Blood Heavy: Ascension

by S. L. J. Shortt

  “Just hold still!”

  The lights grew in speed and strength until they were moving so fast that they formed a complete circle. The moment they did, the circle collapsed into the bomb with a flash and suddenly it was gone.

  Outside another flash went off and suddenly the bomb was sitting on the ground right in front of Aria. She had about a second to look furious and say: “Oh, you little -”

  BOOM!

  It exploded sending a shock through the whole bar and blasting the doors open. The camera feed went fuzzy for a second but then came back online and showed the smoldering remains of the ally. Aria was nowhere to be seen.

  Jerry looked down at his bare chest. The bomb wasn't the only thing that had vanished. Quite a lot of his chest hair was also missing but he was still alive.

  “How did you -”

  “Okay, that's it, get us out of here!” Claire interrupted. “Sophie's place, now!”

  “Again, don't move,” Vic said to Jerry.

  The same blue lights started to appear only this time they started to circle the three of them like a particle accelerator. Jerry stayed still but clutched his eyes shut. Again they built and built in strength and speed until another flash enveloped the room.

  A strange sort of tingling sensation washed over him that reminded him of being struck by lightning except without the agonizing pain.

  When the feeling vanished Jerry opened his eyes and he saw that they weren't in the bar anymore. They were standing in the driveway outside Sophinia's mansion.

  They had just traveled over two hundred miles in less than a second.

  CHAPTER 14 – HEAVEN AND HELL

  Sophinia's Mansion – Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

  “You can teleport?!” Jerry gasped looking around at the surroundings.

  “Aye, that I can,” Vic said simply.

  “He is a mage you know,” Claire added.

  “I didn't know mages could bend space-time.”

  “Technically they don't. They transport your body through the earth and it's not instant. There’s a delay. The further you go or the more stuff you move, the longer it takes,” Claire explained.

  “Oh...it's still awesome,” Jerry shrugged and started walking towards the mansion.

  “Aye, that it is,” Vic said and started to follow. “Nice to meet you by the way.”

  “You too. Thanks for...you know, not letting me explode.”

  “No worries. Although this is a bit more excitement than you said there would be Claire,” Vic said. At the same time he pulled out his silver hip flask and took a swig.

  “What, you think we had any idea this would happen?”

  “Oh, don't worry love, I believe ya,” he smiled and continued walking. “Bird lady was certainly not what I was expecting.”

  Claire went with them but never took her eyes of Jerry. He was clearly still on edge from the way his hands were shaking. His movements were stiff and jittery almost like a junkie that needed a fix. Something had really spooked him and it wasn't that bomb.

  When they entered the mansion several vampires were darting around, some on the phone while they moved. They all stopped the moment they saw Jerry. One of them disappeared in a heartbeat, obviously to tell Sophinia. A moment later, she, Rachel, Cass, Goose and Joe came running into the hall.

  Joe practically tackled him when he rushed up and embraced his nephew with relief. He could feel Joe's heart pounding and limbs shaking. Goose didn't wait for him to stop. He rushed up and joined in. Eventually the two of them let Jerry go and backed off.

  “What happened?!”

  “Whiskey!” Jerry squeaked while breaking away and quickly rushing past them, heading straight for the kitchen.

  He didn't bother going for a glass. He just uncorked the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label and started chugging. It burned but it felt good as warmth flooded his body.

  “Okay, alright,” Joe said yanking the bottle from his hand after he'd swigged down about a quarter of it.

  They all gathered around him in the kitchen and stood in silence waiting for him to stop cringing and explain. All except Rachel who was already reading what had happened in his mind and looking more and more shocked by the second.

  “Jerry, tell us, what happened?”

  “I...I...I was kidnapped...”

  “Kidnapped?!” Joe growled, stepping forward. “By who?!”

  “Oh, do worry, he's dead. And Dimitri's dead and his friends are dead! She killed everything!” Jerry said uneasily.

  “What, who?”

  “Aria...”

  He then proceeded to slowly and with great difficulty explain the events of the day. He managed to get up to where Dimitri had shown up when he started to stutter nervously. Even talking about what he'd seen was hard. When he didn't continue, Joe grabbed a glass and poured out some more whiskey for him.

  Jerry gulped down half of it before finding the strength to speak again. Feeling a little dizzy, he stared at the glass for a second. “Powerful you have become Johnny, the dark side I sense in you...” he muttered. Seeing that he was succumbing to the effects of the whiskey, Joe slapped Jerry lightly on the chick to snap him out of it. “Thank you,” he breathed as the memories flooded back. “She just...she killed them all with her freakin' mind! She made the cars hover and the trees came to life and it was easy for her! She said she was older than vampires, than the whole species!” he said before taking another drink.

  “Go on, what happened then?” Sophinia urged.

  “What happened then? I ran for my freakin' life, that's what happened then!” Jerry blurted. “She just killed a pureblood and wiped out all of his friends without breaking a sweat!”

  “You said she had wings?” Soph asked.

  “Yeah! She had huge wings! She had like a twenty-five maybe thirty foot wing span!”

  “You kept calling her bird lady...because she had wings like a birds? Right? Like an eagle?” Claire asked carefully.

  “More like a dove or a swan, but yeah.”

  “Like...angel wings?”

  “What? No!”

  “But you just said -”

  “I know, but she wasn't a freakin' angel!” Jerry dismissed immediately.

  “How do you know?” Goose asked.

  “Because there's no such thing!”

  “Yeah, well then how do you explain -”

  “Jerry,” Sophinia spoke up interrupting them. Goose subsided. “Carry on, tell us what else happened.”

  Jerry laid out the rest of the story which ended with him walking through the door of the mansion. The only part he left out was Aria kissing him. They all stood in silence for a second, contemplating what he'd just told them. It was Goose that spoke first. He seemed nice and calm but his tone was a dead giveaway that he was stuck somewhere between disbelief and outrage.

  “Let me see if we're on the same page here...the thing that's been protecting you, the thing we've been looking for turns out to be an unbelievably hot chick with powers way beyond anything we've ever heard of and for some strange reason actually seems to like you. She kills even more things that are trying to hurt you, offers you answers to all the questions you have about your blood and seems to have enormous angelic wings and your first impulse is to throw a bomb at her?”

  When he described it like that it made it sound like a bad thing. “We...I...ju...It seemed like a good idea at the time...” Jerry said weakly.

  “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” Goose exploded. “You tried to blow up your guardian angel?!”

  “She's not an angel! There's no such thing!” Jerry shouted back.

  “Yeah, except that you just met one!”

  “Just because she looks like one, doesn't mean she is one! She didn't have a halo!”

  “That's your proof? She didn't have a halo?!” Goose said still unable to believe Jerry's ignorance.

  “And...her wings were black!”

  “Actually, angels have been described as having many different color wing
s. Red, gold, white, black...some apparently even have eyes in them,” Sophinia said sounding very academic about the whole thing.

  “There you go!” Goose agreed.

  “Okay, then tell me, what the hell kind of angel threatens to level a whole damn city?!” Jerry shot back angrily.

  “Hello! Ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah?!”

  “Err...rings a bell,” he said. He had heard of that somewhere before he just couldn't place it.

  “Sodom and Gomorrah were cities that apparently became so overrun with sin that God ordered them destroyed! And guess what he sent to do the deed? A freakin' angel!”

  “What, because some bedtime story says so, you believe it?”

  “Bedtime story? Try the freakin' Bible!” Goose growled.

  “Oh, please,” Jerry snubbed.

  “I know you've never read the Bible, Jerry, but if you did you see that angels aren't the floaty, cuddly version that books and movies make them out to be! They aren't angsty teenagers looking for love, they don't play baseball and they sure as hell ain't Roma Downey! These things are hardcore! Most of the time they show up, smite the crap out of something then leave and that's it! Occasionally they stick around for a chat. They're soldiers Jerry, God's Navy Seals.”

  “Yeah, well this bitch seemed way too happy about killing for my liking! She wasted a human in a public restaurant and threatened to murder an innocent family just to prove a point!” Jerry said before groaning to himself. “Ah crap! My gun's still back at that shitty motel room!”

  “Which one?” Vic asked.

  “Huh, oh, err, room eight, Gold Star Inn, it's about three blocks from -” Jerry didn't have time to finish as Vic already had blue lights flying around him. A second later he was gone. “Wow, that must really save on gas money.”

  “Oh, you just had to think that didn't you Soph,” Rachel said rubbing her temples. It was almost like they had been having a different conversation the whole time since she could just talk and listen to her brain.

  “What?”

  “Soph thinks that this Aria might be...a fallen angel,” Rachel worried.

  “A fallen angel? You mean like Lucifer?!” Cass gulped.

  “Lucifer? Well, I don't know what this chick is but I don't think she's Satan,” Jerry snorted.

  “According to legend Lucifer wasn't alone when he was exiled from heaven, he took a third of the host with him,” Sophinia informed. “It's possible that she may have been one of them.”

  “Well, then what the hell is she doing here?! I mean, shouldn’t she be rotting somewhere down in tenth level of hell with all the others?” Goose asked.

  “Maybe she escaped?” Claire shrugged.

  “Why are we even talking about this? She's not an angel!” Jerry said again.

  A sudden flash erupted in the kitchen and suddenly Vic was back. “Is this it?” he asked holding up Jerry's sawn-off double barrel.

  “Oh, there she is, come to daddy,” he grinned and took the gun as Vic handed it to him. He popped open the barrels and checked the shaft before snapping it shut again. Suddenly he felt a lot safer. “Thanks man.”

  “Pour me a drink and we'll call it square,” Vic grinned.

  Jerry was happy to oblige.

  “You're lucky I went when I did. The bloody place was crawling with cops and FBI. I saw them wheeling out that poor bastard that tried to snag you...in several body bags,” Vic said.

  “See! The bitch is evil! Some horrible monster that likes to play at being an angel, that's all.”

  “Yeah, or, she actually is an angel!” Goose fired back.

  “I'm really starting to regret sending that bomb at her,” Vic sighed before taking a sip of whiskey.

  “If we're lucky the damn thing killed her,” Jerry said.

  “And if it didn't, you better hope that she's in a forgiving mood,” Goose hissed.

  “What the hell is your problem? This bitch threatened to flatten St. Cloud and you're defending her?!” Jerry barked at his best friend.

  “Maybe she wouldn't have had to make threats if you'd been a little nicer to her! She's taken out God knows how many nasty things that wanted to kill you and you can't even give her ten freakin' minutes of your time? I mean, why can't you even consider the possibility that she's an angel?” Goose shot back.

  “Because they don't exist! Look around you, how much evil is there in this world? How many angels show up to do anything about it? But this one pops up just for little old me? No, I'm not buying it. This is some kind of monster that likes to play on peoples hopes and then tears them to pieces and I know that for a fact because I saw her do it! And it wasn't just that...the moment she started talking to me I got this feeling in my gut that something wasn't right about this bitch and the things she said, the way she said them, it was all way too good to be true.”

  “So you attacked your guardian angel because you're a pessimist?”

  “Harpies, griffins, valkyries, they've all got bird-like wings.”

  “Yeah, and they've all got ugly-ass bodies and not nearly the kind of power that Aria displayed. From what you guys have been saying, this chick is the most beautiful thing to every walk the Earth! Doesn't that sound like a guardian angel?”

  “She's not a guardian angel! She's a psycho with wings that wanted to flambé an entire city! She wanted to lock me away in some remote part of the world and have freakin' tea parties while discussing my blood! She said I wasn't human! She's crazy!” Jerry exclaimed.

  Suddenly Sophinia and Rachel began to shift uncomfortably. That last part was impossible to ignore for them and unfortunately for Jerry to. He noticed their reaction to what he'd said and it caused a very nasty feeling to rise up in his gut. It was quickly replaced by fury as his mind clicked all the pieces into place.

  With his eyes glaring and glued to Sophinia, he very slowly put the glass down on the counter and walked closer to her. At that moment he looked even more dangerous than she was.

  “So...” his voice was low but full of bile and rage, “anything you wanna tell me, Soph?”

  That motherly love he felt towards her had disappeared and been replaced by the hatred of someone that had just cornered a traitor.

  “Daniel, we didn't want to say anything until we had some answers for you,” she tried but knew nothing was going to calm him down now. “I had my people do a full check of your family to see if there was any possibility that your blood could be hereditary. When we looked over your mothers files we found some...anomalies.”

  “Anomalies?”

  “She means forgeries,” Rachel sighed. She could already see the anger and confusion swimming around in Jerry's head but the cat was out of the bag now. “We're still not sure what parts are real and what parts aren't but right now it looks like your mother forged a lot about her life before she met your father. It was very subtle and most people wouldn't spot it but there are clashes, things that suggest she was in two places at once, records of her living in places but no proof that she was actually ever there...it goes on.”

  “What?!” Joe snapped. They had been keeping this from all of them. Cass, Claire, Goose and especially Joe and Jerry. They all looked stunned at what they were saying.

  “We're...we're not even sure if she's actually dead,” Soph said finally dropping the bomb shell that made them all freeze on the spot. Jerry's eyes seemed so intense and yet he was staring at nothing. He just couldn't believe it.

  The air seemed to get sucked out of the room as everyone looked at Jerry with shock and horror. His mother might have faked her own death.

  “How long have you known?” he finally asked with barely more than a whisper.

  “We found out just after what happened at Newton high,” she admitted.

  Jerry turned away looking like he was about to collapse. He steadied himself on the kitchen counter and dropped his head down so that he couldn't see any of their faces. He didn't want to even look at them at that moment. He didn't want to look at himself.

&nbs
p; “So the headstone I've been going to visit is...” he couldn't bring himself to finish as a cold dark feeling washed over his body.

  For any normal person this would mean that his mother regretted having him and decided to get away from him as soon as she could but for Jerry it was much much worse than that. She had given birth to something she was afraid to be around.

  “Jerry, after everything you'd been through we didn't want to put you through more. We didn't want to tell you that -”