A Demon on the Payroll

When the cookies were done, I made my additions: red sprinkles on half, blue sprinkles on the other half. I liked how they turned out and the endless cycling of my mind slowed.

Before she took my place in the eldritch machinery that was fated to drag me back to 1968, Cynthia had taught me as much as she could.

We were basically the same person, so it was a tremendous advantage to learn from someone who had lived an additional fifty years and had experienced what I had. One of our regular topics of conversation was what to do when the gibbering shadows in my head grew too loud. She used counting of something random, like the pinholes in a ceiling tile, or the steps from the back of the house to the shed. Sometimes something as simple as counting prime numbers worked. Other times, working on seemingly impossible math problems would help us cloak the fissures in our brains with a gossamer blanket of rationality.

I thought that she would be surprised to learn that I added baking for those we loved to our arsenal.

By the time I put the shakers of sprinkles back into the cabinet, Pete and Yekong walked through the door. I gave Yekong a little wave as I hugged Pete.

His voice was almost a whisper as he hugged me. "Some things never change, huh, Jen?"

He had been the son of Cynthia's heart and had driven her wherever she wanted to go. For all of her other gifts, that woman was a horrible driver. It was hypocritical of me to dwell on that failing, because so was I. When she left us, he started driving for us despite his inheritance from Cynthia. And there he was, once again being the driver, picking up Yekong at the airport and bringing her to us.

As he stepped back, she stepped in and wrapped me in her arms. With those that she loved, Yekong was a hugger. It took her years to get to that point and I believed that she was making up for lost time and for the majority of a life where physical contact had meant imminent death. There were maybe ten people in the world who she let into our inner circle, but once you were there, she would move heaven and earth for you.

"Is Cynthia in her room?"

I nodded. "Before you go up there, you might want to take a shower. You're, um, fragrant."

She tilted her head and sniffed. "I shall take a shower. Finn, do you have clothing I may borrow?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm fine. Thanks for asking, Yekong. My neck was bothering me, but I think I was just sleeping wrong. It'll be fine in a day or so. How about yourself?"

"You are teasing me. That is okay. I should have asked about you. Are you truly all right?"

I could see in my husband's face that he felt guilty about busting her chops. After they spoke for a few minutes, I got her a pair of his sweatpants and a T-shirt that was a little large on him. I had no idea where Yekong had been, but she smelled like smoky wood. She used the shower upstairs, but before she did, she stuck her head in my daughter's room and said hello, because of course she did.

That woman was obsessed with my daughter. After living a life of isolation and hardship, she had been delighted to learn that Alistair, her brother, considered my children his niece and nephew. And if Yekong and Alastair were siblings, that meant that Cynthia was also her niece. In my daughter, she found a little girl who hadn't been touched by the horrors that Yekong had to live through. Cynthia was a surrogate for her own younger self.

Her obsession had worried me until the day assassins came to kill my family and standing between them and death was Yekong. My home looked like an abattoir that day, but she kept them safe.

An hour later we were sitting down at the kitchen table, Pete and Yekong joining in on the conversation that had previously been between myself, Finn, and his sister. Pete gave us the address of two large homes that he owned that currently didn't have tenants. I called the head of the charity that ran the shelters and had them move the women and children from where they were to their new temporary homes.

Finn leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "This doesn't make sense. Why don't we just have the cops waiting in that house? If they show up like you think they will, let the police take care of it. And honestly, if we can't do that for some reason, we have a full-time security staff here. Why not just load up the place with enough firepower to take out a platoon?"

Siobhan shook her head. "Because these people seem to be professionals. If they even sniff a cop or a setup, they will be gone. We don't want them gone, we want them eliminated. I'm going to guess that they were a small group, maybe six of them, no more than a dozen. We'll have the advantage in surprise, choosing our positioning, and except for your stubborn wife, with expertise. And we can do things that morally and legally, cops can't. Trust me, Finn. I'll feel absolutely no compunctions about killing the men that did this to those women."

Finn held up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay. I'm not second-guessing you, it just didn't make sense to me. I trust your judgment. The only thing that I'm insisting on is that you make sure that my wife has the best in personal protection. I'm talking top-of-the-line. If he was real, I'd want it made by Tony Stark."

I put my hand over Finn's and smiled. All these years later, he was more handsome than the day we met. "We've gotten information on them. We don't know if there is information on us. If they know anything, I want the children protected. Whoever is on staff, I want them here, keeping them safe."

His eyes darted towards the ceiling and where Cynthia's room would be if he could see through to the second floor. He nodded his head.

We sat there and talked about strategy and tactics. Okay, that's a lie. Me, Finn, and Pete mostly stayed quiet as Siobhan and Yekong discussed tactics. Finn had somehow gotten the architectural designs for the home, and the two of them poured over the details, pointing out a thousand things I never would've thought of.

Finn wasn't idle, though. He was also working on plans I wouldn't have thought of. Once we had found out which of the homes the woman and child were staying at, Finn had pulled up maps of the area, he had hired medical transport, EMTs, and concierge doctors and would have them waiting in three unobtrusive locations reasonably close to the home.

They wouldn't be seen as the house was approached, but they were close enough by to get there quickly. By the time dinner was ordered and delivered, Siobhan had her husband Tommy bring over some of her tactical gear before he had to teach a Jiu Jitsu class. She had me in Kevlar from head to toe.

"You just happened to have this sitting around?"

She didn't bother to look at me as she shrugged. "Are you surprised that I am prepared?"

No. No, I wasn't.

There were some that find my sister-in-law to be an implacable force of nature. I can understand their point of view, but they're wrong. She's one of the most human people I know. The violence that she employed in defense of others had left her scarred, unable to look away from the blood on her hands. I'm an advocate of therapy. Hell, Yekong's brother is a psychiatrist who had spent countless hours with my son when it was needed. We tried to get Siobhan to see a professional, but she refused.

She had two men in her life that acted as mentors and confidantes. One was George, Cynthia's right-hand man and bodyguard, and the other was Father Chakowski, a priest and friend of the family. Oddly, Shiv was the least religious person that I was close to. While Finn was a practicing Catholic and his parents and uncle were also devout, Siobhan saw the priest as a pseudo-uncle and someone she could trust. Instead of a therapist, she spoke to him.

Before she prepared for a night like ours, she would get her head right by spending time with the priest, her daughters, her husband, and my son, William.

They had a special bond that was so strong that there were times when Finn was jealous. There were a number of factors that built that bond. William was the oldest of the next generation, and she had spent her life preparing to become the family's protector. He had been kidnapped as a baby, and Siobhan had rescued him and then went out to kill the assassin that coveted my little boy. That he grew up to have a personality almost identical to her husband didn't hurt things either. Things changed over time. I'm sure that she loved her daughters as much as she loved William, but the relationship was different.

Aside from the large, external mechanisms of her preparation, she also kept locks of William's blonde hair from his first haircut. She thought that I didn't know, but I did. Like all first-time mothers, everything about William was precious to me, and I wanted to keep every lock of his hair from that first cut. The stylist thought it was endearing and indulged me, but when there was less than there should've been, I looked at Shiv, saw her trying to look innocent, and just shook my head.

She's kept that hair to this day. She's had it bound together and keeps it for some totemic reason, maybe as a good luck charm or maybe to remember who she's fighting for. Like some do with a rosary, she'll keep it in hand, continuously rubbing it between thumb and forefinger.

She was with our daughters as I sat in my bedroom, and I was sure that she had my son's hair in her pocket, running her fingers over it reverently. It was how she coped.

I didn't have a pattern of behavior for when I was stepping into danger. That's because I never stepped into danger. There was only once in my life where I had to be courageous, and even then, I did it because I had to, not because I wanted to.

So, I invented a way to come to grips with the fear that lay in the pit of my stomach. I went through photo album after photo album. They were stacked next to me and behind me on the bed and I would turn page after page, remembering. I was good at that. There were a number of things that I was good at.

There were people the thought that Finn and I were a perfect match.

He was the most brilliant man that I knew and I had little tricks and gimmicks from my exposure to the creature that led people to think that I was smarter than I was. I had a facility for numbers, I could calculate distances easily, and I had an eidetic memory. I could and did easily converse with the most brilliant mathematicians and physicists in the world with ease.

Finn's parents were academics and had an association with Stony Brook University. I leaned on them to get me into lectures and private audiences with some of the sharpest minds on the planet. These men and women were always astonished that I was a layperson and they were amongst those who thought that I was intellectually gifted.

I wasn't. I could grasp concepts and I could solve problems, but that was it. They were parlor tricks. I couldn't figure out new applications for what I was able to see or learn. I couldn't extrapolate and move into the field of theory. I didn't have the spark of genius, just a faint glow in one area or another.

Finn? He was the real deal. And bless his parents for being the type of people who would support him regardless of his ambitions. They knew how bright he was, but he wanted to be a clammer. He loved the sea, and they loved him, so they encouraged his intellectual curiosity, but didn't insist on him following their career paths.

Sighing, I realized that I had started to become maudlin as my mind flowed through and around my memories of those that I loved. Maybe that's what happens when you realize that there was an excellent chance you were going to die within the next few hours.

Anyway, Siobhan had her hunk of my son's hair, and I had my photo albums that spurred specific memories.

Finn came into the room, saw me looking at photos and angrily shook his head. He couldn't help himself; he was going to confront me about my decision. He knew it wouldn't do any good, but he was going to do it, anyway. There had been a time when I was like that, but the way my mind works, again, a gift from the creature, wouldn't allow it. Why would you ever engage in something that was futile?

Finn did, because he was human. I didn't, because I had lost some of my humanity.

"If you're going to go through with this, you owe us a reason, a rationale. Not necessarily for me. I know you well enough to predict what you're going to do. I don't agree with it, I don't approve of it, but I could see it coming. But you do owe it to your children. What shall I tell them, Jennifer? Why did their mother risk leaving them in an effort that others could do better than she could? For something where her contribution would be minimal, at best? Explain it to me, as you want me to explain it to them. You know, for when their hearts are destroyed when we visit your grave."

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. That was a low blow. Maybe he didn't know me as well as he thought he did. I simply couldn't stay home. I couldn't put this in the hands of my sister-in-law and Yekong and just wish them well. I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't. Instead of verbalizing my thoughts, I reached behind me and grabbed the folder. My eyes never wavering from Finn's, I slowly pulled out photo after photo after photo of the corpses of the women who were killed and laid them on our bed.

Suddenly, he was enraged. Reaching down, he swept them from the bed to the floor and almost screamed at me. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? How will you getting killed help any one of those women? You have no right to do this, Jennifer. Do you hear what I'm saying to you? You don't have the right. It's not just you. You're part of this family. We have an obligation to each other and, and... It's not right, Jen. It isn't."

I didn't have to look at the photos to remember every detail. Maybe he was right. It was selfish of me to do this, but I didn't have a choice. The women in those photos had come to us for safety, for sanctuary and for hope. We had failed them.

There had to be a balance. I had to be a part of setting things right.

The people that knew me best knew that I was euphemistically termed unstable. It was a polite way of saying that if what was wrong with me could be identified, I would probably be on meds and seeing someone multiple times a week. But that option wasn't on the table.

What would we do? What would we say? "Hello doctor, my wife got caught in a military experiment in 1968, found her way to 2018, we fell in love and another version of herself who lived those intervening fifty years sacrificed herself so that my wife wouldn't have to return to 1968. Oh, by the way, between those two dates, between There and Here, she had an encounter with a creature beyond age who feeds off the psyches of sentient beings, wants to enter our universe and suck us dry, and when she had this encounter some of this creature bled into her and some of her bled into it. So, this has to happen every day, right? I'm sure you have some prescriptions that will fix her right up."

Tears started building as I saw the raw, naked pain in my husband's eyes. The least I could do was let him rant. But his ranting was over. The anger and frustration drained from his face, and all I could see now was sorrow.

His voice was soft. "Come back to me, Jen. Come back to us."

As he turned to walk from our bedroom, I whispered to his back. "I love you, Finn."

SIOBHAN

I had arranged for what needed to be done. The recordings ready, drones were set up, and I had people that I trusted from Finn and Jennifer's security staff scoping out the area around the home. I had no idea how good these murderous thugs were, but I didn't want to leave anything to chance. If they had people in-place watching the house before they were going to arrive, I wanted to know about it.

My husband, Tommy, was going to be royally pissed-off. I sent him a long text explaining what was happening, but we had almost lost our marriage over something similar years ago. Factor in that Jennifer wanted to be a part of this just made things more complicated.

So, I sat in my niece's bedroom with her and my daughter's and we spoke about whatever took their fancy. My eldest was boy crazy, and I had no idea where that came from. She was too young to be interested in boys with anything more than idle curiosity. Cynthia was the eldest of the three, and she was barely interested. So, our conversations as I tried to distract myself went from boys, to bands, to silly videos, and to how annoying William was. In actuality, the girls all adored him and were mostly upset that he was dating and had less time for his sister and his cousins.

"Mom, how come Yekong always uses your name.? Not your name, you know what I mean, why does she always use the name of the person she's talking to? Like, five times in a row. I mean, if it's just the two of us talking, I'll know she's talking to me. Who else would you be talking to? So, what does she keep using my name? It just seems weird."

I shrugged. "I don't know. She didn't grow up around here. Maybe it's different where she comes from. I do know that she loves you. Maybe she just likes saying your name."

My youngest had a plush Hershey's Kiss with eyes, arms and legs in her hand. We had gotten it for Cynthia when we went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. Maybe just to be contradictory, she spoke up. "I like it. I like Yekong."

I rolled my eyes. "We all do. It's just one of those things."

We heard a stomp in the hallway, a pause, and then another stomp. The pattern repeated twice again before Yekong stepped stiff-legged into the bedroom, her hands extended in front of her.

"I say the names, so I remember the little girls that I eat up."

Yekong pounced on my elder daughter and pretended to eat her head. I sat back in wonderment, thinking of how much she had changed. We didn't speak about it, but I had learned a bit of her history. She'd been raised as a slave, fighting for the amusement of others. When we first met, I thought there was an excellent chance that I was going to have to kill her. She was the most socially awkward human I had ever met, and she was obsessed with my niece. Now, years later, she was playing with my daughter, pretending to be a witch or something.

Glad that she hadn't been offended, I snatched this joyful moment and stored it in my heart. It fueled me and reminded me of why I did the things I did.

Originally, her brother Robert had been her caretaker, protecting her from herself when interacting with others. Socially, she had surpassed him long ago. He remained the loner, the outsider, the jackass who insisted that he didn't care if you lived or died, while Yekong worked her ass off to be a part of our family, after a lifetime of being alone.

After stepping away from my daughter, Yekong turned to me. "May we talk?"

Time to get back to work. Sighing, I nodded and stood. After kissing each of the girls on their head, I followed Yekong out into the hallway and to Finn's office.

"What are we going to do about Jennifer?"

That was an excellent question, and I only had a rough sketch of an idea. "I'm going to lie to her." Yekong raised an eyebrow, and I continued. "I'm going to tell her that we figured out which room the little boy and his mother were staying in at that house. We're going to put her in there, because that's where she'll be most needed. That they'll definitely head to that room first."

"And you don't actually know this? The room where the boy and mother stayed?"

I smirked. "Heck no. I just want to get her secured and into a room where she'll be safe."

She shook her head. "Do you remember when we were in Hong Kong? When Robert decided that he was going to kill the people that had taken me as a child and were trying to take me back? He thought it best to do that to me. He lied to me. He locked me in a room. It was nice, this room. It was pretty. It was comfortable. But it was a cage. After being a slave for so long, my brother, the first person I had trusted since I was four years old, locked me up just like they had. I will not do that to Jennifer."