“Preaching to the choir,” I replied.
Judy laughed at my response.
We walked in silence all the way to the end of the cobblestone street until the buildings parted way and there was nothing else before us except the Mediterranean sea.
I turned my back on the sea, looking back to Judy the waitress. For a brief instant, I almost felt at peace. Was this what a normal person would be doing on a night like this?
“Thank you, Charles,” Judy whispered. “You, uh, kept me company long enough though, haven’t you? You must be a busy man.”
“You’re not wrong. But thanking me? What for?” I asked.
“For treating me like a Human being, of course. I might just survive another day at work after this little pick me up.”
Judy’s smile faltered as she looked up into my eyes.
“Charles,” she murmured, before breaking eye contact with me.
Her lips grimaced and her eyes widened as a look of horror filtered onto her face. Behind me? In a split second, she grabbed my collar and pulled me awkwardly towards her as the crunch of shattering stone reached my ears.
I whirled about just in time to see an immense scaled head pull itself from the cobblestone street. I’d have been dead had Judy not pulled me away just in the nick of time.
The snake like head retracted high into the air as I focused magic upon the tip of my wand, forming a blade of hard arcana. The Mediterranean sea shifted and swelled with unseen movement beneath the surface.
The giant sea snake’s head was finned at the sides and covered in thick scales. A forked tongue tasted air from between grinning lips and needle like fangs waited in ambush just behind. Then another head rose from the water. And another, and then yet another.
Six. Grand total. Each as thick as a car and easily taller than the buildings around the shoreline.
“What the heck is that?!” Judy cried out.
“A problem,” I replied.
Chapter 22
Writhing monstrously out of the water, the sea serpent drooled hungrily out of all six of its mouths.
“Judy. Lose the heels,” I said.
The waitress hesitated for a split second before throwing off her kicks. She must have realized the plan before I even spoke it. As the massive sea snake eyed me, I focused magic into my right hand, and let loose a blast of bright white light.
Six pairs of eyes squinted, hissing displeasure.
“Run,” I shouted, tugging Judy after me at a break neck pace.
Not terribly heroic. Well aware. But Lis had, from an early age, beaten a strong understanding of bad situations into me. Being outmatched was one thing. I always fought things stronger than me. The problem was Judy. A Mundane girl who just got off her shift? This wasn’t her fight. And I’ll be damned if she gets hurt because someone wants my ass served up on a silver platter.
“This way,” I said, pulling Judy around a sharp corner just in time to avoid getting crunched by one of the heads.
The claustrophobic alley cut cleanly to the other street. We’d lose the sea snake easy if it was as dumb as it was big.
Unfortunately, I forgot to account for one small thing. Just as we neared the far side of the alley, I caught movement just above the narrow walls.
“Damn it,” I cursed.
Up above the building roofs, sharp reptilian eyes watched us hungrily. Another head was poised to snap us up at the far end of the alley.
“You can’t escape us, vermin,” said one of the heads.
“Come out. Come out. We’ll make it quick,” hissed another.
“Charles we’re trapped,” Judy cried out.
I shook my head. Not yet we weren’t. I turned ninety degrees and pierced my blade of hard arcana into the lock of a heavy back door.
“This way. Hurry.”
With a yelp, Judy ran inside with me in hot pursuit. Just in time too. With a shower of splintered stone, one of the sea serpent’s heads wriggled into the narrow alley to snap us up. I slammed the door on it’s jaw with all my might.
Silence fell upon us. The only sound I could make out in the lightless building was the sound of our footsteps.
“What was that thing? This is insane this can’t be happening. Charles, I don’t wanna--”
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “Cho. Some light please. And weaknesses.”
“As you will, my master,” spoke Cho as I drew him from my back pocket.
A dull blue light emanated from the tiny lamp, and cast eerie shadows along the desks and furniture littering the building.
“What is that?”
I turned to Judy and said, “Cho is a talking lantern. Questions later, right now I need answers.”
“This is a hard one, Charles Locke,” Cho said. “You’re out numbered. Out matched too. Your blade isn’t going to pierce serpent scales like those.”
“Some helpful advice, Cho? Just this once?”
Before the lantern of weakness could reply, a chuckling hiss echoed through the halls of the building. Shadows loomed and blocked out the moon light as they passed by window after window.
“A matter of time,” whispered one of the heads.
“Small matter,” another said.
“Sweaty fear. I can taste it in the air,” yet another spoke. “Come out. Won’t you come out for dinner?”
More of a midnight snack, I nearly replied aloud.
Judy was quivering at the voices taunting us. Cho’s low light was flickering with fright too.
“It doesn’t seem too smart. That’s all I can see. It has us right where it wants us,” Cho said, his voice barely a murmur.
“We’re trapped like rats,” Judy said, curling up into a ball to make herself as small as possible.
The waitress’ words ignited an idea inside my head. A wicked grin split my face in two.
“Charles?” Cho asked.
“Absolutely,” I said. “We’re totally trapped like rats. But here’s the thing, Judy. Traps like these work both ways.”
“You sound like-- you’re not gonna actually fight that thing are you?” Judy asked, mortified.
“I even have a plan. Count to a hundred in your head. When you’re done, go out the door we came in and run as far and as fast as you can. Alright?”
“But what about you?” Judy asked.
“Oh. Take Cho with you. If he gives you attitude threaten to toss him in the river.”
Both of them managed to utter the word ‘But!’ before I crammed the key chain into Judy’s hand, and said, “Ready? Start counting.”
Chapter 23
As fast as I could, I made my way to the second floor above us, and then to the third. That should be enough distance. I drew in a deep breath, and shouted at the top of my lungs.
“We should be safe here!”
Bait set. A second later, a rumble shook the building, and the sound of glass and stone shattering reached my ears. I leaped aside with all my might just as six heads hurtled towards my location all at once.
The crumpling of broken wood, glass, stone and the crunch of heavy and fast moving heads reminded me of a highway pileup involving trucks and speeds over a hundred miles an hour.
“So. That’s how it is,” I said. “Six heads, but you all don’t share a brain.”
If the big nasty has no weakness to exploit, create one. Cramped quarters and their own poor coordination made a fine start.
“Little mouse. Stand still!” hissed one of the heads, recovering enough from the head on collision to snap at me.
The jaws were about as wide as the hood of a car and faster than it looked. I barely ducked beneath a bite that would have nibbled my top half off my bottom half. Using the force of my momentum, I whirled beneath the serpentine head, and jammed my wand sword into it’s eye.
“My eye!” the head screamed, writhing and rolling about in a destructive tantrum.
As the other heads struck out, I threw myself down a nearby flight stairs as the heads became grid locked by the
narrow stairwell.
Second floor, first floor. I craned my head around. Judy made good her escape with Cho it seemed. Perfect. That meant that I could go ahead and steal a trick from squid mask.
“Could you be any slower? I taunted.
The two most violent heads managed to squeeze through the staircase and onto the first floor just in time to hear me.
“Vermin!” they hissed, and struck at me from both sides at once.
Bricks went flying and a storm of dust kicked up as I threw my back into a corner. The heads barreled towards me.
I’d have surely been killed if I had been wrong.
Sharp snake fangs pierced deep into a large concrete pillar. One of the building’s main supports. They struggled to chew through the concrete to get to the tasty Charles Locke center. I drew my pistol and wand sword in tandem, before aiming each at one of the heads’ eyes.
“Please enjoy the following impression of a cornered rat,” I said, and struck.
Hissing snarls deafened my ears. Both of the sea serpent heads pulled back in agony, and along with them massive chunks of concrete were pulled right out of the support beam.
The serpent’s cries of pain were quickly drowned out by a deep rumbling as the building groaned and listed drunkenly to the side. Snake heads too occupied trying to untangle themselves, I leaped out the nearest window and booked it in a straight line away from the soon to be disaster zone.
With a crunch, the whole building toppled onto the sea serpent. Looking over my shoulder, I could just make out the scaled heads limply dragging themselves out of the building and into the water. Just as quickly as the sea serpent had come, it had disappeared back beneath the placid depths of the Venetian bay.
The sound of police sirens were a dull roar in the night air. Exhausted. Scraped and cut up from the stray shrapnel born of my risky plan, I quickly found myself leaning heavily against the abandoned entrance of a dock side warehouse.
I struggled to catch my breath, and very nearly got my legs back into motion when I heard a familiar voice.
“You’re injured. I knew it. Stay right there,” Judy called out.
“I told you to run as far away as possible,” I managed to groan. “That thing was not movie CGI.”
“Shut up. You’re hurt and…” Judy managed before throwing herself into my hands. Her arms coiled around me possessively.
“Judy. Get a hold of yourself,” I said, but couldn’t find the strength to pry her off me.
“Charles, you saved my life. Also you were amazing.”
“Judy this isn’t hardly the time to--”
“Please just give me a second,” Judy said.
Wide intelligent eyes faltered as her face went red again. Endearing.
“Judy,” I murmured.
Her eyes finally found mine, her hands rose up to my shoulders.
“Charlie,” she whispered in response. She leaned back as I dipped down to kiss her.
The mood. The timing. The romantic sentiment born of a life threatening encounter with a mythological fiend that nearly spelled both of our dooms. It was perfect. Except for one word. Echoing louder and louder in my mind.
Charlie. Charlie. Charlie. Nails screeching on a chalkboard.
An inch away from Judy’s lips, my mouth spoke a name that had almost fatally slipped my mind.
“Lisistrathiel.”
Chapter 24
“What?” Judy asked.
“Red herring.” I said. “Neither of the twins were Lis. You convinced or paid or maybe even just used their natural interest in me to make me think it was you.”
“I don’t understand, who’s Lis?” Judy asked anew.
“You’re Lis. You knew I’d be on guard. You knew that I knew how you worked. So you tried to trick me into white knighting the poor distraught waitress to get me to drop my guard,” I carried on, voice rising in volume.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Judy replied. “This is a perfectly legitimate scenario. You’re just being paranoid.”
“It’s not paranoia if there’s someone actually out to get me. Besides, there’s only one person in the world who calls me Charlie, Lis.”
“Bullcrud. That’s a very common nickname. Any Mortal might randomly call you by it, Chuck. Chumbo. Chileab!”
I smiled. Judy sighed.
Poof. In an almost comical puff of smoke, the short, heavily pierced waitress disappeared. Leaning back in my hands, sprawled like a rag doll, was Lis. She looked positively despondent.
“My tongue slipped,” she said, sticking her forked tongue out at me.
In a whirl of motion, Lis pushed herself off from our formerly romantic embrace and dramatically posed against the wall of sea side architecture like a statue carved in sorrow. She wore black heels and a long skirted dress the color of deep sunset. A short vest struggled to keep her ample breasts in check, and a golden crucifix hung conspicuously around her neck.
Typical.
I tried not to pay attention to the fact that her dress was just transparent enough from the waist down for me to see the silhouette of her legs. I coughed into my fist and turned away.
“Alas, alack. I have been thwarted yet again. How many more days must brave Sir Charles spend in this desert before he will succumb to my temptations?” she asked.
“Mixing the Bible with King Arthur? You’re not handling your defeat very well,” I said.
“I’m downright thrilled thank you very much,” Lis replied. “Like I said, the harder the catch the better the match. But that’s for later. Right now you’re probably filled to the brim with questions about your new abyssal buddies. So go ahead Charlie. Just ask and you’ll receive. Beyond your wildest dreams.”
She was right. There was a thousand questions swimming in my head, and truth be told, I hadn’t even had a chance to organize them from most to least important.
“The snake thing. What just tried to kill us?” I asked.
“Dunno. What do you think it was?” she asked. “You were cool by the way, how you tried to be all manly and keep it’s attention away from me. Absolutely adorable.”
I am not adorable!
“It can’t all be a coincidence,” I said. “That six headed snake beast was huge and knew right where to find me. And just after I talked to squid mask too.”
“The Dagonians you think?” Lis asked.
I grinned. They had every opportunity to topple Club Nyx on top of me and find the book among the smoldering ruins. As I fought the sea serpent, it hadn’t occurred to me once that something so big and brutish might qualify as an assassin. In hind sight however, there was no doubt.
“That sea hydra was on the same team as the thugs that tried to kill me before. It didn’t look like it, but it felt like it. That was round two from my mysterious foes.”
“Wow Charlie. You’re really getting to be good at this. Pretty soon you’re not even going to need me to feed you leading questions, huh?” Lis gushed.
“Lis, if you weren’t around who’d be left to piss me off?” I asked.
She cackled at that. “It’s nice feeling wanted. Though maybe not as wanted as would have doomed your soul to eternal folly and suffering. So. Theories. What do you think you’re sitting on so far?”
Good question.
“If I had to guess,” I told the she-devil. “I’d say that there’s a third party pulling strings. Riling up the Dagonians and pushing the Olympians to war. I don’t have the specifics, but it has to be the Angel of Death’s work.”
I looked over to Lis to see her holding her arms over each other to form a large X. “Unlikely,” she said.
I frowned. “It’s the Angel for sure. Don’t try and--”
“I never said it wasn’t your magical Angel of Death, Charlie. However, you forget one important tidbit of information that applies to both Mundanes and Supernaturals alike.”
“And that is?” I demanded impatiently.
Lis offered me a fanged grin. “The world doesn’t need som
e super villain to make everybody else bad. Evil is as naturally occurring as goodness. Trust me.”
Chapter 25
I hated when she got sanctimonious on me. She was surely doing it for kicks. After all, who takes moral advice from a Devil? And yet I couldn’t think of a single way to prove her wrong. Damn her.
“I need some sleep,” I said.
“Are you propositioning me? Well if you insist. I just can’t say no to such a strong, hard, masculine will like--”
“Straight to Hell,” I cursed.
“Hecate and Lilith were right.” Lis said without missing a beat, “You really do make a super interesting face when you’re angry.”
I shook my head. She’d returned to her usual taunts, but tiredness had never been enough to stave off my curiosity. Maybe Ashwell was right about me being too curious for my own good. This might be a rare opportunity for me to pry more highly guarded info out of Lis. It was worth a shot at least.
“One more question before I go.”
“A personal question? Sure. The color of my panties today is--”
“What!” I said, much louder than I thought I would. “Do you know about the Angel of Death? What do you really know?”
Lis looked caught off guard. Weird. She was never off guard.
Tapping her chin she said, “If I remember my Heavenly stratification right, Angels of Death are one of, if not the most powerful types that exist.”
“How many types could there possibly be?” I asked.
“Lots. Angels of truth, mercy, justice, hope, and a hundred others. And those are just expertise types. Then you’ve got Angels by power. There’s your fancy pants High Seraphs at the top, your regular smug wad Seraphs after, then creepy Cherubim, spooky Ophanim, Dominions, Virtues, Archangels, vanilla Angels, and a bunch of other subservient spirits beneath all that starting with--”
“Slow the hell down.”
“Welcome to the Heavens,” Lis replied, twirling a long lock of black hair around her finger. “Angels are highly stratified. Caste system style. Devils have rough equivalents too though. For example a Devil fighting an Angel is a toss up match, but a Seraph will crush anything beneath them in rank like a bug. Guaranteed.”
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