“When?” I said coolly.
“As soon as you can, perhaps even within the hour.”
I gulped, dropping my stoic face. This was my opportunity at…well, not really a professional breakthrough. But a chance to realize what I’d wanted in my blissful days, maybe?
I couldn’t say. It wasn’t like life was brimming with magical opportunities left and right.
“Sure, why the hell not,” I said with a smirk.
It was times like these I was glad Mr. Roberts didn’t have an especially warm persona. He wouldn’t ask questions about my family’s connection to the Devil’s Patriots.
“You know what to do, then,” he said. “We’ll have a camera crew at standby whenever you want to head out.”
“Well, I’m a journalist, aren’t I?” I said, both rhetorically and to boost my confidence. “Get them ready and I’ll head out now.”
“Very good,” he said, pouring himself his coffee and heading out without another word.
* * *
I arrived with my camera crew at the entrance to the Devil’s Patriots’ shop within half an hour. Locating their shop wasn’t very difficult—it was somewhat near downtown Phoenix, on a bit of a shadier side of town, and they didn’t bother to stay underground; quite the opposite, in fact. Their logo, a menacing demon’s skull with an American flag behind it, adorned the front of their building and several other spots. You could always identify a member by the same logo tattooed on their neck.
They were not a shy bunch, which somehow felt like an understatement still.
But just because they weren’t shy didn’t mean they were talkative to us. God knows how many of my kin had gone up for comment, only to get the door slammed in their face or cussed out. None had ever been assaulted, but that didn’t exactly erase the fear one felt seeing them.
I waited until the cameramen confirmed they were rolling. I never wanted to exit the truck without a camera’s red light on; sometimes, those innocuous moments before the interview provided far more gold than the actual interview itself. We stepped outside and saw a muscular man with no sleeves, shaved head, and a bit of a goatee that looked like it had been recently trimmed.
“Excuse me, sir?”
The man looked at me with disgust he made no effort to hide. I’d done some research on the club en route, but beyond being about sixty percent sure this man was Spawn, I didn’t know much. There was Spawn, Satan, and Sonny, and…a bunch of nameless, but certainly not faceless, members.
“My name is Hailey Cook with WPTV, and we’re looking to get a comment on—”
I didn’t even get the chance to say what I was going to ask about before he went to a door, slammed it so hard I jumped, and left us with empty air.
“So, that went well,” I said, but no one laughed.
I gulped. I loved the thrill, but this was different. Still, I couldn’t go back to Mr. Roberts and tell him that I’d failed even to get someone to say something, even if it was just “fuck off, whore.” I went up to the door, felt my heart pounding, and knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked again.
Nothing.
I knocked again, and this time, halfway through my knocks, I saw a piece of paper slid under the door. I bent down, cognizant of wearing a skirt and the possibility that I was being watched, and picked up the paper to read it.
“Go away whore or else well case troble”
Well, minus the abysmal spelling and lack of punctuation, the letter certainly got its point across. But just for the hell of it, I decided to knock one more time. Again, they were scary, but—thus far—they hadn’t slapped or hit anyone.
And this time, the door opened.
But it was not the man they called Spawn.
No, this was the big shot.
Satan.
