by Matt Sheehan
“Ramón never mentioned a showdown in the town square. What happened?”
“That’s just it, nothing happened. But I watched as they talked, and I noticed the storm Brannon conjured up dissipated rather quickly. It was pretty obvious who was in charge, and it wasn’t Brannon. Ramón did most of the talking, then they shook hands and Brannon got out of there as quickly as he could. He was one of a handful of the most powerful men on the island, and he backed down from a local Garda who had messed with his son. We all knew then that Ramón De Arca was a bad man.”
“Brandon never told you anything?”
“He refused to talk about it, and trust me we really wanted to know. His entire personality changed after that incident. I never saw him pick on a farm kid ever again. He also dropped all the leadership training and went into the healing arts.”
“Nothing like the implied threat of violence to get someone to clean up their act. What did Daddy think of the change?”
I got the look. “It’s not like we had long conversations about the hopes and dreams he had for himself and his family.” He shrugged. “Brandon was being groomed for his dad’s position. I guess I kind of took his place in the pecking order.”
“Just what you always wanted: increased responsibility and a bigger workload.”
That got a smile. “Come on, let’s get the crew caffeinated. I’m ready for dinner.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Chapter Four
I drove everyone to O’Kelly’s after coffee. We could have walked, but I wanted to show off my ride. Besides, Shamus is always happy to avoid using his legs to do what they were designed for. We drank a late breakfast and slept through lunch, so when we arrived at the pub the early bird service was just starting. We were by far the youngest customers in the joint.
We took the table that was the farthest away from the bar. The bar was, as always, manned by Dino, and Shamus didn’t want to be pestered about when his next batch of stout would be ready. Ramón and I both took seats facing the entrance. Old habit. Neither one of us likes having our back to a door. When the waitress came, we ordered an obscene amount of fried seafood and beer, and it wasn’t until the last shrimp was disposed of that Ramón finally agreed to tell us his story. Of course, a fresh round was furnished first. I stuck with iced tea, having learned my lesson earlier in the day.
“As you heard from Alek and his cronies, I was a colleague of theirs in Troy.”
Shamus asked, “Is that where you’re from, sir?”
“Nah. Troy is where the allies have been sending their best and brightest for special training. It’s been like that since the time of Hermes. I’m originally from Los Millares, in Iberia.”
I asked, “So what kind of stuff do they teach you there? Can you tell us, or is it top secret?”
“I already taught you some of it, Helmut. Actually it is top secret—and I probably shouldn’t have been teaching it to a teenage orphan in Eireland.” He shrugged. “But I liked you and I could see you had the gift.”
I smiled at the compliment, and it’s possible I blushed slightly. I was hurt when he left, and angry when he didn’t return. But I found that those old feelings had dulled with time. Ramón is the only family I have ever had other than Shamus, and with him back and sitting across the table from me after so many years, it was as if all the bad feelings were just melting away.
“Anyway, I need to give you a little bit of background. Do you know about what ended the Battle of Cnossus?”
I shrugged and answered, “Alek said something about Angels and flaming swords. There may have been unicorns and leprechauns involved as well.”
He gave me a funny look. “I don’t know anything about leprechauns, lad, but I know for a fact that there were no unicorns. The allies hunted them to extinction a hundred years previous. Nasty buggers, from the stories I’ve heard. I’m glad they’re dead.”
It was my turn to give him the funny look. “Are we talking about the pretty ponies with magic horns? The ones that only virgins can pet?”
“They were no pretty ponies, lad. They were towering monstrosities that the Cretans used for their cavalry. If a virgin tried to pet one back in the day, it would have probably eaten her. What’s passing for history nowadays?”
Shamus answered, “A lot of the history and stories I learned in the old country are considered myth here, sir.”
Phoebe added, “I stopped telling the guys at work about my upbringing years ago. It just led to...arguments. My first partner used to think Amazons were from the Isle of Lesbos.”
“I wouldn’t think that was good for his health.” He drank some beer, then asked, “Where was I?”
“Angels and flaming swords, sir.”
“Right. To be precise, there is only one angel with a flaming sword. Samael, the Angel of Death. The Big Man’s ultimate weapon. The invasion was a two-pronged attack, and neither prong was going well. The main occupation force was being repulsed on the beaches, while Hermes and his top lieutenants were being routed by the combination of the Watchers and Crete’s ruling council—who were basically their biggest and baddest mages. The offensive was an all-or-nothing proposition for the Alliance and it was in the process of failing.”
Ramón finished the last of his beer and Shamus refilled it from the full pitcher on the table.
“Thanks, lad, storytelling makes a man thirsty. Okay. So just when it looked like the war was lost, Samael swooped out of the sky with his pretty long sword and stuck it through Azazel’s heart. The force of the blow drove the Watcher to the ground and buried the blade into the floor of the courtyard. The flames burned the skeleton clean, but left the gleaming bones intact.
“After that the skies opened up and Metatron appeared to give His official decree, which was something along the lines of Angels would stay out of the affairs of man, and in a thousand years our ultimate fate would be decided. Samael left the sword behind as a warning, but the flames ceased as soon as he was gone.”
Ramón stopped to drain his pint. Shamus was matching him mug for mug, and neither seemed the worse for wear. Phoebe was trying to keep up but was getting a bit heavy-lidded.
After mumbling something about being sleepy, she laid her head down on the table.
I asked, “This is interesting and all, but why is this particular history lesson so important?”
“Well, lad, it has to do with the bones. What’s the main difference between Angels and man?”
Shamus answered, “Large, musty-smelling wings?”
I added, “Anger management issues?”
Phoebe mumbled, “The size of their...”
Ramón cut her off. “No, no. Those are just characteristics. What do they teach in school nowadays?” He shook his head and poured more beer. “Humans were created with souls, Angels weren’t. When we die our souls go someplace. Where is open to interpretation. When Angels die, they just cease to exist.”
Shamus said, “I’m okay with that.”
“I agree. The less of those bastards the better. So Azazel’s oxidized bones sat there with a sword sticking through them for over nine hundred years, and no one cared. Then we started hearing stories about necromancy.”
Shamus’s blank look summed up my feelings as well. Phoebe was snoring softly.
“Necromancers are mages that try to raise the dead. Sometimes they succeed, but since they can’t recall the soul to the body, they just have a useless meat puppet. Good for manual labor I suppose, but not much else. And anyway, it’s never been something that’s pursued by anyone in high standing. In general necromancy is considered base and inelegant.
“From what I understand, the idea of bringing Azazel back started as an intellectual experiment among some of the younger mages coming up through the ranks. What would happen?” He turned up his hands, then answered.
“No one knew. There aren’t many dead Angel corpses to experiment on. And even if there were, the Empire currently doesn’t want them back.”
Shamus asked, “Why wouldn’t they want him back? Wasn’t he one of the founders of their civilization?”
I thought of something as well.
“How did you even know what was going on, or what Crete’s upper management thought about it?”
Phoebe didn’t open her eyes, and her head remained on the table, but she said, “I had a bunny named Fluffy when I was a young lass. Does it work on bunnies?”
“Surprisingly, those are all good questions. Shamus, why don’t we get Phoebe some water and a bowl of nuts?”
Shamus did as he was asked, and when he returned, he peeled her head off the table and got her to drink some water.
“Right. No more beer for you, lass. Now let me take those questions in order. Why wouldn’t they want him back? It’s complicated. Mainly because he was a pain in the ass. It goes back to the beginning of this whole mess. It may have been the lecher Samyaza’s notion to get it on with the pretty lassies, but it was Azazel’s idea to weaponize their offspring and set them against the rest of humanity.
“After Azazel was killed, Samyaza and his followers up and left for parts unknown. The current leadership in Crete talks a good game, but in private they don’t want war any more than we do. Probably less so now. They have hawks in their government just like us, but most of their rulers are relatively reasonable. To answer your question, Helmut, I know because they told us. Not officially, but we have back channels we communicate through.
“As for the bunny, it probably would. Animals were what they experimented on first, because like Angels, animals don’t have souls. Their initial efforts didn’t bear fruit, but those stubborn bastards didn’t give up. Eventually they figured out how to make it work, and after they had a host of zombie woodland creatures at their disposal, they decided to move on to the bigger prize.”
Shamus said, “I’m pretty sure Willie has a soul.”
Ramón didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sure he does, lad, and he’ll undoubtedly have a special place in heaven.”
Shamus seemed to take the statement at face value, whether or not it was intended that way.
Ramón continued. “We knew about the plot because the Cretans asked for our help. They tried to take care of it internally, but failed miserably. The necromancers were excommunicated, and the bones were locked away in a vault and put under heavy guard. It was a very unpopular decision among the citizenry, and the necromancers were able to take advantage of that and swell their ranks a bit. It wasn’t long before they returned to the island in force to steal the bones. We were tipped off ahead of time and lay in wait.
“We knew they were coming. It was just a matter of time, but the waiting was hell. It was Alek’s and my last op together, although we didn’t know it at the time. We were holed up with our own team, as well as members of the Cretan First Infantry, and it’s a miracle we didn’t start an international incident. Then late one night, we were just finishing up a card game—one I was winning handily and barely cheating at—when the necromancers opened a gate smack-dab in the middle of our table and started pouring in.”
“What’s a gate?” I asked for the group. I assumed I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know.
“A mystical portal of some sort. There’s always a few of those bastards who can do it.”
Shamus interjected, “It’s actually a hole in space-time sir.”
Ramón has a funny, bemused look that he saves for times like this.
“Space-time, huh?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a way of shrinking the distance between two points. We had a trainee named Randy Flanagan who could do it. The only one in our order’s entire history as far as anyone knew, but he was a special case. We all figured he was dropped on his head as a kid. He couldn’t read or tie his shoes, but he could open gates to all sorts of bizarre places. The problem was he had no control over where the portal opened. One time sea water poured out of the opening. Luckily he was able to close it before the school was completely flooded. We found some of the strangest fish we had ever seen that day.”
Phoebe, who was coming back around, asked, “What did you do with them, Shamus? Put them in specimen jars for future study?”
“That probably would have been a good idea. We dipped them in beer batter and deep-fried them. They were surprisingly good.”
“Shamus! How could you?”
Then she gave him what I like to think of as the death stare. It was followed moments later by apologies and groveling on Sha’s part. Apparently eating uncataloged species of fish is considered a “crime against science.” I didn’t blame him for caving. She’s leveled that horrible gaze at me once or twice—undeservedly so I might add—and let me tell you, it was a harrowing experience.
Ramón threw up his hands and went to get a fresh pitcher. By the time he got back, the mini-crisis was over and he was able to continue.
“Like I was saying, we were caught off guard by the sudden gate and were in danger of being overrun by a swarm of nasty mages. It was the first time, as far as I know, that Alliance and Empire forces fought side by side against a common enemy. And let me tell you, it was a fight to the death. Once we got our bearings, Alek and I made a beeline for the guy leading the charge, and we had to step over the bodies of friends and foes alike to get to him.
“Their leader Magnus was a true giant—just a smidge under three meters with thick brown hair and beard, and that distinctive copper skin. He was busy tearing the vault door off its hinges telekinetically and didn’t pay us any mind until my long sword lopped off his left hand and half his forearm. I bet he regretted leaving his plate mail at home that day. The killing blow was just a moment too slow, because he was able to conjure up a shield to deflect my return swing at the last second.”
I cut in. “That reminds me of something. When we fought Dantalion, there were times when we were trying to hit him, and the blow would bounce off nothing a foot in front of him. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“It sure is, brother. It’s what separates a Battle Mage, or an Angel apparently, from the average foot soldier. You can poke through their shield with a knife-hand strike if you focus your Qi.” He shrugged and held up a hand. “Sometimes.” The tips of each finger on his right hand were pointed slightly at odd angles. “A sharp blade works just as well, with less chance of pain and deformity if it’s deflected. That’s why we all carry them.” He patted the one strapped to his leg. “Firearms never work if the Mage is ready for it but are useful in a surprise attack.”
“I take it the fight didn’t stop there?” I know if my arm was lying unattached on the ground I would be ready to call it a day.
“Not hardly. With the vault ripped open and their prize within reach, the fight intensified. A contingent of Magnus’s men was able to grab the bones, but we blocked their exit through the gate. At that point we had their forces split, and Magnus, losing blood in torrents with each beat of his heart, exited though the gate with most of his lieutenants. I guess he figured his own life was more important than the bones.
“We should have just let him go. The bones were all that mattered. It’s not like Magnus and his men were a threat without them. But we sent half our troops through the portal after them anyway. We never saw those men again, and that’s not even the worst part. We couldn’t contain the group that had the bones, and the fight poured out of the capital and into the heart of the city. After that, we lost them.
“When the dust settled, we were asked to leave the island. From what I understand, the authorities cordoned off a large portion of the city and conducted door-to-door searches—but without luck. The Mages had sympathizers among the populace, and it was assumed they were taken in and hidden. We now know that they were smuggled out on a steamer a
week later.”
He saw the question on my face before I asked it. He smiled and said, “Just because they asked us to leave doesn’t mean we pulled all of our assets. We staked out all the ports and runways, and it paid off.”
By this point Shamus was no longer listening. He gets bored easily, and even the potent combination of fear and respect he felt for Ramón couldn’t force his mindfulness forever. If he was reading the history of the battle in a book, he would have focused with rapt attention, but listening isn’t his strong suit. Shamus was intermittently watching the game on the corner screen or simply staring into space.
I was ready for Ramón to get to the point as well, so I tried to speed things along. “So who was the guy that got that unfortunate captain thrown out a window?”
He held up his hands. “I’m almost there, Helmut. Just bear with me a little bit longer.” He then used the pause to get more beer in. “By the time the boat docked in Alexandria, we were there waiting. We let them de-board, unaware and carefree, thinking their escape was complete, and took them by force at the docks. They were seasick and half-starved from the trip and didn’t put up much of a fight. However, we quickly discovered there was a problem.” He leaned in for effect. “They didn’t have the bones. We searched the ship as well, bow to stern, and came up empty.
“So we questioned Magnus’s men, using...a variety of methods, and we got the same answer from each of them. They didn’t know we were on to them, but they took the ridiculous precaution of putting the bones in a rowboat anyway, with their men Jacob and Silas, in the dead of night off the coast of Cyprus.
“Using more of those methods we were able to find out that Silas hailed from the city of Lapithos, on the northern coast of Cyprus, and we figured he would return there. Cyprus is occupied territory, and I felt it would be easier to get in and out by myself. To make a long story short, I found Silas, but he didn’t have the bones. I was able to detain him and arrange transport for both of us back to Troy. I figured once he was there, we could get him to cough up where the bones were hidden.