Sleeper Agents 5

~~~ Chapter Notes ~~~

This piece is part of a series. The story will make more sense if you read it from start to finish.

All of the chapters in this series have been completed. They are submitted to Literotica as a bundle. They should appear at a rate of one per day.

~~~ New Orleans ~~~

The next two days went by quickly. Honestly, the three squads could have probably handled things by the end of the first 24 hours - but we wanted to be doubly sure.

The last day, we removed the sensors, alarms, and cameras - and relocated the pocket-room farther to the west - leaving the outpost squad all by themselves.

They brought in some tarps and netting to keep the rain off. It blended with the rest of their cover well enough that the demons were still totally caught by surprise when the soldiers opened fire.

We flew back to the outpost, checked in with the commander, and then moved back to our previous location - guarding against attacks from the city.

Angel had come back from Claudia's Prophesy training with three more crossbows - which were now fully upgraded. We also had ammo-packs for every person who carried one of the destructive devices.

Waves emerging from the city were becoming routine. Six girls with crossbows removed the mounts, pushed intent into the auto-cockers, pushed intent into the reloaders, lined up on the lieutenants, and wiped them out. The commanding unit was down in seconds. After that, regular archers removed the dozen or so low-level demons that were herding the humans forward - and then we just got out of the way so that the sheeple could return to town.

I decided that it was time to pay the General another visit. I took Angel, Cherry, and Claudia with me. The portal guard saluted as we approached. I returned their salute. It was a little bizarre.

~~~ Heaven ~~~

We waited a little longer to be admitted but - admittedly - we'd always been escorted before. This time, I had showed up unannounced.

"Sleeper Lamplighter," the smiling General said, approaching with his hand extended to me.

I shook it.

"How can I help you?" he asked.

"We've got things quieted down at the outpost," I reported. "I'm planning to start making in-roads into finding this mysterious base. I'm hoping to convince you to loan us a few gadgets."

"You have my attention," he said. "The outpost commander has been extremely happy with your work. You got the wings?"

"We did," I replied, nodding. "The girls love them. I asked the quartermaster about maybe upgrading them - they increase stability, flying power, and combat effectiveness ..."

"You use them often?" he asked.

"We don't walk anywhere anymore - at least not in the marsh. We'll probably be more stealthy as we move into town - but that's my next request."

He placed a finger against his lips, thinking. I waited.

"I think we have some upgrades that might work," he said finally. "I'll talk to R&D and - if we get something - I'll send them to the commander."

"Perfect," I said.

"Stealth?" he asked.

"I've got two armor-sets that are stealth-based," I told him. "The girls can move at a slow walk. We can work with that - and we've made it work in the past - but I'm guessing you have something better than the civilian shit they sold me."

He nodded.

"I'd like four sets, if possible," I told him.

His eyes widened.

"That's a pretty big ask," he said.

"We've worked with the outpost commander," I told him. "Your soldiers are now getting experience from wiping out demons - without injury or incident - around the clock. Your troops are getting tougher, we've made the base more secure, and we're eliminating the attacks from town. Once your troops have leveled up from killing the portal-spawns, we can show them how to deal with the waves from the city. We use six heavily upgraded civilian crossbows and some heavy bolts. We remove the six mounts, reload, and eliminate the lieutenants - all in a few seconds. Then we wipe out the low-level demons that are chasing the humans towards the outpost."

"How do you avoid detection?"

"We have a pocket-room," I told him. "We used your sensors and alarms and cameras and watch from our hidey-hole. As soon as the lieutenants pass our bolt-hole, we emerge and wipe them out."

He nodded, still thinking.

"I'm sure you have access to better equipment than we do. It's really like shooting fish in a barrel, if you do it right."

His eyes studied mine for a minute and he nodded a few more times.

"Four sets of stealth armor," he said. "They will be delivered to the commander along with the bolt-hole, sensors, alarms, and cameras. You agree to train the commander's squads to take over the operation and - like you did at the portal - provide oversight until those troops have demonstrated that they can continue the operation without injury or incident."

"That works for us," I said.

He held his hand out. I took it and shook it.

"It'll take me a few days," he said.

"We'll start scrying for the enemy base so that we can start moving on it as soon as we have the stealth gear."

"You have a prophetess?" he asked.

"My wife, Claudia," I said, turning to motion towards her.

His eyes widened. He looked back at me.

"Stay in touch with the commander," he said. "Equipment and instructions will come through him."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"The Legions of Heaven appreciate your efforts, soldier," he said, smiling broadly.

I offered him a quick salute.

He said, "I shouldn't have called you 'soldier' and I shouldn't return your salute, but ..."

He grinned and gave me a quick salute in return.

I turned, gathered the girls, and we headed back out of the General's office.

~~~ New Orleans ~~~

Two days later, the commander sent word that his units were ready to start being trained on defending against the waves that came from the city.

I arrived at the base to find Chalmers, Johnson, and Ramirez waiting with the commander. Their squads had gained enough experience from farming the portal demons that they were judged to be the best teams to take over the new assignment.

The commander provided me with the card-thingy for the pocket-room, the sensors, the alarms, and the cameras.

Since Chalmers' squad was ready to move out, we took flight and headed northwest. I noticed that the soldiers were a lot more comfortable flying now. It made me feel good.

The girls and I got our stuff pulled up and we dropped the commander's equipment in exactly the same place that ours had been. We got all of the sensors and stuff set up and showed them how we did things.

We still had an hour or so before the next wave arrived so we ran through a couple mock-battles, showing where the lieutenants would gather, describing their members, strengths, and weaknesses - and answering questions about why we went about things the way that we did.

We temporarily dropped our pocket-room just behind theirs - and then we all disappeared from sight and waited for the fun to begin.

Chalmers' boys did well with the crossbows - really well considering the fact that they didn't have storage-items that they could use to pull more ammo from. They also didn't have auto-cockers or auto-loaders. Every soldier had a crossbow. Each one was assigned to either a mount or a rider. They knew which enemy - left to right - was theirs. If they missed, they had to reload as quickly as possible and be ready to fire again.

The mounts all went down. One of the archers missed one of the riders because he fired a little too slowly and the rider twisted in his seat as the mount collapsed. Three or four of the man's buddies had already reloaded - and they filled the last rider with several bolts.

Everybody reloaded and they went after the herdsmen. Where we used regular archers, they simply got closer with the crossbows, waited for the signal from Chalmers, and removed the demons all at the same time. It seemed to work well enough.

Their next challenge was dragging those demons back to the original kill-site. We used our storage-rings to do that. They didn't have any. Each man grabbed a corpse by the ankle and headed back, dragging the body behind him.

By the time they got back, the lieutenants' bodies were fading away and they quickly looted everything - carrying it into the pocket-room. They reemerged to clean up the mess from the grunts. After that, we all ducked into their hidey-hole to do our post-action review - and give the humans time to disperse.

I recommended to the officers that they see about convincing the commander to get them each a storage-ring - just to make transporting the loot back to base more manageable. I offered to load everything up and take it with us - when I escorted Johnson and Ramirez back - so that I could show the man how much miscellanea they would be dealing with.

The squad was - I thought - far better prepared for this operation than they had been when they had first arrived at the demon portal. It was nice to see these young angels growing stronger and more confident.

I flew back to the outpost with Johnson and Ramirez, dumped out the armor and weapons that Chalmers' group had looted, and added my voice to the request for the officers to be issued storage-items.

The commander laughed and shook his head at me - knowing that the whole thing had been my idea. I shrugged and grinned back. He *did* agree to talk to the General about it.

I headed home.

~~~

Two days later, the commander called me back in.

His officers were confident that they could manage the attack waves from the city. Since they only happened twice a day, their groups were also being cycled back over to help with the portal - to allow them to farm a little more experience off of the easier (and more frequent) waves.

Before I left, the commander told Johnson to dump out the goodies he was holding. The junior officer grinned at me, holding out the storage-ring that he now had, and a hardened-metal briefcase appeared in his hands. He popped the lid and held it open for me to examine.

Inside were 16 experimental upgrades for the wing-controllers - with instructions for us to provide feedback directly to R&D via the commander. There were also six units that looked like our shield emitters. The commander explained what he had been told - that these were military-grade stealth gear. They could not be used at the same time as the shield-emitters. We had to either choose shields or stealth. I nearly shit myself when I realized that we had been given six of them - instead of the four that I'd asked for.

I thanked the commander for his help, stowed my treasures, and leapt into the sky. I was back at our base in a flash.

We bid the soldiers farewell, packed up our pocket-room, and relocated ourselves over to a position closer to the portal. We dropped the mini-portal and slipped inside to figure out our next move.

For the next two days, we kept an eye on the squads from the outpost and searched for the location of the demon's base in the area.

While we were - essentially - cooling our heels, I sent Gwen and Penny with Tuya - to return to Mongolia - to check on her student. They returned the next day and reported that the visit had gone well and that the young Mongol woman was progressing as expected.

While Claudia searched for the demon base, Angel made several trips to Heaven to get more bottled (holy) water. We tried using some stuff we grabbed from one of the convenience stores in town - but it didn't work.

Cherry or Angel would drain my balls, fill their mouth the rest of the way up with bottled water, swish the mixture around in their mouths, and then spit it into the basin. Claudia would add a bit more water (she always knew just how much to add) and then I would ask my question and she would pray.

Praying for a map showing concentrations of demonic activity gave us a satellite map of the NOLA metro area lit up with so many red dots that it was easier to look for spaces that *didn't* have activity.

Our next attempt excluded activities that primarily involved empathetic humans. That narrowed things down to one red dot on every city block. The next refinement to our search gave us dots for every nine blocks. Then 27, then 81, ...

"Show me the demon portals," I asked.

The search returned no results - not even the one that we already knew about. Those were, somehow, blocked from scrying. I guess that made sense. If I had a device to prevent others from scrying me, why wouldn't such a thing be built into the portals ...

I decided to switch tactics. If the demon structures were protected ...

"Show me where the humans for the southwest waves that attack the outpost come from - drawing lines from their points of origination to where they meet to leave the city."

That map was more interesting. It wasn't conclusive - but it might help us narrow our search.

"Show me all of Heaven's outpost," I asked.

There were outposts in nearly every wildlife refuge in and around the city.

"Show me the outposts that are being attacked in the same way as the one we've been defending."

It was the same map.

"Show where the humans come from - for the attacks on all of our outposts - drawing lines from the points of origination to where they meet resistance from our bases."

Red lines started from every block within the city and ended at one of the angel bases. There was nothing there to help improve our search.

"Shit!" Penny gasped.

I wholeheartedly agreed with her assessment.

"You guys have ideas for a better search?" I asked.

"Claudia needs another break," Cherry informed me.

I looked up at my wife's eyes. She was exhausted. I pulled her into a hug.

"Sorry, baby," I told her.

"I'm trying ...," she mumbled.

"I know, baby," I said. "You're amazing. I need to figure out the right things to ask and quit beating you up."

"I can do one more ...," she said.

"You're sure?" I asked.

She nodded and said, "I'll take a nap after ..."

"What we need," Gwen said, "is just a place to start. We go in, start killing the bitches, and wait for them to come at us. Drain the swamp."

Angel reloaded the basin and Claudia tried once more.

"Where should we start trying to drain the swamp?" I asked.

Claudia prayed once more. We looked at the map. It held one big red dot.

"City Park," Penny read. "It's huge."

I left the others to study the map. I picked my wife up in my arms and carried her to bed. I stripped us both and laid her down. I snuggled in beside her and held her close as her eyes slammed shut and her breathing steadied.

Cherry turned out the lamp beside our bed, blew me a kiss, and went back to join the others.

~~~

The next morning, the girls were ready to move. They'd picked an island in the park as our most defensible position. From the satellite imagery, it looked like it didn't get a lot of human activity. We would set up our base and start doing patrols into the surrounding areas. The demons would, no doubt, quickly figure out where we were located - and then we'd just have to see how long we could take the heat before we called for a strategic withdrawal. The only thing that we really had going for us was the fact that - no matter where we attacked - the demons seemed to be far less organized than we were. I fully expected to - someday - find a demon lord who exhibited better battle tactics but - until then - we were going to keep kicking ass and taking ... loot? We definitely were not taking names ...

Penny wanted beignets and po'boys - so we flew to Jackson Square and everybody tracked down their favorites. I grabbed a fried shrimp po'boy and a slice of fresh pecan pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting over (and into) it. It was so sweet that it made my teeth hurt.

I stood by Jackson's statue and finished my treats, waiting for the others to return. A little boy walked by, holding his grandmother's hand. He looked directly at me. I spread my wings and his eyes widened and he grinned broadly. When his caregiver tugged at his hand, looking around to see what he was staring at, I tucked them away again.

More than one adult shot me a withering look. I used a little intent to fill their ears with an angry growl and they quickly found something else to do.

In Chicago, almost no humans noticed me. Here, it was a little crazy - how many of them seemed to be more sensitive to unseen things.

I admit that I was starting to get a little edgy by the time Cherry, Angel, and Claudia came into view. The rest of the girls weren't far behind. I was more than ready to be away from all of these humans - especially the cranky ones.

We took to the air and headed northwest. Once we crossed the interstate, the girls started actively looking for the place that we'd selected for our base.

We dropped in a few seconds later. I quickly jogged around the perimeter of the little island. There were two ways into the land mass that weren't blocked by water. I hadn't seen demons crossing bodies of water yet. I didn't doubt that they could - and presumed that some could even fly - but it would definitely slow down any humans they tried to throw at us.

No sooner did we touch down than Claudia dropped to her knees and started praying. I wasn't sure what she was up to - but I let her be. By the time I'd finished with my quick inspection, she was getting back to her feet.

She had a far-away look in her eyes. Angel and I followed her until she came to an old decaying headstone. There were a dozen of them scattered around the area but she chose one. She held her hand out to Angel.

"Holy water?" I asked.

Claudia nodded.

Angel dug a bottle of water from her storage-ring and handed it to my wife.

Claudia sprinkled the contents of the bottle around on the ground - over the grave - and handed the empty bottle to Angel. Then she sat down.

She prayed for about five minutes before I felt something malevolent rising from the ground. I pulled out my scythe, extended the handle, and focused intent into the blade - igniting it with holy flames.

An ancient spirit rose until he stood. He was standing in the same spot that Claudia was sitting - as if she wasn't even there. I looked at my body and realized that I didn't look like myself. I looked like a faded ghost or spirit - like the spirit in front of me. My blade looked like me.

The evil spirit eyed me and smiled - showing me his pointy teeth. He pulled out a scythe that looked like mine.

"This place belongs to me," he hissed.

"Not anymore," I told him.

"You won't survive, pup," he snarled.

"We'll see," I promised.

Without further warning, he spun and slashed his scythe at me. I raised the handle of my weapon - to block - and his blade cut through it. His maniacal laugh made my ears hurt.

I tucked the now-useless part of the blade into the back of my waistband and adjusted my grip on the handle of my weapon.

I did a better job of anticipating his next attack. He was way fucking faster than anybody I had fought so far - and way better.

He spun again and - this time - I tried to spin away instead of blocking his attack. His blade cut down across my chest - leaving behind a shallow slice from my breastbone to my belly that stung - and began to bleed. I realized that I didn't have my shield emitter turned on and pushed my intent into it. It failed.

The demon spirit laughed and said, "No toys, little boy. Just me and you and our blades."

Based on the injury I'd taken, I wasn't sure my bark-skin or thorn-hide was working either.

He spun at me again and this time I spun with him, copying his move and shadowing his attack to place me beside him - rather than in front of him. He lunged at me - to bite me - and I cartwheeled away. The piece of handle that he'd cut from my weapon jabbed me in the butt-cheek as I landed. I snarled from the pain. He snickered at me and it sounded like a nest of snakes hissing.