by Azure Boone
With Toren in the truck at her side, the rifle back in its place behind her, she started the truck and turned it around. "Only one more stop and we'll be done. I have to admit, I'll be glad when this one's over."
Toren looked at her in a way that gave her an odd feeling, as if he knew more than he were willing to say. "We should just call it a day. Come back tomorrow or the next day."
She shook her head. "No, it's less than half an hour from here. If we come back tomorrow, it's nearly three hours out of the way from the stations on the other side of the ranch. Since it's just the two of us running things for the time being, we don't have that kind of time to waste."
He relented, but she could tell he wanted to insist on stopping for the day. That dead steer must have really given him the creeps.
The ruby mist dissipated and Karly looked around, not sure whether to be pissed or surprised. One of the worst, and best, parts of being married to an angel was when he felt strongly about something, he had the power to force the issue.
She found herself too tired to argue. And how very odd was that? Karly looked around at the deep cavern her darling angel had brought them to. She followed a stray shaft of light up to a narrow slit far above. Roaring water echoed off the cavern walls and Karly momentarily considered the thin stream of water that fell from above into a wide pool to create such a racket. Romantic feelings and ideas pushed into the annoyed spaces in her head until she remembered the whole medical clinic he kept insisting he take her to. Was this it? The angel hospital thing for them to figure out what sort of danger they might be in from that monkey-man bite? That was the last place she wanted to go, but apparently she no longer had a choice.
When Kassern remained silent, she gave in. "Why are we here?" She'd felt out of sorts the last couple of days and her damn leg hurt. Worse every day. The skin stayed pale and smooth as ever, with only some mild bruising, despite the burning agony left in the wound created by the monkey-man's bite. So she was a bit short on patience. "Did you have to flash us out of the kitchen without a word to anyone?"
His eyebrow quirked in that odd little frown he wore whenever something made no sense to him. "The kitchen? That's the last thing you remember?" His tone wasn't quite disbelieving.
Vague unease settled in the pit of her stomach. What was he talking about? "I was eating breakfast, you were frowning at me."
He tilted his head. "You don't remember sucker-punching Troy? Or running out into the street, out past the shields? Or the demon you chose to stay with when I started to flash us away the first time?"
"What? That's insane. Nothing like that happened." A faint memory of sinking her fist into Troy's belly struck, followed by rising panic.
"Yes it did, Karly." He reached for her hands. "I had to restrain you to get you out of there before more demons showed up." He tugged and she went, letting him pull her close to his chest. "What's happening Karly? I can't help you if you won't tell me."
She sighed, ready to tell him about the odd thoughts and feelings that had plagued her, and the ever-increasing pain in her leg. "I should have told you from the start, but you had so much on your mind and it didn't seem important." A spear of heat shot through her leg and she winced. The pain wasn’t new, but it had never been so severe. She drew a deep breath for courage. "Then you started talking about doctors. Kassern, I don't do doctors."
Kassern slid his lips across her forehead in a series of little kisses and smoothed her hair back. "These aren't human doctors, Karly. You know that. And there's no choice. We have to know what sort of problems those things can cause by biting." He tipped her head back with a gentle finger under her chin. "We have to know if it will have any sort of lasting effect on you."
He was right, of course, but she still didn't like it. "I know it's crazy, but I just have a bad feeling about going to your angel doctors for this. Like a dangerous feeling." There. She'd said it. No more hiding, looking like a contrary crackpot.
He drew back a little and gave her that look again, the one that said he didn't quite know what to do with her. "Tell me—"
The pain that cut into her leg interrupted his words with a scream. The dim cavern went even darker around the edges while the muscles of her leg felt like they were being shredded from the inside out.
Kassern caught her as she started to fall. "Karly? What is it?" The panic in his voice spurred her own.
Despite the need to tell Kassern what was wrong, agony stole her strength as thick darkness devoured her consciousness.
** ** **
Toren’s mercury was going nuts. Something was wrong. “Head back to the house. Now.”
“What? No, look, it’s right there, I can’t turn around now, I have to…what the hell?”
Toren jerked his gaze right. What he saw seemed impossible and he had to stare for several seconds before he realized it was definitely real. “STOP!”
Sam slammed the break several hundred yards from the surreal horror before them. The second she did, the two beings working over a cow right in the middle of the field jerked their heads toward them.
“What…on earth?”
By Samantha’s tone, she wasn’t seeing what he was. The beings were too far for human eyes to see what he did. One of the monkey mongrels and clearly a reanimated human were performing abominations on the animal. The whites of the steer’s eyes showed all around as the reanimated human performed bestiality from behind and the monkey man slowly mutilated the poor creature where it stood. Muscles strained as the cow tried laboriously to flee the torment, but it remained stuck fast, caught by some invisible supernatural restraint.
“Turn the truck around. Now.” Toren’s voice flowed, silky with his mercury thinning rapidly, preparing his body for violent action.
"Oh my God, oh my God!” Samantha hurried to comply when the two beings began walking toward them.
“Take your time baby, keep it steady,” he whispered, keeping his eye on the beings as they approached. They suddenly broke out into a hard sprint toward them. “Okay, hurry!” he ordered.
She got the truck turned and gunned it, throwing a look over her shoulder as she did. “Oh God, oh God, what the fuck are they?”
“I don’t know, just drive as fast as you can. Don’t slow down. Not for anything.”
Shit. He couldn’t let the things follow them to the house. Damn. “Sam?”
“What! Oh my God,” she whispered checking the rear view mirror. “They’re running too fast! Toren!”
“Sam!”
“What!”
“I need to tell you something and I need you to not freak out.”
She flashed glances at him.
“Eyes on the road sweetheart.”
“Tell me! What the hell is going on? Are you a-a-a psycho criminal?”
Toren looked back at the beings closing in faster now, both running like cheetahs. “Aww hell,” he whispered as the monkey one landed on the hood of the truck and the human in the truck bed. Sam screamed and Toren slammed his palm on the dashboard in frustration. Without the support of a bound quadumvirate, his powers were limited. He'd have to do this the human way.
“Stop the truck,” he yelled. “Now!”
She slammed the breaks and both the creatures fought to maintain balance. Toren rolled out of the truck to land in a wary fighting stance.
“What are you doing? Toren!”
Toren hopped onto the hood of the truck and the mongrel lunged with its teeth bared. Toren slammed his palm onto the beast’s face, his fingers spanning the muzzle and clamping the mouth shut. He kept squeezing, crushing jaw and nasal bones as the thing emitted a high pitched scream in its throat.
It lashed out at Toren, hands and feet sporting surgical looking talons for rending flesh. Moving with supernatural speed, Toren launched off the truck, holding the thing by the muzzle and slamming it to the ground. Not wasting a second, he pummeled the creature over and over until it flopped limp.
�
�Toren!”
Toren spun to see the reanimated Farmer-Brown looking man yank at the drivers side the door. She screamed and braced herself in the center of the seat, rifle to her shoulder cocked and ready to fire. He sprinted for the creature as it ripped the door off the hinge. A loud boom exploded from the truck and Toren realized she’d fired a shot. The thing bucked back a little only to charge again, even angrier. Sam screeched, officially freaked that the huge hole in his chest didn’t faze him.
She scrambled to the far side of the truck in a panic as Toren grabbed the thing from behind. He tossed it head over heels away from the truck. A quick glance showed the monkey thing still down, so he concentrated on the reanimated dead. He leaped astride its chest interlacing his fingers to combine his fists into one massive battering ram. Punching down into the thing's upper chest, he landed a crushing blow that pulverized the rib-cage.
Under the breast bone he met momentary resistance, then the heart ruptured under the continued pressure of his blow.
“Toren!”
He turned and saw the monkey creature had recovered and was clambering to its feet. Toren's heart pounded and he latched onto the reanimated head, fingers spread wide.
Gritting his teeth, he twisted the head hard to the left, then right. Another jerk up, and the head separated from the shoulders with a wet sucking sound, bone and ligament crackling.
Toren stood, hefting the head in one hand. Twenty feet away, the monkey man growled and edged toward the truck and Samantha. The thing shook its heavy shoulders with a growl, then awkwardly gestured toward Samantha with one taloned hand, touching its genitals, clearly aware of the implication of such a threat. It grinned, putting heavy yellowed fangs on display and started to advance at Toren as if it thought it had a solid advantage.
Toren edged toward it, careful to conceal a bit of a limp. The creature growled again, louder, and made a short, aggressive advance to test Toren's defenses before dancing away like a demonic jester. Toren let it go, paying careful attention to the ground under his own feet.
Sensing weakness, the thing gave up wariness and darted into firing range. Spinning with the reanimated skull, Toren blasted it at the creature. The cranium struck in the midsection at several hundred miles per hour, shattering on impact.
Shards of bone protruded from the creature's body. The thing howled again and brushed desperately at the gelatinous globs of gore covering the front of its body as if it had been splashed with acid or something.
Fur and skin started to smoke and sizzle with a sickening sulfurous odor. The howl changed to a high pitched wail of pain. What in God’s name was in that reanimated thing?
Toren took advantage of the creature’s distraction to move in for the kill. Samantha made a sound to draw his attention and offered up her rifle.
He took it, remembering how he’d see them used. He aimed the primitive weapon at the creature and fired three rounds into its throat at point-blank range, decapitating it.
Sam flew out the truck with wide eyes, shock quickly turning to irrational inebriation. “Oh my God, oh my God.” She staggered near the truck eyes locked on Toren, horror stricken.
A hundred yards behind the truck, the steer the things had assaulted bellowed in terror and pain, still held fast in supernatural restraints. Toren took a moment to assess its condition. It would never recover from the physical damage, but the psychological destruction wrought by the evil beings was far worse. Death would be kinder than a life like that.
He looked at Sam, knowing what he was about to do would no doubt finish her fragile psyche off. But now was as good a time as any to break the news to her. “Sam, I’m not what you think I am.”
She looked around at the mess then stared at him, confused about everything. “W-what, what do you mean?”
“I need you to trust me. Can you do that? I need to show you who I am but you have to promise me not to freak out.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “What are you…what are you saying, just say it. She looked around, seeming worried more of those things were out there.
“I’m an archangel.”
She jerked her gaze to him, perplexed. “A what?” Like that was the last thing she’d expected him to say.
Worried she might be right about more of those things, he wasted no more time and let his wings loose, a loud metallic clamor of mercury feathers.
“Oh holy shit,” she gasped.
“Yeah,” Toren muttered, feeling like it had to be the most awkward moment in his existence. Needing something to do besides stand around on impossible display, he removed a dagger from one of his flight feathers with a flick of his finger and commanded it to slice the jugular of the animal suffering several hundred feet away. The dagger shot out, fulfilled his order and returned like a boomerang back into place with a metallic shink.
“Oh, okay.”
Hope surged through him and he looked at Sam just in time to see her eyes roll up in her head as she collapsed. He flashed to her side and caught her before she could hit the ground. With a sigh, he lifted her in his arms and sniffed the air for more danger. Not smelling any immediate threats, he got in the truck and drove her to the small shack. Guess it was time to lay it all out to her.
** ** **
Ezekiel Beshara stepped off the bus into the insignificant little town and a dozen more people followed. He ignored them as he retrieved his duffle bag and moved away from the bus to check out his surroundings. He'd followed his quarry to the little backwater, step by painstaking step. Revenge had come so close he could taste it in the air. All he had to do was put everything into play.
First things first. Find work and a base from which to study his prey. A quick glance revealed a small diner with a sign proclaiming computers and high speed internet service available for customers. Just what he needed. He crossed the street diagonally, speeding to a jog for the last few feet for an oncoming pickup truck.
The diner's arrangement for the computers left much to be desired with the machines lining a counter along one wall, screens fully visible to the room at large. No doubt a deterrent against teens visiting pornographic sites. The owner deserved public recognition for civic responsibility.
He ordered a large breakfast with the pragmatism of a man who has no idea when his next meal will turn up, and ate quickly. Finished, he moved to a computer, selecting the second from the door, a little uncomfortable with exposing his back to the room. Fingers flying over the keyboard, he rapidly went through several pages, clearing the machine's memory after every few clicks.
A light flowery scent invaded his senses as a young woman sat at the computer next to him. He stifled the urge to cough and clear the cloying odor from his throat. A quick glance in her direction confirmed his initial impression. Slim and brunette, her snug jeans served only as an exhibition prop to display her ass and legs. Her shirt, made of some soft and clingy fabric, revealed a hint of cleavage and clung to her breasts in a way that made a man's hands absolutely ache to hold and take their measure.
Thankfully, not this man. Ezekiel was tempted by very few things and that wasn’t one. He clenched his fists for a moment, then resolutely returned his attention to his task. Allowing the American slut to sidetrack him would derail his whole mission, and the woman sitting beside him was the quintessential American slut. With a practiced determination, he erased her presence from his awareness, something he’d learned to master since his earliest days as Askazura's apprentice.
Back then, when he was seven years old, it had been a candy bar, unwrapped and ready to eat. And any boy who allowed the candy bar to distract him from memorizing an assigned passage from Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" would receive a flogging and ten days on punishment duty.
Ezekiel paused the memory when it reached the one that held the single instance when he’d suffered punishment. He cleared his throat with a vigorous cough, but it wasn’t to clean his air of that woman’s scent, but to gain more oxygen for his suddenly c
laustrophobic lungs. Fifteen days with your head covered in a sack had that effect on you. For Ezekiel, having his mouth or face touched were two things he couldn’t tolerate. He’d fought the phobia for years before resigning to owning it.
The one thing that punishment had gained him was the ability to master the skill of focus. Distractions like Miss America on his right were as tempting as a camel’s ass.
He scanned the help-wanted ads listed on the local paper's site. Restaurant help. Factory worker. An assortment of other jobs with specific requirements that he didn't have, or didn't bring him in proximity to his enemy. Truck driver for the local feed store. Ranch hand.
He quickly consulted his map of local properties. The ranch bordered the one he needed access to. Perfect. With a few keystrokes, he had directions to the place.
Finally. After eight months, revenge was eminent. He would have the blood of the man who had pinned him with the blame for a botched illegal arms deal. The man had set every extremist group on Ezekiel's trail. Not something he appreciated since his very birth put him in the center of religious conflict.
He stood to leave.
"Um, excuse me?"
Great. The American whore of course would have the nerve to speak to him and force civility.
Ezekiel managed to stop and glare at her.
Of course she didn't get the message. Her blue eyes just closed in a slow blink and she smiled. "Sorry to bother you, but I'm new here. Do you happen to know where the C-Bar ranch is? I'd rather not drive all over Montana searching for it."
Ezekiel started to growl some nasty reply and stalk off then her words sank in. She was going to the same place he needed to go. And it sounded as if she had her own car. Hitching a ride with her would save him a long cold hike through some nasty snow drifts. Okay then. He forced a somewhat friendly grin to his mouth. "I'm headed there too. Trade directions for a ride?"