Sophinia could have her spirituality; he didn’t want anything to do with it.
“A mysterious stranger with incredible power pays you a visit on your deathbed and heals you. You expect me to ignore something like that?”
“We don’t know who or what that chick is. Chances are she’s just some other supernatural baggage that we’re gonna have to deal with at some point. If she’s on our side, fine, I’ll take whatever I can get, but I’m not gonna start believing in miracles just because you do.”
“And yet you have an angel next to your heart,” she smiled.
Jerry reached into his shirt and pulled out the angel pendant which Joe had given him. “It’s all I’ve got from her. If it were a bracelet, or a ring, or a tattoo, I’d be wearing that instead.”
“Very well, I’m not going to try and convert you if that’s what you think. But, consider it Daniel. Of all the people that were dying in that hospital, in all the hospitals around the world, something more powerful than anything we’ve ever seen before visited you...I don’t call that chance,” she said softly.
“Yeah, well I don’t call it divine intervention. If there was an angel watching over me, why didn’t it save my friends?” he yelled. Goose’s face tightened and he looked away, feeling the same pain that Jerry did. “They deserved to live!”
Steve and Sarah’s faces, especially, flashed through his mind. He’d known them longer and had been closer to them than he had been to Parker and Roach. They would all leave marks on his heart, but Sarah and Steve would leave holes as well.
“I know what happened can’t be easy for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it. But your friends are only gone if your forget them,” she said gently.
“We won’t,” Goose stated strongly.
“I know, but I also know how hard this must be...anything you need, just ask.”
“Anything?” Jerry questioned.
“Of course,” she nodded.
“Well, I know exactly what I need,” Jerry declared. “I need to kill some evil sons-a-bitches!”
“What?” that actually seemed to stump her.
“We lost people back there, good people. I can’t change that, but what I can do is make sure that other people don’t have to stand in our shoes. They won’t have to set up funerals for their own kids because I’m gonna kill the things that are stalking those kids before those monsters can sink their damn teeth in! I’m gonna wipe out as many of those ugly bastards as I can.”
“Whoa, take your foot off the gas there Hamilton,” Joe warned. “You’re beat to hell and you got struck by lightning less than twenty four hours ago.”
“You know there was this guy who got struck by lightning seven times,” Goose said, seemingly not catching on to how serious everyone was being, “it was on the Discovery Channel,”
“Once is enough!” Joe stated.
“He’s right, Jerry, you need to rest,” Claire agreed.
He was seriously messed up. He had broken ribs, lacerations, third degree burns, a concussion and had been mentally screwed with by some unknown and super powered creature, yet he still wanted to jump straight back into the fight.
“Are they gonna rest?” he asked, simply because he knew they couldn’t answer that without making him right. He turned to Sophinia. “There are big, mean and nasty things out there and they’re hungry...just point me in the right direction.”
Next to him Goose was grinning. He couldn’t agree with Jerry more.
Sophina sighed and looked away. She didn’t like this, but she also knew that if she didn’t take them on, they’d just go out looking for monsters on their own. Better they were managed, than just let loose to go wild.
“Eddie’s been dying for help with a bunch of Strigoi that have been causing trouble in Iowa,” she said.
“Well, I’ve been hoping to meet him,” Goose smiled.
“And Strigoi sound like fun,” Jerry nodded.
“Soph, you’re not seriously gonna let them -” Claire tried, but didn’t get very far.
“What do you want me to do, chain them down?” she said, stating the obvious. “That didn’t work very well last time.”
The last time she’d threatened that course of action Jerry had been kidnapped and ended up with a hole in his artery before they could even lock him up.
“Strigoi are nasty things, they can’t just -”
“They as tough as purebloods?” Jerry asked instantly.
“Well, no but -”
“Okay then. Gear up.”
She sighed, but seeing there was no reasoning with him she gave in.
“Ahh, Christ!” Joe groaned, knowing there would be no stopping them now. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let them go alone though.
“Cass’ll be pissed if we go without her,” Claire warned.
“Well then, kick her sexy ass out of bed, we got monsters to kill,” Jerry grinned, pulling the sawn-off double rifle from the back of his belt. He clicked the barrels open and made sure they were loaded before slapping the breach closed again.
Last night had been hell, it had been terrifying and he’d lost more than he’d ever wanted to, but he’d also killed a mass murdering vampire and saved countless people from what she would have done to them. His friends had wiped out an army of vamps and now they were ready for more.
He didn’t know if Sophinia had been right. Maybe he had been born for this, or maybe he hadn’t, but it was definitely something he wanted to do. He wanted to protect people, he wanted to stop evil. He wanted to kill them all and that was exactly what he was going to do.
From here on out, that was his job.
“Let’s go to work.”
TO BE CONTINUED
AFTERTHOUGHT
My main inspirations for this came from Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and the director of the Avengers movie) and Eric Kripke (the creator of Supernatural). I added a lot of ‘Deanisms’ to the character of Jerry i.e. loving classic rock, muscle cars and the overly snarky attitude, and a lot of (attempted) Buffy style dialogue. In my opinion these guys are two of the greatest writers of the modern age and I am truly in their debt for handing out such great entertainment.
Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series) Page 35