by Al K. Line
Itchy Leg
The book was giving me grief. It kept wriggling in the pocket of my combats, like a snake trying to escape. The wards weren't holding, the mask that disguised its presence wouldn't stay put, same as before, as it was too damn volatile. Too alien. It didn't belong here, with me. How had the guy who I stole it off kept it hidden for so long? How come the angel hadn't just wreaked havoc and taken it from him? It was hardly protected at all there, so why all this crap now?
Maybe I'd ask Ivan, or Mikalus, or maybe I wouldn't. Honestly, I didn't care. I just wanted it gone, and now seemed like the right time to finally get this over with.
"Come on, it's time to go," I said wearily to Vicky, the high of our walk drained away now, leaving me deflated, exhausted, sad.
"Okay. I'm feeling sleepy, Arthur. I think the walk tired me out."
"Yeah, that will be it," I said, taking her arm as we walked away from the boating lake. I said nothing about it being more likely that the murder of her husband and the stress of thinking about the future would have sent her body into shock, that her system would try to shut down to blank it out. She probably didn't need reminding about any of that.
"Will you look after me?" asked Vicky in a quiet, timid voice.
I stopped at her words, something I'd never expected her to ask. Vicky had always been strong, always shown herself to be resourceful and capable, if annoying, and she must have been very scared to have asked such a thing. She was a proud woman, so this took a lot of guts.
With utter conviction, I looked into the eyes of my friend and I said, "I will care for you, and protect you, in any way I can. I love you, and the girls. You're family. Anything you want, just ask. I may not be the best at reading the signs of women, which is probably why I don't get many dates, so never be afraid to ask. I will protect you and look after you, I swear."
"Thank you." Vicky sagged, like this was what she needed to hear. "But it's not the reason you don't get any dates. It's because you never actually ask."
"Huh?" See, told you I wasn't the best at reading women.
"You're meant to ask. You could have a date tomorrow if you asked rather than tried to be a wise-ass and act clever all the time."
"It's rather soon, don't you think?" I said with a frown.
Vicky smacked me on the arm. "Not me, you idiot. Candy. She likes you."
"Haha, don't be daft. She's utterly gorgeous, never even gives me a hug, and she is way younger than me and absolutely out of my league."
Vicky stared at me for the longest time, and it began to get uncomfortable. "You don't get it do you?"
"Get it? Get what?"
"Let me tell you something about women, Arthur."
"Please. Apparently I have a lot to learn." Was I about to learn the secrets of this most unfathomable of beings?
"There is nothing a woman finds more attractive than a strong man who is gentle at the same time. Actually, there is. Women find men who don't know they are handsome, who are funny without realizing, who are slim and look after themselves, powerful yet humble, and are obviously caring, very attractive."
"Who are we talking about again? I'm none of those things. I try too hard to be funny, I'm not in the best shape, and I kill people. How caring can I be?"
"That's what I'm talking about. You don't realize it, but you're quite a catch. Ask George, she'll tell you. Sasha too."
"George is always telling me I'm not so bad, nice in a rugged kind of way, and that I'm a catch, but she's biased, same as Sasha."
"There you go then. You should ask her."
"Candy?"
"Yes, Candy," said Vicky, exasperated.
"On a date?"
"Yes, on a date. What's wrong with you?"
"Um, life?"
"Well, get over it. Plus, she's really hot."
"I know, right? Those hips, those ti—"
"Stop! I am not having this conversation with you. If you want to get all pervy then save it for other men."
"Sorry, got carried away. So you think I should ask her? What should I say? Where should I suggest we go? What if she says no? If you're winding me up..."
Vicky marched off and shouted, "For a fearless wizard gangster you sure are one hell of a lightweight."
I ran after her and caught her up. She didn't understand. There's nothing scarier in heaven or hell than asking a woman out on a date when she'll probably say no. It dents a guy's pride. Guess it's why I joked around and acted daft. It was a defense mechanism so I couldn't get rejected as I never actually asked, just hinted at sexy times without the risk of being turned down.
My heart fluttered. What a stupid old man I was.
Then Vicky was gone. A black nothingness swept past and up the steep bank leading to the car park.
She screamed. I ran.
What Now?
The blackness spread, losing its density, until I could make out the surreal sight of Vicky flailing in the air moments before the sound of her screams hit my freezing cold ears. Then, just like that, the mist dissipated. Guess the angel could only hold it together for so long like that, or it was playing, having fun with us. Either way, Vicky crashed to the grass at the top of the rise in what I considered to be a most spectacular landing. I took a puff of my cigarette then chased after her.
"Are you okay?" I asked as I hauled her to her feet and looked around in a panic.
"I'm fine, just dirty." Vicky scowled at the mud stains on her knees then squared her shoulders and puffed out her chest.
"That's the spirit. Come on, time to leave."
"You have the book. I want the book."
"So you keep saying," I shouted to the air. "Take it up with the vampires, they own it. I'm just the delivery guy."
"No, you must release it to me. Give it to me."
Again with this crap. Something was stopping the angel just taking what it wanted, and that meant I had an advantage. But how much damage could it do to me, to us? I didn't want to find out. It had destroyed Bones and his crew, although they had it coming, but I doubted the angel knew the difference. Then it struck me, of course it did. Maybe it meant we were the good guys and it would be in trouble if it ended us before our time was officially up. Nonetheless, I grabbed Vicky's arm and marched us away as fast as possible.
The air swirled around us, an impenetrable darkness that contained strong, strange forces. Magic, but not magic as I knew it, as humans know it. I could feel it coalescing, trying to take on substance, but something was interfering with it manifesting as anything solid. Regardless, it warned of danger, and of pain, and I'd had enough of both for a while.
Vicky's ponytail blew, my hat threatened to be swept off my head, and my jacket whipped around me as the wind built until it became an almost tangible barrier to our progress. We marched faster, through the car park, across a street that would soon be bustling with early morning traffic, but the wind followed, dark and nasty, cold and frightful.
It began to nip at us, gaining strength, snapping at our legs and stinging our faces and hands like scorpions lashing out. Soon we were battered and bruised and utterly freaked, but the voice remained silent even as the energy around us grew wilder.
We moved faster, a slow jog at first, then we were running as the stings turned to real pain. Over and over, we both cried out as the nips became strong bites like that of a dog, and I found it hard to believe chunks hadn't been taken from my body. But there were no actual marks, no clothes torn, no flesh broken, just the sensation of being attacked by this darkness that hit like lightning then came at us from a totally different direction, leaving us uncertain which way to turn or what to do next.
And then we slammed into a wall of the stuff right in the middle of a street lined with cars, and houses where the owners slept, maybe even had pleasant dreams. It felt like walking into something pure yet tinged with violence at the same time. A glimpse of an animal innocence mixed with anger and a sense of being in the right, justified in acts of violence because it was for the great
er good.
I didn't know how I knew this, could feel this, but it was there, a sense of knowing at least a tiny fraction of this presence that was so far removed from being a human being it may as well have been an alien life form. Which, in many ways, is exactly what it was. I also sensed its regret, that it didn't want to kill us but that it would if it meant it got what it wanted.
And it wanted the book.
But I am a man of honor, even if Ivan had left me to deal with this. I had been paid and I meant to deliver what I'd promised to deliver. Call it old-fashioned pride, call it stupidity, call it whatever you want, but The Hat delivered. He had a reputation to maintain, and besides, I was annoyed.
Why couldn't I be left alone to steal things in peace?
At the thought, I smiled, then snarled, then shoved back with weary magic nowhere near up to the task of dealing with something like this.
"Fuck you," I said, to an actual, genuine, freaking angel.
It went wild. The blackness intensified, became almost solid, and the outline of something not quite man, not quite anything, just very scary, dare I say intimidating, wavered and flickered then shot right at us, knocking us back, making the tip of the cigarette still in my hand glow fierce orange.
With a growl, then a smile as I noticed it wasn't quite burned down to the filter, I took a final drag then flicked the glowing butt right at the dark form.
Bad idea.
A Bad Habit
"Don't!" screamed Vicky, but it was already too late.
The butt of my delightful cigarette arced through the air gracefully after I flicked it perfectly, spinning end over end like a satellite tumbling through space, but my hands were already sweating as I understood what I'd done.
The tip glowed an angry orange as it burned brighter from its trajectory, and we froze for a split second, knowing what was to come but transfixed by a beacon of light when all around was darkness.
Then time crashed back down on us. We spun on our heels, ran away from my bad habit but both slipped on the potholed asphalt. We stumbled onward and I grabbed Vicky and hauled her in front of me then sprang at her back as the world turned a blinding white. The weight of my stupidity slammed down onto my back just as I landed on Vicky and flattened her onto the road, easily covering and protecting her body with mine.
I expected to be saying a grumpy hello to an unimpressed Death, but, unfortunately, I got no such respite, no escape from the impossible pain that lanced through my back and legs. The stench of my burning flesh stung my nostrils like I'd snorted pig fat.
This was, and I'm not exaggerating, the most stupid thing I'd done in my life so far. Okay, there was the thing with the squirrel, but apart from that.
We'd both read it moments before the cigarette hit the dark form. That it contained immense power and that the cancerous stick was somehow going to play havoc with the energy the angel used to manifest. Magic, or supernatural forces, harness what's already here. It doesn't invent new exotic matter or anything, it uses substance, gas, natural elements to affect the world, and the angel was currently one great big mass of writhing gases and who knew what else. But I hadn't expected it to be quite as epic. Cars were aflame, the combustion caused by the angel's disruption to all that we take for granted, the very air we breathe, had set alight several vehicles in a fireball that engulfed half the street.
I watched, still covering Vicky with my body, as another car caught fire. Knowing what was likely to happen, given my luck so far when dealing with this dude, I ducked just as it exploded. Then another, then another. Car alarms began to wail, Vicky began to wriggle, and I began to moan.
Comes to something when you can't even flick a cigarette butt at an angel without blowing up a damn street.
My back felt achy as hell but I wasn't on fire, hadn't broken anything important, or unimportant either, and was still alive, so it could have been worse. I clambered off Vicky with a lot of moans from her which was just damn ungrateful, and pulled her to her feet. "I think we should go see Ivan. Right now," I said, staring around at the fires, expecting something to come screaming out of the flames being very annoyed.
"Me too."
We scarpered, ran for ten minutes to get away from the scene of the crime as sirens lit up the streets and converged on the chaos. Down a quiet road, I used my wand to unlock a car, started it up, then drove slowly and carefully through the city to get rid of the book, and the damn angel, once and for all.
I swear, we nearly made it, we really did, but my phone rang and I answered it. It was George.
I listened, then said, "Okay," and hung up and glanced at Vicky.
"What? What's wrong? Oh no, it's the girls, isn't it? Are they okay? Have the police found out? Do they want to arrest me?"
I wound the window down, the stench of smoke clinging to our bodies making it hard to breathe, let alone talk. "It's nothing like that, but we have to go home. Now." I dropped down a gear, swerved in the road, then put my foot down and drove as fast as I could.
I was never going to get rid of this damn book.
Back and Forth
"What's happened?" screeched Vicky, the sound piercing my skull like an ice-pick through the ear.
"The girls are freaking out. They woke up and George can't calm them down. They're screaming and shouting and asking where you are. They want to know if their dad is going to take you away, if you've left and they won't see you again. George said they're just scared and out of sorts." It was about as gently as I could put it, when what George had basically said was they were utterly freaked out and crying and screaming and terrified beyond belief their parents had abandoned them. George was really worried, and she had less experience dealing with children than me, so she was at a loss regarding how to handle it without making things worse.
"Those poor children. What have I done, Arthur? What have I done?"
"You did what you thought best," I said, not knowing what else to say. Vicky had done a very, very stupid thing. She had killed their father, right there in the street. I didn't think the girls had seen, didn't think they'd connected the dots, but they could sure as hell come up with any number of wild scenarios of what had happened, even if none were as bad as the truth.
Or maybe they knew, had figured it out, and just couldn't accept it so were losing the plot. Or maybe they really were just scared their dad would come and cart them off, or take Vicky away, and they'd never see their mum again.
See, this is why I was loath to have a partner. I had enough crap to deal with in my own life without headaches like this—at least that's what I tried to convince myself of. People are, when you get right down to it, a bloody nightmare.
But I drove fast, took chances with keeping the location of the gate hidden, and only ditched the car a few streets away, something I would never normally contemplate. Then we ran back, went inside, and hopped straight through the gate.
At the barn, we jumped in a battered Volvo I didn't even remember parking there, then I hammered it through the dark lanes back to my farm with Vicky growing increasingly mental and louder the longer it took.
Outside the farm gate she was out the door before I'd even stopped so I parked up, turned off the engine, and chased after her before she did herself some damage without even getting inside.
I needn't have worried as the security lights were on, highlighting the cobbled courtyard. The front door was open, light spilling out, and George was running around in her Mickey Mouse pajamas chasing after the girls still in their clothes. They screamed and ran madly in all directions, hyper and scared, acting like someone was after them with a large cleaver rather than George sporting Disney night attire.
Vicky was fumbling with the catch to the gate, utterly panicked. I lifted the latch but put a hand to her shoulder before she went off on one. "Just be cool. Don't excite them. Act calm and natural and they'll be fine."
"Arthur, don't try to teach me how to look after my kids. You aren't an expert, you didn't even know you had a dau
ghter, so don't interfere."
"Ouch."
"Sorry, sorry, oh my gosh, I didn't mean that. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, go get 'em."
I watched as Vicky went to calm her children down. Truth be told, what she said cut pretty deep, hurt more than I'd expected it to. But she wasn't herself, so I understood. Kind of.
Ten minutes later, the girls were inside, Vicky was reading them a story up in the spare room where they were tucked up in a double bed, with a glass of warm milk each, and George and I were in the kitchen.
"You look terrible," she said, handing me a welcome cup of coffee.
"I feel worse."
George sniffed and frowned. "And you've been smoking," she accused.
"I won't ever do it again, those things are dangerous," I muttered. How could she tell over the smell of the smoke from the fires? Faery powers or just suspicion based on past experience? The mysteries of daughters.
"You're giving up?"
"What? No, I meant I'll just have the one here after dinner. Are you nuts?"
"Whatever. So, what's been happening?"
I filled her in on all that had happened, my head spinning so much I wasn't sure if I'd told her what happened after I'd seen her and Sasha earlier, or not. Apparently I had, so there wasn't that much to tell. I left out the bit about me setting the suburbs aflame, figured she'd only tell me off about the smoking again and have the perfect excuse to give me more grief than she already did.
In a panic, my head shot up from where I was admiring the coffee, and I said, "I should go. I've still got the book, so this damn angel will be after it soon enough."
"I don't think so, not here anyway. Sasha and I really beefed up the wards while you were gone. Gotta protect the girls, and us."
"Oh, wow, that's great. Thanks." I reached out with my mind, sending feelers around my house, and sure enough, the place was a fortress. It had been well protected before, but you can't protect against everything or you'd never get in and out yourself. The more I explored, letting the magic talk to me, the more I understood just how adept my daughter was becoming. The new layers of protection had her essence to them, a combination of youthful exuberance and innate patience combined with Sasha's timeless experience and expertise created something unique, and very protective. They'd done a fantastic job. How Sasha knew what to do to guard against angels I had no idea, but she was a resourceful woman and had a lot of knowledge about a lot of things.