Memoirs of the Service

[Eternal_Freedom]

The work of a warrior is never done.

I had hoped to leave the Service soon. I’m getting old, the Enemy is getting much more cunning, and my bosses are getting more and more irritating. Damn bureaucrats have never been out on the Front Line, they don’t understand what it’s like. Endless paperwork, form-filling and ass-covering is what awaits me every time I come in from the dark and stormy night in which I work.

Naturally, this paperwork is, to a warrior like me, a far worse foe than all the terrible things I spend my days fighting. So of course I prefer to spend as much time as possible fighting the aforementioned terrible things. Some people in the office ask me how I can bear to spend so much time on the Front Line. Mostly I just don’t let it get to me. I fight in the War, so what?

This last one was bad though. Family of six, slaughtered in their basement. Blood everywhere, along with severed body parts. The coppers have their usual bonehead theories, ranging from deranged psychotics to some kind of terrorist plot to an Occult meeting gone wrong.

Actually, they’re pretty close, just not how they think.

Perhaps before proceeding, I should explain the Service, and the War I’m fighting:

The Service has no official name. It has no political masters, it answers to no one. Officially, we do not exist. Unofficially, we don’t exist either. You won’t find us on Google, or in the phone book. The closest you will get is whispered rumours in the back halls of power. One leader muttering to another that “we’ll need the Service to sort this one out.” We were once known as wizards, or mages, or even necromancers and sorcerers. We keep what the foolish and naïve call magic from the hands of the masses, for their own good. Can you imagine if ordinary folks had the powers to make their most idle wish come true? The world would be swamped with murdered spouses, teachers and co-workers.

That’s the Service. Now to explain the War. This war has been going on for centuries, and it will never end. This is a war with the highest stakes imaginable. We fight against the Enemy. The Enemy has been around as long as the Service has, and we’ve been fighting all that time. Let me see if I can find a simple way to describe something that defies description.

Here we are: the Enemy is made of evil and speaks only in riddles and nightmares. The Enemy has immense powers. It feeds off of souls it steals from the living and seeks to obliterate all of reality.

Terrified yet? Want to stop reading? No, of course not. You’re sceptical; you think I’m making this up for a laugh. I wish I were.

The Enemy has been known to the general population forever. Whenever there is religion, there is a devil. Wherever someone writes a novel, there is a villain. Whenever we close our eyes, there is a nightmare of some kind waiting for us. All of this is the work of the Enemy.

Now the sceptics among you will be wondering how we are still here if the Enemy is so powerful and want’s to obliterate us all. The Enemy can’t attack us directly. It lives in another place. Those of you who are science-fiction fans will probably describe this as a higher dimension, an ethereal plane, another level of consciousness or somesuch nonsense. To us at the Service, it’s the Fortress.

Earlier I said I spend most of my time on the Front Line, fighting terrible things. The Front Line is real life I guess. And the terrible things are fight are the people who have decided that having the Enemy in charge is a good thing, or those who hate everyone so much that they wish everybody else was dead.

So that copper was spot-on when he said raving psychotics or occult meeting gone wrong. The Enemy recruits humans, and sends them off on insane acts of cruelty and violence, all to give the Enemy more souls and more strength. The real kicker though is that to get beyond the nightmares stage of communicating, you have to talk to the Enemy willingly. And luckily for us, that’s hard to do, as the Service ruthlessly suppresses any and all information on how to do it. Of course, sometimes they get lucky.

By the looks of it, this family today was the teenage son dabbling with shit he shouldn’t have. Judging from the pentagrams smeared in blood on his bedroom wall and the Occult ebooks on his computer, he got lucky and actually made contact with one of his methods.

Pentagrams, cults, summoning circles, sacrifices. Tools of the trade for wannabe disciples of the Enemy. Satanism, the Occult in general, all that stuff most of us think is utter rubbish and gothic fantasies have a terrible ring of truth to them. Mostly they have completely the wrong idea, and they never get anywhere. But sometimes, like this teenager, they get “lucky.”

Some of the raving psychotics though, they don’t get lucky at all. They just do horrible things anyway, having hallucinated themselves into thinking they contacted the Enemy. Sometimes, the insane do it accidentally, without meaning to. But that one little touch is all it takes.

Those are the people I fight. Once in league with the Enemy, they gain some terrifying and surprising abilities and talents. Sometimes they can’t be killed by anything except their own hand. Sometimes they can burn people on contact. Other times, they simply lose all their inhibitions and become alarmingly skilled with firearms. Those are generally the shooting spree ones. We let the media get to those, because they don’t require much of a cover-up.

As I write this, my secretary, sorry, “Administrative Assistant” is typing up my notes from the incident today. That’ll go off to the Black Archive, our repository for the records of a War which doesn’t, and never can exist to the rest of the world.

By now, you’re wondering why I’m writing this. Us warriors don’t have a long life expectancy, and I’ve outlived all of them so far. My supervisor practically begged me to record my memoirs so all my experience would never be lost. So I’m writing them. They serve as a useful escape from paperwork at least.

So here are my memories of my time with the Service. With any luck, they’ll be buried along with all the reports. I’ve heard many soldiers complain about being a veteran of a forgotten war. I hope my war is forgotten.

- Prologue to the memoirs of John Raven, Warrior of the Service

[Eternal_Freedom]

Chapter One - The Service and the Office

My name is John Raven. I am a Warrior.

That’s pretty much the defining statement of my life. I live, I fight. I joined the Service at 18 and I’m still here thirty years later, still fighting on the Front Line two days out of three. The third day is my mandatory rest/paperwork day. And that’s the worst.

When you join the Service, your life before is pretty much over. All of your time is then taken up with the job you do and the extra crap that goes with it. Well, that’s true for me. But I’m a Warrior. I’ve heard whispers around the officer water cooler that the slackers in the other departments have this thing called “time off.”

“Joining the Service” is a bit of a misnomer really. Think of it more as “enforced volunteering.” When you stumble upon one of the Service’s activities, you become employed by the Service, whether you wanted to or not. Fortunately, we have surprisingly good HR people, and they manage to assign the newbies to the appropriate department so they don’t immediately want to run screaming in terror.

I’m one of the few exceptions. I did actually volunteer. My entire family was murdered by a cult in the Midlands. I, as the youngest and most innocent, was to be the sacrificial goat for their attempts to summon their sleeping master. I was saved by the timely intervention of my mentor and best friend, Warrior David Ryan. He explained all about the Service and the Enemy and what they do. And I chose then and there, without a hesitation, a second thought or even a tear, to join the Warriors and stop suc barbarism from happening.

Of course, I learned later the details behind the War and the Enemy. The cult that murdered my parents and three older brothers worshipped Satan, but in reality they were venerating the Enemy, as Satan doesn’t exist.

David taught me everything he knew. And then, after only a year on the job, he was killed. Right in front of me, by a nameless horror; a man possessed by the Enemy. This monster had the unnerving ability to disappear and reappear right behind you, even despite the protective wards issued as standard to Warriors. It got Dave as he was explaining something to me. I shall never forget that look on his face as his chest suddenly disintegrated. I killed that horror soon after, but not before he’d killed another three people. That was not a good day.

Since then, I haven’t really had any friends. My job is my life.

And right now, my job/life is incredibly frustrating. Endless paperwork that would make even a policeman cringe. Every trip out of the office whilst carrying weapons and/or equipment has to be logged, with a clear list of objectives and details of what happened, actions taken and so on. Anytime we engage in combat requires an additional set of forms. Injuries sustained or inflicted require separate reports. And of course, any fatalities require even more forms. Especially if they are innocent bystanders that could have been saved if I had acted earlier or later or whatever.

Now, that sounds fairly reasonable when I write it like that. But it’s a real nightmare for me, when you consider that every time I leave the office I am carrying both weapons and equipment. Most days I’ll have some possessed following me that I need to lose or dispose of. Roughly one day in ten I’ll have a serious fight on my hands, with a higher-level possession or a direct summoning. Those are always interesting at least.
I suppose it could be worse. At least I get to spend most of my time out of the office.

The office is in fact an unassuming 15 floor office building in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Well, that’s the current office, we’ve always been based in Wycombe, for reasons I have never quite understood. (According to the office rumour mill, it has something to do with Benjamin Disraeli, seven frogs and a large metal spike.)

Top floor houses the Office of the Director. I’ve never met him, no one I know of in the Service has. His secretary hasn’t changed or aged in all the 30 years I’ve been here, and she is the one who issues the edicts to departments, always couched in terms of “The Director requests that…” I’ve got a theory that the office she guards so fiercely is in fact empty, and she is the Director, and she pretends to be a secretary to thoroughly confuse everybody.

Or, knowing the line of work we’re in, the Director might be another being like the Enemy from another place. But that little bombshell is one I don’t tend to discuss very often.

Next floor, number 14, is the offices for the Warriors. Senior ones like me get offices and secretaries all our own, the rest have to make do with cubicles and a communal typing pool. As with so much of what we do, “Senior Warrior” is a misnomer. To be a Senior, you have to have 5 years combat experience. At present, there are 13, including myself. And 7 of them are MIA/presumed KIA. The other 5 have anywhere from the requisite 5 to all of 10 years’ experience. I’m a real outlier, with my 30 year long-service medallion on the office wall. The regular warriors see me as some kind of demigod at times. They’re all amazed I’ve managed to survive this long without becoming a desk-bound administrator. I used to find it amusing, now I hate it. My time in the office is bad enough without hero-worship going on as well.

Floor 13 houses the department where I spend the remainder of my time in the office, the Armoury. Every kind of weapon you could want, enhanced and standard. Wards and other protective devices as well. I get on very well indeed with the Chief Armourer, he’s probably the closest thing to a friend I’ve had in the Service since David was killed.

I spent today checking myself out on a pretty awesome new weapon he’s come up with. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary issue sword; one metre straight double edge blade, two handed grip, anti-rust and corrosion wards as standard. Useful for slaying some of the more esoteric of the horrors I come across, especially those immune to bullet damage.

But Greg Stevens has made this one something special. He’s managed to include wards to make the blade electrically charged, so even a glancing hit with fry the target. There’s even a shielding ward on it, to protect us from bullets and flammable materials. I asked him when I could get issued one, and he said the one I was drooling over was for me, inscribed with a name, Sabre of Secrets, and my old family motto: Pro Libertate, “For Freedom.” I smile at that, briefly reminded of the family I lost so long ago. Without thinking about it I sign the forms and take the beautiful sword back upstairs with me.

My afternoon is mostly spent filling out the forms related to the family slaughtered by their deranged teenage son that I dealt with yesterday (I think I mentioned it in the prologue). Nasty business that.

Well, that’s it for today. Tomorrow I’m back on the front line, so it should at least be more interesting to describe.

[LadyTevar]

My my... the NoneSuch Department lives

[Eternal_Freedom]

Chapter Two – The Journey to Work

Walking to work is great. Fresh air, exercise, saves on petrol, and it’s much easier to deal with pursuing possessed cultists. I live close to the office, about 10 minutes away, in a nice quite little estate on the outskirts of Wycombe. Of course you can’t just waltz up to my front door. In fact you can’t actually see it. The house number doesn’t exist and that side of the road is a field to an untrained observer. The Service may be a bureaucratic nightmare, and they may recruit by force, but they take good care of you.

You’re probably wondering about the “dispose of cultists” part. As I said in chapter one, Most days I’ll have somebody out to get me. Mostly they are harmless (to me) nutcases or cultists that follow me because their All-Highest-Priest-Top-Dog-Person told them too. I leave them alone, they can’t get near the office or my house anyway. No point in making a mess after all.

Just sometimes though, I get a real possession coming after me. Those are quite a lot more dangerous. The trick with them to dispatch them without letting them touch you; if they get their hands on you you’re pretty much screwed, unless you have a Class Five ward. Luckily for me today, one of those is built into that excellent new sword the armourer kitted me out with a couple of days ago.

Now, picture this: you’re strolling through a fairly vibrant town centre, early morning, on your way to work like countless other office drones across the globe. It’s a nice bright sunny day. But walking behind you, shambling fairly chaotically, is a rather large gentleman wearing a big heavy raincoat and a hooded robe. Not exactly subtle, these possessions. I noticed him as soon as I left my house. It’s kind of difficult not to notice, when this spectacularly indiscrete person is leaning against a lamppost reading a newspaper. It makes it even easier when he starts walking as soon as I do, shadowing me on the other side of the road.

Ten minutes later, just walking past the shopping centre. The tall monkey is still following me. I decie I’d better deal with the muppet before he loses it and hurts someone. I duck back into the aforementioned shopping centre, closing the gap between me and my shadow. Moving lazily along the main arcade, heading in the vague direction of a service door. Quick glance in the reflective windows: yup, still there.

Stepping through the door, unsheathing Sabre of Secrets from it’s position across my back. I can feel the slight vibration as the electroshock ward charges itself. There, the doors opening, and here comes the…thing I suppose is the best word.

Swish, chop, bang, sizzle, thump.

The sound of a hundred kilos of meat hitting the floor. Lightly fried of course. The cultist body is dead, but I may still be able to get something out of the nameless horror possessing it. Now that it’s free of it’s host, it has no choice but to either die, obey a new master or wait until the cult opens another gate for it to return to the Fortress. Quickly, I sketch out a rough pentagram on the floor around the body. (Yes, I know I said pentagrams are used by wannabes and don’t work. They don’t, not for summoning. But if you want to bind something, they work just fine.) Time to work my magic:

“By the powers of the Firstborn, I hereby seal and bind you to my will, and command you to obey my every command without hesitation, resistance or rebellion. Koros, Strohna, ya-ling, azuran. Appear before me and signify your understanding of this binding ritual.”

Just as always, the nameless horror appears in front of me, a blood-red cloud that looks very much like a gas, but is far more insubstantial. A vague semblance of a mouth and eyes form within the cloud, and it nods in a very human manner.

“Explain to me where you are from, who summoned you and where they can be found.”

The thing burbles a bit, then speaks: “I am from the fortress. I was summoned by the Cult of Reckless Abandon, in their meeting hall. 42 Green Street, cellar. No wards.”

Having committed the details to memory, and laughed at the cult’s clichéd name and feeble protective measures, I command the horror to destroy itself. I can sense its reluctance, but I bound it by the powers of the Firstborn, and it has no choice but to obey. The cloud bursts into flames and disappears, not a trace of it remaining.

I look down and realise the charred body is still here. Damn, should have got the horror to take the dead man with it. Oh well. I set about drawing more shapes around the body, breaking the pentagram and replacing it with a two dimensional drawing of a tesseract. A few more words of power and the body bursts into brilliant purple flames, that give off neither heat nor smoke but consume the body utterly.

I wipe clear the drawings with a few muttered words, then head back out into the shopping centre to continue to work. Only then does it hit me. I’ll have to fill in a lot of forms for this one. Cursing profusely under my breath I continue to the office. After exchanging a brief “Good morning” with Gus, the night watchman whose shift ends in an hour, I cram into a full lift.

I’m surrounded by besuited drones, heading off to their offices to move stacks of paper from one side to another. It’s no surprise that most of them get off at the 3rd floor, that’s Admin. Damn bureaucrats.

I get off at the 14th as usual, stroll into my office past the mass of cubicles for the junior Warriors. There’s a hail of sycophantic “Good morning Sir!” calls but I ignore them completely. Luckily, my secretary knows exactly how to deal with me. She doesn’t even glance up as I walk in, leave my coat and hat on the rack and storm into my office. She just gets up, makes me a cup of tea and goes back to whatever she’s typing at present.

I thud down into my chair, groan inwardly at the pile of paper and forms in my in tray, including the one for this mornings incident. It’s slightly scary how the Admin people always know when some kind of staff incident happens, but are completely clueless when summonings and murders start taking place. Helpful of them. I grab the first set of forms, grab my pen and get to work.

It’s gonna be a long day.