still had gaps in their coverage. The Liver, if it had any function in the Demon at all, was still misshapen slightly. The fat layers wriggled and shifted on the skeleton underneath and against sinew, placing in the correct areas. The whole thing was utterly nauseating.
"So you don't care at all about the fact I want you to be a surrogate mother?"
"All I care about is you getting it over with."
Sangraal stepped forward. The Veteran stepped backward, all the way to the front door.
"You're afraid of me?"
"Yes."
"I'd rather you not be. I've no desire to take your life. Or your soul."
"Just my womb."
Sangraal smiled. "A girl's gotta start somewhere."
The Veteran tasted bile and vomit rising up rapidly, but displayed no reaction to the smile. She held the red stare of the Demon.
"If you say so."
"We should not be enemies, Simple. Think of us as business partners on an exciting venture."
"You treat me civil, I'll treat you the same," The Veteran said, deciding to get away from the revolting creature. "Republic just declared a travel lockdown looking for you. Nobody gets on or off the Planet. Hills probably crawling with military by this point. They're ordering people to stay indoors."
"All that just to catch little old me? I'm flattered," the incomplete Demon said, giving a throaty chuckle. The Veteran forced vomit back down her throat as she saw the lungs contract rapidly to give her chuckle the air it needed.
"Whatever. I'm going to do dishes."
"Ummm...about my clothing situation..." the Demon added in a tone the Veteran found hideously playful.
"I have a spare set of clothes. You're not getting them until you've finished...sewing up."
The Veteran began to pump water into the metal sink she had shaped by hand. She applied dish soap to plain white ceramic plates still dirty from a meal of flying squirrels.
"You built this house yourself?" Sangraal asked.
"Yes," she answered, calmly setting a clean plate to the side of a wooden counter. She could hear the slick, wet thuds of Sangraal's heart against the muscle and organs, and avoided looking lest she be nauseated.
"Strange," Sangraal noted, her gaze analytical.
"What's strange?" Another washed and completed dish.
"I've been in Farmer's homes before. There are usually knick-knacks. Trinkets."
"Never was the type to start a collection."
"Oh, you should try it, its fun," the naked, incomplete Demon replied in a gossipy tone. "You look like a stamp collector-type."
The Veteran said nothing, merely giving a shrug.
"I used to collect coins. Kept it up for a good few thousand years. Built up quite the collection...and then a rival blew it all up to spite me," Sangraal added, leaning against the counter. "Decided not to waste time on the hobby when it was under constant threat."
"Sounds like it was your little sliver of normal," the Veteran observed, detached.
"Normal's overrated, Dear."
"Okay."
The Veteran began drying the dishes.
The slick wet thud heartbeat made the Veteran's stomach wrench.
"I have to say, you are taking all this a lot better than I thought you would."
The Veteran shrugged, drying a plate. She could hear the exposed heart clearly in the naked silence between them. Strong. Steady. Loud. Sickening.
"How long till you're sewn up?" she asked, drying a cup, eyes down at the floor, neither smiling nor frowning.
"An hour, at most."
"What else do you need for the ritual you have to conduct?"
Sangraal sighed. No small talk it seemed.
"More internal organs, human, this time, taken fresh."
The Veteran looked up, a gormless expression on her face as she dried another cup.
"Ha! Made you look! Actually, I wouldn't need to resort to human organs unless I wanted to affect the ecology, which is admittedly quite beautiful around here. But I will need human blood mixed with ink," Sangraal clarified with a devilish grin, muscle tissue starting to obscure sight of the heart as it slowly grew.
"Got a transfusion kit somewhere. You'll get your blood."
"Sorry, doesn't work that way. I mix your blood into the ink I need when you are already the focus? Lets just say you'll...screw it, you'd implode," Sangraal explained. "It has to be fresh."
"We get it cleanly. No deaths," The Veteran asserted quietly, focusing on the silverware now as she worked a spoon over with a rag.
"I didn't come here to murder innocent people in the quaint countryside, Simple," Sangraal replied, slightly irritable as the tissue over her incomplete face knitted together.
"Never said you did."
"You think I'm one of those heartless butchers Exar was in charge of, don't you?"
"You were a bloody, demonic skeleton when we met."
"Well I'm not now. At worst, I look like I skidded across the ground in a vehicular accident," Sangraal whined in an almost childlike manner.
"No arguments there," the Veteran responded quietly, drying the last cup, forcing herself to stare at the creature in front of her. "How fresh? The blood, I mean."
"It can't be older than an hour from the body."
"I'll go find someone when its dark. Bring him back here, drain the blood, and deposit him back where I found him."
"Damn, woman. Do I have to tip for delivery?" Sangraal joked morbidly.
The Veteran did not smile.
"I'll get you your clothes in a few minutes," the Veteran said.
Sangraal let out a huff. "Leave them down in the basement," she said, the cartilage on her nose nearly finished as she walked out of the sparse, small kitchen, heading down into the panic shelter.
As soon as she was out of sight, the Veteran grabbed a spray bottle of soap and sprayed the part of the counter Sangraal had leaned against. She began scrubbing it furiously with a sponge.
"Sure hope this stuff can clean infernal off hard surfaces," she muttered under her breath as she scrubbed.
***
The Veteran had found an old white knee length dress she had never worn, along with a pair of white sandals and some underwear, and had been heading downstairs to hand all of this to the Demon. There were no spare bras, and the Veteran would be damned before getting The Damned all over them.
There was a knock on the door.
The Veteran quietly and quickly went back upstairs and put the clothes back in her closet. She also swapped out her bloody clothes from this morning, putting on a loose fitting gray t-shirt and a gray pair of trousers with red flip flops and headed down stairs after she threw the bloodied clothes into a sealed duffle bag in her closet before heading downstairs.
Flicking some strands of brown hair from the side of her face covered by synthskin and opened the door.
Four men, dressed in black BDU'S covered by black plastoid plates on the chest, shins, and forearms, with an ammunition belt on the waist. Shotguns with drum clips and silencers were slung over their backs. Three of them, their faces covered by Balaclavas and enhanced vision visors. They flanked the leader, who was unmasked. None of them wore rank insignia or service patches.
The leader, the unmasked one, was wearing a yellow Beret with a red trim on the sides. He was a foot taller than her, and broader in the shoulders. The buzzcut his beret partially hid suggested marine, but the beret suggested Republic Special Ranger Service. His jaw was wide, square, and strong, His forehead was large and flat and his cheeks were sharply defined and wide on the face. The Eyes were brown.
His canned smile and pre-rendered Officer's charm went active as if a switch had been thrown.
"Good Afternoon, ma'am," he said, warm, and friendly. The Veteran only stared. "Captain Arkimedes Adonas at your service. May I come in?"
The Veteran stood aside, bade them forward silently.
"Thank you so much, ma'am. I must say, it is an honor to meet someone with your distinguished record," Captain Adonas spoke formally, his voice giving away a certain country side Corellian Drawl. The Veteran guessed northern islands, situated in the lakes close to the mountains. It's tone gentle and built for putting civilians at ease. He and the others entered, making no sound from their footfalls. Shadowsilk, she guessed.
"Is there something I can help you with, Captain?"
"Ma'am, it is my sad and unfortunate duty to inform you that a squad of men must be stationed on the road outside your home as a military checkpoint. Now, we have been made aware of your medical record and will be establishing all of our electronic equipment a quarter kilometer away from your property. Is that acceptable to you? I'm willing to make it half a kilometer."
"Half would be nice," the Veteran replied, polite but to the point. Her voice slightly hoarse.
"Half it is," Captain Adonas replied respectfully. "Now, we are aware that civilians still need to travel so we will be establishing a curfew eight hours afternoon, these maps I am handing you," the Captain added, handing her a series of papers, "Are a list of approved travel routes, the areas in red are off limit search areas where we believe an extremely dangerous criminal may be hiding. He's a Chiss, you'll see a picture of him in the papers you've been given. Now, we believe he caused some kind of disturbance not too far from your property. Do you recall seeing anything odd?"
"Dead asleep, unfortunately."
"I see. That is unfortunate. Well, I won't take up any more of your time, and again, I apologize for any inconvenience," Captain Adonas finished, and with a slight gesture of the head the others followed him out. The Veteran closed the door after a few seconds and then headed up the stairs a few seconds later, retrieving the clothes she had selected for the Demon from her closet. She headed back down, through open the rug disguising the panic shelter entrance. After collecting herself for a moment, she headed down into the shelter.
It was clean. There was no sign of the deer. That scared the Veteran more than if there had gore everywhere. The Demon leaned against the farthest wall from her in complete shadow. Its red eyes glowed in the dark.
"Spare clothes," the Veteran muttered quietly, trying not to shudder at the red eyes.
"White? Ma'am, may I remind you I am a Demon?" Sangraal asked, amusement in her tone.
"I have some black sweatpants."
"I was joking."
"Okay."
Some unseen force lifted the clothes from her hands and drifted into the darkness.
"So...soldier, huh? Heard the conversation."
"Respectfully, that's personal," The Veteran answered, fist clenching at the sounds of blasterfire and screams of the doomed. She hid it, as she always did. The Demon was not fooled. She knew it instinctively.
"Oh, c'mon, I'm curious now."
"I have to go check the grapes out back. They're almost ready for pressing," the Veteran spoke, quickly changing the subject. She began to head up the ladder.
"That man spoke to you with reverence. Respect. What did you do to earn such respect?"
"Same way a good many soldiers have...being in the wrong place, at the wrong time."
"You become more interesting with each passing moment, Simple," Sangraal replied coyly. "What's this about a medical condition?"
"It's. Personal." The words were terse, but did not creep into a tone that could be considered hostile.
"Fair enough. But how are you going to get the blood without that checkpoint outside noticing?"
The Veteran wordlessly approached the part of the panic shelter that had the spare matress on the floor. Her spine tightened as she went only a few meters past the area where she knew Sangraal was in the darkness, the red glowing eyes fixed on the soldier as she lit a candle, held it over the bed, then pressed a small indentation in a brick above on the wall to her left.
There was a click, than a hiss, as the bed lifted up on one side, the purely hydraulic mechanism lifting the hidden trap door the bed hid. She could barely make it out in the darkness, not wanting to light a candle and risk seeing whatever state the Demon was in.
"It leads out into the fields beyond for about a click. I'll go out through here, come back through here. You'll get your blood."
"Hidden escape tunnel? Sexy. I take it I'm not the only one in this room with enemies," the Demon observed with a dark chuckle.
The Veteran rose, shutting the tunnel door. The bed clicked in place.
"They'll be stationing regular army grunts at the checkpoints but the ones near the deep fields and woodlands are throughly black ops. Likely pulled from marine or ranger service. They'll be combing the hills for where they think you are," the Veteran explained, heading back to the ladder, eager to get away from the red eyes.
"Hey, there's no bra," the Demon complained.
"You're not wearing my bras," the Veteran said tersely, heading up the ladder.
"Infernal beings need support too!" The Demon called back irritably as the Veteran went up the ladder and shut the entrance.