Urban Mythic: Thirteen Novels of Adventure and Romance, featuring Norse and Greek Gods, Demons and Djinn, Angels, Fairies, Vampires, and Werewolves in the Modern World

by C. Gockel

  “I think you’ve worked too hard on some of those,” he said dryly. “Maybe you should switch over to virtues instead. Give yourself a much needed break.”

  Virtues? Yeah, right.

  “Virtues are too difficult,” I told him, shaking my head. “Look how old you are and you’ve hardly made a dent in them. I’ll admit, you seem to have zeal nailed, as well as faith and temperance. Self control? I’ve got my doubts based on your recent actions. I’m not seeing the kindness, love or generosity, either. That humility thing seems to be pretty far beyond your reach, too. Really, really far. I’m sorry to tell you this, but from what I can see, the sin of pride is a major component of your character. Dude, you’re fucking old. You should have these things pretty well ticked off your shopping list by now. I’m seriously disappointed. Seriously.”

  He stared at me, his face unreadable. I wondered for a brief moment if I’d pushed him too far, but he didn’t seem angry. Crickets chirped in the background, like an old cliché, but I just met his gaze and refused to break the silence.

  “I can hardly wait until this is over,” he finally said. “Then I never have to spend another moment with you for the rest of eternity.”

  He turned and walked away, and I followed him, feeling rather relieved.

  We gated back to the target werewolf house. Gregory stood there, patiently holding me upright while I got my bearings. It didn’t seem to take quite as long this time, but we did gate a fairly short distance. Less than five miles.

  The house was a beautiful single story log cabin nestled in the woods. The driveway actually had a small bridge to cross over the creek to get to the road. Pines flanked the driveway and formed little oases among the hardwoods, with their tall dense canopy. Underneath, their orange needles cushioned the ground like a soft mattress. I knew I’d get sap all over my jeans, but I couldn’t resist sinking to sit on them and breathing in their fragrance.

  Gregory sat beside me in silence while I continued to cast around for Althean. It was early morning, and I could see a faint lightening of the sky to the east. It would remain dark in these woods for quite a while, though. Sunday wouldn’t bring any early sounds of workday traffic, and we’d have hours before even the earliest church goers headed out.

  “I know you think Althean is capable of redemption, so you’re probably not likely to kill him. Are you going to punish him yourself, or lock him away in some jail?” I asked him the question that had been on my mind for days.

  Would he change his mind and kill Althean? Would he banish him? Was there some kind of rehab for angels who went crazy? Electroshock therapy or something?

  “Why didn’t you just let me kill him the other times?” I continued. “You’ve got to admit, your actions make it look like you really want to take it easy on him.”

  Gregory sighed in exasperation. “You just won’t let this go will you, annoying little cockroach? No, I don’t want to kill Althean. I’m hoping I can save him, that we can rehabilitate him. I know why he is doing these things, and there are others among us who feel the same way. I don’t want him to become a martyr to his cause. If that happens, the council will have a whole faction to wipe out instead of just a few random extremists. Looking at things with a long term perspective, it would be best to keep Althean alive and convince him to change his mind on these matters.”

  I shivered in the warmth of the summer air. I had no doubt about this angel’s methods of changing someone’s mind. I think I’d rather be dead.

  “This is bigger than just a few dead werewolves,” he told me, rather heartlessly. “There are subversive groups in Aaru who wait to pounce on any opportunity for political gain and possible overthrow. We keep a very tight leash on these groups, but a martyr would benefit their cause. The issue with the werewolves has been going on without resolution for a long time, and people feel strongly on both sides of the issue. Opposing factions would love to seize on this as their banner.”

  He looked over at me, and then quickly looked away. “I won’t allow you to kill him, little cockroach. I know you desperately want to, and I’m sure you have the skill and power to do so. If you did, you’d be signing your own death sentence. The council would never allow your continued existence if you killed an angel.”

  I sat for a moment in silence. “You’re going to kill me, anyway, why do you care if the council decrees my death or not?” Not that I even knew what this council was.

  “I’ll kill you when I’m ready to,” he assured me. “That is the directive, and you will eventually die. I have discretion on when and how I dispatch demons that enter this realm in violation of the treaty. I usually kill them on sight, but I’ve bound you to me and you are under my authority and control. The council won’t interfere with my decision in this matter. But if you were to kill an angel, I doubt I could protect you.”

  He looked grim and I got the feeling he would fight tooth and nail to protect me. I had no idea why. What use could I be to him beyond tonight? Did he really feel it was worth it to keep me around and tolerate my annoying behavior? Was there something else he had planned for me that would make this all worthwhile?

  The lights came on in the cabin. Wyatt and Candy were probably up. I wondered if the other werewolves, the ones who actually lived there had managed to go to sleep. I wondered how much they knew about what was going on, what danger they were in. I glanced at Gregory, sitting like a brooding statue beside me. It didn’t take much of my attention to continuously cast for Althean, so my mind wandered. At least Gregory didn’t intend to kill me right away. That was a huge relief. Maybe we could actually hang out together sometime. Perhaps hang out for a few decades. At least until my usefulness was over. I knew that was a ridiculous fantasy, but I still indulged myself in it.

  To keep my hands busy I grabbed a nearby pinecone, and stuck some sticks and needles into it creating a bizarre prickly and sap covered animal while I daydreamed about playing with lightning beside this angel, or possibly fire. Maybe he’d teach me to manipulate water and make that cool globe. I eyed my needle covered pinecone animal. Great. In my boredom, I’d been reduced to creating children’s campfire crafts. My hands were covered with sap, and the stuff just didn’t come off. I ended up coating them with dirt so at least they were no longer sticky. If this stupid crazy angel didn’t show up soon, I was going to go out of my mind.

  Finally, as the morning sun had fully risen, I sensed him. Good thing, since I’d stacked my loose change into little piles, had a whole stable full of pinecone animals, and was now making little pine needle haystacks for them to eat. I was covered in sap and dirt.

  I tugged Gregory’s sleeve and indicated with my hands that our target was at two o’clock, about fifty feet away and moving slowly in. He frowned at me uncomprehendingly and looked with astonishment at my pinecone menagerie. I guess he didn’t watch too many spy movies, or experiment with nature crafts. I pointed and went through the motions again, carefully whispering this time.

  He nodded. “Stay here. Don’t move. Don’t do anything. Don’t say anything. Nothing. I want your posterior rooted to this spot.”

  I nodded in agreement. I lie and I don’t follow directions well, so as soon as he left the little pine tree shelter, I got up and followed him. I had to stay a good distance back so he wouldn’t hear me. He edged up closer to the house, and waited a moment before walking into the tiny yard of cleared trees in front of the house. It had to have been only fifteen feet from tree line to tree line.

  I edged up behind him, staying behind a pin oak, hopefully out of sight.

  Althean appeared at the edge of the tree line directly across from Gregory. It was like the scene from High Noon without guns or tumbleweeds.

  “Have you finally leashed your dog?” Althean said derisively. The nervous glances he was casting around gave his bravado less credibility. “I thought you were neutral in this, but I now wonder after you had your demon practically tear me apart.”

  “She is not easy to control,” Gregor
y confessed. “I am neutral in this. The council has not given its decision though and you cannot run around like a vigilante delivering your own personal brand of justice. We are sympathetic to your views and understand why you’ve acted the way you have, but you must cease and return to Aaru.”

  Althean paled. “So you can imprison me? So you can bring me back to ‘sanity’ and obedience? I am not the only one who feels this way. The council is taking too long in their decision and the time to act is now. You can bend me to your will, rip my mind apart, but others will be right there to take my place. They are Nephilim. You know that.”

  “We do not know that for a fact,” Gregory said. “The council will not exterminate a species — will not commit genocide — until we are certain they are Nephilim.”

  “The council is committing genocide through attrition,” Althean countered passionately. “The existence contract is so restrictive that the werewolves are slowly dying out. In a few millennia they will no longer exist and the council can walk away with clean hands and claim innocence. Cowardice. Have they become so weak they are afraid to shed blood? Afraid of delivering justice and hard mercy? There are still angel renegades that escape them, Nephilim still walk the earth. It is clear to many of us that the council is incompetent and unfit to rule.”

  Gregory barely restrained his anger. “You are not privy to the workings of the council, and are not in any position to pass judgment on their fitness to rule! Would you lead a war against them? Attempt a revolution? It would be over very quickly, I assure you. And the result would not be to your satisfaction.”

  He paused to calm himself and continued. “I will offer you the chance to live, exiled among the fallen ones whose path you have mimicked. Or you may choose to return to Aaru for redemption,” Gregory said.

  Fallen ones? Did he mean us? He’d banish Althean to our realm? We’d eat the guy for lunch within ten seconds of crossing the gate. Dude would be better off choosing to fall on his sword, instead. It would be a far more pleasurable way to die.

  “You would send me to the demons?” Althean asked in horror. “Clearly, your vicious reputation is deserved if you would consign me to that eternal torture. I will return with you to Aaru, but be aware that my ‘rehabilitation’ will not even put a bandage on the seeping wound of this division within us.”

  Gregory walked toward Althean, who had bowed his head in submission. I felt something within me pinch with alarm and knew what was coming long before Althean even began to formulate the blast. It seems Althean decided to go out like a man. Impossibly fast, he threw a stream of that white energy right at Gregory.

  Before it even left his body, I had darted out in front of the pin oak and shot my own bolt of raw energy at him, curving it to loop around Gregory and leave him untouched. It was a tricky piece of work, especially since I was doing it on the fly. It hit Althean just as his bolt of energy left, cutting his blast short and knocking him solidly to the ground. Gregory jerked to the side, either in anticipation of Althean’s blast or in reaction to my looping energy. The white stuff the angel had shot missed him by inches and unfortunately smacked me right in the chest, throwing me backwards into the pin oak where I slid to the ground.

  Fuck, this stuff hurt. This was the same shit that took my hand completely off back in Gettysburg, so I was a little alarmed. I pulled my personal energy safely inside and started to regenerate. It must have been a smaller blast than the one before because it hadn’t blown through me. It did leave a nice hole in my right lung, destroying the ribs and tissue and leaking blood all over the place. I sealed off the blood vessels, and explored the damage. I’d had worse.

  Gregory looked over at me in surprise. He took in my injury and exploded in anger. His vaguely human looking form disappeared in a wash of bright light and power. He shone so bright in his fury that they had to have seen him all the way to the road. “Oh fuck,” I thought in panic. “I’ve disobeyed him and he’s gone insane with rage. He’s going to come over here and finish me off.”

  Instead he strode over to Althean who was trying frantically to get upright. I must have hit him pretty hard, I thought smugly.

  “She’s just a demon!” Althean said in panic. “You can’t kill me over a stupid, worthless demon!”

  Gregory picked him up by the throat and held him, his feet dangling from the ground. “She’s mine,” he hissed. The word sang with power and ripped through the air in a wave, trembling the earth and raining pine needles to the ground. The morning bird sounds stopped abruptly and the silence was eerie.

  Althean began to shake. “No,” he choked out. “You cannot. She’s a nasty stupid cockroach. She’s not worth it.”

  Gregory tightened his grip and Althean’s words ended in a gurgle. “Mine,” he hissed and began to shake the smaller angel.

  I covered my ears as a high pitched screeching sound, like nails on glass filled the air. Althean convulsed and he tore at Gregory’s arms frantically with his hands. I saw what appeared to be dirt falling from him, then realized that it was sand. Slowly, Althean was dissolving into a pile of white sand from the feet upward as I watched. The process was agonizingly slow; Althean kicked and shook while Gregory continued to hiss and stare at him with those merciless black eyes. In minutes, only his torso and head remained and the sand rained down upon the ground. Gregory kept at it until there was nothing left but a pile of the white grains. He stared at it, grim–faced, and then proceeded to wipe his hands casually on his jeans.

  As I watched all this with interest, part of me was getting worried. The white energy was having the same kind of slippery effect on my raw energy that Gregory had when he touched me. I was able to regenerate small portions of myself with the bits I could grab, but the white stuff was eating in deeper and quicker than I could fix. Giving up on regeneration, I concentrated my efforts on getting the white stuff converted and cleared out of my system. It was persistent and multiplying fast. If it destroyed too much of me, it might reach my personal energy. Or I’d be too dissolved to hold in the massive amount of raw energy I had stored within me. Releasing all that energy would be like a bomb going off.

  Gregory turned from the pile of sand to look at me, his expression becoming alarmed.

  “Fix yourself!” he commanded, an edge of desperation in his voice.

  “I’m trying, you asshole,” I replied.

  I felt hands on my side and realized that Wyatt and Candy were there. Candy looked worried and Wyatt was trying to apply pressure to the wound. I looked down at Wyatt’s hands and saw that the blood oozing between his fingers was becoming streaked with an opalescent white. Crap, the raw energy was leaking out and causing me to lose form. I didn’t want that to happen with this stuff eating its way through my flesh.

  “Hold on, Sam,” Wyatt said, applying more pressure. He needed to stop or the raw energy would burn his skin like acid. “Is there anything human doctors can do? Should we call an ambulance?”

  I shook my head at him and kept trying to convert bits of the white stuff into nice neutral carbon based molecules. If I could just grab enough raw energy, I could dispel the whole lot of it, but the slippery coating was only allowing me access to a tiny bit at a time. I had to fight for every little bit. Meanwhile, the remaining white stuff expanded faster than I could negate it and was dissolving several important organs. The body I was in was on the verge of failure.

  Fuck. I put my hands to the ground and started to slowly trickle raw energy out into the earth. If I could release some of this, then maybe I wouldn’t blow half the county up when I went.

  “You need to get out of here,” I told Wyatt, bubbling blood up from my ruined lungs. “You and Candy. Fast and far. As fast as you can.”

  “I won’t leave you, Sam,” Wyatt insisted.

  “I’m not joking. You need to leave right now,” I told him, enunciating as best as I could.

  Wyatt continued to protest and I looked at Candy.

  “You promised to protect him, to keep him safe. Get him
out of here.” I told her and she nodded grimly.

  I didn’t have time to argue with Wyatt any longer. I turned to him and put every last ounce of strength into pulling out my mean. “Get the fuck out of here right now,” I snarled at him.

  He jumped back and looked hurt. Candy seized the moment and grabbing him by the arm dragged him as fast as she could toward her car.

  I gave up trying to stop the white stuff and began concentrating on dumping as much raw energy as I could. The ground around me was beginning to smoke. The whole thing was an exercise in futility. It would take me nearly two months at this rate to dump my stash of energy. I looked up at Gregory, who just looked back at me.

  “Now would be a really good time to get that damned sword of yours out.” I told him, trying to speak the words as clearly as I could with all the blood I was spitting. I needed to say this before my lungs totally gave out. “I’m assuming it collects our energy as you kill us so you don’t blast half the planet apart. How much capacity does it have?”

  He told me, pulling the sword out of thin air. It wasn’t enough. The sword would hold about half my energy. If I could dump another two percent before I croaked, then maybe it would be enough to limit the destruction a bit. He’d probably die, so I wasn’t about to reveal the limitations of his sword to him. I didn’t want him changing his mind and gating out of here to save himself, leaving me to blow a huge chunk out of the ground. I wondered if the sword would survive the blast. If not, then we were back to square one. Not that we had any other options.

  “Do it.” I told him.

  He paused. “How much raw energy are you packing?”

  I rounded down. Way down. Like ten percent of what I really had down. He raised his sword and began chanting something. I closed my eyes. I don’t have any problem facing my own death, but I simply could not look this angel in the eyes as he killed me. The chanting stopped and I held my breath; then it started again.