Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3

by Benjamin Laskin

  He pointed heavenwards with his blood-smeared axe. “What the hell are those?”

  “Those,” Volk said proudly, “are angels.”

  “Angels?” Sett scoffed. “I don’t believe in angels.”

  Volk said nothing. Instead, he took delight in observing Sett’s stupefaction as the two figures zoomed down towards him like comets, and then paused, hovering before the commander in midair, arms akimbo.

  “The hell!” Sett exclaimed, his axe held at the ready.

  Virgil and I saluted. Virgil said, “Sir, Cadets Kohai and Virgil reporting for duty.”

  “What the hell are you boys doing?” Sett shouted.

  “Floating, Sir,” Virgil answered.

  “Well, you can’t. That’s-that’s—”

  “Incredible?” I said.

  “Impossible,” Sett said defiantly. “Don’t screw with me. You’re wearing jet packs!”

  “The Academy doesn’t have jet packs, Sir,” Virgil said. “We’ve yet to have been able to perfect them.”

  “Can a jet pack do this?” I asked.

  Virgil and I performed a series of somersaults and turns, finishing our demonstration with a gliding moonwalk, an arabesque, and a bow. Then we high-fived each other.

  “Volk,” Sett barked, “what are these fags doing?”

  “Quit showing off, boys,” Volk said.

  Sett said, “Don’t try to tell me those twisters were your doing either…were they?”

  Virgil and I nodded.

  “Dammit, Volk, what’s going on here?”

  Captain Volk went into hyper-whirl, disappeared, and then a moment later, reappeared floating alongside Virgil and I a few feet off the ground. “Like I said,” Volk answered, “angels.”

  The captain darted over to Sett like a humming bird.

  “You’re no different than we are, Sett.” He tapped the commander on the chest with his thick index finger. “That’s where the real you is—the angelic you. Now, listen carefully, Commander. We are out of time. If you are serious about saving Heaven and Earth, then you had better wake the hell up, and fast. Anteros and the fear demons are playing for keeps. We were lucky today. They won’t underestimate us again. You’re a damn good soldier, Sett. If you lead, we will follow. If not, then I suggest you stay the hell out of our way.”

  Captain Volk folded his arms across his chest, floated backwards and rejoined Virgil and me.

  Sett stared up at us in bewilderment. “It’s another one of your tricks, isn’t it?”

  “Is that your answer?”

  Sett snarled. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking…”

  “The time for thinking is over,” Volk said. “It’s time for praying and slaying.”

  “Hey,” Sett protested. “I’ve never had a problem with slaying.”

  “Without the praying, you won’t be doing much more slaying, old friend.” Volk flitted back to Sett, and hovered a few feet before him. He looked down at the commander and said emphatically, “You are an angel of the one true God, the Master of Legions, the Holy One, blessed be He. Embrace your true identity, Sett, or embrace oblivion. The choice is yours.”

  Volk zipped back to us and added, “When you’re ready to gird your loins instead of just scratching them, you know where to find me. Kohai, Virgil—home.”

  The three of us whirled into translation, and vanished, leaving Commander Sett in a cloud of churned up sand.

  “Well,” Sett said to himself, “that explains why I never saw the guy at the disgronifying pods.”

  He looked around to see if anyone was watching, and then extended his hands and tried to copy what he had just witnessed. A dozen turns and he gave up, dizzy.

  “Aw, hell.”

  He pulled out his inter-dimensional communicator and checked its signal. Functioning again, he tapped at it.

  “Take my coordinates and fold me up, boys.”

  9

  Going Green

  “You’re late,” Captain Cyrus said.

  “What?” I said, turning to Captain Volk. “It’s seven o’clock. We’re right on time.”

  “Just messing with you, Kohai,” Cyrus said.

  “How does he do that?” I said, still unable to get over how natural it felt to be in the captain’s presence again. He couldn’t see or hear us. Nor could he have known that we were actually there with him; just like he couldn’t have known the first time at the university when he told us to meet him the following month at Officer Jeffreys’ home, but such was his faith in us.

  Cyrus’s one-room guesthouse in the Jeffrey’s backyard was smaller than a standard efficiency apartment. A sink, hot plate, and mini refrigerator made up the kitchen. One corner of the room opened to a cramped bathroom and shower combo. A sofa that pulled out to a bed stood against one wall, and opposite it, under a window with a flower-dappled curtain, an unfinished door lying upon two wooden sawhorses served as both desk and kitchen table. An old, round, blue-and-white cotton rug took up half of the cement floor. Though the place was tiny and spartan, it was clean.

  Cyrus gestured towards the couch. “Have a seat, gentlemen.” He grabbed the one straight back chair and pulled it up in front of the couch.

  Captain Volk and I chuckled and sat down. The couch had a bad spring and I took a few playful bounces on it.

  “Kohai,” Cyrus admonished. “Stop that.”

  I turned to Captain Volk. “Am I really that predictable?”

  Volk nodded regrettably.

  Cyrus said, “I trust that you two have been busy. Do you have anything to show me?” He waited.

  “Kohai?” Volk said. “I’ve been counting on you. You’re going to show me you’re a genius, right?”

  “Weren’t those pillars of night and fire evidence enough?”

  “Those were impressive, I’ve already admitted. But if you could swing those, surely you could do something as simple as finding a way to communicate with Captain Cyrus.”

  “Working on our own plane is one thing,” I said, “but crossing over to the other, that’s quite another.”

  “So, that’s a no?” Volk shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Kohai.”

  “V? Kohai?” Cyrus said. “I’m waiting.”

  “Man,” I said, pulling a small velvet pouch from my leg pocket, “how did you two ever get along without me?”

  I opened the sack and poured a tablespoon of its fine, crystalline, powdery contents into my left hand. I rubbed my hands together until they were completely covered with the green talc, and then smeared my face with the stuff.

  I grinned and signed to Cyrus, “Hello, Captain. We miss you.”

  “Of course!” Cyrus exclaimed seeing my glowing green hands and face. “Kohai, you’re a genius!”

  “How’d you come up with the idea?” Volk asked, even more impressed with my simple solution than the much harder task of conjuring up the two swirling pillars.

  “The same way I came up with the whirlwinds,” I answered, signing to Captain Cyrus as I spoke, “by studying the sages and our holy books. In this case, I was reading from the Talmud, Mishnah Tractate Gittin. In 2nd century BC Judea, it was recorded that for the purpose of commercial transactions, a deaf-mute can hold a conversation by means of gestures. Ben Bathyra said that he may also do so by means of lip-motions.

  “It got me thinking,” I continued, “and I remembered the wedding when Captain Cyrus used emerald dust to go 3D to turn the knobs on the band’s speaker system to blow out the windows. As angels, we know every language on Earth, but I was worried that he might have lost his ability to sign and read lips along with his other angelic powers. Then I recalled that if indeed the captain had managed to download all the files within the six degrees of separation, then surely he would know sign language and lip reading from someone’s memory. We can hear you, Captain, and you can read me, right?”

  Captain Cyrus smiled big and proud. “Yes, my faithful Kohai,” he said. “You’re coming in loud and clear.”

  I handed Ca
ptain Volk the pouch of emerald dust so that he could join in. This was truly thrilling for the three of us, for we knew of no cupid angel that had ever communicated directly with a mortal. Other angels had the ability, as the Bible records, but such a feat was considered impossible for a lowly cupid angel.

  Granted, smearing our hands and faces with the green emerald talc and relying on sign language and lip reading was pretty low-tech and made us look clownish, like some sort of alien minstrel show; nevertheless, we found the discovery very exciting.

  We skipped the small talk and got down to business. Volk began by telling Cyrus about our close encounters with the Anteros soldiers and their trained yetzers. Cyrus was disturbed by the revelation, but not surprised.

  “Ever since that wedding ambush,” Volk said, “I have had the feeling that it wasn’t just the yetzers that stank. Yetzers are stupid creatures. How, I wondered, could they have obtained the knowledge and wherewithal to jam the Academy’s signals that day? How did they know how to lock us in there? Yetzers behave like wolf packs. They are good hunters, but they aren’t able to organize the kind of elaborate ambush that we experienced. They had to have had outside help. I thought maybe it was a traitor from within the Academy, but I think now it’s obvious that it was Anteros. Or both.”

  Next, I caught the captain up on the new developments up in Heaven, and in particular, my recruiting of Virgil. I spoke with pride and excitement at what a great angel he was fast becoming, and all the things he had helped me with. I could see in Cyrus’s kind eyes that he was very happy for me. I am sure he understood my loneliness. After all, he and Volk had always had one another to share their history and their secrets with, but I had had no one.

  “I always liked that kid,” Cyrus said. “I congratulate you, Kohai, on being such a fine teacher. I am sure it was your special touch that helped unlock the marvel within him.”

  “I deserve no credit,” I said. “All kudos belongs to Virgil, who is an excellent student, and to you and Captain Volk whose examples and lessons I followed. Virgil and I are working on a new project now, and maybe the next time we meet I’ll have more to report about that.”

  Volk said, “Here’s a humdinger for you, C. I think we may have Grace on board with us now.”

  “Grace?”

  Volk nodded. “She has been taking some big risks on my behalf, and it seems she is convinced that something at the Academy is stinking to high heaven.”

  “Has she come to accept her angelic nature?”

  “She’s definitely becoming more curious,” Volk signed. “And there’s more—Sett.”

  “Sett?” Cyrus coughed, his eyebrows arched in incredulity. “On our side?”

  “Not exactly, but he witnessed a few things that he couldn’t compute during our encounter with Anteros and the yetzers, and I think he fried some spiritual synapses. I have a feeling it opened a pinhole of light in him. Like Grace, he is skeptical of the way the judges at the Academy are handling things.”

  “And the Swerver? Have either of you made any progress on that front?”

  I raised my hand, which looked disembodied and very weird from Captain Cyrus’s point of view. “I don’t have anything concrete, just a hunch.”

  “Go on,” Cyrus said.

  “Long story short, but after a freak coincidence, of which we know there is no such thing, I went back to the Midrasha to follow a lead. Something I had picked up on in the six degrees of separation. It took me to Ellen Veetal, which took me back to—”

  “Her first cousin,” Cyrus interjected. “Malkah Stern.”

  “Yes! You know her?”

  He nodded. “I spent some time with her recently. I told her everything.”

  “Everything?” Volk signed.

  “As much as she might be able to handle anyway.”

  I was shocked. “You told her that you were an angel? About Heaven and yetzers and all that?”

  “Like I said, it was a very abridged version.”

  “How did she take it?” Volk asked.

  “Well, she didn’t scream or faint or run away.”

  “But did she believe you?”

  “I don’t know,” Cyrus said, as if turning the evening over in his mind. “Realistically, how could she?”

  “Then why did you do it, Sir?” I asked. “Why put yourself in jeopardy like that?”

  “Because like you, Kohai, I had reviewed her record and saw the connection to Ellen Veetal. Malkah is special, and we are about out of time. I had to shock her out of her complacency. She is not making herself accessible. Her heart is shut up, her mind in denial. I wanted to plant some thoughts and possibilities in her head.”

  Volk said, “Did you tell her about the Swerver?”

  “No, I left that out. It would have been too much. Besides, although I’m now mortal, I didn’t want to chance disqualifying her. Swervers don’t know they are Swervers. It must be through their own free will that they initiate and conclude a match, and the act must be based solely on their own spiritual imperatives.”

  “So,” I said, “if we suspect Malkah, isn’t it possible that Anteros or someone else might soon as well?”

  “That is a possibility,” Cyrus acknowledged.

  “Then we have to protect her,” I said.

  “That’s not our job, Kohai,” Volk said.

  “But—”

  “Not our job,” he repeated with finality.

  “I’ll try to keep an eye on her on this plane,” Cyrus said. “What you two can do is try to keep an eye on Anteros and the judges on yours.”

  We heard voices outside.

  “Someone’s coming,” Cyrus said. “Okay, when you learn more, you know where to find me. But we could still use a way to communicate on the fly. Without the war paint, and without being in the same place. Kohai…?”

  “I’m working on it, Captain.”

  There was a knock at the door. A woman’s voice said, “Cyrus…?”

  “It’s Sara, my landlord,” Cyrus said, walking to the door. “You men had better twirl on out.”

  Volk and I went into translation, whipping up a little storm in the process. When Cyrus opened the door, he found three people standing there: Sam and Sara Jeffreys, and a face with almond brown eyes and rugged good looks that Cyrus had seen once before in a photograph on someone’s wall.

  Their eyes looked past him to where Volk and I had been standing when we whirled our way home. In our wake, we had left a dust devil of fluttering papers and a billowing window curtain. Their expressions told Cyrus that he had been a little too quick on the doorknob.

  “I hope we’re not interrupting anything,” Sara said, her eyes following the loose, floating papers as they settled on the floor, desk, and sofa. In her hands was a freshly baked cherry pie.

  “Not at all,” Cyrus said. “My place is your place. Literally. Come in.”

  “Is it just me, or did anyone else see some fuming green lights a second ago?” Asked the handsome gentlemen in suit and tie as the group entered the room.

  “I saw something,” Sam said, “but I don’t know what it was. Cyrus…?”

  Cyrus shrugged innocently. He lifted the pie from Sara’s hands and gave it a sniff. “Thank you, it smells delicious.” He set the pie on the table.

  Sam said, “This is Jed Baer. He recently contracted with the force as an advisor for the department’s Counter-Terrorism and SWAT teams. He’s conducting seminars and street level instruction for them, as well as some basic training for us guys on the beat. I’m his main liaison with the force.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Baer” Cyrus said, extending his hand.

  “Call me Jed,” the man said.

  “They put you in good hands.”

  “I’m the one in good hands,” Sam said. “Jed here spent time in Special Forces before the Union cracked up. He later went freelance and is now working with our team.”

  As they exchanged pleasantries, Cyrus ran the gentlemen through his memory banks, working up a quick
profile on him.

  He found that the man was within two degrees of separation from Sara herself. Jed Baer had served in the military with a friend of Sara’s from high school. The two had gone through basic training together and were still friends. Neither of them was aware of this.

  More intriguingly, however, this Jed fellow was just one degree of separation from someone else that Cyrus knew.

  Jed Baer grew up in a small farming community in rural upstate New York. A star athlete in track and baseball, he turned down a university scholarship to join the military, following a family tradition on his father’s side. Jed Baer was thirty-one years old, bright, disciplined, and courageous. Despite his good looks and virtues, he never married. He had had a few girlfriends along the way, but nothing serious. Cyrus kept these and other interesting facts to himself.

  “We’re going for a drink,” Sam said. “Wanna come?”

  “Thanks, but I was going to—”

  “Hey,” Jed said. “Don’t leave me alone with these chatterboxes. Come on, show some pity.”

  Cyrus chuckled. “That would be pretty heartless of me.” He gave Sara a wink.

  “Attaboy,” Jed said, slapping Cyrus on the shoulder. “Whoa,” he added with surprise, shaking the sting from his hand. “You’re packing some crowbar under that shirt. Do you work out?”

  “Not much these days,” Cyrus answered. “It’s easier to tape crowbars to my body. Want to punch me in the stomach? I cover it with a titanium hubcap.”

  Jed threw a punch into Cyrus’s gut. He was glad he kept it sporting, because it did feel like a titanium hubcap and he could have sprained his wrist if he hadn’t been careful. He looked at Sam in astonishment.

  Sam smiled. “I told you he’s a man of many surprises.”

  Sara rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, would you boys grow up?”

  10

  Sidekicks

  Twenty minutes later, the four of them were sitting in a spacious booth at a local Mexican food restaurant, a pitcher of beer and a couple of bowls of chips and salsa on the table between them.