Slaying demons, p.9
Slaying Demons, page 9
part #2 of Damsel Series
“Nope? I can see people thinking that. Their powers seem nearly the same. Solar Storm is with the Kahn Collective and so is my mom. My biological mother, not Karen de Peyser, who’s a sweetheart, all the time. She, mom, is Solair, so, I get the idea. Nate is... Well, he’s kicked around the idea of doing that kind of costumed stuff, on the good guys side, but I think he’s decided to focus on charity work, for the time being. It would help stop the rumors if he didn’t go flying around the city, to pick up milk from the store. He’s a bit of a show off, that way.”
Kate tightened her face, and clenched her right hand, which, from the way the tendrils of invisible power were moving from it, would be damaging a camera, in short order. Hannah was almost distracted by the fact that she could tell that was happening, but then she shrugged.
“We can talk about my mother, later? That’s the big story there. That she’s a revolutionary, or involved in crime. She claimed it was different than that, the last time we spoke. I do want to point out that none of the rest of my family is in on that kind of thing.” She didn’t know that, of course. Her father was a billionaire.
Not self-made, either. Her extended family were almost all incredibly rich. The European branch was close to being in control of a major portion of the world’s wealth, all on their own. That didn’t happen because you were a good group of people.
Connie nodded, then glanced at Eric.
“Good. We might not use that. Unless you need us to, for some reason? We kind of need for there to be more drama.”
Hannah grinned. They’d use what they would, after all. What she’d said about Nate was a lie, but the part with her mom was true.
“You missed the part where I’m totally planning to nail Kate’s new honey? Possibly Doug, our sound guy. I also have a girlfriend, who’s totally willing to do a three way. She’s super hot, too. My life is loaded with drama. I’ve given up drinking and partying. That doesn’t mean I don’t have things going on. Loads of things. Massive, incredible drama...”
Katie winked then.
“Seriously, hands off Tyler. I didn’t try to date your brother, did I? No, because there are boundaries. Lines you don’t cross.” She made some hand gestures, to illustrate her point about lines and not crossing. None of them involved middle fingers, so Hannah just took her at her word on that one.
The water in the pot was just starting to bubble, so she took it off, then called out to Max.
“Wait... Do we need to boil the water for dish washing first? That...”
She just put it back on, when he called out.
“Right. Anything that will touch anything that goes into your mouth. We also need a wash station set up. That Tri-D bug won’t care if we’re out in nature. Washing up might be the only thing that we can do about this. That and not getting too close to anyone. Masks, of course, but the contract says we can’t do that in front of the camera. You people behind them should be doing that, though.” The man looked a bit annoyed, then. As if he might have realized he was starting a fight.
Kate nodded.
“Agreed. If we aren’t on camera, we all need to do that. Just to show good habits being used. Sunshine should take care of the worst of it, during the day, but night is coming.”
Doug the sound guy, pulled a mask out of his pocket and put it on, immediately. Then he muttered.
“Right, U.V. light should kill it. That no one has isolated it yet makes that hard to test. We don’t even really know that it’s a virus or if it’s airborne at all. It’s acting that way, but vectors can be deceiving, at times, if you can’t set up experiments in control environments.”
The director there, Connie, rolled her eyes then.
“You’re a doctor now?” The words were meant to stop the conversation, taking control of it.
Instead Doug waved his hands a bit, then wrinkled his nose.
“I have a Master’s degree in virology. Which means I’ve been keeping up with the journals on this one, being a massive world-wide pandemic. We know almost nothing, so far. Masks are a good idea. They can slow the spread, at least possibly.”
Tiffany, who was doing most of the work that wasn’t being done in front of the camera, spoke then.
“I have a box of masks in the truck. I would have been wearing one, but no one else was. I didn’t want to stand out.”
Hannah shrugged then. It wouldn’t help, but telling them that magic was the only protection, a thing that she couldn’t provide for them, wouldn’t aid them at all, either. To that end, wearing a mask was better than not doing it. After all, she wasn’t an expert on magic, but from the one book she’d read on it, and the little she’d picked up from other people, there had been a mention that belief and fetishes, objects invested with meaning, sometimes worked. A magical mask could well help, given that, if they presented the idea right.
The trick then, would be in finding a power source to make the belief turn real.
“We do that now. We should make a point of catching us all doing that, and explain that we do, any time we aren’t on camera? That and talk about food banks. Do we have cell service out here?” She didn’t have high hopes on that one, but Max nodded.
“Four bars. At least on my phone. We can use the generator to keep them charged.”
Hannah lit up then, since she called people, as a rule. A lot of them.
“Yay. I can actually do something. There’s that food bank project. I was on with one of our backers earlier, and he agreed to double the amount he’s donating. We also need to get with people and create some jobs. How we do that with everyone locked in their houses, I don’t know. Food first. Things aren’t that tough yet, but in six months, people are going to run out of savings, if things don’t turn around soon.”
She waited, expecting the topic to shift. Instead, Lewis sighed, from behind his camera.
“Yeah. Even here... We normally have a staff of forty people for a show like this, while doing this in town. Seven cameras and two more people who do nothing but stay up all night to catch people sneaking into other people’s rooms. Everyone who isn’t here, isn’t being paid, right now. That’s the industry, sure, but if I wasn’t Connie’s boy toy, I’d be seriously having to consider what store I was robbing next week to pay my rent.”
Instead of denying her sexual exploitation, the director nodded.
“No doubt. We can push that food charity angle, if you want? Get Hannah calling people, between going out and being forced to be a mountain man. Kate, too. You’re in on that, right? The business side of that?”
That got the woman to shake her head.
“Nope. Hannah and her dad are doing the heavy lifting on this one. We can... See if some of the companies want to send reps out here, to talk about things? That would be funny, I bet.”
The idea of her dad coming out to talk business in the middle of a field, wearing a face mask and a five-thousand-dollar suit was kind of amusing. She didn’t say that though, just nodding.
After all, it was Kate’s show.
Chapter six
Sleeping on a bed made of pine boughs was far less than comfortable, compared to almost anything, so Hannah was well awake at what was, technically, just before dawn. Not being an idiot, she worked out that shivering, which she’d been doing for a few hours, wasn’t that conducive to restful sleep. It being early fall it was chilly out and for some reason she hadn’t been given a sleeping bag, even as the crew retired to warmed trailers. Meaning she needed to get warm.
Clearly, the idea that fire was the key that way just made common sense. That, however, was going to be harder to put together than it had been the day before. It simply wasn’t that easy to see, still being too dark to make things out on the ground. So, feeling a bit silly, she made her way to the reeking outhouse, did her business as quickly as possible, in the dark, then went to the stream, to wash up. She desperately wanted a toothbrush, but if that was going to be provided, no one had seen fit to offer that kind of thing to her at all.
Then, shivering enough that she wondered if she was going to die from exposure, she went to the edge of the woods, and scrabbled on the ground, collecting up things that were a bit damp from the morning dew. Which wouldn’t work too well. That went into her pockets, as she tried for more kindling, dug out from under logs and downed branches.
In the end, her hand filled with twigs and bits of things she couldn’t see at all, she made her way back, daylight hitting just well enough to show where the stream was. Her feet were soaking already, from her first crossing, but she managed an armload of branches that, she hoped, would work, for a fire. They still had some logs, or at least thicker pieces of wood, left from the night before.
No one else was up as of yet, so she had to figure out how to make a blaze, on her own. There was no handy second fire set up to get things going and Max hadn’t left the box of matches out. What she did have going for her was that the fire from the day before, the one they’d huddled around after dark, being the one that Kate had made, hadn’t been smothered with water, but rather buried with dirt. That meant, digging with the end of a branch, that she found a piece of wood that was hot enough to burn her hand lightly went she touched it.
“Fudge!”
She yelled at the sudden pain, but wasn’t really hurt. At least she hoped not.
Then she forced a grin. If the branch end was that hot still, blowing on it might work to bring it back all the way. That still led to several false starts, since it wasn’t really a fire, but she blew her lungs out, her mouth nearly touching the coals, her face nearly in the little pile of wood, feeling silly. Right until it started to burn. Then, not wanting to lose it, she kept huffing, caught a lung full of smoke, coughed and forced herself to keep going. Still shivering the whole time.
After five minutes, she had a nice enough blaze going, with some bigger pieces, all irregularly shaped, burning on the bare dirt. It was big enough that she figured it was going to stay lit and would be safe enough for her to walk the hundred feet away, to get at the water. That part was hard for her, since she desperately wanted to stay where it was warm, by that point. Still, doing that, waiting and letting someone else do the hard and unpleasant part was victim thinking. She wasn’t one of those anymore, so got to her feet, which sloshed a bit, and headed over to the creek, to get a bucket of water.
She had to poke the blaze with a stick and add more wood before she could get a pot going, and while that started to warm, not knowing if they’d be using it for cooking or if she was just going to wash with it, she made two more trips to fill the other buckets up. They had nine people there, after all. Some of them would probably need to wash up in a bucket, even if they had trailers. There was no water connected to those, as far as she knew. If there was, she was freaking well going to sneak over and take a shower, as soon as possible.
Max, naturally enough, was the first one up, other than her. He had a trailer though, and that had its own bathroom, instead of an outhouse. Rather than make a big production of things, he came over with a box of food. It was similar to what they’d had the night before, being in plastic packages and cans. A few things were selected out, first thing, including an old-fashioned metal coffee pot. One from a movie about cowboys, as far as she could tell.
The man saw what she was doing, looked in the buckets of water and nodded at her.
“I have some coffee, if you drink it?”
She smiled up at him, forcing herself to smile, even if she felt like snapping at him for being warm and pleasant seeming.
“I love it. Normally made by an experienced barista, who I tip very well. Here, show me what to do? I’ve never made anything on a fire before. Well, other than boiling water. You saw my massive experience that way, last night.”
That got a polite chuckle, as if she were trying to be funny. Brushing at his beard, still clearly being sleepy, he winked. It was charming, if not going to work to get her into bed at the moment.
Not that she wouldn’t have considered doing that with the man, in exchange for a key to his trailer. That, of course, wasn’t an option. Not that she knew about, at the moment. Max wasn’t the one keeping her outside, it was the production studio.
His voice was friendly though, in a deep and slow way.
“With camp food, that, boiling water and some frying, are the big tricks. We’ll cover some things with real meat, later. That will mainly be roasting, but I’ll show you how to do that. We can make some eggs and toast, for everyone. Just to give you an idea of how to do that. Besides, we’ll want to eat the bread up before it goes stale on us. Next week we’ll be making our own, which will be a bit harder, though not too difficult. Not for you.” He waved at the fire as she huddled over it. “Not bad. You have a lighter?”
That got her to go wide eyed.
“I wish. I dug around in the dirt, to find a coal. Then nearly went down to smoke inhalation. I don’t have the tricks for this, yet.” She felt silly and waited for him to make fun of her, for flailing around that much. Instead he nodded.
“It worked, and you have a fire, when a lot of people wouldn’t have managed it. Here, fill this with water. We’ll just nestle it in the fire, next to the pot, for now. When it gets hot, near boiling, but not, we put the grounds in. The trick to cowboy coffee is getting most of those off before we drink it. We won’t get all of them, so be ready for that.” The man settled on the ground, on the dirt, like she was doing and waited, not telling her how to get everything done. Then, when that was ready, he dug through the box, pulling a shiny red foil package of Folgers, just like the one she’d opened the day before.
It might have been fun to poke at Kate for getting up late, but by the time she was using a spoon to remove the floating coffee grounds, having thrown some cold water into the coffee pot to shock those to the top, her friend was around as well. She used the outhouse too, without comment. That meant they were all up and sipping at metal cups of coffee, with Hannah being led through how to make food for them all, by the time that Lewis was out with a camera, pointing it at them.
Tiffany, the production assistant or whatever her real job title was, got up and seemed grumpy, as if she weren’t happy with her relatively comfortable trailer. Connie was little better when she came out. From the same trailer that Lewis had, showing that there might be some truth to the idea that he was there to service her in a sexual fashion, not just working the camera. Not that she’d taken that as a joke. It was generally kept quiet, but it wasn’t only men who put people on the casting couch, or on-screen talent that had to do things like that to keep working regularly.
It was mainly them, but in tough economic times, those who provided the right kinds of suction, one way or the other, were the ones who got work. At least it seemed that way to her. It was, as often as not, about either sucking up or sucking body parts. She didn’t have to do that, thankfully. Not that she had a problem with the idea on all of it, but having a choice was always nice.
The director glared at the fire and shook her head.
“We should have gotten B-roll of that being made. Eric, from now on, I want a cam going as soon as anyone else is up. Max, can we get you to do that again? Make a new fire and all that?”
The man nodded.
“Sure. I didn’t make this one, though. Hannah did. She had that going and water set to boil, before I even came out. It would probably be better to have her redo that. I will though, if you want. Really, we need to go over different fire making techniques, today. That and head out on a hike. We wouldn’t be doing that in a real survival situation. In that case, the trick is to rest as much as possible, once you have what you need to survive. We have shelter, water and food already set up. Hannah, Kate, I want you two to remake your sleeping quarters today, too. Then we’ll forage along the stream, which is about the easiest you’ll ever have it, out in the wilderness. There’s a nice spread of cattail not far from here. You can eat the roots, use the leaves to make baskets and rope and the fluff off of them is great insulation. I’ll show you what to look for and how to use it all.”
Hannah gulped her incredibly bitter coffee, which was much worse than the day before, and as soon as she finished, stood up.
“Can you do the food, while I get more tinder and wood for the second fire out of the woods, Kate?”
That got a nod, as if it seemed a totally fair split of the work. Connie actually made a face at the idea.
“Eric, you’re on Hannah. Lewis, stick with Kate. Darnel, can you find a new outfit for both of them? We’ll get you into makeup, Kate. Tiffany, you have that?”
She nodded, and stood up, still seeming upset at her life.
Hannah waved.
“Hey, is there an extra toothbrush or some soap? When it warms up a bit, I’d love to be clean. The people at home won’t be able to smell me, so... I don’t think it will really hurt anything.” It was a risk, saying it that way. After all, reality television people often thought that making the lives of their on-screen talent unpleasant was what the viewers at home wanted.
Then, they were doing Life of Kate, not Survivor. Hannah knew for a fact that Kate brushed her teeth, twice a day. Sometimes more than that, even.
The thin, somewhat tall, brown haired woman nodded, not taking her displeasure out on Hannah at all.
“I can grab that for you. Now in fact, I’m headed that way already.”
The early part of the morning, the first two or three hours, was all about getting food, remaking that when Kate burned it, even though Hannah had to eat charcoal in her bit of powdered eggs, along with Kate, since that was considered funny. The toast, oddly, was more or less fine. Then, after they ate, she remade the fire, with Max showing her how to use a bow drill. A thing that she had to make using one of her shoe laces since, unlike a smart person, she hadn’t brought any supplies with her into the woods.
Then, after charging her phone in Connie’s decently nice trailer, the generator running anyway, she made some calls to people. That was all about the food bank project. It was tempting to call up Lashondra and ask for an update, but the truth was that they were being monitored that way, and while talking about charity projects might not raise any flags, they were trying not to alert whoever it was behind Tri-D that they were on to them.
