In a strange way, I looked forward to returning to Tokyo behind the portal. The ability to walk through the portal turned my life from a dead end into actually being someone.

  Dressing into my anti-radiation suit, which looked like a normal suit, just with four layers and fifty pounds heavy, I felt like it fit me perfectly. I put on my steel gloves and my helmet, which had the visor replaced after pretty much every trip, but was otherwise unscratched.

  Takezo just wore one of his cheaper suits, and together, we descended the stairs to the underground storage under a depot that hid the portal.

  It looked more like a high-tech laboratory now though. The portal still shimmered in its place, orange on the rim and black inside. But around it hummed a laboratory's worth of high-tech equipment. Isabella stood in front of the portal, and Simon and Marge manned the equipment.

  They were Isabella’s top people, from what I understood. They both wore company-standard suits, just like Isabella and I did, except that they both had glasses, while Simon had a clean shave, and Marge had hair arranged in a bun.

  They were in their early thirties, by eye, but that didn’t mean much in the world of magic. After all, Isabella was like forty-five, and she would pass for a high for a high schooler when dressed into a school uniform. They were also mages, and a bit higher level than me or Takezo.

  We also had an involuntary guest though, Salieu, a high demon of Kallisto held in a cage that glowed blue from runes. He was unconscious now, gassed to almost death.

  Isabella motioned at Simon, and he brought her a foldable chair. She put it down twenty feet in front of the portal and sat down. “Since I’m still weakened, I’m sitting this one out. Peter, bring that steel box to me.” She motioned with her finger. “The one in a cart.”

  I walked to a cart by the wall. The box inside looked heavy. I pulled on the cart, and it didn’t budge.

  Damn it.

  I braced myself and pulled seriously. With gritted teeth, I pulled the cart towards her. “Here.”

  “Press the button on top of the box and remove it.”

  I pushed the button on top that I totally missed earlier, and the box opened. I should have done that earlier.

  With a frown, I pulled the box off, revealing what looked like a large bomb inside the cart. It had a small display, a keypad, and a whole lot of text written in Cyrillic on it. “What’s this?”

  Isabella smirked. “Since the demons know about the portal, they are likely to have prepared an ambush on the other side. This will clear it out. Bring that barrel. It’s full of your blood, so it should be familiar.”

  Of course. I walked to the barrels, picked up a large black barrel, and brought it to the cart. My blood was the key to getting things through the portal, at least for as long as I wasn’t carrying them. This was too heavy to carry, so it needed a blood coating. “Are you still draining my blood at night?”

  “Obviously. And I believe I have figured out the amount I can drain without you noticing.”

  How nice of her. “Anyways, what’s this bomb that you think can clear the ambush?”

  “An old Sarmat warhead, with twenty megatons of yield.”

  My mouth gaped open. Even Takezo lost his composure and just stared. “Why… how have you gotten a soviet nuclear warhead and brought it to Philadelphia?”

  “Had it shipped in on a plane.” Isabella pulled out her phone. “Our corporation, Lucielle Legal, has Europe as its main territory. That includes Russia, so I had it picked up from our depot and brought here.”

  Sure. We had a nuclear warhead. Right.

  I looked around, searching for Kallisto. She stood by the cage and just shrugged when our eyes met.

  Isabella dialed a number on her phone. The target was picked up in an instant. I couldn’t hear what the other side said though. “Hey, Luci,” Isabella said casually, voice slightly tense. “We’re ready to begin the operation, and I need the activation code for… XZCRR124897465-CDYY27-N.”

  Luci, as in Lucielle, most likely. Though the thought that Isabella didn’t have access to the nuclear codes calmed me down a little. Not much better with her being able to just phone for it, but still.

  “Got it, thanks.” Isabella hung up. She turned towards me. “Pour the blood over it and move it to the portal.”

  I pushed the warhead to the portal, which was now a lot easier as the casing weighed easily three hundred pounds. I brought the barrel afterwards, opened the latch, and poured the blood, my blood, all over the bomb. “Ready,” I said once I had full coverage.

  Isabella’s hair stretched toward me, and she jabbed the bomb’s control panel a few times. “Push it in.”

  I pushed the cart into the portal. The darkness opened as the cart entered. The bomb went all the way in, the image in the portal stabilizing. A seemingly empty street stretched ahead.

  But the moment the cart arrived. Four dog-like steel demons pounced on it.

  Isabella snapped her fingers. “Eyes away from the portal.” She turned her head to the side.

  I did as well. Blinding light flashed out of the portal.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  We looked back, watching the chaos and mess of a nuclear explosion. Nothing of it got through the portal, only the imagery, which, for some reason, was visible through the portal for a few minutes after someone passed through.

  When the mess started settling, I stepped towards the portal.

  Takezo joined me, and we walked through together.

  The future Tokyo hit me like a physical weight. The air tasted of sulfur and burnt ozone, thick enough to chew. Above us, the sky writhed in shades of orange that didn't exist in normal color spectrums, and all the skyscrapers and buildings of Tokyo had been turned into ten times burned skeletons of themselves.

  Something was missing. I turned in a slow circle, expecting to see the delusion of Kallisto. She wasn’t here though.

  Suspicious.

  Because if she were the delusion of my mind, then there was no reason why I wouldn’t see her here.

  "No imaginary friends today?" Takezo asked, noticing my searching gaze.

  "Apparently not. Might not be all that imaginary after all."

  “Or maybe your mind doesn’t produce her here because it knows the real one is somewhere around.”

  I shook my head. “That’s unlikely, at best.”

  “Having a consistent delusion is unlikely, at best.”

  Good point.

  We moved through the ruins of what might have been a city once, before repeated nuclear strikes turned it into the wasteland of today. I pointed with my head at one such ten-times-burnt building. “This looks like Taco Bell. You could take another burrito for Isabella.”

  Takezo laughed. “I actually might. The last one was a success.”

  “Didn’t look like one.”

  “It still got her to sneak into my room at night and tie me up. Not in the fun way, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  “You sure don’t lack optimism.”

  “You do.”

  Hmm… he wasn’t wrong.

  Three demons burst out from a pile of rubble. Two dog-shaped ones, and one that looked like a steel centipede.

  The dogs pounced on us, one at each. I slightly shifted my stance and raised the gloved arm towards its mouth. The demon dog bit into my gauntlet, teeth screeching on its steel.

  I withstood the impact of our bodies colliding and grabbed it behind the head with the other hand. The demon’s two tails lashed like whips, hitting me, sending a barely registerable pain through me.

  I pulled my arm from its mouth, tearing out a few steel teeth. With a pleased smirk, I caught the demon, grabbed the back of its head with the free hand, and tore it in two. Demon blood sprayed around. Both of its parts twitched when I threw them aside.

  Next to me, Takezo had already cut apart his own dog demon.

  The centipede arrived at me, darting in with what looked like its head, or at least an end tipped with pincers.

  I grabbed it straight between them. The pincers hit my gauntlet, but couldn’t pierce the steel. The centipede coiled, striking at me with its tail.

  I caught it before the tip reached me.

  Meanwhile, Takezo circled around us.

  I caught both ends of the centipede, braced a leg by the middle of its body, and stretched it out a bit. Takezo approached from the other side and swung his blade. The steel blurred through the air, and in the blink of an eye, he cut the centipede into four pieces.

  I let them fall to the ground, letting go of the two ends. Strange. I’ve never seen a centipede-like demon before. From the non-human ones, it was all dogs and vultures and larger monstrosities before. “The fuck is this?”

  “Beats me,” Takezo admitted. “Never seen this type before.”

  “You think a centipede crawled into Kallisto’s meal, she got inspired, and made a demon by it?”

  “Or she caught the TV signal and watched some National Geographic.”

  That got a chuckle out of me. We continued toward the ship, mostly walking through the middle of the street. Trying to hide in the rubble was pointless, as it would slow us down without offering much protection from the scout-type demons anyway.

  Rumbling echoed from our side, approaching.

  “Hide,” Takezo snapped, and in a blur, vanished into rubble by the street’s side.

  Cool, but like, how? I didn’t have any speed moves.

  Claws scratched on steel, and a massive wolf-like demon, all steel and claws and fangs, landed on the street in front of me with a massive thud. Well, damn. This had to weigh at least ten tons.

  Another wolf landed behind me, cornering me on the street. Two more wolves arrived, and then a motorcycle rode out from a destroyed building and stopped between me and the front wolf. On it sat a demon woman, tall and armored.

  Patches of red, scaled skin interrupted her pale flesh, and her horns curved forward like tusks designed by someone who thought subtlety was a character flaw. Twin axes connected by a chain hung on her back.

  I stood in position. I was completely screwed. No way I could fight a single one of these gigantic wolves, and she had four of them. Not to mention the bike looked like the elite demon-design style, so this wasn’t a grunt.

  Actually, I knew who this was. Hell Anne, the huntress, one of the three high demons of Kallisto.

  She ran me down with her gaze. "Well, well, well," she said, her voice sharp and aggressive, like a stab of a knife. "What do we have here?"

  Since fighting wasn’t an option, I had to talk my way out of this. Takezo seemed to be hidden well, or at least none of the demons attacked where he disappeared to. So, it was just me. I straightened up. "I’m returning from a scouting mission," I said, injecting just enough irritation into my voice to sound authentic. "Need to report straight to our Goddess."

  She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "I don't recognize you. And you don’t smell like one of us."

  I pulled down my suit’s collar and raised my helmet a little, revealing the patch of living steel in my throat. “That’s rather necessary for an infiltrator.”

  “We don’t have any of those.” Anne jumped off the bike and drew one axe.

  I stood in place, heart beating like mad. If I couldn’t lie my way out of this, I was toast.

  Anne walked straight to me, face-to-face. She glared into my helmet’s visor, but it had mirrored glass. Finally, she bent to my throat. “That does look like the art of our Goddess.”

  “Then take me to her. If I’m lying, she would know, wouldn’t she?”

  “If the Goddess doesn’t recognize you, then I will get punished for bringing you to her.” She clicked her tongue. “But not as badly as you would be.”

  That didn’t sound good. I wasn’t sure if saying anything could help me though, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “Fine,” she snapped, and hung the axe back on her back. She released a strange, high-pitched noise.

  One of the giant steel wolves jumped toward us and bent down.

  “You ride on him. Try something funny, and each of my wolves will have a piece of you.” Anne returned to her bike.

  Careful to not scratch myself over the steel fur, I mounted the wolf. I didn’t dare to look back for Takezo.

  Anne rode first, and the wolf carried me towards the ship. That was one of the stranger trips of my life. How the wolf bounced under me, the steel fur tenderized my ass raw just from me trying to hold onto the beast.

  Complaining about that was about the last thing I could afford to do though, so I gritted my teeth and bore through it.

  The dome came into view in front of us, and above it, Kallisto’s ship, a massive Void ship, a mixture of a gothic cathedral and demon tech. The dome itself was part steel, part demonic membrane, and looked bigger than it was the last time I was here.

  We stopped by the dome, and I could finally get off the wolf. The beast bent down, and I slid down, stifling a yelp from how much my ass hurt.

  Hell Anne led me into the dome, and through corridors that seemed to breathe, their walls pulsing with a steady rhythm. We didn’t go to its center though, but rather we circled around it and got into an elevator.

  We got inside, the cabin ready, and it started taking us up. Hell Anne kept a side eye at me, but I acted as if nothing was happening. I realized that she might have been able to sense or hear my drumming heartbeat.

  Nothing I could do about that though.