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.It was the calm self-assurance of a seasoned reporter. Let s take this upstairs, he said.Revelation« ^ »Susan and Harold went up to his office with two armed guards, one on either side, a scene notlost on Steve Dunbar.One guard stayed in front of the office door after they went in, the otherwalked away.Steve finished typing the sentence he was on, then got up and walked over toHarold s office door. John, he said to the guard, a burly man he occasionally had a beer with, what s goingon? Is Suzie in trouble?The guard looked nervously up and down the newsroom, then said, She s got some bigstory brewing.I m not supposed to tell you.Steve was taken aback. Me? Specifically? Come on, man, what the hell did I do to deservethis? For crying out loud, would you keep your voice down? I don t know any more.She had abig story on computer disk, real hush-hush, and she didn t want you, specifically, to be in onit.Now go away before you get me in trouble.Steve went back to his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed a number from memory. You have reached the residence of Richard Birchmere.I m not in right now Damn, Steve thought.The voicemail picked up right away, meaning the line was in use.Hedidn t have time to wait until he could get through.He had to act on his own.He had a prettygood idea what was going on, given the rumors he d heard as of late.Steve got up and walked calmly over to the door. Sorry to do this, John, he said, butyou re in my way.Without further comment, Steve lifted the security guard, a man that outweighed him byat least a hundred pounds, and flung him effortlessly down the hall.He then twisted open thelocked door and stepped into Harold s office. Knock, knock.Susan was already up and standing near the window, hands behind her back.Harold satoff to the side, behind his desk, and though he looked surprised, it wasn t the shock and fearSteve had seen so often before, but the surprise in confirmation of something he hadn t reallybelieved. Suzie Q, what are you up to? Steve sneered. Your downfall, Steve.Or should I call you Nybras?At the mention of his true name, the smile fell off the demon s face.So the rumors weretrue; Susan had been working with Cho, and they had really discovered proof of the demonsexistence. Poor, misguided Susan, he said. You don t really think I m going to let you do this, doyou? You don t really think I d come this far, knowing what you really are, without protection,do you? she answered.Nybras stepped forward. What do you have behind your back, there? A secret weapon?Come now, Susan, I expected better of you.What is it? Silver? Holy water? Not that it matters.Time to die. Come and get me, you sick bastard.Nybras took another step forward, then his caution got the better of him.These upstarthumans had killed Batarel, or so he d heard.What did Susan have up her sleeve? As Haroldnervously backed his chair to the wall, Nybras decided it didn t matter.No mere human wasgoing to get in his way.He lunged at Susan.Remembering what Daniel taught her, Susan stepped into his lunge and got her center ofgravity underneath him.In one swift motion, before Nybras really knew what was going on,she flipped him towards the window.The glass shattered as Nybras hurtled through the pane, but he caught the edge on the wayout and did not fall, instead hanging from the sill by his fingertips. Clever, mortal, he hissed through the already disappearing blood and pain, but I fearonly a momentary stay of execution.Susan stood at the window and smiled down at the demon. You know, Steve , I neverreally liked you.In fact, I always kinda wanted to do this in college.In one hand, she held Jeff s last Korean-era grenade.With the other hand, she pulled thepin. So long, Steve , she said as she stuffed the grenade down his shirt. No! Nybras shouted, and in his panic to remove the grenade, he let go of the ledge.Heexploded halfway down, showering the cars below with gore. I can t believe that worked, Harold said. That s probably the last time it will, Susan answered, turning away from the window. We ve been able to kill them so easily only because they re arrogant and not used to beingthreatened.Soon they ll stop underestimating us and taking them down will become orders ofmagnitude harder.With a shrug of her shoulders, Susan put that thought behind her. In the meantime, shesaid, we ve got a story to put out.Less than a week later, Susan s story, along with all the corroborating evidence, wasreleased to an unsuspecting public.The Post released a special edition devoted entirely to whatthey dubbed the story of the millennium, and nearly every major news service on the planetpicked it up soon after.Like most major revelations, the news caused neither immediate nor dramatic reaction.Ittook a while for the full effect to sink in.The United Nations called a special session todetermine what to do about the demon problem.For her part, Susan won the Pulitzer Prize, fulfilling a dream she d had since childhood.She became a hot property in the news industry, and suddenly had more to do as a respectedjournalist than she knew what to do with.And life went on.Once Susan s story cleared his name, Daniel returned to his old job and his old apartment.He was happy for Susan s success (even though the only time she d had to speak to him was atJeff s funeral), but he was happy mostly just to get his old, boring life back.And that s when they found him.Daniel had just got off what was only his second day back on the job, and he wasdiscovering that he wasn t that happy after all.The cliché was right; you really couldn t gohome again.He d gone out on only two calls in as many days.The rest of his time was spentanswering questions about his ordeal.It didn t seem to matter to anyone that he didn t want totalk about it anymore.Daniel was deep in thought over this topic when he opened the door tohis apartment.Inside were three men in conservative dark suits. Daniel Cho? the lead one asked.Daniel should have been outraged, but he felt only resigned fatigue.Once you ve foughtdemons and won, he mused, government spooks can t intimidate you. Yes
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