Leon Pride: A World of Demons

Chapter 9 - The Queen

Lauren was resting in one of the beds of the medical tent after they'd all returned to the camp within Cleveland. Though resting might not have been the right word for it. The wound she'd suffered during the helicopter crash had been cleaned and stitched shot and she was even given a mild pain killer to help put her in a more relaxed state. She was relaxed alright but she couldn't catch a wink of sleep because as it turned out the Lockjaw colony had figured out just where the Vega men had set up camp and were launching a full scale assault on them. There was gunfire, explosions, screams, and cries though it became hard to tell which were human and which were demon. As it turned out Lockjaws could learn to imitate certain sounds and they'd begun to scream as they marched onto the camp.

Leon had been in to see her only once and that was after her wound had been stitched up. His clothes had been all but shredded with the only bit of clothing he still wore being his boots, those tan cargo shorts and his Dragonscale gloves. His shirt had been ripped apart so much it looked like he was wearing a toga, and despite the amount of blood that had covered his body Lauren saw no wounds to speak of anywhere on him. She knew demons healed fast but she didn't think they could fully recover in a matter of minutes after being put through a meat grinder of Lockjaw pincers. It was because of him that she knew about the Lockjaws marching on them and he'd offered to have her carried out of there and back home which she turned down. It wasn't because she wanted to stay here where all the fighting was going on, but she felt safer when Leon was around, even when that psychotic freak Carny was with him she felt safe. She still didn't like the idea of him being a part of their little group but if Leon had faith in the other demon who was she to say no? 

They were gone now, out on the frontlines against the horde of demons that were closing in on them. Nick was in the bed beside hers with a bandage wrapped around his head because of a large gash in his head. He didn't heal as quickly as Leon or Carny and required stitches in his hair much the same as Lauren had. Her hand reached up to the stitches that were somewhat hidden in her hair and winced when she touched them. She and Nick had decided to pass the time by talking; although she was sure he wanted someone that could keep up with him intellectually he must've sensed Lauren's need to talk even if it was about the demons outside. He'd showed her his cracked PET that he was already very close to repairing, he'd just need a new screen and the device would look as good as new.

On the screen of the PET he was showing her a diagram of a Lockjaw demon and read off some statistics about the creatures that Lauren forgot almost as soon as she heard them. What she did understand however is that Lockjaws can live in colonies that can be made up of literally millions of individual demons all working together to defend and steadily expand their territory, killing off any and all other species of demon or animal that intruded on their territory. He'd told her that a war between Lockjaw colonies could go on for centuries do to their massive populations, but they would end as soon as one of the queens was killed in which case the surviving members of the dead queen's colony would be assimilated into the other. Nick told her that this colony must've been a very old group to have so many soldiers to send out and that the queen must've easily been the size of a whale to have amassed such an army.

He went on at some length about the demons and how a queen Lockjaw will continue to grow as her colony grows until she's dethroned by a younger or rival queen, or she dies of natural causes. If that should happen then the Lockjaw army would actually turn on itself and the soldiers would fight amongst themselves until the entire army was dead. Lauren heard something about how he was trying to figure out where exactly a queen would want to hide in this place by using some sort of scan. Try as she might Lauren could only keep up with about half of what came out of Nick's mouth but she saw no reason to tell him because it was nice to hear something other than the fighting going on outside.