***
I got the call again later that night. It wasn’t as intense as it had been earlier, but it was more clear than what I’d felt during gym class. It was harder to find the line leading me to him, but after a few minutes I got a lock on it. I teleported into the middle of a bedroom with three beds and a crowd of teenagers. All of them gasped and most of them took a step back, staring at me.
I turned to find Junior and said, “You called?”
He grinned. “See, I told you.”
Next to him was Tim, and it was indeed the kid I’d rescued from his parents’ house the night after Halloween. He looked better without the black eye. “I’m doing what you told me. I’m trying to save cats. I feed the strays in the neighborhood. I tried to volunteer for the Humane Society, but they turned me down.” He stared at me, then his eyes flicked down. “Should I… kneel or something?”
“No, you don’t need to do that. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Is this a trick?” one of the girls asked.
“No, no trick.” I turned to look at her and glanced at some of the other kids. There were a dozen of them crowding the small bedroom. “Are all of you worshipping me?”
One kid snorted. “No. You’re not a god. This is crazy. Gods don’t exist.”
“I’m half god and half human. Gods do exist.”
“Tim said you’re the son of the devil, so that means you’re evil.”
Some of the kids inched toward the door. “I’m not evil. Do you remember the weird eclipse this summer? The one that made everyone freak out until some scientists came up with a bullshit explanation about an asteroid passing close to Earth?” They nodded. “Well, that was Satan trying to take over the world. I stopped him. I fought him and I saved the world, and that was after I’d saved the world twice already.”
“And he saved me from my parents,” Tim said.
“And me,” Junior said.
“How’d things go, by the way?” I asked him. “Did your dad back up your story?”
Junior nodded. “He said some stranger came in and beat him up. He tried to say you were the one that beat me too, but I told the police it was him and that you saved me. It sounds like they might take me away for good this time.” He smiled.
“You really expect us to believe this shit?” the doubter asked.
“You just watched me teleport into the room. You want more proof?” Fire was a bad idea, so I looked around for something to freeze. One of the little nightstands had a can of Pepsi sitting on it. I reached a hand out and in two seconds it was covered in ice. Most of them gasped, and one boy ran out of the room. I hoped he wasn’t going to find an adult, because I had more to talk about.
I looked around at the remaining kids. “Look, here’s the deal. I don’t want to waste more time proving things to you. Tim and… what’s your name?”
“Andre,” the kid I’d been calling Junior said.
“Andre,” I repeated to help me remember. “They’re telling the truth. I have some of the powers of a god, and I found out today that if you pray to me I can hear you. I’m not really comfortable with the idea of you worshipping me. Everyone who worshipped me before has been a Satanist, and they treated me like Daddy’s little boy. I love cats, I don’t want the world to end, and if I find out you’re doing evil shit in my name, I’m gonna be pissed. Just ask Tim why I killed his parents.”
“Because they sacrificed a cat, and he spared me because I didn’t help them,” Tim said. I guess he’d taken me literally.
“So if you don’t want us to worship you, what should we do?” Andre asked. “I prayed to God all the time and he never did anything. I prayed to you once and you came and kicked my dad’s ass.”
“Jehovah is a jerk, but there are plenty of other gods you can worship.”
“Will they show up like you did?” Andre asked.
“Maybe.” I shrugged.
“I’d rather pray to someone I know is going to show up,” Tim said.
“I don’t want to be your god.” Despite the giant ego inflation it would give me.
“But what if we need help?” Andre practically made puppy-dog eyes at me.
“Fine, if you really need help, you can pray to me. But don’t go praying for every little thing. Just if you seriously need help.” Looking at Tim and Andre, I was afraid I was looking at my own little evangelists. I hoped I was wrong. “And when you do, don’t give me any fancy titles. My name is Alex, just call me that.”
“Alex.” Tim smiled. “It sounds so normal.”
“I am normal. Well, at least I try to be. I go to high school, I have friends, I watch movies and play video games, just like you guys.”
“My grandma did say video games were from the devil,” one boy said, and someone else snickered.
“A game is a game, but evil exists in the real world. What Andre’s father did to him, that’s evil.” I looked around at the group. There was less fear and skepticism in their expressions. “Were all you guys abused?”
A girl with long blond hair shrugged. “Abused, orphaned… unwanted.”
“Well, how about this—be good to each other. No matter what people did to you out there, you can take care of each other here. Friends make a huge difference. We’d all like to have parents that love us, but that doesn’t always happen.” And sometimes you kill them for the way they treated you. “We can’t choose our parents, but we can choose our friends.”
Someone muttered, “After-school special.”
I looked at him, a skinny kid with messy dark hair. The kids closest to him shifted away, maybe afraid of what I’d do.
“Yeah, it sounds cheesy. So what? It’s still true.”
The doubter, the one who’d challenged me earlier, moved closer to me. “So you’re the Antichrist. You’re supposed to be all charming and shit, so how do we know you aren’t just charming us? Tricking us into following you?”
“I told you already, I don’t want you to follow me or worship me. And as for being the Antichrist, I didn’t get to pick my parents any more than any of you did. I have free will, so I chose to save the world instead of destroying it.”
“Prove it.”
I stared at him for a moment, thinking of what kind of proof I could offer. Drag him to Asgard and have Odin vouch for me? Ask the Morrigan to show up and tell him about how I pulled Excalibur from the stone and prevented Ragnarok with it? Then I shook my head. Why did I care what this guy thought? “No. I’m not gonna waste my time trying to prove anything to you. Believe whatever the fuck you want.”
Andre shoved him. “Don’t talk to him like that.”
I put my arm between them as the doubter moved to retaliate. “Knock it off. If you guys fight over believing in me or not, so help me, I will kick both your asses.” I’d had believers for one day and they were already defending the faith. No wonder Joshua wanted to keep his identity a secret.
Chapter 15
It happened again while I was making out with Hayley on the couch. The almost-words tugged at me, full of urgency. Still, I was tempted to ignore the prayer because I didn’t want to stop kissing her. I had my hand up her shirt and was about to take off her bra. But I reminded myself I’d told them to pray only if it was a real emergency. I couldn’t let a kid get beaten up because I was too busy making out.
Sighing, I pulled away. “Sorry, I have to go. Duty calls.” The voice got louder, more desperate.
“What?” Her lips were swollen from kissing and it made me want to kiss them again.
“Demigod stuff. Someone is praying for help.” I stepped off the couch and rearranged my clothes. I’d given her a short version of what happened with Andre and the conversation with the kids in the group home. To be honest, I’d toned down the worst of it. She still didn’t know about what I’d done the day after Halloween. Letting her know I was the Antichrist was enough. She seemed like she’d accepted that, but I didn’t know if she could accept the dark part of me. The rage, the vengeance, the killer.
>
“I don’t think it’ll take long,” I told her. “You can stay here.”
She shifted to lean against the arm of the couch. “Okay.”
I closed my eyes and tried to home in on the signal. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I don’t want to die!
I locked on and teleported.
The first thing I noticed was the blood. It was everywhere, standing out against white tile and porcelain. Then my eyes locked on the kid laying in the tub, tears leaking down his face. Not Andre or Tim, or any of the kids from the group home.
It was the bully from Elliot’s school.
“Please. Oh, shit, please help me. I didn’t really mean it. I don’t want to die.” Then, in a whisper, “I’m scared.”
A few months ago I’d considered killing him for the way he’d treated Elliot. I might have, if Elliot hadn’t made me promise not to hurt him. Now here he was, bleeding to death and begging me to save him. “What the fuck happened?”
“I cut my wrist.” He lifted his right arm to show me. It shook as more blood spurted out. Beneath the blood, he was very pale. “I’m dying.” Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. “Please save me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Well, fuck. Elliot said the kid had left him alone, and he’d convinced his parents not to do any cat-sacrificing on my birthday because the calico hadn’t led me here. He’d listened to me that much at least. Could I really stand here and watch him bleed to death? Or leave, knowing he would die? I considered calling 911 and letting them take care of it, but he was very pale, and there was a lot of blood. I didn’t know if paramedics would make it in time to save him.
If I was going to save him, I had to try healing him. I sighed. “Fine.” In two quick strides I reached the tub and knelt down. Blood immediately soaked into my jeans. “I’ve only done this once, on my cat. I’m not sure it’ll work.”
“Please, just try. Please, please.”
I put one hand on his shoulder, the other on his upper arm. He felt a little cool. As if I needed more proof that if I failed, he was dead. Closing my eyes, I pulled on my power. It was there, ready and waiting. I opened my eyes and focused on his right arm. Under the blood it was hard to see the wound, so I wiped bloody water over it to get a glimpse. Vertical, the way they said to do it if you were serious about dying. I poured power over his arm, envisioning the cut closing up.
For a moment nothing happened and I started to panic. “Work, dammit, work!” Then a little trickle of power moved and the wound started to close up. After a few seconds the blood stopped spurting out and I splashed more water across his arm. The cut was gone, his skin perfectly smooth.
“Shit, it worked.” His voice was faint. That was just the first problem, though. He’d lost so much blood that even with the wound closed he still might die. His skin was weird and clammy under my hands. This was harder, since I couldn’t just fix an obvious problem. I had to figure out how to create more blood inside him. I’d been able to put Mew-Mew back together, including returning enough blood to him that he was healthy afterward, but that was in the heat of the moment. I still wasn’t sure how that worked.
“You’ve lost too much blood. Stay still while I figure this out.”
He shifted. “You mean I’m still dying?”
“Relax!” I snapped.
I closed my eyes again, imagining what the inside of his body looked like. I’d seen plenty of diagrams of the human body, documentaries with animations and even video of the inside of a body. I imagined his veins and his heart, desperately pumping the last bit of his blood. More, he need more. Power pushed into him and I told his bone marrow to create blood, fill up his veins like a pipe filling with water. Blood warming his body, putting color back in his skin. More power flowed into him. The bully shifted and gasped, and I held him down.
It was like I really was seeing inside him, depleted veins, organs starting to pale. Then more blood appeared, darkening the veins and blood vessels, flowing faster. The bully gasped again. His organs soaked up oxygen-rich blood, his heart rhythm evened out.
“What are you doing? It feels weird.”
“Shh!” How much was enough? Could I overdo it and kill him? I added some more and pulled back.
The bully still looked a little pale, but his color was much better. He blinked at me, then down at his arm. He ran his other hand over it, wiping away bloody water, sliding over the spot where he’d cut his wrist. He looked back up at me. “You saved me.”
I got to my feet. “I tried to put as much blood back in you as I could. You might be a little short. I was worried about making you, like, overflow or something.
“You saved my life.” The bully stared at me.
“Yeah, but if you slit your wrist again, you’re on your own.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. You’ve got quite a mess to clean up if you don’t want your parents asking questions.” The tub and the area around it were covered in blood. “I’ve got to go. My girlfriend is waiting.”
“Wait—” he said.
I ignored him and teleported back to my apartment.
Hayley jumped up from the couch. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
“Huh? I’m fine.” Then I looked down and realized I was covered in blood. My knees were soaked through and the left side of my shirt was smeared with it where I’d leaned against the tub. “Oh, it’s not mine. The guy who prayed for me slit his wrist. I fixed him.” With the crisis over, I wondered why he’d tried to commit suicide. I hadn’t bothered to ask.
“He tried to kill himself?”
“Yeah, but he’s fine now.” He’d better be. I meant it when I said he was on his own if he did it again.
“You fixed him. You mean you healed him?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
I shrugged. “Part of my powers. I healed Mew-Mew, but I wasn’t sure I could heal a human until now.”
She tilted her head. “So on top of all the other stuff you can do, you can heal people, too?”
“Yep, guess so.”
She frowned. “You should probably get out of those clothes.”
I looked down at my bloody clothes. I bet they were ruined.
***
Shapeshifting had turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it’d be. I’d been practicing for months and I still couldn’t get it right. I could manage paws, a tail, fur, ears—pretty much all the right parts, but not all at once. On yet another Saturday morning, way too fucking early, I was out in the woods with Raven, giving it another try.
“You have plenty of time, so don’t rush.”
Patience, patience. Everybody kept telling me to have patience. “Yeah, fine.” I knelt on the chilly ground. We must have been farther up the coast from where I lived, Northern California, maybe Oregon.
Mew-Mew didn’t always come with, but he was there this time. Imagine you’re me. That had helped the last few times. It made me focus more than just imagining I was any old cat. I’d known Mew-Mew since I was four, and he was my best friend. I knew him better than I knew anyone else. I’d put him back together once after a douchebag ran him over.
So in my mind I became him, seeing the world through his eyes. I had memories to draw from because we could see through each other’s eyes when we wanted to. I knew what grass looked like from his perspective, and buildings, and the Cats’ Paths. Seeing the world was one thing, now I had to feel it the way he did. Patches of sunlight perfect for sleeping in, the taste of fresh fish, the way my muscles bunched before a leap.
A warm tingle of power built in me, but I kept my focus. I thought of how every part of me fit perfectly, from soft fur to bones to fast-beating heart. A perfect creature, perfectly confident. Knowing deep secrets and simple pleasures.
“There you go!” Raven said.
I opened my eyes slowly, afraid I would lose it. Mew-Mew stood a few feet away, and we were the same height.
You’re a cat! He purred encouragement.
“I was starting to
think you were a lost cause.” Raven, in his human form, crouched down. He looked way the fuck big from this perspective.
I glared at him but couldn’t sustain the anger. This was just too fucking cool. I flexed one of my paws, watching my claws extend and retract. I turned to look at my tail, my sleek black fur. “Holy shit, I really did it.” I laughed. I tried to jump and stumbled over my own feet.
Raven chuckled. “Takes a little time to get used to four legs.”
For a while I was afraid learning to move as a cat would take as long as turning into one had. But it came very easily. I just had to start slow, walking before jumping. Once my legs started doing what I wanted, I turned and pounced Mew-Mew.
Hey! He pounced me back and soon we were chasing each other around the clearing. In the chilly sunlight we played, rolling and nipping at each other. Mew-Mew climbed a small tree and I went up after him.
Getting down is the hard part, he teased from the lowest branch.
I glanced down. It couldn’t have been that far, but at my smaller size the ground looked very far away. “Crap.”
Mew-Mew showed me how to get down. I did okay at first, but then I proved that even half humans turned into cats landed on their feet. It was a bit jarring, but not as bad as falling when I was trying to learn how to fly.
Raven sat back and let us play for quite a while. “Okay, little demon. Time to change back.”
“Oh shit. I hope it’s not as hard doing it the other way.” I had visions of being stuck as a cat for months.
He laughed. “It isn’t.”
It took several long minutes and I almost panicked, but did make it back to human form. “I’m so fucking glad you were right.” I sighed in relief. “I’m gonna try it again.”
Chapter 16
As usual, Hayley and I got back from our date earlier than her curfew so we could go to my apartment and make out. Holding back from going too far was a challenge. Even though Hayley now knew what I really was, I still couldn’t let myself love her.
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