Graves Files Case 2 by Thea Atkinson
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
Copyright © Thea Atkinson, 2020, Edited by Sassi's Editing Services
About
Training day is always hard. Imagine how bad it is on Devil's Night.
Call me Graves. Not just because it's my name, but because if you're a baddie of the supernatural type, I'm going to put you there. If I can't, one of my hunter partners will, and we'll die trying if we have to. If you're a new recruit who needs to be tested…you better believe the demons of this world will be happy to send you there.
Which is why I have to put this kid through the paces. He's slow. He's weak. Even worse, he's whiney. Just why the organization wants him tested is beyond me, but here I am on Devil's Night letting him duke it out with a miniature golem to prove he's worthy.
Except I'm clenching the spell he's supposed to use to de-animate the creature, so I really can't expect the kid to protect himself.
What else shouldn't I expect?
The gargantuan golem right on its heels. You know, the one we didn't make…
Chapter One
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I always thought Golems were big, brutish things. I imagined them as lumbering, single-minded creatures with clay-like skin, intent on following the edict of one man or woman who had scratched a spell into their foreheads to animate them.
I was right about the skin, the spells, and the single-mindedness. I was wrong about the size.
A fact that was perfectly evident as I leaned on a brick building in the oldest borough in the city.
The kid in the alley with me, a cocky little bastard in his late teens despite his assurance he was in his twenties, was at the moment struggling to get the best angle on a three-foot golem who was, at worst, evading contact, and at best kicking the kid's ass.
Life was full of surprises it seemed. Golems could be small and fast, and kids in their teens could apply to be hunters. Go figure.
"Watch out for his penis," I said, thinking even as I said it and winced that issuing such a warning was yet another thing I didn't expect to be doing tonight.
"It's not a dick," the kid barked over his shoulder, clearly annoyed with me for insinuating that the thick appendage, badly placed and obviously meant to be a leg on a badly misshapen golem was even remotely sexual.
Whatever it looked like and was meant to be, the creature was whirling about in a circle as he evaded the kid's best attempts at controlling him. The mal-formed leg jutted out from the clay belly instead of hanging below the waist the way it should if it were a true leg, and it was as good as a club.
The leg-penis had already slammed into the kid—what was his name again—Saul? Yeah. Saul. That was it. It had already slammed Saul in the back of the knees twice and made him stagger. This time badly enough that the boy dropped to one knee.
Score one for the Golem.
I flicked my thumb over my smartphone screen, running the surface so that it would light up. I didn't have a password. Sometimes that screen was the only life line a gal like me had. Precious seconds mattered if you were staring down a vamp in the dark of night. Or a golem, I thought as I peered down at the blue light of the main screen to check the time.
Eleven thirty. I had a date in half an hour. The precious seconds that might save a life some other night were really just killing time until the boy accomplished the kill.
"Can you hurry this up?" I said to Saul without looking up from my screen.
A text bubble indicated said date was already primed and waiting. My neck grew hot just reading the words. I started to type something equally steamy back but a sound from the boy snared my attention. I cast a look at him through the gloom of the alley. He'd got struck and hurt apparently. Probably from the leg-penis.
He took yet another clubbing to his knees as I watched. The front this time and with the golem's fourth arm. Really, I wondered if the thing was supposed to be human shaped at all. Sloppy workmanship was what that was.
Saul let go a whoof of air, not because of the pain from the blow, but because he'd staggered backwards and cracked a rib on the corner of the building. All the air left his lungs in that moment.
I sighed. It was obvious expediency was not on the table tonight.
I had pulled testing duty on this kid. It was the first of his trials, and Joy had picked tonight of all nights to test him. If he wanted to earn a hunter's badge he was going to have to do better than this.
And to think he'd sworn to Joy that he was made to be a hunter. She doesn't trust easily, having grown up in the life. She knew too much of the otherworld and the threat of its creatures. And she knew people. She didn't let just anyone in. The network she'd expanded on that her dad built was too important to mess up with a green hunter who thought the lifestyle was all babes and guns.
She'd interrogated him, found out he'd lost his entire family to a vampire attack. Regular vamps. Not the acid spitting kind that had so recently ruined my leather jacket. I doubted he'd want to hear about those ones. It was bad enough to have his entire family drained dry of blood while he slept safely in his car at the back of the house because he'd come home drunk.
Yup. He was running on guilt and shame. I knew that feeling. It was good fuel. For a while anyway. That kind petered out easily if not re-juiced with something else.
I bet Joy recognized it and wanted to see if it could fuel him into a good burn that might last a few years. Or maybe she just pitied him.
His family was religious in the evangelical way. I pitied him too, really. Finding out your family died at a demon's hand was plain bothersome.
I stuffed my phone into my back pocket and adjusted my shoulders against the bricks as I watched him. He gathered himself back together just as the golem ran at him with its mouth wide open, emitting a noiseless shriek.
It was fast but not faster than Saul's desire to get out of its way. In the last moment, the youth ducked sideways and the golem hit straight into the wall. One of its arms fell off.
"You're even now," I said and adjusted the phone in my pocket by sliding my butt sideways along the wall.
"What?" Saul said, distracted as the golem bent and charged head first toward him.
He side-stepped neatly. Almost too neatly.
I canted my head at them to figure out what the angle was he was going for. I pushed away from the building.
"You going to kill that thing or dance with it?" I asked.
"If it's so easy, you do it," Saul barked at me and brought his arm down on the back of the creature's shoulders. It didn't so much as stagger.
"It's a baby," I scolded. "You think you want to fight monsters; you best make short work of this little abomination and tout de suite."
I pronounced the last words with a French inflection, slurring the middle article nicely, proud of the new accent I'd acquired by listening to the newest learn a language app while I worked out with Chase.
I left out the end of the ultimatum because I was pretty sure he knew if he didn't take control, he would not get his badge.
"How do you know it's a baby?" he demanded as he yanked out the spell he'd stuffed into his pocket.
He crumbled it into a ball like I'd taught him. Then he charged the thing, the wad of paper held out at arm's length as he aimed toward the mouth. He yelled something that sounded strangely like “Victory is mine,” and when he stormed into the golem, he hadn't taken the time to adjust his aim for the height discrepancy.
Because of it, he ended up flying past the golem's head, but his shoulder butted up into its chin.
The creature was thrown off balance and landed on its back. Two of the arms worked at the asphalt to right itself but the penis-leg kept getting in the way.
I blew through my lips at the spectacle. The boy was not impressing me.
"I know it's a baby, " I said, "because I know who made
it, and he called in a whole slew of favors from hunters storing spells they confiscated to get him animated."
Saul spun on his heel to face me, completely ignoring the golem as it scrabbled on the ground.
"You had it made?"
I closed the distance between us and plucked the wad of paper from his fist.
"Do you speak English?" I said. "I told you I knew who made it, not that I had it made. That would be Joy. The one who had it made, I mean."
I stepped down on the Golem's belly, effectively pinning it there. Chase had spelled it to be small so that if the boy lost control, we wouldn't have to deal with a rampaging giant endangering the citizenship. He'd made it fast so Saul would have a true test on his hands.
The first should be difficult but not impossible. We just wanted to get a feel for the recruit's speed, his problem solving, his courage. Yada yada.
The boy was failing.
I rolled my boot back and forth over the golem's belly and its arms and legs pounded the alley floor in frustration. With a spark of intuition, I yanked my cell phone free and shone the flashlight on the creature. The wash of light made me hum deep in my throat.
I jerked my chin in the direction of the thick shorter leg jutting from the Golem's belly.
"See?" I said. "It is a penis."
I wasn't surprised to discover I was right. I wasn't sure at the time Joy assigned me to Saul with the comment that we would be hunting and bringing down a golem, that it would be Chase who sculpted the thing. All I knew was that someone from the group would sculpt it and Joy would find someone to spell it.
Seeing the now obvious penis molded onto the golem's belly indicated I knew who had done the sculpting, and it was one of either of two people; both of them my sometimes partners. It had the taint of bad testosterone.
I panned the cell phone light over the golem's face. The light didn't refract in its eyes. Saul's head moved in unison with the light as he scanned the creature beneath my boot.
"And what looks like an extra arm is its leg," I said, musing over the horrible sculpting job.
Saul knelt at its side. "Who would do such a thing?"
"Someone with a really wicked sense of humor?" I said hopefully.
I rolled the golem to face Saul as he crouched nearby. The creature lunged suddenly enough that I lost my grip on his belly. He rolled to his side and scrabbled with that extra penis-leg to hoist itself onto its hands.
"Go time," I said to Saul.
Even in the dim light, I could see the boy's face blanche. It took me a moment to realize why. The golem had grabbed him by the crotch and since one of the things a golem has to its advantage is an incredible amount of strength, the boy yelped. Loud.
"Ouch," I said, not without sympathy. "I know that's tough, but power through it."
He moaned but to his credit he didn't panic.
"Good," I said, watching the creature roll onto its belly. "Don't let him—"
Too late, the creature used the momentum to kick at Saul with its foot. The blow was hard enough in the boy's belly that I could hear the wallop connect. The creature wasn't sentient, but it was smart enough to use the opportunity to wrestle Saul to the ground.
Saul was pinned. His arms were flung out on the asphalt and he was throttling the ground with the heels of his feet.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, a movement that put me in mind of my father. The thought of my old man and I being similar ticked me off.
"Finish him," I growled.
The golem's face hovered over Saul's and I was pretty sure it was aiming to bite him by the way it was angling its jaw back and forth. I was doubly relieved that the maker of this beast hadn't given it magic. It was a dud of a creature; all brawn and speed.
"For Pete's sake, Saul," I said as the thing's mouth did indeed clamp down on the boy's nose and mouth.
Saul's back arched and his nails bit into the pavement as he fought for breath. I shook my fist at them both and realized I was holding the spell.
"Damn," I said.
No wonder the boy couldn't do anything. I flung myself at the golem's back and wrapped one arm around its torso. It lifted off Saul's mouth long enough to howl its frustration.
Perfect. With the hand holding the spell, I rounded its torso and aimed for its mouth. It took several tries and a few adjustments to keep it from flinging me off, but try three had it.
I crammed the paper into the open maw and chanted the spell I'd made the boy memorize.
Smoke billowed out from the golem's mouth and then flames followed. Its ears sent a plume of dust out sideways as it went rigid in my arms.
Robbed of its animation, it turned to dead weight and collapsed onto Saul's chest. I fell with it and the two of us rolled sideways. The penis-leg broke off and lay near my foot.
It hurt to prop myself onto my elbow and I realized I'd fallen onto the knob of bone. I winced and rubbed at it while Saul fought to clear his mouth of dust and debris. He coughed twice, a hacking and fluid sound that told me his lungs were okay.
He regarded me when he got his eyes clear of dirt.
"So?" he said. "Did I pass?"
I fell back onto my shoulders and stared at the night sky. Devil's night was not a good night to have a date, it seemed. I was going to have to take the recruit back to Joy and let her break the news.
"Let's go for coffee first," I said. "Slow Smoke's got a great spiced pumpkin latte. Then we'll talk badges."
Silence met my statement, one charged with tension. I rolled my head on my neck so I could see him better, thinking he'd figured out my ruse.
But Saul didn't meet my gaze. He was too busy staring at the thing over his shoulder that stood about a dozen feet away at the mouth of the alley.
Another golem. Not one of the organization's making, because this one had to be at least ten feet tall.
And it most definitely had magic.
Chapter Two
My first thought was to question why either Chase or Scott had created two for the potential to fight. I didn't react at first because I was too busy trying to process what the heck the thing was doing there. When it roared at us and lifted its hand in our direction, questions went out the window. I didn't think about what should be done then. I didn't need to. My reactions went into overtime.
First things first. Get the innocent out of harm's way.
Then attack without mercy.
"Get out of here," I barked at Saul as I stepped over his prostrate form, putting my body between his and the golem's.
A blast of magic erupted from the creature's palm. I'd not seen it gather. One moment that black, mud-caked hand was held out toward us, empty even of knuckles and seams, the next I was dodging a shot of what seemed to be viscous black fluid until it connected with the building behind me and exploded the bricks into shards.
"Sweet mother of Abraham," Saul said and he didn't wait one second longer before he scrabbled to find purchase enough to push himself to his feet.
He failed twice before he managed to gain his footing but he wasted no time then. He pinwheeled his way to a dumpster and hid behind it.
"Stay down," I yelled over my shoulder even as the golem lumbered at me.
I wasn't foolish enough to believe its lack of speed was correlative to his threat. That fluid magic he'd shot at us was even still ricocheting against the asphalt and other objects in the alley. A rat that scuttled out from behind the garbage dumpster when Saul bolted behind it got caught by shrapnel. From the corner of my eye I could see it get coated with the fluid before it lifted into the air and exploded into a thousand fleshy bits.
I gagged at the stink of the magic and death.
"What the hell?" Saul yelled.
I danced sideways as the golem's attention swung to Saul's hiding place.
"I told you to stay down," I said.
I launched myself at the creature, taking its distraction as a chance to attack. I wasn't even within a foot of it when it lifted its hand again, this time aiming
for Saul's hiding place.
I knew even if the boy didn't get struck that he wouldn't survive the metal shrapnel from the dumpster. There was no way I was going to make it in time to sweep away the shem from its forehead that would traditionally have animated it.
There really was no choice. I leapt. This time in direct line of the blast. I reached out at the same time. My feet left the ground and I strained with my fingers for the golem's arm. I ended up ringing it like parallel bars and used my weight and the thrust of the jump to pull the appendage with me as I arced over.
The blast struck the ground. Oily magic splashed upward even as the ground sank into a hole beneath the golem's feet.
We both fell, tumbling down into the sewer.
Chapter Three
It was only by the good fortune and forethought I'd had to carry an extra spell in my pocket, in case things went awry, that there was any hope at all of getting off Scott free before the golem took us both down. As it was, he was laying on top of where Saul had fallen. The boy's hand was grasping through the filthy waters on the left side of the golem. I had fallen several feet away from both of them and even with the coating of murky waters cascading down my face, I could see the boy was in trouble.
I hoped the spell would work, wet as it was with fluid excrement and watered-down urine. It wasn't much, just a freezing spell that Marj had taught me when I checked on her last.
"It's good for about 60 seconds," she'd said when she checked over my notes. "Anything more and you need considerably more ingredients."
Meaning I'd have to delve a bit more into witchcraft than she knew I'd be comfortable with. This spell was simple. She'd blessed it with smudges of dandelion and lavender, and a few muttered words that didn't sound like any romance language I'd heard.
Even so, I had no choice but to give it a go. I pulled it from my pocket and blew on it like she'd instructed, then wadded it up and murmured the words she'd made me practice before throwing it at the golem.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 135