by C. Gockel
It was a long night. I’d doze off, then move into a more comfortable spot only to have Wyatt grab me and jerk me in tighter. Plus I didn’t realize that male humans had erections off and on all night long. How the hell was I supposed to sleep with a boner pressed against my ass, reminding me of the enjoyable things I could be doing? It was fucking torture and I woke up to my cell phone beeping, sleep deprived and in a hideous mood.
It took me a few moments to extricate myself from Wyatt’s grasp. I thought I’d have to gnaw my limbs off at one point. Of course, my struggles woke him up too.
“What?” he asked groggily as I climbed over him to grab my cell phone off the bedside table. I made sure I smashed my boobs into his face on the way as payback for a night of dick on my ass. I looked at the phone. Craig. His text from a few seconds ago said “he’s here now.” I vaulted from the bed jabbing a knee in Wyatt’s stomach and knocking the lamp on top of Candy’s head. I had my keys and was out the door before either of them could say a word.
My Corvette screamed along the roads to Craig’s house taking up the entire road as I shot around the narrow curves. It was too early for traffic, but I narrowly missed a tractor and a fox. A squirrel wasn’t as lucky, and I was relieved to see it flopping around in death throes behind my car as I sped off. At least it hadn’t gotten hung up in my undercarriage. At the last moment I realized that I could hardly go rocketing up Craig’s driveway smashing into the angel like something from Mad Max. I whipped into the neighbor’s driveway, and dashed through their back yard toward the tree line that extended to Craig’s deer blind. If they were up, I’m sure the neighbor’s were startled to see an expensive sports car spinning out gravel in their driveway followed by a half naked woman darting across their back yard. Not something you see every day over your morning coffee.
My feet were scratched and bruised by the time I reached Craig’s deer blind. “Where is he?” I asked breathlessly.
Craig stared at me in amazement. I looked the ruthless killer in my nightshirt with a toddler sized Tinkerbell on the front, bloody bare feet, and bed head. At least my morning breath was fear inducing.
“He’s gone. He was only here a few moments around the side of the house. I didn’t get a really good look at him, so I can’t describe him. He just appeared out of nowhere around the side of the garage, walked over to the house, stayed there for a few minutes, then walked back and disappeared.”
“Maybe he crawled up the ditch by the driveway like I did?” I suggested. Stupid idea. I couldn’t picture a powerful angel scooting on his belly through the mud. Although it would be really funny to watch one do that. Really funny.
“No, he didn’t look rumpled or dirty. Plus, I can see the ditch from here, that’s how I saw you coming to the house.”
Another testament to my incompetence. This guy probably thought I was a total boob. I was beginning to think I was a total boob.
We walked down toward the house and Craig showed me where the angel came from and where he went to. By then, Candy and Wyatt had arrived, pulling in the driveway like civilized folk. They were dressed, and Candy had even combed her hair, although she had forgone the make–up in her haste.
“We missed him, he was only here a moment.” I told them as they walked over to us.
Craig put his hands on either side of a window, then straightened up and walked back toward the garage. “That’s exactly what I saw him do. It probably only was three minutes and he was gone.”
I looked carefully at the garage and along the path the angel took. Nothing. I looked at the house and at the window. No smudges, no marks, no energy signature, no DNA markers. I stared at the window in despair, and noticed a slight distortion. It was like the window had rippled under heat and a dull prism reflected back. Why would he have applied heat to the window? It didn’t appear to be enough to break or even weaken the glass. Was heat a byproduct of his presence? If so, why didn’t his energy signature appear to me, and why wasn’t the siding where he placed his hands warped or melted even slightly?
I’d done all I could do with my human senses, so I put a hand up and sent a tentative trickle of exploratory energy to the window making sure I anchored it firmly in myself so even the smallest of information would come through. The second my energy touched the window, I felt an explosion slamming me to the ground. Pain seared me, and all I saw was white. White, pain, and a screeching noise like roofing nails on a chalkboard. Was I dead? Was I dying? Or maybe blind and deaf. I wasn’t even sure I was still at Craig’s house. Definitely not dead since the pain was still excruciating. Pain. Pain. I couldn’t seem to find my way out of the sound, light and pain.
Finally the white dimmed a bit, and the sound began to recede. I realized someone was holding me and stroking my hair. “Sam, Sam.” Wyatt murmured in my ear as he rocked me like a human child with a boo–boo. I appreciated his calmness since I was pretty sure whatever injury I’d suffered it hadn’t been pretty. Things began to swim into focus around me, and I concentrated to identify where the pain was to cut it off.
Oh my. My left hand was melted up past the wrist. I removed my personal energy from the flesh, leaving it just a blob of melted fat, bone and tendon. It was as if a wax sculpture had been put too close to a blowtorch. It was pretty dramatic, but it no longer hurt now that I’d isolated it. I must have instinctively shut off my probe or whatever melted my arm would have continued and shot right through me. It would have killed me.
My kind tends to tear ourselves up pretty regularly, what with rough sex and our risky lifestyle. The key is to make sure the flesh has only minimal feeling and that your personal energy is safely away from the areas being ripped or torn, or chewed. Most accidental deaths happened from someone having their personal energy out and about during an unexpected trauma. My personal energy had been extended out and firmly rooted deep to my core. I was very lucky. This could have easily been the death of me.
Wyatt still stroked my hair and I heard Candy and Craig in hushed voices to the side.
“It’s going to kill her with one blow. This isn’t going to work. Is there some other demon you know? Maybe a better one?”
Great. I was going to be sacked in favor of a ‘better’ demon. One with red skin, a pointy tail, horns, and a goatee no doubt. They wanted scary? I’d show them scary. I struggled to my feet, pushed back the pounding headache which was fifty percent from lack of coffee, and staggered to the garage. The three followed me. Wyatt at least looked worried.
There was no hatchet to be had in the garage. What self respecting Pennsylvania country boy doesn’t chop his own wood? Even better though, I found a hack saw. I smacked my left arm up on a workbench, sending bits of melted flesh flying. Giving myself an inch past the melted part, I started to saw my arm off. It wasn’t easy since I hadn’t clamped it down first. I had to give myself enough feeling to hold the arm in place, but not enough that it would be agonizing. Still, I made it nice and slow, making sure to stick it in the bone a bit so I had to wiggle the saw blade loose. Bone is usually spongy and hard to cut through without power tools, but whatever melted my hand had made the bone more brittle than usual and somewhat easier to cut. Craig made retching noises; Candy stared with her mouth clamped shut; and Wyatt looked everywhere but my arm. Sorry, Wyatt. I hadn’t really wanted him to see this kind of thing. Guess we were back to square one, again. No sex for me.
After I had separated my arm from the rest of my body, I made sure to let it spurt blood a bit over the workbench. I left the melted arm there too. Let Craig clean it up himself, asshole.
Time for a new arm. Like I said before, I could convert myself a new arm in an instant. Wham, new arm. It’s not very impressive though to just make an arm appear supposedly out of thin air in a flash of light. I looked at my stump and slowly converted matter around me into a new arm. Bone first, nerves and veins snaking down out of the stump, muscles that grow outward and flesh crawling like a tan plague over the surface. It hurt like a bitch, but it looked horrifying.<
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“Okay,” I said, wiggling my new fingers experimentally in the air. “Let’s go back and take a look at that window again, shall we?”
“Don’t touch it, Sam,” Wyatt implored. “I can’t take all this again before breakfast.”
I approached the house and held my energy tight to myself as I looked at the window. I could see it now clear as day. That’s when I realized it wasn’t just the window. Whatever coated the window, coated the entire house. It was so clear and obvious, I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t see it before. I assumed it wasn’t made for human eyes, and it was not something I’d ever see done at home. I looked carefully at the dull rainbow of colors and heard the faint scratching noise. It made a pattern. A pattern I recognized from long ago. Far back in my memories of visits, here.
“It’s a hex,” I said, half to myself.
“A hex?” Candy looked all over the house and obviously saw nothing. “Like the ones the Pennsylvania Dutch put on the side of their barns?”
I shrugged. “Kind of. The ones around here on the barns are pretty artwork, but they usually don’t make any sense from a symbolic point of view, and the makers don’t have any power to charge them and create actual wards of protection. They probably had some superstitious meaning a few centuries ago, but they’ve lost that now. This hex, you probably can’t see at all with your eyes. I couldn’t see it at first, either, since it’s based on color, pattern, and sound, subtle work that we don’t use back home. This one is based on the same ancient symbolic nature that the pretty barn decorations use now. It’s a kind of ward to protect and guard the occupants of the house.”
I motioned with my hand. “There are a series of circles covering the house. They symbolize eternity and tell me that this protection is meant to last forever. Inside are both five and eight pointed stars which carry the protection against evil. Within them is a tulip which is for trust and faith. The symbols add up to an eternal protection from evil that is based on faith. Faith extended from the angel, which is a significant gift.” I looked at Craig. “You should feel honored to be gifted this. It’s well crafted, and powerful. The main color of the hex is white, which is the energy that powers it. The white is huge. When I touched it, that’s all I could see. It practically blinded me. The power behind this is just immense. There are other colors, too. Blue to reinforce the protection, black to bind the hex together as a whole, and a set of reddish purple angel wings like an artist’s signature. The wings stamp it as a divine gift. So any idiot who tries to break it knows whose hammer is about to drive him into the ground.”
I silently admired the hex a moment. It was just amazing. I couldn’t believe the amount of skill that had gone into creating it, let alone the immense power behind it. What angel could possibly have power to just toss into a hex like this? This angel was way out of my league. Way out of any demon’s league. The crafting, the level of detail and intricacy of the thing was awe inspiring. I could feel the power humming from it. The whole thing stirred something deep within me. Something beyond admiration. I shook my head trying to clear it of the fascination I felt contemplating this magnificent work of art and its equally magnificent creator.
“In short, it’s a protective hex,” I told the others. “It guards against supposedly evil spirits, which is why it practically fried me into the ground. I’ve seen witches do this in the past, but it’s not been as powerful and doesn’t really do much to keep me out. Those are mainly to keep bad intentioned humans out and as good luck charms. Plus, theirs are visual since the makers are at least mostly human and the protection extends against evil humans who would need to see the warning.”
“Why would Althean put a protective hex on the house of a man he was about to kill?” Candy asked, bewildered. “Why bother to protect him against evil spirits when he’s planning to kill him in the next day or two? Does he want to make sure no one else gets him first?”
“I’m pretty sure this hex would work against angels as well as my kind and many others. The way it’s formulated and how it’s activated would keep any angel except the one who placed it from touching the house, and that extends directly to the owner inside or within a certain range outside the house.” I turned to Craig. “You could be anywhere within a thirty foot radius, and be totally safe from evil intent against your person, and be safe within your house even if there is no active evil intent. I can stand here and talk to you, but I can’t enter your house. And if I decided to do you harm close to your house, the hex would extend out to me. Best of all, Althean won’t be able to touch you or enter your house, because it’s Gregory who placed this hex.”
TaDa! I’d freaked them out with my arm sawing, and now I’d wowed them with my folkloric knowledge. Better not be any more talk of finding someone “better” or I’d have to start chewing limbs and fucking asses.
“Gregory?” Candy looked lost. “Why would he do this? If this is such a powerful and significant gift, then what has Craig done to deserve such protection?”
“I think it’s less about Craig personally, and more about trapping Althean,” I said. “Gregory knows he’s got a problem on his hands. An escalating problem. And he’s in charge of these enforcing angels. He’s the top dog. It reflects badly on him to have Althean running amok, wiping out innocents. He’s got to get him now before there’s notice from his higher–ups, or perhaps before you all feel there’s nothing left to lose and there’s a werewolf rebellion. Think, we’ve got a couple in Hawaii for two weeks. That leaves Craig and Robinson. He can’t be two places at once to catch his naughty boy, so he’s safeguarded one, essentially herding Althean toward Robinson. And Robinson isn’t due back until late tonight or tomorrow which gives him some time to plan and set a trap.”
“So what do we do now?” Wyatt asked.
“I’d propose we do the same. Watch Robinson’s to see what Gregory does, then be there when Althean makes his move.”
Hopefully, Gregory wouldn’t be there, otherwise there would be no move for me to make. No way I was going up against that angel. If he showed up, I’d leave him to deal with Althean. If this hex was any indication, he had enough power to kill me with the flick of a pinky. I was going to make sure I stayed out of the range of that pinky. Even if that meant abandoning Wyatt along with Candy and her weregeld and racing for the nearest gate.
Chapter 13
Wyatt and Candy headed over to Robinson’s house to watch for angel activity, while I drove back to the motel to put on some clothing. Blood and bits of my flesh had splattered on the Tinkerbell shirt. I felt it was a good look for her, and Wyatt commented that I looked like I’d been to a Disney themed Gwar concert. Cool idea, but I wanted to get into something less tent like. Plus I was tasked with bringing coffee and donuts.
I didn’t want to wear my new Juicy shirt and get it blood covered in some battle. Plus, my street cred was fragile enough without my prancing around proclaiming my juiciness. Thankfully, no one had stolen my t–shirt and jeans from the motel washer. I threw Tinkerbell in the washer, equally confident that no one would steal her either, and proceeded to wait for my choice of clothing to dry. I took my time, grabbing a shower and drying my hair. Remembering the wet hair hanging in my face yesterday, I pulled it into my usual pony tail. Hopefully that would keep it contained and out of my eyes. I walked naked to get my clothes out of the dryer since Candy wasn’t there to yell at me, and then headed for coffee and donuts. I really didn’t need to get there too early. Robinson wasn’t home, so we weren’t expecting any action from Althean. He probably wouldn’t even try to scout it out until later in the day. Plus, I really wanted to avoid my own personal nemesis, Gregory, who might come to set his own trap and sense me nearby in the process.
The whole stake out thing was boring to the nth degree, sitting there, eating donuts and drinking coffee until I was ready to squirm out of my skin from the sugar and caffeine high. We sat for hours, crouched in the hedgerows, waiting for anything to show up. I played games on my cell phone until the batter
y was almost dead, then took twigs and leaves and made a series of obstacles for increasingly frustrated and anxious ants.
Finally, just as I was ready to call and have pizza delivered, someone walked up the driveway. Wahoo! Action time! We couldn’t see clearly who it was, so I inched along the hedgerow and slowly crawled up behind him pulling my energy up. It was Craig. What a letdown. He was lucky that he heard me with his superior hearing and turned around before I blasted him into bits. I was so disappointed that I almost blasted him anyway. Anything would be more entertaining than another few hours pestering ants behind a bush.
Craig was shaking, his eyes big with fear. And that’s saying a lot for a werewolf if Candy were anything to compare by. “An angel came by my house again. I don’t care if there’s a hex, I’m not staying there.”
“Was it the same angel as before, or a different one?” I asked as Candy and Wyatt came from their cover behind a huge forsythia.
“I don’t know. They all look the same to me. It might have been the same one, or it could have been the killer. I’m not staying there. I’d feel more safe with a demon who saws her own arm off.”
I wasn’t sure that was a compliment. I turned to the others. Candy was frowning at Craig in disapproval. Wyatt looked relieved. I couldn’t stand hours, possibly all night, of this stake out business. I would go insane if this stretched on with nothing to do but sit and wait.
“Look, I can’t take much more of this hovering around with nothing to do,” I told the three of them. “I’m an action kind of girl. And I want a beer. I’m going to break into this guy’s house and find some booze, and maybe some reading material, anything to entertain me until I can kill something.”