Mrs. Everly sent Gabe and Liah out, saying she wanted to hear if Sandra heard back from their higher ups. A few minutes ter, Sandra and Jeff stepped through the tent door, followed by the pair that has went to fetch them.

  “So? What have they got?” Mrs. Everly asked, leaning forward eagerly. Not in a happy sort of eagerness, but the impatient kind of someone who wants to get an unpleasant task over with

  “Luckily the boss had Dr. Crence on duty. He says the tablet is instructions on summoning a lilin.” Her face looked as if she had bit into something sour.

  “Of fucking course. Did he have anything else to add?”

  “Nope. Just ‘lilin.’ No further description, no attributes, no ‘here’s what it’ll do.’ Just ‘lilin.”

  “So it could be anything.” She sighed. “Demonology isn’t my strong suit at the best of times, but it’s just our fucking luck that we’re stuck with one of the most vague categories of Mesopotamian demons out there. Maybe we would have been better with Gozer. For one thing we don’t need to worry about crossing the beams.”

  “Gabe gave us a quick rundown when they took over for us, but is there anything specific we need to watch out for this one? Any specific traits?” Jeff asked.

  “Hmmm,” She looked over Anne and I, thinking. “We should prepare for the worse. Since all the general lore is so vague and contradictory, it’s really the best we can do. It could just be looking for newborns to eat, it could be looking to attack virgins, it could even just be going after anything and everything that likes… Hell, is there anyone here who isn’t attracted to women?”

  I hesitantly raised my hand.

  “Congrats on being the only one here we don’t need to worry about being seduced by an ancient Sumerian demon. Really, of all the problems to have… well we can just pray it’s more of the ‘steal the seed of men and suck the blood of newborns’ sort of lilin.” She took a long sip of her beer.

  “Hey! Don’t just throw us under the bus and jinx things like that.” Jeff interjected. “Me and Gabe are in a lot more danger than the rest of us.”

  “What’d that one recruiting ad say? ‘Run towards the sound of chaos.’”

  “That was the Marines. I was in the army, they had ‘be all you can be,’ and I certainly don’t want to be succubus food. Besides, shouldn’t you be safe? I though lilin and witches were reted.”

  “It may not be completely accurate but I’m just going to bme St. Jerome for that misunderstanding. I can say with absolute certainty that I, at least, am not reted to any Mesopotamian demons. And there’s ample evidence that I’d be the one of the st people here to sit on the chests of men at night stealing their vital essence.”

  “It might not go after just men.” I reminded her. I was feeling a strange sense of satisfaction at being the one in the least amount of danger. And after the absurd amount of weirdness I had been put through I couldn’t help but needle her a bit.

  “I know, I’m trying not to think about that! You know, this isn’t my fault our team is so poorly equipped for this. It’s my bosses fault! Why the hell is every single field agent she’s hired gay? It may be an incredibly niche hiring oversight but right now it's having real world consequences! I’m going to compin to HR.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have an HR department.”

  “Fuck.” She downed her beer, crushed the can, tossed it angrily to the side, and pulled another out of her purse.

  “Should you really be drinking this much?”

  “As a matter of fact, it doesn’t matter. It’s a long story but I recently ended up with a slight, uhm, impairment in having alcohol actually work on me.”

  “Then why drink at all?”

  “I like the taste, and practice.” She pulled out three more beers from her purse, all from different breweries, and all ice cold. “I shouldn’t call it a ‘neat party trick’ but seeing as I’m not usually the biggest fan of getting drunk anyways it was worth the trade-off. Here, Jeff, take this one. I hate IPA’s.” Jeff backed off a bit.

  “Where’d you steal it from?”

  “A bar in DC that tacked on a bunch of extra 'convenience' fees.”

  “Oh, that one? Sure, they’re a bunch of assholes.” Mrs. Everly attempted to snap her fingers again, and the bottle cap flew off the offending IPA.

  Did I even want to know? I had expected a bit of creepyness, but now that her mask was off Mrs. Everly was far more than I had expected. The open theft is not even worth mentioning compared to the more pressing issue of an ancient succubus from the Fertile Crescent preying on us. The guns and grenades now made a lot more sense. And now I was beginning to wish I had followed Anne’s example and gotten a concealed carry permit. If guns actually work to drive these things away… They must work or else they wouldn’t have enough hardware to fight a small battle.

  “Welp, that’s enough chatting. Back to work.” Mrs. Everly stood, stretching her back. Or more like grabbing her back. “Hate these jobs where I have to wear a fk. I’m too old for this shit.”

  “You’re like, thirty.”

  “Thirty, with a bad back. I just wanted to live the NEET life after my accident but noooo, I had to get dragged into this glowie shit. Liah, come with me, we need to compin to our superiors. Maybe see if we can get more support. Plus we can’t leave our set-up over there unattended.”

  “From where would we be getting support?” Liah asked, but she followed our dear leader as she marched onward into the darkness.

  “What should we do?” Jeff shouted as she walked out the tent.

  “We’re here to investigate. Do that. I doubt a Sumerian demon is the only thing we need to worry about here!” She shouted cheerfully, waving a hand.

  We sat there in silence, interrupted only by the quiet slurp of Jeff’s occasional sip of beer We had our orders, but I was just a normal person. Not like these weirdos.

  “So, Jessica, do you think you could handle the monitors?” Jeff broke the silence.

  “So we’re still keeping up the ghost-hunting rp?” I had been thoroughly disillusioned with the idea.

  “Just because we found those tablets in a cave doesn’t change the fact that the house seems to be the center-point of activity.” Sandra took on a lecturing tone. While typically monsters and the like prefer remote areas, entities like ghosts and demons are more often found in areas of human habitation. A pce like this, however, is like the perfect storm of both. Bountiful nature of the manner that attracts the supernatural, and an old, long-inhabited homestead that’s had time to build up its fair share of lives lived and emotions felt. A that’s before we bring into account any dark rituals summoning demons with tablets undoubtedly looted from Iraq. You really have no idea how much of a pain in the ass that whole deal is.”

  “Huh.” I suppose ancient Mesopotamia does overp with Iraq.

  “I’m not even joking. Can you imagine how annoying it was raiding Hobby Lobby? Like, only the tablet with the Epic of Gilgamesh made the news, but what the hell compels some weird craft supply store to buy up texts like this? And unlike now, that weirdo had to try and actually stick with her cover story since we were serving a federal search warrant.”

  “You did a federal raid on Hobby Lobby?”

  “Technically we raided ‘The Museum of the Bible.’ What made it worse was that the raid happened to get in the way of some convention our dear esteemed team leader desperately wanted to go to. If I didn’t know better I’d think she’s trying to wear cospy during any sort of public work we do.” Upon hearing this, Anne began hurriedly flipping away on her phone.

  “Was the outfit pink?”

  “Unfortunately” Sandra replied while fiddling with a brass device of some sort. She moved a dial on it, comparing it with something written in a leather-bound note-book.

  “She really doesn’t have the build for LLENN.”

  “The hard part was convincing the workers there that we were from the government. They thought her gun was fake. Plus they were still on-edge after the whole Department of Justice, Gilgamesh tablet, 'thing.'”

  “She should have cospyed Ishtar, considering that.”

  “You two better not encourage her.”

  “Don’t look at me, I’m just doing as I told.” I had seen nothing on the monitors. I didn’t expect to see anything on them, and after what had happened I hoped I didn’t see anything on them. “What are the rest of you doing?”

  “I’m just preparing something in case of a more corporeal threat.” Sandra said. “Gabe and Jeff are here for… what are you two doing here again?”

  “Moral support.”

  “Making us do all the work on this joint op?”

  “We specialize in investigating bck magic, not ghosts.” Gabe said.

  “Hey! I resent that!” Jeff shouted, acting offended briefly before breaking out into a grin.

  “Stop screwing around and unpack those boxes. We may have gotten distracted by the succubus, but we need to at least pretend to stick to our cover.” Sandra snapped.

  “Why? The cat’s out of the bag already.”

  “Because we still have other operations lined up. Just because our prospective interns already know, just because the current homeowner clearly suspects something’s up, doesn’t mean we can get out of practice. So grab those spirit boxes and EMF readers!”

  “Can’t your whole team already see ghosts?”

  “Yes but revealing that blows our cover, especially when we come across a sorcerer or something trying to cover up their crimes as a regur haunting. And we need to train the interns.”

  “I’m starting to feel like your boss just proposed this joint op so you all could use us as muscle.”

  “Then why did you agree?”

  “Because you’re still on probation, and we know Amy well enough to know she absolutely needs someone to rein her in when dealing with the general public. Liah does an okay job of it, but the more, the better.”

  “Not to mention Amy only is getting away with so much due to her connections.”

  “Wait, who the hell is Amy?” I had to ask.

  “And you were lecturing us about OPSEC?” Sandra said.

  “She just said it was okay. Amy Thorne is ‘Mrs. Everly’s’ real name. Also, you should be feel proud to know that, as prospective interns, you’d be the first field agents they’d hired who aren’t guilty of any sort of magical felonies.”

  “Be gay, do crime.” Sandra muttered.

  “That’s supposed to be a counter-cultural slogan, not federal hiring practice.”

  “At our level of ‘government’ I don’t think there is any hiring practice. I’m pretty sure our funding is hidden in a document restoration program, and I’m fairly certain my official job title is ‘paleographer,’ whatever the hell that is. Part of our team isn’t even human. And honestly that has nothing on the CIA hiring militia groups in the 90’s to do sketchy shit. Or the ATF existing at all. We’re downright reputable.”

  “You tore apart reality!”

  “I only meant to make a tiny hole, I didn’t think reality would just do that. It was a crime of passion, there were extenuating circumstances.”

  “And what passion was that?”

  Sandra began to speak, then stopped, gncing over at Anna. Oh no.

  “Wait, you two were briefed on that?”

  “We almost fucking died in that! We had to call in an honest-to-God airstrike on US soil! It was supposed to just be a simple op of investigating a witch suspected of performing illegal magic and NFA viotions, and next thing you know we’re fighting hordes of monsters left and right! All because-”

  “I made a mistake.” She said, trying to sound sincere but failing. Crime of passion indeed. “But I can’t talk about that.” She gave a pointed gnce towards, of all people, me.

  “One hell of a mistake. I’d never thought I’d see an A-10 fire its cannon in anger over Pennsylvania. It was one hell of a sight.”

  I stared at the monitors, trying not to make it too obvious I was listening in. Which seemed kind of odd I was trying so hard, considering I was part of the conversation. But needs must, and I really needed to avoid getting sucked into this insanity any further. So at the monitors I stared, ready to get lost in-

  “Uh, guys? I think I found something.”