The Codex of the Knights of Day - 6. Chapter 5: Orders

Chapter 5: Orders
My mind is still reeling from the conversation Nicolas had tried on me. I had another piece of the puzzle solved. They convince you that you have no power on your own to save anyone, including yourself. They try to convince you that your loved ones are nothing but lairs, waiting in the wings to swoop down and slit your throat when you’re least expecting it. I had turned the tables of Nicolas, so to speak. When I had cocked my arm back to hit Jensen, Nicolas was standing too close to me and I had cut half through his next, almost taking his head off, and with his death, the conversation magic wore off my mind and the demons and abominations fled off into the receding darkness before the sun showed itself.

Before I could even see the sun longer enough, the military was bringing us to Camp Robinson then the Air Force base in Jacksonville. It was like a 30-minute drive with the weaving through the parked cars on the highway. We saved a good amount of people because the dome expanded from the I-630 bridge into Sherwood and JFK areas. It was odd to see them get in their cars and follow us to the base. I don’t think there’s a cover up big enough for the government to come up with.

I wonder if we’ll be paid for this. I mean I think we should definitely be paid for this, at least I should because the mentally damage and the fact that I’m the only Knight around, but life isn’t fair like that and people aren’t nice, or smart.

Jacksonville Air Force base was as packed as a parking lot in Disney World. On the normal basis, the Air Base is at half capacity, but with the sudden influx of people coming here and the ones on the way, it was going to full in no time, if not already.

A small squad met us at the car, all of them staring at my forehead then the sign. Jensen and my mother had put a little sign around my neck that read: Please, don’t shoot. I’m not a demon. Sandra couldn’t stop laughing and my mother, the delightful imp, kept trying to add something else to it.

Casey was pretty much quiet on the ride, just staring out the window. I think he was just caught up, watching the blue sky. All, I wanted to do was sleep and eat my own body weight in food. The small squad of unattractive mixture of people brought us to the medical department and decided to quarantine me in a plastic box thing, alone.

I wanted to laugh at myself for saying, “Do you not see the sign? I’m not a demon.”

And of course I got one of those timid doctors that listened to everyone except the patient. “Yes, I know sir, but we can’t be too sure.”

“What the fuck else would I be?” My mother told me to stop cursing but I should be able to since we just saved everyone, again and we’ll probably have to do it again. “I’m serious. Why am I in here?”

“You’re in there because we don’t know what dangers you may have hidden.” The asshole of a new military person whose rank I can’t guess because I stopped studying rank structure since sophomore year, especially Air Force and Army and I barely remember Marine Corps to begin with. Therefore, the Air Force man was 5’10”, sharp buzz cut gray hair and cold brown eyes. I’ve seen him somewhere but I just can’t place it.

“Airman Trent,” Jensen snapped to attention, “you have been promoted to Staff Sergeant on this day of our lord, December 25, 2012.” Jensen shook the man’s hand, thanked him, and took his new rank insignias in his left hand. He stepped in front of me with this glare of hate in his eyes. “You must be Cadet Captain Florence.”

“Did the symbol on my forehead give it away?” I really need to get a headband or something for situations like this. “But seriously, let me out.”

He laughed a bit, keeping it mostly in his chest. “No can do. We have reports from people that you sided with the demons in the last battle.”

Jensen’s eyes went wide like he was surprised that someone mentioned this. “Sir, It’s not-.”

The man held his hand up, silencing Jensen easily. “I was not addressing you Staff Sergeant. Aiden, would you like to explain?”

I sat down on the uncomfortable hospital, feeling pressure build behind my eyes as I retrieved the memory. “It’s the way they turn people into demons or abominations or whatever. They surround you with all of your family and friends and start attacking you, stabbing and carving these little hateful words into your body. It’s a devastating process. And for the finale, they have the person you love the most walk up to you and start taking your heart out of your body, slowly following the vein that connects the heart to you with his knife until he makes it to heart and cuts it.” When I stopped to breathe, I felt hot, like burning hot. I guess I’m not over it.

“Then one of the leaders come over and starts protecting you, pushing them away. They tell you if you go with them then you’ll be protected. Then they start talking about revenge, about going to Father and making him pay for creating them. Then the demons become your friends and your friends are the demons, but Jensen woke me up and I killed the leader.”

His looks didn’t change throughout the whole story; he just kept his eyes on my skin as I periodically checked to see if any of the words were real. I still felt scarred. “Your story seems to be missing some points. Like how you ran to demon leader and attacked SSgt Trent in which you accidently cut the leader’s throat. We can’t risk if you’re demon or not. You both have strange symbols marked into your foreheads, you both having healing abilities, but the thing that supposedly separates you is this being called Hellion. So where is it?”

“He’s a man; don’t call him ‘it’.” I retorted. There was a small problem with his request. If I’m right, Hellion’s made out of the black snow, and then he might not be able to be summoned in this realm. “Hellion, come.” I felt something in the back of my mind move, pressure moving to my eyes. “I don’t think it’s possible to summon him outside the dome.”

The man snapped his fingers and troops filled the room. “If you cannot show you’re not a demon then we have no choice but to execute you.” I felt an odd sensation in the back of my mind.

My heart fell into my stomach, beating like a drum, fighting to get out of my body. “What? You can’t be serious! Do you know how many people I’ve saved? I don’t have tan like the demons!”

They hurried and restrained everyone, including my mother. The man cocked his gun, and correcting his sights. It finally dawned on me where I remember this man. On the wall in the ROTC classroom was photos of the Chain of Command, from the president to the Secretary of the Navy. He was the Sectary of Defense, Lieutenant Colonel Amos.

He aimed, “I’m sorry but we can’t afford that.”

An explosion came from behind Amos with Hellion behind him and his sword at his neck. The pressure was excruciating, but I still stood. I pushed the façade further, calling the second sword into my hand, ripping through the plastic and pushing it to his stomach. I made my voice thick with hate but only a whisper. “I’ll splatter your guts, before you can pull the trigger, your choice.”

I had to wait for them to leave the room before I released my hold on Hellion, being caught by Jensen. “Your nose is bleeding.” He looked so worried.

I patted him on the head, “I’m going to take a nap now.”

My growling stomach woke me up in the dead of night. I was tired as hell but my stomach overrode my mind and I found my way to the kitchen in the other wing of the base. The kitchen really didn’t have much to offer except eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, and cheese, the recipe for eggs and fries except for the tomatoes, don’t use tomatoes.

Jensen walked in, half-naked and scratching his junk like no one was there. “So you’re the one cooking.”

I halved my food with him even though I’m sure I could’ve eaten all of it by myself. “You smelled it all the way in the med room?”

He stopped slamming the food down his throat for a second to muffle, “Yes.”

“I’m eating outside before anyone else comes, you want to join me?” I asked already half way outside.

We sat in the entertainment room because it was too fucking cold to sit outside. I finished my plate first, basically tipping my head back to swallow it all at once. “Thanks, I needed that.” Jensen said, patting his flat stomach.

“Just returning the favor for cooking at my house. By the way, what did you cook?”

“Some chicken dish I learned in Italy.”

I nodded, flipping through channels. The only thing that was on was the news about the domes. “Hmph, there’s nothing on TV.”

He grabbed the remote from me, going to TiVo. “There’s never anything on TV.” He went directly to Entourage.

“Not watching that.” I don’t have anything against the show; it’s just not interesting to me. If True Blood were on I would care. “We could just sit here and talk.” I stretched my legs out, resting them on his legs.

His lips twitched in a smile, “What do you want to talk about?”

“Tell me about yourself.”

He took a minute to think about what to tell me, but he eventually gave up. “I was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Uh, my parents got divorced when I was 10. They both struggled to outdo the other. I figured out I was gay when I was 14 and had a few hidden relationships but when I was about 17, I came out.” He got more comfortable the more he talked as he started rubbing my legs half-heartedly. “Oh, there was this one guy, Ethan Clay. I mean he was gorgeous, tall, jet black hair, awesome crystal blue eyes, and this body to die for. I was head over heels in love with this guy. So he strings me along, telling me that I’m his and all that bullshit but no one can know about us and all that. Eventually, he goes off and marries this girl that just appeared out of nowhere and expects me to still be his sexual release.” The whole story had gotten him a bit upset. His handsome face was flushed. “So tell me about yourself.”

I had almost gone asleep thanks to the leg rub. “Uh, born in Louisiana in Algiers Point just across the river from the French Quarters. My father divorced my mother when I was three. I never saw him again until I was in the second grade when my mother went to Texas. I’ve got to say, I made the biggest mistake of my life staying with him.”

I pulled my legs free, not because I wanted him to stop; he was putting me to sleep. “He impressed me with toys and lies about how much he missed me while he was in California with his new ex-wife. When I went to go live with him for nine months, he gave me to his parents and for nine months, they changed every single thing about me. And when his was over there, he decided to beat me every time I didn’t get a gold star for behavior. His mother concentrated on telling me my mother never wanted me and she did all right job. She kept me from my nana, told my mother that I was gone with my father when she called and…” I ranted and raved for about an hour about my poor little abusive childhood, but he listened, asking questions about who a certain person was like Caleb.

I looked at the time on the TV, 4:23 a.m. “Are you sure you’re not tired of listening to me, I mean I’ve kept you up this whole night.” He nodded and just continued to massage my legs. “Okay, uh, where was I?”

“You were talking about your wild years.” He was paying attention!

We laughed about it, “I had a wild year.” I emphasized ‘year’ that was more like a few months. “At 14, I was spending money like water, like a thousand in a week. During the summer I just got up at 10 a.m. and didn’t come back home until one in the morning and no one asked any questions on what I was doing, but by my 15^th birthday something happened. I became a recluse. I stopped going out, stopped talking to people except for Caleb and a few others. At 16, I started,” I stopped, hating to tell this part of the story that is my life or what used to be. “I started thinking about to become a priest.” The look on Jensen’s face was priceless, he froze completely. “Don’t look at me like that.”

His grin widened to show all of his straight white teeth. “You were going to be a priest.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re not priest material. You’re just not-.”

“Not what?”

He sighed, rocking back and forth. “I mean-priests are ugly pimply if they’re young and fat, and ugly when they’re old.”

I couldn’t help but blush. “Are you calling me hot?”

His sparkling blue eyes scanned over my body like he was starved. “Ugh, yes. I find you attractive, but I’m not-.”

I just laughed, feeling strangely happy. I stood up and offered him my hand. “Come on, let’s go before they catch us and kick you out of the military for homosexual displays of affection.”

Something about his eyes was off. Instead of getting up, he yanked me down, pushing our bare chests together. “What if I want to get caught?” I lost my voice. I was breathing too hard, too nervous to think. “Cat got your tongue?” My body started betraying me, reacting the why it did when Caleb touched it. Jensen’s hand slid up my back and down. His face was closing in, my hands weren’t working, and they weren’t going to stop him. His touch was electric. “You should see the look on your face.” He said, before he burst out laughing so hard, tears came out of his eyes.

I laughed with him, regaining control of my body. “Funny.” I said before my knee accidently hit him in the nuts and got up. “Oops, did I do that? Sorry.”

I left him there and ran back to the med room but the soldiers were waiting outside the room. I wish I could turn invisible or at least not be in my underwear to come back to my room. I just sucked it up and strolled back them. Casey was slipping on hospital pants. He hopped around, tying the strings. “Oh, there you are. Where were you’d go?”

There was a set of hospital scrubs on my bed. “To get something to eat.” I need to take a shower. “What’s going on?” I said, motioning towards the armed guards at our door.

“The Secretary wants to see us.” Casey said.

Jensen walked in a few seconds later limping. I guess I hit him harder than I wanted too. Casey looked at him and then me again, smirking like he knew what was going on. We met with my mother, Sandra and the others in the Secretary’s office. Secretary Amos walked accompanied by a woman with dry brown hair and uncaring eyes. She held a laptop in her hand and started to set it up immediately without a care to say good morning to us.

Amos walked to the head of the table, which no one sat in just in case he would want the seat. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is my assistant Ms. Cedric. I’ve called this meeting because you are the only hope we have in winning this invasion. Ms. Cedric will fill you in on the current situation.”

Ms. Cedric nodded to him and uncovered the laptop’s built in projector. It was a map of the world as it was now. “Currently, there are eight domes all over the world. One in Texas and Louisiana, one in Edinburgh, Scotland, Albi, France, Munich, Germany, one in Nigeria, Africa, and the last two in Australia and China. From what SSgt. Trent has told us, the demons and abominations are attacking areas that house Knights or Witches. We have reports of four domes in other parts of the world by other Knights and Witches. But to cover more ground, we’ll have to split you into teams. Each team will have a Knight, Healer, Witch, and Squire, but given the fact we lack another Knight for the another team we will have to wait for the Commandant’s team to recruit more Knights, witches and anyone else that can help.”

I had to interrupt her; this was becoming too military for my taste. “You mean the Commandant of the Marine Corps. I thought we were doing this.” I said, pointing to Jensen, Sandra and Casey. “I don’t like being under someone’s control who doesn’t know what’s going on.” My mother just shook her head at me.

Ms. Cedric’s lips twitched in an attempt to stop the smile. “You are the Commandant, Aiden.” I couldn’t stop my face from heating up with blood rushing to embarrass me even more. “As I was saying, Aiden’s team will be Aiden, Jensen, and Sandra. Given the fact of Aiden’s healing ability, there will only be the three of them. The others will stay here and train.”

Casey bolted up right, startling everyone. “What about me? What am I supposed to do?”

Ms. Cedric didn’t know what to say. She looked to the Secretary who kept nodding like he was listening to someone in his head. “You have no powers to aid them; you would be a liability than any actual help.” I heard my jaw hit the floor with a few of my teeth skating across the floor.

“Hey,” Casey barked, his fist shaking at his sides. “I’ve helped a hell of a lot more than you have. All you’ve done is get people settle here. I didn’t see you in any of the domes fighting demons or anything but, I have. All you can do is give orders behind the safety of your desk but I put my life on the line and-.” He was so mad he started hyperventilating.

I grabbed him before he had an aneurism. By the time we found a secluded area, hot tears were rolling down his face. “Hey, hey, look at me, Case.” He tried to shake me off but I held my grip on him. “You know you’re not useless. Without you, Jensen and I would be dead and so would Sandra, so don’t let that bastard make you feel inferior, okay?”

He just looked at me with crushed eyes, trying to trap his tears in his chest. “What am I going to do here? Just let this happen?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You could do a lot of things. Like be a normal kid, forget this shit happened or at least try to have a normal life.”

“I don’t want a normal life. I want to travel with you guys and help stop the demons. If you leave me here, I’ll just get stuck here living a life not for me.”

I sighed; realizing arguing with him would be useless. I slid down the wall, staring up at the sun. “If I were you, I would be happy as hell not to have to do this. I would be happy just to rebuild to forget this whole thing. If only you could be the shining Knight instead of me, but I guess, that’s why I’m not you.” He looked at me cautiously. He calmed down but his eyes were still blood shot. “Now we have to give you some title so I’m not the only loser in the group.”

Casey hooted as if I told him he won all the money in the world. I wonder if money still going to work now. I mean, who’s really buying stuff with all this shit going on? I doubt people will be working that much in eclipsed regions. I’m babbling again, aren’t I? Anyway, we walked back to the conference room with everyone staring at us like normal. I sat Casey down, patting him on the shoulder to tell him I would take care of everything.

“Alright, Secretary, I overrule your decision and Casey’s coming with us as long as he wants to and his mom says it okay.” I heard Casey gasp. Hey, if I can keep the kid safe, I’ll do it. “Second, no one is to call me Commandant, I’m 18. It just makes me feel weird and people will laugh when I introduce myself, “Hi, I’m Commandant Florence, please don’t laugh at me.” Third thing, we, as in my team, makes the decision whether you like it or not because we’re the only people to be able to get things done, ‘kay? You know, since we’re the ones risking our lives and stuff. “

The Secretary sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Children. You’re correct Mr. Florence, you are the ones risking your lives and you should have input on what happens but you don’t have the resources that I do.” He stood up himself, walking over to me. “For example, did you know planes cannot fly over the domes because our technology shuts down, or that only hard land line phones from the seventies work? You don’t have the supplies needed for such an extended mission and this is where we come in. We’ll give you everything you’ll need for this, all we ask is for the information you gather from each region in the dome and that you make a profile of every new being you encounter on your trip.” He made a point even I couldn’t say anything about.

Jensen took charge from there. “Alright, but first, we’re going to need a camper with a shower and bathroom, a truck, a lot of food, medicine and I mean like from anti-inflammatory to heavy pain killers, suppressants and things like that.” He turned to my nana, “Ms. Champagne, I’ll need you to check for everything that we might need along with an instruction book for the medicine. We’ll need money, which I hope people will still care about, and clothes, and guns and swords.” He stopped for a second to think of anything else we might need. I would say fake ID’s but I doubt we’ll need them that much.

“Oh, candy.” I added. “And I mean abhorrent amounts of candy and chocolates.” Everyone just stared at me for a second but Ms. Cedric who was writing all this stuff down. “And I’m going to take a shower now.’

The Secretary pulled all the stuff together faster than I wanted him to but that’s what I get for asking for candy. The camper they had was the state-of-the-art camper bus looking thing. Completely black with the letter KOD, which I was told it stood for Knights of Day.

The truck was the kind of SUV that you see in every FBI movie but it was the Range Rover/Jeep/Hummer thing going on. I don’t even think this car is supposed to exist. Tank resistant, fire resistant along with missile proof glass, seven thousand pounds of body armor that could go from 0 to 90 in four seconds. The mechanic said it was the most beautiful piece of work he had ever seen. Supposedly, it was for the war, you know the Iraq/Afghanistan/ everybody and their mother over there war, to get delegates safely around.

I had Sandra try to blow it up and it didn’t even crack, but Sandra was a bit out of breath since she had using her powers to do these tests before we left for Louisiana. My test wasn’t very long given the fact my nose start bleeding like fountain for vampires. Jensen lasted much longer than I did, but it gave me more a mental strain since Hellion actually came from me. Case was given a gun tutorial on all the weapons they gave us. I was just given a pamphlet about handguns since that’s all I would most likely be handling. Everyone had to sit in on the weapons that they had hidden in the mega camper because they were under pass codes for each type of weapons.

By the time, we were finished with all of our instructions; it was too late for us to travel fast so we would be heading out tomorrow around four in the morning. To tell you the truth, I’m scared shitless of what’s about to go down. So, I headed off to find some of my friends. Parker was the easiest to find because I heard Safety to Shore, his band, playing for the teens and a few military people. They were playing Uprising by Muse. It was a good song given the circumstances. Alex, Aaron, and Taylor were there along with Rachel, Taylor’s girlfriend, and Tiffany, Parker’s girlfriend.

I slung my arm around Aaron’s neck, rocking with him to the music. He jumped at the contact but smiled when he saw me. “Dude, you’re alive!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his astonishment. “Was I supposed to die?” We hugged for the briefest of moment because no matter how cool Aaron was, hugging just wasn’t his thing.

“No, no, I just mean, I though you would be gone to save the world.”

I felt a bit embarrassed about this. “Nope, we’re leaving tomorrow for Louisiana, then Texas

He winced, hearing that. Aaron was like me in that way. I didn’t like to travel very much, just stick me somewhere and I’ll be fine as long as there’s basic living stuff likes houses and running water, and things like that. “Oh, sorry, but hey, it’s exciting.”

“Yay, I get to be clawed at or put on fire.” I mocked. “But seriously, what’s everyone going to do?”

He shrugged. “Alex finally got his wish to join the Marines; Taylor is studying with the medical teams, and Parker keeping everyone’s spirits up right now. I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

“What did you want to be before all of this happened?”

Aaron looked at the floor for a moment. Over the four years, I’ve known him, I’ve never thought of what he was doing with his life. Taylor was always going to be a Orthopedist, Alex was a military man, Parker was the singer/doctor, Cody, a friend who left last year, was a game designer, John, another friend but I have no clue where he is, was going to be some kind of anime writer, and I was going to be a priest-I mean Psychotherapist. But to tell you the truth, I never thought of Aaron beyond high school. He was smart and funny, especially after the years of Taylor “raping his soul” until we made an anti-soul-raping shield for that during Radio Club, but I don’t know what he was going to do after school.

He finally looked back up with a determined look in his eyes, “I’m just going to help any way I can.”

Before I could say anything, Taylor spotted me and hollered, “Dude, you’re back!”

Then Alex, John, and Cody, who magically found us, joined in the conversation until Parker got off stage. It was nice to be with my friends again but it would be the last I would see them for a long time or maybe it was the last time. But I didn’t let myself think about that until I left them when we were all partied out and Parker let us sing in his band as Schola for one last time. When I was, alone I cried a bit, I wasn’t human anymore; I wasn’t going to have the life I wanted, a life that I had almost guaranteed. “Life’s a bitch and then you die, Aiden.” I said to myself.