Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1)

by Matthew Herrmann

  “I resurrect the fallen combatants,” the old man said with a pained quiver of his lips.

  “Resurrect … you mean …” I glanced at the glass vat containing the healing remains of what Simon had addressed as Pisces.

  Oh crap … I turned to Orion. “Typhon is making creatures fight to the death and then resurrecting them all over again to fight another day? You knew about this?”

  Orion wracked his hands.

  “That’s why you wanted this job. To what? Try to stop this?”

  Orion met my eyes. “This does need to be stopped.”

  “But why? Why is Typhon doing it? Aside from money.”

  Orion allowed himself to fall backward so he was sitting on a stainless-steel prep table. “Think of it. The world’s most deadly creatures of lore combatting each day, dying, being reborn, retaining the knowledge of combat, the weaknesses of their foes, their own weaknesses. Typhon’s amassing the deadliest of Others, honing their talents.”

  “It’s sick,” I said.

  Orion threw up his hands. “Our penchant for killing each other goes all the way back to Cain and Abel. This is only a continuation. The people up in the stands love it.”

  I sat down beside Orion, trying to take it all in. My head felt about to explode, like it didn’t want to accept the news. There was a generator with cables running to the vats, and on the side of the generator was a large lever, something from out of a Frankenstein story. GoneGods … was it really that simple? Step one, place the dead in a vat. Step two, pull the lever and stand back?

  Man, this was straight up evil. And strapped to my right thigh was a cursed object belonging to the man who’d arranged this whole arena setup.

  An idea hit me. So the crowd, they were aware of how things worked here … the deaths, the rebirths, the perpetuation of the cycle.

  “So Prometheus,” I said. “Typhon sucks some of your regenerative-ness off those patches on your skin and pumps it into the fallen?”

  “There is another part of the equation,” Prometheus croaked, lifting a sagging arm and indicating the dark rocky ceiling. “The arena floor is constructed of the stone Sisyphus had to roll up the hill in Hades for an eternity.”

  I’d only gotten a quick glimpse of the arena floor while topside, and from below, I could only see part of it. “That’s an awful lot of rock for a man to have to roll up a hill.”

  Prometheus nodded, the action feeble and sad to watch. “Aye. It was a big rock indeed. Combined with my regenerative properties and the ley lines these underground tunnels follow, Typhon is able to bring back most combatants killed in his arena.”

  Orion tapped at the table top beside him despondently.

  I got up and approached the glass box. I pounded the wall with the heel of my palm; it didn’t budge.

  “It is futile,” Prometheus said. “Even if you break the glass, you will not be able to free me. I am cursed and bound to this place. Nothing short of a miracle can save me.”

  From the way he spoke, I guessed he meant a literal miracle. Angels singing and all. Before I could respond, angry fist-falls boomed from the door leading into the room. I guess they either got Raiju under control or there’s a lightning wolf on the loose down here …

  Orion gripped my arm. “I don’t want to, but we’ve got to leave now. They’ve probably got reinforcements out there.”

  I turned to Prometheus. “Do you know a way out of here? Preferably leading toward the surface?”

  Prometheus frowned. “I haven’t seen the sun for so, so long.” He sighed. “Several millennia, if the calendar can be believed.”

  “But your skin,” I said, gesturing at his richly tanned skin.

  “Ah, the flames of Tartarus will do that,” he said bitterly.

  Yikes. I knew from my dad’s bedtime stories that in Greek mythology, Tartarus was located in the lowest reaches of the underworld, a sort of prison reserved for the gods’ enemies for eternal punishment.

  Fists continued to beat against the door. I didn’t know how much longer it might last.

  Prometheus coughed and nodded at the opposite wall. “Try that door.”

  I placed a palm against the glass in reverence as one might do a tiger at a zoo before turning back to Orion.

  “OK. Let’s go.”

  “Lions and Leather”

  We found a stone staircase leading upward through the door Prometheus had mentioned. It was dark, the motion-sensor lights replaced by total darkness. Luckily, Orion had a tactical flashlight in his pack, and at the top, we found ourselves in what looked to be the arena pit. Which meant the arena was no longer above us but just on the other side of us. The sudden impact of what sounded like a boulder smashing against an impenetrable shell confirmed it.

  “You good?” Orion asked as I caught my breath. I’m a fit gal. How this man hadn’t even broken a sweat confounded me.

  “I’m good,” I lied, and Orion took off again with me following closely behind.

  It wasn’t long before Simon started whispering something into my ear and I tilted my head to catch what he was saying.

  “I’m scared,” he repeated with a quaver.

  I straightened my stride. “Everything will be alright.”

  Orion chose that moment to stop abruptly, and I collided with him with a stifled, “Oomph.”

  He shushed me and reached back, tapping me on the side of the leg in our agreed-upon signal for “enemy up ahead.” Then together, we crept through the darkness like a pair of well-bred hunting dogs.

  The beast tamer stood with his back to us, his body tight with anticipation as he peered through the grated window of a metal, human-sized door. It didn’t take any stretch of imagination to guess what he was watching: the gladiatorial beastie fight.

  There came a particularly loud crunch, and the crowd roared in delight from the other side of the wall. The guard formed one leather-gloved hand into a fist at his side, and I found myself wondering if he’d placed bets on the winner before his shift.

  A particularly nasty-sounding liquid squish like the crushing of an overripe grape splashed over the arena, and one of the beasts let out the most injurious gasp I’d ever heard.

  An eyeball …

  My stomach twisted and soured like spoiled kefir. This wasn’t anything like a Godzilla movie.

  I gritted my teeth. Only ten yards separated me from the guard. Beside me, Orion readied his crossbow.

  Garfunkel growled, and from the corner of my eye I saw him pumping his fist as he spat in a hushed whisper, “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  Which prompted Simon to pipe up with a muted, “No, Theo! Every life is precious. It will taint your soul!”

  I shushed them both as I hiked up my skirt and drew my tranq gun from its holster strapped to the inside of my left thigh. And sidled up to the distracted guard like a phantom, raised my pistol and aimed at the exposed patch of skin on his neck between helmet and uniform collar.

  The trigger ticked like the flick of a lighter, and there was the soft pshh of compressed gas.

  The guard reached up for the dart now protruding from his neck, but before he could even utter a stifled groan he was already collapsing backward. I closed the remaining distance, caught him under the shoulder and eased him to the concrete floor.

  Too easy.

  I retrieved the spent tranquilizer dart from his neck and inserted it under a strap around my left thigh below my holster. Couldn’t be leaving any signs that I was here, now could I? Guards fall asleep on the job all the time. Hate to see this guy’s boss if he ever found out he’d let a girl sneak past him with one of Typhon’s most valued treasures …

  I lifted the passed-out guard under the arms and, with Orion’s help, deposited him in a thick mess of scat-strewn straw against the wall. Then I dashed back to the window the guard had been looking through. I’d be damned if I didn’t at least catch a glimpse of the fight—as horrific as it might be.

  But before I could even sneak a peek, I heard a voice behind me.


  “Uh-uh-uh.”

  I turned to see a tall woman dressed in a more feminine version of the leather beast tamer’s uniform, her strongly cut face illuminated by a swatch of pale light coming from a high rectangular window set into the beast-sized gate at my back. I didn’t recognize her, but she seemed somehow familiar.

  “Who are you?” Orion asked, his crossbow sighted on her chest.

  If the woman heard him, she didn’t show it. She stood there as if basking in some hidden source of power, like a proud woman who was used to getting what she wanted. She pointed a finger at me. “You have something that belongs to me.”

  I pressed my back against the gate leading into the arena. If it came down to it, Orion and I could make a dash down the tunnel either to the left or to the right. I turned my attention back to the powerful-looking woman. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “It’s strapped to your leg.”

  “OK, I’ve seen enough courtroom dramas to know that’s just a baseless accusation. Or maybe it’s a conjecture—”

  “Theo,” Orion said as he gripped his crossbow. “Do you know who that is? That’s Typhon’s wife—”

  He was in the process of pulling the trigger when the leather-clad woman was upon him, her clawed fingers knocking the crossbow aside as she ducked and spun, sweeping Orion’s legs out beneath him in a maneuver that would make Neo in The Matrix jealous. When Orion tried to stand, the woman spun again and clutched Orion’s throat in one clawed hand, lifted him until the toes of his boots were off the ground. Dark blood ran down her nails where they punctured Orion’s throat.

  Orion’s bulging eyes found me as his hands fought to wrestle out from the woman’s grasp. He was trying to say something but he couldn’t breathe.

  “… run …” he finally managed.

  I didn’t run. I drew my tranq gun but before I could pull the trigger, the woman delivered a flying kick to my wrist that sent the weapon arcing away into a pile of straw.

  Garfunkel snapped his fingers. “Run, Theo! You can’t help him if she KO’s you too.”

  I glanced left; the Minotaur sauntered up from the darkness, blocking the way with his halberd and a furious glare.

  The woman dropped Orion to the floor of the pit and whistled, summoning a giant feline form from the darkness to the right. Oh shit. The lion. I felt Simon tense up on my shoulder.

  I was trapped. Garfunkel slapped his forehead.

  The woman glared at me. “Now do you want to make this easy for yourself? Or harder?”

  The situation seemed hopeless. So what the hell. I took a play from Garfunkel’s book and grinned like a weirdo. “I’ve never been accused of being easy …”

  “Hah,” the woman said disinterestedly. “Fine. Just remember, you had a choice.” She nodded to the Minotaur. “Open the gate.” Then she turned to the oversized lion. “Be a dear and retrieve what is mine. I’d rather not get any more blood on my boots.”

  The lion growled in acquiescence as the gate raised behind me.

  And Garfunkel said, “Well, Theo, looks like you’ll get to see the beast fight after all …”

  “Fighting Tooth and Nail—Literally!”

  The spotlights assaulted me like sucker punches to the eyes; I raised my hands.

  A mere twenty yards from me, the giant scorpion straddled the giant, now-one-eyed crab, a chunk of dripping meat suspended in one pincer as if in offering to the rabid fans cheering from somewhere in the darkness high above the arena’s inner wall.

  I looked up, and my jaw dropped. Suspended from the ceiling, a jumbotron broadcasted both gigantic monsters in resplendent 4K, each chip and crack in their plated armor on display for all.

  Whoa. This is crazy.

  “Uh fangirl,” Garfunkel said, tapping my shoulder. “Hungry lion behind you.”

  Oh yeah.

  I stopped gawking and sprinted toward the two colossal monsters. It seemed my best chance of survival since there was no cover anywhere in the arena.

  “We’re all gonna die!” Simon shouted.

  “Not yet, we’re not,” I said as I closed the distance to the two fighting behemoths. “Hold on!”

  The lion leapt, its claws reaching out for me as I dove between two of the crab’s thick legs.

  I righted myself from under the crab’s carapace as the lion’s head smashed into two of the crab’s legs with a yowl. I scurried backward as one of the lion’s massive paws swatted blindly at the air for me.

  “WHAT’S THIS? WE HAVE A NEW ENTRANT TO THE ARENA … THE KING OF THE JUNGLE! … THE PAWS, CLAWS AND TEETH OF THE ANIMAL WORLD! … THE SOLE REMAINING UNDEFEATED CHAMPION OF THE ARENA! … MAY I PRESENT TO YOU … THE ONE AND ONLY … NEMO!”

  The crowd went wild.

  “Nemo?” I said aloud. This cat looked more like a Leo.

  Simon scratched his head. “Nemo? Like that movie Finding Nemo?”

  The crab shifted its heavy pointed legs, and I moved with it so as not to be skewered or to be sliced open by Nemo the Lion’s claws.

  “Oh yeah,” Garfunkel said. “That stupid movie about the clownfish that made you cry!”

  “No it didn’t,” I said.

  Garfunkel crossed his arms. “I didn’t like it.”

  “I did!” Simon beamed.

  “Guys, now’s not the time to be discussing Disney movies—”

  I edged out from under the crab’s shell in time to see the scorpion’s wrecking ball-sized tail catapult forward, smashing a glancing blow off the crab’s shell with a crash. The crab, in turn, trundled sideways like a saucer on legs, and heaved its claws upward and behind its head, its serrated edges cleaving and chewing through the scorpion’s legs.

  These beasts were so large, you could actually hear the inflow and outflow of ragged breaths as they recoiled and pounced, lashed out and defended. Instead of screaming, their bizarre, cyclopean eyes spoke their pain and anger and vengeance.

  Let me say again: This was crazy!

  The scorpion slid off the crab’s flat shell and, not even taking the time to recover from its mangling injury, pounced right back at the crustacean, its unhobbled rear legs propelling its retaliation. It dropped upon the crab’s carapace like an arachnoid dump truck, the crab’s multi-jointed legs bouncing like overtaxed hydraulic lifts.

  The scorpion’s pincers darted toward the crab’s unprotected face; lighter than the crab’s own claws but no less effective and deadly, they were made for precise maneuvering.

  The shell below the crab’s remaining eyestalk peeled back with a sickening crunch, and I swear I heard a shrill wail escape the crab’s alien mouth. It beat its heavy claws like mallets upon the arena floor as the scorpion straddled its topside yet again, its pincers digging into the crab’s exposed flesh like grisly trowels, unearthing splashes of bluish blood and crabmeat—and soon, green brain matter.

  “AND THE VICTORY … GOES. TO. SCORPIO!”

  The crowd roared.

  Spotlights ducked and swerved over their upraised fists, their heaving chests, their collective voices shouting for more. More. More!

  I thought I might be sick, and poor Simon actually threw up on my shoulder. And Garfunkel … did the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. He hopped over to Simon’s shoulder pad … and consoled him, patted him on the back. Weird …

  Orion was right. This was very wrong and needed to be stopped. From above and around me, the crowd continued to whoop and holler.

  Simon doubled over on my shoulder pad, clutching at his heart. And oddly enough, so was Garfunkel.

  “Guys, you OK?”

  “Sister Cancer …” Simon was repeating sorrowfully.

  Sister? I thought. Beneath the arena, Simon had said Brother Pisces. And now Sister Cancer … My familiars weren’t the personification of an astrological sign. They were a pain in the ass angel-and-devil duo that tried to keep my actions in balance, as if I didn’t already have a conscience to do that for me.

  So why were they referring to the
m as …

  “Theo!” Garfunkel shouted.

  I turned and dove out of the way as the lion leapt at me once more. As soon as it landed, it leapt at me once more and I somersaulted to the side, barely avoiding its nine-inch claws and five-inch teeth. Can you even imagine how long nine inches is? Grab a ruler and check. (That’s roughly twenty-three centimeters for those of you outside the US. Silly Americans and their imperial measurement system.)

  “Guys, what is that thing?”

  “You would know him as the Nemean Lion,” Simon recited as if reading from a teleprompter.

  “Details,” I said as I dodged a vicious swing of the lion’s tufted tail. That thing could cave in my chest or take off my head. At least the scorpion wasn’t interested in me—for the moment.

  I knew it saw me. I could feel its awareness resting upon my shoulders. (Well, that and Simon and Garfunkel.) But at the moment, it was more interested in its victory meal.

  A girl’s gotta eat and all that, I guess. If I were in the scorpion’s shoes—or rather, clawed appendages—I probably would have continued to munch contentedly, too.

  “Details,” I repeated, and Simon responded automatically.

  “Nemean Lion. Has a hide impervious to all mortal weapons and a roar that can topple cities—”

  My eyes widened. “Wait, I remember now. Didn’t Hercules kill it? How’d he do that?”

  Simon swallowed. “He strangled it with his bare hands.”

  I stared back at the lion.

  Yeah … about that …

  The lion and I began to slowly circle each other, its pompom tail bobbing with each slinking stride as it sauntered in that self-assured way that cats do, its constantly evaluating eyes saying that I was a sure meal.

  Simon turned to Garfunkel. “You don’t think Brother Leo would actually … eat us, do you?”

  Brother Leo …? “OK, you guys. What is going on? You talk as if these mythical monsters are your family …”

  Just beyond the lion’s flanks stood the still-open gate, and leaning against the side, the woman in the leather. She seemed amused.