Jim cleared his throat, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room.
     “Well, this has been one of the most interesting days of my life.”, he declared, and shifted his weight in the chair.
     Owen, Murray, and Kenrick all turned their heads to stare at him blankly for a moment, and suddenly began to laugh.
     Murray interrupted the laughter, suddenly serious, “Kexrouth, I don’t know how the others are going to take this.  Right now I’m letting you join up because Owen trusts you, and I don’t really know if that’s good enough.”
     He turned to Owen, and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you well enough to trust your judgement completely.”.  Owen acknowledged his understanding by nodding his head.
     “I’d think you were foolish if you did trust me without proof.”, Kenrick reassured him, “I’ll prove myself with deeds instead of words.  And in this world my name is Kenrick Macinally.”.
     “All right, Kenrick it is.”.
     Kenrick turned towards the door, his back to Murray and the others.  He walked to the doorway, and spoke without turning his head.
     “Gather your officers, and meet me in the basement in two hours.  Have a table, a floor plan, and some push pins ready for me.  Some cork board, too.”.
     “What for?”, Murray asked.
     “We’re going to have a strategy meeting.  You’ve fought back the Breach Army, but you’re completely unprepared for the Regular Army, let alone the Shadow Corps and the other elite troops.”.
     “The Breach Army?  You mean those things we’ve been fighting?  I thought those were the reconisaince troops?”.
     Kenrick gave a short laugh, “Do you think I’d give you valuable information about Belfarius’s strategies if you were going to send me out to die?  I haven’t underestimated your intelligence, don’t underestimate mine.”.
     “Two hours then.  I’ll have everyone there.”, Murray agreed, somewhat reluctant.
     “You only need the officers.”, Kenrick reminded him, turning his head over his shoulder.
     “We don’t have ranks.  We’re barely even a militia.”.
     “We’ll have to fix that then.  Two hours, bring your most capable.”, Kenrick said as he strode off into Owen’s room.

     Owen mercifully slept through the next two hours.  He woke up to a hand gently shaking his shoulder.  After letting out an annoyed grunt, he opened his eyes to the sight of Kenrick in his demon form standing over him dressed in a costume that was best described as archaic.  It looked like something out of one of the swashbuckling movies Jim was so fond of, down to the long-tailed indigo coat, lace at the ends of the sleeves, gold buttons, and lace scarf around his neck.
     “Going to a costume party?”, he asked as he sat up painfully.
     “These are my old dress clothes.  There’s nothing wrong with giving a good first impression.”, Kenrick said as he adjusted the collar.  He gave Owen a smile, an odd expression on his elongated snout.
     “You have dress clothes?  You have clothes in the closet?”.
     Kenrick shrugged his shoulder, “I didn’t bring my entire wardrobe, but I did bring some clothes.”.
     “So”, Owen asked, “why don’t you ever wear them?”.
     “No access to dry cleaning.”.
     “I… see…”, Owen squinted as he said this, suddenly wanting to drop the subject.
     “We should be going.  We have a strategy meeting to attend, after all.”.
     Owen lay back down on the chesterfield, and said, “I thought you only needed officers to attend.”.
     “Exactly.  I need the best this building has to offer, and today with no training you faced an experienced soldier without flinching, and held your own for a short time.”, Kenrick placed his hands on his hips as he spoke.  With his outdated clothing, it would have looked comical except for the deadly serious tone of his voice.
     “Yes, I was lucky, and I don’t plan of testing my luck again.  If you hadn’t saved me, I’d be a headless corpse in the basement.  I plan of spending my life as a businessman, not a demon slayer.”.
     “Good, so if you don’t want to press your luck, we’ll start the training straight away.  And now that I know you have a dream, I’m sure you won’t want to give that up by ending up in a Belfar slave auction.”, Kenrick told him with a sly grin, “Now, grab your sword and follow me!”.
     Kenrick turned with a swift about-face, and marched out of the room towards the apartment door.  Owen sat up, wincing from the pain of his bruises.  He stood slowly, muttering five words to himself repeatedly.
     “Two seventy-five a month.”.

     Four people were waiting in the basement as Kenrick arrived, followed by a reluctant Owen.  Owen recognised Robert and Murray, but the others he knew only by appearance, and not by name.
     “Good evening gentlemen,”, Kenrick said, and turned to the lone woman with a short bow, “Madam.”.
     None of them responded.  Kenrick merely smiled as he addressed Murray, “You’ve told them of my offer?”.
     “We’ve decided as a group that we will accept your terms, but we’ll be watching for any sign of betrayal.”, Murray said with a slight scowl.
     “That is acceptable.  I see you have the items I’ve requested.”.
     Murray nodded.
     “Good, let us begin then.  Show me on the floor plan where each of the holes is, excepting that in Apartment 26.”, Kenrick began as he stabbed a pin into the place Owen’s pantry sat on the plans.
     All of them stood around the table, with Murray and Robert pointing out each of the rooms a portal had appeared in.  Kenrick dutifully marked each with a pin, studying the pins to look for some pattern.  After five minutes, a dozen pins were sticking up from the board, and Kenrick gave a quick nod of his head, but did not voice his thought.
     “Now, I need dates, and exact times, if you have them.”, he ordered, and the four who had been waiting looked at each other, shaking their heads.
     Robert spoke up, “We could give you the order they appeared in, more of less, but I don’t think we wrote down the dates or times for any of these.”.
     Kenrick sighed in frustration, “Very well, that will have to do.  What I’d give to have Yierent here.”.
     Owen spoke up, asking, “Who’s Yierent?”.
     “My instructor when I trained as an officer.  He specialised in dimensional magic, and taught me everything I know about it.  He’d see the pattern in this, with or without the dates and times.  As it is,”, Kenrick looked up at the others, “I’ll have to take the time to study this.  I think I can find the pattern, but it may take days, or weeks, before I find it.  Where we’re standing is the main staging area for the Breach Army’s assault.”.
     The unnamed man spoke up, “What is the Breach Army?”.
     “The things you’ve been facing from the beginning.  Dimensional portals are naturally small to begin with, but use weakens them until they begin to expand and new portals begin to form.  Belfarius uses the Breach Army to weaken the barrier between the dimensions to weaken until he can send a proper invasion forces through the main portal, and smaller elite forces like the Shadow Corps in through the secondary holes.”.
     “I’m not sure I understand.”.
     “It’s like using water pressure to drill through a porous rock.  An existing hole can be expanded, and a bit of water can leak through an interconnected hole.”.
     “Okay, I think I get it now,”, he answered, still sounding unsure.
     Kenrick continued, “Belfarius is going to run into three problems when he reaches Earth.  The first is the lack of magic in this world.  At least, magic that natives of Belfar can access.  He’ll have to rethink his strategy, because he won’t be able to use the Flame Legion and the Frost Legion.”.
     Murray opened his mouth to speak, but Kenrick explained before he said his first word, “Those are the wizard soldiers.  They’re an important part of the second wave, because they have to force the portal to stay open from both ends.  It’s tiring work, even in a place rich with magic.  Here it would be impossible.
     “The second problem he’ll face is firearms.  Belfar has never invaded anywhere that had them before.  For us, this is both an advantage and a liability.  The Breach Army is also used as arrow fodder, and if we rely too heavily on firearms, we’ll exhaust our resources before we have to fight a real threat.  I may not like guns myself, I think they’re an uncivilised weapon, but they will help us keep the cost of taking this world high, perhaps high enough that Belfarius may have to give up.”.
     Murray cleared his throat, drawing Kenrick’s attention, “We may not be able to rely on guns too heavily, buying a lot of weapons and ammunition may cause the government to investigate, and the last thing they’ll believe is that we need to stockpile guns to fight off a demon invasion.”.
     Kenrick nodded, and narrowed his eyes, “That brings me to the first of our problems.  Earth is completely unprepared to fight demons.  We have no allies, and we are, at best, a small poorly trained militia.  We can’t afford to fight a war of attrition, and we can’t carry the fight to Belfar.
     “This leaves us with one solution.  I’m guessing from the look on Robert’s face, he’s figured it out as well.”.
     Everyone turned to look at Robert, who stood still with his arms folded over his chest, as he spoke, “We have to close the portal.”.
     Kenrick smiled and stood tall, “The question then becomes, how?  A question I cannot answer at this time.  Gentlemen, Madam, I’m afraid the time has come to adjourn this meeting.  I’d recommend you take the time to acquire weapons for your troops, preferably swords and polearms, so that we can begin training immediately.”.
     “Wait,”, Murray interrupted, “you said we have three advantages, but you only told us two.  What’s the third?”.
     Kenrick looked him in the eyes, and stated flatly, “You have me.  A veteran of seven campaigns fought under your enemy, three of them in the elite forces, and five of them as a commanding officer.  Belfarius has never had to fight one of his own, and until today the possibility has never even occurred to him that one of his officers would defect to the enemy.  We have the advantage of knowing our enemy better than he knows us.  I would suggest we use it.”.

     “I’m glad we’re having this meeting this late at night.”, Owen commented as he walked back to the apartment with Kenrick.
     “Umm, why’s that?”.
     “Because I’d really hate to explain what I’m doing following someone dressed like one of the musketeers, let alone a lizard dressed like a musketeer.”.
     Kenrick gave Owen an odd looking smile, “Fair enough.”.
     Owen let out a quick sigh of relief as they passed Beth’s apartment and started the climb up the stairwell.  Owen ignored the numerous aches and pains from the earlier battle, making a mental note that he’d need to see a doctor soon.  Kenrick opened the unlocked door and let Owen through first.
     Owen made his way into his bedroom and set himself down gently on the bed, suddenly wishing he’d thought to take another dose of painkillers.  Kenrick, as if he’d read his mind, followed him in with a bottle of ibuprophen and tossed it beside him.
     “I’ll be back with some water.”, he told Owen as he left for the kitchen.  Owen heard him open the fridge as he opened the bottle and shook two of the pills into his hand.  He briefly concidered taking a third, but decided against it.  Kenrick came in with a glass of cold water, which Owen drank with the pills.
     He said, “Thanks.”, and held up the glass in a salute.
     Kenrick nodded his head and took the empty glass from his hand, and scooped up the bottle of pills.
     “I’ve never seen you so confident as you were down there, Kenrick.”, Owen said as his friend left the room.
     “I am by nature and by nurture a soldier.”, was Kenrick’s response.
     For the first time in many months, Owen suddenly stopped to concider the full depth of what he’d gotten himself in to.

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