by Mary Ramsey
“I am thinking of my daughter.”
“And your great idea is to take them down on your own?” Annie nodded, turning away with a look of disappointment and confusion.
“Yes, exactly,” I replied with confidence. Judging by my partner’s face, my words finally seemed to get through to her.
Annie almost fully stood up when she facepalmed with a horrifying realization. “You’re going to surrender to them, aren’t you?”
“If it comes to that,” I muttered softly, not wanting Lola to hear. But hopefully surrender was a word she was not familiar with.
“What about Bobby Reyes?” Annie asked, now thoroughly annoyed. “What am I going to do with him? The fucker doesn’t even speak English!”
“Bobby will be fine,” I said with a growl. “He’s not a freaking puppy!” I quickly turned to Bobby, hoping my perception of him was correct. “You’re good, right?”
The man appeared concerned, but not for himself. If he was truly a coward, he could have easily made a run for it, giving himself up to the police-angels. “Bobby, this is Annie, my partner in crime, my lover in life, and the co-mother of my child. We’re the good guys. But you’ll just have to trust me on that.”
Bobby nodded. He reached for my hand, locking his fingers with mine. “I-I will.”
His reply made me smile. Our connection was strong, and somehow, despite the fact I don’t speak a word of French, he understood. Yes! And that was really all I could hope for at the moment. “Thank you.”
I gathered my tools. First, my father’s rosary: a beaded necklace with a sharpened crucifix. Next was my mother’s pentagram: a simple pendant made of bronze. And my crown of thorns (in truth it was more of a hairclip of thorns). In my mind, I had a plan. If everything went as planned, these angels were going down. I threw open the door and exited the vehicle with my hands above my head as if surrendering to the police. “I’m open to negotiations.”
The soldier laughed, cupping his hand over his face to hide the fact that he found something about this situation to be hilarious. “You’re serious? You know we’re impervious to most of your little party tricks.” The man lowered his weapon to his side in a mocking gesture.
Cocky little fuck. “Oh, I doubt you’ve seen all my tricks,” I replied with doll-eyes and a sexy pout. I expected one of them to start preaching to me about how killing my lover’s ex-wife and stealing her baby was a mortal sin. They were angels, and men, so mansplaining was just in their nature. But that’s not what happened.
“Jesus, little girl. You were really born in the wrong decade.” The soldier took a breath, turned away. Then in one swift motion, he managed to come up, punch me in the stomach, and grab me by the waist.
“Ow!” Before I knew what was happening, he’d thrown my body in the bed of their truck, with a massive clang. “Motherfucker!” Pain rippled through me as my face slammed into the cold metal. “Fucking shithead bastard!” Ok, the first point of the game goes to the angels.
Knowing I needed to play their game, I sat up, intending to use the first of my weapons. I laced the rosary through my fingers, giving the sharp steel necklace a tight squeeze. As the blood graced my skin, a shot of energy rippled through my body. My skin glowing the color of the blue moon, I leaped like a pole vaulter, landing on the soldier’s back. I landed a few good punches, making sure to slam my bloody fist into his skull.
“Nice try, little bitch.” The bastard of a man grabbed the cross pendent of the rosary, crushing it in his hand. The beads were pulverized into powder, and the crucifix snapped in half, all before vanishing.
My vision went in slow motion. That was not supposed to be possible. Stranger still, I could feel something was in my hand. Like one of those cartoons where an item (or character) leaves behind a shadow image.
“Adam!” the hippy said with a disapproving glare.
“What? You know the minute I go easy on her she’s going to try some shit, that just what demons do.”
“Who you calling a demon?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, he’s new.” The hippy waved his hand, and a length of rope materialized. The device sparkled with a mesmerizing glow, right before it clenched around my neck.
In my shock, all I could think of was how it looked remarkably like the fictional whip Wonder Woman used.
The soldier whispered in my ear, “Tell them to run. You know you want to.”
“Annie, drive!” I screamed. Why did I scream? I never scream!
The hippy snickered. “Behold the power of the lasso of truth.”
My wife had been holding the weapon I’d given her. She could either use it to try and save me or give the trailer enough of a head start that she’d be miles away by the time the angels knew what was happening. But I wouldn’t get to find out.
I awoke tied up in the bed of the truck. Fuck, this can’t get any worse. And it was moving. Goddamn shit, motherfucker! Keeping my eyes closed, I tried to meditate. I would be of no use to my family if my anger got me killed.
But instead of a peaceful dream, my fucked-up brain decided to treat me to a flashback. I was seventeen, caring for my dying father. The horrific illness had taken so much; his mind, body, spirit. Yet through it all, ‘blood cancer’ could not take his faith.
“Daddy?” I reached for his hand, gripping it in the darkness of our small apartment. A rush of pure pain washed over me. He was the one who was dying, but I felt like my body was going to collapse under my own grief. I was just a kid; he was all I had.
“Raven?” my father said in a weak breath, as his frail hand met mine.
“Yeah, it’s me, Dad.” I could feel the bones of his fingers through his rough, callused skin. “I’m here. I love you so much. I miss you, Dad.”
“I missed you too.” His lips cracked with a strained smile as tears filled his eyes. He was suffering from fever, tremors and chronic pain. This was likely due to infected lesions and sores. He had no medicine, no food or even water.
Water! Yes, that was something I could do. “Let me get you some water, Dad.” I went to a nearby sink, but the water from the faucet came out a creepy, inky black. The smell made me want to vomit. I was about to turn back to my father when he started to cough.
“I-I think I had an accident.”
“It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay…” I took a step back before lifting the bedding. The blankets were soaked with blood and feces. That had been the source of the foul odor. “I can get you cleaned up.” Actually I couldn’t, since I had no water.
“It’s fine, I can take all the agony. Just to see you one last time.”
“There has to be something I can do.” On the nightstand there lay a container of pills, an unopened bottle of vodka, and pistol. During his life, my father never drank, and he sure as hell didn’t own a gun. “Do you want me to give you something for the pain?” I couldn’t do it, even if I wanted to—even if this wasn’t a dream.
“No.” My father frantically shook his head. “Raven, my precious daughter. All I ever needed was you. To believe in anything else would be a sin.”
A sin? I’d been doing a lot of that. “Thank you, Dad. It’s nice that someone still does.”
“I always will.”
I started to cry and then sob. I rested my head on his chest, where I could feel the bones of his ribs rise and fall with every breath. “Daddy, I need you. Where are you?”
My father’s weak fingers folded over my hand. “Sweetheart, look into my eyes.” His grip was surprisingly strong. Fearing this was a trap, I was tempted to jerk my hand away.
I did as he asked, gazing upon his sickly grey-green pupils.
“I am but a stone in a path. Take me to the river, throw me in the water, and put my heart away.” He ended with a sweet, confident smile.
“Um, what? I don’t understand.” This was not any magic I knew of.
My father touched the palm of my hand, like a fortune teller. “The flares of the dying will lead you home.” His eyes went wide, looking like a
mannequin or a doll. “We sparkle, we shine.” He held his hand up to mine, as if comparing the sizes. “We glow.”
“We glow?”
“And sometimes that is our downfall.”
The room shook as the floor opened to reveal the fires of Hell.
I awoke with a shriek as the tacky automobile went over a massive bump, causing my head to smack against the side of the truck bed. Do not cry, do NOT cry.
“Scream all you want, little witch,” the soldier said with his usual machismo. “We’re on the backroads.”
Oh, great. That’s just fucking great. How the hell did they even get here? My heart was racing. I knew full well what ‘backroads’ meant; this was a backdoor reality, strictly angel (white magic) domain. Since I was as weak as a normal human in this place, I decided to fake valor as best I could. “I don’t need to scream, they’ll come for me! They’ll ALL come for me!”
“Will they?” asked the hippy from behind the wheel.
“I have hundreds of followers; warriors, scholars, they’ll find me!”
“Only if they’re tracking your ass,” the soldier replied, playing with something on his hand. “With these glorified keychains?”
I heart went through a barrage of emotions; from anger to sadness to full-on panic. “Please give it back.”
“Give what back? These tools of the devil that make a mockery of our lord and savior?
My request was for one item and one item only. I forced tears, if only to play on their sympathy. “My cross, it belonged to my pa. He was a good Christian man.”
“Your father’s rosary?” asked the hippy. “You can have it back once we make camp.”
“Make camp?” I asked, sticking with my innocent little girl voice.
The soldier laughed. “Well, we have a long way to go.” He gripped the rosary tight, as if intending to break it.
We drove for what felt like an eternity. I rested on my back, looking up at the starry night sky, trying to remain calm. Strangely enough, I wasn’t the least bit tired.
When we finally stopped, the soldier picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “If I untie you, can we trust you not to run?”
“Run where?” I asked with a scowl. Looking around, I could see we were on a desolate beach. Under the darkness of night, the calm water looked more like a lake than an ocean. But I had no idea where I was.
The hippy chuckled as he took down an unassembled tent. “She has a point, Adam.”
The soldier, apparently named Adam, power slammed me face-first onto the sand. With my body too stunned to attempt to stand, I felt the ropes being cut with a large serrated hunting knife. When I was free, my whole body felt numb. I literally had to force myself to breathe.
“Better, darlin’?” Adam asked in a clear southern accent.
The man always had a noticeable accent, but only when he was being sarcastic did it shine through. And the fact that his voice reminded me of my father—that annoyed the crap out of me. “Just give me my property, you fucking white-trash hick.”
Adam only laughed. He looked at my pentagram, twirling it between his fingers. “Nah, I think I should do the world a favor and smash this. Oh yeah, I forgot, you wanted the rosary. A strange request for a witch.”
The hippy grabbed the rosary from Adam and handed it to me. “To be fair, we’ve not given you proper introductions. I’m Leo Riveria, and this is my partner, Adam Severgine.”
“Let me guess, Mr. Adam, your ass is former military?” I asked with a sarcastic tone.
“Master sergeant, US army,” the masculine blond replied. He went back to the truck and started to pull down a bundle of logs that had been tied with a very familiar-looking rope.
I watched as he started to build a campfire, arranging the pristine wood into a circle before setting it ablaze with a neon blue powder.
“Are you hungry?” Leo asked me in a cheery, friendly tone. He knelt down by my side, like a teacher speaking to a small child. “We have plenty of human snacks.”
“Human snacks?” I couldn’t help but giggle.
“Hotdogs, marshmallows, and other stuff that cooks over a fire. Sounds fun, right?” Leo seemed like he was genuinely trying.
“Yeah, fun. Right.” I honestly didn’t feel like snacking on junk food. I didn’t have much of a choice.
Leo stood up and went to the truck, returning with a cooler of snacks. But not before Adam sat beside me and proceeded to take out a cigarette.
“I hear your old man died of cancer?” Adam asked as he lit up. His voice was rough, uncaring, and even somewhat smug.
“My father suffered from colorectal cancer because my mother was physically and sexually abusing him. He died when her coven tore him apart like a roast turkey, devouring everything he was. Except this.” I clenched the rosary. “This was always mine.”
Adam took a long hit, blowing a pull of smoke that clearly smelled like marijuana.
I shook my head in disapproval. “Do you have kids?”
“Yeah. Why do you care?”
“Were they by your side when you passed?” I asked, in an effort to make him feel just as pissed off and uncomfortable as he was making me.
“My daughter was,” he said, taking another long hit off the joint. “My eldest daughter…” He paused for a moment and coughed. “I-it’s complicated.”
“I can do the math,” I said with an unintentional smile. “Your wife was pregnant when you died. Sucks to be you, Sergeant Ass-hat.”
Adam put out his joint in the sand. “I think it’s Leo’s turn to entertain you.”
I watched as he climbed back into the passenger seat of the truck, pulling a previously unseen blanket over his body. I had a feeling he wasn’t actually sleepy; the son of a bitch was just tired of hearing the truth. “Serves you right.”
Leo took a seat beside me. “You’ll have to forgive my partner, he’s-”
“I don’t have to do shit,” I said as I popped a marshmallow into my mouth. “With all due respect, Mr. Angel, sir.”
“I get it.” Leo calmly handed me a skewer. “But you need to know the full story.”
I replied with a shrug. “Fine, you have my attention.”
“Adam died from a brain bleed, following a lifetime of addiction.”
“Am I supposed to feel bad?”
“If you wish. All humans have free will.”
Wow, talk about an angel-level guilt trip. “Well, what about you?” I asked as I assembled my marshmallows for the fire.
“I was a demon hunter; a paranormal special agent of the lord. I offered up my life to save the soul and humanity of someone I loved.”
“Not Adam, I assume?”
“This was before Adam. Just like how you met the love of your life, before Annie: the real reason you took Lola.”
“Like you said, Lola was a trophy. My goal was to murder her whore of a mother.” I roasted my marshmallows until they turned a crispy brown. Much to my surprise, they were still cool enough to grab with my bare hands. “So, when you said Adam died of a ‘brain bleed,’ did you mean a bullet?” It made sense that someone like Adam would be suicidal.
“No.”
“No?” I asked with a mouth full of sugary, sticky sweetness.
Leo stroked his hand through the fire, creating swirls of neon blue and lavender purple. “Adam was sick for a long time, but he would have survived had he not struck a deal.”
“A deal, for what?”
“To save his daughter’s life.”
“Oh.” I glanced back at the truck and the man sleeping within. He looked peaceful, but I was not ready to let my guard down.
“That’s why he can’t physically harm you.”
“What about when he dropped me on my head?”
“Are you experiencing any pain or dizziness?”
“Well, not at the moment,” I replied, still royally pissed. “But what if I wake up tomorrow with a massive bruise on my face?”
“Then you
will have debunked my theory.”
“Your theory?”
“Adam Severgine, much like your father, is a descendant of the original Adam.”
“As in Adam and Eve? I thought all of humanity was descended from Adam and Eve.”
“Few know the full truth. When God banished the first couple from the garden of Eden, they produced two sons.”
“Cain and Abel, right?”
“But when Eve was pregnant with their second child, Adam carried on an affair that produced a daughter. She was the only one by his side when he died of illness.”
“That’s ironic,” I said, referring to the similarity to the soldier Adam.
Leo nodded in agreement. “On his deathbed, Adam, the first human, talked about his life of regrets. But as he spoke to his long-lost daughter, each memory was compounding his sorrow and pain. He offered her his heart if she could allow him a chance to be reborn”
“That’s really interesting,” I said with a forced smile. The story sounded eerily familiar.
“After the man’s death, Adam’s daughter cut out his heart and proceeded to cook and consume the organs. For each chamber she consumed, she gave birth to a child that was a genetic clone of her father.”
Oh, ok, because that makes total sense. “So, technically not incest?”
“You’re funny, for a human.”
“Level with me, Leo, what am I doing here? I mean, yes, I watched my father die. But I’m sure plenty of other people have been through the same.”
“You’re right about that,” he said as he toasted a marshmallow in his bare hand. “What do you know about Annie?
“I know enough.” I knew Annie had lost her parents at a very young age, and that her story was even more fucked up than my own. That was why I stayed with her; two wrongs make a right. Two fuck-ups make a genuine good soul. What the fuck am I saying?
“You can feel Bobby Reyes, can’t you?” Leo stated in a matter-of-fact tone. “His blood flows through your veins.”
I assumed he was referring to the healing spell. “I have a spiritual connection with all of my followers.”
“Yes, but Bobby’s different, and I think you’ve already discovered that.”
“How so?” I was expecting the angel to say something about true love.