“Caleb’s one bad motherfucker, apparently,” Mickey said, choking out a chuckle. It was a funny thought, I had to admit — lanky, awkward Caleb being some sort of badass — though most people would’ve probably had similar thoughts about me.

“He’s probably gonna want to tell you for himself,” Mickey continued. “We’re all due back at HQ anyway.”

“Yeah I’m just about ready to never see this street again,” I said.

“Y’all are just gonna leave us here to wait for more nut jobs to come kill us?” Mee Maw said like we were the dumbest people to ever walk the planet. She seemed like she was somehow making herself look older and more frail at that moment too. Fuck police interrogators — old ladies are the true master manipulators.

“I s’pose you could keep Anita company,” I said. “Though she might not want you to. Bruce, Marv, you can come too, I guess.”

“Long as you cook for us,” Mickey added, slouching back in front of a pile of chicken bones. “You can even bring your little shitlin with you.”

Bruce grabbed the toddler out of the bedroom. She was slumped over, completely limp in his arms.

“Did she sleep through all of this ruckus or do we need to go throw her in the trash?” I asked.

“Doped her up with some of Mee Maw’s sleeping pills,” Bruce said, shaking her and making her arms flop around to show she was really out cold. “Didn’t want her seeing any of that.”

“Perfect. I like most kids better this way,” I said. “Now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

----------------------------------------

Everyone else was already back at HQ by the time we got there. Caleb was in the lounge, sipping on something at the bar. He stood straighter than usual and there was a slight grin permanently planted on his face.

“My, you look fucking chipper,” I said. “Enjoyed yourself out there?”

“Me? Not too much,” he said with a grin still on his face. “But my little guys had a pretty good time.”

One of the… things… crawled out of his pocket and skittered up Caleb’s back. It looked bigger than the one he brought out in the car, and it was much calmer — docile, even. It stood on his shoulder and its worm head swayed gently from side to side like Stevie Wonder playing a ballad. Caleb scratched the thing’s head with his index finger.

“We killed one of you guys. Well, they killed one of you guys,” he said.

“Don’t act like you did it all yourself, little boy,” One of the baldies said. She was an older woman, on the couch in front of the TV with Anita, Angela, and Mee Maw, getting acquainted with the newest member of the Golden Girls.

“Angela helped too,” Caleb conceded.

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“First, fuck you,” I said. “I’m not one of those guys. Second, how the fuck did you kill one of us?”

“It was crazy,” Caleb said. His eyes lit up and he took a deep breath. “There were at least like fifty guys out there, all yelling for Mickey. The guy in the front looked like a monster. Seriously — he was frickin’ huge, with tattoos all up to his neck. He carried a sledgehammer in each hand and swung them like it was nothing. And that wasn’t even his power — the guy was just insanely strong. If that wasn’t enough, though, he could also conduct electricity. He held the hammers up and electricity would arc between them. You could hear sparks crackling off of the metal. I was like ‘How the heck are we gonna fight all these people?’ Lucky for us, Clodagh had been making scorpions for days getting ready for this, and she and the rest of the baldies were able to hold off most of them for a while. That just left the human battery for me and Angela. I was about to shit myself, not gonna lie, but Angela stood right up to him and stuck a bloodsicle — a big shard of blood — right into his leg. That just pissed him off more than anything, though, and he ran straight for her. I thought he was gonna turn her into an electrified pancake for sure, but she stuck another bloodsicle straight through his foot and he fell over. It was like a frickin’ tree falling in the forest. But he got up, even more pissed off, and kept charging at her. Meanwhile, I was hiding in a house, still trying not to throw up, but I was like ‘I can’t just sit here!’ and went out there and sent my little guys after him. They’re not very smart, but they can take instructions well enough. I have four of them at the moment. I told two to bite at his ankles and two to crawl into his shirt. I really caught him by surprise — he didn’t even know I was there. With Angela distracting him, my little guys bit right through his Achilles tendon and burrowed two holes into his chest. He screamed like a little girl the whole time. After that, it wasn’t a big deal to help Clodagh clean up the rest of the churchgoers, or whatever you guys call them.”

I was shocked. I looked at the thing on his shoulder and tried to imagine it burrowing into someone’s chest, its wormlike head slithering through open flesh. They were lucky that scene was hidden underneath a shirt. Though I wasn’t sure Caleb would’ve been too upset to witness something like that. He seemed positively fucking tickled by the brutal murder. I wondered what Anita thought of that.

“Wow,” I finally said after a moment of silence. “Took him out just like that, huh?”

“Just like that,” Caleb said. “And they’re growing too, as you can probably see. Who knows how strong they’ll be once they’re full grown.”

“Yeah,” I said nervously. “They better keep fuckin’ listening to their papa.”

“Oh, they will.” Caleb gave the monster another scratch on the head. “They love me.”

“That’s what Satanic monsters are most known for: their love,” I said, but my smartassery did not get under Caleb’s skin at all. He was still on too much of a high from the battle.

“Mickey’s saying he wants to go straight to them, to one of their churches, and he wants me and you to come with him,” I said.

“Shit yeah, let’s do it. Tonight?” Caleb replied.

“Fuck no!” Anita yelled from the couch. She got up and scrambled towards us. “You guys got lucky yesterday. All of you. We didn’t count on just how many people they have at their disposal, but they didn’t count on us having tapped into some dark magic shit. But now they know. We need to be more prepared if we’re going anywhere near one of their headquarters.”

“So, like two days?” Caleb asked. Anita’s nostrils flared, but she could tell that he was just fucking with her. I thought about mentioning the fact that she would’ve, without a doubt, slapped the shit out of me for acting like that towards her, but I kept my mouth shut — it wasn’t worth it.

“At least a week,” she said. “We need to scout. We need to draw up a plan — a real plan. We need to make sure we’re more than ready.”

“A whole week?” Caleb whined.

“A week does seem like a long time,” I said. “What, are we supposed to just sit here with our thumbs in our asses while you make a plan?”

“Children, we’re in a war,” she said. “There’s always something to do. Why don’t you make sure the place is secure? Help Mother Dora shore up our defenses or something, I don’t fucking know.”