How to be Badass (2nd Draft)

It turned out that tomorrow didn’t work for the demonslayers as far as going searching for the focal point of Allen’s childhood trauma. That was both relieving and disappointing. However, they did decided to go Sunday, and the demonslayers proceeded to barter away shifts, and when that failed, calling in sick. Many of them had the day off already, which seemed to simplify this.

“Just don’t post about this on social media,” Sparrow suggested, after Kidd called in with a fairly convincing hacking cough.

“Duh,” said Kidd. “What would I caption it? ‘Going to a doctor’s office that may or may not be affiliated with demons’ hashtag demonslayers hashtag making a a difference?”

Getting out the door was chaotic; the kitchen was definitely not big enough for the eight of them. Mimi knocked Sparrow with her hip to get out of the entryway to the kitchen.

“Move,” she intoned.

“Someone’s grumpy,” Sparrow said, sticking out her tongue.

“Someone’s childish,” Mimi shot back. “At least I have a good excuse. It’s morning.”

Sparrow rolled her eyes, whispering something in Kidd’s ear that made her smirk, but Mimi was blissfully turned away as she tracked the scent of coffee as if it was giving her life.

An hour later and everyone was fed, dressed, and stuffed in a van that sat beside the Toyota that looked big until everyone was inside of it and bickering about who sat where. Allen found his physical strength unexpectedly tested as they fit everyone into the van.

“I’m pretty sure this should count this as exercise,” Sparrow breathed as she held herself up using the tops of seats, allowing Queri to climb under her while Mimi tried to finagle a box out of the car over top of her to make room for the two extra occupants. “Why didn’t you just tell me to get out of the car?”

Mimi simply grunted, smashing in a the top of the box and then turning it sideways to fit it past the door, which wouldn’t open all of the way.

Another ten minutes and everything was sorted and they were on the road. Queri got shotgun and navigation duty, and was entering the destination into a tablet. Her fingers moved with meticulous ease.

The morning passed quickly, between the lively, comfortable banter of the demonslayers and all the snacks they had brought—everything from an ‘ultra energizing’ G.O.R.P supplied by Fay and Sparrow to chocolate chips and salt and vinegar chips that Kidd had smuggled into the car. Allen, who was again starving, ate indiscriminately from both.

“Allen,” Char whispered in his ear at some point from the back, subvertly handing him a red beanie, “take this.”

Confused, Allen took the hat, clutching it in his hands and staring straight forward. He tried and failed not to laugh as Kidd squacked her dismay at her hat’s disappearance right off her head, and ended up giggling to himself and stuffing the hat into Dustin’s hands, claiming that he needed it more than she did anyways as she tried to wrestle it back from him, swearing copiously.

It took them several hours to get to Allen’s hometown, and halfway there they stopped for a pitstop. No one seemed like the hardcore, drive until you drop type—or if they had been, it had been beaten out of them by the others long ago.

Allen wasn’t sure that all of them piling out of the car was the best idea, considering how much work it had been to get them all in in the first place, but pile out they did. They found a lovely little bakery that had not only a bathroom, but lovely enough baked goods to successfully tempt them into buying a couple dozen. They left the shop with cookies, muffins, scones, and coffees for the ‘real adults here’, which included Mimi, Queri, and Char, and hot chocolates for ‘those fake ass children’, which was everyone else (“Who let Mimi order?” Kidd muttered in Char’s ear. Char, looking amused, merely shrugged.). Dustin didn’t seem to care, wrapping his hands around his hot chocolate with something akin to worship.

“We’re all going to have to go pee again soon, after these,” Queri pointed out as they all wedged and squeezed themselves back into the van.

Mimi merely scoffed. “Have you tasted this? It’s worth another pit stop. And we needed rations.”

“Rations.” Queri shook her head. “Allen’s in charge of music,” she stated, handing Allen the phone that was bluetoothed to the car’s speakers. He took it dumbly. “You all can never stop bickering about what to listen to anyways,” she said.

“Learning someone’s musical taste is a very important part of learning who they are,” Kidd said.

Allen’s music tastes were fairly limited. His father had played a lot of swing, jazz, and blues for him when he was young and he loved it because of that. He hadn’t done much exploring outside of those genres, though.

“We have Spotify premium so just use that.”

Allen fidgeted with the app for a while, and then put on Dave Brubeck.

“Jazz,” commented Kidd. “I like electroswing. Ever listened to that?”

Allen shook his head, and then said, “No,” as well as he realized she probably couldn’t see him because she was sitting in the row behind him.

“I will introduce you,” she said. “Forcefully if necessary.”

They did have to stop once more, as Queri had predicted, right as they reached the edge of the city. When they got back in the car this time everyone was more sombre. The knowledge of where they were going and why weighed on them as they slipped into a more professional state of mind.

Allen knew where they were now. It made him feel vulnerable. It was one thing to have run away from home and stay away; coming back to the city he had lived in his whole life felt like walking back into the jaws of the monster. Talk in the car was matter-of-fact, stunted. Allen’s heart beat faster as he recognized landmark after landmark. They got closer to the doctor’s office. It was an area of town he avoided. They turned onto the street and the building drew his gaze like lightning. How he hated it. Two stories, plain brick, with the names Dr. Mellson, Dr. Sharp, and Dr. Hyde stacked in neat italics on a sign beside the sidewalk.

“This is the place?” Mimi asked, pulling over as they got closer to it.

Allen nodded. This was the place. He turned away from the window, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching into the chair as if he could disappear into it.

“Well,” said Queri, “I say we find somewhere outside the car to sit down and plan our next move.”

Allen, ashamed but too freaked out to change because of it, waited until Dustin and Sparrow had vacated the car on his left so that he could get out on the opposite side from the building. Sparrow frowned at Allen and tapped her fist upside down on her head. Allen stared at her blankly. It was a very weird gesture.

“It means are you okay,” Sparrow said. “We use it when we go canoeing. Or kayaking. Or when we’re fighting.”

“How do I respond?”

“If you’re okay, you do it back,” Sparrow explained. “If you’re not, well… we don’t expect you to do anything. We expect you to be trying to make it okay.”

Allen started to raise his fist to his head, and then hesitated. He wasn’t really okay. Then he heard Fay talking to Mimi as she got out of the car behind him. Stomach clenching, he tapped the top of his head. Sparrow didn’t look convinced, but she squeezed his shoulder and didn’t say anything about it.

They went into a little cafe on the corner of the street. They cobbled together several of the small tables so that they could all sit together, and Sparrow ordered them some tea. Allen was pretty sure he’d had more tea in the past week than he’d had in his entire life prior.

“So our lead leads on,” she said, steepling her fingers. “Guess we need to make more plans then. Any ideas?”

“Well, obviously we need to go through their records,” said Queri. “And take a look around inside.”

“Obviously,” parroted Fay, her deadpan expression shifting not an inch.

“So how do we do that?” Sparrow asked, tapping the table subtly with her pointer finger.

Queri started, “Well, I could try to take them to court and get the documents—”

“Or we could break in,” Fay said plainly.

“Sneaky beaky breaking in,” Sparrow added.

Mimi grunted. “Wouldn’t take as long as trying to cook up legal shit,” she said, looking at Queri.

Queri did not looking particularly enthused by the idea of breaking in. “I guess it would work,” she said reluctantly, “but if we get caught it will be a fucking disaster. I work in law. It wouldn’t go over well.”

“Nah, it just means that we won’t have to hire a lawyer,” Mimi said, grinning wickedly.

Queri put a hand to her forehead. “Wouldn’t, please, Mimi, let’s not start this plan thinking we’re going to get caught.”

“Hah! So this is the plan now, then?” Mimi said, her smile broadening.

Queri just sighed, and then shrugged again.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said.

Queri made a small noise of moderate distress, but didn’t otherwise protest.

“So that’s what we’re doing as our evening activity,” Mimi said. “Yes?”

There was a muddle of everyone saying “Yes”, except Queri who said, “Ugh.”

“Guess we’re staying the night then,” Mimi said smugly.

“Guess we are,” Queri said wearily.

No one wanted to go back to the car quite yet, so they walked to a second hand shop a couple blocks away. It was a smashing hit; Dustin found himself some sweaters, Sparrow found a shawl (“It’s a pashmina,”), and Queri got herself a cabbie hat that she managed to pin all her afro under. She smiled boyishly at them.

“Think I should wear this to court battles?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Mimi, looking captivated. Allen raised an eyebrow. Queri also seemed to notice, and her smile took on a mischievous glint.

“All your opponents will just be forced to submit by your sheer charm,” Sparrow added, and even Fay nodded in agreement.

Queri bought the cap, and bought Dustin’s sweaters for him while he was at it. She continued to wear it for the rest of the evening. Sparrow was not allowed to buy the shawl… pashmina… because she already had too many, according to the others. Kidd picked up a violently red shirt that read, ‘Eat My Fists’ and featured a retro looking cartoon of a skinny boxer. She snorted, saying, “Hey Allen, this one’s for you.”

Char glanced over and laughed once, short and sweet. “Yes, I agree. It’s very much his thing. Good find,” she added with a smirk before heading off towards Sparrow, who was still looking longingly at the pashminas.

She returned not much later with a shirt that said ‘Puny God’ in a font that reminded Allen of lightning. Mimi thought was hilarious.

“We should get one for you that says ‘Big God’,” Sparrow said to her cheerfully. Mimi guffawed at that.

“If you can find it I’ll wear it,” she said.

“I’m not going to wear those,” Allen said. They brought them to the checkout anyways. He thought he inevitably would wear them, either by acquiesing to the humour of it or by running out of clean laundry.

When they went for dinner at some mediocre chain it was not lost on Allen, and Allen thought it wasn’t lost on anybody, the way Mimi kept sneaking looks at Queri in her hat. Allen also thought that if he was noticing then they definitely needed to do something about it.

“Do they think they’re subtle?” he asked out of the corner his mouth to Dustin.

Dustin’s eyes crinkled as he leaned forward. “You noticed?” he said quietly. Allen shrugged a yes, and Dustin shook his head in disbelief. “They think they’re subtle. Or they don’t care anymore.”

They rented two hotel rooms and all piled into one room to play a rather violent card game Allen had never heard of before called spoons. Allen played until he scratched Queri’s arm and made her bleed. Horrified with himself, he insisted on sitting out after that.

“Oh come on, we’ve all done that before,” Kidd protested.

“Actually it’s just you and Fay,” Mimi said.

“And now Allen.”

“And now Allen.”

This made Allen feel unexpectedly good as he sat down on the bed to watch instead. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it made him feel like he belonged.

When the sun started to set, they put away the game in order to come up with an actual plan for breaking into a doctor’s office. Allen had no idea what kind security would be on a doctor’s office, and neither does the writing so we’re just going to wing it for now and then try to do some research for a later draft.

“Maybe we shouldn’t bring Allen,” Queri said, her arms crossed. Her eyes shifted to look at him. “If we get caught then they’ll take him back to his dad.”

That was like having an ice cube dropped down the back of his shirt. He did not want to go back. The total rejection at the thought was somewhat of a relief, really. It meant he was escaping mentally as well as physically.

“I think that should be up to him,” Mimi said. Several of the others nodded, and then they all turned to look at him. Uncomfortable with the attention, Allen ducked his eyes.

“I want to go,” he said, forcing the words out of him. He really, really didn’t. The urge to fight held the urge to run down by the throat, while the urge to run bucked and kicked beneath it in time to Allen’s heart.

“I guess we’ll just have to make sure we don’t get caught then,” said Char calmly.

“Also make sure Allen gets out if we do,” said Queri.

“Always a fail safe,” remarked Mimi.

“I don’t gamble,” Queri said. “I just make sure I win by planning for everything.”

“And that’s why we need you,” said Sparrow.

Queri rolled her eyes, but smiled and reached up to tweak Sparrow’s nose. “Thanks.”

At eleven at it was deemed dark enough out that they could attempt a B&E. Allen was poked into wearing the ‘Eat My Fists’ shirt by Char and Dustin. Allen, feeling he could use the ridiculous nature of the confidence it implied, allowed it.

They parked a couple blocks away in a nondescript alley, and had Kidd stay there so that she could come pick them up for a hopefully clean and quick get away. They all put on masks that covered their faces, and hats to cover their hair. Fay would be able to disable the cameras, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Queri eyed Allen with concern as they made their way up the street. He looked like a deer, about the bolt, all whites of the eyes and shaking flanks. She put an arm around his shoulders. It was minimally awkward, since he was the same height as her, but she figured that was going to change soon what with the amount of food he had been eating.

The streets weren’t quite empty, but Fay was good enough at lockpicking and casual enough while doing so that she didn’t draw any attention. She messed with some wires on an electric key pad and let them in. Being a highly suspicious hoard of seven people, they pretended to be another party looking at the menu of a nearby restaurant (at eleven thirty… whatever) until Fay ushered them in. Casually. Ushered them in very casually.

Inside was dark, and they didn’t want to draw attention by turning on a light, so they all just kind of stood around for a second until their eyes adjusted well enough to mostly avoid walking into things.

They were in a waiting room. It had enough chairs for thirty or so people lined up in neat, spacious squares, and two locked windows that opened to where two secretaries would sit in the day time to check in clients and take calls. Allen immediately halted when the walked in, and Queri stopped with him.

“Are you okay?” she murmured as Fay went about picking the lock to the door that lead into the rest of the practice’s space, and the others wandered the waiting room aimlessly. Queri remembererd his reaction to the training room at home and wondered if he was fighting a similar response right now. She wondered if it was better since he knew it was coming.

“No,” whispered Allen. He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared as he breathed in, and then out.

“It was really brave of you to come,” Queri said.

Allen just nodded in acknowledgement, and Queri squeezed him once more before going Following Fay and the others into the rest of the practice. The doors to the private appointment rooms were left unlocked, along with a nurse’s room, and the private offices of the doctor’s. The door to the file room and secretary’s space was again locked, so Fay set to work on that while the others explored.

There were computers in all of the private offices. At the end of the hall was another locked door that was unnamed. It looked like a closet, but Queri wasn’t sure why someone would lock a closet. Maybe it had dangerous cleaning supplies. Regardless, she called for Fay to unlock it.

“What would you guys do without me,” Fay grumbled.

“Fail at B&Es,” Queri said.

“Clearly.” The door swung open, and both Fay and Queri stood speechless for a second.

“Oh, Allen,” Queri said, softly. She felt her heart break for him in that moment.

It was a twenty foot squared white room. There were faint, splotchy stains on the walls and floor that looked like they had been scrubbed and bleached but hadn’t been completely removed. Old blood. It was possible, at a glance, that this room could be mistaken for their smaller training room.

“What did you guy—” Queri whipped around at the sound of approaching footsteps, and then realized it was Sparrow.

“I think it’s the room Allen was in where he was… adjusted,” Queri said delicately. Sparrow’s eyes were already clouding over with pain, and her lips parted slightly as she looked at the room. Her eyes looked wet, and Queri said, “Go keep Allen away from here.” She nodded and turned around to go find him, but not before giving Fay a very pointed, very nasty look.

“You fucked up,” Queri told her.

“I know.”

The admission of guilt was so rare that both Queri’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Oh?”

“Even I’m not that callous,” Fay said, trying to sound flippant, but she looked borderline upset. “I still don’t like him but I can’t say I hold his reaction to the training room against him. I shouldn’t have pushed him in.”

“You pushed him?” Queri’s voice rose, and Fay shushed her quickly. Queri mastered herself quickly. Courtroom etiquette. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Fay shot back. “He just stopped moving.”

Queri sighed, and Fay walked away. Once she was gone, Queri smoothed her hands down her face, once. She looked at the room again, and shuddered. It was completely bare. There was no way there was anything that could help them in there. She closed the door.

She found Fay cross-legged in the file room with the doctor’s laptops spread in front of her. She plugged a USB into each, clicked around a bit, and then got up. “I’ll go over that stuff at home. They aren’t that big. If there’s anything on external drives that they bring in themselves then of course I won’t have any of that information.”

She didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular. Mimi was there. So was Allen. Sparrow appeared with tea.

“Where did you even get that?” Queri asked as she handed a mug to Allen and kept one to herself.

“Break room,” she said. Fay was doing something to one of the secretary’s computer’s to access it.

Queri rolled her eyes.

Fay made a small “Hm!” of satisfaction when she got what she wanted. Looking from the monitor to Mimi she said, “Patients?”

Mimi nodded.

Allen crept up behind her to watch. His face looked both two old and too young in the white light. Drawn, hollow. Scared, determined.

“There are things in here I never needed to know about people,” Fay muttered. Allen didn’t appear affected. “I’m going to start transferring these files. We can scroll through the names, see if anything jumps out, but I’ll go over the files in detail at home.”

So they did. Abruptly, Allen said, “Wait—that name sounds familiar.” His hand was half extended towards the screen.

“Which one?” Fay said, stopping scrolling.

“Isadora. Lisbon,” he said, haltingly.

“Do you know why…?” Fay tried, sounding like she thought her time was being wasted.

Allen shook his head.

Fay’s eyes flickered to Queri, and then Mimi and Sparrow. Allen clutched his tea like it was a lifeline. Finally, she opened the patient’s information.

“Isadora Lisbon,” she intoned. “Six years old. Female. Sixty pounds. Fifty inches. She sounds average.”

“She’s the right age for doing what they did to me,” Allen said. Queri’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. There were likely many children around that age in the system, but between that and the name ringing a bell for Allen it might mean something. Queri wasn’t a fan of hunches, but only if they couldn’t be proven.

“Is there any more information that indicates that she is going to be incorporated into demonic service?” Queri queried.

“We’re not in a courtroom, Queri,” Fay said.

Queri just gave her a small glare. Fay didn’t look over, but she smirked a tiny bit so Queri thought she probably knew.

“Is there any information in her patient notes that indicates that she’s already been… adjusted? Is there an appointment booked in the near future? If so, what are the notes on what that is for?” Queri listed off, ignoring Fay’s mockery.

“There’s rudimentary information on her health. Apparently she has night terrors. Bouts of insomnia. She has an appointment in a week and a half, and it says that her parents are under investigation by child services. It’s part of the investigation?” Fay summarized.

Mimi whistled. “That’s suspicious. If she is being brought into the operation and this place is a base for it, then they could be using the appointment as a way to get her in here. If she’s already part of it, child services could be involved because she’s getting hurt.”

Allen nodded. “I got hurt a lot, especially when I was younger. I think they tried to avoid it, but I went to the ER a lot.”

“They tried to avoid it? How’d they do that?”

Allen shrugged. “I don’t know. I think they had people watching me. They didn’t want me not following procedure and getting caught.”

“People watching you,” Mimi mused. “Half demons I guess.”

Allen shrugged again in a way that indicated that he didn’t know and didn’t really care. “I wish I could remember where I’d heard her name,” he said crossly.

“That would be helpful,” said Mimi. “If you remember, let us know—”

“Bloodline confirmed,” Fay interrupted.

“I’m sorry?”

“It says that, in this file,” Fay said. “‘Bloodline confirmed’.”

“Ah,” said Mimi.

“Demonslaying bloodline…?” Queri suggested.

“Possibly.”

“All of this is so wishy-washy,” Queri said, frustrated. “All together I’d say there’s enough circumstantial evidence to make a case, but,” she huffed, “I’d be iffy about taking it.”

“So how do we find out more?” Allen said, looking stubborn.

“I suppose we could try to talk to the parents,” Mimi said, slowly as she thought. “If they’re already under investigation from the CS then they might not question a police officer showing up and asking questions.”

“That could cost you your job if they do, though,” Sparrow pointed out. “We need your job. It’s a substantial part of our income.”

“What, and being caught in a B&E—and information theft—won’t?”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“We need to take risks in order to make progress in this!” Mimi snapped. “This is a big thing. If they’ve just confirmed the bloodline then they probably haven’t done anything yet, which means the parents might not be involved yet. We don’t know how much time we have.”

Allen nodded stonily in agreement. Dustin wandered in and said, “Did you guys know there’s a tattoo machine and a bunch of occult looking stuff in here?”

“What?” Mimi, Queri, and Sparrow chorused.

“Where?” said Mimi, alone this time.

“It’s in a little room off of—” he stopped abruptly, and then continued on, brokenly, “the white room.”

Allen’s tension was palpable.

“I looked in that room,” Queri said. “There wasn’t another room off of it.”

“I, ah,” Dustin started, “I took the liberty of… revealing it. It had been hidden by another demon’s power. Ma—Secrecy, or concealment demon perhaps.”

“How did you reveal it?” Mimi asked.

“My power overpowered the power of the demon or half demon that made it,” Dustin said, meeting her eye squarely. Queri and Mimi exchanged a look. Maybe there was more to inobtrusive Dustin’s than met the eye. Queri liked the idea. She remembered hearing him yelling at Fay the day before, and thought it was likely that Dustin was definitely more than they knew.

“Okay, show us.”

“I’ll stay here,” said Allen. His carefully blank expression was showing the fringes of fear again.

“That’s okay,” said Sparrow, giving him a smile. “You pushed yourself enough coming in here. There’s enough of us to go look at this.”

If Allen attempted to smile back, he failed pretty badly. “I’ll stay with him,” Dustin said. “It should be obvious.”

They went, and it was. In the back of the room on the right wall was a door. Mimi opened it, and whistled again. Two whistles in one hour; that was an impressive track record for Mimi.

The suspense was awful. The doorway was small enough and it was dark enough that only one of them could look at a time. After Mimi was Fay, and then Sparrow, and finally Queri stepped forward to peer in.

Mimi’s whistle had been an accurate way to surmise the situation. She didn’t know a lot about the ritualistic side of demonslaying, having not been brought up in that world as Mimi had or made a study of it as Char had, but she knew enough to figure out what the stuff in this room was for.

Demonslaying tattoos.

“Where’s Char?” Queri asked quietly.

“I think she went to go keep watch,” Fay said.

“I’ll go get her,” Sparrow volunteered, and off she went.

The tension in the air was palpable as they waited. The silence was thick. Queri shifted subtly so that her hip and shoulder rested against Mimi. Mimi let out a little breath in response.

One set of footsteps sounded down the hall, and then Char appeared, looking rather formidable for her small stature. She was using her murder walk, probably because it was fast, and her face was serious.

“Sparrow is keeping watch,” she said, and then she went into the room. She walked around, crouching and going through things on occasion.

“Most of the stuff here is for regular tattoos,” she said. Then she pointed at a thick roll of papers. “I’m willing to bet that’s copies of all the open shapes. There’s some stuff here that I’d surmise is used to apply the tattoos still. Owl feathers, onyx. I’d assume they use shapes for the rest. Those are very powerful objects to use, though. I’m surprised. If I were them I wouldn’t want to risk lending power to the subject instead of the binding—”

“Char,” interrupted Fay. “As much as we respect and require your vast knowledge of this shit, we do not need to hear all your thoughts about every object in that room. Tell us what we need to know to make a decision.”

Char gave Fay a withering look, but didn’t argue. “The supplies are fresh, and there amount suggests that they’re preparing to use them rather than them being leftovers,” she said. “Some of these things, like the feathers, need to be used within a certain time of collection or they’ll lose effectiveness or change uses. I’d say that we should comb through the rest of the patients to make sure none of them have red flags, but it seems a decent chance this is for that Isadora girl.”

“Don’t you think we should take or destroy what they have?” Fay asked.

“Not particularly,” said Char. “None of these are things they would have trouble acquiring again, and if we put them behind schedule we risk nullifying the information we have.”

“Okay,” said Mimi. “Let’s go, then. If Fay has all the information we need?”

“We have all the information we can get,” Fay corrected.

Mimi texted Kidd on their way back to the waiting room to come get them. They all hovered in the waiting area. Queri found the idea of sitting down wrong, for no particularly logical reason. Fay and Kidd sat down anyways. Mimi joined them, and Queri thought about how nice it would be to sit on her lap instead of standing here like the lawful person she was. Ugh. Thinking about that was no good. When Mimi said, “Kidd’s here,” it was a relief. They moved out.