by Amy Vansant
“Sure. Maybe some bacon?”
“Shut up.”
She stomped again and for the first time she noticed a round burn mark marring the bamboo flooring where she’d plunged her sword.
“Do you remember where we bought this floor?”
Jeffrey shrugged. “I can look it up.”
Michael phased through the wall. He still wore the suit in which he’d first arrived, now fresh-pressed and sans blood.
“Damn Mikey, lookin’ sharp,” said Jeffrey.
Michael smoothed his lapel. “Thank you. Have I ever mentioned the head of the IRS is an Angelus? Call me Mikey again and I’ll have you audited.”
“I have bigger problems.” He motioned to his shoulder.
Michael peered at his angry artwork.
“Talking worms?”
“Bacon.”
“Oh. Well, everything is better with bacon.”
“See? That’s what I told him,” said Anne. “At least it isn’t tofu or something disgusting.”
Jeffrey rolled his eyes and slid a mug to the Angelus. “Coffee?”
“Thanks. Other than the tattoo, which I’m pretty sure is infected, you look well.”
“Thank you, I’ve been trying to eat healthier, but you know what I just can’t eat? Kale.”
Michael nodded. “I agree. I’ve really tried to warm to it but—”
“Hello,” said Anne, slapping an arm in front of Michael to block him from his coffee. “What about the bad guy? Isn’t he a little more important than kale and the arm my assistant is clearly going to lose to gangrene?”
Jeffrey scowled. “Hey…”
Michael phased his arm through her and grabbed the mug, pulling it back through her as blue light, and reforming it as he brought it to his lips.
“No. I didn’t get him.”
Anne glowered at him, resisting the urge to slap the coffee mug out of his hand. She wondered when the urge to smash things would stop jolting through her veins.
“Why didn’t you take me with you?”
“That would have been wise. I agree.”
“Did you see him? Can you share some details?”
“I caught him, briefly, in the apartment below, but I couldn’t pull any energy from him. It was like battling another Angelus. He pulled away from me and flew outside. I followed, but couldn’t track him. He’s gone.”
Anne hopped onto one of her kitchen barstools and Jeffery held out a cup of coffee. When she didn’t acknowledge the mug, he sat it on the decorative cement counter top.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” she said. “I was so very lucky to subdue him. Next time, I might not be so lucky. I won’t have the element of surprise.”
Michael shrugged.
Anne punched him in the shoulder and he scrambled to keep his mug from spilling.
“Rage issues,” he mumbled.
“Michael! We don’t know what he is or what he wants. How can you be so calm? You’re never calm about things like this!”
He rubbed his eyes. “Because I lost him the moment I went after him. I spent the next ten minutes in the park inventing new ways to swear. I may have uprooted a tree. Don’t lean on the one in the southwest corner of the park.”
“And you say I have rage issues.”
“In all honestly I’m nearly numb now. After seeing an Arch Perfidian return as some sort of cosmic monster capable of swallowing a fellow Angelus whole, things don’t really register anymore. Add to that my brother dying and my never-ending battle against the spread of Perfidia…not to mention the daily struggle keeping humans from blowing themselves to smithereens…”
He took a deep breath through his nose and released it through his mouth as an exasperated sigh. “This new creature is nothing more than the icing on my crap cake.”
“The icing on my crap cake,” echoed Jeffrey. “I like that. Can I steal that?”
Michael waved a hand at Jeffrey, implying he could. “Just don’t get it tattooed to your other arm.”
“Have you seen any sign of Leo yet?” asked Anne. They’d discussed the possibility that Michael’s brother Leo’s death at the hands of Seth would not be a permanent condition. If the Perfidians she destroyed returned as healthy Angeli, there was good reason to believe Leo could return as well.
“Nothing yet.”
Anne placed a hand on Michael’s. He looked at her.
“I feel like we’re losing a battle we don’t even know we’re fighting,” she said.
“I know one thing; you’re an object of interest to this creature.”
“She’s always been prom queen of the monster ball,” said Jeffrey.
“He implied he was looking for me, but maybe he didn’t mean me. Maybe he meant someone like me. A Sentinel.”
Michael placed his mug on the countertop.
“Keep me informed,” he said, heading for the door. “Jeffrey, thank you for the coffee. Oh, and Anne, if your neighbor downstairs stops by, send me the bill.”
“What are you talking about?”
“During my brief tussle with the creature, I broke a chair across his head.”
“So?”
“In my hurry, I didn’t notice it was an eighteenth century Chippendale. You owe your neighbor somewhere between fifteen and eighteen thousand dollars.”
Anne put her hand over her face.
“She wasn’t home, was she?”
“No.”
“So, I should tell her I happened to know her chair spontaneously exploded during her absence and pay for it?”
Michael shrugged and closed the door behind him.
Chapter Three
Rathe lay in the tall grass of a field, breathing heavily. He heard nothing but crickets. Crickets. He didn’t know why he knew they were called crickets, but he was sure of it. Nasty little black things with hairy legs. Crickets.
They should be called disgustings.
He raised his hand into the air and pulled down his sleeve. In the moonlight, he could read the dark scar carved into the flesh of his left forearm.
Rathe.
He’d noticed the scar a few days earlier when he’d awoken, naked, laying in a field much like this one. That’s where he’d met his first cricket. It hopped on his head and he’d screamed.
The letters on his arm spelled his name, he knew that, but he didn’t know how to pronounce it. Rathe, rhymes with wrath? Or Rathe, rhymes with wraith?
Who does that? Who tosses a person into a new world, naked, with a name he doesn’t know how to pronounce carved into his arm?
Rude. Just rude.
He sat up and cried out as a sharp pain radiated from shin to hip.
Wincing and whimpering, he struggled to stand and noticed a gurgle accompanying each inhale. Something wet was in his lungs.
That’s new.
His body hurt. He shifted into his energy form, red and glowing like a reed doll woven out of fire. He remained that way for a minute and then shifted back to his physical form.
The pulsating pain in his leg told him the curative power of his shift had failed. The gurgle in his breathing returned. He needed energy. Pulling it from the grasses in the field wouldn’t be sufficient. The sun would help, but it was hours from daybreak. He needed something bigger, but what?
Everything about this world was new, yet he couldn’t remember any other.
Had he always been here?
He hopped.
Pain.
He tried limping.
Better.
He made slow, steady progress across the field toward a line of trees. Beyond it, he heard cars and saw their lights as they flickered past. He knew what cars were, knew they were useful and knew they didn’t hop.
Another word appeared in his mind’s eye, as if illuminated by lightning.
Angeli.
The word ran through his head on permanent loop. It had since he first set eyes on this world. The tall man had been an Angelus. Things were starting to make sense.
Kinda. Sorta.
The chair had caught him off guard and he’d bolted. Recalling his panicked escape, he knew he didn’t so much fly from the building as tumble from it, but then he’d soared through the night sky, shifting directions randomly and often. He didn’t know where he’d found the energy to do that; the pretty woman had depleted him. Disoriented, he’d struck a building and spun through the air. When he could fly no longer he fell into the field and waited for his pursuer to arrive and end his life. He fell unconscious, not expecting to wake, but the Angelus never came. Maybe striking the building sent him in such an erratic direction, that his pursuer lost the trail. Maybe he was just too tricky for the old man.
Michael. She called him Michael.
He guessed the woman didn’t have the power to follow, which was good, because he feared her the most. She possessed powers the Angelus didn’t have. She’d nearly killed him.
She was much worse than crickets.
Anne.
No, Rathe did not like Anne. And yet…
He didn’t know what she was, but her existence answered a question. He needed her. Not her, exactly, but something like her. He’d known the moment he saw her in the park that he needed someone like her. A creature like that could drain the Angeli the same way she drained him. He knew it like he knew his name was Rathe.
Or Rath.
Whatever.
Something had compelled him to sit in that park. He’d waited on that bench, not knowing why, until she opened the gate and then he knew she was the reason. He needed to see what she could do, but every question answered inspired questions anew.
Why sit in the park?
To meet the woman.
Why meet the woman?
He thought he’d die before answering that last question. She’d put that pain in his head…power bleeding from his body into hers… He thought he’d die. He thought he was dead. Then he heard himself groan and realized he was alive. No sooner did he open his eyes, than the orange lights appeared and he slipped back into darkness.
The next time he felt consciousness returning he remained limp and made no noise. He peeked through blood-soaked eyes and saw Michael, and that was the moment of his revelation.
Why meet the woman?
To make a hunter of his own.
Why make a hunter?
To kill the Angeli.
He lived to kill Angeli. He knew that now. He didn’t possess the power to drain Angeli, but he could make a creature like the woman do his hunting.
But how?
More questions.
He needed to find someone suitable, but for now, he told himself not to worry about the specifics. The answers would come during his travels. He closed his eyes and tilted back his head, balancing on his one good leg.
Tell me which way to go.
He struggled forward, gritting his teeth each time his broken leg wobbled. Sweat soaked his cold forehead and mingled with the blood on his face, blinding him. He limped until he reached a small stream, where he washed away the blood and dried his face with his sweatshirt. He could still feel dried blood matted in his long blond hair, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He needed to find power to heal his broken body.
He saw lights swim by and heard a car.
He hobbled another hundred yards to the road and put out his hand, his thumb springing skyward.
Hitchhiking.
The word lit up like a billboard in his mind.
Hitchhiking. That’s a funny word. So is billboard. Billboard. Billboard. If you say it enough times in a row, it loses its meaning. Billboard billboard…
A yellow car drove by, ignoring his plea for help.
Yellow. Yellow yellowyellowyellow…
In the course of an hour only four cars passed him, the fifth stopped. It pulled to the side of the road fifty yards ahead of his position and he limped toward it, noting a strange green glow emanating from inside the vehicle.
The man in the car lowered his window, revealing himself the source of the glow. Rathe scowled. None of the other drivers glowed green. Maybe they’d passed too quickly for him to notice?
“Need a ride kid? Hey, something wrong with your eyes?”
Rathe straightened to prevent the man from seeing his eyes. He’d noticed the woman in the park had white eyes with color in the middle. This man in the car also had white eyes with two circles of color in the center.
My eyes are wrong.
He made a mental note to work on that when he felt better.
For now, he couldn’t think about anything except the man in the car. He could feel something vile radiating from the human.
He could smell it.
The stench in the car was horrific, and yet he felt drawn to it. A picture began to form in his mind…this man…he stole money from people. He tricked them and took their money. As a teenager, he and his friends had nearly beaten another boy to death during a robbery. Twenty minutes earlier, he’d left his mistress’ bed to head home to his wife and three children.
Rathe smiled. That nugget could help him earn the man’s trust.
“Girl trouble,” he said. “My girlfriend kicked me out of her car. Hit me in the eye, too…”
“Oh boy! Well, hop in! I’ll give you a ride to town.”
Rathe hobbled to the passenger side. Opening the door he balked, the car’s stench making it difficult to enter. He felt dizzy. He held his breath and fell into the seat.
“I can’t go anywhere until you close the door,” said the man, but Rathe couldn’t bring himself to do it. The man reeked.
“You smell awful,” he mumbled.
“What?”
He couldn’t drive anywhere with this creature in the car. He could smell his sins as clear as if he’d bathed in them. He pushed back his hood.
“Hey kiddo, you got a gash on your head—”
The man stopped in mid-sentence as Rathe’s gaze met his.
The man’s puffy pink face paled.
“Your eyes are…they’re really bad, man. You need to see a doctor.”
Rathe could see the evil clumped beneath the man’s green skin, great black lumps of depravity.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Changed your mind about what?” asked the man, his voice barely above a whisper.
“It isn’t the Angeli. You’re why I’m here.”
“What? Look, I think you should go. I’ve got a gun and I want you the hell out of my car.”
The man lunged forward, feeling under his seat for the gun with his left hand, the right pushing Rathe’s shoulder toward the open door.
The pushing made his body throb.
Rathe clamped his left hand on the man’s throat as he retrieved his gun, fingers wrapped around the barrel and eyes wild with fear. He drew the man’s life force into his own body as hard and fast as he could. The more energy he pulled, the less he smelled the terrible stench. He was surprised to find the energy tasted sweet, nothing like the smell. Even the lumpy parts were delicious.
The man struggled and the car revved as he stomped on the gas. He dropped the gun and slapped at Rathe’s arms and face. He clawed to release the vise-like fingers around his neck, but Rathe had no trouble retaining his grip. After a minute, the man fell limp, his body shrinking, growing thin and gray. His cheeks sunk. His eyes fell back into their sockets and out of sight. His nose crumbled. The lips curled back, exposing yellowed teeth. Rathe felt the sinews in the man’s neck collapse and his spine snap.
He drank the wretched human, all but the last drop. Something told him to stop just before the moment of death and he heeded the instinct. So far, his urges hadn’t led him astray, other than the one pushing him to attack the woman in the park.
That had been a bad idea.
Images of the man’s children filled Rathe’s head, their grubby faces smeared with jelly. He saw his wife, his mistress, the people at his office, how to make a margarita, an effective hair product, what size shirts he wore. Nothing terribly useful, but those flashes into the man’s life made Rathe wonder if he’d gleaned any knowledge from the woman in the park.
No.
Her mind had remained closed to him; even as he siphoned her power during those few moments when he thought the fight was his to win.
So embarrassing.
The throbbing in Rathe’s leg ceased. The catch in his breathing eased. He sat in the car for several minutes, enjoying his renewed health and the pleasurable buzz of the man’s energy mingling with his own. He peered into the rearview mirror at his black eyes and concentrated on edging them with white. The blackness shrunk until all that remained was a ball of black in a sea of white. He grinned, pleased with his progress.
When he felt rested, he stepped out of the car. He leaned in and pulled out the man, flinging the husk of his body into the woods. The torso hit a tree and broke like a bag of flour, dust particles exploding into a cloud that hung suspended in the air and then settled like newly fallen snow on the forest floor. Bones rattled to the ground and scattered around the base of the tree.
Rathe stared at the car. Another car drove by and he watched it. He liked the slow pace at which the vehicle moved. He could conserve his energy and just drive, letting his instincts point the way. Zipping around the planet with no destination in mind hadn’t done him any good so far.
Rathe swept the remaining bits of the man from off the driver’s seat and sat behind the wheel.
He put the car into drive and stepped on the gas.
Chapter Four
Con concentrated his energy into his hands and toes and made his semi-transparent form solid enough to do push-ups. He was bored. He’d been staring at the swirling mass of energy trapped in the cage for weeks. It never changed. Before he and Michael tricked Seth into the cage, the mad, Perfidia-infected Arch Angelus had seemed to be an undefeatable monster, an all-powerful being capable of swallowing the world. Now the bastard was an obstinate blob of light.
“Give it back to me,” he grunted between push-ups. “Now. Now. Now.”